Here are a couple of my better short stories, in case you are into that sort of thing.

What a Princess Wants

(Originally published on Daily Science Fiction)

As I brush the endless knots out of my daughter’s hair, she giggles and says “It’s like Rapunzel’s, right?” 

I snort and kiss the top of her head. I do not say what first springs to mind, which is that Rapunzel’s real name was Persinette, and calling a girl “Rapunzel” is basically like calling a modern girl “spinach salad.” 

It’s not her fault. Dawn’s only experience with fairy tales are children’s movies with all their rough edges erased. They shimmer like stained glass, and if you have a special set of glasses, the illusion of depth. 

My experience with fairy tales is more personal.  

I look out her window, and spot a flash of iridescence. For a moment, I spy sharply-pointed ears under a headdress of antlers and leafy twigs. Then the picture shifts into suburban shrubbery, bluebirds nestled in its depths. 

I nod politely, in case my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me. I know better than to risk offending my godmother. 

Dawn squirms as I twist her blond tresses into the braid she requested for the Christmas program. It’s her last year at Briar Ridge Elementary. She wants to look like a princess. I want to preserve her illusion that being a princess is a good thing. 

Soon, her princess fantasies will pass beyond sparkly dresses and braids. They will wrap themselves around the idea of a man. It makes me fear for her. I know from experience, the path to a happy ending often leads through nightmare territory.

~*~

By the time I was Dawn’s age, my father was entertaining marriage offers from local nobles. I still remember Mother parading me down the Great Hall during the Yule feast. There may have been a few princes, but “charming” was a polite way to avoid mentioning missing teeth and battle scars. 

By night’s end, father had traded me to a baron for a few acres. If I died before presenting an heir, the land would revert, so the wedding was postponed until my sixteenth year. Younger girls died in childbirth, often taking their babies with them. I was packed off to the country manor, like a cask of wine sent away to mature. 

Well, they certainly got a longer wait than they bargained for, didn’t they? 

~*~

“Be patient! I’m almost done.” I tug Dawn’s braid, as I tie the ribboned elastic around the end. 

Greg’s voice calls in from the kitchen. “Girls! Scrambled or over medium?” 

“Over medium!” I yell back. Boisterous. Unladylike.

“Scrambled!” Dawn shouts, laughing. 

She leaps off the bed, and runs to the kitchen barefoot. At her age, I couldn’t have done any of those things. I walked in long sweeping steps to clear my skirts, after years of practice and sharp slaps when I tried to grab them. A lady did not touch her skirts. The kitchen was for servants, and the floor was littered with things you wouldn’t want to encounter with bare feet. 

~*~

The manor house was smaller and warmer than the keep. It stood surrounded by gardens; roses to perfume the rooms and blackberries for brandy. I was hiding among the blackberry brambles, as I did whenever horses approached, when she found me. 

“Why do you cower? Don’t you want to be a great lady, like your mother? Isn’t that the fate for which you were born?”

“No.” 

A shimmer passed over her, and her spine straightened. Even in the dusky light I could see the sharp points of her ears, the iridescent flash of her eyes.

“Hmm. I suppose you are not much like her, after all.” 

“You know my mother?” 

“Oh, aye. When she was small, she danced with me in the starlight. I thought her quite wild and lovely, for your kind. But then she grew tame and common. She banned me from your christening. As if she had power over anything!”

“What do you want?” I asked, trembling. 

She smiled a terrible smile. “No, my dear. What do you want? I’ve waited years to give you a gift.” 

She reached beneath her cloak. I don’t know what I expected; a wand or a knife, a bottle of poison or a magic potion. Instead, she pulled out a drop spindle. 

“Shall we spin you a better fate?” 

~*~

“Talia? You all right?” A frown scrunches Greg’s expression.

I smile at him over my plate. The toast is a compromise. I tried to learn to like the spongy white foam and the greasy yellow goo from the supermarket. Eventually, we started going to a farmers’ market for real bread and butter. Many things have improved in a millenium; buttered toast is not among them. 

“I’m okay. It’s just… She’s growing up so fast.” 

Greg thinks I was raised in a “neo-medieval doomsday cult.” It’s the best explanation they could come up with after I crawled out of the manor catacombs, babbling in Latin and Old English. 

He comes over to me, leans down and wraps his arms around me, planting a kiss on my cheek. He smells like aftershave and bacon and a thousand years of things slowly getting better. I lean back into his warmth.

“She’s still a little girl. It’s not like when you were a kid. You know that, right?” 

“I know.” I hope. 

I turn and look up at him. He is smart, kind and handsome. Despite the two-day scruff of beard, Greg is too soft around the edges for modern tastes, but perfectly suited to mine. 

Modern women seem to want a mishmash of Greek god and highwayman, judging by the books a few aisles down from the squishy bread and the “I absolutely believe it’s not butter.” 

And in my time? What a woman wanted didn’t matter. Father would have locked me in a tower before he’d have let me marry a tradesman like Greg. Or put me in the grave, first. 

I guess we both got our way, in the end.

The Reason We Can’t Have Nice Things

(Originally published on Daily Science Fiction)

Dear Henry,

I’ve been thinking things over since our argument, and I finally recognize the problem in our relationship. The problem is me. I know you’ve tried to deny it, tried hard to make things work, but it’s time we admitted it’s over. 

It’s not that I don’t appreciate or recognize your efforts. When the yeti broke out of his pen and totalled your Miata, I think you handled it with remarkable restraint. That time the dragon got loose from the cellar and left the deck and patio set a smoldering pile of ashes? You were the one who suggested we look into recouping some of our losses through the manufacturer’s “flame retardant guarantee.” It’s your practical, down-to-earth attitude I’ll miss most. 

You’ve handled everything with admirable grace, and I am grateful for that. You’ve always understood my work comes first, because lives are at stake. If I’m not there to capture a loose djinni or to talk some sense into an adolescent troll with raging hormones, who will? How many people ended up gored the week we went to Cancun together, and the herd of minotaurs trampled through Chicago? 

I know neither of us wants another tragic occurrence on our conscience. Cancun was a beautiful week, but I can’t help feeling those strawberry margaritas were tainted with spilled blood. I’ll be perfectly honest; they may have been. I still have lingering doubts about the cabana boy. He had the rangy look of a necromancer-in-training.

The truth is, I don’t really have room in my life for a serious relationship. I thought I could manage it. I thought I deserved it. But this isn’t about what I deserve or need. It’s about what you need. Which is to keep breathing, and to not get turned into granite or eaten by something horrific. We both know that’s where this road ends. 

I would ask you to remember me fondly, but by now the unicorn tears embedded in the paper will have started to seep through your fingertips, erasing your memories of me and the time we’ve had together. You’ll have a moment of disorientation as the phoenix blood in the ink ignites and burns up this note after you’ve read it. 

Please know I deeply regret any pain—or future episodes of forgetfulness—this may cause you. I promise to remember the good times for both of us. 

Sincerely, 

Brigitte