The Tale of the Shoe follows Cinderella, whose mother dies when she’s young, and who begins to take care of her home, not because anyone forces her to, but because it’s something for her to do to fill her time. She leads a quiet life with little happiness until her fairy godmother arrives and tells her that she knew her mother. Cinderella asks her to take her to the ball, because she thinks it’s what girls her age should do, but has only boring interactions with the men there. She asks to go a second night, but after that and the third night, realizes that she doesn’t want to be with the prince, even though he’s besotted with her. Instead, she realizes that she’s in love with the fairy godmother, and goes home to her.
The Tale of the Bird follows the fairy godmother before she met Cinderella, in a retelling of the Thumbelina. Her parents hate her and she longs to escape, and when she does, it’s in the form of a handsome, wealthy man who falls in love with her. She initially feels happy with him, but after she becomes pregnant, she realizes that being with him is another form of being trapped. She asks him if she can leave the estate a number of times, and each time he tells her that it isn’t safe. As she goes through her pregnancy and feels more trapped, she finds a baby bird and nurses it back to health, and decides that after giving birth she will leave with the bird.
The Tale of the Rose is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and follows Belle (or the bird, before she became a bird). Her family used to be rich, but when her father lost his fortune, they had to leave their wealth behind. When her father returns from a trip, he tells Belle and her sisters that while traveling, he was captured by a beast, and in order to leave with his life, he had to promise that one of his daughters would go and live with it. Belle is afraid to go, but also feels excited at the possibility of a new adventure. She spends more time with the beast, and eventually realizes that she is a woman. While Belle doesn’t fall in love with her at first, she grows to like her, and even though she goes back to her father when he falls ill, she decides to go back to the Beast. They fall in love and stay together for several years.
The Tale of the Apple follows Snow White (or the beast before she became the beast). Her mother dies when she is very young, and when her father remarries, her new stepmother resents her. Even though Snow White tries to befriend her and eventually gains her attention, she never trusts her. After her father dies, Snow White flees the castle, where she eventually befriends the dwarves and starts working for them. Even while doing this, she worries that her stepmother will find her, which she eventually does. Snow White initially refuses her, but when she stays outside the cottage, she lets her in, they speak briefly, and then the stepmother leaves. This happens again when Snow White is in the woods, where the stepmother asks her if she wants to come home again. Again, Snow White says no, but the stepmother brushes her hair and then leaves quietly. When she comes for a third time, she offers Snow White an apple, which she eats. She faints and is presumed dead by the dwarves, but when she wakes up, realizes that the apple was underripe and not poisonous. Wanting to make amends with her stepmother, she walks back to the castle.
The Tale of the Handkerchief is a retelling of The Goose Girl, and follows the stepmother in her younger years. Her mother was a servant, and the stepmother resents her life of servitude. When her mother dies, she accompanies the princess she serves to meet the prince she is supposed to marry. During this trip, the stepmother grows aggressive, initially making the princess do basic tasks by herself and later impersonating the princess entirely, forcing her to impersonate a servant. The stepmother continues to impersonate the princess after they reach the prince’s kingdom, but she grows threatened by the true princess, and especially by the horse she keeps with her. She orders the horse’s execution. Eventually the princess becomes comfortable with being a goose girl, and the stepmother marries the prince, but learns that he is sickly and will soon die, meaning that she will need to find another man to marry.
The Tale of the Hair follows Rapunzel (or the horse, before she was a horse). She grew up with a woman who saved her from something, but will not tell her what. As she gets older she longs to see the outside world, and asks her mother to build a tower for them to live in. Rapunzel is haunted by nightmares of wolves howling, and eventually is visited by a prince, who she falls in love with and plans to run away with. Every time the prince visits her mother is haunted by howling nightmares, and when her mother realizes that the prince is visiting, she becomes extremely angry. Rapunzel plans to escape, but after she does, she realizes how distressed her mother is, and returns to the tower.
