Grim, page 31
Beauty hesitated. “Oh, well. I just thought—they were wrong not to accept you. And now you can get a different stable boy when the time comes.”
Chad hesitated in his turn.
“I don’t want a different stable boy,” Chad said at length. “You—you are kind to me and you’re brave and I don’t want you to pretend anything. You’re my friend. I wish you’d stay.”
He was the only person who had ever said to Beauty that she was enough the way she was. Beauty looked over at him, at his kind dark eyes: he was closer now. Neither of them had moved; it was the chairs who had edged together.
“Uh,” said Chad. His voice cracked. “No homo? Dumbass interfering furniture.”
Beauty leaned forward. She didn’t understand everything Chad said, but she thought she understood enough.
She leaned forward, in the silence just after midnight, and pressed a kiss somewhere in the vicinity of Chad’s fangs.
The arm of the chair splintered under Chad’s claw.
“Uh,” he said, and his voice cracked. “Maybe a little homo?”
Beauty smiled at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I have to go?” Chad said. “Yep. I have to go and sit in my room and have a think and hope the wardrobe doesn’t try to give me relationship advice. Okay, bye!”
He ran, leaving claw marks on the door. The door creaked a protest at him, waggling back and forth reproachfully.
* * *
It was Chad’s decision whether or not to accept her courtship. Beauty tried not to worry about it and to focus on her job, so the next day she rose bright and early to curry the horses. She was finishing up on Vin Diesel (Chad had named the horses after heroes in his own land) when she heard the half growl, half stutter of Chad’s cough behind her.
“Dude, can I have a word?”
“Of course,” said Beauty, and got up from the straw.
The horses all shied away from Chad, still uneasy even though Beauty had been doing her best to accustom them to his presence. Except for Snowball, who had taken a fancy to him and went over to butt his arm in a mute demand for apples.
Chad patted Snowball’s nose, careful of his claws.
“Dude,” he said. “I’m really sorry that I ran off. I was just—I was just freaked out. But it wasn’t that I didn’t want to— I was freaked out because I did. I care about you, and that sounds a little gay but obviously that’s okay. It’s okay to be a little gay. Or a lot. And human sexuality is a complicated and beautiful thing, or that’s what a psych major I dated once told me. And honestly, Matt has hooked up with every guy in the frat house and it can’t just be about being drunk because if you were that drunk you’d probably hook up with a chick once or twice. It all got a little statistically unlikely. No offence to Matt. It’s all good. He’s still my bro.”
Beauty honestly only understood one sentence of that, but she thought it was the important one.
She beamed. “I care about you, too.”
“Thanks, man,” Chad said. “Seriously. I mean I realize you’re overlooking a lot here, the claws and everything—honestly I’m very concerned about them—”
Beauty did not see why Chad was suddenly so very concerned about his claws.
“I’m not overlooking anything,” she said. “I’d rather be with you than anyone else.”
Chad scuffed the straw on the stable floor with a clawed foot. It looked like someone had started raking the yard. “Me, too,” he muttered. “So—so what do we do now?”
It seemed very obvious to her.
“We love each other, don’t we?” Beauty asked.
“Uh,” said Chad. “Yeah? Yeah.”
“So we should get married.”
Chad choked, rattled, and hit himself in the chest so hard he almost fell over backward. Beauty got the impression he was a little surprised.
“I don’t...” he said. “What? Are you serious? Can we even—legally? In this country?”
“Oh, yes,” said Beauty.
She understood his concern completely now, but she knew of a prince who had married a swan. It was what was inside that mattered.
“Well, that’s surprising but great,” said Chad. “Like, obviously. My dad’s a Republican and he’s not in favor, but I, I am. But I’ve never really, um... Dude, this is new to me. How does it even work? Which of us is even meant to ask?”
“Will you marry me?” said Beauty.
Chad cleared his throat and fed Snowball an apple. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. Great.” He paused and there was an embarrassed silence. “Thanks,” he added.
“Thank you,” Beauty told him. She glanced at him and caught him glancing at her, and they both found themselves smiling.
* * *
All the villagers assembled in the chapel on their wedding day. Doves had appeared from somewhere—Beauty believed that the furniture had kidnapped them somehow. The glass windows blazed, showing heroes and monsters of days long gone by in scarlet and blue, and as soon as Chad caught sight of Beauty he had a fit and dragged her outside.
“Why are you wearing that?” he demanded.
Beauty tugged on the ivory-and-pearl skirt of her wedding gown. “Don’t you like it?” she said, rather hurt.
“You look like a gi— You look great, of course,” said Chad. “But you don’t— You shouldn’t feel as if you have to dress that way. You can dress any way you want.”
“I know,” said Beauty. “And I like trousers, mostly. But it felt all right to wear this today. Because it’s a significant occasion, and because it’s tradition, and it doesn’t matter what other people think but I still want them to see and be absolutely sure this means something.”
“Okay,” said Chad. “If you’re sure.” He bit his lip, and winced with fang-related pain. “Do you want me to wear the wedding dress instead? Uh, I will if you want.”
