Once Upon a Curse

by Peter Beagle

  He grinned wickedly. “You kept me quite busy last night.”

  “How long will you be?”

  “Only a couple of days. I’ll hurry back to you, I promise.”

  “Very well.” I closed my eyes and turned over again.

  “Shall I bring you something?” I felt the bed move as he sat up.

  “Sapphires,” I whispered, half back into dreams. I’d been floating in the ocean, and the water had been so warm.

  His motions, reaching for things, getting dressed, stilled. My eyes opened, and I cursed myself. I forced them closed again, and said sleepily. “You know, something purple.”

  He put a hand on my waist. “You mean amethysts, sweetheart?”

  I sighed. “Yes. To go with the new lavender dress you bought me.”

  “I thought you bought the lavender dress to go with your emeralds?” His teasing tone was there. I wondered if I detected the edge of hardness, or if I imagined it out of some weird guilt.

  “I did, but Weli said that was gauche. I’m not sure what gauche means, but it sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ve never known a woman who liked amethysts,” he said, then laughed and kissed my temple.

  I am told that people keep huge hunting cats, cared for from birth, as pets. They walk them around on leashes; they feed them raw meat from their fingers.

  Living with him was like that. He’d love me up, eat morsels from my fingers, be the perfect husband. But I always knew, someday, he might just turn on me. And worse, I’d never be sure why.

  The ring and earring burned in my pocket. Not literally, but I knew constantly where they were and couldn’t help but think on them.

  Finally, I walked into the treasury room. I poked through boxes, looking for jewelry. Surely, if his first wife was so enamored of rubies, there would be more left of her collection than a ring. In my own jewelry box, since I had told him that I loved emeralds, I had four rings of various kinds for each hand, a half dozen bracelets, some gold or silver, but most studded with emerald chips in different patterns. I also had five necklaces, three sets of earrings, and one tiara. Surely she would have just as much, maybe even more, since rumor had it he’d courted her for years.

  The room was made up of shelves. The shelves were mostly covered in boxes that you pulled out and opened. He had a work table, the tools of his trade—for that was what he did, he traded in valuables—lay neatly along one side. Most of the boxes were filled with metals, gold, silver, copper. There was even some brass and mithril. There were also a few stones, and I could tell how valuable they were by how they were stored. Some were loose in their perfectly organized box, some were sheathed in fine cloth pouches. I was very careful because everything was very neat. My favorite object was a chunk of purple stone the size of my fist, perfect for a paperweight, and I wondered if I could ask for it. It had an inclusion shaped like a butterfly.

  I went over to the work bench and inspected the tools—a tiny smelter, weighing scales, a mortar and pestle, and tweezers were the things I knew right off. I opened a drawer, and saw boxes of various sizes and small velvet bags. They contained resins and herbals, as far as I could tell, some so pungent that when I opened them they brought tears to my eyes. I started to close the drawer when I saw a flash of gold filigree. I pulled the drawer out a little further and saw a thick black leather-bound box, decorated in a pattern of gold vines and flowers. Inside was a jackdaw’s treasure chest—ruby necklaces lay entwined with beads of amber, onyx and jet, diamond and sapphire, topazes and opals all lay in a knotted mess. I pulled out half-mashed links of what had once been a diamond collar, halves of a sapphire-studded bangle that had been sliced in two. I pulled the earring out of my pocket and began matching it with the pieces I saw, looking for a mate, or a necklace that would have been part of its set.

  I found the mate in a nest of fine silver links with beads of jet strung on it, spaced so many inches a part. I held them together. Some of the chips were missing from the edge of it, but I knew they had been made to be together. The teardrop-shaped sapphire that hung in the center was exactly the same shade of blue. I heard something clatter down the hall, and I shoved everything back into the box, put the box back into the drawer, and put the purple stone on the shelf by the door to give me an alibi. I closed the door and ran down the hall, looking for Joaquin.

