Page 56 of How To Survive This Fairytale

This is why I wanted one horse, you don’t say.You knew you’d be going home alone.The second horse is now a reminder of the husband who isn’t with you.

In the woods, you look back and watch him on the water, a blob of white all by himself.Tears prick your eyes.

You thought this was where the story would end, but it’s not.

There are still other things to do.

Forty-Four

The willow treeis still by the creek.Its long branches trail across the grass like the train of a wedding gown.You slip under the shield of its leaves and press your palms to its bark.

“Thank you,” you say.A knot of emotion swells up in your throat and you can’t speak the rest.Luckily, with Mothering Trees, you don’t have to speak.Somehow, they always know.The tears choose this moment to spill, rolling down your cheeks and caught by the snarl of your beard.It wasn’t just Cyrus who answered your wish.Gertrude was the answer, too, and Red and Granny.And the Mothering Tree.Granting wishes to parentless children is what they do, but even so, you felt cared for by her then.All those years, a wish you made and didn’t know had been answered was the thing that kept you going and set you free.

“Thank you,” you say again.The rest is too big.

The gingerbread house, if it still stands, isn’t far from here.

But no.

No, you can’t face that today.

So you return to the horses.

Forty-Five

Halfway hometo your little house, your little plot of land, you meet a woman following a trail of ashes.“My bridegroom told me to follow the ashes to his home,” she says, “but I had a bad feeling, so I’m leaving a trail of peas to follow back to my father’s house.”

The trail of peas is already scattered and squashed, picked over by birds and dashed by your horses’ hooves.“I don’t think that trail will help you much,” you say.“I’ve found pebbles work better.”

“May I ask you something?Were you frightened, when you married?”

The ring is still on your finger.You haven’t taken it off.You don’t suspect you ever will.

“No,” you say.

“My father arranged this, and I love my father dearly, but I think my bridegroom is a very bad person.I don’t know what to do.”

You think of Cyrus wanting to do something for the sleeping princess.And the maiden in the tower.And the girl with the donkey’s skin.

You shrug one shoulder.

“You could always run,” you say.“I’ve a horse you can ride.”

The woman thanks you profusely.She mounts Cyrus’s horse and rides with you to the next town.There, you part ways.You never see her again, or find out what happened to her.You never know what story you saved her from.You never know what story she found herself in, once the first one was circumvented.But you think, maybe, Cyrus would be proud of you for doing something instead of nothing.

Forty-Six

Nearly home,you meet a poor soldier begging for alms.

And though it breaks your heart, you pull the little magic pot from your saddlebag.

“It’ll cook any food you wish,” you explain.“Just say ‘Cook, little pot, cook.’When you want it to stop, say ‘Stop, little pot.’”

“Surely you expect something in return for this,” says the soldier.

“Eat a good meal with someone you love,” you say.“That’s all, friend.”

Forty-Seven