by Justin Williams
Esmeralda Rossetti settles in by the fire, the light of the flames deepening the shadowy wrinkles carved across her face by time. She rocks in her chair as if swaying on a river. Styx, perhaps, though even she couldn’t be that old.
She smooths the skirt of her crimson dress. With a deep inhale she draws tendrils of smoke that twist along the engravings of her age, and finally, she calls out to the children of the house. “Come now little ones, hear our tale for tonight of three little bluebirds and a princess’s plight.”
They come to her like the children of Hamelin, first stepping slowly into the room, then bursting to a run in her presence. Four boys and four girls crowding closer like hatchlings eager for dinner, each fighting to be nearer the mother bird.
Madame Rossetti grins, deepening the shadows along her face, and she begins to tell the tale…
Princess Annabelle sang a gentle song as she swept her broom along the kitchen floor of the quaint forest cottage. A chestnut squirrel followed with a dustpan, and all the furry and feathered creatures of the forest crowded the diamond-paned windows and wide-open doors to hear the princess sing. Three little bluebirds alighted on the sill above the sink and whistled in harmony.
“Good morning, loves,” said Annabelle to the birds, sent years ago by the Fae to banish her loneliness.
The birds chirped their response. Annabelle glimpsed a slight glimmer at their feet.
“What little treasures have you brought me today?” She asked, in a voice quite birdlike itself. She floated to the open window, dancing with her broom. (The broom wore the feathered cap of a long-departed prince.) The scent of pine drifted in from the trees as the little birds hopped back to reveal their gifts.
Annabelle turned to the first. “Oh my!” she said, patting the bird’s downy head. “These gooseberries look just perfect.” The little bird puffed his chest.
The next bird presented a pile of glittering pebbles. “Oh my!” she said with another gentle pat. “Wherever did you find these grand golden nuggets?” The little bird flicked her tail.
Annabelle slid to the third little bird and started back. Her hand jerked to cover her mouth.
The corpse of a mouse lay on the windowsill, matted and muddied at the feet of the proud little bluebird.
“Oh… my,” she said. “What a generous gift you’ve brought.”
The bird cocked its head.
“Oh, I do love it. It’s just that I’m not quite… hungry right now. Later, maybe.” She swallowed back the objection from her stomach. “Thank you, love,” she said, patting the last bird. The bluebird chirped and bobbed his head.
Annabelle looked out into the forest to clear the image of the mouse from her mind.
She froze.
Past the birds, a shadowed figure shifted between the trees. “Sorry, little loves,” she said. “It looks like Stepmother has sent another visitor.”
The chestnut squirrel scurried to the trees. The bluebirds blended in among the branches. Annabelle leaned out the window.
“Show yourself,” she yelled, reaching for the boar-handled dagger that lay ever ready on the counter, an unintentional gift courtesy of her stepmother’s last attempt on her life. As the other animals fled, Annabelle set her gaze steady on the forest.
The figure leapt among the shadows, closer with each movement.
A raven flapped violently toward the treetops. Annabelle clenched the dagger and crouched beside the sink, hiding against the wall and out of sight from the windows and doors. Her heart hammered at her chest.
Heavy, running footfalls drew near.
Two men, she thought.
A branch snapped just outside, and a dark figure leapt into the light of the cottage. Annabelle gasped, falling back against the wall.
The young buck blinked and sniffed the air, his antlers as wide as the door frame.
Annabelle laughed out her relief. “You gave me such a fright.”
The deer shook and bowed his head. The trio of bluebirds fluttered in, landing on his velvety antlers. Annabelle patted the buck’s snout and he nuzzled against her hand.
“I’m not angry,” she said, too sweetly. “It’s just so close to my birthday. Maybe Stepmother thinks the huntsman succeeded. But then again, maybe not.”
Annabelle walked to the sink and pushed the diamond-paned windows open a bit more. She studied the dark woods that surrounded the house like a great fairy ring of oak and willow and pine. A brook babbled just out of sight. The raven called out his trembling croak. Annabelle took a deep breath to calm her still-racing heart.
