Once Upon A Curse: 17 Dark Faerie Tales Page 14

  “Komba,” she said, her voice a harsh rasp as she turned back to the king. She flushed then, kicking herself in her mind. That was only a stupid name she’d given to a lemur, not one fit for a king.

  He smiled and his fingers twined in her own, gripping tightly. “Ratsibahaka,” he said, “my lemur queen. I don’t remember much of this day, but I think you saved my life.”

  Afua took a slow, deep breath. Then she squeezed his hand, her fingers closing around his own. “As you have saved mine,” she murmured, sitting up.

  Hands entwined, they smiled at each other beneath the warm and glowing sun.

  ***

  Find all Annie’s books at AMAZON

  Annie Bellet is the USA Today bestselling author of The Twenty-Sided Sorceress, Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division, and the Gryphonpike Chronicles series. She holds a BA in English and a BA in Medieval Studies and thus can speak a smattering of useful languages such as Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Welsh.

  Her interests besides writing include rock climbing, reading, horse-back riding, video games, comic books, table-top RPGs and many other nerdy pursuits. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and a very demanding Bengal cat.

  Visit her at www.anniebellet.com and join her mailing list! http://anniebellet.com/4quk

  The Grim Brother - Audrey Faye

  Some say children can’t be evil. I know differently.

  I stand here, looking at the fresh mound of earth in front of my sister’s gravestone, and know that I have buried evil in consecrated ground. For a priest, there is no greater sin.

  For the man, standing in the place where I commended her soul to God, I don’t know what to feel. If she had a soul, it had long since been promised elsewhere.

  It is not hell I fear, but rather, that my sister waits for me there.

  I am long past redemption. Perhaps all those many years ago when we returned from our disappearance—perhaps then the truth might have saved my soul. I’ll never know. I only know that as a boy of seven, I saw evil act, and she took my voice.

  My sister killed a woman. That’s no secret. People still tell stories about the two young children kidnapped and held hostage for an entire fortnight. How we suffered so terribly and escaped only when my sister fought to save me and killed the terrible woman who held us.

  My sister lived out her life basking in the deference that comes as reward for such a moment of bravery. I have lived in the quiet shame of an older brother who needed to be rescued by his little sister.

  It is not the only reason I sought sanctuary in the priesthood, but the Church’s deep relationship with guilt and shame were certainly part of my calling. As a priest, I seek to expiate the guilt of others and bring them closer to our God the Father. I do not expect the same for myself. Some things, even God can surely not forgive.

  My friend Gregor would say this is heresy. It is a conversation we have had for most of a lifetime, beginning when we were students with the Jesuits in Olomouc. With all those miles between me and my sister, it was easy to agree with him for a time. He was my first true friend, but even Gregor does not know the whole truth.

  It is a truth I have never told anyone, and now the only other who knows it is dead.

  In my defense, I did not expect people to believe my sister’s story. Who would believe that a small child killed a grown woman, even in self-defense? Or that we wandered around in the woods for days, but my sister managed never to drop the jewels clutched in her hands?

  It seems belief is not so hard when the tale is told by a small blonde child with traumatized eyes and a fortune in her grasp.

  Our father certainly never questioned her, not even when our much unloved stepmother sickened and died only days after our return, along with the unborn babe in her womb. The story people tell now says she was dead and gone before we got back. It’s not true. I don’t know exactly what my sister did. I only know that when she held our father’s hand at the funeral, her eyes were happy.

  No one else seems to see her eyes.

  Her eyes were happy when she watched the old woman fall, too.

  It was my fault, has always been my fault. I’m the one who took my sister to the house on the hill.

  We were hungry. There was little work for my father, and his new wife had a baby on the way. My mother died giving birth to my sister. Perhaps she understood that evil moved in her womb.

  The house on the hill was fancy, with flower gardens and real glass in all the windows. I thought the old woman who lived there might have some food to spare. My sister was pretty, so people often gave her scraps instead of the cuff to the head they gave me.

  The old woman answered the door herself. I sometimes wonder if that’s why my sister always made sure there were servants in her house. Living alone is dangerous—you never know what might come to the door.

  She was kind, the old woman. Perhaps my burden would be less if she hadn’t been kind to two hungry children. She seated us at her table, fed us bread with real butter and jam. I’ve never been able to eat blueberry jam since. It tastes of death and cowardice.

  My sister told the sad tale of our family, the new baby coming, and not enough food on the table. Our pittance of a house, small and very drafty in the cold of winter.

  We were blessed with a moment of uncommon kindness that day. The old woman had a house in the woods, she said. Just a cottage, but warm and dry, with two small bedrooms just the right size for two growing children. It had belonged to her family for generations, but only she remained.

  I remember when she smiled at me and asked if I thought we might like to come look at her cottage. I was certain we had met our fairy godmother.

  My sister shared my joy. Whatever evil stirred in her, it had not yet awakened when she took the old woman’s hand for a walk in the woods.

