Let Down Your Hair

Let Down Your Hair

he is a young man, with a young, pregnant wife. they are poor, and can’t afford much, so he sneaks into the witch’s garden at night to steal away the rapunzel lettuce his wife so desperately craves.

when the witch gothel catches, him she demands the child that her garden is feeding as payment.

he agrees, because there’s nothing else he can do.

he and his wife can have more children, but not if they’re dead. they can have more children later, when they have the means to provide for them, when they’re older and more sure of themselves, when the prospect of being responsible for another mouth to feed isn’t quite so terrifying.

his wife is still slick with blood when he wraps their daughter in an old pillowcase and brings her to the stone wall separating their land from the witch’s. “are you going to hurt her?” he asks, clutching his crying daughter to his chest.

gothel raises an eyebrow and says, “what a foolish question.” she pulls away from him and is gone in the next instant.

his arms feel empty, but lighter too. he’ll never say this aloud, but it’s almost a relief to give the child away.

they couldn’t even afford to feed themselves, never mind anyone else.

he wants to be a father. he doesn’t want to be the father of a hungry child.

~

this is not the first time gothel has bargained a child away from its parents. and so she tucks the squalling little girl in bend of her elbow, and goes where she always goes.

“caroline!” she calls out, “oh mother caroline!”

she stands in front of large house, one that has the general appearance of being many houses stacked up on top of each other, all different colors and sizes and styles. also, from the side, it does not look unlike a rather large shoe.

the door bangs open, and a small wave of children run for her, small sticky hands grasping at her dress and cloak, and gap toothed grins everywhere she turns. “have you brought us another brother?” a girl asks, wrinkling her nose. “i have too many brothers.”

the boys turn to her, glaring, but the girl is unrepentant. she’s the only girl in among the younger kids, and is quite cross about it.

then the older kids surround gothel, the ones that had had the patience not to go chasing after her at a sprint. the teenagers like to pretend like they don’t care, but she has many eager and impatient eyes on her, lots of twitching fingers eager to take the baby away from her. that’s fine by gothel – she’s eager to be rid of the blasted thing.

“that’s enough!” a powerful, creaky voice shouts. “that’s quite enough of that! make room, make room, let me through!”

the crowd of children part for mother caroline. like gothel, caroline has dark skin and black hair, a strong, wide nose and plump lips. but while gothel appears to be a woman in the prime of her youth, caroline is an old woman. her back is straight and strong, and there is strength in the width of her waist. but her dark hair is streaked with silver, and her skin has started to bend to the will of time and gravity, causing delicate wrinkles to frame her face. “little sister,” gothel greets, “you’ve gotten older.”

caroline shoots her an irritated glance, “while you haven’t changed at all.”

“you could have became a witch like me,” gothel says, not for the first time, “you were always quite good with physical magic. then neither of us would age at all!”

“change is inevitable,” caroline says with the type of finality that makes gothel’s skin crawl. “let me see the child.”

the children crowd impossibly closer as gothel hands the baby over, red faced and new. caroline cradles the babe against her chest, then stills, her lips pulling down at the corners. “what’s wrong?” gothel demands, peering down at the baby anxiously.

she looks like any other baby gothel has seen. her face is squished oddly and her eyes are a watery blue. she has ten fingers and ten toes – gothel checked! – and she was crying when her father handed her over, but she’s quiet now.

“i can’t take this child,” caroline says.

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From CreativeSoul Photography on Facebook:

Sharing one of our favorite shoots from our Glory book. We were happy to partner with our talented designer friend Sara Bunn who created these stunning AfroVictorian dresses for our London shoot. The girls looked absolutely gorgeous and regal that day.  Special thanks to @lisafarrall for the beautiful hairstyles, @alerohbeauty for makeup, and our gorgeous models @tamiaxjaila Wami @jennifer_tuck and @nia.g_x #creativesoulphoto

Mexican Gothic (2020)

From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes a reimagining of the classic gothic suspense novel, a story about an isolated mansion in 1950s Mexico—and the brave socialite drawn to its treacherous secrets. He is trying to poison me. You must come for me, Noemí. You have to save me. After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.   Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia  (Author)

