Anger spiked through Roald. “It might be so with her, but not with me,” he ground out. He thought the old elm said something, but what it was had been drowned out not only by the cacophony of sounds that pervaded the marketplace, but also the chill that now filled Roald’s immediate world and gave rise to a subtle but insistent feeling of dread.
Who led her to me? Why?
Frustration mounting, it was all he could do to stand by in silence and watch the minutes crawl past while the pair of outcast lovers plied their trade, seeing very little in return for their pains. A pity, indeed, that Roald couldn’t even show either support or sympathy. At the very least…
“May I know their names instead?” he asked, and the elm shifted its branches as though shielding the two.
“Hamlin is the disgraced one, and Wilmar is his undoing. That’s what mortals say of them, and I’m quoting the kindest things that have been passed around regarding those two. You’ve seen enough, young man, and I hope you’ve learned a lesson. Go on and serve your mistress, and you’ll be rewarded handsomely.”
Roald turned away and walked back to the glade, where he felt he could rest and mull things over and perhaps share his adventures thus far with his new friend, strange however it might be. Along the way, he’d managed to be the lucky recipient of a loaf of bread that had tumbled out of a woman’s overstuffed basket. With the market being so busy, Roald was quick to snatch up the unexpected prize, thievery be damned. Necessity dictated a momentary dive into minor unlawfulness, and as Roald hurried off with his prize, an overwhelming feeling of empathy for the desperate poor seized him even though his own circumstances had yet to reach such terrible levels. Guilt-ridden and heavy-hearted, he went about gathering more fresh fruit to supplement his bread before finally making his way back to the marble statue’s side.
Chapter Fifteen
In the meantime, Alarick had slowly adjusted to his strange situation. Mysterious magic now drowned him in rich wine and exquisite dishes, velvet and lace and silk. Whenever he felt restless, he was urged to sit before the brightly-lit hearth and to listen to the cottage whisper some stories for his entertainment.
“Curious,” he noted once, unable to hold back a smile. “I feel like being a child all over again.”
Until he was of age, the creaking wood and wind-rattled windows seemed to say, he was still little more than a child.
“I’m eighteen!” Alarick said, bemused. “I’ve been to the battlefield. I’ve watched friends and comrades die. I’ve got scars from it all.”
Out there, perhaps, but not in the forest and not in the cottage. As such, there was no such thing as adult urges, curious experiments with another, an unnatural understanding of how one’s body and instincts truly worked. Within the shadows of ageless trees and enchanted, meandering paths, a young man was protected against the world—and against himself. He was stripped of his self, and he was back to being a shapeless mound of clay, ready to be worked on. He was little more than a child—a baby.
The cottage took to spoiling him excessively, and after a couple of days of this, Alarick had grown a little more content with where he was, though he found the cottage’s need to treat him like a little boy a source of never-ending amusement. At the same time, he reminded himself to remain on his guard, for his dreams had become more and more puzzling and terrifying, with all his earlier hopes and beliefs being torn apart and redefined in the most horrifying ways.
He often found himself waking up in the dead of night, the remnants of a terrible dream releasing their hold on his mind till he could barely remember if he’d truly dreamt at all.
“No, I’m not a child,” he whispered, skin drenched in sweat, heart thundering in his chest, residual fear and confusion fluttering like torn curtains in the breeze, their threads dissolving till nothing was left but restless phantoms in his mind.
So what really is your purpose? Alarick immediately wondered, pressing shaking and damp hands against his face. What do you want from me? Within moments he was once again asleep.
When he awoke in the morning, he felt exhausted, as though he’d never slept at all, and he was sometimes disoriented for several moments, with the cottage telling him that he was a handsome young prince who needed to find the right princess to rescue, to love, and to marry. But every time the cottage tickled his ears with fantastic images of heroic adventures and romance, his mind and heart rebelled against those whispers, and they’d claw their way back to the present with reminders of Roald till the cottage’s voices faded into silence. Along with those voices went the shadows of Alarick’s dreams, so that by the time he’d washed and seated himself down for breakfast, he couldn’t remember anything about his dreams beyond the lingering sensations of vague, unsettling fear.
“You poor lost little boy,” the cottage said as he ate his breakfast, fighting the urge to squirm in his chair from a gnawing discomfort. “Let us take care of you. Here’s another story of heroism and virtue…”
And Alarick was treated—if one were to call it that—to another nursery tale involving imprisoned princesses or less aristocratic but equally beautiful girls, and this time, Alarick stood in the place of every gallant hero in those stories.
“My story unfolds differently,” he said, only to be cut off by condescending laughter.
“Only within the charmed shelter of palace walls,” the cottage replied. “Beyond those, the world works differently, and you’re expected to give up the comforts of childish fantasies. In the real world, princes rescue princesses, not other princes.”
“Aren’t your stories childish fantasies as well?”
“Look beneath the surface, Your Highness, and you’ll find them to be very much a reflection of adult concerns, obligations, or at the very least, expectations. You’ve been spoiled excessively for too long. What you were able to get away with within those sheltering walls no longer works. It’s high time for you to learn harsher lessons for your own good.”
