A Wolf at the Door: and Other Retold Fairy Tales

Introduction

by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow

The stories in this book are based on classic fairy tales—but probably not the way you’ve ever heard fairy tales before. Most people think that fairy tales are stories meant for very young children, but hundreds of years ago tales of magic were loved by folks of all ages. The fairy tales we all know today—like Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, and all the rest—used to be darker, stranger, and more complex, until this century. Then they were turned into children’s tales, banished to the nursery (as J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings once pointed out) like furniture adults have grown tired of and no longer want. The stories were changed and simplified when they were rewritten for very young readers. And it’s these sweet and simple versions that most of us know today.

But if you go back to the older versions, you’ll see why people both old and young liked to gather before the hearth fire and listen to these marvelous stories on long, cold winter evenings. Fairy tales were scarier then, and the heroes and heroines were more interesting. Cinderella, for instance, was a smart, feisty, angry girl in the oldest versions of the story (dating back all the way to ninth-century China), not the helpless dreamer who has to be saved by a prince, as we know her today. Happy endings were not guaranteed. Red Riding Hood was gobbled up by the wolf, Rapunzel’s lover was blinded by the witch, and the Little Mermaid died when her fickle prince took a human wife. The old fairy tales, like all the best stories, were filled with all the dark and bright, all the failures and triumphs, that life has to offer. No wonder our ancestors have loved them for hundreds and hundreds of years.

All of the writers in this book loved fairy tales when they were young, and they didn’t stop loving and reading them even when they grew to adulthood. Each writer has taken a favorite tale and made a brand-new story from it—stories full of strangeness, humor, dark magic, and wonder.

These are tales to lead you into the Dark Woods, where witches live and animals talk and magic appears when you least expect it. And here are a few standard words of advice when you enter that enchanted forest: Be kind to old women on the path (they may be fairies in disguise). Use magic wishes carefully (you’ll get exactly what you wish for). Don’t eat the food the fairies offer (it will trap you in their realm forever). And be sure to leave a trail of stones to find your way home again. . . .

If you’d like to know more about fairy tales, here are three good collections: Spells of Enchantment, edited by Jack Zipes; Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen, edited by Angela Carter; and Favorite Folk Tales From Around the World, edited by Jane Yolen. On the Internet, check out these Websites: Legends, The Endicott Studio and SurLaLune.

The Months of Manhattan

by Delia Sherman

Liz Wallach was a pretty good kid. She mostly did her homework on time and pretty much got along with her father and was usually polite to her girlfriends. She wasn’t perfect, by any means. She had been known to lie about brushing her teeth and she couldn’t for the life of her tell her left from her right. But for a ten-year-old, she wasn’t bad.

Liz lived with her father in a big apartment on the Upper West Side of New York City. Sometimes she went to stay with her mother in San Francisco or her grandmother on Cape Cod. She liked school. Things were good.

Then Beth Dodson came into her life.

Beth Dodson was the daughter of one of Dad’s girlfriends. When the girlfriend became Liz’s stepmother, Liz and Beth became stepsisters. Liz was ready to be happy about this. She’d always wanted a sister, and she kind of liked it that their real names were the same: Elizabeth.

But Beth had been perfectly happy being an only child, and she didn’t like it at all that they had the same name. That was only one of the things she didn’t like. She didn’t like school and she didn’t like Chinese food and she didn’t like New York. It was big and noisy and dirty, and there were too many people living in it.

Maybe she’s shy, said Liz’s father hopefully. Maybe she’ll get over it.

But Beth had no intention of getting over hating New York, or anything else. She whined constantly: about having to walk three blocks to the bus stop, about having ballet lessons at Mme. Demipointe’s École de Danse.

She fought with her mother, and wouldn’t speak to Liz or her stepfather except to say that she wished she were still living in New Rochelle with her daddy and playing soccer on Wednesday afternoons.

Things weren’t so good anymore.

It was November, just before Thanksgiving vacation, when Liz got a special history assignment. She had to go to the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and look at the furniture and write a paper about it.

Liz’s stepmother said, I can take you while Bethy’s in ballet class. You’ll have to be quick, though. Mme. Demipointe hates to be kept waiting.

By the time Liz and her stepmother dropped Beth off at Mme. Demipointe’s and got to the museum, it was about 3:00 P.M. Liz’s stepmother paid for two admissions, went to the restaurant, sat down at a little round table, and took a magazine out of her bag.

