The Strike Of The Match

A Fairy Tale.

Three ferocious dogs.

He wondered why everything came in threes. It was never one, or a twosome. Always a three.

Three more seconds to mull her offer over. What did he care? He looked down at the toothless old woman. “Why can’t you just buy a tinder box?” he asked, realising it was a stupid question to throw into the air against the backdrop of war-torn rubble where houses used to be.

He didn’t have two coins to rub together himself. He was probably going to have to sell the gold buttons of his army uniform when he got home. If home still existed.

“‘Tis a fair question,” she said, seemingly reading his mind. A steady grin erupted along her wrinkled mouth. “It’s a magic tinder box. Do you want loadsa money?”

“Who doesn’t?” he scoffed, sticking his hands in his empty pockets and turning them out. He had nothing; He’d fought for the losing side.

She nodded, her pointed chin jutting out as she cast her glance up at the tall, young soldier. His skin, smooth as a pebble, even after days of trekking across the wasteland sparked a streak of jealousy through her core. She wanted him; his supple joints, his strong muscles and his white, rooted teeth. “Well then,” she said. “If you go down under that tree, you can have as much money as you like… but you must get me that tinder box, or you’ll be a goner.”

“Madam,“ the young soldier said, raising an eyebrow, “if those dogs down there are as big as you say, I’ll be a goner. What am I to do about those?”

“Take my apron.” She untied it and handed it to him. “Lay it down on the floor, and the dog will sit.”

He examined the white canvas in his hands as she relayed her instructions. “Each dog guards a room. One room is bronze, one silver, and one gold. Only go in one room at a time, and make sure to close the door when you’re done. Take as much as you can carry, but get me that box!”

“Which room is it in?” he asked, wondering if he could skip the other two entirely.

She winked. “That’s for you to find out.”

Grappling with tree roots and a surprisingly sharp drop, the soldier dusted himself off and walked down the long underground corridor to where the three dogs with pricked ears guarded the treasure. A fetid, cool, damp breeze travelled up and into his face. His knees, seemingly at that moment as weak as sponge, forced him to lean into the wall. Good grief.

The first dog’s maw was level with his eyes. It growled as it registered his presence. He stared down the slobbering cavern of the omnivore’s mouth, and laid out the apron. The dog sat down on it, unperturbed by his presence as he shuffled past and entered the bronze room.

As overwhelmed as he was by the towers of bronze coins, he limited his loot to only a handful. One pocket of five was already full. He left the room. The dog, knowing he was done, stepped back from the apron and returned to guarding the door. He took the apron and moved down the passage to the silver door.

The beast guarding the silver door outmatched the bronze doorkeeper. The soldier, remarking how the dog could remove his head in one swift nip, laid out the apron and swallowed. The dog sat down.

He limited himself to two handfuls of the silver. A pragmatist.

He stood before the gold room, and looked back to the entrance to the tunnel. He could leave now. He had money. He could just say he didn’t see the tinder box, but he’d entered now, and there was no going back. Three pockets occupied; Two more to fill. The bronze and silver served to whet an appetite. He wanted gold.

The last fill was the easiest. The gold coins were smaller, and landed with a satisfactory tinkle in his pockets. Then he saw the tinder box. It was right there, in the middle of the room on a table. He turned away from it, and stopped. What if she knew where it was, and knew he lied? Unwilling to allow it to take up any pocket space, he carried the tinder box back in his mouth.

---

He sat at the head of his table, watching the guests drink his wine and eat his food. The girls, he found to be pretty, and every single one of them seemed to like him. They did like him, of course they did. The wolf is most alluring when he wears man’s clothing.

In his breast pocket, the tinder box rested.

She hadn’t even laid eyes on it before he slit her throat.

Nobody gives away treasure for nothing.

Over time, his bed, once filled with willing participants, was now a less grand affair, reduced to being shared only with one or two women who expected coin for their services. The money was running out, but tastes had been acquired, and habits must be upheld.

He sat by his bed and reached for the tinder box. He struck it once.

At the foot of his bed, one of the horrifying, overgrown dogs sat with its ears pricked. “Go and get me some gold,” he said. The dog vanished, and returned with a sack of gold—so much gold, that he made himself the Lord of the Manor. But even a lord's belly aches.

He had money; now he must have power.

One day, he saw a carriage pass through carrying the king and his daughter. The soldier, consumed by the electric pulse of envy running through his gut, took out the tinder box, and struck the match.

The next dog was even bigger, and more horrifying than the first. “Get me the princess. She will be my wife.”

The dog returned with the princess asleep in its mouth.

The King was furious, and ordered for the kidnapper’s execution. As the King’s guards dragged him away, he tried to reach for the tinder box on his bedside table, and failed.

The next morning, while he waited in his cell, he heard someone stop on the street above. He looked up to see it was his servant boy looking in through the bars.

“Have you come to rescue me?”

“No. I wanted my wages.”

“You can have the wages,” he said, “if you bring me my tinder box. It’s on my bedside table.”

The servant boy ran back to his lodgings and retrieved the box. The soldier, as promised, told him where to find the money, and off the boy went.

---

Standing on the scaffold, the executioner asked the soldier if he had any final requests. “I’d like a smoke,” he said, bringing out his tinder box. He struck the match for the third and final time.

In the blood-stained basket beside the guillotine, he saw a head that he recognised. His.

He looked across to the executioner, who was no longer a hooded man but the old woman he’d met all that time ago. He looked around for the dog. “Where is the dog?”

“Would you like me to call him for you?”

“Yes. I need to get out of here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She stuck two gnarly fingers between her lips and whistled. The three-headed beast hovered over him. Three heads, sprouting from one muscular neck. Six sets of ears pricked, waiting for the next command.

“I want to become the King,” he said.

The dog didn’t move.

He turned to the old woman and said, “What’s wrong with it?”

The scaffold crumbled above him, sending a beam down onto the back of his head. He steadied himself and looked at the old crone, coming in and out of focus like a reflection in a ripple on the water.

Three old crones. Three old crones laughing. Three old crones hard at work, in the deathly depths of the underworld around them. Between their boney fingers, two held taut a piece of string.

“Nothing,” said the one holding the scissors. “You’re home.”

The rusty blades groaned as they opened.

Snip.

---

Thanks for reading. If you like my fiction, I currently have two novels out in the world, but I’m particularly excited to show you The Ring, which is out on 6th June 2025.