A Grimm Tale

A Story by Emily

After a terrible experience, Lucy Galin finds a different way to look at life. Rewrite of "The Frog Prince" by the Grimm brothers, with different themes.

“What troubles you, child?”

The voice startled her from her thoughts. Somehow, scared, confused, and crying, she had wandered into a church. A ghastly-looking man in a cassock, with the telling white collar of a Catholic priest, was standing before her. He looked genuinely concerned. “What’s wrong,” he asked again.

“I… I’ve lost my way.”

The man smiled at her and said, “You would be surprised at how often I hear that. Come, have a seat. Tell me your name, and I’ll find where you live.”

“Thank you.”

As she sat down in a pew on the front row, she answered the unasked question. “My name is Lucy Galin. I’ve only lived here for about a month now, with my friend Daisy Shaw and I don’t really know my way around yet.”

“I understand. The city can be a confusing place for those who don’t know their way around. You can call me Father Patrick.”

Father Patrick wasn’t necessarily the most ugly person Lucy had ever met, but he wasn’t good-looking by any measures. He was probably in his late twenties or early thirties, with short-cut brown hair and blue eyes. It looked like his nose had been broken a few times, though, and he had a couple moles right underneath his chin. It was off-putting, to say the least.

He found Daisy’s name in the phonebook and smiled. “Ah, you live on the other side of town, Lucy. I don’t know how you wound up all the way out here. The Lord must be looking out for you.”

“He doesn’t seem to be doing that very often,” Lucy said. She hadn’t had the best luck in the past few years. After getting an Associate's degree from her hometown community college in journalism, she had moved to Sacramento in hopes of finding a job. A month ago, she moved to San Diego with the same dream. As of yet, she was jobless.

“I wouldn’t count Him out yet, child. If you believe, everything seems to come a bit easier.”

“I’m sure it does, but I’m not all that interested at the moment.” Lucy didn’t want to say that she didn’t really believe in God, but she didn’t think she would get out of this any other way.

“Well, how about we make a deal.” Father Patrick stood up, having written the address down, and approached Lucy at the pew. “I’ll drive you home, and you come back on Sunday with no obligations. If you like what you hear, you’re free to come back, but we won’t make you.”

“That sounds fair… I guess.” She didn’t want to, but the priest was going out of his way to help her. He had more than earned a chance to convert her.

The ride, in a black F-250, was fairly quiet, though Father Patrick continually hummed hymns to himself. Lucy had decided that the man was just abnormally happy, and couldn’t be helped.

“Thanks again,” she said as he pulled up to the house that she and a roommate rented from the man across the street. “I don’t know if I could have gotten back on my own.”

“I’m sure you would have eventually made it, child,” the priest smiled at her, one of those knowing smiles that makes you shiver inside. “God wouldn’t have let you wander too long.”

“God. Right.”

“Are you going to be able to find your way back to the church? If not, I can write down the address for you.”

“I think I can find my way back,” she smiled back at him, wishing he would just leave. He’d almost infected her already, what with the unnatural cheerfulness, and she didn’t want that.

“I’ll see you on Sunday, then.”

“Yeah.”

* * *

“Time for church!” Daisy, Lucy’s roommate, was in much too good a mood for this time of morning.

“What time is it?” Lucy asked groggily, turning over in her bed to look at the clock. “Seven? Give me just a bit more time.”

“I know you, Lucy. If you don’t get up now, we aren’t gonna be going.”

“Then let’s just not go. I’ll go to bed earlier next week,” came Lucy’s half-asleep reply.

“You promised that man you’d go.”

“So what? He helped me home. Good for him, I’d have done the same. But I don’t see why I should go and listen to him preach about his God to me? People have been trying to convert me to this religion or that for my entire life, and I’m f*****g sick of it, so leave me alone.”

“Oh,” Daisy said, sounding less sure of herself than usual. “Of course. Okay, then. I can go on my own.” Lucy, through her closed eyes, could imagine the other woman’s fake smile as she walked out.

“Pick something up for lunch afterwards, will ya?” And Lucy went back to sleep.

* * *

Lucy woke up the next time at 10:23. She could feel the tears coming on, the regret at not having gone to church with her best friend. “I shouldn’t be worth the trouble,” she grumbled to herself.

