I push back my thoughts.
“Who says I'd let you?” I say, and punch his arm, smiling at him like I might do Freedom, and then run for the steps. Thorn pauses, ever-so-briefly, and follows, carrying the painting. He escorts me back to my room and excuses himself to wash up, saying nothing else. I hope he isn't thinking about... the not-kiss.
I take down a portrait of an unknown woman and hang Thorn's painting. It truly is wonderful, I said nothing merely to bolster his confidence. I absolutely adore it. I hope I can convince him to do more.
His bouquet sits on my dresser, his ribbon folded in my drawer, next to the snowdrops he presented me with, so long ago. I pressed them rather than watch them wilt. I wonder what he would think, if he knew I did that? I'm not sure I want him to know, and I'm not sure why.
I touch my lips, absent-mindedly at first. They feel softer than before, larger, more noticeable. I touched them like this after I kissed James Saintclair, too. They feel different now, moved by the mere thought of a kiss, the possibility of fireworks.
But that is not what would happen if I kissed Thorn.
I drop my hand away. It does me no good to dwell on something like that, something that cannot be. My lips still sting, but now they feel as if I've picked at a wound that was starting to scab over.
It is the day before the funeral and I cannot sleep. There is not the slightest bit of weariness in me; each little corner of the room is awake. Moonlight spills in through the gaps in the curtains and I can see every line and edge of the room. The quietness is palpable. There is the slightest ruffling of bedsheets from my two sisters, the occasional, whispered sigh. An echo of noise. Nothing is still.
I want to climb into Mama's bed. I want to snuggle into her warm arms and press my forehead to her chest. But Mama's arms aren't warm any more. She is not in her bed.
She lies downstairs in a box, her face painted, dressed like a doll, her skin as white as porcelain. Mr Arnold, the village toymaker, has a beautiful doll, whose eyes open and close when she is picked up.
Nothing will open Mama's eyes now, and I am scared of the person in the box.
I am scared because she looks like Mama, but isn't. Mama is a laugh, a smile, a pair of gentle hands and warm arms. Mama is bright and lovely.
So Mama is gone, leaving only a shell behind.
I wish I knew where she had gone. I wish I knew when she'd be back. I know -or they tell me- that she “has gone to a better place”- but what was wrong with this one? What was wrong with us?
I know Mama won't come back. I know that she is dead. I just wish I knew why.
I push back the coverlet and swing my legs out of the bed, press my soles into my slippers. I creep across the floor, ignoring every creak, carefully slipping through the door and down the stairs.
Mama's shell is laid out in the dining room, in a box lined with red velvet. She is dressed in white, flowers twined in her hair.
This will be the last time I see her face.
I hear a noise from the corner of the room. It is Papa, sitting in his chair. He has an empty glass in his hand, and his face is red. He looks more like my grandpa than my father.
He puts down his glass and goes into the dining room.
I am afraid, as if I have been caught doing something that I shouldn't, so I stay still, waiting on the steps, my little head pressed in between the bannisters.
Papa puts out his hands and places them to my Mama's cheeks. He pulls at her ringlets. His face crumples into something angry, and he tears out the blossoms in her hair and claws at her gaudy wrappings. Then he starts to choke. A guttural sound rises from his throat. Tears peel from his eyes.
He levers her into his arms. Her body is stiff, but he does not seem to notice. His fingers turn into twisted talons. He digs into her skin. His face disappears into her hair and sobbing fills the room. It echoes around each crevice of the house, like a ghost.
I am no longer scared of the person in the box. I am more scared of the man outside it.
Chapter Sixteen: Grace and Darkness
I am sat under a tree, humming the lullaby under my breath, struggling with the lyrics. Something about home amongst the fairies in the realm of dreams and love...
“It's a lovely tune.”
I startle. Thorn is in the branches high above me. He drops down in a single bound. “Sorry,” he says. “I was up there when you came and I wasn't sure whether to stay, or say something... and now I feel... mildly awkward."
I giggle. “It's fine,” I assure him. “I'm trying to figure out the words, I can't quite pin them down.”
Thorn throws back his head. “Home is here in the realm of dreams, home is here in your arms. The realm of the fairies is your home my dear, here I'll shelter you from harm.”
“You know it!” delight bubbles inside me. “I thought it was a family thing. Mama used to sing it to us, but no one else in the village knew it.”
“I think your mother was part Fey,” he says simply.
“Be serious.”
“I am. When this place fell, many fairies escaped into the world. I imagine they disguised themselves as humans, and lived ordinary lives, only telling our tales to their offspring, as if they were simple folk tales.”
It makes a certain degree of sense, I admit. It explains a lot of Mama's songs and stories. I wonder if she knew they were more than just that?
There you are, Rose! I was afraid the fairies had come and snatched you away...
Thorn touches my arm. “Rose?”
“Sorry,” I laugh, throwing the memory away. “You might be right, you know. Do you remember the rest of the song?”
He sings the next line. "Here you are safe and here you are loved, and here I will stay for all time. I'll always be here my darling, my dear, in the stars, the sea and the shine."
