Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(97)

Liselle casts the nettle shirts, stitched with her silence and her pain, into the air. They snag feathers, pulling my brothers to earth one by one. They scream with the change, cry out in agony, and weep.

Liselle weeps, too, tears rolling from eyes like ink and ice. But she makes no sound. She puts a hand over her mouth, and holds all the sorrow in as her nettles tear my brothers raw, and they change.

Then there is only one shirt left. Liselle turns to me, and through the sorrow, I see the beginning of a smile. After this, she will be free. All the pain, all the silence, will be worth it, and she’ll have her brothers back again.

Sunlight comes to break through the clouds. She tosses the last shirt into the air, and I snap my wings wide and fly as fast as I can.

Instead of catching me, the nettles sail past me, and hit the ground.

Sometimes, in my memory of that day, I collide with Liselle’s voice, winging back to her like a bird. The force of my betrayal shatters it in the air; it breaks, but never her promise. We are each bound to our choice—me, to my freedom; Liselle to her silence.

There’s no sound, of course. No cry of rage from Liselle. As I spiral up, I see the ice finally cover her eyes, sealing away the summer girl.

I beat my wings, lifting farther and farther away from her, fleeing the gift she tried to give me—staying drunk and in love with the sky.

My brothers, crouched bloody on the ground, feathers in their hair, and nettles buried in their skin, stare at me wide-eyed. I see shock, anger, not for Liselle, but for themselves, because they weren’t clever and cruel enough to hold onto the witch’s gift, the witch’s curse.

? 296 ?

? A. C. Wise ?

Flying away from George, the sky soothes me, as always. Like a sister’s touch, a hand on a fevered forehead, an encouraging smile at just the right time. The witch took all that away from me; broke me.

Or, I threw it away. I gave up Liselle and everything—traded laughter and the taste of raspberries for blood-copper sex, for cinnamon and wine. For the freedom that was always mine.

And Liselle paid the price.

I could keep flying, leave George to his smugness and Liselle to her dying. She doesn’t want my help anyway. I wouldn’t let her save me; why should I expect anything different from her?

Below me, the city smears bright, red spattering the pavement where brakes slam. Horns blare. Impatient men and women shout.

Babies cry. How does Liselle subsist among so much noise?

From the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the witch’s tower.

Fourteen years later, and it’s unchanged—a needle of emerald, daring the sky. It glints in the setting sun.

I could go to Circe. I could beg. I tried it once before, and it gained me nothing. After I refused my sister’s gift, I fled to the witch, sobbing, and asked her to give Liselle back her voice again.

“Would you give up the sky?” she asked me.

I couldn’t answer her, as though she had stolen my voice, too.

“Then how can you ask her to give up her promise? Her heart?

Her silence?”

And today, my answer would be the same.

Suddenly, the witch’s tower is in front of me, as though my memories have called me back to her. I snap my wings wide to avoid striking the glass. Blood and feathers, a broken body falling from the sky.

What would you give to have her back again?

Summer sunshine. Liselle’s smile. Her fingers pricked by thorns and smeared red with berries, instead of pricked by nettles and red with blood.

I chose once, I could choose again. I could break my body against the glass. I’m not a card-carrying organ donor, but could a doctor refuse a dying man’s last wish?

? 297 ?

? The Hush of Feathers, the Clamor of Wings ?

I bank away from the witch’s tower, circling. Do I have the courage to fly straight, and not break away this time?

Is it too late? Can I pull Liselle from the ice?

My reflection wavers in the witch’s glass, as I turn again, skimming the tower so the window scrapes my feathers. Another thought occurs. George’s car arrives at his office at six o’clock every evening.

How hard could it be for a dirty, gray pigeon to startle a driver, to cause an accident? Surely George has an organ donor card in that fat wallet of his, along with all his cash.

And if not, I still have six other brothers.

What would I give to have Liselle back again? My blood? Theirs?

I can’t give her back her voice. I can’t give her back the seven years and more I stole from her, but I can give her something better—the choice I had, to take my gift, or refuse. It’s the least I can do.