The Tangled Forest

by Marion Grace Woolley

  *

  When I woke to find a silver box at the end of my bed, I pressed my face to my pillow and wept. The dress was sewn from starlight, the girdle woven of galaxies. Truly, the most beautiful dress ever made. Yet when Francesca held it up, I could see only misery.

  “What am I to do? My father will return tonight and I will be forced to accept his proposal.”

  “We must speak with Old Meg again.”

  “How? Those guards are not your cousins. I could never sneak out.”

  “Old Meg has her ways,” my maid said, leaving the room.

  I glared at the dress, watching the way the heavens shifted across its silk, as though Fortune were mocking me.

  Francesca returned carrying a silver tray with soup and bread.

  “I’m not hungry,” I told her.

  “You must eat, to keep up your strength.”

  She pulled out a chair and sat at my dressing table. I was so taken aback by this that I did not notice her reflection at first. Not until she spoke again, and I caught the gravel in her voice.

  “Old Meg?”

  “Hush and listen,” the crone’s face said to me, reflected in my mirror. “Franny told me what’s happened. I know where the king gets his dresses. There’s a woman lives deep within the Western Woods, with the power to call down the sky for enough gold.”

  “She’ll make him anything, won’t she? There’s nothing he can’t buy.”

  “Two expensive balls each moon for years now. Your father spends like an emperor. Ever wonder where he gets the coin?”

  “He’s the king.”

  “There’s rich kings and poor kings in this world. Yours don’t have no mines on his lands. There’s farmers with rent and tithes, but that won’t pay what’s owed his tailors, his cooks and his musicians each fortnight.”

  “Then I don’t know. Where does he get the coin?”

  “Come, see,” she said, brushing her hand against the surface of my mirror.

  There, framed in mist, was a donkey. It heed and hawed as though it knew it were being watched.

  “I really don’t understand,” I said.

  “That’s your father’s little secret, child. That’s what pays his debts.”

  “What, does it have magic milk or something?”

  “Not exactly. It shits gold.”

  The donkey hee-hawed again, the sound like nails down a blackboard.

  “My father pays for his dances with golden donkey excrement?”

  “You catch on quick, my dear.”

  She was clearly completely mad. At least, I thought so, until the donkey raised its tail. Straining at its tether, it snorted and raked its hoof, then dropped a solid fist of gold from its arse. The precious metal hit the ground with a dull thunk.

  “Sometimes it’s studded with precious stones,” Old Meg said. “The smithies have to melt it down to pluck them out.”

  “How often does it, uh—”

  “Two or three times a day.”

  “It’s regular, then?”

  “Regular enough to pay for all this,” she said, waving a hand to indicate the castle.

  “Where on earth did it come from?”

  “It was a wedding gift, from your aunt. What’s the one animal you can’t hunt in the woods?”

  “Bears. Killing a bear is punishable by death.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “No. I suppose my father just likes bears.”

  “That’s not it. He banned the hunting of bears for your mother’s sake, and she did it for her sister, because her sister married a bear.”

  “My aunt married a bear?”

  “The Prince of the Forest, no less. But that’s another story. So grateful were they, that on your parents’ wedding day, they gifted them an enchanted ass. It comes from deep within the Western Woods, where all things of strange magic come from. It means this kingdom will always be rich.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, as the donkey faded and the crone’s reflection returned.

  “Keep asking for pretty dresses and you’ll keep getting them,” she told me. “But only for as long as he can pay.”

  “I should hide the donkey?”

  “It’s already hidden, so well you’d never find it.”

  “But you know where it is, you showed it to me.”

  “I know it exists, that’s not the same as knowing where it is. The creature is protected by so many spells and charms. One for invisibility, one for wandering in circles, another for forgetting your way back. It would take a lifetime to unravel. If you want that donkey, he’ll have to give it willing.”

  5

  “I paid for it with a kiss and the promise of more,” Francesca said, coming to take my hand.

  “You won’t have to give it,” I told her.

  “In truth, your highness, I wouldn’t mind. He’s rather handsome.”

  I stared, then laughed. “You trust him?”

  “True enough.”

  That night, my father visited alone, for the cook’s son had laced Tovenaar’s wine with wakeless juice. My father’s advisor snored whilst I tried to save myself.

  “So,” my father said, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. “What think you of the dress?”

  “It was beautiful. I have never seen anything to rival it in all my life.”

  His lips lifted in a smile and he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

  “Care to put it on?”

  “I wish to save it for our wedding day. It will be the talk of all the kingdom.”

  Lying to my father broke my heart, but perhaps it was less dreadful when he did not know he was my father.

  “It is settled, then? The wedding will go ahead as planned?”

  “Yes, only,” I said, turning away and allowing my shoulders to fall.

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I sighed.

  “My love, you are sad. What causes such sorrow? Tell me, and I will remedy it immediately. It is bad luck for a bride to be unhappy before her wedding.”

  “Really, it is nothing of importance.”

  “Nonsense. It is of the utmost importance. Speak on it.”

