Bayou Fairy Tale (2 page)

The young man gave an impish smirk of his own. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re a speed reader.”

He arched a brow. The young man who called himself a princess seemed to trust him. And for now, he trusted him as well.

The first thing that caught his attention when he opened the mishmash of notebooks was the chicken-scratch handwriting. Names, numbers, and details—from physical features, to what was said, to who said it—hastily scrawled over the paper with accompanying minimaps scribbled into the margins. Every space of the pages was filled. Every space. And when there wasn’t, the spaces between the previously written letters had to do.

None of it made sense. The paper was practically illegible. Sets of notes all written in different colors of ink. And then rents in the paper where the ink was running out. Smears from fingertips. Coffee rings. Strange splatters ranging from brown to pink. What was with the pink?

He swallowed. It looked like notes from a madman whose purpose was to document everything in the world, down to when he last took a shit. He assumed that was in the mess of scrawls somewhere. But when he relaxed his eyes, words shifted up from the noise of multicolored pen scribbles and rose to the surface.

His name is Taylor
, he read.
Taylor Hatfield. You love him. He makes you good.

Makes him good? Who was he that he needed to be made “good”?

He glanced up at the young man and then at the pictures on the wall. He presumed the young man was this so-called Taylor.

“How’s it going in there?” the little winged man called out. “The bacon’s getting cold. I might have to make the sacrifice to eat it all.”

The young man—Taylor, his name was
Taylor
—pulled a huffy frown. “You better not.”

Meanwhile, he sat back and listened to the banter while pretending to study the strange book.

“You need to touch the words,” the young man—Taylor—instructed him as he pointed to the book. “It only works when you touch the words.”

He nodded mutely. Sure, the odd collection of books was easily twenty pounds of paper, but he was willing to believe it wasn’t something terrible.

As soon as his fingertip touched the page, his world imploded.

Into the Woods….

HE GASPED
for breath, clutching his chest. As his breath returned, he found himself lying on a soft patch of moss. A lush tree canopy swayed gently overhead. He slowly got to his feet and again noticed his nudity. He frowned. Did he never get out of the rabbit hole? Or did the nightmare keep going? He wanted to go back to the bedroom with Taylor and the little winged man. But now he was here in this strange forest that was far too green to be real.

He snapped off a twig, and the cool dew ran over his fingers. After a casual sniff, he noted the distinct freshness of chlorophyll. This was real. It was all real. But was all of it real? The rabbit hole? The bedroom? And now this… enchanted forest?

A campfire crackled and popped nearby. Instead of running from it, he followed the sound.

The mossy ground was soft and warm against his feet. In the distance, birds cawed to one another. A fox perked up from the bushes and then sank back into the greenery again.

He fanned his fingers, letting the verdant leaves and soft petals slip through his touch. The campfire was close, as he could see the smoke rising over a circle of large stones. He skipped over a downed log lying over a bubbling stream and slipped between the boulders.

As he came upon the fire, he hesitated at the sight of the fire’s keeper.

Himself.

His heart thumped as he watched his doppelganger use a long hunting knife to casually peel an apple in long curls of red. He wasn’t him. He couldn’t be. Was this another trick?

His double—with the sandy brown hair, faded Levis, and leather jacket—smiled at him. His dark eyes glinted at something he didn’t have.

Knowledge.

“Good morning, starshine,” he said in that distinct Creole drawl. He pushed the knife through the apple in a wet, slurping cut and snapped off the piece. “Want some?” he asked, holding it out.

“No… thanks,” he said slowly, trying to put it all together. “You’re me?” It seemed like a huge leap in logic, but anything could happen by this point, he assumed. He turned in a slow circle as he looked up to the tree canopy. “I’ve been having the weirdest day.” He looked back to his double. “Or at least I think it was a day.”

“You went down the rabbit hole again,” his double said, then popped the apple slice into his mouth.

The hair on the back of his neck rose. “You know it?”

“Of course I know it. I’m
you
. Or specifically, your
journal
.” He swept an overdramatic bow. “Welcome to a new week, Corentin. If you’re talking to me, it’s the morning of day seven.”

“Corentin?” he asked. “That’s me?”

