by Taryn Tyler
Boris stopped when he reached me, close enough that I could feel hot air coming from his snout. The hair on the back of his haunches settled flat across his back. His pointed ears stood straight. His gums lowered over his teeth, covering the growl that had stopped before it started. I looked into the deep, unsaturated gold of his eyes and saw exactly what I had hoped to see.
Recognition. The coals of the fire inside me turned to ash. My whole body went cold.
Boris brushed past me. He rubbed his shoulders against my legs. The fur on the back of his tail tapped against my fingers. I watched him plod toward the cottage then disappear through the door I had left open.
Fire bubbled anew in every piece of me, cracking against all compassion, singeing the corners of my rationality. I breathed deep, collecting the last remnants of my restraint and followed him into the cottage.
Boris stood next to the wash basin with the bath curtain wrapped around his naked human body.
“You recognized me.” I said.
He smiled incredulously. “Of course I did. How could I possibly not recognize you?”
I glared at him, letting my anger seep into every corner of the cottage. For a moment I almost thought I heard the tar in the walls sizzle. “You killed Gran.”
Boris furrowed his forehead in confusion. Sweat painted a shiny glint over his face, gleaming down his neck and bare chest and shoulders. “I told you I did. It was the full moon. My mother--”
I shook my head, lifting my finger to point at him like a dagger. “You killed Gran. Not your mother. Not some monster that possessed you. I saw your eyes a moment ago. Your eyes without that smile and face to hide behind.”
“The moon--”
“I know wild beasts.” I continued, ignoring his interruption. “I speak to them. They're hungry and feral and vicious but they don't know when they hurt you. They only know that if they don't eat you you might eat them. If I hum softly enough and deeply enough they will trust me, let me pass by them closer than any human has, touch them even. Your eyes --just now-- they were wild and hungry but they weren't the eyes of a dumb beast. Whatever the moon does to you, you are still in control.”
Boris sighed. He ran a hand through his hair. He clutched the curtain in his fist with the other hand. “Sometimes. Mostly. But it's more complicated than that. It's . . . unpredictable. An animal in me does take over. Maybe it's not the wolf. Maybe it is myself but . . .” He looked up, meeting my gaze. “Rose, I do remember that night. I remember the way your Gran screamed and begged me to let her go. I remember . . . so much more. Snow's dagger piercing into my gut, my mother's joy when she heard that the deed was done, how pleased I was that I had been able to please her. I live with those memories everyday but Rose –Rose all that was before I knew you. Before you made me want to be different.”
“You should leave.” I told him but he kept talking.
“I love you, Rose.” He took a slow lingering step toward me. “I wish I had never taken your Gran from you. I wish I had never hurt anyone but I could never hurt you, Rose. Never.”
I stared at him. His voice was fervent, his eyes sincere. He believed he was telling the truth.
He took another step towards me, encouraged by my silence. Then another. A few seconds and he was standing close enough for me to hear his breathing, heavy and shallow like mine. He lifted my hand in his, running his thumb over my palm.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. My heart was beating faster than I would have liked.
“I came to see you.” His voice was soft, lilting, hardly more than a whisper. He was close enough now for me to feel his breath, warm and close, so, so close to my face. The curtain he was still holding around his waist brushed against my shins. “I want you to come with me.”
“Where?” I asked. “Why?”
“Anywhere.” He pulled back just a little, smiling his ridiculous smile. “My mother knows that Snow is alive. When she comes looking for her you won't be safe here anymore.”
I pulled my hand back. There was only one part of that speech that meant anything to me. “Snow's in danger.” I said “We have to warn her.”
Boris raised his eyebrows. His lips twisted into a pout. He tilted his head in a way he might have thought was charming. “Now? Can't it wait a few minutes or . . .” He leaned his head down, close to mine again “seconds.”
A hot rush of blood spread over my cheeks. The rest of my body went cold. “No.” I placed both my palms on his naked chest and shoved him away. “It can't.” I turned around, stepping toward the door.
“Rose.” His hand clamped around my wrist. He pulled me back around to face him. “Say you will come with me. Say you will let me take care of you.”
