Twisted Tales

When I awoke, I was seized with an internal struggle between panic, realizing that I didn’t know where I was, and apathy about that fact because wherever I was, it was damn comfortable.

Eventually curiosity won out and I pushed myself up into a sitting position, and saw that I was laying in a large bed covered in a small room. It was flooded with sunlight, which streamed in through an open window. I could feel a fresh breeze blow through, and that helped wake me up a bit, the grogginess that still sloshed around my head gradually dissipating.

It was rather cramped room, with dark wood walls and only one door. There was a small bedside table, at the foot of which sat my backpack, but other than that the room was bare.

I noticed someone had placed a pitcher of water and a cup on the table, and I realized I was parched. I drank greedily, refilling my glass twice more until the pitcher was nearly empty before I stopped for a breath.

With that done I felt almost alive again. I eyed the door, and made a decision. I jumped out of the bed and went over to the open window, leaning out of it, letting the cool breeze clear my foggy head.

I could feel summer in the air, and I wondered in passing how hot it got here. It was already warm, and I felt sticky with sweat from the previous days. I realized I hadn’t had a shower in more than three days now, and I was beginning to feel thoroughly unpleasant.

I turned back to the room, and saw that a small handheld mirror on the bedside table, next to the pitcher. I crossed the room again and picked it up to inspect my reflection.

In my shock, I nearly dropped it. I scrambled for the falling piece of glass, and barely caught it in my finger tips. "Jeeze..." I muttered, taking another look. My curly mane of hair was a matted mess, its dark color almost unrecognizable through the accumulated grey dirt and grime.

My face was almost as bad as my hair: streaked with dirt, and there was a nasty looking gash on my forehead. Although it had long since stopped bleeding, the dried blood caked my brow. My eyes were dark and lined, heavily bagged despite the sleep I had recently gotten. I stuck out my tongue at my reflection, and noticed a distinctly sour taste in my mouth.

Then I glanced down at the rest of me. I noticed I was wearing different clothes; a shapeless white, cotton nightgown and a pair of thick, woolen socks. With a feeling of embarrassment, I wondered who had changed my clothes. I silently thanked my lucky stars they hadn't cleaned me up as well, for although my present state of filth was disgusting, I don't think I could have bared the thought of a stranger bathing me while I was unconscious, even if it had been that nice, rosy cheeked lady I had first met.

I used what was left of the water in the pitcher to wash my face and arms, and managed to scrub away most of the dirt and grease from my hair. When I had finished the water was an unpleasant murky color, but I felt loads better.

With that done, I had to decide what to do next. I went over to the door and opened it a crack, peering out down a long, deserted hallway. I wondered if I was allowed to leave. The door wasn't locked, so who ever this place belonged to wasn't trying to keep me in. But what would they think if they came to check on me and I was gone? I mulled this over unhappily for a few moments, but then curiosity got the better of me.

I slipped out into the hallway and looked up and down its length. There were several doors along each side of the hall, and the top of a staircase leading down at the far end. All of the doors in the hall were closed, except for one at the end, which appeared to be open just a crack. I cautiously approached it, the thick wool socks on my feet dampening the sound of my footsteps. I stood in front of the door, wondering whether I ought to try to peer through the open crack to see what, or who, was inside, or if I should just knock and accept the embarrassment if it was some stranger.

I finally decided that it would be way worse if I peered through the crack like a creep and accidentally made eye contact with some stranger, so I gingerly rapped on the door a few times with my knuckles.

There was no response. I knocked again, a little louder. Still nothing.

I pushed the door open a little wider and stepped inside. The room was sparsely furnished, just barely larger than the one I had been in. There was a desk pushed up against one wall, and on the wall opposite me was a large standing dresser, that may have reached my chin if I were standing next to it. In between the two was a window, overlooking a large yard, with the edge of a pond just visible. Pushed up against the wall to my left was a wide bed, piled high with blankets, twisted up in disarray.

And laying in that bed, with his eyes closed and mouth slightly open, was Erik.

“Erik!” I cried, rushing over to the bedside.

He awoke abruptly at my shout and thrashed about violently--only to get even more tangled up in his sheets. He struggled for a few moments until he gave it up for a lost cause, and plopped back down on his pillows uselessly in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable position.

"Rikki!" he gasped. "What are you doing here?"

I winced at his tone. "What? Did you expect me to just ditch you the minute I got into town or something?"

"No, I mean, what are you doing here? In this room? With me? While I was trying to sleep?"

“Ah. Yes, I see now how you might be displeased with having been woken up just now after a long night wandering through the forest.”

“Do you? Do you really?”

“I just woke up myself though, and didn’t know where I was, or where you were. I guess we must be at the inn I came to this morning?”

