Fabled Read online

  BY KATHRYN COTTAM

  The Shoemaker: A Tale of Love, Magic & Unnatural Acts

  Mr Tittletattle (a Ferrybone tale)

  Haunting of Horace Castle (a Bluebeard’s Bride tale)

  Bluebeard’s Bride

  Three Short Tales of Red

  BY ROBERTA COTTAM

  Bluebeard’s Bride

  Three Short Tales of Red

  BY K.M. TREMILLS

  Messenger (Great Lands series)

  Queen Isabel (a Great Lands tale)

  Blue Moon (Fated series)

  Three Short Tales of Red

  Fabled

  Stories by K.M. Tremills, Kathryn Cottam and Roberta Cottam

  Edited by Kathryn Cottam

  Copyright © 2015

  Cover illustration © 2015 by Roberta Cottam

  Book design by Laura Wrubleski

  Print Edition: April 2015

  ISBN: 978-0-9921020-7-4

  Ebook Edition: April 2015

  ISBN: 978-0-9921020-8-1

  Published: 2015

  Published by: Fox Tale Press

  All rights reserved under all applicable International Copyright Conventions. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to read this book.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  www.thefoxtalepress.com

  We express our gratitude

  to those voices who first told these stories

  and inspired countless retellings

  of these fabled heroes and heroines.

  CONTENTS

  To Cast A Spell For A Poisoned Spinning Wheel KATHRYN COTTAM

  PART ONE

  12 Prancing Princesses ROBERTA COTTAM

  PART TWO

  The Three Sisters Gruff KATHRYN COTTAM

  Pyrrha’s Tale K.M. TREMILLS

  Pandora Unboxed K.M. TREMILLS

  Goldjiløk and the Bruinstorms ROBERTA COTTAM

  Mirror, Mirror KATHRYN COTTAM

  Hex For Turning A Man Into A Toad ROBERTA COTTAM

  PART THREE

  Rumpel Silk Skin KATHRYN COTTAM & ROBERTA COTTAM

  Resistance K.M. TREMILLS

  Peter, Peter ROBERTA COTTAM

  The Ugly Stepsister KATHRYN COTTAM

  The Footman ROBERTA COTTAM

  PART FOUR

  A Most Curious Girl KATHRYN COTTAM

  Cora’s Flame K.M. TREMILLS

  The Driver KATHRYN COTTAM

  Wings of Grace K.M. TREMILLS

  On the Hill ROBERTA COTTAM

  Medusa Unchained KATHRYN COTTAM

  Malicious Desires Poison Apple Recipe K.M. TREMILLS

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Interview with Authors

  To Cast A Spell For A

  POISONED

  SPINNING WHEEL

  Take one scorpion’s sting and a black spider’s bite,

  And pour in the moonlight of a crisp autumn night.

  Add a single Death Cap and decayed rotten roots,

  Plus an ancient gravedigger’s grave-digging boots.

  Mix these in a cauldron that bubbles over with blood,

  Then stir in some mistletoe and Red Witches’ Mud.

  Remember sweet honey and don’t forget fig,

  And a single long hair from a hangman’s white wig.

  Add absinthe for languor and the thorn of a rose,

  A warm bead of breast-milk for laudanum’s repose.

  Add jaw bone and thigh bone and one bulbous stick,

  To draw her so close to that gleaming sharp prick.

  Douse the spinning-wheel spindle, and now quell your breath!

  Because with her finger she will meet a wee death,

  For one touch of the spindle and her young blood will weep,

  Dropping her into a one-hundred-year sleep.

  12 PRANCING PRINCESSES

  Based on 12 DANCING PRINCESSES

  ROBERTA COTTAM

  “IT IS SAID you are the best marksman in the kingdom.”

  The stranger emptied a velveteen pouch of gold coins into the the Stalker’s empty tankard. The stranger’s face revealed little for it was shadowed by a heavy hood. His cloak was made of a fabric far finer than the Stalker’s, whose patchwork vest of F'hox fur and D’heer skin was thin with use.