  I believe now that the presence of good simply triggered the need for evil to act. Gregor convinced me of this eternal truth. The forces of evil gathered for the birth of the only Son. It is a story humanity repeats far too often. At seven, however, I knew only that kindness faced down death and lost.

  The cottage in the woods was sturdy and well maintained, like the one I remembered from when we were very small, when there was still work for my father. It had a cozy, welcoming kitchen, and three whole bedrooms. Outside were sheds for animals if we had any, and a small root cellar.

  The path of some lives is determined by a single moment.

  Gregor reminds me often that the doctrine of predestination isn’t meant to be interpreted this severely. He wasn’t there when the old woman peered down the steps into the root cellar and my sister pushed her. He wasn’t there when my sister closed the door of the root cellar and led me back through the woods. He wasn’t there when we sat down at the table in the big house on the hill and ate more bread with butter and blueberry jam.

  If God intended for one such as I to go to heaven, such moments would never have happened. I do not know if the old woman was dead when she fell. That is perhaps the most heinous of my crimes—I might have saved her. I will never know.

  We stayed in the house on the hill for thirteen days. We left only once, in the dark of night. It took us a long time to drag the old woman out of the root cellar and into the cottage kitchen. She was small, and we were strong from hauling wood with our father, but it still took an eternity. I will never forget the cold, papery skin or her staring eyes. In death, they were no longer kind.

  I didn’t know why we had to move the old woman until my sister spun her lies after our return. I only knew that her eyes were very scary, and I did as I was told.

  I slept very little those thirteen days, and I ate a lot. Seventy years later, sleep still eludes me many nights, and food finds me all too often.

  When we had consumed everything edible in the house, my sister looked for something to sell. She found the old woman’s jewelry and we sat at the table, carefully taking the stones from their settings. Once you’ve been accessory to murder, the burden of t
heft hardly ripples your soul.

  Those jewels bought my sister a fancy life. You might think she killed for them, but the old woman had been dead for more than a week by the time the jewels were found. In seventy years, I have never really understood what turned my sister irredeemably from the light.

  After disappearing for a fortnight, our return was big news in our little village on the Rhine. My sister spun a story of witchcraft and kidnapping, insanity and escape. The old woman’s remains in the kitchen of the cottage in the woods seemed proof enough.

  I remember very little of the next year. Soon enough I was sent away to school in Deventer, and after that to the Jesuits in Olomouc, where I met Gregor. That my education was paid for by the old woman’s jewels is amongst the more minor of my sins.

  While I found some peace at school, happiness was not mine to seek. My small group of friends called me the grim brother. Gregor could often tease a smile from me. Few others ever managed.

  It was not an accident, I think, that my schools were too far to permit frequent travel home. I saw my sister but a few times before she married, and then again at the funeral that left her a young widow. She attended my ordination, perhaps needing to witness my vows of poverty and chastity—my obedience had already been well established.

  I am a good priest. It does not atone for my sins, but it sometimes gives small solace in the night. Not too many of my congregation fall asleep when I speak, and some come to the rectory to talk. The children listen to my stories, and one or two will often climb in my lap.

  My sister never had children. In my later years, this is something for which I have thanked God every day. My friend Gregor, after many years of work with his pea plants, believes that children inherit the characteristics of their parents. I do not know how much of my sister’s blood runs in my veins, but it is good the line will end with us.

  I was not there when she died. It was not in me to grant her final absolution. I don’t believe God wants her back. In my dreams, when He sits in judgment, Son of Man on His right, and the kind old lady on His left, He does not want me back either.

  I buried my sister today, and at the end of a lifetime of blackness and despair, I do not know what to feel. People nod and smile, and repeat the words she wanted etched on her gravestone.

  Gretel Nussbaum. Such Bravery.

  They have sent a small child now to fetch me back to the rectory. “Come, Father Hansel,” she says. “It is time for bread and soup.”

  Her eyes are kind, as a young girl’s should be.

  -------------

  Audrey Faye writes as widely as she likes to read, so you’ll find her books in lots of genres, but they are always filled with characters she’d like to hang out with, and some she’d like to be! Try Holly and the siren haunting her dreams in Wanton to the Death, or check out the rest of Audrey’s writing here and on AMAZON.

  Beauty Inside Beast - Danielle Monsch

  Chapter 1

  “Daddy? Daddy....what have you done?”

  Chapter 2

  “Our next guest has a, simply put, fascinating story. Several years ago when she was a teenager, she was falsely accused, convicted, and sent to jail for murder, only to be freed when the real murderer – unprompted – came into the DA’s office and confessed to the crime after her conviction. Now, she’s a Detective with the Police department, where she’s received numerous commendations for bravery and public service. She works as an officer liaison with several public groups, she is an active volunteer in our community, and…oh yes, she’s been voted Most Beautiful Woman by the Chronicle. Please welcome, Detective Kenna Morgan.”

  The camera panned out, going from a tight shot on a blandly handsome man with salon highlighted hair, a too tan face, and too white teeth, sitting in a leather chair on a comfortably bland television stage, and widening to include the woman seated next to him. Kenna Morgan’s face betrayed comfortable discomfort, telling of a long familiarity with being in front of the camera while having absolutely no desire to be there.

