Continuing past the field, they drew near a similar scene, only in place of the straw, it was nettle that was scattered over the field, the small yellow buds that still clung to the limbs barely discernible in the mess.
Hand slipping from hers without warning, Cinderella watched Rapunzel back away, the look upon her face like a sharp stab of fear through Cinderella's gut.
"Rapunzel?" she questioned carefully. "My Darling, what is it?"
When Rapunzel's eyes swung to meet hers, darker and heavier than Cinderella had ever seen them, Cinderella felt the fear wrench inside of her.
"I know this story too," Rapunzel uttered, and Cinderella's head shook in automatic refusal.
"That cannot be."
Rapunzel, however, did not seem inclined to question her own absurd notion. Spinning in a circle, she looked to the sky and the fields and the trees, a small smile appearing at her lips.
"We are in a story," she declared, but, head shaking more emphatically, Cinderella would not hear it.
Letting out a breath in frustration or desperation, Rapunzel clasped her arms, glancing to the path before them. "Ahead," she said, "we will come to a house made of stone, bonded of the strongest pastes. Three pigs will answer the door."
"Pigs?" Cinderella countered with a laugh. "A talking wolf? Talking pigs? It sounds like a... a fiction."
"It is as I say," Rapunzel said, grabbing Cinderella's arm without warning and pulling her unwillingly along the path.
When the stone house appeared on the horizon, in accordance with Rapunzel's prediction, Cinderella did not want to test the rest of her theory. She wanted to flee, to unsee, to go back to the monotony of the dwarves' cabin, where only the fights with Esteban ever seemed to change.
The pull of Rapunzel's hand on her wrist carried her onward, though, until she stood in the shadow of the prophesized stone house and, when Rapunzel's firm knock was met with a chorus of squeals, Cinderella's heart turned to a flutter in her chest.
"Come now, we know you are in there," Rapunzel called. "We heard your squealing. Please, open the door."
"Who is it?" a puny voice returned from within.
"It is four strangers who do not want to hurt you, but want you only to show yourselves," Rapunzel said anxiously.
At the click that sounded on the other side of the door, Cinderella hoped for the appearance of a troll or a warlock or a demon that could turn them to stone with a glance. Anything but pigs. When the door swayed open just enough for one small pink head to come into view, then another, and another, she stumbled back, falling into the grass, watching the world blur before her.
In an instant, Rapunzel was there, but Cinderella did not know if the hands on her knees were true or figments of someone's imagination.
"Cin?" Rapunzel breathed.
"If this..." Cinderella felt disconnected from the ground, from the sky, even from Rapunzel. "If this is a story, then none of this is real." The truth of the statement striking her, Cinderella closed her eyes as everything suddenly made too much sense. "Of course..." Tears hit her cheeks. "Of course, none of it is real. That is why it never felt real."
"Do you really believe that?" Rapunzel said. "That we are not real? That Snow White is not real? The dwarves? Caratasa? Even..." Rapunzel glanced toward Norco and Togo, who flew around them, ears and wings twitching as they tried to figure out what was happening. "Even they are real. I do not know what they are, but I know they are real."
As much as she wanted to believe it, believe that Rapunzel was real before her, Cinderella could not help but wonder if even the words coming from Rapunzel's mouth were fabrication.
"Does this not feel real to you?" Rapunzel questioned, hands moving from Cinderella's knees to her sides as Rapunzel settled into her lap.
Yearning instantly into her, there was certainly nothing about the response of Cinderella's body, or the restarting of Cinderella's heart, that felt at all fake. "Yes, it feels real," she whispered. "You feel real."
Hands skimming the fabric at Rapunzel's back, Rapunzel's forehead coming to rest against her own, it was the warm breath over Cinderella's lips that felt most real of all. "You have found the real in the fiction, Cinderella," Rapunzel whispered. "That is what you have done."
Fighting the urge to give into the one thing which she knew was true, Cinderella shook her head once more.
"But Snow White..." Cinderella uttered.
