Frightful Fairy Tales Page 3

“Come in,” Ivy called tentatively. A pretty, diminutive maid with a mouth like a trout and wet-looking black hair plastered to her head entered the room. She carried a silver tray with a large teapot and two eggs, which she set on a nearby table. With a neat curtsy, she left the room, closing the door with a little click.

  Ivy arose and moved toward the table. She lifted the lid of the teapot to find some strange black tea. She cracked the first egg and tasted it; it was the most delicious egg she had ever eaten in her life and she hungrily consumed it. When she cracked the second, she found no egg, but rather a note that read:

  Will you be so kind as to join me on the veranda this afternoon?

  It is located in the northeastern wing of the palace.

  I must show you so many exquisite things!

  Respectfully yours,

  Prince Blackie

  Ivy held the note. She was stricken for a moment but then looked to find her shift and camisole she had worn the previous night. They were not to be found. In the comer she found a large solid closet carved with mermaids pouring water from urns down the length. She approached it, gingerly opened it, and found to her delight a beautiful turquoise crushed-velvet gown covered in a pattern of abalone sequins and brocade. She tied the sash and it fit perfectly. At the bottom of the closet sat delicate matching shoes with tiny straps held with a pearl. These also fit like a charm.

  Ivy was so moved by her exquisite gifts that tears welled in her eyes. Her affection for the prince overcame her and she tried to hold it back. She still wanted to remain sensible and not be consumed by a stranger bearing lavish gifts. This she tried to keep in mind as she strode toward the veranda. But when the stunning prince came into sight, all rationality disappeared and she fell into his arms, thanking him profusely.

  "You look ravishing,” he said with a rakish smile. “Come, let me show you my kingdom.” That afternoon he took her to a panoramic underwater viewing window to view the sea horse races. They sat on Roman-style benches sipping kelp juleps as mermen in multicolored livery flogged their steeds in the waters outside the bubble dome. Ivy won every bet. Then they enjoyed a late luncheon of oysters Rockefeller at the Atlantis Restaurant--it was built of the ruins of that famous city.

  As they dined on crab cakes and caviar, they sat on an ornate balcony overlooking jewel-encrusted sirens performing water ballet in a pool below. Later that evening Prince Blackie took Ivy to dinner in a dark room lined in silver paper flocked with a blue velvet pattern. Only two long tapers held by wall sconces lit the room. The black water of the deep river could be seen through portholes ringed with the silver that lined the room. Through these portholes, Ivy could see strange glowing and semitransparent fish with cavernous jaws. They flowed by ominously and seemed to stare sightlessly at her.

  The prince took her hand, looked at her with his penetrating black eyes and then ever so softly kissed her waiting lips. Ivy swooned. His ivory skin glowed in the candlelight and his black eyes seemed to become even darker as he whispered in her ear, "Marry me, Ivy. Live with me forever.”

  Despite his charms and affluence, she hesitated, knowing intuitively that there must be a stipulation. “If I am your bride, how can my family attend the wedding?” she asked.

  “They cannot,” he answered, stroking her hair. “But I can promise you a sumptuous wedding and a life of ease, filled with beautiful trinkets and flowing gowns.” Ivy was impressed by his offers of opulence. Her dull life above seemed so boring and shabby in comparison. This was what she had always dreamed of. It all seemed too fast and surreal, and she felt anxious but didn’t know why. She turned to Blackie and said, “Please, beloved prince, if you really love me as you say, you will allow me time to sort my thoughts.”

  “I can only give you one full day,” he responded with a grim aspect. “After that, unless you marry me, the spell will weaken. You’ll become too large for us to keep you here in the bubble, and we’ll have to return you to the cold river. We could never see each other again.” At this, he looked desperate. “I will come to your room next evening and then I will hear your decision. A servant will show you to your room. Good night for now, my precious. I will see you in my dreams.”

  That night Ivy lay tormented in her canopy bed and what little sleep she did get was filled with nightmares of swimming alone in a black sea at night. In the dream she felt huge, dark creatures in the water under her feet, bumping against her legs. When she looked down, she saw a pack of black wolves circling her underwater.

  The whole next day Ivy fretted and gazed out the window to the courtyard below where fountains made their ever-changing crystalline formations while swans drifted lazily among the patterns. She looked out over the expanse of the underwater city, past the river that divided the bubble dome kingdom in two. As she looked up to the top of the bubble dome and the many exotic fish swimming around it, she thought she caught a glimmer of the sun she knew must be far, far above.

  Ivy absently twisted the drapery with her delicate hands as she thought about having to leave this wonderful place for the doldrums that had been her previous existence. The palace was beautiful and expansive and she could not imagine tiring of it or the prince and his loving gaze any time soon but she would miss her humble home, doting mother, and her patchwork quilt. It was, after all, the only life she had ever known. She had been ripped so suddenly and unexpectedly from her life. Would she miss the simplicity of the grass and sunlight? Her mother must be worried sick by now.

  If she went back, she could say she had been lost in the woods. She would slip into her old pattern, eventually find another lover, marry, and have a home. In time this misadventure would fade into memory and become just another dream, a strange and good dream that had lasted for days. What do days matter in a lifetime of years. Of decades? As an old woman on her deathbed, perhaps she would think back for a moment to the Black River.