The Tale of the Brother is a retelling of the Snow Queen, and follows Rapunzel’s witch in her childhood. She grew up in an orphanage with her brother and resented how they were treated differently because of gender. When playing outside one day, a strange snow woman skates by and takes the brother with her. The protagonist decides to find him, and hunts through her city with very little resources. She befriends a thief in the slums of the city and almost freezes to death. When she finally finds the snow queen, she goes off with her as well.
The Tale of the Spinster is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, and follows the Snow Queen in her youth. She grows up with a domineering mother who makes her spin constantly, even though she isn’t very good, and promises the neighbors that she can spin anything. Orders pile up after her mother dies, and she becomes so overwhelmed that she has to find hired help. She ends up hiring a developmentally disabled girl (Rumpelstiltskin), who is excellent at spinning. Rumpelstiltskin eventually wants to leave, but the protagonist begs her to stay and help, finally promising her first born child. When she does fall pregnant, Rumpelstiltskin ends up caring for the child, but the protagonist thinks very little about the promise (instead going about her life as a businesswoman), and doesn’t remember it until after Rumpelstiltskin eventually flees with the baby.
The Tale of the Cottage is a retelling of Hansel & Gretel, and follows Gretel (or Rumpelstiltskin in her childhood). Her father is a huntsman who has trouble finding animals to hunt, and eventually she and her brother are taken to the woods and abandoned by their father, to give their parents fewer mouths to feed. They end up finding the cottage of an old woman who wants to kill Hansel for food. Gretel manages to free him, but instead of going with him, decides to stay with the witch, intrigued by her.
The Tale of the Skin is a retelling of Donkeyskin, and follows Gretel’s witch in her youth. She is a princess, and when her mother dies her father goes mad with grief. He decides that he is going to marry his daughter, thinking that she’s her mother in his grief. She postpones this by saying that she will only marry him if she has three spectacular dresses made, which the friendly witch who lives in the garden makes for her. After the dresses are made, she flees the castle, and ends up working as a servant in a foreign kingdom. When she flees, she disguises herself with the hide of her father’s old donkey, and comes to be known as Donkeyskin. The prince whose castle she lives in holds a ball, which she attends, but dressed as her former princess self. He is instantly attracted to her, but when she approaches him wearing the donkeyskin, hoping that he can recognize her, he does not. She returns to her homeland, where she finds out that her father has died, and moves in with the garden witch.
The Tale of the Needle is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, and follows Aurora (or the garden witch) in her childhood and teenage years. Aurora was born to a privileged couple who desperately wanted a child, and is incredibly sheltered because of that. They dote on her constantly and give her everything, but in spite of this, she feels that something is missing, and feels a yearning for something more in her life. There is a part of the castle where she’s not allowed to go, and whenever she asks her parents about that place, they distract her with family stories and avoid the topic. She finally sneaks up there alone, and finds a witch locked up in a room with a spinning wheel. The witch expresses disdain at how little work Aurora has done in her life, but Aurora expresses a desire to learn, so the witch starts to teach her how to spin.
The Tale of the Voice is a retelling of The Little Mermaid, and follows Ariel (or Aurora’s witch) in her younger years. She lives in a fishing town and yearns for adventure, and when she notices a man in the market one day, decides that she is in love with him. She visits the local seaside witch to find a way to make this man fall in love with her, and even though the witch tries to convince her that doing so is a bad idea, she doesn’t listen. The witch takes her voice and Ariel goes in search of the man, who quickly falls for her because she seems helpless to him. Ariel is initially happy, but then discovers that her prince has regular affairs with other women. She returns home in disgrace, where she learns that her sisters went to the witch and sold their hair to get her back. The witch also helps her realize that she never really lost her voice; she just stopped using it to please her prince. She speaks again, and returns to her family in peace.
The Tale of the Kiss tells the origin story of Ariel’s witch. She is barren, and knows that she has little value as a woman because of that. She escapes to the caves by the sea, where she performs helpful acts for villagers who bring her goods. Several years down the line, she is visited by the father of a local girl, who complains that his daughter is too afraid of men and too eager to stay at home, while the girl's mother, who visits later, complains that her daughter spends too much time outside. The witch tells both parents to leave their daughter alone and let her make her own decisions. Later, the girl visits her to thank her, and the witch asks for a kiss.
