Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(75)

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I had this idea for an epic, bad-ass scene I wanted to illustrate, but as soon as I started to sketch the hero’s corset, I knew he deserved a whole story. “Castle of Masks” is his story.

Cory Skerry

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Castle of Masks


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Cory Skerry


It wasn’t difficult for Justus to take the place of the yearly sacrifice.

“Go home,” he said, and when Ingrid opened her mouth to argue, he lifted his skirts to show her the stolen cutlass dangling beneath. “I’ve hunted fox, deer, wolf, and bear—a beast in a castle is nothing to me.”

Her face was a wet moon in the chill starlight, her eyes so red that even the colorless night couldn’t hide them. Her name had been drawn in the village lottery, and she’d spent the last week thinking she must die.

“Good luck, brave fool,” she whispered. As Ingrid’s footsteps faded behind him, the sounds of the approaching carriage grew louder.

Justus smoothed his skirts and tried to pretend he was a woman.

Once in a while, when it came time for one of Justus’s neighbors to give up his own daughter to the Greve, the man suddenly wanted everyone to charge the castle and slay the monster instead of sending his child to be devoured. No matter that the Greve supposedly changed into an oversized wolf in the night, or was a ghoul wearing the rotting limbs of the victims—it was high time that people risk their lives for justice. Invariably, everyone else was just as reluctant as he had been the year before when it wasn’t his child being taken from him.

Justus regretted having been so complacent until last year, when his sister, Gudrun, was chosen, but he wasn’t about to embarrass ? 237 ?

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himself by demanding that the folk from his and other villages help with his revenge. It hadn’t yet occurred to him that he might go in his sister’s place—and as soon as he had the thought, he began his preparations.

The coach was black, and so were the four stout horses that drew it. Their breath ghosted through the crisp air, but the driver’s didn’t.

Justus’s heart pummeled his chest—was it true, that the Castle of Masks was served by the undead?—but after a moment he saw that the man simply had a thin wrap over his face.

“My name is Valfrid,” the man’s voice creaked.

“Karin,” Justus said, forcing his voice into a higher register.

Valfrid offered a hand to help Justus into the carriage, and Justus took it as daintily as he had practiced for the past year. Valfrid closed the door as Justus settled on the cushioned bench. The lock clicked with finality, trapping Justus in a garish display of wealth. The carriage walls and ceiling were painted with murals of woodland beasts chasing and fleeing. Instead of simple canvas shades, there were real glass windows set in iron grids that couldn’t be kicked out by desperate maidens.

Justus peered at himself in the reflection. At first he saw the captivating young lady Valfrid must see—but after only a moment his eyes adjusted and he recognized himself, shaved and painted, but the same old Justus. Even though he’d often been teased that he looked like Gudrun’s younger sister, Justus was still nervous about his disguise.

Thoughts of his sister filled his belly with familiar fire. He spent the next few solitary hours fantasizing about his coming triumph, caressing the scarred hilt of the cutlass through a strategic tear in the folds of his skirt. He would look for tools he was more familiar with—he was no swordsman—but a blade this size was comforting nonetheless.

When they arrived, Valfrid helped Justus out of the carriage and led him to a small side door. Above them, the walls of the castle glared down with hundreds of green eyes. Justus prepared himself for halls lit by sickly green witchlights, but the lantern in the entry hall glowed a normal yellow.

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His eyes immediately fell on the opposite wall, to a strange tapestry of pale leather, the uneven pieces stitched together by an unskilled tailor. Justus might never have realized the skin was human if not for the ghastly masks haunting every wall.

The hole-eyed faces of dozens of slaughtered women stared at him, through him, beyond him. Some of the masks were lacquered to retain the quality of the face paint; someone had painstakingly styled the hair. Justus’s stomach twisted like a scared rabbit as he recognized some of the tortured faces as those of girls from his own village, now stretched over wooden frames and dried into an eternal expression of horror.