Fairly Wicked Tales

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and the situations are the product of the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, or historical events is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2014. All rights reserved.

Cover Design by atrtink.com

Photo by C. Simmonds Photography

Model: Elisabeth Lewis

Table of Contents

Song of Bones

by Vekah McKeown

Red

by Katie Young

Sweetheart,the Dream Is Not Yet Ended

by Gary W. Olson

Crumbs

by Adam Millard

A Thrice Spun Tale

by Suzi M

His Heart’s Desire

by Fay Lee

Little Beauty

by Matthew Hughes

Hare’s Tale

by Jay Wilburn

The Golden Goose

by Robert Holt

A Prick of the Quill

by Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi

Sacrificed

by Laura Snapp

The Glass Coffin

by Dawn Cartwright

The Price of the Sea

by David Matteri

A Blue Light Turned Black

by Wilson Geiger

Let Down Your Hair

by Eugenia Rose

The Wolf Who Cried Boy

by Armand Rosamilia

It Comes at Night

by JP Behrens

Bloodily Ever After

by Reece A.A. Barnard

Al-Adrian and the Magic Lamp

by Tais Teng

The Fisherman and His Wife

by Bennie Newsome

Rum’s Daughter

by Eric Bakutis

The Ash Maid’s Revenge

by Konstantine Paradias

Gingerbread

by Hal Bodner

Foreword

I remember reading fairy tales as a child, and then reading them as an adult, and then reading them to my own children. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the darker the tale, the more I enjoyed it. And when I found that some were based on true events—my love for them knew no bounds.

I’m not talking your Disney fairy tales here, I wanted Grimm Brothers. Give me the morbid, the twisted, and the gory. As an adult I discovered the wonderful books edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling:
Snow White, Blood Red
;
Ruby Slippers, Golden Thorns
; and
Black Thorn, White Rose
. I gobbled those books up like Hansel eats gingerbread. Fairy tales retold for adults, what a concept.

Fast forward to the present day and we are surrounded by fairy tales—from movies, to TV shows, to YA books, and more. So why add to it by doing yet another book of fairy tales? Because these tales are different. These tales give the villain a chance to tell his point of view. Or maybe the hero is telling the story, but the truth this time. The line between good and evil is often blurred, but we tell our tales so the hero is clearly in the right. Even when he’s wrong.

So sit back, relax, and let us tell you the real story. Once upon a scream …

Stacey Turner

July 2014

A Song of Bones

A retelling of “The Singing Bone”

Vekah McKeown

I beheld the last of the torches going out, the final procession line returning to the safety of the castle. Nobles and commoners alike, grim, all dressed in the monotone shades of mourning. My father, the King, had been laid to stately rest in the cemetery grounds outside the great Cologne Cathedral. He would not be buried within the tombs of its foundation, for like I, he was not of noble birth. Like him, the crown which rests upon my brow I’d won by righteousness instead of ancient bloodline.

I took no joy in this bauble, this badge of office purchased with the lives of noble men, though a tiny smile touched my lips. Glad was I for the black veil of mourning, shielding such a ghastly expression from view. The spectacle going on beneath me paled in comparison to the ungodly sin of vengeance coloring my countenance. To put it gently, torchlight from the honor guard was not the only bit of radiance to illuminate the darkness.

He had long since stopped screaming, the flames of righteousness silencing forevermore the cause of all my miseries. I would have preferred to hear him sing out his suffering for hours yet, reveling in the beautiful aria of his torment. Burning to death seemed less than he deserved, the terms of his punishment taken from my royal hand. Suffer not a witch to live, or so said the Holy Book clutched to my chest. He assisted in laying the curse upon the good soul who had been my father, and upon the King before him and his daughter, the woman who had become my stepmother when she married my father. Her hand had commissioned the crown I wore, and her hand had bathed it in unwitting blood.

Other fires rage in the distance, purging my land from the contaminated things which brought these atrocities upon us—the bones of my uncle being chief among them—anointed with salt and holy water before being kissed with flame. May he burn in eternal damnation for his part in this unholy action, as well; his ashes flung into the Rhine River to never find peaceful rest. I lay equal blame at his feet, blame he shares with the traitor burning beneath my balcony. It was my Uncle’s jealousy that brought ruin to all, and it is my justice that at last confined him to the grave.