I sit a little in awe for a moment, surrounded by happy, bubbly memories. “You have a nice voice,” I say.
“Thank you.”
A soft breeze sways through the tree. I look up into the branches, examine the spot where Thorn sat. “I have never been able to climb trees well,” I admit sadly. “Freedom pushed me out of a tree once, and even though he apologised and offered to teach me later, I didn't trust him enough to get up in the branches again.”
Thorn is quiet for a moment. “Do you... do you want me to teach you?”
“Yes.”
“I... I'm not sure I can. I mean... I am so much... larger, than you, and...”
“Stronger?”
“Yes.”
I am not annoyed. He is stronger than I am. I am not sure how much of a difference it will make. “Will you try?”
“Of course, if that is what you wish.”
I hitch up my skirts and tie them under my apron, trying to ignore the sudden shock of skin I've exposed. Thorn's eyes immediately leap to it, and then whirl upwards in an attempt to look somewhere -anywhere- else.
The first branch is far above my reach, so Thorn has to lift me up into that one. He follows me with ease.
“Put your hand on that one,” Thorn instructs. “And your foot there. If you grab that branch with your other hand... see if you can pull yourself up.”
The first three instructions are easy, but the fourth is considerably harder. My immediate thought is that I am never going to manage this, that I have none of the muscle strength required to lever myself upwards. But then Thorn is beside me, whispering in my ear.
“You can manage. Keep going.”
I feel his presence keenly, more real and definite than anything else. He hovers, inches away, ready to catch me, or support me. I have never felt safer.
I am afraid of nothing, with him behind me.
It takes a bit of time and several failed attempts, but I finally pull myself, ungracefully, onto the next branch.
Only about six more to go.
Finally, the lesson is over. Thorn leaps out of the tree and then looks up to see if I am following. Impulsively, seeing he is waiting, I let go
and launch myself into his arms. He obviously isn't expecting this. He catches me perfectly, but is caught off balance, and we both go tumbling into the grass. I giggle as I roll on top of him.
“Sorry,” I say.
I am thankful when he doesn't ask if I am all right. I am not a piece of pottery. Instead, he reaches up and pulls a bit of grass from my hair.
“A little warning, next time? My catching skills are usually much more impressive.”
“I remember.”
How much has changed, since the first time he caught me? It is difficult to imagine me, us, back then. The time when we were strangers belongs to someone else.
It takes me a while to shuffle off him, and had I not had a sudden idea, I think I could have spent the rest of the afternoon lying there quite comfortably.
“Come on!” I say, leaping up.
“Where are we going?”
I run back to the castle, dragging him behind me, and pull him into the music room. A dozen sheets are thrown in his direction. “These are all the ones I know that I could find,” I say. “Pick one.”
I sit down at the piano while Thorn thumbs about awkwardly for one. Finally, he drops a song in front of me. A pleasant, rowdy tune that I must have sung a hundred times before. There was always singing in my house. Mama would sing her old ballads and folk songs, Nanny her country tunes as she kneaded the bread. I would sing whilst I was gardening, and Honour and Beau just sang perpetually. Even Freedom could frequently be heard humming an old favourite, or whistling whilst he polished his weapons or chopped wood in the garden.
After a few notes, a few lines, Thorn's voice starts to slip on top of mine. We merge together. He cannot know how much this means to me, to finally be singing with someone again. For a moment, it feels like home again. Honour and I are doing a duet. I would always take to the piano -less easy to be noticed- and back up Honour's beautiful voice. I loved singing with my sister.
Then, there is a strange moment, when I look up at Thorn, and I prefer this. I like singing with him more than with her. Is that right? Or am I just forgetting what it was like to be by her side? Perhaps Thorn and I are just better at harmonising. Perhaps it just sounds more lovely.
He does have a lovely voice...
The song draws to a close.
“Was that all right?” Thorn asks. “You look... peculiar.”
“I just... I enjoyed that.”
“We can do another.”
We do. Afterwards, Thorn admits that he has never done this before, accompanied a woman on a piano. I think perhaps, he is as moved as I am.
When I go to bed that night, my room feels different, and so do I. I can feel a shift inside, but I do not know what it is, and the words do not exist to explain it.
I have to break the curse. The thought keeps me up for several nights, twittering at the back of my mind, squirming into the snatches of slumber I'm able to steal. I have to find some way to free this castle from its cage, to free Thorn. The trouble is, I don't know where to begin. The library has been thoroughly unhelpful, and it's not like I have any other way of-
But I do have another way. I have the mirrors. Thorn told me that they couldn't show him anything of mine I wouldn't wish him to see, so I imagine there are limits to its power, but it is a much better starting place. I waste no time, disturbing Bramble as I leap from the bed, hastily pulling on my dressing-gown as I hurtle towards the chamber.
I am not entirely sure where to begin, but the Mirror of Memories is a good place to start.
“Show me... the curse being cast.”
The mirror ripples, like liquid silver. I see a figure cloaked in black moving towards the forbidden room. A fairy guard is stationed in front, but is immediately cut down. The figure slips inside, but then the image whirls again and disappears. I cry out in frustration; someone, or something, does not want me to know what happened in that room.