Get it here

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow, named one of the best books of summer 2019 by Publishers Weekly; Signal to Noise, named one of the best books of the year by Book Riot, Tordotcom, BuzzFeed, io9, and other publications; Certain Dark Things, one of NPR’s best books of the year, a Publishers Weekly top ten, and a VOYA “Perfect Ten”; the fantasy of manners The Beautiful Ones; and the science fiction novella Prime Meridian. She has also edited several anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award-winning She Walks in Shadows (aka Cthulhu’s Daughters). She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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Fox Sister

there is a farmer who has a beautiful and strong wife, and she bears him three beautiful and strong sons. the eldest is of soft voice and hard temper, and his name is jae-shin. the second is quick to anger and yells too much, but is quick to forgive, and his name is ki-tae. the third is of even temper and soft voice, and his name is min-woo.

the farmer loves his family very much, but he feels as if it’s incomplete. he loves his sons, but he desperately wants a little girl to call his own. he prays and prays, asking for a little girl. he doesn’t care if she’s not like his other children, if she is weak or ugly, he vows to love her just the same no matter what.

his prayers are answered, and nine months later his wife gives birth to a baby girl. but she’s not weak, and she’s not ugly. she’s every bit as strong and beautiful as her brothers.

they call her yeon-saeng.

~

yeon-saeng is smarter and stronger than her brothers, than her parents, but she doesn’t say anything, never points it out, because she loves them dearly and would never want to hurt them.

yeon-saeng is ten years old when the hunger grows to be too much to ignore. she’s hungry constantly, and they are not a rich family, but her mother gives her all the food she asks for with a smile, pats her hands and kisses her cheeks and says nothing of the strain her eternal appetite puts on their household.

but no matter how much she eats, she’s never full. it’s not what she craves.

she is ten years old, and it’s the night of the full moon when she sneaks into the barn. she knows what she wants, what she needs, but she hesitates even now. she wishes there was another way, but she knows if she doesn’t eat, then she’ll die. she doesn’t’ want to die.

she kills the cow, and eats its liver, bites into its heart, and her hunger is sated.

the next morning, the cow is found, and her father says it looks like a fox did it.

yeon-saeng burns with shame, and says nothing.

~

she doesn’t have to eat every night, if she did then they would run out of cows and her family would go hungry. she doesn’t want them to go hungry, and she does not want to die, so she waits. she waits until her stomach is bloated with hunger and she feels ravenous with it, half mad with it, then sneaks out under the night of the full moon to kill another cow. for now, she does not need too many, can go months between feeding so long as she pushed herself.

she’s changing. her nails are sharper, more pointed, and her hair gleams red in sunlight. she doesn’t think she’s a little girl. she doesn’t even think she’s truly her parents’ daughter.

but the thought is too heartbreaking to contemplate, so she doesn’t.

~

the father worries after his livestock, and the fox he can’t seem to catch. he sends jae-shin to hide in the barn and keep a look out, to kill whatever is killing their cows.

jae-shin waits, and he hides, and he watches his sister kill the cow and eat its liver and heart. her hands become claws, her hair turns red, and fangs sprout from her mouth. she’s a fox demon forced to into human shape, an abomination to humans and demons alike. he’s horrified, and afraid, but he can’t bring himself to kill her.

she is his sister.

the next day, he tells his father everything. he says they have to do something, that she’s a monster, that soon she’ll hurt them.

jae-shin could not bring himself to kill her. but he still believes she should be killed.

the farmer is furious that his son could say such horrible things about his beloved daughter. he says that jae-shin must have fallen asleep, and had a bad dream, that he speaks of madness. but jae-shin will not back down, and eventually the farmer throws his son from the house, saying never to darken their doorstep again, that any son that could speak of killing family is no son of his.

yeon-saeng pleads on her brother’s behalf. she can’t risk telling them the truth, she should be happy it is jae-shin who is tossed aside and not her. but she loves her brother. he is mean and surly, quiet in his misery, but he let her ride on his shoulder when she was little and taught her to tame a horse and let her huddle into his side when she became frightened by thunder storms. she does not want him to go.

but father will not listen, and jae-shin is forced to go.

