Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales Read online

  No one knew how these things happened. Not even Briar. But there were innuendos. Words like “witch” and “evil” were whispered around her. And as time passed, the other kids pulled further away until there was no bridging the gap. As the years passed, Briar decided that if they were going to call her a witch, she was going to give them the scariest damned witch they’d ever seen.

  Her sullen demeanor and perpetual pout, the capes and black lace veils she’d wear around town had become trademarks. Once she overheard some kids in the bathroom referring to her as the “Queen of Darkness.” Not bad, she thought. If you’re going to be queen, it might as well be of something spectacular, like the dark. She with her ash-tone rouge, her nose, eyebrow, lip, and tongue piercings and forbidding demeanor—it was social suicide for anyone to venture near her vortex of doom.

  Despite its obvious disadvantages, the whole charade had an upside. It kept the wrath of the Lucky Ones at bay for the most part. But despite it all, Briar held to secret fantasies. She imagined that by the age of sixteen, the other kids would have outgrown their distaste for her differences—whatever they may be. Or they might have at least matured enough to politely ignore them. No such luck.

  So maybe there would never be all-night texting sessions with scores of girlfriends, or invitations to parties and school dances. Hell, maybe there would never be basic acceptance. But what Briar hadn’t planned on in this whole scenario—what made her absolutely crazy—was the fact that there’d probably never be, well…the boyfriend. So cranking up the volume one more notch was always a good solution, she found.

  As the auditions progressed, as usual, Briar kept to herself. She tucked herself away in a shadowed seat near the back of the dusty auditorium and glanced toward the rear double doors for the eighty-sixth time. Where was Dax, anyway? Her best friend was supposed to meet her by three o’clock, yet an hour into the audition process, still no Dax. Now Briar was solo and sharing floor space with Buck-toothed Braces Girl from science class, that skinny Grizzly Chicken Girl from math, and the really, really short boy who either had no name or nobody ever bothered to use it.

  She caught the nearby sight of a couple of goobers rehearsing a love scene. It might have been pretty good had one’s headgear not tangled with the other’s hopelessly frizzy hair. She followed them with an obvious slow-eyed glower as they shimmied out the back doors.

  A Juliet who was shaped like a baked potato was in the middle of her onstage fretting when a stagehand signaled to Briar that she was up soon. She felt a knot form in the hollow of her throat and she started to wonder if she could go through with it.

  And where was her reason for auditioning in the first place? She hadn’t seen him yet. All right, yes, it was a he, Briar begrudgingly acknowledged. Fine. But where was he? He was probably hanging out there among the Lucky Ones.

  He had to be there, or her whole bloody scheme was wasted. She was sure that she overheard him one day telling another Lucky Boy that he was going to try out for the play. Even if it was a joke and even if he planned on turning the play into a running gag for his buddies, Briar saw this as an opportunity. As strange as it seemed, she felt that sharing the stage together with him might just level the playing field and offer her a shot to get to— well, she hadn’t actually thought it through beyond trying out for the same play.

  She arranged her long limp black bangs so that they hung in front of her eyes. It was easier to spy on the group of them without looking conspicuous, she thought. As if sitting there looking like a reject from American Horror Story wasn’t conspicuous.

  Unexpectedly Grizzly Chicken girl moon-walked up to Briar, probably for the first time ever, and naïvely, innocently, complemented her on her super cool mortician’s outfit. “Your little spooky outfits are such a hoot!” she said sunnily.

  Briar hadn’t anticipated sinking to a new low this afternoon, yet here it was. How glorious.

  “Thanks, butt-munch,” Briar replied. “Your braces are pretty cool too.”

  Grizzly’s face caved. “That’s the color of my teeth,” she mumbled, holding a hand over her mouth. She faded back into the crowd.

  Briar threw over her shoulder, “Well, lay off the tetracycline, then.”

  She bit her black lip and felt her stomach twist with guilt, but only for a moment. Then, feebly attempting to soften the blow she said, “Cuz your skin already looks great—” But it was too late. “Aw crap,” she said and slunk lower in her squeaky theater seat.

