Free Once Upon a Time: The Villains by Shea Berkley

do.” His eyes slid from me to the door and back. His arm darted out and he snatched his rat back and began tearing into it. I crawled further back on my pallet, no softer than the one at home, and huddled under the thin blanket. I closed my eyes and wished fervently to waken from this grotesque nightmare. No such wish was granted me. Though I had closed my eyes, I could still hear them ripping into the rats. My stomach knotted and rolled. I was sure to be sick if they didn’t stop soon.
    I closed my eyes tighter and pretended I was with the kind man. His equally fat wife liked me, and they both showed me a table groaning with food. “Eat,” she’d say.
    “Tuck in,” he’d encourage. And they would both laugh good-naturedly as I ate my fill. Soon, I fell asleep.
    It is surprising how long a person can live without sustenance. Deprivation of food leads to the oddest behavior. I became sullen and spiteful. Barely two days into my training, and I refused to walk. I screamed for my mother, that most heartless of women. Even she was better than this hell I had descended into. After only a week, I became sick. Very sick. I began to hallucinate. Old people chased me. The other children pinched me. Everyone walloped me. I’d hit back. I’d scratch and cry.
    I fell deeper into my mind until reality was only a dream. I thought myself a princess in a castle. My every desire granted instantly…until the rats came. Then I was given a broom and told to kill the nasty creatures. Whack, whack, whack. I went after them with gusto, but they never died. Crying, I collapsed in a corner and hid under my royal robes. A terrible scurrying assaulted my ears. I peeked out and saw that the rats had brooms and were stalking me. I cried harder. Begged for escape, for rescue…for wings. As I huddled there, my arms grew light, and feathers appeared.
    Once again my desires were granted. A thrill of salvation zinged through me. I leapt into the air and beat my fledgling wings. I could fly. And fly I did — away from this rat house and into the heavens.
    A rare smile graced my face, and I opened my eyes. Odd. I was flying, yet Korb’s ugly face loomed over me. He actually looked concerned as he whispered to a shadow next to him. “I paid eight pieces for her. She can’t die. Not yet.”
    “How fast a proud man falls,” rasped the hovering shadow, “when faced with a dilemma he can’t control.”
    His jaw tightened, and he leaned closer to the shadow, his whisper harsh and just as threatening, “Don’t play the lady with me. You’re just as dirty as the rats I kill.”
    “Don’t you mean they kill, Korb? Without the children, you’d be less than nothing yourself.”
    The tall man snorted. “Good hunters are hard to find these days. I just trained this bunch and they’re already inching toward the sky. And this one,” he said nodding my way, “she had potential, but she’s proven stubborn.”
    “A good beating will cure her of that, they say,” the woman offered.
    He snorted his agreement, but shook his head. “If she hadn’t come along, I would have had to steal me one.”
    “A trick that comes naturally to you.”
    “You’re one to speak of natural. What you do is unnatural, but I’m willing to give it a go.”
    “Even if it’ll damn your soul?”
    He rocked back on his heels and laughed. “At least I’ll be warm.”
    “I should’ve never said anything to a man like you.”
    “Knowledge is power, or so you say. Just think what the villagers would do if they were to find out about your special hobby?”
    The silence that followed grew deadly cold, and finally her voice rasped, “So be it.” The shadow shifted and the face of a beautiful young woman came into view. She dug through a bag and brought forth a piece of paper, which had been folded into a small square. “I’ve translated the spell for you. It’s complicated. It will take you weeks to learn.”
    She was a witch? I must be dreaming. The woman looked