Page 54 of How To Survive This Fairytale

“Fine.How close are we to the Fair Queen’s lands?”

“About a week.”

“Thank you for the information.Cyrus, pay her.”

Cyrus hands her the pelt.“I’d recommend keeping both,” he says.“Easier to be a donkey in town, easier to be a wolf in the woods.”

“Anything’s easier than being…” She cuts herself off before she can finish that sentence and clears her throat.“Thanks.If I ever see Pal again, I’ll tell her you said hi.”

You suspect she’ll never see Friend again, but you thank her anyway.Cyrus mounts his horse, and once the two of you are out of earshot, he says, “I still don’t know about leaving her.”

“She wasn’t going to let us help her more than that,” you say.

He sighs.By the resignation in his eyes, you can tell he agrees with you without wanting to admit it.

“I hope we changed her story, at least,” he says.

You chuckle.“We helped a girl become a wolf,” you remind him.“I think we might have done more than merelychangeit.”

* * *

That night, you plop a radish seed into the earth.

The only remaining seeds in the pouch are a handful of alfalfa.You’ve saved them specifically for… You don’t know what yet.Something special.Somewherespecial.

Maybe outside the last inn where you sleep together, or maybe by the apothecary’s front door.Or maybe even—oh,thatwould be lovely, wouldn’t it?

“You look like you’re thinking hard about something,” says Cyrus.

You cup his cheek in your hand and gaze into his eyes.Your husband’s eyes.Your prince turned swan turned man again.Your childhood attempt at a True Love’s kiss.

Your white-feathered, caught-between, dirt-smudged, Petunia-loving Cyrus.In other words: your Everything.

“I know you’ll want to drink the potion as soon as you have it, and that’s fine,” you say, “but can we go back to the lake?”

His throat bobs as he swallows.He leans his forehead against yours.

“Seems right to end this journey where it began,” he says, and kisses you, chaste and soft, a kiss that tastes like both a first sentence and a last sentence.

* * *

A seed depends upon so much to become more than a seed.The right kind of soil, the right amount of sun, the right amount of shade.Think of all the birds and squirrels and rabbits that need to pass it by.And then, if it grows—think of all the boots that need to avoid trampling it, all the animals that still need to avoid that green temptation.

Sometimes a seed needs nurturing, but sometimes it can make it on its own.But you’ve done the best you can to make this true:

Everywhere you’ve loved him, something will grow.

Thirty-Nine

The apothecary shopis just as you remember it, though a much younger woman stands behind the counter now.

“Ah, my old mentor died last year,” she says.“But she taught me everything she knew before she died, so perhaps I can assist?You want something that will make you into a swan?You were cursed?”

She strokes her chin, thinking.Then she begins rifling through the many jars on the many shelves behind her, taking stock of what she has, muttering under her breath.

Do you want her to have something that will work?

Do you want to go home empty-handed?