Caged: A Twisted Fairytale Retelling Read online

  Caged

  A Twisted Fairy Tale

  Lena Mae Hill

  Caged

  Copyright © 2019 Lena Mae Hill

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except in cases of a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, and events are entirely coincidental. Use of any copyrighted, trademarked, or brand names in this work of fiction does not imply endorsement of that brand.

  Published in the United States by Lena Mae Hill and Speak Now.

  For more information, please visit www.lenamaehill.com

  ISBN-13: 9781945780523

  Cover © Victoria Cooper, Victoria Cooper Art

  Dedication

  For the readers who asked for this book.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  From the Author

  Also by Lena Mae Hill

  Chapter One

  Astrid

  I stood before the mirror wrestling to get the whalebone comb through my hair. My mother had given it to me for my twelfth birthday, reminding me that it came from the sea itself, and aside from me, it was her most treasured possession. Too bad I couldn’t enchant it with magical detangling properties. I’d asked, but Mother Dear said I had so little magic that I couldn’t afford to waste it on frivolous things.

  I’d looked up the word frivolous in my battered dictionary after she’d left, and I didn’t think combing my ridiculous hair was frivolous. It was a safety precaution.

  As I thought of her, her voice drifted down to me.

  “Astrid…”

  I dropped the comb onto my vanity table and raced to the ladder, slipping and sliding on the piles of gold droplets scattered across the floor. Pitching forward, I grabbed onto the ladder and hugged it for dear life, my feet having gone out from under me. When I’d scrabbled my feet until I found the solid floor beneath the mess, I scampered up the ladder. I’d forgotten to close the trap door, and Mother Dear would be angry if she caught it standing open yet again.

  I boosted myself over the lip of the opening and onto the floor of my main room. Biting my lip and scrunching my face in concentration, I lowered the door, willing it to be quiet so she wouldn’t hear it close. It gave a little squeak, and my heart lurched. I hurriedly rolled the rug back over the door and ran to the window.

  “Where have you been?” Mother Dear demanded. “I’ve been waiting for ten minutes. It’s freezing out here. Lower the basket.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” I said, lifting the large, hand-woven basket off its hook near the window. I checked the knot as I did every time, and when I was sure it was secure, I began to lower it to where Mother Dear waited far below, an old woman lying on the ground at her feet.

  When the basket reached her, Mother Dear gathered up the body and heaved it in.

  “Haul her up,” she called, and I began to pull the rope, going hand over hand and being careful to move smoothly so I didn’t bang the load against the wall. Mother Dear didn’t like when I did that. It caused bruising.

  When the basket arrived at the window, I looped the rope around the hook and reached out to grab the load and pull it in. I’d woven the basket entirely out of my own hair, and it was soft and pliable, if a bit scratchy. After setting it gently on the floor, I opened it to reveal the body of a plump, wrinkled person.

  “Oh,” I gasped, kneeling beside her. Swallowing hard, I reached out a trembling hand. My fingers with their tight, young skin touched the softest skin I’d ever seen. I didn’t know what had happened to the woman. Her face had been worn thin and crumpled up like an old sheet of paper that had been hidden away in a hurry too many times, only to be retrieved and smoothed out again when one’s mother was far away. The corners of her mouth sagged down like she’d been sad when she was crumpled up and stowed in a secret place.

  “Astrid,” Mother Dear barked from outside. “The basket?”

  “Sorry,” I said, jumping to my feet and yanking it free of the wrinkled woman. “Sorry!” I tossed the basket out, letting it fall all the way down. Mother Dear stepped in and settled herself, and I began to draw her up. Hand over hand, my muscles flexing and my hands tiring by the time Mother Dear had reached the window. She pulled herself in, climbing out of the basket and brushing herself off.

  “You’d think by now you could remember how this works,” Mother Dear said. “Do you expect me to fly up here? Climb the wall with my bare hands? Even you can’t be that stupid.”

  I crouched beside the woman and poked her soft face with one finger. “What happened to her?”

  “She got old, that’s what,” Mother Dear said, unwinding her scarf and shaking out her long blonde hair.

  “That’s what a person with oldness looks like?” I asked, staring at the woman. Mother Dear was terrified of the disease she called oldness, so she put spells on to make herself look young. I had never seen old before.

  “Now you understand why I don’t want to look like this hideous old hag,” Mother Dear said. “What man would want me then? Youth and beauty are the only things they like more than treasure. If you don’t have those, you’re worth less than a dog to them.”

  I examined the woman more closely. I hadn’t thought she was hideous. She looked different than the young bodies mother sometimes inhabited, yes, but not unpleasant. Mother Dear was the most beautiful person in the world. She always told me that. I was next, she said, but I couldn’t be prettiest because my hair was a bright auburn instead of pale gold like hers. Sometimes, though, Mother Dear had to use other people as disguises. I didn’t know what that would be like. I always looked the same, as I had nowhere to go and no one to see me in disguise.

