Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(96)

“She needs money for a doctor, you lousy shit. It’s the least you could do.” I clench my jaw on the rage.

“I think you’ve got a lock on that.” George’s lips twitch, but there’s genuine pain in his eyes. He must remember the raspberries, too.

Satisfied he’s won, no matter how hollow the victory, George turns on his heel. I follow him into his office, and he retrieves his checkbook from a desk drawer. He comes back with the check in his hand, but plucks it back before my fingers close, and a cruel little smile turns up the corner of his mouth.

“She’s still going to need a compatible donor, you know.”

Shit. Of course, I didn’t think of that. Smug, George puts the check into my palm, and folds my fingers over it.

“Good luck.”

It isn’t about Liselle for him, it’s about me. What would I give up to save her? George and the rest, they forsook the sky, and now they’re done as far as they’re concerned. They paid their dues. In their minds, they don’t owe Liselle seven years of her life back; it’s enough to know they didn’t steal another seven, or more. They didn’t waste her blood, and stitch closed her mouth with silence for the rest of her life. Only I chose to stay a bird. In the face of a sister’s love, only I chose the sky.

“Asshole.”

The word doesn’t wipe the smirk from George’s face. Still, I leave it trailing behind me as I slip the check into my pocket, step onto the balcony, and take wing.

“What would you give,” the witch asks, “to have them back again?”

To each of us seven brothers, she asked what we wanted. Of Liselle, she asks what she can take away. And as she asks it, the witch looks at me.

If I speak now, I can save my sister, but it would mean giving up the sky. The witch’s penny, her copper secret, lies heavy on my tongue.

I should change, shed feathers, grab my sister’s hand, and take her far away from here. I wouldn’t be able to fly anymore, but we’d both be able to run.

? 294 ?

? A. C. Wise ?

This is what the witch meant by freedom. Freedom to choose

cruelty over kindness. Freedom to choose my heart over Liselle’s.

This is freedom. It knifes me open, and I fill the wound with the taste of wind, and the blue of the sky. I keep my feathers, and hold my tongue.

Liselle’s mouth forms an “O,” her breath steaming in the air. She trembles, her eyes wide and frightened, her skin winter pale. The summer girl is there, as she looks at each of us in turn—seven dirty birds ranged around her feet. I watch the ice close in; I watch her drown.

“Anything,” Liselle says, “I’ll give anything.”

“Hmm.” Circe looks disappointed as she steps back.

Did she hope for Liselle to fight, to refuse, and demand power of her own? The witch’s lightning-struck eyes seem to say that Liselle could have been so much more. Of all of us, Liselle might actually have been worthy of the witch’s gift, and she declined.

“This is what you must do to save them,” the witch says.

She puts her lips against Liselle’s ear. I feel that whispered-hot breath against my own skin. I cannot weep, only let out a mournful pigeon’s sob. Liselle’s fingers curl, tightening against her palm, but she nods.

Circe puts her hand against Liselle’s throat. Liselle looks up, her eyes going wider still. When the witch lowers her hand, Liselle puts her fingers against her lips, not to stop her voice slipping away, but to seal it inside. The witch didn’t take anything from our sister, save a promise. Liselle could speak any time, if she chose.

Choice: That’s the witch’s gift. And her curse. Giving you what you already have, taking what you willingly give. Showing you what you are inside your skin.

When Liselle lowers her hands, already her eyes are turning dark, ice creeping around the edges toward the center of everything. Seven brothers, seven years; no matter what it takes, she will set us free.

And so, after seven years of silence, Liselle comes back to Central Park with her pricked fingers and nettle shirts, just as the witch asked.

? 295 ?

? The Hush of Feathers, the Clamor of Wings ?

Seven years of weight drags at her bones and frost-dulls her eyes.

She is pale and ghost-thin. Seven years bound to the earth while her brothers drank the sky.

Even in these feathered bodies, we are still her brothers, and she knows us still. But I barely recognize her. Where is the little girl who ran with us in the sun, who kissed our wounds, and fed us raspberries from her thorn-pricked hands? It is already too late for her, I tell myself. There is nothing left to save.