A Time Upon: A Twisted Fairy Tale Menagerie
a fantasy story retold
September has been busy, and the weeks are zipping by. Still, I’ve been reading submissions at least once a week, and haven’t quite found the right one yet. So send me more! (If you haven’t heard back yet, don’t worry, I haven’t gotten to everything.)
To keep Underside going without too long a hiatus, I’m posting an old one. This early story found its way into Gryphonwood Press once upon a time. I’ve dusted it off, made some minor changes, and here it is!
It is often beyond ridiculous, toying with various fables, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales, blending them together into some strange concoction only a wicked witch could enjoy.
A Time Upon: A Twisted Fairy Tale Menagerie
Once upon a time there lived a little boy. He had sandy blonde hair and big eyes and dwelt in a cottage in the middle of a forest. His family had their own little nook in the forest, a meadow where they farmed crops and raised chickens and milked a cow. It was just he, his parents, and the baby in his mama’s belly, and very rare was it to have visitors, for no roads came through the forest. The paths were tricky and often treacherous and many believed the forest was enchanted.
Late one night, the little boy arose from bed thirsty. Now, his family did not have running water or electricity. All things which needed to be chilled were kept in the cellar, and water was retrieved from a spring on the edge of the forest, from which welled a cheerful little stream.
He put his hand to the door handle, but before he opened it, he stopped and listened. A furious huffing and puffing filtered through the massive oak logs of the cottage. It was rapid and unrelenting, but decidedly weak and ill-fated at the same time. The little boy swung open the door and glanced around the corner. A short, stout wolf stood by the house, illuminated by the light of the moon, filling and emptying great gusts of air against the logs. The logs, of course, never wavered.
“Pardon me, Mister Wolf, but may I help you?” the little boy asked.
The wolf stopped huffing and puffing and looked up. “Oh, don’t mind me. I am only practicing my skills.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Errrr…. That is, what I meant, this cottage is in my way, so I will blow it down so I may pass.” He grinned sheepishly.
“You could walk around. It is not so big.” He pointed a few feet beyond the wolf.
“Rightio. Silly of me, of course.”
He lifted his leg high, as if to take an exaggerated step. The little boy turned and walked the other way, toward the spring. The wolf, looking over his shoulder, halted with one foot in mid-air, then started after the little boy.
“I say,” he said, “I didn’t catch your name.”
The boy glanced back at the wolf frolicking after him. “Mama told me it’s rude to ask someone else’s name before giving your own.”
“Of course, very wise woman. All apologies. I am Griven.”
The little boy looked up into the wolf’s dark eyes. “My name is Dirk.”
Dirk continued into the woods and stopped before the stream of water gurgling out of the ground.
“Ummm… may I ask you a question, Dirk?”
“You mean, another one?”
“Yes, yes. Another one. I am looking for three pigs. Have you seen them?”
“Mother always says to never trust a wolf with a pig. And I don’t trust you.”
Griven reached into his fur, fumbled around for a moment, and produced a little red hood. He strapped it around his head and batted his eyelids. “Do you trust me now? I am so cute,” he said in a high-pitched voice.
“Where did you get that?” Dirk asked.
Griven looked taken aback. “I… uh… well, I was having lunch with this fabulous little girl and her grammy. We had a most delightful time, when…”
“No, no. Just now. It looked like a pocket in your fur.”
Griven fidgeted something awful, stuttering incoherent words.
Dirk hopped into his lap, clasping himself to the larger creature by his legs, and shimmied up Griven’s abdomen. His hand felt along the back and traced a zipper to the neck, where he felt a most obvious seam. He grasped the wolf’s head with both hands and plucked it off, catching Griven mid-sentence. A sheep appeared below the mask, eyes wide and disconcerted.
He bleated loudly and cried. “Now they’ll never let me in their pack!” he sobbed.
“Well, Mama always says to never be a sheep. So I guess it’s okay for you to want to be something else.” Dirk patted Griven on the head. “Run along, now. It’s late and I have to sleep.”
Dirk started up the hill to the cottage. Griven, still dressed as a wolf, with his wolf head dangling behind him like a hoodie, called out after him.
