Snow White and Rose Red

by Patricia Wrede

  “Mistress Arden?” Dee said as the Widow came hurrying forward. His voice was uncertain and slightly apologetic; he was not at all sure how to explain his reasons for appearing so unexpectedly at the Widow’s door. The strong smell of cooking onions and the half-laid table made it plain that the inhabitants of the little cottage were engaged in perfectly ordinary activities, not sorcery, and Dee’s memory of his strong-willed wife’s reaction when he had, upon occasion, interrupted her supervision of the dinner preparations made him dubious about the sort of welcome he was going to receive.

  “Good day to you, Master Dee, and what may I do for you?” the Widow said, doing her best to conceal her astonishment.

  “You may tell us what you mean by your interference in our affairs,” Kelly snapped before Dee could answer her. “And you may cease from it at once. Nay, John, I’ll not be silent; this woman’s the source of that spell we sensed.”

  “You’re certain, Ned?” Dee said, while the Widow, stunned into silence, stood and stared.

  “I’d hazard my life on it,” Kelly answered, making a small gesture toward the sleeve in which he had concealed the crystal.

  “There must be some mistake in this,” the Widow said, finding her voice at last. “What mean you by this talk of spells, sirs?”

  “You know as well as I,” Kelly growled.

  “Belike she doth not,” Dee said nervously. “Think, Ned! We know the root of that meddling to which you referred; ‘tis hardly possible that Mistress Arden is of such a kind.”

  “Speak plainly, an you must speak at all,” the Widow snapped. Her initial shock was past, and she had had time to realize that Dee and Kelly were the last men in Mortlak who would denounce her for witchcraft, or who would be believed by the townsfolk if they did so. “Have you aught to accuse me of? Then go back to Mortlak and lay your proof before the constable; Heaven will protect the innocent. Or does it please you to rant at helpless women?”

  “Perhaps ‘tis we who should summon the constable, Mother,” Rosamund said. She had come back to stand just behind the Widow’s shoulder, where she could study the unwelcome visitors. Blanche, too, had set aside her mending and come to her mother’s side, though she said nothing.

  “You would be ill-advised to do so,” Kelly said. “Take our warning as it’s meant, and have done with hindering our work, or you will rue the consequences.”

  John, who had been standing out of the visitors’ tine of sight, moved around where he could see them. “It seems Mistress Arden’s right in saying you’re pleased by threatening others,” he said in tones of exaggerated politeness.

  “Nay, Master Rimer, this is no affair of thine,” the Widow said. “Masters Dee and Kelly will be leaving now; I think they can have no more to say to me.”

  Dee would have been more than happy to do as the Widow had said. He had been startled and not altogether pleased when Kelly’s tracing spell led them to the small cottage outside the forest, instead of to some Faerie haunt, and he was even more disturbed by Kelly’s hostile demeanor toward the Widow. John’s unexpected appearance in the cottage was the final straw. “Come away, Ned,” he said. “‘Tis surely some mistake.”

  “Mistake?” Kelly rounded furiously on his companion. “‘Tis no mistake! He’s part of it too; look!”

  Kelly plunged his right hand into the left sleeve of his gown, and from its loose folds he pulled the crystal globe. It was glowing redly, and heat radiated from its smooth and shining surface. Blanche gasped and took an involuntary step forward, jostling her mother and her sister. John shouldered past the Widow with an absently murmured apology, his eyes fixed on the sphere in Kelly’s hand.

  Kelly ignored them all. He passed his left hand across the surface of the crystal, barely brushing it with the tips of his fingers. “Monstra!” he said in a clear voice, then he turned and thrust the crystal in Dee’s direction. “There; you see? ‘Tis no mistake; they are all part of this.”

  In the depths of the forest, the bear’s head came up and around. He sniffed the air, his clouded mind momentarily uncertain what it was he searched for or how best to go about finding it. Activated by Kelly’s use of its power, the crystal’s presence pulled at the bear, and the bear did not resist. Rising, Hugh lumbered on all fours in the direction of the strange compulsion. His pace quickly grew more rapid, until he was crashing heedlessly through the underbrush, heading straight for the Widow’s cottage.