“Us, I suppose,” his double said, then shrugged. He gestured toward a stone, only for it to crumble and dissolve into ash on a breeze to reveal a sprawling footpath vanishing into the forest. “Let’s take a walk.”

Corentin nodded and fell in step. “What is this place?”

His double glanced up to the canopy. “It’s yours. You can call it what you’d like. Enchanted Forest seems fitting. After all, you are an Enchant.”

Corentin blinked, a question on the tip of his tongue, until his double held up the knife as a deterrent.

“Hold on, I’m getting to that part,” his double said, and the look in his eye suggested Corentin should listen instead of speak. The knife was also an excellent tool to indicate whose turn it was to take the floor. His double had it, and therefore, all the floor he wanted. “So, you know those fairy tales you were told as a kid? Snow White? Sleeping Beauty? Hansel and Gretel?”

Corentin arched a brow and quirked his lip. He gave a slight shake of the head.

His double scowled. “They’re real.”

“Oh. Kay.” Corentin pressed his lips together in a thin line and followed along. “That guy said he was a princess. His name is Taylor, right?”

His twin snorted a guffaw. “Ah yes, the Fair Princess Taylor.” He sliced off a bit of apple and held the piece to the knife with his thumb. “We are so getting ahead of everything here. One step at a time.”

Corentin nodded and made sure to pay attention to his surroundings. The green leaves, the intense color of the flower petals, and the blue of the sky—it looked like something out of a Disney movie. Picturesque. Flawless.

“Ah. You’re getting it,” his twin said. And when Corentin shook his head, his twin explained, “You’re remembering. You know who Disney is.”

The Enchanted Forest was curious, yet comforting, and possibly dangerous? He wasn’t sure. He went with his gut to trust his twin, despite something about being in his company not seeming right.

“You always think I’m weird,” his twin said.

Corentin stiffened. “I didn’t say—”

“You don’t need to,” his twin said. “I’m your journal, after all. You’re sitting in a cozy bed, in a cute little house that has fucking window treatments, and even a sweet Keurig. Right now, I’m in your lap, and you’re staring off into space as you absorb everything I have to tell you. You always think this part is weird.” He rolled his shoulders with a sigh and then shrugged. “You think the rabbit hole is
ooh scary
, and you think meeting me is
weird
.”

Corentin crossed his arms. “Weird bad or weird good?”

“Depends on the day you make a note about it. Some days you go out on a high, some days you can’t wait for it to be over.”

“You said this was the seventh day?” Corentin asked. “What happens on the seventh day?”

“You fall into the rabbit hole, and then you come here. You meet me, and we have a chat. I’m all of your notes to yourself. I’m you talking to yourself. I tell you who you are, where you’ve been, and your life until the moment you fell down the rabbit hole.” He pointed to Corentin’s tattooed arm with the knife. “The tattoo keeps track of the days.”

At the subconscious suggestion, Corentin held up his left arm. He inspected the delicate linework illustrating the tree. It started at a snarl of roots around his wrist, then went up his arm, and finally branched off into seven windblown leafy boughs.

His double tossed the apple core away. “One by one, the branches lose the leaves each day. It feels somewhere a cross between being hit with a sack full of doorknobs and a freight train filled with sacks full of doorknobs. Pleasant stuff.”

Corentin’s ears perked when he caught the sound of birds cawing overhead. And in a blink, they sat upon the rocky beach shores of somewhere else. In the distance, the gray tides rolled in a whisper, crested, and then sucked back into the fold again.

“How did we…?” he asked and then waved it off. “Never mind.” He knew it wouldn’t do to ask.

His twin struck a match, then cast it into a pile of driftwood and dried seaweed between them. The wood took to the flame in less than a second, and both Corentin and his twin crouched before it, warming their hands.

“Your name is Henri Corentin Devereaux,” his twin told the fire. “You go by your middle name because it’s Creole tradition.” He smirked. “Also, you definitely don’t look like a Henri. Your age is undefined because you seemed to fail at making a note of it. Your driver’s license says you were born in 1967, which puts you at forty-nine. But you’re not forty-nine, and you’re not Corentin Devereaux.”

