Once Upon a Rainbow, Volume One

by Mickie B. Ashling

  Her smiles had disappeared only to be replaced by a helpless kind of rage. Here was the woman who’d snatched the mirror from me.

  “What happened?” I asked again, unaware that I was repeating myself.

  I took another step closer to the princess witch.

  “My father found out about us,” she said. “He told Oriana’s stepmother, who locked her up in her family home and put her to work as a servant. Her father was dead. Oriana had no other relations so she had to accept her fate.”

  A green cloud swallowed the image of the maiden on the floor.

  My dark-haired princess stood in her place, surrounded by a field.

  She was searching for someone. Her dark blue eyes were wide with anxiety.

  “I had no idea what had happened to her,” the princess witch said. She lowered her head to look away from her past self. “When I came looking for my beloved, her stepmother said she didn’t want to see me.”

  Rain began to fall within the mirror. It blurred the image, replacing it with one of the princess facing a tall angular woman.

  Ruffled in her uncomfortable finery, the lady lowered her face in a gesture of respect, but she stood between the princess and doorway, blocking her way.

  “To distract me, my father held a great ball, inviting every eligible prince he could think of.”

  The shape of the princess walking away from the blocked doorway vanished into a vapor that rose around it.

  A marble hall emerged from the haze, a hall all too familiar. Members of the court had accosted me there many times. This had taken place within the stone walls of my castle.

  Lords and ladies, wearing gowns and garments unfamiliar to me, embraced each other and whirled around the room. Everyone who could was dancing.

  “However, he couldn’t exclude the local nobility from the ball, whom he counted upon for support. Oriana was one of them.”

  Smoke swirled in sparkling emerald to obscure all other dancers but a single pair, a man and a woman.

  The woman was Oriana.

  Gone was the ragged maiden who’d scrubbed floors. Once more she laughed and flirted, a coquette in her element, a flighty fairy who might wing away at a moment’s notice. Her jewels winked like tiny stars caught in her hair and the swirling green skirts of her gown.

  Oriana smiled, but not at the princess. All of her teasing glances were for the older man whom she pressed herself against while dancing. The older man bore a slight resemblance to the witch princess.

  He was smiling back at the maiden in his arms, clearly besotted.

  I stared at the two lovers, my mouth hanging open.

  I recalled what my mother had told me.

  “A hundred years ago, the king of this land made the mistake of marrying beneath him. His wife was a minor noblewoman with little wealth or breeding, whom the king met at a ball. He decided he had to have her.”

  I couldn’t believe it. He knew Oriana was his daughter’s beloved.

  The king gazed at the girl in his arms, ignoring every other person present.

  Oriana smiled coyly and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

  Every eye at the ball feasted itself upon her beauty.

  Every eye, except for the princess’s.

  She stood a little distance from the crowd, paler than ever in a white dress. An emerald miasma surrounded her, rising from the floor beneath her, as she turned her back on the dancing couple. It looked like the same smoke that swirled within the mirror.

  The witch sighed, staring at the golden thread in her hands again. “I never dreamed she’d come to the ball, but she did. Oriana appeared, dressed in magic that made her irresistible to any man who beheld her. My father, a widower of many years, fell in love with her on the spot.”

  I realized that the smoke within the mirror, rising beneath the feet of the princess in the past, was also swirling around Oriana on the dance floor. It was the exact same color as her gown.

  Was this a sign of her magic? No one else at the ball seemed to notice it, although many were admiring the king’s dance partner.

  The princess’s head bowed within the mirror. Her shoulders trembled.

  The witch in the present bowed her head as well. Her shoulders trembled at the exact same time as her reflection.

  I took another hesitant step toward her.

  I was beginning to see her true face, the one hidden beneath her wrinkles.

  “Once my father married her, Oriana became the queen, my stepmother. She was my beloved no longer. Oriana locked herself in a room with a magic mirror, spending hours alone with it. I came to the realization she’d never loved me. What she truly loved was power and her own beauty.”

  “No.” I took another step closer to the witch.

  The pictures in the mirror changed when I did, showing a past tinged in a painful hue.

  Images of a proud beautiful woman, dressed in the royal purple, paraded by. A golden crown sat upon Oriana’s yellow curls.

  Her smile changed into something imperious, cruel.

  “No, I can’t believe that.”

  “Believe what you like.” My witch princess smiled, a bitter twist of wrinkled red lips. Her expression was exactly like the queen’s in the mirror. “I only know what she did once she took the throne. Oriana treated me in the exact same way her stepmother had treated her.”

  Green smoke swallowed the queen in the mirror to spit out pictures of a girl wearing a coarse robe.

  It was the princess, dressed exactly as Oriana had dressed when she drove the cart to the Forest of Tears. The robe covered her so no one could see her face.

  Hunched over, she crawled across the floor, scrubbing it.

  I recognized the flagstones she knelt upon. They were in the castle.

  The queen stood over the princess, watching the other girl on her hands and knees.

  Other servants hurried by, glancing fearfully at their mistress and her servant…for mistress and servant was what they looked like.

  “She told me she’d taught you housekeeping,” I whispered. My throat was thick with unshed tears.