  A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. The pretty trout-mouthed maid entered with another serving of tea and eggs. This time Ivy rushed directly to the second egg and cracked it open. “I love you,” the note inside read. After showering in the opulent bathroom and dressing herself in yet another wonderful gown, Ivy had a visit from Prince Blackie. He fell to his knees and grasped her hand as he pleaded for an answer to his marriage proposal.

  “Yes,” whispered Ivy. “I will marry you and live with you forever.”

  The wedding that ensued was the most lavish the kingdom had ever seen. Ivy and Blackie and the wedding procession rode enormous black swans to an island in the middle of the great indoor river. Eleven beautiful maidens dressed in aqua silk held Ivy’s train. As she slowly walked down the aisle, pearls and pink coral were scattered behind her. A shape-shifting judge transformed into a swordfish while he read the vows.

  Ivy was presented with a crown much like the one she had found--had it only been days since her arrival here?--but hers was embossed with abalone and mother-of-pearl. As they kissed, the celebrating crowd set off a fleet of torpedoes that passed over the dome, exploding colorfully. Everyone cheered.

  A monumental triple-layer wedding cake floated down the river on a lapis lazuli barge pulled by tiny mermaid babies balanced on the backs of trick dolphins. As the babies held the dolphins’ silver bridles, they served pieces of cake to everyone in the kingdom. Those who bit too hard cracked their teeth on the precious gems and treasures hidden inside. Wine flowed in abundance. Dancing girls balancing tall clear urns of fish moved among the wedding throng, granting wishes with royal wands reserved for such occasions. It was indeed quite an event.

  Later that evening in the half light, next to her sleeping husband, Ivy lay awake and gazed at the crown that hung on a hook over the wedding bed. It gleamed softly in the half light, mimicked perfectly by the light that glinted in her slow, salty tears.

  In the days that followed the wedding, Blackie tried to keep his wife entertained with all sorts of amusements and exotic delicacies. Ivy found them increasingly monotonous, the food tasteless. Al
l the shape shifting and transformations around her made everything feel so immaterial. She felt uprooted and claustrophobic, unable to wander beyond the walls of the dome, unable to feel the sunlight.

  When she went to the kitchen and offered to help the scullery maids with the dishes, they gently refused her: “This is not the place for you, my lady,” they said. When she asked the trout-mouthed maid for a needle with which to embroider, the flustered servant insisted on embroidering for her, “My lady, you mustn’t mar your delicate fingers!” Ivy became despondent from being so idle-no matter how much gold and jewels Blackie lavished on her, she felt worthless.

  Ivy was inconsolable. Everything about her began to droop. Her hair thinned and became lifeless. She had sunken eyes and a sickly pallor. Nothing seemed to cure her of her consumptive sadness, her longing to see the world above once more. She longed for the simple things that life once held for her. She was wasting away in grandeur. Every night, after refusing the lavish meals that were served to her on silver platters, she pled with her husband to let her at least visit her home. He was kind and patient, but he reminded her that if she went back, she might never return. Finally, Ivy took to her bed, and over a period of days, her condition deteriorated to the point at which Blackie called a doctor. A squid wearing a topcoat arrived at Ivy’s bedside, and poking and squeezing her neck once or twice with a tentacle, announced that unless Ivy returned to her previous home, she would surely die from a combination of vitamin deficiencies and ennui.

  Blackie had no choice but to concede. The prince of the Black River leaned over his feverish wife and whispered lovingly in her ear, “I will give up my kingdom and take you home, for it is better to have you alive and not in my kingdom than not to have you at all. Once we leave this place, you can never come back. But there is a magic spell that governs all of us who live under the Black River:

  Not hair nor nails nor teeth nor hide

  Fall from the place where you abide.

  For if you do, consuming thirst

  For blood will uncover you first.

  And second, you cannot return

  To this your home and you will learn.

  So it was that in the middle of the next night, they boarded an enchanted bubble that would take them to the surface. They brought nothing from the lavish kingdom save for a small satchel of flawless black pearls and the crowns they had worn on their heads. They avoided the mayhem of the public, leaving behind only a note appointing the prince’s younger brother as ruler.

  They rose slowly through the dark water and as they did Prince Blackie held Ivy in his arms and whispered a mellifluous song in her ear:

  The moon reflects the water’s edge

  Separating worlds between you and I.

  How I long for the deep black waters.

  How you long for the earth and sky.

  All will be fine, never cry.

  They continued to rise until they saw the crescent moon shining down through the water. When they surfaced, the bubble popped, and they swam to shore. There they lay, panting, until sunrise, while they devised a convincing story to tell her family.

  As the sun grew in the sky, they, too, became larger until finally they were proper human size. They reached the farmhouse, and Ivy knocked on the door. Her mother was happy and relieved to see her missing daughter.

  "Why, Ivy, you’ve been gone for a little over a year," said her mother, and Ivy realized that time under the Black River ran differently. What she thought had been merely a passing of weeks had been a passing of months in the world above. "I took you for dead!" continued her mother. "It does this poor old woman’s heart good to see the face of my beautiful daughter again. And who is this handsome young man accompanying you?"