“Now then,” she said, turning to the returning crowd of animals. “Where were we? Another song while we finish the chores?” Annabelle began to hum as the animals leaned in. Even the trees seemed to sway in time.
The noon sun pierced the forest with golden shards as Annabelle finished her morning chores. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, surveyed her work and, content with a job well done, returned the broom to the corner closet. A calendar hung on the wall beside it.
“I almost forgot,” she said to the raccoon peering in from just outside the back door. Annabelle tore away the thirtieth of April, leaving a large number one waving in the slight breeze. A new month, she thought. Another month closer.
“It’s almost time to go home,” she said with a satisfied sigh. The raccoon clapped his shadowy hands together. The bluebirds chirped from their perch.
Annabelle wiped her hands on her apron. “Well,” she said. “What to do now?”
The bluebirds picked at their feathers. Annabelle called to them sweetly. “The gooseberries,” she said. “Could you bring more?” She went to the sink and pulled a small woven basket from the cabinet below.
The birds took the handle in their talons, leaving just enough space between them to flap their wings. Annabelle watched until they disappeared into the forest.
Then she tidied the counter again.
“Now, where did that dagger disappear to?”
She found it on the floor, dropped in her earlier excitement. When Annabelle picked up the knife and went to replace it, she noticed the mouse on the sill. Another task forgotten, she thought, and the voice of her stepmother mocked her from her memory: a perfect little princess, destined for my throne.
Annabelle passed the blade slowly over the sink and, with a jerk, stabbed the small corpse and lifted it to her face. Turning the blade, she studied the rodent in the skeletal fingers of sunlight reaching through the treetops. With a flick, she cast the creature upon the dirt outside the window.
She wiped the blade on her apron, set it in its place, and set to making a crust.
Annabelle had sung only one song by the time the bluebirds returned, fluttering up and down as they struggled to land the berry-laden basket on the windowsill. Annabelle thanked them and, in what felt like no time at all, carried her completed gooseberry pie from oven to sill to cool.
“You see,” she said in her saccharine voice, “singing makes the time slide by.” Her words stretched thin like taffy about to snap.
The bluebirds whistled proudly. Annabelle smiled, but her cheeks were growing sore. Smile, smile, smile, she thought. Smiles keep the curse away, said the Fae. But how long must I? The taunting words of her stepmother echoed in response:
A perfect little princess, destined for my throne.
But even the Fae cannot defeat me alone.
As dark destroys light, your perfection is key.
Perfection, that is, and the death of me.
She inhaled and pushed her smile even bigger. “Perfection, hard as it is, I can do,” she said to herself. “But the queen still lives.”
As she started to turn from the sill, the dagger caught her eye. She straightened it in its place, though it was already straight, and looked along the counter at the other mementos of her cottage years: an apple still as tempting as it was four years before, the sharpened spindle of a spinning wheel, the teacup once home to a hemlock brew. All other attempts on her life had been blunt and vulgar, insults against her ability to survive. These, however, she kept as reminders to ever be on guard.
The most recent addition, if you could call nearly a year recent, was the dagger itself, the blade with the boar-tusk handle. Stepmother had sent the renowned huntsman that time, no doubt hoping to finally finish the job. He had come for her heart—quite literally—but she had offered him something else. When he was finished he fled, leaving blood and the blade behind.
How many times had Stepmother tried to kill her? Yet, she lived. Now her eighteenth birthday drew near, and the throne would be hers. She only had to survive a short while longer. But if the queen were still alive, then how—
All these years I’ve been nothing but the perfect victim. If the throne should be mine, I must fight to take it.
She had no idea what that something would be, but a feeling of resolution grew in her chest. Annabelle pulled her cloak from its hook and whipped it onto her shoulders. “I’ll be home shortly,” she called to her forest family, and she swept through the door.
Behind her, the eyes of the forest grew wide, but Annabelle paid no attention. With her birthday rushing nearer like a racing buck, it was time to retake all that was hers.