a few months, and another dead cow later, he sends ki-tae to the barn, to find what is killing the cows and to kill whatever animal it is. ki-tae is terrified of falling asleep and being thrown out like his elder brother, so he stays wide awake and vigilant the whole night.

he sees what jae-shin saw – his little sister half transforming into a fox demon, and killing and eating a cow’s heart and liver. he’s not afraid. he’s furious. he is quick to anger over small things, but this is not a small thing. yeon-saeng allowed their father to kick out their brother, even what he told the truth. she said nothing as he left them, when she could have saved him. she did nothing.

he sneaks back to the house and wakes his father, bidding him to come to the barn quickly. but when he returns, yeon-saeng is gone. the cow is there dead, it’s liver and heart gone, but his sister is nowhere to be found. he runs back into the house, his father at his heels, and finds yeon-saeng fast asleep in bed. he pulls her from her bed onto the floor. she cries out in pain, and his father pushes him against the wall, furious. ki-tae yells at her, says to tell father what she did, calls her a monster with all the disgust he can muster.

yeon-saeng pulls her knees to her chest, crying, and for a single moment ki-tae feels a stab or remorse. but she is a monster, and his father must know. they all have to know. how long before she kills one of them?

father is just as furious with him as he was with jae-shin. again, yeon-saeng pleads for brother, begging her father to let him stay. no matter his temper, ki-tae is always kind in those small moments, in the quiet lulls between his anger he has bandaged her scraped knees and braided her hair, and he would roll her rice into the shape of a snake when she was little and would grow stubborn and refuse to eat. she loves him, and she doesn’t want him to go.

but father will not listen, and ki-tae is forced to go.

a few more months, and another dead cow later, father sends min-woo to spend the night in the barn, to find out what is killing the cows, and to kill whatever it is. he sits, and waits, and sees what his brothers saw. he sees yeon-saeng kill the cow, and eat its heart and liver.

he does nothing at all.

the next morning, he tells his father that he didn’t see anything. whatever is killing the cows was too quick for him. father wants to be angry that min-woo failed, but he’s secretly relieved that at least his youngest son, so calm and even tempered, hasn’t been affected by the madness that had taken his eldest sons, and resigns himself to the lost livestock.

it is not ideal, but it’s not crippling them, not killing them.

~

yeon-saeng loves min-woo, but misses her eldest brothers terribly. on the surface, min-woo is nicer, he’s never made fun of her or gotten mud on her clothes, never yelled that she was too young to play with him. he never seeks her out, but always welcomes her when she comes to him.

he’s not as mean as their elder brothers, but he’s not as nice either.  

yeon-saeng is thirteen the first time she eats a cow’s liver and heart, and still feels the gnawing pains of hunger. she keeps eating, desperate, because this is her only option. she eats the rest of the internal organs, the muscle, all of it. she keeps eating until the red of dawn beats against the barn doors. she’s covered in blood, more fox than girl, and there’s nothing left of the cow but bones.

she’s still hungry.

~

she hopes it’s a fluke, a mistake. she waits, to see if time will make her full, but it’s just the opposite. her whole body aches with hunger, her limbs grow sluggish and heavy. she sleeps the day away, hoping it will help, that she’ll wake up feeling normal, but it doesn’t work.

her parents fret over her, and her brother watches her with calm, even eyes that give away nothing at all. the days pass, and she seems to flip, instead of becoming weaker, she becomes stronger. her body fills with a frantic, desperate energy to feed, and she huddles under the blankets, afraid to let her family see her. she can’t get her claws or teeth to go away, her hair is bright red. she looks like a fox, and nothing she does makes it go away.

late at night, her hunger becomes too much, and she snaps. she’s outside her parent’s door when she realizes what she was about to do, her hand just about to slide open their door.

she’s so certain that a single human heart could sate her hunger.

yeon-saeng runs. it’s painful to walk away, she can smell them, smell her brother down the hall, and her mouth waters. she’s so hungry. but she forces herself to walk away and runs to the barn.

she kills half their heard that night, gobbling up hearts and livers in a frenzy. she slaughters the next cow while the previous one’s warm, wet heart is still in her hand.

it’s not quite daybreak, and she’s not hungry anymore. she’s not quite satisfied, but the ravenous yearning deep in her gut is gone.

it’s a devastating loss. her father will struggle to survive now that half his cows are dead. and what’s worse is this – she cannot stay. she will either eat the other half, and leave them penniless to starve, or she will give in to her urges, and kill them herself. she’s selfish, but not that selfish. she loves her family too much to do this to them.

when the sun rises into the sky, she’s gone.

