Week 2 Story: Beauty Fights back

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl named Mary. Her family had fallen upon difficult times, and her parents were hardly able to feed the other five children. Mary felt that something must be done. She scoured the town for a job. She searched for a kind soul who would pity her. Perhaps someone would allow her to be a governess, or a maid! But everywhere she turned, the door was shut in her face.

Hopeless, Mary’s search took her into the woods. She didn’t know what she could possibly find, but she pressed on nonetheless. She soon came upon a garden. It looked as if it had been recently tended to, though nothing was nearby. In the center of the garden where someone might expect a tree or a statue, there was a large patch of red roses. Mary hadn’t seen something so beautiful in so long that she fell to her knees and began weeping. 

Source: pxhere

“If I took one home, maybe the world would seem a bit brighter.” She grasped the largest rose, and felt a pain come into her ring finger. A drop of blood fell from her finger onto the ground. Mary hardly thought anything of it, and began to walk away.

She did not get far before she heard something rumbling behind her. She turned. Right at the spot where her blood had touched the ground, the earth was shaking, turning to liquid, burning a fiery red. Suddenly, a basilisk shot out from the earth, and straight into to the sky. Before it could land right in front of her, she turned around to avoid being left dead on the spot by its lethal eyes.

“You are so beautiful,” the basilisk whispered. “What is your name?”

Mary wondered if basilisks could tell if someone was lying. “Sarah.”

“What a lovely name,” he said. “I haven’t seen nor spoken to anyone in so long. Especially not one so pretty. Sarah, what are you doing out here in the woods alone?”

“I was searching for a way to help my family. We are left in poverty, and my brothers and sisters are dying of starvation.”

“You are so kind, Sarah. So loving. I know a way you can help your family.”

“How?”

“The rose you hold in your hand. Take it back to your family. It will turn to pure gold, but only once you come back here, and enter the garden.”

“Once I come back here, will I ever be able to leave?” Mary asked, her knees shaking.

“You will be my wife, and I cannot risk you leaving me. If you ever try to leave me, I would have to kill you. I would rather you be dead than living without me.”

Mary turned, but still averted her eyes. “How can I be with a husband I cannot even look at? How can I be with someone if his fangs could cut my throat? I will return and be your wife, but only if I can truly be with you.”

“Oh yes, please! tell me what I must do!”

“Remove your fangs and eyes. That way we can truly be together. But make sure you do it before I come back. That way, I can see my betrothed as soon as I enter the garden.”

The basilisk promised to do this, and Mary started her long journey back. She decided she could not tell her family, for she couldn’t risk the possibility that they would want to come with her, or would not allow her to go. This was her fight. If anything went wrong, she didn’t want her family to suffer. She left the rose on the family’s hearth, and left to go back to the garden.

She entered the garden to find the basilisk curled around a rock. He appeared to be shaking with pain.

“My love," she called out cautiously. "Have you done what I asked?”

“Oh yes, I have! Now we can be together.” He slowly began to rise. Before he could rise to his full height, and before she had to look at the empty pockets where his eyes used to sit, she pulled out the kitchen knife hidden in her skirts and stabbed him where she believed his heart to be. He cried out in agony, but didn’t appear to be losing his grip on life. She began to stab frantically, all over his scaly body. He lay on the ground, barely exhaling a shaky breath.

“Why?” he whispered.

“You may claim to love me, but I love my freedom much more.” She walked away from the cursed garden to celebrate with her family, never to return to the site of her murder.

Author's Note: This story is based off of two different stories (which I don't know if that is allowed/encouraged, but oh well). I combined The Lion in Love and the basilisk version retelling of Beauty and the Beast. In The Lion in Love, parents tell a lion he can marry their daughter if he removes his claws and teeth. So when they say no to him, he can't hurt them. In the Beauty and the Beast story, a parent takes rose from a beast (in this case, a basilisk). For stealing, the daughter must go live with a beast. I combined the two stories, but also empowered the daughter character. In this version, she is not at the mercy of her parents' decisions, the beast's orders, or anyone else. She is an active heroine, and saves herself. 

Bibliography: Story source: These fables all come from The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894). Story source: The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922).