"What have I done?" she questioned.
"I did not ask," Gurr replied. Eyes fighting to hold onto the rage, the knife trembled in his hand, and Snow White could see Gurr's hesitance, knew he would act only on command.
"My father..." Snow White uttered in disbelief. "He called for this?"
Gurr's fingers turning white on the handle of the hunting knife, he said nothing.
"I will go," Snow White pleaded. "I will run away into the forest. I will never come back, I swear."
"She will know," Gurr gave a violent tremble, tears filling his eyes.
"Who?" Snow White uttered, realizing with a flash of pain through her chest there was only one other person Gurr would obey without question. "The queen," she said, pain so sharp she almost wanted Gurr's knife point. The queen had always kept her at more than arm's length, where she kept everyone, but Snow White never believed the queen hated her with such ferocity.
"She will not know." Snow White tried to keep her poise, wiping the tear that squeezed from the corner of her eye, as she mustered some royal authority of her own. "I will never come back," she assured Gurr. "She will never see me. She will not know. I am your princess. You will do as I say."
When the knife in Gurr's hand remained too near, Snow White risked a touch to his arm, softening as she realized the royal vestment did not fit her. "Gurr, please," she prayed him, and Gurr flinched as if she was a wild animal. "She will have no way of knowing. I will find a place to hide myself, for it seems the world has turned very cold around me indeed."
Face taut, Gurr's lips trembled as he raised the knife again, higher, tears falling unchecked down his face, and Snow White thought of her mother, who would be waiting. When she left the world, whenever it came to pass, there would be someone to meet her, someone whom she very much wanted to see. At the thought, a strange calm settled over her and she closed her eyes, prepared to meet her future and her past.
"Go," Gurr said suddenly, and Snow White's eyes shot open.
"Go!" Gurr shouted, and Snow White hurried to her feet.
"Go!" Snow White cast an anxious look toward her dark lantern, before rushing away without it.
"Do not come back, Snow White!" Gurr yelled at her back. "Do not ever come back!"
· · ·
Darkness fell so quickly, it was as if there had never been light, and the phantoms came.
Cutting through thorns and bristles, the sounds of the ghouls and spirits echoed around her, reminding Snow White the hazards of the forest remained long after its beauty faded.
"Snow White," a grisly voice beckoned her, and Snow White's feet were suddenly weighted, pulling her to a stop, though running was her only hope.
What she knew of the forest had not all been taught her in Gurr's lessons. Before she could call a single plant or animal by name, she had been taught the forest's superstitions. If the animals gathered at one's feet as they entered, one would someday, by spell or rebirth, become one of them. If one survived a lost night in the woods, it portended a great future feat. If the spirits spoke one's name, it meant death was coming for her.
"Snow White," the voice sounded again, closer, and Snow White whirled to face it, but there was nothing. At least, nothing Snow White could see. A tug at her cloak and the rustle of her hair, though the wind was calm, Snow White knew it was there, just a shadow, but stronger than any solid force on Earth.
Some people gave themselves over when it came. It was easier, it was said, to surrender. Night stealing her sight, cold her strength, betrayal her will, it was tempting to fall before it as she had fallen at Gurr's feet, but, then, death had come for her once already and Snow White had sent it on its way.
Feet breaking free of their fear, she ran again, flying through the low branches, jumping obstacles she could scarcely see, until her heart throbbed against her ribs and the cold air burned in her lungs. It did not matter how fast she went, the shadow of death was there, so close she could feel its frigid caress on the back of her neck.
Leaping the thick trunk of a toppled tree, Snow White's foot caught a snarl and she went down brutally in the snow. A pile of dead limbs poked through her cloak and dress to stab at her skin, and Snow White cried out, the physical pain a worthwhile excuse to unleash the truer pain, the one from within.
Only when she had sat by the sickbed of her mother had she ever felt such hopelessness. Just as she thought they might become friends, the queen sent her to her death, but still Snow White could not find her hatred. She could find only the hurt. Wondering what had she done to become such a burden, she covered her face and began to cry, the salty tears sinking into the cuts on her palms and dripping from her hands.