~

her hair never goes back to black. it’s a permanent dark orange, and her nails are too sharp, and her teeth a little too long. but she almost looks like a person, as long as no one looks too closely.

the first few years are the hardest. she wanders through towns, too young to do any real work, but sometimes a kind innkeep would let her clean tables in exchange for a room. other times, she sneaks into barns and sleeps among the warm, dry hay.

she has to eat, and she has to eat often. small animals don’t satisfy her, she tries chickens and rabbits, even sheep don’t sate her hunger. cows and boars will do, and horses probably would too, but she’s reluctant to test her theory. partially because killing a horse will certainly garner more attention than she wants. but also because, well, she likes horses. she thinks they have kind eyes, and she’ll sooner eat a horse than she will a human, but would prefer to have neither, honestly.

she misses rice cakes. they were her favorite as a child, but now they taste like ashes in her mouth.

when possible, she hunts for he own food in the forest, searching out wild board to feed herself with. but sometimes that’s not possible, and when that happens she sneaks away to a pasture and kills a cow. they always say it looks like a fox attack.

she doesn’t want people to go hungry because of her, to suffer because of her, so she doesn’t stay in one town for long. she moves around constantly, killing and stealing the livestock of farmers she needs to live, trying to keep her head down and not cause trouble.

she still craves human hearts more than anything else. but as long as she keeps herself well fed it’s … well, not easy to ignore it, but manageable.

she’s managing.

~

yeon-saeng is sixteen, and it’s much easier. people hire her to serve drinks in restaurants now, will hire her to smile at customers now.

she still doesn’t look quiet human, but people never seem to notice that.

she’s beautiful. they don’t know what she is, they don’t care, all they care for is her pretty face. she always smiles with her mouth closed so they don’t see her teeth, but that’s okay. things are easier now.

she is sixteen when she makes a friend.

it’s not one she expected to make, if she ever thought she’d have one. she keeps everyone way, women are nice to her and men want her, but she rejects them all, keeping to herself and offering them nothing more than her close-lipped smile.

she’s a monster. those around her risk one day being eaten by her, and the pain of that potential loss stops her whenever she fees the urge to reach out to someone. she thinks of her parents often, of her brothers. she hopes they’re happy. sometimes she hopes they’ve forgotten her, but she’s still a selfish girl, and the thought that not one person cares for her cuts like a knife.

but one person does come to care for her.

his name is bou, and he’s a monk. he is plain, and nondescript, but there are not many buddhist monks, and he stands out, somehow, with his calm face and plain grey robes. he follows her from town to town, and at first she thinks it is a coincidence, that maybe they are simply traveling in the same direction. but soon it’s too much to be a coincidence, and she can only think of one reason a monk would have for following her. he must know what she is, and be here to kill her.

she does not want to die.

yeon-saeng corners him, nails and claws out, eyes blazing red, and says she will not die easily, says that she does not want to kill him, but she will to preserve her own life.

she’s already thinking that if she does kill him, she’ll have to tear out his heart and liver and grind it into the dirt so she does not eat them. once she starts eating humans, she doesn’t know if she could stop, and to leave them whole would be a temptation she would be unable to refuse.

he looks at her, unflinching, and tells her a story. he happened upon two brothers not long ago, with very strange histories. born into near-poverty, they were separated as teenagers and led remarkable lives. the eldest was adopted into a noble family and became one of the hwarang, the refined and cultured warriors who live on the edges of the country. the younger became the assistant to a yangban, the high level civil servants of the country. both now had prestigious positions rarely achieved by nobility. they happened to pass each other on the street one day just a few short months ago, both visiting a city they were not from, and recognized each other instantly.

they cried to find each other again, and it is here when bou overheard them talking while at a tavern. they spoke of their sister, who killed their cows and devoured their hearts and livers, and was the reason they’d been thrown from their homes. they spoke of their sister, who was not their sister by blood, but a demon sent from the heavens, for some misdeed none of them knew of. they spoke of their sister, who they knew to be a monster, and who they could not face. they spoke of their sister, who they loved in spite of everything, to this very day.  