The anger coursing through me wasn't hot anymore. It didn't consume me or cloud me with passion. It was cold and empty and clearer than anything I had ever felt before. My heart beat faster and faster with each second. “Take care of yourself.” I said, clipping my way through each syllable to be sure that he understood. “Leave before I burn you to cinders.”
“Please.” Boris begged. His hand clamped tighter around my wrist. “Don't send me away.”
“You would have killed Snow.” I said. “If Hans hadn't come in time. You would have killed her.”
He scoffed. His human eyes glinted with contempt. “Hans the Hunter. Mother's favorite pet. We thought he had finished the two of you off. I don't imagine he'll live long now that his secret is discovered.”
My lip curled. His loyalty to his mother might have been reduced to tatters but he was still jealous of her affection. She had trained him well.
Boris saw my expression. The disdain drained from his eyes. “I didn't mean it that way.”
“You did.” I said.
“Old ways are hard to change, Rose, but I will. For you, I will. It's hard tonight with the moon out.”
“You are in perfect control of who you are.” I glanced at his big sweaty hand still clamped around my wrist. “I won't tell you again.”
Boris let go of me. He stepped back with his eyes still locked on mine. His shoulders hunched. He yelped then snarled. His limbs jolted first in one direction then the other. His skin thickened and grew fur. His flesh shriveled then expanded and I was staring once again into the harsh, gold eyes of the wolf who had killed my grandmother. He shook his head, snarled, and darted out the door. The bath curtain lay spread over the cottage floor like an old rag.
I followed him outside. He had already disappeared into the trees.
I closed my eyes. I planted my feet against the ground and let the remaining shards of sunlight leak into my skin. I listened. I listened deep into the heart of the wood. I listened for Snow's careful, low-lifted steps against the earth. I listened for the wind through her long, straight braid, over her soft lips and long eyelashes.
Nothing.
Fox paws pattered against the ground. Birds' wings fluttered in the wind. The delicate hoof beats of woodland deer sounded over and over like a drum. I felt the rushed push of Boris's wolf feet as he made his way back to his mother's manor but not a human step touched the earth. Not where I could feel it. Not in my wood.
Where is she? I demanded but the trees did not answer. My pulse rushed like a waterfall so that I could hardly manage to stand still. I struggled to hold my concentration. Where is Snow?
Oak leaves rustled in a circle around the cottage glen. Willow vines swayed deep in the forest. The trees did not answer.
I inhaled, trying to dig deeper, trying to feel into the roots of the trees, into every ring of their trunks. My mind burned with fire. Where? I asked again, frantic for the answer. Where is Snow? She had to have gone through the wood to leave the cottage. The trees had to have seen.
They did not answer. Perhaps I had asked them too forcefully. Perhaps they didn't know or perhaps . . . perhaps another magic had bound them into silence.
Please. I begged, one last time. Tell me where she is. Tell me she is safe.
Silence.
>
There wasn't time to tramp through the wood looking for her. Lucille's powers were a hundred times stronger than mine. She knew Snow was alive. It was a matter of hours –minutes even –before she discovered where. Where would Snow go? The village? Perhaps but . . . I needed to know where she wasn't first. As long as I knew that I knew she had a chance.
I ran back to the cottage, moving faster than I could ever remember moving before. I pushed the door open. It slammed against the wall and bounced on its hinges. I looked around the room for something to . . . there. On the table was a book. Not Gran's. One I had never seen before. I opened it to the first page.
Ink. I needed ink but I knew there wasn't any. There wasn't time to boil walnuts or squeeze berries either. I grabbed one of Gran's china cups and broke the rim against the table. I pressed my finger into to the broken edge, pushing down until my skin split open. A red ribbon of blood bled through. I smeared it onto the book page, writing as quickly and neatly as I could manage with my heart thundering inside my chest. My heart felt sick. I couldn't let anything happen to Snow. I couldn't.
SHE KNOWS. GET OUT.