  The queen reached out to grab the princess. She shook her before releasing her stepdaughter.

  The hood slid from the princess’s head to reveal the tears sliding down her face.

  Oriana wouldn’t look at her. She studied the stone floor before getting down on her own knees.

  The princess stared at her in shock.

  Heedless of her finery, Oriana reached out for the bucket and the rag. She showed the princess how to scrub the floor.

  Servants stopped to watch with wide eyes.

  The queen glared at them.

  They scuttled away.

  “Are you sure she never loved you?” I asked.

  Matted dark hair fell over the past princess’s face while her former love scrubbed.

  “There’s something odd about her getting on her hands and knees to help you if she didn’t care at least a little.” Something was tugging at my memories, something important. Alas, I couldn’t remember what.

  “I thought so too at the time.” Her gray hairs were darkening even as she spoke. The wrinkles upon her face were smoothing out.

  It was as if age was lifting from her as she shared the tale.

  “I decided to follow her, to spy on her. Perhaps she’d reveal her true heart in private if she couldn’t reveal it to me.”

  Emerald mist trailed behind Oriana as she climbed a flight of stairs to the room at the top of the tower, the very room in which we were located.

  It hadn’t been a place of dust and forgotten things during the queen’s day, but a boudoir of fine cushions, comfortable chairs, and a large bed draped in red velvet.

  The magic mirror hung in a place of pride, exactly where it was in the present.

  Oriana walked up to the mirror.

  She stopped in the very same spot where I stood.

  The princess crept up to the door to watch just outside the room, right behind Oriana.

&nbs
p; I glanced over my shoulder. No one was at the door.

  Oriana seemed oblivious to everything but her own reflection.

  She smiled at herself. It was a sweet, tender, and almost timid smile, completely lacking coquettish playfulness or cruelty.

  “Who is the fairest of them all?” Oriana looked into the mirror, into her own eyes.

  I jumped to hear that question again. Oriana made it low, breathy, and intimate. It was as if she was asking herself, “Do you truly love me?”

  I saw what the princess saw in the smaller image of the mirror.

  The queen’s lovely face smiled back at her until it started to change. Her golden hair darkened, its carefully groomed curls clumped together in tangles. Her full mouth reddened. The color drained out of her face.

  It was very like the change that had come over my own reflection when I looked into the mirror.

  Oriana’s reaction, though, was completely different from mine. Her hands reached up to cover her cheeks in horror. It seemed she was trying to hide from her own face. A cry ripped its way out of her throat. The despair within it was terrible.

  The reflection of the girl with the matted hair reached out imploringly toward Oriana.

  The queen turned away from her and, at that moment, saw the girl standing in the doorway behind her.

  Her blue eyes widened, appearing mad. Her lips drew back from her teeth. The rage distorting her face was even more terrible than the rage she’d shown when she discovered me with her mirror.

  “Get out!” she snarled. Oriana reached up for her own jewel-encrusted throat. “Get out of my mind! Get out of my heart!”

  I flinched, even as the princess of the past flinched at every single cry.

  She turned and fled.

  I faced the witch who’d once been the girl fleeing from her former love.

  “I ran away,” she confessed, looking up through her dark hair. It had fallen forward to cover her face, even as it had in the past. “Whatever Oriana had seen in the mirror, it hadn’t been the fairest of them all.” She attempted to smile, but her lips were quivering. They were as full and red as they’d been when she’d been a princess. “It had been something that made her scream. Something that looked exactly like me.”

  “What happened?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know, but I couldn’t stop now. I took another step closer to her.

  In the center of the mirror, Oriana stood, staring into the mirror of the past.

  The princess was still there in the reflection, grime and tears staining her face. The princess hugged at her chest as if trying to protect her broken heart.

  Oriana mirrored the princess’s gesture. Only the queen clawed at her chest, ripping open her bodice. I was astonished as she plunged her hands into her flesh.

  I gasped as my own arms spasmed in fearful anticipation of a gruesome sight.

  No blood poured from Oriana’s chest, though. Instead, green smoke exuded from the place where her heart should be. It was thick, a poisonous perfume I could smell even from the other side of the mirror.

  I nearly gagged on jealousy and possessive rage.

  Mine, mine, mine! The chant entered my nose, although I tried not to inhale it. The castle, the king, and above all, she is mine! I won’t let any of these things go, not for a moment.

  I lifted a hand to wave away all this cloying passion when the smoke cleared.

  Oriana stood there, holding what looked like a little green apple, or was it a human heart? It was hard to tell if it beat or not. Her fingers were sticky with what could have been blood, only it was sickly green.

  She threw the apple on the floor. Whatever clung to her fingers slid from them in pursuit of the apple.

  Fluid and fruit hit the floor with a splat, dissolving instantly into a puddle.

  The liquid spread across the stones, thickening.

  A shape rose from the clotted mess. It absorbed the puddle into itself, as it grew, sprouting arms, legs, and a head.

  The end result was a mockery of a human form. Its hands were big and thick. Its fingernails were so long, they were practically talons.

  Its back was to me, so I couldn’t see the thing’s face.

