The Doomsday Book of Fairy Tales

by Emily Brewes

  I TOOK ANOTHER BREAK from telling to go stand by the large front window. Peeking through the drapery, I saw a field of ferns frosted with moonlight. They ended abruptly at the river’s edge. Whorls of lazy current drew themselves through water as black as ink.

  I contemplated how far I would need to wade into that current before it overwhelmed me. Like a scene from a movie, I watched it happen from outside: the inky water swirled in front of me as I submerged, suddenly seeming to leap into my nostrils, run down my throat.

  Wash away my crying eyes.

  “Don’t, Jesse,” I warned myself aloud. “Don’t do this. You can’t predict the future — you don’t know anything. Doggo’s gonna wake up tomorrow. We’ll spend a couple of days here while he recuperates. Hell, maybe we’ll just stay here. Seems nice enough. Who needs to track down ghosts when we have each other?”

  The siren song of the river rising in my ears, I closed the curtain and returned to finish the tale.

  The cat and the child made their way inland. At length, they found the King’s Road. To their left ran its northward arm, which led over the swells of hillocky pasture until it passed through Millicent’s hometown. To their right, the road soon plunged into the shadowed tunnel of a dense wood.

  “Surely, I should homeward go, for my mother is doubtless worried,” said the child.

  The cat snorted. “Not only would you deny her your death payment, but you would be jailed for desertion, Millicent or no. Be just and fear not. Take you the southern road, and I’ll meet you at the palace.”

  “Meet me? I thought we might travel together.”

  “We have. Now we part, later to meet. Remember what I told you.”

  With that, the cat departed, disappearing swiftly into a field of ripening wheat. Alone, the child took stock. “I cannot be Millicent, for she’s a good girl who lives with her mother. Nor can I be Crispin, for he drowned at sea. Who shall I be now?”

  Taking a seat on the nearby milestone, the child thought and considered and brooded until the sun was slanted quite low in the sky. Presently, a raucous group of bandits came upon the child so slouched by the roadside. Their leader pulled up his horse and dismounted in one swift movement.

  “What have we here? An urchin on dry land, eh?”

  The bandits laughed like stones tumbling down a dry riverbed. Their leader scooped the child up and over his saddle. Then mounting the horse behind his prize, he spurred the beast to a gallop and led his gang into the wood.

  At the camp, the child was foisted off to the women while the men saw to their mounts, then sat themselves by the fire to drink and sing and laugh. The child was gripped by the chin and pulled to face a sharp-featured woman whose hair was tied in a faded scarf.

  “And who are you then? Some little scrap of whore?”

  Polite as could be, the child replied, “I’m nobody, ma’am. No name, no home, no fortune. I’m on my way to the palace to meet my father.”

  The woman scoffed. “And I suppose your father’s the king himself?” She threw the child toward a stack of broken pots. “Mend those, and we’ll see what use you are, Dogsbody. If they’re not done by sunset tomorrow, you’ll go into the stew pot.”

  Dogsbody (formerly Millicent, lately Crispin) fell clattering among the pots, much to the amusement of the bandits’ hard women. The pots were in even worse shape, with many worn through or cracked from cheap tinkering. Looking them over well, Dogsbody determined how best to see them mended and got to work. By sunset the following day, all the pots sat out shining, so well mended as to be brand new. Save one, which was missing.

  “Where is it?” demanded the drudge. “You’ve stolen it, have you?”

  “Why no,” declared Dogsbody. “But I needed metal with which to mend, and so I used that pot for the purpose. It was small and so roughly used beside, I thought it meant to be used thus.”

  The other women shrugged, leaving the drudge to accept the suit, albeit begrudgingly.

  “Fine, fine! Well and good. That challenge was too easy. Come with me.”

  Together they crossed the camp and went down a short hill into a gully. A stream ran through, beside which was a year’s worth of laundry.

  “These tunics and breeks were once whitest linen but now are stained and dingy. Get them clean by midday tomorrow, and your life will be spared.” So saying, the drudge took her leave.

