Fairy Tales: Unraveled: A twisted retell shorts collection Read online

  It was a month later that Simon returned to Eliana’s treehouse. He was sad to see his beautiful sister looking so beaten; she was losing hope. It was just as well that he had come bearing good news. The prince of the kingdom to which he had travelled had heard of the maiden living in a far-off forest. Simon told him that he knew of the maiden he spoke of and would take him to her, if in return, he would grant him a favour. The prince told Simon to name it, and it would be his. The deal was struck, and the two men took the fastest horses and headed for Eliana’s forest.

  DEAR DIARY,

  Today is my wedding day. I know, it is hard for me to believe too. I have Simon to thank for this. He came to me, bringing a prince with him. At first, I wanted to turn them away. I did not want a prince. I did not need or want to marry. What could I offer a husband? I protested by throwing everything I owned at the poor man until I was left in nothing except my shift and my white feather gown, which I clutched to my chest.

  He told me he knew of my tale and wanted to marry me. I looked into his eyes and knew him to be an honest man. But how could I leave my swans? Simon had thought of everything and said that there was a lake they could have just for themselves at the castle. So far, they have not followed me here, but I hold onto the hope that they will.

  Eliana and PrinceAdam were married at sunset. She wore her swan feather gown and looked beautiful. Although she could not speak, Simon acted as her voice and made it known that when she regained her ability to speak, she would fill the kingdom with laugher and song. As the bride and groom drew close for an embrace, the guests cheered. Eliana’s flock appeared, gliding low to the water’s surface. It was the perfect end to the perfect day.

  If only that were the end of the tale . . .

  DEAR DIARY,

  That whore Eliana is still alive! Worse, she has somehow managed to marry my distant cousin! Thank‐ fully his lady mother, my aunt, is still alive. I will end this marriage and kill the last spark of hope that whore has in her.

  DEAR DIARY,

  She’s pregnant! Clearly my cousin was demented enough to want to put his cock into an ugly mute. I have conversed with my aunt. She has assured me I am not to worry, that she has a plan for Eliana and her tainted offspring. News has reached me that Simon is with her. He has been employed by Adam as a squire. Well it seems Adam has a liking for unwanted, broken things. His mother shall put paid to that.

  Princess Eliana and Prince Adam, welcomed their first child, a boy, on the first day of Advent. He was perfect in every way. Queen Justine kept her distance from the child, claiming she was feeling frail and did not want to pass on the sickness to her darling grandson.

  DEAR MAGDA,

  THE CHILD HAS BEEN SECRETED AWAY BACK TO THAT DREADED FOREST AND TURNED INTO A SWAN. I WILL NOT KILL AN INNOCENT, AND ONLY MY DEATH WILL BREAK THE ENCHANTMENT. EVERY CHILD ELIANA BEARS WILL VANISH WITHIN THE FIRST MONTH OF LIFE. SHE WILL WAKE TO BLOOD SMEARED ON HER HANDS AND FACE. THE CRIB WILL BE BLOODIED AS WELL. IF MY SON DOES NOT THROW HER TO THE HANGMAN FOR THAT, I WILL BE AMAZED. IF NOTHING ELSE, ELIANA, THE WHORE, WILL GO INSANE. DO NOT WORRY MY NIECE, EVERYTHING IS IN HAND.

  Justine

  After the fourth child was taken, Eliana was ready to die. Adam was in deep mourning, and the kingdom whispered of the mad princess who killed and drank the blood of her babies. The queen called for her death, and so Eliana, mute and broken, waited to be killed.

  DEAR DIARY,

  Today I will be put to death and I welcome it. Simon has gone to fetch our brothers and stepmother. It appears that Queen Justine wishes this to be a family event. How touching. My darling Adam is a broken man. I promised him song and laugher. All I have brought him is pain. I do not deserve his love, as I did not deserve my children. I am an ugly, broken thing; it is right that I should be thrown away and forgotten.

  The Hangman waited for his signal. Prince Adam turned away. He did not believe his wife had killed their children, but he could not explain away the evidence. Queen Justine and Queen Magda stood side by side. Stone-faced were they, but the glint in their cruel eyes told a story of triumph. The crowd parted and Simon appeared. In his hands were the five grey crowns Eliana had made for her bothers. He climbed the ladder to the platform where his sister stood and produced a needle. Confused, Eliana looked at her brother with dead eyes. Smiling, Simon touched the needle to his sister’s lips. The stitches disappeared. With her voice restored to her, Eliana yelled at the top of her lungs for her brothers to be brought forward. The five men were presented to her. Even with the rough noose around her neck, Eliana had never looked more beautiful or fierce. She asked Simon to place the crowns on their heads. It was her last gift to her kin.

  Queen Magda went pale. The whore could speak, and she knew full-well what she had done to her all those years ago. Beginning to back out of the royal seating area, she found herself trapped by a line of palace guards— guards loyal to Prince Adam.

  Eliana told her tale, and Queen Magda was taken to the dungeon, where her mouth was stitched closed with the same needle she had had her stepsons use on Eliana. As soon as the last stitch was in place, the enchantment over her brothers was lifted.

