But at the end of the day, it was clear I needed more than a single day’s lessons in such craft. And so I told myself that another day could do no harm. We had seen and heard no sign of anyone.
And so another day passed. And then another. And then another. I needed help with fewer and fewer chores now. And it became increasingly hard to imagine anyone intruding on our small bubble of forest. The children assured me that no one ever came here, and every indication supported their assertions.
The exuberant energy of the younger ones, and the simple routines of their life, made it hard at times to remember there even was a world outside this stretch of forest. Except at night. I had grown accustomed to sleeping with two small girls tucked up beside me, or sprawled over me, but I could not keep away the dark thoughts that night allowed in. Grief for my father. Fear for Alexander.
But I had learned to shed my tears silently. And eventually sleep always overtook me.
Finally a momentous day came. Daria announced that I was to be the one to remain behind to supervise Jack and Poppy. The younger four all regarded me with wide eyes, even Danni and Louis seeming to think I should be honored by being found worthy of the responsibility. Perhaps they remembered the first day they themselves had been deemed up to the task. Anthony, still wary of me, hid a smile at their expressions, and made no protest to the arrangement.
And for all my advanced years—at least in comparison to this bunch—I actually found myself nervous as I waved the rest of them off. There had been no sign of the dreaded wild animals, but I kept imagining a wolf or a bear appearing from the trees to snatch one of the children. I couldn’t even guess what I would do in such a situation.
So preoccupied was I with this unlikely possibility that I reacted instinctively to the faint crack of a twig behind me. As a tall shadow swept over the ground, I snatched up a sturdy branch—one I had previously taken note of for just such a purpose—and swung around to face the intruder with a beating heart and a scream of warning on my lips.
But it wasn’t a bear I faced. It was a man.
Chapter 8
For an unthinking second, I stood frozen. And then madness overtook me, and I charged toward him, screaming a challenge, my branch swinging in front of me.
All I could think of was Jack’s mischief and Poppy’s trusting face, and the dark intentions of those who pursued me. I could not let this man take back news of my location to Randolph.
My panic clouded my vision, and I could barely make out his hooded form as I swung the branch toward the lump of his head. He neatly side-stepped my attack, gripping the branch and ripping it from my grasp. Stepping forward, he interrupted my forward momentum, swinging me easily around until he had me trapped in his arms, my back against his chest.
I screamed again and tried to kick backward but was unable to gain any purchase. His voice finally made its way through to my consciousness.
“Snow! Snow! Stop!” A familiar voice.
I went limp in his arms, my eyes fluttering closed as relief robbed my limbs of the surging energy the fear had provided.
“Jack!” Poppy’s high voice sounded as soon as she rounded the corner of the cottage, no doubt drawn by the screams which I had intended to send her running. “Come look! There’s a man hugging Snow.”
At her words, Alexander’s arms dropped instantly away from me, and he stepped backward just as I stepped quickly forward. I glanced back at him in time to see the same flush I felt on my cheeks reflected on his.
Jack careened around the corner, nearly sending Poppy flying.
“A man! What man? Oh…” He slid to a stop and gaped at Alexander.
“That man,” said Poppy, pointing at him unnecessarily.
I cleared my throat, my mind still reeling from all the rapid changes of emotion. “His name is Alexander.”
Both children turned to look at me.
“Is he a friend of yours?” Jack seemed unafraid of the unknown adult intruding on his domain, and I wondered if either of these two even remembered the circumstances that had forced them to flee into the forest. I found myself hoping they didn’t remember enough to make them afraid, even as I hated how vulnerable their fearlessness made them.
If it had been someone other than Alexander who had so easily disarmed me…
“Yes.” I tried to make my voice sound confident and sure although my limbs still trembled. “He’s my oldest friend. You don’t have to be afraid of him.”
The words seemed pointless since they clearly weren’t, but I couldn’t help uttering them. Perhaps I was the one who still needed reassurance.
Jack’s eyes had stuck on the large bow and quiver slung across Alexander’s shoulder. “Are you a poacher?”
Poppy followed his gaze, her eyes equally wide. “Have you ever shot a bear?”
“Uh…” Alexander looked between them and then toward me.
I shrugged helplessly.
“No and no,” he said after a brief pause. He focused his gaze on Poppy, perhaps deciding hers was the safer question. “Bears are a little large for a bow and arrow. It would likely take many shots to bring one down, and in the meantime you would be facing a large and enraged animal. In desperate circumstances, or with a team of hunters…” He shrugged and then smiled. “But I prefer to just avoid them. There aren’t actually that many in the forest, you know.”
“Ooohhhh.” Poppy’s face suggested she had fallen just as hard for Alexander’s sincerity and capable air as I had done so long ago. I hid a smile, but it quickly turned wistful as my eyes strayed back to him.
I couldn’t help visually checking over him, looking for signs of injury or illness or harm of any kind. Because I had spent a lot of nights worrying about what had happened to him. And now that he was standing in front of me, strong and whole, my relief mingled with faint traces of resentment. Where had he been? Why had he left me, and why had it taken so long for him to find me?
