Once, when the sky forgot how to be blue and wore a long white blanket - and never took it off, there was a queen who listened.
Her castle was high, with long quiet hallways. Children lived there. They did not laugh much. In the mornings and nights they woke with heavy hearts and sore hands. Some forgot their own names for a little while. Some stared at the floor and tugged their sleeves until the threads came loose. When they tried to play, the game broke first. When they tried to sing, the song fell down.
The queen went from room to room and listened.
"Give me your bad" she said, and the children did, because they were tired.
She put her hand over every small heart. The malice came like smoke. Not all of it, though. She breathed them in, and they stayed. The angry, the scared, the lonely, the sore, the guilt - the parts that bite and bite again - she kept them. When she stood, her shoulders bent a little, as if she were carrying weights no one else could see.
