Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks

The water was ice cold, cold enough to shock my system so badly that I stopped struggling against my attackers, just floating there beneath the surface of the pool as if paralyzed by the cold.

I could see them clearly in that crystal clear water, four or five of them surrounding me, releasing their iron grips on my legs so they could grab my arms, my shirt, my hair. River weed hair, needle teeth, and wicked, webbed hands swam back and forth before me. They grinned, and began to pull me deeper, down into the blackness that swallowed the bottom of the pool. They swam with powerful strokes of scaly tails where legs should have been, and an oddly calm part of my brain whispered mermaids.

Of course, of freaking course, they weren’t the nice, pretty, singing kind that grant wishes. No, that wouldn’t be traumatic now, would it? And everything in my life just had to be traumatic.

After the shock of the cold and of what I was seeing passed, I suddenly fully realized that I was being drawn down to the bottom of the pond fast, and I had already gone several long seconds without air. I started to struggle again, fighting back against their slimy grips with everything I had, but it was hard to move quickly or with strength in the water, and there were so many more of them than there were of me. My lungs began to burn and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold my breath much longer. I looked up at the pale water stretching above my head, reaching my arms up in the hopes that they might still be able to break through the surface, but I was already too deep for that. I opened my mouth in a silent cry of despair, watching foamy bubbles of air escape and spiral upward.

This was it. I would never even make it to the Sorceress’s tower. This was how I was going to die.

And then a shadow suddenly passed above me, and a second later something large hit the water, sinking like a stone towards me and my captors. They gave strange, high pitched cries of surprise that echoes bizarrely through the water and a dozen hands released me as they recoiled from whatever it was. It spun and righted itself unfolding like a jackknife beside me, and I saw Ezu’s pale face, his eyes wide and panicked, his hair floating around his head like a dirty blonde halo.

He reached out and grabbed me by the wrist, pointing up with his other hand. Then he started to kick, pulling the both of us up, towards the surface. After a stunned moment I started to swim too, pumping my legs as hard as I could, trying to cover as much distance as I could before the mermaids came back for us.

We weren’t as deep as I thought we were, and in a few seconds our heads broke the surface. I coughed and sputtered, mouthfuls of pond water spilling out of my mouth and half choking me as I took several deep, almost painful breaths. Ezu was already half on the bank, dragging me behind him. He clambered out of the water and turned to grab my wrists, to haul me out.

“Ezu,” I panted, and then something below grabbed me by the knees and yanked me back under, my wet hands slipping right out of Ezu’s grip.

I immediately swallowed a mouthful of water as I inhaled to cry out, and as the water filled my lungs I took another instinctive breath, trying to catch air before my brain realized what had happened. The mermaids were back and they clung to me like barnacles, their webbed fingers tangling themselves into my hair, their teeth flashing with the iridescent gleam of pearls. There were so many of them, and I was already so tired from struggling against them. I thrashed weakly, but the water pressing in all around me was like a weighted blanket that I couldn’t escape from. I watched above me as they dragged me down for a second time, waiting to see Ezu dive back in for me, but there was nothing. The corners of my vision started to grow blurry and dark, but maybe that was because we had sunk so deep now, where the light couldn’t penetrate. I kept staring towards the sky, waiting for Ezu to appear, until everything went black.

I woke up an indeterminable amount of time later, coughing and vomiting and in more pain than I could remember being in for a long time. Someone rolled me over onto my side and an obscene amount of water poured from my mouth and nose.

“Rikki, Rikki are you okay?” Someone was asking over and over again.

Ezu. It was Ezu talking, of course it was. The fog in my head was clearing slowly, and I realized I was laying a yard or two away from pool in the mud, Ezu hovering over me in a panic. I tried to speak, but only burped up another trickle of pond water, so I nodded instead. A look of utmost relief flooded over Ezu’s face, and he helped me into a sitting position. I leaned forward over my knees and spent the next few minutes draining my lungs with weak coughs and spastic vomiting, but apart from being badly shaken and the burning pain in my throat, I seemed to be in one piece.

“How long was I under for?” I finally managed to croak, my voice a hoarse rasp that sounded alien to my own ears.

