Beastly Beauty

Sixty-Seven

All the fairy-tale girls are liars.

Do you think it’s the wolf Red Riding Hood is so afraid of? That’s just a lie she tells her mother to avoid a beating. It’s her own heart that terrifies her. It’s her longing to talk to a silver-tongued stranger, her wild desire to follow him into the woods.

It isn’t the evil queen who frightens Snow White. Or the forest. That’s just what she says to the seven kindly men so they’ll take her in. It’s a belief, gnawing deep inside her like a cancer, that she has no choice but to accept the poison she’s offered.

Cinderella tells the worst lies of all. Informing her stepmother, her stepsisters, lords and ladies, and anyone who will listen all about her happy ending. Smiling until her face aches. What she never tells anyone is just how badly those glass slippers hurt. How they dig bloody grooves into her heels and crush her toes. How they keep her from running. From stamping and kicking. How all she can do now is walk. How all she will ever do, for the rest of her life, is walk—slowly, sedately, and two steps behind.

If you want to know a person, don’t ask to hear their truth.

Listen to their lies.