“Look.” Snow White’s large blue eyes, wide with wonder and amazement, gazed over Rose Red’s shoulder.
“Look at what?” Rose Red followed her gaze, and then she too stared in wonder.
There, at the entrance to the deep woods, stood a dark figure.
“Who’s that?” Rose Red asked, although a flush of crimson darted across her cheeks even as she spoke the words.
“It’s him,” Snow White said in a voice of awe.
Rose Red blinked back sudden tears rising in her eyes. Him. Black Bear. Two years had passed since she last saw him. But she never forgot how he had come to them that bitterly cold winter and spent every evening resting by the fireside, allowing the girls to tickle and play with him.
He looked the same as ever. No, that wasn’t right. He looked magnificent, majestic, more wonderful, more amazing, more beautiful than Rose Red remembered. He was tall, easily seven feet in height, and his black fur now glowed with a burnished fire. Strong, muscular and powerful, her lovely Black Bear.
And he gazed directly at them.
Rose Red swallowed hard.
He gazed directly at her.
Without realizing what she did, Rose Red’s hands crept down the length of her gown to her thighs. She eased her fingers up and down her legs in a hypnotic, entranced fashion before finally coming to her senses. She gulped, gazing with embarrassment at Snow White to see if she’d noticed, but Snow White still gazed at Black Bear.
When next Rose Red turned her attention to the woods, he’d disappeared. “Oh,” she said, crestfallen. “I didn’t see him leave.”
“He just dropped down on all fours,” Snow White murmured, “and ambled back into the trees.”
“Should we follow him?” Rose Red asked with a hopeful smile.
“No.” Snow White smiled sadly. “I don’t think we’re meant to follow after him.”
A thoughtful pause followed this comment.
“I miss him,” Rose Red choked out.
“Yes,” Snow White said, her large blue eyes filling with tears, “I do too.”
But are you in love with him the way I am? Or would you call me mad if I shared my feelings with you?
Rose Red gazed at her sister for a long moment. She wanted to reveal her secret. But when she looked at her innocent sister, Rose Red knew that some longings were best kept to oneself.
“Shall we head back home then?” Snow White asked in a colorless voice.
“Yes,” Rose Red said, “let’s.”
Rose Red and Black Bear: Chapter 4
Later that evening, after their mother retired to bed, Snow White and Rose Red trundled up the stairs to their bedroom. Rose Red lay awake for many hours afterwards, her thoughts a disordered jumble of emotion and longing.
If all that happened to the sisters that day had been the dreadful interaction with the hideous dwarf, Rose Red suspected that her sleep would have been as sound as her sister’s slumber. Sighing, she rolled over and gazed out the bedroom window.
I wonder where he is tonight. Is he happy, safe? What on earth is he doing?
Frustrated, she turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. The pattern of stars she and Snow White had created years earlier was still evident on the ceiling, casting a luminous glow in the opaque light of the moon. At one time in her life, when she was a little girl, those stars seemed meaningful. As children, she and Snow White painted the silver stars, and with every star they painted, they declared that it represented a lover. Then they laughed at themselves for their naughtiness, but Rose Red painted her stars with a delicacy and precision that belied the joking.
Black Bear, I—
She ached for him with a fervor that filled her senses, infusing her with a strange hunger. She pushed her bedclothes down to her thighs and bent her knees, spreading them a little ways apart. She glanced, half-fearfully, at her sister, but Snow White, lost in tranquil slumber, slept on.
She eased her hands under the drawstrings that kept her knickers tied and unloosened the stays, then crept her fingers down the length of her trim, taut belly until she reached the mound of dark red hair at her v. She dug her fingers into the thatch of rich, curly hair and pulled lightly, then brushed her fingers through her downy softness. Feeling emboldened, and a more pressing sense of urgency, her fingers drifted lower, into the v, and she tickled the lips of her vagina for a few moments before exploring deeper—and further—into her cunt.