Eyes shielded from the frights of the forest, Snow White did not see the tears fall to the snow beneath her, tinged red with her blood, the very same combination of elements on which her mother had wished her into existence.
It was a story she oft asked to be told as a small child, when her mother would tuck her into bed at night. She was told as a girl, her mother would say, that she would never have children, but still she longed for a little girl. One day, as she sewed a new winter wrap for Snow White's father, watching a beautiful enchanted snow fall over the kingdom, she pricked her finger with the needle and two drops of blood fell into the snow on the window's ledge.
Where nature met, there was magic, it was said, and her mother swore she saw it before her, rising up in tufts of color. On that magic, she wished with all her strength that she might have a daughter as white as snow, with lips red like her blood, and hair and eyes as black as the oil that burned in the lamp beside her. Soon after, the beautiful daughter came into being, made of exactly those ingredients. That was how Snow White had gotten her name.
"You are a miracle," her mother would say, before she kissed her on the head and told her to dream well.
Before Snow White, where blood met snow again, the swirling began, a glowing rise of energy. Colors leaking through her fingers, Snow White pulled her hands from her tear-stained face to see the specter that emerged was not one of evil.
"Mother," Snow White murmured, voice barely working, the cold and exertion having taken their toll.
When her mother smiled, she was so real Snow White forgot all about evil spirits and murderous plots. As a child, she had missed her mother deeply, always believing it would one day lessen. What she discovered instead was that the older a girl grew the more she needed her mother's guidance, and it was a lonely path without it. Standing before her in the swirling snow, her mother was as lovely as she had been throughout Snow White's tender years, before illness had taken her splendor.
As she watched her mother's lips curve into a smile that seemed to light the entire forest, Snow White pushed her aching body up to hands and knees, quickly discovering the shadow of death still close at hand. A screech blasting her ear, its icy clutches whispered against her cheeks, trying to pull her back into the night.
Then, a hand was hauling her up and pulling her away, faster than she went before. So quickly through the night she moved, it was as if her feet did not touch the ground at all, as if she was being flown like a kite through the air. Her mother's hand felt surprisingly real in hers, the skin as smooth and warm as it had ever been, and though Snow White could still hear the evil entity following behind them, she was no longer afraid.
Between the branches of the trees, the smoke from a chimney came into view, and Snow White was pulled through the doorway of a small cabin tucked into the foot of a hill, its door slammed against the night outside. The violent crash of the shadow against it made the door rattle on its hinges, and Snow White leapt back.
"Do not be afraid," her mother said from behind her. "It cannot come in. You are safe now."
The words providing less comfort than the voice that spoke them, Snow White turned to greet her mother properly, only to find the cabin empty. Where her mother had stood, there was nothing but a coat rack, two rods shorter than a coat rack should be.
"Mum?" Snow White called quietly into the silent cabin, but knew it was no use.
Broken-hearted and grieving as if her mother had died only that day, the girl sunk to her knees on the knotted wood floor and made the scrapes on her palms sting once more.
CHAPTER TEN
True Love's Kiss
Most places were not so accommodating. They did not provide ropes of silken hair or a hand at the window ledge, and perhaps that was for the best, Cinderella considered, as the world was full of those looking to come in for the wrong reasons. All the bad things Rapunzel believed there to be in the world, yet, when the world came calling, she invited it right in.
Skin hot from the brutal temperatures of Naxos, even as night fell, and the long climb, it was a shock when Cinderella's hand met Rapunzel's chilled one. Crawling over the ledge, she had the urge to take both the girl's hands in her own and warm them against her chest. Uncertain from where the thought came, she released Rapunzel's hand with haste, and Rapunzel turned to pull her hair back up through the night, a chore that took some time, before she unwound it from the hook above the window's arch.
Locks piling at her feet, Rapunzel turned to inspect the bottom of Cinderella's dress with a frown. "You have damaged your gown," she said. "And your feet, how do they fare?"