  I sighed again, wistful and world-weary. “It was just something Tovenaar said. He was not thinking when he spoke, I’m sure of it.”

  “Tovenaar? What did he say?”

  “He told me you did not love me.”

  My father’s face fell. “And you believed him?”

  “Well, you are only marrying me because I remind you of your wife. You swore you would never marry someone who was less beautiful than she. You were looking for her in every woman you met. I could have been anybody.”

  “That is not true. You are as lovely as she, yes. When I first saw you, the resemblance was striking. Yet, I know you not to be her, and I love you as much all the same. You are my heart’s desire. I wed you for love, not memory.”

  “Tovenaar told me you would say that, use honeyed words to charm me. But he also told me not to believe a word. He told me that you received a precious gift for your first marriage. He would not tell me what it was, but he said you would never part with it for a mere woman.”

  “He said that?”

  My father’s gaze was unsettling. For someone who seemed to sentient, so awake, it was hard to believe he wasn’t there at all. He looked at me as he must have looked at my mother, listening to my words, weighing his actions, yet he still did not know who I was.

  “He told me you would prize that wedding gift over me any day. That, if you had to choose between me and that gift, I would lose every time.”

  My father came towards me. I did my best not to step back as he lifted my chin with his finger.

  “Tovenaar is a wise man, he knows many things, but he does not understand the heart,” he said, and kissed me.

  I told myself it was just a father kissing his daughter, like he had when I was a child, but as his tongue entered my mouth, I pushed away.


  “I, um—” I struggled to steady myself before turning back. “I wish I could believe you, but no king would choose love over wealth.”

  “I would choose you over my kingdom,” he replied. “I have lived a long life, rich with experience and fond memories. Now, in the twilight of my years, I crave a woman’s kind touch and her soft lips. Rose has left me already, and soon I will join her, but until then, you must stand in her place, for I am certain that no other is as true of heart as you. If you would turn down a king and all his gifts because you felt his heart were not sincere, then I must prove to you its sincerity. I will return before daybreak.”

  *

  I had thought myself so clever. In my mind, I saw him presenting the donkey to me as a wedding gift, relinquishing his wealth and naming me sole proprietess. Tovenaar would have to come to me every time he needed money for his dances, his prostitutes, even his clothes.

  I had vastly underestimated the depth of my father’s affection.

  When he returned in the early hours, he did so with two of his most trusted guards. My father studied me carefully as they came forward, placing a large cloth sack before me.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “The wedding present you thought I loved more than you.”

  I didn’t understand. Whatever was in that sack was not as large as a donkey. Stepping forward, I drew the strings with a gasp.

  “No,” I whispered. “This can’t be.”

  The skin had been scraped, yet it was still fresh enough that a little of the flesh clung to the hooves and the head. The animal’s eyes had been removed, along with its tongue and lower jaw, but its upper teeth remained, grinning at me as though we shared a joke.

  “It is true, my greatest possession was a donkey.” My father hiccupped a laugh, which sounded dangerously close to a sob. I looked up, but he was not crying.

  “Why did you kill it?”

  “Neither the sun nor the moon were enough for you, so I have brought you a coat of fur.”

  By the gods, what had I done? If Old Meg were right, and our kingdom owed its wealth to this donkey’s dung, what would become of us now? Would Tovenaar continue to throw banquets until we were bankrupt? It was too late now. The donkey was dead.

  In the midst of my panic, something else struck me. My father had sacrificed all that he owned for my love. If only he had done so a father to a daughter, I would have wept with gratitude, not grief. Yet this unnatural love that had enchanted him left me no more excuses.

  “Have I not proven myself?” he asked. “Have I not shown beyond all doubt that there is nothing in my kingdom I hold more dear than your affection?”

  “You have proven it,” I said, defeated.

  “Then the bells will ring and confetti will fall, and we’ll be married on the full moon.”

  I tried to smile as he left me there, holding the head of the donkey in my lap, but the moment the door closed I began to sob.

  I do not know how long I sat there, holding the horror of the slaughtered beast and my own misery to my breast, but it was not quite light when I looked up.

  “Hurry, your highness,” Francesca said. “There is no time to lose.”

  I had not even heard her come in.

  “Why, what is happening?”

  “Tovenaar is awake. The wine wore off and he’s stalking the palace in a black mood. The king has retired to his chamber and will not see him. He’s coming this way.”

  Fear struck me. Did Tovenaar know about the donkey? If he did, and he found me here like this, he might kill me on the spot. Yet I could not find the strength to stand.

  “Your highness, you must get up,” Francesca said, running from chest to drawers, pulling clothes into a sack. I watched as she pulled the dress of sun and the dress of stars from their boxes and stuffed them into the bag without ceremony. “Please get up,” she pleaded. “Get up and put on your shoes, for we need to run.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “The woods, as fast as we can.” For her sake, I struggled to my feet and found my slippers. “Put this on,” she said, fetching the donkey skin and attempting to drape its front hooves over my shoulders.

  “No! Don’t be disgusting.”

