4A/N: I'm back! Here we get into the fairytale's original plot a bit, so I hope it's a bit more interesting for everyone. The way I'm pacing this so far, I'm imagining this will probably be around 5-6 chapters total. It might be too long for a novella, but it won't be a novel of epic proportions.
So, sit back, read and enjoy. Oh, and if you like what you see, please review! If you have constructive feedback, please review! I don't know how to improve the story if I don't hear from my readers, so pretty pretty please take two minutes to sign in, review, and submit. Thanks!
II
The next few weeks passed in a flurry of activity, and during that time, neither Krista nor Matthew breathed a word about the kiss. Krista imagined that Matthew had been too drunk to remember it, and as they were now on better terms, she saw no reason to discuss it. They were, after all, a married couple, despite their lack of physical intimacy in the past several months. Besides, with the business of moving to the Scottish cottage, Krista soon forgot about the kiss entirely.
They packed up their few belongings, Krista gave her two weeks' notice, and before she could blink, they were riding in a cab across England, into Scotland toward their cottage on the east coast, located between Arbroath and Montrose. It was a shabby little thing, its paint weathered grey from the salty spray, and its roof caving in on one side. Nonetheless, Matthew clapped Krista on the back, paid the cab driver, and after grabbing their few possessions, steered her into their new home.
If the outside had been charming, the inside was frightful. The floor was made of creaky old wood with spots of rotting, the whitewash was peeling from the walls, and the whole place smelled of mothballs. Add to that the watercloset, which was an outdoor lavatory, and the bedroom, with its full-size bed and its broken door, and Krista wanted to cry. At least the electricity worked (though the lights flickered), and the kitchen appliances appeared functional. But to think, they could have had a nice two-bedroom flat!
"Well, it's not much, but it's ours," Matthew said, a gleam of pride in his voice. "It's all ours. And I was told there was a garden out back, Kristy. Let's go see." Tugging at her wrist, he led her out the door and around to the back of the shack. There she saw some hard, light brown soil and a few dead vines underneath the crust of frost.
"How lovely," muttered Krista. Matthew smiled at her, and so she quelled the anger she could feel rising in her chest. She cleared her throat. "How much do we have to pay for utilities out here?"
Matthew shrugged. "Dunno. I didn't ask the bloke when I won the place. It can't be much, though, can it?"
Snorting, Krista folded her arms and walked back into the house.
OOO
As spring approached, Krista and Matthew settled into their new life. With their remaining funds, he bought fishing equipment, and she bought a hoe, a rake, and several packages of seeds. It was challenging work, turning the spot behind the shack into a garden, but it got Krista out of the decrepit place at the very least. Outside, she could pretend that things were better, even though the fruits of her labor were dirty, calloused hands and a few small green sprouts.
Meanwhile, Matthew spent his days fishing. He wasn't very good at it, only catching a couple fish a week, so Krista began looking for nearby work. She did her neighbors' washing and cleaning, and a local tavern hired her as a barmaid. It was a dingy place with several drunk men hitting on her every night, but it helped them pay for their groceries and electricity. There was even a little left over, so Krista began storing her earnings in her bra, a place where Matthew would never find them, vowing to fix the massive leak in the roof. Or add on a true bathroom. Or fix the bedroom door. These dreams kept her sane.
One day, Matthew returned home, empty-handed. Krista was sitting at the kitchen table, the wooden chair beneath her rocking slightly side to side. She was mending a skirt that she wore regularly to the tavern when he walked in, a slight frown on his face. "Didn't catch anything today?" she asked sardonically, still sewing. She only had a few hours before her shift, and the hole in this skirt was pretty large.
"Actually, I did," he said, and Krista looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
"Where's the fish, then?" she asked. "Did you clean it and gut it already?"
Matthew hesitated. "No, I released it back into the sea. He... I mean, it said it was under an enchantment."
Krista held the needle in her left hand, pausing between her stitches. "The fish that you caught said it was under an enchantment," she said slowly. Rolling her eyes, she continued sewing. "That's really not amusing, Mattie."