Corentin straightened with the jolt of information. “What the fuck are you—”

With a glimmer of silver, his twin brandished the knife, and Corentin swallowed. “My turn to talk,” his twin said. “You’re an Enchant. Your ancestors were Hansel and the child-eating Enchantress who owned the swank gingerbread house. She charmed Hansel, and Hansel in turn joined the Enchantress in a tasty buffet made of his sister, Gretel. The tattoo is the spirit of the tree that stood outside the gingerbread house that slowly died as the Enchantress cooked her.” Their eyes met, and his double seemed to be gauging his reaction. He cracked a slow, sickle curl of a smirk that set Corentin’s teeth on edge. “Regretting you left that rabbit hole, eh?”

Corentin scowled. “Keep going.”

“Walk with me,” his twin said, gesturing to the rocky beach under their feet. The lush, mossy path drew itself into a long twisting line down the shore and vanished into the mist. He smiled and jerked his chin toward the distance. “Off we go, yeah?”

Clenching his fists and checking his growing irritation, Corentin had no choice but to follow.

With a tentative step onto the path, the beach and whisper of the ocean vanished into the dark. This time a thick grove of cypress trees draped in spanish moss rose in the beach’s place. In the boggy marshes, a blue heron speared a fish and then quickly sucked it down into its gullet. On the surface of the water, the beady stare of an alligator watched them pass.

“Here’s where it gets tricky,” his double said. “Hansel knocked up the Enchantress. The Enchantress, being a witch, and Hansel, being an Enchant, produced a child that was half witch. They call these children Cronespawn. Following me?”

“Do I have a choice?” Corentin asked. His curiosity and his doubt swayed back and forth.

“You always get doubtful at this part,” his twin said and snapped his fingers inches from Corentin’s face. “Stay with me here. This is a lot to take in.”

“You’re kind of an ass, you know?” Corentin said, then gritted his teeth.

His double laughed. “
We’re
kind of an ass. It’s just our nature.”

“So, I’m not this Corentin guy?” Corentin asked. “What kind of name is that anyhow?”

“A pretty pompous one, if you ask me. It’s the name on your driver’s license, so it’s yours. Don’t get all up in your head when you see the picture isn’t yours. The license is likely fake anyhow. No one seems to pay attention to it.” He beamed as if he looked upon a newborn baby. “Because you have such a pretty face.”

Corentin raised his finger to indicate a thought, and his twin shook his head.

“Don’t go there,” his twin warned him.

“So the Cronespawn…?” Corentin asked, changing the subject.

“You’re one of them.” The way his twin said it, the words seemed like he was reading the verdict of criminal.

Corentin scratched at his bristly jaw as he considered. “Uh-kay,” he said through his teeth as he looked down on his twin over the tip of his nose.

His twin shoved his hands in his jacket pockets as he rocked on his heels. “You’re an Enchant, but you’re dark magic,” he said, then smiled kindly at a passing turtle in the shallows. Corentin watched him, waiting for him to go on. “As a Cronespawn, you’re a huntsman. One of the many grunt jobs associated with serving witches, evil queens, and wicked stepmothers. You don’t get to do the fun stuff like the princes and princesses do. You don’t go to balls, or parties, or coronations. You’re the one stalking the rooftops and pulling off the assassinations from above.”

Corentin recoiled as a black racer slithered between his feet. “What now?” he asked, somewhat horrified.

His twin shrugged, seeming not the least bit put off. “Balls aren’t your thing anyway. Those damned duck pâté hors d’oeuvres sit in your stomach like a brick.”

“I’m an assassin?” Corentin asked, holding out his hand as if to grasp on to any logic coming from his twin’s mouth.

His twin chuckled and then brushed a sandy brown lock behind his ear. “Hitman, contract killer, call it what you like.” He smiled wide. “Huntsman just sounds better. More romantic, don’t you think? Still, no less absolutely terrifying.” He turned his gaze downward and toed the dirt. He sucked in a long sigh with a grin. “But you quit.”

Corentin tilted his head and smiled slowly. “Because of Taylor, right?”

“Because true love always finds a way,” his twin said. His demeanor had changed. He wasn’t so much the snarky counterpart, but someone at ease with the world.

Corentin shook his head. His twin told him he was his journal—was his twin changing his demeanor as he read more? Was it because his notes to himself became happier?