Beanstalker and Other Hilarious Scarytales

the bottom.

He landed in an unprincely lump on the tile floor. There, he found a cheery kitchen, a series of framed photos of Rapunzel and her fair Herr, and the door he hadn’t been bright enough to find.

Limping, he threw open the door and stumbled into the sunshine. As soon as he made it to the trees, a trio of soldiers on horses surrounded him. The one who always delivered his food, Willhelm, gently nudged him.

“It’s not fair!” the prince shouted, pointing toward the tower.

“Fair or not, you’re coming with us.”

“No!” the prince said. “The Herr! The Herr!”

“We’ll be careful with your hair,” Willhelm said, rolling his eyes at the others. One of the soldiers grabbed the prince and threw him onto his horse. (Feeling guilty for whacking him so thoroughly on the head, she had gone for help. Which was good, because we would have hated for her to be around when Rapunzel was looking for new food for her fair Herr.)

“Back to your own tower, Prince Charring,” Willhelm said.

The prince nodded, still dazed from his fall. Back to his own, safe, snakeless tower. “No Herr,” he whispered. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

Rapunzel leaned out her window, sighing. She looked at her fair Herr. He was her responsibility. And her stepmother was always nagging about responsibility. They were forbidden to leave the tower, but her poor snakey-poo had to eat!

And eat.

And eat.

And eat …

Let’s use one word here that has a single meaning we can all agree on: RUN!

Once upon a time in the next kingdom, several years before the prince learned the difference between fair hair and fair Herr, there lived a queen. There also lived a king, otherwise it would have been a queendom. But he isn’t important yet.

This queen wanted, more than anything, to have a baby. (Obviously she had not spent much time around babies. Anyone who has could tell you they’re pretty awful. They smell bad, they throw up a lot, and they cry instead of sleeping. But maybe she didn’t know this, or maybe she knew and just didn’t care.)

Every evening, she sat at her window and watched the bats fly across the pale twilight sky. Which was a weird hobby, but, being queen, she could do whatever she wanted.

This particular evening, a bat flapped to a frantic halt on her windowsill. Its tiny, furry ribs shuddered with breath. Although it was basically a fuzzy black rat with wings, the queen thought it was adorable. Cooing, she reached out to pet it.

It bit down with surprisingly sharp fangs on her finger.

“Ouch!” the queen shouted, scaring the bat away. She shook her hand, and two drops of ruby blood fell to the snowy-white lace of her skirt. “Oh, how beautiful,” she crooned with a dreamy sigh. This might be why the king isn’t in the story yet. The queen is pretty creepy. He probably spent most of his time hunting or riding or hiding in another part of the castle to avoid her.

“If only I could have a baby with skin as white as snow, hair as black as a bat, and lips as red as blood.”

Clasping her hands to her heart, she closed her eyes and wished with all her might that her dream would come true. And, deep within her, something fluttered like the tiny pulse of velvet bat wings.

All through the pregnancy, the queen had gotten thinner, paler, and sicker. She was too weak to leave her room. She only had enough energy to sew. One day, a servant caught her licking the blood away after she accidentally pricked her finger.

“For the baby,” she said with a dreamy sigh.

This is getting scary. Let’s skip ahead.

The baby was born, covered in blood. Babies are gross. You were warned.

She had pale, cold skin, fuzzy black hair, and perfect crimson lips. And instead of a gummy baby mouth, she had several tiny pearls of teeth. Sharp teeth.

“Snow White,” the queen named her. The midwife didn’t mind all the blood, because of Snow White’s hypnotic eyes. The servants didn’t mind cutting red meat into tiny, baby-size pieces, because she was so beautiful. The queen didn’t even mind that Snow White bit her with those sharp, pearly teeth when she wanted to eat. The queen was deliriously happy.

The king was happy, too, that his wife finally had what she wanted and would maybe be less creepy now.

And then the queen died.