  “Please, your highness. You need to become invisible.”

  “This is no magic cloak,” I replied.

  “It’s more magic than you think. How many beggars and strays do we have in the Royal City?”

  “I don’t know. None? I can’t remember.”

  “Hundreds, but you never see them. Everyone here’s so beautiful, your highness, you soon become blind to poverty. There are mothers and babes in the street with their bowls, gents with their caps and vagabonds a plenty, but you’re right, you can’t remember, and no one will remember seeing you if you put this on. No one who’d tell, anyways.”

  In my terror, I slung the legs about my shoulders, pulled the animal’s head over my own, and almost collapsed beneath its weight.

  “Take my arm,” Francesca said. “We’ll find you a cane in the woods, but we must leave now.”

  “Where are the guards?” I asked, as we made our way towards the servants’ stairs.

  “I locked my cousins in the dungeon, so they don’t get punished for letting us go. Made it look like a kidnapping rather than an escape.”

  I looked at Francesca with new wonder. She had always been good at dressing me and brushing my hair, now it seemed she was also adept at saving my life.

  It was such a struggle to get down the winding staircase wrapped in the donkey. So hot and heavy was it, that I reached the ground bathed in sweat. Francesca pushed open the outer door, reached back for my hand and half dragged me beyond the trees.

  “There’s a horse waiting for you by Old Meg’s van. You’ll need to ride swift, before Tovenaar saddles a horse of his own.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?” I asked.

  “Your highness, if you order it, I must, but I beg you not to. I have family here. They would be punished in my place should I go amiss.”

  “I understand,” I said, thinking of her cousins, complicit in my escape, and of her baby brother. “Remember what I said. If you feel afraid, run to the woods. I’ll come back someday, I promise you. I’ll come back to save my father and reclaim what is mine.”

  With my bundle of clothes and musky cloak, I mounted the bay mare and reached down one last time to squeeze Francesca’s hand.

  “Travel safe,” I told her.

  “And you.”

  6

  I raced through the woods until my horse stumbled. The poor creature had gone as fast as I’d asked it, weaving between the trees, jumping ditches and dashing through streams. Her chest heaved as breath left her muzzle in wet clouds. It was plain that we would either need to rest, or I must leave her behind.

  Perhaps it would throw them off the scent. If they found my horse but not me, maybe they’d go back along the trail looking for a fallen princess?

  Swinging the sack of clothes over my back, I raided the saddlebags for bread and stuffed it into my mouth. There was no way of knowing when I might eat again. I pulled a stick from the brush and started on my way, bent like an old woman.

  If you’ve ever walked the woods at night, you’ll know how your heart pounds with every unfamiliar sound.

  The moon had been up a good hour or more when I saw the light. There was a lantern hanging from the door of a little, round cottage. Its daub was white, its thatching weathered and green with moss. A low stone wall encircled a garden full of pretty flowers, with honeysuckle and ivy tangled about the doorframe.

  I didn’t step forward immediately. I’d heard stories of the people who lived in the woods. They were rough types, criminals and cannibals. Sorcery ran rife and maids often went missing. It was not a place for genteel folk. I huddled against a tree to watch.

  “Who be you?” a voice came, so close I screamed. “Settle down lass, I’m not the devil.”

  An old man stood no more than six fe
et away. I hadn’t even heard him approach, the blasted donkey skin muffling my ears. Despite his age he was tall and agile, unbent by the years. He wore a tattered shirt and no shoes, a red bead tied about his neck. His eyes were very dark and very steady.

  “I’m no one,” I replied.

  “We’re none of us anyone,” he said, with a smile. “But you look like you want something.”

  “I don’t.”

  “What, nothing at all?” I shook my head stubbornly. “Not shelter for the night?”

  I shook my head again. “I’ve got this skin. It’s shelter enough.”

  “Not food, then? A nice juicy stew with meat and onion?”

  “I have bread in my pocket.”

  “Not a hot bath with herbs to help you sleep?” I faltered and his smile returned. “Come inside and meet my missus. She’ll see you right.”

  “Really, I was only passing—”

  “And you’ll continue passing on the morrow, but for now, come sit yourself down in the dry.”

  I followed the man through the gate in the wall, up to the cottage door which stood ajar. The scent of gingerbread teased my tongue, so that, when I finally did open my mouth, my entire story came tumbling out even before I’d been asked.

  The old woman sat at her table staring up at me. There were thick lines about her face, and her hair grew silver like my father’s. Despite the raging fire in the centre of the room, she wore a thick red cloak wrapped about her.

  “I see. Well, I can’t take them back,” she said, when I finally fell silent.

  “Take what back?”

  “The dresses. The king paid for them and they were no trouble to make. But they’re made in your size and there’s not many come this way the shape of a princess. You’d do better taking them to town. I’m sure someone will pay what they’re worth.”

  “You made the dresses?” I said slowly.

  “Well, it wasn’t Old Meg. She’s fine enough with a needle and thread, but she can’t make sequins from stars.”