and my heart was safe on the shelf
from either theft or scrutiny.
The thorns and briars will only
part for the one predestined
to rescue my heart from the box—
so someday, I'll return
and open the gate. Then the tangle
of thorns and briars will part
to make a path to the door
of the house, and all the roses,
the simple dog-roses, the elegant
albas, gallicas, portlands
on those canes will burst into bloom,
white and pink and red.
In the room, surrounded by books
and dust, I will take the box
off the shelf and reclaim my heart
as preordained.
Rose Child
Wandering among the roses in my garden,
I found a child, only five inches tall,
under a Madam Hardy. She was standing
on mulch, leaning against one of the rose canes.
I bent down to look at her, and she looked back
fearlessly. She was lean and brown, dressed
in a dormouse skin, cleverly sewn together.
She raised one hand, and I saw that she was armed
with a long, sharp thorn. She was not threatening me,
just showing me that she was not defenseless.
She shook the cane, and rose petals fell down
around her like summer snow. What should I do?
She was a child, but clearly self-sufficient,
in no need of help from me. So I did nothing.
Every morning, when I went to check the roses
for blackspot or Japanese beetles, I would see her
or traces of her—aphids speared on a thorn,
a pile of raspberries pilfered from my garden.
I didn’t mind—she could take what she wanted.
Would it be wrong of me to leave her something?
And what would be useful to her? String, I thought.
Toothpicks, pieces of felt, a cut-up apple.
I would leave them under the blossoming Cuisse de Nymphe
or Cardinal Richelieu. They were always taken.
One morning I found a Japanese beetle spitted
on a toothpick, and the next morning I found two.
I think it was her way of thanking me.
She must have noticed what they do to roses,
how they eat the leaves and petals, chewing through them
until they are only a series of ragged holes
held together by a spiderweb of veins.
I did not see her again for a long time,
just tiny footsteps where I had raked the soil.
But one day I found her lying under the birdbath.
Immediately, I could tell there was something wrong;
she was pale, her breathing irregular, in quick gasps.
She lay with her arms wrapped around her torso, the way
you do when you’re trying to hold yourself together.
What should I have done? We are always told not to touch
the wild things: abandoned fawns aren’t really abandoned,
mother birds may return for fallen fledglings.
But she was a girl—a wild girl, but still human.
I put her in a shoebox lined with batting
and carried her up to the porch, which had a screen
to keep out insects, but was not indoors, exactly.
I brought her the sorts of things I thought she ate
in the wilderness of my garden: raspberries,
sliced peaches, lettuce, peas, asparagus sprouts,
even a frog I had to spear myself,
but I had seen her thorn, so I knew she hunted.
She ate it raw, all except the skin and bones.
Nothing seemed to help. Each day she would eat
less, sleep more. Slowly, she grew sicker,
coughing and feverish, with the typical symptoms
of a respiratory infection, something viral
that even her strong system couldn’t fight off.
One day, she stopped eating altogether.
She drank water from a thimble, that was all.
Next morning, I sat with her as she closed her eyes,
and then it was over, as quickly and peacefully
as a bird flies from its nest. I buried her
by the edge of the woods, under a stand of maples.
I put a stone there, gray with a vein of quartz.
Then winter came, and I was sick myself;
at my age, I don’t get over these things as easily
as I used to. Meanwhile, the garden lay dormant, snowbound.
I mostly stared at it from the kitchen window.
When spring came again, and all the snow was melted,
I walked around to survey what had been damaged.
The rose canes were dry and brown. I’d have to prune them
so new green shoots could spring from above the graft
to form flowering mid-summer arches. The vegetable garden
was covered with burlap. I peeled it back to see
what had survived underneath: mostly beets and turnips.
Almost as an afterthought, I walked to her grave.
In front of the stone was heaped a strange assortment:
acorns, a piece of faded ribbon, the cap
from a soda bottle, several sharpened sticks,
a bright blue plastic button. I started to sweep
it away as rubbish, then suddenly realized
that no, these were grave goods. As ancient tribes would honor
their dead by burying them with weapons, supplies
for the afterlife. Later that day, I brought
the thimble she had drunk from and left it there,
like a chalice on a church alter. Every morning
I’d go and leave something: berries, and when the roses
had started blooming again, the finest blossom
I could find that morning, fragrant, still covered with dew.
It was mid-summer before I started to see them,
the wild children, no larger than she had been,
dressed in skins, with weapons just like hers.
Now, when I’m in the garden deadheading the lilies
or cutting back the mint, sometimes I’ll see one,
sitting on the old stone wall, enjoying the sunshine,
never speaking, just being companionable.
Or one will be leaning on a tomato trellis,
arms crossed, watching the birds in the lilac bushes.