  Just the week before, a couple of Lucky Boys had slapped Grizzly’s books out of her hands and tripped her. As Briar stared at the scene from the locker across the hall, she felt a strange heat rising from her stomach. She had never felt that before. She used to think that some of these kids, like Grizzly, kind-of brought on their own persecution. Well, whatever. Even if that wasn’t exactly true, she had to protect herself, which meant staying out of little self-esteem crumblers like the one that was unfolding.

  But that day, while watching Grizzly dab at her skinned knee and dissolve into silent tears, something in Briar snapped as the two Lucky Boys slapped high-fives at their prank. Her vision distorted, blurred really. It felt like liquid fire burned her gut, and her face flushed.

  That was when she threw up on them. It came out in buckets. Honestly, Briar didn’t know where all the barf came from. I guess they aren’t lucky all the time, she thought to herself watching the boys, their faces slimed by her viscous yellow gunk, and they themselves retching in response. Much to Briar’s horror, Leon Squire, the hunk, the hero, the—him—happened to wander by as the scene unfolded. At the sight of vomit slopped across lockers and splattered on the faces of his buddies, he doubled over and quickly sped away, holding a hand to his own mouth.

  Her nickname changed from that day on. It was announced to the school in the usual way, scrawled across her locker: “Hurl Gurl.” Queen of Darkness had a better ring to it, Briar mused. But people ought to keep their distance from a Hurl Gurl just the same. After all that, Briar supposed that Grizzly must now have thought they were BFFs or something stupid like that. Whatevs.

  She couldn’t have Grizzly and her friends orbiting around in her universe for real, or Leon might never make a move. At least in her imagination, he would make some kind of a move. She scanned the sidelines surreptitiously again. Without warning, a few Lucky Boys parted like cherubs flanking a winged God. They stepped aside just enough for Briar to see Leon standing there in all his chiseled perfection. His face, his body seemed straight out of Bullfinch’s Mythology.

  Shit. What am I doing? Briar thought. She rolled her eyes, covered her face and tried not to hyperventilate. This will never work. She tugged on the black hoodie that was loosely draped over her satin Victorian get-up, and she thumbed her handheld, trying to distract herself. She kept her gaze down to keep from hurling yet again. The screen’s glow reflected blue onto her powder-pale face.

  That’s when something unusual caught her eye.

  Instead of her expected death rock videos, Briar was surprised to be viewing a peculiar elderly woman dressed in some sort of archaic garb. She was tall, gaunt, and severe in her neck-high, pearl-buttoned shirt and red waistcoat. She had a small black tie encircling her neck, and a matching black velvet band that outlined her thin waist. There was also a black top hat—the size of a coffee cup—that defied gravity, clinging to the front of her pulled back gray hair. She peered out from the screen through miniscule glasses sitting on the end of her nose—like a puckered old librarian from the Twilight Zone, Briar imagined.

  Briar moved her thumb to the refresh key but hesitated as the woman spoke. Though the download that played was choppy and full of intermittent scrambled pixels, Briar held her breath for a moment, captivated.

  “Briar,” the elderly said. She looked anxiously left and right, as if checking for unwanted listeners. The transmission became pixelated.

  Say what? Briar thought. She did not just say my name, did she? She looked around for a moment. Who would d
o this? “You’re not funny,” Briar said aloud. This stopped Potato-Juliette’s soliloquy.

  The auditorium went silent. No laughs. No sniggering. Okay, so maybe it’s not a joke, Briar thought. She sank deeper into her hood, acting as though she hadn’t said anything.

  She peered again at the screen. The image finally stabilized and picked up mid-sentence: “—a dangerous time for—” The transmission scrambled again. Then it restarted. “The Lady Or—” The image twisted a bit and cut out.

  When it came back, the puckered librarian was speaking while petting a fox fur that fluffed around her neck: “A dillywig emissary will come—” The screen went black.

  Neither the jostling of nearby auditioners nor the metallic megaphone announcement of her name could take Briar’s attention from the screen. So absorbed was she that she nearly coughed up her stomach when she felt a pointed tap on her shoulder.

