Once Upon a Curse

by Peter Beagle

  “Sarah.” He stands and approaches me, stares down at me with eyes as black as a basilisk’s, and I am frozen, the words I sought gone.

  “Sir!” Deirdre protests. “Perhaps you should…” She falls silent as he looks at her, his face expressionless and somehow all the more intimidating for it.

  I place the napkin again in front of my mouth. “It’s all right, Deirdre.”

  “You are right,” he confesses quietly. “I didn’t come to talk about orchards, though I’m willing to. I came out of curiosity, for magic has long left my lands. I wanted to see proof of it for myself.”

  He takes a chair beside me, lowers his eyes with his voice. “I have not meant to be unkind, but you are so guarded I knew flowery words would not force you to speak.”

  “Deirdre, please tell the cook that we’re ready for dessert.”

  Deirdre looks at him suspiciously, but does what I ask.

  “I forgive you.” My eyes do not leave my plate. I am aware of him as he sits so close, his warmth, the smell of his soap and of leather. Against my better judgment, I lay the pearl and two roses on the table before him.

  “I am honored,” he says, taking the roses. The pearl, ignored, rolls to a stop against the knife. I search his face, his eyes, for mockery, but there is none.

  He stands again, looks down at me with a tenderness I haven’t t known in a very long time.

  “With your permission, I’ll be off to bed.”

  I nod and offer him my hand.

  He bends to kiss it. His warm lips send a pleasant shiver through me. “Who needs to speak?” he asks, and I allow him the tiniest of smiles.

  He takes a step away, and I sit bemused. His hand touches my shoulder gently, and I feel his breath against my cheek as he leans close again. “Would that I did not, that by some other eloquence I could convince you to come to me tonight.” His thumb touches my cheek, gently tracing a path down. “You wouldn’t have to say a word.”

  I shiver again as I watch him leave, thinking of my husband. Even in bed, he encourages me to speak, to whisper inconsequential things. I soon learned that the content of the words did not matter, as long as I spoke, as long as the jewels came tumbling out.

  Another hand falls upon my shoulder, and I jump. “Are you all right? I don’t trust that man, duke or no.” I squeeze Deirdre’s fingers, grateful for her friendship.

  “He’s all right.” I say. “He’ll be gone, once he gets what he wants.” I gather up the stray jewels and put them beside the plate. I smile at her. “I can fend for myself this night, and you deserve some rest. I bid you sweet dreams.”

  I climb the stairs, alone for once, and think of Fanchon, my older sister. She met the fairy, too. But Fanchon didn’t fetch water when she was asked. In fact, she was so rude in her refusal that she, too, was touched by fairy magic. A darker kind that turned her words to vipers and toads. I now fear what will happen if I say anything too unkind.

  I am about to push open my chamber door when I hear Amon’s voice.

  “If I offer him half my lands, will he give you to me in exchange?”

  I turn to face him.

  He stands in a pool of light, his shirt open at the throat, his coat gone. His smile is soft and lazy; his hair glistens in the golden light.

  I step closer.

  “Are you lost?” I ask. His rooms are further down the hall.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “No,” I say, and the resulting pearl joins my other words in their pouch.

  “Your husband has already asked for those lands. You’re the only thing I’ll take for them.”

  “Then he will not have them.” I catch two diamonds, a pearl, and three violets in my hand. I drop the flowers to the floor.

  “Then he will also have no cherry wine,” Amon teases. “I will refuse to sell it to him at any price.”

  I wince, for cherry wine is my husband’s favorite drink aside from ambrosia, the only fitting liquor for a king.

  “What will he say to that?” He takes a diamond from my hand and places it on top of my head. He laughs as my lips press together, annoyed. The stone slips off and is lost in the darkness. I bend to look for it.

  “Leave it. There’s more where that came from.”

  I shake my head furiously, fearing what my husband will say if he finds an unattended diamond in the hall.

  “You are inexplicable. Kind one moment, cruel the next.” My hand fills with stones and pearls.

  “Are you any less so?” Amon asks. “What am I to think of a woman who hates jewels?”

  A nervous laugh escapes me despite myself.

  “What am I to think of a woman so beautiful and so sad?”

  I have no words for an answer, nor does he expect them. His hands slip round my waist. His lips press softly into mine. He is so gentle that it feels like affection, and I eat it up, take it like a starving woman. His rooms are not so far away from mine.

  True to his promise, he doesn’t ask me for a single word.

  In the morning, early, I look upon his profile in the light. “Thank you,” I whisper, and leave the roses on his pillow.

  I wander the halls, reproaching and justifying myself. He has given me hope, but I know it cannot be true. My husband has encouraged me to talk until words have become unbearable, but would Amon really turn out to be any different? Would any man?

  I push back my bedcovers, and undress, put on my nightgown. Bitterness and hope wage their own wars inside me, but above all I know that I am desperate to believe. I laugh at myself, and ring for a maid.

  Sometimes I envy Fanchon, who died alone in the woods. No, not alone. She had her stinging vipers, her little red toads. You always knew where you stood with them.

  When I finally go down to him, Amon greets me with a conspiratorial grin. He has two roses tucked into his belt. I refuse to be charmed.