“Only a minute, maybe two at the most,” Ezu said, rubbing my back with a firm, comforting hand as I caught my breath. “After you left camp, I started to feel nervous about you being on your own, since we have no idea what’s really out here, except that it’s a dangerous place. I started thinking that we shouldn’t split up after all, so I came to find you. I just barely saw you going under the first time from the path. I just assumed you’d slipped and fallen in, and I know you’re not that strong of a swimmer, so when you didn’t immediately surface I dropped my sword and jumped in after you. Then I realized that you hadn’t fallen in on accident, that those mermaids had grabbed you and were trying to drown you. When they pulled you back in the second time I had to go and grab my sword so I’d have a weapon to fend them off with. I almost didn’t find the damned thing with all these reeds everywhere, but I finally did and jumped back in after you. I figure mermaids probably don’t have much experience with swords and might not be frightened off by it, but they backed off pretty quickly after they saw what it did to the first one who came at me,” he said with a grim smile. “I was barely able to grab you and pull you back to the surface while keeping them at a safe distance at the same time.”

I finally sat all the way up and leaned against Ezu, suddenly more exhausted than I’d ever been. A weak laugh escaped me.

“What?” Ezu asked.

“You actually saved me for once,” I replied.

“What do you mean?” he said, his tone colored with indigence.

“Well, I had to carry your delusional and broken-ankle’d butt through the woods back when we first met; and then I had to help you after you were knocked out during that fight with Cinderella’s step mother; and then I definitely saved your life during the whole Evil Queen apple fiasco-”

“And I saved you from a pack of ravening wolves the very moment that we met, in case you don’t remember,” he pointed out bitterly, and I laughed again.

“Of course I remember, how could I forget? Well, that still makes us three to two, with me in the lead.”

“I fought a dragon to get back to you, doesn’t that count?”

“As far as you were aware, I was in no direct danger from the dragon at the time, so while the sentiment is appreciated, it doesn’t count in this particular instance.”

Ezu threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “I’m sure you’ll put yourself in life threatening danger again, you’re good at that. I’ll have another opportunity to even the score. Now come on, let’s get the hell out of here. Those mermaids have been staring at us since I pulled you out, and it’s creeping me out.”

I looked over at the pool, and indeed saw half a dozen heads protruding from the surface, only as far as their strange fish-like eyes, all watching us with a distinct air of disappointment.

“Yeah, let’s go, that’s almost creepier than actually being down there with them,” I agreed. I made to try to stand, but Ezu just swooped down and scooped me up, cradling me in his arms.

“You’re probably still not in good condition yet, I’ll carry you back to camp,” he said, his expression stoic. My heart pounded a little harder, and I let myself enjoy the feeling of his arms around me.

For about five, ten minutes at least. Ezu still wasn’t in peak condition himself, and he was thoroughly worn out before we’d made it halfway back to camp. I assured him that I was feeling much better and could walk the rest of the way no problem, but I could sense the dent it made to his ego.

The rain had stopped by now, but we were still soaked from our impromptu dip in the mermaid pool when we arrived back at camp. This time I just averted my eyes when Ezu stripped down to his underwear, and I made him do the same when I shed my wet clothes.

Definitely more dry, and a little more warm wrapped in the vaguely horsey-smelling blankets we had, we huddled close together under our tent, nibbling at some salted pork that neither of us were particular interested in. I had been planning on making a hot soup out of some of the pork, potatoes, and carrots to cancel out some of the dreariness the woods and the bad weather had caused, but after our recent misadventure we weren’t feeling very hungry.

We let night settle in around us, the rain coming and going in spurts, unable to sleep because our ears pricked at every sound from the forest around us. Some of the ravens had been following us since we first entered the forest, and they roosted in the branches of the oak high above our tent, cackling and speaking intelligible words in their croaking voices. Animals moved on the periphery of our camp, coming nearer than any other creature had dared in my experience, apparently unafraid of humans. Our horses were nervous, standing close together with their ears pulled back, but we took some comfort in the fact that they hadn’t bolted.

We finally fell asleep sometime in the very early morning, long before the sun rose. Exhausted from our sleepless night, we ended up sleeping in far later than we usually did, and the sun was already high in the sky by the time we stirred. Despite how hungry we were after skipping dinner, we ate a hasty breakfast and broke down our camp as quickly as possible, eager to get on the road again. The sooner we got out of this forest the better, even if that meant having to confront the Sorceress sooner as well. After my encounter with those mermaids, I didn’t feel quite as afraid of the Sorceress as I had before. She may be more powerful, but no way was she creepier. I still shuddered every time I thought of the suffocating black water, of those slimy hands and lipless mouths.