  I didn’t want to. I feared it would have a huge mouth, capable of swallowing anything small, squirming, and helpless.

  Whatever else this creature was, it was predatory.

  I licked my lips, feeling my throat grow dry.

  Oriana stared at the monster. Whatever she saw made her eyes widen.

  Hunger, lust, a desire to conquer, and a horrible triumph all played across her face as she gazed upon her creation.

  “My huntsman.” The queen stretched out a hand to caress the creature’s head. “Let the one who inflicted this misery upon us know what it’s like to have her heart ripped out.”

  I swallowed as the import of those words dawned upon me. “She tried to kill you.”

  This was Oriana, who’d looked after me most of my life, who flinched if I asked her too many questions.

  I’d never thought her capable of such a thing. Putting her beloved to sleep so no one could have her, I understood, but killing her, trying to rip her heart out?

  It couldn’t be true.

  “I didn’t want to believe it myself, even as I ran,” the former princess said. “I hid in a forest few dared to enter.” Her head bowed as she stared down at the stick in her hands. “The place terrified me, but I sensed something even more terrible was pursuing me.”

  The smoke in the mirror darkened, exposing terrible images. They might have been branches or clawed hands. Ripping at what little was left of the princess’s clothes, at the tender parts of her body, they left her scratched and bloody.

  A trail of crimson flowers bloomed in her wake while she ran. It was only the sight of the flowers that made me recognize the Forest of Tears.

  Every tree seemed to have a woman’s face, twisted with rage, screaming at the princess. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  Green smoke followed boots that tore into the earth as they walked. I didn’t see the face of the boots’ owner. I didn’t need to.

  It was clearly the huntsman. It had found the princess.

  Her robes were in shreds, exposing her naked flesh.

  What might have been hands reached out for that flesh. The hands trembled as if the huntsman itself was afraid.

  “I looked into the true heart of the girl I loved when I looked at that creature.” Tears ran down the princess’s face. Her mouth twisted, trembled, being played upon by fear, revulsion, betrayal, desire, and above all weariness.

  “The fairest of them all.” The huntsman spoke with the voice of the queen, deep with rage, thwarted lust, and yes, terror. “Your heart belongs to me!”

  These words seemed to give strength to the trembling half-naked girl. “Yes, it does, although I hardly know you anymore.” Her shaking hands loosened the shredded remains of her robe.

  It fell from her bare white limbs, exposing her chest. “Take it, or let me go.” She raised her chin with the fearless pride of despair. “However, I refuse to continue living as we have.”

  The monstrous hands shook even more as they neared her bare flesh.

  Before they could touch it, the entire huntsman dissolved as if it had been made of mud.

  The creature collapsed into a sticky green mess puddled on the ground.

  “I think that was the moment when I realized she’d never loved me.” The puddle in the mirror was shrinking, folding in on itself, becoming something small and vaguely round.

  It was an apple.

  “Up until then, I’d had hope that maybe everything she’d done had been part of a mad plan for us to be together.” Tears continued to roll down the witch’s face. “I didn’t realize how much I’d hoped she was until I lost all hope.”

  “Maybe she was.” I realized what I’d been trying to remember.

  I’d seen it before, the mistress/servant act. My mother had done it.

  I knew now why the
not-so-young man with her looked familiar. His picture was in the locket I’d found in the tower.

  Keeping a favorite around under the guise of a servant was the sort of thing my mother would do. Perhaps Oriana had had similar ideas.

  “She may have thought playing the part of your cruel stepmother was a good way to deflect suspicion, yet stay close to you,” I suggested, fingering the folds of my skirt.

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  The naked girl in the mirror looked at the apple as if she wanted to pick it up but didn’t dare.

  “I can’t, though. Not after seeing Oriana’s true face.” The bitter sorrow in every word was like a tear. “I knew she didn’t love my father, but she didn’t love me either. What Oriana truly loved was what we represented: jewels, finery, and power. She didn’t need to settle for having a princess, when she could be a queen.”

  The witch winced at her own word, yet her face was smoothing out, wrinkles disappearing. Her entire countenance was turning remarkably youthful.

  How could regret make her young?

  Unless she was finally releasing her regret.

  “Oriana wanted to admire herself in the mirror, what she’d become. Instead, she saw me, her abandoned past. This was why she screamed.” The princess smiled as if her own agony amused her. “Oriana didn’t truly love me, but she couldn’t completely let go of what she’d felt for me.” She paused, considering her own words. “She tried tearing out her own heart and mine, but there wasn’t enough strength in her to do it. All Oriana could do was conjure up a little green apple.”

  “Was that the apple? The one she offered you at the dwarves’ cottage?” I stared at the small green thing lying on the forest floor where the princess had left it.

  It remained framed in the center of the mirror for a moment, like a still-life painting.

  Emerald smoke started spewing out of its core, filling the entire mirror.

  “Yes, much later,” the princess said, shaking her head.

  She stared at the mirror, absorbed, distracted.

  I had almost reached the bench she sat on. A couple more steps and I’d be at her side.

  “After the dwarves took me in.”

  A cottage appeared in the smoke.

  I recognized the squat dwelling even though the vines were missing from its walls.