Fairy Tale Support Group

A woman with red lips and black hair unstacked chairs in the small room in preparation for the meeting. She sang a soft tune under her breath. Squirrels and mice responded to her song, tidying up the room. Birds flew here and there carrying refreshments. 

Two bluejays flew up to the wall, a banner between their teeth. 

“A little to the left,” she said. 

Fairy Tale Support Group. 

The Tales drifted into the small room at the back of the church. The modern world had risen up around them, but the stories still existed, as long as there was someone to remember them. Once all the members had drifted in, Snow took her seat in the circle. Her birds flocked to her and sat grooming themselves. 

“Welcome Tales, I hope everyone is well. I wanted to start with a small announcement. We will have a new member next week. Two, actually. I convinced Hansel and Gretel to sit down with us. I hope you’ll be as inviting as you were to Jiminy.”

The cricket stood to his full height of two and a half inches. His suit was immaculate, his cane the size of a toothpick. “Don’t hold your breath.” 

“So who would like to share first,” Snow asked. 

The crowd all exchanged glances, none of them eager to go first. 

A small child with a bob sat sharpening a hunting knife. A piece of fabric was tiead around her waist, the deep red of dried blood. Once upon a time it had been a riding hood.

“I guess I’ll go first,” Red said, her voice gruff despite her apparent age. She had been twelve for four hundred years.

“I’ve been thinking. I have hated being a Tale for as long as I’ve been one, but I have been working on my gratitude journal. I guess I’m grateful my grandmother and I survived. I am grateful for family, and I am grateful for my knife.” 

Red unsheathed the serrated blade and experimentally jabbed it in the air. “There are a lot of bad people in this world. Not all of them are hairy bastards with big teeth and big eyes. No offense, Wolf.” 

Wolf shrugged and pulled his hood tighter around his lupine face. 

“I’ve been busy,” Red said, “gutting these modern monsters. They hide in plain sight, but I can smell them. They scream and long for me to stop, but they didn’t, so why should I? Stories are meant to teach us a lesson and I think I’ve finally learned mine. The scariest thing in the dark isn’t them, it’s me.”

“Okay thank you, Red,” Snow said. “Remind me not to get on your bad side. Who is next?”

“How about hairy nips here,” Jiminy said. “I see him itching to complain. That or he has fleas.” He hopped onto Wolf’s head. Wolf swung a paw at Jiminy, but the cricket had already hopped back to his chair.

“Jiminy, be nice,” Snow said. “Would you like to share, Wolf?”

“You know, when you’re a story people think they know you, and there’s one story I’ve carried since birth. A story with one word.” He touched his teeth, the teeth of a predator. “Wolf. There is only one thing a wolf can be, violent. I am not defined by the circumstances of my birth. I am not bound by the past.”

“Tell that to the three little pigs,” Jiminy said. 

Wolf’s hackles raised, his hood falling back to expose twitching ears. 

“Jiminy,” Snow reprimanded. 

“It’s alright, Snow,” Wolf said. “He’s right. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but who hasn’t? I’m not that wolf anymore. I haven’t huffed or puffed in a long time. I build houses now, I don’t blow them down.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Jiminy said. “I heard you got drunk at Tito’s the other day and broke a window. Looks like old habits die hard.”

“You bastard,” Wolf growled, rising from his chair. It squealed against the linoleum floors. 

“Come on,” Jiminy said. “I’m waiting. Show me who you are.”

Wolf took a gasp of air, then another, his chest ballooning outward. He bared his fangs, ready to blow the whole church to the ground, but Snow placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he deflated as rapidly as he had filled. 

“He’s just trying to goad you. Why would he do that?”

Wolf look at Snow, then back to Jiminy. The cricket shifted nervously, rubbing his legs together. 

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you a taste of your own medicine,” Wolf said. “You know you talk pretty big game for someone the size and color of a pea. Methinks you might be a tad insecure Jiminy.”

The cricket scoffed and straightened his vest and tie. “What would I have to be insecure about?”

“Well you’re a guide, right,” Wolf asked. “Where’s your ward? Oh yeah, no one can stand to be around you for more than a few minutes. I wonder why that is.”

Jiminy sniffed loudly. “I don’t need some puppet to keep me company. I am more than happy on my own.”

“You say that,” Wolf said, “but I can tell you’re lying. You’re lonely. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. And yet you’re too prideful to ask for help. Too stubborn to let down this false bravado. You protect yourself with sarcastic retorts because you’re afraid of being hurt. You push everyone away before they have the chance to push you away. How’s that working out for you?”

Jiminy looked about ready to snap back, but instead dropped his head to his chest. “You’re right. I am lonely. I helped him become a real boy, you know. You know what happens to real boys. They grow up. They stop believing in fairy tales. We don’t grow. Stories never die. Pinocchio didn’t want to be forever. He removed himself from the story. Where does that leave me? Who am I supposed to help now?”

Wolf sat down and pulled his hood back up around his ears. “You’re supposed to help yourself. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? Because we know we need help. Because five is better than one.”