  The Stalker peered at the coins in the tankard. His belly rumbled as he imagined all that he could do with a fistful of gold. In the pub’s dancing firelight, the coins shimmered as though they rested at the bottom of a wishing pool.

  He snorted and tossed the gold to the floor, then held out the tankard for a fresh draught of ale. The barmaid accepted his copper, all the while her eyes lingering on the gold disks flashing under her shoes.

  The Stalker turned back to his cloaked companion. “Not many marks in the woods these days, is there, man? Unless you’ve got a mark on me, and would see my head in a noose.” The Stalker leaned back and crossed thick arms over his chest, pondering the stranger’s motives. “I’ve not killed a beast since the bloody King outlawed hunting within the royal border.”

  The stranger stirred, his fine cloak glimmering in the firelight. “If you have no means of a living, Stalker, you will be in want of money.”

  “Money, yes. The royal guard on my ass? No.” The Stalker swallowed a mouthful of ale and wiped the foam from his lip with a soiled sleeve. “So keep your coin, old man. I cannot accept employment, for I’d be breaking the law. Unless you are the law, in which case you better pinch my fat to see just how starving I am, and best be on —”

  But the stranger interjected. “Only if that employment were as a hunter.”

  The Stalker sprang to his feet and slammed a fist on the tabletop, displaying the black arrow tattooed across the back of it. “A Stalker hunts. That’s what a man of mark does. And only that.” If the stranger dared offer payment to kill a man, the Stalker would punch the man’s jaw. How many times, since the King had forbidden hunting, had he been approached to take up arms as a mercenary? The thought of human blood on his hands made him growl in disgust. But in the event the stranger were a Lawman under-cover, he sat again and folded his large hands around his tankard.

  Still, the stranger’s long steepled fingers tapped a hypnotic rhythm. “Or perhaps an unemployed hunter might guard. A Guard, as well, must be sure of his mark.”

  At that, the Stalker relaxed. The money was now waiting for him on the floor, breadcrumbs leading to a path of riches. The Stalker drew his eyes away from the coins and locked them onto the stranger’s shadowed face. If the stranger were a Wolv in the woods, the Stalker would have slid into the shadows himself, and watched for a long while to understand his foe. “Who did you say you were?”

  “I didn’t,” the stranger replied. “The money is yours if you agree to announce yourself at the palace tomorrow, whereupon all will be explained, and at which point you will be under no obligation to accept employment. But I think you will, Stalker — your curiosity belies its hunger more than your belly.”

  The next day, there was no mistaking the stranger, for despite three tankards of ale, the Stalker had the measure of him: timbre of voice, height and scent. Yes, the
stranger was the King. The King, the stranger.

  “Rise, Stalker, and sit. We will not stand on ceremony here,” the King smiled, taking his own seat as the Stalker rose from one knee. In vivid contrast to the stranger’s cloak, the King now wore layers of uniform decorated with braid and epaulettes. Equally lavishly dressed, the royal hall showed a collection of pelts and antlers from animals long since dead. The Stalker could not remember how many years had passed since it was permissable to shoot an animal in the woods. It was when the Queen died, he remembered, recalling the King’s dead wife. And her face too was painted in oils and mounted on the wall in a golden frame.

  The Stalker’s gaze moved from the Queen’s portrait to the half dozen attendants to the King, recognizing this was to be the extent of their privacy, and lowered himself into a plush purple chair. “How may I serve you, Majesty?”

  “Tell me, when tracking a B’hear, what sign do you follow?”

  “Its scent.”

  “And a B’hoar?”

  “Its tracks.”

  “And a Wolv?”

  “Its absence. For when you do not see a single Wolv, you can be sure that a pack has surrounded you.”

  The King’s eyes glinted, pleased with these answers. “And if you were to hunt one of these B’heasts, how would you do it?”

  The Stalker stirred in his seat, sensing a trap. In the conversation, what was there of guardianship? The Stalker lifted his chin and stated for everyone to hear, “A B’hear with an arrow, a B’hoar with a snare, a Wolv with a prayer.”

