After Ever After

Trust No One

“How long will you be gone, Goliath?”

“I’m not sure, brother. I have to fight some Israelites, but surely it won’t take long. Those little imps don’t stand a chance against me! Fee fi fo fum!” The eldest of the two, Goliath, laughed as he slapped his brother in the back hard.

“Why do I have to guard your castle while you’re gone? Why do you keep saying ‘fee fi fo fum’? It sounds ridiculous,” Anton, the younger brother of the giants asked.

“Because those tiny humans are thieves! Scoundrels! Who knows, maybe they’ll try to steal my treasure while I’m not around.  That chant you called ‘ridiculous’? It scares them. You should see how stupid they look, running away in fear,” Goliath chuckled at the thought.

He grabbed the knapsack he put his things in and started to walk for the door. “Well, I’m off. Trust no one. When I come back and see one thing not in place…” his large brown eyes slowly turned into an intimidating glare. “You’ll have to pay for it, Anton. And I don’t mean gold; I’ve already got a lot of those.”

Goliath gave his brother one last smirk and slammed the door shut, making Anton jump from both fear and surprise.

~*~

It’s been two days since Goliath left, and Anton was bored. He’s already explored every nook and cranny of his brother’s castle and all that was left for him to do was have a staring contest with Goliath’s pet, the gold-laying chicken. He wished something exciting and fun would happen. What Anton didn’t expect though was his wish coming true so soon.

“Whoa…” his head quickly turned to his left, where he heard an unfamiliar voice.

What most people didn’t know about giants is that they have extremely good hearing. And Anton wasn’t supposed to be hearing somebody else’s voice in the castle except for his. There was an intruder in the castle.

He slowly walked towards the table he heard the sound from, trying to be as quiet as possible. Stealth was one of the things Anton was good at, which was pretty rare for giants. He made his way to the table and found a small creature the size of the cup he was standing beside. It was a human.

Remembering what his brother said before, he took a deep breath and with all his might, he shouted. “FEE FI FO FUM!”

Anton smiled, feeling quite satisfied with himself and looked down at the human. The human was staring back up at him, only seeming a bit startled. Anton’s forehead scrunched in confusion.

Wasn’t he supposed to be running away by now?

“What in the name of my mother’s cow was that?” the human chuckled. “FEE FI FO FUM!” he teased.

“Y-you’re not scared?”

“Why would I be scared? You don’t seem mean. You actually look kind of funny. Your nostrils are as big as my house!” the human exclaimed.

Anton still felt confused. His brother always said that humans where ugly, stupid thieves. This human didn’t look any different from him, and he looked smart. He doesn’t even look like a thief.  He actually seems… nice.

Since he was a kid, Goliath scared all the other giants away from them. He never had a single friend. Anton looked back at the small human in front of him. Could this be the chance he was hoping for?

“How’d you get up here?” he asked the human calmly, trying to hide his excitement at the possibility of this boy being his first friend.

The boy, whose name Anton later found out was Jack, told the giant his story about a cow, his mother, some beans and a giant beanstalk. “So, out of curiosity, I checked this place out,” Jack finished.

The boy looked innocent, and Anton could tell that he was saying the truth. Smiling widely, he let out his hand and gently placed it in front of Jack. “You want me to give you a tour around this palace?” Jack smiled back at him and jumped on his hand.

~*~

Jack came up the beanstalk every day after that. He and Anton would go around the castle, exploring every bit of the large palace. Anton showed Jack everything from the humongous throne room to the messy kitchen. The latter would listen attentively to everything the giant would say about the palace.

“That’s about it, I think. I showed you every room in Goliath’s castle,” Anton said, smiling down at the boy sitting on his palm.

Jack looked around the room until his eyes landed on a peculiar door. It was black, compared to the brown doors they have seen around the place. He pointed at the door and looked up at the giant. “We haven’t checked that one. What’s in it?” Jack asked.

Anton scratched his head, doubt evidently clear on his face. “Well, Goliath told me not to let anyone in there—”

“But I’m your friend so you’ll let me, right?” Jack urged.

The giant looked at the human on his palm who looked hopeful. He had his hands clasped together in some sort of praying position and he mouthed ‘please’ now and then. With a sigh, Anton walked to the door and pushed it open.

The room wasn’t as big as the other ones they’ve been in, but it was surely the most breathtaking. Gold was found in almost every corner. There was a bookcase filled with gold books, baskets filled with citrine colored eggs. A gold dagger was hanging atop a majestic fireplace and beside that, a gold harp.

“When is your brother coming home again, Anton?” Jack whispered, jumping from his hand and landing on a fluffy red down pillow.

“Goliath? He said he should be home soon, but I’m not so sure now. I’m afraid you’d have to hide when he comes back, though. He’s a little stiff around humans,” Anton answered, pulling out a book called Daybreak from the bookcase.

“Whoa, a harp! Can I try playing on it?” Jack exclaimed running to the golden harp. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You see, most of my brother’s things have some kind of enchantment on them so we best leave them alone.”

“It’ll be fine! Come on, this is fun!” he was about to play a string when a loud ruckus made both of them jump. They turned their heads to find the baskets overturned, eggs rolling everywhere. From behind the baskets emerged a small white hen, clucking and jumping about.

“That scared me! For a second, I thought that was Goliath. I’m pretty sure he won’t be happy about this mess though,” Anton bent over to pick up some of the eggs, oblivious to the fact that Jack’s eyes widened as he saw the chicken walk over to him.

“Anton… your brother owns a chicken that lays gold eggs right? Is this the one?”

“Oh yeah.  Funny how he’s human sized, huh? His name’s P— Wait. I never told you about the hen. How’d you know that?”

Anton quickly whipped his head but found that he was too late. Jack’s hand was positioned by the strings of the harp with the hen by his feet and a smirk on his face. “Sleep tight, Anton,” he said in a sing song voice and ran his hands through the strings.

He tried to run to Jack and stop him, catch the human boy’s nimble body with his large meaty fingers, but he felt himself slowly losing control of his body. His vision blurred and the last thing he saw was Jack carrying the hen and walking out of the black door, not even bothering to look back at the fainting giant.

Goliath was right. Humans were not to be trusted.HoHH