The Call of the Briar
- Jan 31, 2025
- 3 min read
by Diane D. Gillette
The massacre wasn’t planned. Not exactly anyway. But it got lonely only coming out of our rooms to dance with future husbands whose hands couldn’t tell the difference between the smalls of our backs and the rounded curve of our rears. It got tiresome trying to make conversation only to be told to keep our opinions to ourselves. Perhaps if we’d been allowed to talk to someone other than each other, we might not have heard the call of the briar.
The briar grew from the tears of our oldest sister. It sprouted around the castle the night a visiting king took more than a caress from her. He left her broken and bleeding. Whispers through the briar fed our rage. Whispers turned to shouts the day it was announced that our sister would be wrapped in lace and presented to the king as a lifelong playmate.
On our sister’s wedding day, we dropped our bouquets and took up any sharp object we could find. They became extensions of us as we buried them in the bodies of those who betrayed us. The kitchen girls brought their knives, our lady’s maids took up nail files and sewing shears. We’d been surrounded by weapons our entire lives. The briar guided our hands and at the end of the day, the dead outnumbered the living. Several bodies burned. Our sister’s betrothed died with a spindle to the heart. We rejoiced.
We buried our dead in the late winter garden. The briar grew higher, thicker, and sharper than it should have that summer. Covered in delicate pink blooms, it hid the thorns that made passage into our sanctuary impossible. It called to us to prick our fingers, tasting our jubilance and growing with abandon.
The wind carried away a tale about a curse. We couldn’t risk anyone wandering in to find us alone and feral in our bloodstained finery, belching after dinner, practicing archery, and sharpening our axes, our swords, our kitchen knives. We employed our embroidery skills to turn duvets into britches. We danced only when we desired, leading each other in dances of our own design. We shook our breasts and stretched our limbs and discovered what our bodies could do without corsets. We became each other’s lovers, learning the pleasure of a softer touch given with tender consent.
But then one of us (or maybe all of us; some of us anyway) wondered if it might not be fun to have a prince around. Or maybe the briar asked why we sharpened weapons, if we were never to use them. So, we sent a message on the winds about a beautiful princess, asleep among the briar thorns. We didn’t say anything about a kiss. We want to make that clear. That was always the princes’ idea. It baffled us that they were all stricken with the same thought upon seeing an unconscious woman alone in an abandoned castle.
The first prince pressed his lips to our sister’s lips, only to find a dagger pressed against his throat. Dozens of other sharp objects pointed at his back. We had our fun with him for a while, but he didn’t like being a dress up toy and broke his neck trying to climb down the castle wall. We’re not sure what he’d planned to do once he reached the briar, though certainly it must have had plans for him.
We’ve lost count of how many other princes found their way to us. We dress them up, parade them around, make them dance. We take them to bed on our terms. We drink our pennyroyal tea religiously, choosing if and when we might want to try on motherhood. And we’re surprised to find most of us have no interest in that particular yoke. We give the princes to the briar when we bore of them, let a new prince through when life grows tiresome — when we want to reward our wickedness.
For that is what we have become. Wicked little things who live on our terms, who take what we want and toss it aside when we’re done.
Now this is the part where you’re probably expecting the village or some king to storm our castle with pitchforks and torches to burn away our briar.
But that hasn’t happened. There is no moral here.
We still sharpen our weapons and take turns being the bait with our lashes down and our sharp little daggers clutched in bloody hands.
Diane D. Gillette (she/her) mostly writes short things. She lives in Chicago with her partner and cats. Read more at www.digillette.com.