"They are fine," Cinderella replied, though she could feel the hidden scratches from the briars that marked the first of her climb acutely.
"Hmmm," Rapunzel hummed. "You have thick skin, do you? For I am told the briars that circle the base of this tower are made to cut."
"My skin is not that thick," Cinderella whispered, stepping away when Rapunzel's gaze felt overwhelming, still bothered by the willingness with which she had been let in. "Have you had other visitors?" she asked carefully.
"Only my mother," Rapunzel returned, and, glancing to her again, Cinderella recognized the disease of loneliness in her.
"She is not entirely wrong, you know," Cinderella said. "You should be careful of letting others in."
"You mean me harm?" Rapunzel questioned.
"No." With a subdued laugh, Cinderella shook her head. "But some might."
"And some I may fear," Rapunzel returned, "but, I do apologize if it was your intent, I do not fear you."
Smiling at the playful arch of one striking eye, Cinderella glanced away, feeling unnaturally shy. "It was not my intent," she uttered.
Gaze falling to a pile of books, and then to the next, she realized just how many there were. The space and luxuries within the tower were minimal, but hair and books were in more than generous supply.
"Have you read all these?" she asked, going to a pile to lift the first book. Pulling back the cover, she flipped to the picture of a young girl with a bear towering over her and grimaced.
"I have," Rapunzel replied.
"How wonderful," Cinderella murmured, running her finger along the spine of a book in the next pile. Turning as Rapunzel moved from the window to the bed by the wall, she watched Rapunzel manage her hair with surprising grace until it piled again at her feet. If Cinderella had such a mane, she suspected it would be everywhere all the time.
"Do you like to read?" Rapunzel asked, once she made herself comfortable.
Her own comfort receding, Cinderella closed the book with a snap. "I do not know how," she said quietly.
"Oh," Rapunzel uttered, and the single syllable sounded terribly sad, as if she could imagine nothing worse. "I could teach you."
"In a night?" Cinderella questioned, watching Rapunzel's face fall in response, wondering what she had done to upset her.
"I could teach you some in a night," Rapunzel returned at last.
Wanting only to lift the shadow that had fallen over Rapunzel's face, Cinderella walked to the bed. "All right," she agreed. "Teach me." And she held out the book for Rapunzel's approval.
Snatching the book from her with an unanticipated haste, Rapunzel tossed it to the mattress and captured Cinderella's hand. Fingers soft against it, Cinderella sucked in a sharp breath at the conflicting sensations, the dull ache that resided beneath the skin and the unfamiliar tingling she had felt only one other time - in the instant Rapunzel had taken her hand at the window's ledge.
"What is wrong with your hand?" Rapunzel asked, eyes moving over the skin, and Cinderella looked for the violent red rawness.
"There is nothing," she breathed, finding the skin undamaged.
"No," Rapunzel said. "I cannot see it, but it is there."
Cinderella did not know what to say, for Rapunzel was not wrong. Then, Rapunzel lifted her head, light eyes trapping her in a steady gaze, and Cinderella did not know what to feel, for she seemed to feel too much, more than she knew how to feel at the same time, more than she had ever had cause to feel.
"My stepmother," she answered feebly. "She was angry. She held it to the fire."
"When?" The response seemed to hurt Rapunzel more than her.
"Days ago," Cinderella uttered.
"It has healed quickly," Rapunzel stated, thumbs running over the back of Cinderella's hand so she could scarcely form thought.
"There was magic," Cinderella returned, stopping to clear her throat when it felt too thick through which to draw breath. "There has been a lot of magic."
"You can still feel it, though." Rapunzel seemed to know it as fact.
"Some," Cinderella confessed with a nod, though it was the lingering hatred of her stepmother she felt more than the mark, following her between kingdoms.
Fingers softly brushing Cinderella's palm, Rapunzel pressed her lips to the unmarred skin above her knuckles, and Cinderella's breath retracted at once, holding in her chest and filling her head.
