This is a guest post from J.C. Nelson on why fairytales have stood the test of time.
I drew much of my inspiration from the old
fairy tales while writing Free Agent, and one of the questions I kept asking
myself was “How is it that stories that are at least four hundred years old
find new life even today?”
I bought a book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales for
research. This book contained variant after variant of the fairy tales. Some of them differ only by a few words –
others have entirely different endings to the same story. And as I read, I realized that the themes I
saw in the stories are themes that remain relevant to this day:
- Blended families failing to blend. (Snow
White, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella.
- Unfair deals: (Rapunzel, Jack and the Bean
Stalk, Rumplestiltskin.)
- Perseverance, Faith or Virtue as a route to
happiness: (The Girl with No Arms, The Goose Girl)
- Desperate people driven to desperate
measures: (Hansel and Gretel, The Goose Girl)
I don’t know about you, but I know a lot of
blended families. The number of women or men that come prepackaged with
children is huge, and a blended family takes a ton of work. So even today we have mothers who favor,
consciously or unconsciously their own children over others. We have fathers
who come down soft on their own children.
Even today we have people who get a raw
deal in life and it’s the only deal they are offered.
Even today we know people who choose
happiness in the face of despair, people who get kicked in the teeth by life
and get back up, and people who hold faithful to partners through the worst of
times.
The magic changes. It becomes more
codified. Sometimes it becomes science
fiction, with nano-bots replacing fairies and genetic engineering taking the
place of wishing wells, but the message remains the same:
- You can beat death.
- You can survive unfair circumstances.
- You can thrive in the midst of the cesspool
that often is life.
- And somewhere out there, there’s a happy
ending for you, too.
I think more than anything, that’s what
people who love fairy tales want to hear.
That evil can be beaten, and people with more power stand up for the
weak, even when it means facing giants, fairies and murderous creatures. That those who hold on and hold out can
outlast evil and live happily, if not ever after.
That’s going to be popular forever.
When it comes to crafting
happily-ever-afters, the Agency is the best in the land of Kingdom. The Fairy
Godfather Grimm can solve any problem—from eliminating imps to finding prince
charming—as long as you can pay the price…
Working for Grimm isn’t Marissa Locks’s dream job. But when your parents trade
you to a Fairy Godfather for a miracle, you don’t have many career options. To
pay off her parents’ debt and earn her freedom, Marissa must do whatever Grimm
asks, no matter what fairy-tale fiasco she’s called on to deal with.
Setting up a second-rate princess with a first-class prince is just another day
at the office. But when the matchmaking goes wrong, Marissa and Grimm find
themselves in a bigger magical muddle than ever before. Not only has the prince
gone missing, but the Fae are gearing up to attack Kingdom, and a new Fairy
Godmother is sniffing around Grimm’s turf, threatening Marissa with the one
thing she can’t resist: her heart’s wishes.
Now Marissa will have to take on Fairies, Fae, dragons, and princesses to save
the realm—or give up any hope of ever getting her happy ending…
A
Texas transplant to the Pacific Northwest, JC Nelson lives with a family and a
flock of chickens near rainy Seattle.
Fins JC Nelson:
Buy
Free Agent Now:
Sample
Chapter:
One
The New Year’s Eve countdown told
me I had five minutes until the ball drop. That gave me six minutes until
somebody got killed. I spotted the shoplifter in line at the theater and worked
my way across the street, through the teeming crowd. She had no idea what she
was wearing, which made her both stupid and dangerous. Stupid was dangerous
enough by itself.
“Marissa, I might remind you of
the time,” said a man’s voice. It came right out of the store window beside me,
the dry voice with its not-quite-English accent. He watched me with critical eyes.
“I got it, Grimm.” I walked along
the theater line, head down.
His image followed me, reflecting
from the windows and even the brass banister knobs that held the velvet rope.
“I’ll believe that when you actually do.”
Call it women’s intuition, or
maybe the slippers she wore tipped her off, but the shoplifter turned and
looked right at me. Our eyes met, and she knew why I was there, if not who I
was. As the crowd surged forward, she ducked into the theater, disappearing
into the throng.
“God Damsel-it.” I spat out the
faint taste of soap. “Doesn’t count, not a real curse.”
“Watch your language, young lady.
Only proper women live happily ever after. Now, go get those slippers back.”
Grimm appeared in the ticket window, beckoning me on.
If I had enough Glitter to buy a
happily ever after, I wouldn’t have spent all day chasing a thief. There were
easier ways to make a living, and definitely safer ways.
I breathed in the warm lobby air,
laced with enough butter, fat, and salt to make me gain a couple of pounds just
from walking through.
The ticket man watched me as I
approached, jiggling my leg. “I’ve got to go. Could you save my spot in line?”
He rolled his eyes, the apex of
teenage angst, and motioned me past. I’d been to my fair share of balls and
knew where I’d go if I had a pair of shoes that were killing my feet. I headed
straight to the bathroom. Nobody in the prep area, but I listened. There, soft
sobbing, and the click of high heels on ceramic.
