Grim

Once upon a time a woodcutter, a woman, and their children were hungry.

And oh what a terrible thing it is to be ravenous.

The little children chewed on the collars of their coats. They marked each new rib that stretched their skin.

The mother stirred scraps of leather and sawdust in a rusting pot. She cursed her husband, his soft words, and his warm promises. Worse than his smile was her wanting, and how together they planted the greedy things that broke her open after they had taken all that they could.

The father grasped for the comfort of skin and limb. His children were too hollow to kiss his cheek when he tucked them in at night, and his wife, too wary that a taste of affection would leave her senseless, chose distance instead.

Hunger also made its home in the forest beyond their house. Squirrels ate their milky young, and gasp-thin bears rubbed against withering pines. On the other side of the woods, an old woman stalked through clusters of henbane and monkshood in her garden. After a lifetime of granting prophecy and miracles, she had none left for herself, and she, too, was starving. Bread could no longer fill her belly. Only blood and bones would do.

One day, the mother lead the children deep into the woods. She slipped out of their sight so they could not follow her home.

The father choked on her deed when she delivered it to him with a kiss. He spat hate at her and cut off the fingers that wore their rings.

The old woman left the village that would call her a monster, and built a home from crisp icing and honeyed cake at the edge of the forest in hopes of luring something with as many teeth as she.

But what a terrific thing it is to be abandoned.

The little children, once lost and hungry, found a kindly old woman and a house overflowing with sweetness and food just for them.

The mother, unburdened of her promise, found her thirst could be slaked by bringing her lips to other fountains. Wicked though she was, she found someone who would make her a queen.

The father, once alone, found that he did not dissolve in the absence of family. There was more to living than caring for kin. And with enough time and solitude, he learned that even straw can be spun into gold.

The old woman on the edge of the woods found that she was worth more than what could be taken from her, and that she could take as well.

What a funny thing to think, for a moment, they all lived happily.