bou intended to find her, and kill her, to rid the world of her evil. but he finds her, and finds that she is not evil. that she is kind, and hurting, and alone, and trying so desperately to do no harm, to be a good person in a world that does not have enough good people.

a demon she may be, but a monster she is not.

yeon-saeng is sobbing by the end of this, stepping away from him. bou has decided that she is the best kind of person, and that he would like to follow her, to travel with her, if she will allow it. she tries to refuse, says she will put him in danger, but bou does not listen.

she doesn’t have to let him be her friend. but he will follow her wherever she goes, so she might as well make this easier on both of them. she does not give in until he makes her a promise – if she ever does become a monster, he’ll kill her himself. when she cannot trust herself, she can trust him.

bou and yeon-saeng travel together, and although she worries constantly, yeon-saeng never harms him. years pass, and she grows stronger, she leans even further into her demon powers.

she is at least part kumiho, part nine tailed demon, and there are certain skills that come with that. with bou and his holy powers by her side, she feels comfortable exploring them for the first time. if she ever goes too far, bou will stop her.

she is a young woman when bou convinces her to seek out her family, to try and make amends with them. she cannot yet face her eldest brothers, whose lives she forced off course so dramatically, but agrees to try and visit her parents and youngest elder brother at home.

when she arrives, there are no cows in the pasture, and she worries. the house looks worn, and it feels empty. she knocks on the door, fear and worry making her shake, and it is only bou’s presence at her back that steadies her.

but the door opens, and it’s her brother, min-woo. he’s older, of course, but he looks healthy, looks fine. he’s startled to see her, but welcomes her inside like nothing has changed, like she hasn’t been missing for a decade. he doesn’t move to embrace her, and she holds herself back, uncertain. he tells her she has good timing, because he has invited their elder brothers home.

min-woo tells her that their parents have died, and she’s nearly bowled over in her grief. but he implores her to stay, says that now they can be a family once more. yeon-saeng agrees because she doesn’t know what else to do, her kind mother and father who loved her so very much are dead, and even though she hasn’t seen them in years their loss is just as devastating. min-woo comforts her, tells her they were simply old, and these things happen. she doesn’t think they were that old, but what does she know, she hasn’t been there for years.

she agrees, and min-woo tells her he has nothing to feed her and her companion, but she doesn’t mind. pretending to enjoy rice that tastes like dirt is a waste on both of them, and bou has endured much worse than a night’s sleep on an empty stomach. min-woo does offer them water, which they accept. it doesn’t taste clean, but both are too polite to say anything about it.

so they settle down, and bou falls asleep at her back, like he always does, and she eventually falls into a fitful sleep, thoughts of her dead parents and her living brothers chasing around her head.

when she awakes, everything has somehow gotten even worse.

she’s tied up, and she twists to see bou is as well, wide-eyed and with a gag in his mouth. min-woo sits in front of them, a cruel twist to his mouth she’s never seen before. her head is foggy, and it takes her a moment to process everything. the water must have been drugged.

he tells them their timing is perfect. he’d nearly run out of their parents’ flesh to eat, and so had invited their elder brothers home, intent on killing them and eating them. but eating her flesh, consuming the heart of a kumiho, will sustain him so much longer than mere humans would.

she looks at him in horror, not understanding. she asks if he was born a demon too, if he’s like her, but he laughs at her. he is just a human, but if he eats her maybe he will be something more.

min-woo takes a hunk of something folded in butcher paper and unwraps it, and in the center is a heart. the scent hits her nose all at once, and she knows it’s a human heart.

that it’s her father’s heart.

he’s been saving this for himself, but the stronger she is when he kills and eats her, the stronger she will make him. he holds it to her mouth, and parts of her wants it, it’s not fresh but it hasn’t gone bad, has been kept frozen and recently defrosted by the smell, and her mouth is already watering. she lives with a constant low-level hunger, but now it’s out in full force, begging her to bite into the heart her brother is holding to her lips.