Beauty laughed. “I don’t know why you think we have time to make one in your size. And your fur would catch on the lace.”
She caught his hand, and instead of looking worried, he had to concentrate on not hurting her with his claws.
She went down the aisle hand in hand with Chad, and they were married as the villagers whispered and the stolen doves fluttered overhead, and Chad kept his eyes on her throughout, seeing her and finding nothing wanting.
When Beauty promised to love and cherish him, the air in the chapel dazzled and shimmered and turned into somewhere new: a stone room in a high tower, where the enchantress was waiting for them.
It was Aimee, dressed in flowing black and green and red, like evil Christmas. Beauty and the Chad stared.
“Oh, come on,” said Aimee the shopkeeper, now Aimee the evil enchantress (who possibly kept a shop as a sideline). “I gave you plenty of hints.”
Beauty abruptly remembered Aimee talking about the many Beasts she had seen, even though one had been a Beast seventy years.
“You didn’t give me any hints,” Chad grumbled. “You sold me overpriced cheese but you didn’t give me any hints.”
“Well, she’s the hero,” said Aimee.
“Fair enough,” said Chad, and then, “She? What?”
Aimee clapped her hands together, and said, “You married him—that counts as love until disappointment in the bedroom or a midlife crisis. Consider the spell broken.”
“Wait,” Chad said. “She? Wha—”
He began to shimmer and shift, body writhing and fur rippling away, until he was gone. There was a boy standing in his place.
He was a very odd-looking boy, with short hair that was a different color at the tips than at the roots. He was wearing a necklace of tiny seashells, and he was staring at her as if he didn’t know her.
“You’re a girl?”
“Of course I’m a girl!” Beauty snapped. “How could you marry me otherwise?”
“Hey, dudes can marry other dudes,” Chad said. “Don’t be a hater.”
Beauty blinked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
It made her wonder if there were other things she had not heard of: if she could dress like a boy without saying she was a boy, or a girl, exactly. If she could be what she felt like, without having to fit into either of the boxes everybody tried to force you into.
Aimee the evil enchantress patted her on the shoulder. “She’s been very sheltered. They keep women here uninformed and pretend that’s the same thing as stupid.”
“Beauty’s the smartest person I know,” Chad said, and returned to staring at her. “Dude,” he said at last. “Uh, wait. Babe?”
“You always call me Dude,” Beauty said, confused and a little hurt.
“Dude it is,” Chad said. “Sorry. I’m just— It’s a bit of a surprise. But a nice surprise! Though it would have been cool the other way, too.” He hesitated. “It’s all good, as long as you’re with me.”
Beauty reached out in the quiet of the enchantress’s tower and took his hand. It was a little strange without claws.
“Me, too,” Beauty told him. “I just want to be with you. I don’t mind that your hair is extremely odd.”
“Dude,” said Chad. “My hair is awesome.”
Chad grinned. It was the smile Beauty recognized, and not the eyes, in the end.
“Yes, yes, very heartwarming,” Aimee the evil enchantress drawled. “Now I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson, and we probably want to thank me.”
“Nope,” said Chad.
Aimee the evil enchantress looked offended. Beauty pressed Chad’s hand in warning: she would still love Chad if he was turned into a frog, but it wouldn’t be her preference.
“Look, I may have been a jerk, but turning someone into a giant talking animal is basically a huge overreaction. And even if it was fair to me, it wouldn’t have been fair to the innocent people whose heads I could’ve totally eaten. With great power comes great responsibility, dude.”
Aimee continued to look offended for a moment, and then shook her head and laughed. “I must admit you two have been entertaining. Well, what shall it be...? Will you stay in your lady’s enchanted kingdom, or return to be prince of your own?”
“CEO,” Chad mumbled. “And it’s up to Beauty. She’s the one who saved me, right? She went on the quest and broke the curse. She’s the hero. She can decide on the ending.”
It was another moment for Beauty where she could look at him and recognize her Beast without a doubt. Then she looked out the window of the enchantress’s tower and saw the rolling green fields, little villages and grand castles of her land, laid out before her. She knew what would happen if she stayed: security, love, happiness within certain boundaries. Beauty thought what might lie beyond those lands: for Chad an inheritance, which would let him be kind, and for herself another adventure, which would let her be brave.
“Will you tell my family,” she asked the evil enchantress, “that I’m happy?”
“Not safe?”
Beauty smiled. “I don’t want to be entirely safe.”
Aimee the evil enchantress smiled, and snapped her fingers.
* * * * *
THE PINK: A GRIMM STORY
by Amanda Hocking
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 1
The Lonely Queen
A long time ago, below the sharp peaks of the Graulumberg Mountains, past the dark branches of the Verzanfrost Woods and over the cold waters of the Eisenfluss River was a quiet kingdom nestled in the valley. Once, it had been a bustling, vibrant kingdom, but the echoes of its glory had begun to fade.