  The King reached inside his cloak and drew out a heavy object wrapped in a piece of rich purple velvet. He laid it on the expanse of polished tabletop between them. “Stalker, I wish to personally employ you, and this shall be your tool.”

  The Stalker took hold of the object. Through the velvet, he determined its shape and his hands shook as he unwrapped the royal weapon, a pistol hewn in silver, boasting the King’s golden inlaid monogram. As the Stalker turned it over in his hands, the King laid a matching velvet pouch on the table. The Stalker shook out its contents: silver bullets, each also bearing the King’s initials. The Stalker had never held a pistol before. Such weapons were reserved for regent men. He was a lowly Stalker, good at his trade, but more familiar with a bow than a barrel.

  “I will teach you to fire it,” the King said, “but you must first understand the circumstances in which you may use it. For to deviate from this will cost you both your honour and your life. And will warrant a traitor’s death.”

  The Stalker removed his hands from the weapon and folded them in his lap, listening on tenterhooks as the King spoke. “For some months, my daughters have been leaving the palace on nights of a full moon. There is no sign of their passage. Neither their Handmaids nor the Royal Guard have spied them departing the palace or crossing the grounds. The only evidence we have is this —”

  The King paused to remove a small white slipper from the pocket of his jacket. “This shoe belongs to my youngest, Giselle, but it is similar to those of my other daughters.” He passed the shoe to the Stalker.

  The silk slipper was as soft as doe’s suede and intricately embroidered with a rainbow of stars. It was a bed slipper, meant to be worn between the finest of sheets to warm ten small toes on a chilly night. But this shoe was practically threadbare. The sole was pocked with holes, as though the foot within it had walked a thousand miles.

  The Stalker prided himself of understanding the impressions made by a foot. “This shoe has seen many nights of use,” he said.

  The King scoffed. “You would think, Stalker. But my daughters are given a new pair of bed slippers every month. They remain in immaculate condition until the night of the full moon. Upon which, the next morning, their condition is such.” He gestured at the slipper with obvious befuddlement. “How far can one girl walk in a single night?” The King reclaimed the slipper and turned it over in his hands. “I fear greatly what might befall my daughters on such an excursion.”

  “And what is that, Majesty?”

  The King’s eyes darkened. “The realm of my fears is not for your inquiry, Stalker. Find where my daughters go. But do not let them know of your presence. You are to be the personal — and private — bodyguard of my daughters. Simply, I thus ask you, stay in the shadows and guard their safety.

  “If B’hear or B’hoar or any B’heast should find them in the wood, you are to kill that animal. And in so doing, you will be above the law. And all that you see, you must repeat to no one but myself. Betray me, and your head will be mounted upon my wall.”

  The Stalker nodded his understanding, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling, and lifted the King’s pistol. “I will guard your daughters with my life.”

  The King returned a nod, his face relaxing as he surveyed the Stalker who now held the pistol in hand. “Good. You shall begin at once. For tonight, the moon will be full.” Outside the sky was darkening. The King lifted his hands to his neck and unclasped a chain hung with a glimmering white gemstone. “Take this.”

  Already weighted with gold coins and a silver pistol, the Stalker held out his hand for one more treasure.

  The moonstone was about the size of a wishing stone, luminous sapphire in hue with striations of white like hoar frost on leaves. The gem hung on a filigree chain of precious metal. The King explained, “It was my wife’s. She wore it on our wedding day. And every night thereafter. She wore it in bath water and bedsheets and as each one of our daughters was born.” He paused, lost in thought. Then, in a voice as thin as wind in the reeds, he concluded: “I wore it at her funeral, and every day since. She said it held magical powers, although my life has seen little magic since she died.” The King shook himself free of his memory, and met the Stalker’s eye. “Perhaps you will have need of such powers.”

  The Stalker hung the gem about his neck. “With thanks, Majesty.”

  As grand as the King’s daughters’ dormitory was, the Stalker’s room was sparse; it contained a cot just wide enough for his shoulders, a twig-like candlestick mounted to the wall, and a three legged footstool placed between said wall and cot. The Stalker sat on the stool and peered through the narrow window cut between two stones in the wall, allowing him a secret view of the Princesses’ bedchamber.

