Frightful Fairy Tales (12 page)

“No, father. You are alive!” cried Ezmerelda happily through her tears. “All of our strife has finally ended. I suffered inhuman tortures at the expense of your vice. I see that you also have gone through pain. I forgive you, because I know it was hard for you as well, and you are the only father I have. You will be forever content and safe now, as will we all.”

At this, she ran to him and held him. That day was the finest of many fine days to come. From that day forward, no cloud of misery ever obscured the sunlight that shone upon the lives of Ezmerelda, her father, and her husband. From this, they learned the depth of loss and gain in grandeur one could endure by indulging in gambling.

THE SALT MAIDEN

Let’s turn back the clock to a time when clocks didn’t exist. The earth was an orb as it is today, but it had no water, and the creatures that now live in the ocean were clearly visible squirming around in the mud, flapping their long slimy tentacles pointlessly and in vain. High above all this mess shone the beautiful face of The Moon. As she danced in her orbit, she looked down with interest which turned to disgust and then pity at the pathetic loathsome beasts below. The Moon is made of moon dust and rock, but originally she was an egg made from smooth white salt that had not quite solidified. As she rotated, thin strands of moonlight wafted down upon the earth and entangled it like spider webs.

Months passed and eventually the egg began to crack. It took time eternal as we perceive it, but to her it was but a few moments. From the crack slowly emerged a beautiful baby made entirely of salt. Her skin was white, smooth, and luminous and her hair lay flat and still against her head, for there was no breeze on the moon. In contrast, her eyes were deep, dark and black as the endless surrounding universe. Tiny glints of star light reflected in her eyes as her salt heart beat.

The Moon adored her daughter and showered her with intricate diaphanous dresses made from thin sheets of pressed salt. She did this by gestating them inside her hollow shell then pushing them up through the surface where they grew like white upside down oversized flowers until plucked by The Salt Maiden.

As The Salt Maiden grew, she grew more lovely and more bored. To break the tedium, she would peer down upon the Earth through her telescope, searching the landscape below and watching the creatures and the wildlife. As the wind blew, it formed deep yellow waves. The Salt Maiden longed to run through the grass. Her heart yearned to pick the fruit ripening in the twilight.

One stultifying afternoon, she peered at the creatures in the mud pits. Her circle of vision ran up from the creatures in the mud to the land mass sporting an army of flora and fauna. Then she saw him. The Salt Maiden couldn’t believe her eyes. Seeing him increased her loneliness two thousand times. As she watched him moving through the underbrush, gazing up at the sky thoughtfully, his eyes seemed to meet the gaze of hers through the telescope and her salt heart broke. She longed to hold him and run her fingers through his dark brown hair. If only she could kiss his beautiful white neck and taste his little perfect teeth. She informed her mother that she would be leaving soon and began building a salt ladder so she could climb down to the center of the earth and be in the arms of the one she desired. As she built the ladder, she checked on the young man below, to see if he was intuitively preparing for her descent.

One day he stood by the giant mud pit digging up clams with his toes. Another time he made a pile of everything flammable he could find and caused a gigantic fire she could almost see without the telescope. Finally, the day came that The Salt Maiden would make her escape. She bid her mother farewell and started down the ladder towards the earth. Her mother was very sad indeed, but kept a stoic face as she watched her only daughter descend. The Salt Maiden began to sing:

Loneliness I leave behind me

As well as my loving mother

Will my life be good? I ponder

For I have known no other.

Will his arms be strong and stable?

Will the Earth be kind to me?

Is this all a mere: delusion?

The future is unclear to see.

She repeated the song as she twisted further into delirium until she reached the earth’s atmosphere. It was too much for her. Without lungs, she couldn’t breathe and began to suffocate. She tried to call to her mother for help but The Moon was too far up the ladder. Being too weak to climb back up, The Salt Maiden collapsed on the rungs where she eventually died. The Moon, upon seeing this, began to cry. She wept endlessly and bitterly in a seemingly never-ending torrent that washed over The Salt Maiden and the salt ladder.

The Moon’s tears eventually reached Earth and rivers and streams began to form. Water rushed over the ladder and The Salt Maiden, dissolving them in the Moon’s tears which now filled every mud pit. The creatures began to gleefully swim and splash in their newfound habitat. The young man looked towards the heavens in surprise, as the ocean filled up before his eyes. As he saw the white moon reflected on the ocean’s surface, he was moved to tears for reasons unknown and realized his tears were as salty as the newly formed sea.

THE TUMULTUOUS LIFE OF RAPUNZEL’S PARENTS

Conception. Consumption. Conviction.