"No, I'm serious!" Matthew said. "The fish said he was an Egyptian prince who was cursed nearly two thousand years ago, and the witch turned him into a fish. He offered to grant me a wish, but I told him 'no, thank you, kind fish sir,' and I released him. He was ever so grateful."
Slamming her sewing on the table, Krista glared at her husband. "Matthew, that's enough! Day in and day out for the last four months, I have cooked and cleaned and worked my arse off so that you can live your dream as a fisherman-something you do horribly by the way-and I have kept my mouth shut. Every night, drunk men flirt with me and try to snog me, but I figure it's all worth it because one day my husband and I will be happy in a brilliant little seaside cottage. But, no, you have to shove all my work in my face with these barmy lies, telling me about this magic fish who will grant us a wish.
"You can tell this blasted fish," she said, now stabbing the needle through the skirt, "that I want to live in a nice little cottage with a functional roof, an indoor bathroom, and oh, wait, a garden that actually grows vegetables! Can you do that one little thing, Matthew? Or should I take care of that as well, since I do everything else around here?"
Matthew was silent, and Krista could see, from her spot at the table, that his hands-in fists at his sides-were white and trembling. "As you wish," he spat, and he left their little shack, slamming the door behind him.
OOO
When Krista returned home from work that night, she thought she must have made a wrong turn somewhere. In front of her, where her pathetic, falling-apart shack should have been, stood a sturdy cottage with a little stoop and even a porch light. Gripping her keys tightly (she had mace on the ring, after all), Krista walked up the steps to the little stoop and knocked on the door. After a moment, the door opened and Matthew stood there in his pajamas, staring at her.
"Well, are you going to come in or not?" he asked, rubbing at his eyes. "It's well after two, you know." He yawned and stretched up. Krista rolled her eyes.
"This isn't our house, so I don't know what you're doing in here," she said. "Grab your clothes and let's go."
"What?" Matthew looked truly confused. "Of course it's our house. I talked to the fish, and he gave us a cottage."
"This is mad," Krista said. "I must be dreaming."
"Well, if you are," he said with another yawn, "so am I." And without another word, he walked back into the house, presumably to the bedroom, leaving Krista to stare from the porch through the open doorway.
After another moment, tiredness overcame her, and despite her wariness and her confusion, Krista stepped into the strange home, closed the door-and in the darkness, she found the bedroom and joined her husband in a very comfortable, very luxurious bed. She'd barely kicked off her heels and tossed her black mini-skirt on the floor before she fell asleep, dreaming of talking fish wearing crowns and holding court.
OOO
The next morning, Krista awoke to the sensation of bright sunlight. Groaning, she turned over in the bed and clamped her eyes shut, covering them with the covers. Still, after a few minutes, she realized that sleep would only continue to evade her, so with a sigh (and another groan), she pushed back the covers, pulled herself out of bed and stretched. What she saw when she opened her eyes, caused Krista to freeze.
"What in the bloody hell?" she breathed.
The bedroom in which she was sitting was not the one that she'd slept in the past few months. Instead of the lumpy, full-sized bed with a stained quilt, she sat on a lush king-sized bed with a thick, beige duvet. The bedstead was made of iron, and there was room on either side of the bed as though the room had expanded. The walls were a soft beige as well, and they looked smooth and even, no trace of any peeling. It was all a mirage, Krista decided, but she stood up and padded out of the bedroom into the kitchen.
It was the kitchen of her dreams. Expansive granite countertops were against the walls on two sides, and there was even an island. A large bay window was on the east wall, and gentle white light flowed through it, making a puddle on beautiful, varnished, not-rotting hardwood floors. She was dreaming. She had to be.
Once she was able to close her mouth and stop staring, Krista went through the rest of the house. There was a small master bathroom with a toilet, glass shower, and double sinks; a quaint porch on the back of the house with a loveseat and French doors leading out to the garden; a small second bedroom with a queen-sized bed, television, and attached half-bath. All of it was beautiful. Just so beautiful.