The words were hardly legible but it was the best I could manage. I left the cottage and darted through the gardens, across the glen, and out into the wood. I wove and ducked through the trees, dodging birches and oaks. Leaves and thorns stuck in my hair, pulling at my roots, trying to make me stop.
I listened as I ran. I listened as I had never listened before. To my feet bouncing off the woodland floor over and over. To the blood pumping through my limbs and chest like the roar of a storm. To the crunch of the leaves and the flapping of bat's wings, the chirping of insects, the hiss of the wind. If I listened hard enough perhaps I would hear her. Perhaps I would hear Otto. Perhaps I could get to her and warn her in time.
But I didn't hear her. Not anywhere on the woodland floor. Not out on the plains of the village. My thighs burned. I struggled to keep control of my breath. Then, suddenly, almost as if I had appeared there by magic, I was standing in front of the manor, staring at the black iron gate.
I had never imagined that a single building could be so large. It poked up from behind the thick, stone walls that surrounded it like a giant tree stump in the growing darkness. I could hear voices and the trampling plod of feet coming from inside, only ---something was missing. The sounds were harsh and regulated with none of the laughter and grumblings I had grown up with in the village.
I stood just inside the trees, catching my breath, gathering my thoughts. I would gain nothing if I marched up to the gate and demanded information. Nothing but a night in the dungeons. Or worse. I needed a plan. No one but Boris would have any idea who I was. I could ask for shelter or work or . . .
Boris was already inside the manor. Wolves run faster than girls, even witches. I'd felt him slip out of the wood long before I'd reached the edge.
It didn't matter. If he claimed to know me I would deny it. If he tried to stop me I would burst him into flames.
I pulled as many of the leaves as I could out of my curls and ran my fingers through them so I would look more like a village girl and less like a wild thing from the wood. I approached the gate. It was some time before anyone came but the warden assured me that he could find work for me if I had any skills worth noting. I told him I could spin thread. He grinned at me, telling me that the queen had said only a day ago that she wished she had someone who could spin some decent thread. He let me in, rattling on about his wife's broken wrist and how it had grown back crooked, leaving her to learn to cook all over again as if they were newly wed –only she wasn't as handsome as she had been then and not as willing in more ways than one.
I asked him if he had ever been in the dungeons or seen any of the prisoners. He waved his hand. “The prisoners never last long enough to recognize, girl. Most don't make it through the night. You needn't bother worrying though. Little of the noise carries into the servant's quarters. The queen is very tidy with that kind of work.”
He led me through a courtyard of soldiers marching back and forth in formations. I had never seen so many men dressed alike. I had never seen so many weapons, sharp and clean and glinting in the golden glow of the sunset.
“This way, girl.” The warden led me past the stable and the kitchen into the manor's ground level. The inside was lined with doors and staircases. The warden led me to a plainly decorated room near the kitchen. It was lined with benches and cluttered with basket upon basket of silk threads and luxurious fabrics. They glittered and shone and swagged in all colors, bright and gauzy and delicate. The velvet gown I had first seen Snow in looked like rags in comparison. I touched the sash around my waist --the blue one embroidered with vines and birds that I had made for Snow but had never given to her. It was nothing compared to the gifts she must have been used to.
The warden left me without a word and I was left alone in the empty room. I could hear the sizzling of meats and the cook's muted orders coming from the kitchen outside but I doubted if anyone would notice if I slipped out the door and went to look for the dungeons. I wished to anything that I could speak to the stone and wood of the manor house the way I could the woodlands.
“You are beautiful.”
I whirred around, surprised by the clear, rounded voice. I hadn't heard the woman approach. I hadn't expected her to arrive so soon.
She smiled at me. A warm, glittering smile. As if she had been waiting for me to arrive all day and here I was at last. As if she wanted nothing better than to sit down with me and a cup of mead and chat about nothing all day long. She was beautiful too. Hair the color of the earth after a storm. Eyes like the forest. She had a thin, delicate chin and cheeks flushed just enough to lighten her expression. “He said you would be beautiful.” Her voice was like mist.
“Who said?”
