by D. Melhoff
“You shut up.”
“Guys, stop it,” Brynn said. “If I have to come over there, you’re both getting a time-out.” She was sitting on the floor of the fort’s playroom with Stephanie and two other girls, Mindy and Mikaela. Together, the three of them were cutting up strips of construction paper and arranging them into abstract pieces of refrigerator art that only their mothers could love—If they ever see their mothers again, Scott considered morbidly from his spot by the playroom’s door.
Brynn, Scott, and Mai had brought their groups upstairs an hour ago while the others had stayed in the ballroom to organize a game of soccer with a wad of duct tape and four garbage cans as goalposts. Every few minutes, Scott could hear the distant cheers of someone scoring a point downstairs. Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the playroom was less spirited—and not just from the side effects of Norma’s Extra Strength Benadryl, either (although many of the kids were already on their second dose). It was because no amount of medication could block out the memory of two people hanging by their necks at breakfast.
Tyrell aimed another rubber band at Marshall’s ear, and Scott found himself actually wanting the bully to fire. I’d do the same thing if I were eight years old and stuck in a clusterfuck like this. Can’t even blame him.
The elastic launched—thwack!
“Ow! Stop it, you dummy.”
“I can’t. They’re so freakin’ huge.”
“At least I’m not fat like you.”
“What’d you call me? Hey, hey, dweeb. Say it again.” Tyrell had another band looped around his fingers, aiming it square between Marshall’s eyes. “Say it, I dare you.”
“Tyrell—” Brynn said, but when she swung around, she knocked over a bottle of glue that Mikaela had set behind her. “Ugghh.” A gust of breath blasted through her nostrils. “Some help, please? Scott?”
“Cut it out,” Scott told Tyrell, monotone. “Don’t make me throw you out the window.”
Tyrell’s finger-gun wavered as he seemed to consider the idea of being outdoors, alone, with a serial killer on the loose. He lowered the elastic to his side, and it flopped harmlessly onto the carpet.
Marshall stuck out his tongue, and Scott snapped his fingers. “Hey. No one likes a jackass.”
“Yeah,” Tyrell added. “I bet you won’t be so tough when the murderer sneaks in to getcha tonight. See how brave you feel when there’s a real gun jammed up your nose.”
Scott wanted to say something that might settle the argument once and for all—something like, Don’t worry, Tyrell, serial killers always catch the fat kids first—when he noticed that the rest of the children were staring at him and eavesdropping on the conversation.
“He’s coming back tonight?” A girl with huge eyes and Shirley Temple curls sniveled.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Scott said. But those eyes saw straight through him. The girl’s tears spilled like Niagara Falls, and her weeping triggered a chain of cries and splutters around the room. One by one the kids abandoned their art projects as the stark reality of the situation returned to their thoughts. Even Mai, who had separated herself from the group and taken to folding pieces of loose-leaf into paper cranes, swept her entire flock of birds into her hands and crushed it into a ball before letting out a loud, blubbering sob. Brynn abandoned the glue spill and rushed across the playroom to console her.
“Well, ain’t this frigged up beyond all reason,” Scott muttered. He got to his feet and grabbed a roll of paper towels from the nearest cupboard, then began mopping up the glue. By the time Brynn returned from comforting Mai, he had finished cleaning the spill.
“Make a wish,” Scott mumbled, chucking the paper towels in a garbage can.
“Huh?”
He nodded at the ball of cranes in Brynn’s hands. “Aren’t you supposed to wish on those things?”
“I think you need a thousand of them. Seems like wishing on a few dead ones is asking for a Japanese curse.”
Scott shrugged, and Brynn tossed the cranes in the trash.
“If we can’t have a miracle,” she said, “I think I’d settle for a smile or two. Place feels like a goddamn death camp.”
Scott scanned the room. Not a single child had so much as grinned, let alone laughed, in the last eight hours. “There’s gotta be something better than glue and construction paper around here,” he said. “A few books. Or board games.” He kept scanning their surroundings, but nothing stood out. The bookshelves were bare. The racks at the back of the room were empty, and the cards they had found an hour ago were missing half the deck. Can’t even play a proper game of Go Fish.
