Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback (30 page)

musky scent of his rescuer. Monster smelled cleaner than Justus had

imagined, clean and warm.

As Monster inched his way up the incline, Justus shivered, his

fingers desperately clinging to clumps of mismatched fur. Tears

streaked down his face, hot terror evaporating into the careless

winter cold.
I almost died.

“Why didn’t you cry out?”

Justus just shook his head. Even if the rock hadn’t knocked the

wind out of him, he’d still been more worried that Monster would

realize he was male, which would be a much slower death than a

simple fall. He was already afraid Monster would finally discover him now—after all, Justus must feel different than a woman, compact and

spare where a real maiden would have been light curves. Monster

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said nothing, though, and when they reached the top, he didn’t put

Justus down. Instead, he wrapped his other arm around Justus’s back.

“It’s all right. I won’t let anything happen to you,” Monster

whispered.

Justus might have laughed at the irony if he did not believe

the Greve meant it. Monster wanted to choose when and how his

sacrifices died. Besides, he was full—he’d just eaten a turkey.

After a time, Monster fidgeted, shifting Justus to his other

shoulder—and then laughed. “My, Karin, what’s this?”

The cutlass. Justus tensed, waiting for Monster to squeeze him

until his spine cracked and discard his broken body in the snow.

“A girl must protect her honor,” Justus croaked.

Monster laughed again, and Justus relaxed against Monster’s

warmth. It pained him to know that he owed his life to this creature, and yet this same creature had taken Gudrun’s.

“Best you don’t sleep yet,” Monster said, and shook Justus, who

realized he had been dozing.

“Sorry.”

“You’ve not told me what you enjoy besides hunting and being

read to,” Monster prompted.

Justus’s skull felt like it was full of hot bees, but he understood that people with head injuries who went to sleep too soon didn’t always

wake up.

He forced his mouth to work through an answer. “Carving. I carve

wood.”

“With a sword?”

Justus’s smile hurt his cold cheeks. “I’m not very good with the

real tools, so perhaps I should try.”

“I’m sure you just need practice,” Monster decided. “You’ll be given an array of carver’s instruments, and any wood we have available.

Could you sculpt me?”

“Perhaps,” Justus said, and a thought pushed his drowsiness

away, bright sunlight burning away a fog. He maintained his sleepy

mumble, however, when he went on, “for a trade.”

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• Castle of Masks •

“Oh? Name a price that’s not your freedom,” Monster said. Each

word vibrated through the Greve’s chest to Justus’s cheek.

“I just want a bow and arrows that won’t crumble in your clumsy

fingers,” Justus said.

“Agreed.” Monster chuckled. “When can I expect my magnificent

sculpture?”

“A week,” Justus said. “Maybe two, if the wood is as poor as your

table manners.”

“The wood will be as fine as your aim.”

Justus smiled, but his heart now hurt as badly as his head.

Justus spent the next two days in bed, sipping broth through

swollen, bruised lips. The injuries made his necessary shaving a

painful experience, but he admired the dark ring around one eye

as he looked in the mirror. In all his life, Justus had never looked tough, but now, wearing a frilly nightgown while he lay on a bank

of pillows in a lady’s lace-canopied bed, he looked as if he’d been in a real brawl.

When someone knocked, Justus swallowed and worked his voice

into Karin’s high, husky tone. “Come in.”

It was Monster, carrying a small bag. “Here are your tools. I sent

Valfrid to a good market for them. The wood is in the library, which has the best light. How do you feel?”

“Splendid. I told Rigmora you beat me, so she’s sneaked me

pastries for every meal.”

“I wondered how you got so fat,” Monster said.

Justus laughed his silent laugh, and Monster made up for it with

his own volume.

“Your sculpture will be done in a week, but you mustn’t peek until

I’ve finished,” Justus said. “I told you I’m not very good, so there’s no use you thinking I’m even worse.”

Monster promised not to look, and Justus ushered the Greve out

so he might dress himself and begin his task.

v

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• Cory Skerry •

The block of wood was as tall as Justus, of a fine grain, and it fell away as easily as snow beneath his new carving implements. Valfrid had

even thought to buy paper and leads for the designs. Justus decided

upon a snarling, crouching Monster, about to spring for a kill. This pose would remind Justus why he had to complete his quest.

On the third day, Monster interrupted Justus while he was carving.

Justus hurriedly pulled the sheet down over his work and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes?”

“I wasn’t sure if you would be disturbed or entertained if I faced

away from you and read to you as you worked,” Monster said. The

creature’s eyes were squeezed shut.

After a pause, Justus said, “Entertained,” and so they agreed upon

a collection of poems. The Greve read as Justus scraped away flakes

of not-Monster to expose the hulking form beneath.

Every day, Justus carved for an hour alone after breakfast. Then

Monster showed up with a book, often held in his jaws as he groped

his way across the room, eyes shut until he was safely in his high-

backed chair. When Justus glanced up, he only saw Monster’s fox ears and his hairy elbows.

Justus could tell he hadn’t gotten the balance of the sculpture

right; Monster leaned to the left a little, and one foot was too small.

But Justus kept carving, more slowly every day, until it was the last day and he hadn’t even started the head.

“I need another week,” Justus said over breakfast.

“Is it more difficult than you imagined?” Monster asked.

Justus recognized his own words being thrown at him again, and

he snorted. “No, your head is just so big it takes extra time.”

Monster cackled and gave Justus another week, and they took

up their routine once more. The statue began to take on the Greve’s

likeness, though it wasn’t as Justus had intended.

The snarl looked more like a grin, and eyes that were supposed

to be squinted with hate looked tilted in mirth. Every strong

muscle was present, but Justus’s hands hadn’t forgotten a layer of

fur and feathers to soften Monster’s bulk. Justus tried to pretend

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the friendly cast to the carving was due to his own inadequacy as

a sculptor.