So three little bluebirds flew right behind
The princess they loved, so lovely and kind.
A great change, they knew, must come in the end
For the crown to be won by their beloved friend.
Annabelle moved silently through the trees and crept among the shadows to the towering oak that marked the end of the forest. Three little bluebirds alit on the branches above. All three remained silent.
Just past the forest’s edge, two guards stood sentry at the mossy stone bridge that provided the crossing into town. Annabelle crouched low behind the old oak, its bark rough against her hands. She felt the guards would welcome her when it was time; she feared that time was not quite yet.
Just the sight of the town made her heart feel lighter. Little stone houses and shops stood in line along the road, all crowned with thatched roofs gilded by sunlight. There she’d twirled among the townspeople, sang harmonies with her mother, walked proudly down that very road with her father. She’d give anything to have those days back again.
The royal castle rose up from the end of the road. Built high on the hill, it loomed over the town like a cat over a mouse. An eerie green glow emanated from its tallest tower, the only light to escape the shadow of the stone behemoth. At its base, the great ironwood gate lay shut and if she strained enough, Annabelle thought she could make out six guards standing just before it. Two had been enough when father was alive.
The reality of the kingdom was darker than her memory, but strangest of all was the silence. Every shutter and door in the village had been pulled and locked tight. Only the guards walked the roads and only the river seemed to speak. If only she could understand its words.
One bridge guard cleared his throat, and the silence. The second guard yawned and stretched out his arms.
“How long will it last?” the first guard asked in a voice no louder than falling leaves. Annabelle listened from her oaken refuge.
“No telling with her,” replied the second without the obvious concern of the first. “Though I’d guess we’ll be locked down ‘til after the princess’s birthday comes and goes. Prophesy, and all.”
“She really thinks her power is greater than theirs?”
Theirs is older than the trees themselves, Annabelle thought, sharpened on the whetstone of time. Even Stepmother is no match.
“So she says, but then why’s she in the tower where only the hawks can reach, and enchanting herself just to sleep through the night?” The second guard lowered his voice to a whisper just louder than the breeze. “If not for fear of the Fae, why wouldn’t the old hag just kill the princess herself, eh?”
“Quiet. She could—” The first didn’t finish.
The silence returned.
Annabelle risked peering around the tree trunk and wished she hadn’t, not for being seen, but rather, what she saw. She had never seen fear like she saw on the first guard’s face as he cowered behind his shield. Annabelle sunk lower against the oak, but curiosity kept her from looking away.
The second guard stood tall and spoke, though in a quivering voice. “Kill me with a word? Is that—”
A crack like thunder burst from the castle and a bolt of green lightning shot down from the cloudless sky. Before Annabelle could make sense of what had happened, the second guard lay dead on the stone arch of the bridge, a tendril of smoke rising from his chest. The first guard started for him, then stiffened, and resumed his post without another word.
Annabelle backed away from the oak, feeling her way through the trees and hoping the queen wouldn’t hear her move. Her foot caught on a crawling root and she fell to the forest floor, scraping her knees against fallen twigs and scattered stones. She pushed herself back up and ran.
When her sanctuary came into view, Annabelle ran faster, hopping and skipping over the roots of trees she’d known for years. She raced straight through the door—not a word to the forest creatures gathered to greet her—and took the stairs two at a time to her room.
Annabelle collapsed into the down-filled mattress of her bed. She could smile no more. She pulled the pillow against her face to smother her sobbing.
A soft whistle floated on the earthy breeze through the bedroom window. Annabelle lifted her head.
“How can I not be afraid?” she asked the bluebirds as they gathered on the sill. “I know my birthday is near and the Fae foretold—”
Annabelle flipped to her back and hugged her pillow tightly to her chest. “Oh, but how? How can I be queen when she still lives? And I can do nothing! Even if I got past the guards, got close to her…”
She sat up and flung her pillow. Feathers burst through the seams as the pillow slapped against the wall. The bluebirds disappeared into the trees, but quickly drifted back to the window.