“We are indeed. This is the Drunken Mermaid. I have occasionally been known to stop here for a pint, but this is my first time taking a room here. If it costs me more than five coppers, I’m making you pay.”

“You know, if you’re such a fan of this whole paying back debts thing, then technically you should be the one rescuing the miller’s daughter, not me.”

“Oh? And how do you figure that?”

“Because I would never have been in that forest in the first place, and never would have met and killed Rumpelstiltskin if you hadn’t gone and made an enemy of giant.”

“If we’re using that logic, then it’s actually the lady giant’s fault for moving into a populated area and forcing me to be hired to chase her out of town, thereby angering her brother. And I’m sure if you asked her, she could think of someone else who the blame could be shifted into, and they another guilty party, and so on and so on. Don’t play that game with me, girl.”

I grit my teeth. Perhaps I wouldn’t insist on Erik taking me all the way to the miller’s daughter after all. I was sure I could find someone else in this village who would be willing to guide me the way.

“How’s your ankle?” I asked, trying to keep things more civil out loud than they were in my head.

Erik pulled back the blankets to reveal his foot and calf. It was wrapped in fresh, clean linen, so I couldn’t see if the color had improved, but the swelling certainly seemed to have gone down. “Much better,” Erik grudgingly replied. “It’s not actually broken, just sprained, and as long as I go easy on it it should be better in a few days, and completely healed in a week or two.”

Except I didn’t have a few days, let alone a week or two. Today was the day that the miller's daughter would be brought to the castle. Tomorrow the king will give her the ultimatum: spin he straw into gold by the next dawn, or die. That gave me two days to get to the castle.

“And your wrist?” I asked, trying to force that worrying thought from my head before I sent myself into a panic.

“Same. Doesn’t hurt so bad now at all, but I’ve just had some willow bark tea so it might still be worse than it feels now.”

“Well, I’m glad for that at least.”

A rather awkward silence passed between us and I wondered if I could just slowly back out of the room now without making things any more uncomfortable when Erik finally cleared his throat.

“Well. I suppose I should… thank you. For helping me get through the rest of the woods.”

I was torn between responding with “Damn straight you should” and “Don’t mention it, I couldn’t have just left you there to fend for yourself”, and instead settled on a nice awkward “Yeah, no problem.”

The uncomfortable silence returned, with a vengeance. “Uh… you’re probably still pretty worn out, I should go and let you get back to sleep,” I eventually suggested when I finally thought of the excuse to politely leave.

“Yeah, I’d appreciate that,” was Erik’s response.

I ducked out of the room, closing the door behind me.

Now what? I glanced down at myself, remembering I was still in borrowed night clothes. I wanted to change, but I hadn’t seem a change of clothes in the room I’d woken up in, and if my old clothes were still as filthy as they had been a few hours ago, I wasn’t exactly eager to put them back on again.

With the intention of heading down the stairs to find that kindly looking, rosy cheeked woman and asking her about something to wear and perhaps something to eat, I walked over to the head of the stairs.

Just as I came to the landing, someone else came barreling up them, nearly bowling me over. I scurried backwards, my socks slipping on the wood floor beneath me and almost sending me falling gracelessly on my ass.

The person who nearly knocked me down reached out and grabbed me by the arm to steady me, apologizing profusely.

“Ah, I’m sorry! I didn’t see you there! Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, fine just a little startled,” I replied, placing a hand over my racing heart.

I took a step back and looked up at the person now standing before me. He was a young man, not much older than me or Erik. He was tall, at least six feet, and thin, and tended towards gangly, all knees and elbows. His hair fell a bit longer than Erik’s, almost brushing his shoulders, and was a dark brown. He wore a loose fitting undyed tunic and brown pants, a leather belt at his waist with a small knife in a holster at his hip. His feet were clad in rather badly scuffed brown leather boots, and with his ruddy cheeks and bright eyes, he gave off the over all impression of an idyllic interpretation of a peasant, like something that might appear in a Pre-Raphaelite painting rather than the real world.

“Uh… who are you?” I asked.

The boy seemed further embarrassed by his rudeness. “I’m sorry, you must be confused! My name’s Jack, my aunt and uncle own this tavern. I help them out sometimes, when they need it.” He was carrying an armful of folded clothes, and he offered them to me. “My aunt washed your things for you, since it looked as though they’d been through a bit. And she also wanted me to give you another outfit, in case you wanted something… else to wear.”

I took the offered clothes from him, seeing that my own jeans and t-shirt were folded below what appeared to be a simple peasant’s dress, with the red riding cloak folded on top of the stack.