Rapunzel’s father was a carpenter and her mother did everything else but carpentry. They lived on a small hill surrounded by lilacs in spring and snow in winter. Their home was modest but beautiful, built by the capable and talented hands of her father and decorated by the silken hands of her mother. Sometimes they would open the shutters and peer out of the window, careful to hide themselves behind the lace curtains as they watched their neighbor working in her garden full of lettuce.

Their neighbor would always wear a deep green dress with a pattern of sparkling lettuce printed on it, gardening gloves, and a green wide brimmed hat with a veil to block out all traces of sunlight. She wore this apparel because the pattern of the lettuce on her dress would lure the growing plants to life. She couldn’t make it come up any other way…she was a witch!

The couple would watch her and make little jokes about her crazy antics and the way she decorated her yard and home. Even though they had animosity towards the witch, their jokes never went so far as to say an evil thing about her. Whenever they tried, they bit their tongue, sometimes so hard it bled. Hanging on a silver nail in the witch’s house were scissors, put there to prevent evil things to be said about her behind her back. The scissors are a hex to clip the tongues of any malevolent neighbors. Rapunzel’s parents laughed and talked about how amazingly old the witch must have been.

One evening while visiting their friends across town, the couple drank five bottles of homemade wine and decided to run through the mud as they hit each other with cattails growing by the side of the creek. They remember frolicking this way the night Rapunzel was conceived.

Soon, the carpenter’s wife began to feel very sick and all she could think about was the witch’s lettuce. Rapunzel’s father tried to get her mother to eat but she wouldn’t. She would break down sobbing, then vomit, and plead for the witch’s lettuce.

At night she would stay awake with her fists clenched and all her muscles strung like a wire. She stared at the ceiling as she tossed, trying to find a comfortable position. Keeping her husband awake, she constantly pleaded for him to get her the witch’s lettuce.

After work one day, he entered his newly dark life of a messy house as his crazy pregnant wife stared listlessly out the window at the lettuce. Her once nubile body was now thin and gaunt save for her bloated abdomen. Her once shiny, long golden ringlets were now a mess of faded corn silk.

Her eyes which were once bright blue had turned lightless. It was too much for him to take. He disliked being reduced to stealing the witch’s lettuce but he decided that night to sneak into the garden for his ailing bride. The witch’s property was surrounded by a ninety foot tall wrought iron fence . Silver cupids danced their frozen minuet in exact patterns throughout the intricate swirls and iron leaves.

Every so often a jewel would gleam at him from the pattern entwined in iron. The crescent moon looked like a discarded fingernail but was his only light source. The shadows the fence cast were long, black, ominous, and seemed to be ever-changing. Crickets chirped in the bushes all around him. Breezes tossed his hair ever so slightly and horses snorted sleepily in the

pasture nearby. Behind the witch’s fence, everything was still and silent, seeming waiting with baited breath for his intrusion.

The carpenter took his shovel and dug under the fence, praying all the while. The soil on the witch’s side of the fence was rich and black and made his internal organs feel like they were being smothered by a warm wet quilt. Despite this, he was able to run to the lettuce patch and throw as many as he could fit into the pillowcases he had brought. He then scurried under the fence like a rat and threw the dirt back into the hole he created. The witch’s soil he dug earlier was now dirt. Only the witch’s garden contained rich soil; he and everyone else had to make do with dirt.

When he arrived at home at three o’clock in the morning, his heart was practically beating out of his chest. He did not wake up his wife as she hadn’t slept in days. The next morning she was overjoyed to find the lettuce. She and her husband made a salad out of all the lettuce and ate it all in one sitting.

What a pleasant day! Afterward she did the dishes all the while humming songs about bluebells and swallows. Her eyes had started to regain their luster and they even got out the dulcimer and zither to play a couple of tunes in front of the crackling fire. The carpenter had abandoned his morals in exchange for mere lettuce and newfound hope.

Alas, the merriment did not last for long. The next morning his wife’s craving had increased a thousand fold. She tried to do herself in with a pair of shears. Her husband reluctantly agreed to grant her request for more lettuce. He had no choice. Returning to the witch’s garden, he discovered stealing was easier this time. As he dug under the fence he didn’t pray. As he threw the seventh head of lettuce into a pillowcase, he saw the form of the witch out of the corner of his eye.

She was back-lit by the light of a big sliver moon - larger than the night before. Perhaps this is why the witch caught him this time. Her form cast a long, black shadow running through the garden to his thieving hands. The witch spoke and when she did, her voice could have been that of a man or woman old or young, it was indecipherable but definitely sounded like thick, green velvet.