Author's Note: Here's another request, this time from Jackattack55, who wanted a story wherein Victor has a younger brother who Emily falls in love with instead. This is what I could come up with. I hope others enjoy it as well.
"The Corpse Bride: A Retelling" by L. Van Lynden
One dark wintry night, two brothers walked through the forest outside of their village. The older was named Victor. The younger was named Jack. Jack was as muscular and fair as Victor was slender and dark. A lad who could well be called "strapping."
Through the dark forest they went. Ravens croaked in the trees above them.
"You shouldn't worry, Victor," said Jack after a while. "You and Miss Victoria are made for each other. It is plain to see."
For the briefest moment Victor's expression brightened. "I think so too," he replied. With a groan he buried his head in his hands, his manner altogether changed. "If only I wasn't so nervous! I must remember those vows!"
"Here," said Jack. "Let me help you."
"But how?" Victor asked.
Jack led his brother into a little clearing. The moonlight lit the forest as if it was midday. Victor stood watching as Jack pulled the wedding ring from his pocket with a theatrical flourish. Jack, as best man, had the keeping of the sacred ring. Victor looked at the little band glinting in the moonlight. He sighed. Would it ever be on Victoria's finger?
"I'm going to recite the wedding vows," explained Jack, "and then you're going to repeat after me. Over and over again if we have to. You'll remember them so well you won't get distracted even when you're holding Miss Victoria's hand."
Victor felt his cheeks grow warm with a blush. "You, er, noticed?"
Jack didn't bother to reply. Instead, he sat Victor down on a stump. "Watch me carefully!" he cried. "And listen closely!"
So Victor watched as his handsome, loyal little brother danced about the clearing, reciting the marriage vows with a pomp and a vigor Victor didn't think he'd be able to match. At last, Jack got to the last vow, the very binding one. He spoke it in a ringing, confident voice.
"With this ring, I ask you to be mine."
And Jack placed the ring on a twig, pretending it was a finger. Straightening up, he bowed. Victor clapped, both impressed and intimidated.
"How did you remember all of that?" Victor asked Jack. Jack grinned.
"I listened to you bungle it for three hours today," Jack replied. "I'm glad one of us was listening when the pastor kept correcting you!"
Before Victor could say anything, there was a rustling in the trees. Both of them looked up. Only ravens looked back. Victor felt a chill go down his spine. He thought of Victoria waiting back at home, and suddenly wanted nothing else but to see her again.
"Get the ring back, will you please?" Victor said. It would never ever do for the ring to be lost, on top of everything else. How dearly he wanted to see it on the hand of his intended. Jack, ever obliging, bent to retrieve the wedding band from the twig.
But it wasn't a twig at all.
LATER
"And she popped up out of the snow!" Victor cried, waving his hands about. "Like...like...some sort of horrible jack-in-the-box! A dead woman. Dead!"
"Victor, please calm down," Victoria told him.
"I cannot calm down," Victor told her, quite reasonably and politely. "A living corpse kidnapped my brother."
"Tell me again, slowly," Victoria insisted.
And so he did. How he and Jack had been practicing the wedding vows. How a corpse, strangely luminous and horrifyingly beautiful, had risen from her grave. How she'd lifted her tattered wedding veil and whispered, I do. How she had grasped Jack by the arm. How she had dragged him down into the earth with her. How Victor, terrified, had run back to the village.
The two young lovers were in the gloomy front hall of the Everglot mansion. As everyone was probably still at the Everglot's house following the disastrous wedding rehearsal, Victor had run straight there after the terrifying events in the woods. As luck would have it he'd bumped into Victoria in the grand hall of the mansion. She had been sitting up waiting for him, roaming all about with worry. Given the hour, she had already donned her nightgown and robe and let down her hair.
Before the raging fireplace they sat, Victor enjoying its warmth nearly as much as he was enjoying Victoria's. Even in the wake of terror, with his brother missing, he liked to be near her. She listened attentively as he told his tale.
At last, story concluded, Victor slumped and buried his head in his hands. "What shall I tell my parents?" he asked in a small voice.
Victoria opened her mouth to reply when the huge front doors crashed open behind them. Both of them leapt from the settee in surprise.
"You have to help me!" cried Jack. He stumbled into the room, bringing cold air and the smell of the charnel house along with him.
"Jack!" cried Victor. He caught his wild-eyed brother by the shoulders and sat him down. Victoria and Victor regained their seats on either side of him.
