by Alex Flinn
I knew they were merely jealous of me. They’d had their chance to marry Phillip, but they had refused. Now, seeing me here in an elegant house with jewels and all my heart desired, they were sorry. Still, it grated on me, and as I shut the door behind them, I thought about what I could do.
I wanted to be able to tell my sisters what I knew to be true, that Phillip was beautiful, inside and out. If I could look at him but once, I could say that forever. I would look that night. He had said he couldn’t show himself to me, but if I snuck a glance, that would be different. He wouldn’t be involved. I could pretend it was an accident.
I looked at the table. Mary had cleared away the tea things, and the table was empty, save two elegant candelabra with red tapers left over from the Christmas holiday.
I took one of the tapers and hid it in my dress.
Then I went into the kitchen, where Maeve was cooking dinner.
“I wanted to thank you for the wonderful tea,” I said. “My sisters loved the cookies.” I searched the room for the matches I knew were there. I saw them by the stove and walked sideways over there.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” Maeve said.
“And what lovelies are you preparing tonight?”
“Oh, don’t know about lovelies, with the rationing, but we’re having chicken and potatoes and green beans.”
Backed against the stove, I snatched up the matches and stuffed them up my sleeve.
“You always do so well with so little. Green beans are my favorites,” I said, and took the matches.
“I’ll remember that, ma’am.” She smiled. “I can make them as often as you like.”
I left the room and went upstairs. I secreted the candle and matches in the nightstand.
That night, after a dinner during which I told Phillip that everything had gone well with my sisters, we went to bed. But I lay awake until I heard Phillip’s breathing become even with sleep, and then an hour more, until the clock downstairs struck one. Finally, I went to the nightstand and took out the forbidden candle.
I lit it with great effort. It was difficult in the dark, and I hadn’t much experience of late with lighting candles. When it was finally done, I held it close and shone it upon my beloved.
In the light, I could tell that Phillip was not a monster. Far from it. Instead, he was the most beautiful man I had ever beheld. He could have been a movie star like Leslie Howard or Laurence Olivier. Tall and elegant, as I had seen at the party, with a shock of blond hair, Phillip had the features of a Greek god in a statue. I remembered, in school, reading of Cupid, the most beautiful god, whose wife, Psyche, could not look upon him. Phillip was like Cupid! The blanket didn’t cover him, so I could see that his body was lean and muscular. My sisters would be even more jealous if they could see him! I stared, wanting to touch him but afraid. He stirred a bit in his sleep, moving his head to one side, and then I could see why he had worn the mask, for on the other side of his face, the flesh was seared away from his mouth to the top of his cheek and around his eye so the skin was puckered, shiny, and angry red. One brow was half burned off. I remembered him telling me about the water on fire. Had this happened then?
It didn’t matter. He was still beautiful, so beautiful. If anything, the flaw only made him more so, for he appeared more real.
As I stood gaping at him, my hand moved, and a bit of hot wax fell from the candle and onto Phillip’s hand.
He started awake.
“What? What is it?” he yelled.
“Oh, darling, I’m sorry! I was—”
“I know what you were doing. You were trying to see me.”
I nodded, unable to conceal the truth of it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“My sisters . . .” I was sobbing. “They said . . . I didn’t think it would matter if you didn’t know.”
He turned his face so that the scalded skin was faced toward me. “Well, now you know.”
“I don’t care about that, this little scar.” That must have been why he was hiding in the dark. “It is nothing, inconsequential. You have no need to hide it from me.”
He shook his head. “I had every need to hide it from you. I told you it was part of the curse, or rather, part of the cure. I had to find a woman who would marry me, both marry me and trust me for a year. I tried to win your trust. I was kind to you. I gave you no reason to believe—”
“I only wanted to see what my husband looked like.” The wax from the candle fell on my hand, and I jumped, then blew it out.
“Well, now you know. But I cannot be your husband any longer, I fear. I am sorry, for I love you, my Grace.”
“What do you mean?” I felt the wax searing my hand, over and over.
Now we were in darkness again, and his voice came out of it, so soft against the nothingness of the night.
“On the day the Lancastria sank, I watched the men around me die. Many, so many, died even before the ship sank, when the bombs hit and tore it to shreds. The lucky ones, I among them, had a small chance to swim away, but there were many of us and few lifeboats, only little bits of flotsam to hold on to. I was injured, burned, and as I swam for my life, I thought I saw a woman. In the dim light, she looked like a fairy with long white hair and skin the color of seafoam. She looked like one of the Dames Blanches.”
Had this fairy been the one who had cursed him?
“I begged her to help me. With all the dying men around me, I became a coward, and I pleaded with her to save me. I said that if I lived, I would do anything. Anything. So she reached out her hand where I could almost touch it. She said, ‘I will save you if you promise to marry my daughter.’
“‘Anything, anything,’ I said, imagining my poor father receiving news of my death. I am his only son, and my sister died as a young girl. He would have nothing without me.
