Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales Read online

  “Oh—details, details,” Myrtle said. She made a gesture with her hands like shooing flies from a picnic. She stammered for a moment, seeming to chew each word over in her mind before saying anything further. “Well—it involves a curse, a spindle of a spinning wheel, and, well—I think the rest is self-explanatory. It’s all in your Tale—”

  Watching Briar’s open mouth and bugged eyes, Poplar intervened. “Sister,” she said, “you’re scaring the poor thing.” She turned to Briar and took her hands. “It’s not a real death, dear. We softened it as best we could with enchantments.” She looked down at Briar’s pendant. “You’ll just enter a kind of, well, sleep, for a long time.” Then she smiled as if what she just said made everything better.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Briar asked.

  “Oh—there’s that potty mouth again,” Myrtle said.

  “So, you’re telling me that it’s already fated that I’ll die from some sleepdeath when I turn sixteen?”

  “Not die, dear,” Poplar said again softly. “Just sleep. For a long, long time.”

  “How long? A day or two?”

  Sherman perked up, “Longer.”

  “What, like a week?” Dax asked.

  “Longer,” Sherman tittered.

  “How long?”

  “I’ve heard the sleepdeath can last for a hundred years, maybe more,” Sherman said unable to suppress his glee.

  Briar sat down on one of the ornate chairs and put her hands to her mouth. Everyone remained solemn faced, mute, staring at the ground. Briar recalled her experience in the stone chamber, and her awful, uncontrollable obsession with the spinning wheel she found there. She realized just how close she came to pricking her finger. She looked at Ash with wide eyes. He subtly put the fan across his ruby bow-lips and almost imperceptibly shook his head.

  “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that I am—I can’t even say it. It’s too outrageous.” She laughed out loud. “That I am the sleeping beauty?”

  “Beauty might be a bit of a stretch,” Sherman sassed.

  “Sherman!” Poplar thundered. “How would you like to be a piñata at a hyperactive child’s birthday party?”

  “Humph!” Sherman pouted, and scampered down from Myrtle’s shoulder. “I was only trying to lighten the mood.” He trotted into the kitchen, his nails clicking irritably against the floor.

  “Yes,” Myrtle said, crossing the room to sit on the proper edge of the couch. She smiled weakly, straightening her red skirt and touching the small top hat that seemed to defy the laws of gravity sitting at the impossible angle on her head. “Commons often refer to this Tale in that fanciful way,” she began after clearing her throat. “They know it only from dream and distant memory; our worlds have been separated from times before our own. The Tales are never true as remembered by commons. But most important for you to know, Briar, is that the Tales are our fate. Yours and ours; none can escape.”

  “There are rumors, though,” Poplar interrupted. “Rebels, talebreakers, they call them.”

  Myrtle turned pointedly to Poplar. “Sister, I think it may be time for tea.” Poplar smiled broadly, clapped her lace-gloved hands and scurried into the kitchen. As usual, Poplar got pots and pans clattering behind the swinging door.

  Myrtle arose and sat straight-backed next to Briar. “Your friend Leon was altered and stolen only to draw you into the Realms—away from our protection. True, the Lady Orpion may have him, but others with designs of their own may have him as well. There’s no real way to know. But one thing is for certain: you or your friend would fetch a price at market.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Dax said. To Briar he said, “What have we gotten into?”

  “We? I am not exactly thrilled that you’ve been dragged into our little situation,” Myrtle said with a precise clip in her tone. She poised her hands upon her lap and her pearl-button cuffs glistened in the firelight. “Yet, here you are.” She drew her lips into an annoyed smile, and then her face fell.

  Briar stood up and then sat beside Dax. She took one of his hands and leveled her gaze to meet his. “We can’t leave Leon there—in those Realms, wherever he is.” Then Briar asked Myrtle, “How can we bring him back?”

  “There are two things, for now anyway,” Myrtle said. She traced some triangles and squares in the air with one hand. Suddenly, one of the bookcase’s built-in drawers snapped and clinked as a dozen or more internal locks released. A drawer at the center of the cabinet, big enough to hold a large book, opened. From it flew a leather-bound volume the size of a dictionary. It soared across the room like a bee into Myrtle’s hands.