  Queen Justine was incensed. How dare they do that to her niece—this girl was a nobody! She would not have the people’s love; she would not have one more day alive to spread her vile poison. Lifting her arms, she began to curse the princess. Simon, who had donned his silver crown, removed the dagger he carried in his boot and struck the bitch between the eyes. What happened next was too extraordinary for words.

  DEAR DIARY,

  Today I sit with my babies. They are perfect and whole. Adam and I are so glad to have them back. I knew they were not dead. Queen Justine’s magical hold on them was lost the moment she died. However, it seems that something even stranger took place that day. The moment she died my five brothers vanished. Simon dropped to the ground and was taken to the healer. I have been told his deformed arm is now whole and as strong as his right.

  I cannot say I am sad that these things have happened. Maybe sometimes broken things are there to teach others how to appreciate what they have. I wish no ill will to my brothers wherever they are. Now, Adam and I will concentrate on our children and live happily together as a family should.

  Queen Magda died many years later, mute and alone. The enchanted needle was hidden away so as never to be used against another ever again. And Queen Eliana was much beloved by her people. Simon married a gentle woman and was often a visitor at the castle. His plan came together perfectly. He knew all that throwing practice would come in useful one day. As for the five brothers, there are five new swans on the forest lake by Eliana’s treehouse. They are full grown, but their feathers are an ugly, dull grey.

  DULL FEATHERS

  BASED ON THE UGLY DUCKLING

  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yes? Well if that is true, why are so many judged for their appearance? It is an interesting topic, beauty, who has it, who doesn’t, what it looks like, and what it sounds like. Who gets to say what it beautiful and what is not? It was decided on the day of my birth that I was ugly. It sounds terrible doesn’t it, hearing that a child brand new to the world was declared ugly. Not by the mother, my mother no, she never got to see me. I was declared hideous by the very people who brought me into the world. I know others might think that this cannot be true; no doctor or midwife would ever deem a child that repulsive as to categorise it as ugly only moments after birth. Well, it is true, and it happened to me; the worst part is they took it one terrifying step further. After the sound of my cry broke the silence of the birthing room and my mother’s exhausted plea to hold her child, the doctors told her no, and the midwife took her hand as two new members of staff entered the room. Ones she had never seen before.

  “Your baby is very sick; we must take him to a special care baby unit right away.” Of course my mother let them, it was in my best interest, wasn’t it? As far as she knew, I was dying. If only that had been the case.


  I never saw my mother; I don’t even know what her name is. I was never taken back to her. I found out years later when I began my search that they had told her I had died shortly after being admitted to the special care baby unit. For unknown reasons, maybe grief, she never came to view my little body. I am sure, knowing what I know now, that there would have been a tiny perfect baby for her to weep over. The lost child of another mother in the unit I never went to. This is the problem. Sometimes those in power can have such sway over us that we believe them without question.

  As I grew, I didn’t notice my differences; I was surrounded by others who I learned later, were like me, extraordinary. You see, it wasn’t something that entered our heads, to question it. To consider ourselves freakish or ugly was the last thing we would have thought. Each and every one of us in the dormitory was unique.

  I was around six years old when I was taken for my first investigation, the nurse who looked after us all, Wendy, explained to me that I was going to help the doctors and nurses understand how special I was. I smiled and was willing to help in any way I could; if Wendy was telling me I was special then it must be true. She was very kind to us all, always bringing us treats and new books to read.

  I will never forget that day though, the day that Wendy lied to me for the first time. That’s unfair, she had omitted to tell me the whole truth. The doctors and nurses really did want to look at me, to study me and learn all about it. Unfortunately, it was the way in which they wanted to investigate my specialness that was the problem.

  The room I was taken to was very clean; the smell of bleach burned my nose. My name is Elijah; I am a boy, and I am tall for my age, or so I’m told. My specialness is that I have an extremely good sense of smell. My eyesight is also hypersensitive to the point where I have to wear special glasses with dark blue lenses all the time. I have never seen my eyes; when I have tried to look in the mirror the light reflecting off the shiny surface causes me extreme pain, though, I know from asking my friend Sophie in the dormitory that my eyes are a vivid red. I also have incredibly thin skin. This means that it is possible to see almost all of my internal organs without the need for medical equipment. It does freak out the other kids at first, usually the younger ones, but they soon see the cool side to it. Due to my translucent skin, I have to be very careful about what touches it. I can only tolerate thin clothing, as even cotton causes friction burns and bleeding. I don’t really have hair, just a few tuffs around my ears. When Wendy took me into this very white, very clean, and very large room, I began to wonder what exactly was going to happen to me that day.

  “Elijah, why don’t you come sit in this chair for me,” she said, all the while smiling at me.

  I nodded and almost skipped to the large plastic covered chair in the centre of the room. I took a moment to take in my surroundings fully and noticed that about two thirds of the way up the white titled walls were huge windows. I’d hoped to see the sky; I wasn’t allowed outside much due to my skin condition. It burned incredibly easily. However, instead of seeing the endless blue of fluffy clouds, I saw faces. Not faces like mine or my friends, but faces like Dr. Smithson’s and Wendy’s, these types of faces I learned later on are what society consider acceptable and beautiful. Most importantly, I learned that these faces were “normal”. At the time, I was just extremely pleased to see so many people, people who wanted to see me, and to admire my specialness.