“She could kill me with a word,” Annabelle said, collapsing back into bed.
Three little bluebirds flew in from the window and alit at the foot of the princess’s bed. As she lay crying, the birds began to sing a lullaby.
Annabelle stared at the ceiling, tears slipping into salty streams along her cheekbones. She cried as the crickets chirped and the bluebirds sang, then just as her eyelids began to fall, three little bluebirds flew off through the window.
Three little bluebirds flew high up as hawks
To a tower as tall as a magic bean stalk.
The queen, so enchanted, so deeply asleep
Felt not a nibble of their sharp little beaks.
Annabelle awoke to a cool and dew-scented morning. She leapt from her bed, refreshed and ready to sing through another day. Passing the mirror leaning against the wall, she paused. Her dress clung to her body, caked with hardened mud and covered in leaves. Streaks of dried blood stained her dress and her knees.
“Oh my,” she said far too sweetly, “This just won’t do.”
She threw open her wardrobe and picked another from the many matching dresses hanging silently by their necks. Annabelle changed, and was a perfect princess once more. She smoothed the new dress and drifted downstairs.
Twirling off the steps, she paused to pull a page from the calendar, then her gaze found her beloved bluebirds on the windowsill.
The wind from the window sent a chill through her soul and a foulness through her nose. She wrinkled her face and took a step closer, but no more.
The birds whistled and puffed their chests. Blood-red flecks stained their feathers. Annabelle hesitated. Something felt wrong. Something in their song, perhaps. She willed herself to the windowsill. The birds parted to show their gift.
A handful of raspberries rested like a bloodied pillow, and lying on top… Annabelle jumped back, covering her scream with her hand. The birds started and fluttered away, but didn’t go far. They alighted back on the sill and whistled gently.
“What… what have you little loves done?” she said, creeping closer. A squirrel leapt onto the kitchen counter, sniffed the air, and fled into the forest.
Atop the pillow of raspberries lay the royal signet ring, the etched gold flashing in the morning light. Her stepmother’s ring, and there hooked still through it, long and elegant and bent as if trying to hold onto its treasure, lay her stepmother’s finger.
Annabelle startled and jumped back. “No,” she said, covering her mouth. But the ring flashed in the light, almost calling to her. Or maybe, it was curiosity that called. Annabelle crept forward.
Annabelle felt a hint of warmth still when she lifted the finger to her face to study the small piece of her stepmother. The cut was anything but clean. Bitten off? She thought. With a thousand small bites. She looked at the birds, their razor-sharp beaks biting at a song.
Annabelle turned the finger in her palm as a chill shivered through her chest. Once again, she recounted all the attempts on her life, running through them in her mind, reliving them as she did in the worst of her dreams.
She smiled.
Annabelle twisted the ring past the swollen knuckle and off the severed finger. She tried it among her own until she found a fit. Then she flicked the remains upon the dead mouse outside. Annabelle held out her hand, letting her treasure shine in the sun. She should have the ring. It was her kingdom, her divine right. No one else’s.
Not even her stepmother, who now cast sleep spells on herself in a tower where only the hawks could reach.
And bluebirds.
At last, Annabelle knew how to get her kingdom back.
She sang to the birds.
Three little bluebirds then waited ‘til dark
And flew to the room of the wicked monarch
Whose greatest enchantments could not fight away
The three little bluebirds protected by Fae.
Excitement drove Annabelle from bed even before the sun the next morning. The bluebirds sang from the kitchen sill as she raced down the stairs.
“They’ve done it,” she said to herself with a grin.
She skipped past the calendar, straight for the window. There, at the taloned feet of the bluebirds, was the morning’s gift.
There lay the queen’s favorite ring, carved like a python, two rubies for eyes. It rested on what remained of the queen’s left hand.
“Well done, little loves,” Annabelle said, patting each bird. She slipped the ring onto her finger and let the rest all upon its missing piece outside. Pulling a page from the calendar, she said, “We’ll be home in no time.”
