Cautionary Tales

There is a miniscule town, about a day's walk from here. You head straight for the mountains – you see that peak there; the enormous one, tipped with snow? You walk right for that one, unwavering, over steep hills and down the other side. You turn left when you reach the stream with gold and rubies sparkling on the bottom – do not pick any up, or go nearer than a rose stem's length to the bank of the river. Do so, and the creatures of the water will pull you in, kiss you until you cannot taste anything but melted ice and frozen treasures, and then leave you, your skin now pebbles of pure gold and your blood crystalized into the loveliest of rubies, and you will serve as the lure for the next unlucky stranger to wander by.

Walk along the river. Go until you see the tree with bark of copper and leaves crafted from emeralds. Touch that, and you will become a prisoner of the fae, your never ending supply of blood filling their goblets as they smile their cruel little smiles at you and play their tunes that make your intestines coil and your heart beat dangerously irregular. You will not die in their service – indeed, you never shall – but you will wish you could. Be a good slave, entertain them, and they just might rip out your heart as a sign of mercy one day.

Turn right, and walk away from the tree. You will find a path. There will be two animals waiting for you on the path, dust smudging their fur. One will be a cat, as big as a horse, with eyes of amber and moon white fur.

The other will be a bear, large as a house, with fur as black as a nightmare and eyes of silver.

You must not follow the cat. It will lead you in circles, endless loops of the forest, and once you have slipped away from the sunlight, your body is forfeit. Your remains will never be recovered, and you will feed the next ten generations of mushrooms.

Do not tremble as you approach the bear. Keep your face as blank as you can, and do not look into the eyes. Remember to bow. If the bear decides you are worthy, it will bend down, and you must grip the sleek fur at the base of the neck and swing yourself up onto the shoulders. Be careful. Do not pull too harshly on the soft fur.

The bear will then walk you along the path. Try to stay balanced and to never touch the ground. If you look carefully, you might see eyes, flickering in the shadows of the thick woods surrounding you. It is for the better if you make no eye contact.

You will reach a lake. Try to not be too offended if the bear slings you from its back to the chilly water; it is not fond of many that pass this way. You will need to swim, in any case, for the boat is anchored away from the shore. Swim carefully. If you see faces flickering the waves, peering at you with inquisitive eyes, smile as sweetly as you can, and you shall be left alone.

The boat is woven of air, colored with the gentle gray of rain clouds. Rock it even minutely, and it shall crumble apart beneath you. Climb in as slowly and carefully as you can, using the ladder woven from silver, chained to the side. The inside will be uncomfortably cold and yet undeniably comfortable. Sleep if you wish. When you wake up, you shall be at your destination.

The little town, a day's walk from here, is called Historia.

Now, we live in a boring world. We live in a world of reality, not of elves and water spirits and bodies transforming from flesh and blood to gold and rubies. This world is made up of lawyers and science teachers, taxes and tea that is left forgotten until the counter until it goes cold. This world is not a world of princesses and noble quests. This world is a world where paupers can become princes and princes thrown in jail, a place of princesses on corners with glazed eyes and change cups, a land of faeries slaving away in the local high school to clean the gum streaked floors.

The closer you are to Historia, the more the barriers between reality and fiction crumble. They will shatter as soon as you pass the town limit, melt into something that could be called a white lie, if you wash it down with undying belief seasoned with a grain of truth.

You would recognize the stories I could tell you of Historia – the characters, their tales, their endings.

Do not assume they are the same. Cinderella is not some paragon of virtue – Cinderella is truthfully not even her true name. She is Eleanor McKenzie, who won a scholarship to study Spells and Chemistry, but gave it up after the party thrown by Charles, captain of the dragon slaying team. She has three kids now, and stretch marks, and her hair color comes from a bottle she buys from the grocery store once a month.

Do not assume they are kind.  Snow White will slit your throat moments after shaking your hand, should the feel of your skin against hers displease her. Unstable, wild, she grew up in the forest, raised by the homeless, hiding from her cruel stepmother. Now, violence and knives are the only ways she knows of reacting to problems.

Do not assume that happy endings exist. Why else would Beauty be found in a cellar, years after her boyfriend filed a missing persons report – poor, ugly, abused, wealthy rich child with no one to love him but her; her death tore him apart and drove him to a bottle and then the bottom of a lake.

I have warned you.

If you make a favorable impression, you might be allowed to meet Quintessential. That is her name this week; last Tuesday, she was Delightful. If you cannot remember her name, just call her Word. She responds to it easily enough. It is because of Word that the stories exist – that Eleanor McKenzie can be Cinderella, that Snow White is sane, that Beauty and the Beast can be together.

She is made of paper, stitched together with coarse black cords and her fingers encased in fragrant, soft red leather. Her hair is sentences formed of ink, spilling over lily white shoulders, tumbling to the floor like words falling from lips. Her lips are the blood that all authors eventually cry, after all their tears are gone, and her fingers dance with the same grace as a pen spilling words across a page. Be careful when looking into her eyes, for if you look too long and too deeply, you might discover the end to your own tale there, and that is something no sane human should ever search for.

Word (or Gossamer, or Myrrh, or Lullaby or whoever she is this week) sits in a throne crafted from wilted flowers in the center of Historia, her ink strands of hair woven with gold and silver. Sun and shine, rain and snow, she sits, and she writes, her parchment so long that it is what passes for roads in this town, and the excess of her words is what has built the city hall. The mayor's room moves whenever she indents a paragraph; the mayor now usually works from home.

She can tell you any tale. Yours, your sister's, your grand uncle's wife's aunt's. She knows the truth behind the little mermaid and all the bitter lies she spun to win her prince's heart, the way Rapunzel seduces her prince and broke his glass heart into a million pieces with a hammer made from her golden hair. She might even know the way the universe will end, but that is one story she has yet to confess to knowing.

Historia owes its beginnings to her, and the end as well. Word (or Asylum, or Iridescent, or Malicious) wrote this world into existence, and she might possibly write it back into the darkness when it begins to irritate her.

Bow to her. Do not look into her eyes, and try to not touch her, for your skin will come away, slick with black, black ink.

Now leave. Quickly, before she writes you into Historia, and you are the cautionary tale told to children. Run. Back to the lake, onto the shoulders of the bear, back through the forest, back by the faes' tree, along the river. Run with your back to the mountain, and do not stop until you are locking your door behind you.

Hide under the covers and pray that you do not feature in the next book of fairytales.

(Word has a long, long memory.)