“So I took her hand, and she pulled me out of the melee to a waiting lifeboat. But, when I went to shore, in Saint Nazaire, covered in oil, I learned that the daughter was not a fairy as I assumed she would be, but a troll princess who would surely kill me in my sleep. I begged the one who had saved me to relieve me of the burden, but she said no. I could go home to bid my adieux to my family, but I must come back.
“I went with heavy heart, but on the way here, I met Kendra, who has an odd interest in shipwrecks. And witchcraft. I told her of my situation, and with her mirror, she helped me bargain with this woman, this fairy, this whatever she was . . . until finally she agreed that she would free me under the condition that I found a young woman to marry me, sight unseen, and that she would not look at my face for one year from our marriage.”
“Why that? Why that condition?” But I knew. It was because she wanted to give him an impossible task. Any woman would want to look upon her husband’s face.
Any woman, or just me?
“When I met you, my darling, I knew you were the only girl I wanted, and since you had not seen my face, you would be suitable. I enlisted Kendra’s help to persuade you to marry me. She knew you would do anything to save your brother.”
“Jack? Will Jack still be all right?” In all that had happened, I had almost forgotten about poor Jack! How had Kendra known about Jack? “Did Kendra kidnap him?”
“No. He is all right, but imprisoned by the Nazis. Kendra found out about him from your sisters. She used her mirror to locate him and has been protecting him with her spells. Perhaps it was wrong of me to use your brother as bait, but I was desperate. I will ask Kendra to help you find him.”
“But you?” Now that I knew Jack was safe, my thoughts returned to my husband. I wanted him to stay my husband! It was as if, in that short amount of time, I had lived a lifetime, a lifetime of standing by the piano with Phillip each evening, of falling asleep in his strong arms. I could not live without him.
“I must carry out my bargain.”
“By marrying a troll?” I knew little of trolls, except that they were said to lurk under bridges in chil
dren’s stories. It seemed impossible that trolls even existed, but still more impossible that he would not be here, always, with me. That I had doomed him. I wanted to do anything to keep him from leaving, even if I had to burn the whole house down and turn us both to ash. “Oh, how could I have done this to you?”
“It wasn’t your fault. I should have known it would be impossible. Don’t blame yourself.”
“But how can I not?” I began to sob. “And how can she punish you for my mistake?”
“Please don’t cry, Grace.” He touched my wrist, then pulled me toward him in an embrace.
“Can you stay?” I asked. “Stay with me?”
“I want to. I so want to, even more now that I know you, now that I have loved you.” His embrace tightened.
“Then stay! What can she do?”
“I am supposed to go to a castle, east of the sun, west of the moon. There I will find my bride.”
“Please! Please!” It was like the moment after hearing about George’s death, when it felt like there was still something that could be done to reverse it, though of course there wasn’t. At such moments, time seemed like a map with one event on one side of some chasm and the present on the other side. It seemed like it should be easy to traverse the pit, but in fact it was impossible.
“It was only a tiny mistake. Please don’t leave me,” I begged him.
He held me and stroked my hair. “I’ll try not to,” he said.
And yet, even as I fell asleep in his arms, I knew he would be gone when I awoke.
In the morning, he was nowhere to be found. In the evening, he did not come home for dinner.
Phillip was gone.
5
That night, I lay alone in the silent darkness. In the time we had been married, our sleep had not been interrupted by air raid sirens, but now I wondered what happened if there was a wailing in the night. Would I flee to the building’s cellar? Would I cower there alone? Or should I return to my family’s home? I didn’t know if I should wait for my husband. I didn’t know if I was even a wife anymore.
As I waited for morning to come, I decided. I had to find Phillip. I didn’t know where he was, but I knew he would only be happy and safe in my arms—and I would only be happy and safe with him. Plus, I couldn’t face my sisters. I couldn’t let them know my husband had abandoned me. And I especially couldn’t let them know it was because I had listened to their nonsense—though, really, it was their fault.
I slept for about an hour. The next morning, when I knew my sisters would be at work, I went to find Kendra.
She let me in cheerily, as if she’d been expecting me. “Grace! How are you? And how is dear Phillip?”
The way she said it, I suspected she knew that too. “He’s missing. I must find him.”
She invited me into her flat. It was much larger than our flat, larger, in fact, than I would have believed possible from the outside, and decorated much like I imagined Buckingham Palace would be. I sat on an antique chair and poured out the whole story.
When I finished, she smiled the sad smile of one who is sorry to be right. “I told him it would be impossible to expect a young woman not to see the face of her husband.”
“But I love him. I love him despite his scars, despite his nightmares, despite the curse that is upon him. I love him. I want him back. You must help me.”
“I will help you find your brother.”
“I want that too—but I can’t allow Phillip to marry a troll. Please!”
She picked up a mirror—the mirror—from a small table. She spoke into it. “Show me Phillip.”
I saw Phillip. He was alive! But he appeared to be in a small room, very dark, and I could see nothing else.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“I cannot tell,” she said. “I can’t always tell. Even with my beloved . . .” She stopped.
“Then how will—?”
“If we can’t use the mirror, we must use our wits. Where would the troll wife be?”
