A Curse Upon Thee 2-15

Perfect strokes. Okay, but they had to be perfect, that was the rule. 

Perfect. The horse brush was heavy in his hands, bristles scratching against the mare’s spotted back as he kept going. Strokes.

Ten-year-old Henry Mills kept his red sneakers planted completely flat on the center of the wobbly stool, lower lip tucked tight between his teeth as he dragged the brush down in careful movements. ‘Never rush the coat.’ Grandpa David had told him that; just yesterday when they were cleaning out the big, mean stallions in the back pens. Grandpa.

It was still super weird calling him that. Grandpa was way younger than his mom, like, almost the exact same age as Emma. It didn’t make any sense if you looked at the math, but the book didn’t care about math.

No, see, it still wasn’t as weird as deciding which mom to call mom, though. That was the really confusing part.

Henry shook his head hard, trying to clear the static, and focused right back on the brown horse hair right in front of his nose. Grandpa David talked about horses the exact same way Henry’s storybook talked about knights. “A real knight doesn’t just mount up and ride blindly into battle, Henry,” Grandpa had told him, his voice all serious and important. “He cares for the noble beast that carries hi-”

Thoughts froze in his head as the gray stallion in the stall right beside him whinnied loud and reared all the way up on its back legs. Heavy iron shoes slammed violently against the wooden gate as Henry spun around on the stool. What’s going… 

Brown eyes blinked fast, Henry’s head whipping from side to side as the panic spread down the stalls like a virus; stables thick with the sour smell of horse sweat. Wh-what’s going on? Henry’s mare shrieked, the big animal bucking in the stall as it clipped the edge of his stool hard.

Henry yelled out as the whole world tilted sideways, his perch vanishing out from under him as he hit the floor. “Nggh.” His bare hands scraped hard against packed dirt and the cedar shavings of the floor before he scrambled fast to his knees, coughing up a lungful of dust.

His breath froze solid right in his chest as he blinked up.

And blinked again at the heavy shadow that fell straight across the open doorway of the stall.

Monster.

It couldn’t be a regular man. 

Nobody had skin that color, almost as gray and dead as a rock. It was hanging loose and sunken in, even as sharp bones seemed to stick out anyway right beneath it. Messy, oily black hair hung all the way down to his chin. His clothes were completely ripped up, torn to shreds, and caked thick with dry mud.

…zombie? The thing looked slowly down at him, lips pulled all the way back over grey gums in a silent snarl.

There was no page anywhere in his book for zombies. 

Especially not one that looked like this.

Henry scrambled backward through the shavings, his sneakers slipping, and the monster lunged.

A freezing cold grip — fingernails split wide open — wrapped tight around Henry’s small throat as the monster lifted the ten-year-old fully off his feet. Henry’s red sneakers kicked uselessly in the empty air as his throat closed up, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. The smell hit him hard while he desperately tried to breathe; the suffocating rot of puddle water and old pennies thick right in his nose.

His vision began to fray at the edges, fuzzy spots dancing crazy across the wooden rafters of the barn roof.

“N-no!!” The heavy front stable doors shattered messily off their iron hinges with a splintering crash of wood and red light as Henry’s mother burst right through, dark hair flying wild around her face.

“Daniel! P-please, Daniel!” Her voice cracked right down the middle in a way Henry had literally never heard before. Glowing hands shook as she held them up, not even paying attention to David as the knight charged in right behind her, shiny broadsword already drawn. “It’s me! It’s Regina! Just look at me, please!”

It didn’t look.

“Don’t hurt him! Just take me instead! I’m begging you, Daniel!”

The gray-skinned man didn’t even look at her, that grip only tightening around his neck; dead eyes fixed on Henry’s purpling face.

Small shaking hands rose higher as his fingers moved on instinct, clawing desperately at the cold skin of the monster’s grey head, trying to push the thumbs away. St-stop! Stop! STOP!

Then, the whole world went white.

