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The Seventh Swan: Part Four By Jaida Jones The house is made of marble within, echoing to every footstep and every breath. It stands now empty, dust gathering over everything, cobwebs strung ropy and gray from ceiling to floor. The hounds lead us inside through the open doorway, the door itself fallen from its hinges and sagging helplessly against the wall. Light shines in three steady beams from the hounds’ open mouths as we move deep into the house like a knight of old swallowed by a terrible beast. When we come to the princesses’ bedchamber, the old woman told us, we’ll know it: there are twelve beds all in a row, and the eldest’s is at the farthest end. I must rap three times against the bedpost at the left foot of the bed, and the door will open to us, revealing the vine stair. Then, Courage must go down alone. He’ll pass a forest of silver pines and a forest of gold maple, a forest of amethyst blossoms and a forest of opal loam. At last he’ll come to a vast dark moat, lit from beneath with the light from countless buried hearts like little lamps. There, my brother is to bribe the boatman, saying he’s come to give himself to the queen. The castle is made of black dragon bone. The queen will make him whole again, handsome arms to match his handsome face. What bargains they make aren’t for me to hear or see. In truth I may never know. The hounds will tell me when night has fallen, and when it’s my turn to go. I can dress myself in the fine clothes left behind in the king’s abandoned wardrobe—the queen is partial, I’m told, to black velvet—and only when I’m dressed for dancing am I to follow in my brother’s footsteps. My thoughts are already dancing in my head. I can barely hear a single one of them over the terrible sound. This is the last time I’ll see my brother as he is, burdened and cursed and not entirely whole. I keep my eyes from his as I help him prepare himself, taking off his patchwork-sleeved coat for the final time and leaving it on the bed of the second eldest princess. It’s worn through at the elbows where the alulae are sharp, worn through despite my sister’s good, strong thread. I can’t count on the fingers of both hands the number of times my brother’s told me: Beauty, I love you. Have I ever told him so in return? The bravery given to me by the second golden head is wearing as thin as Courage’s sleeves. I reach out to touch him and find myself suddenly in his downy embrace, crushed against his chest and shored against his strength. ‘Even if we fail,’ he says, ‘I’ll not regret it.’ ‘Me, neither,’ I tell him. Soon it will be our equal burden, and we can regret or rejoice entirely together. It feels impossibly lonely, as if we’re the only two people in the world. ‘Are you certain?’ Courage asks. ‘I’m certain,’ I reply. ‘And you?’ ‘Certain,’ says Courage. I curl my knuckles against the side of his neck and he buries his face against my hair; I can hear him breathing deep. ‘What do I smell like?’ I ask. ‘You know,’ says Courage, laughing, ‘of that, I’m never sure.’ He kisses me, once, on my brow, and I on his cheek. We hold each other clumsily for a while longer, for we both know that as soon as he leaves me the task lies with me alone, to succeed or to fail. My hands, like the soldier-king’s, are trembling. ‘Here,’ Courage says, bowing his head against them. He kisses my thumbs and the backs of each finger as if his kisses are rings. Then he steps away, and I rap thrice against the bedpost. The bed draws back with an audible groan. Courage descends the stair. I’m uncertain how much time passes. I stare for a while down into the darkness until the bed slides back of its own accord over the entrance, and I’m left with only the hounds for company. They do what they can to cheer me and even lead me to the king’s room, where I search his wardrobe for something that will suit me. I find nothing. ‘Wait here,’ says the dog with eyes like saucers. ‘I will find something for you, Master Beauty.’ While he’s gone, I knot my fingers into the fur at the other two hounds’ necks, and drop wearily between them. ‘If I lose my brother,’ I admit, ‘if I lose Courage, I’ll have nothing. And it’ll be my own fault, for having brought him here.’ ‘You risked your life as well,’ says the dog with eyes like dinner plates. ‘It was selfish,’ I say. ‘If the queen were not so powerful, I would tear out her throat for you,’ says the dog with eyes like carriage wheels. ‘It’s all right,’ I assure him. ‘If she hurts Courage, I’ll kill her myself.’ The bigger dog presses his dog nose into my cheek, puffing hot foul breath over my face. Strangely enough, I’m grateful for it, and rest my forehead against his muzzle, drawing the smaller one close. They pant steady and warm against me until their companion returns, a suit of black velvet draped over his back and delicate black dancing boots dangling by their laces from his slobbering mouth. By some magic, the clothes don’t smell of dog, nor are the laces wet from the dog’s mouth. I undress and dress again. ‘It will be some time yet,’ the dog with saucer eyes warns me, ‘before you can go down.’ ‘I’ll try to sleep, then,’ I say, making my way back to the princesses’ bedroom. The youngest princess’s bed seems comfortable and small and soft, and after too much time sleeping on the hard-packed earth I’m grateful for a mattress and feather pillows. The two smaller dogs curl up around me, while the dog with carriage wheel eyes stands watch. ‘I’ll wake you when it’s time,’ he says. I dream of uncomfortable things, spinning the hairs of a blue beard into gold, searching for pieces of patchwork to make something new, my own, whole. I dream of doorways and round things, of uneven and unfinished circles, of hard earth and cold water and hearts made of glass, tangled in a gown’s long white train. At last the hounds wake me, nudging my fingers in their black gloves, nudging my neck in its high black collar, nudging my ankles in their high black boots. I check the laces, comb my hair. ‘Best bring the gypsy sack with you,’ says the dog with carriage wheel eyes. ‘Hide it by the moat.’ ‘These things are always useful,’ says the dog with saucer eyes. The dog with eyes like dinner plates says nothing at all, but nudges me to the bed. Again, I rap three times against the bedpost. The bed draws back from the mouth of the stair, and I climb down carefully while the vines hiss and slither. I come to the forest of silver pines. The old woman told me: I must disturb nothing in this forest or else I shall surely be caught, though when I come to the edge of the forest I may break off one silver pinecone for remembrance. All around me the silver pines shiver and sigh, and from time to time I feel the needles prick softly against my skin, or snag in my hair. At the edge of the silver forest, I break one pinecone from its tree. The sky grows bright with silver lightning. I come next to the forest of gold maple. The old woman told me: I must be swayed by nothing in this forest or else I shall surely be caught, though when I come to the edge of the forest I may break off one golden maple leaf for love. The leaves are many-lobed and spiny, their stems delicate. With every breeze they dance and rustle, and they too catch on my hair, my buttons, gripping my pockets like countless little hands. I escape them—but barely. At the edge of the forest of gold, I snap one leaf at the brittle stem. The sky threatens to split in two with the sound of golden thunder. In the forest of amethyst blossoms, fat fireflies flit amongst the flowers. I may choose one jeweled bloom only to wear in my left ear, the one the gypsies pierced so many nights ago. This, the old woman said, will be for honor. In the forest of opal loam I step lightly over the precious ground, the scent of clean water coming to me in the darkness. I can see nothing but the moonlight shimmering over the ground, hear nothing but the crunch of white opals beneath my feet. If I’m to take something, the old woman said, it must be a string of fire opals and nothing else to loop around my neck and wrists and waist for cleverness and strength. The queen is fondest of fire opals, of quick hands and unequaled beauty. When I am on the edge of the opal loam, there is nothing but the great glittering moat spread out before me, between me and the castle, looped round the bony shape of dragon rib buttresses and dragon neck towers on its distant island. The light from countless stolen hearts, like gold, like fireflies, like miniature lamps, light the water from the depths, myriad and solitary as stars. I hide as the old woman told me, behind the dock where little black boats dance and bob. It’s not my work to bribe the ferryman. I must come across the moat of my own accord. For this I must woo the mermaids, who bathe themselves in moonlight on the jagged rocks. Their skin is silver, the whites and pupils of their eyes reversed. I can see them, their hair like spider’s silk, and webs stretched filmy between their long fingers. In my gypsy sack is a comb, a mirror, an old quilt, gloves stained with gold, a few apples—nothing more. I spread all my earthly possessions out on the wet dirt. The old woman gave me this advice about the mermaids: they are imperfect and therefore vain creatures. In order to gain their good graces, I must flatter them above all else. I take up the comb and the mirror and an armful of apples. ‘My beautiful ladies,’ I call out to them. ‘What are your names?’ They search around for the voice that carries to them, my strong, sweet whisper. ‘Who calls us?’ one asks, gathering her sisters behind her. ‘I’ve watched you from afar,’ I say. I move closer in the darkness. ‘I’ve seen you, more beautiful than any other creature in the moonlight—and I’ve traveled a long way and seen many things that would take most any man’s breath away from his throat.’ The mermaid who first spoke smiles, covering her pale breasts with one seashell-pink hand. ‘What have you seen?’ she asks. ‘Who?’ ‘In
my travels, I’ve sat in the garden of a princess beautiful enough to tear down
a kingdom,’ I say. ‘I’ve kissed a gypsy woman beneath the hot sun. I’ve bathed
in ‘Come a little closer,’ says the mermaid. ‘Let’s see if you have the face of a lying man!’ I step towards them, out into the full moonlight. By the bank of the moat I lay my gifts down. ‘I’ve brought you apples for adoration,’ I say. ‘A comb from the gypsies for your silken hair, and a mirror that you may see yourselves as well-made as I see you now, smooth and sleek under the light of the moon.’ The mermaid reaches out to me. ‘Bring your gifts to us here,’ she says. Mermaids are neither cruel nor kind. In a mermaid’s chest the heart of a fish beats cold, salty blood. If you’re not cautious and they love you too well, mermaids will drag you down into the water with them as a playmate. Like a child with a vulnerable creature, harm comes to the beloved. I’m ready to run from them, if I have to. I show them each their faces in the mirror, praising the shape of their mouths and shoulders, the texture and color of their skin, the way their hair feels against my fingers. They offer me the same praise, lips parted, breathing shallowly through the gills on their slim necks. One toys with the comb, another strokes an apple; the third tries to catch moonlight in the mirror. ‘That’s for eating,’ I say, pointing to the apple. ‘Not for me,’ says the mermaid. ‘What have you come here for, traveler?’ asks another. ‘There are mermaids—other places. Did you come to see us? If you lie, I’ll pick your little bones clean with my teeth.’ ‘I must cross the moat,’ I admit. ‘I must dance tonight in the queen’s dragon-bone palace.’ ‘But you’re not an invited guest,’ the third mermaid surmises. ‘When I saw you here,’ I say, ‘I thought to myself at once: If only these mermaids are as clever as they are beautiful, and as swift as they are wise. I thought it must be so, and fate it was that I gathered apples for you from an enchanted grove, and a gypsy comb and mirror. I’ve traveled very far and very wide, wearing my boots through with traveling, kissing golden heads from an enchanted well and bargaining with a witch murderer. If you won’t help me, I’ll have to find another way.’ ‘For what reason have you done this?’ the first mermaid asks. ‘I’ve done it for love,’ I say. ‘The love of a woman?’ The first mermaid’s smile is thin and not unlike the one a shark wears before a school of littler fish. ‘If so, you dishonor her now by flattering us!’ ‘The love of my brother,’ I say. ‘For he loves me as good meat loves salt, and I would give my heart to the queen of this castle if I might save him.’ ‘We
