Frightful Fairy Tales (4 page)

Everyone thought Ivy was very clever because she could make something out of nothing. On this fine June day, Ivy’s search led her to the Black River. It ran cold and strangely still. The water was clear but it was so deep that it appeared black. Many people had wandered near this river never to return, and Ivy’s mother often warned her, “Beware of the Black River! It looks still and calm, but the dark tide pools can pull you under. Swans on the river have been heard to talk, and at night people have seen strange patterns of light illuminating the depths underwater.” Ivy knew all this, but it did not stop her-she had a habit of going where people told her not to go.

Ivy wandered near the bank, hypnotized by the hum of dragonflies and other insects in the otherwise still air. Water lilies floated on the surface, slowly moving in a senseless circular dance downstream. The narcissus flowers lining the water bent to kiss their reflections, forming arches through which the lilies passed.

The sunlight glimmered and played on the water, making millions of diamonds, but something else caught Ivy’s attention. There at her feet was a golden ring, the likes of which she had never seen before. The filigree was carved so intricately it was impossible to conceive that a human had wrought it. If she squinted, Ivy could read the tiny words on the inside of the ring: “Property of POBR.” What could it mean? She knew no one named Pobr.

Ivy slipped on the ring immediately, and to her sheer delight, it perfectly fit the pointing finger on her right hand. When she held her hand aloft to admire her lovely new bauble, she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to plunge herself into the river. Her hand with the ring pointed, against her will, toward the swirling black waters of the river. Ivy tried to remove the ring but it would not come off her finger-it was as if the ring were part of her body, as if it had formed there while she was still in the womb. Every time she resisted, the ring yanked and jerked at her more strongly. She began to feel like a fish on the end of a fishing line-except that she was being pulled
into
the water, not out.

The girl resisted until she lost all strength. Wearily, she let her extended hand pull her forward into the Black River. She took a deep breath, and the chilly water rose up and consumed her as she fell headfirst into the blackness. Downward, ever downward into the depths of the river the ring pulled her, and her heart beat faster and faster in her breast so that she could hear it pounding in her ears. Her clothing, once flowing and light, was now wet and heavy. It clung to her limbs, binding her and pulling her downward. Ivy tried to kick off her shoes, but she only managed to get one shoe loose. Tiny bubbles rushed past her as she sank but otherwise she saw only blackness.

Ivy thought of her beloved mother and of the tragedy of drowning at such a young age, when suddenly a large bubble rising from below popped against her face with a puff of air. She gratefully breathed in the air. After that, bubbles of air appeared more and more frequently and she managed to breathe fairly regularly.

After what seemed like ages, Ivy saw a weird luminescence far below-like the greenish phosphorescence she had seen on the shores of the river under the light of the full moon. For a moment she thought the glowing spot might be the moon and she suddenly became confused about whether she was going up or down. But as she neared the light, she saw that it came from a bubble dome structure that looked much like a large blue pearl and was about forty feet in diameter.

Next to the bubble dome, she found a large ring secured with a chain. Upon pulling it, the bubble dome opened and two doors slid back into the dome like elevator doors. Ivy entered and crawled through a hallway in which the ceiling was covered in ornate pressed tin images depicting what she assumed were fictional underwater scenes: battles between handsome men riding sea horses, others fighting squids and skates, and still more being crowned with wreaths by beautiful siren muses.

The floor was some kind of hardwood, varnished blue and polished to an unearthly sheen. Running down the center of the floor was a long and garish Oriental carpet that Ivy crawled on so that she might not hurt her knees. As she crawled, she regretted wrinkling the rug behind her, but it could not be helped. At the end of the hall she found two doors spanning from floor to ceiling, each with a tiny platinum handle.

Ivy turned the handles and unexpectedly catapulted into the center of a noisy, crowded dance hall. Ivy was so large in comparison to the people in the hall that she loomed over the ornately dressed couples. All fell silent and turned to stare at her, looking up at her aghast. The only sound in the hall was the sound of water dripping from her soaking clothes onto the mosaic floor. A booming voice broke the unbearable silence, exclaiming, “So I see my crown has returned. Come to me, my beauty!” Ivy looked to the source of this voice, and at the far end of the hall on a splendid throne held aloft by two glistening opal dolphin statues, she saw a small handsome man with skin like ivory and mahogany hair. He beckoned to her.

As Ivy moved obediently toward the throne, the band struck up once more and the couples resumed their dance. Ivy noticed with increasing alarm that with each step she took, everything around her grew larger. It wasn’t until the ring slipped down on her wrist like a bracelet that she realized that it was she who was shrinking and not the others who were growing. By the time she was ten feet from the throne, the ring had become so large and heavy, she had to hold it in the crook of her arm. At the foot of the throne, Ivy presented the crown-for that was what she now realized it to be-to the prince.

She knew he was royalty, for when he took the crown and placed it on his head, it fit perfectly. Then he bowed to one knee and kissing her hand, introduced himself: “My lady, I am the prince of the Black River. Contrary to appearances here, I am not a formal ruler-everyone here calls me ‘Blackie’.” With a smile that revealed glistening white teeth, he extended his hand as an invitation to dance. She was so taken by his black eyes and charming ways, she conceded unhesitatingly, and he gracefully swept her onto the dance floor.

“Such a fine specimen of femininity should also have a name to match. What, pray tell, is your name?” When she told him, he burst into peals of merry laughter. “You’re far from your roots now, Ivy,” he said.

As they danced, Ivy put aside her confusion and began to take stock of her situation. “My mother always warned us there were strange things in the Black River, but I never suspected anything to spectacular,” she said to her dance partner. “How is it that I came to be in this place, my Prince?” Ivy asked wonderingly.

“Please, Ivy, you need not be so formal. Please call me Blackie,” said the prince. "The story of how I lost my crown is quite simple, really. Last week my footmen and I were lolling about by the banks of the Black River when we heard mortal hunters tramping noisily and clumsily through the underbrush. You mortals are always so ignorant, and whenever one of you sees us, you inevitably run about madly and trample us. Therefore, to avoid their inevitable idiocy, we jumped back into the river to escape being seen by the brutes.”

“When we returned to our underwater palace, I found to my dismay that I had left my crown on the grass by the river. I immediately cast a spell that would return the crown to me within a week. I expected to see it served to me in the belly of a fish but my fishing caught another prize entirely,” he said smiling.

At this, Ivy blushed and when the prince kissed her hand, she turned positively scarlet. "You are so different from other humans. You are so lovely and calm,” he told her.

As they continued to spin about the dance floor, Ivy looked around at the other dancing couples. They seemed to change shape as she watched.  First a cod then a funny man resembling cod danced with a woman clad in yellow who turned into a chicken in a dress. Shape shifting was not limited to the dancers: the cakes on the table turned into meat; the wine bottles turned into urns filled with magnificent roses and then back into wine bottles. And all this happened to the tune of warbling musical instruments which themselves changed from a harp into a cello in the blink of an eye as the adept musicians played on. Nothing seemed solid in this strange place. With all the rhythmic swarming and swaying, Ivy became positively seasick. The last things she saw before she swooned and everything turned black were the prince’s strange white teeth.

When her eyes next opened, Ivy found she had slept. She was ready to believe it was just a dream when she realized that she was not at home underneath her favorite patchwork quilt but rather lying in an expansive canopy bed under a yellow silk coverlet. She thought of the bizarre night before and the shape-shifting couples. She then thought of the striking prince and racked her brain trying to remember…hadn’t he also changed? Strange images flashed in the back of her mind but she couldn’t wrestle them to the foreground. A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.