Table of Contents
Other Anthologies by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
The Adult Fairy Tale Series
Snow White, Blood Red
Black Thorn, White Rose
Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears
Black Swan, White Raven
Silver Birch, Blood Moon
Black Heart, Ivory Bones
The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest
The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm
The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales
A Wolf at the Door
Swan Sister
Salon Fantastique
Sirens
The Years Best Fantasy and Horror, volumes 1-16
For Mom, who read me all the stories.
Ellen Datlow
To Ellens mom, because Im so glad she did!
Terri Windling
Introduction
Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
We love fairy tales. Not the simple, silly ones found in books for very young children, but the old fairy tales, which were dark, scary, magical, suspenseful, and thrilling, full of cruel stepmothers, malicious fairies, and flesh-eating ogres and giants. In the old fairy tales, no one sat crying in the cinders waiting for a prince to rescue themthey used quick wits and courage to find their own way to a happy ending.
In our two previous books for young readers (A Wolf at the Door and Swan Sister), we invited writers to go back to the older versions of fairy tales and retell them in fresh, unusual ways. For this book, however, we wanted something newso we asked our writers to take a long, hard look at fairy-tale villains. Witches, wizards, giants, trolls, ogres: whats the truth behind their stories? And are the fairy-tale heroes and heroines pitted against them quite as noble as they first appear? These questions are answered marvelously by the fifteen stories and poems that follow.
Wizards Apprentice
Delia Sherman
Theres an Evil Wizard living in Dahoe, Maine. It says so, on the sign hanging outside his shop:
Evil Wizard Books
Z. Smallbone, Prop.
His shop is also his house, which looks just like an Evil Wizards house ought to look. Its big and tumble-down, with a porch all around it and fancy carving on the eaves. It even has a tower in which a light glows balefully red at hours when an ordinary bookseller would be asleep. There are shelves and shelves of large, moldy-smelling, dusty leather books. Bats nest in its roof, and ravens and owls nest in the pines that huddle around it.
The cellar is home to a family of foxes.
And then theres the Evil Wizard himself. Zachariah Smallbone. I ask you, is that any kind of name for an ordinary bookseller? He even looks evil. His hair is an explosion of dirty gray; his beard is a yellow-white thicket; his eyes glitter behind little iron-rimmed glasses. He always wears an old-fashioned rusty-black coat and a top hat, furry with age and broken down on one side.
There are rumors about what he can do. He can turn people into animals, they say, and vice versa. He can give you fleas or cramps or make your house burn down. He can hex you into splitting your own foot in two instead of a log into kindling. He can kill with a word or a look, if he has a mind to.
Its no wonder, then, that the good people of Dahoe, Maine, make a practice of leaving Mr. Smallbone pretty much alone. Tourists, who dont know any better, occasionally go into his shop to look for bargains. They generally come out faster than they went in, and they never come back.
Every once in a blue moon, Mr. Smallbone employs an assistant. A scruffy-haired kid will appear one day, sweeping the porch, bringing in wood, feeding the chickens. And then, after a month or a year, hell disappear again. Some say Smallbone turns them into bats or ravens or owls or foxes, or boils their bones for his evil spells. Nobody knows and nobody asks. Its not like theyre local kids, with families people know and care about. They all come from away foreignCanada or Vermont or Massachusettsand they probably deserve whatever happens to them. If they were good boys, they wouldnt be working for an Evil Wizard, would they?
Well, it all depends what you call a good boy.
According to his uncle, Nick Chanticleer was anything but. According to his uncle, Nick Chanticleer was a waste of a bed and three meals a day: a sneak, a liar, a lazy good-for-nothing.
To give Nicks uncle his due, this was a fair description of Nicks behavior. But since Nicks uncle waled the tar out of him at least once a day and twice on Sundays no matter what, Nick couldnt see any reason to behave better. He stole hot dogs from the fridge because his uncle didnt feed him enough. He stole naps behind the woodpile because his uncle worked him too hard. He lied like a rug because sometimes he could fool his uncle into hitting someone else instead of him.
Whenever he saw the chance, he ran away.
He never got very far. For someone with such low opinion of Nicks character, his uncle was strangely set on keeping him around. Family should stick togetherwhich meant he needed Nick to do all the cooking. For a kid, Nick was a pretty good cook. Nicks uncle also liked having somebody around to bully. In any case, he always tracked Nick down and brought him back home.
On Nicks eleventh birthday, he ran away again. He made a bologna and Wonder Bread sandwich and wrapped it in a checked handkerchief. When his uncle was asleep, he let himself quietly out the back door and set out walking.
Nick walked all through the night, cutting through the woods and staying away from towns. At dawn, he stopped and ate half the bologna and Wonder Bread. At noon, he ate the rest. That afternoon, it began to snow.
By nightfall, Nick was freezing, soaked, and starving. Even when the moon rose, it was black dark under the trees, and full of strange rustlings and squeakings. Nick was about ready to cry from cold and fear and weariness when he saw a red light, high up and far away through the snow and bare branches.
Nick followed the light to a paved road and a mailbox and a wooden sign, its words half veiled with snow. Beyond the sign was a driveway and a big, shadowy house lurking among the pine trees. Nick stumbled up the porch steps and banged on the heavy front door with hands numb with cold. Nothing happened for what seemed a very long time. Then the door flew open with a shriek of unoiled hinges.
What do you want?
It was an old mans voice, crotchety and suspicious. Given a choice, Nick would have turned right around and gone somewhere else. As it was, Nick said, Something to eat and a place to rest. Im about frozen solid.
The old man peered at him, dark eyes glittering behind small round glasses. Can you read, boy?
What?
Are you deaf, or just stupid? Can you read?
Nick took in the old guys wild hair and wilder beard, his old-fashioned coat and his ridiculous top hat. None of these things made Nick willing to part with even a little piece of truth about himself. No. I cant.
You sure? The old man handed him a card. Take a look at this.
Nick took the card, turned it upside down and around, then handed it back to the old man with a shrug, very glad that hed lied to him.
The card said:
Evil Wizard Books
Zachariah Smallbone, Proprietor
