The Forgotten Fairytales

by Angela Parkhurst

  A book no thicker than two inches sat on the glass table beside Danielle. The spine cracked open and Danielle retrieved a quill. The thick, black feather drooped down, showing its age.

  “This quill dates back to the beginning of all fairy tales and was passed down from generation to generation to the authors of our lives.” Danielle and the girls stared at the pen as if it were a god to be worshipped, when really it should’ve been tossed out. Who kept quills for so long? Better yet, who even used a quill anymore? They were ancient. Except my dad. I was pretty sure he had one.

  “These are our seven ancestors. The ones who started it all.” Danielle motioned to the mural behind them.

  To me, there was nothing different. It was like every other painting hung around the school. But to them, it was so much more. The faces of seven men stared back at me. All emotionless, yet stern. Their expressions held zero joy for men who created fairy tales. The girls murmured in a language I didn’t understand, bowing their heads to the seven men painted above.

  Danielle lifted the quill in the air and their murmurs grew louder. A layer of sweat coated my palm and my leg jittered. Without anyone touching it, the quill floated to Beth. She sucked in a breath as the tip pressed into her skin. The scent of burning flesh rose into the air, as did smoke…from her. Ohmigosh. The quill was carving words into her skin.

  It didn’t take long. Less than a minute later, Beth held her arm out. Crimson liquid dripped from the carvings, spelling out the name, BEAUTY. Shut.The.Front.Door.

  The quill danced from arm to arm, revealing their identities—Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty, Tinkerbell, Jasmine. Each girl took the pain as if they deserved it, as if it marked them as the person they’d soon become. Afterward, pride washed over their tired, pained eyes.

  “We suffer unpleasantries to show our creators love and appreciation. And now, you will, as they are the author of your life too, Norah. Today, you’ll learn your true identity. This identity will be your new life. Today, you become reborn.”

  Reborn? This sounded like some freaky cult BS.

  Danielle stepped off the pedestal and walked toward me, the quill laying flat over her palms. No way. No way I’d let her get close to me with that thing.

  Before I had the chance to move, the two guards near the door advanced toward me. Their strong hands forced me down in the seat. My throat tensed, like a large golf ball was lodged inside. This wasn’t happening.

  “It’ll only hurt for a second, Norah.” A devious grin wiped over Danielle’s lips. “We owe the blood to our creators.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t do blood well, or pain, so we need to…”

  The quill leapt from her hand, taking on a life of its own. Unable to register its speed, the tip punctured my skin. I yelped and thrashed up, but the guards were stronger, holding me firm in the seat. Tears seeped from my eyes. The needle tore through the flesh of my forearm, burning me like a fiery branding iron. The tip traveled, tracing different letters into my skin. A shriek soared from my mouth, a sound so unfamiliar to me, but so was the blood, darker than I’d seen in my life, pouring from the trail left behind. Except the blood wasn’t just red, it had metallic qualities to it, glittering down my arm like a sparkling waterfall,

  The quill left, but the writing didn’t stop. The letters came and went, changing like the symbols of a slot machine. The faster they changed the more the pain increased. My teeth gritted together, a string of curse words flowed from my lips. Panting, I tried to grasp for air, but I couldn’t. The left side of my face numbed.

  Finally, like a clock striking twelve, everything froze. My vision blurred, swaying back and forth. Voices hummed like a train far, far away. The people who once held me back were gone. I gasped for a breath and stared at my arm. Nothing. No name, no words, zilch.

  And then everything fell black.

  A string of voices barreled into my head at once, along with a constant throbbing. Please let this be a dream. This had to be a dream.

  A clammy hand touched mine and I flinched, my eyes popped open, preparing to scream as Danielle stared back at me. Her pale blue eyes were glossy and weak. A trace of unhappiness overtook her face and for a second, she showed me a weakness I hadn’t been sure existed within her.

  “Thank God.” She let out a breath. On the other side of her was Pearl. “Go get the nurse. Tell them she’s awake.” Pearl scampered, her feet soundless on the floor.