  At the door of the cottage, Dee stepped back, startled by the intensity of the emotion in his friend’s voice. He recovered himself quickly, and, with a sidelong look at the tense expressions on the faces of the Widow and her family, he bent over the crystal. In its depths he saw a picture, a miniature portrait of the Widow and her daughters, caught in a web of red light. To one side was another figure, shadowy and hard to distinguish but nonetheless identifiable as the young man standing so protectively at the rear of the group inside the cottage.

  Dee looked up in astonishment, surprised as much by the effectiveness of Kelly’s spell as by what it showed. “It seems you’re right again, Ned,” he said in a low, unhappy voice.

  “And now we’ll finish with this foolishness,” Kelly said. He turned back to the Widow and her family. “You see there’s no more reason for pretense. Why have you made such mischief with our work? I will know!”

  “Because you’ve taken what you’ve no right to have,” Rosamund said. “Nay, Mother, I’ll not be quiet. We’ve made no mischief that we know of, but ‘twas not for lack of wishing!”

  “What mean you?” Dee demanded, stung by the anger in her voice.

  “She speaks of that,” Blanche said, waving at the crystal. “You’ve stolen what you hold there, and caused much grief and suffering by it, though perhaps you knew it not.”

  “Impossible!” Kelly scoffed. “You speak of what you do not understand”—his eyes flickered in John’s direction—“or else you’ve been misled.”

  “‘Tis you who’re ignorant in this,” John said. He looked at the light shifting within the crystal, then back to Kelly’s face. “You’ve trapped some part of my brother in that globe, condemning him to be a beast till it’s returned.”

  Dee shook his head. “That cannot be,” he said gently. “‘Tis some other spell that troubles your brother, not this; the humors of this globe came out of Faerie.”

  Behind the hedge that partly hid the Widow’s cottage from the road, Master Rodgers crouched, grinding his teeth and cursing under his breath. When he had, with much misgiving, crept close enough to hear the conversation between Dee and the Widow Arden, his spirits had soared. Rather than joining the Widow in some arcane ritual, it seemed that Dee and Kelly were accusing her to her face of dealing in magic. With such support, a charge of witchcraft against the woman would be a simple matter.

  Then Blanche and John made their accusations, and Rodgers’s brief fantasy of a triumphal return to London vanished with a crash. The transformation of man to beast was one of the most heinous crimes possible to witchcraft. Instead of a simple, clear-cut matter, the case was rapidly beginning to look like the sort of nightmare in which charges begat countercharges until nothing was certain except the eventual disgrace of the unlucky man who’d raked it up. With an increasingly gloomy expression, Master Rodgers remembered Joan Bowes’s spiteful talk about the Widow, and the equally energetic remarks of the joiner’s wife regarding Kelly. There would be witnesses on both sides.

  With a soundless sigh, Master Rodgers began quietly twisting the twigs of the hedge to make a hole so that he could see through it. Though he might wish he’d spent the day at the tavern instead of following Dee and Kelly, his duty now that he was here was plain, and if he could say he’d done it well, things might go more easily for him in the end.

  “An your globe comes out of Faerie, so do I!” John answered Dee fiercely. “Think you I do not know whereof I speak? ‘Tis your work and no other that’s been Hugh’s bane.”

  “He speaks but truth,” the Widow said, respon
ding to the look of incredulity on Dee’s face.

  “What of it?” Kelly said, and there was a hard undercurrent in his voice. “Would you have us destroy our work for the sake of some soulless Faerie wight?”

  “Yes,” Blanche said simply.

  “‘Tis only right,” Rosamund added.

  “I do not think—” Dee began in a doubtful tone, and once again Kelly interrupted him.

  “We will not do it,” Kelly said flatly. His eyes were on Dee as he went on, “Even if this is not some Faerie trick, there’s more at stake than you know. Our work has just begun; to stop it now would be too great a loss, and not only to us. All the world will benefit from what we learn.”

  “You have other gazing globes,” John said. “I’ve seen them.”

  “Indeed.” Kelly gave John a sharp look. “It seems you know much of our affairs.”