It took Alarick those couple of days (were they really only two days—no, three or four?) to discover the cottage’s purpose, and it took him all he had to keep himself from breathing a word of his outrage and dismay. Schooling himself to show nothing but curiosity and naïve good humor was growing more and more difficult, and he was beginning to feel the effects on his health—if not his mind.
This cottage is trying to change me or destroy me.
Somehow, he realized, both of those were one and the same.
And if he didn’t find a way to escape, he’d surely be driven mad, if not be hammered into subservience and forced into a nature that was never his to begin with. Every so often, Alarick would walk to the door and observe it, his eyes taking in as many minute details as they possibly could in hopes of seeing weaknesses in the door’s magical structure. He found none. When he tried to do the same with the windows, he found them to be just as they were the first time he saw those wooden arms and fingers crawl across the glass panes to secure them against any forced movement from within and without.
The wooden man kept his vigilant watch over the lad, shaking his head at Alarick’s none-too-subtle attempts at searching for a way out. The prince had steadily fed him his dreams, and the dawn hours arrived with the wooden man feeling sated yet hungry for more, trembling amid the wood grain as he stared at the stirring figure in the bed. The addiction to this boy’s hopes and desires had grown to unbearable levels, and it had only been two days so far. Or had it been three or four? This lost prince was making it more and more difficult for the watcher to keep track of time.
Alarick was often startled by the occasional creaking and groaning of old, weathered wood throughout the cottage, but those were sounds that had nothing to do with a shifting foundation or effects of moisture or changing temperatures on the wood. Had he stopped to look very, very carefully at the shadows cast on the walls around him, he’d surely have seen the watcher struggling against himself and his consuming desire to devour more of the prince’s dreams.
He reached out whenever Alarick stood close enough with his back turned to the wall, the wooden man’s fingers trembling as they tried to touch the young man’s dark hair. Hunger and eagerness, along with the strain of pulling away from the walls that imprisoned him, were what made the cottage creak, the wood panels groan. The rancid taste of peasant fantasies and hopes had been replaced by the vibrant colors of the privileged, but there was also a certain passion seeping through Alarick’s dreams that gave them a decidedly sweeter, more intoxicating flavor.
Alarick was offering him something different—something unnatural yet titillating by virtue of its subversion. The prince’s dreams, all of which were tightly laced with his hopes and the deeper intricacies of his heart, offered the wooden man a most remarkable glimpse into a wholly different world of color and beauty despite its obvious and complete divergence from the commonplace and accepted. And to be fully fed Alarick’s life force meant coaxing an occasional surge of those deep-seated emotions and preferences by twisting the prince’s dreams into scenes of the commonplace.
Indeed, how else could one expect to enjoy a most gratifying display of a young man’s passion for another but through challenging his attachment and replacing his male beloved with another—each time a female? Oh, the anger! The confusion! The outrage and fierce protectiveness! When Alarick reacted with those in his dreams, the force of his emotions was astounding and more than satisfying to a creature who’d long forgotten how it felt to be human.
Were the startling effects also nothing more than stirred memories from a life long buried in the past? The wooden man couldn’t say for sure, but Alarick resurrected a good number of broken but vivid images that couldn’t be understood, let alone identified. Figures in fine robes, brilliant pennants, gilt-edged rooms, shadows moving inside mirrors, images of frightened faces watching him before their mouths opened in screams of horror—like mosaic that didn’t quite complete a picture, they flashed across the wooden man’s eyes, teasing and taunting him with mysteries of his own past. What did they mean, exactly? He certainly couldn’t tell, but they offered sweet associations. Like the most delectable wine, leaving a potent and lingering taste in his ageless mouth. Power and beauty and lust for life—all devoured and absorbed and then subverted in the name of virtue. The wooden man shuddered amid the panels, his phantom shape blending with the grain. He couldn’t wait for the evening to come for his feast.
* * *
In the meantime, Alarick observed the table setting. Each day passed with each setting shedding its charmed exterior and transforming into dull, battered tin. Mornings always led him to that discovery, and he was urged to eat from that setting during breakfast and lunch.
When evening came, however, that table setting had vanished, leaving nothing on the table except its corresponding chair—which had turned into dark, rotting wood—and Alarick was obliged to enjoy his dinner using the next available plate, bowl, and goblet as dictated by the cottage. His meals varied greatly, and they all spoiled him with their rich flavor and more than sufficient quantities.
And I’m sure that these dishes shape my dreams, he thought as he dutifully finished his current meal.
He’d just enjoyed a most delightful plate of roasted game and vegetables, consumed from the crystal set. Like the previous meals, this one was further enhanced by the nature of the table setting from which he’d eaten.
While Alarick savored his food, he was also surprised and pleased by the clear, sweet tinkling sound that constantly came from of the plate, bowl, and goblet at the slightest touch. The wine being a remarkably rich one, Alarick eventually found himself a bit fuzzy-headed and silly, and at the conclusion of the meal he thought it a rather clever thing to toy with the dishes by tapping them with his fingers and listening to the music he was creating till the cottage said, “Not very becoming behavior at all from a prince, Your Highness.”
“You’ve yet to see me at my worst,” he replied, his words slightly slurred.