  I had no clue where I was besides on a bed in some kind of clinic. Across from the bed was a long counter, resembling something you’d see in a doctor’s office.

  “Where am I?” Chills bit at my skin, the pounding in my head refused to subside. “What happened?”

  “You’re in the infirmary. I’m afraid you passed out,” Danielle bit her lip. “This has never happened before.”

  Using the edge of the bed for support, I sat up. Nothing made sense. My memories came in flashes like a dream and then it hit me. Jerking my arm up, I stared at the blank skin, as clean as a painter’s fresh canvas.

  The door opened and the nurse entered. She sanitized her hands and Danielle shifted out of the way, cowering in the corner like a worried parent, though I had a sinking feeling she was more worried about me not having a name on my arm than my health. She didn’t stick around long. Once the nurse ordered me to sit up, Danielle darted out the door.

  The cool, round end of the stethoscope pressed against my back. “Breathe.”

  One breath hurt, not too bad, but something felt off. My chest felt heavy, my body like I’d been beaten up.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Weak.”

  “That’s to be expected. Your body went into shock. Health-wise you’re fine. You may experience lightheadedness, headaches, weakness, and possibly labored breathing. The best medicine is rest and fluids.”

  I nodded, soaking in her words as best I could. “Can I go now?”

  “Not just yet.” She scribbled on the paper and left the room, closing the door all but an inch. I sat back and tried to breathe through the steady pain. God, I wished Dad were here. He’d tell me a horrible joke that made no sense as he always messed up the punch line. His brows would tense and his left eye always did this funky squinty thing as he tried to think of what the right word was. For someone who wrote stories, his memory of hearing them sucked. He never could quite get the stories right at night, mixing Goldilocks and the Three Bears with The Three Little Pigs.

  “I don’t understand. The quill never fails,” Danielle’s hushed voice pierced the quiet air through the partially opened door. My eyes flew open.

  “Are you sure the quill touched her?” a woman whispered back. “There’s no proof.” Lifting the sleeve of my white blouse, I stared at my forearm. A clean canvas. Untouched. Yet the pain still lingered.

  “Letters scribbled up and down but didn’t form any words, and then it disappeared.” Fear crippled Danielle’s usual confidence.

  I leaned forward in the bed and poked my head past the curtain to the left where Danielle, Madrina, and two others—a man and woman—stood.

  “You don’t think... You don’t think she’s her do you?” the woman asked, her hair the colors of strawberry shortcake, and skin chalk pale. From the pants suit to her chunky heels, everything she had on was pink. Color overload. “We’ve never had an Unknown before.”

  “This is quite the travesty. The council had their suspicions when they received word of her arrival. Now this?” The man tapped the end of his black cane on the ground. His back faced me, so I saw nothing but his short, round body. He, too, was in a black suit. “This will not please them. Not. One. Bit. I, for one, do not want to be in the way of Queen Nyssah’s wrath when she learns of the girl.”

  A breath caught in my throat and I ducked back, my heart hammering in my chest so hard, I wondered if I’d pass out again. There was a queen? Not that I should have been surprised.

  “It’s too early to tell who she is. We needn’t worry Queen Nyssah till the
n. Agreed?” Madrina cleared her throat and they muttered yes.

  “And the other one, the sister. What is she to all this?” The pink woman asked.

  Danielle let out a low chuckle. “She is nothing I can’t handle.”

  Madrina glared at Danielle, as if she should have kept her mouth shut. “The sister is not a problem. Now, if you’ll be on your way. This is neither the time nor place to discuss this further.”

  Chunky heels beat against the floor and somewhere nearby a door slammed shut. Danielle cursed and Madrina assured her everything would be fine. But the part of my brain that wasn’t foggy told me it wouldn’t be. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. In a world of fairy tale characters, I couldn’t be labeled. Worse than that, I had a sinking feeling no one would accept that truth.

