Little Red Shoes
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The little red shoes ran through the dark forest, skipping and tripping over black roots and twisted twigs. They ran and ran, white feet and bloodied ankles rising out of them, white bone in red blood in white skin in red shoes. Candy stripes rushing through the forest until they came to the golden palace.
The queen of the palace saw them coming, ruby flashes in the dark. Her own soles were bare beneath her heavy silk gown. Famed throughout the land for her exquisite tiny feet, the queen lived in delightful solitude in her palace of gold, with the occasional company of travellers, merchants, and wandering minstrels, who sang for years after of her beautiful insteps. The red shoes ran to her, glittering robins flying to the nest. ‘Where have you come from, little red shoes?’ From a proud and sinful girl, who thought of me instead of God, who danced for days, and who now has wooden feet and crutches. The queen lifted the shoes onto her lap and eased the bloody feet from them. ‘Poor shoes, running and running and dancing. See what I have for you.’
The queen carried the shoes on a velvet cushion across the room. She stopped before a golden door, carved with trailing flowers and stars set with diamonds. The red shoes trembled in the queen’s fair hand. She pushed upon a blooming rose and the door slid back to reveal row upon row of beautiful shoes. Jewelled and sparkling, each pair rested on its own plush cushion. The queen found room for the little red shoes between a midnight blue pair, shiny as the surface of a lake, and a pair of glass slippers glinting in the light. ‘Rest, my little red shoes. Wait here until I need you.’