  John smiled coldly. “They’ve been of some interest to me since you stole my brother’s form. Return the power you’ve imprisoned there; it need not stop this work you set such store by.”

  Kelly was shaking his head before John had finished speaking. “You know not what you ask,” he said. “This globe, and this alone, can show us what we need to know.”

  “‘Tis true,” Dee said, nodding. “The spirits who’ve been drawn to this are wise beyond all telling. The other globes are ... limited.” He shook his head sadly and gave John a sympathetic look. John glared back, and Dee hastily transferred his gaze to Rosamund and Blanche. “The pursuit of knowledge oft requires some sacrifice,” he went on in the same kind, explanatory tone. “I fear we cannot grant your request, for ’twould be the end of our work.”

  “Easy enough to speak of sacrifice when ‘tis someone else who suffers,” Rosamund said angrily.

  “You speak as if Hugh were someone’s pet, and not a person!” Blanche said at the same time.

  “And so he is, now, and well may it suit him,” said a new voice from behind Dee and Kelly. “He’ll stay so for long and long, if I’m the one to choose his fate.”

  The two wizards whirled, and Kelly thrust the crystal out in front of him like a shield. Madini stood just inside the Widow’s gate, her face cold and expressionless and her dark eyes bright with triumph. She wore her own form, which she had never showed in the crystal, and neither Dee nor Kelly recognized her as their helpful familiar spirit. Her height and grace and her unearthly beauty proclaimed her Faerie origin to all her observers, and the Widow closed her eyes briefly as if to deny this sudden manifestation of so many of her worst fears.

  “Who are you?” Kelly demanded.

  “Thou‘rt ignorant indeed to ask such a question,” Madini responded in biting tones. “Dost thou truly expect me to make a present of my name to such as thee?” Though she would have liked nothing better than to snatch the crystal out of Kelly’s hand, caution held her back. The wizards deserved a grave punishment for their presumption, but Madini still remembered that the despised “mortal magic” had forced her to give truthful answers when she first encountered the crystal, and she would not lay herself open to such humiliation a second time, particularly in front of John. Then, too, she was curious about the Widow and her daughters, though she would never have admitted it. So instead of claiming the crystal at once she waited in hopes of learning more, or at least seeing some certain indication that none of the humans was a danger to her.

  “I could put a name to you, I think, though we’ve not met before,” John said, studying Madini with narrowed eyes.

  Madini gave him a chilling look. “Thou! Thou‘rt good for naught save causing trouble to thy betters. Faerie’s well rid of thee and thy brother both.”

  “Then what brings you here?” Rosamund said. “If you do not come to lend John your aid—”

  “I’ve come for that which all of you are greedy for,” Madini said, abandoning a caution that sat uncomfortably with her temperament and gesturing at the crystal. “The difference is that I shall have it.”

  “You see, John?” Kelly said to Dee. “‘Tis all one; when their first trick fails, they’ll try another.”

  “What are we to do?” Dee asked, frowning.

  “There’s naught that thou canst do, mortal,” Madini said. She waved a hand almost negligently, and lines of fire appeared in the air, following her outstretched fingers. “Give me the crystal,” she commanded Kelly, and flung the web of light toward him.

  “Avaunt!” Kelly said, raising the crystal like a shield and ducking his head behind it.

  “Time hath laid his mantle by,” said John at the same time, and gestured like a man throwing a ball at bowls.

  Madini’s spell went spinning sideways and disintegrated into flashing motes of light. “Meddler! Dost thou challenge me?” Madini cried, glaring at John.

  “Did you truly think I’d let you take Hugh’s only hope, and never question it?” John retorted. “What do you mean to do with the crystal, if you can come by it?”

  “That she’ll never do,” Kelly said angrily, and he began muttering over the shining globe he held. Madini and John ignored him.

  “I shall return it to Faerie, where it belongs,” Madini said. She half lowered her eyelids and smiled. “And then thou, and thy brother, and all these misbegotten mortals may do whate‘er you will for all of me.”

  “‘Twill return to Faerie when Hugh does, in his own shape once more,” John said, and his voice trembled with the force of his emotion.

  Madini laughed. “That is to say, never. There’s no charm in all of Faerie to remedy so great a sundering.”

