Another journal

Written during my month of writing.  You can find all the sections here.

Back at the trailer, Janice hauled out a handful of books and handed them off to her niece. “I’m going on errands. The ceremony is at eight in the common yard, you don’t need to dress up.”

Emily watched her aunt leave and turned back to the books, sucking at the last of her shake. She’d already read the books at different points growing up. One was a early reader chapter book, even. These were the fictionalised histories?

With a shrug, she turned on the box fan and stretched out on a blanket in front of it, the little stack of books at her side. She opened up the first book, a collected volume of European fairy stories, to a spot marked with a slip of paper. Angling so the fan didn’t blow the pages around, Emily dove in.

Passages were marked with pencil in the margins, bracketing specific scenes. After scanning through a couple of the books, Emily got up and grabbed a pen and one of her old spiral notebooks. Plumping down tailor-style in front of the fan, she began piecing together an outline of events. The tradition and predictability of fairy stories worked to her advantage, though they were gleaned from multiple sources, each scene fit together perfectly.

When she finished, eyes dry from the fan, Emily took the notebook to the back stoop where the trailer still cast some shade. Making a face at the wall of heat outside, she went back to the standing freezer next to the washing machine. With a steadily melting popsicle in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she reviewed her notes.

It was a pretty normal story, as far as fantasy went. Twins were born to the fairy king and queen and took the reins of the kingship together when they came of age. Then, classic, they both fell in love with the same person. There was a gap after that Emily filled with the stripped down plot of a story from an erotica collection that she couldn’t believe her aunt had included. It seemed that the kings, not being confined to mortal convention, were totally fine sharing, so the dual kingship and marriage continued to rule in peace.

After some undefined period another lady took a fancy to one of the kings and grew a steady dislike of their wife. Over time this other lady poisoned her preferred king’s mind with gossip, general cattiness and the weird outright lies that permeate fairy tales, like eating babies. Naturally, civil war followed, the king the other lady didn’t like was killed, his supporters cast out. In the books for a younger audience, the dead king’s ghost haunted his brother and exposed the scam, ending everything more or less well. In the other books, the Irish lore one especially, it just sort of ended on a bummer.

Emily wrinkled her nose. No wonder they had been so desperate to get back. Stretching as she stood, Emily looked around the court, which lay still as the hottest part of the day began. Her apprehension was still there, but it was bolstered by a sense of justice. She was the magical chosen one and was totally going to right things.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.