by Taryn Tyler
For the fraction of a breath I saw her again. Warm hazel eyes. Her mouth open in the onset of a laugh. Pain welled in my chest. “Gran.” I whispered, hardly able to choke out the word, but the vision was already gone, scattered like shards of light inside my head.
I opened my eyes. The wood was silent. Still but for the shiver of leaves in the wind. Was it only at night that it was filled with ghosts and monsters? I wasn't going to wait to find out. I turned and headed back toward the cottage.
The noble girl –Snow—was awake when I stepped inside. She sat straight and silent on the edge of the loft where the huntsman had moved her. She stared at me as I closed the latch on the door behind me. It wasn't just the rich black velvet of her gown that marked her as a noble. It was the poised way she held her gaze, unblinking as if her eyes were made of stone.
Or ice. Her name suited her very well.
“Where is Hans?” Her voice was quieter than I expected, small and hoarse from fever.
I blinked up at her, careful that my eyes did not stray toward the stripped and bloody bed beneath the loft. It was hard to see if her wounds had stopped bleeding through the blood already soaked to her gown. “Hans.” I said. “He was the huntsman?”
Snow nodded.
“Do you trust him?” I asked.
“Yes.” Her answer was quick. Fierce and certain like the thrust of a knife.
I sighed. “He's gone. I don't think he's coming back. He said . . .” A thought occurred to me. “Can you read?”
The space between her eyes crinkled. “Of course.”
If the huntsman –Hans –was telling the truth we weren't entirely stranded. I strode across the floor and knelt next to the toppled cabinet. There was no sign of any books. Just some pieces of broken china I'd missed in the dark and . . .
I closed my hand over the spindle I'd found in Greta's cabinet. The gold spindle with the same markings on it as the clasp on Gran's cloak. I thrust it back into my pocket and stood, scanning the room for any other place Gran might keep a book. I'd never seen one before much less owned one. Where were they usually kept?
Under the bed? I took a deep breath and turned around to face the loft. The stripped mattress beneath it was steeped in dried blood. Wrinkled feathers poked out, crusted with brown. The deep stench hit me with a rush of sickness. The last thing I wanted to do was crawl underneath looking for books that might not even exist.
“Are these what you are looking for?”
I looked up, startled by the sharp glass sound of Snow's voice. I must have looked like a wild animal as I stared at the three handbound volumes in her lap. Stained, uneven pages curled around the edges of worn leather covers.
“Yes.” I stepped toward the ladder and scampered up onto the loft. I had to take extra large steps to avoid the staves that had cracked when the wolf had knocked the ladder over. Snow edged out of the way as I reached the top. I sat beside her, dangling my feet over the edge.
An unexpected wave of shyness washed through me. She stared at me with her locked noble's gaze. Solid. Unreadable.
I still hadn't thanked her for saving my life. I twisted one of my curls to curb the sudden fit of jitters. “Hans said your name is Snow.”
She nodded.
I attempted a smile. “I'm Rose.”
The smile she returned was strained but bright and crisp for the short moment it lasted.
“Thank you.” I faltered, unsure how to begin. “For last night. For --”
“Of course.” She piled the books onto my lap, wincing slightly as their weight left her shoulder. “These were in the chest in the corner.” She nodded toward a small wooden chest surrounded by straw. Her hand brushed against my arm as she pulled it away from the books. I shivered. Her skin was almost scorching with fever.
I looked down at the volumes in my lap, still fingering one of my curls.
I had never held a book before. They were heavier than I had expected. Like a brick or a yule log. I opened the one on top. The thin sheets inside were ink and water stained, smudged with fingerprints. Thin, dark markings stared at me. Strange lines and swirls that made me dizzy to look at. I looked up, wrinkling my nose in confusion, and thrust the open book back onto Snow's lap. “What are they? What do they say?”
Snow turned a leaf. She lowered her lashes, scanning her eyes and fingers over the markings. I bent my head next to hers to see more closely. I could still feel the warmth of her fever radiating from her skin and her breaths were slow and strained.