  The eraser tip of my pencil beat against the table as Professor Peach paraded in front of the class in her gown the shade of an orange creamsicle. I hadn’t heard a word she’d said all period, then again, a class titled, “The Art of Perfection” hardly held my attention to begin with.

  “How can she not have an identity?” Jen whispered to Danielle.

  Despite my refusal to believe this storybook mumbo-jumbo, the thought of being a nobody haunted me. Not that labels were my thing—jocks, cheerleaders, theatre freaks, band nerds, etc—but people always had one. It was their identity, what put them with people of similar interests. I guess I was always one of those people who thought everyone should be one family, minus the label. Who’s to say that jocks and theatre peeps couldn’t have similar interests? I mean, I watched Glee. They intermingled. Granted, there were slushies involved but still. It could happen. But there was a difference now. I didn’t fit anywhere.

  For a moment, I wondered if that’s what April felt like all the time. An unknown. Unwanted. What a miserable feeling to have every day.

  After the nurse released me yesterday, I skipped the rest of my classes and went to sleep, waking up this morning to Danielle ripping the covers off and insisting I get up. I almost hit her. I am not a morning person, even less after yesterday.

  Walking through the halls, people stared at me like I had seven heads. Even now, in class, all the stupid princess posse did was obsess. And Jen was the worst, popping her gum and talking trash about me. I was seconds from jumping over the desk and strangling her.

  “Maybe she’s a candlestick,” Jen grinned. “That’d explain why she has no shape.”

  The tips of my nails dug into my palms. Then the bell rang, and I let out the breath I’d been holding for the last ten minutes. I had plenty of shape. My hips were my favorite feature.

  I swung my bag over my shoulder and walked out the door and into the courtyard. Sneakers skidded across the floor, people ran toward the cafeteria. Where do I belong now? Not that I thought I had a place, but in a school where people were put into groups by their rank and classification and me, being the one who belonged nowhere, I found the task of sitting at a table more daunting than ever before. The truth was I didn’t want to sit with Danielle.

  “Well, if it isn’t the girl who can’t be named.”

  The irritation Danielle and her posse gave me was nothing compared to Wolf. A lazy smile played at the edge of his mouth. Gosh, he had that whole smoldering, grunge-look down to a science. When was the last time he shaved?

  “You again?”

  Waves of brown hair fell along his face as he tipped his head back and soaked up the slight sunshine.

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “No.” I grinned, latching onto the strap of my bag as I walked over to him, like a magnet being pulled forward without any control. “Then again, no one stalks me but you.”

  He barked a laugh, one that made chills run up my spine and down my arms. It was deep and full. “What can I say? You’re kind of like a science experiment gone wrong.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

  In the time it took me to blink, he closed the space between us and latched on to my arm, turning it over to my bare forearm. His warm skin hummed against mine, heightening all my nerves with one single touch. I sucked in a sharp breath, unable to back up, though I should have.

  “It’s true,” he murmured. His thumb trailed over my bare flesh where the quill had burned me. There was no trace of the damage, no trace of the nightmare that was yesterday.

  “They’ve never not classified someone.” His eyes bolted to mine. The flecks of gold brightened, dimming the scarlet ring around his iris. He cocked his head to one side like a puppy. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not anything.”

  “I think we both know that’s not true.”

  Nothing came out when I opened my mouth. No sound, no air. The world slowed, dimming around us as we stared at one another, connecting on a level far away, making little to no sense. For a moment, I wondered if we were speaking. My heart surged forward, beating inside my chest at a pace I’d never experienced.

  The conversation outside the infirmary replayed once more, as it had last night and most of the morning. I wanted to ask Wolf what it meant, but why? We didn’t know each other beyond our strange encounters. Yet in that brief moment in time, my heart expanded, ready to spill the secrets and fears of my soul.

  I was ready to lay it all out, like two old friends catching up, but we weren’t friends and we definitely didn’t know one another before this school. Yet something called out to me, tugging at my heart strings, begging for more. His thumb trailed over my skin, leaving behind a warm, tingling sensation.