  Dogsbody knelt between the stream and the pile of laundry. At the stream’s edge, some soapwort was growing. Using a flat stone to pound the leaves into the linen, the child scrubbed and scraped and finally rinsed every garment clean as the day it was made. These were then hung on the branches of a broad-leafed tree to dry. The way they billowed in the wind made the tree resemble a ship’s mast. Crispin, within Dogsbody’s breast, surfaced long enough to miss the wild swell of the sea, then submerged once more.

  When the drudge returned, she found Dogsbody asleep in a crook of the tree’s roots. She kicked the child awake.

  “What witchcraft is this? How have you done so well, so quickly?”

  Without hesitation, Dogsbody replied, “Only let me away to the palace and I’ll tell you my secret.”

  The drudge scowled but looked up at the freshly cleaned linen.

  “Fair enough. Follow this stream until it crosses the road. Turning south will lead you straight to the palace gate. Now say how you did this.”

  Dogsbody stood and looked the bandit queen in her jet bead eyes. The child pointed to the soapwort, her glance unwavering. “Simple enough for a child, if you know the trick of it.” Before the drudge could clout her about the head, Dogsbody was away. No, Millicent was, leaving Dogsbody and Crispin asleep beneath a tree that was like the tall mast of a ship.

  She ran all the way to the palace steps, whereupon she fell fast asleep. In the morning, who came sauntering to her feet but the slender tortoiseshell cat, purring to shame the Devil.

  “Tell me, child, what have you learned?”

  Millicent sat for a time in silence, absently scratching the cat behind its ears. Then she said, “I have learned that many things are not as they seem. And that a rudderless ship is easily steered off-course. And that if I’m to live my life, it shall be on the terms of my own desires. My mother is no longer my concern, nor my father.”

  “Ah, me,” said the cat. “Would that you could spare one final thought for your father. Do you not wish to see him one last time before making your way in the world?”

  “Certainly, I do,” replied Millicent. “But to call on the dead to make themselves seen is to invite bad fortune.”

  “Are you so sure he is dead?” queried the cat, before transforming into her father, though much aged. They embraced, each one weeping tears of joy. When their tears were spent, Millicent’s father explained, “Years ago, as I travelled the road to find good work, I was tricked by a pixie into a game of riddles. I won, but the pixie was so enraged by its loss that I was changed into a cat. Only satisfying my heart’s question could reverse the spell. And all I desired was to know if my only child would wish to see me after my apparent desertion.”

  Millicent ducked her head and spoke softly, “Now that we’ve seen each other, we must part again. I’ll not go back home again, but if you would, I know your wife would welcome you with open arms. She has missed you.”

  “Indeed I shall,” said he, and so they parted ways.

  TO SAVE, PRESS NINE

  BACK IN THE DAY, my dad used to take us hiking in the woods. We weren’t going anywhere. Just walking, one step at a time, over hill and dale until we turned around and went home.

  These walks were largely silent, bar the occasional complaint about being cold or tired. Those were mostly mine. Olivia seemed content to truck along for ages. The two of them marched in time, though she couldn’t have been much older than three when he first brought her. If she did start lagging, Dad would lift her onto his shoulders and carry her.

  I can’t remember if he did that for me.

  Looking ba
ck, I can appreciate the meditative quality of going nowhere. The stillness of the woods, the rhythm of footsteps crunching twigs, dried leaves. Occasional silent interactions with woodland creatures. A deer frozen mid-step, eyes pinned to the interlopers, nose working to feel out our intentions. Traipsing through the landscape in spring, in summer, in autumn. I don’t think we went in winter.

  At the time, though, to me, these walks verged on torture. My mind raced with noisy thoughts and would not be silent. Boots crunching on fallen debris or sloshing through shallow creeks were the only sounds of our presence, apart from the gentle huffing of breath.

  Mile on mile, hour on hour.

  I guess this was Dad’s way of spending time with us, when we weren’t “taking the scenic route” on a Sunday drive. Or driving each other nuts around the house.

