Frightful Fairy Tales (6 page)

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 screamed 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!”

"I was almost killed by a vicious wolf!" she retorted quickly. "While you were out carousing, who was here to defend me? I could have been killed. And then where would you be?” She said this to affect him, but she did not expect him to fall to the floor sobbing.

"I’m sorry, Ivy. I love you. I did not mean for our lives to be this way.” She began to stroke his matted hair and soothe him. She was deeply saddened and confused. They went to bed and fell asleep but nightmares of the shape-shifting dancing couples in the kingdom under the Black River plagued her sleep. Her whole adventure there seemed as if it had all been a dream. Perhaps the lie she had told her mother was actually the truth and Blackie was actually just a rough sailor who had rescued her from the deep. Nothing seemed real anymore or had any sense to it.

The next day the entire community was shocked. A wandering traveler had been found near the woods behind a neighboring pasture. A pack of wolves that came down from the mountain had ripped him apart. Many people suspected demons to be the actual cause, for they could attest to hearing a blood-chilling howling that was strange, not like that of a wolf.

Ivy, among others, was thrown into a panic-their house was so exposed, and a pack of wolves would find it a very attractive target. So she became outraged the following evening when, despite this news, Blackie insisted on going out drinking with his comrades again instead of staying home and putting her at ease.

"If you leave this house,” she threatened, "I won’t be here when you return." He merely glared at her before he shut the door. She threw a plate, shattering it, against the door and sat down and cried. She wanted to return to her mother’s house but her anger toward her husband was nothing compared to her fear of the wolves finding her alone on the dark road away from their home.

Ivy locked the window again and sat by the fire nervously embroidering and rocking. She jumped as the clock struck midnight. On the final toll, her heart stopped as she heard the howl of the wolf once more. Plaintive and frightening, the noise grew louder. Ivy ran to get the knife. The wolf was outside her house again. It sounded unearthly, like the devil himself had come straight from hell to open her veins.