  “How long will you be here?” I asked Mother Dear. “Can you stay a few days?”

  “Oh, darling, I wish I could.”

  “If you wish you could, then why don’t you?”

  “We can’t just do anything we want,” Mother Dear said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not the way the world works,” she said. “We can’t just do whatever feels good or take whatever we see.”

  I didn’t see why. If it felt good, why wouldn’t we want to do it? And Mother Dear took whatever she wanted. She took my treasure to buy things. She even took other people’s bodies when she needed them.

  “These few days are the most important days of our lives,” she said, leaving the body in front of the window and sinking onto the edge of the bed.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She patted the space beside her, and after a moment I joined her. We sat on the edge of the bed, our knees
angled toward each other as she took my hands in hers. “My precious daughter,” she said, smiling and stroking my hair behind my ear.

  “What is it, Mother Dear?” I asked, my heart suddenly beating right against the bottom of my throat.

  Her fingers tangled, and she had to shake her them loose. “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for our whole lives.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for this since before you were even born, my dearest daughter. The next few days will set up our whole lives, giving us all we’ve ever dreamed of.”

  I closed my eyes and took a breath, letting hope spread its wings like a bird inside my chest. Everything I’d dreamed of. Running down the mountainside below the tower where I’d lived for all sixteen years of my life. Flying out the window and over the valleys filled with puffy treetops below and puffy clouds above. Visiting my father, who I’d only met a handful of times, telling him I was no better than his other daughters, that I didn’t have to be hidden away like the treasure downstairs that he and my mother hoarded like dragons in the fairytales on my bookshelf.

  “Will I be able to go outside?” I asked, my lips stiff with hoping so hard.

  “Yes,” Mother Dear said.

  “Out there?” I gasped. Adrenaline raced from my adrenal glands and through my bloodstream, racing along the highways of veins that delivered it to my limbs. That’s how it happened. I’d read about it in the encyclopedia on my shelf.

  “Well, you can’t very well marry the prince up here in your tower,” Mother Dear said.

  “Marry the prince?” I squeaked. Of course, that was my destiny. My mother had told me. It was in all the stories. It was a good thing, what every princess wanted. So, it must be what I wanted. That must be the feeling in my stomach like I’d eaten bad meat.

  “There’s a lot to do down in the valley,” Mother Dear said, squeezing my hands. “I have to go back tonight. I’ll come for you soon, my dear.”

  “And I can go with you then? I can see my father again?”

  “Of course, darling. He will teach you how to rule the Third Valley after he’s gone. Until then, you’ll rule the Second Valley with the wolf king as your husband.”

  “But…I don’t know how to rule werewolves.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. You don’t have to be strong or smart to do that. You just tell me everything, and I’ll tell you what’s best.”

  “And I’ll meet my sisters,” I said, clasping my hands at the thought.

  “Defeat your evil sisters,” Mother Dear corrected.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I said. “Defeat my sisters and marry the prince.”

  “And live happily ever after,” she said, enunciating each word and giving my cheek a pat with each one.

  “Okay,” I breathed. “I’m ready.”

  “You’re playing your part,” she said. “For my part, I’ll need a disguise for the night. I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day. So much is at stake, Astrid. I’m setting it all in motion.” She rose from the bed, her voice rising in power. She held out both arms, throwing her head back as she faced the window. “My plans have all come together. It all depends on this. Everything comes together at the eclipse.”

  “There’s an eclipse?” I asked, shivering. The first time I’d seen one, I thought the moon had died and lay bleeding in the sky.

  “In just a few days,” she said, nudging me off my bed. “That’s when we claim our destiny.” She scooted under the blanket and lay on her back, as she always did. A moment later, her body went still. I stood over her reciting the chant she had taught me as a child, the one that kept anyone from inhabiting her body when she took over someone else’s. Not everyone could wear different bodies like she did, but just in case, I had to keep her protected.

  Before I’d even finished the spell, Mother Dear stood up wearing the body of the old woman. She could move from one body to another, a fact that she was quite proud of. Almost no one possessed this skill. She could never fool me, though. Over the years, I had learned how to spot her in whatever disguise she wore. After all, she was the only human I had to study, so I had taught myself everything about her, memorizing her the way I did the books on my shelves.

  “Come lower me down,” she said, stepping into the basket.

  I stood up from the bed, forgetting that I’d left my hair loose, and promptly stepped on it. I lurched to that side, hopping on one foot to keep my balance.