"Where have you been?" asked Victoria, all concern. "Are you all right?"
"Where is the dead woman?" Victor asked. "Have you escaped?"
Jack ran his hands through his rumpled hair. Twigs and dirt fell from his locks to the floor. "I think I have," said Jack. He sounded more calm now. "Oh Victor, Miss Victoria—she thinks we're married!"
Victor and Victoria glanced at each other, aghast. "Married?" Victoria repeated. Then she gasped, and put a hand to her mouth. "The vows you recited! In the wood!"
"Oh dear," put in Victor.
"But surely the living cannot marry the dead," Victoria said, laying a soothing hand on Jack's arm. "Surely she must see that."
"I do not think that she does!" cried Jack with a fearful glance at the door. "She insists upon calling me her husband, and said that the Land of the Dead is now my home. I only escaped by trickery, I am ashamed to say. I said I wanted her to meet my parents and brother, since she is my wife."
Victor frowned, growing nervous. "Has she followed you?"
Jack never got a chance to reply. A gust of wind blew through the still-open front doors and extinguished the fire. Victor cried out in alarm. Victoria gasped.
"Dear Jack, there you are!" said the dead woman. "You were taking ever so long!" She noticed Victor and Victoria standing there, arms about each other for protection. The dead woman smiled an eerily pretty smile.
"You must be my brother-in-law!" she cried. "And dear sister-in-law! I'm Emily, Jack's wife. So lovely to meet you both!"
"I—I..." was all Victoria could manage. Her eyes were wide as saucers.
"Er," said Victor, unsure of whom he should protect, his younger brother or his fiancee. He glanced back and forth between them, and tried not to stare at the rotting dead woman in the wedding dress. The corpse who thought herself married.
"No!" cried Jack, leaping to his feet. The others stepped back. "No, enough!" The dead woman held out her hands.
"Darling Jack, whatever do you mean?" she asked, hurt plain in her voice. Jack whirled upon her, squaring himself and standing to his full height.
"We are not married!" he told her with force. "Why can't you understand? It was a joke, a mistake!"
Victor and Victoria embraced a little closer and exchanged a glance. Pity for Emily, who seemed near tears, filled them both. But whatever could they say? Jack reached and grasped the corpse by a skeletal wrist. He waved her arm up and down, back and forth, making the bones rattle and the wedding ring glint in what little light there was.
"You're dead! Look!" he cried. "This cannot work!"
That seemed the very last straw for the dead woman. A darkness crossed her features. No longer near tears, but purely angry. Emily drew back, frowned, and intoned, "Hopscotch!"
"What?" Victor barely had time to ask. Emily grasped Jack by the shoulders and pulled him to her. Again Victor and Victoria gave cries of shock, not knowing what was going on or what would come next.
It was all over in an impossible cloud of shadows, shadows which looked like ravens. They enveloped the dead woman and the living man. When they cleared, Jack and Emily were nowhere to be seen.
For a long moment Victoria and Victor stood together, holding on tightly, open-mouthed expressions of horror on their faces.
"What now?" Victor asked at length.
"Isn't it quite obvious?" Victoria asked in return. "We must save your brother."
"But she's taken him away again," Victor pointed out. "To the Land of the Dead. How shall we find them? It's not as though we can follow."
Victoria was clearly thinking. Suddenly she perked up, bright eyes alive.
"I've an idea," she said. "Quickly, this way."
STILL LATER, IN THE CEMETERY
Victoria, sure-footed and silent in her slippers, led Victor to the imposing Everglot Mausoleum in the town cemetery. Together, with effort, they managed to push open the creaking iron doors. Holding tight to each other's hands the pair stepped into the crypt.
All around them were the tombs of Victoria's ancestors, stretching back centuries. The freshest wall, of gorgeous marble, was on the left nearest the entrance. Upon that wall was a simple telephone, just an earpiece and a mouthpiece in the wall, its blackness stark against the stone.
"Why, pray tell," asked Victor, "is there a telephone in your family mausoleum?"
Victoria was already moving toward the telephone, holding tight to Victor's hand. Pulling him along behind her, she explained, "My aunt Lavinia was terrified of being buried alive in this crypt. She wanted to be able to call for help in case such a thing happened. Her coffin can be opened from the inside as well."
Victor tried very hard not to be disturbed as he was hurried past Lavinia's tomb. Who knew if she might awaken and pop out a rotting hand, just like the woman in the woods? The one who had dragged his dear brother off to who knew where? Victor could not suppress a shudder.