Sometimes I’ll leave out something they might find useful,
a ragged handkerchief, a knitting needle
that would make a fine spear. But I try not to interfere
in their lives—some things should be left as they are;
at my age I’ve learned that. I hope eventually,
when I’m buried by the edge of the woods myself,
which is what I’ve arranged for, they will come and visit,
leaving bits of ribbon, or buttons, or maybe a rose
every once in a while. It makes the thought of death
easier, somehow, that they would still be climbing
up the branches of the apple tree, or fishing
in the pond, or maybe dancing under the moon
if indeed they do that—I’ve never seen them,
just tiny tracks in the newly prepared bed
where I was planning to sow the radish seeds.
If they could visit me, just once or twice,
even if there’s nothing of me left
to know or care—I’d like that.
Thumbelina
Sometimes I would like to be very small
so I could curl into a snail’s shell
or a seashell: abalone, nautilus,
even an oyster shell. I would let the oyster
&nbs
p; cover me with layer on layer of nacre,
come out shining.
Sometimes I would like to be very small
so I could hide myself inside a flower,
between the petals of a tulip or crocus,
inside purple or crimson walls, like a genie
in her bottle. I would emerge covered
with pollen, riding a bee.
Sometimes I would like to be small enough
to live in the hollow of a tree, like a bird
or squirrel. I would dress in leaves, eat acorns,
make a coat of felted fur. I would live alone,
hiding, hiding, always hiding,
because the world is full of large things
that are too large, too loud.
Over them, I can’t hear the sea
whispering, the beat of a sparrow’s wings,
the annoyed chuff of a robin.
I would like to be small enough
to hear the dawn breaking, the tulip opening,
the sand as it shifts under each tide,
the long dream of rocks.
Blanchefleur
They called him Idiot.
He was the miller’s son, and he had never been good for much. At least not since his mother’s death, when he was twelve years old. He had found her floating, face-down, in the millpond, and his cries had brought his father’s men. When they had turned her over, he had seen her face, pale and bloated, before someone had said, “Not in front of the child!” and they had hurried him away. He had never seen her again, just the wooden coffin going into the ground, and after that, the gray stone in the churchyard where, every Sunday, he and his father left whatever was in season—a bunch of violets, sprays of the wild roses that grew by the forest edge, tall lilies from beside the mill stream. In winter, they left holly branches red with berries.
Before her death, he had been a laughing, affectionate child. After her death, he became solitary. He would no longer play with his friends from school, and eventually they began to ignore him. He would no longer speak even to his father, and anyway the miller was a quiet man who, after his wife’s death, grew more silent. He was so broken, so bereft, by the loss of his wife that he could barely look at the son who had her golden hair, her eyes the color of spring leaves. Often they would go a whole day, saying no more than a few sentences to each other.
He went to school, but he never seemed to learn—he would stare out the window or, if called upon, shake his head and refuse to answer. Once, the teacher rapped his knuckles for it, but he simply looked at her with those eyes, which were so much like his mother’s. The teacher turned away, ashamed of herself, and after that she left him alone, telling herself that at least he was sitting in the schoolroom rather than loafing about the fields.
He learned nothing, he did nothing. When his father told him to do the work of the mill, he did it so badly that the water flowing through the sluice gates was either too fast or slow, or the large millstones that grind the grain were too close together or far apart, or he took the wrong amount of grain in payment from the farmers who came to grind their wheat. Finally, the miller hired another man, and his son wandered about the countryside, sometimes sleeping under the stars, eating berries from the hedges when he could find them. He would come home dirty, with scratches on his arms and brambles in his hair. And his father, rather than scolding him, would look away.
If anyone had looked closely, they would have seen that he was clever at carving pieces of wood into whistles and seemed to know how to call all the birds. Also, he knew the paths through the countryside and could tell the time by the position of the sun and moon on each day of the year, his direction by the stars. He knew the track and spoor of every animal, what tree each leaf came from by its shape. He knew which mushrooms were poisonous and how to find water under the ground. But no one did look closely.
It was the other schoolboys, most of whom had once been his friends, who started calling him Idiot. At first it was Idiot Ivan, but soon it was simply Idiot, and it spread through the village until people forgot he had ever been called Ivan. Farmers would call to him, cheerfully enough, “Good morning, Idiot!” They meant no insult by it. In villages, people like knowing who you are. The boy was clearly an idiot, so let him be called that. And so he was.
No one noticed that under the dirt, and despite the rags he wore, he had grown into a large, handsome boy. He should have had sweethearts, but the village girls assumed he was slow and had no prospects, even though he was the miller’s son. So he was always alone, and the truth was, he seemed to prefer it.
The miller was the only one who still called him Ivan, although he had given his son up as hopeless, and even he secretly believed that the boy was slow and stupid.
