“Off with her head!”
“First the sentencing, then the case,” chanted the courtiers.
Alice bobbed a quick curtsy as best she could while being held between two burly guards. “If you please, Your Majesty, might I know why I’m here?”
“Don’t play coy with me, child!” The Queen pursed her lips. A scowl highlighted
Cinnamon-scented steam still wafts from my basket of freshly baked muffins. A light breeze ruffles the brunette bangs peeking out of my crimson bandanna. I hope the checkered towel tucked into the wicker will keep the goodies warm for the short walk through the woods to Granny M’s.
A gray figure emerges from the
After traversing through a forest rife with wild beasts and roots thick enough to be tripping hazards, Tad has finally made it. And he could really use a break.
The tower before him is a muddy, grit-stained gray under the vines snaking over its brick walls. It isn’t the grand sight he hoped for
“Hey, Hector, I hear you’re an OG at this store.”
“Five months.” Hector pulled the last two pink dice from the box and placed them in the display window by the front door. Behind him the “Happy olidays” sign that had lost its “H” fluttered in the air. A plastic Santa and reindeer
Yuletide never ceases to remind me of the day I ruined everything.
The wind chills me, and I shiver in spite of thick fur. I stare from my tower balcony to the snowscape below.
I hold the lute in my clawed hands. Living and enchanted, he had once been my father’s minstrel.
Last cookie of the night—store-bought, but still tasty. Washed it down with a sip of milk. After so many stops, one cookie was really all I could bear to eat without it all coming back up. But the night was over. Wearily, I climbed back into the sleigh and didn’t even need to
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It was Christmas Day, which may have been more obvious if the world hadn’t ended seven years ago.
I missed the holiday season, when people still debated over whether decorations should go up before or after Thanksgiving. Now, people discussed how to avoid the disease slowly consuming all of humanity.
“Rapunzel,” Midas said, shifting
Grandmother would tell me stories about the Cliffs of Faerie—and the monsters that lived there. The creatures that crossed into that snowy realm would change in ways none understood.
But t’night was worth the risk.
I crept down the rough-hewn stairs of our cottage, lantern in hand. Grandmother tossed in fits
My glasses fog, smearing the police tape into a fluttering yellow ribbon against the forest. Sunlight cuts across my cheek, but it can’t shake the chill under my skin. I’m shivering as Andersen finishes the report.
“The kids disappeared, just like…” He glances at me, concern thick as molasses.
I sip my latte.
Having sent her stepdaughter Jo Bright on a goodwill tour of the far realms, Queen Regality consulted her hand mirror again. “With Jo gone, I’m now the fairest in the land, right?” The mirror replied: “Not to embarrass you, but alas! Queen, those fairer would fill my glass.” After briefly considering tours for all those women too…
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Heart pounding, I scanned the abandoned castle courtyard where ancient stones lay scattered like forgotten memories. The harvest tournament would begin any minute. Should my foster brother enter without a sword… I swallowed hard, reconsidering whether to bring Sir Kay something that might imperil my own neck. He’d likely have my head either way.
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“How old are you, boy?” the elderly gardener asked, leaning on his pitchfork. Heat rushed to my cheeks, making me feel redder than the orchard’s ripe apples surrounding us. “S-seven and ten.” He grunted, eyeing me up and down before extending the implement. “So, nobody else wanted you at the orphanage?” Pain jabbed my chest as I accepted the handle.
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