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Dwar7es
Martin Livings
The rain filtered down through the heavy forest canopy, turning this way and that on the leaves and branches; what should have been a light autumn shower was transformed into a series of dry patches surrounded by noisy waterfalls. The Chief Inspector stood in one of the sheltered spots, a dark blue woollen cloak wrapped loosely around his slightly lighter blue EFPD uniform tunic, covering his shiny silver badge, his police-issue sword in its nondescript black scabbard. He drew what little warmth he could from the hand-rolled cigarette in his fingers, raising it to his lips from time to time to take another drag of the noxious weed. His family didn't approve of his filthy habit, he knew that, any more than they approved of most everything else about him. That was probably the reason he continued to smoke. He remained still, silent, just watching the falling waters thoughtfully. It seemed appropriate, somehow, taking something that should have been unassuming and harmless, filtering it through a twisted environment; what came out bore little or no resemblance to what went in.
Take the dwarf, for example.
A rustling movement over to his right caught his attention; someone entering the glade from the forest, bumbling through the undergrowth. A man in a black jerkin and matching leggings, his hat tilted foppishly to one side in the fashion of the moment. The chief Inspector recognised the man immediately.
"Hello, Hansel," the Chief Inspector said, holding out his free hand.
"Charming," the doctor replied, both a name and a sardonic judgement, ignoring the gesture. He looked and sounded annoyed.
Chief Inspector Jack Charming flinched at the use of his name. He wasn't proud of it. He'd worked for too many years to escape the stigma of his family, the curse of nobility. He'd only been partially successful, of course; tradition dies hard in the forest, and his blood was just a single tributary of a massive river spanning a thousand years of history. He'd never be taken entirely seriously, and was unlikely to advance in the Enchanted Forest Police Department much beyond where he stood that day, at least on his own merits, and he refused any others.
"Why was I called?" the doctor continued, petulant. "I'm only the assistant. Where's...?" He trailed off, turning even whiter, as he saw what lay beneath the tree before them.
"He beat you here, Hansel. He beat us all here." Charming's voice was cold and dead. Like the dwarf.
The dwarf was spread-eagled at the roots of the huge twisted tree, the grooves and deformities in its bark looking uncomfortably like screaming faces. Sitting next to the body was an old man in a thick overcoat and pants, a square plank of wood on his lap. He was carving it delicately with a knife, looking back and forth from the dwarf to his piece of lumber.
"Finished yet?" Charming asked the man.
He didn't react for a moment or two, then looked up calm, cool.
"Yes, sir," he said, his voice steady, not a trace of his age evident.
"Let's see."
The man stood slowly, wincing as he did so, then held up the piece of wood. Charming leant forward and looked at it closely, taking another long drag of his cigarette. It was excellent work, a nightmare caught in intricately carved relief. It would give most people nightmares. And it still didn't quite capture the full horror.
"Yes, that will be fine, thank you."
The man nodded, then he picked up his axe, slung it over one shoulder, and walked away into the forest without a sound, not a broken twig or rustling leaf marking his passing.
Hansel frowned as he left. "I've never really trusted that woodsman," he said quietly, looking around nervously. "Something about his story about the little girl and the wolf just never added up for me."
Charming shrugged. "Beggars can't be choosers, Hansel. He's the best wood carver in the Forest. And we need a rendering for our files." He looked back at the dwarf. "Especially for something like this."
"I suppose you're right," Hansel said. He knelt beside the body, removing his hat and holding it next to himself. "I can't believe that this is the Doc. He looks so... so different."
"Dead bodies are like that," Charming said, taking another lungful of smoke and exhaling it through his nose. "All character, all personality, simply gone, leaving nothing more than a lump of meat." He closed his eyes. "Or it might be the fact that the top half of his head's been removed."
"Very similar to the last one, yes?" Hansel leant in to look closer, then gasped and stumbled back. The hat fell to the mud from shocked fingers, utterly forgotten. "Holy..."
"Not quite," Charming said. "The last one, the brain was removed. This time, another was added."
Hansel regained control and took another look. "You're right," he said, and Charming resented the note of surprise in the assistant's voice. "The second brain has been forced into the skull along with the first." He looked more closely. "And, judging by the bleeding patterns, it was done while..." He petered out, turning pale as the significance of what he was saying sunk in.
"While he was still alive," Charming finished for him. "The same as the last dwarf, and the one before that. And presumably the one before that, though we didn't look closely enough at him to really determine that." He shook his head sadly. "The first is usually dismissed as a one-off, but once the second arrives, you know you've got something else happening."
"A dwarf killer," Hansel breathed, horrified.
Charming nodded. "All four of these dwarves had something in common, you know. They all worked in the gold mine in the northern forest, before it shut down last year."
Hansel nodded. "But that's true of most of the male dwarf population."
"They had nicknames in those days," Charming continued, ignoring Hansel. "The dwarf we found two days ago... the one who probably owned the extra brain we've found now... was known for not being the sharpest pick in the mine."
Hansel's eyes lit up. "While the doc was... well, the doc. Know for his smarts."