  Sometimes, I dreamed about talking to him. The conversations were as stilted and awkward as they ever had been in real life. In these dreams, I was fifteen in body but fifty in mind. Dad sat still and listened. That was the astonishing part. Not that we were speaking quietly instead of shouting at each other, but that he nodded and said nothing.

  I’d tell him about working the Heap. Or about how little I felt when we left him behind to move Underground. Or about how tired I’d grown of the taste of compressed kill. He would listen in silence. He didn’t offer the advice I was looking for. He didn’t try to fix or opine about anything. His eyes looked thoughtful as I spoke.

  That’s how I knew they were dreams. Pure fantasy. I hold no ill will toward my father, but there was no way he could ever do such a thing as simple as that: sit still and listen. I don’t blame him. Might as well hold the sky accountable for being blue.

  MORNING DAWNED THROUGH the picture window. It warmed the light that filtered through the flannel sheets and kicked the dust motes hanging in the air into high gear. Watching them twirl brought a smile to my face, like a reflex. I stretched and turned to wake Doggo.

  His body was rigid.

  And completely still.

  He seemed smaller under the woollen blanket than he was.

  There was no fooling this time.

  No spark of hope that I was missing signs of life.

  His belly was still and sagged emptily when I put my ear to it.

  His whole body, underneath the stiffness, had a terrible empty softness.

  Whatever resistance that might have remained was gone. Entirely.

  It left with him.

  My brain eventually turned over, bringing with it that tickling thought from the day before.

  Water. Swallowing. Hydrophobia.

  Rabies-B.

  Sourness twisted my stomach into an impossible knot. The rat. It had to have come from that. Goddamn it, I’d killed us both — me and my stupid dreams. Freedom aboveground! Freedom to starve or to die from eating diseased flesh. I felt suddenly driven to get away from this place. I wanted more than anything to be nowhere at all. To dissolve, to become incorporeal. Every sensation was coming through at top volume, overwhelming my ability to act. To escape.

  I needed to move on.

  So with no thought beyond that need, I got up and left.

  ON THE ROAD AGAIN

  THAT DAY, I didn’t get far. My muscles still ached from my efforts to save Doggo’s life, but I knew that more than I felt it. As I walked, everything went numb. All sensation dropped away and sat waiting at a distant remove. I was ravenously hungry, but I didn’t stop. My throat was parched with thirst, and I ignored it.

  At the top of a hill, by the side of what had been the road, I sat down. Looking out over where I’d come from, I could just make out the red steel roof of the cottage peeking through the foliage. It reminded me of a game I’d made up as a kid: Spot the Cardinal. Whenever I heard a cardinal’s song, I’d spend as long as it took to find the scarlet bird in the green tree. It inevitably took longer than I felt it should have.

  That day, the cardinal sang a dirge.

  Looking back along my path was like looking into the past. I felt I could point to events that had knotted themselves into the thread of my life. That one is when I had a family, there’s when I had a friend, and here at my feet is where that thread lies badly frayed. That was when it hit me, all at once.

  The loss.

  Tears and snot and great wheezing breaths crashed like salty ocean waves over my head. My body felt beaten, my spirit broken. Every scrap of skin throbbed with invisible bruises from the blows life had dealt me. As far as I knew, I was entirely alone in the world, and that knowledge inflicted physical pain.

  What is anything for now? I wondered. What is the point of going on by myself?

  I cried until I fell asleep. If I dreamt, it was of never waking. Or maybe I imagined I would wake as somebody stronger, someone worth saving.

  When I woke, I went on. Mile on mile passed beneath my feet, unnoticed. There was scenery, but I didn’t see it. I was glad of nothing but the emptiness that now howled in my chest. I went on and on and on until my body collapsed from such ill-use. Heedless of any danger, and unable to do anything about it besides, I slept sprawled out on the road, not far from a sign that told me the population of Gravenhurst was 12,311, and it could be reached from the next exit.

  I wish I could say I cried myself to sleep that night, or something equally poetic. But tears didn’t come. I wasn’t sure they would come again for some time. I’d lost my sole reason for being alive and the fire of that pain could not be quenched with tears.