she closes her mouth and shakes her head, turning away from it. this isn’t right. it’s not fair. she asks why, asks if it was because they ran out of food, was there truly nothing else for him to eat?

he says business was fine. they had plenty to eat. he just wanted to eat them, he just wanted to kill and eat human flesh, says he wanted to become stronger, and this seemed like the easiest way to do it.

this is incomprehensible to yeon-saeng, who has struggled against the gnawing in her stomach her whole life. she could break the ropes, could break min-woo. she’s a kumiho. her power is so far beyond min-woo’s that it’s laughable.

but guilt and grief swallow her. maybe the true reason she was born into her family was not divine punishment, maybe she was meant to protect them, to keep them safe. maybe her true purpose was to protect her beloved parents from min-woo, and she has failed. her parents are dead, her brother is a monster, and she has failed at the one thing she supposed to do.

she has no reason to live. once min-woo eats her, he will have no need of bou, her friend will be fine. she won’t eat her father’s heart, even now, at the end, but she can’t seem to muster the will to defend herself.

bou is screaming through his gag, surely begging her to do something, but she can’t move, too numb to do anything at all. min-woo gets tired of trying to force her to eat the heart, and lifts up a knife, moving to slit her throat.

before he gets the chance, a blade is shoved through his chest and out his mouth, killing him instantly. yeon-saeng looks up, wide eyed.

min-woo slides off the blade, revealing the man holding it. it is her eldest brother, jae-shin. her second eldest brother ki-tae is at his side. they’re older too, more steady, firmer than she remembers them being. she bows her head, waiting for her own death blow, but it doesn’t come.

instead ki-tae throws his arms around her, her eldest brother doing the same. they heard everything, they know everything. they cry as they hold her, apologies falling from their lips. she is their sister, and they love her, and they’re sorry they ever doubted her.

they could never bring themselves to hurt her, but did not hesitate to cut down min-woo. maybe deep down they’d always known who the true monster was.

jae-shin cuts her free, and does the same for bou. yeon-saeng is shaking in ki-tae’s arms still, but jae-shin pulls her forward and cups her face in his hands, kisses her forehead and tells her he’s sorry, that if he hadn’t acted so rashly so long ago maybe none of this would have happened.

yeon-saeng won’t accept their apologies, instead offering her own for letting their father throw them out when they only spoke the truth, for remaining silent in the face of their banishment.

their parents are dead, killed by their brother, who has been killed by jae-shin. they are as broken as ever, but the three of them are together once more, are willing and eager to rebuild their relationship. they all made mistakes, but all are willing to forgive.

bou is furious with yeon-saeng for freezing, for doing nothing to save herself. but he’s pulled between his anger and his worry that now she has her brothers back, she won’t need him anymore. but she knows him just as well as he knows her, so she assuages his worries and apologizes for freezing, says she won’t do it again. she tells bou that he’s her best friend, and she never wants him to leave.

so now this incredibly strange group is traveling together, roaming the country – a short tempered yangban’s assistant, a charming hwarang warrior, a buddhist monk, and a kumiho.

together, they do their best to figure out the extent of yeon-saeng’s powers, and try to leave everywhere they go a little better, a little less broken.

they succeed.

read more retold fairytales here

Baroness Marian

a sequel to my retold fairytale Red Robin Hood

robin goes to a lot of fancy parties full of rich and privileged people. to steal from the rich, she has to get close to them.

this means she spends a lot of time pretending to be something she’s not.

often, she is a servant, moving silently and invisibly between everyone, using her light and quick fingers to take purses from men’s belts and jewelry from women’s necks. but sometimes, if the party is big enough and the wine is plentiful enough, she goes as guest. she puts her red coat aside for the evening and puts on a dress made for a woman far above her station. she blends into the crowd in an entirely new way.

she always wears red.

her skirt is long and full, all the better for filling her voluminous pockets with her stolen treasure, and there are more people here than she count, all moving around and next to her. it’s perfect. she’s almost sorry she didn’t wear a bigger skirt.

everything’s going normal, as expected, just another night of high stakes robbery. if she’s caught, she’ll be hanged, but it’s been over a decade, and she hasn’t been caught yet. either she’s very good, or those that are after her are very bad.