Light shone from the palms of Henry’s hands, something in his chest churning as it pushed deeper and deeper into the monster’s skull. It shone bright through newspaper-colored skin, solid white burning from inside the thing’s open mouth and wide, dead eyes.

The icy grip vanished instantly from Henry’s throat, the monster screaming as Henry dropped hard to the floor. The little boy coughed hard and wheezed harder as the monster-man collapsed onto his hands and knees, staring as the screams from the gray-skinned man went quiet and black-stained lips opened up. 

All of a sudden, the monster retched and something incredibly thick, black and ugly poured out and splashed messily onto dirt and hay. 

Henry gasped desperately for air, one hand around his throat as he started crawling back on the dirty straw. What’s happening? 

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

As the thick black bile settled in the straw, Charming had already torn right past Regina in a dead sprint. The man’s leather boots chewed up the packed dirt of the stable floor, a cloud of dust and cedar shavings in his wake.

The man was a hero, infuriating as it was.

A hero worthy of the ridiculous towering stories they told about him in any world, as much as she would never admit that aloud. Might worthy of at least five men and skill enough to slay a dragon went to work as he swung his broadsword straight down with a shout. 

Yet all that staggering heroic effort didn’t seem to do much of anything as cold steel hit a bare grey forearm with a dull thud. 

“What…”

The jagged word came from both her lips and Charming both as they stared blankly at the barely-touched gray limb. It should have been lopped off completely, taken from Daniel’s shoulder by dwarf-made steel and the prince’s heroic strength. Instead, the razor-sharp blade merely bit a bare inch into the leathery skin of Daniel’s flesh, a slow sluggish ooze of dark blood kissing the floor.

Daniel barely even flinched.

One strong arm grabbed David by the collar of his cardigan and yanked him forward, sword clattering off into the dark of an empty stall. With a grunt, Daniel lifted the grown prince entirely off the ground as if he was a feather-filled pillow and — before David could even scream — the prince was sent flying across the aisle of the stables.  

Charming slammed into an oak pillar with a crunch, a loud grunt spilling free as the man tried to push himself back to his feet. 

“David!” Regina’s hands lit up bright as she gasped, red light flickering to life. Magic…

Proper magic required a will to it, unbending in its focus, and layered in desire. But this chaotic new cursed magic leaking into her system already took an agonizing effort to control on a good day. Watching the half-rotten shell of her long-dead lover shambling in front of her made it rather impossible to muster her mind and gather her focus. 

David groaned loudly from the dirt again, the man shaking his head as he finally dragged himself back to his feet. He didn’t even bother looking for his sword.

No, the man simply rushed forward again, drawing on all his years as a simple farmboy as he swung out with a simple fist. The first blow caught Daniel in the stomach and the prince ducked a blind swinging backhand to drive a hard left hook straight into the revenant’s sunken cheekbone. 

A normal man’s jaw would have cracked. 

Under David’s raw heroic strength, they would have struggled to stay conscious.

Daniel’s heavy head merely snapped back a fraction.

They traded blow after aggressive blow — the brutal thud of knuckles against dead meat echoing through the rafters — before Daniel’s grey fist caught David square in the center of his chest. The force of it was enough to lift the prince off his feet, sending him back onto the packed earth as he curled up with a groan.

A hollow gaze turned slowly toward Regina, black eyes almost unseeing as black bile dripped from Daniel’s chin with each dragging step he took toward her.

Regina didn’t run. 

Her hands stayed at her side, not raised to blast him back or burn him to ash or anything like that. Regina simply stepped forward, designer heels sinking into the dirt as her eyes welled up with nearly forty years of hidden tears. “Daniel…”

The monster stilled where he stood.

For a single breathless momnet, the rage that made up those pitch-black pupils seemed to recede, a confused flicker of recognition staring back at her. His grey hand rose slowly, fingers twitching as they reached for the soft curve of her pale cheek.

“R-R-R…”

She leaned in closer, mouth almost inching upwards into a smile.

