by Nancy Chase
Catrin backed away. “No. Oh no, you must be mistaking me for someone else.”
“No, it is you. Did you think I would not recognize you? Did you think I had forgotten? Oh, Eleanor, won’t you come back to us? The kingdom needs a queen.”
“And the king?” asked the false princess, standing his side. “What does the king need?”
He didn’t look to see who had spoken. His eyes feasted only on Catrin. “Love,” he said. “Forgiveness and love.”
The beautiful young woman looked at Catrin with murder in her eyes, then with a cry turned and fled through the crowd. Something clicked in Catrin’s memory. That rose-colored gown with diamond trim the false princess was wearing, the one the crone had pulled out of the mildewed trunk in her hut, that was the same gown her mother the queen had been wearing the day she disappeared.
The king was speaking again, but she didn’t stop to listen. “Later, Edgar,” she heard herself say in her mother’s voice. “We will talk of these things later. Right now I need to speak to our daughter. It seems she is upset to see me again after so long a time.”
Catrin’s footsteps splashed on the rain-slicked cobblestones, and steel-blue clouds swooped across the sky. She caught up with the false princess in the swirling mist just outside the castle gate. “Leaving your betrothal party so soon? How could you betray me this way, Mother? What have you been trying to do to me?”
The false princess didn’t turn around, but stared off into the fog. When she spoke, her voice was so low Catrin could scarcely hear it. “I was so miserable in those days, I wanted to die. I was noble, rich, and beautiful. Why could he not love me? His indifference stirred my anger and hurt my pride. Oh, I admit, I didn’t love him either. But how I loved my pride! I would make him pay, I thought. I would go where his scorn could never touch me. I courted death like a lover, secretly in my chamber, with hidden charms and magic rites.
“Instead, you came along.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I wanted so much to make you happy, to keep you off the dark and treacherous path I had set for myself, I made a pact with the Magpies to give you the golden book containing the Best Story in the World. You always thought I gave up my life for that Story, didn’t you? But I didn’t. That would have been too easy. I gave up my death for you, Catrin. That is the way of magic: You must give up what you value most to gain what you want even more. So I gave the Magpies my death, which I so deeply desired, and became a halfway creature, neither dead nor alive, neither queen nor ghost. Just a mediocre witch waiting alone by the seaside, listening for whispers on the wind that my daughter was well and happy.
“For twelve years I watched my youth and beauty ebb with every tide. My nights were full of fevered dreams, and each sunrise charred a little more the dry cinder of my heart. But it was worth it, I thought. For whatever else happened, I knew that somewhere in the wide world my Little Bird was happy. How could she not be, with such a wondrous gift as I had given her?” She drew a long shaky breath. “Until one night you showed up on my doorstep telling me you had lost it, had thrown it away for the sake of some wretched sailor who never even loved you! You careless, thoughtless, ungrateful child! How could you?”
“He loved me,” Catrin sobbed. “He did love me. And I never asked you for that horrid book. It never brought me happiness—never.”
“I couldn’t let you make the same mistake I had,” the queen insisted. “I couldn’t let you throw away your chance for happiness. Finally, it seemed that the only way I could see you married happily ever after was to take your place and live the happy ending for you. The other way lies destruction, I promise you.”
“You had no right, Mother. It was my choice to make.”
“Yes,” the queen said. “I see that now. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
“You have to do something. You have to change us back to our normal shapes!”
“Back?” the queen said. “There is no going back. I told you already, there is never any going back!”
“Then what are we to do?”
“I can do nothing. The power resides in you now. That was the price I paid for this.” She ran her hands down her slender, youthful body. “I stole your youth, yes. But I bequeathed you my power. You must seek your own solutions from now on.”
Catrin tried to push aside her tumultuous emotions. She needed to think. “I only have one more Magpie to catch. If I win the Story back on my own, will that break the spell?” The queen would not answer, and Catrin felt a queer sinking in the pit of her stomach. “That’s not all, is it?” she managed to say. “How much of this is you talking, and how much is the seventh Magpie?”
“No, no, you stupid child, you still don’t understand!” The queen broke free and darted off into the rain. Catrin tried to follow, but her tired old legs were no match for the queen’s swift young ones. The queen’s footsteps pattered up the hill toward the cliff path and faded to silence.
Catrin turned back and hobbled into the stable. Hobb was nowhere to be seen—he’d probably gone to drink his fill of ale and watch the royalty dancing at the grand ball—but he had left the white horse saddled and ready, in case the queen’s ghost should come back. Catrin grabbed the reins. It only took an instant to mount up and ride.
At the top of the cliffs, she overtook the queen and reined the stallion in ahead of her, cutting off her escape.
The queen bared her teeth like a cornered fox. “Give me the sack and everything in it, and I will try to make things right.”
“I’m not that gullible, Mother. You’ve tricked me too many times already. Please. You don’t have to do this. You heard what Father said. He wants you to come back. You can be queen again. That’s why you did all this, isn’t it? So you could see him again? You still love him.”
“I never loved him!”
“Why then does he haunt you so? And why do you haunt him?”