since fairness is kind of her thing, she graciously tells herself it’s probably a little of both.

she’s almost gotten to the point where it’s time for her to make a quick exit, before people start realizing what they’re missing, when she hears a laugh. it’s loud, full bodied, rolling across the crowd of loud, drunk people like a wave crashing against the shore.

robin turns her head in search of its source before she can think to stop herself, and her breath catches in her throat.

there’s a woman with skin so dark it looks like she’s been cut from the night sky. her bald head shines in the candle light, and her gold dress should looks gaudy, should look tacky, and on anyone else it probably would. but on her it’s glowing. she has on dangling ruby earrings, and more studs cut from precious stones curve up the shells of her ears. she wears a small fortune on her ears, which is what makes her necklace so perplexing.

it’s copper.

copper buffed to shine, and hammered into a wavy, interlocking pattern along the base of her throat, but copper just the same. a peasant couldn’t afford the quality of work, perhaps, but the materials are easily bought, or even scrounged up from a trash heap. a copper pot with a crack down the middle would do just fine.

it’s strange, because her dress is spun gold and her ears are glittering with wealth, but around her neck is necklace that’s worth is no more than a child’s pocket money.

a man beside her says, contempt grumbling beneath each word, “the baroness is in fine form tonight.”

“excuse me?” robin says, and she doesn’t usually talk to people, she’s not usually around long enough to talk to people. she should go. she needs to go.

he jerks his head towards the woman. “here, dressed like that, and without her husband. talking to everyone like she is!”

robin looks, and doesn’t get it. everyone who’s around the baroness seems delighted to be there, leaning into her as if she is the sun on their faces. she likes the dress too. or maybe just the way the baroness wears it. “excuse me,” she says, instead of answering, and melts into the crowd, turning her back to it all.

she finds a corner of the castle and empties her pockets into a leather drawstring bag. next she takes off the dress, kicking it into the corner. she never wears the same dress twice. the last thing she needs is for someone to recognize her because she was too lazy to steal a new dress for a party. underneath she wears tight, black hose and a low cut black undershirt. it’s the middle of winter. her soft slippers are going to get soaked as soon as she steps outside.

oh well.

either someone in the lower villages will lend her some clothes, or they won’t, and she hopes musta and his pack is close enough that she won’t freeze to death in the forest. she left her cloak with him, knowing she wouldn’t be able to double back unless she wanted to bring suspicion onto her poor hosts while she was in this city.

“you should have locked the door,” says a low, amused voice, and robin curses as she turns on her heals.

it’s the baroness, somehow just as glittering in this dark corridor, as if all the bits of moonlight are clinging to her. “i – i was just,” she stutters, mind blank. she’s never been caught before. she’s never had to come up with an excuse before.

“miss hood, i presume?” she murmurs, stepping closer. she runs the back of her knuckle against robin’s cheek, and she suddenly finds it difficult to focus on the very immediate danger that she’s in. she needs to run. people are depending on her. she has too much work left to do to die now. she doesn’t move. “you’re certainly red. should i be flattered?”

she’s flushed all over, and she can’t control it, doesn’t know what to do about it. “why haven’t you screamed yet?”

“well, we just met, it seems a little forward,” she tilts her head to the side. “are you interested in making me scream, miss hood?”

she is so, so unprepared for this conversation. maybe the noose wouldn’t be so bad. “my name is robin.”

why did she tell her that? it’s not like it’s a secret, it’s the opposite of the secret, but why is that what she chose to say?

“robin,” she repeats, and tucks one of robin’s curls behind her ear. “i am the baroness of this county. but my friends call me maid marian.” when she smiles, robin forgets to breath. “i think we would make good friends. don’t you?”

“your friends call you a maid?” she asks, instead of addressing the latter part of that sentence.

marian tilts her head to the side, and she’s so close, when did she get so close? “well, i was a maid, when i was younger.”

“how does a maid become a baroness?” she asks, and she can’t believe she’s doing this, she shouldn’t be asking questions, she should be running.