When he looked over and met my eyes, such a weight of grief and fear and relief met me, that I revised my first impression. Perhaps something terrible had happened to him after all. Something whose scars were hidden beneath his clothes. And his face held as many questions as mine, but he was as unable to ask them as I was, equally restrained by the presence of two curious sets of ears.
The thought of the children reminded me of the most urgent thing.
“Is there anyone coming? Are we in danger?”
He shook his head before I had even finished speaking, and a fresh wave of tension leached from my body. I had done little in the way of chores this morning, but I already felt weak and tired.
“Well, in that case, I suppose you can make yourself useful until the others return.”
“Others?” He looked curiously from the cottage to Jack and Poppy.
I nodded. “There are five more.” He glanced at the small cottage again, and I smiled. “All children.”
“All children?”
“Yes. So are you going to stand there all day repeating me, or are you going to make yourself useful?” I put my hands on my hips, putting on a show for the sake of the younger children.
He grinned at me easily, some of the fear falling from his gaze as he watched me, his eyes making the same assessment of me I had previously made of him.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The title made me stiffen, but I forced my body to relax. “Oh, haha, very funny.” I exaggerated my words, rolling my eyes before shooting him a glare that the children couldn’t see.
Sorry! he mouthed at me, and I just rolled my eyes again.
I surveyed the clearing thoughtfully. We couldn’t talk with the children here, and we couldn’t leave them alone. So I might as well make him useful. My eyes fell on the dwindling pile of wood just peeking from the back of the cottage.
“There’s an ax around the back. In the top of the wood pile. Can you cut us some more wood?”
Alexander rocked back on his heels once, his eyes darting around the clearing before he s
hrugged. “Certainly.”
I almost suggested he put his bow and arrow inside, but I knew better than to expect him to be parted from it while he was still in the forest. Instead I waved him around the house and tried to chase the children back to their assigned tasks.
It didn’t take long to realize this effort was doomed to failure. The allure of Alexander was simply too strong. So when the others returned, it was to find the three of us lined up on the ground, watching with rapt interest as Alexander chopped up a large branch he had dragged out from the surrounding forest. Naturally I was supervising the children and making sure they didn’t venture too close to the swinging ax. My presence had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that at some point during the afternoon Alexander had removed his shirt and jacket, the muscles of his broad chest and shoulders bunching and rippling with each swing of the ax.
Despite my unimpeachable motives, I jumped guiltily at the first startled exclamation behind us. It was followed by another and another until the tumult of confused noise joined with Jack and Poppy’s excited explanations, rendering the whole lot of it impossible to understand.
I scrambled to my feet—casting one sympathetic glance at Alexander, who stood frozen, ax still in hand and sweat on his brow—and shouted for silence. Amazingly they all actually obeyed, their eyes swinging between me and Alexander.
“This is Alexander,” I said. “He’s an old friend of mine.” I carefully met both Ben and Daria’s eyes. “An old, trusted friend. He came looking for me, and I thought I’d put him to work while we waited for you all to return.”
“I thought the wood pile looked bigger.” Ben’s eyes measured Alexander without the antagonism that lingered in Anthony’s gaze.
Alexander wiped his shirt across his face before slipping it back on. “I’m just following orders.” He gave Ben an easy smile while I glared at him, willing him not to start calling me Your Majesty again.
“Will you be…staying for dinner?” Daria sounded wary.
Alexander glanced between her and me, his eyes asking me a question.
“Yes,” I answered quickly for him. “We’ll help, of course. We can gather water for you right now.” My eyes pleaded with her, and she seemed to understand, giving me a small nod.
“Very well. Louis and Anthony, you can bring in that wood he’s just chopped for the fire. Danni, Jack, Poppy, you can help me with the dinner.”
“But I—” Jack took two steps toward Alexander before Daria cut him off.
“I think there was a pie left from our baking yesterday. Unless Louis ate it while I wasn’t looking.”
“Hey!” Louis turned indignantly, a chunk of wood already in his hand.
Jack gasped and ran for the house, Danni and Poppy trailing behind. I smiled gratefully at Daria. I didn’t deserve her endless consideration. But neither was I going to waste it.
I ran for the house after them, almost tripping in my haste, and returned with two wooden buckets. Alexander tried to take them both, but I only handed over one, leading him down to the water.
Only Ben remained outside, but after watching us silently for a moment, he sighed and joined the others inside. I didn’t know how long Daria would manage to keep the younger ones contained, so my words spilled over each other, almost too fast to be decipherable.
“What happened? Where have you been? Are you all right? How did you find me?”
Any hope of his understanding me was thwarted by his own stream of simultaneous questions. We both stopped, and he quirked an eyebrow at me while I shook my head.
“I’m the princess, I get to go first.”
Now it was his turn to shake his head at the familiar words from our childhood. I had always needed every possible advantage just to keep pace with the huntsman’s son.
“Very well then, Your Majesty.”
