Two and Twenty Dark Tales Read online

  TWO AND TWENTY DARK TALES:

  Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes

  By

  Nina Berry, Sarwat Chadda, Leah Cypess, Sayantani DasGupta, Shannon Delany with Max Scialdone, Leigh Fallon, Angie Frazier, Jessie Harrell, Nancy Holder, Heidi R. Kling, Suzanne Lazear, Karen Mahoney, Lisa Mantchev, Georgia McBride, C. Lee McKenzie, Gretchen McNeil, Pamela van Hylckama Vlieg, K.M. Walton, Suzanne Young, Michelle Zink.

  Foreword by Francisco X. Stork

  Edited by Georgia McBride and Michelle Zink

  For Tia and Jake, always.

  Thank you for purchasing TWO AND TWENTY DARK TALES: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes. This anthology contains short story works of fiction based upon the worlds and characters created by Mother Goose ©. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental for which neither the publisher, authors, their assignees nor representatives, may be held liable.

  Copyright © 2012 by Nina Berry, Sarwat Chadda, Leah Cypess, Sayantani DasGupta, Shannon Delany with Max Scialdone, Leigh Fallon, Angie Frazier, Jessie Harrell, Nancy Holder, Heidi R. Kling, Suzanne Lazear, Karen Mahoney, Lisa Mantchev, Georgia McBride, C. Lee McKenzie, Gretchen McNeil, Pamela van Hylckama Vlieg, K.M. Walton, Suzanne Young, Michelle Zink, and Month9Books, LLC.

  Two and Twenty Dark Tales: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States of America by Month9Books, LLC.

  Month9Books is a registered trademark, and the mermaid is a trademark of Month9Books, LLC.

  www.month9books.com

  ISBN 978-0-9850294-1-8 (tr. pbk) ISBN 978-0-9850294-0-1 (e-book)

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Month9Books, LLC, PO BOX 1892 Fuquay-Varina, NC 27526.

  Visit us online at: http://www.month9books.com

  Cover design by Heather Howland and Alicia “Kat” Dillman

  Edited by Georgia McBride and Michelle Zink

  eBook Formatting by Studio 22 Productions

  Introduction

  Georgia McBride

  This anthology is the first in a series of annual charity anthologies from Month9Books, in which proceeds from the sale of the first five thousand books will be donated to a deserving charity. In 2012, TWO AND TWENTY DARK TALES proceeds will be donated to YALITCHAT.ORG, a literary organization that fosters the advancement of young adult literature around the world. For more information on YALITCHAT.ORG, please visit http://www.yalitchat.org. Contributing authors donate their advances to the charity of their choosing. Please join us in the celebration of young adult literature with TWO AND TWENTY DARK TALES: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes.

  Foreword

  Francisco X. Stork

  The question that kept coming up as I read the stories in this volume was why would anyone want to transform innocent nursery rhymes into dark and scary fairy tales? What kind of perverse minds would twist words meant to put us to sleep into colorful and sometimes fun, but nevertheless scary, nightmares? The only answer I could come up with is that there is something about the collection of rhymes we call “Mother Goose” that requires additional work for these glimpses of childhood reality to make sense to us as we grow into adulthood.

  The dark tales in this volume immerse us into the childhood world of innocence and heroism, but they also add something to the original telling. The tales now contain the other side of reality, the darker side of fear. Wishes are not always fulfilled, and the security and permanence of our parents’ love is no longer a sure thing. There is something in us that demands this kind of wholeness from our stories as we grow older. It is as if in order for us to give our hearts to the good, we must also believe in the bad. In order for us to live in the light, we must be aware of the darkness.

  I am accustomed to creating characters that are good and characters that are bad, and most of all, characters that are both. I am accustomed to creating a reality that has evil and suffering and therefore, hopefully, believability. That is the only reason I can think of to explain why I was asked to write this foreword. But even as I figured this out, I still needed to ask myself about the need to complicate the simple and the comforting into tales that are decidedly discomforting and scary, even as they delight. Why take something meant to lull us into peaceful sleep, and convert it into something that will scare us into wakefulness?

  One simple answer is that this is what authors do. Their restless imaginations take the seed of an image or a word and transform it, or rather, discover in that small nugget a hidden and potential conflict. And conflict is what makes a story a story. In other words, this book is a microcosm of how all stories are made. We elaborate on the hints given to us by our own lives, and the new reality that is hinted at is always complicated, a mixture of the good and the bad. But what exactly attracts these authors to terror, toward an exaggeration of the bad?

  This book is meant for young adults, so the tendency toward the more complex is an attempt to respond to the more complex mind of the young adult person. Life gets messy in adolescence, and the simple answers of childhood are no longer sufficient. The new-found complexity of the world comes with perplexing, seemingly unanswerable questions, the most important of which is this: what is the meaning of life?

  I am willing to bet that the authors of these stories have not forgotten the terrors that surround this single question. In fact, I am certain that for many of them, this single question still terrifies the living daylights out of them. The reason why the question of life’s meaning is still so full of terror is because they have remained young enough to see all those things in our world that seem to deny our lives meaning. They remember the darkness of their young lives, that period when meaning seemed obliterated by overwhelming forces, and they still see this darkness as a force hell-bent on destroying all vestiges of hope.