But as Krista was searching through the house, she saw no trace of Matthew-not even a note explaining that he'd left the house early to go fishing. With a sigh, Krista returned to the master bedroom, made the bed, and then heading once more to the kitchen, began preparing breakfast for one.
OOO
The days passed, and though Krista and Matthew were living in a new, more beautiful house, not much had changed. Matthew rarely caught a fish for them to eat or sell, and Krista left the house at seven every night except Mondays for her six-hour shift. The tension in the house was so thick that they hardly talked, and during the day, Krista spent all her time planting and pruning and weeding to avoid the emptiness of the house.
The garden was finally starting to produce results. Although the tomato plants and the bell peppers were still small, the soybeans were growing well. It was mid-May now, and Krista enjoyed being in the garden. She even began planting flowers and trees, edging the house with beautiful landscaping. Matthew never said a word about it, but sometimes she'd see him lingering outside the house, taking in the fragrant roses and the dainty lilies, or pinching a green tomato off the vine and popping it into his mouth. She always replaced the sheer curtain and resumed her sewing before he stepped into the house, though. She knew if he suspected she had been spying on him, he would kick off his boots, turn on the television, and sleep in the guest room. After he grumbled about a lack of privacy, that is.
One night, while they were eating dinner, the silence suddenly became too much for Krista, and she threw down her fork and slammed her fist against the table.
"I can't stand this anymore, Matthew. We're married, for the love of the Queen. Why don't we talk anymore? And heaven forbid we'd sleep in the same bed for more than a couple nights a week. And bloody hell, I can't remember the last time we..." Krista trailed off, looking at her husband. He was looking back at her, his eyes tired.
"You know, this isn't exactly what I had in mind, either," Matthew said, glancing back at his food again. He began sawing through his chicken. "I thought I'd be a wealthy banker, living in the West End with a wife and kids, traveling throughout Europe on the weekends. But this is our life. Accept it."
"Accept it?" Krista thundered, grabbing her half-empty bowl and utensils. She dragged her dishes over to the sink and threw them in, not even wincing when the china broke. "Accept it? Matthew, this is our marriage. Our fucking marriage, and all you can say is accept it? We were married four years ago-not twenty, not fifty-and you made a promise to love and cherish me for the rest of our lives, or have you already forgotten?"
He stared at her for a long moment, not answering. "I need some scotch," he said finally, standing up, but before he reached the pantry, Krista slapped him across the face, hard.
"You are such a wanker!" she screamed. "I asked you a simple question, and you can't even answer me without alcohol. Who are you?"
"Krista..."
"I have fought so hard for us! I have worked two jobs for the last couple years, and I even moved out here-I left my two perfectly good jobs-just for you. I thought-"
"What, that I'd be grateful?" Matthew asked, an angry undertone in his voice. "Well, I would be, if you would stop shoving my failures in my face! Every time I don't bring a fish home, you roll your eyes to the ceiling, and I can see what you're thinking: 'This is what I moved out here for? To be the wife of a fisher who can't even provide for us?' And the fact that you're able to get a job, that you're the one bringing home money... well, it makes me feel like shit."
"Oh, get your head out of your arse, Matthew, and let go of your bloody pride. Just because you graduated from Oxford-"
"Graduated at the top of my class at Oxford-"
"-doesn't give you any more right to earn a living than it does me. And if you can't work a normal job, then I have to!"
"See? This is exactly the kind of thing that I mean! You only loved me because I was successful, because I was going places. Now that I'm not, you resent me."
"I do. I admit that. But you know why I resent you?" she spat."Because you're my husband and rather than putting work into this marriage, you're letting it crumble, not bothering to pick up the shards and fit them back together again.
She slapped him across the face, harder than the first time. "That's for being a complete wanker to your wife!" Then a third time, even harder. "And that's for kissing me and not having the bloody balls to confront me about it the next day!" she screeched, storming to the bedroom and slamming the door behind her. Even when she heard splintering wood shouted obscenities, Krista stayed in the room with the door locked.
Late that night, and for the third time that week, Krista laid in bed alone and sobbed herself to sleep.