It surprised her, how deep her fingers reached. She’d never done this kind of exploration on her own before. She reached the uppermost point at which she could touch, and then pulled her hand out again. She glanced over at her sister, then lifted her fingers to her nostrils and sniffed, amazed at her rich and meaty scent. It surprised her how fragrant and aromatic she was.
She rather enjoyed the sensation of tickling her pussy lips. She returned to the business of stroking and massaging and kneading her pussy, until a strange sensation, a feeling of warmth swelled through her. She closed her eyes and arched her back. In her mind’s eye, Black Bear emerged from the woods. He padded silently across the meadow, crossed the road, and stood at the front gate, watching her.
“Black Bear,” she murmured aloud.
I am here, Rose Red. I am here with you, in your dreams.
“I miss you, Black Bear.”
I miss you too, Rose Red. My lovely red rose.
“Why didn’t you come to me today?”
I cannot yet. The time is not ripe.
“I want you.”
And I want you, with all my heart and all my soul.
He gazed up at the window with hunger and longing. You were—and are—the only woman I want.
She wept. “But why can’t I be with you?”
It is not for me to say, not at this time.
“Oh, Bear, oh Black Bear.”
Yes, dear heart?
“Come into me.”
Alas, I cannot. I must leave.
“No,” she whispered brokenly. Tossing her bedclothes to one side, she scrambled out of bed and padded barefoot to the window. Thrusting her hands on either side of the casement, she looked out the window, gazing down at the moonlit meadow. He was there, and standing at his full height. And she found herself gazing into Black Bear’s eyes.
After a long moment, he turned his gaze back to the meadow. He dropped down onto all fours, set his shoulders and trotted away. She watched until she could see him only as a distant blur on the moonlit horizon.
And then she wept.
Rose Red and Black Bear: Chapter 5
Dear Rose Red,
Heavy cannon fire pounds around me. We are taking back the hillside clear to the river. If we prevail, then perhaps we may win this bloody—and I do mean bloody—war.
I read your first letter to me, when you wrote to tell me your sad news—our sad news—that you were not with child. I am earnestly sad to hear this.
Forgive me, dear one.
When I return, I shall marry you at once. And then we will make a child. I can see her now, a bonny little lass who looks very much like her mother, with her mother’s raven-black hair, pale skin, and ruby red lips.
Ah, what an agony for me. I must not think of it! For it would have given me the greatest joy, the greatest felicity—I tell you, Rose Red, there are some nights I pray that morning never comes.
Yours forever,
Tarquin Roland Mason
Rose Red sat for a long time after she’d read the letter, utterly lost, utterly bereft. She gazed disconsolately at the packet of unread letters scattered beside her on the quilt. She didn’t possess the strength to continue.
At that moment, Snow White’s frantic footfalls pounded up the stairs, but she made no move to turn as Snow White stomped into the room and thrust her hands on her hips. “I’ve been calling you and calling you! Didn’t you hear me? The kettle’s singing off the hob and Mama’s waiting for her tea.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
Snow Wh
ite dropped her hands to her sides and gazed at her sister with a look of wonder. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I went to the village today. And I received several months’ worth of letters from Tarquin.” Rose Red spoke softly. “I just finished reading the first one.”
Snow White’s face turned ashen. “Oh dear. I’m so sorry.”
“He’s still very much alive,” Rose Red assured her, “but he wishes now that we’d married before he left.” Her bottom lip trembled. “Just as I asked him to. Asked him to marry me.”
Snow White snorted with derision. “Fine time for him to be saying it now.”
“I know.” Rose Red smiled miserably. “I know.”
Snow White sank to her knees and took her sister’s hands in hers. “Don’t fret,” she begged. “Don’t fret about it, my dear, sweet sister. Tarquin will finish his tour of duty, and he will return to you and everything will be as before.”
Rose Red regarded her sister with a baleful expression. “How can you say that? How can you possibly say that? When you know that the only thing one can count on is change itself? Tarquin will be a different man when he returns from the wars. How do you know he’ll want me when he comes back? He won’t return for another two years. I’ll be twenty-two years old by then. He may want a younger, prettier wife.”