The birds puffed proudly, whistling a tune. Annabelle joined them, singing and laughing throughout the day. Even at sundown, as she fell tiredly into bed, she couldn’t shake the smile from her face. Before she fell asleep, she called once more to the birds. “You know what you must do,” she told them. They whistled back from the windowsill.
Three little bluebirds, at the end of the day,
Found a queen with no hands to swat them away.
They flew home with a foot, a jewel hung above,
As a gift for the princess they so dearly loved.
The next day, Annabelle spun pirouettes through the kitchen in a jeweled anklet that shimmered like stars.
And the next, she raced down the stairs, tore a day from the calendar, and found a bit of left arm, wrist to elbow and wearing a bracelet that her real mother once loved. She squealed, not in fright, but delight, and pulled the diamond bracelet still dangling from the wrist. She patted each of her little treasure hunters in thanks.
Each morning, Annabelle tore a page from the calendar and came to the kitchen window. And with each morning, the three little bluebirds delivered a treasure, and an addition to the rotting pile of skins and bones outside the kitchen window.
A week before her birthday, the bluebirds brought the royal emeralds that had once lay at her real mother’s breast and jingled when she laughed. Annabelle clasped the necklace around her neck and pushed the remnants of flesh out of sight.
The emeralds lay cold as death against her chest. She enjoyed the chill.
“One more week,” she told the birds. “And one last treasure to take.”
She whistled to the birds.
Three little bluebirds flew into the night
For the crown of the queen of evil and blight.
To the highest of towers the bluebirds did soar
To fetch the last gift for the one they adored.
But the next morning, when she flew down the stairs, she found nothing: no treasure, no song. Not even one little bluebird to greet her.
“Wherever could they be,” Annabelle asked the other animals crowding around the doors and every window except the one above the rotting pile of skins and bones.
There was no answer.
Annabelle feared the worst, but there were chores to be done, and she knew the Fae would protect her little bluebirds. Well, maybe knew was too strong a word.
She hoped.
The days dragged on with no gifts, no bluebirds, and no songs, save for Annabelle’s own. Smiles keep the curse away, she reminded herself. And she smiled and sang until her jaws ached and her throat burned and until at last, she tore a page from the calendar and saw it was her birthday eve. Though she finally wanted to smile, she couldn’t. Not for fear of the queen, but worry for her three little bluebirds.
Annabelle did her chores that day in silence. Even when the buck with the velvety antlers nudged her hand, she did not sing. Even when the chestnut squirrel danced at her feet, she did not smile. She simply swept the floor, and washed the dishes, and washed her dresses and hung them to dry. Finally, the forest shadows grew long and the sun grew dim, and Annabelle trudged up the steps to her room.
Standing at the window of her bedroom, she wondered about her feathered friends. The evening breeze cooled her cheeks and she filled her lungs with the crisp air. She wished she could see the kingdom from her window, the castle at least, to see the changing of guards and the festivals of summer and, most importantly, to see if she was dead.
Annabelle leaned against the sill, her chin in her hands, and listened to the crickets’ call. She hadn’t seen the bluebirds in a week and her birthday was tomorrow. Had they grown tired of helping? Had they been hunted? She was too tired for much thinking and, her head growing heavy in her hands, she began to doze off.
But the silence woke her.
Even the crickets had stopped their song. Annabelle held the sill as she leaned out the window, listening. Nothing. Only silence. Until—
The steady drum of hoofbeats hammered along the forest floor. One horse. Two. Maybe more. She strained her eyes against the black night, searching.
A lantern emerged from the shadows, and Annabelle opened her mouth to shout, but stopped herself before the words escaped. Another light appeared. And another.
Annabelle saw a flash of armor as the trio of lanterns fluttered like fireflies in the dark. Royal guards, she thought. The nearing hoofbeats pounded along the forest road as quickly as her heart.
She’s still alive, Annabelle thought. And she’s taken no chances this time.
Her mind flashed to the dagger, but she knew it was hopeless. She might be able to surprise a single attacker, but three? No chance. Annabelle swung open the wardrobe to hide. No, they would check there for sure. She felt the hopelessness freezing up her body. Then—
A glimmer caught her eye as the emerald necklace tapped against the wardrobe door.