“Show me why it was cast.”
The ballroom door blows open. Darkness swells, engulfs the lights. The same dark figure swarms upon the floor. Her face sends shivers running through me. The face from the lake. She marches towards the throne, where she screams at the golden person seated there. Her voice crawls under my skin.
“How dare you close the way to the mortal realm!”
“It had to done,” the golden figure of the fairy queen replies. “Our people were growing foolish, causing the humans harm-”
“You would choose them over us?” the dark fairy laughs. “Of course you would. You love them. But they are not like us, they are weak and mortal-” Her eyes dance to the portrait behind the throne, fully whole in this memory. The queen stands beside a beautiful man, but he looks ordinary compared to her. Ordinary but... slightly familiar.
The queen rises, a pale, silent anger twitching in the corner of an otherwise flawless face. A wave of her wand sends the intruder flying. When she rights herself, she shoots the queen a look that could melt stone, and vanishes.
The mirror goes dark.
“Show more,” I demand. “Show me what happened next-”
My own reflection argues back. I shout a little more, but nothing happens. Why won't the castle let me see? Doesn't it want the curse broken?
A cold chill runs through me. My eyes drift over to the covered mirror. Perhaps the castle does want the curse broken. Perhaps something else prevents me.
What am I to do? I cannot heal something when I cannot find the wound. A dozen Roses stand dumbstruck and helpless, and all but one of the images move to wipe their damp eyes with the back of their sleeve.
The one image that does not move is the Mirror of Truth. She stands still, defiant, unblinking and unmoving. Is that really who I am?
I swallow, and this other Rose stares back bravely. “Can I even break this curse?” I ask her.
The reflection nods.
“Am I doing something to help break it right now?”
Nothing.
“Can I have a clue?”
She is as still and silent as ever.
“This is infuriating!”
I turn back to the Mirror of Memories. “Show me the others!” I demand. “The others that came here before me- show them to me!”
What am I doing that they didn't?
A young girl swirls into view. She is small and slight, pretty and skittish as a kitten. I see Thorn watching her arrive at the castle, smaller and younger than he is now, and bubbly with excitement. He races out to meet her and-
Her face explodes into screams. Screams that carry on, reverberating around the room, shaking the castle to its core. The screaming seems to last for weeks, until her voice fades and she becomes a shadow in the corridors. Thorn too, learns to shrink away, damaged far more than she is by their meeting.
Is that the first time he thought he was a monster? When he saw himself through someone else's eyes?
The second girl has dewy skin, honey-coloured hair and a smile that could make most people melt. She wears it when she stands in the gardens, when she plays at the harp... but that smile vanishes whenever she catches sight of Thorn. Snippets of their time together unfolds before my eyes. At one point, she laughs. “Who could ever love a monster like you?”
A rage boils inside of me. I want to reach right through the glass and strangle her, wipe this memory from existence. How dare she.
But she is not the only one.
“Get away from me!”
“Hideous creature.”
“Out of my way-”
“Disgusting-”
“Monster!”
There are some, some who do not shout or scream or rage. They offer kind words, nods of sympathy, whispers of understanding... but there is such coldness, reservation, distance. Where are the nights of fireflies by the lake, cosy evenings in the library?
I can barely watch. Is this why I am different from them? Is this how I am breaking the curse? By... by treating Thorn as he deserves to be treated? Or... or is it by accepting this place as my home? By being
happy here?
I do not know. I look back at the mirror, hoping for more enlightenment on the subject, but instead, I see my mother.
She is almost the spit of Honour, with her golden hair, dewy complexion, bright smile. Only her eyes are more like mine than I remember, dark green and glorious. I have a touch of her curls, too. She is as young and fresh as a rosebud: this is Mama before she was a mother.
Have I made a mistake? Did accidentally ask the mirror to show me her, instead? Or has it somehow read my mind, felt my need for something warm and pleasing?
She is sitting in a rose garden, tending to the bushes, humming under her breath. She drops a few stems into a basket by her side, and then looks about for her secateurs. A hand I know only too well dangles them above her head. She looks up, laughing.
“Oh, dear beast, you do like to tease!”
Thorn smiles and hands them back to her. It is then that I realise where Mama is: she is in the garden. Our garden. Mama was here.
“Rose?” a sleepy voice sounds from behind me. “What are you doing up at this hour? Who are you...” his eyes sail over me to the baffling image within the frame. He breathes longingly. “Grace!”
“You knew her.”
“Of course I knew her. She was one of the few I could have called a friend. Why are you-”
“Because she's my mother!” I rush. “You didn't know?”
Thorn's eyes widen. “She's your... your mother? No, no I didn't know-”
“How is this even possible? She did eight years ago and you're... you're not secretly really old, are you?”
“What? No, no. She was here only three years ago. I knew time ran differently, but it just never occurred to me...” he can barely take his eyes from the mirror, but he does, briefly, as if to check my face against hers. “I should have known,” he whispers finally.
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