Though perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, showing to you the end when I had not explained the beginning. This is not my story alone, though the only way I can explain such events is through my eyes. This is the story of family and the exploitation of a dream by unclean, selfish hands. I shall take you back to the beginning, to a time before a crown came between two brothers, to when a young girl rode atop her father’s shoulders, devoted to him and her belief he could do no wrong.

Once upon a time. Isn’t that the way such fables begin?

***

The name of the village to which I was born is not important. Small and quaint, pious as such villages ought to be. Possessed of a single well within the center of its town square, a single structure of brick and mortar serving as its Inn and tavern. Our population had been ravaged by the Black Death when my father was very young, most of the stone structures torn down and burned to prevent a reoccurrence of the sickness. It had become our custom for the town council to gather in the common room of the Inn, and all matters of legality regulated to fireside chats over mugs of ale.

After the plague sickness, our village was deemed too small to merit its own church. Thusly we as a community walked the long miles upon the road to the neighboring city to receive our weekly dose of spirituality. In those days I rode upon my father’s shoulders, a wisp of a girl untouched by more than seven summers worth of life. My father and I and my uncle shared our little wooden house with its thatched roof, mere farmers trying to scratch out an existence. To someone so young and inexperienced in the world, grand palaces held little more enchantment or richness, held less perfect wonder, than those innocent summer days.

It is the simplest pleasures in life that bring the greatest of joys, or so my mother once said before making the trip to Heaven. Words I never understood until much later in life, when time slipped away from me on ghostly feet and destiny unfurled a tapestry of years quite different than I anticipated. Far too late to transform the pattern of my life with colored threads of gentleness and joy.

Pieter lived on the next farm over, his mother the woman that did her best to raise me in the wake of my mother’s passing. On the last day of my innocence, he ran through the throng of citizens, chasing the village dog. Of course I squirmed against father’s shoulders at once, wanting to go and run with my heart’s friend. After much sighing, he set me on the dusty path, admonishing me to stay within eyesight. Looking back, I understand his approval of this running about while on the way to church. I would be tired and quiet during the sermon and would most likely sleep on his back during the walk home.

“Pieter!” I cried, running after my friend. “Pieter, wait!”

His blond hair flashed in the mid-morning sun, his laughter floating back to me on the warm winds. But it was where his feet were taking him that made me frown, made me fear. On either side of the winding road rose up the Black Forest, a place no person walked with a light step. Untold horrors lurked in those woods, whispered stories by women and men alike of faeries and sprites and all manner of demons lurking in those trees coming to the forefront of my imagination.

“Pieter!” I tried again, running faster. “Father said to stay on the road. Pieter, wait!”

He vanished into the outer trees before I could catch him, chasing the mangy yellow dog. His laughter fainter and fainter as the distance increased, my horror growing inversely. Chilled darkness emanated from the shadow of those trees, an abnormal occurrence energy dancing in the shadows of those trees. Summer was nearly upon us, and though winter snows often piled to heights above my little head, our summers baked the earth hot enough to cause drought. I had overheard the village council speak of an overly warm spring this season, so it stood to reason to my young mind that springtime shadows should not be this cold.

No breeze ruffled my hair, nevertheless the trees swayed with unnatural silence, as if tangled in strong winds.

I slowed my frantic pace, standing on the edge of the forbidden place, afraid to walk further into the darkness.

“Pieter?”

“Magdaline!” came his return. “Come see what I found, Mada. You must see this!”

I glanced backward, towards the warmth of sun and family. They seemed so far away now, like stringed puppets dancing on the tiny stages when carnival came to town. Did I run to the safety of the light and leave my friend to the unknown perils of darkness? Did I run to my friend and risk my father’s wrath if I managed to escape the faerie cook pots with my skin intact?

“Mada, hurry! MADA!”

Without thought I plunged ahead, my tiny heart beating as if to jump past my teeth with fright. I found Pieter not too far inside the first ring of trees, staring with wide eyes at the ground. The yellow dog he’d been chasing no longer sported the sun-kissed glossiness of vitality, its fur soaked with the precious ruby liquid of life, its large dark eyes unseeing. I didn’t know what else it was I saw after that. Never before had I seen anything disemboweled, not even when Uncle Kristoph cleaned the chickens for dinner. My father had never permitted it.