Page 4 of How To Survive This Fairytale

yes.

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You collapse beneath the bridal veil of a willow’s long branches.Beside the willow runs a creek, and the sound of the water trickling against the mossy rocks distracts you from thethudof Gretel’s flesh against the iron oven.Hidden here, where famine and drought and witches cannot reach you, you inhale the water-speckled scent of the soft, green earth.You watch the willow’s limp branches give way to the wind, and notice how unlike a cage they are.But your tongue—your tongue aches with the memory of crystallized sugar, crumbling cheese, salted butter, potato stew, candied peaches…

Turn your open mouth into the dampened clay soil andbite.Fill up your whole mouth with loam and press it into your cheeks, your palate, the inside of your lip.Chew so the grains of it stick between your teeth.Hold the lump in your mouth until you gag, until your stomach lurches, until you retch across the ground.

Nowthattaste is what sticks to your tongue.

Now, you can think.

The creek must flowsomewhere.Perhaps it joins up with a river somewhere?Or perhaps it wends through a town, or two or three.Towns full ofpeople—starving people, like yourself, like the parents who left you to the woods—but what else is there for you to do?Stay here, under the willow, for the rest of your days?

No.You have to find help.

Is it too late for help?You don’t know.The oven probably killed them both.But still.It seems like someone should be told about the house.It seems like someone should go back there andmake surethe oven killed them both.Someone who will take one look at that gingerbread house and say,Don’t worry, I know what to do.Someone who will take one look at you, and say, for the first time in your life,Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.

4.

KEEP A WISH ALIVE IN YOUR HEART, JUST IN CASE IT EVER COMES TRUE.

That night,you tuck yourself against the trunk of the willow tree.Its branches whisper across the grass all night.The creek burbles and foams, but no owls hoot.No wolves howl.No fallen twigs snap under hoof or paw.You feel… protected.Shielded.Like the willow is watching out for you, keeping the world at bay until you’re ready to enter it again.

You think you remember feeling this way a long time ago, so long ago you’re not certain whether it’s a memory or a dream.Long before your stepmother saw your empty belly as a burden.Long before your father saw abandoning you as the answer.There was someone—might have been someone—musthave been someone—who wanted to take care of you.With nothing but the sound of the sloshing water and your strong, steady heartbeat, some dark, faded sense of being loved by someone blankets you, warms you.You wish, more than anything, that someone,anyone, anywhere in this whole entire world, wanted to take care of you.

And though you swore to yourself you’d stay awake all night in case you had to run again, that you wouldn’t sleep, that’s what you do: you fall asleep.You fall asleep, lulled by the sense that someonedidoncewant to take care of you.You fall asleep with a wish in your heart to know what that feels like again.

Unbeknownst to you, you fall asleep beneath a Mothering Tree.You’re notherchild, but you’reachild.

A child with a wish.

A child whose wish she can grant.

In the morning, when you emerge from her branches, a swan waits on the creekbank.

5.

YOU MUST TRUST THIS SWAN.

Listen very carefully.Listen.If you want to survive your story, this is the most important rule.You must trust this swan.In the mire of misery that is yet to befall you, you will have this one shining jewel of joy to return to, over and over again.On your darkest nights, when youwon’twant to survive, this one kernel of goodness will give you hope your life can be better (even if it can never be).This one crumb of happiness will fill you up when you are starved for goodness—and youwill, alas,be starved for goodness.

Because your life, regrettably, will not be a happy one.You’ve sensed that already, haven’t you?So much misfortune in so short a time must have brought you to that realization by now.

That’s because you are not the hero of this story.In stories there are a hundred roles, and you have yours, just as the swan has his.

Yours is not a role that has a happy ending.

Think of this swan as an act of mercy.A gift.Without this swan, there will be no joy at all for you in this life.No goodness.No redemption, or kindness, or love.This swan is the answer to your wish—and though you will never know this, you’ll be the answer to the swan’s wish, too.

You will not get to spend your life with this swan, even though you’ll want to.Unfortunately, there is no version of this story where you are lucky enough to end up together.But if you trust him, in this moment, you will have a few contented months.

It may be less than you deserve, but it is so much more than others get.

You already know you want to live.Don’t you want that life to be more than blood and misery?Wouldn’t it be nice to have a grain of sugar perched forever on your tongue?Don’t you want to be able to sayAt least I was happy for a time, rather thanI was never happy even once in my life?

Then for your own sake—trust him.

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