  “I cannot bargain with you in this matter,” I say, spilling gems at his feet. “You’ll have to deal with my husband when he returns.”

  “As you wish,” Amon says, a pained expression on his face. I nod and leave. I am done with him, I tell myself, and I refuse to recognize any regrets.

  I pass that same room later in the day. I pause, and then go in. The stones, all eighteen of them, are arranged in a heart, two roses lie in its center. I touch the arrangement carefully, smiling a little.

  “Do you like it?” His voice comes from the gloom of the curtains hung against impending night.

  I want to believe in him, but I can’t. I know better. “Don’t trifle with me!” I nearly choke on the pearls as they rise on anger in my throat.

  He steps into the light. “Trifle?” he says, and has the gall to look confused.

  “Yes! I’m not falling for this nonsense you’ve concocted.”

  “What nonsense?”

  “I know what you truly want.”

  His eyes narrow, and he rocks back on his heels. His arms fall away. “Even if I give your husband half of my lands, my greater wealth will remain untouched.”

  “But you know he’ll mismanage it. That you’ll get it back in the end, anyway.”

  He nods, thoughtful. “Without you, it won’t be so easy for him to repay his debts.”

  “I knew it.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  And I do. In his room that night, I believe. His touch is gentle, and with his mouth always on mine, words become meaningless.

  When I dress in the morning to leave, he whispers, “Side with me. I will take you away to my home in Andovia, and take care of you.”

  He smiles up at me, boyish and sweet in the sweep of predawn light that erases all lines. I sit on the edge of the bed, lean in to kiss him, and against his lips I whisper, “I love you. I should not, but I do.”

  Pearls and diamonds tumble from my lips to his, and down the counterpane to the floor, untouched.

  I back away, smiling, holding my dress closed. He rolls on his side to watch me, his eyes unreadable in th
e darkness.

  My husband returns that same day. I dress carefully, fingers trembling as I pick the right things to wear.

  I stare out the window, trying to be invisible. Behind me, husband and lover discuss my future.

  As expected, my husband does not like the idea of giving me away, but neither is he pleased with the prospect of losing his supply of cherry wine. Amon offers the most ridiculous things, much more than half his wealth. I listen to them, pleased with Amon’s attempts.

  “Come on, man,” he says, anger and frustration finally taking hold. “Everyone knows that you do not care for her. You make it plain at every inn and gambling hall you visit.” He stops abruptly, looks at me.

  I hadn’t known.

  Wait, that’s not true. I had known but I’d tried to believe it wasn’t so.

  My husband orders guards to escort Amon to the border. King though he is, he does not dare order an execution. I am taken to the north tower, where I now sit, my husband in the doorway. He wants me to explain the flowers and jewels that were found in Amon’s room.

  “Perhaps he took them. I spoke to him at great length, trying to negotiate the cherry orchards for you.”

  “He took the flowers, too? Don’t be stupid, woman.”

  “Maybe he thought they were pretty.” I smile, but it is brittle. “I would really have no idea.”

  “Which is why he wanted you so badly. Because you’re a fool.”

  He hands me a basket as deep as my arm and as round as a serving platter. “You will not leave this room. All things that you require will be brought to you. This basket is to be filled every day.”

  I nod, not surprised.

  “Starting today.”

  “But it’s late, already,” I protest. The diamonds clatter together as they fall in.

  He smiles. “Whatever you have to do.”

  I smile back. I think I know what I have to do.

  And so I sing. I stand with the basket resting on the window ledge and sing to the night air. I sing to the stars and to the moon and to the trees. I sing to the forest I grew up in, to the well I had so often drawn water from. I sing to the fairy who thought she had rewarded a good heart.

  People gather, and I sing to them.

  I sing as if my heart is breaking, and it is.

  Eventually, the basket fills, and then I collect the jewels in my hands and throw them to the people below.

  “Do you love me?” I call, leaning out the window, my basket set aside. The jewels fall to the ground.

  The people below cheer, and say they do.

  I raise my voice in one final song. There is silence as the notes fade and die, pearls and gems and flowers dropping to the ground.

  I back away, and close the shutters.

  I try to break the spell. I whisper obscenities I have heard the grooms use in the barns. I mutter every mean and miserable thing I can think of, over and over. The clutter of my attempts marks a trail as I pace.

  At last, I fumble for the knife Deirdre sewed into my hem when I begged her to hide it for me.

  I know what I have to do.

  Nothing but misery follows for days after the first cut, the swelling, the fever. I want to die, but I live.

  My husband laughs when sees what I had done.

  “Heal her,” he commands. “I don’t want pain to distract her from the coldness of the nights.”

  He refuses to look at me. “I want you to truly know what it’s like to be completely alone.”

  I felt bad for him, almost, for a moment. After all, he had a freak for a wife.

  I cannot speak now, as I wander the edge of the forest between my old land and Andovia. Perhaps, though, there is nothing to say.

  When I healed, he sent me here. He says it’s justice for me to die as my sister did. Alone and unwanted in the woods.