We got back on the trail, neither of us discussing the increasingly uncomfortable elephant in the room—that we were just wandering blindly, with no plan and not even an idea of a direction we should be headed in. We tried to overshadow our growing unease with too-loud conversation and ringing laughter at jokes that weren’t really that funny, but to break the oppressive silence that seemed to be settling on us like low hanging fog.

At one point, a deer as black as pitch lunged without warning out of the underbrush directly in front of us. Storm Cloud reared up and nearly threw me off, I only barely managed to cling on by throwing my arms around his neck for dear life. Ezu’s much more skittish mare straight up bolted, and it was several tense minutes that I waited alone on the path until he managed to calm her and lead her back. I breathed an audible sigh of relief when he reappeared through the trees.

“I was worried you might not be able to find your way back,” I said.

“I wouldn’t have been able to,” Ezu replied grimly. “I just pointed her,” he patted his still slightly panicked looking horse on the neck, “in the general direction and prayed that she’d be able to back track to the path. Everything looks the damn same in here, it would be too easy to get lost if we were separated.”

“Maybe we should both ride Storm Cloud and lead her along behind us?” I suggested. “So that we don’t get separated if she bolts again.”

Ezu shook his head. “I don’t know if she’d think to come back on her own if she did. I’d feel bad if she never came back, I can’t imagine she’d do too well living in these woods on her own for very long.”

He had a point. In the end we decided to stay as we were, and just hope that nothing happened again. We didn’t even dare go behind a tree to pee, we just took turns averting our eyes politely.

By late afternoon the rain started up again and this time remained consistent, not hard but definitely enough to make the ride miserable. I was starting to get seriously worried about hypothermia. We had taken to wrapping our clothes and food in the water resistant canvas that doubled as our tent, but at this rate, there was the serious risk that all of our supplies were going to end up wet. It was still early in the fall, but it felt about ten degrees cooler in the Grimm Woods than it had at Sleeping Beauty’s place. Within another hour, the rain was coming down so hard that we knew we had to find or make shelter when we got the chance.

That was when the thunder started.

We missed the first flash of lighting, but we couldn’t miss the thunder that followed a few seconds later. It crashed and rumbled almost right above our heads, and I found myself reaching across the space between our horses to grab Ezu’s hand. I had never been particularly afraid of thunder, even as a little kid, but on top of everything else it just set my teeth on edge. Ezu squeezed my hand reassuringly, but the narrow path we followed didn’t allow us to ride side-by-side for long, and eventually we had to let go.

The thunder and lightning started off few and far between, but gradually began picking up in frequency until the sky rumbled and lit up white once every minute. Then, with one particular loud peel of thunder that sounded at though it came from directly above us, it was as if the skies opened up and poured a tsunami worth of water over our heads. The rain came down in buckets, so heavy that it was hard to see through, and not even the canopy of foliage overhead could dampen the downpour. Ezu and I pressed on our horses as swiftly as we dared, desperate to find any place between the close-set trees wide enough to pitch our tent.

Without warning, we abruptly broke through the tree line into a man made clearing.

It was obvious it wasn’t a natural one, because of the manor house sitting in the middle of it.

The house was huge, built of imposing grey stones, each block nearly half my height, and it loomed above us like a hulking giant. We pulled our horses up short in surprise, completely taken aback to find a mansion like this, seemingly at random in the middle of the forest.

Of course, this may not have always been the middle of nowhere. Creeping ivy had smothered the outer walls of the mansion, dark green tendrils wedging their way between the bricks and climbing up, up, all the way to the roof. There had once been a path leading from the front door into the woods, but it was long grown over, and quickly disappeared into nothing a few yards from the door. Everything looked as though not a soul had been to this place in years--decades, even. It was obvious this place had been abandoned for a long, long while. It was probably a miracle that it was even still standing.

Ezu and I exchanged looks.

“Don’t say it,” I urged.

“I think-”

“Really, please think about what you’re about to say.”

“We don’t have a whole lot of other options-”

“Do you realize what you’re suggesting?”

“I don’t think we’re in a position to be looking a gift horse in the mouth right now-”

“Do you seriously think this is a good idea? Can you really think of no possible way that this could go terribly wrong?”

“We can’t just assume-”

“First I had to eat murder gingerbread, now you’re seriously expecting me to stay the night in what is probably a haunted house?”

“You’re being dramatic. It’s probably just an innocent, deserted house.”

“An innocent, deserted, dark, dank, haunted…”

“Wait, did you say murder gingerbread?”

“I would rather stay out here and be struck by lightening than go into that building.”

