Page 37 of How To Survive This Fairytale

“Gertie, don’t be ridiculous,” says Cyrus.

“I think he ought to prove it,” she says.“The Fair Queen told me he was dead.Why would she lie to me?”

“You know why,” Cyrus mutters.He gives her alook, but she doesn’t react.If the years have made you strong and tall, the years have turned her into a watchful tree.You think of how expressive she used to be—how she communicated so much with her face and hands.You cannot imagine this stoic, dignified woman doing the same.

“When we met, you wanted to tell me your name, but I couldn’t read,” you say.“I told you to act it out.”

“How intriguing, how mightanyoneact out the nameGertrude?”

Howdidshe do it?Curling and splaying your fingers, you hold up your hands like paws and bare your teeth, but you don’t make a sound.No, you have to mime the growl.

“And what eggs did we eat together?”

“Turtle.”

“Turtle eggs?You’re certain?”

“I’m the one who found them.”

“One last question, then.”She cocks her head to the side.“How many shirts had I finished sewing when we knew each other?”

You shake your head.“You hadn’t finished any, yet,” you say.“The curse was too new.By the time I was taken, you hadn’t even been at your work for half a year.”

The corner of her mouth quirks up.

“I’m satisfied,” she says.She cups your jaw with both hands.“Hansel, home at last.”

Twenty

A week later,Gertrude summons you to the palace.

“Forgive the delay,” she says.“I had to go back in my records.”

“For what?”

She sets a heavy pouch of coin in front of you.

“This is rightfully yours,” she says.“The Fair Queen paid it to me, but I think it should belong to you.”

“I can’t accept this.”

“You should.I doubt she ever paid you anything.”

You swallow.True enough, and yet—you hesitate to touch the pouch, as if miles and months of travel away, the Fair Queen might guess that you’ve taken her coin.Ridiculous, you scold yourself, and open the pouch to count the sum inside.

“It’s yours to do with as you please,” says Gertrude.“Though I wondered whether you would purchase a home and stay with us.”

“Would I be welcome?”

Her eyes barely widen, but you notice.“Why would we not want you, Hans?”

Because you don’t know what I am, you think, but then, even in your mind, you adjust that phrasing:You don’t know what she forced me to be.Does the phrasing matter?Either way, the blood is on your hands.There is no forgiveness or redemption.And you cannot speak it plainly—your gruesome deeds are a cavernous hole whose perimeter you must tread carefully, lest the noose tighten once more around your throat.

“I was so frightened to become a queen,” she says.“For so many reasons.”

You raise your eyes to meet hers.Hard as stone, but not heartless: determined, resolute.The strongest thing you’ve ever seen in your life.

“Of all the things I feared, the Fair Queen was not one of them.Do you know why?”