“R-Regina!”

A hand gray as a tombstone snapped forward, Regina gasping and stumbling back as it wrapped tight around her slender throat — physically lifting and pinning her against the rough wood of the horse stall. 

Her hands twitched at her side — the terrifying strength she had known all week surging in her arms, screaming at her to fight Daniel with all the willpower she had. She held it back, though, forcing the magic down as she forced her limbs to stay loose.

“Daniel…” she choked out, carefully cultivated voice a breathless rattle. “Daniel, it’s me.” She looked past the decay, the darkening gray of the skin and the blackness in and around those eyes as she looked straight into the soul of the stable boy she had loved. “I’m so sorry f-for all this… I love you. I’ve always truly loved you.”

The grip shook.

Just enough for her to pull in a breath.

“R… Regina…” It was a voice like dead leaves scraping across stone but it might as well have been birdsong to her as his grip shook again. “Reg-Regina…”

“Daniel?”

Thick fingers continued to tremble, each one slowly uncurling from her neck as he staggered back, each step an awkward shamble into the dirt. Those dark eyes looked down at hands too grey to be human as if seeing them for the first time, broad shoulders shaking violently as a dry rasp escaped his throat.

“It… hurts, Regina. It hurts so much.” His jaw worked sluggishly around the syllables, Daniel clutching desperately at his own chest; right over the enchanted heart beneath his ribs. “The heart it burns. Everything else… is cold. I… I… I can’t…” His breath came in another slow rasp, more black blood dripping down his lips with each word. “Just… just let me… please, let me die.”

Her own heart might as well have shattered into a thousand tiny jagged pieces as she stepped forward, each step another crack in her own chest. Daniel, my Daniel… This new magic — this curse — was taking its toll; enough for her to see the horrifying transformation progressing before her own eyes. Dead skin deepened to a greater grey as it tightened over his skull, the dark depths swallowing the last remaining flecks of white in his eyes.

“I’m…” She licked her lips, eyes wet as tears fought her for freedom. 

Regina raised her right hand slow, mind and heart focused on one goal. At once, a chaotic twisting light — crimson as a fresh apple — coated her fingers, the smell of sweet apples fresh in the sour air of the stables. “I’m so sorry, my love.”

Five fingers met Daniel’s chest and she met no resistance.

Her hand tore through cold skin and the brittle cage of simple ribs to wrap tight around the foreign glowing heart that Whale in all his idiocy so carelessly stuffed inside him. It buzzed in her palm like a trapped hornet, heavy with magic of the most sacrificial and transactional kind, as she looked into Daniel’s black eyes. I’m so so sorry.

Face drenched in tears, Regina Mills gripped tight.

And squeezed.

Daniel’s body stiffened in front of her, mouth open in a gasp as the heart popped apart in her hand like an overripe fruit, magic bursting free.

That skeletal grin softened, blackness in his eyes fading to a calm grey one last time. “Thank… you…” 

Before the last breathless syllables could even fade, his physical form began to dissolve in front of her wet eyes, her one true love turning into a powdery black ash that slipped through Regina’s fingers and scattered into the damp cedar shavings.

“No… nooooo.” Her heels gave way, knees dropping hard to unforgiving dirt, Regina unable to hold herself together as hot tears fell free from her eyes. Hands stained in grey dust and black blood hung at her sides as the unflappable Evil Queen of Germonia let out a raw sob that tore from the very bottom of her lungs.

A small, warm weight suddenly wrapped around her shoulders.

Regina flinched, eyes snapping open through the tears to see Henry right there. Her son was kneeling in the dirt and hay beside her, small arms looped tight around her neck with his face buried into her stained jacket.

“It’s okay, Mom.” He held her tighter, childish grip anchoring her to the world as the sobs kept coming. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Regina pulled her son into her chest, burying her face in his dark hair, gripping him so tight she was terrified she might break him.

“I’ve got you.”