Grimm and Grimmer: Volume One

by William Meikle

  'Would you mind if I watch you dine?' Eden spoke suddenly. His voice was soft and low. It didn’t sound like the voice of a beast.

  'Don’t you want to eat?' was all she could think of to say.

  'I do,' said Eden. 'But would you mind terribly if I watched you eat first, and then followed suit?' He spoke in the same oddly formal way as his parents; stringing words together as though he had only learned to speak from reading old books.

  There was nothing so agonizing as someone watching you eat, Junie discovered. You were conscious of every time your fork stabbed a potato, of every cut your knife made of the meat, of every time your hand holding the glass trembled as it rose to your lips. When she had eaten all she could, Eden took his turn. His motions with the knife and fork seemed clumsy to Junie; she wondered if he was as nervous as she at having an audience, or if perhaps he didn’t use utensils when in the confines of his room.

  'You don’t have to use the silverware if you don’t want to.' she told him.

  He made a noise that sounded like a growl, and looked up at her from beneath his hair. He threw down the knife and fork and raised his head defiantly. Something that looked like blood dripped from between his lips. She started back, realized that his meat was barely cooked.

  'Do you like this?' he growled. The softness in his voice which had been pleasant before was now menacing and dangerous. 'Do you like it raw and bloody? Do you like it that I behave like a savage, like a common beast? Or would you prefer I at least simulate your human abilities, that I make a mockery of your neat cuts and jabs with my own clumsy paws? Shall I put my face in my plate like a dog and lap at the blood? Shall I kill it?' He snarled louder and suddenly jumped up and threw the plate into the wall. Red streaks ran down the floral wallpaper and onto the wood floor. Junie felt tears burning in the back of her eyes. Her hands clenched on the napkin folded in her lap, sure he was coming for her next. But he just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat down again. Behind her, Junie heard Elisa cleaning up the broken pieces of the plate.

  'I thought your name was Geneva.' The soft, polite human was back, only there was blood on his wrist and his sleeve. She stared at it rather than at his face when she explained about the Shining Flower, and how her brothers and sisters who had now gone away couldn’t pronounce Geneva when they were small. She even found herself talking about her mother who hadn’t been able to stop bleeding after Junie was born, and had died soon after. It was something about the animal intensity in his eyes; the way he didn’t blink often enough because he was concentrating on what she was saying. The way that, even after he licked the remaining blood off of his lower lip when she talked about her mother, Junie kept going, kept telling him about the empty rooms and the cozy cottage, and how she didn’t know how he could stand being locked up day after day in a room with only yellow lights and a narrow slit of daylight.

  It was for his own good, he told her. His parents believed it was for his own good, and he didn’t need any better reason than that. Society would only shun him, so what better solution than to leave society altogether? He stood up and held out his hand, and she took it and led him back to the room behind the tapestry. He waited patiently behind her as she opened the three locks and held the door open for him.

  'Will you stay with me tonight?' he asked. She was afraid to answer him, afraid that any answer she gave would only make him angry again. But at last she had to say, 'No, Eden. I can’t do that.' His eyes went narrow and wild for a moment, and he turned his back and walked away from her, looking back once to lock eyes with her as she closed the door.

  ***

  The weeks went by in a stream of routine filled days of exploring the seemingly endless supply of empty rooms. Every day she marveled at the expanse of space inside the house, and every day she grew to pity her ward and his claustrophobic cell more and more. She learned to be less afraid of the beast in Eden; to take his outbursts as they came, and move past them. Their dinners at nine became her favourite part of the day, when she would take his hand and lead him to the dining room. As she became more familiar with the layout of the house and all its secret passages and connecting rooms she would take him different routes to the table, giving him a tour of the place he had lived his whole life and never seen. Their dinners now lasted well into the night, and, while Eden was still clumsy with his fork and knife, she learned not to mention it or the blood which sometimes would still collect on his lips. When the clock hands began to creep past midnight, she would take his hand and lead him back up the stairs and past the canopy bed, move the fox hunt tapestry and unlock the three locks to his room. Then came her least favourite part of the night, the part she dreaded the most; where he would stand in the doorway and ask 'Will you stay with me tonight?' and she would have to say 'No, Eden, I can’t do that,' and watch the animal eyes, have to picture them in her mind as she fell asleep at night.