  I don’t believe in fairies anymore. I believe in devils, and sometimes in angels, but not in fairies. I sit with my back to a tree, the palace of the Grand Duke of Andovia decorating the slope above me.

  I wonder if Amon would want me, now that I have cut out my tongue.

  Remains

  by

  Siobhan Carroll

  We hear on the radio that a body has been found. A young woman lies facedown in a drainage ditch near Shimpling Park. Instantly, a cold tightness in the stomach. Is that her?

  And so we listen, as though the radio’s thin crackle were the oracular voice of the dead.

  Those of us who live nearby drive to the muddy field and stare at the horrible line of police tape. Together we stand in the cold, and wait. The fathers of the missing pace the field. Some call out names, the faint ghost-echoes of unfamiliar faces. Their voices spiral up into the dark. We imagine the things the radio leaves out. We imagine her as pale Ophelia, tangled up in pondweed, goldfish darting in and out of her mouth. In terrible moments we imagine her bloated like a pig. We imagine that much-loved face swollen beyond recognition, save for something we remember: A tattoo. An earring. That terrible clue.

  Sooner or later word gets out: it isn’t her. In the field the fathers press their ruined shoes harder into the mud. The mothers stand like husks of people, old grief on their faces. The friends and the sisters and the step-brothers and the ex-boyfriends—whoever else came—we look where we need to, so that we do not see each other’s faces.

  Eventually we drift back to the cars and the long drive. In other, farther places, we reach over and turn the radio off.

  My great-grandmother had a friend who was a sleepwalker. As girls, they took a trip to the grey-blue sea. They rented a house on the hill. Window boxes trailed red geraniums down the sunlit walls.

  They first saw the man at twilight. They were walking up from the village; the air smelled of ocean and storm-tossed weeds.

  He tipped his hat to them as they passed the graveyard. That was the first time my great-grandmother noticed him. The man was sitting on the bench by the greening stones in the graveyard wall. Perhaps he had been there awhile.

  The young women giggled and walked faster; her friend looked back. But that was all my great-grandmother saw. That was all she glimpsed pass between them.

  Ten days later her friend was dying, stretched out shrunken and bloodless on a thin mattress. The doctors did what they could for her, but medicine could not do much in those days. When they lifted her body, my great-grandmother said, it was as light as a dead butterfly on the tip of a pin.

  They buried her in one of those beautiful old tombs with carvings of knights on the door. Seven days later they had to open it again. Someone had seen her stumbling across the moors with blood on her face.

  What they did in there, her family will never say. One cannot speak ill of the dead, my great-grandmother said, nor the undead neither. She shook her head over her crochet needles, her face grey and empty like a dandelion after the wind comes.

  Sometimes newspapers run blurred photos of women in foreign countries, women stepping off cruise ships or caught in fuzzy profile on a busy street. Their barely-seen features are dwarfed by sunglasses; they clutch fashionable hats against the wind. We peer at the photos as though we can make these half-imagined figures resolve into the girl we remember. Could it be?

  We show these photos to acquaintances, to friends of the family, passing them casually over dinner tables. We want their dispassionate eyes to see for us. We hope one day someone will look up in amazement and say, it’s her. Definitely her.

  Photographs are the worst. Doubts seep through us: were her wrists that narrow? Was her chin that round? Is the woman in the photograph a couple inches too tall?

  If only we’d spent more time studying her angles when she lived among us, committing to memory every possible pose. Then we would not lie awake at night, fearing we have forgotten what she really looked like.

  Everyone knows someone. Often we don’t hear these stories until it affects us directly, and then people come forward, catching us by the arm in hallways and streets. My cousin, they say. My
sister’s friend. Sometimes they give us a searching look, as though they are hoping we can explain it to them.

  There was a girl at my school who fell in love with a vampire. She knew what he was from the start; she claimed she found him beautiful. Like a statue, she told her friends. Like a Greek god.

  Her friends hoped she was joking. They’d seen him, some of them, lurking at the edge of parking lots, a wolf with eyes like fossils. They could not imagine themselves kissing that face, touching skin white and strange as bone, tongue flicking past teeth like broken glass.

  When she disappeared, people blamed her friends. They should have said something. The girls themselves stood at the memorial service with their heads down, nursing emotions too large for words.

  Girls aren’t the only ones who disappear. I heard of a middle-aged woman, someone’s mother, who walked into the night with one of Them and was never seen again. And then there was that boy in Sweden, so young you’d never think it. We watched his mother on television, weeping and wailing into the camera, begging for her child’s return. We didn’t know the language she was speaking, but we understood every word.

  The hardest part is not knowing. Why did they do this? Was there a reason? Something that could have been avoided, or prevented, or fixed? Did some unseen maggot turn in their brain, driving them to an act of insanity? Did they really understand what they were doing?

  Was it our fault? Theirs?

  In the days that follow, those of us who remain search for answers. We don’t find any.

  Most of them do not even leave a note.

  The last time I saw my sister was at the window of her bedroom, overlooking the lawn.

  I’d got up to get a drink of water. Something had disturbed me; a noise, a dream. I walked to the bathroom in a fog of sleep, and saw the wind had pushed her door ajar. A low murmur of voices came from inside.