  Ash spoke up, heat in his pancake-white face. “You can’t send the girl into the Realms. It’s too dangerous. She has no skill. Not yet, anyway. How will she survive, Myrtle?” It sounded to Briar as though this conversation had occurred many times before.

  “If she stays here, the boy’s fate is sealed,” Myrtle said without looking at Ash. She thumbed through the pages of her book. “— As is hers. If she finds the boy and the book before three days, she can return to our safety.”

  Myrtle’s usual, sensible approach never sat well with Ash. He was visibly shaking in his kimono. “She cannot find the book. We cannot find it, ourselves. What madness is this?”

  “What book?” Briar asked.

  “There is a certain compendium that was once in our possession,” Myrtle said like an old mother reading a child’s story. “The Book of Cinder and Blight.”

  “Sounds like a real page-turner,” Briar said. “What kind of a book is it?”

  “A book of dark things. Wicked, vile things,” Myrtle said.

  “Why would you want it then?” Dax interjected.

  “I think I liked this boy better when he was scared out of his wits,” Myrtle said. “We need it—you need it because within the Book of Cinder and Blight is the antidote for your Leon.” Myrtle placed a hand on a page of the tome in her lap. “In our possession, Orpion cannot use it for her own ends.”

  “This is suicide,” Ash insisted.

  Myrtle made a motion, midair, with her index finger and thumb that mimicked sewing with a needle and thread. Ash fell back into his chair, grabbing at his mouth. When he moved his hands, Briar saw that his mouth was now sewn shut with zig-zagging sutures. Briar gasped; Dax looked like he might vomit.

  “Well, what say you, Briar of the Black Woods, champion of the Realms?” Myrtle asked with a penetrating stare and an air of anticipatory triumph.

  Briar turned to Dax, a strange look in her eyes. From that look, Dax understood that life as they knew it up to now had come to an end. There were things that must be done now— matters of life and death.

  “I can’t go back, Dax,” Briar said. “Not to that place. Not to that life.” Dax could not answer.

  He shook his head and bit a lip. “But think about it, Briar. What can you do about magic? What can you do about plots that have been hatching for who-knows-how-long? And so what if you go to wherever they’re suggesting? Don’t you think someone is waiting for you to follow the trail to Leon? You’ll step right into their trap.”

  Briar shook her head. “As screwed up as this sounds, Dax, if I don’t do something—if I don’t act now, they’ll just find me and finish me off anyway. We’ve already got wolves creeping out of every corner. I either do something, or I just wait around to be killed.”

  “She is correct,” Myrtle said. “Magic is the only way to stop the forces at play now. She may not know much of magic yet, but she soon will. And a master of it she shall become.”

  Dax looked into Briar’s face and saw a fire of determination burning. He knew that Briar would likely do this alone, if need be. But she shouldn’t. Now was the time to stand by her side and see her to safety. Things would be different, he knew it. But there didn’t seem to be another way. He took Briar’s hands and nodded with a smile.

  “I always liked this boy,” Myrtle said.

  Briar turned to Myrtle with a daring sm
ile. “So tell me more about this book.”

  Chapter 14

  “Perhaps Ash has a point,” Sherman piped up as he entered from the kitchen. He shimmied like a squirrel to stand on the arm of a couch and he clutched it with his claws, his wild bush of a tail went straight. “This girl has the magical ability of gravel. And even that’s an insult to gravel,” he huffed.

  Myrtle raised her eyebrows. “That is exactly why you shall accompany young Briar and her friend.”

  Sherman’s eyes seemed to grow to twice their size. “What?” he asked. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, I am quite serious, Sherman,” Myrtle replied. She stood carrying the old leather-bound book in both hands. Then she turned to Briar and Dax to explain. “You see, before Sherman came to live here with us, he was quite the accomplished enchanter. Novices from every shire and province sought his instruction.”

  “I see where this is headed.” Sherman intervened. “And it shall not work. I am not going with Queen Emo and her foppish satyr back to the dangers of the Realms. No thank you.”

  Dax looked at Briar. “Nothing gets past that fox. He nailed you, all right.”

  Poplar ignored Sherman and chimed into what Myrtle had said, “Sherman instructed the greats: Ashputtel, Little Red Cap, Fundevogel, Hansel and Gretel— Recites most of the spell books by heart, he does.”