understand,’ says the first mermaid. ‘We’re sisters,’ the second says. The third says, ‘We’ll find a boat for you.’ They leap all in time off their moon-bathing rocks and disappear into the water without a splash. Across the moat, lights spark on one by one in the windows of the queen’s palace. Shadows move across them. Somewhere inside those unhallowed walls is a shadow wearing my brother’s name. What will I do if he doesn’t recognize me? What will I be, if not Courage’s Beauty? The mermaids return, pulling a narrow black boat by its ties. ‘Step inside,’ says the first. ‘We’re fast swimmers,’ the second says. The third draws herself up onto the bank and presses a wet hand against my chest. It leaves no imprinted, damp shape upon the velvet. ‘Keep a sharp hold on your own heart,’ she says. ‘It’s the only way to save someone else’s.’ I climb into the little vessel and sit in the center with the mermaids sleeking along beside, beneath. The moat water reflects nothing, but gives momentary glimpses of the secrets that slumber along the bottom. How many princes and princesses have lost their heart to this queen? The old woman told me she’ll be more beautiful than I can imagine, more terrible than I’ll know. The old woman said it will be like standing face to face with a scythe moon, sharp edges and bright lights. I cover my heart with my hand. Stay safe, I whisper to it, stay safe. ‘We’ll wait here for your return,’ says the first mermaid. Her scales are copper and lapis lazuli, her belly silver-white. She hauls the boat up onto the shore, where the water laps gently as a kitten’s tongue. ‘You must hurry,’ says the second. ‘You
must have him before the clock strikes thirteen, the queen’s own This last I already know: it’s as the old woman told me. I have little time to remind my brother of who I am before his heart is no longer his own. I retie my bootlaces, kiss each mermaid goodbye, and hurry up to the white staircase: a hundred steps made all of human bone. My footsteps echo over them. The great door is flung wide open in welcome; at either side stands a footman all in green. Their hair is long and white, their eyes closed. Without seeing me they bow in harmony, holding out their arms and bidding me enter. I do. Inside, the air is heavy with incense and perfume and a cloud-like smoke. Fireflies hang suspended with magic in the air, blinking steadily on and off. I hear the sound of laughter—it calls to me. I cannot drink the wine. I cannot dance with any other but Courage. I cannot look the queen in her majesty’s third, dark eye. The hall is long and narrow, hung with butterfly wings and emerald fern leaves and cats-eyes. The further I walk, the louder the music becomes, until I imagine it has fingers laced behind my eyes, fingers in my belly, replacing all the bravery and gold that once coursed with the blood through my veins. It’s the music of a spell, more powerful than any I’ve yet encountered. Inside
the grand ballroom, the handsomest young princes in the world are dancing with
the loveliest young princesses in a flurry of bejeweled finery: deep wine reds,
bottle greens, Everything that isn’t made of glass is made of gold. My brother, dressed all in white, is sitting by the queen. There are blood-red jewels braided into his hair, the color of his once-gray eyes. Her hand rests on his, and my heart skips its true rhythm in my chest. His hands are perfect, whole. His fingers are graceful as they’ve ever been, his sleeves cuffed around his strong wrists. His nails have been trimmed, gloves foregone. I can see the palm of his free hand facing upwards, the back of his hand resting against his knee. Perhaps this is supplication. I dare to hope he’s waiting for me even now, though the queen keeps vise-like hold on him. The queen herself is dressed in the same gray as my brother’s eyes, the gray of dawn and the time before nightfall, a thousand shades of in-between, a purple-gray like shadows without proper sunlight in the world to let them fall. Her face is sharp and shaped as a dragon’s skull, with a long nose and deep-set eyes. Her chin is harsh, her mouth white. She’s beautiful as the old woman said, the same treacherous beauty as a dragon, too, or a ruinous storm, or the sea: of pure nature so great and terrible that it becomes unnatural. From the train of her dress I see the winking lights of a thousand hearts purloined. My brother’s will not be the thousand and first. As I descend to the dancing below, the queen lifts one chalk-white arm, her elbow as jagged as her wrist. The music stops. The enchanted princes and princesses pause in their dancing as if they’ve grow roots to the floor from the soles of their dancing feet. Silence in this great room is as unnerving as the music itself. When I step onto the dance floor, polished smooth with countless dances and murkily reflecting all our shapes, the ocean of dancers parts before me, leading me straight to the throne, and my brother’s chair beside it. The queen’s third eye is hidden between her collar bones. I bow my head so that she can’t poison me with it, paying obeisance at her feet. ‘My queen,’ I say. ‘Why have you come here?’ she demands. Her voice is only a woman’s voice: but behind it, I hear the sound of the silver pine lightning, the thunder of the golden maples. ‘To dance,’ I tell her. ‘Would you have a certain partner?’ asks the queen. I wait until the back of my throat is less dry. ‘The prince who sits beside you,’ I say. ‘I would dance with him.’ The queen stands. She comes down off her dais to where I crouch and bow like a worm and takes my chin in her sharp fingers, tilting my face up to hers. What we both see makes each of us gasp together. ‘It will be a handsome thing to see indeed,’ says the queen, ‘the two of you together—dancing.’ I keep my eyes on her eyes, so as not to be tricked into looking into the third. That is the way to be poisoned by her, to forget what love you’ve ever known, and for the glass to work its magic into the ventricles of your vulnerable heart. Her eyes are black all throughout, her lashes the color of snow. ‘Why do you ask this?’ she demands, her tongue as sharp as her fingertips. ‘Why do you come here?’ ‘My queen,’ I reply, ‘I am a slave to dancing, to fine wine and beautiful music.’ ‘And why this prince, of all the princes?’ ‘He is the handsomest I see.’ The queen stands and beckons to my brother, who comes to her call, not to mine. She kisses the shell of his ear with a snake’s promise, her long pink tongue flickering in and out over her gold-kissed lips. Her eyelids are so thin I can see that no blood runs in the little veins there. ‘He is not so handsome as you are,’ the queen tells me. ‘And there’s none so handsome as you,’ I say. Courage steps close to me even as the queen draws back and takes her seat once more. I run my hands over Courage’s arms, his shoulders, elbows, wrists. I fit my fingers against the palm of his hand, tracing the smooth blunt shape of his thumb, feeling the pulse where it beats steady and slow and warm. Courage says nothing, eyes hung with a red haze, not entirely my brother. He hasn’t been entirely my brother for a long time, I think, and step against him. The queen lifts her hand. The musicians begin to play. The first song is too fast. Straightaway, Courage catches me in the prison of his strong arms, and whirls me until I can scarcely breath for the smoke and perfume laden air. My heart hammers away at my ribs. All I can do is touch him and hold on. We move so quickly our feet barely touch the floor. The other dancers clear our path for us and even as I try to focus on my brother and the rhythm of my own breathing, I know the queen watches us. If this were truly my brother, he would offer to let me stand upon his feet, and bear the weight for both of us. I press my hot brow against his throat. ‘Courage,’ I say. ‘Do you remember me?’ ‘I’ve never seen you before in my life,’ Courage replies. His voice is changed to the colorless hollows of glass. The song changes without giving me time to catch my breath. This one is faster than before. The lights, the smells, the change in my brother leave me reeling, so that all I can do is close my eyes and hope to remember my own name. ‘My name is Beauty,’ I whisper against his skin, the unchanged rhythm of his queen-drugged pulse. ‘I’m your brother.’ ‘I have no brothers,’ Courage says. The third song is faster than the trip upon the back of the hound with carriage wheel eyes. I can’t stumble or fall; I can’t be sick. If I lose the gifts the golden heads gave me, we’ll never escape this place. ‘You have six brothers and one sister,’ I say. ‘I’m the youngest. Together we were turned to swans by our stepmother, who was wicked. When I wept you comforted me, and when our sister Patience sought to save us you helped her in that task by sacrificing your arms. When I was naked and bloody you covered me with your wings.’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘Your brother, Beauty.’ ‘Why have you come here?’ ‘To rescue you as we promised.’ I grip my brother’s jewel-tangled hair. ‘We built a tower to keep you far from sight,’ I say. ‘To see you made our sister Patience weep.’ ‘I had a sister,’ says Courage. ‘Did I? Her name was Patience.’ ‘And six brothers.’ ‘And you’re the youngest—Beauty?’ ‘Who took you from your tower,’ I remind him. I can see the queen’s poison fading from his eyes, recognition and doubt stamped across his face. ‘I insisted that you come with me.’ ‘There were gypsies,’ my brother says. ‘Weren’t there? A peddler. A soldier turned king.’ ‘Your arms were wings all that time,’ I say. ‘We came to change you back to the man you were, so that in your own arms you might hold our sister’s child when it’s born.’ ‘You are a storyteller,’ says Courage. ‘A weaver of lies.’ ‘You
taught me all my stories,’ I whisper. ‘When you told me the tale of The scent on my brother is pomegranates. I touch his neck, rubbing fiercely at the skin. I almost trip while doing it, my attention elsewhere than my feet, but Courage catches me and prevents my fall. My brother remains inside this man. I’ve brought him into my arms in time, and I could shout or sing for gladness. Remember, the old woman’s voice comes to me, never to celebrate your basket of ducklings before the eggs have hatched. ‘Because the Prince couldn’t recognize Odile from Odette,’ says Courage. His hand tightens against the small of my back, savage. At last I’m allowed the sound my brother makes, full understanding caught in his throat. I kiss his jaw to silence him. ‘Hush,’ I say. ‘The queen is watching.’ ‘What now?’ asks Courage. ‘I can’t remember what we said—’ ‘We dance towards the stair,’ I say. ‘When we reach the steps, we run. We mustn’t look back, we mustn’t speak, and above all we mustn’t fall.’ ‘Three things,’ says Courage. ‘I remember now. How are your feet? I saw a woman dance herself to flames earlier this night—she was too young, and the dancing too fast.’ ‘My
feet are well enough,’ I say, though it’s a flimsy lie. In truth, my heels
already feel as if they’re burning. Mercifully, I can’t feel my toes at all.