Together they stood at the phone. Gingerly Victoria reached out a hand for the earpiece. She wiped it against the skirt of her nightgown to remove a layer of dust. Boldly, unable to help himself, Victor reached out and brushed the streak of dust away. They smiled at one another, but the romantic moment passed quickly. They had important work to do.
"I am not certain of where the connection goes," Victoria admitted. "But let us find out." And she put the phone to her ear.
"Hello?" she said. She glanced up at Victor and whispered, "There is no tone." She took a deep breath, and then said into the mouthpiece, "If anyone is there...please, we are trying to reach the Land of the Dead. There is a living man there. He does not belong with you. Please, send him back here."
There was only silence.
Disappointed, Victoria hung up. Sheepishly she turned to Victor. "I supposed it was worth a try," she told him. Victor smiled, then took her hand and pressed it to his lips.
"I had no better plan," he said. Then he sobered. "But what shall we do now? How can we save Jack?"
Just then, the telephone rang.
Both of them jumped as the noise jangled about the enclosed marble space. Victoria recovered first. She put the earpiece to her ear, and leaned toward the mouthpiece in the wall. "Hello?" she said.
A crackling came from the earpiece. Victoria held it out and whispered up to Victor, "Here, we can both listen." And so Victor leaned in close, bending so that he could also hear. They were pressed so close they could well have been embracing.
"Yes, hello? Are you there?" came an echoey, other-worldly voice down the telephone. "Did you try to call from the Land of the Living a moment ago?"
"Er, yes," said Victor, remembering only at the last moment to talk into the wall. Victor and Victoria strained to hear the voice from the Land of the Dead. It sounded as though quite the hullabaloo was happening in the background. Music, laughter, clinking glasses, and shouts were all quite audible. The connection was also quite poor.
"Hold on, we'll be right up!"
"Wait, what?" Victor asked, but the line went dead.
"They'll be right up?" Victoria repeated. She set the earpiece back in its cradle. As she did so, a magnificent CLANG reverberated through the tomb. A door materialized in the far wall, the ancient stones pulling apart until they formed an archway through which a sickly green light shone.
And then the dead began to pour into the mausoleum. Skeletons and rotting bodies, all upright and nodding to them. A few carried pieces of moldy cake. Most held glasses or bottles. Every one of them was smiling or laughing. Bringing up the rear was a skeleton band, playing jazzy tunes on instruments of bone.
Victor held Victoria close, as out of the way of the gathering corpses as he could. Somehow he was not frightened. The most frightening thing was how not scary these walking dead people were. They seemed friendly. Fun. Despite themselves Victor and Victoria had small smiles on their faces. The atmosphere of geniality was contagious.
Jack pushed through the crowd and stood before them. He had his arm around the dead woman in the bridal gown. He was smiling. He was also blue.
Victor's mouth fell open.
"Dear Jack," he breathed, "What's happened to you?"
"Would you believe it?" said Jack, "After dear Emily here whisked me back to the Land of the Dead, she offered to take me for a drink to talk it all over. In all the excitement she forgot that most of what the dead drink is poison—oh, Emily, do not look so sad, it was an honest mistake!-and after a sip I...well...I belonged in the Land of the Dead."
"I'm so sorry," Victor and Victoria said together. But Jack shook his head and grasped the skeletal hand of Emily, the dead bride.
"What's to be done?" he asked rhetorically, his smile as alive as the rest of him was dead. "Besides, my untimely demise helped me to realize that my true love is beyond the grave. You telephoned during our wedding party!"
"I always wanted to be a bride," said the dead woman. "My dreams were taken from me, once. But now they've been returned. A thousandfold!"
The dead lovers looked so happy it was difficult for Victor and Victoria to remain sad for long. They embraced their dearly departed and wished them all happiness. The party in the crypt lasted well into the night.
And so it all ended for the best. The dead bride had her dead groom, the living bride had her living groom, and everyone in the village got to have a big party. Emily and Jack were dead, but they never grew old and never stopped having a good time and being in love. They are probably still dancing. Victor and Victoria never stopped being in love either, but they did get old. They had many children and grandchildren and lots of money, and lived happily ever after.
The End!
0—0
Slowly Victor turned the last manuscript page. Carefully he rearranged the pages into a neat pile. He hadn't the first clue what to say.