  The hall by the red-framed door faced the stable yard, and so I ran down the corridor to look out the window. No sign of his horse, though I could see Rachel contentedly grazing in the paddock.

  A flare of cold light behind me reflected off the panes, and I turned.

  Around the red frame of the forbidden door, words had been burned, black against the blood red.

  “Be bold,” they read, “Be bold…”

  “But not too bold,” Joaquin said. I looked around. He wasn’t in the hall. I stepped closer to the door. I’d heard him, plain as day.

  “Yes,” I heard him say. “‘Tis I.”

  I pressed my ear to the door. “Joaquin?”

  “I’ve locked myself in, wife.” There was a mocking quality to his words, and while one would assume he was making fun of himself—after all, he’d locked himself in—I felt that the humor was directed at me. And it wasn’t quiet, delighted humor, as if he found me constantly endearing, but something much crueler.

  “How…how did you do that?”

  “I came back to fetch something and now the door won’t open. It must be locked from the outside. Perhaps you…?”

  “I didn’t hear your return. And I didn’t see your horse…”

  “The servant must have taken him inside to groom him. And perhaps you were yet asleep. I’ve been stuck in here for such a long time.”

  I fumbled at my chatelaine belt. The little black key slipped into my hands.

  “I’m so thirsty,” he whispered. I lay one hand flat on the door while the other hand slowly brought the key to the lock. My hand shook so badly that it knocked against the metal. I thought again of the first day here.

  “Do not place the key to the lock,” he had said. “Do not open the door. Do not enter in.”

  I dropped the keys and stepped away.

  “No matter what,” I whispered.

  “Wife, what is going on?”

  “I do love you,” I said, backing away. I felt dazed. I tripped over my own feet and had to put a hand out on the wall to support myself.

  “You can’t leave me like this! Wife!”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, as something began to howl and throw itself against the door.

  I fainted at the mouth of the hallway, and when I came to, it was night again.

  He found me lying on the sofa, as uncomfortable as it was, staring wide-eyed at the fire. I was not going upstairs by myself for any reason. It did not occur to me to ask how he got out of the room. I knew that, whomever I had spoken with, it wasn’t with him.

  You might be thinking that this would be the right time to introduce my peculiar thoughts into the conversation. “Hello, husband. While you were out I went to the door. Don’t worry, I didn’t open it, but I did have a conversation with some fell creature that spoke with your voice.” Or, “By the way, when I was riding the other day, I found some body parts—would you happen to know why you have an earring belonging to a dead body lying in your drawer?”

  It doesn’t much matter, you see. It’s what I was saying about the hunting cats. He may be a murderer, and I may be the next victim. But when he scolds me gently for sleeping on the sofa (“It’s freezing in this room. You’ll be sick.”) and when he picks me up and carries me upstairs promising a present for me; he’s so soft and so loving, I cannot feature it.

  He’s often a cold, hard man, but he softens for me. He cherishes me. It makes me feel special, as if I’ve done something no other woman could.

  At the top of the stairs he put me down, and took a sack off his back. “Let’s put this away,” he said, and headed over to the treasure room. I unlocked the door fo
r him, and he stepped inside, lighting torches with a flicker of his hand. He opened the sack and beckoned me over, pulling out a length of pale purple pearls, each as large around as a fingernail, and long enough for him to loop it around my neck and drape it over my hair. They felt like warm satin.

  “They’re beautiful,” I said as he stepped back to admire the effect. Something crunched under his foot, and he moved his boot slowly. His nostrils flared, and I could tell that he recognized the mangled bit of blue and silver.

  “I’m so sorry,” I managed, thrusting my hand into my pocket, where I had been certain I’d shoved the earring in my rush. It wasn’t there, of course, and neither was the ruby ring. There was a hole, one that should not and had not been there before.

  Where was the ruby ring? I looked around, trying not to be transparent. “What were you doing in here?” he asked casually as he opened the drawer.

  “Being careless with valuable things, obviously.” I could not conceal the nervousness in my voice as he opened the box. Of course, the mate was sitting right on top of the scramble. It even sparkled in the light.

