A Fairy Godmother's Wish for Herself by M. Weigel
"It is with a heavy heart that I surrender my wand."
To Whom It May Concern:
It is with a heavy heart that I surrender my wand.
(“I wish.” “No, not now. I can’t respond anymore.”)
I have been a fairy godmother for two thousand years now. I earned all of the certificates in wish granting. I have taken additional classes on mindful curses, gentle character assessment, encouragement of the hopeless, etc., and I never would have guessed that I would ever end up here, surrendering my capacity for magic. My wand, once full of glitter, is somber and ugly now. The luster wore off long ago.
(“I wish.” “Of course. Let me grab my wand.”)
When I started, granting wishes was easy. I’d disguise myself as a dewy old lady and wait to see who offered a bit of bread or a kind word. Back then our interventions did not need to be as dramatic. A kind word to the right villager meant everyone told ole Mike to shush when the King approached. He’d say that his daughter could spin even straw into gold ten minutes later and a young man who valued spinning would marry the miller’s daughter the next season. No one had to be imprisoned. No odd deals. Just shushing a proud dad who wanted to see his eldest daughter find a good husband.
(“I wish.” “On my way.”)
All of the tales were like that. The Beast had a birthmark, and he asked a man who regularly stole his roses to work off the debt. The man fixed up the stables and the garden, and his daughter brought him lunch. She was gentle with animals and sang sweetly. Her first born inherited the birthmark and a local bard invented a story that the heirs to the land were born carrying the signs of their innate heroism.
(“I wish.” “Gladly.”)
A word here, a gesture there. We were constantly busy making a difference. Most of the stories were small. A girl who looked eerily like her mother would badger her father until he remarried. She would help design dresses for her future stepmother who would see a gown that looked like the sun and moon and stars and feel welcomed and loved. The new wife would give her new daughter an expensive and beloved mirror. The mirror had an inhabitant who offered advice, helping the girl run her new home. Everyone knew the queen was fair, and she did not need to constantly hear that she was worthy based on her looks.
(“I wish to go to the ball.” “You will look great in gold.”)
Big displays of power were considered wasteful. Magic ran out at midnight so that a prince would see a girl he might easily overlook. When he did not care about his lover being covered in ashes, her entire family prospered, and the desperate stepmother soon treated all eight of the children in the household well.
(“I wish.” “Could I have a minute to myself?”)
But just as power corrupts and kings start to believe they are gods, the ones who make the rules started to think that we spent too much time chatting with peasants and not really working. They said we were being too generous with our magic. So, we had to look for the virtuous who met set criteria. They had to already be good or clearly in peril. Just offering a bit of food was no longer enough.
(“I wish.” “Keep trying. I can’t help yet. You are almost there.”)
This change hurt. Before, a rivalry between sisters could end with each one smiling, married to royal brothers. A word in a servant’s ear and a king would not ignore his eldest or youngest sons. The boys who did not know fear got jobs loading boxes, but now we had to let them get cast out. It was even better if we let them go hungry for a few nights before we appeared.
(“I wish for food.” “I know child, but all I can offer is a dream of food and making your stomach hurt less.”)
We also had to tend twice the number of supplicants each. Thus, sometimes that boy starved a bit not because we weren’t watching but because we lost three days taking the enchantment off a mirror. It was supposed to help advise a queen, not label the appearance of every woman in the kingdom.
(“I wish to be beautiful.” “I’m not granting that one. You do not want to be the fairest in the land at thirteen.”)
We stopped being everywhere at once. Sometimes we arrived breathless and late to find a furious stepdaughter had stolen a dress and had already gone dancing, but other times, we found a girl sitting at the hearth and weeping. More of our magic went into cleaning up the latter and convincing her to go dance. Her stepmother was also meaner now. The girl had starved as her stepsisters had grown plump. That girl forgave her sisters reluctantly. We routinely talked despairing supplicants down before they traded their voices or made deals with devils, but we couldn’t be fast enough to stop ole Mike, and now his daughter was imprisoned. We spent a year researching names and saved her child, but she was never the same carefree girl after marrying into royalty. When grumpy and tired fathers asked why their daughters were not spinning enough to catch a king, young women in her village began to hate all handcrafts.
(“I wish to rest.” “Look, can you help? We’ll be three women: one with a distorted foot, one with a distorted lip, and one with a distorted thumb. The girl will never have to spin again. I know it is disrespectful, but what else can we do?”)
We adapted. We made do, but soon the experts demanded that we prove that we had helped enough. Supplicants were complaining that their wishes were going unheard. We spun in circles to make silver gowns and seven league boots, but it was never enough.
(“I wish to go home.” “Who lets their son climb in a sleigh with a random woman?”)
Worse, families started assuming we would always be there to save and aid their worthy children. They sent girls with baskets into the woods and encouraged them to talk to wolves. My friend, Parsnip, had a wolf skin cloak from saving so many girls, but when she diverted yet another huntsman to cut out a girl and her grandmother from the wolf’s stomach, she didn’t see that a story spiraled out of control. When a man steals rampion for his wife, the annoyed witch is supposed to become the girl’s godmother and help educate her; instead, the witch took the child and was already drawing up plans for a future tower.
(“I wish I didn’t have to write up an analysis on why that witch locked up the girl and how all of us failed the girl. Why are we evaluated on the mistakes of others?”)