  And then one day, it was over. In the morning, the Pritchers would be back. Reality would be back; the reality of a cozy cottage with only one lock on the door, and no secret passages or lofty ceilings. She called her father.

  'How are you?' he asked. 'It seemed foreign to her to hear a voice other than a soft, low, dangerous one. He father was cheerful and happy to hear from her. There was no menace there.

  'I’m good.' she said. 'I’m really good.'

  'You never called.' She heard the whisper of the empty rooms, the accusatory voices of all her absent siblings.

  'I’m sorry.' She hadn’t called, not even the first day when she was scared and alone in an enormous canopy bed with a beast scratching at the walls behind her. 'How are you?'

  'Not so good,' he said. 'I’m out of work. It’s hard to find work these days.' It was something Abelard always said, but the words sounded so foreign after three weeks of the newness of Eden.

  'I’m sorry.' She didn’t know what else to say. It seemed they had said everything there was to be said to each other. 'Can you pick me up tomorrow? It’s my last day.'

  That night, when she opened Eden’s door, she couldn’t speak. She felt the occasion should be marked, but she didn’t know what to say. He took her hand, and it felt so natural that she couldn’t believe that three weeks ago she hadn’t known him, and in three weeks wouldn’t know him again. She couldn’t believe she had ever thought him a beast.

  At dinner they ate at the same time, not watching each other’s utensils as they once had, all pretense of small talk abandoned. The clock struck midnight, then one, then two, and Elisa nodded off in the kitchen while waiting to remove their dishes. Finally, Eden stood.

  'It’s time.' he said.

  'I know.' she looked around the room, memorizing his bloody plate and her dry one, the crumpled napkins and the faint pink stains on the wall. She took his hand and led him through every room in the house, saying goodbye to them and letting him have a farewell to the places he wouldn’t see once his mother took back the job of leading him to dinner. When she unlocked his door for the last time, she fumbled with the keys, something she hadn’t done since the second day. She held open the door, and he paused.

  'Will you stay with me tonight?' he asked, his voice lowering to a growl at the end. She saw his black eyes, and the animal trapped inside, and she said 'Yes, Eden. Yes, I can.' She stepped through the door and let it shut behind her, making sure she had the keys to unlock it from the inside.

  He watched her, unblinking, as she hung them on the doorknob and turned to face him. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, and she breathed in his scent of flesh and forest, a place he would never go. He rested his lips on her neck, not kissing her, just breathing in and out. His mouth was warm and his breath was hot like an animal’s. Then he kissed her and she tasted him; tasted him and the salty blood of his dinner, of his kill. His mouth bit down on hers ferociously, and suddenly the animal was back and she was terribly afraid he was going to really bite her; just tear her flesh away and lap at her blood until there was nothing left but a shell of Junie Ge
neva Lucille.

  And maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, she thought as he pulled her to the futon, kicking off her shoes in a tangle of limbs. Maybe then she could become a part of a house, the way her brothers and sisters had done. Maybe her spirit could live in one of its lofty rooms and watch over Eden, and Mr. and Mrs. Pritchers too, as they sat down to bloody, raw dinners and locked their son back in his nightmare closet. Maybe then she could freeze this achingly beautiful loneliness that pulled at her insides, and just stay forever with the beast.

  The End

  Colin Fisher

  Colin lives in South East London with his cat Sammy, a short drive from the home of his loving wife Lisa (long story). His formative years were spent studying archaeology, listening to heavy metal, and arguing the finer points of Doctor Who continuity with an ever decreasing circle of friends. To his wife’s exasperation, he remains deeply unfashionable to this day, a fact for which he neither apologises nor seeks approval. After an extended period of indolence in which he claimed to be ‘managing’ a bookshop, he now keeps body and soul together with something not dissimilar to IT in the City, although this is mainly a front for unspecified activities involving coffee, and snarling at people who approach him.