A pair of long lines spiraled across the page in what looked like a kind of vine. “This one looks like an herbal.” Snow pointed to a collection of markings near the edge of the page. “The handwriting in the margins is the same as the bulk of the writing but smaller and messier. They were added later. What are we looking for?”
“An herbal.” I repeated. That sounded promising. “Is there anything in there about dressing claw wounds? And teeth wounds.” I added, remembering her foot.
“Probably. It looks very thorough.” Snow fingered the pages, scanning them one at a time. Her deep red lips pressed together in concentration. A strand of her short black hair fell against her face, reaching across her cheek down to her chin. The ends were frayed and uneven like she'd cut it with a knife.
I sat back. I fingered the books still in my lap. The one on top was smaller than the other two. The leather cover was so worn and cracked it felt like dry leaves.
“Here.” Snow tapped a finger against a page toward the middle of the book. Her voice was still smooth but her breath was shallower than it had been a moment ago. She took in a silent gasp. The pain from her wounds was getting harder to hide. “A poultice for deep flesh wounds.”
I leaned close again to see the page. There were no drawings. Only row after row of symbols. I closed my eyes, fighting off a dizzy headache. “What does it say? I promised Hans I would stitch you up.”
She looked up, startled. Her brow wrinkled again. Her lips formed a circle as if she were going to ask a question but when she spoke all she said was “There's a list of herbs. It says to apply them twice a day after the wounds are cleaned.”
I nodded. “Read them to me. I'll see if Gran has them.”
Comfrey. Burdock. Yarrow. The herbs weren't hard to find in Gran's well stocked cabinet. Snow read the labels to make sure they were right. I washed her wounds with water then powdered the herbs and mixed them with oil. Snow found another recipe to help with the pain. She read the directions to me while I worked. The strength in her voice waned with each word, dwindling into a cold sliver of sound.
I climbed the ladder again, this time more slowly, trying to balance both mixtures in my hands. The ladder’s legs wobbled where the wood had cracked and I thought for a moment that I might fall. I gave Snow the pain drought first, a mixture of mullein and valerian tea. I suspected it would help her sleep more than anything else. She drank it slowly as I rolled the edge of her gown off of her shoulder. She flinched at the cold touch of my hand then held still.
Four deep lines were dried over with a deep crimson, almost black, against the smooth ghostly paleness of her skin. The edges of the wound swelled with a milder red I hoped wasn't the beginning of an infection. Gently, gently, I brushed her hair away from her neck and blew over the wound, hoping the air would prepare her for the poultice. “I don't know if it will sting.” I said.
Snow shivered. Her lips curved into a half smile. She swallowed the last of the tea and set the mug down on the loft beside her. “Neither do I.”
It didn't take long to apply the herbs. If it hurt, Snow made no indication. I tightened strips of sheet around the wound and tied it tight then tended to her foot in the same way. She lay still, trusting me as I unlaced her boot and peeled the blood-soaked leather and stockings away from her feverish skin and applied the herbs.
“Thank you.” Snow said when I had finished.
I glanced down at the herbal and other two books stacked next to her in the straw. “What's in these o
nes?” I asked, even though I knew she needed to rest. I wasn't ready to be alone in the cottage. Not quite yet. I picked up the smallest book and let it open in my palm. Even I could tell it wasn't as tidy as the herbal. The lines weren't as uniform. Some pages were packed so tight with symbols that I could hardly see them while others held only a single large line.
Snow lifted the third volume, thicker even than the herbal. “This one looks like . . . a recipe book –for food. Not medicine. And this one.” She gently took the small one from my hands and fingered through the pages. “Stories. Rhymes. Idioms. The words of a wise woman. Are these . . . The woman from last night. These are her books?”
“My Gran's. Yes.” I almost choked over the words. The weight of the last twenty four hours hit me all in one blow. I suddenly wanted to scream or cry or just close my eyes and stop thinking.