"Was not felled by you. Perhaps, it was always meant to happen. Perhaps, it was part of her... her story." A strange awareness entering Rapunzel's eyes, she pushed suddenly to her feet, looking back in the direction from which they had come. "Oh no," she whispered. "I remember... I have read her story too."
"Snow White's?" Cinderella asked anxiously.
"Stace's." Rapunzel turned back with an unmistakable grimace. "Only she was called Red Riding Hood."
"The wolf," Cinderella guessed.
"The wolf," Rapunzel returned, and, forgetting everything else that had come to pass for the time being, Cinderella pushed to her feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
An Unexpected Encounter
Flying ahead to the fork in the road, Norco and Togo signaled the way clear, and Cinderella and Rapunzel turned down the path away from the town, certain it must be the way to the path's end Stace had mentioned to them.
In no time, a small house appeared before them, quiet and inactive, and making their approach with the lightest of footfalls, Cinderella and Rapunzel slunk around its side to crouch beneath a window frame.
"Fly up and see if you can see anything," Cinderella whispered, and, with a few quiet flaps of their wings, Norco and Togo hovered over them to peer through the open shutters.
"What do you see?" Cinderella asked when they did not give a report.
"Grandmother certainly is unsightly," Togo returned.
"Yes, goodness," Norco quietly agreed. "What big ears she has."
"And big eyes she has too," Togo added.
"And what big paws," Norco sounded horrified.
"And big teeth..."
Reaching up as one, Cinderella and Rapunzel pulled Norco and Togo from the window.
"That is not Stace's grandmother," Rapunzel declared. "That is the wolf."
"The wolf?!" Togo cried.
"Shhh," Cinderella scolded, glancing to Rapunzel, for it was she who knew the story, though Cinderella still could not quite accept the notion that there was a story to know. "So, what do we do?"
"Was the wolf fat of stomach?" Rapunzel questioned.
"Giant and fat of stomach," Togo replied.
"Well," Rapunzel nudged Cinderella's shoulder. "You did wish her eaten."
In spite of everything, at the feel of Rapunzel's shoulder pressing into hers, at the small grin upon her face, Cinderella felt a smile tug at her own lips.
"You know I did not truly want her eaten," she replied. "Not entirely, at least. A small chunk would have sufficed."
The snap of a limb at the back of the cabin stole Rapunzel's reply, and Cinderella's smile fell as her eyes moved past Rapunzel's shoulder. Near-silent footsteps heading toward them over dead leaves, Cinderella pressed to her feet, glancing through the window at the wolf sleeping inside, before pulling the confiscated dagger of Prince Salimen's guard from her sack and Rapunzel to her feet.
Stepping ahead of her, Cinderella was sure whoever made such a silent approach could hear their footsteps as well, and at the corner they met. A giant of a man leapt into view, casting them into shadow, deadly intent in his eyes as the tip of his drawn arrow stopped a feather's width from Cinderella's chest. Her breaths tumbling rapidly from her lips, Cinderella glanced to the useless dagger in her hand.
Aiming his bow away at once, the man who stood before them looked a completely different person. "Sorry," he uttered. "I did not mean to scare you. I am on the trail of a wolf."
"As are we." Cinderella let the dagger fall to her side as the man pulled the arrow from his bow's string.
"Well,"
he replied with a grin, "we shall kill him together."
"We cannot kill him yet," Rapunzel returned. "He has eaten someone and we should like to try to free her first."
At the declaration, the man did not seem to know whether to laugh or feel sorry for Rapunzel. "It does not work that way," he settled for saying. "If the wolf has eaten someone, that someone is no more, I assure you."
"I am sorry to disagree," Rapunzel returned. "But, in this instance, you are wrong."
Staring at her in surprise, the man finally gave way to his low laughter. "I was a royal huntsman for more than half my life," he said. "I know a few things about the animals of the forest. Why do you think I am wrong?"
"Because I know the story," Rapunzel stated with conviction, and the huntsman's eyes narrowed, though he did not know what question to ask.
"Well, if you believe her alive, we shall find out," he said, removing a worn hunting glove to offer his hand. "I am Gurr."
Reflex immediate, Cinderella raised the dagger back between them, and the huntsman stood perfectly still.