  Sherman turned up his nose. “As tempting as the offer may be to help Little Miss Ingrate go on this marvelous and existential journey to find the meaning of life, I am telling you once and for all that she is not the girl we seek, nor shall I accompany such a rank amateur.”

  Myrtle pivoted around on her sensible button-spattered heels. “You can and you shall go, Sherman,” she said. Then with a touch of heat, she added, “You know as well as I that the Realms have been sealed off. No Realmsmen may cross the boundary without immediate incineration. But a fox—a fox can cross through.”

  “Ah, well, whose idea was it to use the Char-Char Charm?” Sherman asked with a told-you-so tone. “Certainly not mine. Now it won’t fade until the girl turns sixteen.”

  “Don’t worry,” Briar said. She marched over to Myrtle and Poplar. Sherman decided to take over Myrtle’s pre-warmed seat and he curled up in a smug little ball. Briar continued, “Dax and I will do just fine. I’m not sure we could learn anything from him anyway. Besides, I think I’ve picked up a thing or two just by watching the two of you. Look—” Briar flicked her fingers at a nearby candelabra, but nothing happened. She tried again, this time moving her hands and hips in gyrating hip-hop moves, finishing by pointing her hands at Sherman. All the while, Sherman watched with his white-trimmed muzzle agape, and he flattened himself as soon as she pointed her hands in his direction.

  Then he puffed out his fur and gave a short growl. “This is beyond ridiculous. You’re not even using your trinket. It’s a world gone mad.”

  “Who needs a trinket?” said Briar, “I know what I’m doing. Step aside, fur coat.” Then she began flicking her fingers at other things in the room.

  Sherman dove behind his chair and Briar could only see the soft white tufts from his ears. “Someone stop that lunatic before she hurts someone—or turns herself into a flaming gecko,” Sherman shouted.

  Dax said, “I’m with the fuzzy little dog, Briar. That’s not even a decent pop-and-lock.”

  Myrtle watched with the ends of her ruby lips curled up into a crafty smile. “That’s marvelous raw talent.”

  “Oh yes,” Poplar replied as she emerged from the kitchen. “Can you show me that last move, dear?” She tried to imitate, but nearly ripped her hip-hugging skirt.

  Myrtle nodded. “Yes. I can see it—a whole new trend in magic. Soon we’ll all be doing this. I’m starting to understand that perhaps the Omens were right after all—”

  Sherman peeked from behind the couch. “You call that talent? Those aren’t magical passes. They’re just rubbish.”

  “I don’t know—” Myrtle said.

  Sherman’s face drooped like a stuffed animal that had its cotton batting extracted. He wriggled up Myrtle’s body, curling up around her neck. “Not another word about it. I know I shall regret it, but I shall take on this extreme-makeover. If I can teach this nose-ringed slacker to cast even one decent enchantment, it shall be among my greatest accomplishments.”

  “If you say so,” Myrtle said.

  “Now, I suggest we all get a good night’s sleep.” Sherman gazed at Briar with his fierce gold-flecked eyes. “I dare say that your feeble mind will need rest, if you are to learn anything in such a short time.”

  Myrtle placed her thumb and forefinger on an illustration in the old book she carried. The image stuck to her fingers and she lifted it off the page. She stood and held it in front of her eyes. “Goggles,” she warned the others. Myrtle reached up a sleeve and found her brass goggles with her free hand. Briar helped her to strap them on while Ash and Poplar put on their own. “Shield your eyes,” Myrtle said over her shoulder to Briar and Dax.

  “These were to be your quarters at Blackwood Manor,” Myrtle murmured. Briar peeked through her fingers at what looked like a holographic transparency of a room. “That was before the Lady Orpion burned the place to the ground.” Myrtle sighed heavily. “No sense in wasting a picture of the place, at any rate.” Then she stretched the image with her finger and thumb. The image glowed brightly and remained suspended in midair while she set the book down. Then she stretched the image more with her hands, stretching it out here and there, like taffy, until what once looked like a small transparency became a three-dimensional room in which they were all standing.