  “Oh, for the love of Thalassa,” Mother Dear snapped, yanking the rope free of the hook. I made it to her side, my eyes watering from the sting of pulled hair. This was why a comb was not frivolous. My hair was going to be the death of me if I didn’t watch out. If it wasn’t attached to my head, I would have sworn it was out to get me.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I muttered, grabbing the rope and looping it over the bar that served as our pulley system. Mother Dear scooted onto the windowsill on her bottom, maneuvering the basket out the window before stepping down into it. There was always a moment of sickening terror when her weight left the sill and transferred to the basket.

  I tightened my grip on the rope, a knot lodging in my throat. It slowly unwound as I lowered her closer and closer to the ground and to safety. For these few minutes, I had her life in my hands. If I messed up, she would fall to her death.

  And I would die here alone. No prince would come to my rescue, despite my mother’s promise that I was the shifter princess, the true heir to the throne. No one would know I was here at all. The only people who knew of my existence were my mother and father. If anyone else knew, they would try to kill me. That’s why Mother Dear had hidden me away for safekeeping.

  People could not be trusted. They would steal me and hurt me, make me do what they wanted, take away my freedom and make me a prisoner and a slave. Or worse.

  My father was the Shifter King. His wife wanted me dead so her own children could claim their throne. Luckily for me, Mother Dear had saved me as an infant and run away from all that, giving up her life to protect me. She kept me safe like a treasure, because that’s what I was to her. Her treasure. One day, when she could get rid of my father’s wife, I would emerge as the shifter valley’s secret weapon. The real heir to the throne. But even though I held the fate of the shifter world in my hands, I didn’t feel like a princess or a treasure. I just felt like me.

  Mother Dear climbed out of the hair basket and gave it a tug so I’d know to pull it back up, so that no one could climb in and come to get me. That’s why there were no doors in my house, no windows except this one which was far too high for anyone to enter or spot me through. But now, I leaned out the window of my tower, a lighthouse overlooking the bare winter trees of the Three Valleys.

  “Bye, Mother Dear,” I called. I waved until I could no longer see her borrowed body through the leafless trees. Then I turned back to the room and began the hour-long process of putting all my hair up. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I talked to Mother Dear’s empty body. I liked it when she left a body for me to talk to. Even if there was no one in it, it made me feel less alone.

  Chapter Two

  Jack

  My brothers and I stumbled into the yard, reeling against each other to stay upright. I stumbled on the steps, going to my knees before snagging the doorknob by luck alone. “Little pig, little pig, let us come in,” I hollered.

  My brothers burst into honks of laughter behind me. Daniel fell against the side of the trailer, which rocked and groaned on its cinderblock foundation.

  The door to the trailer suddenly jerked inwards, and I tipped over, sprawling halfway through the door with my legs still hanging down the cinderblock steps. The four of us howled with laughter as Ma stood over us, her hands planted on her skinny hips.

  “You think this is funny?” she demanded.

  “Aww, come on, it’s kinda funny,” I said, rolling onto my back to look up at her.

  “How many nights are you going to come home drunk and expect to live in this house, und
er my roof?” she asked. “How many more days am I going to have to put up with this? That’s all I want to know.”

  “Come on, Ma, we’re only kids,” William said, stumbling over my body as he made his way inside. He tried to put an arm around Ma, but she shoved him away, turning her back on her useless sons.

  “Kids who are old enough to get jobs instead of flushing our money down the toilet with your piss,” Ma said, throwing her hands up. I saw tears in her eyes, and my laughter disappeared quicker than a bottle of the whiskey in our hands. Our father had found it hilarious to name us after the stuff, so how could we be anything but worthless drunks like him?

  “I’ll get a job,” I said.

  Evan nodded up at her from where he stood at the bottom of the steps. He lifted his foot, but he couldn’t seem to find the step to put it on, so he just crumpled on top of my legs.

  “You said that last week,” Ma said, her shoulders shaking. “You said that last month. I don’t know how else to say it. We have no money. Nothing. What are we going to eat?”

  “We can eat grass,” I offered. Not that it would be very satisfying for my human body, but I could live on it if I stayed in animal form for a while. One less mouth for her to feed. Considering that I wasn’t even her son—Dad had washed his hands of me and Daniel when he washed his hands of her—I didn’t blame her for being done with me.

  “We can sell William again,” Daniel said. “People pay good money for a cow.”

  “Not a cow,” William slurred, his hands balling into fists. “I’m a bull.” The two of them started punching and rolling around. William was particularly sensitive about his animal form.

  “I’d sell myself if I thought any man would want me,” Ma muttered.

  “No way,” I said as Evan slipped an arm around her slumped shoulders. “We’ll take care of it. We’ve got you, Ma.”

  “Everyone in the valley knows the old cow trick,” Ma said, crumpling into a chair. “Even the humans know not to buy things from us, even if they don’t know where the cow disappears to in the morning.”