The Rose and the Thorn

by Kate Macdonald

  I punch the pillow bitterly, and my thoughts turn finally towards the storm. I knew, before I overhead the others talking, that it was far from natural. Something tried to kill Thorn. Tried to kill me.

  And Freedom was in the meadow. Ariel saw him too. He was there, begging me to come home. It hurts more that it was him, the sibling I fought with the most. I am reminded of the portrait he was painting of me, as if he were afraid he might forget my face. If that is how Freedom feels about my departure... how must the rest of them feel? What if they are desperately missing me, frightened and worried every single day?

  Inching forward, I lift my head to face the mirror in the far corner of the room. I half expect to see another face, pale and crowned with horns, but instead I see only an unremarkable young girl with reddish hair. The reflection does not show how much I am breaking.

  I return to Thorn's side the following morning, sick of the silence and the thoughts of my family. I silently sweep into his room and deposit myself in the chair beside the hearth, tucking my legs underneath me and whipping out a book.

  Thorn stares at me solidly for several moments. “Are you still cross with me?”

  I raise my eyes from above the brim of my book. “You should know by now that I am rarely cross with you.”

  “I didn't know that.” Thorn says, blinking. “What... what are you angry about, then?”

  “It's difficult to explain.”

  “Could you-”

  “Thorn,” I say quietly. “Please don't.”

  He nods quietly, and does say anything at all for another few minutes. “The fairies have been in,” he remarks off-handedly. “I never... I never thought to hear their voices again. I truly believed them lost to this world.”

  “Who are they, to you?” I ask.

  “My family,” he replies. “Or as near as I had to one, until...”

  “Until you met me?”

  “Yes.” Thorn swallows nervously.

  “It's all right,” I say. “I feel the same.”

  Neither of us says what we both must be thinking: but I already have a family, a family that are missing me. A family I long to return to.

  Thorn is bedridden for another three days. He says it is because his leg needs more time to recover, but I can tell he is affected a little more than he lets on. Although he insists he is fine, he lets me fuss over him a little, which I have to say I enjoy.

  One night, I doze off in the chair in his room, reading Tromeo and Lessida. I know I should probably get up and go to my own room, but I prefer being by his side, and if he knows I am awake he might insist. Now that he no longer needs a nursemaid, it is not proper for me to sleep here with him.

  A now-familiar buzz sounds from across the room.

  “Hello again, Ariel,” Thorn's voice is layered with warmth. “Where have you been, today?”

  “Fixing the mess you two have made in the gardens. Ophelia is quite beside herself.”

  “I really am very sorry-”

  She groans. “Rose is right. You apologise far too much.”

  “And how long have you been talking to Rose for, Ariel?”

  “A while. She's a better listener than you. I like her.”

  The smile in Thorn's voice is palpable. “I'm glad. I like her too.”

  I know she has no real body, but I imagine her rolling her eyes. “Yes, we noticed. She's your favourite soul in this whole wide world.”

  “I did not say that.”

  “I'm fairly sure you did. It's a little over the top, don't you think?”

  “No,” Thorn says quietly. “It isn't.”

  “You two are impossible. Good night. Don't waste the next six months. Margaret is making a dress for this belated ball. PS SAY SOMETHING TO HER.”

  “Goodnight, Ariel.”

  “Goodnight, sweet prince,” she says mockingly. “Sleep well.”

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Lover of the Fairy Queen

  By the time Thorn is well enough to go outside again, the gardens have been transformed. They are more beautiful than ever. We wander down to the lake, and take a path we have never taken before. It was completely overgrown a week ago. The fairies have been busy.

  The path stops just before the shore. There is a small stone building there, guarded by two statues of grand, regal fairies. It is clearly a tomb, but different from the others in the main graveyard. I have the strangest sense it wasn't built by tool. It has been crafted by some other means, for some other purpose.