I hesitated. Trolls were known to populate Norway. But Phillip had not been to Norway, and I really didn’t want to go there unnecessarily. I said, “Where the ship sank? Off the coast of France? He said he had to go east of the sun, west of the moon, but that makes no sense.”
“Where in France was the shipwreck?”
“I don’t know. He said France.” I remembered vividly Phillip’s screams, the horrific stories he told of that awful night, but I didn’t remember the name of the town. “Saint . . . something.”
“Do you remember the name of the ship?”
I could hear Phillip’s dear voice saying it, The day the Lancastria sank . . . “Yes,” I said, “the Lancastria.”
“You need to visit the War Office. Find out what happened to that ship.”
“How can I?”
Kendra and I discussed a plan.
The next morning, early, I traveled to Horse Guard’s Avenue to the giant War Office building. It looked like a temple, a neoclassical building with statues of horses on the front, and I was scared to approach it. Yet what choice did I have? I was not even sure if I was Phillip’s wife. How much longer could I stay here, if he was off to marry another? And what would happen to Phillip?
I walked between the giant stone columns and into the building.
At the first desk, I spoke to a woman who was working. “I need to talk to someone about my brother. He was on a ship. I think it sank.”
She pointed to another office. Once inside, I waited in a long line of women, widows, mothers. When I reached the front, I said, “I’m looking for information about the HMT Lancastria. My brother was on it. He’s missing in action.” I knew it was a lie, but Kendra and I had decided it sounded plausible enough. I could not, of course, ask after Phillip, for they would know he had lived.
“Down that hallway,” the clerk said.
I went down that hallway, then up a staircase, then down to the basement. In each place, I repeated my query, and in each place, I was sent somewhere else. Finally, I was sent to an office in the top-floor cupola. The elevator was broken, so I had to take the stairs. When I reached the very top, the door was locked. I looked around, helpless, then banged on the door.
Someone opened it, and a woman bade me come in.
I was in a tiny room, so tiny as to fit only one desk. A very old woman sat at the desk. I couldn’t see how she had opened the door, for she was nowhere near it and sat at her desk, about to cut up a yellow apple with a red-handled knife.
“What can I do for you, my child?”
“I’m looking for my brother. He was on the ship Lancastria. It sank, and he is missing.”
“Your brother, is it?” The old woman set the knife down and passed the apple from one hand to the other. “Are you quite certain it is your brother?”
She looked at me sharply. Her eyes were blue, as blue as Phillip’s, and I knew that she knew the truth. I could not lie.
“No, it’s not my brother at all. I mean, my brother George is dead, and my brother Jack is missing, but they weren’t on the Lancastria. At least, I don’t think they were. It’s my husband. He was on the ship the night it sank, and he is tormented by nightmares. I believe he may have gone back to pay his respects. I have to find him, but I don’t know where the ship sank, or where he is.”
The old woman stared at the apple with great concentration, then rolled it from one side of her desk to the other. It made a dull, deep sound like a kettledrum.
“Please,” I said, “you must help me. I don’t want to tell anyone about the . . . the tragedy. I just have to find Phillip.”
“Did he say anything else?” she asked.
“He said he needed to go to a castle, east of the sun, west of the moon.”
She set the apple down on the front of the desk in such a way that it would not roll. Once it was there, I could see that it wasn’t a real apple. Rather, it was made of metal that gleamed like pure gold.
She said, “I don’t know where Phillip i
s, but as reward for telling the truth, I will give you travel documents to get to Saint Nazaire, France. That is where you must pay your respects to the dead of the Lancastria. Perhaps you can find him there.”
She reached into her desk drawer and took out official-looking travel documents, already filled out with my name, Grace Harding, which I hadn’t given her. She handed them to me.
How had she known? Was she a witch? How many witches were there in London?
But I said, “Thank you.”
“And take this.” She held out the apple.
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“I insist.” With great effort, she pushed it toward me. “I lost my boys in the war as well. Take it for your brother George.”
I took it from her. It was heavier than I’d imagined, as heavy as all the silverware in my new home. Still, I put it inside my purse with the papers.
“Thank you,” I said.
But when I looked back up, there was no one there.
The next day, I boarded a train, then a ship to the port of Saint Nazaire. I took Kendra’s mirror so I could communicate with her. I didn’t want to upset my parents. I didn’t want to admit my troubles.
When I finally reached the port of Saint Nazaire, everything was bustling. I saw a group of soldiers and thought perhaps they could help me. Then I saw the swastika emblem on their arms. They were German soldiers! I remembered that Father had said France was occupied by Germany now! I held tight with one hand to the travel papers the old woman had given me, the apple with the other, though I was careful to keep the apple hidden.
To my surprise, they ignored me and let me pass without question.
I passed more soldiers as I walked into town. I tried to avoid their gaze. The town was gray and plain, with little sun and patches of dirt peeping through the dirty snow. There were few civilians outside, but in front of a grocery store, I saw an old woman sitting in a straight-backed chair, holding a carding comb that she was using to separate a small amount of sheep’s wool.
Fortunately, I had studied French, so I approached her and said, “Excuse me, madame. I am looking for a castle.”