“Hey, about those pigs…”
Dirk turned to stare at him. “Since you aren’t a wolf, I might be able to tell you. But why do you need to know?”
“Um… well, I want to be friends. You know, both of us are farm animals, we go way back. Why, Old Macdonald--”
"Oh, I like him! He's always singing as he feeds his animals." Dirk thought for another moment, and then nodded, flopping his sandy hair like a mop. “Okay, Mama would say that was alright.”
“Oh, yay!” Griven jumped up and down. “Take me to the one with the straw house first. He seems, uh, nice.”
The woods were a scary place at night. There was always a scrape or a crinkle somewhere in the inky darkness around you, always the crack of a twig or the hoot of an owl. The moon would poke through the tree branches and show just enough to let your imagination run rampant before vanishing behind the canopy of leaves.
Dirk plodded ahead without fear, and Griven followed nervously, wringing his wolf paws and glancing helter-skelter. On a tree up ahead, a great wide semi-circle appeared, high in the limbs. It glowed white like a shimmering grin and vanished into the night air. A chuckle resounded across the still air at its disappearance. Griven hung closer to Dirk.
The trees opened before them in a little clearing. Moonlight glimmered down upon a quaint cottage made entirely of candies and cakes and chocolates. Dirk stopped and scratched his head, while Griven shot ahead, shouting with glee.
“This isn’t right,” Dirk said, half to himself. “The pigs’ houses should be here.”
Griven looked up from the cottage. Chocolate drizzled down his chin, staining his wolf suit. Tiny bites showed in the corner of the sweet cottage. “Thish iss even betteh!” he said, spitting chunks of licorice and taffy across bright green grass.
“Don’t eat…” Dirk started to say, when the door opened and out stepped a young lady, a modest smile on her face. Now Dirk was not of age to notice a young lady's beauty on most days, but even he had to admit she was gorgeous.
She called out to Griven shyly. “Come, little one, inside. These sweets are old, but those inside I have just made. Do come in.”
Griven blundered toward her, mouth drooling, eyes bulging, short wolf arms extended.
Dirk, however, saw something of the lady that made his skin prickle--a giant wart on her nape, partially concealed by her garments, and a gleam in her eyes that belied her timid appearance. He cried out to Griven, but the sheep-wolf acted as one enchanted. Both he and the lady vanished behind the door.
Dirk broke into a run, halting at the door. He thought to try the knob, and decided against it. He darted around the little cottage. In the back, against the bare stone of the cottage (it was only candies and confection in the front), was a cage with a little boy inside. The captive boy cried with delight when he saw Dirk, then in concern more quietly. He tried to warn Dirk, but all he could do was blubber.
“I’m Dirk. What’s your name?” Dirk asked.
“Hansel,” the boy responded. Tears glistened in his eyes. “My sister’s inside. I think something awful’s gonna happen.”
“I’ll rescue her. Is there another way in?”
“Yeah.” The boy pointed to an odd-shaped stone in the wall. “That’s the way she usually comes out.”
“Thank you. I’ll be right back.”
He placed his hand on the rock and shoved. The wall creased and a door opened. Dirk stepped inside. A storm raged within. Wind howled, whipping his hair about his head, blowing random objects about the room.
For it was a room. Despite the dark trees, wind, drops of rain, and black clouds drumming from an impossible sky, there were still beds and dressers and wardrobes to mark this as someone’s bedchamber. The room stretched out in this alternate world absurdly, farther than the cottage was wide. And yet could be seen a wall, and a door in that wall, to separate the bedchamber from the rest of the house. The door flung open, clattering on its hinges.
Dirk poked his head back outside into the still night air. Hansel gestured with his arms and put a finger to his lips. Dirk nodded, turning back to the rushing storm. He strode against the wind, clasping his cloak to himself and shielding his face from the fury. He reached the opposite door and peeked through. A little girl stood with glazed eyes, mechanically stirring a ladle in a giant pot in the center of a gigantic room. The storm still blazed within. In the far corner, hazy to his eyes through the murkiness, he caught glimpses of the fair witch and the enchanted Griven, led like the mindless sheep he was. A brick oven stood against the far wall, and orange flames flickered within. Dirk started toward them.
