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The Seventh Swan: Part Three By Jaida Jones The water is
wide, and it’s always dusk in this twilight forest. Yellow eyes watch us from
the surrounding branches. On the other side of The pebbles on the shore of the lake are all flat, round and smooth. I undo the laces of my brother’s golden boots and undress him quietly, laying all his clothes out over the rocks and far from the water’s edge. I do the same for myself. The night air is chill against my naked flesh, though the pebbles beneath my feet are startlingly warm. I curl my toes around them. ‘I thought the house was farther from the lake where the prince found the swan princess and her swan maidens,’ I say, wary of stepping into so much black water. ‘They must have grown closer together with time,’ says Courage. I imagine the lake creeping towards the house, the house creeping towards the lake, both yearning each for the other beneath these sunless skies. I don’t blame them for their yearning. In truth, I envy them for the magic that draws them even closer still; I can feel the inching of the ground beneath my feet like a ripple through the earth, same as if it were water. One day I imagine the house will be swallowed up by the lake, drawn down into its ceaseless depths. I move closer to my brother so that I stand pressed against him. ‘Do you remember,’ he asks suddenly, ‘how it made you cry when the prince wouldn’t recognize Odile from Odette?’ ‘He was a fool,’ I say. ‘He didn’t love her well enough.’ ‘He was under an enchantment. The sorcerer von Rothbart put mirrors over his eyes. He saw what he wished to see.’ ‘That’s not love,’ I protest. ‘A reflection of yourself, like a mirror over your eyes?’ Courage smiles, stretching his wings and rolling his neck. ‘No,’ he agrees. ‘Some would say it is: but I believe it isn’t. Then again, you’ve always blamed that prince.’ ‘He was a fool,’ I say again. ‘I wonder what happened to the other swans?’ ‘They were dashed against the rocks as well,’ says Courage. ‘They followed the two lovers.’ I’m indignant. ‘You kept that part of the story from me,’ I say. ‘Come,’ is all Courage will reply, ‘and swim with me, so that we can find the magic tree.’ We plunge head-first and together into the water, which rolls off Courage’s swan wings, made for a lake like this one. He strikes out for deep water and I follow him, splashing and kicking my legs. I’m no good swimmer, but Courage will keep me safe; besides which, the golden heads would never have sent me here to drown. From where my brother and I are, treading water, we can look up and see the full moon directly over our heads in the cloudless sky. ‘This is a strange place we’ve come to,’ Courage says. ‘Different since the wall of thorns,’ I agree. ‘It’s not quite our world, is it?’ Courage’s voice is wet; droplets of water on his lips reflect the moonlight. ‘Do you think the wall of thorns was the same as those that surrounded the sleeping beauty?’ ‘It could be so,’ Courage admits. There are too many questions to which I’ll never know the answer. The sky is blacker than anything, blacker even than the lake. There’s a stormy ring around the moon. I splash my brother half-heartedly, knowing full well his wings will win this game for him in a heartbeat. He doesn’t splash back. We hear nothing but silence, not even the chorus of crickets or the belching of bullfrogs. ‘I don’t like this place,’ I say at length. ‘I get the feeling some hand will reach out to me from the bottom and hold me there until I can no longer rise.’ ‘I won’t let it,’ Courage promises. ‘Look, Beauty.’ From
my golden fingertips, droplets of floating gold are beginning to spread,
painting ‘Do you miss it?’ I ask quietly. The words lodge like briars in my throat, and I have to force them free with my rasping-dry tongue. ‘I miss being all one thing or all the other,’ says Courage truthfully. ‘I miss either flying or holding a book in my hands, or your hands in mine.’ ‘How much do you miss it?’ I ask. Courage can’t bring himself to answer for a long time. At last, he replies, ‘Enough to know I did the right thing by taking it on myself, and enough to regret it also.’ No one was born to be two creatures at once, yet everyone is in time: split apart like the wall of thorns, or cleaved head from neck like the witch who once owned the three wide-eyed dogs; foolish and clever as Wisdom, bitter and brave as Courage, good and bad as Mark. But what, I wonder, is Beauty? It’s none so easy to pin down and pick apart. I’m melting gold. My fingers have turned to wrinkles. ‘Let’s get out of the water,’ Courage suggests. I
