I remember the sky, performing the witch’s trick in reverse. It’s easier than calling weight into my bones, stitching my feet to the ground. I let the aching wind knife open spaces inside me, let desire suck me upward, and fill those wounds with blue.
I’ll show you what you’ve always been.
I know what the witch meant by those words. She didn’t mean this—wings snapped wide, drinking the sky. She meant the selfishness, the desire that keeps me flying, that makes it easier to take to the sky than remember the land.
George’s office has its own balcony, the prick. But it lets me bypass his personal assistant, and gives me the satisfaction of knocking on the glass, and giving him half a heart attack as I change.
He slides open the door, but blocks me, keeping me out of his office, which smells of expensive leather furniture, and Turkish rugs, hand-picked by an overpaid design consultant.
My brother doesn’t look happy to see me. And why should he? I give him a big old grin, just to spite him.
“How ya been, Georgie?”
The frown lines around his mouth deepen. They’re the only lines on his face. Botox, or good luck? Even with November coming on, his skin is perfectly tan, too. If his lips weren’t pressed tight over them, his teeth would likely show even and white. George’s hair is still dark, only the faintest threads of silver here and there, probably carefully worked in by a stylist for effect.
“What do you want?”
“Do you miss it?” The words fly out of my mouth, not at all what I meant to say. I’ve never been too good at humility. Circe was the only one who could make me beg.
But with my big brother, instead of getting on my knees to grovel, all that comes out is bile.
“Bran.” He manages to make my name sound like a warning.
I hold up my hands, peace. “It’s Liselle.”
What happens to George’s face when I say our sister’s name is complicated. Guilt, yes, and some kind of brotherly love. But the affection is more remembered than felt, and the corners of his lips turn down in distaste. Liselle is an embarrassment to his current life. She’s a reminder of feathers, squabbling after garbage, of filth and mites, and being no better than a rat with wings.
I wonder, even once, in all these years, has he checked on her? Invited her for a family dinner? Stopped by just to see how she’s doing? Does he even know where she lives? Do any of them? Among all of my brothers, is anyone looking out for Liselle besides me?
“Make it quick,” George glances at his watch; it’s heavy and expensive, like everything else in this room. “My driver will be here with the car at precisely six o’clock. I’ve never had to make him wait, and I don’t intend to start today.”
“Liselle is dying. She needs a new liver,” I say.
George’s face goes through its complicated range of emotions again. Finally, he settles on impatience. “What am I supposed to do about it?”
“She needs money for a doctor, you lousy shit. It’s the least you could do.” I clench my jaw on the rage.
“I think you’ve got a lock on that.” George’s lips twitch, but there’s genuine pain in his eyes. He must remember the raspberries, too.
Satisfied he’s won, no matter how hollow the victory, George turns on his heel. I follow him into his office, and he retrieves his checkbook from a desk drawer. He comes back with the check in his hand, but plucks it back before my fingers close, and a cruel little smile turns up the corner of his mouth.
“She’s still going to need a compatible donor, you know.”
Shit. Of course, I didn’t think of that. Smug, George puts the check into my palm, and folds my fingers over it.
“Good luck.”
It isn’t about Liselle for him, it’s about me. What would I give up to save her? George and the rest, they forsook the sky, and now they’re done as far as they’re concerned. They paid their dues. In their minds, they don’t owe Liselle seven years of her life back; it’s enough to know they didn’t steal another seven, or more. They didn’t waste her blood, and stitch closed her mouth with silence for the rest of her life. Only I chose to stay a bird. In the face of a sister’s love, only I chose the sky.
“Asshole.”
The word doesn’t wipe the smirk from George’s face. Still, I leave it trailing behind me as I slip the check into my pocket, step onto the balcony, and take wing.
“What would you give,” the witch asks, “to have them back again?”
To each of us seven brothers, she asked what we wanted. Of Liselle, she asks what she can take away. And as she asks it, the witch looks at me.