This was how things stood when the miller rode to market to buy a new horse. The market was held in the nearest town, on a fine summer day that was also the feast-day of Saint Ivan, so the town was filled with stalls selling livestock, vegetables from the local farms, leather and rope harnesses, embroidered linen, woven baskets. Men and women in smocks lined up to hire themselves for the coming harvest. There were strolling players with fiddles or pipes, dancers on a wooden platform, and a great deal of beer—which the miller drank from a tankard.
The market went well for him. He found a horse for less money than he thought he would have to spend, and while he was paying for his beer, one of the maids from the tavern winked at him. She was plump, with sunburnt cheeks, and she poured his beer neatly, leaving a head of foam that just reached the top of the tankard. He had not thought of women, not in that way, since his wife had drowned. She had been one of those magical women, beautiful as the dawn, as slight as a willow-bough and with a voice like birds singing, that are perhaps too delicate for this world. That kind of woman gets into a man’s blood. But lately he had started to notice once again that other women existed, and there were other things in the world than running a mill. Like his son, who was a great worry to him. What would the idiot—Ivan, he reminded himself—what would he do when the his father was gone, as we must all go someday? Would he be able to take care of himself?
He had saddled his horse and was fastening a rope to his saddle so the new horse could be led, when he heard a voice he recognized from many years ago. “Hello, Stephen Miller,” it said.
He turned around and bowed. “Hello, Lady.”
She was tall and pale, with long gray hair that hung to the backs of her knees, although she did not look older than when he had last seen her, at his wedding. She wore a gray linen dress that, although it was midsummer, reminded him of winter.
“How is my nephew? This is his name day, is it not?”
“It is, Lady. As to how he is—” The miller told her. He might not have, if the beer had not loosened his tongue, for he was a proud man and he did not want his sister-in-law to think that his son was doing badly. But with the beer and his worries, it all came out—the days Ivan spent staring out of windows or walking through the countryside, how the local farmers thought of him, even that name—Idiot.
“I warned you that no good comes of a mortal marrying a fairy woman,” said the Lady. “But those in love never listen. Send my nephew to me. I will make him my apprentice for three years, and at the end of that time we shall see. For his wages, you may take this.”
She handed him a purse. He bowed in acknowledgment, saying, “I thank you for your generosity—” but when he straightened again, she was already walking away from him. Just before leaving the inn yard, she turned back for a moment and said, “The Castle in the Forest, remember. I will expect him in three days’ time.”
The miller nodded, although she had already turned away again. As he rode home, he looked into the purse she had given him—in it was a handful of leaves. He wondered how he was going to tell his son about the bargain he had made. But when he reached home, the boy was sitting at the kitchen table whittling something out of wood, and he simply said, “I have apprenticed you for three ye
ars to your aunt, the Lady of the Forest. She expects you in three days’ time.”
The boy did not say a word. But the next morning, he put all of his possessions—they were few enough—into a satchel, which he slung over his shoulder. And he set out.
In three days’ time, Ivan walked through the forest, blowing on the whistle he had carved. He could hear birds calling to each other in the forest. He whistled to them, and they whistled back. He did not know how long his journey would take—if you set out for the Castle in the Forest, it can take you a day, or a week, or the rest of your life. But the Lady had said she expected him in three days, so he thought he would reach the Castle by the end of the day at the latest.
Before he left, his father had looked again in the purse that the Lady had given him. In it was a pile of gold coins—as the miller had expected, for that is the way fairy money works. “I will keep this for you,” his father had said. “When you come back, you will be old enough to marry, and with such a fortune, any of the local girls will take you. I do not know what you will do as the Lady’s apprentice, but I hope you will come back fit to run a mill.”
Ivan had simply nodded, slung his satchel over his shoulder, and gone.
Just as he was wondering if he would indeed find the castle that day, for the sun was beginning to set, he saw it through the trees, its turrets rising above a high stone wall.
He went up to the wall and knocked at the wooden door that was the only way in. It opened, seemingly by itself. In the doorway stood a white cat.
“Are you the Idiot?” she asked.
“I suppose so,” he said, speaking for the first time in three days.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “You certainly look the part. Well, come in then, and follow me.”
He followed her through the doorway and along a path that led through the castle gardens. He had never seen such gardens, although in school his teacher had once described the gardens that surrounded the King’s castle, which she had visited on holiday. There were fountains set in green lawns, with stone fish spouting water. There were box hedges, and topiaries carved into the shapes of birds, rabbits, mice. There were pools filled with waterlilies, in which he could see real fish, silver and orange. There were arched trellises from which roses hung down in profusion, and an orchard with fruit trees. He could even see a kitchen garden, with vegetables in neat rows. And all through the gardens, he could see cats, pruning the hedges, tying back the roses, raking the earth in the flower beds.
Snow White Learns Witchcraft Page 4