follow him to the shore, but whatever invisible hands there were in that icy
water have already claimed a golden piece of me for themselves. I leave it
behind forever in Once we’re dressed we find the magic tree. There’s no doubt in my mind it’s the right one, for the roots have grown into the shape of an ugly open-mouthed head. Two long, root arms reach out from either side, with five long, root fingers stemming from each. I’m careful not to tread upon them but climb the tree at the other side with my own sturdy fingers. I break off a small branch, whispering my apologies to the tree. It doesn’t cry out, nor does it capture me forever in its branches. Perhaps it knows my purpose lies in its own revenge. After I’ve climbed down again, I wipe the moss from the witch’s wooden head, and clean out the leaves and grass from the otherwise empty sockets of her wooden eyes. ‘You shouldn’t be so kind,’ Courage says, thoughtful. ‘She cursed others the same as we were cursed. Just because she didn’t cause us to suffer doesn’t mean she didn’t bring about the suffering of others.’ ‘We don’t know what she’s done,’ I reply. Her lower lip hangs over her chin into the dirt, her expression accusing. ‘I’ll find the soldier for you,’ I promise. Much good may it do her now. The branch I broke off from the magic tree leads us to a safe grove to spend the night. The trees are over-burdened with fruit and, as we used to do in the tower Mark built at all my brothers’ behest to hide Courage from the world, I feed my brother slices of apple using my pocket knife. The tips of my fingers are still stained with gold, and after our dinner they smell of plum and nectarine. ‘I wonder,’ I say, ‘how many swan princesses there were?’ The numbers for these things are always precise. ‘Or,’ I add, ‘if she knew von Rothbart.’ ‘We’ll never know, since both of them are dead,’ says Courage. ‘What does that tell you?’ I suppose it tells me this: that it’s a dangerous business dealing with swans. I finish my brother’s apple and we use the gypsy sack as our pillow, though during the night the mirror inside pokes at my cheek, like a promise, or a warning. There’s still no sunrise to signal the morning. Without any way to know how long we’ve slept, we follow the direction in which the branch pulls us. My feet are comfortable within the golden boots. During the night all our torn clothing mended itself, and a pair of gloves the size of my hands, no doubt to hide my golden fingers, appeared in the gypsy sack when I went to fill it with fruit for our journey. I soon see why this is, for almost instantly the incline of the ground begins to rise and the trees to thin, until our path crests a hill. Over that hill I see the sun just risen in the sky. Between us and daylight sprawls a crowded, bustling township with a little castle of its own, flags hung from its delicate—though faded—spires. The branch twitches in my hands. I pull on the gloves, excitement beating like a bird up against my heart in my chest, and both Courage and I walk faster than before, whichever way the branch leads us. We travel through the center of the town along its winding streets, past windows ,from which the smell of baked bread reaches out to my stomach, and wall-side stalls, where pies and curry dishes are freshly steaming. I have a few handfuls of coin left from my time as a teller of fortunes with Nick Peddler. Without a thought spared for caution, I buy a pasty for Courage and me to share as lunch. Soon enough, I think, we’ll come to the soldier who stole the three wide-eyed dogs, which know the secret to saving my brother. The
houses are crowded and dirty. Women shout out the windows, along laundry lines;
cats howl and dogs bark and children get under our feet, dashing in and out of
side streets and across our path. No matter how close we come to the great
mansion at the town’s center, the houses grow no
handsomer, the children no less rude and dirty. At least, I tell myself, no one