"Have I done something to you?" he questioned.
"To us?" Cinderella countered. "No. But you did think to murder our friend."
"Snow White?" Gurr's face softened and he took a step toward them, the tip of the dagger at his chest drawing him short. "Is she all right?"
"All right?" Cinderella's voice shook. "No, I should say she is not all right."
With an accepting nod, Gurr took a step back, holding the bow and the arrow apart as he lowered both parts of his weapon to the ground, and raised his hands back into the air. "I understand what you must think," he said. "But I did not want to hurt Snow White."
"That did not stop you, did it?" Rapunzel countered.
"I had no choice."
"We all have choice," Cinderella uttered.
"She threatened to kill my daughter," he rushed to say, and Cinderella wished it had no effect. For, whatever the threat, it was still Gurr who took Snow White into the woods, still Gurr whose knife sliced down upon her.
"Who did?" she questioned.
"Queen Ino," Gurr replied. "Snow White's stepmother. She said if I did not kill Snow White, she would kill my Angelina. But still I could not. You know that. You saw her alive."
"You did not go back for her," Cinderella said.
"No." Gurr sounded genuinely regretful. "I fled Aulis. I had to flee."
"Did the queen kill your daughter?" Rapunzel quietly asked.
"No." Gurr shook his head. "That is why I had to leave. The queen demanded her, and I had to protect her." Hands still in the air, he turned his head without taking his eyes off Cinderella's blade. "Angelina," he called. "Come on out, Honey. It is all right."
When the girl appeared, small and frightened, from behind the house, Cinderella dropped the dagger away at once.
"Say hi," Gurr prompted.
"Hi," the girl said, and Cinderella had no response.
"I need only the pelt," Gurr explained. "I am trying to build a place for us here, where she will not find us. Let me help you."
At a great clamor inside the cabin, they all looked to the window, and whether or not Gurr would help was decided for them.
"May I?" Gurr gestured to his bow, and Cinderella backed away, turning with Rapunzel and Norco and Togo as the door of the cabin flew open ahead of them.
When the wolf staggered out the door, too full to run at top speed, he was still faster than them, but Gurr came up beside them, bow raised.
"Do not hit his stomach," Rapunzel said, but Gurr's shot rang true, hitting the wolf in the hip as he ran, so he howled in pain and spun around, falling to his back upon the cart path.
Rushing at once to subdue him, Gurr held the snarling jaws of the wolf shut, and looked such a brute doing it Cinderella imagined this must have been the part of the man who stood over Snow White that night in the forest.
"Okay," he barked. "Just the tip of the knife right down his front. Don't want to cut your friend if she's in there."
Suddenly, Cinderella realized the two men were one in the same, the cold-blooded assassin and the man who protected Snow White from her original fate.
Dropping onto the wolf's legs, Cinderella could not hold him still enough to cut, but when Rapunzel and Norco and Togo moved to pin the wolf in place, she made the cut as Gurr told her.
"That's it," he encouraged. "Just like that."
Shrill screech cutting through the air, Stace's head, covered in bits and fluids Cinderella would rather not identify, poked through the opening, and Cinderella worried Gurr would forget to mind his task as his eyes went wide.
"Geesh." Cinderella flinched as she finished the cut. "Maybe I should have just left you in there."
"You!" Stace cried, but could say nothing more before she was given a hefty shove upward.
"Get going girl," a voice ordered from deep inside the wolf's belly. "I do not want to be in here all day."
Climbing out at the order, Stace turned to help her grandmother from the stomach of the wolf, and Gurr's mouth fell as wide as his eyes. Grip coming loose, the wolf got off a snarl at him, and Gurr redoubled his hold.
"Can you lift those rocks, Honey?" he called to Angelina, and she rushed to the edge of the path, struggling with the first heavy rock, but bringing it to her father.
"Bring me my needle and thread," Stace's grandmother ordered, and Stace rushed to obey, returning with the items as the wolf's belly was filled with the last of the rocks. Stooping over the wolf, her grandmother sewed his belly up with a skill honed over many decades of such work, shutting the rocks up inside.
