The Asylum for Fairy-Tale Creatures Read Online Free PDF Page B

grandma had told her that meeting fear with strength no matter how tiny or small would always bring warmth to cold nerves. She swallowed her fear downwards and held it in her stomach. The guard lurched in front of the door. He had to bend forward to fit into the room and grunted with the effort.
    The man sitting in the chair put down his quill. He looked up through tiny spectacles. Being old and wrinkled and looking to be held together by his bones as if his skin was a loose fit, he wore a medical smock that was jet black. When he spoke there was a hiss of chloroform from his mouth.
    “I am Dr Wilhelm Jacob Grimm,” said he. “I am the head of the asylum and you are here because, whether you agree or not, you are ill and I will cure you.”
    The three were silent as the doctor peered at them. His eyes were piercing, as if he was trying to spot the madness attributed to them.
    “Now—” the doctor checked his note “—Thumbeana, you and Thread Bear will be taken to the animated objects wing. It is where we keep the haunted toys and unreal children. Your treatment will begin forthwith.”
    Before either could protest the guard scooped the two in his huge arms and pulled them away. They dangled over his forearms as he turned to leave. The girl stepped to follow but Dr Grimm tut-tutted and shook a bony finger; she held her ground.
    “Do not fret—we will be just fine. I want to be cured. I want to be real,” said Thumbeana. Thread Bear simply waved. With that they were gone.
    “So, tell me, the hood—why are you still wearing it?”
    The girl hadn’t noticed. It was filthy and red from the house in the wood.
    “I don’t know,” she replied.
    Grimm picked up his goose-feather quill, dipped it in a pot of ink and made a few notes.
    “I think,” he said while still writing, “I think if you still wear the hood, you will believe your wolf was real.”
    “He was real,” the girl replied, a little taken aback.
    “A wolf pretending to be a man pretending to be a grandma? Unlikely, isn’t it?”
    The girl’s knees felt weak; they buckled slightly and she felt her skin pale. Was it possible? Was the truth more horrible than her truth? The words echoed in her head. “All the better to see you with…” Was it from her lips?
    “Is something wrong, dear?” Grimm asked.
    All the better to hear you with.
    All the better to eat you with.
    The girl’s head spun and darkness called to her, which she went falling into like a lamb to the jaws of a wolf.
    “Oh, dear,” the doctor commented. “Must I turn on my machine again?”

Doctor Grimm’s notebook: Rapunzel
    There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. These people had very little but from the window at the back of their house a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to a sorceress, who had great power and was dreaded by the entire world. One day the woman became sick and began to die.
    “What aileth thee, dear wife?” the man asked in grief.
    “Ah,” she replied, “if I can’t get some of the herbs which are in the garden behind our house, to eat, I shall die.”
    The man, who loved her, thought, Sooner than let thy wife die, bring her some of the healing herbs thyself—let it cost thee what it will.
    In twilight of evening, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the sorceress, hastily clutched a handful of herbs, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it with much relish. She, however, liked it so much, so very much, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening, therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was