pays us any mind, and the sounds of life are welcome against the memory of We come at last to a barred door, in front of which an old soldier stands, grizzled and drinking. ‘Have you come to beg audience with the king?’ he asks wearily. The branch jumps to life in my hands. ‘I have,’ I say. ‘He’s in the back, at the garden,’ says the soldier. ‘This is the queen’s palace now, and she’ll have no business to do with you.’ We find the king kneeling by the roses, digging at the dirt with a little trowel and spade. His face is young but his hair already gray, and the sadness of an old soldier hangs about his mouth. The branch is trembling, jerking my hands this way and that, pointing straight at him; the direction can’t be swayed. ‘Ah,’ says the king. ‘Company. There’s a tree stump over that-a-way, if you care to sit.’ I take a deep breath. ‘My lord,’ I say, ‘I’ve come for the three wide-eyed dogs.’ The king’s back hunches. His hands are suddenly busy everywhere, patting down dirt, pulling up weeds, planting bulbs; he pricks himself against a thorn and swears like a soldier, sucking his dirty thumb where the blood wells up against the skin. ‘Who told you about that?’ he demands sourly. ‘Who? Who?’ ‘My
name is Beauty,’ I tell him. ‘I come from the house of Mark, where my sister
Patience is married to the king. I set out to free my brother from a curse he’s
suffered long enough. Nick Peddler brought me to the gypsies. The gypsies sent
me to Master Stone. Master Stone showed me the way through the wall of thorns,
where I combed the hair of the three golden heads in the well. One by each,
they bade me find ‘Ah,’ says the king. ‘We’d best sit. And then I will tell you a story of my own.’ We do as the king would have us, sitting on three tree stumps near to the rose garden, shaded by a bower of grapevines. The king digs a line of dirt out from underneath his thumbnail. ‘Once—some twenty years ago—I fought in a great war, where few lived and many died. After years of knowing no work but the soldiering kind, I found the war over and the army disbanded, and with holes in my regulation boots and no pension to my name, turned out into the hungry world to make my fortune. ‘I
had no high hopes, but set to wandering, whereupon one evening I came across
that same magic tree by the bank of ‘Come, soldier, said she, and I will show you a fortune. ‘Nay, said I, for you will make me pay a terrible price. ‘I shan’t, said she, for the fortune is buried deep in a cave whose bearings I alone am learned of, and I would have you fetch me but a trifle. In reward you shall have rubies, diamonds, pearls, silver and gold. ‘What about your trifle? asked I. ‘It is no more than a silly piece of wood, said she, no more than a tinderbox, which any pauper carries. ‘Suspicious but greedy, I let the witch lead me to her cave of treasure, finding it was no more than a narrow hole dug into the ground, like a dried up well. I agreed to her bargain, feeling the hunger gnaw terrible away at me. ‘What you must do, said the witch, is take my little apron. You will come to three rooms below-ground, and in each room will be more treasure than a simple soldier ever dreams of, before or after the war. Each of these rooms is guarded by a fierce looking hound, one with eyes the size of saucers, one with eyes the size of dinner plates, and one with eyes the size of carriage wheels, rolling and turning inside his head. These hounds will snarl and be fearsome and stare you through, but you have no need to be afraid. Spread my little apron upon the ground, set the hound upon it, and take you all the riches you so desire. ‘And your trifle, the tinderbox? asked I. ‘The tinderbox is in the fourth room, where there is no hound, replied the witch. ‘Sensing my fortune had been made at last, if only I were to play this game a-right, I wrapped a rope about my waist and let the witch lower me into the cave, which I found to be as she described it. I came to the three rooms below-ground, in each room more treasure than a simple soldier could ever dream of, before or after the war. Each of the rooms, too, was guarded by a fierce looking hound, the first with eyes the size of saucers, the second with eyes the size of dinner plates, and the third with eyes the size of carriage wheels, rolling and turning inside his head. When I came to the first, I was not afraid as the witch instructed. I spread her little apron upon the ground, set the saucer-eyed hound upon it, and took me all the riches I so desired from a pile of copper coin. ‘In the second room, it was the same, the hound with dinner-plate-eyes sitting watch over silver; in the third, the hound with carriage-wheel-eyes drooling upon a pile of gold. Each time, I set the hound upon the witch’s apron, and then I set to stuffing my pockets and my rucksack full to bursting, full so I could barely move. ‘When I was quite finished glutting myself on