  I look to Thorn, and without waiting for any kind of permission, try the door. I expect to see something bleak, eerie, dismal. Instead, I find myself in a smooth, round chamber, filled with natural light. The roof, what is left of it, is glass, and ivy tumbles in and wraps around the opening of a shallow pool. It looks almost natural, but there is clear, man-made incline, and a statue, sitting with its legs half in the water. A speck of light touches his half-hidden face.

  “Incredible,” I breathe.

  “I had forgotten this,” says Thorn, moving into the room. His voice has a strange, unearthly quality. He steps forward, a hand reaching towards the statue. At the last minute, just as his nails touch the stone, he pulls back. I am not sure if I imagine it, but I think his hand trembles.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” he replies, a little too quickly. He turns his back and looks up at the ceiling, admiring what, I don't know.

  I move closer to the statue and pull the ivy from its face. It is male, I realise, as I work down. He is broad-shouldered, with long limbs, elegantly postured. He reminds me of a merman. There is something beautiful in the way he sits, so naturally although he is carved of stone. But it is his face I admire most. It is strong, with a straight nose, large eyes, cheekbones both soft and angular. At first, I think he is familiar, but the moment quickly scuttles away.

  “Who is he?” I ask.

  Thorn still does not turn around. “His name was Leo Valerdene,” he says, after a pause so long I wonder if he will answer at all. “Or so the story says. He was a great lover of nature who one day, quite by accident, wandered into the realm of the fairies. The Queen of the fairies found him bathing in the lake, and they were instantly smitten with each other. Now, the Queen of the Fairies has had many lovers in her lifetime, but none like him. They courted for many years, and, eventually, she decided to make him her husband. There was some outrage, of course. A human? In the court of fairies? For years he had been looked on as little more than a favoured pet, someone who would leave as soon as the Queen tired of him. But now, after centuries of life, she had finally chosen a husband, and a human no less. Would they even be able to have children, provide an heir for the throne? Fairies can live a long time, and as such, have never been the most fertile of creatures. But the Queen cared not for any of this. She loved him so. The court came to understand this.”

  “They accepted him?”

  “They were married for ten years.”

  “What happened then?”

  Thorn pauses. “He died,” he says eventually. “The Queen built this place to mark his tomb, and remember the moment she had fallen in love with him.”

  “It is a beautiful tomb.”

  “I am told it is a beautiful story.”

  “You don't like it?”

  “I don't like stories that end in death.”

  This, at least, I can understand. I reach out to touch Leo's face, imagining it when it was made of flesh. It feels a little wrong, touching someone else's lover, but there is something in this face that calls to me.

  Thorn has turned around. “Do you find him handsome?” there is no note of jealousy in his voice, no note of anything.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Thorn snorts, almost irritably, and sweeps out of the room.

  That night, as I sleep, I dream I am down by the lake. It is high summer, the sky is golden, and the water shimmers in the evening light. I dream I am swimming with Leo Valerdene, not as the fairy queen, but as myself. He chases me,
laughing, his hands skimming my bare flesh. His touch is pure sunlight.

  I stop suddenly, treading water. Something isn't right.

  “What's wrong?” asks Leo. His voice rumbles through me.

  “This is wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “You aren't... you're not him.”

  “Who?”

  “Thorn. I shouldn't... I shouldn't be dreaming of you. It isn't right.”

  Leo laughs, and suddenly, his voice isn't foreign, his laugh is familiar. Thorn's laugh.

  “Rose,” he says, pulling me towards him. “It's all right. It's me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I'm Thorn, silly.”

  He leans forward in the water, his hands sliding round my back. His face glistens, and his beautiful blue eyes sing into my very soul. “Can't you see?”

  All at once, I can see, of course it's him, why couldn't I see it before? I place my hand against his cheek, and feel no surprise at feeling skin rather than fur, but when his fingers move to wipe back my hair, my flesh sings. Before another word can be uttered between us, our mouths slide together and we are kissing. The kiss covers all of me. The warmth of his mouth spreads outwards, inwardly, pouring down into the tips of my fingers, the ends of my toes. I am undone, foldable, as malleable as clay. His kiss is a flame amongst the hay.