Snow brushed her hair out of her face where it had been clinging to her cheek. She looked up at me, her dark eyes distant, almost fearful for a moment. Remembering. Or realizing. Froze in place like a cracked mirror. She blinked. Her lips curled into the ghost of a smile and her pupils were glass again. Solid. Stable. “I'm hungry.” She said “Do you think you could find something for us to eat?”
I nodded. The thought of food made my stomach turn but it was something to do. I pushed the books aside and made my way back down the ladder.
The bread and pie in the cupboard was crumbled to a pulp and I'd lost Greta's stew and bread in the wood but there was some dried venison and a basket of apples on the stove. I snatched them up but by the time I climbed back onto the loft Snow was asleep. She lay curled against the straw with her chin tucked into her chest. Her fingertips rested against an open page of the recipe book.
I closed the book and stacked it with the others back into the chest. I poked at the apples and venison but couldn't do much more than nibble. Finally I edged my way back to the other side of the loft and closed my own eyes. My mind and body ached too much to do anything but sleep.
The shrill sound of Snow's screams pierced through my dreams, swimming around me. I dragged myself out of sleep so quickly it almost hurt and forced my eyes open. Snow tossed back and forth in the straw across from me. She rolled from side to side, teetering near the edge.
“Snow.” I crawled towards her from the wall side of the loft. Her eyes were closed, her hands clamped over her ears as if she were trying to shut out the sounds of her own screams. Clumps of sweat dripped down her neck and forehead. I placed my hands on either of her shoulders, holding her still. Even through the thick velvet of her gown I could feel the burn of her fever. “Snow.” I said “Snow you're going to throw yourself off the loft.”
She fought against my touch, wriggling closer and closer to the edge of the loft. I held her tighter, pulling her away from the edge. “It's all right, Snow.” I said “The wolf is gone. You're safe. Nothing is going to hurt you.”
Her eyes shot open. Quick. Panicked. She looked up at me without recognition. She struggled then lay still. Stunned. Terrified.
“What's the matter?” I asked softly, not even sure she was awake. “What were you dreaming?”
She said nothing. Only stared up at me. Through me as if I weren't there at all. As if nothing were.
I let go of her shoulders and laid down beside her. I draped my arm over her stomach so that she couldn't roll off of the loft and hummed to her the way I had hummed to myself on nights I couldn't sleep in Greta's village house. The way Gran had hummed to me while she spun thread or made stew. Softly, gently, the song wound its way around us. Snow's breathing slowed bit by bit. When I turned to look at her again she was asleep, her eyes closed, her breathing soft. I stayed where I was with my chin tucked over the top of her head and watched the dusk turn to night through the window glass. If I couldn't sleep at least the warm pulse of another heartbeat could dull the aching silence in my head.
We stayed in the cottage for three days. I knew Greta would give me up as lost to the wood but I couldn't leave Snow by herself. Not when she still had trouble climbing down the ladder on her own. She slept most of the time. I tidied the cottage and kept the fire going. When she was awake I saw to her wounds and made sure we were both fed. There was grain porridge and dried peas as well as the venison and apples. Enough for the whole winter if we wanted. Snow offered to help with the washing but the one time I allowed it it was clear that she had never held a scrubbing rag before in her life. Her time was better spent regaining her strength so I could go home.
Not that the village was much of a home to return to. I wasn't sure I could bear the relentless turning of Greta's spinning wheel without the promise of Gran's visits every full moon.
Snow read through the herbal, Gran's journal, and the recipe book to keep herself occupied. In the late afternoon of the second day she fell asleep next to the fire with the journal opened over her lap. I knelt next to her and lifted it out of her hands. I ran my fingers over the crinkled cover for what must have been the hundredth time and gazed at the markings as if I could decode their mystery with sheer curiosity.
“I could teach you to read them yourself.”
I looked up, startled by Snow's voice. She hadn't been sleeping as hard as I'd thought. She watched me from the troubled edges of her dreams, waiting for an answer.
I wanted to say yes. A piece of these secrets was a piece of Gran. But what could I expect to learn in another day or two? I was beginning to wonder if I could leave Snow here alone at all. If she didn't know how to wash a dish on her own she wasn't likely to survive the winter --not in these woods –and she hadn't mentioned anywhere else she could go or anyone who might be looking for her.