“What about that?” Brynn nodded at the puppet theater pushed against the wall.
“Let’s see.”
Scott approached the sturdy frame—gripping the sides—and tried jimmying it forward. Bastard’s heavier than it looks. Its purple curtains danced side to side as he wiggled it across the floor and revealed a herd of dust bunnies that went swirling by on ghostly paws.
He stuck his head behind the puppet theater and erupted in a triplicate of coughs. An old trunk sat in the cobwebs like the footlocker of a forgotten World War II soldier. Reaching down, he gripped the leather handles and yanked it out of its resting place, reemerging in the clean air a second later.
“What’s that?” Brynn asked.
Scott didn’t answer. He undid the trunk’s latches and lifted the lid open.
Both of them peered inside…
A pair of eyes stared back.
They flinched, and Scott’s fingers slipped, dropping the lid with a loud thud. He peeled it open again—all the way back—and the room’s light illuminated the rest of the ventriloquist dummy’s papier-mâché face.
Brynn planted a hand on her chest. “I effing hate puppets,” she said. “More than clowns.”
Scott pushed the dummy aside and revealed a trove of other marionettes and wigs and costume pieces. He pulled out a leather-bound book and blew off a layer of dust, revealing a border of gold filigree. His first thought was that it looked more like a Bible than a storybook. The gold curlicues swirled together to form the title Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Fifty Others, and below it, in italics: Kinder- und Hausmärchen und Fünfzig Weitere. The pages felt as heavy as vellum. Brittle, a touch warped. A touch brown, too, as if the whole tome had been bound in the hide of an animal—or human skin.
Scott fanned through the picture book and watched dozens of illustrations tumble past. Witches caging children, peasants carrying pitchforks, maidens dipping their hands into enchanted wishing wells. Precise pencil lines shaded the elaborate scenes, and sharp strokes lilted the style in favor of a traditional Renaissance look. He paused at the image of a sleeping princess. Vines slipped through the walls of her chamber and wrapped themselves around her bedposts, as if to indicate she’d been dozing there for years. He flipped again: a wolf appeared, spying on Little Red.
“One second, I’m doing it.”
“But I wanna see.”
“Mindy, remember to share, okay?”
A group of girls had crowded around the trunk and started jockeying for costume pieces. One of them—Mindy—had a black shawl draped over her shoulders and a hand mirror clutched in her fist. As she tossed her pigtails for her reflection, Mikaela tried snatching the mirror.
“I said I’m not done yet.”
“Mindy,” Brynn repeated. “Let Mikaela—”
“No!”
Mindy slipped out of Mikaela’s grip and darted through the room in a fit of giggles, pretending not to hear anyone calling her name.
Pretending.
Scott stared the book in his arms, an idea bubbling up. He flipped past the L section—past M, N, O, P, Q, and R—and arrived at S. “‘Singing Bone,’” he muttered. “‘The Seven Ravens,’ ‘The Shepherd Boy,’ ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Story of the Soup Kaspar’…” Too far. He flipped back a few pages and stopped.
The book showed a beautiful woman posing in front of a looking glass.
Scott glanced at the costume trunk, then at the book, then at Mindy. “Your Highness?” he asked.
Mindy stopped, her shawl drifting to her sides.
“May I have a word?”
The girl appraised him—cracking a smile—and nodded.
“Good. Go to the front and…and just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“What’s going on?” Brynn whispered.
“That’s between me and Her Majesty. Oh…” He consulted the book again. “…and you, men in the corner. Stand up. Shoulder to shoulder, tallest to shortest.” He pointed at a group of boys loitering near the door, and they arranged themselves as he instructed. “The first seven go wait with the queen. Good. Now who’s the pastiest in the land? Hmm. That would be…you.” Scott pointed at Stephy. “Yes, up you get. And the rest of you peasants, sit facing this wall. Come on, don’t just stand there, let’s go.”