“Well said, Wolf,” Snow said. “Community is everything in these trying times. It is easy to feel like no one can possibly understand what you’re going through, but this group exist to remind us that we’re not alone. We have each other.”

“Alright, what about you Tooth Fairy,” Snow asked. 

The skeletal woman sat hunched over in her chair. She wore a dress woven from dental floss, stained red in areas. The smell of mint drifted off of her, doing little to hide the putrid stench beneath. 

“I cannot wait to slip into those sleeping homes, to slide my fingers neath their pillows and rob them of their bones. A coin or two is a small price to pay, to add to my collection at the end of the day. You should see my trophies, no longer bloody but white. Collect enough and you may just have a bite.”

“Can we all agree she shouldn’t talk again for the rest of the meeting,” Jiminy asked.

“Please,” Wolf said.

Snow turned to the Wicked Witch of the West. “What about you love? Would you like to open up?

The woman’s green skin contrasted against her black robes. A pointed hat sat atop her head, obscuring her face in shadow. 

“That bitch landed on my sister with a house, stole her shoes, and somehow I’m the witch. The victor writes the story. She took everything from me and made herself out to be the hero. There are no heroes, only villains in waiting.”

“I liked playing the villain, at least at first. Fear is a kind of respect and oh, did they fear me. They plastered a title on me, a word I never claimed: witch. They tried to burn me. Tried. They found out the hard way what happens when you scorn a woman. Men fear what they cannot control. So if my independence makes me wicked, then wicked I shall be. I embraced my shadow long ago. I am not good or bad. I simply am. Let them make their judgments. Let them foment hate. It bothers me not.”

“Oh yeah right,” Fairy Godmother said. She took a puff of her cigarette sighed out smoke. “You care what other people think. Everyone does. They come to me for glamor, to make them as pretty on the outside as can be. Everyone cares what other people think, and every one is hideous underneath the mask they wear. I cannot stand you. You’re just as fake as any of them, but you pretend to be this martyr. Wheres my happy ending, if you know what I mean? Where’s my Prince Charming? Can you imagine spending your whole life granting other people’s wishes, never capable of turning that magic on yourself. All that magic and all you do is use it on yourself. Think of the good you could do, the people you could help.” 

“Like you, you mean? Poor little Godmother. If only she could grant herself the beauty she doles out to others. Ugly little creature, always doing what others ask, desperate for approval. Always a godmother, never a mother.”

“You witch,” Fairy Godmother said, brandishing her wand. Light filled the five pointed star at the end. 

The Wicked Witch’s cape grew, lengthening like the shadows in late afternoon. Her fingers contorted into claws, purple electricity crackling between her sharp nails. 

“Takes one to know one,” Wicked Witch said. 

Snow White opened her mouth and belted out a wordless melody. Two butterflies flitted through the air and landed on the women’s noses. The Fairy Godmother dropped her cigarette lest it burn the blue butterfly on her nose. 

The Wicked Witch held a crooked finger aloft, the black butterfly perched on it, flapping its wings. “I used to dream of the sky, but women aren’t meant to fly. They told me I would never make it off the ground, but my belief was ten times stronger than their disbelief.”

She blew on the butterfly and it flew to join the blue one rested on the Fairy Godmother’s shoulder. 

“Maybe your magic doesn’t work on you,” the Wicked Witch said, “because you don’t want it to. Maybe, secretly, you believe miracles are things that only happen to others and not to you.”

The Fairy Godmother chewed her lip. She reached for a cigarette and seemed to think better of it, instead placing her hands in her lap where she fiddled with them nervously. 

“I am…sorry,” the Fairy Godmother said.

“What was that,” the Wicked Witch asked. “I couldn’t quite hear that.”

“Oh, you insufferable…witch. I a m sorry I was rude. I suppose I was jealous.”

Snow White opened her mouth to speak, but the Fairy Godmother cut her off. “And no, I do not want to talk about it.”

The clock showed an hour had passed. “Alright, that’s our time. I’ll see you all next week.

Snow hummed a soft tune as the Tales filtered out. She absentmindedly braided and unbraided her hair, her mind worlds away. Snow was happy with how the meeting went, but a small part of her longed to be on the receiving end of the listening for once. She hadn’t seen the dwarves in ages. The Prince wasn’t returning her letters. 

Snow thought of the Evil Witch, and not for the first time wondered if that was what her future held. Had the witch been like her before all the pain and heartbreak? Before life did what it does best, break you down.

A tear fell from her eye, starling her. Snow had spent lifetimes with these wounds. Why were they surfacing now? Perhaps she needed someone to talk to, someone to do for her what she did for others. 

Wolf popped his head back in and she hurriedly wiped the tear away. 

“By the way, Snow, I realized no one asked you about you. Are you doing okay?”

Snow flashed him a false smile she hoped he could see through, but he just smiled back, his sharp teeth at odds with his puppy dog demeanor.

“I’m good,” she said. 

“Alright, I’ll see you next week.”

Snow choked down the plea for help sitting in her throat. She didn’t want to be a burden. “Next week.”

He left her alone with the birds and squirrels who, absent a tune, looked like a flock without their shepherd.