The Rose and the Thorn

by Kate Macdonald

  “We don't look alike.”

  “No, it's not that. It's more to do with how you look at me.”

  Of all the strange, bizarre and inexplicable things I have experience in the past few months, this feels to me the most impossible. But then, a million tiny details click into place. Mama's fairy stories. Her mystical wedding dress. The way she would stare fondly at the land behind the stream, but forbid us come crossing. She was not part fey, like Thorn had theorised earlier. She new all about the fairy realm because she had visited it before. Because she knew him.

  I think about what Thorn has just said. We were different from the others because of how we look at him. How many times had she told us not to judge by appearances? Was she thinking of him, every time?

  “What was she like?” I ask him earnestly. “No one alive has fresher memories of her than you do.”

  “She was... kind,” he says, as if this is the nicest word in the world. “A thoroughly beautiful soul. She was patient and sweet. It's a shame you don't take after her.”

  I elbow him in the side.

  “She screamed, when she first saw me,” he continues. “But it was a flustered sort of scream, as if she were trying to control it, knew it was impolite to say anything. Then she ran into the next room, shutting the door behind her and blabbering. ‘I’m so terribly sorry… terribly sorry. Just… just give me a minute, please! I really must apologise…’ her tone and her words were so unusual, that I began to laugh. Then she slowly crept out of the room, giggling nervously. By the end of the week she was calling me her dear friend.”

  I cannot help but smile. “That sounds like Mama.”

  Thorn and I share a look, not one we've had before. I don't know entirely what it means, but it is born out of this shared person we both knew, and loved. I feel he knows me even more through her, and vice versa. I am so glad she knew him.

  “What do you remember, of your mother?” I ask him.

  He blinks at me.

  “You knew my mother,” I explain. “I should like to know a little more about yours.”

  “Very... very little. She was kind. Selfless. A fierce protector. I remember... I remember how she made me feel, even though I cannot remember her touch. I remember... I know... that she loved me.”

  I swallow painfully. “There's nothing greater than that, is there?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “And nothing worse.”

  Thorn senses I have slipped into a painful reverie. “Come,” he says, taking my hand. “I have something else to show you.”

  He takes me to a small gallery room in one of the towers. Faint dawn light is already spilling into it. I may have been in it before, but clearly paid it no heed, because now I see what Thorn has bought me up to see: a portrait of Mama.

  “This appeared the day she left,” he explains. “The last truly magical thing to happen, before your arrival. The castle started to decline not long after.”

  There are five other portraits in the room, each equally spaced.

  “The others,” Thorn explains. “The visitors before you.”

  I take a moments to examine them now, side by side. Why have only women visited, I wonder? A name is printed beneath each one. That is all they are, now, a name in this castle's history.

  There is a blank frame in the room. A seventh. Mine. Thorn sighs when he sees me looking at it.

  “It arrived a few days ago,” he said.

  The wooden backing glares at me. It is getting ready.

  When I finally sleep, I dream I am back at home, watching Mama's spirit dancing around her home. She kisses all of us goodnight, and then settles into the chair opposite Papa. He always kept that seat free, for her, and it is like she has never left.

  Then the dream shifts. I am still at home, but bars are placed around my window. I am screaming, and my scream flies through the wind, all the way to a ruined castle, where my portrait hangs in a dusty chamber.

  I will not become a portrait. I am not a part of this castle's history. I am not paint, or dust. I will not abandon Thorn. I will not.

  Chapter Seventeen: Ariel

  When the next full moon comes, Thorn and I walk down to the crypt together. Bramble comes too, warily. I sense that he knows something is amiss, that Thorn is less Thorn than he usually is.

  We reach the door of the cell. Wordlessly, he slips inside. I close it behind him, place the candlestick on the ground, and wrap the chain around the lock.

  “You don't have to stay,” he says.

  “I want to,” I respond. “At least until you're not... you any more.”

  “It won't be pleasant to watch.”

  “I can't imagine it's pleasant to go through.”

  “I'll need to change.”

  “No peeking, I promise.”

  I turn around to give him some privacy. He passes his clothes to me through the bars. I fold them neatly. The least I can do.

  “Who used to let you out?” I ask, back still turned.

  “Myself. Apparently, I don't know how to use keys when I'm in that state.”

  The sky is darkening significantly by the time Thorn comes to sit beside the door, his back against mine. We have perhaps ten minutes until sunset.

  “You can still-”

  “I'm staying.” I wriggle my hand through the bars until I find some part of him to hold. “You won't be alone tonight. Unless... unless you really want me to go?”

  Thorn is quiet for a moment. “No,” he says finally. “I don't want you to go.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes more, me absent-mindedly stroking his arm. Suddenly, Bramble starts to growl.

  “Ssh, boy!”

  Thorn tenses. He lets out a slight moan. “Rose... it's starting.”

  I turn around to face him. He is on all fours, his face contorted in pain, pressed against the bars. I press my forehead against his, grab his balled-up hands. He jerks away.

  “I don't want to hurt you.”

  “Less concern about me, please, more concern about you.”

  “You are a far more pleasing topic.”

  “A joke. A joke is good.”