An idea tapped at her brain.
As the horses galloped on through the forest, Annabelle fled downstairs. Through the kitchen and out the back door she ran.
Annabelle retched at the sight and stench of the rotting pile of skins and bones. Moonlight gleamed off the decaying mess. She covered her mouth and nose, taking a deep breath through the filter of her hand. “It’s my only hope,” she told herself.
Piece by piece, arm by hand by finger, Annabelle formed the shape of a body across the kitchen floor. She ran her hands, bloody and wet, along the walls and the windows and the door in the back. I tried to escape, she thought, but couldn’t get away. And this… She swallowed back her repulsion. This is what’s left of me.
Annabelle grabbed her apron and wiped her hands to no avail. The crimson stains remained.
The mounted trio thundered closer. A graveled voice shouted out, then a younger in response. Annabelle recognized neither. She’d been gone too long, and any with questionable loyalty were no doubt relieved of duty, or of life.
Annabelle fled through the back door into the darkest parts of the forest. She crouched behind a gooseberry bush at the base of an old birch, then watched, listened.
A horse whinnied.
Boots fell to the dirt path with a dull thud.
The creak of the front door cut through the darkness. Lanterns bobbed through the house sending shadows across walls and through windows.
“Upstairs, Ward,” said the graveled voice. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Aye, captain,” said Ward, the younger voice.
Footsteps fell upon the stairs.
“Captain Gregory, in here.” A hoarse voice called from the kitchen.
“My God,” said the captain. “Come on back down, Ward. We found her.”
“Looks like the huntsman finished the job,” said the hoarse man.
“He was here almost a year ago, Foster,” said the captain. “This… mess is too fresh.”
“Well, if not him…”
A lantern stabbed the darkness through the window. Then the captain said, “The wolves. There’s more blood out here. Probably dragged the rest of the kill into the forest.”
The trio of guards came through the back door, lanterns lighting up the forest. Annabelle held her breath. She should have run farther, but it was too late. Any movement could give her away.
The captain kicked the pile. It sucked in his boot like a fetid bog. “Even fresher than I thought. Damn. And I just had these shined.”
“But wouldn’t wolves–” started Foster, but the captain stopped him.
“Does it matter? She’s dead. Let’s just report back to the queen.”
“What’s left of her, anyway,” said Ward.
The crack of steel sword on steel helm echoed through the night. Annabelle flinched.
“Quiet,” said the captain. “Or next time I won’t use the broad side. Her majesty doesn’t need a body to whisper a spell.”
No more words were spoken. The silence of the guards was broken only by the deadened thud of hoofbeats cantering toward the castle.
Annabelle leaned back against a tree, the bark scratching through her bloodied dress. That was the closest she’d come to death. She knew it. But she survived.
The warm tongue of the buck slipped along her cheek.
“I’m ok,” she said. “Just tired.”
Annabelle forced herself to her feet. She bent over, heaving at the door of the kitchen, but pushed herself through. She held her breath as she stepped past the bloodied walls, leaping over the lumps of flesh, slipping just slightly on the rot-wetted floor.
She climbed the steps, fell into bed, and dreamed of going home.
Three little bluebirds woke the princess the next morning with their song. Annabelle leapt from the bed and looked through her window. The bluebirds fluttered up and down through the trees as they struggled to keep hold of the shadowy mass below.
“My loves! You’re back!”
She flew down the steps to the kitchen, stopping only to tear a page from the calendar. The first of June flapped in the breeze and Annabelle glowed.
The birds landed their gift proudly on the windowsill.
“It must be the crown,” Annabelle screamed. “It must! It must!”
Annabelle ran to see what she knew would be the final treasure they brought to this quaint cottage in the woods. She took a deep breath and stepped toward the sill, ignoring the fetid sprawl of flesh and bones on the kitchen floor.
“Thank you, little loves,” she said to the birds. “What a perfect birthday gift.”