‘We must leave before the stroke of the queen’s ‘Hold close,’ says Courage, ‘and hold tight.’ I do as he says, one of my cold hands held tight in his own, the other gripping his shoulder. The music has changed yet again, a whirlwind of drums and bells and unfamiliar, exotic beats. The dancers move like serpents, like cats. All I can think is that time will soon run out for us, and the crowd manages to keep us from the exit no matter how hard we try to spin ourselves towards it. It’s too much like a nightmare. I begin to wonder if we’ll ever reach it, or if the queen knew my plan from the beginning. I feel dizzy with smoke, incense clawing through my throat. I try to remember—what else did the old woman say to me? ‘That way won’t lead us to the stair,’ I croak. ‘We have to head to the other side, or we’ll never get there.’ My brother’s legs are strong, his arms stronger. He whirls me once, too quickly, and by the time I can regain my balance we’re at the foot of the grand staircase. Three dancers wearing nothing but tangled, cobwebbed gauze have appeared in the glass cage with the musicians; around their ankles and wrists are the bells I’ve been hearing. Their dance is part of the music. I prefer the rough, howling truths of the gypsy songs to this by a mile, and the turning and turning of the locket in my hand. Everything has led us to this. ‘Now,’ I say. I take my brother’s hand in my own. It’s I who must lead him away from here, his heart half-stolen. With my aching feet, I bound up the steps, pulling Courage along behind me. Like hide and go seek, the last remnants of childhood in me whisper. Exactly like that game, but it’s no game now; it isn’t Wisdom chasing me, but the queen herself. The moment we begin to run, the music goes wild. The queen rallies her guard. The dancers cheer them after us, the queen’s true voice spurring them on like lightning and thunder at once. It nearly breaks the palace in half, as if it’s no more than a robin’s egg. Courage
and I race through the winding, endless halls. At our heels is the barking of
the queen’s mastiffs, their snapping teeth, and the baying of her wolves, her
soldiers running in their spiked boots wrought of iron. I grip Courage’s
fingers hard. We skid round every corner, not daring to look back. If we do,
we’ll be lost. All that matters now is that we look ahead, and keep our
balance, and escape before the stroke of The footmen search blindly for us when at last we reach the door. As I make for the hundred bone steps I hear a low brass bell begin to toll its mournful time. One: I trip upon the first step and barely manage to hold myself upright. Two: my left boot turns to glass and I must kick it off, jumping the steps three at a time. Three: we’re off the stairs, done with them, and fleeing round the side of the palace, where the mermaids wait to give us aid. Four: I help my brother into the boat before me, for he’s breathing rasping fast, and I lose my other boot in the water. It too has turned to glass. Five: the mermaids strike out through the water, beautiful and swift, but there are other boats rowing swifter still behind us. Six: they gain on our vessel. Seven: I realize the boat is slower now for two passengers instead of only one, and curse myself for not staying behind to give my brother the better chance. Eight: we stumble out of the boat and the mermaids keen their good luck after us. Nine: backwards through the forest of opal loam, bare feet tripping and sliding across the precious stone. Ten: backwards through the forest of amethyst blossoms, where amethyst thorns tear at our ankles and try to pull us down. Eleven: backwards through the forest of golden maple, the leaves clawing at us like metal hands. Twelve: backwards through the forest of silver pine, needles ripping the clothes from our flesh and the flesh from our bone. Thirteen: we arrive at the stair of vine, one of my brother’s feet upon the bottom step. Yet already the queen stands before us, her arms outstretched. ‘How dare you steal from me,’ she howls, silver lightning and golden thunder in her black, black eyes, on her black, black tongue. ‘He was rightfully mine—he gave himself to me!’ ‘He was mine first,’ I shout, throwing myself between her and my Courage. My arms, too, are outstretched, my fingers spread, as if I think this will make me any bigger in the face of all her power. ‘What name have you, boy,’ demands the queen, ‘that you dare risk it, stealing a heart from my own two hands!’ ‘I’ll never tell,’ I reply. ‘But I know yours for what it is, my lady—queen of the dragon bone palace—queen of the dance—Mistress Medhbh!’ The queen throws back her head and howls again, wordless. The steps shake beneath our feet, threatening to fall one upon the other and seal the way from us forever. I turn at once, wrapping my arms around my brother as the old woman said I must, if ever it should come to this. I hold him fiercely close. ‘No,’ the queen says, voice grown dangerously soft and sweet. ‘He’s not what you think. Will you hold tight to him still—will you embrace a monster such as he?’ In my arms, Courage is changing. His arms are serpents, his tongue forked, his whole body a writhing armful of snakes. I hold him despite the flickering of their tongues, despite the rasping of their teeth. Their scales glide dry and rough against my palms. I cradle him against my chest; I cradle him tight. Next, he is a lion, with great sharp claws that rend my chest, my arms, my neck, my face. Blood is hot in my nose and in my mouth, but I’ve not come so far only to let Courage go. Even if my brother is a wild lion, a den of snakes, I’ll love him. Courage is an eagle, a leopard, a panther, a kicking bucking horse, a dragon, a basilisk, a kirin. My skin is torn, my eyes blinded with the blood of it. I shake and I shake, but I never drop him, nor loosen my grip. You will believe many things, the old woman told me, and none of them true: but above all, you cannot let him escape. I think of another Beauty, and of her Beast. I think especially on the stories I never believed but told myself nonetheless. If only Bluebeard’s wife had trusted him. If only the old king had