"His brains," Charming agreed. "Instead of a lack thereof."
"And the one before that?" Hansel asked. "What could that possibly be? The killer removed his face and hands, and left them by his side."
"Not just by his side," Charming said, grim. "With the hands covering the face. That dwarf was know for his shyness."
"So, the first one," Hansel said, "the one found dead in his bed..."
"A notorious sloth," Charming said, nodding. "We thought it was natural causes, but I'd wager a gold ducat it was poison."
Something occurred to Hansel then. "An apple was found next to his bed. I wonder if that was the source of the poisoning?"
"That's impossible to tell now," Charming said, turning away. "No evidence was kept from the first scene. We need to work with the information at hand. Speculation won't get us anywhere."
Hansel frowned. "Something about this is very familiar," he pondered. "The apple, the poison..."
"Just do your job, Hansel," Charming snapped, waving his cigarette impatiently, ash falling from its tip to the forest floor like grey snowflakes. "I'm the detective, let me do the detecting. You're the pathologist. So pathologise."
Hansel looked at Charming, an eyebrow raised. "Wasn't your wife nearly killed by a poison apple? I mean before you two were married?"
"That was years ago," Charming dismissed. "And anyway, I don't see the..."
"And she was cared for by some dwarves," Hansel continued. "Yes, I remember the story now, though the dwarves were never identified."
"Cared for!" Charming snorted. "More like..." He trailed off, looking around.
"More like what?" Hansel asked. "If not cared for, then what?"
"I don't know what you're..."
"Abused, perhaps?"
Charming stopped dead, looked at Hansel, his expression unreadable. "Are you suggesting...?"
"I'd bet she didn't remember it at first," Hansel said, following his own train of thought, pacing back and forth. "It probably happened while she was in the anaphylactic coma. Imagine that, half a dozen lonely miners..."
"Seven," Charming corrected. His cigarette continued to burn in his fingers like an incense stick, forgotten.
"...alone in the woods, with a beautiful young woman, helpless, unconscious. The temptation must have been too great. They would have taken turns..."
"For Ma Goose's sake, Hansel," Charming interrupted, "you're talking about my wife!"
Hansel turned to Charming, a triumphant smile on his face. "Yes, Chief Inspector, that's exactly who I'm talking about. The only person to know the identities of these men, and their nicknames. The only person with reason to hate them." His smile grew wider. "The only person who could have killed them."
Charming shook his head. "No, Hansel, you're wrong," he mumbled. "Not my wife."
Hansel laughed. "Come on, Charming, grow a spine! Hell, my sister and I faced down an insane old woman when we were just children. What's the worst thing you've ever faced? Slightly overcooked Eggs Benedict in the morning?"
Charming didn't respond, just stood there, still as a Gorgon's victim.
Hansel turned away, back to the dwarf's body. "It's okay," he said to the corpse, his voice tender, "we'll get the bitch that did this to you."
"There's a serious flaw in your theory, Hansel," Charming said from behind him. Close behind him.
"What's that?" Hansel asked, not turning around.
"Snow White isn't the only person who knows about the dwarves."
"Then who...?" Hansel stopped in mid-question, his breath catching in his throat. He looked down to his chest.
To the sword jutting out from between his ribs, painted in translucent dripping scarlet. Blood. His blood. Then the sword was gone, pulled back through his body, and Hansel collapsed to his knees in front of Doc's body. He fell over backwards then, head hitting the forest floor just a few inches from Charming's boots. He saw the Chief Inspector standing over him, upside down in his eyes, wielding the bloody police-issue sword that had mortally wounded him.
"What...?" Hansel gasped.
"She doesn't remember," Charming said, his voice containing barely repressed rage. "Not consciously. But she cries out in her sleep every night. Every damned night." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, wiping the blade of his rapier with it. "I know what they did. Hell, if you could figure it out in a few minutes, how long do you think it took me?"
Hansel's vision was starting to go grey at the edges.
"I'm sorry I had to do this, Hansel. I never meant to hurt you, or anyone else. Just them." The venom in the word ran deep. "I killed the lazy dwarf with the same apple that nearly killed her, then the shy one, then the dumb one, and now the clever one." Charming laughed, bitter. "He was starting to figure it out, too damn smart for his own good."
Hansel tried to speak, but all that came out was a rattle of air. It was the last breath he'd ever exhale.
"I'll kill the rest of them, one by one," Charming said, though to Hansel it seemed like he was speaking from a thousand miles away. "I'll do whatever I have to do, because I love her. And I want her to be pure, innocent. Untouched. Unspoiled."
The last voice that Hansel heard was once again cold and dead. Like the dwarf. Like him.
"I want her to be Snow White again."
Perth-based writer Martin Livings has had over thirty short stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His work has been nominated for both the Aurealis and Ditmar awards, been listed in the Recommended Reading list in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and his story "Running" appears in The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy, Volume Two. His first novel, Carnies, was published by Lothian Books in June, 2006.
He’s currently living in a tiny flat in London for a year, pretending to write a new novel. Don’t tell the Australia Council!