  I awake hotly in my room, the weight of the phantom kiss still spreading through me.

  “Did you sleep well, last night?” Thorn asks coyly at breakfast the next morning.

  “W-what? Why? Why would you ask that?”

  “Your hair is all over the place.”

  “Oh!” I furiously pat it down. “I just... I... never mind.”

  “You're very skittish this morning. Are you quite all right? You look flushed-”

  “Well, the weather is getting awfully warm!” I fan myself desperately, feeling the colour rise to my cheeks.

  “All right,” Thorn shrugs, and finally sits himself down to eat. He looks almost smug, as if he is inside my thoughts.

  I cannot help but search his features for any trace of this strange man I saw last night, but it is no good. He simply looks like Thorn to me. And yet, I was so sure, in that moment, that this other person was Thorn.

  I eat my breakfast as quick as I can, not feeling particularly hungry, and then go back upstairs and run myself a bath. I have got to calm down.

  “You realise your bath is cold, right?” Ariel hovers at my shoulder.

  “Quite aware.”

  “Your voice sounds strange.”

  “Does it?”

  I suppose it does. It's high and quick, like I cannot say the words fast enough. Ariel helps me out of the dress and soon I am under the water. It is unpleasant, but I instantly feel better. Ariel adds some kind of oil, lavender, I think. The temperature heats up a little.

  “I had a strange dream last night,” I tell my tiny companion.

  “What about?”

  “I... I couldn't say.”

  A few more minutes tick by. Ariel hums a dainty tune.

  “I often have dreams here, dreams that... are different, from the ones I had back home. Dreams that feel a little bit... real.”

  Ariel bobs, as if she is nodding. “You're asking if your dreams are real?”

  “I'm asking if there's any truth to them, or if they're just... wishful thinking.”

  “A bit of both. Some of your dreams are just dreams... some a little more than that.”

  “Why is that? How can my dreams be anything other than just dreams?”

  “You are... connected to this place,” Ariel explains. “And the magic that sustains it. You are in the gardens and the walls and mirrors, in the old air that used to house the most powerful beings in the world. A little bit was bound to rub off on you, sooner or later.”

  I am not entirely sure what she means, but I think I understand. I am doing something to the castle, somehow. But I do not think I am doing it alone.

  Chapter Twenty-Two: The Monster in the Mirror

  The following morning, I gather my courage and go to check on my family again, before Thorn wakes up. Nothing out of the ordinary appears to be happening with them. Nothing out of the ordinary ever really happens back home. Only my glance at Freedom unsettles me; he is walking in the woods again. Did he tell the others that he saw me there? Does he think he imagined the whole thing? Is he all right? His expression offers no clue. We are alike in that way, I think. Both of us can be a hard to read unless we're furious.

  I turn to the Mirror of Memories to show me the moment the garden started to bloom again. It shows me the first snowdrop emerging from the patch where I planted mine. I am nowhere to be seen. “Show me what I was doing, at the same time.”

  I am in the library with Thorn, turning a page. Neither one of us is doing anything remarkable. My eyes are rooted on my book, and Thorn is...

  Well, Thorn keeps glancing at me, actually.

  I try to convince myself that the book just isn't that interesting, but I know I am fooling myself. I think the garden starting to bloom when he started to like me.

  My eyes drift to the Mirror of Desire. I wonder if it would show me Thorn's, if I asked it. I wonder if my own would mirror his. Do I really want to open that door?

  Next to it, the Mirror of Fear glistens. A part of me is less afraid of whatever this would reveal. I step in front of it once more.

  I see my parents' bedroom. Papa is lying on the bed, older and obviously dying. My stomach churns. I know it just a vision, that it isn't real, but it is still difficult to witness. Freedom, Honour, Hope and Beau all crowd around him. There are other people too, younger. Faces I don't recognise. Their children?

