We came across it early in the morning of what I was pretty sure was our fifth day in the Forest. A number that felt significant, somehow. Hadn’t it taken six steps to cross the boundary between la Forêt and the world I knew? Therefore, might it not make sense that it would take six days to reach its heart, as well? In which case, tomorrow could be eventful in ways that were impossible to predict.
Not that anything about la Forêt had been all that predictable so far.
The first trees we passed were all in bud. Aside from noting that they were different from the trees of the day before, I don’t think even Ironheart thought all that much about them. The land through which we walked had grown hilly overnight—soft green rolls of earth with tiny valleys nestled like jewels in between them. A land like the gentle swells of the ocean, swells just high enough to hide what was beyond them. We couldn’t see what was up ahead until we’d reached the top of each rise.
Shortly before noon, a strange sound began to fill our ears, a deep low buzzing. Ironheart lifted his head like a dog on a scent.
“What’s that?” he inquired.
“How should I know?” I said, my tone already grumpy. I was getting tired of all this upping and downing. To me, it felt as if la Forêt was playing tricks again, when it knew quite well I wanted things to be clear and straightforward.”I can’t see any farther ahead than you can, you know.”
Ironheart glanced at me, a furrow between his brows. But I could tell that only about half of the frown was for me. The rest of his attention was already fixed on whatever lay beyond the next rise.
“Come on, let’s go find out,” he said.
“Wait a minute,” I cautioned.”You don’t—”
But by then, of course, he was off and running. I watched him top the rise in front of us, then stop dead, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. On a spurt of adrenaline, I followed him up, my hand reaching for the knife at my boot.
It was more apple orchard. But such an orchard as could exist only within the boundaries of la Forêt. Which, of course, is really just another way of saying, an apple orchard the likes of which I’d never seen before.
Below us, the land flattened out into the broadest valley we had seen that day. It was round, like an enormous bowl. The trees closest to us were all in bloom, their scent rising up to meet us, a great fragrant cloud so strong it was almost visible, and brushed with just the faintest hint of rose.
“They’re bees,” said Ironheart. For naturally it was they who were making the buzzing. I’d never seen so many before, not even among my father’s orchards. So many they almost covered the blossoms.
But even this was not the most remarkable thing. More amazing still were the trees that stood in the very center of the bowl, for these were not in blossom. Even from a distance, we could see ripe fruit hanging from their boughs. They had been planted in a great pattern of diamonds, each comprised of trees bearing fruit of one color. Green. Red. Gold. It was like looking down on a tapestry made entirely of apple trees.
Beyond even these, at the bowl’s far edge, were trees whose limbs were stark and bare, as if in the midst of winter. An entire season of growing in microcosm.
“I don’t understand this place,” I said.
Ironheart nodded, his expression sober. “Neither do I.” Then the smile that never seemed to be far from his face burst out across it. “But I do know I want to find out if those apples taste as good as they look. Come on.”
And so I followed him down.
The air among the blooming trees was so thick it made me dizzy. The apples themselves, when we finally reached them, were so plump and ripe the juice all but burst from their skins as they hung upon the trees. Ironheart picked two of each kind and stowed them carefully in his knapsack. (Away from the pinecones, I assumed.) Then he plucked a golden one and held it up against my cheek.
“Look, Aurore. It matches your hair.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, but I took it from him anyway. I polished it absently against my shirt while I watched him dash into the trees the next diamond over, scouting until he’d found the biggest, reddest apple of them all. He devoured it in six enormous bites, the juice running down his chin. A look of wonder filled his face.
“It’s like the water,” he said.”More of what it is. I wonder how each color tastes different from the next.”
“Try it and see,” I said, and tossed the golden apple to him. As it arced through the air, it flashed in the sun, bright as a coin. This one he devoured in only four bites, as it was smaller than the one before.
“It tastes like honey warmed in the sun.” And the green tasted of spring, or so he said. But, although Ironheart urged me to, I couldn’t bring myself to eat a single bite. It was as if I feared that, if I did, I’d fall under some spell. Voluntarily put my hand in a trap. The beauty of the apple orchard had only increased my fears. You draw more flies with honey, or so I’ve always been told.
I did consent to let Ironheart stuff several more apples into my knapsack. In case I changed my mind later, he said. When I pointed out he had some of his own, he loftily explained that the ones in his pack were for scientific purposes, not for eating.
It was late in the day when we reached the outskirts of the orchard, the limbs of the barren trees on the rim looking like stiff, aching arms that stretched toward the darkening sky. By mutual consent, we halted. Beyond the orchard lay a great bank of mist. We could not see our way forward.
“I think we should stop here for the night,” Ironheart said. “Find a place to make camp in the orchard. There’s no sense blundering around in the dark.”
“All right,” I said. Tomorrow, the sixth day will dawn, I thought. A day I was pretty sure would prove to be significant, one way or another.
“Let’s go back a little ways,” Ironheart suggested suddenly.”I don’t like the idea of camping on the edge of anything.” He eyed the fogbank suspiciously. “It feels—I’m not quite sure—too exposed.”