If I speak now, I can save my sister, but it would mean giving up the sky. The witch’s penny, her copper secret, lies heavy on my tongue. I should change, shed feathers, grab my sister’s hand, and take her far away from here. I wouldn’t be able to fly anymore, but we’d both be able to run.
This is what the witch meant by freedom. Freedom to choose cruelty over kindness. Freedom to choose my heart over Liselle’s. This is freedom. It knifes me open, and I fill the wound with the taste of wind, and the blue of the sky. I keep my feathers, and hold my tongue.
Liselle’s mouth forms an “O,” her breath steaming in the air. She trembles, her eyes wide and frightened, her skin winter pale. The summer girl is there, as she looks at each of us in turn—seven dirty birds ranged around her feet. I watch the ice close in; I watch her drown.
“Anything,” Liselle says, “I’ll give anything.”
“Hmm.” Circe looks disappointed as she steps back.
Did she hope for Liselle to fight, to refuse, and demand power of her own? The witch’s lightning-struck eyes seem to say that Liselle could have been so much more. Of all of us, Liselle might actually have been worthy of the witch’s gift, and she declined.
“This is what you must do to save them,” the witch says.
She puts her lips against Liselle’s ear. I feel that whispered-hot breath against my own skin. I cannot weep, only let out a mournful pigeon’s sob. Liselle’s fingers curl, tightening against her palm, but she nods.
Circe puts her hand against Liselle’s throat. Liselle looks up, her eyes going wider still. When the witch lowers her hand, Liselle puts her fingers against her lips, not to stop her voice slipping away, but to seal it inside. The witch didn’t take anything from our sister, save a promise. Liselle could speak any time, if she chose.
Choice: That’s the witch’s gift. And her curse. Giving you what you already have, taking what you willingly give. Showing you what you are inside your skin.
When Liselle lowers her hands, already her eyes are turning dark, ice creeping around the edges toward the center of everything. Seven brothers, seven years; no matter what it takes, she will set us free.
And so, after seven years of silence, Liselle comes back to Central Park with her pricked fingers and nettle shirts, just as the witch asked. Seven years of weight drags at her bones and frost-dulls her eyes. She is pale and ghost-thin. Seven years bound to the earth while her brothers drank the sky.
Even in these feathered bodies, we are still her brothers, and she knows us still. But I barely recognize her. Where is the little girl who ran with us in the sun, who kissed our wounds, and fed us raspberries from her thorn-pricked hands? It is already too late for her, I tell myself. There is nothing left to save.
Liselle casts the nettle shirts, stitched with her silence and her pain, into the air. They snag feathers, pulling my brothers to earth one by one. They scream with the change, cry out in agony, and weep. Liselle weeps, too, tears rolling from eyes like ink and ice. But she makes no sound. She puts a hand over her mouth, and holds all the sorrow in as her nettles tear my brothers raw, and they change.
Then there is only one shirt left. Liselle turns to me, and through the sorrow, I see the beginning of a smile. After this, she will be free. All the pain, all the silence, will be worth it, and she’ll have her brothers back again.
Sunlight comes to break through the c
louds. She tosses the last shirt into the air, and I snap my wings wide and fly as fast as I can. Instead of catching me, the nettles sail past me, and hit the ground.
Sometimes, in my memory of that day, I collide with Liselle’s voice, winging back to her like a bird. The force of my betrayal shatters it in the air; it breaks, but never her promise. We are each bound to our choice—me, to my freedom; Liselle to her silence.
There’s no sound, of course. No cry of rage from Liselle. As I spiral up, I see the ice finally cover her eyes, sealing away the summer girl. I beat my wings, lifting farther and farther away from her, fleeing the gift she tried to give me—staying drunk and in love with the sky.
My brothers, crouched bloody on the ground, feathers in their hair, and nettles buried in their skin, stare at me wide-eyed. I see shock, anger, not for Liselle, but for themselves, because they weren’t clever and cruel enough to hold onto the witch’s gift, the witch’s curse.
