Page 41 of How To Survive This Fairytale

One day,while working together to turn your land into a garden, you ask: “Why did the wolf pelt upset you so much?”

“What wolf pelt?”

“I had it with me when we met.”

“You had a wolf pelt when we met?”

You smile and shake your head.“Yes, Cyrus, I had a wolf pelt when we met.”

“Are you sure?”He rubs his chin and smears dirt all over it without noticing.“Well, if youdidhave a pelt… It’s quite a thing to walk up to someone with a wolf over your shoulder.Bit startling, Hans.”

“You didn’t seem merelystartled, though.”

“Ah, well.”He scratches his head, and he’ll need to scrub that later to get all the grains of earth out.“Can’t say it’s logical, but I always think a dead animal is actually a dead human-cursed-to-be-an-animal.”

“What?”He shrugs.

“I know it’s notlikely.But I was always afraid someone was going to kill me, or my brothers, and we had no way of telling anyone ‘Stop, no, don’t hunt us, we’re people.’”He shakes his head.“I’ve met humans cursed to be deer and one goose who was actually a princess.Mostly I try not to think about it.It’s just… Once you’ve been an animal, once you’ve known you can be hunted, that sort of fear doesn’t leave you.Hasn’t leftme, at least.”

“I never…” You set down your shovel.You wipe sweat from your brow.“Sorry, I just… I never considered…”

How much more blood is on your hands?Is it possible you’ve killed people without even knowing you’ve killed people?

“Hey,” he says.“Hey, stop.Don’t think about it.That’s the only way I get through Gertie’s dinners, honestly.I just don’t think about it.Not like we can do anything about it, and not like there’s any way to tell the difference.”

You pull off your gloves and drag your palms down your face.“If anyone had ever hurt you, Cyrus…”

What would you have done?Thinking about it makes your hands shake.

He wraps his arm and wing around you and squeezes tight.

“If I’d been hunted as a swan, I would have died a swan,” he says.“There’s no sadness in that for me.”

Thirty

Guilt.Shame.Remorse.Anger.Hate.Sometimes, you feel suicidal.And yet, there are days that are good.There are whole days in the land-that’s-becoming-a-garden, where you and Cyrus spend hours laughing and talking and the things you’ve done don’t bother you at all because you never even think of them.There are afternoons teaching Gertrude archery and shouts of triumph the first time she hits the bullseye and neither of you talk about hard choices, or what it was like to have your back against a wall.Then there are days when you feelnothing, when it feels like you carved your own heart out of your chest and ate it, and now you’re a walking husk.And then days when your knife really looks like an ending to the story.You ask yourselfDo you really want to keep on living?And when the answer is no, you find Red, and you teach her another set of tracks.You can’t stop living until she’s safe in the woods on her own.Of course, there are days when you don’t ask yourself that question at all.There are days that you let yourself taste a food you haven’t tasted in over a decade.There are days that sense-memory sends you back to the gingerbread house, and you’re trapped there, and you can’t get out.But, then, there are days when Cyrus feeds you a spoonful of soup he’s making with the vegetables from his garden, and usually, that makes you want to live at least until supper’s ready.His garden—there are days when you bless it and days when you curse it.There are days when you want to tear up his garden by its roots and days when you can’t wait for your own garden to be ready, and you’re never sure what kind of day it’s going to be until you’re in the thick of it.So: how are you doing?The answer is: not great.But also, better than you thought.But also, very, very bad.And somehow, still, wonderful, as in full of wonder, as in not ready to give up on what comes next.Maybe a better answer is: it depends on the day, the hour, the minute.Maybe a better answer is:how are you doingis the wrong question.But you’re not sure what a better question would be.

Thirty-One

“I’m fine,”says Cyrus.

Except that he’s not.Like a wounded animal, he hides his wounds until he can’t anymore.He’s been short-tempered with you all morning, has no interest in clearing your land, doesn’t want to eat anything.Well, fine,you think,if you want to be like that, then I’ll leave, and good luck seeing if I come back.

You take a deep breath.You steady yourself.Just because you think it doesn’t mean youmean it.That’s not the life you want.This story doesn’t end because you walk out of it.

“Let’s play that game,” you say.“Who would you be, if you weren’t who you are?”

“Oh, dear,” he sighs.“A knight.”

“Really?”

“No, I wouldn’t be a knight,” he says.“A milliner, maybe.”

“You’d make the most beautiful hats.”

“I’d decorate them with feathers.”

“People would paygoldfor your hats.”