Schloss Steinau, Hesse, Germany

The Grimm brothers grew up across the street in a half-timbered magistrate’s house: studying Greek and Latin, collecting eggs, and not thinking of magic. By all accounts it was the best time of their lives. It is quiet here, calm, unburdened by tourists and noise except the gentle twittering of small, silver-winged birds. Watching you squint in this particular light, it occurs to me that most magic in fairy tales is the kind that hurts, that traps and twists and isolates—the happily ever after is the return to the disenchanted life, the confidence that love is enough. This must be the solace those brothers sought to return to: the nostalgia of afternoon sunlight on the castle that stood in the neighbourhood of their childhood. Strawberries from the market stain our hands.

I can feel this picnic turn into memory even as I busy myself with worry about my white sundress. The light is carefree, like a prince just transformed from his animal skin or a princess newly awakened—giddy with the reward of ordinariness.

Through no fairy intercession that I know of, you are young and beautiful, and I am too, and strawberry juice runs in rivulets down our wrists.