Riley
Every time someone opens a storybook and reads the four magical words Once upon a time…, my granny gets eaten a few hours later. Boy, it sucks!
Glad that this morning’s staging of our play is over, I slip into Princess Cinderella’s castle and close the heavy door. The loud thud echoing off the high ceiling makes me cringe, and I quickly place a finger in front of my lips. “Shhh!”
Yes, doors actually listen. I believe they even talk, but that might just be a rumor Alice brought home from Wonderland.
I toe off my scruffy boots next to the coatrack. Their soles still bear half the forest after today’s adventure, and I don’t want to mess up this immaculate place. I slip off my yew bow and quiver from my shoulder. The twelve cedar arrows rattle inside as I hang both on a hook on the wall. One doesn’t waltz fully armed into a tea party—or at least that’s what they keep telling me. I push off my hood but leave the red cloak on.
Wide, marble stairs with golden handrails invite me to the other side of the great hall. An invitation I cannot refuse. I sprint up, taking two steps at a time, and turn left at a junction to a long corridor. My friends’ laughter drifting out from the parlor farther down tells me which room to enter.
Four princesses are seated around a neat, white coffee table with morning tea in delicate china cups before them. Once again, they are all dressed in marvelous, colorful gowns. I wave in greeting and then steer toward Snow-White. The princess with hair as black as a raven feather hates her name and once said she’d much rather be called something cool like Rocking Thunder. Ever since that day, we keep calling her Stormy.
I slump down next to her on the noble sofa with its gold-embroidered, blue cushions. Her white skirt accidentally catches beneath me. As she tries to tug it free, I help her by quickly lifting one side of my bottom. Then I pull up my legs and wrap my arms around my knees with my cloak tugged close, mimicking a stark, red iceberg floating among the royals.
Cindy slides a cup of strawberry tea across the table in front of me. “Hey, Riley, what rained on your parade?” Her porcelain face splits into a grin as she leans forward, briefly blocking the beams of sunlight shining into the warm room through the five tall windows. “Did the Wolf bite you on the ass again?”
Right, maybe what I said about Once upon a time before wasn’t entirely the truth. In some fairy tales, the girl actually knocks into a prince who kisses her, loves her, marries her, and gives her a giant closetful of gowns in his palace. At least, it’s like that with Snow-White and Cindy. In Bellina’s story, too. Dang it, Briar-Rose aka Rory doesn’t even have to do a whole lot for her happily ever after. Toward the end of her tale, she just lies down for a short nap, and Prince Phillip takes care of the rest. All my friends get kissed and fall in love, over and over again. Not me.
“Man! Do you even know how lucky you girls are? I want me a prince, too!” I pick up the chipped cup on its saucer. “At least they don’t bite.”
Bellina hides a snicker behind a cookie, and a light flush appears around her nose. Okay, so maybe her prince does, but I don’t believe the Beauty minds.
“Well, well.” With a curious gleam in her green eyes, Rory tosses her wavy, golden hair behind her shoulders. She sits up straighter to face me. “Didn’t you always say that boys were good for nothing and you weren’t interested? When did you change your tune?”
Yeah, when? Must have happened sometime after slipping on the wet forest floor in the dead of night because some weird child in a faraway land called The Reality couldn’t wait until the morning to read their new storybook. Then a monstrous wolf almost ate me at dawn because he was still hungry after being forced to give back my gran. The new fang marks on my left butt cheek will shine for a week!
“The whole fairy tale thing is so unfair.” I sniff the tea and pray I won’t shoot to the ceiling like a giant. Things like that have occurred in this castle before, when the Caterpillar and the crazy Hatter were around for a visit. Ever since that crazy afternoon, I make sure to check the coatrack for a hat sized 10/6 or for a hundred pairs of tiny shoes in the corner before touching any darn food in this place!
“Out of us all, I got stuck with the short stick.” After the first cautious sip of tea, I squeeze my eyes shut and wait a panicky second, but nothing happens. Phew! Relaxing, I drink some more. “I want my own happy ending. A real one! With a real prince who will kiss me and love me and take me to his castle.” I stir the tea with a silver spoon and watch as the red-tinted water swirls around. “Not a guy who smells like a wet dog in the rain and prefers to crawl into my granny’s bed instead of mine.”
Not that I would ever want Jack in my bed. Ew! A spooky shiver travels down my spine at the image. Okay, he actually is some kind of gorgeous. At least on days when he doesn’t grow a wolf skin and put me on his menu for dessert. But those days are rare. And even then, he isn’t right for kissing or marrying. He simply lacks the manners for that. And, evidently, the crown.
“So you think you can only find romance with a prince?” Briar-Rose smothers a yawn with her hand. She, too, had to act out her tale today, and is obviously still suffering from the aftermath of her sleep curse—even though the spell is broken. “What makes you believe they’re any better with love stuff than other guys?”
“Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?” I put my cup down, nail her with a meaningful stare, and then tick off my next points on my fingers. “You have a prince. Stormy has a prince. Cindy has a prince, and Bellina has one, too.” Fair enough, Bellina’s Prince Dominic might be a little hairy at times, but he is one of the blue-blooded thugs in Fairyland, after all.
Snow-White puts some honey into her tea and daintily licks the rest off the spoon. “And in your eyes, love comes with a royal title and a palace? I mean, there are thousands of tales in the world, and not all have a prince in them.”
“Exactly what I’m trying to say!” I fold my arms over my chest. “Peter Pan is no prince, and Wendy is still single. Duh!”
“Hm. Your logic is unassailable.” Cindy taps a finger against her bottom lip and cuts a look at the ceiling. “Alice never warmed up to the Hatter, either.”
There we go! “And you all know Dorothy, who gets a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, and a Cowardly Lion? She keeps clicking her heels together to go back to Kansas. Every time.” I make a stern face. “Hence…no prince, no romance.”
“Wait a moment. What about Aladdin and Jazzie?” Rory counters, making me snap my head to her. “Aladdin is a thief and, obviously, they can’t keep their hands off each other.”
“Naah. Jazzie’s a princess,” I point out. “In their tale, the roles were just switched.”
“True.” Snow-White scratches her chin. “Jazz always wore the pants, long before she even met Al.”
“You might be onto something here,” Bellina supports me now, pointing a finger my way as she narrows her eyes. Then the Beauty gets up from her chair and paces back and forth in front of us. Her heels clack on the stone floor underneath the hoop of her marvelous purple dress. She can never sit still for long, especially not when she’s pondering. “The list of royal love stories in this country is long. Even the red-haired fish girl—” She whirls around to us. “What’s her name again?”
“Avalyn,” we all groan and cut her tired glances. For some stupid reason, she constantly forgets the mermaid’s name.
“Ah, yes. So she gets Prince Sebastian, right? Ann-Marie marries the Frog Prince. And Rapunzel is a kidnapped princess herself.”
“See?” I raise my eyebrows and gesture wildly with my arms. “Love only happens among royals. Nobody has ever read about a girl from the woods falling for a verminous pooch.”
Rory lifts her nose, disgustedly pushing away her cake and wiping some crumbs off her pink dress. “Ugh, you think Jack has fleas?”
I shrug it off. “Sometimes, I see him scratching his ear with his hind leg when he’s in wolf form, but that might be out of habit.” He actually does it a lot when he’s nervous. And he always gets like that before the ending of our story. I probably would, too, if the Huntsman was going to cut my belly open with a knife to free my latest lunch.
Ignoring our speculation about Jack’s hygiene, Princess Cinderella leans across the coffee table and pats my hand. “So, not all fairy tales end with love. That’s just life.”
“Yeah, but if they don’t, at least those characters get to do some cool stuff in their stories.” I grab my ankles, my feet still flat on the couch. “Take Hansel and Gretel, for instance. No romance, but an entire house full of candy to crunch. What do I get? A small piece of cake and wine, and I’m not even allowed to eat it because the basket is for Granny.”
Cindy tips her head to the side and presses her lips together. I don’t know how to interpret her look. Five seconds later, she grabs a platter from the table, holds it out to me, and lifts one eyebrow in hope. “Macaron?”
I drop my forehead to my knees and groan.
*
“Don’t hang your head, sweetie.” Cindy hugs me tightly in the great hall after our tea. The other girls left an hour ago, so I had some time alone with my bestie to swoon over the hotties in the latest issue of The Character Magazine and read about the most recent escapades in Fairyland. Delivery weasels tend to get distracted in the woods and misplace parcels. I’m missing two months’ worth of issues, so I have to rely on Cindy these days to provide my weekly celebrity fix. Her charming husband picks up the magazine for her from the Magical Press each Tuesday, right after it releases.
Another advantage of having a prince at hand. Just saying.
While I tie my boots, Cindy squats down in front of me and places her hand under my chin to make me look into her starlit eyes. “You know you didn’t get the worst deal with your story.”
That’s easy for her to say. As soon as this heavy door closes behind me, she’ll skip into the study, drag Prince Jason into the living room, and cuddle up to him in front of the home cinema.
The only thing I can cuddle up with is the old blanket on my couch. Or Jack Wolf, who recently ate my grandmother. I prefer the blanket.
But I give a quick nod anyway and smile courageously at my friend. As we both rise again, she holds out my bow and quiver.
“You’re right.” It’s not the worst story in the forest, just one without romance. “I guess I could be a green witch and get squashed by a house at the end of my tale, right?” That would really screw up my day.
She laughs, but I see the shivers spreading over her bare arms at the mention of the Wicked Witch of the West. That woman is a grumpy old hag, and not only in her story.
“Come to the market with me tomorrow?” Cindy changes the subject as I turn and open the door.