She had heard magic described as a force outside of nature, something that overtook reality and all that was in it. She thought she had seen it at her mother's tree, but perhaps she had never experienced true magic, for she had never felt it as she did then. Raising her head again, Rapunzel's eyes met Cinderella's own and there was magic there too.
"Why would she do such a thing to you?" Rapunzel questioned.
"The story is long," Cinderella responded, little trusting her own voice.
With a nervous laugh that was like music of its own, Rapunzel glanced at the piles of books that surrounded them like turrets. "I like long stories."
In that moment, Cinderella wished that hers was different, that she had a beautiful story to tell Rapunzel. She wished she had not been a slave to her family, too weak to flee, that she had not endured their torment for so long. She knew very well what others saw in her in Naxos was not what she had been in Troyale. They saw a pretty dress, scars hidden, but it was only masquerade.
"You would not believe me," Cinderella uttered.
Shame pushing tears into her eyes, she made an effort to escape, but Rapunzel's hands turned firm as they slid to her wrist. Glancing back, Cinderella could see she had hurt Rapunzel yet again, when it was the last thing she intended.
"Let me surprise you," Rapunzel whispered, and Cinderella felt the magic grow stronger. It was beyond the magic she had known, beyond anything she had known.
"What about your mother?" she questioned. "Will she not return?"
"Not until tomorrow," Rapunzel responded, hands gentling on Cinderella's wrist, but not letting go. "You can stay. You will be safe here."
Gaze falling to the delicate fingers at her wrist, Cinderella marveled at how the stroke of Rapunzel's thumb spread so far beyond the skin it touched, and did not know if she would, in fact, be safe there.
"Are you a witch?" she asked, and Rapunzel looked slightly stunned, before bursting with laughter.
"No," she replied.
"Then, how are you doing this?"
"I thought you were doing it," Rapunzel returned, her gaze holding Cinderella with greater force than her hands.
"What am I doing?" Cinderella questioned.
Sliding forward, Rapunzel raised Cinderella's hand slowly, and Cinderella lost her footing, stumbling and catching hers
elf, as her palm pressed against Rapunzel's chest. Warmth emanating through the fabric of the thin sleeping gown, Cinderella swallowed air as Rapunzel's heart sped even faster.
"I shall stay," she whispered without thought, and Rapunzel's soft smile made her feel too stunned to move.
As if suddenly realizing she still held Cinderella in place, Rapunzel released her, and Cinderella felt some function return. Glancing down at herself, Rapunzel adjusted the fabric of her gown, though it had not moved, clutching at the top as if a draft were getting in.
"You can change if you would like. There are more gowns in the cupboard." She finally seemed uneasy, and Cinderella was relieved she was not the only one who did not know what was happening. "I imagine that is not very comfortable."
"It really is not," Cinderella admitted, glancing down at the too-full skirts of the ball gown, trying in vain to press them into submission.
"You do look lovely in it, though." Rapunzel's soft voice swept down Cinderella's neck, and she wondered why she kept feeling such strange things in the other girl's presence.
Made speechless again, Cinderella crossed the room to the cupboard, where, back turned to Rapunzel, she removed the pieces of her dress one at a time, laying them out over stacks of books. Finally free of the petticoat, she stood in her chemise, feeling strangely exposed, and wondered if Rapunzel's gowns were more or less revealing. Glancing over her shoulder, she thought she saw the blonde head turn, but decided it a trick of her imagination. It was not that she did not believe Rapunzel when she said she was not a witch, but she still could not shake the feeling that the very air she breathed was enchanted.
Deciding against the borrowed gown, Cinderella returned to the bed in the chemise, looking everywhere but at Rapunzel as she slid onto the mattress beside her.
"Comfortable?" Rapunzel asked, and Cinderella tentatively met her gaze. The pale skin of Rapunzel's cheeks showed pink, as if she had colored for a ball.
"Quite," she returned, eyes scanning the contents of the room. "Do you eat?" she asked, blushing at Rapunzel's responding laughter. "I mean, of course, you eat. But... how do you eat?"
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