Ugly: A Faerie Tale Retold

Chapter One: Thisbe

Trigger Warning: Child abuse (in this and future chapters)

Once upon a time, the noblest man the world has ever known was alive.

All my memories of Father are filled with sunshine and delight. He wasn't quite wealthy, but I never wanted for anything, and I loved him more than anything else in the world. 

Every story you've ever heard has undoubtedly left him out. Authors are quick to talk about Ella's handsome, kind father and his unfortunate fate, but they neglect to remind you that in order for the stepmother to be a widow, she must have had a husband.

When I reach back into the farthest corners of my memory, I find an image. But it's more than an image, because an essence surrounds it-- an aroma of peace and sadness. In this memory, the oldest memory I have, I'm sitting on my father's lap, crying. 

"Mother called me ugly again," I say, leaning my head against his chest. "She says she doesn't like to see my face."

Father strokes my hair. "Mother doesn't know what beauty is."

"She loves Claudette more than me."

Father doesn't say anything, so I listen to his heartbeat, the most comforting sound I know. This sound is strong within the memory. I can still hear it echoing through my ears. Beneath my head, his chest fills with air, but it seems to quiver a little when he lets his breath out.

"Father, why is Claudette so much more beautiful than me?" I reach up and touched his cheek. It is wet.

"No one is more beautiful than my Thisbe," he says.

And the memory ends-- merely a glimpse into a beautiful past, hardly enough to hold onto, but strong nonetheless.

I was six when that memory was made. 

Ten years later I knelt beside a mound of ugly dirt in the middle of a green churchyard, and buried my fingers in the freshly-overturned soil because it made me feel closer to Father.

"Get your hands out of that filth!" Mother grabbed my braid and jerked me away.

I tumbled backward, clods of dirt still in my fists.

"Get in the carriage, Thisbe. We're going home."

I lifted my head. "But they just finished the ceremony. It can't be time to leave yet."

"Can't be time? What on earth are you talking about, you fool? There is no time! We must be home for the wake. Goodness, what a lot of money this whole affair is costing!" She fixed her hat.

I wanted to throw dirt at her like a child. But it never did any good to let my feelings show. I lowered my face so she wouldn't see my clenched jaw. "I'm not leaving yet."

She held up her hands to the sky. "What can I do with such a defiant child? You can walk, then. Come along, Claudette, dear. A pity your sister can't be more like you!" Mother's skirts rustled behind me as she climbed into the carriage, and it rattled away.

I patted my fistfuls of dirt back onto the grave, my tears making dark spots in the soil. "I'm alone now, Father. What am I supposed to do?"

Birds whistled in the trees like all was well with the world. I threw a rock at the nearest tree, just to spite them, but their din only increased.

I rubbed my eyes and got dirt in them, bringing fresh tears. "How can anything be happy when you're gone? How can I ever be happy again? There's no one in the whole earth who loves me. Not one person on this planet thinks I'm anything more than an ugly wretch."

Beautiful Thisbe. No one would ever call me that again. In the village, peasants would stare as always, and children would hide their eyes from me as always, and I would never have the consolation of knowing that at home, Father was waiting and would call me beautiful Thisbe, his own beautiful Thisbe.