“Leave me be! The spell is cast. While we both live, there is no changing back. There is only one way for me to be free now. I gave up my death once for you. Now I go to reclaim it.”
“You’re mad!”
“Mad?” Swaying at the edge of the precipice, the queen gave a wild laugh. “Haven’t you heard? I was always a little mad.” She turned to the sea, spread her arms as if to embrace the wide horizon, and let herself fall into the open space below.
“NO!” Catrin shrieked. Lightning crashed nearby. The white stallion reared and tore the slippery reins from her hands. She barely kept her seat as he bolted along their usual path. Tears and rain stung her eyes as she clung at a breakneck gallop all the way to the sea.
The thatched hut was empty, and the tide raged over the causeway. The horse shied at the sight of the pounding waves, so Catrin dismounted and set him free. “Go where you will, for I do not think I will need you again.” The horse shook his mane and galloped away.
Alone on the shore, Catrin faced the storm. The wind whipped needles of rain into her eyes, and the waves crashed over the rocks like an invading army. Across the raging water, Magpie Island was the one motionless shadow in a turmoil of racing clouds. It stood alone, untouchable. The stone causeway was gone, swallowed by the furious tide.
Catrin paced the pale sliver of beach. Blind to all except the island she could not reach, she stumbled on a knot of driftwood and fell to her knees. A sob escaped her throat, just a small one. But like the first chink to fall from a crumbling dam, it cleared the way for others, and at last her anguish broke free. She cried out in a voice like the wild sea wind, but no one heard her. Her salt tears flowed in torrents like the rain, but no one saw. When her voice failed and her tears ran dry, still she did not stop but, trying to muster enough bright pain to drive the darkness from her heart, beat her palms against the stones until the waves ran with blood.
After a time the rain stopped and she arose, hoarse and trembling, to look once more toward Magpie Island. She left her cloak in the wet sand where it lay, stripped off her shoes and stockings, and threw them down beside it. The wind
pressed against her like a forbidding hand, and the hungry waves hurled themselves at her feet, but this time she did not draw back.
As the tide surged forward, she stepped into its embrace, seeking below the surface with one bare foot until she found the stones of the causeway. The icy water climbed over her toes, devoured her ankles, enveloped her knees and waist and shoulders. The waves dragged at her, and beneath her feet the slippery rocks shifted and rolled, but she bent her head into the wind and kept going until the shore behind her disappeared from view.
Her lips turned blue, and her teeth chattered. Her numb feet could no longer feel the path beneath them. Just when she supposed she would collapse from fear and weariness, that she would simply slip into the sea and drown, the full moon broke free from the clouds and the craggy pinnacle of Magpie Island loomed before her. With the last of her strength, she dragged herself, stone by stone, with bloody hands and frozen feet, up the steep slope to the summit.
There was no white tower, no fields, no forest, only a stark and lonely peak surrounded by the crashing sea. Where the gate had once stood, a shallow depression in the stone cupped a puddle of rainwater that shone like a silver mirror. On hands and knees, she crawled across the broken rocks and collapsed beside this small pool. Her hands stung fiercely where the salt sea had entered the cuts on her palms. She would bathe them in the fresh water to soothe the pain.
She reached down. The surface of the pool rippled, and her mother’s voice said, “You have surpassed all our expectations, and you have sacrificed much to get this far. We will give you one last chance to back out. Give us the sack with everything in it, and we will give you back your youth, your beauty, and your kingdom.”
Catrin didn’t even raise her head. “No. I have come this far. I want my Story.”
“Stubborn to the end.” It was the same voice but now, somehow, it sounded like Baldwin. Catrin thought it seemed amused, perhaps even pleased.
“You have given up your arms, your legs, your body, and your head,” the voice cautioned in Hugh’s melancholy tones. “You have but one thing left to give.”
Catrin closed her eyes. Every part of her was weary. “My life.” Somehow the sacrifice didn’t seem so great. “Yes, very well.”
“So be it.” This time it was George’s accent, warm and simple.
Ambrose’s voice continued, “Today, you have shed both tears and blood. The payment is accepted. The task is complete.”
“Now, lass, you must answer the riddle.” The inflection mimicked Barnabas’s lilting tone.
“But what is the riddle?” Her head ached. The voices spoke too quickly, and their changing personalities confused her. Her mind swam in a haze of fatigue and grief.
Geoffrey’s clear voice cut through her fog. “Look into the pool, Princess. You will find the final riddle there.”
Catrin bent over the shining pool. From the puddle of light, a reflection gazed back at her. Her breath stirred the surface of the water, and the shape’s outline shifted: First it revealed the sly, wrinkled visage of the crone, then it became the proud and sorrowful face of the queen. Finally it showed the face of a princess—her own face, which was no longer her own. Faster and faster, the images shifted until they blurred into one. Catrin grew dizzy and couldn’t remember who was the reflection and who the reality.
The lips of the reflection moved. “Who am I?” it asked.