  His leisure hours – those that Southeast Rail sees fit to leave him with – are spent playing guitar, writing poetry and collecting and reading Tarot cards. When not shivering under a blanket in his half ruined pre-war garret or watching his cat’s experiments in gene splicing with mice and frogs, he enjoys reading, and cites Tim Powers, Robert Holdstock and Kim Newman as his favourite myth makers.

  He has two hugely talented children, and is inordinately proud of the fact that one also has a story appearing in this collection. He in no way accepts responsibility that a fascination with death, horror and psychopaths appears to run in the family, although early indoctrination with Dungeons & Dragons and violent video games seems to have paid off.

  Colin has this to say about his fairy tale; Oddly, I’ve never been inspired by the tale of Hansel and Gretel, because at the back of my mind I’ve always had a problem with it. The children are smart, courageous, and resourceful, but it never seemed convincing that the cunning Witch would fall for Gretel’s trick at the end. All my initial ideas for submission revolved around other stories. But for some reason Gretel’s opening line kept nagging away at me, demanding to be set down, until eventually I gave in, wrote the first paragraph, and saw that straightaway I had my solution to the problem. Gretel was immediately feisty, sarcastic, and quite aware of the absurdity of her situation, and the Witch was more than a little obsessive compulsive. With that in mind, the battle of wits between them became far more explicable … and the Witch never had a chance.

  Gretel's Way

  by Colin Fisher

  If the witch taught me anything, it’s that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything. From sweeping the yard, to carrying water, to dismembering finger bones. ‘If I’ve told you once,’ she’d screech, ‘I’ve told you a thousand times’, as I held the broom wrong, so crumbs got mixed up with leaves or marzipan shavings ended up in the flower bed. ‘This is getting old,’ I’d say, ‘why can’t you live in a normal house?’ But she’d just box my ears, with a ‘Because, stupid,’ – box – ‘what better way of catching,’ – box – ‘children? You’re all so greedy!’ Then she’d go into one of her cackles. She was the stupid one, though, because I’d say ‘But Madam Demelzina,’ (that was her name; she got very cranky if she wasn’t properly addressed), ‘I’m just not sure how it works.’ Sounds dumb, but – like everything there – it was magical, and if you didn’t hold it right, it wouldn’t do what you wanted. She fell for it every time. ‘Stupid girl!’ She’d hiss, grabbing it. ‘There’s a right way and a wrong way, and you’re doing it wrong!’ And proceed to sweep the yard, while I put on my ‘Oh, I see!’ face, and let her get on with it.

  Also, she couldn’t see for toffee. I remember when we turned up, and helped ourselves to the eaves and the windowpane (I told her afterwards it was a bit tart, and if I hadn’t been so hungry I’d have gone to find the gingerbread house instead, but that earned me another boxed ear), and that little granny voice she did so well called out ‘nibble nibble gnaw, who’s pecking at my door?’ (seriously, what’s with the stupid rhymes in these stories? Later, I asked, ‘why not just say ‘who the fuck is that?’ but she got really offended and said that wasn’t how it was done, and to keep a clean tongue in my mouth or she’d wash it with soap and cut it out, and when I said ‘what, both?’ – well, you can guess what happened then.) So, anyway, the point is she called and we called back ‘the wind, the wind, the heaven born wind’ like you’re supposed to, only she wasn’t fooled and I’m not really surprised. We were too busy gorging ourselves on warm malty guttering and the crunchy bits in the thatch to see her come hobbling out, but if I’d thought about it the way she sniffed and waved her head from side to side was a dead giveaway, and I should’ve shouted Run! and just legged it with Hansel. But no, we fell for the ‘you poor children, you must be starving’ routine, and followed her inside. All I can say, really, is, you have no idea how hungry we were. I just kept thinking of the half loaves The Cow gave us – well, quarter loaves by the time she’d finished taking her and Dad’s share, and then giving us half of what was left so I guess really only eighth loaves - and of Hansel scattering them along the path so we could find our way home after our supposed outing, and – you know what – I just didn’t know how we could’ve been so stupid. Of course the birds were going to eat them. I mean, famine was everywhere, not just in our little village. The birds were hungry, and the cats and dogs were hungry, and the mice and moles and rabbits (those we hadn’t eaten) were hungry. When we caught up with Dad and The Cow she just turned and smirked, as if she knew exactly what we’d done and how pointless it was. And in the days afterwards I kept picturing it, and kicking myself. We could’ve had one last meal after we woke up alone, instead of wandering in circles for hours trying to find the breadcrumbs. At least I had the dignity to stop Hansel yelling ‘Dad, Dad, Mum, Mum!’ like an idiot. I was like, ‘you heard them plotting to get rid of us, doofus! They’re not coming back!’

