Fairytales for Wilde Girls Read Online Free PDF Page A

and in pity they pecked at the skin of her wrists, until they found the taut strings carrying the blood, and plucked them up like earthworms. She bled out quickly, half-blind and voiceless, and her eye was carried back to her father, the King of a small and poor county. He cried for his daughter, but he thanked the sparrows, and summoned the court shaman to perform the ritual that would allow him to see what the eye had seen. And reflected in the iris he saw the forest witch, who was also his first wife, the old Queen of the small, poor county – his daughter’s mother. He saw her string their child in the tree, saw her force their child to sing her life away.’
    Ruslana tapped her talons against the cracked porcelain sink, looking terribly despondent.
    Isola frowned; it was a heart-wrenching story, as all untimely girl-deaths are, but the towering Fury had heard it all before and worse. What was it that made this particular incident have such an effect? ‘What is it, Ruslana?’
    The Fury crossed her lean arms over her bodice, eyes downcast. ‘It’s too close,’ she murmured after a long moment. ‘She died in Vivien’s Wood . . . I don’t understand how I could have missed it.’
    â€˜You’re not responsible for every girl in the world.’
    â€˜I am for you . I shouldn’t have missed this. I should have sensed her pain.’
    A tiny tapping at the glass jolted them both. Ruslana’s cloak had inked out the window, and she pulled the slippery material to heel, exposing the sunlight again. She went and cracked open the window. A minuscule bauble of pink light fluttered in, alighting on the Fury’s shoulder.
    â€˜Did you tell her?’ it squeaked breathlessly.
    Dramatis Personae
    ROSEKIN: The fifth prince. A smart-mouthed faerie with a taste for dramatics.
    â€˜Isola? Don’t you think it’s exciting?’ Rosekin went on, beaming. ‘A murder, right on our doorstep!’ The bright bubble of light had abated, and the miniature girl-figure stood, clinging onto Ruslana’s black braid. ‘It’s like one of those scary stories,’ the faerie added, not bothering to suppress her glee. Isola supposed she was right – it did lend itself to an air of Grimmness – but exciting was not a synonym for this.
    â€˜Ooh! Ooh! Isola! Rusly!’ said Rosekin, tugging the Fury’s hair when Isola didn’t answer. ‘Remember, the witch is still out there, too!’
    Isola shook her head, feeling slightly ill. She felt a certain possessiveness of that wood, an umbilical connection down there in the dirt and the stillness – and now she felt almost betrayed, that it would hide and harbour a murderess, that it had let a young girl swing and bleed in that birdcage without once whispering for help on the pine-needle breeze.
    â€˜Hush,’ said Ruslana, and Rosekin snapped her fanged gob firmly shut, always and only obedient to the towering night-woman. Ruslana pulled her great seething cloak around herself, and the ceiling light bulb flickered back into a more constant rhythm. Before they both vanished the Fury gave Isola a piercing look and said in a low voice, ‘Don’t go home through the woods tonight, Isola.’
    Â 
    Isola had called James, her second-most trusted soul.
    It’d rung out the first time; she’d redialled and he’d picked up the second call almost immediately.
    â€˜What,’ he’d grumbled, not even posing it as a question. He had still been sore with her, and been passive-aggressive about letting her know.
    â€˜D’you wanna hang out?’
    James was now waiting at the gate as school was let out, a cigarette squashed in his scowl. All the girls stared; some even swooned, overwhelmed by the mere presence of a boy on the school grounds, even if he was only lingering at the border.
    Dramatis Personae
    JAMES SOMMERWELL: The second prince. Relationship status = currently