The image split apart again, princess, queen, and crone. One mirror, three reflections. The sea and sky spun blinding orbits around the stony crag. Fighting for consciousness, she fumbled her book free of its sack and hugged it until her ribs ached. “Catrin,” she whispered, “I am Catrin,” though the words hurt like knives going through her. “No matter my age or shape or face, I am still Catrin. Will always be Catrin. You cannot trick me. Give me the Best Story in the World.”
All sound and movement ceased. The air thickened and the stones beneath her melted away; she floated in a dense fog. The shape in the pool spoke again, and this time the voice it used was her own. “Dip your book in the water, then, and you shall have your Story.”
The golden book seemed heavier than usual, and its precious jewels shone like stars as Catrin lowered it into the pool. She lifted it, still dripping, into her lap and opened its cover. The pages were filled once more with spikes and scrolls of black lettering. Once more the wondrous illustrations gave life to scenes of birds and beasts, flowers and ships, a black-haired king, a golden-haired queen, a princess, a sailor, and a storm.
“Your Story,” said the voice. “Was it worth it?”
“Oh, yes,” Catrin replied, turning a page. “This is the Best Story in the World.”
“Well, then,” said the voice gently. “It is time. Come with us.”
“Wait just one more moment, please. I must see how it ends.”
A rosy dawn over a sea sullen but calm. A beach strewn with wreckage: a mast, a torn sail, a scrap of gilded wood. Bundles of silks and furs, silver goblets, chests of gold. A young dark-haired sailor lies drowned on the sand. Beside him, a girl in a tattered, dove-gray gown floats face-down in the shallow water, her hair billowing like seaweed. About her neck, a white sack dangles on a frayed silken cord. The king who kneels, weeping, beside her does not notice when a slightly larger wave snaps the final thread, but further down the beach, a woman in a rose-colored gown watches in sorrow as the white sack slips free and sinks beneath the restless water.
Catrin took a deep breath and closed the book. She knew without looking that all the pages were now blank. She opened her pouch and let the six Magpies go free. Watching their sparkling flight, she felt her heart leap up strangely, as if to follow them. Without knowing why, she raised her arms and twitched her shoulders in a strange little shrug. Sorrow and pain slipped away like old garments at last discarded as she too became a Magpie and joined the others to fly up into the morning sky. The future lay before her, and she knew she could be anything—a princess, a pinecone, or a primrose. All that had been and all that would be was hers, now and forever.
Not that day, nor the next, but in time, a sad and weary king mounted his old warhorse and found his way by chance along a forest path that led him to a small driftwood hut huddled beside the sea. A wild-haired woman met him at the door. No one knew what the two said to each other, but it was rumored that his visit lasted some hours, nor did he go only once.
His men noticed that his step seemed lighter and his laugh freer. He made new alliances with his neighbors and very seldom rode to war. From time to time, the wild-haired woman was seen sitting at the high table during banquets or standing beside the eagle throne when court was in session. Little by little, like autumn leaves, the marks of her hardships fell away until those who still remembered swore that she was more beautiful now than she had ever been in her youth.
Gradually, like spring after a long, cold winter, the kingdom began to bloom once more. Crops prospered in the fields. In the market, trade flourished. And in time, the queen gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Neva.
“You will walk on the green grass and drink the clear water,” she told the babe. “Your hair will flow in the wind, and your eyes shine like flame. You will meet your struggles with courage and compassion, and always know that you are loved.”
“You speak with the birds, and the shy forest animals eat from your hand,” the king told the child on her fifth birthday. “I have lived a different kind of life. I have so little to offer you but cold metal and hard stone. But with these I swear to protect you, so that you may grow strong and live free. All I ask in return is this: Teach me, my daughter. Please, teach me.”
Unnoticed upon the window ledge, a Magpie spread her wings and launched herself into the sunlit sky, where her six companions filled the air with cries like laughter. She called out to them, “Will it be a happy ending this time?”
One of the companions looked back at her, his eyes twinkling. “I promise.”
Thank you so much for reading The Seventh Magpi
e. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, may I ask you a favor? Would you please consider posting a review on Amazon and/or on GoodReads?
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First of all, my biggest thank you goes to my wonderful husband Ken for his patience and support throughout the years, for being my favorite companion on every adventure, and for always being my happily ever after.
Thank you to my incredibly talented illustrator, Katrina Sesum, for being such a delight to work with and for creating such stunning and magical illustrations to bring my story to life.
Thank you to all my beta readers: Chris Winslow, who for more than 30 years has been as true and supportive a friend to me as ever Baldwin was to Catrin; Vanessa Leavitt, whose unfailing willingness to listen with sympathy and respond with encouragement has never been limited to just my writing endeavors; Drake Spaeth, who is always a voice of wonder, wisdom, and balance in an often chaotic world; Ernest McGray Jr.; Ja’mir Graham; Toni Lynn Pagano; Brittny Kunkle; Melanie DeWitt; and Theresa Green. Your insights, suggestions, and questions helped me make the book better and saved me from some blatant mistakes. I may not have incorporated all of your suggestions (sorry), but I read and considered every one. You guys were such a huge help!