Flying away from George, the sky soothes me, as always. Like a sister’s touch, a hand on a fevered forehead, an encouraging smile at just the right time. The witch took all that away from me; broke me. Or, I threw it away. I gave up Liselle and everything—traded laughter and the taste of raspberries for blood-copper sex, for cinnamon and wine. For the freedom that was always mine.
And Liselle paid the price.
I could keep flying, leave George to his smugness and Liselle to her dying. She doesn’t want my help anyway. I wouldn’t let her save me; why should I expect anything different from her?
Below me, the city smears bright, red spattering the pavement where brakes slam. Horns blare. Impatient men and women shout. Babies cry. How does Liselle subsist among so much noise?
From the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the witch’s tower. Fourteen years later, and it’s unchanged—a needle of emerald, daring the sky. It glints in the setting sun.
I could go to Circe. I could beg. I tried it once before, and it gained me nothing. After I refused my sister’s gift, I fled to the witch, sobbing, and asked her to give Liselle back her voice again.
“Would you give up the sky?” she asked me.
I couldn’t answer her, as though she had stolen my voice, too.
“Then how can you ask her to give up her promise? Her heart? Her silence?”
And today, my answer would be the same.
Suddenly, the witch’s tower is in front of me, as though my memories have called me back to her. I snap my wings wide to avoid striking the glass. Blood and feathers, a broken body falling from the sky.
What would you give to have her back again?
Summer sunshine. Liselle’s smile. Her fingers pricked by thorns and smeared red with berries, instead of pricked by nettles and red with blood.
I chose once, I could choose again. I could break my body against the glass. I’m not a card-carrying organ donor, but could a doctor refuse a dying man’s last wish?
I bank away from the witch’s tower, circling. Do I have the courage to fly straight, and not break away this time?
Is it too late? Can I pull Liselle from the ice?
My reflection wavers in the witch’s glass, as I turn again, skimming the tower so the window scrapes my feathers. Another thought occurs. George’s car arrives at his office at six o’clock every evening. How hard could it be for a dirty, gray pigeon to startle a driver, to cause an accident? Surely George has an organ donor card in that fat wallet of his, along with all his cash.
And if not, I still have six other brothers.
What would I give to have Liselle back again? My blood? Theirs?
I can’t give her back her voice. I can’t give her back the seven years and more I stole from her, but I can give her something better—the choice I had, to take my gift, or refuse. It’s the least I can do.
Liselle’s pain brings me back again, the way it always has. I let it carry me through the sky, wound around my useless heart. I wonder what Liselle will choose—accept a brother’s gift, or refuse it out of spite. I know what I would do, but I’m not Liselle. I can only hope that, in this sense at least, it isn’t too late, and her heart is still stronger than mine.
A. C. Wise was born and raised in Montreal and currently lives in the Philadelphia area. Her fiction has appeared in publications such as Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Apex, and The Best Horror of the Year Volume 4, among others. In addition to her fiction, Wise co-edits Unlikely Story, publishing three themed issues of unlikely fiction per year. You can find her online at www.acwise.net.
Retellings are a common approach to the art of writing fairy tales, but often the tales that get retold over and over are those that originated from the Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, or Charles Perrault. Other fairy tales exist without having necessarily been classified as such, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s because of the form they take, like Christina Rossetti’s famous poem, “Goblin Market,” from which I took my inspiration. When I first read that poem, it was clear to me that it was a fairy tale, but told in the form of a poem. In my retelling, I transport the poetry into a prose story form, and also attempt to illuminate a story hidden within Rossetti’s original version. That’s truly the most beautiful thing about retellings, I think: the way that one author can illuminate or reveal what the original author either couldn’t see or did their best to conceal.