“Come with me back to Greta's house.” I said. “You can teach me there. Greta –well she won't mind for long. She has a good heart underneath it all. And we could use another pair of hands to spin.”
Snow laid her head back against the wall and closed her eyes the way she did when she was trying to hide a surge of pain. As her physician I had already learned to see through the attempt. “Who is Greta?”
“My . . .” I stopped, my mouth frozen around nothing. My mother? My sister? My trade mistress? None of the words seemed right. “She's . . . just Greta. I live with her. We spin thread.” Why hadn't I ever wondered who she was before? Who I was? I handed the journal back to Snow. “You don't have to come. If you have somewhere else to get back to.”
Snow opened her eyes. “I don't” she said. “I'll come.”
That evening I went outside to fetch wood. I stood in the dusk, piling fire logs into my arms, humming another one of Gran's songs, trying not to think about the cold nibbling at my nose and fingers. It hadn't snowed since the night the wolf attacked but white ice still lay scattered over the ground as it would for many moons to come. I ran my eyes over the snow-covered vegetable and flower gardens, wondering what they would look like in the warmth of summer.
I stopped.
Impossible.
I blinked, trying to shake the sight out of my eyes, but they were still there when I opened them, sprawling through Gran's flower garden, bright and lively, as if it were early summer instead of winter. I dropped the fire logs, letting them crash into the snow next to my feet, and rushed toward the garden.
The rest of the plants were dormant, gray and thorny for the winter. I waded through them, expecting the green vines to vanish at any moment-- to melt back into whatever plant was playing tricks on my eyes. But I could smell them. The soft, tart fragrance filled my lungs. I brushed my fingers against the petals. They were soft and plentiful and didn't fade away at my touch. I drew my hand back.
Roses. Roses blooming in the onset of winter. I stared at them.
“Are you the witch?”
I whirred around to face the voice but all I saw were more plants, dried and gray and dormant.
“Hello?” I said.
Nothing.
If this was another ghost prank I was not amused. “I don't speak to things who won't show thems
elves.” I said.
“You just did.” The voice said, small and scratchy. It sounded like it had come from somewhere inside the bushes.
I said nothing, waiting.
“Oh, all right. No need to be rude.” A small nobbly man no higher than my knees stepped out from behind a dormant lavender plant. He shook a collection of dry leaves and snow out of his waistlong beard. He wore shiny boots tailored for his tiny feet and his clothes were stitched with gold thread but he looked like he hadn't bathed in centuries. He smelled like it too. “We just want to know if you will promise to keep your magic away from our hovel.”
“I'm not a witch.” I said. “I don't have magic and I don't even know where your hovel is.”
The little man scowled. His pointed grubby fingers, as long as the side of his face, twitched with irritation. “A simple yes or no is all I'm asking for. I would expect more respect from Sable's apprentice. Even if you are only a sapling witch.”
I crossed my arms, matching his scowl. “I'm not any kind of witch. Who's Sable?”
“Ha!” The little man sniffed. “If you're going to play dumb we're not going to negotiate with you at all. Just remember. If we sniff your magic near our hovel your gardens might not be as safe as they've been in the past.” He turned and shuffled back into the shrubbery. The brittle plants rustled with the movement and then every trace of him was gone.
I gathered up the fire logs and went back inside. “There are roses blooming outside.” I told Snow. “And I think I just talked to a hobgoblin.”
Snow looked up from the herbal in her lap, her hard dark eyes thoughtful. She said nothing.
I raised my eyebrows, incredulous. Perhaps she hadn't heard me. “Don't you ever . . .”
Snow blinked, waiting for me to finish.
“. . . talk?”
“Yes.”
But not, apparently, more than one word at a time. I sighed. “You and Greta will get along splendidly.”
We left early the next morning. I wasn't about to risk the woods at night again and it was best we started the journey when Snow was the most rested. I gathered the remaining herb mixtures for her drought and poultice along with the books and some apples and venison into a basket and we set out.