Frightful Fairy Tales Read Free Page B

herself with her collapsible fan and searched the ground for shining stones or hematite to add to her collection.
     
    Ivy was a striking girl and her name suited her perfectly. She had green sparkling eyes the color of ivy, long dark hair that hung in tendrils like ivy, and like her leafy namesake, she was very curious and loved to wander and explore away from her home.
     
    She particularly liked to meander about the forest and on the beach looking for shiny prizes. For Ivy admired the jewels and beads in notion stores and in shop windows, but because she was just a young farm girl who lived with her mother, she could not acquire them. Thus she used the stones she found on her beachcombing journeys in handcrafted jewelry and embroidery she created herself. In fact, as she wandered through the woods, Ivy wore a plain farm-girl dress that she had embroidered with leaves and ivy made of hematite.
     
    Everyone thought Ivy was very clever because she could make something out of nothing. On this fine June day, Ivy’s search led her to the Black River. It ran cold and strangely still. The water was clear but it was so deep that it appeared black. Many people had wandered near this river never to return, and Ivy’s mother often warned her, “Beware of the Black River! It looks still and calm, but the dark tide pools can pull you under. Swans on the river have been heard to talk, and at night people have seen strange patterns of light illuminating the depths underwater.” Ivy knew all this, but it did not stop her-she had a habit of going where people told her not to go.
     
    Ivy wandered near the bank, hypnotized by the hum of dragonflies and other insects in the otherwise still air. Water lilies floated on the surface, slowly moving in a senseless circular dance downstream. The narcissus flowers lining the water bent to kiss their reflections, forming arches through which the lilies passed.
     

    The sunlight glimmered and played on the water, making millions of diamonds, but something else caught Ivy’s attention. There at her feet was a golden ring, the likes of which she had never seen before. The filigree was carved so intricately it was impossible to conceive that a human had wrought it. If she squinted, Ivy could read the tiny words on the inside of the ring: “Property of POBR.” What could it mean? She knew no one named Pobr.
     
    Ivy slipped on the ring immediately, and to her sheer delight, it perfectly fit the pointing finger on her right hand. When she held her hand aloft to admire her lovely new bauble, she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to plunge herself into the river. Her hand with the ring pointed, against her will, toward the swirling black waters of the river. Ivy tried to remove the ring but it would not come off her finger-it was as if the ring were part of her body, as if it had formed there while she was still in the womb. Every time she resisted, the ring yanked and jerked at her more strongly. She began to feel like a fish on the end of a fishing line-except that she was being pulled into the water, not out.
     

    The girl resisted until she lost all strength. Wearily, she let her extended hand pull her forward into the Black River. She took a deep breath, and the chilly water rose up and consumed her as she fell headfirst into the blackness. Downward, ever downward into the depths of the river the ring pulled her, and her heart beat faster and faster in her breast so that she could hear it pounding in her ears. Her clothing, once flowing and light, was now wet and heavy. It clung to her limbs, binding her and pulling her downward. Ivy tried to kick off her shoes, but she only managed to get one shoe loose. Tiny bubbles rushed past her as she sank but otherwise she saw only blackness.
     
    Ivy thought of her beloved mother and of the tragedy of drowning at such a young age, when suddenly a large bubble rising from below popped against her face with a puff of air. She gratefully breathed in the