Voices arose all around, singing, shouting, chanting nonsensical phrases. “Hickory-Dickory-Dock, the mouse ran up the clock,” sang a shrill voice, and a deep one bellowed, “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman,” and a grave one chanted, “Flounder, flounder, in the sea,” and a mad one shouted, “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!”
Dirk battled through the wind and sea of voices and stormed past the little zombie girl, only to be struck to the ground by a flurry of wings and the lash of a thick leathery tail. He hit the ground like a box of rocks, slamming his head against the hard brick floor. He looked up into the boiling clouds where a long slithering figure dodged in and out of shadows. Dirk gathered himself, rubbing a lump on the back of his head and fingering a gash on his cheek and nose. He stumbled on.
The witch was close now. Her smooth words came to him over the wind, her gentle caresses of the wool on Griven’s head faintly visible through the haze. The flames rose higher in the oven, and heat billowed forth. Sweat poured from Dirk’s brow.
She had him now, had poor Griven by the throat, and he allowed it, enchanted by her poisonous sweets and melodic voice. His short wolf arms drooped to his side and neither they nor the menacing wolf head dangling at his back did aught to help him.
The lady's fair form faded and she grew shorter, stouter, her hair twisting and matting, her face and arms wrinkling and gnarling like an old tree.
Just before Dirk reached them, the storm crashed down around them. A deadly twister descended on them like a vacuum. It sucked them up in a whirling, twirling, nightmare kaleidoscope. The witch, the girl, the pot, Griven all rushed past him and back around in a maddening cycle, sometimes sideways, sometimes upside-down, but always with the same expressions, the same impish grins or unseeing eyes or cackling laugh. And there were other things as well, things indelibly branded in his mind--a devilish dwarf, with rotting teeth and gleaming eyes, carrying a baby and a golden thread; a crystal ball, in which could be seen a young girl, stumbling through a forest, witch at her heels; a prince which changed to a frog which changed back to a prince; an unopened door with a symbol like an ankh etched in its burnt center.
Dirk reached out and grabbed Griven on one of his many loops. The collision redirected Dirk, and he was whisked away with Griven. He fought for the door, looking for a way, any way out. Behind him came the cackling laughter. The witch was coming, swimming through the insane cyclone like through a river. They reached the door and swung it open. Calmness like the sea greeted them from the open door, smiting the calamity around them.
The witch grabbed Dirk’s ankle and tugged, tugged with all her might. She cackled again, and her putrid breath stung Dirk like death. He yanked his legs, but she held on, eyes bulging with unholy glee, mouth wide in demonic ecstasy. They were halfway through the door now, Dirk clinging to the moronic Griven with one arm, staving off obstacles with the other. Peace welled over them from one side even as the turbulence from the other side fought to suck them back in, refused to allow their departure.
With his free hand, Dirk snatched a staff out of the air and brought it down on the back of the witch’s head with a resounding crack. She cried out and her grasp weakened. Dirk yanked his leg free, and suddenly they were falling, sailing to the ground below. Something fell around them but Dirk could not see it, he could only hear the witch’s screams of anger and feel the rush of air as they plummeted to the ground. They landed on a cloud of pillows, safe and unharmed. Behind them came a loud boom. A plume of dust rose like a mushroom into the sky.
Dirk hopped to the ground and dusted himself off. His hair and clothes bore every mark of having just been through a wild, out-of-control ride, so disheveled and erratic were they.
Griven coughed and shuffled behind him, finally awakened from his idiot trance.
“I had the strangest dream…” he began and hopped to the ground. He looked back over his shoulder at the mass of soft shrubs which had broken their fall, without comprehension, then turned his attention back to the scene before them. His mouth dropped. Beneath the cottage made of candy and other sweets protruded two weathered legs with feet on the end. A shiver electrified his spine.
