Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales Read online

  Dax shouted, “Hey, look what I found.” He struck flints together and lit a beeswax candle. When he went to show Briar, he saw her walking, entranced, toward a spinning wheel that was spinning as though someone was there making the thing go.

  Dax rushed. “Briar, stop!” He tried to grab her by her arm, but Briar shouted back in a voice that did not seem like her own, “Leave us alone!” Then she cast one of her flames at Dax. It knocked him clear to the far side of the chamber where he slammed against the wall and slid down unconscious.

  Now we are alone, Briar thought while gazing at the spindle and the spinning wheel. She reached out her hand, aching, anticipating the sting.

  There was no weeping once Briar drew a drop of her own blood. There was only a moment of realization and regret. Then there was the sweet, silent darkness.

  Chapter 30

  Ash told me I’d forget—and that idea has haunted me since the words fell from his lips. I couldn’t figure out what it meant—or why it might be so important. I mean, if you had my life, forgetting might sound like less of a problem and more of a solution, right? Maybe it’s because I’m dead, but I think I understand it now: the grand realization that sums up the wisdom of the ages and defines the destiny of the universe. Okay, I’m really yanking your chain because I don’t really know if I’m just talking out of my ass.

  But it seems to me that there will always be dragons to slay, curses to undo, omens and wicked queens to face. That’s fuckin’ life. And they don’t have power over you, unless you forget. You can forget who you are, what your life has been up to now, and you can forget this very moment if you spend your life worrying about if and when they might come.

  Yeah, of course we all like to act like we’ve got things all figured out. But maybe that’s just because we’re afraid of being in the dark. But I’m telling you the dark isn’t so bad. I mean, maybe there’s nothing really to figure out. What if everything’s happening on its own? I can hear the world just screaming, “Let go—please let go—” But we’re all too busy looking ahead, forgetting, to listen. Life has its own plans, its own gravity. And in the end, it kicks our asses and we all die.

  I mustn’t forget. None of us should ever forget.

  It was a wonderful place. Her bedchamber, though small, was finely ornamented in carved dark woods and gauzy linens. She heard birdsongs on a gentle breeze that wafted in through her tower window. It carried in the intoxicating scent of vine roses and sweet meadow grass. She leaned out and inhaled the lush white climbing blossoms, tiny, fragile things that opened gracefully and framed the window in the shade of the tower eaves.

  She still wore her ball gown of pretty pale satin. She twirled around at the sunny window with a bliss she had never before experienced. But that was when she spotted a dark smudge in the oval mirror at the far end of the chamber. The blemish was unmistakable, smaller than a coin, at the center of her stomach, and that cherub-framed mirror dared to expose it, as if these carved winged creatures were sent to spoil the day.

  She touched the spot and frowned. A white dove flitted through the chamber window and perched upon one of her uplifted fingers. But she couldn’t take her eyes from the stain, as it appeared to have grown like a cancer in just those few short moments. It was now as large as a muddy puddle.

  She tried to rub at it, and the dove flew away, disturbed. But still that sickening blackness crept, and Briar felt helpless to stop it. The growing stain sparked other changes too. Briar’s sleeves dropped from her shoulders down past her wrists in large bell cuffs. The neckline rose to form a high black collar that fanned out and became a hood that swooped down and shadowed her changing face. She felt her skin loosen and her fingers become knobby and twisted. Briar’s heart pounded with dread as she lifted an arm only to find it now sagging like that of an old woman.

  Perhaps this was a trick of the light. The mirror would know. Briar looked up and was shocked to see Valrune there, standing in her place, wearing the same black robe as she. She paced back, a quiet dread overcoming her.

  But the image of Valrune did not do what a mirror image ought to do. Instead he came forward and out beyond the glass. He stood with his broad shoulders filling the black robes, his golden hair glistening. He reached out for her, and he smiled, dark clouds behind his laughing eyes.

  Delicately, she reached to him. She touched the tip of her fingers to his hand and he pulled her close. She felt his breath, his heartbeat, his strength, and she melted into his embrace. He drew his lips close to hers and then lightly—very, very lightly—their lips brushed together. She closed her eyes and they kissed.