We all got messages about being negligent and not being mindful of our supplicants’ needs after the witch locked the girl away. Mind you, twenty girls in red cloaks were not dead, but everyone just expected that as part of our duties. Rescues were just part of the job. We were told that keeping up was the reality of the godmother. We all read books on how different cultures wish to make sure we did not miss anyone, and we had training on how to spot a desperate prince to avoid losing as many as we could to the new briar hedges that started surrounding sleeping maidens. We helped girls learn to eat with their new silver hands and helped young women wear dresses of animal skins to escape their fathers’ lust. No one listened to us when we wanted the fathers prosecuted since they claimed we would not exist if the maidens did not wish.
(“I wish I was not in a wolf’s stomach.” “Child, so do we. Where is the nearest huntsman?”)
The stories got darker, but still we endured. Then, the supplicants changed. Gone were the lost soldiers and girls who had nothing better to do than dance. When a horrible young man got aggressive with a maiden, I turned him into a frog until he could learn to be gentle. My supervisor wrote me up for not fully considering the young man’s perspective and the hardships of living in a pond. I stood my ground. Magically escaping predators is better than rape.
(“I wish I was not a frog.” “Tough. You earned that curse.”)
Our assignments came too fast and too often. Stepmothers became cruel. They started fearing their children, and their punishments became worse. We had to start offering workshops on removing shards of ice from sleeping maidens with extremely pale skin. The higher ups gave us dwarves to protect particularly traumatized supplicants, but that meant training them in how to help calm a girl who knows her mother wants to murder her and devour her heart.
(“I wish my mother did not hate me.” “There are no words. Try to sleep.”)
When the princes started being blinded as they fled a Rapunzel’s tower, we were told that we were not doing good enough. No prince should be blinded while seeking love, but no one asked us about preventing maidens from being locked in towers.
(“I wish they would stop seeing girls in towers as ideal lovers. At least bring a ladder for the girl.” “Quiet. Do you want another speaker on finding our inner magic being?”)
Again, the supplicants weakened. We would arrive to find listless Cinderellas who did not want to go to the ball. They were so terrified of the world that we had to magic them into their gowns and coaches and cause them to lose their slippers. They would marry and seem happy, which was all my superiors wanted. It seemed cruel to tell a starving, bruised girl that she had to prove herself worthy of help, but anyone caught sending helpful doves or talking frogs had to explain themselves in copious reports.
(“I wish I could leave.” “You know the door is unlocked, right? There is a bag of coins sitting to your right. Just go. Why are you waiting for a ball?” “Because it is easier.”)
The superiors did not seem to care that more maidens than ever were covered in furs and running away from terrifying fathers. We would dress as a flower seller and tell a girl to run between confirming if Jack had finally climbed up the beanstalk. It meant that we definitely could not always help childless couples wish for an infant the size of their thumbs. Crying maidens gave up and sold their voices and then turned into sea foam, but as long as the survivors spoke of the value of their fairy tales, all was well. Their satisfaction and assessment of virtue was enough for those who supplied our magic.
(“I wish I had not sold my voice.” “That ship has sailed. Let’s work on healing your feet.”)
More magic and more energy became required. Jacks lacked the strength to climb, Rapunzels needed netting to prevent them from throwing themselves from their towers, and the Beasts needed to stop holding women captive until threatening suicide in lieu of a proposal. None of us liked these new stories, but we could not do anything to stop them.
(“I wish more of them were kind. Do you remember how we looked for signs of gentleness, not just being summoned?” “One demanded to speak with my supervisor.”)
Some of my colleagues turned to malicious compliance. They gave every girl in a tower an enchanted spoon and taught them to dig themselves free. It saved a few, but no one would talk about the princes starting to accost sleeping maidens and how the dwarfs were finding maidens who had been victimized by huntsmen.
(“I wish I didn’t have to give them enchanted cutlery but at least they are alive.”)
Just tonight I have been told that my last Cinderella is unhappy that she had to wear blue in her ball photos. Never mind that I found her shaking and covered in blood. Never mind that the pink gown she wanted would not have turned the prince’s head, and never mind that Cinderellas who stay at home die of despair. Instead, I am at fault for saving a girl in a less optimal way.
(“I wish my gown was not blue.” “You have a gown, and I have less magic than ever. Just go dance.”)
My superiors recommend that I learn more about salvation styles to offer more individualized wish-granting while also saying that I need to use less magic. They were not happy that I told a mermaid to get a life last year and sent her to a convent school instead of to a beach. She has a degree and did not turn into sea foam, but that is not enough now.
(“I wish a different life for me, one where I don’t grant wishes. Wait. What did I just say?”)
I can’t do this anymore. I can’t find another maiden face down in a lake because her donkey skin cloak caught on the reeds. I can’t keep from sneaking food to a boy until he learns what fear is. Isn’t learning that no one cares about him bad enough? I cannot keep telling captive maidens that they will learn to love the man who imprisoned them.
No more. I must wish for something better for me.
(“I wish.” No, no more wishes. I must save myself now.)
Here is my wand. How about you see what it is like to grant wishes? You can start with mine by setting me free.
Sincerely,
An exhausted and heart sick fairy godmother
M. Weigel retells myths and fairy tales and explores science fiction, fantasy, and horror. When not writing, she researches stories in their oldest forms to see how they survive and transform into today’s tales. Her work can be found in The World of Myth Magazine, Partially Shy Literary Magazine, Litmora Literary Magazine, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, Carmina Magazine, and Pickled Press Poetry. She can be found online as @Peronelle2014 on Twitter, @Peronelle@mas.to on Mastodon, and @peronelle.bsky.social at Bluesky.