  “I found it outside,” I said before he could ask. “In the garden. I don’t like sapphires, and was looking for a place in here to store it.”

  He nodded and knelt to scoop up the earring pieces, then threw them in the box. He slammed it shut, then closed the drawer with much more force than was needed.

  “The rest can wait until tomorrow,” he said, taking my arm. The torches went out, and in the darkness, he placed his lips to my ear. “I believe you because I choose to; not because I do.”

  I lay, almost asleep, pillowed against his shoulder. I had coaxed and charmed him until his anger eased, and now I listened to him breathing in sleep, my cheek warm against his bare skin. His breathing was becoming increasingly softer and soon it would fade into silence, so I was enjoying it while I could.

  I tried to let myself doze off, determined to continue not thinking. Not thinking about the fact that breakfast that morning had consisted of chocolate-covered cherries and green beer. Of the fact that sometimes I found a scuff mark here, a bit of dust there. It was as if the house spirit, for I had given up on believing in servants I’d never seen or heard, was getting tired.

  Or perhaps was stretched thin, somehow. Did I make much more work for it? Or were its resources stretched by something else?

  I had managed to sweep my mind clean and could feel myself just on the edge of sleep-induced placidity, when my husband sat up in bed.

  “No!” he yelled, and I fancied I saw a shadow move across the window. “You will not have her.” His words came out as an agonized groan. The lights came on in the room, too bright. I blinked until I could see.

  “Joaquin?” I whispered, hugging myself.

  He looked at me, his eyes narrowed. “You.” He crawled across the bed until his face was an inch from mine. “You touched the door. I saw it.”

  “W-when?”

  He pulled away slightly. “Did you touch. the door?”

  “Yes.” My half-breathed word was covered by his growl of frustration. He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of bed, half dragging me behind him. The doors slammed opened before we reached them as we raced down the hall. The etched glass doors of the library shattered as they hit the walls. A wind gathered around us as we walked, cold and clammy. Even naked, he did not seem to feel the cold, but I wore my thinnest shift, and felt it like a blade across my skin. He was muttering something furiously under his breath, words I could not catch. The kitchen door opened, and he pulled me closer to him.

  “Women, women you’re all the same,” he spat out.

  “I did not open the door,” I said calmly. “I did not put the key to the lock. Because I love you and respect your wishes.”

  The kitchen torches lit, and I saw that there were tears on his face. “He’s in your head now. It’s only a matter of time.” He threw me into the kitchen and I caught myself on the table just as he slammed the door shut.

  He did not come back.

  Here is how I lived for two days in the kitchen. During the first night, in the dark, I huddled in a corner under a table, scared witless because I could finally see the servants. They were shadow against shadow, movement that flickered in and out of the corner of my eye. A flash of phantom knife here, a flicker of peeling falling there, things didn’t float or look as if they were being moved about by invisible hands so much as appear when I wasn’t looking.

  The first morning I had, by some miracle, managed to fall asleep, and when I awoke I saw a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of tea placed on the floor beside me. The kitchen itself, a place of perfect order the one time I’d bothered to look at it, was now completely dilapidated. There was dust and one of the widow panes was cracked, a small square of glass broken out. The dry sink was rimed with filth, the pump disused-looking. Neither the oatmeal nor the tea had any taste. True, it’s hard for oatmeal to have any real taste, and when one is upset food tastes like wet parchment anyway, but still, the complete absence of flavor, the nothing that sat on my tongue, was disturbing.

  There was a blanket, half mangled but clean, draped on one chair. It had not been there the night before. “Thank you,” I said out loud, before wrapping myself in it. I stuck my head through the largest of the holes, then ran my fingers up and down the horribly scarred table. It was filthy. I looked for a bucket, and worked the water pump. Nothing.

  “If you get this pump to work, I’ll clean the kitchen. Fair trade?” There was silence, but a few moments later, when I tried the pump, it gurgled deep inside itself. I worked it until water, rusted but usable, finally came out. A few more pumps and the water ran clean.