known his youngest daughter better. If only Patience had more time. If only my father had loved his children more than his new wife. If only the heart were a thing less open to enchantment. If only my brother’s teeth were less sharp against my mouth as I hold him and kiss him—all as the old woman bid me to. When the queen has exhausted every animal of her menagerie, she turns my brother into a drowning wave, a scorching flame. She transforms him into something I don’t recognize, hot bright bursts of pain and color like a crumbling wall, like shattering rocks and the echoing of thunder, white fire light. I refuse to relinquish my hold on him, my arm around his neck, my arm around his waist. I can feel him there beneath the magic. I’ll never surrender him in this fight. I made a promise, and above all else it must be kept. The queen’s last resort is the most terrible of all. It’s almost my undoing. She turns my brother into a man with swan wings instead of arms. All this for nothing? I ask. All this to be the same in the end, to come full circle, and find the wings remain? ‘Will you love your brother even now?’ the queen asks then. I’ve let her see and learn too much from the secret heart of me—but these words, also, are her indulgence and her final mistake. ‘Yes!’ I cry, tears stinging my torn lips. ‘I love him even now, and ever!’ ‘How?’ the queen demands. The sound of a thousand glass hearts shattering against the stair rips through my veins, undoes me as if I’m no more than a regulation jacket, no more than a pair of simple dancing shoes worn until the gloaming hours of the morning. The queen advances on us, and her face is very white. I don’t know how I love my brother. I know this much: that I don’t love him as good meat loves salt, for the one exists without the other. If I lose Courage now, I can’t say if I’ll still have myself. ‘I love him as beauty loves courage,’ I whisper. My strength is a guttering candle, almost gone out. Courage is frozen against me, wings stiff and heavy. I can do no more than feel him, my sight half-blinded by blood, and all the rest of me trapped where I am by the queen’s third eye. ‘He isn’t yours, nor mine, nor anyone’s. Give the wings to me, take my heart for the train of your gossamer gown, only leave Courage whole in my stead to live his life free from any curse.’ It may be I was too late. It may be the queen between us and the stair of vines is the loss of our only hope. I close my eyes and sag against my brother, the earth calling to me. There’s not a bone in my body that remains unshattered, and I feel each splintering strike home. This is when the queen falls to laughing, great horrible shrieks of laughter. Feathers melt into flesh beneath the palms of my hand, the sky split by bolt after bolt of lightning. My body begins to knit itself back together, as if Patience’s steady hand guides the healing thread. When my eyes open of their own accord, the queen is gone, the vine unwinding slowly from the stair, and the light from above growing dimmer. Courage is naked and shaking against me. With the last of my strength I drag him up the steps, where the bed is sliding back over the entrance. This is the end of the enchantment. I see the three hounds, my own reflection in the eldest princess’s mirror. My black velvet is torn and bloody, my eyes wild as my hair, but I’m a whole man, if not the same Beauty who went down those same stairs the night before. Just as my brother did for me once, I cover his nakedness with my own body. For the second time, I curl my fingers against the palms of his hands, fitting the backs of my knuckles into the soft underside of his. ‘Beauty,’ says Courage, his voice choked and distant. ‘I love you,’ I tell him. Fitting my head against his neck as a pillow, I fall with him into a deep, long sleep. The princess Snow White understood this sort of visceral, enchanted rest. So did the Sleeping Beauty. It’s a pure sleep, a first sleep and at the same time a sleep something like the last. Sleeping this way can get you tangled over in thorns, encased in glass, devoured by the roots of a tree, without your skin or your heart ever feeling it. Not with three hounds to look after you, though. Not in an empty house, dark and quiet, with the ghosts of headless princes in the grand bedchamber where twelve dancing princesses once took a similar, desperate rest. I wake to the sight of carriage wheel eyes, rolling and turning inside the largest hound’s head. My body’s stiff and my neck stuck crooked. My bed is a strange and uneven thing, comfortable but not soft, until I realize with a start it’s no bed at all but my brother Courage. I startle awake completely at that, remembering everything all at once rather than piece by piece. ‘Courage?’ I ask my brother’s sleeping face. I can feel the steady rhythms of his breath against my neck and cheek, but urgency undoes me. I touch his shoulder, his face. ‘Courage. Brother. Wake up.’ In time my brother stirs. His face changes, frown wrinkling his brow, and he lifts a hand to shove at me. The moment his fingers touch my chest he, too, is immediately awake. ‘Beauty,’ he replies, his voice stamped and rusted over with sleep. ‘I had a dream.’ ‘In that dream, did you tear me into pieces?’ I ask. ‘Were you a scorching flame, a drowning wave, all manner of monster and beast?’ Courage touches my unharmed face. ‘It was a dream,’ he says in relief. ‘You’re whole. One piece.’ ‘It was the queen’s illusion,’ I say. ‘I held my ground.’ ‘You’re too brave.’ ‘I learned that from my brother.’ I bow my head, suddenly shy. ‘She was a fool to think anything would make me loose my hold on you. Though I did, almost,’ I add. ‘And I’m sorry for it.’ ‘When?’ ‘When I thought it wouldn’t work,’ I reply. ‘When I thought after all this, you’d still be two things at once, instead of only Courage.’ Courage laughs. ‘But even then, you didn’t.’ ‘I tried to bargain with myself,’ I say. ‘You’re more beautiful than I am,’ says Courage. ‘I’m surprised she didn’t accept the deal.’ We laugh now together, quiet, somber laughter, the laughter of a sailor shipwrecked and half-drowned but not yet dead. Courage combs my hair with his fingers, slow and insistent and important. ‘My hands,’ he says. ‘My own?’ ‘Your own,’ I say. ‘The queen returned them to you.’ ‘Your suit is ruined,’ Courage says then, holding a strip of velvet in his hand. ‘If I recall—from the dream—it looked handsome on you.’ ‘We’ll fetch you a new one,’ says the dog with carriage wheel eyes. ‘And some clothes for Master Courage,’ adds the dog with eyes like saucers. The dog with eyes like dinner plates says, ‘What would you have me do?’ It’s no easy thing being the middling creature. I smile and ruffle the fur between his small ears, the brow above his wheeling eyes. ‘Good traveling boots for both of us would be very kind,’ I say. ‘If we’re to make the journey home.’ ‘We will carry you,’ the three wide-eyed hounds say. I think of the promise I made the soldier king: to destroy the box, to return it to its rightful owner, to let him rest easier at night. There are some things about which we must always lie. ‘We may have to stop once or twice along the way,’ I warn the hounds. ‘There are some men we must reassure, some men we must thank.’ ‘You are our Master Beauty,’ say the hounds. ‘And what of the old woman?’ I ask, remembering. ‘Where is she, for us to thank her?’ ‘You won’t find her,’ says the dog with eyes like carriage wheels. ‘She’s gone already,’ agrees the dog with eyes like dinner plates. ‘Which is for the best,’ finishes the dog with eyes like saucers. ‘She may seem kind, but she is wily in her way.’ She must be, I think, to have learned the name of the queen, and to have known the way to defeat her. When I remember the sight of the queen, the Lady Medhbh, a long shudder runs through me, so that Courage puts a steady hand on my shoulder. ‘We’ll return,’ the hound with dinner plate eyes says, and all three of them leave us to our privacy. They’re clever dogs, secretive creatures. I’ve grown fond of them. ‘I’ll be sad to see them leave,’ I begin, toying with my shredded velvet collar. ‘But I think I’ll ask them where they wish to go, now they’ve helped us so.’ ‘Beauty,’ Courage says. I turn, slow, to face him, and he places a hand over mine, easing it away from its task at my throat. ‘Let me?’ I feel my breath quicken but I nod, allowing him to give me the aid I once afforded him. His hands are unbearably gentle and soft as a child’s from so little use. He undoes the melted buttons, easing them from their tangled buttonholes. Strip by strip, piece by piece, the ruined dancing clothes fall to the floor. When I’m naked as he, he wraps his arms about my waist and pulls me close, pressing his face against the vulnerable muscle, his mouth covering the pulse between my shoulder and neck. ‘Ask me how I love you,’ he says. Heat coils like a snake in my belly. I clench my fingers against his elbows, the human bone, the human shape. ‘How?’ I ask. ‘How do you love me?’ ‘All I know,’ he says, ‘is that it isn’t as good meat loves salt.’ ‘How,’ I repeat. ‘How?’ He told me to ask him this. ‘As courage loves beauty,’ he says at last. He holds my face in his hands, turns it this way and that; he presses his palms and fingers across my jaw and cheek, as if marking me with something purple-red and sweet. When I turn my mouth towards his, this time, he doesn’t pull away. The hounds take us back to see the soldier king. I leave them outside the city, snarling and unhappy, the tinderbox hidden within the gypsy sack. ‘What have you done with the tinderbox?’ the soldier king asks me, eyes pleading. ‘We burnt it,’ Courage lies. On our way out of the city I think I see the face of the soldier king’s beautiful queen, a half-moon against the window of her high tower. Time and distance have undone her. It’s no wonder she stays hidden. We stop again at The hounds give the magic tree a wide berth, snapping their sharp teeth together, growling low in their throats and snarling at every snapped twig, every unexpected sound. My brother and I hide the witch’s head once more with moss and fallen leaves, though we leave her eyes uncovered. ‘Where will you go now?’ I ask the hounds. ‘Is there anywhere you’d like to see?’ ‘We must have a master,’ the hound with carriage wheel eyes says. ‘Choose a master, then,’ I say. They fall silent. At last, the hound with saucer eyes says, ‘We would have you for our master, Beauty.’ ‘You’ll find it very boring,’ I warn them. ‘I’m not always a traveler.’ ‘Neither are we,’ says the hound with eyes like dinner plates. Before we leave we pick our way to the cliff edge where Odette and her prince, followed by all the swan maidens, threw themselves from the edge onto the jagged rocks below. From where we stand we can also see that the lake and the house have drawn yet closer together, and soon the one will swallow the other whole. It’s a fitting end for their story, though I still find anger in myself to think of the prince’s mistake. Enchantment or not, it’s a shame he should have betrayed her. ‘They’re not even there any longer,’ I say, peering out into the rocky darkness. Courage toys with the hair at my neck. His hands are always moving, always reminding us both that they’re there. I memorized each finger before we left the castle of the twelve dancing princesses, shaping his thumbs against my palms, his knuckles against my cheek and neck. My brother’s very own hands. ‘Not every story ends,’ my brother reminds me. ‘Not everyone is satisfied.’ Courage is also wise. ‘I know, I say.’ We travel on. We stop to thank the three golden heads. Once more I comb their hair, remove the tangled lily pads and kiss their golden brows. May you always be touched with gold, the first sings. May happiness suit you,, sings the second. The third says, May you never have reason again to remember your home. When we’ve passed again through the wall of thorns, we turn back one last time, only to discover it was never even there. Neither can we find Master Stone. The gypsies have
moved on. Somewhere, a rom named Cooper is playing his guitar, wearing a
locket I gifted him, though it wasn’t exactly mine to give. Alin is charming
snakes, Doina unwed still and happy, and Mama Lin making tea from the hair of
