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    The Beautiful Thing: Fairytales Retold
    The Beautiful Thing: Fairytales Retold
    The Beautiful Thing: Fairytales Retold
    Ebook61 pages51 minutes

    The Beautiful Thing: Fairytales Retold

    By Hannah Johnson

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    About this ebook

    A prince is caught between the doldrums of duty and the joys of (a most improper) love. A young woman sets no stock in all that dying-for-love nonsense, and woe betide the anguished knight who tries to brood at her. And a little girl observes more of life, love, and regret than anyone would have thought to expect from a clever and vengeful witch. Three old stories given new shapes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHannah Johnson
    Release dateMar 4, 2012
    ISBN9781465750990
    The Beautiful Thing: Fairytales Retold
    Author

    Hannah Johnson

    Hannah Johnson lives in Alaska, where she likes to watch lots of Netflix and write essays about how Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason should be best friends. Her books and stories usually involve inordinate amounts of whimsy, at least a little magic (or yarn), and lots of dorky heartfelt conversations. She has a master’s degree in English and a fairly eclectic sock collection. Sometimes those socks have old fashioned bicycles on them, or pigs, or pink ghosts. She is exceedingly awkward at writing about herself in third person.

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      Book preview

      The Beautiful Thing - Hannah Johnson

      THE BEAUTIFUL THING: FAIRYTALES RETOLD

      By

      Hannah Johnson

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      +

      PUBLISHED BY:

      Hannah Johnson on Smashwords

      The Beautiful Thing: Fairytales Retold

      Copyright © 2012 by Hannah Johnson

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Wishing

      Maybe I’m a princess, the whore says coyly, draped in candlelight and nothing else. They are just done and glowing, with his arm snaked around her waist and her fingers lovingly tracing each of his ribs in turn. He’s fallen into the habit of telling her his troubles afterwards – and he’s got many of them, too, for someone with so pretty a life. He spells out his various failures – his father’s swift aging and his mother’s disappointment; the young girls with their delicate faces and slack disinterested souls, these types who he calls (regretfully) The Right Sort – and she listens and secretly hopes he’ll get to talking about the bright chandeliers or the silks or the waltzes, but anything’s nice in his voice, to be truthful.

      The prince chuckles at her. Burying his smile in her hair, he murmurs, Secretly?

      Don’t see why not, she retorts, with a stubborn frown. You always say you’re never as happy anywhere as with me. I know just how to give you what you want, mind.

      This isn’t about what I want, he reminds her, not for the first time. He seems not so much a prince as a king-one-day in these moments. It’s about what’s right.

      I’ll show you right, she says, and kisses him, and more besides.

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      The prince sneaks into the castle when the sky is still new pink and yawning, pressing a finger to his lips when he crosses dogs or servant girls (both creatures he has a certain knack for charming). He makes his way deftly to his bedchamber, a triumphant swagger in his walk, only to step inside and find his mother waiting there. Her arms are crossed. She is impeccable, with not a hair out of place or button skipped. He sometimes wonders if she sleeps at all.

      Again? Her mouth is a grim line.

      I fancied a morning walk, he replies lightly, knowing she won’t believe it for a second – for she’s no fool, his mother. She’s more king than the king in fact, and all the better because she never forgets to hide it.

      Your father is ailing, his mother says, as though he needs the reminder. In a matter of months – perhaps weeks – you will be king, and at that time you’ll need an able queen by your side. You can’t afford to dally.

      "I’m not dallying," he protests, like a sulking child – not that there’s much point. Her eyes are quick and narrow, and there are times he thinks she can smell it on him, the leftover traces of sex and happiness.

      A ball. His mother says it quickly, decisively. She would be excellent, he thinks, at chopping the heads off chickens. Sometimes he fancies himself decapitated and feathered and sprinting forward in some directionless hysteria. The kingdom will roast him and sup on him, over the years. He bears daily witness to how they’ve devoured his father.

      Another one? Saying it, he holds back a groan. Wonders how much it would hurt to fling himself from the window.

      And another, and another, his mother says firmly. Until you find a proper girl.

      "A perfect girl."

      That, his mother says, with a hint of wry smile, is the general idea.

      He thinks of his girl – his whore, but it’s too mean a word for her – with her tangled orange hair and her freckles all over, the way she squeaks a little when she laughs. Sometimes even snorts.

      She would drown in dinner forks and fumbled dance steps.

      Still, he thinks he’d like it best if she were here, to ooh and ahh at the fashions and say the precise wrong thing in front of the people who’ve sculpted whole lives from frigid rightness. The thought makes him smile. He’d hold her hand the whole time, his rich fingers with her poor ones, and proud of it.

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      With the gold coins from the prince she buys:

      -Six dresses with big full skirts, ones that rustle and whisper in sweet flirting tones with all your steps and spins.

      -A bird that can sing any lullaby.

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