  “It wasn't... a joke...”

  “I know.” I reach forward and grab his hand. This time, he relents. He squeezes back, and I can tell from his stiffness just how much pain he's in. I can almost feel it falling into me, like he can't contain it.

  I touch his cheek. “You're going to be fine.”

  “I don't... I don't feel fine.”

  “That's all right. You don't have to feel fine all the time. I don't.”

  “Tell me... tell me something about yourself that I don't know.”

  “Oh, um. My favourite colour is blue-”

  “Something serious.”

  “I love the colour of your eyes.”

  Thorn unscrunches his face, just for a second, to stare at me.

  “Not... a good time... to tease...” he breathes.

  “I really wish you'd believe me when I try to compliment you,” I swallow. “That's another thing you don't know.”

  Thorn is shaking, vibrating, trembling so hard it is difficult to believe that something isn't about to break out of him. Difficult to believe this change isn't physical.

  “I used to joke that you were hideous,” I rush. “I was serious, at the time. But now I see you, now that I see you... I just wish that you could see yourself as I do.”

  “Even... like... this?”

  “In all ways, in all lights, in all things.”

  I truly do believe, in that moment, that I have some kind of power. My eyes can see him like nobody else can, and if I hold onto him tightly enough, he will know it too it. He will see what I see, believe what I believe.

  “Rose,” he cries out, his voice coarse and gravelly.

  “I'm here.”

  “Thank you.”

  But then his voice turns into a roar. I wrench my hand free from his grip, and he leaps to the back of the cell. Red eyes glare at me. Thun
der rumbles in his throat. Bramble barks.

  I am not scared. A part of me wants to stay, right here by his side, until the night is over. I will sing him the lullaby that seemed to soothe him last time. But I made a promise, so I make good on it.

  Before I go to my room, I go to the library, to see if there's anything left to find on curses. The fairies try to help, pulling out various tomes, but one of them keeps getting confused and keeps loading the pile with romances. It makes me laugh a little, which I need at the moment.

  I do not spend too long in the library. I feel like I am breaking his trust, lingering outside my room, so I hurry back there and lock my door. Bramble sits by my side all night as I scour through the volumes.

  Thorn doesn't howl tonight. I like to imagine it's because he knows, this time, that he isn't alone.

  First light wakes me, and I am up and dressed in an instant. I head down to the crypt with a blanket and a cup of tea. I unchain the door, envelope him in the blanket, and wait patiently for him to awaken, sipping the tea.

  It doesn't take long for him to come around. The first thing he sees is me.

  “Are you-”

  “How are you?” I say over him.

  He rubs his head. “I have been better,” he says honestly. “But I've been worse.”

  “You didn't howl last night, I don't think.”

  “No, I didn't... I didn't feel as angry, last night, as I usually do.”

  I do not ask him want he might feel angry about. I am not sure I would like the answer. “Tea?” I offer. “It's cooled down, now. I didn't drink all of it, promise.”

  He accepts my cup, drinks carefully. I lean against him.

  “It wasn't... it wasn't too horrible for you?” he asks.

  “No,” my answer is candid. “I think it would have been worse for me, not to see, and to stay up there and wonder.”

  He nods. “Thank you, for being there. It... it helped.”

  “I'm glad. I... I can stay next time, then?”

  “Next time... will be the last time.”

  “Yes.”

  I try not to think about that. I try not to think about how I will feel when I see a full moon without him, when I will know that somewhere in the world, he is alone, and hurting, and I will not be there.

  I will not be there.

  One more month. I have one more month left, before the solstice comes and I return to the mortal realm. I continue to read up on the Fey, not knowing what good it will do, hoping to come across some hint of what the curse truly is, and how to break it. Because if I do, and magic returns to the world, there is a chance, however slim, that I will get to see Thorn again. I do not have to say goodbye.

  I do not tell Thorn what I am doing. I do not think he would try to stop me -surely he wants the curse broken as much as I do- but I do not want to give him any false hope. I conduct my searches at night instead, after I am certain he is sleeping.

  The mirrors offer me little more insight, as I am never sure what question to ask, and am offered snippets at best before someone or something steals back the scenes. I do check in on my family, however. Honour knits in her new parlour every evening, and Charles brings her mulled wine and sits beside her, stroking the back of her hand affectionately. Nanny and Beau are invariably always tucked up in bed when I check in, and Papa has dosed off in his study. Hope is still up, reading at her desk, but sometimes if I catch them during the day, she's tending to my garden. Freedom doesn't seem to sleep at all. He's either painting in his shed, or stalking the woods. I assume he's hunting, but one night he stops, sticks his torch in the ground, and sits on a grassy knoll. Slowly, my eyes eke details out of the gloom, and I catch the trickle of running water.

  He's sitting beside the stream.

  If the image alone claws at my heart, his next words nearly shatter it.

  “Rose,” he whispers. “Where did you go?”

  Oh, Freedom. My fingers leap to the glass before I can stop them. I want to fall right through it. “I'm here,” I murmur back. As I do, a breath of wind flits through the woods and touches Freedom's hair. “I'll be home soon, soon, I promise.”

