Page 39 of How To Survive This Fairytale

“Red, it’s not going to be easy.”

“Yes, I know that, and I’m agreeing to it anyway,” she says.“That’s why I said ‘Okay.’”

You glance at Granny, rocking in her chair, knitting you a scarf because she decided you need one.She doesn’t look at you.

“Well, it’s frigid today,” you say, “so we can start another?—”

“The cold doesn’t bother me,” she says.“And it’s easier to see things when there aren’t any leaves on the trees.I’ll grab my cape and we can go now!”

Twenty-Three

Gertrude never invitesyou to join her for dinner.Her invitations are always for a stroll in the garden, or an afternoon in her sitting room.Cyrus steals you away from your house repairs, and the two of you make for the palace, where you spend a whole afternoon laughing with your sister.

Gertrude asks a servant to bring her two children, a son and a daughter: Lustig and Margarethe.Hearing the daughter’s name, you cannot help but think of your own sister, who was named Margarethe but calledGretelall her childhood.Unlike your sister, Gertrude’s daughter does not use the diminutive, which makes it a little easier to overcome the shock.

Their mother gets a politehello, you get a perfunctoryhi, but theyruntoward their Uncle Cyrus with total, complete, iridescent joy.Gertrude sits back in her chair, wine stem held between gloved fingers.She watches her youngest brother join the future of the kingdom on the carpeted floor, where Lustig commands him to “play horsey.”

Cyrus, bless him, brays like a noble steed.

“Um,” says Margarethe, “Uncle Cyrus isn’t a horse, he’s apegasus!”

You cover your mouth with your hand to hide your smile.While the two of them argue semantics—horse, or pegasus?—you catch Gertrude’s eyes.Such satisfaction there, but also such exhaustion, and such sadness.

“Sometimes I think I failed,” she says.

You look at Cyrus with his niece and nephew.Lustig sits astride Cyrus’s back, and Cyrus crawls along on all fours.No, not all fours.He doesn’t put any weight on his wing.You think of the little girl in the marketplace who ran into you on her way to ask about that wing.

My sister did make me a man again, and she worked very hard to make that happen.

But she didn’t do it right!

“Oh, Gertrude,” you sigh, rubbing your palm through your beard, “you did all that you could and more.”

“Cyrus talks about the worst years of my life as if they were some grand adventure.Well, for him, theywerea grand adventure.Hewasn’t the one trapped in silence, trapped in marriage, trapped in motherhood, nearly burned.It wasn’t up to him to do everything to break that curse.And nowmy childrenwantwings.They don’t understand that wings aren’t something you should want.They don’t understand all the blood and blisters that went intofixingthose wings.”

She looks at the gloves on her hands.So do you.There was a time when you were there to soothe the pain, and then, suddenly, you were gone.

The children laugh.Cyrus laughs, too.All three of them keep playing their game in their own separate world.

“They don’t understand,” you say, “because they don’thaveto understand.You’ve protected them.Their lives aren’t like our lives.Isn’t that a good thing?”

Twenty-Four

“The best yearsof my life were the worst of hers,” says Cyrus, because you could not keep that conversation with Gertrude to yourself.

As you walk back home together through the woods, your boots grind against the snow underfoot.The winter air burns your lungs.

“And she can’t understand how we feel so differently about it.I’ve tried to explain it.I’ve been human again for almost nine years.She still looks at my wing and sees a wound she didn’t heal.But that’s not what I see.”

That’s not what Gertrude’s children see, either.Or half the children in the marketplace.They see it and they think Cyrus is made of magic.To them, it’s a wonderment.And to you?

“I think your wing is beautiful.”

The admission startles both of you.

For a moment: boots on snow.Wind in the naked trees.The ghost of your exhale.

Then Cyrus slips his arm through yours.