They were out of coffee. As Lucy stood there looking at it, in a tank top and pajama pants, she broke down. Funny how something so small could trigger something so large.

Her boyfriend had broken up with her last month. Her boyfriend of three years had broken up with her last month. Because of another woman, he had left her, the woman who loved him. She had moved in with Daisy, into this little house.

As she sat there crying, Lucy considered again the option of suicide. She was in the kitchen… it would be easy enough. There were electrical appliances, a sink, knives… it was suicide central. Before now, she’d only thought of it once. Instead of killing herself, the woman had always settled for cutting.

She wore long-sleeved shirts when there were people around because of the scars on her arms. She wouldn’t go to the beach because of the scars on her legs. Was it really worth going on if the only things that made her feel better kept her from having a good time in life?

No, it wasn’t. She would go through with it this time. She would stop hiding behind petty excuses. If the thoughts were going to plague her forever, then why not go through with it?

A knife. There was a knife sitting on the counter right there. It would be easy, Lucy thought to herself. Just a slice across a wrist, and she’d be done. It’d be over, and she’d be at peace. Finally.

Peace. That was what was driving her. An escape from this world and all the s**t in it that she couldn’t take anymore. All the things out there that she had dealt with. Life. It wasn’t worth living anymore.

What was any of this worth? As she looked at the knife in her right hand, looked at her reflection in the shiny metal, the woman thought that question to herself. There wasn’t a point. There was nothing after this life. Nothing to strive for, nothing to live for. Why?

The blood accompanied the stinging pain. It would be described as a sting, of course, because it was a sharp surface splitting the skin apart. Lucy watched it. Watched as her blood dripped from her wrist onto the floor, spattering the white tiles with its red stain. She felt bad for Daisy, who would find her and have to clean it all up. But there was no going back now.

It was finally going to be over.

She could feel herself fading out of consciousness. It was an odd feeling. The word ethereal came to her mind. Like when giving blood, Lucy felt colder. Blacking out was the oddest part. A hallucination passed in front of her eyes. She saw Father Patrick step into the room, walk toward her with his arms open, as if he were going to embrace her. She didn’t remember losing consciousness, didn’t remember hitting the floor.

Didn’t know when it was over…

* * *

“What troubles you, child?”

Lucy opened her eyes, finding herself in a white bed with a large amount of bandaging around her wrist. Around her was the sterile atmosphere that can only be applied to a hospital. Father Patrick was sitting beside the bed, reading a newspaper. He wasn’t looking at her, but he was speaking to her. “What troubles you enough that you would take your own life?”

“What are you doing here?” Lucy asked with a tone of confusion. She didn’t understand why the good priest was with her in the hospital. “And how did I get here?”

“It was Father Patrick,” Daisy said from the other side of the bed. “When he was asking for prayer requests, I brought you up.”

The woman looked a bit sheepish about that. “I knew you’d been going through a lot lately, and I’ve been concerned. Anyway, when I brought it up, he seemed to perk up, and ran out the door. Another man took the pew-”

“Father May,” the priest said.

“Yes, Father May, and started preaching, as if this happened all the time. Anyway, Father Patrick called me after church, saying he’d found you unconscious at the house. He told me what room you were in here and has sat here beside you ever since, even once I got here. The doctors said you were on the limit of how much blood you can lose without dying… he was just in time to save you.”

That was when Lucy saw the dried blood on Father Patrick’s clerical shirt. “It wasn’t a hallucination, then,” she said.

“No,” the priest replied. “I got there as you fainted, and caught you before you hit the floor. I tried to use my hand to stop the bleeding, but I eventually had to take off my shirt and keep it tightly wrapped around your wrist. By the time the paramedics arrived, my shirt was drenched. Luckily, I had this shirt in my truck.”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” the man replied honestly, smiling reassuringly. “When you were brought up at the church, I got a feeling that something was urgently wrong. I got to your house as quickly as I could. I told you, Lucy. God’s watching out for you.”

Lucy didn’t reply. She couldn’t reply.

“Maybe,” the man continued, “you should consider coming to church next week. And really consider it this time.”

“Yes,” she replied, finally finding her voice. “I think I’ll be there.”