A Grim Fairy Tale
01 Mar 2021Today’s prompt: “Write a children’s story set in the woods.”
Your stepmother hands you a bucket. “On the far side of the deep, dark woods is a well,” she says. “Draw me water from that well.”
“Why can’t I just get water from the well by our house?” you ask.
“The well on the far side of the woods has magical properties,” your stepmother says. “Also, I’m your stepmother. Don’t sass me.”
“How do I find this well?” you ask.
“Just follow the path that’s uncannily making its way from our home through the woods that wasn’t there the day before,” she says.
Lo and behold, when you step outside of your cottage, there is a new path through the woods. You follow it.
The woods are so deep and so dark that the temperature falls as you make your way along the trail. Gooseflesh covers your arms.
After you’ve been walking for a while, you notice a wolf in the woods nearby, eating a rabbit. The wolf tears off strips of the rabbit’s hide. Its teeth rupture the rabbit’s kidneys. Blood coats the wolf’s muzzle. The rabbit’s intestines are wrapped around a nearby sapling – you guess that the rabbit had attempted to get away after its belly was already sliced open.
The wolf pauses its dinner and asks you, “And where are you going, little one, through these deep, dark woods?”
“My stepmother asked me to draw her water from the well on the far side of the woods,” you reply.
“Oh,” says the wolf. “I would not want to go there, if I were you.” And it returns to its meal.
You keep walking through the woods. After you’ve been walking for a while, you enter a sort of clearing – a wide area with a bit of low grass, but no trees except for eight tall, jagged stumps arranged in a perfect circle. The tops of the trees are long gone – perhaps carried off for firewood or by industrious beavers. But the trees were not sundered by man or beast. You can see on the upper edge of each stump the telltale marks where it was hit by lightning.
Just as you finish studying the stumps, a conspiracy of ravens swoops down around you. They alight on the stumps, two or three to a stump, yet they do not jockey for position. They stare at you with beady eyes. You do not see them blink.
They caw in unison. And then they ask, in unison, “And where are you going, little one, through these deep, dark woods?”
“My stepmother asked me to draw her water from the well on the far side of the woods,” you reply.
“Oh,” say the ravens in unison. “We would not want to go there, if we were you.” And they stare at you with their beady eyes until you leave the clearing.
You keep walking through the woods. After you’ve been walking for a while, you come across a house, but not a house like any you’ve ever seen before. This house is made entirely of raw meat. It gives off a sickly smell. The air is thick with flies.
An old woman is sitting on the porch with a mug of hot liquid. Flies are buzzing around the liquid, too. She takes a sip, swallows, and calls out to you, “And where are you going, little one, through these deep, dark woods?”
“My stepmother asked me to draw her water from the well on the far side of the woods,” you reply.
“Oh,” she says. “I would not want to go there, if I were you. But I guess if your stepmother sent you, you’re S.O.L.” She leans back against the meat house, crosses her legs at the ankles, and continues to sip whatever she’s drinking.
You keep walking through the woods, and eventually you see the last rays of daylight peering through the end of the forest. And there is the well.
The well has no pulley system, but you can see a rope coiled on the ground beside it. As you tie the rope to the handle of your bucket, you notice a strange sound coming from the well – half a mournful whistle, half a snake’s rattle.
You slowly lower your bucket into the well. After you have lowered the bucket for a few seconds, the noise ceases. You realize after a few seconds that you have also stopped lowering the bucket and you are holding your breath. You breathe out and begin to let out more rope.
And suddenly something seizes the bucket and pulls it down with a speed and ferocity that sends you tumbling into the well.
You are never seen again.