  I have to believe he has heard me, because the alternative is far too painful.

  A soft tingle stirs me from my reverie. One of the sprites is hovering beside me. It bobbles up and down, darting forwards and then back. I sense it wants me to follow. It rests in front of the Mirror of Truth.

  Illuminated behind the glass is a faint, shimmering image, shrouded in a soft, coloured mist. A figure rests within; a girl, my own age, I think, although there is a timeless quality to her flawless skin which is almost golden. She is wearing a ruffled dress of green and white, which floats against the glass as if its filled with water. Her short, gold hair does the same too. I would think her a ghost if not for the keen, live green eyes that stare back at me.

  I move closer. She is the person I saw when Thorn pulled me from the lake. The person who undressed me, no doubt. The person who keeps this place moving.

  Her face breaks into a smile. “You can see me!” her voice sounds strange, filtered, echoey. “I was so worried you wouldn't.”

  “I've seen you before,” I say. “The night I fell into the lake.”

  “I thought you did, but it seemed so unlikely! I guess, you were near-death at the time, and I exist in an in-between place too, so...”

  “Who... who are you?”

  “I'm Ariel,” she says, “I... I was a... a servant here, long ago.”

  “Are you a ghost?”

  “No,” she says quickly, but then pauses. “Yes. I suppose that term fits. I am no longer alive... but then not truly dead, as you see.” She waves her arms, and the little dot begins to buzz furiously. “This mirror shows me for what I truly am.”

  “Are... are the other little sparks like you?”

  She nods.

  “Thorn... Thorn calls you remnants,” I babble. “How... how did you come to be this way?”

  She sighs, and it is the sigh of a hundred years, a long, endless, exhausted sigh. “I had a real form once,” she explains. “And powers too; far beyond that of the simple summoning tricks you've witnessed before. But the castle was dying. If we didn't become one with it, it would crumble into nothingness within a few years, and with it any hope we ever had of magic returning to the world once more. We became a part of it, losing our bodies and then our voices, only regaining these fragile containers when... when you came.”

  So she, like Thorn, believes that I am doing something to break the curse, but her voice sounds more uncertain than his.

  “But... why not just leave?” I ask. “If the castle was going to die anyway- why not go through the gate the next time it opened?” She looks human enough, and with the magic she said she had, she could probably completely disguise herself. It would be easier, surely, than enduring this solitude. “There's nothing here to keep-” But suddenly, I know why. “Thorn. You were keeping this place alive for him.”

  She nods.

  “But he said... he said he was one of that... that face's monsters. Why would you-”

  “He is more than that,” Ariel says quickly. “Yes, she made him what he is, but... it is hard to explain. He holds the key to restoring our world. To bringing back our people. And...”

  “And what?”

  “And we love him.”

  This news should make me happy, but for some reason it just emphasises his loneliness. He had people, all this time, people who were here but almost as gone as his mother.

  “He acts as if you are dead,” I whisper. “I should go and get him-”

  “Wait, Rose,” she darts across my path, pulling my gaze back towards the mirror. “I need to tell you something. You're in danger.”

  I already know this. “The face in the lake,” I say quietly. “The dark fairy, or whatever she is.”

  Thorn had tried to tell me that the shadows were harmless now, mere reflections of what they were. And perhaps that was true, before I came. Bu
t then I remember, with startling clarity, that awful face, both in the lake and in the mirror, the night Thorn almost killed me. She has been trying to hurt me for some time.

  “Thorn wishes to believe she is gone, or weakened by her captivity.” Ariel continues, as if reading my mind. “Because the alternative is far too frightening for him. And he can live in that ignorance, if it pleases him. But I would have you know otherwise. You are not one to run from a fight, I think.”

  A cold, dark chill claws through my bones. “Who... who is she?”

  “A sorceress of immense power. The dark reflection of all that is light. We all hoped she was gone forever, but it appears she has been lingering here for some time, hoarding her power... She still has a little left, and she is growing desperate. She will come for you. You are far too great a threat.”

  “What... what do you mean?”

  “You are the key to breaking the curse.”

  “But you said Thorn was-”

  “It is both of you,” she says shortly. “Your purpose is now entwined.”

  “But I'm not doing anything!”

  “Yes,” says Ariel, a little sadly, “You are. But if I tell you what you need to do, we may lose our only shot of ever being free. And I want the curse broken.”

  “You can't give me any clue?” she is little more use than the mirrors.

  “If I am honest, none of us are completely sure of the required conditions. I will say this, however: speak your heart.”

  “Yes, wonderfully descriptive, thank you.”

  “There is so much at stake, Rose, you have no idea.”

  “Does Thorn know, that he can break the curse?”

  “Yes, but, like you, he is a little in the dark. He has been trying for so long-”

  Then how am I supposed to manage, in the time I have left?

  “Is there any chance you could you be just a little more descriptive about what it is I am supposed to do-”

  “You're running out of time,” she rushes. “You must... you must tell him, before you go. Be brave. Don't be afraid.”

  A voice calls out in the dark, a scream cuts through me like a hard knife of wind. Don't be afraid, Rose. Don't be frightened.