Snow White shook her head. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Tarquin adores you.”
Rose Red pulled her hands from her sister’s grasp. “How can you be so sure of that?”
“Tarquin loves you,” Snow White repeated.
“I asked him to marry me, but he wouldn’t, not even after I—” her voice died in her throat as Snow White stared at her, aghast.
Rose Red stood up suddenly and stalked to the window, gazing with unseeing eyes at the view before her. “He loves me? Hah! What utter nonsense! Why didn’t he marry me before he left for the war?”
Soft footfalls behind her and then the embrace of her sister’s taut, sinewy arms as Snow White wrapped them around her waist and burrowed her face in her rich, dark hair. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Perhaps he doubted himself, but he appears to know his own mind now.”
Rose Red clicked her tongue and turned to face her sister. “He’s away at war. It doesn’t help me to wonder what might have been.”
“To be sure it doesn’t,” Snow White agreed. “But think on this. At the very least he’s declared his intentions to you.” The color in her cheeks faded. “At the very least, Rose Red, you should, you must be grateful for that measure of respect he’s shown to you. He’s treated you far more honorably than any of my beaux have treated me.”
“Hush, hush,” Rose Red murmured, drawing the quivering girl into her arms.
Snow White opened her mouth to speak, gulped, and let loose with a sob. She buried her face in Rose Red’s neck and wept. Rose Red held her sister close, murmuring soothing words under her breath, stroking her sister’s back. “It’ll be all right,” she promised.
And then, almost as if she’d been reading Rose Red’s mind, Snow White lifted her tear-stained face and hiccupped. “Are we to die old maids, Rose Red, for want of a dowry?”
“No, of course not,” Rose Red assured her, although, truth be told, Rose Red felt less than sanguine about either sister’s prospects of marriage. They each wanted what they could not have.
Rose Red and Black Bear: Chapter 6
The next letter in the packet was dated two weeks later.
June 14th
Dear Rose Red,
We sustained heavy and terrible losses through the night, our regiment stricken to the core and very nearly decimated. General Pattison looks grave and sends sentries to the adjoining encampments, begging for reinforcements—
And there the letter ended, on that strange, disquieting note. Rose Red fingered the remaining letters. Six in all. She’d waited months to receive this first packet of letters from Tarquin, but now she couldn’t read them all. She glanced out the window. Full morn and the cows needed milking. She reluctantly set the packet aside. If she parceled out the reward of Tarquin’s letters, then perhaps the next time she heard from him it would not only be in the form of a bundle of letters, but perhaps the person of Tarquin himself.
She could only hope and pray.
***
On a bright September morning, she attended the farmers’ market in the village green. As Rose Red selected a cantaloupe and thumped it with practiced ease, she found her attention suddenly diverted.
At the end of a stall of snap-green peas stood a distinguished-looking older gentleman. He clutched a bag of carrots, but his eyes focused entirely on Snow White. Apparently spellbound, he gazed at her with a look torn between admiration and awe. Abigail Martin, the village gossip, sidled up and in a whisper informed Rose Red that the gentleman in question was none other than Paul Rumsfeld, a wealthy widower, seeking a wife. He lived in a grand villa in Oden, many miles to the east. His imperious villa was said to very nearly eclipse King Stephen’s castle in the neighboring county.
Snow White joined Rose Red at the last stall and together the two sisters wordlessly struck out onto the path home. Once they rounded the bend and out of the rich man’s eyesight, Rose Red said in a low voice, “I do believe that you have an admirer, Snow White.”
“Yes, it appears that I do.”
“You noticed?”
A flicker of amusement flashed in Snow White’s blue eyes. “I’m not blind, you know.”
Rose Red chuckled. “No, apparently not.”
The two sisters walked in silence for a few moments, then Snow White cleared her throat. “He seems nice.”
“He’s quite old. He’s easily as old as Mama.”
Snow White sighed. “That’s all right. I’m rather tired of flighty young men.”