  Briar whirled around with horror in her face. “Jeez, Dax,” she said.

  Dax pulled at his cinnamon winter scarf, plopped down beside Briar, and huffed warm air into his frozen hands. “Someone here needs a major tranquilizer. And here’s a hint: it isn’t me.”

  “Do you really have to creep up on people like that?”

  “Here’s a newsflash: you’re at an audition with people all around you. It isn’t exactly a haunted house.” He looked at the wild variety parading up and down the theater aisles. “I take that back.”

  Briar looked down at her device. She thumbed it some more, trying to scroll back to what she had just seen, but the screen was now blank. “Dax, you’ve got to check out what I downloaded. This old lady is totally cray-cray. I swear she says my name. It’ll freak you out.”

  Dax looked down at the blank screen on Briar’s player. “Uh, yeah,” he said, “love it.” Then he took a moment to re-think. “First of all, cray-cray is dead. Okay? Second of all, I think someone’s been hanging out with the drama geekards a little too long. Next you’ll be ranting about other make-believe topics like time-travel or geometry.”

  Briar ignored him and continued to search for the video while Dax more thoroughly inspected the odd student assembly. He watched Potato-Juliet waddling off stage dressed in one of those flimsy pre-packaged Halloween costumes. “Wow. So this is your competition?” he asked. He had a pretty dumb stare. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before it’s too late.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Briar said. She shrugged Dax’s hands away. “Besides, aren’t your people all about the theater?”

  “I ought to slap you with these jazz hands for that. But instead, I’ll file your little gem under ‘Briar’s bigoted comments.’ Besides, theater is old-school,” Dax said. He spotted a cute guy dressed in tights and wasn’t sure if he was turned on or embarrassed for him. Either way, it reminded him. “Oh, that’s right.” He smiled. “I almost forgot—how’s the stalking going?”

  “Shut up!” Briar said.

  “He’s not even here is he? I knew it. And even if he was, what makes you think he would talk to you?”

  Briar gave Dax the eye-of-death from beneath her ringed brow, but said nothing.

  The director screeched from the megaphone again. “Miss Blackwood!” Unaware the amplification was still turned on, he said to someone nearby, “You mean the witch? She’s trying out?”

  “Fine,” Dax said. He crossed his arms and gave up trying to suppress a sour expression. “Let’s get this over with before anyone important sees us here.” He grabbed Briar by her arm, ushered her toward the stage, and signaled to the director.

  “But I’m telling you, freak shows like this have made us the saddest singles in our school,” Dax said. “And I would like at least one of us to meet a guy—oh wait, correction: a normal guy—before we graduate.”

  Walking up the aisle to the stage, Dax noticed a group of boys huddled together in the shadows along a far side wall. The stage lights were not bright enough for him to see clearly who they were. He squinted and then suddenly recognized them as some of the most popular boys in school. “Holy crap.” Dax sounded like someone being strangled. He gripped Briar’s arm tighter.

  The group of boys began nudging each other once they saw Briar about to take the stage. She peeled away from Dax and stumbled up the black steps. A hush fell over the auditorium as she slogged to the center, flat-footed and slouching, with more than a hint of annoyance.

  One of the Lucky Boys shouted from the darkness, “Hey, Dracula’s Daughter—bite this.”

  The director, spoke over the screeching megaphone, drowning out the boys’ howling laughter. “Miss Blackwood,” he started. Briar couldn’t see his face in the shadowy depths of the auditorium. “You do know that this is a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, not The Phantom of the Opera.”

  “Nice tip, Mr. Ziegfeld. Why don’t you save that for the Follies? I’d like to read my monologue, if you don’t mind.”

  Chapter 2

  Briar stood alone on the bare stage, a trickle of sweat formed on her upper lip, and her chest felt to her like it might explode. She squinted and shielded her eyes to see if Dax had fled the scene. Nope. There he was, standing in the center aisle, arms folded across his argyle sweater as though he were bracing for impact. This audition could become a memorable social disaster for both of them. Well, mainly for Briar. But whatever happened to Briar pretty much happened to Dax too, seeing as the kids viewed them as inseparable.