  She had never kissed a boy, but it wasn’t what she had expected. His lips felt cold and thin. The firmness of his embrace began to feel like crushing, and she squirmed with discomfort. She opened her eyes and instead of Valrune, an old woman held her. She could not see the face; it seemed somehow blurred. Briar winced in pain and fright; she struggled against the old woman’s powerful arms.

  With a gasp, she awakened.

  In the cold of the tower chamber, Briar lay still on her back for a moment, scanning the place for the old woman, but she was gone. The room was dim, lit only by a few flickering candles, and beyond that, it was midnight dark. She lay in a heap of white muslin furniture covers puffed up all around her where her body had not flattened them. Valrune was there, kneeling by her side, his warm breath on her cheek, his eyes sparkling in the candle-light.

  He spoke gently to her. “Dame Titania?”

  “Valrune,” Briar whispered. But then she remembered Orpion, the wolfguard and their present danger and she sat suddenly upright. He held her hand, but she couldn’t understand why he seemed unafraid. “What happened?” she asked. But then it all flooded back. “The spinning wheel, the spindle, I pricked my finger.” She held up her hands and found there was no mark.

  “I told you that all it would take was a kiss,” Poplar said. She smiled and clasped her black lace gloves together. “It’s so romantic.”

  Myrtle was there, frowning. “Sister, please do get a hold of yourself.” She pushed Poplar aside and leaned in to inspect Briar, her spectacles sprung to mechanical attention. “Awakening from death—particularly a sleepdeath—due to a kiss is utter nonsense.”

  “Poplar? Myrtle? How did you get here?” she asked. And seeing them caused her to burst into tears. But then she suddenly stopped. “Wait a minute. A kiss? There was a kiss involved here?”

  Valrune smiled at Briar. “Yes,” he said.

  Leon pushed his way through the others so that he could see Briar. He was fully restored and wearing one of the white muslin covers like a cloak. “Yes,” he said too.

  “Leon!” Briar exclaimed. She threw her arms around him, but then she pulled back just a bit when she noticed Valrune darken.

  “Wait—what what’s going on?” Briar asked.

  “I told you frog-boy, it was my kiss that awakened her,” Valrune said.

  “It might have been your bad breath,” Leon said. “But it was more likely my kiss that worked.”

  “How? How?” she asked.

  Poplar flounced over to Briar and nudged Valrune aside with her pumpkin-round hip. She took Briar’s hands. “I’ll say it again: it was true love’s kiss that brought you back, dearie.”

  Myrtle seemed quite perturbed. “Poppycock,” she announced.

  “And what’s more,” Poplar said, “once you killed Orpion, all of her curses lifted!”

  Myrtle levitated from the ground and landed on the other side of Briar. She took Briar’s hand and nodded with appreciation. Briar felt a flood of joy. Myrtle and Poplar were cured. Then Sherman stepped into view. There were no words left. She sobbed into her hands while he hopped up to her shoulders and hung around them like a fox stole.

  “Listen here, Briar of the Black Woods, champion of the Realms,” he said, “there are many sleeping beauties here in these lands who have pricked their fingers and who shall never awaken. But you—you have defied the Tales. You c
ame of your own free will and could not be bound by them. Instead you awakened, not by enchantments nor by the kiss of love, but by your own accord. You and your friends have weakened the grip of the Tales. The rule of darkness cannot survive in the wake of your doings.”

  Briar looked at Poplar and Myrtle, confused. “I can’t be the one. I can’t be the girl from the Omens. I…I…” But she stopped her words. She realized that none saw that she had burned with a wrath greater than Orpion’s, and breathed fire like the black dragon. She switched the topic. “But how did you all get here? How did you know where I was?”

  “I brought them here, from the other side of the portal,” said the Boss. Briar hadn’t noticed him until he hopped out from behind Valrune. Then she noticed that Vilesight, Thrash, and Blessfang were there too. But they kept close to the wall behind Briar’s bedding, not wanting to crowd the recovering Black Woods girl. “Vilesight here saw you through the window,” said the Boss.