Rose Red gazed at her sister’s half-lidded eyes and noticed a sadness there that she’d not noticed before. Snow White was not so innocent after all. Her young face showed deep reservoirs of pain absorbed and resolved, but not without leaving their bitter imprint. “Well,” Rose Red murmured cautiously, “perhaps you may get your wish.”
“I intend to,” Snow White replied firmly, and Rose Red fell silent.
***
Dear Rose Red,
We encountered some surprising successes, having taken back the entire valley and a good portion of the mountainside. As long as we can hold our fortifications, we should see progress by this time next year.
And in this moment of un-anticipated success, I want to take this opportunity to ask you something that I should have put to you long ago, before I left for the war.
Rose Red, believe me when I say this, I am on my knees. Will you marry me? I am only a humble soldier, but a worthy one.
Answer me as soon as you can. Will you marry me, Rose Red, and make me the happiest of men?
With love and adoration,
Tarquin
Rose Red wept over the letter, thinking of her lost dreams, her recurrent hopes. When she finally recovered herself, she found some parchment, a pen, and an inkbottle. She dipped her pen into the inkbottle and wrote a single sentence, composed of only three words.
Dear Tarquin,
Yes.
Rose Red and Black Bear: Chapter 7
With the wedding breakfast over and the dishes sticky with the detritus of leftover food, the guests engaged in desultory conversation. As the servants cleared away the last of the plates and empty wine glasses, a general air of well-being and bonhomie pervaded the hall. Paul Rumsfeld wiped his mouth with a linen napkin and tossed it aside as he reached for his bride’s hand. “Time, my dear.”
Rose Red flinched as she saw the look of abject terror filling her sister’s eyes. The bride, dressed in her wedding veil and gown, eased past her guests, a stricken look on her face. The guests rose as one as the bridal couple glided outside into the bright winter morning sunshine and into their awaiting carriage. Caparisoned in silver and gold, the horses’ fine raiment glitter
ed in the cold, hard light. A groomsman flicked the reins and the quartet of horses whinnied and shied, then pulled the bridal carriage out of the circle driveway. Garlands of white roses, attached to the carriage, fluttered in the breeze as the wheels clattered across the cobblestones, bearing the couple away to the groom’s distant villa overlooking the sea.
An oppressive weight pressed on Rose Red’s shoulders as she waved goodbye. There, trapped in that garlanded and elegantly appointed carriage, sat the one person in the world who shared her secrets, her confidences, her sorrows, and her joys. Of all the people in the world, Snow White understood Rose Red in ways that astounded her. Of all the people in the world, Snow White knew her, intimately, intuitively, to her very core. Better, in fact, than Rose Red knew herself.
Her mother struggled toward her. Mama’s arthritis flared up every winter, but this winter’s chill penetrated to her bones. Her poor, dear mama hobbled with pain as she approached. Rose Red winced to see it. Mama would need a hot compress on her legs when they got back home. Yes, and she would make Mama elevate her legs.
Rose Red hurried to her mother’s side, taking hold of her arm with a protective gesture. Together, the two women made their way to their own waiting carriage, a gift from a grateful son-in-law, although not nearly as grand as the one that Paul bore his bride away in. Mama and Rose Red rode home to their snug little cottage in a companionable silence.
And Rose Red pondered and reflected. Her small, insular world, grown smaller, more cramped, more isolated, seemed a terrible burden to her. Would this be her fate, growing old, alone, seated by her mother in front of the cozy fire, sipping tea and murmuring of inconsequential things?
Was this to be her life?
No. She would marry Tarquin, and have a life of her own. She would.
Rose Red and Black Bear: Chapter 8
As Rose Red and Mama stepped from the carriage following the wedding breakfast, their maid Suzie appeared at the cottage threshold, brimming with excitement. “Mr. Trimble just stopped here, ma’am!” she reported breathlessly. “To personally hand-deliver a letter for Miss Rose Red.”
Rose Red and Black Bear Page 3