  She winced feeling her present peril in the middle of her gut, but she hoped to pass it off as a sneer. How ironic her current vulnerability, having to recite a monologue in front of the Lucky Ones who hated her most. She couldn’t use her badass image now to shield herself from their likely barrage of taunts. It made her stomach churn to know that she was right where they wanted her. He had better still be there, she thought. He better be watching with his eyes on me alone.

  She was roused by the squealing megaphone. “Any time now, Miss Blackwood. Preferably before I lose my patience.”

  She closed her eyes and held her breath for a moment. She felt something peculiar, but not all that unfamiliar. It was like a shift in her stomach, as though something important, something big were squeezing in. There was a feeling of liquid fire in her gut, just like when she barfed on Leon. Clenching everything down seemed like a good idea, but that caused the heat to fill her whole body. Then something strange happened.

  She stepped out of the shadows and into the glow of the lone bulb that lit the stage. She closed her eyes and eased out her deep breath. Her arms hung loose and limp and she dropped her head forward. It was as if she went into a trance. Dax covered his mouth with his hands, wishing for a miracle, but thinking the worst.

  Then Briar spoke. She started out mumbling almost imperceptibly through her, black, stringy bangs. But then, she raised her head and spoke with a voice and a look in her eye that was almost unrecognizable as Briar. No longer was she the awkward cynic. Her movements became elf-like, impish, and almost other-worldly. Dax didn’t know how Briar did it, but body, voice and soul, she had freakin’ transformed into Shakespeare’s Puck. Dax pulled out his cell phone and began to video record. It was all so uncharacteristic of the Briar he knew and it was, well, kind of weird.

  “—that you have but slumber’d here

  While these visions did appear.

  And this weak and idle theme,

  No more yielding but a dream—”

  On and on Briar went, quieting the side-aisle insults from the boys. Now they just stood, some slack-jawed, some blinking in disbelief.

  When Briar finished her monologue, she stood for a moment, her eyes searching the faces of stunned and silenced onlookers in the cavernous auditorium. Dax burst with pride. Then from the squealing megaphone: “Thank you, Miss Witchwood—I mean Miss Blackwood. You may step down now.”

  Briar seemed to be in a sort of daze. She stood frozen in place, even paler than usual, like some wax museum figure. Dax rushed onstage and ushered Briar to the steps. He spoke out to the man i
n the dark with the megaphone. “Thanks again. And by the way, the bullhorn’s a nice touch.” Then under his breath: “I’m sure it makes up for one inadequacy or another.”

  “Next!” The director shouted though his grating amplification.

  Dax hurried Briar up the center aisle, giggling. “You did it!” he said. He tried to restrain the knot of excitement in his throat. “You were spectacular.”

  But Briar seemed to still be spellbound. Dax sandwiched her face between his hands to get her attention. Her face felt like refrigerated meat. He knew something was terribly wrong. He took her by the shoulders and shook until she suddenly blinked into awareness.

  “Did I do that?” Briar asked. She had a strange far-away look in her eyes. “Oh my God, I did do that.”

  Dax exhaled with relief. “Look, I don’t care if you get a role in that jerk-jockey play.” He looked in Briar’s eyes. She was present now, and what little color she had was returning to her cheeks. “You showed them a side of you that they’ve never seen before. And frankly, it was amazing. Was it a bit creepy? Yes. But it was also amazing. I got the whole thing recorded. You’ll love it.”

  Briar knew about Dax’s interest in capturing footage of anything that he thought was bizarre. And over the last few years he had amassed quite a library of anomalies. It wasn’t exactly flattery to be included in this quirky little side-show. But on the other hand, she must have been something extraordinary and that made her at once secretly proud and a little afraid.

  They made a beeline up the sloping aisle and almost made it to the swinging doors in the back when one of the jocks stepped in their path. It was Leon Squire. He had broken ranks with the other side-aisle cranks to stop Briar before she left. The rest of the jocks watched Leon with the same horrified silence of an audience watching a slasher movie.