  Dr. Smithson was over by a huge monitor. I could hear him tapping keys on a keyboard that I couldn’t see. I really liked Dr. Smithson; he was kind, with a big smile and a funny little beard that reminded me of the tuft of hair on the back of my head. I was so busy taking in the sounds and the faces that looked down on me from above that I didn’t notice the other person in the room. This person was another nurse, I think. I never really saw them; they seemed to almost sneak up on me from behind. I had only had time to notice her bright blue eyes before I felt a very sharp pain in my right arm. A few seconds later, the room went fuzzy and the people in the viewing gallery seemed to almost disappear. I wanted to call them back, to tell them that I was sorry if I had done something wrong and I would promise to be good. Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to be able to speak and then there was nothing at all.

  This happened over and over again to me and to my friends in the dormitory. Some never came back, and when we lost one friend, a new child would appear within a few months, usually to take their place. There were never more than thirteen of us in the dormitory at one time, even though there were fourteen beds. When I asked Wendy about this she told us that it was because if one of us got very poorly she would need somewhere to sleep.

  My friends and I grew close as the years went by, growing and learning together in our sunny ward that was surrounded by green fields and tall trees. If it weren’t for the constant investigations and the memory loss that followed, it would have been the perfect place to live.

  I wish I could remember the things that were done to me during my visits to the observatory/operating theatre; my only reminders of my time spent in there were sore patches on my skin and on two occasions, temporary blindness that lasted a month.

  Then one day completely out of the blue when I was around twelve—no, no, I was much older—I forget how long I spent there, you see the days all seemed to blend into one. Anyway, it was coming close to Christmas, I remember that much. My friend Sophie hadn’t come back from her latest visit with Dr. Smithson, and I was upset. It seemed lately that too many of my friends were not coming back from these studies, as the doctor called them. I looked around the room, and only seven beds, including my own, were now occupied. It was with sadness that I realised we had lost six of our friends in the last four weeks.

  That day proved to be different. That day, new people came to see us in the ward, as that’s what we learned it was, not a nice dormitory, a hospital ward. These people were policemen, new doctors, and others who wore suits. They all had kind faces. I later learned that the ones in suits were social workers and government officials. They took us all away that day, treated the wounds on those of us that had them, fed us food we had never tasted before, and gave us clean clothes and toys for the younger ones. Everything seemed fine; we were happy, warm, and felt safe, especially once we were told that we would never have to experience any more of Dr. Smithson’s special studies ever again.

  Things almost went to hell when they tried to separate us. They didn’t understand that since we had always been together and now that we understood that strangers and “normal” people could hurt us and steal our friends away, we were desperate to stay together. We were family. So when the social workers came to tell us we were to be fostered with families that we could call our very own, an uproar broke out. We told them we didn’t want a new home or family. We had a family; we were all each other had.

  The problem, as it usually is in the eyes of those in charge, was the law of the land. We were not heard; we were children, and they knew what was best for us. So, we were each given time to say goodbye and then each of us was taken by gentle hands to our new families to start the business of living a “normal” life.

  Thankfully, we were able to keep in touch. Our new families understood our bond and didn’t want to steal that away, so once a month we all met up and exchanged stories and experiences. The most special moments were birthdays because each year we got to celebrate seven rather than wondering who would be missing that year.

  My start in life and those of my friends was not conventional; it wasn’t even close to “normal”. However, it did teach us a lot. The idea of beauty is seen at face value; this is an extremely narrow way of viewing what is one of the most complex and amazing attributes the human race possesses.

  Beauty is not just what you look like—it is who you are. It is your actions, the challenges you undertake, and the struggles you overcome. The words you speak into your life, not the judgment of those around you, determine a great deal of your beauty as a human. Words are the most powerful fo
rce on the planet.

  I look different; I am unique and yet, so is everyone else. So, if we all share this common denominator of uniqueness, then surely we are all the same? That is a positive way to view the world, isn’t it? We are all human, whether we are tall or short, reed thin or strapping and broad. We all have a heartbeat. We all have feelings and a great capacity for love as well as hate.

  My favourite book that nurse Wendy used to read to us in the ward every Friday was a book about a swan who landed in the wrong nest before he had even hatched and was then shunned by his new family because he was different. My favourite part was always the shock of the duck family when the ugly duckling was revealed to be a swan. How beautiful they found him after his dull feathers had been replaced by snowy white ones.

  That story taught me that you should never shun anyone because of their differences. Like the ugly duckling, sometimes they just need a chance to grow. That people need to look past the superficial and truly see what’s there.

  My name is Elijah. I am a hypersensitive albino with alopecia. However, those differences do not make me any less beautiful. They do not define me as the man I have grown to be. They are things I have, not who I am. Just like the duckling in my favourite childhood book, my outward appearance may not be to the world’s standard of beauty, but I will surprise them, the naysayers. I am much more than meets the eye.