A new buzz filled the air as the kids shuffled into classroom formation facing the puppet theater. Meanwhile, Scott gathered his cast members for a group huddle. He handed out multicolored hats from the costume trunk and tied a red shawl around Stephy’s toothpick-size neck. In the corner of his eye, he saw Brynn leaning against the cupboards at the back of the room, waiting to be impressed. You’ll see, he thought, flashing her a grin. Ol’ Scotty Mamer’s got tricks up his sleeve yet.
“Watch out,” Scott told Mindy. He dragged over an empty bookshelf and tipped it on its side, forming a miniature stage. Finally, he turned to face the audience.
The kids stared back, their mouths agape in anticipation.
“All right,” Scott said, unsure how to begin. The room’s silence was deafening. “Welcome, everybody. So, uh, so yeah. ‘Little Snow White.’” He cleared his throat and focused on the book in front of him.
“‘Once upon a time, in the middle of winter, when snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky, a beautiful queen was sitting and sewing at a window with a black ebony frame.’” He motioned for Mindy—the extrovert with the mirror and the shawl—to enter, and she obliged, skipping to down center with the instincts of a trained Broadway moppet. “‘And as she was sewing and looking out the window at the snow, she pricked her finger with the needle, and three drops of blood fell on the snow. The red looked so beautiful on the white snow that she thought to herself, “If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window frame.” Soon thereafter she gave birth to a little daughter who was as white as snow, as red as blood, and her hair as black as ebony. That’s why the child was called Little Snow White.’”
Scott looked up and motioned for Stephy to go on stage.
Stephy stared at the floor, embarrassed, and didn’t move.
Before Scott could say anything, Mindy hooked her hand into Stephy’s arm and dragged her onto the platform. The diva tickled her costar in the ribs, and the two of them started giggling.
Scott continued, his voice less shaky: “‘The queen was the most beautiful woman in the entire land, and very proud of her beauty. She also had a mirror, and every morning she stepped in front of it and asked: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall—”’”
“WHO’S THE FAIREST ONE OF ALL?” Mindy hollered and struck a pose with her mirror.
The kids in the audience laughed. A couple of them tipped forward on their hands and knees, forcing those who were farther back to peer anxiously over their heads. Brynn whispered a few names (“Jason, squat down. Marshall, we can’t see. Sit on your bum, Rachel.”), but it was no use, especially as the story continued. Soon, the seven dwarfs were involved—none of whom remembered the lines Scott had given them—and even more laughter ensued when, according to the book, they found Snow White sleeping in their cottage and were told to announce how beautiful she was.
“‘The seven dwarfs were so astounded,’” Scott said, “‘that they screamed and fetched their seven little candles to observe Little Snow White. “Oh, my Lord! Oh, my Lord!” they exclaimed. “How beautiful she is!”’”
“So beautiful!” One of the boys clapped his hands over his heart. “The prettiest thing I ever saw!”
“So beautiful! So beautiful!” the rest of the boys shouted, trying to upstage one another. The audience roared while Stephy blushed and buried her head in her arms.
If they think this is funny, Scott mused, wait until we get to the kiss. But much to his surprise, the story involved no such lip action in the waking of Snow White. According to this version, one of the prince’s servants slapped Snow White on the back and dislodged the poisoned apple from her throat, rousing her from her slumber. Strange, he thought. I guess we’ve all been Disney-fied. There had been other changes as well, including a part where the queen tried tricking Snow White with several disguises (first as a peddler offering lace bodices, and then as a comb seller with a poisoned brush). Furthermore, there was no stormy climax atop a crumbling mountainside. The tale, as it turned out, ended with a royal wedding.
“‘The wedding was planned for the next day, and Snow White’s godless mother was also invited to attend,’” Scott read. He turned to the final page of the story. Only one paragraph remained. “‘The queen’s jealousy drove her so much that she wanted to be seen at the wedding. When she arrived, she saw that Little Snow White was the bride. Iron slippers were then heated over a fire. The queen had to put them on and dance in them, and her feet were miserably burned, but she had to keep dancing in them until she danced herself to…’”
Death, Scott read, but he didn’t say it.