She laughed. Like ripples in a thick, rich cream. Like a trumpet on harvest day. It was hypnotic, riveting.
Was this the queen? Lucille herself? But of course she couldn't be. She wasn't old enough to have given birth to a child of ten and certainly not to a man of Boris's age. At the most she could be his little sister.
“The warden, silly goose. He said it was a wonder you were looking for work and not a husband.” The woman lifted the side of her lips into a half smile. “He sounded disappointed that he no longer qualifies for the job.”
I stared at her. I needed to find Snow, not a husband. “I just want to spin.” I said. “I'm also quite good in the garden.”
“What an interesting combination of skills.” She glided across the room, the movement quick but balanced and unhurried. She brushed her gown back –plain blue wool; I had hardly noticed it before
–and sat down on one of the benches next to the spinning wheel. “Let's see your spinning first since the garden will take days to prove.”
I suppressed a sigh and sat next to her. If I couldn't explore the manor perhaps I could draw some gossip out of this woman. She seemed friendly enough if I could manage to phrase the questions right. “How long have you worked here?”
“Not long.” There was a hint of laughter still lingering in her voice as she watched me examine a pelt of wool from a basket.
I lifted the pelt in my hands. White, pure and unstained. I could only imagine the trouble the sheep shearers must have gone through to wash it. It felt strange scratching against my palms, familiar but from a life so far away I wasn't even sure it had been mine.
“But you must have met the queen.” I wrapped the end of the wool onto the spinning needle.
“Only the soldiers and the serving staff meet the queen.” The woman said. “Unless you anger her of course but no one in the manor has.”
Somehow I did not think that that was because the queen was not easily angered.
The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a small thin piece of linen. She held it out to me. “For your finger.” She nodded toward the cut from Gran's mug, clotted now but still dark with blood. I'd forgotten how much it
hurt. “So you don't stain the thread.”
I took the linen and wrapped it around my finger, tying it tight next to my knuckle. “What angers her? The queen.”
The woman's lips quirked. “Too many questions.”
I held the wool between my fingers, pressing it back onto the spinning needle. I placed my feet on the wooden pedals and began to pump. The sound was like going back in time to the constant, relentless hum of Greta's house in the village where we had sat, day after day, spinning. The wool pulled through my fingers, gently, steadily, scratching, whispering at my calluses. I concentrated on holding still. I had never been very patient with a spinning wheel. Greta had never been quite satisfied with my work.
“The queen had a sister once.” The woman said. “Not many people know that. I suppose she was the first woman to truly anger her. The first to question her ways.”
Gossip of the past. Nothing about where Lucille was now or what prisoners she had.
“What are her ways?” I asked. “What did her sister question?”
“Her livelihood.” The woman answered. “Her right to survive. But it doesn't matter anymore. Her sister is dead.”
The wheel thrummed. I kept pedaling, guiding the wool onto the needle, searching my brain for another question. One that would lead the direction I wanted it to. I forced myself to spin slowly, fighting against the rhythm of my heartbeat.
“You are fortunate to be so beautiful.” The woman said. “If you chose you would never have to work again. There are men who enjoy indulging a beautiful wife –or mistress –if she is accommodating enough at the right times.”
“I like to work.” I said “It helps me think.”
The woman laughed. “It doesn't really matter what you like. Or think. Have you ever seen an ugly woman? Not a plain woman. A plain woman can get by. She works hard and stays out of everyone's way and when all the pretty girls have been claimed there are men willing enough to take her if she is a good cook and promises to keep the floor well scrubbed. I mean a hag; old and shriveled with teeth falling out of her mouth and hardly any hair left. She might have been beautiful once but it doesn't matter anymore. The men who had always thought she was silly and dim no longer wish to indulge her whims. They no longer wish to look at her. They spit on her as she walks by. They laugh at her. They steal from her whatever small possessions she's managed to hoard into her old age because she is too weak to fight them. And the women? They are worse. They draw back from her, refuse to look at her, terrified because they know that she is their future. Beauty, my dear, is the only power a woman can claim. Use it while it is still yours.”