“Stop that!” I said, knowing he was only trying to rile me but glancing uncomfortably back at the cottage anyway. A small face, Jack’s I suspected, peered at us from one of the front windows. But for now, we were still alone.
I took a deep breath, trying to decide which question to begin with.
“What happened? Why did you leave?” I decided on as he knelt to fill his bucket.
He looked up quickly, regret filling his face. “I only meant to be gone for a short time. You were sleeping so peacefully…”
“Well?” I prompted, too impatient for him to tell the story at his own pace. “What happened?”
“I went to do some scouting, to see if they had picked up on our trail.” He scowled. “They hadn’t, but your stepmother must have had at least half the guard combing the forest. And some had managed to get disconcertingly close. I had to detour to lay decoy tracks. I was going to circle back around, but…”
“They caught you.” The blood rushed from my head, and I checked his body again for signs of injury.
His hands balled into fists as he dropped his gaze toward the water. “Randolph got the drop on me. I’m sorry, Snow.” He shook his head, still not looking at me. “I failed you.”
Just the mention of Randolph had me shaking. “What did he do?”
Alexander busied himself filling up my bucket which I must have dropped at some point after we arrived at the stream.
“He was suspicious to see me, of course. I had no choice but to pretend I’d been out hunting since the day before and had no idea what was going on. And when he ordered me to use my tracking skills to join the search…”
He stood up abruptly, his face showing how keenly he had felt my abandonment. He was usually more reserved in his display of emotions. Did he want to make them clear to me now? Or was just the memory of it too much for him to hide?
A small feeling of betrayal—one that had lodged itself deep in my heart without my awareness—broke loose and dissolved. I had been right in refusing to doubt Alexander. He would never willingly abandon me.
“At least I was able to lead them far away from you,” he continued. “But still I feared. Had Randolph seen through me? Had he sent guards to search the places I carefully had him avoid?” He took a step closer, the water sloshing in the buckets. His earnest eyes pleaded with me to believe him. “I tried to convince him I could track better on my own, but he would have none of it. No doubt he knew that if I found you, I would never turn you over to them. I had to aid in the search for days and—when they finally abandoned it—I had to return with them to the capital.”
“Abandoned it?” My fear melted into delight. “They’ve ceased searching for me?”
He frowned, his lips twisting slightly. “They cease to scour the forest, certainly. But do you really believe your stepmother will ever stop searching for you?”
My mood deflated, reality crashing quickly back in. “No, I suppose not,” I mumbled. Now it was my turn to twist away, hiding my face and my constant foolishness from him.
“Snow.” His voice was gentle. Too gentle. “At least the immediate danger has lessened. And enough days passed that I was able to leave for one of my usual hunting trips. The location where I had left you was burned in my memory, but your trail from there had gone cold. And I had to ensure that their letting me leave wasn’t just a ruse. It took me a full day to be sure no one was tracking me.” He grimaced. “I would have got here sooner if I could.”
I placed a hand on his arm. I wanted to tell him that I knew, that I trusted him. But I also knew I didn’t need to say the words. My touch was enough. Alexander and I had always trusted each other.
His breathing slowed slightly, deepened. He looked back up toward the cottage. Three faces watched us from the windows now.
“I feared the worst.” His voice was soft, almost inaudible. “I certainly never imagined this.”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “Who could have? I certainly did not.”
“But who are they? And how did you end up here?”
“I followed the stream. It was heading west, and it provided me with water. I thought it would lead me to people event
ually.”
He looked impressed, and a flush of guilt made me look briefly away. When summarized like that it sounded far more canny than I had actually been. But I didn’t want to tell him what it had really been like. Not when he clearly already carried his own load of guilt.
And not when the truth would make you look so very incompetent and helpless. I shifted, thrusting the internal voice away. My truth was already too heavy, I didn’t need more in this moment.
Instead I rushed to explain the situation to him, describing the children and the haven they had built. “I only meant to stay a day or maybe two, but…”
I trailed away, the guilt flaring again. It was hard to defend myself, to explain how isolated it had felt. Not now that he had arrived, proving we were still moored to the rest of the kingdom after all.
“I’m glad you stayed,” he said. “I could have been chasing you forever.”
He was being kind. Even with all the factors slowing him, I would never have been able to outrun him on my own. Not at the pace I had been traveling before I found the cottage.
I glanced again at the watching faces. “I suppose we should go in.” I looked down at the buckets in his hands. “We have the water now.”
He nodded and stepped toward the door. The faces disappeared.
When we came in, everyone pretended to be busy about their various tasks. The younger children’s efforts were lackluster at best, but we had taken long enough that the meal was almost ready anyway.
After a single lingering glance around the inside of the cottage, Alexander crossed to the table and lowered himself to the ground beside it. The low table was too high for him like that, but it would be workable. Less ridiculous than him attempting to fold his long body into one of the small chairs. And more diplomatic, as well. We had only eight chairs.
A Dream of Ebony and White: A Retelling of Snow White (Beyond the Four Kingdoms Book 4) Page 7