“The slippers won’t come off like
that.” I hoped I wasn’t talking to a Grandma, but the sobbing cut off.
Grimm coalesced into the mirrored
wall, his white hair framing the bald spot on his head. He looked at me over
horn-rimmed glasses that masked eyebrows like a yeti’s. “Marissa, two minutes.”
If I’d had something handy, I’d
have thrown it at the mirror. In the name of not having a magical disaster, I
decided to commit the cardinal sin of the ladies room. I tried the stall door.
As my hand touched it, the door burst open, hitting me in the face. Pain made
the world flash white. I put my hand to my nose and felt the blood as she
dashed out of the restroom. Grimm told me the shoes were enchanted, but the
fact that she could run in three-inch heels meant serious magic. Now I knew I
had the right girl. In the lobby, the fire alarms wailed as I came out of the
bathroom, and I caught a glimpse of her running out. I charged after her,
through the fire exit and into the alley.
I wasn’t afraid of your average
dark alley. I had standard Agency-issue spells in my coat and a nine millimeter
in my purse for dealing with the less dangerous pests, but even I knew you have
to be careful with an upset woman.
She pulled at her feet and limped
down the alley. “I’m not giving them back.”
No way was she going to outrun
me. Tennis shoes might not be the height of fashion, but I wore them for their
practicality. I slipped a bag out of my pocket. “This will let me take them
off. You can’t remove them because you stole them.”
She stumbled, then slumped
against the wall, her feet out in front of her. Passing taillights made the
glass slippers glisten, moving and shifting, like something alive. That made
sense, since Grimm said they were. The glass filled with red, like she’d cut
her toe. The bloodstain spread up the sides of the glass and she began to
gurgle and cry.
I pulled out my pocket compact.
“Grimm, I might have a problem.”
“Tell me you have them.”
“Just about.”
“Get out of there, Marissa. She’s
not going to turn into a pumpkin.” His voice was firm and commanding. I’d never
been the type to listen to firm or commanding. See, there was this thing about
magic slippers. Use them with permission, and at midnight the whole deal
expired. Steal them from a custom boutique on Fifth, and at midnight turning
into a vegetable was the least of your worries.
She curled into a ball, kicking,
growling, and making noises I’d never heard outside of the labor and delivery
room. Running through the theater was out; heading back in there would
introduce a whole load of teens to a different kind of monster than the movie
ones. The loading bays down at the end of the alley didn’t look too promising,
and now Princess PMS rose to her feet. The bloodred stains covered her from
head to toe. Shadows covered her face, but where the orange wash of the street
lights hit her she looked maroon.
“You want to let me help you?” I
asked. The growling noise she made ruled out diplomacy. “Okay, we do it my
way.”
She leaped at me. I’d mastered
seven different forms of self-defense and I wore all four of the major
protection charms, but one thing was constant: Whether my assailant was a drug
addict or a bridge troll, pepper spray would leave them blind. So I ducked out
of the way and gave her a dash of the scent I was sampling that day. It hit her
like a brick, leaving her clawing at her eyes. I realized as she stumbled past
that her nails were now at least three inches long and razor sharp.
She started sniffing the air,
then like a dog, she ran straight into me, knocking me back to the Dumpster.
Dumpsters hurt. I caught her arm before she could give me surprise plastic
surgery and slammed her into the ground, pinning her underneath me.
That should have ended it, but
she rolled over, throwing me to the side, and I barely stepped out of the way
of those nails. She kicked at me and I caught her foot.
“Gotcha,” I said, rubbing the
shoes with the bag. Grimm said the bag was made of genuine werewolf fur, but
whatever it was, the effect was immediate. She thrashed and choked and kicked
and I held on tight until she went limp. The slippers came off in my hand
without a fight.
They glimmered under the
streetlight, and for a moment I saw an image form in them: Me, walking down the
street in them. No Agency bracelet on my wrist, a bag from shopping in my hand.
I could be free, if only I put them on.
“Marissa,” said Grimm, speaking
from the reflection in the shoes, “put them in the bag.”
I did, and the fantasy blew away
like dry leaves down the sidewalk. My back hurt where I’d hit the Dumpster. My
arm throbbed where she’d grabbed me, and my cheek had that hot feeling that
said somewhere in her thrashing, she’d managed to nail me with a foot.
“I’m going home,” I said to my
compact mirror. “What do you want me to do with her?”
“Leave her for the police.
They’ll be there shortly. Evangeline needs your assistance on the Upper East
Side, and there’s the matter of a troll.”
“I’m going home.” I knew full
well he’d heard me the first time.
“I’ve got work for you, Marissa,
and if you are ever to get your own ever after—”
“The only after I’m interested in
right now is after a bottle of wine and after a long night’s sleep. I’ll see
you when I’m ready for work.”
“Marissa, you need to ask
yourself what you want more: A night’s sleep, or another job.”
I wiped a trace of blood off my
lip, took a look at my bruises in the compact. Everything about me ached and
the cold seeped out of the shadows into my bones. I put my hand on the bracelet
and made my decision. “Tell Evangeline I’m on my way.” Nights like this made me
wish I’d never gotten started in this business.