  The eye-patched bluebird flitted over and perched onto Briar’s boot. “This tower was dark for sixteen years, but tonight I saw lights,” he said, looking back at the long stained glass windows. “When I came to see what was going on, I saw you both on the floor, out cold.”

  Then Briar asked, “Dax…where is he?” Then Dax stepped into view from behind everyone crowding in. His head was wrapped with muslin strips. “Oh my God, Dax—are you all right?”

  “I’m a little sore,” he said. “I would never have guessed you would pack such a mean punch. But hey, six weeks of theater combat class—right?”

  Myrtle snapped her spectacles shut with a curt nod to Dax. “Indeed, Orpion is gone for now. But there is more to come, I fear.”

  “What do you mean?” Poplar asked.

  “Ash has the book,” Myrtle replied. “He commands its power now.” She shook her head. “He has proven to be a disappointment. War and ruin in these Realms has only begun.”

  “Then we have to fight, don’t we?” Briar asked. She surprised herself. There was strength ringing in her voice now—and she knew that she was a far cry from the girl who was freaked out by a school audition.

  “Tell her, Myrtle,” Sherman said as he popped down from Briar’s shoulders. Myrtle nodded her agreement, but seemed to have trouble coming up with the words.

  “You cannot stay,” Myrtle finally said. Her pronouncement rang like a bell through the room.

  “What?” asked Briar.

  “You are the one who would sleep,” Myrtle said. “But instead, you awakened. And now it is not Orpion whom we must guard against, but the powers that rule in the shadows behind her throne.”

  Briar looked confused. “There’s someone else? Someone worse?”

  “Far worse,” Sherman said. Briar suddenly recalled the cloaked old woman from her vision.

  “But we can’t just leave you all here by yourselves,” Leon said.

  “We have the dwarefs,” Valrune said. “They helped battle off those of Orpion’s guard who hadn’t run off at news of her death. There will be others who will join us too.”

  Myrtle nodded at Valrune and then turned her attention to Briar once more. “There is no argument. It is far too dangerous for you to stay. The enchantments that once protected you are gone and the legions that now scramble for Orpion’s throne will use anything in their power to destroy you.”

  Briar knew it was all a lie. There were never likely any enchantments protecting her, except for her own hidden dark powers. They would never know if she kept it to herself. “But what about the Three Omens? There’s only been one,” Briar protested.

  Sherman smiled, crinkling his foxy muzzle and exposing his pointy canines. “The future changes, young one. A drop in the pond carries ripples to the shore.”

  Poplar clasped Briar’s hands. “Child, you did well. You have changed the Tales. But we have to finish what’s begun without endangering you or your friends further.”

  Briar felt no triumph in the moment. What they were proposing was a return to her miserable life.

  Valrune, still kneeling by Briar’s side, helped her to stand. “They are right, Dame Titania.”

  Leon rolled his eyes.

  “I could not bear it if you were to come to any harm,” Valrune continued. He fixed his gaze with hers. “Do as they say. And should our Tales align, we will meet again.”

  Leon interrupted, “Yeah—and just remember whose kiss broke the spell.”

  “And remember whose kiss shall last forever,” Valrune said.

  Without warning, without letting one know what is about to transpire, as abruptly as the words “Once upon a time” arise from the page, the chamber door opened. It swung wide at Myrtle’s command. A cloud of mist roiled just beyond.

  Briar could not help herself when she ran to Sherman, Poplar, and Myrtle and hugged them all with tears streaming from her eyes. For the first time, perhaps ever, she felt love. It felt soft and vulnerable, happy and fearsome—all at once. Even as she held each of them and felt the sureness of their embrace, she knew she must leave and that she would have to one day come back to fight. But that moment was not now. Now was the moment of knowing that she would be kept safe from harm, and that they could fend for themselves.

