I was a happy child growing up with my mother and father, but when I was hardly out of childhood, my mother became sick. I did everything I could for her but she got worse and worse, and we knew that she would die. She called me to her bedside one afternoon. She was...
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Golden Comb
Exposure, Remembrance, Responsibility, Reunion
I had been placed at the bottom of an ancient chest, a bride box, lovingly prepared by the mother of two girls, Aiko and her sister Aiyamé. On a languid summer afternoon, the cover was opened and the ladies started to dig things up. Aiko said, “My mother, I pray you...
Mirror of the Spellbound Princess
Authenticity, Reflection, Remembrance
I sit on the dresser in the dark room of a spellbound princess. When she picks me up, I reflect her beauty as it is in truth. She weeps when she sees her face. She is reminded of everything she knows to be true. Yet to others she appears as a decrepit old woman....
King’s Son Raised by Peasants
My parents were peasants, and though we lived roughly, they were good people. We never went without. When I was old enough to understand where I came from, my parents told me that I was the son of a king. My peasant parents had given their daughter to the king in...
Grey Woman
We only have one eye between the three of us, and we're passing it back and forth. "Sister, what do you see? Do you see the old times long back?" I grope for the eye in her hand. "No sister," she says. "Well, come on, then, give me the eye and let me see." "I gave it...
Son of the Brass Princess
Exposure, Protection, Remembrance
In the evening, I walk alone by the sea. When I come to the brass chest, I sit and remember how I came to this country. When I was an infant, the brass chest carried my mother and me over the sea. We came ashore at this very place. I will never forget the song she...
Youngest Swan Brother
After we had been turned into swans, our only hope was our sister. Only she could break the spell. She would have to make shirts for the six of us--spin the thread from the asters in the forest, weave the thread into cloth, and sew the cloth into shirts--all without...
White Wolf
Love, Remembrance, Responsibility
Last night, a woman came to my door. She sat outside and told her story. I crept to the door and listened. She said she had fallen in love fell with a prince who was a wolf by day and a man by night. Then a servant threw his wolf-skin into the fire, and he disappeared...
Black Swan Man
Regret, Remembrance, Transformation
I was fishing where I should not have been fishing, and I took something I should not have taken. I fished a baby bunyip out of the water. What is a bunyip? Well, it is a creature that is something between a calf and a seal. I wanted to take it home to my sweetheart,...
Grieving Shepherdess
I watch my sheep in the meadow. I try not to remember the old days when I was blissfully married to the best of all men. I try not to remember the siren's grip on him and the flood that divided us. Tonight, another shepherd has taken out his flute. He is playing the...
Surviving Sister
Horror, Murder, Remembrance, Trauma
Now that I have come into the forbidden room, I see what the wizard Fitcher has done with my sisters. They are lying in a basin, cruelly murdered and cut into pieces. I will not to succumb to the horror. I will see them whole. Start somewhere. Anywhere. I drop to my...