“Sure,” I call over my shoulder and wave goodbye as I leave Castle Grove, the home of most of my princess friends. “Meet me by the fountain!”
She didn’t actually have to ask me to come. Strolling through the market of Grimwich with my best friend on Mondays is as much a non-changeable tradition as the stories we each play out. Even though she’s generally the only one who buys anything. But that’s because I don’t have a chamber filled with treasure to spend on excessive luxury. I don’t own a castle, remember?
But it’s okay. The forest provides whatever I need to survive: food, wood, and animal skin. The rough life in the wilderness has turned me into a formidable archer, and I’m excellent at fending for myself. Besides, Granny is a great tailor. Sometimes, she designs me new clothes. Simple garments made of linen or the leathers I bring her after skinning my prey.
This pretty, hooded cloak is one of the first things she ever made for me. Apparently, a fairy gave her the red satin many, many years ago, and it’s supposed to always protect me from harm. I broke my wrist last summer…so much for the protection. Still, I don’t ever take it off. Well, I do. To sleep. But that’s it.
It’s why they call me Red Riding Hood.
Unfortunately, shoes are something I do have to spend money on. I look down at my feet as I tramp through the Wood of 1000 Dawns. These boots are barely two years old, practically brand new. Certainly good enough to walk another decade in. To raise the money for this pair, I had to paint all the white roses in the Queen of Hearts’ wondrous garden red. No shit. Not a very grateful job.
Behind a line of hazel bushes up ahead, I see the straw roof of my cozy little hut. A thin trail of smoke from the fire I made this morning still puffs from the chimney. A warm feeling floods me at the sight. There’s hardly any interesting booty for thieves to steal in my house, so the square windows stay open all summer long. As I approach, a robin, usually nested under the roof, greets me from the window ledge with a happy chirp. I pluck a raspberry from the shrub winding up the pole of the porch as I walk up the steps and place it in front of my tiny friend with a smile. “Enjoy, sweetie.”
No matter how much I sometimes wish for a different ever after for myself, I always take in a deep, happy breath when I cross the threshold of my cabin. Sure, there might not be a marble staircase leading to floors above—heck, there isn’t even a second floor—but this is home to me.
I leave my boots by the door and flop onto my comfy couch. A few years ago, Tinker Bell had talked me into adopting her discarded flat screen when she moved into an apartment in Grimwich with Thumbelina, Humpty Dumpty, and Godfather Death. I guess she felt a little sorry for me when she saw my puny place.
With no satellite reception this deep in the woods, a TV just sounded like a bad joke. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. You should never hurt a pixie’s feelings. Very bad idea, trust me. It was a nice gesture, though, so now the device just collects dust in the cellar until she notifies me of a visit—which isn’t all too often, thank the fairies. That thing is darn heavy and quite cumbersome to carry up the stairs.
Lacking the common luxuries of the people in town, I pick up my alternative entertainment from the coffee table: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The book is property of the Grimwich Library and, yikes, that boy has a tough story to act out in his universe.
I skim through the volume to page 302 because that’s where I stopped reading last night when the urge to go out and play with Jack set in. Scooting deeper into the cushions, I pull up my knees and lean the book against my thighs, starting with the first paragraph on that page. Oh, Harry, what kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?
After the second paragraph, I close the book and put it back on the coffee table. The early afternoon sun shines like a bright smile through the window, right into my face. I get up and carefully pack a bottle of red wine and a marble cake into my neat, woven basket. An embroidered doily goes over it to cover the items from nosy birds or other hungry animals in the forest.
Slamming my shoes together outside helps shake off most of the dried dirt from earlier. I slip them back on, strap my bow and quiver to my back, close the door, and walk off along the narrow path through the trees that leads to Granny’s. All the way, I hum a sweet tune from my childhood. Only when I start skipping, happily swinging the basket beside me, do I suddenly feel like I’ve done this all before and realize what the hell is going on.
Skittering to a stop, I lift my face to the sky and shout at the treetops, “Are you kidding me?!” Holy storybook, it hasn’t even been twelve hours since I last walked that way and started the tale with Jack and Granny. They can’t be serious, expecting me to act it out a second time today.
That I didn’t notice what was happening straightaway isn’t unusual. When the familiar pull of the story sets in, it’s always hard to tell which are my real thoughts and which belong to the tale. There was one time I didn’t figure out I was in the game until Jack snapped at me from Granny’s bed and almost ripped my cloak apart.
That was a bit of a rude awakening.
Because the call is so very intense, the only thing I can do is keep walking. But, dang it, I refuse to hum the stupid song and decide to meet Jack with a sinister expression instead. I know where to find him. Right down this path at the crossroads. He’ll be leaning against the signpost, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, one leg angled, and his foot flat against the pole. His dark eyes will glint through the wild, multihued strands of black and brown hair falling over his forehead as he watches me draw closer. He’ll wait a few seconds, and then he’ll crack a tiny, lopsided smile. Because he always does. He’s done so for as long as I can remember.