The Corpse Bride: A Retelling, announced the title page in looping girlish script. Victor cleared his throat.
"I'm...er, flattered. That you took such...um...inspiration from my life story," he said, choosing his words with care.
His granddaughter, a wispy blonde thirteen-year-old, stopped chewing at her thumbnail. She'd been watching him intensely as he read her latest work. Victor and Victoria were visiting their daughter Catherine and her family at the Van Lynden Castle for a weekend. Lavinia hadn't made many appearances thus far. Most of the time she'd been shut up in her room writing-her parents said this was quite normal. Victor had been quite surprised when she'd caught him reading the paper in the morning room after breakfast, and had dropped the stack of typewritten pages in his lap before he'd even had a chance to say "good morning."
"But how did you know?" Vinnie now asked. "I changed a lot. And I didn't use any real names!"
"You didn't have to," he replied, amused. There were only so many stories about dead brides marrying living men, after all. Though it was true, Lavinia had added her own little flourishes.
In the story, he and Victoria had become Albert and Letitia. Emily was Josephine. Victor and Victoria's parents seemed to have disappeared from the narrative entirely, as had the villain of the piece. The invention of a younger brother for him was novel. Jack. What a nice imaginary young man he seemed to be. Vinnie didn't know it, but she'd actually created quite a nice match for Emily. Victor smiled a little. Quickly he brushed aside a ridiculous little twinge of jealousy toward his "strapping" imaginary brother.
"But...you like it?" Vinnie ventured, now twisting a lock of hair around her fingers again and again. "Nana said she liked it, when she read it."
Vinnie's tone was a challenging one. Well, of course she did, Victor thought, amused. 'Letitia' has all the adventure and none of the trouble of what actually happened. Aloud, he only murmured that of course Nana enjoyed it, Nana enjoyed all of Vinnie's work.
Granddaughter momentarily placated, Victor thought back through the story. He tried to think of what he liked most about it. He knew he should be supportive and encouraging of his young progeny's passions, but at the same time he felt a bit proprietary about his life story. About his and Victoria's story. Emily's story, too.
Lavinia had a flair for the dramatic, no doubt about that. And for the romantic and adventurous. No maggots or spiders or songs in Lavinia's version of the tale. The dialogue was a touch on the stilted side, it had to be said. Victor did enjoy the mental picture of Victoria on an adventure in only her nightdress, but that was not something one said aloud to one's grandchild. He appreciated the way she'd portrayed the two of them as young people, too. Impressive, since Vinnie had only ever known them as grandparents.
"Well, Grandad?" Vinnie asked. She was chewing her thumb again. "You're being really quiet. And you have a really weird look on your face."
"Do I?" Victor asked, snapping out of it. "Sorry."
"You don't like my story," she said. She sounded so pathetic it made Victor's heart hurt.
"No no no," he said. "That's not so."
"I even looked up the folktale," Vinnie added, just a hint of impending tears creeping into her voice.
This confused Victor, but he let it pass. "Listen," he told her, reaching to lightly touch her arm, "it's a very good story. I enjoyed it very much. It's very...it's quite...creative. Especially the part about the telephone in the crypt."
Vinnie brightened at that. "Nana told me about that years ago, when she told me about who I'm named after," she told him proudly. "I thought it would give interest."
"It certainly does," Victor said. He watched as Vinnie gently and reverently tucked the pages of her story back into their folder. For a moment she regarded it as if gazing at her firstborn child.
"I just wanted her to have a happy ending," she said at length. Vinnie caught his curious eye. "The corpse bride, I mean." She scooped up her pages, kissed Victor on the cheek, and scurried from the room. Presumably to show off her work to someone else.
After she left Victor sat for a moment, a trifle taken aback. It had never once occurred to him that Emily's ending could ever be construed as an unhappy one.
"Hm," he said to himself. And then shrugged. It must be difficult to see passing on as a happy, fulfilling end when you were thirteen years old. Perhaps it was old-fashioned of him to think so, but the thought also occurred to Victor that it would be hard for a young girl to see the happiness in not getting married, as well.
To the young, eternal fun and eternal love were what made happy endings. Such was the way of the world. The reality was a bit more complicated and bittersweet than that.
"Let the children have their fun," Victor decided aloud. He'd enjoyed the little trip down memory lane Vinnie's story had afforded. And he certainly had one creative granddaughter. Still grinning a bit, he picked his newspaper back up, shook out the pages, and settled back into his chair to resume his reading.
End!