"Everybody away," Gurr said, waiting for them to get to a safe distance before rolling from the wolf's snapping jaws and to his feet, arrow instantly aimed at the wolf's head.
"Let me up," the wolf rumbled, and Togo flew back into Norco, causing them both to give a shout.
"Get up," Cinderella replied, and the wolf strained upward, arms and legs thrusting into the air, before realizing no amount of effort would get him off the ground.
"You cannot leave me like this," the wolf hissed through his huge teeth.
"Do not worry about that," Gurr replied. "I shall put you down soon enough, take your pelt, and cut you into steaks. Since you ate them, I imagine these good people would like to return the favor."
"Ooh, yes indeed." Stace's grandmother smacked her lips. "Wolf steaks all season."
"I need only to keep you alive long enough to ensure you are fresh meat," Gurr taunted the wolf, before spinning his bow suddenly and bringing it down upon the wolf's head, knocking him into silence.
In the lull that followed, Cinderella was not sure what to say. Nor where to go. She knew not what time it was, nor if there was even reason to continue the journey on which they had set out.
"Why does this wolf talk?" Gurr said, staring down at the incapacitated creature, before raising his eyes to Stace and her grandmother. "How did you survive?"
"And he swallowed her down in one gulp," Rapunzel quoted, glancing up with a flickering grin. "He should have chewed his food better."
A bubble of laughter escaping her, Cinderella was not sure laughter was a proper reaction. "So, is this how the story went?" she whispered to Rapunzel.
"No." Rapunzel met her eyes. "Not at all like this. We can change things." Hand grasping Cinderella's, she implored her to believe. "We can save Snow White."
"Thank you," Stace's grandmother stepped forward to say, casting a warning gaze upon the girl.
"Yes, thank you," Stace mumbled past her pride.
Taking a step forward, Cinderella's approach drew the girl's head up. "You do not happen to go by Red Riding Hood, do you?" she asked, and Stace looked astounded.
"Yes," she replied. "My gram calls me that."
Another weak burst of laughter escaping, Cinderella did not even try to make sense of it. She simply reached for Rapunzel's hand, trusting in that which she knew was hers to hold.
"We must be leaving," she
said.
"Do you need protection?" Gurr queried.
"Protect them." Cinderella nodded to Stace and her grandmother.
"But you are Snow White's friends," Gurr argued. "I owe it to her to see you safely on your way."
"As Snow White's friends," Rapunzel declared. "We would not feel safe with you."
Tugging Cinderella's arm, she pulled her down the path, and Norco and Togo fluttered after them.
"Hey!" The call stopped Cinderella and Rapunzel's retreat, and they looked back to find the storied Red Riding Hood looking surprisingly contrite. "If you are still looking for a young man," she said quietly. "I may know someone of that persuasion. About your age or so, he lives no more than a league off the path that way. I knew I was not to go so far off the path, but I did."
From the look of reproval on the face of Stace's grandmother, Cinderella knew she had just gotten herself in trouble with the admission, and trusted the help was real.
"Thanks, Red," she smiled, and exchanging looks of utter uncertainty with Rapunzel, they wandered off the path.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Christophe
A wind-battered Juniper tree sat in a grand, well-tended clearing in what might have been mistaken for the furthest edge of the kingdom by Red Riding Hood, but that Rapunzel was certain was the next kingdom by the sharp drop in temperature that had them huddling close together as they made their approach.
The tree had grown up on an incline that sloped toward a rocky cliff only steps away, and the wind must have blown only one direction, up the cliff wall, for the branches and foliage of the Juniper grew only on the side away from the cliff and curved upward toward the sky as if in praise of something far beyond them.
It was here that they found the young man Red Riding Hood had told them about.
Kneeling at the base of the side of the Juniper with greenery, he stared forlornly at the branches above. His legs, clad in dull black trousers, mixed so well with the gray roots coming up from the proximate soil that it was impossible to tell where exactly they were in the jumble, or if he had legs at all. For, as he sat, he could just as easily have sprouted from the tree.
Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall (Black Forest Trilogy) Page 23