  Once the blinding glow of her magic faded, Dax uncovered his eyes and looked around in wild wonder of how any of this could be possible. Briar took his hand and they stood with their faces looking like deflated balloons.

  The room had a vaulted ceiling, at least two stories high, with thick arched wooden supports. A queen bed was leveled against the wall closest to the bedroom door and deep blue velvet swags draped around its ornately sculpted redwood frame. A carved Gothic armoire stood opposite the bed. Bats, gnarled ogres, cyclops, and wolves were seamlessly intertwined in a macabre dance that stretched across the face of the wardrobe. Breaking up the carving were two full-length mirrors, inset into the doors.

  Bizarre portraits framed in ornate rococo gold neatly adorned the soaring red satin-lined walls. In one depiction, a white cat dressed in dark robes and a judge’s powdered wig stared out with steely blue eyes. In another, a pale ominously smiling woman stood within a dark misty forest. Her long curling orange hair flowed down her body, covering her otherwise bare breasts; a long red-hooded cape hung loosely on her shoulders. Each painting was more peculiar than the next: a goose sitting cross-legged on a plush antique throne, a goggle-eyed marionette with a trickle of blood seeping from its wooden mouth, and a black-cloaked figure whose face could not be seen, standing beneath storm clouds over grasslands that stretched out to the distant horizon.

  Myrtle and Ash left the room to get blankets and Poplar stayed behind. “That’s the Blackwood gallery, dear,” she said. Briar watched Poplar’s dreamy smile while gazing up at the portrait of the red-haired woman. “Brings back memories,” she said. Then her expression changed and was laden with some unseen weight. “Some of them are oddly disturbing, but they’re memories nonetheless.” Then she made a quick intricate design with her fingers and a feather duster popped into her hands amid a flurry of sparks. She began dusting objects in the room with the wrong end of the duster. “It’s like the old rodent-free days.” She patted her stomach and looked away, as though hiding some emotion.

  Briar and Dax looked at the odd pictures and shot each other puzzled looks.

  “You mean you didn’t always eat—you know—?” Briar asked.

  “Eat what?” Dax asked. “You mean—? Okay that’s just a hair ball waiting to happen.”

  “Heavens no—who would ever choose to eat such things?” Poplar said. She clutched
the feather duster to her chest. “Insects perhaps, but not rats. And Ash, always changing from one look to the next. And poor Myrtle—” Poplar put a hand to her doughy cheek. “She got the worst of it—” Her voice cracked. She turned away and busied herself with dusting, not saying anything more about what had happened.

  Briar and Dax exchanged glances, but neither decided to press Poplar for more. Instead, they ambled across elaborately woven rugs, touching the glittering array of treasures and oddities scattered here and there, including a floor-to-ceiling library, and an arched window that looked out to a starry sky.

  While passing by the mirror in the armoire, a ghostly image caught Briar’s eye. In the reflection of the room, off to one side and behind her, stood a creature—or perhaps it was a tiny man— Briar couldn’t be sure. A little thing it was, indeed—no bigger than a human hand. He had golden skin that looked leathery and scuffed, and the tiniest deep black eyes. He was wearing a red and gold cap with fringe and feathers that he removed with one of his clawed, gangling hands. Then he smiled broadly, showing hundreds of golden toothpick-sized splinter-sharp teeth. “Findery me,” it said in a whispering rasp. Briar turned around, expecting to see the little gargoyle behind her, but it was not there. When she turned back to the mirror, it had vanished.

  “Did you see that?” Briar asked.

  “What, dear?” Poplar asked, still preoccupied with her thoughts, and still fussing with the room.

  “In the mirror. I saw some—I don’t know—a creature. It was wearing a weird hat.” Briar turned and looked around the room again. “I thought I saw it. And when I turned around, it was gone.”

  Poplar clutched her heart. “Sister,” she exclaimed. “The mirror.”

  “Ash!” Myrtle shouted as she clip-clopped at a brisk pace down the hall. She entered the room with an armload of blankets. Poplar pointed to the mirrored armoire. Myrtle rushed over and covered it with blankets. “How did you overlook the speculum?” Myrtle shouted to Ash as he entered the room.

  “With all the excitement, I guess none of us really noticed it,” he said. He clapped his fan closed and helped Myrtle to cover every inch of mirror.