At that exact moment, a bolt of lightening struck a tree not a hundred feet from where we stood. There was a blinding flash of light, an ear splitting crack as the massive tree trunk split in two, the smell of burning wood, and a second later the lagging boom of thunder that was so loud we felt it rumbling in our bones.

Ezu and I struggled to get our panicked horses under control, but managed it somehow.

“Okay, fine,” I spat.

Two minutes later, we were in the vast, echoing, empty front hall of the manor house, Ezu shutting the huge oak front door behind us. It thudded closed like a coffin lid, and the sound of the storm outside was immediately dulled. The front door hadn’t been locked, which Ezu was thankful for, and which I viewed as decidedly ominous. I held Storm Cloud tightly by the reigns, my eyes darting into every pitch black corner of the room. Ezu led his mare up beside me and began unpacking some supplies.

“Look, we’ll stay here tonight, in the main hall,” he said. “We don’t have to go any further into the house. I’ll admit, there’s something… unsettling about the way this place feels, but that’s probably just because it’s been abandoned for so long. We’ll get through one night, and then we’ll be on our way in the morning. We can handle that, right?”

“If all the pages hadn’t gone blank, I’d make you read the Book,” I muttered under my breath. Maybe he’d understand why I was so worried if he did. In a fairy tale, the house you stumble across when you are in need of a place to rest for the night is never just an innocent house. If we were lucky, we would be leaving here with roses and jewels falling from our lips whenever we opened our mouths. And that was the best case scenario. The worst case…

I used the intermittent flashes of lightening that lit up the room for a single second at a time through the few windows to survey the lay out of the room, and to determine if we were really alone there.

To my relief, even the darkest of dark corners appeared to be empty, and to my even greater relief, there was a huge empty fireplace along on wall. I pointed this out to Ezu and we went to inspect it. Thankfully there was a pile of dusty, dry logs still piled beside it, covered in long abandoned cobwebs. Any wood we found outside would have been far too wet to light, and while this stuff might to too dry to burn cleanly, it was still the better of the two options. We quickly built up a fire and set our blankets and wet clothes down in front of it, gathering close ourselves to warm up our numb fingers and toes. I set up the small cast iron kettle, just large enough to cook for two people, that Prince Justin had supplied me with over the crackling flames and filled it with salt pork, carrots, a potato, and a wild onion that Ezu had found growing on the side of the path about an hour before. Some of our precious water went in on top, and fifteen minutes later the aromatic scent of an edible, if not exactly palatable, soup filled the chill air.

The soup and the fire warmed us from the inside out; the horses, so out of place in the entryway of a mansion, even a dank and deserted one, munched contentedly on some carrots; and despite myself, I eventually started to relax.

I laid back on the small pile of canvas and blankets I’d laid out to sleep on, using my half empty pack as an awkward pillow while Ezu prodded the logs in the hearth with an iron poker to keep them burning evenly. The flickering orange flames cast a warm light over his face, which I watched, committing every stray freckle and weathered crease to memory, as my eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

It was midnight exactly when I suddenly awoke, immediately as fully awake and alert as ever I had been, my heart inexplicably pounding. I sat up to find Ezu pushing himself up as well, evidently also having just been woken up by… something. The fire in the hearth had died down to glowing embers, but I could still just make out his face in the darkness. We caught each other’s eyes, and drew a little closer together. Ezu grabbed the poker which still lay beside him and stirred the embers of the fire a little, trying to coax the flames back up. I reached out and tossed on another log, and hungry flames immediately roared to life around the dry wood. At ta=hat moment, there was a long, low mewling from behind us.

“Oh, meow! How cold we are!”

Ezu and I slowly turned to see what the light of the fireplace illuminated in the hall behind us.

Our horses, who had been laying beside us, both heaved themselves to their feet, snorting in panic, their eyes rolling in their heads. They nearly trampled us as we scrambled to our feet, trying to get out from under their stamping hooves. On every side and in every corner of the room there were huge black cats, the size of panthers, and black dogs bigger than any mastiff, bigger than any wolf. They surged around us like a tsunami of gleaming black fur, pulling against chain that glowed red hot about their throats. A dozen, two dozen, a hundred pairs of eyes gleamed with a fiery light, as as soon as they realized that we saw them, they began to yowl and howl and snarl. Ezu had just enough time to raise the poker still in his hand, and I to draw the sword I had set beside my blankets before falling asleep—just in case—before the animals rushed at us in a wall of blazing eyes and extended claws.