Dirk began poking around the base of the cottage, tapping at the feet with his shoe. They were lifeless. He tried the door to the cottage, but it was jammed. He could hardly help but wonder what had become of poor Hansel and his sister. But at least the witch wouldn’t have them. He kicked the legs again just to be sure.
Somewhere, off in the distance and over the horizon, tiny voices sang joyful melodies. “The wicked witch is dead, the wicked witch is dead,” came their happy cries. He could neither see nor distinguish from whence came the voices, but lit up at hearing it. To his side, Griven echoed the lyrics beneath his breath.
To the right of the candy cottage sat two more houses, of straw and sticks. A big grin crossed his face and spread to Griven’s. Here was their intended destination. He looked around for the brick house and then noticed a couple scattered bricks nearby. “Oh, my!” he exclaimed, as he suddenly realized that the brick house had been flattened by the witch’s cottage.
Despite the commotion caused by their unorthodox arrival, not a soul stirred in either of the other houses.
A pig at sleep must stay to keep
His comely frame from growing tame.
This was written on a sign leading up the straw house, which they approached first. Dirk knocked on the door (it felt like it would tumble at the force of his tiny fist) and waited. Beside him, Griven cleared his throat in a disturbing, drawing hack. A couple stems of straw fluttered from the flimsy structure. Dirk knocked again, and this time a shuffling sounded from within. Once again, Griven coughed, louder this time, blowing apart more straw and much dust. The little dwelling shuddered. Dirk looked at Griven accusingly, but before he could reprimand, the door swung open to a fat, sleepy pig.
“Hi, there, kind sir, my friend here….” And just then the dust stirred from the straw tickled Griven’s nose, and a spontaneous sneeze burst from his mouth. The straw house blew away as in a gale, collapsing all about them in a flurry of dust and carried away on the breeze.
Three additional figures, previously hidden within the straw house, now coughed, sputtered, and issued forth loud claims of “Hokey-smokes!” One looked like another pig, but the others were so covered in straw and dust that one could not tell their identities.
“I say,” said the one on the right, the other pig. “Mighty poor show. Our host must hear of this. I will not tolerate such treatment.”
The one in the middle, who could now be identified as a young man, hastily grabbed an oil lamp and a small mat and took to the air, riding the mat like a flat, wingless bird. Griven and Dirk watched him disappear over the trees, wonder in their eyes.
The one on the left, who appeared to be a young girl, collapsed to the ground in a heap.
The host pig was in hysterics. He dashed around aimlessly, throwing his hands in the air, shouting orders and exclamations to no one but himself. Griven, meanwhile, fell to the ground in a fit of laughter and rolled around, clutching his stout wolf legs to his chest.
“Hey!” Dirk shouted. “That wasn’t nice.”
Griven wiped the tear from his eyes. “Oh, but it was an accident! You see, that is what is so funny! I--”
“My mama always says to never laugh at someone else’s misfortune.”
“But… but… look at them!” He pointed a black furry finger at the three hapless figures bumbling through the ruins of the cottage. “I must laugh! I must, or I will surely burst!”
The guest pig took that moment to accost the host pig, shoving him to the ground. “I say, chap, what is this joke you pull?”
“I... I’m terribly sorry.”
“Hey!” yelled a squeaky voice. A tiny round body shivered the dust from its body and stood on its four rear legs, stretching out with its front four legs and a set of mandibles. The spider jumped onto the ledge and bit the guest pig in the ear. The figure which had fainted roused and jumped up, shrieking. She gathered her curds and her whey and tried to run away, but the dust blinded her. She ran smack into the host pig instead, knocking him flat again. A tussle broke out, and fur and fat and whey and spider eggs and straw stems flew around in a magnificent cloud of lunacy. It all became very confusing to Dirk, and even more amusing to Griven.
Dirk ran. He ran for the forest, ran for home, ran for sanity. The girl’s screams and pig’s squeals and spider’s shrieks followed him for miles, relentlessly pursuing him, echoing through his brain. And Griven’s laughter, and his cries to “Wait, Dirk, I’m coming with you! Wait up! Wait up!” seemed louder than the rest, as if he was somewhere close, even after all these miles. And maybe he was. Who could say?