  Blinking fast, Wolf released me and stepped back, blowing out a heavy breath. He blinked again, confusion tightening his brows as we stared at each other. But this time was different. He looked at me unsure of the moment that had passed between us.

  “Hey you.”

  The voice sounded like it came through a tunnel. My hand, which once held a tight fist, loosened, unable to keep the tension any longer. I cocked my head to the side where Finn stood, staring back and forth at Wolf and I. Even though Wolf had stepped back, we were still close.

  “Wolf.” Finn nodded politely and turned back to me. “You okay, Norah? You look kind of pale.”

  My breaths came out slow and shaky. Without a good-bye, Wolf stalked off, into the trees outlining the courtyard. “Yeah. I’m fine.” A little too much bite in my tone.

  Finn blanched, and weakness spread through me like a vicious virus. So, so weird.

  “Was he bothering you?”

  “No, we were talking.” I pushed the weirdness aside and smiled at Finn. I hadn’t seen him all day and until now, I forgot how lovely of a smile he had, like sunshine wrapped in two dimples.

  “Okay. Do you have lunch plans?”

  “Not at all.”

  His smile widened. “Come with me.”

  I followed him down one of the paths leading away from the school. Small chirps and the gentle sound of wind slipping through wet leaves relaxed me, reminding me of better days. Summer, spring, sunshine.

  We stopped in front of weathered building, missing a roof. The walls were jagged and broken, nothing but leftover parts of what used to be. I imaged the structure would have been round, almost tower like, but not more than one story. The bricks were a soft beige, mold and dead foliage stuck between the rotting layers.

  Finn stepped forward, brushing away the mass of vines and wilted leaves to unveil a wooden door. The muscles in his back flexed through his sweater as he pushed the door open. Once more the image of him shirtless came to mind. Hopefully they were wrong about him and his drinking. He didn’t seem drunk to me and I had yet to smell alcohol on his breath.

  The garden was more brown than green, the skeleton of something that had once been beautiful. The stale breeze stirring the dead leaves was the only sound. No birds, no insects buzzing, no clatter of students, even the noise of my shoes sinking into the dry soil sounded out of place in the silence.

  “How did
you find this?” I asked.

  “My mom and her friends used to hide here and exchange their deepest secrets. This was the only place in the castle no one watched.”

  Finn walked to one wall and swept aside a mass of vines, exposing the names carved into the stone. EM + NAT BEST FRIENDS.

  A grim smile spread over my lips. It must’ve been nice, having something to remind him of his mom. I had nothing except my reflection in the mirror. Hints of the genetic makeup of a person I never knew. Leaning back, I slid down the wall and exhaled. What a great friendship that must’ve been, one so permanent you felt the need to carve it in stone. I never had that.

  “This has always been a secret of mine. “ Finn sat beside me. His attention was off in the distance; following the vines to the small opening at the top where I imagined birds flew in and out of during the spring. “I come here when I want to escape, clear my head.”

  My eyes closed and I imagined myself lying on the beach in Monte Carlo, sipping some fruity concoction from a fancy glass while flipping through magazines I didn’t understand. What I wouldn’t give to be there again, to be anywhere with my dad. I missed him so, so much.

  “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “How do you know something’s bothering me?” I asked.

  “I can tell. Spill it.”

  “Besides the whole classification drama?” I shifted onto the ground and stared at the wall, focusing in on the cracks in the foundation. “My sister is ignoring me and I’m dying to talk to my Dad. I went to the office this morning to sign up on the call log, but they told me I had to come back after classes. This is the longest we’ve gone without a single word.”

  “You two are close?”

  “He’s always been my best friend.” A chasm spread through my chest, opening wider the more I thought of him.

  His thick brows furrowed. “You didn’t have friends back home?”

  “We moved a lot.” It was hard to make real friends when I wasn’t around long enough to invest. I had friends, yeah, but someone I’d call a best friend, someone I’d carve into stone? Never. April ignored me ninety-percent of the time, lost in her own little world. When we did start at a new school, I didn’t have problems making friends; I had problems keeping them.