Frightful Fairy Tales Read Online Free PDF

more. She longed for the simple things that life once held for her. She was wasting away in grandeur. Every night, after refusing the lavish meals that were served to her on silver platters, she pled with her husband to let her at least visit her home. He was kind and patient, but he reminded her that if she went back, she might never return. Finally, Ivy took to her bed, and over a period of days, her condition deteriorated to the point at which Blackie called a doctor. A squid wearing a topcoat arrived at Ivy’s bedside, and poking and squeezing her neck once or twice with a tentacle, announced that unless Ivy returned to her previous home, she would surely die from a combination of vitamin deficiencies and ennui.
     
    Blackie had no choice but to concede. The prince of the Black River leaned over his feverish wife and whispered lovingly in her ear, “I will give up my kingdom and take you home, for it is better to have you alive and not in my kingdom than not to have you at all. Once we leave this place, you can never come back. But there is a magic spell that governs all of us who live under the Black River:
     
    Not hair nor nails nor teeth nor hide
    Fall from the place where you abide.
    For if you do, consuming thirst
    For blood will uncover you first.
    And second, you cannot return
    To this your home and you will learn.
     
    So it was that in the middle of the next night, they boarded an enchanted bubble that would take them to the surface. They brought nothing from the lavish kingdom save for a small satchel of flawless black pearls and the crowns they had worn on their heads. They avoided the mayhem of the public, leaving behind only a note appointing the prince’s younger brother as ruler.
     

    They rose slowly through the dark water and as they did Prince Blackie held Ivy in his arms and whispered a mellifluous song in her ear:
     
    The moon reflects the water’s edge
    Separating worlds between you and I.
    How I long for the deep black waters.
    How you long for the earth and sky.
    All will be fine, never cry.
     
    They continued to rise until they saw the crescent moon shining down through the water. When they surfaced, the bubble popped, and they swam to shore. There they lay, panting, until sunrise, while they devised a convincing story to tell her family.
     
    As the sun grew in the sky, they, too, became larger until finally they were proper human size. They reached the farmhouse, and Ivy knocked on the door. Her mother was happy and relieved to see her missing daughter.
     
    "Why, Ivy, you’ve been gone for a little over a year," said her mother, and Ivy realized that time under the Black River ran differently. What she thought had been merely a passing of weeks had been a passing of months in the world above. "I took you for dead!" continued her mother. "It does this poor old woman’s heart good to see the face of my beautiful daughter again. And who is this handsome young man accompanying you?"
     
    Blackie stepped forward and said, “Your daughter fell into the Black River and was carried by the currents of the ocean, where I caught her half drowned in my net. When I revived her, she could not remember her name or from where she came. Slowly it came to her, but during the  time of her recovery, we fell in love and were married." With this, he bowed deeply to his mother-in-law. She was flattered by his genteel demeanor and was surprised to hear that this seemingly regal character was a sailor. At the same time, Ivy’s mother was deeply heartbroken at the news, for she had missed her only daughter’s wedding. She planned another celebration to make up for it-a celebration to honor her daughter’s return.
     
    A few weeks later her mother cooked Ivy’s favorite hearty stew with vegetables from the garden and Ivy baked a loaf of bread in the shape of a swan for her husband. She also made him a wedding present of a lock of her hair braided into a watch fob. Although he had never made anything in his