“do you want me to tell you?” she murmurs, “or do you want me to show you?”

before robin can answer, marian grips her thighs lifts her up, slamming her back against the wall and pressing her body against robin’s. she’s strong. deceptively strong, easily holding robin pinned against cold castle wall with her searing hot body pressed along hers, and this is at once a worse and much better way to die than beheading.

marian shifts so she can speak directly into robin’s ear, and robin has no way to prove that marian drags her lips against her earlobe on purpose, but she really doesn’t see how that could be an accident. “do you like my dress?”

“what?” she says, trying to pull her attention away from anything but marian’s fingers digging into her thighs or her hot breath on her neck. “yes. it makes you glow.”

robin can’t see her smile, but she can feel it. she’s warm all over and her heart is beating too fast in her chest, and part of her wants to run, but most of her wants stay pinned beneath baroness marian.

“do you think,” she whispers, “that i would look better with it off?”

there’s so many reasons not to answer that. she has a bag of stolen jewels and coins on her. the baroness is married. they don’t even know each other. the list goes on.

“yes,” she says, and she’s ready when marian’s mouth finds hers.

marian reaches into her hose, pressing her fingers inside her, and robin lets out a broken sound at the back of her throat. her orgasm comes too fast and too intense, leaving her trembling and clinging to marian. the baroness licks over her fluttering pulse point and says, “that’s one,” smug and anticipatory all at once, and robin’s dizzy just listening to it.

not enough time later, robin’s on her back and she has her head between marian’s thighs, her hands gripping fistfuls of robin’s hair, and she can’t even mind, she just doesn’t care, she’s still not completely clear how she ended up having sex with a baroness in an abandoned corridor, but it seems blasphemous to question her good fortune. then she hears the yelling, and her fortune’s definitely mixed. it seems everyone just found out they were robbed.

marian curses and get up off of robin’s face, which is obviously the responsible thing to do, but she feels a little cross about it anyway. she wasn’t done yet! “you have to go,” she says, pulling her dress back on. robin gives herself one more second to mourn her loss before scrambling back into her own clothes. she grabs her bag of stolen wealth, and marian says, “wait, not yet.” she pulls off her dangling ruby earrings and slips them into robin’s bag. “it would be suspicious if i wasn’t stolen from.”

“right,” she says, and she wants to kiss her goodbye, at least. is it weird if she kisses her?

marian undoes her copper necklace, but instead of putting it in her bag, she reaches around and places it on robin’s neck, the metal warm against her skin. “here. this too.”

“why copper?” she asks, “it’s not even valuable.”

marian smiles, running a hand through robin’s hair. “i know. i wanted to give you something that you wouldn’t feel bad about keeping.”

“you wanted–” she blinks. “were you looking for me?”

marian presses her against the stone wall again, still so warm. “of course. why do you think i wore gold? i heard that’s something you’re interested in stealing.” she presses their foreheads together. “i’ve heard stories of you, red robin hood.”

before robin can respond to that one way or another, marian is kissing her, and robin could demand an explanation that she may or may not get, or they could keep kissing. she chooses the latter. obviously.

the yelling gets closer, and marian pulls away, walking briskly down the corridor while robin is still leaning dazed against the wall. “run!” she calls over her shoulder. “i’ll stall them as long as i can.”

robin scrambles up to the window and them shimmies outside, landing in the soft, cold snow, just as she’d planned to do before marian found her.

robin’s spent almost half her life running across the country, riding on the backs of her giant wolf friends and stealing from everyone who had more than they need, and she’s never met anyone like marian before. this is new. this is interesting. this is fun.

she touches the cool copper necklace against her throat. she’ll give everything else away, but this? this she’ll keep. just like marian wanted her to.

she hopes she has a reason to come back to this city soon.

she hopes she has a reason to find marian again soon.

read more of my retold fairytales here

harryshumjr: As a new father, I realize the importance of reading to my daughter. The way they memorize and absorb words, phrases and images from Children’s books has a lasting impact on how they see themselves, interact with others, and view the outside world. I am honored to partner with TheConsciousKid & wongfupro to amplify Asian-American stories in these read alouds! This particular book “Grandpa Grumps” written by @katrinamoore1011 & @XindiYanart published by littlebeebooks - is my daughters favorite - finding connection with our grandparents through patience, curiosity and understanding. You can check it out now on TheConsciousKid YouTube Channel  and YouTube Kids App.