  There are times in our lives when there are more questions than answers, when darkness is more pervasive than light. The writers of these dark tales have suffered enough to discover that the only way out of darkness is to confront it head-on. This confrontation is never easy, and it doesn’t always have what the world considers a happy ending. But what the confrontation with darkness does have is a sense of celebration, a sense that we are supposed to face darkness, regardless of the outcome. We are meant to be heroes. We are meant to fight witches and monsters and evil spirits, even if it appears that we will not survive the encounter. In short, we are meant to hope and to believe in the impossible. The meaning comes from the fight itself, from fighting against such great odds and such great powers, regardless of whether there is a great victory at the end, or not. Our victory is in the trying.

  The writers in this book understand that the happiness of the nursery rhyme is not a lasting happiness. There is something about nursery rhymes that is at worst, deceiving, and at best, incomplete. There is something unsatisfying about the innocence presented. There are too many questions left unanswered. Why do the witches call the children out to play? Why did Jill come tumbling after? Why couldn’t all the king’s men put poor Humpty Dumpty together again? The authors of these dark retellings shine the light of their imaginations on the disturbing questions contained in nursery rhymes and, in doing so, give the rhymes new life.

  I guarantee these tales will delight you and scare you, just like you are often scared by the overwhelming darkness that surrounds your familiar ways. But, in the end, you will be grat
eful for your fear, for it is only in the darkness of fear that you will discover the light.

  As Blue as the Sky and Just as Old

  Nina Berry

  Taffy was a Welshman,

  Taffy was a thief;

  Taffy came to my house

  And stole a piece of beef.

  I went to Taffy’s house,

  Taffy was not home;

  Taffy came to my house

  And stole a mutton bone.

  I went to Taffy’s house,

  Taffy was not in;

  Taffy came to my house

  And stole a silver pin.

  I went to Taffy’s house,

  Taffy was in bed;

  I took up a poker

  And threw it at his head.

  – Mother Goose

  WHEN the girl sneaked in at midnight, he used his penlight to make a note. His handwriting was small and neat, like the tidy little mustache under his pointy nose and the thin strands of hair glued precisely to his clean skull.

  Henderson, for that was the name he used (though it was not the one he’d been born with), liked keeping fastidious notes in tidy lines. He enjoyed impressing his clients with precision.

  He would need to stay sharp in order to keep his latest customer happy. The customer, who went by the odd name of Arawn, hadn’t struck Henderson as someone easily pleased. Those heavy restless hands and turbulent gray eyes were looking for a reason to batter and strike.

  Arawn’s instructions had been clear-cut. Find a girl. Here, Arawn had handed Henderson an address scribbled in a jagged hand and a blurry black and white photo of a female of troubling beauty, about seventeen, with shiny black hair teased into a bouffant from forty years ago. Her wide, dark eyes glanced over her shoulder with a haunted look.

  “Is this a recent photo?” Henderson had asked. The heavy paper was creased and faded.

  Arawn didn’t like questions. “It will do,” he said.

  Henderson had found the girl, residing in a county group home for orphans. From there, his instructions were clear. He was to wait outside the home, then follow the girl to school in the morning and wait some more. If at some point she departed in the company of a young man with golden hair and a black vehicle, he was to follow her. If she left the school without the golden-haired young man, the case was over.

  Henderson took note of Arawn’s exact words: “in the company of a young man with golden hair.” Not many big-fisted, murderously-minded clients like Arawn described another man’s hair as golden.

  Arawn had said that the young blond man would take the girl, Aderyn, in his black vehicle to a place where they could be alone. Arawn did not know exactly where, but Henderson was to follow and find out.

  As soon as the two went to this place and were alone, Henderson was to call Arawn, not a moment earlier, and certainly not a moment later. Arawn hadn’t said why, but Henderson got the distinct impression he didn’t want the golden-haired young man to get to know the girl Aderyn too intimately.

  “Perhaps I should call you as soon as they leave the school?” he had asked. “Why wait?”

  Arawn had scowled. “So many girls it could be, so little time. The young man with the golden hair will discover if she is the one I want,” he had said. “If she is, he will take her somewhere to be alone. Only then should I be called, for I may not stay in this cold land for long.”

  Henderson wanted to ask him what he meant by that, since this land was Los Angeles in the summer and hardly cold. But he refrained. Arawn didn’t like questions.

  Arawn had reached into his enormous wool coat and pulled out a heavy velvet bag full of something that clicked. “She is the first of three. If you succeed in helping me with her, there will be two more jobs, and two more payments like this.”

  Then, in the most startling moment of all, Arawn had opened the velvet bag, tilted it, and spilled a half dozen gems, sparkling white, red, green, and blue, onto the palm of his hand.

  Henderson’s cold little heart had hugged itself at the sight, and Arawn had tossed the gems like jacks onto the desk. Then he turned in a swirl of long embroidered scarf, and vanished through the door. The desk lamp brightened with his exit, as if a scrim of darkness had lifted.