parlormaids, reading their fortunes in the dark, sweet brew. Nick Peddler is as a swindler, but sometimes, a good man. We find him on the road back to Mark’s house, making his way south and chasing the warm weather. He looks at my brother and says nothing about our success at all, but strokes his rough, whiskered chin and approves of the new hounds. The hounds are pleased by the extra attention. ‘Beautiful dogs,’ Nick Peddler says. ‘Beautiful. Have they fine names as well?’ ‘We haven’t decided yet,’ says Courage. ‘Names aren’t as important as you’d think,’ Nick Peddler warns. ‘Best give them less weight in all our lives.’ ‘The hounds are trying to decide for themselves,’ I add. In thanks for all he’s done, I give Nick Peddler the pinecone of silver from the queen’s own forest. ‘All my life,’ he promises us when we take our leave, ‘I’ll think towards your good luck.’ ‘No need,’ I say, before I embrace him. ‘We’ve had our over-fair taste of it already.’ In the end, we find ourselves on the lawn before Mark’s house, the tower high enough to reach the star-flecked clouds. It’s late at night, and only one window casts a steady light across the grounds. It may be imagination or the sudden flush of missing our home, but I feel as if that single light is calling especially for us. I ask the hounds to wait in the garden and they do, standing in the darker shadows of the tower. Mark may not approve, but I’ll make him see the truth: the dogs are my responsibility, and I’ve learned along this journey there are subtler ways to care and fight. As we come closer to the house, we discover that my room is the one whose window is lit. I was right, I realize: our brothers and sister were calling us home. We sneak round the back and knock on the door. After too much banging, Cook comes sleepily to let us in. ‘What ruckus is this?’ she demands, fumbling with the latch and key. ‘How dare you make noise so—oh.’ I wrap my arms around her, and then Courage does the same. She’s quiet and trembling, smelling of that morning’s bread and that evening’s roast. I bury my face in her neck like flour and laugh all my gladness out against her skin. After that, the silence settled over the house is all broken. Cook moves faster than either of us, flinging the door open to the main house, weeping as she calls for her mistress and master. ‘Patience, Patience!’ she sobs. ‘Master Mark!’ Wisdom
finds us first, then ‘Patience is abed,’ says Wisdom, and embraces me a fifth time. Behind their spectacles his eyes are wet. I kiss both his cheeks, but I don’t apologize. I’m not sorry—not really—though I find I am sad to have made him and all the others worry. ‘And Mark?’ Courage asks. ‘Mark is with her,’ says Strength. ‘She’s resting.’ ‘How long has it been?’ I ask. ‘Half a year,’ Perseverance replies. Luck claps me on my back over and over. ‘We thought you’d both been spirited away by some witch, or perhaps a madness,’ he tells us. ‘Damn it all, Beauty, Courage! We’re glad to see you both come back.’ ‘It’s
all our brothers, home again,’ whispers Each of our five brothers embraces Courage in turn, and each of our five brothers clasps his hand in each of their own. I watch Courage’s face rather than his arms throughout. No, I’m certain I’m not sorry, nor never will be. I’ve never been so glad of anything. I’ve never loved so purely, or so much. ‘We must be quiet,’ Wisdom cautions. ‘We’ll wake Patience.’ ‘Then we’ll wake Patience!’ says Luck. ‘She would want to know they’ve come home again—you know that, Wisdom, don’t be daft!’ ‘We’ve woken Mark already,’ Strength says, and points. ‘What’s this fuss?’ Mark demands, trapped in a beam of light cast from the other end of the hall. ‘What’s all this shouting so late at night?’ From where he stands, he can’t see us. I break away from the others, and Courage after me. Mark squints; then, sudden and transformative, realization dawns across his shadowed face. ‘We,’ he says, in a shaking voice, ‘we must warn Patience. We can’t surprise her so late at night, with—with this.’ ‘Forgive us, brother,’ Courage says. ‘We never meant an unkindness to her.’ ‘Your arms,’ Mark says. ‘Your hands.’ He must be too stunned to be very angry. I feel a rush of sympathy for him. Like us, he loves our sister very much, and has done everything for this love. His is a heart I understand better now than when I left. I think I have even grown to care for him—very much—during this time spent apart. ‘We fought the faerie queen for them,’ says Courage. ‘Well, that is—Beauty fought her.’ ‘How,’ Mark begins. ‘It’s a long story,’ I say. ‘Please, Mark, let us see Patience.’ ‘Thank you,’ Patience says. When our sister has her child two weeks after our return, there are eight brothers waiting outside the room. Courage sits by Mark, an arm around his shoulder, and I stand behind them both, listening for the sounds of new life to come from the bedroom. We all listen hard, and will it to be so. Time doesn’t seem to pass properly, as in a world hidden behind a wall of thorns, until the first sharp cry splits the air. Mark’s back trembles. Courage’s fingers spread against it, and I cover his hand there, both of us lending Mark all our strength. ‘A girl,’ Cook says, flinging the doors open. ‘A daughter,’ says Courage, to Mark alone. Mark turns his face against Courage’s arm, his smile stunned. Then, one by one, eight brothers begin to laugh. Later, Courage holds the fat pink babe in his own two arms. Her eyes are closed, her cheeks smooth as peach down. My eldest brother curls his finger in wonder against his niece’s impossible, tiny fist. ‘It was the same once with you,’ he tells me. His eyes are bright. I bury my own tears in the palms of my hands. Patience says she’ll wait to name her daughter. ‘What, not Happiness, Prudence or Freedom?’ Mark asks his wife with laughing eyes. ‘No,’ Patience replies, the babe at her breast. ‘She may want to name herself, after all.’ ‘Names aren’t so important as we make them,’ I agree. It might do some good yet to pass on Nick Peddler’s advice. We come in tender circles this way, curious but full. That summer, with
the aid of three enchanted hounds, Courage and I tear down the tower walls and
plant a simple garden in its stead. |