  The studio audience clapped as the flashing sign told them to, and once the echoes ceased, the man continued speaking. “Detective Morgan, I’m so pleased you’re finally here. We’ve been trying to get you on the show for awhile now.”

  “Well Mr. Peterson-”

  The man interrupted. “Luther, please.”

  “Luther,” Kenna corrected, giving the socially expected response before continuing, “Like you said, I have a lot on my plate, so my absence is because there are only so many hours and the scheduling not working. I’m very happy I’m able to be here today though, and talk about a good cause.”

  “Yes,” Luther chimed in, leaning down to grab something on the floor by his chair and coming up with a calendar in his hand. On the front was a picture of Kenna, but in contrast to the darker professional attire with nude make-up and upswept hair she was wearing in the studio, on the calendar she was dressed in ‘40’s glam – her deep chocolate brown hair styled in waves, and her eyes made up so the green irises were almost unnatural in their intensity. Deep red lips matched the red of the slinky dress she was wearing, a dress that didn’t show much visible skin, but left no doubt to the mouth-watering curves under the fabric.

  A few catcalls and whistles erupted from the audience, and Luther gave a small rehearsed laugh. “You have some admirers, Detective.”

  Kenna gave a small wave towards the audience, her mouth lifting in a half-smile. “Thank you very much, but that was over two hours’ worth of work. Never underestimate the importance of a skilled beautician and proper undergarments.”

  “Nonsense, you’re being much too humble.” Luther shifted so the open pages of the calendar faced the camera and began flipping, the monthly models all other women in similar dress, with the final month showing Kenna once again, though this time her dress was black with sheer panels, carefully placed to showcase the long lines of her back and legs while preserving the illusion of modesty. “I’m sure it’s a surprise to many of our viewers how extraordinarily beautiful so many women in our police force are. Any reason this wasn’t a more standard lingerie calendar for charity? After all, many of the men’s calendars feature the guys bare-chested.”

  Before the supporting murmurs in the crowd could grow too loud, Kenna gave another practiced smile and answered, “It didn’t seem appropriate both because this calendar is to raise money for the Children’s Hospital, and because it would be a little harder for witnesses to take us seriously in our official duties if they saw us in our undies.”

  “Witnesses like for the recent spate of murders in Forest Brook.” Luther smile went from bland geniality to shark-like intensity, all white points and angled for maximum bloodletting. “You are the lead detective in that case, are you not? What’s being dubbed as the Screaming Woods murders?”

  The line of her back straightened a fraction, but in contrast, the smile that now graced Kenna’s face was softer, more intimate than the previous formality of her other responses. “Luther, you can be assured that the police are devoting the maximum manpower and resources to these crimes, and will continue to do so until they’re solved, but while we’re here today, let’s talk about the good in people, how we can help children to get the medical attention they need and get healing from cancer and traumatic injuries and to help families financially when all they should be doing is focusing on getting their child better instead of worrying how they’ll pay their child’s medical bills. That’s what the sales for this calendar do, and why I agreed to participate…”

  “Nice save, Kenna. I doubt any of them went away from that show with any other thoughts except where to buy that calendar and crying over sick kids.”

  Kenna Morgan looked away from the TV that was bolted into the ceiling corner of the squad room and turned to face her partner Zane Hanek. “I’m telling public relations I’ll shoot myself before I ever go on that show again, so they better be sure they want to be down one detective before they ever try to send me back.”
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  Zane widened his eyes and mouth in an exaggeration of affront, his dark skin making Zane’s teeth even whiter than Luther’s had been, though even with that distinction, Zane’s still appeared more natural. “Not wanting to be around the great Luther Peterson? I’m shocked that such an outgoing, image conscious lady such as yourself would say such a thing.”

  “Maybe the whole image thing went out the door when my daily life is dealing with junkies puking in corners.”

  Zane shifted to look where Kenna’s attention was focused, and sure enough, a strung-out woman who was too young to have so few teeth was sitting next to a recent puddle of vomit.

  “I’ll call janitorial before it begins to stink too bad.” In the process of picking up the phone, Zane continued. “More good news for you this day. They mayor wishes to speak to you. Captain called me while you were in Interview 1. You’re to strut your Most Beautiful self over to the palace immediately.”

  “I’m torching the Chronicle’s offices.” Her voice was low, but the pure intent behind the words was unmistakable.

  “Luckily I had momentary deafness and didn’t catch what you said. Might want to go now. The Mayor doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Chapter 3

  “You’re not afraid of me?”

  Kenna sat in the grass in front of the shaggy boy, who played with the dirt and didn’t look at her again except for that one time. He was bigger than her, but he had to be younger than her. She was eight and all her friends were eight, and they all knew how to read. If he was her age, he would know how to read.

  So younger than her. “Why would I be afraid?”

  He shrugged, a small movement, his eyes darting back to her again.