Fairly Twisted Tales for a Horribly Ever After
On the day after Corbin’s sixteenth birthday, Father gave him a new apple and a crust of hard bread, handed him his dead mother’s sword, and sent him north to Beastly Manor.
“You knew this day would come,” Father said, kissing Corbin on one cheek, and then the other, while Corbin’s golden-haired sisters hung in the doorway and cried. “It’s a pact I cannot break. For the sake of your sister, you must go.”
Corbin nodded. He was too old to cry, and the sword had been his best companion for the last decade.
“I’m ready, Father,” he said. He hesitated, then gave his father one last, hard hug. “I’m more than ready. I’ll bring you his head, and free Belle from your bargain.”
Father was too old to cry, also. But he wiped tears from his face as he nodded.
“Good lad,” he said, turning and ushering Corbin’s sisters back into the family cottage. “God go with you.
Excerpt From: REUTS Publications. “Fairly Twisted Tales for a Horribly Ever After.”
When it comes to fairy tales, there are plenty of things that go bump in the night. Things so morbid and grotesque, so sinister and diabolical, they haunt your imagination; warnings from generations past that still manage to terrify.
In 2013, authors came together for the annual Project REUTSway writing competition, penning their own interpretive twists on stories we’re all familiar with. Seventeen were chosen, bringing twenty-five new versions to life. From The Brother’s Grimm, to Hans Christian Andersen and beyond, these tales are not the ones you grew up with. They are, however, Fairly Twisted Tales for a Horribly Ever After. Dare to find out what happens when “once upon a time” ends in the stuff of nightmares?
A REUTS Publications anthology featuring Corbin and the Beast