Tansy Undercrypt

She looked out at the sea of faces; most were personally known to her and certainly all were well-known to the world. “What I am suggesting,” the Evil Queen began, “is that we do not undertake life or death battles, but rather fake our own ends.” Maleficent raised her eyes from her glass, intrigued. “We all know that the stories are written to ensure that good triumphs over evil.” Jafar clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. “And yet,” she continued, “we are logical creatures and know that it must come to pass that every fairytale life will turn again to irritation, despair, and hopelessness.” Ursula nodded as she chewed, her back tentacles helping themselves to more chicken from the buffet. “Therefore, do not actually enter into your final battle; stage a pratfall, create a simulacrum, escape in the midst of the fireworks display. Lay low for a while until, desperate, they regret vanquishing you and you appear again, miraculously, to … help.” Lady Tremaine thought of that brat, Cinderella, trying to seek her out and grinned ear to ear. The applause was deafening.

Geppetto never revealed that his wish for Pinocchio (to become a real boy) was more a product of wine than desire; he had fully intended to either sell the puppet or burn it for warmth in his little shop.  Once he understood the power of his wishes, however, he began working on carving a golem army, which he stored in a secret location. “Saddled with another mouth to feed,” the old man muttered, “let this next round be about gold and respect.”

The mirror hung there, wondering about the karmic repercussions of his life. Every day, the same thing: seeing into the window of her soul, then lying about being the fairest. “I’m going to pay for every lie,” he told himself miserably. Then he thought of the magic hand mirror and how it had attempted to tell the truth – how the witch had reacted to the words, “Don’t bother; talk about putting lipstick on a pig.” She had ground it to glitter – GLITTER. The mirror heard footsteps and sighed. “Forgive me,” he whispered, “I’m just not strong enough.”

The king motioned for the fairy godmothers to approach and bless the boy (a practice nearly abolished after that whole Malificent conundrum). Opulent presents of gold and gems and fine silks were paraded past the crib, then Beatrice stepped forward beaming – her arms empty. She approached the infant prince carefully and waved her wand very gently above his head so as not to wake him. “You will know in your deepest self that you are smart enough to solve problems, funny enough to diffuse tension and make friends, athletic enough to play and win games, creative enough to retain a sense of wonder, and good-hearted enough to find true love.” She leaned in close and whispered, “Whatever the world would have you believe, you will know the truth about yourself and be happy.” She floated off humming in the now silent hall.

Responding to a growing demographic, Disney took to the storyboards and produced a zombie princess fairytale. They were (predictably) criticized both for their lack of sensitivity to the families of plague victims and to the living-challenged themselves (for idealizing their look and behavior for the sake of marketing). Just as predictably, however, the film’s theme medley, “Give Me A Smart Boy (A Boy with Brains)” and “Pieces and Parts, You Know the Way to My Heart”, won an Oscar for Best Song.

Cynthia let herself into the zoo clinic, setting the box down carefully and looking to verify that they were alone. She turned on the tropical incubator and slipped into her lab coat. She was surprisingly nervous. “Gawd, Cindy,” she chided herself, “it’s not like you haven’t done this before.” In a lifelong effort to find her handsome prince, Dr Cynthia Ward had kissed over a thousand species of frog; some had transformed and the relationships had lasted a while before she reversed the kiss and turned them back. It had taken her years to realize what she really wanted in a man. Cynthia put on gloves and a face guard before opening the box and lifting the giant frog into the incubator. A very distant cousin of Rana Venenosa, its scarlet markings stood out from its inky black body; its black eyes considered her carefully. The thing must have weighed 20 pounds; it was enormous … and incredibly poisonous. She trembled a bit from the mix of excitement and fear, moving to apply the antibacterial solution to her lips and removing a syringe of the antidote from her purse. It would dart her, she was certain, but Cynthia hoped it would act like Cupid’s arrow on both sides. She didn’t want someone safe, predictable, and boring like the others. God help her, she wanted Dracula.

In her tell-all book, the fairy Merryweather revealed that the prince was actually a coffee merchant from a distant land who stood to make a fortune with Kingdom Cappuccino stands if he could wake Princess Aurora up. “Money was the real incentive of love’s true kiss,” she told Ellen DeGeneres and a hushed TV audience. “I mean, let’s get real,” Merryweather continued, her wings whirring and suspending her like a hummingbird over the chair. “She was a beautiful girl, but she snored like a sailor, drooled like a lapdog, and hadn’t brushed her teeth for months!”

During that whole “Ariel’s-sold-parts-of-herself-to-a-witch-for-love” debacle, Jeff and Jenny (also a son and daughter of Triton) each packed a giant conch and left for the deep sea. No one cared about water pollution or overfishing or acts of diplomacy to bring the ocean factions together. It was clear that they were neither beautiful nor shallow enough to carve out a satisfying life being decorative at the palace. Leaving was dangerous; there would be sharks and eels and worse, perhaps, but they had each other … and there would be room enough for bigger dreams and a greater purpose.

She brought her walker up flush with the sink and rested her forehead against the mirror. It began, “Even near death, you remain the fairest …”. “Hush now, old friend,” Eva interrupted, patting the glass gently. “I’m going soon; I can feel it. I’d like to do something for you before that happens. I’m wondering: would you like to be free?” Eva heard a small gasp and smiled. “Thank you, dear Mirror, for everything on behalf of all of us down through the centuries. Whatever you are, wherever you might go now, you are hereby released.” She then headbutted the surface so hard that she cracked both it and her own skull and slipped to the floor. Eva felt someone there with her as she began to fade and a trembling voice whispered, “The fairest – the kindest – of them all.”

The woodsman traveled to schools with the shoes in a special case. He would set up a viewing in the parking lot and the students would always come – driven by the morbid curiosity the legend inspired. “Yes, these are THOSE red shoes,” he would promise them, “and, yes, they are still dancing.” There would always be a screamer and a fainter (at least one), but the woodsman liked to think that these were the Most Affected – the ones saved from the depravity of their obsessions just in the nick of time. What he was trying to do was noble (and worth the occasional tussle with the Law for still having the feet inside).