copper, silver and gold, as well as all the jewels in between, I came to the fourth room, staggering under the weight of my greed. In that fourth room there was nothing at all but a little tinderbox, and, carrying it with me, I let the witch pull me out of the cave again. ‘Seeing that I had her tinderbox for her, her eyes grew gleaming and wild as fire. This could be no simple tinderbox, thought I, and was consumed immediately thereafter by curiosity. What secrets did this simple tinderbox hold that so powerful a witch would ask for it above all other prizes? I could not leave if I did not know. ‘Give me my tinderbox, said the witch. ‘Only if you tell me why you love it so, said I. ‘I won’t, said the witch. ‘Tell me! I cried. Tell me, for I must know! ‘Again and again the witch refused, and again and again I demanded to know. At last my patience snapped like the thread in a soldier’s regulation jacket. Drawing my sword, I cleaved her neck in two, striking her head from her body. It rolled some ways away, shrieking: I curse you, I curse you! But it fell silent with death before it could ever say with what it had cursed me, and still I did not know the secret of the tinderbox. ‘This troubled me very little, for I had killed other and better men for even less reason than this common murder, and I was now a wealthy man. I set off for the nearest town with high hopes and a happy heart, not to mention a hungry stomach. Soon enough I came to this very township in which you find yourself now, which then enjoyed a better reputation. I rented myself magnificent lodgings, and squandered my money on food, drink and handsome clothes, dancing every night away to the dawn, and in general behaving like a fool and a wastrel who could not hold his wine. ‘But you must understand,’ the soldier-king pleads with us suddenly, ‘until that time I knew only war, and what else was I to do, to celebrate what I thought was my new-found freedom? ‘In any case, my story is far from done. ‘As you may not know, in this town there lived a king and his queen, and their daughter, whose beauty was as famed throughout the land as was the knowledge that none would ever gain privilege enough to see her. The king had learned from a traveling peddler, you see, that one day his prized and only daughter would marry nothing more than a common foot soldier, and he had locked her away in a high tower, through whose barred doors none but her mother and her maids would ever be granted entrance. ‘Again, curiosity sought to consume me. I must see her, thought I, or I will surely die. Yet at this time I was all but done with my coin, and was forced to move myself into a tiny hovel, where the cold crept into my bones at night, and none of my fine and laughing friends would ever come to see me. ‘Needless to say, I’d had
enough of cold fingers and an empty stomach during the war, and so it was then
that I remembered the tinderbox. I struck it once, eagerly, in order to light
myself something of a fire. ‘Instead of a blaze, I saw two white eyes the size of saucers before me, and the grinning teeth of the first hound. ‘What shall I fetch you, master? said he. ‘I was stunned into speechlessness, but soon rallied my wits. What I wanted most was wealth again, for I had grown accustomed to it. ‘Bring me coin, said I. ‘The dog with saucer eyes did my bidding, and I returned to my old lodgings with a full purse. ‘I very quickly learned the secret of the tinderbox: strike it once and the dog from the room of copper would come; twice, the dog from the room of silver; three times, and the dog from the room of gold. I would never be wanting for money again, so long as I had this tinderbox, and I fancied myself content: until I remembered my desire to see that princess, so beautiful and so cursed she must be kept away from every man alive. ‘Alone in my fine apartments, I struck the tinderbox three times, and bade the hound with carriage wheel eyes to fetch me the princess in her high tower, for I realized I must see her to satisfy my curiosity. ‘You are my master, said the hound. ‘He was gone, but scarcely even a minute had passed before he returned to me, carrying the princess on his back. She was more beautiful than even rumor had permitted me to believe. I could not help myself, but brushed the hair from her brow and pressed my lips against it. ‘The hound returned her straightaway, but I, fool me, had fallen in love with her. ‘Now: the king had a clever queen, and when her daughter told her of a dream she