  So, yeah, we were beyond hungry. That’s all I can offer in our defence. We pushed our way to the witch’s table and stood drooling. Pancakes, apples, nuts, ham, pickles, sugar, milk, potatoes, cherries. I thought we’d died and gone to Heaven. I should’ve known the witch meant it to be the other way round. We stuffed our faces, while she bustled around us, clucking ‘oh you poor children’ and ‘you’re fair famished’ over and over. Even then, though, while we were grabbing at pickles and apples, followed by pancakes and ham, she couldn’t resist slapping our fingers and tutting ‘There’s a right way and a wrong way, and you’re doing it wrong!’ I don’t know, is there a right way to stuff your face so full it hurts, and the apple juice drips down your chin into the milk as you gulp and gulp between mouthfuls of pancake and sweet red cherries and sharp pickles and thick pungent ham laden with mustard, and bite after bite of thick crusty bread and honey? I just ignored her – we both did – and gorged ourselves. We were too used to food being snatched away before we’d barely had five mouthfuls, and the plates being lifted away with ‘there won’t be enough to go round’, only to watch The Cow guzzle loads, and then tell Dad later we’d been greedy children and she’d only been able to save him a little. God, she was sickening. Maybe that’s what the witch was counting on. As it was, in our famished state we could barely eat half the food, and then we collapsed into the little beds upstairs, groaning with the pleasure of full stomachs.

  Never once did I think Dad shouldn’t take another wife. Yet, also, never once did I think he would. Everyone told him he should and he would nod, and say, ‘yes, a wife would be nice’ but then he’d always look off into the distance, and say ‘not yet. Not just yet.’ And things would go on as before. Once, I asked him what he’d like in a wife, and he said ‘Someone to cook, and s
omeone to sew. Someone to tell you stories, and worry when I’m not home.’ I hugged him, and Hansel, who’d been eavesdropping as usual, piped up ‘But Gretel can do all those things!’ And he just smiled at me, and said, yes, he knew, and I did them very well, and patted my head. I rolled my eyes - Hansel can be such an idiot sometimes – but Dad just smiled and whispered ‘cut him some slack; your brother is very young’ and went out swinging his axe. ‘I’m very young’, I muttered, ‘but I’m still not an idiot.’

  Having said that, it’s no fun being stuck in an iron cage with only spiders and ants for company. He’s an irritating little shit, but even Hansel didn’t deserve that. I’m not sure why Demelzina decided he should be the one to fatten up. ‘He looks just the sort!’ She screeched that first morning, dragging me into the yard ‘You’re as thin as my mop, but he’s got the makings of a little fatty! Always licking his plate, I bet,’ (it’s true, he was) ‘So, we’ll give him a good feed and then when he’s nice and plump – chop! There’ll be some nice cuts there!’ She pinched Hansel hard, and he wailed and shrank back in the cage, looking at me with horror. Great, I thought, this is all we need. ‘Don’t worry, brother, I’ll think of something’ I whispered. The witch, however, had very sharp hearing. She paused as she shuffled back into the cottage, and cried ‘That’s what they all say! Try as you may, you won’t get away’ and gave a cackle that made spittle fly everywhere. I rolled my eyes (you’ll note this is something I’ve perfected), and while Hansel sat miserably, rubbing his arm, I examined the cage. It looked pretty secure; I guessed the rust was just for effect. Shrugging, I followed the witch back indoors. I couldn’t think straight. To be honest my head was all over the place - I don’t think I’d come down from the previous night’s sugar rush. What I needed was a good strong cup of coffee.