Aren’t you coming with me? Liz asked.

It’s your assignment, said her stepmother. It’s better if you do it yourself. And remember, we have to be at Madame’s by four-thirty.

But I don’t know where—

I don’t either, said her stepmother. Ask.

By the time Liz found a guard who wasn’t busy with someone else, ten minutes of her hour were gone. Then she turned left instead of right in the Medieval Treasury and got lost, and asked another guard and got lost again. Precious minutes ticked away as she walked through rooms of paintings and statues.

Finally, at 3:45, she walked up a flight of stairs and through a glass door, and found herself in a small, dark room with nothing in it but a big, bright picture.

Wherever she was, it wasn’t the American Wing.

Liz wasn’t much of a crier as a general rule, but this was too much. Even if she started back now and didn’t get lost once, she’d be late, and her stepmother would be madder than a taxi driver in a traffic jam and her assignment still wouldn’t be done. I must be just about the unluckiest person in the world, she wailed.

Whatsa matter, kid?

The voice was friendly, with a heavy Bronx accent. Liz wiped her face on her sleeve and looked around for a guard, but she was alone.

The painting caught her eye.

It showed the statue of Atlas at Rockefeller Center with twelve people standing and sitting around it. They were all ages, from a very little girl in a snowsuit with cat ears to an old man in a wheelchair, and all the races Liz had ever heard of, except maybe Native American. They were wearing all kinds of different clothes, too, from a little Hispanic boy in snow boots and a ski jacket to a young, white guy in Bermuda shorts. A pretty African-American woman in a sundress opened her painted lips and said, What is it, honey? Maybe we can help.

Liz’s heart started to beat very fast. She was startled, but not frightened. She’d read lots of books in which things like this happened. I’m lost, she said.

We also, said a Pakistani boy in baggy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. But you have found us.

Liz thought about this. Would you like me to tell the guard you’re here?

The old man in the wheelchair laughed. He was pale and thin as a china cup, but his laugh was warm and strong. No. Thank you. We prefer to be found by chance.

Oh, Liz said, and glanced at her watch: 3:40. She’d thought it was later.

What time of year is it? The question came from an Asian girl about Liz’s age, dressed in a red slicker and boots and flowered mittens.

November, said Liz.

I hate November, the girl said, and stuck out her tongue at an old African-American woman leaning on a cane.

It’s not so bad, said Liz. There’s Thanksgiving and hot apple cider, and we get to go to Grandma’s. And then it’s almost December, and that means Christmas and I can go sledding in Central Park with Dad. She remembered Beth and sighed. If he still wants to.

January, though, remarked a middle-aged Latino man in an embroidered short-sleeved shirt. January is very terrible.

And February, and March, added a skinny, unshaven man dressed in layers and layers of brown jackets.

I kind of like February and March, Liz said. I like getting cold and wet and then coming in and getting warm and looking at the lights out the window. It’s easier to go to school in winter, too. You don’t want to be outdoors so much, unless it’s snowing, of course.

Of course, said a woman with a prayer shawl around her shoulders. But April, you know what they say about April, no? April is the cruelest month, that’s what they say.

April showers bring May flowers, said Liz. Besides, I like mud and the way it smells.

Even in Central Park? asked an old Hispanic woman with a cane.

Especially in Central Park.

And the summer? asked a teenage girl with her hair in a million little braids and flowers painted on her nails.

Oh, summer is neat, said Liz. May and June can be hard because I want to be outside all the time and there’s still school, but it smells so good and the days are getting longer and there’s summer vacation coming and we go to Cape Cod, and that’s the best.

So you must hate the fall, said a little African-American boy in a very big parka.

Not really, said Liz. I miss my friends over the summer, and there’s my birthday in October, and I love the leaves turning all red and gold and— she stopped suddenly. Listen. This is way cool, but I’m really late, and my stepmother is going to kill me. I really have to go.

I think we can take care of that for you, said the young guy in shorts. Can’t we, September?

The woman smoothed her prayer shawl. I think we should, June. And the history assignment as well. She caught sight of Liz’s face and laughed kindly. We can’t do it for you—that wouldn’t be kosher. But we can give you the time to do it in. And directions to the American Wing.

Bye-bye, said the little girl in the snowsuit. Good luck.

And they were gone.

Oh, there was still a painting on the wall, but it was just a big canvas with bright blobs on it that only looked like people if you