  When he comes for me, at least he’ll find me useful, I thought. Once in a while I checked the door carefully, just in case he’d unlocked it and left, but it was stuck fast. So, I attacked the kitchen, starting with the table.

  In some ways I wish I hadn’t.

  The kitchen tells a story. I cannot tell you what it is, but I have an idea.

  The filth-covered axe shoved under the sink. The table, covered in dark brown blotches that look like rust in the scores the axe made, where a liquid puddled and stained the fresher wood. The corner of the table was sheared off by the axe. I found the piece lying underneath.

  Blotches everywhere, layer upon layer. The stone of the floor, the countertop, the bowl of the dry sink, all stained. Some of it comes up dark flaky brown on my clothes, now clotted with filth.

  The big, heavy fireplace is perfectly clean except for a light layer of dust, and the lack of ash just makes me feel sicker.

  “Why did you put me here, Joaquin?” I opened the pantry, fearing what I’d find. Save for one smeared blotch in the middle of the floor, the place was clean. Jars of preserved fruits, vegetables, smoked meats, hung in perfect order. He put me where the food was, I realized, but why? So that I would not go hungry, of course, but did he mean me to stay here until he came for me? Did he think something would happen to the house spirit, and I would have to fend for myself?

  No lunch came, nor did dinner. The sunlight faded and was not replaced. I fended for myself with cheese and meat I cut with a small sharp knife. I drank water and wondered what the new day would bring, praying that the night would bring nothing. My prayers were answered, mostly, though in the distance I could hear anguished howling, punctuated sometimes by something shattering.

  I slept on the counter in the pantry that night, wrapped in my ragged blanket. The knife stayed in my hand.

  The next day breakfast was laid out on the table, thin slices of white and yellow cheese alternated in a many-petaled flower pattern with slices of pale green fruit. A pitcher of pale peach juice sat in the center. “How very pretty!” I said, yet when I reached out to pluck a piece of cheese from the display it crumbled to dust in my hand.

  Breakfast: dried fruit, a little smoked ham, water.

  I cleaned up, then scrubbed the walls, ignoring the spots of irregular brown that s
plattered them.

  The night was silent.

  Still, Joaquin did not come.

  The next morning a pitcher of boiling water was set out for me. It remained hot as I prepared a little tea. I ate from a jar of tiny, stale biscuits and stared at the door. My keys were upstairs on my dresser, yet even so it didn’t look as if I could lock or unlock the door from this side. In fact, there was a sort of bar set across the door, that pulled back when the latch on the other side was turned.

  The axe was in the corner, cleaned of the worst of the mess, its cream-colored handle spotted with many finger-shaped prints. I hefted it, a sense of dizziness coming over me. I went to the door, and as I lifted it over my shoulder, the kitchen came into sharp focus. I turned and looked behind me.

  There were four of them, dressed in the same colors, serviceable gray for servants, a bright blue for the family’s crest. A man, his haggard looks belying the strength in his scarred hands, the hostler, I thought, and a glance at the heavy boots proved that he was the one who took care of the stables. A young boy with dark hair, his ears sticking out like saucers. A flat-chested scarecrow of a girl, her dull straw hair almost all hidden underneath her tightly drawn scarf. An older woman, her face like leather, her hair like wool. They all stood perfectly still, hands folded in front of them, as if lined up for inspection.

  The hostler’s eyes lit up like flame. “Be bold,” he said, and it was almost fatherly, the way he looked at me. The flames dulled, and he disappeared, the fire passing on to the boy.

  “Be bold,” he said earnestly. The fire passed on. He, too, was gone. “Be bold,” the girl said, a flicker of flirtation in it.

  Now only the housekeeper was left. She stared at me for a long time. I recognized pity in her eyes, along with the flicker of flame. “Be bold,” she said. She started to say something else, but she, like the others, faded.

  I took the axe to the door bar.