  The gems, it turned out, were authentic and of the finest quality. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds worth more than everything else Henderson owned. He’d resolved then to complete this task in good order for Arawn, not only because the man was the type he preferred not to cross, but in hope of the other two jobs and two more payments of gems.

  Or perhaps an opportunity would come along, allowing Henderson unrestricted access to that velvet pouch. Arawn was someone accustomed to being obeyed, and men like that were better complied with as far as prudence dictated. Henderson might not be a particularly obedient man, but he was prudent, so he gathered up his binoculars, his notepad and pen, his granola bars, a six-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper, an empty bottle for pissing in, and set out for the group home.

  He parked across the street and was on his second soda when Aderyn showed up after midnight. Her heavy black hair was scraped back in a ponytail instead of a bouffant, her cheeks dangerously thin, but there was no mistaking the sad dark eyes from the photograph.

  He made a note of the time: 12:05 a.m. precisely, and of her attire. Her stick-thin legs were clad in white jeans tighter than he thought proper, topped with a baggy black shirt and oversized leather jacket, her feet shod in soft black boots.

  She paused at the foot of the jacaranda tree flowering in the side yard and pulled a long, shiny knife out of her backpack. She touched one finger to the edge of the blade, as if making sure it was sharp.

  Henderson tut-tutted as he made a note. Were county group homes really so dangerous that a tiny girl like her would need a knife like that? That was a shame. A shame indeed.

  She tucked the knife away. Then she looked up at the moon through the branches of the jacaranda tree, opened her mouth, and sang melancholy words he did not understand. The mournful melody sidled into Henderson’s soul and pierced his heart. The pain was so exquisite that when he blinked to find the refrain was over, he found her already perched high up in the jacaranda tree. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn she flew there. She balanced easily on the stout branch, looking uncommonly comfortable, and climbed into the third story window of the home.

  During the hours he waited for the sun to rise, Henderson tried to hum the tune she’d sung. But no matter how many times he tried, he was always at least one note off, here or there.

  ***

  There was a man in a car outside the group home, watching her and taking notes. Aderyn had seen him the night before as she slipped into the window of the hell-home. She saw him again the next morning. He’d moved his rusty yellow sedan down the block, but he had the same old-timey Clark Gable mustache and was still wearing the same maroon tracksuit, peering at her through mini-binoculars.

  Well, the world was full of weirdos, as more than one occasion had taught her. Cop or stalker, it didn’t matter. Nothing was going to get in the way of her plans.

  She sped up her pace, hoping to leave the little man in the tracksuit behind, and felt in her backpack for the knife. It was still there, better than money in her hand. Soon she’d be where no one could follow her.

  She would have done it last night, but she needed to return the books to Mrs. Davis. The tiny old woman with her dyed blond pile of hair and her black-rimmed glasses would make her tea and ask her how her day was going, and for forty-five minutes, Aderyn would feel that she mattered. She wouldn’t say goodbye, but she could leave the books behind, and Mrs. Davis would understand she was grateful.

  The battered yellow sedan followed her all the way to school, sneaking in and out of traffic, disappearing for a few minutes, only to reappear, waiting for her at the drop off. She flipped him off then darted into the school.

  She’d reported the abuses at the group home, but had no illusions that he was sent to investigate
that. She’d long ago given up the fantasy someone would come and save her. No. The cycle of group home / foster home / new school / rejection / group home would continue on and on, unless she put a stop to it.

  Her appointment to see Mrs. Davis was the only thing she looked forward to, today or any day. And even kind old Mrs. Davis couldn’t save her. Aderyn felt her backpack for the outline of the knife and was reassured to find it there.

  As she walked up to her locker, a lady jock in the hallway gasped, “Have you heard? Did you hear?” and ran over to shout to her soccer teammates that Mrs. Davis had been killed that morning on her way to school.

  A car accident, she said. A hit-and-run.

  ***

  Mrs. Davis’s office had smelled vaguely of chamomile and tar. Aderyn liked to think that, in between counseling sessions, Mrs. Davis cracked the window overlooking the street and secretly had a cigarette, exhaling the smoke through the gap to mix with the traffic below.

  Aderyn had said nothing to the old lady for the first two sessions, of course. She was there because some bureaucrat had labeled her “at risk.” She didn’t understand how talking to a little old lady was going to change that. Mrs. Davis had asked questions and cracked quaint jokes. She’d pinned and re-pinned her unlikely pile of blond hair and made endless cups of tea.

  During the third session, Mrs. Davis had pulled out a book and read aloud from it. Aderyn hadn’t really understood what was going on at first, but as the words rolled out of Mrs. Davis like waves on a beach, pictures formed in Aderyn’s head. They were images she’d never seen anywhere else—of horses flashing in the dark, of hay as high as houses, of owls and the moon, and fire as green as grass. She flew over the sunrise with black and white wings, and when Mrs. Davis finished speaking, she came to rest gently on the earth again, tears on her cheeks.

  “It’s by Dylan Thomas, a Welsh poet,” Mrs. Davis had said, holding the book out. “Would you like to borrow it?”