  “Rose,” Papa calls out, his voice raspy. “Where did you go?”

  This fear is hardly surprising. My family growing old without me. My father dying, never knowing what became of me. But this fear does not have to come to pass.

  “Rose!”

  The image swirls. This second vision is so much worse. Thorn is lying in the rose garden, our place, bleeding. The blood spreads across the stones like water against the riverbed. Unstoppable. He is calling my name, and I am not there. I am not there.

  The unutterable reality of Thorn's death. The one death I could not bear. I came so close to it before, and I know now I could never watch him die. My soul could not survive it. But... but it could still happen, and, unlike my father dying without ever having seen me again, I will be powerless to stop it. The way he called my name cuts into me... like he knew I was never coming. The desperation in his voice was palpable.

  “Rose...” another voice calls my name. I wheel around. The fairies are hovering in front of the mirror of truth. Eager to wipe the fears from my mind, I scurry over.

  Inside the mirror are three distinct figures. At the front is Ariel, more distinct and solid than she has ever been before, although she moves a little slowly, as if captured on a series of fast-moving portraits.

  To the left of her is a small, slight, pale-faced girl, with short, light green hair and eyes like chipped aquamarine. She is half the size of the other two, a child in stature. For a second, I think she is wearing a glittering cape made out shimmering gossamer, but then the cape wiggles. Not a cape- wings.

  The other figure belongs to a stately woman. Of the three of them, she looks the most human with her long, straight nose, proud neck, and brown hair piled on top of her hair. But her eyes are cool and golden, caught somewhere between a cat's and an owl's.

  At this stage, I know it shouldn't surprise me, but I cannot help but gape in wonder at the three fairies in my mirror.

  Ariel's lovely face breaks into a wide smile. “Hello!”

  “Hurrah!” exclaims the little girl at the back. “You can see us!”

  Ariel gives her a playful nudge.

  “Rose, I think it's time I introduced you officially to Margaret and Ophelia.”

  “I was thinking the exact same thing. I should have insisted d
ays ago, but-”

  “You were occupied,” says Margaret pointedly. “We saw.”

  I feel a little blush rise to my cheeks.

  “Anyway, this is Ophelia,” Ariel says, gesturing to the little green girl. “She minds the gardens, mostly. We get around a lot nowadays. And this-” she turns towards the stately woman, “Is Margaret. You can blame her for all the dresses.”

  “Oh, er,” I stifle an awkward blush. I had taken apart most the dresses I'd been given, not giving a thought to the one who made them.

  Margaret sniffs. “I assure you, they were the height of fashion at one point,” she says stiffly. “Your mother loved them. But not to worry. I will find something perfect for you in time.”

  “I loved the nightwear,” I say, by way of apology.

  “Those were Ariel's.”

  “Oh, um, so-”

  “Anyway,” Ariel intervenes, “I thought you would like to meet the rest of the team. What's left of us.”

  “Is it just you? All three of you, for this entire castle?”

  “I know,” Margaret says proudly, “we do a good job, do we not?”

  “What... what happened to the others? I've... I've heard the stories, of course. The war between light and dark, the queen dismissing her subjects, but... I feel like I'm missing something. Who is this dark fairy? What does she want? What can I do?”

  The fairies sigh, casting furtive glances are cast between them, as if they are discussing something telepathically. Ophelia tugs on the corner of Ariel's sleeve. She leans up and whispers something in her ear. Ariel turns to Margaret, and all three of them hang there for a moment, conversing silently.

  It is Margaret who responds. “We will show you, Rose,” she says reluctantly. “Or show you what we can. It is not short story, however. You may wish to sit down.”

  “Show me? What do you-”

  Before anyone can answer, the Mirror of Memories bursts into life. Images and figures literally pour out of the frame, sunlight floods the room, birdsong crawls into the air. I have never seen it do this before, but then, I am not one of the Fey. The mirror's magic collides with that of the fairies' in beautiful and discordant harmony.