He flipped the page. Blank. He flipped back and studied the final illustration, which, sure enough, showed the ending clear as day: the queen’s feet were burning off inside a pair of red-hot iron shoes. Done. Finished.
“Umm…the end,” he stated. “That, uh, that’s it.”
“Huh?” Marshall said. “‘Danced herself to the end?’ That’s not what happens.”
The kids stared at Scott—confused, unsettled. The look on Brynn’s face asked, “What the hell was that?”
Scott shrugged. Beats me. “Sorry, guys. That’s it. Yaaaay.” He started to clap, but only half of the audience joined in. The actors took a bow and hopped off the stage.
“Let’s do another one!” Mindy shouted. “How about Red Riding Hood?”
“Goldilocks! Goldilocks!”
“Do Rumpelstiltskin!”
“Nobody likes Rumpelstiltskin, you dweeb.”
“How about Frog Prince?”
“Cinder—”
“Jack and the—”
“Pied Piper! Pied Piper!”
Scott offered the book to Brynn. “They’re all yours.”
“Me?” She pointed at herself. “No, I’m fine.”
“Then story time’s over.”
The kids let out a thundering “Noooo!” and flashed Brynn their saddest puppy-dog eyes.
“Ugh,” Brynn sighed, throwing her hands in the air. “All right, all right. Just one more.”
“Yay!” The crowd cheered and requests came hurtling tenfold: “Hansel and Gretel!”…“Princess and the Pea!”…“Penguins of Madagascar!” She ended the debate by reaching into the costume trunk and grabbing the first available prop: a long, blonde wig. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel. Where’s my Rapunzel?”
A dozen hands flew up, and Brynn chose a quiet girl—Penelope—from the back. Penelope approached the stage apprehensively, but when Brynn slung the wig over the girl’s head, it multiplied her confidence tenfold. The other characters—the evil fairy and the prince—were cast, and then Brynn opened the storybook and began to read.
“‘Once upon a time there lived a husband and wife who had been wishing for a child for many years…’”
It was Scott’s turn to watch from the back of the crowd as the story unfolded. If this one’s different from the regular version, he thought, I’ll never know. He hadn’t read “Rapunzel” as a kid, and he had never seen the m
ovies.
“‘Rapunzel grew to be the most beautiful child under the sun,’” Brynn narrated. “‘But when she turned twelve, the fairy locked her in a very high tower that had neither doors nor stairs, only a little window high above.’”
The tale persisted, and five minutes later, it reached its final showdown. “‘When the prince climbed up into the tower,’” Brynn read with enthusiasm, “‘he was astonished to find the fairy instead of Rapunzel. “Do you know what, you villain?” the angry fairy said. “Rapunzel is lost to you forever.” In his despair, the prince—’”
Brynn stopped. A stop just as sudden as Scott’s at the end of “Snow White.”
“Left,” she concluded. “The prince left. The end.”
Another heavy silence filled the room.
Quick, Scott thought, an inexplicable sense of fear flooding his gut. Do something.
He started clapping, and the kids clapped along, although a wave of displeasure was spreading through the crowd. “Okay, everybody,” he announced, eying the clock on the wall. “Back to the ballroom. Let’s go, supper’s in twenty.”
The kids scooted to their feet and headed for the door. As they surged by, Scott swam upstream and knelt beside Brynn on the makeshift stage. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
She didn’t respond. Not right away. Her eyes were soaped windows, and when she opened her mouth, the words that tumbled out sent a shiver wriggling up his spine. “More than we thought.”
Brynn tipped her gaze downward, and Scott followed it to the storybook in her lap. The last illustration of “Rapunzel” depicted the evil fairy clutching a fistful of golden hair as the prince fell from the tower into a patch of thorns. Red ink trailed out of the character’s eyes, his mouth hung open in agony.
Electromagnetic pulses shot through Scott’s brain. He wasn’t picturing ink and pencil strokes anymore; he was seeing a memory, a fresh one, of animals and empty eye sockets and yellow bungee cords jammed into scalps like long locks of streaming gold—
“Holy shit.” His words caught up with him. “It can’t—no.” And then softer, fading to a whisper: “Holy, holy shit.”