  Blackie stepped forward and said, “Your daughter fell into the Black River and was carried by the currents of the ocean, where I caught her half drowned in my net. When I revived her, she could not remember her name or from where she came. Slowly it came to her, but during the time of her recovery, we fell in love and were married." With this, he bowed deeply to his mother-in-law. She was flattered by his genteel demeanor and was surprised to hear that this seemingly regal character was a sailor. At the same time, Ivy’s mother was deeply heartbroken at the news, for she had missed her only daughter’s wedding. She planned another celebration to make up for it-a celebration to honor her daughter’s return.

  A few weeks later her mother cooked Ivy’s favorite hearty stew with vegetables from the garden and Ivy baked a loaf of bread in the shape of a swan for her husband. She also made him a wedding present of a lock of her hair braided into a watch fob. Although he had never made anything in his life, Blackie carved a piece of whalebone into a corset stay with a scrimshaw pattern depicting a baby mermaid on a dolphin for Ivy. The local priest said a few simple words, gave thanks for their return and blessed their future. For wedding rings, Ivy and Blackie used the Black River crowns, which, of course, had remained small. A few close friends and relatives joined them for wine afterward.

  Blackie bought a simple house with a few of the black pearls he had brought from his kingdom and a modest boat with which he could ply his new trade as a fisherman. Ivy and Blackie had received some wedding gifts that they put in their humble and beautiful home, which soon had ivy growing up the latticework on the front. For her part, Ivy was truly content rocking on the front porch, doing her embroidery and cooking soup as she waited for Blackie to come home to her loving arms. For she had realized that although she still loved to wander, she could not stray too far from her roots.

  Everything seemed wonderful until a few months later when Blackie didn’t come home one night. What Ivy did not know was that on that day, her husband had caught in his net a fanciful miniature sea horse with an intricately worked saddle and matching blinders. This reminded him of his kingdom and all that he had lost. Blackie was overwhelmed with a thirst of sorts and he went to the tavern to drown his tears in red wine. Over the following weeks, his temperament became wicked and distant. He acted nothing like the sweet prince Ivy had met and loved so long ago. Blackie began to stay away from home more and he spent many nights carousing with his sailor friends, drinking and only the devil knew what else! One late evening he even came home with a rough bleeding tattoo, a picture of an anchor with her name, Ivy, on top. He said he did it to remind himself how she weighed him down.

  Blackie became cruel. He even struck poor Ivy, bellowing, “I lost a kingdom and for what? A woman! I know now that no mere woman, let alone a mortal, is worth it.” He crushed his poor wife’s heart into dust. Again, Ivy began to waste away, just as she had when she felt trapped beneath the bubble dome. Blackie did not act as though he cared very much. He usually came home from fishing, sullenly ate his dinner, and left the table and didn’t come back again until early dawn.

  Because he was not allowed to leave any part of himself in the mortal world, Blackie had not cut his hair or his beard since they arrived and now looked no more like his former self than he acted. He resembled a frightening vengeful cur, and the only attention he paid Ivy was when he made advances to her in bed while she lay sick from the ghastly stench of his drinking. Life, it seemed, could not be worse. If Ivy had known that her kind and beautiful prince would transform into this hideous monstrosity he had become, she would certainly never have left the river.

  One winter night, after many months of misery, Ivy contemplated her situation as she wistfully stirred the soup that she would eat in solitude. She noticed how the spoon made little whirlpools in the soup, reminding her of the suctioning pull of the Black River on that day many months earlier. A weird howling outside suddenly interrupted her meditation. Ivy thought it was probably only the wind but still she went to lock the windows and the doors.

  That evening the air became bitter and every small sound put her on edge. The ticking of the clock in the parlor mimicked the beating of her heart. She imagined her veins standing out against her thin skin, defenseless, throbbing with blood. She scre
amed as the howling began once more. Now it was closer and much louder. She backed away from the door and window. Her thoughts turned to Blackie. Where, for the love of God, was Blackie? Why was he not here when she needed him the most?

  The pot of soup began to boil over, and when she went to attend to it, a hideous sight in the window shocked her. A large wolf with piercing black eyes stared in through the windowpane. It threw itself at the glass, shattering it, and howled in pain, leaving streaks of blood running from the shards. Its jaws held the remains of something recently slaughtered.

  She screamed and backed away against the far wall. The sight before her was so frightful, her mind could barely comprehend it. Then, as abruptly as it had come, the wolf vanished. The house was silent save for the ticking of the clock. The window was black, open, and ominous. Ivy sat by the fire in her rocking chair, holding a kitchen knife in her hand and ceaselessly staring at the window until her husband’s return.

  As traces of sunlight transformed the black sky outside into lavender, Blackie finally returned home. "Where on earth have you been?" asked Ivy. Then she noticed the fresh blood on his clothing. "What gruesome deed have you performed this evening?”

  “I’ve done nothing,” he replied. “I was mixed up in a row, and someone popped me in the nose. I come home to finally find some solace and instead what do I get? A nagging woman!”