Read Online The Asylum for Fairy-Tale Creatures by Sebastian Gregory - Free Book Online Page B

in the woods. But when she arrived, she found her grandma had been murdered by a wolf that could talk like a man. When she returned to her village they blamed her and thought the story of the wolf was the product of madness. So she was sent to the asylum. The girl was horribly treated but with the help of her friends she survived and was able to defeat the wolf that had haunted her. Eventually after a long journey she made her way back to her grandma’s house where she lived in the woods for the rest of her days.
    Maybe not happily, but mostly contented ever after.
    The End

THE GRUESOME ADVENTURES OF ALICE IN UNDEADLAND
    Chapter One
    For most of her short life Alice had lived in an orphanage after her parents had succumbed to cholera. It was an unhappy place run by a cruel and crone-like mistress who wore ill-fitting black lace over old pale skin the colour of tripe. Her wrinkled face was coated in a thick powder and globs of red lipstick. She closely resembled an undernourished vampire... The mistress would dream up unusual and impossible chores for the children to undertake. Her favourite was having the orphans knit spider webs into scarves.
    The trick was to catch the spiders first, a task not suited to children. The spiders were vicious and as Alice and the other orphans entered the dust-covered arachnid room the spiders would descend, biting, pinching, crawling in the girls’ hair, ears, under their rags and over their skin.
    “Help me, Alice,” screeched Dinah, one of the smallest and youngest orphans, who Alice shared a close bond with. Being barely six years old, Dinah found life particularly hard in the orphanage and Alice had helped her through the trials of being there.
    Alice shielded Dinah under her arms and sat her down. Around them other girls were in floods of tears and panic.
    “Don’t fret, Dinah.” Alice smiled and held her hand; a fat, juicy spider climbed over tiny fingers trailing webs and spots of blood where the spider bit.
    “Think of nicer days,” Alice explained. “I think of my parents and seeing their smiles.”
    When the young ladies of “Miss Scrim’s Orphanage for Burdens” were unable to complete their tasks, the mistress created even more unusual punishments. Such as standing for hours — bare footed — in the leech bowl.
    Miss Scrim had the girls in a line as she paraded in front of them.
    “You,” creaked the mistress, pointing a finger that was more bone than anything towards the tiny Dinah. The other orphans sighed with a mixture of relief and terror at what was happening and what would happen next.
    “You didn’t work as hard as you should. You must earn your keep if I am to keep a roof over your miserable head.”
    “Please, miss,” she whimpered.
    “To the leeches with you,” Miss Scrim hissed.
    Dinah took a shuddering step forward before Alice caught her shoulder.
    “Mistress.” Alice spoke. “It was I who didn’t work hard. I am sorry — Dinah was helping me,” she lied.
    The mistress sneered and thought for a moment. “Then you feed my pets tonight,” she decided.
    Alice stood in front of the bowl at her feet; the bloated leeches squirmed in anticipation. Alice placed her feet in one after the other. The feeling of the slime-riddled creatures feeding between her toes was not unlike putting one’s feet in a bowl of jelly laced with sewing needles. Once again Alice thought of her parents and let her mind wander to their arms.
    Toys were prohibited at the orphanage; playtime was time away from work time, considered Miss Scrim. So the children made do with what they could, making themselves teddy bears of coal or dolls from nettles, sticks and mud. The girls of the orphanage slept in the damp and infested cellar. While in the lodgings above, Miss Scrim rented the rooms to unsavoury characters, leaving the orphans to huddle together in the dark. They slept amongst scraps with always one eye to the shadowy corners. Things of many limbs, things of many eyes