It was the quiet that had begun to wear on the fair Queen Rose. She preferred to sit in the wild garden behind the palace, where the songs of the birds, the buzz of the bees and the rustling of the animals were there to ward off the growing silence.
The people in the kingdom called it the Queen’s Garden, but it wasn’t Rose’s garden. It had belonged to her husband’s great-grandmother, and while it had been tamed and groomed once, it had taken on a life of its own. The flowers overgrown from their gardens, the vines climbing over the fruit trees, the insects and all manner of beasts roaming freely—that was precisely as Rose liked it.
So while she loved the garden, it wasn’t hers. She let it belong to the flowers and the animals, the way it ought to.
When her husband, King Elrik, went out to the garden, he found his queen in her favorite spot. She sat among the pink carnations, unmindful of the dirt on her gown. Her dark hair was worn in a long braid, and though she was looking down, Elrik could see a tear falling down her cheek.
“My love, you mustn’t cry,” Elrik told his wife, and he held out his handkerchief to her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my lord.” Her cheeks turned the color of amaranth, nearly matching the carnations around her, as she wiped her tears away in haste. “I did not mean for you to see me like this.”
“There is no need for apologies, or tears,” Elrik said, his voice firm but gentle. He was a just ruler, and he always spoke like one, sometimes to the consternation of his wife.
Rose got to her feet, brushing petals and leaves from her dress. The tears had stopped, but she still didn’t brave looking up at her husband. She asked, “Am I needed inside the palace?”
“Not at the moment,” Elrik replied. “I came out to see you. The visit with the midwife this morning seemed to have left you saddened.”
Rose shook her head as she stared down. “The midwife, the doctors, my ladies in waiting, they all assure me these things take time. But the villagers are worried, and I’ve heard your advisors whisper in the hall.”
“What advisors?” asked the king, no doubt already planning a punishment for those who had hurt his wife. “Who is whispering about my queen?”
“Everyone,” she replied wearily, and lifted her eyes to meet his. “By now, everyone has begun to talk. But that’s not even what has my heart so heavy.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Why can I not have a baby?”
When she tried to look away, Elrik gently put his hand on her chin so she would look up at him.
“Rose,” he said with the tenderness he reserved for when they were alone, “I love you. Together, we will have a child. It will only take a bit more time.”
As she searched her husband’s gray eyes, she saw that he was beginning to doubt the truth in his words. Though Elrik did love her, their three years of childless marriage had begun to wear on him.
When they’d wed, though Rose had only just reached her sixteenth birthday, Elrik had already been in his middle age. He didn’t have the kind of time a younger man might have. Much too soon, he would need an heir.
“I love you, Elrik,” Rose told him simply, and she stood on her toes so she could lean up and kiss him.
When they separated, Elrik told her, “I must go back inside to meet with my advisors. Will you be joining me?”
“Not quite yet.”
The king eyed up his bride. “Are you still saddened?”
“I’m better, thank you.” She smiled at him, hoping to ease her husband’s worry.
A berry bush rustled nearby, and Elrik stepped in front of Rose and reached for the sword sheathed in his belt, preparing to defend her from any attacker. No sooner had his hand touched the guard when a mottled boar piglet came out of the brush, rooting around for grubs.
“Oh, it’s a darling piglet!” Rose knelt down and reached out her hand, meaning to summon the baby to her.
“My queen, you must be careful,” the king commanded.
“It’s only a baby,” Rose told him with a laugh. The piglet trotted close to her, its small tail wagging behind it, and stopped for her to pet its soft fur.
“Where there’s a baby, there is an angry mother nearby,” the king warned her.
The queen scooped the piglet onto her lap. “The boars are harmless when left alone.”
“You are too kind,” Elrik said, sounding almost weary of it. “There are too many wild beasts running about here. It’s no place for a young queen to be alone.”
“I will be fine, my king,” Rose told him. “Go inside, conduct your business, and I will be along shortly.”
The king bade her farewell, and Rose let the piglet off her lap. It squealed in delight, then disappeared in the bushes, leaving the queen alone with her heavy heart.
Her sadness hadn’t lessened any after her visit with Elrik. If anything, it had deepened. When the king had first taken an interest in her, Rose had almost instantly fallen in love with his gentle heart and fair nature, and she’d thought all her dreams had come true.
But with each passing year, her dream had begun to wear away. Soon, she would be left without her garden, her home, her husband. His kingdom would pass to his nearest advisor if the king had no children, and she would be alone and destitute.
The queen lay down on the ground, burying her face in her arms as she wept. Around her, the garden fell silent, and the sound of her sobs floated up to the heavens above her. She begged the gods to take pity on her, because she couldn’t bear the heartbreak anymore.
“Hush, child.” A soothing voice spoke in her ear, and Rose felt a strong, warm hand on her shoulder.
She lifted her head to see a man standing over her. He was handsome beyond anything she’d seen before, and light seemed to illuminate him from within, making his golden hair glow. White feathered wings spread out behind him, and though Rose had never seen a creature like him before, she felt no fear.
“Who are you?” Rose asked, and sat up so she would face him.