  Another day dawned. I was weak but somewhat restored from my sleep. Driven by habit more than will, I dragged myself to my feet and took up the path once more. The pain in my body was harder to ignore. My muscles felt like stacks of rubber bands that had been twisted until they were over-tight. Some had snapped but most held on, creaking with tension. It was hard to move at all, let alone well.

  The road surface was heaved more steeply, with craters where the paving was missing entirely. It was like some giant creature had come and eaten random chunks of asphalt. A rock biter or a tar-eating troll. I tripped and stumbled often. Even fell once or twice. After one such fall, I lay sprawled across the eaten-out road. My vision darkened and my eyes stung. Turned out I was gushing blood from a slash scored into my forehead and it was gathering in my eyes. A small, sensible part of my brain squeaked that I should wash the wound, bind it — if not to prevent infection, then to keep my scent from being detected by animals. I did nothing of the sort.

  “You don’t know,” I insisted aloud. “Maybe a passing mountain lion would like to take Doggo’s place. Ever think of that? Pet puma? Companion cougar?” Delirious, I went forward in a crouch with my hand held out in the classic cat coaxing stance. “Here, kitty kitty kitty!” I called to the empty forest. I was continuing on from sheer bloody-mindedness, for no other reason. I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. Behind me was a dead end, and the road was laid out at my feet. Walking was slightly easier than killing myself. Took less thought, at least. Just put one foot in front of the other, and try not to fall down so damn much.

  PITSTOP

  THERE WAS A WATERFALL just off the main road coming into Huntsville. A short chute of frothy water tumbled down a scree of grey granite. Shaggy hangings of algal growth swung green and yellow amid the tumult. It was a tricky pick down a slippery slope to get to its base. There was a small crook of dry land where the creek bent away from, then sharply back toward, town.

  Layer after layer, I peeled off my clothing and cast it aside. Shedding my exoskeleton and leaving it to be found as a perfect hollow replica of who I was. Exposing myself. Finding a spot to sit beneath the falling water, I wedged my naked arse between a pair of rounded rocks that were slippery as hell. And I sat, letting the frigid water wash me until my toenail beds went blue. I tried to catch the trails of colour that were surely rinsing off me: black, brown, red. But all I saw was my own rippling reflection, breaking, reforming, and breaking again.

  “At least it looks like you can cry,�
�� I told that reflection.

  In town, I foraged for clothing and for food. At the third house I checked, I managed to find an enormous pair of farmer’s jeans, which I cinched to my waist with laces stolen from that same farmer’s boots. None of his shirts were viable, but there was a hefty coat of waxed cotton duck that I appropriated. On Main Street, most of the shops had been looted but were intact enough to protect their remaining wares from the weather. A derelict army surplus stood apart at the end of a side street. It had a selection of shirts and shoes still in their packaging. I plundered with abandon.

  My search for food was less than successful. I slept in the remains of a theatre — the stage kind, not a cinema — staring at the proscenium and lulled by the grumbling of my empty stomach.

  I PASSED BY TOWNS with familiar yet strange-sounding names: Huntsville, Emsdale, Katrine, Burk’s Falls, Sundridge, South River. The road bent up and down through a series of highlands, gently curving as it hugged lazy slopes. More red granite, more drilling striations.

  One morning, the air distinctly chilled by the changing season, I was woken by my hair being pulled. Snapping up, braced for a fight, I came face to face with a moose, calmly chewing. She’d been cropping grasses near my head, and my hair had grown out enough that she’d caught some by accident. Just behind her, at the bottom of what used to be a ditch, a pair of last year’s calves shyly peeked.

  I closed my eyes and tried my damnedest to disappear, or at least to stay perfectly still. Moose were always equal parts terrifying and fascinating to me: barrel bodies towering on skinny stick legs, tipped by enormous sharp hooves. Their faces adorable but for their oddly bulbous noses. Growing up in the sticks, I’d been taught better than to do anything remotely threatening around a cow and her babies.