“We’re fortunate, then.” Did enchanted cottages huff? This one did, and it was all Alarick could do to smother a very amused and unflattering outburst.
By the gods, if only Roald were here.
“The hour’s getting late, Your Highness,” the cottage noted with a bit of impatience edging its words. There it was, huffing again.
Alarick snickered and weakly tried to blink away the effects of his drink, but he eventually had to leave the table in order to relieve himself at the hearth, which was set to be lit by the cottage once he’d finished doing his business.
“Seeing as how I can’t enjoy myself with more wine,” he said as he stumbled away from the raging fire that had suddenly appeared and took his place on the floor before the hearth, “I’d be obliged if you were to lull me to sleep with more of your damned stories.”
“Well, that’s gratitude for you.”
Alarick grinned, his eyes glazed and his complexion flushed as he stared at the fire. “It’s my pleasure. Please don’t let me stop you. Carry on, carry on.”
And the cottage carried on, spinning more tales that barely sank into the prince’s consciousness.
* * *
Back in the palace, Ulrike sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the dying fire in the hearth. Her servants would be appearing soon enough to get her ready for bed, but in the meantime, she simply sat there, struggling with the broken mechanism of her mind.
“If no one wants to help then I must go to him,” she muttered repeatedly, running both hands along her lap from the junction of her thighs and her hips down to her knees. “I must see him. He needs me.”
She could feel her dead sister watching her silently from one of the darkest corner of her chamber. It was just too bad that she couldn’t quite sense the dead princess’s feelings, let alone thoughts. Well, let the dead watch her. She was the queen, after all, and she didn’t need anyone’s pity, whether or not it came from the grave. She could take care of herself, and above all, she could take care of her only child.
Ulrike stole occasional furtive glances in the direction of the broken looking-glass, which also stood in a lonely and shadowy part of her room. Like her dead sister, the mirror appeared to watch her in grim silence—waiting for her next move, almost.
“No, no, no, no,” she whispered fiercely, shaking her head now, though the rhythmic movements of her hands along her lap continued. “No, no, you don’t frighten me. Oh, no, you’ve tried to own me, and you almost succeeded. You’ll never own him. You won’t, and I won’t let you. No, no, no, no, no…”
She looked down on her hands as they turned, palms up, and with every scrap of her shredded will, she fought against the darkness in her mind and bent as much thought as she could on her hands.
“I have control over it, haven’t I?” she whispered, frowning. “I know what I’m doing. That’s the key—control. You don’t understand, do you, Amara?” She started humming softly, tilting her head to the side when her hands gave off a faint glow. “You don’t frighten me, and you won’t own him. No. A thousand times, no.”
She hummed again, blinking and smiling as her hands gently pulsed, long-dormant powers rousing in slow waves. With a sudden giggling fit, Ulrike turned her hands over and resumed the rhythmic running of her hands along her thighs. “No, no, no, no…”
A soft knock on her door interrupted her chanting, and in seconds, the dimly lit and silent room was alive with cheerful voices and movements as the queen’s servants swept inside and fussed over her, getting her ready for bed. One of them brought more wood for the fire, for the night was very chilly outside.
Ulrike didn’t seem to mind them, though, for her thoughts were far away, searching the moonlit land for her lost son, regret and guilt and profound, unspeakable despair guiding her phantom way, only to stop at the outer trees of the cursed forest.
“No, no, no, no,” she whispered now, shaking her head, her face distorting in terror, even as her servants guided her gently out of her gown and hoops and into h
er nightdress. “You can’t have him. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t…I won’t let you, you demon. No, no, no, no, no…”
Her servants helped her crawl under the blankets, and before long Ulrike was alone in her chamber, staring at the black ceiling and shaking her head, with nothing else for company but the broken looking-glass and the silent specter of her dead sister.
“I’ll come for you, my darling,” she murmured, her words dissolving into the night. She wished that she’d at least a doll, which she could hold against her like an infant.
* * *
When night fell, the cottage commanded a tipsy Alarick to sleep in the crystal bed, which he did with some difficulty. The mattress, the pillow, and the blankets are made entirely of countless tiny bits of crystal pieced together to mimic cloth. They sparkled in the glow of candlelight like little stars though they might be too harsh on a body long used to the luxury of feather cushions and silk sheets.
Then again, Alarick didn’t have much of a choice. The cottage had said so, and besides, the previous bed in which he’d slept had already echoed its partner at the dinner table, the wooden frame turning into a decrepit shell, the blankets and pillows dissolving into filthy, tattered piles of old cloth. Looking at the remains of what used to be a beautiful bed turned Alarick’s stomach, for he swore that he could hear the progression of decay, and he most certainly could smell it.
But the moment the prince’s head settled on the pillow of his new bed, Alarick immediately sank into sleep, only to blink his eyes open and find himself sitting in the middle of a round crystal chamber.
He looked around curiously and found that the little cell was equipped with only a window, and there he walked, shivering at the sound of a thousand tiny bells created by his shoes clicking against the crystal floor. He leaned out the window and gazed at the countryside beyond, marveling at the sight and wondering what he was doing stuck in a tower prison.
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