Christopher Barzak
Eat Me, Drink Me, Love Me
Christopher Barzak
Days, weeks, months, years afterwards, when we were both wives with children of our own, our mother-hearts beset with fears and bound up in tender lives, I would call the little ones to me and tell them of my early prime, those pleasant days long gone of not-returning time. I would tell them of the haunted glen where I met the wicked goblin men, whose fruits were like honey to my throat but poison in my blood. And I would tell them of my sister, Lizzie, of how she stood in deadly peril to do me good, and won the fiery antidote that cured me of the goblin poison. Then, when my story came to end, I would join my hands to their little hands and bid them cling together, saying, “For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather; to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands.”
And when afterward the children went on their ways to create their imaginary worlds in the afternoon sunlight, or under the shadows of the willow tree at the bottom of the garden, I would weep, silently, from where I sat on my bench, for I had lied in telling them the story in that particular fashion. It was told in that way for their own good, really, with a sound moral embroidered within it, but none of it was true. Except the part about the fruit, and the goblins, and how my sister saved me from a terrible fate.
What I did not tell them was how my sister also destroyed me. A part of me, I should say. Perhaps the best part. But stories for children never hang a broken heart upon the mantle for all to witness and to fear. Instead it is a lively heart, and it is beautiful, isn’t it? Thudding away like a fine instrument! The stories one tells children always mean: Life will be happy, my dear ones, even though you will struggle within the world’s fierce embrace.
Perhaps I should begin with the day when everything truly went awry, the day Lizzie and I were walking down by the brook near our family’s farm on the outskirts of town, arguing, as we had been doing for much of that summer, and I first came to spot the goblin merchants as they erected their marketplace in the glen across the water. At the time I did not know it was a market they had set themselves to making in such a hidden place, outside of town, where the idea of patrons lining up to buy their goods was an unlikely gamble; but I could hear their voices float toward us, and when I looked over the swaying reeds by the gently flowing water, I could see their tables laden with fruit so lushly colored it shined like precious gems beneath the waning red sun.
It was their faces, though, that charmed me more than anything. Some wore the features of a red fox with sharp ears, charcoal-tipped. Others had lon
g white whiskers that drooped, like a cat who has just lapped a satisfying bowl of cream. One bore the snout of a pig, another peered through the round golden eyes of an insect. Before I could realize what I was doing, I had stopped my progress on the path and Lizzie, who now stood a few steps ahead of me, had turned back to say, “What is it, Laura? Why must you always allow your heart to flap as if it does not belong to you but is possessed instead by the wind?”
I wanted to laugh, and laugh I do now, when I think of Lizzie’s frustration over my displays of emotion. After all, we had been arguing that day about how it had been she who had stirred my emotions like a spoon of milk into a cup of tea. “How can you now wish that I not be stirred after having stirred me?” I had asked, just before I heard the goblin voices. But Lizzie had only shaken her head with disgust and refused to answer.
“What is it, Laura?” she asked again, with more concern this time, as I stood on the path by the river, entranced as if in a waking dream.
“Over there,” I said, lifting my chin in the direction of the goblin merchants as they set about their queer business. Now they had begun to play music, a bow on a fiddle, with a long reed pipe settled upon the lips of a rat-faced goblin, and as their notes weaved toward us, the other goblins began to dance, arm in arm, with sweat on their brows, circling one another, switching partners.
“They’re horrid,” said Lizzie. “Do not look at them, Laura. Come. Let us be on our way.”
On our way. I looked at Lizzie, who stood half-turned to me, half-turned in the direction of home, and blinked. It was not our way. It was her way. It had been her way for the entirety of the summer. It had been her way since she first kissed me in late spring, when everything was in riotous flower. It was she who held me close in our bed and told me not to say a word of this to her father, for it would break his heart to know his daughter and his oldest friend’s child had been so twisted from what should have been a sisterly bond, as they had raised me in my parents’ stead these last few years since my mother and father had died from consumption. It had been Lizzie who said, “We must never tell anyone what we have done, and we must stop ourselves from doing it ever again, Laura.”
Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Page 24