“Oh, thanks,” I said, a little surprised. “I mean, tell her I said thank you, that’s very kind of her. I’m Rikki, by the way,” I added, sticking out my hand.

Jack shook it, smiling at me. “You must be starving, you’ve been asleep the better part of the day. Would you like to get something to eat?”

“I would, a lot actually,” I laughed. “I was just about to go hunt someone down to ask about that. Just give me a minute to change?”

“Of course.”

I returned to my room and laid out the clothes on the bed.

Despite having just been washed, my old clothes were a bit worse for wear. There were holes in the knees of my jeans where I had torn them by fallen in the forest, and Jack’s aunt hadn’t been able to get all of the blood stains out of my shirt. Besides, they didn’t blend in in this world in the slightest. I would stand out like a sore thumb if I put them back on, and I didn’t think that would be the best idea at this juncture.

I looked at the outfit Jack’s aunt had provided me with. It was a simple white dress, short sleeved and shin length as a concession to the summer heat, with a blue overskirt to lay over it. There were also a pair of neat little leather shoes and white stockings to go with it.

The thought of wearing a dress didn’t particularly excite me, since my first few days here in this world had consisted of an unusually large amount of running and jumping and climbing and tramping through forest undergrowth. A dress wasn’t exactly the best option for engaging in any of those activities, but, like I had considered before, now that I was in town, blending in might be my major concern.

I opted for the dress in the end, rolling up my old clothes and stuffing them into my backpack beside The Book. It wasn’t a particularly big backpack, just a cute little canvas with leather straps that I used instead of a purse, and it was fast running out of room for all the crap I was trying to store in it.

I slung the backpack over my shoulder and went back out to meet Jack, who was still waiting for me in the hall.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him and leading the way back towards the stairs. “I’ll show you the way to the kitchen.”

Jack led me down the stairs and into the main room of the bar—Inn? Tavern? What was the difference?—where I had arrived at dawn. It was empty, apparently ten in the morning was too early for a drink around here. There was a door by the bar itself, and Jack pulled me through it. Before we had even gotten close though, I could smell the sweet, sweet scent of food wafting out towards me. It called me like a siren's song, and I followed the smell of freshly baked bread and steaming meats, rather than Jack, to their source.

It was as close to heaven as any earthly experience could ever be. The last several meals I’d had had been peas porridge, cold and nine days old, so the sight that greeted me as we entered the kitchen was almost enough to send me into throes of ecstasy.

Strings of sausages hung from the ceiling beside cloves of garlic; steaming rolls of freshly baked bread were sitting beneath warm towels; peeled potatoes sat in a wooden barrel, their fleshy, pale bodies just waiting to be turned into french fries or mashed potatoes or delicious, greasy chips...

“Hi, Hans,” Jack said as we entered, and a man I briefly mistook for a living, breathing mountain looked up from the stool he sat on, a bowl of half shucked peas in his enormous lap. He was easily over six and a half feet tall, and must have been at least 300 lbs, not an ounce of it fat. His torso was as thick around as a tree trunk, he had the shoulder width of an ox, and even his neck must have been thicker than my entire body.

He grunted in greeting, and then his eyes slid over to me, half hiding behind Jack, and his bushy eyebrows raised. “You’re the lass who came here all in a tizzy this mornin’?” he asked, his voice a rumble of thunder.

I nodded and gave a weak smile, unsure if this was to be taken as a good thing or a bad thing.

“You’re the one who was with that Erikson lad?” He said it with a dark frown, and I swallowed audibly.

“Erikson?” I asked, a little uncertainly.

“Erik,” Jack said. “Erik Erikson, your friend upstairs?”

His name is Erik Erikson? I wanted to say, but the way both Jack and the huge cook were looking at me made the snarky quip die in my throat. I suddenly got the distinct sense that being associated with Erik wasn’t exactly a good thing.

“Um… yeah,” I admitted, looking from one to the other. There was no point in denying it, it seemed to be common knowledge by now that we had arrived together. “But he’s not my… friend, exactly. I only just met him a couple of days ago, and he helped me out of some trouble with wolves.”

The cook grunted again, this time approvingly. “Good. You’ll keep away from that boy if you know what’s good for you,” he said, pointing the tip of his kitchen knife at me warningly.

“Uh… why?” I asked. Dear god, had I really spent the last few days in the company of an ax murderer after all? Erik certainly had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but he didn’t strike me as a dangerous guy. He hadn’t tried to take advantage of me in any definition of the term while I’d been lost and alone and helpless, essentially trapped in his house and entirely at his mercy, so whatever the cook was taking about couldn'’t be that bad, right?

Right?

“Uh,” Jack interrupted with an obviously fake cough before the cook could answer. “Rikki here hasn’t had a proper meal today, Hans. Do you think you could put something together for her?”