  The Stalker settled into his watch. As the clock over the mantle in the Princesses’ chamber struck ten, the King’s daughters filed into the dormitory from their dressing room. Each wore a nightgown the colour of cow’s cream and — upon their feet — a pair of exquisite slippers. Their hair, ranging from white-gold to raven-black, all brushed to a high sheen, cascaded like twelve waterfalls in the Westerly Mountains. With their decolletage obscured by flowing tresses and their figures draped in shapeless garments, the King’s daughters appeared as young girls, though the youngest, now twelve, would surely be developing a woman’s shape. It was the youngest who entered first and the eldest and tallest, named Faye, who came last.

  But they did not take to their beds. Indeed, they appeared the opposite of sleepy. The girls twittered with excitement, touching one another’s hands. Faye craned her neck at the window to see the moon in the sky. Then she said something in a soft voice to her sisters, and they hurried across the room.

  The Stalker adjusted his seat so that he might better see what drew the Princesses’ attention. They clamoured around a grand mirror, as tall as a man, which hung on the stone wall between two banks of windows. The girls crowded in close to the looking glass, like a flock of birds congregating on the bank of a glassy pond. Their tresses tangled together as they gathered, the curly-haired triplets, April, Mae and June, bringing up the rear of the group.

  After a quick head count, the Stalker identified only ten girls. Surely mistaken he counted again, only to come up with nine. Frustrated, he rubbed his eyes. When he squinted through the peep-hole once more, eight girls stood in front of the mirror. Like a herd of D’heer alerted to a hunter, he was losing his prey. One by one, the Princesses disappeared
into the mirror.

  He ran into the corridor, fished out the key given to him, and let himself into the Princesses’ bedchamber. The room was now empty for every last one of the King’s daughters had passed through the mirror.

  The Stalker strode across the room to the mirror and pushed into the glass. But his hands simply met its cold hard surface.

  “Damn!” he shouted and pounded the glass. His reflection punched back. He sighed, then had another idea. He drew the King’s pistol from its holster and pointed it at the mirror.

  “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, the King commands you show them all!”

  But still the Stalker had no view of the Princesses. He shivered to stare down the barrel of a pistol held by his own hand. And so he returned the weapon to its place and shook out his shoulders. He patted his vest, seeking another weapon that might cause the mirror to yield to his will. His fingers found something smooth and round beneath his shirt, and he plucked out the chain with its moonstone. He held out the gem and demanded,

  “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, the Queen commands you show them all!”

  And so it was that the looking glass’ hard surface softened to water, then evaporated to mist and dissolved into a portal. And the Stalker stepped through, into a wood.

  The track of twenty-four slippered feet, of crushed moss and broken twigs, was not difficult for the Stalker to follow. Soon he came upon them gathered in a grassy clearing.

  The moon was high in the night sky, casting a cold light over the area. Twelve white nightgowns seemed to glow in its radiance. The Stalker drew close to a large old oak whose shadow concealed his presence.

  One by one, the Princesses’ drew off their nightgowns and dropped them to the grass. Their smooth, bare bodies shone against a backdrop of dark trees. Breasts and buttocks alike, firm and supple with youth, moistened his mouth with saliva. Twelve pairs of pink nipples were as apple blossoms budding on a bough.

  Then the Princesses began to dance. First a gentle rocking, then a reel, weaving in and out of one another, laughing and holding hands. The Stalker settled his backside in the moss at the base of the tree and leaned back to enjoy such a vision. Every fibre in his body was attuned to the spectacle, thoughts of dangerous predators long since forgotten. He grew increasingly relaxed, sinking against the tree bark, as the girls became more boisterous. They kicked up their heels and shook their long manes. Some of the girls barked at the moon. The youngest clambered onto the back of one of her sisters, shrieking with delight. Their cries reverberated through the Stalker’s bones, intensifying as they raced about in a circle, prancing faster and faster until the Stalker saw nothing but a blur of movement, the colours of their hair blending to a smudge of tawny brown.