Monster’s company distracted Justus from fretting too much.

Most of the time he let his hands work while he listened to Monster’s deep voice reading poems and fairy tales, biographies and adventures, and even a hunting guide written by a clueless old nobleman a

hundred years before, at which the two of them laughed themselves

to tears.

“Now one of your ears is too short!” Justus complained, gasping

with silent laughter.

“According to Lord Foxbane here, they’ll give me away in the

brush, because mounted fops have ‘an eagle’s eye view of their prey.’

You’d best trim the other ear, too. For my safety.”

That night, Justus went to his chambers with a heavy heart.

He was down to sanding away splinters and scratching unnecessary

details into the mouth and stitches. It was finished, and he knew

it. But if Justus stopped carving, he would be given a real weapon,

and it would be time to kill his friend. Now it was no longer just an assassination; it was a betrayal. He would regret it for longer than he’d anticipated it. And yet it must be done. For the sake of Gudrun, and the sake of all who might follow her into an early and terrible

grave.

His reverie was broken by the sound of female laughter in the

corridor. The door was locked, as usual, but Justus had found that

hairpins were a good size for tripping the tumblers.

This would be his last night. He hadn’t seen anyone since the

hunting trip but Valfrid, Monster, and silent Rigmora. If he wanted

to change that, it must be now.

The corridor was empty. Justus lifted his skirts and hugged them

close so they wouldn’t rustle and give him away. Echoes led him to

the right. Cold stone chilled his bare feet.

Hushed giggles threaded into the dark with curls of dead candle

smoke and the hissing of drowned lamp wicks. When he was close

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enough to see a glow of yellow light, he could also hear gossip

about a budding relationship between kitchen scullions. Just before

he announced himself, one of the girls turned in profile, tucking a

curtain of dark hair behind her ear. Justus’s heart leaped.

It was the cheerful laundry girl.

Justus would have given anything at that moment to look like

himself: his hair brushing his brow, his face bare of makeup, at least wearing some trousers. He couldn’t bear to speak to her dressed like this.

The laundry girl reached up, turning the wick on a wall-mounted

lamp, and Justus held his breath so he wouldn’t curse. Ragged scars

snaked up from her bust and over her shoulder, disappearing down

her back. Her ruined skin looked like the wood around the doorknob

to Monster’s sitting room.

The other girl had only one arm.

Justus lost himself for a few moments, a cyclone of rage spinning

in his chest. His hands tightened on his skirts, and he had to talk

himself out of stomping into Monster’s room and stabbing him with

the cutlass that very instant.

He could at least accompany the girls to their rooms, even

if they didn’t know of it. If Monster showed up and attempted to

savage them, Justus could draw the attention to himself. Justus was

humiliated by how easily Monster had charmed him into forgetting

the very atrocities that brought him here in the first place.

The girls, who called one another Pia and Annike, made their way

to the northern wing of the castle. When they opened the door into

the northern hall, Justus could see a line of candles, so he knew their work wasn’t done. But when he caught up to them, Justus found the

door bolted from the inside. His hairpin was useless.

Defeated, feeling cowardly and alone, Justus returned to his rooms.

He no longer felt torn about the murder he must commit. It wasn’t

that there was nothing good about Monster; it was that there was

also evil.

Justus would be sure his friend didn’t suffer.

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• Castle of Masks •

v

“Will you want another week, mistakenly thinking I will eat you

when you finish?” Monster asked at breakfast.

“Ha! I’ve seen the lard you call food,” Justus said. “I’m too lean for you.”

In answer, Monster passed Justus a plate of croissants slathered in

butter and sweet frosting.

Justus loathed how easily he fell into their banter, how much he

enjoyed it.

“Why don’t you laugh aloud?” Monster asked. “You sit there and

quiver like an angry porcupine. The first time, I thought you were

dying.”

“I don’t want anyone to know what it sounds like,” Justus said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want anyone to know that, either.”

“Can Anyone see their sculpture, now that the lazy artist has had

so much time?”

Justus shrugged. “If Anyone has a gift for me.”

Monster motioned to Valfrid, who brought forth a long parcel.

They cleared a place on the table, and Justus peeled away the cloth

wrapping to reveal what might have been the most marvelous bow

ever made. Dark-stained wood in an elegant, swooping curve, smooth

and perfect, with a lightly padded grip measured exactly to Justus’s hand. The arrows, fletched in shades of yellow and white, came in a

variety of lengths and points, one for any animal Justus stalked.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. Tears burned behind his eyes, and he

rolled everything back into the cloth it came in.

“Will you reveal your masterpiece in the library today?” Monster

asked.

“First I should show Rigmora,” Justus lied, hoping he didn’t see

Rigmora at all.

He needed to prepare himself by walking through the hall with

its macabre masks. He must remember Gudrun and the mutilated

servant girls.

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• Cory Skerry •

v

Justus tore the sleeves from his dress. He didn’t have any men’s

clothes, so he was going to have to kill in this. At least he could cut away the parts that might trip him. He’d learned
that
lesson on the side of a cold mountain. Justus hacked off the skirt with his cutlass, leaving it scandalously high.

The garters holding up his stockings showed, and he allowed

himself a grim smile at how foolish he must look.

Next he turned the blade to his hair, sawing painful handfuls off

until it no longer trailed down his back, and only a few thin wisps

remained in the periphery of his vision.

Justus had forgotten to have Rigmora help him out of his corset,

but it might be better this way. It was tight, so it wouldn’t snag while he shot, and he could tuck the other two arrows in the front lacing, like a quiver.