  And just as final as the words “happily ever after” in children’s tales was the sound of the chamber door as it swung behind Briar and her friends, sealing them safely away from the Realms, from curses and dragons, from the crone just past the mirror, and from the gathering darkness in the distant sky.

  Epilogue

  The doorbell rang at midnight. Briar was wide awake when it happened—so it wasn’t a disturbance as much as it was a curiosity. She found sleep elusive for the past weeks, and whoever had the misfortune of ringing the Saulk’s bell after hours provided her a welcome distraction from her usual brooding thoughts. Though, she knew someone would catch hell for the late-night commotion. She just hoped it wouldn’t be her.

  Briar could tell how angry this made Matilda. She heard her standard heavy-footed stomp become so loud that it shuddered the basement ceiling. She heard raised voices and then without warning her basement door slammed open against the wall.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Saulk, but I assure you this is customary,” said a woman who sounded familiar. Footsteps fell on the stairs down to the basement, and Briar sat up in her creaky bed to see who might be coming.

  “There you are, dear,” said Poplar. “Come, come. Stand up straight. You’ve company.”

  A young woman, pretty, with a simple kindness in her eyes trailed down the steps behind Poplar, followed by a man who held the pretty woman’s hand. They were dressed humbly, and they had sincerity in their wake. The man looked to Poplar, hesitant, but then grinned at Briar sheepishly. “We’re sorry if we woke you up,” he said. He turned to the pretty woman. “She’s everything Mrs. Poplar said.”

  Poplar corralled them then stood by Briar’s side. “Mr. and Mrs. Grant—this is Briar Blackwood.”

  “Poplar, what’s going on?” Briar asked.

  “Briar dear, say hello to your new mother and father,” Poplar replied.

  “What? You’re changing my foster home?” Briar asked. There was a terrible look of sickness on her face. Living at the Saulk’s was miserable, but what would a new foster placement bring?

  “Not exactly, dear,” Poplar said. She gave Briar a quick squeeze.

  “We’d love for you to come live with us—for as long as you’d like—as our daughter,” Mrs. Grant said.

  Before Briar had a chance to respond, Matilda clomped down the stairs with Megan and Marnie following behind. “Over my dead body,” Matilda barked. All three of the Saulks wore fuzzy slippers and sleepwear that belonged in a rummage sale.

  “Mother, they can’t take Briar,” Megan said. She rushed down the steps and sidled up to her foster sister with forced tears. “She’s my very best friend in the whole world.”

  Another voice at the head of the stairs spoke, but Briar couldn’t hear what was being said. This wa
s followed by more footsteps down the basement stairs.

  “Yes, officers—right this way,” Myrtle said. She gestured toward Matilda who stood looking like someone had poured ice water down her pants. Myrtle was followed down by several strapping policemen. “This is the woman in question. The charges are in the full body of my report.”

  “Are you Matilda Saulk?” one of the officers asked.

  “I’m afraid she’s not here at the moment,” Matilda said.

  Two of the officers turned her around and cuffed her. “You’re under arrest for fraud, child abuse, and endangerment.” They led her up the stairs and she struggled defiantly in their grip. “Briar! Tell them how good I’ve been to you! Tell them! If it weren’t for me, you’d be locked up in some orphanage or workhouse, you little throw-away—”

  “Oh dear,” Poplar said. “Did I lose track of the centuries? Is Charles Dickens around here somewhere—?”

  Megan and Marnie stood gawking at the scene. Myrtle walked up and slung her black-laced gloves around their shoulders. “Chin up, girls. I know it isn’t easy to have come from the home of a criminal. But, I’ve found suitable foster homes for you both while your mother serves—well, there’s no easy way to say it—but she’ll serve hard time.”

  Megan and Marnie looked like a couple of compulsive gamblers who lost their last dollar.

  “Come along,” Myrtle said. The remaining officer escorted the girls up the stairs with Poplar following behind. “And if things don’t work out, we can always find you a nice workhouse.”

  Mrs. Grant took Briar by the hand and squeezed it. “Let’s go home,” she said. There was a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. “I bet you need a good night’s sleep.”

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