  “Perhaps that’s why John came to us for help,” Rosamund put in.

  “Rose!” the Widow said sharply. “Hold thy tongue!”

  Madini’s head turned, and her lips curved into a thin, cruel smile. Before she could speak, Kelly’s voice rang out in triumph: “Fiat; fiat; fiat voluntas mea!”

  Silence fell like a blanket over the garden, sudden and complete. No one moved. Madini’s eyes remained fixed on Rosamund; the Widow’s gesture of restraint hung half-completed in the air.

  “What have you done, Ned?” Dee quavered after a moment.

  “Fixed them like statues where they stand,” Kelly answered. His voice sounded breathless, as if he had been running. “Shall we go?”

  “We cannot leave them like this!” Dee said, horrified.

  “‘Twould be no more than they deserve,” Kelly retorted. “But ’twill not last above an hour, and so much will do them good, I think. ‘Tis but a foretaste of what awaits an you continue meddling, or attempt again to take my crystal,” he added, speaking directly to the motionless figures grouped around him.

  “They can hear us?” Dee asked.

  “Aye, and much good may it do them,” Kelly replied. “Come, John; let’s away before we’re found here. ‘Twould be unwise to give substance to the rumors that run so strong in Mortlak.”

  “I’ll come,” Dee said, but he did not move to follow Kelly toward the garden gate. Instead he peered in fascination at John’s motionless face. “‘Tis truly amazing, Ned. I’d no idea you’d made such great advances in the crystal’s use.”

  “‘Tis as well I did,” Kelly said. “Come away! We’ve much to do before—”

  The roar of an angry bear drowned out the rest of the sentence. Dee and Kelly whirled to see Hugh racing toward them from behind the Widow’s cottage, his lips curled back from his strong yellow fangs and every hair in his coat standing on end. “Ned!” Dee cried. “Do something!”

  CHAPTER · TWENTY-FOUR

  “The dwarf tried to run, but the bear was already too close for him to get away. Trembling and in fear for his life, the dwarf said, ‘O bear, spare me and I will give you all these jewels!’ But the bear came on, and did not heed him. ‘You do not want to eat me!’ the dwarf said. ‘Why, I am too small to make even one good mouthful!’

  “Still the bear came on, and now he was drawing very near. Then in desperation the wicked dwarf said, ‘See these two girls; they are young and pl
ump and tender, not old and tough like me! Eat them, and let me go!’ But the bear did not listen. He struck a single blow with his paw, and the dwarf fell and lay still. ”

  THE SIGHT OF A RAGING BEAR RAPIDLY APPROACHING them, just when they thought they had won through to safety, paralyzed both Dee and Kelly for a moment. They had both heard, and both discounted, the stories of a ghost-bear in the forest which had been circulating since Master Kirton’s ill-fated hunt. The unexpected appearance of a large, dangerous, and very angry animal identical to the whispered descriptions was more than enough to freeze them both as motionless as the victims of Kelly’s spell.

  Kelly recovered first. Once again he raised the glowing crystal and shouted, “Fiat voluntas mea!”

  Hugh stopped short, shaking his furry head as if there were a bee in his ear. Kelly, at once pleased that his spell had had some noticeable effect and disconcerted to find that the bear could still move, shouted once more, “Fiat!”

  The bear’s only reaction was to lumber forward once more. In truth, Hugh had only been affected by the casting of the spell, and not the charm itself. The magic of the crystal remained his own; it could not touch him except through the tenuous link that informed him with waves of discomfort whenever the crystal was in use. He was close enough by then to see the motionless figures of John, Madini, and the Widow and her daughters, and though he had been growing more bearish with each spell Kelly cast, he retained enough human wit to connect the state of his friends with the two strangers and the strangely attractive globe they carried.

  “Run, John!” Kelly said, suiting his own action to his words.

  Dee caught at his companion’s arm, all but stopping the flight he had hardly begun. “But these people! What of them?”

  “An we’re fortunate, the bear will take them instead of us,” Kelly said. Unable to free his arm from Dee’s grasp, he dragged the older man with him toward the Widow’s gate.