At this, I felt the tension that had been riding me all day ease a bit. It isn’t just me. He feels it too, I thought.
“All right,” I said again, as we began to make our way back toward the center of the orchard. It was well and truly dark now, a night with no moon, no stars. We stumbled along for a few more rows of trees. Then I heard Ironheart cry out, and then a thud as he hit the ground.
I had the knife out of my boot in the time it took to blink.”What is it?” I cried.
For a moment, I thought I heard him swearing under his breath.”Just my own big feet,” he said after a moment. “Or big foot, I should say. And a gopher hole.” In the dim light, I could see him stand up, and dust himself off.”I’m going to take it for a sign. This is far enough.”
I slid the knife back into its sheath.”Over here,” I said, walking closer to the nearest row of trees. “It’s not so bumpy.” Together, we shucked off our knapsacks and settled to the ground, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks.”Ironheart, I’ve been wondering something.”
“Well, it’s about time,” he said.”A little longer and the suspense might have killed me. You’ve been brooding all day, Aurore.”
“I have not either,” I said, feeling a spurt of irritation. “Just because I don’t treat every single day like it’s a lark.”
“You know perfectly well I don’t do that,” he said in a reasonable tone. A thing which caused a second spurt of irritation to shoot through my veins. There’s nothing worse than being spoken to patiently when you’re well and truly cross. It’s enough to make even a grown person feel like a child.
“Stop trying to pick a fight, Aurore,” Ironheart went on.”Tell me what it is you wonder instead.”
“All right,” I said. “Since you asked me: How will you know when we’ve reached the heart of the Forest? Do you even know what it looks like?”
“Not really,” he admitted, and though his features were just a blur, I could imagine him making a self-deprecating face in the darkness. “I guess I just assum
ed it would be obvious. That there would be a castle or a bower or something. I don’t think a beautiful princess would just be sleeping out in the open, do you?”
“What if there isn’t a beautiful sleeping princess?” I asked.”What if she’s not so beautiful, or she’s wide awake, or somebody else got there first and she’s gone?”
“No,” he said at once.”She’s going to be there, and I’m going to bring her the kiss of true love.”
“But you can’t know that,” I protested. If I’d been standing up, it’s likely I’d have stomped my foot.”You can’t possibly know for sure.”
“Yes, I can, Aurore.”
“How?” I challenged.
“Because it’s what I feel in my heart,” Ironheart said, his tone telling me he thought this should be obvious. “My heart knows she’s going to be there, even if my mind can’t explain how.”
“But can’t you see how preposterous that is?” I said, suddenly appalled to realize I was fighting back an impulse to cry. How could he be so certain love would be waiting, when I wasn’t certain of anything at all? “How can you love someone you’ve never even met? It can’t even be love at first sight!”
“I don’t have to meet her,” he answered. “I’ve known her my whole life.”
“Ironheart, you’re talking about a story,” I said, striving to make my own tone reasonable now. “A romantic fairy tale told to you by your grandfather. For all you know, he made it up to give you a purpose. Make you feel good about yourself. It’s not the same as loving a real live human being.”
“She’s real to me,” said Ironheart, his voice sharp. “And my grandfather never mentioned any fairies.”
“All right,” I said.”What does she look like?”
“What difference does that make?” exclaimed Ironheart.”What she looks like isn’t important. I care about what’s in her heart.”
“But you can’t know what’s in her heart! That’s my whole point!”
“I can, too,” said Ironheart. “It’s the match for what’s in mine. Just because you don’t feel that way about anybody doesn’t mean I can’t.”
“It does so, because nobody can. And that’s a terrible thing to say. You don’t know anything about my feelings.”
“I can so, and you asked for it,” shot back Ironheart.”What’s gotten into you today, Aurore? I’d have said the quest was going fine, until today.”
“It’s not a quest,” I all but yelled, as I jumped to my feet. “It’s a walk in the park. A quest is supposed to test your mettle, make you prove yourself. How many obstacles have we faced so far? How many challenges?”
“Counting you right this minute, you mean?”
“Ha ha. Very funny. Okay, answer me this: How many steps did it take you to get into the Forest?”
Even in the dark, I could see him drop his head into his hands.”What kind of a question is that? You think I was counting?”
I took a deep breath, striving for calm. “When I got close to the Forest,” I said, “there was a ring around it, of dry grass. Sort like a moat without the water. As if it marked the place where the regular world ended and the Forest began. It seemed to me that it went all the way around it.”
Ironheart lifted his head. “All right, yes,” he said. “You’re right. I remember. What about it?”
“How many steps did it take you to cross it?”
“What difference does that make?”
“Look, if you can’t remember, just say so.”
“All right, all right, let me think a minute.” He took almost exactly sixty seconds to come up with his answer. I know because I counted. “Half a dozen. I remember because I thought it would take less. It didn’t look that far, and my legs are kind of long.”
“Six steps,” I said.”That’s the same number it took me. How many days have we been walking through the Forest?”
“Five,” Ironheart answered promptly.”I know that because I’ve been taking notes, by the way. Which only goes to show they haven’t been a waste of time.”