Hans grunted for the third time, affirmatively this time, and rose to his feet, towering over us in the cramped confines of the kitchen. He placed the bowl of peas onto the stool he had been sitting on and started to clatter around the kitchen, pulling down strings of sausages and slicing rolls of bread.

“Wait, why should I stay away from Erik?” I asked, looking at Jack.

He shifted awkwardly and didn’t quite meet my gaze. “It’s nothing, Hans is just… some people in town just don’t really think he’s entirely, completely… trustworthy, that’s all.”

“Like how?” I pressed him.

“It doesn’t really matter,” he said, trying to sound dismissive.

“I have somewhere I need to be in the next couple of days, and I was going to have him guide me there, so it actually matters quite a lot to me,” I protested.

“The girl has a right to know,” Hans growled, turning back to us and shoving a plate full of mouthwateringly delicious looking food into my hands.

Jack looked like he wanted to argue, but couldn’t seem to think of anything that would hold water.

“Why don’t people trust Erik?” I ask Hans directly.

“All sorts of reasons,” Hans said darkly. “There are all kinds of strange stories that surround him. That he’s been making deals with the dark creatures, with witches and giants and wolves, and that’s how he’s been making his living in chasing them off. There didn’t use to be so many nasty things in the forest before he came to these parts. I’ve even heard talk that he’s a werewolf.”

“Those are all just rumors, though,” Jack interjects. “There’s no proof that any of that’s true, and you can’t ruin a man based on village gossip.”

“Aye, but what about the fact that his family’s all dead?” demanded Hans. “Wolf attacks, and the house burned down, and him found at the scene, the only survivor? That’s damned suspicious if you ask me. And even you have to admit, the forest has grown far more dangerous since he arrived.”

“Erik’s been living outside the village for years,” Jack pointed out with obvious irritation, “and things have only gotten bad in the forest during the last year or so.”

But Hans just shook his head as if he knew so much more than Jack did. “You didn’t hear all the stories when it happened,” Hans said. “Erik came from a town not even twenty miles away, and word spread quickly enough after it happened. He’d left home to find his fortune, see,” he continued, addressing me directly, and I listened with a sense of horrified fascination. “He got himself a nice little set up just outside this village and set to work making himself useful around these parts. But then, not even a month after he settled down here, there was an attack back in his village.”

“An attack?” I asked. “What kind of attack?”

“Wolves, miss,” answered Hans, and his voice dropped to a theatrical whisper. “A pack of ‘em, as blood thirsty and wicked as the devil himself. They came down from the hills right into the Erikson farm and tore apart the mother and little girl, right in front of their house. Old Mr. Erikson was found inside the cottage, the entire building burnt near to ashes. And the strangest part, the part that didn’t sit right with the rest of their village, nor with ours, is that it was Erik himself what found the bodies. At least, he was found with them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some of the nearby farmers saw the smoke coming off the cottage and went to investigate. They found Erik, covered in blood, kneeling over his mother and sister’s bodies. He claimed he had found them there like that, already dead, and was too horrified to think about going for help. But funny, innit? Funny how the very day he returns home for the first time since setting out to make his fortune, he finds his entirely family freshly dead? What are the odds of that?”

“How is he supposed to have committed murder by wolf? Jack demanded, in exasperation.

“Well, there’s talk, isn’t there?” Hans continued. “Talk about that boy being in league with the wolves around these parts. He was always the one who took care of any wolf problems we had around here. He’s mighty good with animals. Almost like he has control over them. And with his family gone, he inherited the entire farm, all to himself.”

Jack scoffed. “You mean the farm he doesn’t live on, that he doesn’t work, that he gets nothing out of?”

“I mean the farm he sold after their deaths, sold for a tidy sum,” replied Hans grimly.

I didn’t know what to say. I looked at Jack, Jack who obviously didn’t by the story that Erik had made some kind of supernatural pact with wolves to take out his own family. “Is that all true?”

“Well…” Jack hesitated. “Well… his family really did all die, but god knows how it all actually happened. This is all just according to a bunch of farmers from village twenty miles away, and they’ve probably exaggerated the story a hundred times over. I’ll admit I’m not Erik’s biggest fan—he’s a right git most of the time—but this all sounds like village gossip to me. People love to spread it around because Erik’s a bit of jerk, and does the town’s dirty jobs.”

“You’re too young to be able to see the bad in people, boy,” Hans told Jack. “But believe you me, there’s a whole mess of bad in that Erikson lad.”

“Come on Rikki,” Jack said, taking me by the arm and pulling back out of the kitchen. “Let’s eat outside, it’s a warm morning.”