The gold and jewels of the royal crown glinted in the light of the morning sun.
Annabelle lifted the head, her stepmothers face a death-mask cast in plaster, its brow creased in an eternal scowl. What little color there once was in the ashen flesh had since drained and Annabelle sighed, relieved to see nothing left but a ghost. Annabelle set the head on the counter and reached out for the crown.
Dead eyes snapped opened, black pools of ink. A hiss slipped from the queen’s pale lips, a whisper too weak to understand, but no less powerful.
Annabelle gasped and jerked back, the crown slipping from her fingers as she clutched her chest. The crown crashed to the floor and rattled like bones.
“No,” Annabelle gasped, but any other words were out of reach.
Her mouth hung open as her lungs struggled to pull in anything more than strained gasps dragging through her closing throat. Her chest collapsed against itself. She flailed her hands, just reaching the counter. Her fingertips slipped away.
Annabelle fell to her knees, fresh scabs tearing open. Tears welled in her eyes.
Her flattened lungs held no air. Her body strained for it, lurched for air, but there was none to be had. Black spots danced in her sight as she curled to her side, convulsing like a fish on the shore.
The lips of the queen moved ever so slightly, but her spell had lost none of its strength.
The bluebirds rushed to her, fluttering and chirping all around as Annabelle struggled for control. They flew at the queen, pecking at her eyes and her mouth, but nothing they did could stop the spell.
Don’t quit, thought Annabelle. Not now.
She strained to reach for the counter, pulling herself up until she was face to face with the eyes of the queen, each a black abyss. She fumbled her hand across the counter, unable to pull her own eyes away from the queen’s, searching blindly for anything to stop the spell.
Her fingers locked around a cool and familiar shape.
Annabelle lifted the blood-red apple and held it steady between her face and the queen’s. With every bit of strength she had, Annabelle speared the apple into the whispering mouth like a roast pig. A black ooze streamed along the apple’s skin. The whispering stopped.
Annabelle took a deep breath and collapsed against the counter. The bluebirds alighted beside her, screeching at the head of the queen. “It’s done,” said Annabelle, her strained voice not much louder than the queen’s had been.
She held the head up to the skeletal streams of light cutting through the forest canopy and studied the scowling face. “Goodbye, Stepmother,” she said.
Then, with a flick, Annabelle sent the head and the apple flying into the remnants of the pile just outside the window.
She stepped back from the sill and took a deep breath, ignoring the lingering scents of her struggles. Her chest puffed, her shoulders rose, and she felt the weight of the curse drifting away. Annabelle sighed, and smiled. For the first time in so many years, her smile felt true.
Annabelle dusted her blood-stained hands on her dress and lifted the crown from the floor. “It’s time to take my throne,” she said. She placed the crown on her head, adjusted it slightly, and twirled across the kitchen floor.
The buck bowed his head and the raccoon clapped his paws and Annabelle strolled through the living room and out onto the forest path. “Come and visit me at the castle,” she called out to the forest animals in her saccharine voice.
Annabelle sang as she skipped toward home, whistling to the birds and they fluttered after her.
So three little bluebirds played on the breeze
And followed their princess wherever she pleased,
For the Fae had foretold and the bluebirds had done,
And the princess, her kingdom, she finally won.
Esmeralda Rossetti gazes down at the captivated faces of the children at her feet, the fire a glimmer in their wide eyes. She looks at them, one by one, her shadowy grin growing as she sees her story has done its job.
Finally, she breaks the silence.
“Night falls, little ones, so hear my decree. Seek out little treasures to bring home to me.”
She claps her wrinkled hands and the children start. Four girls stand, followed by four boys, and then, without a word, the children slip out the door and into the stretching shadows of the city.
Madame Rossetti folds her hands together and rests them upon her lap, her dress the deep red of roses at sunset. There, she waits for her little birds to return.
If you enjoyed that story and want another, ‘Til God Gives Us Rain, sign up for my mailing list!
Header photo by Misty Ladd on Unsplash
Justin Williams 