We were dancing to the song of the frogs on the breath of the still pond when Lady Aya came out into the garden with her maidens. The moon had risen, round and silver. Lady Aya said, “The moon is a love-lorn lady; but have you seen her faint sister who is sadder and...
A Deity from High Heaven planted me. It was so long ago that the crane cannot remember it, and the tortoise knows it only by hearsay from his great-grandmother. Lightly, lightly, the Deity came by way of the Floating Bridge, bearing me in his right hand. Lightly,...
An audacious fellow came in today and presented me with something he called “Russian salt.” He wanted to trade it in the city. I’d never heard of such a thing as salt. It looked like nothing more than a pile of white sand. I sent him away but later...
Because I fell in love, the sheen went out of the flax I spun. Me and my sisters spun gold flax for an old woman who worked us from dawn to dusk. She had warned us that terrible things would happen if we ever so much as laid eyes on a man. The prince and I tried to...
At last I found the beauty of the world! She had been locked into a remote room of a castle that stood beyond the farthest reaches of the world. But she was not beautiful. She was a bleary-eyed, grey skinned, withering old woman. “This is not my form,” she...
When I was fifteen, I woke up one day and found a mirror had been placed in my room. It was not large, and it had a black frame. When I looked into it, I did not see my own reflection. Instead, I saw the face of a girl as lovely as the dawn. She, like me, was coming...
Prince Alphege has disappeared, but I have the strongest feeling that he is still with us. The other day, a green monkey escaped from the palace and sprang through our window. He wouldn’t let anyone else near him but my daughter and me. When I looked into his...
When my father asked my stepsisters what they wanted from the fair, they showered him with compliments and requests for jewels and fancy dresses. His eyes almost slid past me. “And you, Cinderella, what will you have?” Cinderella! Had he forgotten my name?...