There was another moment of silence. “Oh,” he said. And then again,”Oh. So you think…”
“That tomorrow will be the day we reach the heart of the Forest.”
“What’s so bad about that?” he asked at once. “Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do all along? And how do you know it will be six days? Why not some multiple of six? Twelve? Eighteen? Twenty-four?”
“It’s going to be six,” I said.
“Oh, I see,” he replied. “You mean you just know. In your heart.”
“Something like that,” I said.
“So you can do it but I can’t, is that it?”
“Now who’s trying to pick a fight?”
“I’m not picking a fight,” Ironheart said, his tone so reasonable it made me want to kick something. “I’m defending myself. Just because I’m pointing out the flaws in your logic is no reason to start accusing me of things. There’s no shame in being afraid, you know, Aurore. If you are, you should just say so.”
“I am not afraid,” I said. Though, of course that was the moment I realized how desperately I was. Afraid of what awaited me in the heart of the Forest. Afraid that it would be something shining, quick, and sharp. That had just one reason for its existence: to draw from me one bright drop of blood.
Whatever waited for me in the heart of la Forêt, I was sure it wasn’t love. And suddenly, the thought that tomorrow Ironheart might embrace his happiness, while the only thing I embraced was fear was more than I could bear.
“I’m finished with this conversation,” I said. “I’m not talking to you anymore.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Aurore!” Ironheart exclaimed.”Will you listen to yourself?”
I stomped to a tree a little ways away from the one under which he was sitting, desperately praying I didn’t step right into another gopher hole. It’s hard to be on your high horse when you’re falling on your face. There, I sat down in a huff and put my back against the tree.
“Fine,” Ironheart said. “If that’s the way you want it. But don’t blame me if you catch cold.”
“I don’t know why you bother to keep speaking,” I said.”Nobody’s paying attention to a word you say.”
I heard him sigh. “Oh, go to sleep, Aurore. If you’re not in a better mood tomorrow, I’m going on without you.”
As I sat with my back against the rough bark of the apple tree, I wondered suddenly if that hadn’t been exactly what I wanted all along.
That night, I dreamed of home.
At first I thought it was the nightmare, come to haunt me even within the confines of la Forêt. But, even from inside the dream, I knew that this was wrong. It was true the dreams began in much the same way, though instead of actually being in the palace, I was in the village below, moving toward it. The sense that I was searching for something I had lost was as strong as ever. But, in this dream, I knew I was myself. I was Aurore.
Instead it was the land around me which seemed to have changed, though at first the alterations were so subtle I hardly noticed. But gradually it came to me that, everywhere I looked, the colors seemed brighter than I remembered. The crops and livestock, taller and fatter. The whitewash on the village cottages just a little more white. Prosperity and contentment had cast their mantles out across the land, gleaming satin cloaks of green and gold. Peace and happiness seemed to reign in every direction.
The stewards have done well, I thought.
And with this thought, I reached the palace and stopped. For I saw that the walls that had once kept it locked away from the world outside had been torn down, a thing I knew had long been a dream of Papa’s. An elaborate wrought-iron gate marked the entrance to the palace grounds, but it stood wide open. A white rose and a red rose clambered up either side as if racing to embrace one another. Their scent circled around my head as I passed beneath them, heading for the kitchen garden.
It looked much as I remembered, save that it was more abundant, just as
everything was. The paths between the rows of plants were broader, covered in nutshells that made cheerful cracking noises as I walked along. And beside each plant was a marker, telling what its name was. As if someone had anticipated the curiosity of all the little girls who had come after me, of royal birth or not.
Beside a plant with leaves mottled green and purple, I knelt down. I had no need to read the marker to know what it was. Not only did I remember for myself, but it seemed to me that I could hear my cousin’s voice, clear as the peal of a church bell in the back of my mind.
“That is sage, Aurore.”
Sage, which even as a child I had known meant wise. You and your descendants have done well, Oswald, I thought.
For surely the prosperity I saw all around me was my cousin’s handiwork, proof positive that he had taken our final conversation straight into his heart. No other combination of things could have produced the peace and bounty I saw around me, for those things required both wisdom and love. And patience, also.
This was the world my departure had created. A future both shining and glorious. This was the gift I had given my people by holding my love for them safe and strong within my heart.
Yet even as this thought came to me, I began to weep, for suddenly I perceived that this bright and shining future held no place in it for me. There was no one left whom I had known and loved. And as my tears fell unchecked into the fertile earth, it seemed to me that, at long last, I understood the unhappiness that had always seemed to dwell inside my cousin Oswald.
Had he not been surrounded by all that he desired, yet been undesired in return? Rising each day to live in a world in which he knew he had no place. And so, just as she had spoken her spell first, so it seemed to me that Cousin Jane would have the last word now. For though Chantal’s spell might save my life, it would doom me to live in a world which owed its very existence to the fact that I hadn’t been in it. Like Oswald, I would be surrounded by others, yet always alone.
“Aurore,” I heard a voice say. “You’re dreaming. Wake up.”
Beauty Sleep Page 11