Dirk finally collapsed to the ground, clutching his hands to his ears, rocking back and forth, willing the voices from his head, willing himself to wake from this horrid dream, so everything could be normal again, and there would be mama with the fresh eggs and milk, and papa with his strong grin and axe, and Cassie out in the pen, happily chewing her cud, thankful to be free of her milk, and the forest rising around them cheery and inviting, and the spring gurgling forth its living flow, and the feel of the cool water on the tongue, and the sand sifting through the fingers, and… and….
And he awoke to the sun beating down on his brow. Cool air caressed his cheeks. He was in a meadow all alone. Before him lay the forest, as he remembered it from life, and not as it had appeared in… was it a dream?
He turned around, but his house was nowhere to be seen. Rather, the bright blue sky was poised over the world like an ocean, and grass extended forever and ever. In the middle of the grass sat a little building, not a hundred paces hence.
Dirk made his way toward the little building. It was open, with a slanted roof covering a modest bench running the full ten-foot length. Beside the building were two metallic rails connected with many boards. It ran forever in both directions, so that their ends were lost in the distance, if ends they had.
Dirk sat on the bench and waited for he knew not what.
Then it came. Long and quaint, chugging along at a leisurely pace, a smile stretched across its metallic grate and a snort rose from its vertical snout. A horn blew, and Dirk knew that he was welcome aboard this marvel of the outside world.
The train halted just before him, and a door folded in on itself.
“All aboard for CamelOz!” a man in a big bright yellow cap shouted.
CamelOz. Dirk had been to CamelOz. His papa had taken him, back when they got the chickens, after a fox killed all the old ones. That had been sad, but going to town had been fun and exciting. Merchants in the streets, oxen pulling carts, and grubby kids his own age making swirls in the dust. It was said they had great wizards who sat around an oval table behind a big curtain. He couldn’t wait to go back.
Dirk stepped inside. The car was clean, spic and span and with a healthy sheen and full of cheer. The back of a few heads and many empty seats faced him. The choice would be his. He looked for one with a window view.
Now, most of the heads were typical--black fedora or slicked-back hair for a man, tight bun or loosely drawn back for a woman, and a girl with pig tails. But one looked like a decapitated wolf.
As he walked up the aisle, the wolf turned around, and it had a sheep face! Dirk’s heart leapt in the air and did a somersault.
“Dirk!” Griven shouted, and many faces turned disapprovingly.
“Oh, hi, Griven. It’s you. Good to see you again.” He stifled a groan, but, in an odd sort of way, it was good to see him again.
Just outside his window, a hare was blazing up the tracks. Sweat glistened around its long ears and large teeth protruded from its mouth like broken slats on a fence. It ran as fast as anything Dirk had ever seen, but still the train chugged past it.
“Mind if I sit next to you? These new-fangled things are wonderful! I can’t get enough!” Griven plopped down beside him.
“Yes, they are. Is it a long way to CamelOz?”
Dirk looked past Griven to a tortoise nestled in the opposite seat. It was small, swallowed up by the seat, but had a very smug look on its face. It grinned at Dirk with excessively white teeth. Dirk looked away.
“Only as long as we want it to be!” Griven looked out the window.
“Well, now, if that ain’t something! Look at the size of that beanstalk!”
Dirk peered outside. The stalk burst through the clouds into the heavens. He could have sworn it had not been there mere moments before.
“I wanna go to it! I wanna go to it!”
“No. Uh-uh. I’m going home. And you’d be wise to as well, Griven.”
“Fine. But you’re no fun.”
Dirk laughed. “Sure I am. Just not as much as you. Come home with me.”
Griven lit up like a firefly. “You mean that? We’re best buds, aren’t we, Dirk?”
“Of course,” he laughed, and kissed his woolen head. His nose wrinkled up as the faux wolf fur tickled his nose hairs. “First thing, we should get you out of that suit.”
“Rightio. Mighty hot in here. Good idea. You and I, we’ll get along swell.”
If you liked this, and aren’t immediately seeing a psychiatrist as a result, maybe you’re interested in more?