had wherein a great beast of a hound carried her off to be kissed by a handsome soldier, the queen thought to herself, Was a it a dream or something more? She tied a small bag of the finest flour round her daughter’s neck, then cut into it a tiny hole. ‘The next night I struck the tinderbox three times, and asked the same thing of the hound with carriage wheel eyes. He brought the princess to me, so I might kiss her a second time—but he did not know of the trail of flour he left along his way, leading the king and queen that very morning straight to my door! ‘I was arrested and sentenced to death by the judge. It happened so quickly that I hadn’t time even to bring with me my lucky tinderbox: and I saw then it was none so lucky as I’d previously thought. ‘Trembling and afraid, knowing full well all the faces of all the men I’d ever slain would rise up to greet me in the jaws of death, I was brought to the noose. In the tumbrel along the way, I offered a street urchin the fine shirt off my back if he would only run to my apartments and fetch me my tinderbox. And, I told him, he might steal anything he saw there as extra pay. He was only too glad to do it. ‘He returned to me just as the hangman was fitting the noose to my neck. I struck the tinderbox over and over with my shaking hands. ‘All three of the hounds appeared, eyes rolling and rolling inside their heads. ‘Rescue me! shouted I, my voice breaking with fear. ‘The three hounds did just that. They fell upon the judge and the hangman, the men of law, the king and the queen, tearing them all to pieces and dashing them against the cobblestones, breaking their limbs, crushing their skulls, snapping their necks. I’d fought many battles in the war, but I’d never seen any so terrible as that. It haunts me to this day. ‘The princess, however, thought nothing of it, and was glad to come down from her tower at last, delighted to be queen. We married, but only as I had compromised her chastity. Now I am king in title only. I have this little garden and the magic tinderbox, yet in all this time I’ve refused to strike the tinderbox again, for fear of what a fool’s hands can unleash!’ After this story, the soldier-king falls silent, his lips trembling. It may be no more than my imagination, but it seems his hair has grown more silver than gray after telling us his tale—though, strangely, his eyes are calmed, and his hands steadier than when we first came to him. ‘And so you see,’ the soldier-king says, ‘I am at once delighted to think you will come to take the tinderbox away from me: yet at the same time, I fail to see what good could ever come of using the thing.’ ‘The golden heads were certain,’ I reply. ‘They told me if any would know where to go to break the curse upon my brother, it would be those three wide-eyed dogs.’ ‘What will you do with the tinderbox when you’re done with it?’ the soldier-king asks with keen, searching eyes. ‘Will you be careless? Selfish? Greedy? Unwise?’ ‘I’ll give the tinderbox back to the witch,’ I say. The king laughs. ‘The witch is dead,’ he says. ‘I struck her head from her body. She cursed me with the last breath of her life.’ ‘She grows at the foot of the magic tree, her face tangled in its roots,’ says Courage. ‘We’ve seen it with our own two eyes.’ The king’s face grows very pale. ‘Then she’s still living,’ he says. ‘Truly, I’d pay the man who took the trifle from me now!’ He calls a servant to fetch the tinderbox to us. It’s a dark creation, sulfurous and unclean. The golden tips of my fingers sting beneath their gloves when the soldier-king presses it into my hands. ‘There!—the thing is yours now,’ the king says. ‘Do as you will with it, but be cautious, for it has an evil heart, and was bought with cold blood, in a devilish bargain. It may serve you ill rather than serve you as you bid it. Every night I dream of those dreadful eyes—but no matter now, no matter now. Take it far from here, and be certain it never falls into a madman’s hands. If you pass this way again having destroyed it, I would that you might let me know its fate.’ His eyes turn sadly to the tinderbox, face steeped in bitter condemnation. ‘Perhaps it would allow me a less troubled sleep.’ ‘Thank you for your generosity,’ I say. ‘No,’ says the soldier-king, ‘I’m still a selfish man. But I will wish you luck in finding the answers you seek.’ We leave him kneeling once more amongst his roses, muttering to the clutching thorns. His back is so stooped and thin I fear the moment we take the tinderbox from the city, all that holds him together will shatter and break. These are the things I can’t predict. I tuck the tinderbox into the gypsy sack and share the pasty with my brother before we’re ready to face what lies ahead, and what it means to strike the tinderbox. ‘Are you ready?’ Courage asks me. I hold the flint in one hand, the tinder box in the other. The town of the soldier-king is no less than a mile behind us. ‘As I can be,’ I say. ‘If something goes awry,’ Courage adds, ‘promise me you’ll not look back for anything, but run as fast as you can away from here.’ ‘Don’t be stupid.’ ‘Beauty,’ says Courage. ‘I want you to promise me.’ ‘The wide-eyed dogs never harmed their master,’ I insist. ‘They might have killed him all that time but didn’t. Whoever holds this tinderbox masters the hounds.’ ‘Men like that one we just met,’ Courage tells me, ‘often have occasion to lie.’ He doesn’t have the fortitude I do, golden magic coursing through my veins hot enough that I can feel it at work on me. ‘We won’t need precautions,’ I say, and strike the tinderbox fiercely. Once. Twice. Three times, then three times more. A low rumbling trembles the earth beneath our feet and I stumble against Courage’s chest. He puts a wing in its heavy sleeve around me. We’re alone amongst the crowded hills. The dogs come from three corners of the earth, silent, mouths flecked with foam and spittle, wide eyes spinning wildly in their heads. I’ve never seen a sight so hideous as they, yet they pick their way through the tall grass as daintily as princesses. They stop a foot away from us, sit and stare us through with their dreadful eyes. ‘What shall we fetch you, master?’ they say. ‘My name is Beauty,’ I tell them. ‘I’ve traveled very far to find you.’ ‘And what,’ the hounds ask, ‘is your bidding?’ ‘My brother is under a witch’s spell. I’ve gone from Nick Peddler to the gypsies, from the gypsies to Master Stone, from Master Stone to the three golden heads, from the three golden heads to the soldier-king. Now I have the tinderbox, which means I’m your master, and I bid you answer me this question: who can lift my brother’s curse, and turn his wings to arms again?’ The hounds say nothing at first, but the rotations of their monstrous eyes turn faster and faster still, until, caught in the motions they make, I fear I’ll become sick. At last the motion slows again to its regular, lazy wheeling, and I release my grip on Courage’s sleeve. ‘We cannot answer this,’ says the hound with eyes the size of saucers. ‘But it is our duty to serve our master, and obey his command,’ says the hound with eyes the size of dinner plates. ‘So we shall take you to one who can answer this question, and hope you will forgive us,’ says the hound with eyes the size of carriage wheels. ‘Do you accept this?’ ask all three. ‘If not, you may strike us dead.’ I edge from the shelter of my brother’s wings and hold out my hand, the way Mark told me a man must do with a new hound in order to establish trust and friendship. With their spinning eyes, the dogs stare at my fingers. Behind me, Courage stiffens, no doubt fearing what the second head’s gift insures that I can’t fear myself: that these hounds will bite my hand from my wrist soon as sniff at it, before even thinking to mark it with their scent. ‘Will you strike us dead?’ ask the hounds. ‘No,’ I say. ‘This hand is for you to smell.’ ‘Why is it for us?’ ‘So that you may know who I am.’ ‘You are our master,’ the hounds say. ‘You are the master of the tinderbox.’ ‘Beauty,’ I repeat. ‘Beauty is my name.’ ‘Master Beauty,’ say the hounds. The smallest one comes forward first, great toothy mouth drooling against my fingers. ‘There is gold on your hands,’ he says, and licks them, leaving them warm and wet with spittle. The other two follow and do the same. I should be more afraid of them, but I can’t bring myself to feel any of that terror, only their hot wet breath against my hands. ‘Now,’ I say. ‘Will you tell us how to find this place?’ ‘We will take you there,’ promise the hounds. ‘Climb astride us, and hold tight to our ears.’ The hound with carriage wheel eyes is the biggest of the three. ‘I will carry you both,’ he says, crouching low to the ground that we may mount him without trouble. Courage sits before me, and I catch onto the hound’s ears from my perch behind him. ‘Does it hurt you?’ I ask the beast. ‘Are they tender?’ ‘They are well enough,’ the hound says, voice registering surprise. ‘But you must hold tight, and no matter what you see you cannot let go.’ It’s Courage’s balance I hold in my hands, as well as my own. ‘I won’t,’ I promise. ‘Now hold your breath,’ says the hound. The wind, the world and the sky melt towards me and away from me at once, rapidly, like being opened and closed at the same time. The change hits Courage first, and I can hear the gasp of his breath being knocked from his chest as he falls back against me. I squeeze him in my arms, clinging to the hound’s ears; I pray it doesn’t drop me for the pain of my nails digging into the thin flesh there. The world is moving rapidly beneath us. We fly past trees and buildings, over an ocean, switching directions too fast to feel it. I can hear the other two hounds panting beside us, and I press my face into the back of Courage’s neck, hiding it from the force of the wind. Now I know why he wanted to sit in front of me rather than behind. If I can only stop being dizzy, I’ll scold him. In a matter of minutes, we skid to a halt, the hound digging its claws and paws into the dirt and bringing us up sudden and short. I knock my teeth against Courage’s shoulder and we both wince with the force of our stomachs being thrown against our backs. I don’t trust my knees to stand. The hound, however, slides us gently off his back, then sets to chewing gracefully at the underside of his thigh. We’ve come to a flat land, impossibly flat, and dull, and gray. Before us a little ways away is a low, crooked tree, with a canopy of branches and no leaves, standing stark and lonely against the sky. ‘Does the tree know?’ I ask, testing my legs to be sure they still obey me. ‘No,’ says the hound. ‘But the old lady of the tree knows.’ I shade my eyes from the gray sun and see her then as if she’s always been there, though how could I have missed her the first time? She’s wizened and misshapen as the tree itself, leaning on a walking stick by the gnarled trunk. I imagine she’s something like the witch in the soldier-king’s tale, except that her face as we approach is kind and not ugly at all, but very, very old. I have a strange sense of repetition—as if the fanning of our swift travel has doubled once back on itself while folding shut—but as soon as I see the old woman’s kind eyes, I forget I ever felt it. ‘Ah, Beauty,’ she says, stroking a hand through my hair. I hold myself still against her touch, swallowing, uncertain. ‘And Courage,’ she goes on, reaching out to my brother next. He steps towards her and she puts a hand against his chest, looking all the way up at him with pale blue eyes. ‘You’ve come a long way and waited a long time.’ ‘A very long way,’ I say. ‘A very long time,’ says Courage. ‘Please tell me you know the way to break the curse,’ I say. We hold our breath. Hers smells of woodsmoke as she laughs, then sighs. ‘I do know it,’ she replies. ‘It is not so far from here—but it is not so easy.’ I drop to my knees before her, the earth neither warm nor cold against them, and tangle my fingers in the hem of her colorless skirts. Relief trembles inside me. I am gladder than I’ve ever been, the gold throbbing hot in my blood, and I press my cheek against the torn fabric, closing my eyes. ‘Whatever it is,’ I say, ‘I must see it done.’ Courage’s voice is unusually gruff. ‘Stand, Beauty,’ he tells me. ‘Yes,’ the old woman agrees. ‘You were a prince, once. Princes must always be a little proud, or else the curse has won.’ I wipe the dirt from my knees as I rise. The old woman touches my face as kindly as a grandmother might, and though she’s no more than a stranger I relax against the touch, my breath calming itself. ‘Tell me,’ I importune her, the way I think a prince might, ‘what I must do.’ ‘Once upon a time,’ says the old woman, ‘there lived twelve lonely princesses with a stern father who kept them locked away, bolt and key. They lived in a house built of black rock—just beyond this tree—there.’ When she points her finger in the direction I lift my eyes, and see the house like a dream, as if it, too, has always been there, or as if the ground has opened up and relinquished it to the skies. ‘Yet the twelve princesses were very clever, and they spent their countless lonely days reading in their father’s library, hoping to find something that would allay their boredom. One afternoon the eldest discovered a secret: beneath the floorboards of her father’s house, down a staircase tangled in vines, deep down in the belly of the earth, there was a hidden kingdom, where every night they might dance until their slippers were worn through with holes. The queen of this kingdom had a private name she told no one, and she sought to claim as many handsome young men and beautiful young women to dance for her each night. This was her greatest pleasure—for should a handsome young man dance for her a thousand and one nights, his heart would be turned to glass, which she would wear tangled in her gossamer gown—and the same for a beautiful young woman. ‘The twelve princesses did not know this much, though, and every night they slipped away by secret passage to the hidden kingdom, and danced holes in all their shoes. ‘Naturally the king was distraught to see his daughters thin and drawn each morning and to find their shoes worn through, thinking he had forever lost them to some unfathomable enchantment. He offered the eldest’s hand in marriage and the inheritance of all his land to any man who could discover where it was his daughters went at night to dance. ‘Many princes came from far and wide to test their skill, but though they endeavored with all their might to stay awake each night to follow them, each night they failed one after the other. As punishment, the king had the foolish princes beheaded, and after a time fewer and fewer princes came to try their luck, until no princes came at all. The king’s twelve daughters were delighted with how they had tricked these hopeful suitors, and the king was plunged into despair. He was certain now he would lose his daughters, so that he grew sorely ill—but the queen of the hidden kingdom was already working her enchantment on the princesses, and their hearts were already half made of glass. They saw their father weaken, but they cared very little so long as they still had their nights full of singing and dancing, their beautiful princes with no hearts at all. ‘One day a handsome young solder, just returned from the war, found himself near the kingdom whose princesses were so legendary a mystery. What have I to lose? My head, my life? the young soldier asked himself. I will try my hand at breaking this curse; I will discover, where all others have failed, the secret of the twelve dancing princesses. ‘It came to pass that he sat for a while under this very tree, and met with a wizened old widow-woman, to whom he was gentle and kind. In thanks for his tenderness, she told him the secret of the twelve dancing princesses was this: that they drugged their suitors’ wine so they would sleep like simple babes the whole night, and that they had built themselves a door to this hidden kingdom beneath the eldest princess’s bed. There they went to dance all night, and from there they returned before the breaking of the new day, pale and spent, with their shoes all full of holes and their eyes all full of faerie music. ‘In order to catch them at their tricks, the widow told the young soldier, he must not drink the wine the eldest poured for him the first night—and he must take this special cloak she so happened to have to follow them down the narrow stair of vines, that he might see them undetected at their game.’ The old woman pauses, her wrinkled face looking very sorry. ‘This is where your two stories diverge,’ she says at length. ‘For that young soldier rescued the twelve princesses with my guidance and my aid—but I had only the one cloak, and nothing now to give you save for my advice.’ ‘You’re kind to give it,’ I assure her. The old woman strokes my hair. ‘You won’t like to hear what I have left to say,’ she says. ‘But listen to me say it fully, hold your tongue, and you may do what you like with my knowledge when all that’s left to tell is told.’ ‘I will,’ I say, feeling insulted by being spoken to like no more than a child. ‘You must give your brother to the queen,’ the old woman says. ‘For he is handsome and pure of heart, with a face that will please her. She’ll make him whole again, to dance and dance for her—but then she will own him, an old curse dispelled and a new curse given. It will be from her that you must reclaim him.’ It’s as if my heart has been dropped like a flat, round stone into the very center of Swan Lake—as if the three wide-eyed dogs have got hold of it with their teeth—as if the gypsies have traded it away, or as if the heads in the well have turned it completely to gold. I press my hand to my chest and bow over it. ‘But you will be armed against her,’ the old woman goes on, her voice low and fierce as if she isn’t so old at all. ‘For you will do as I tell you, and you will know her true name. If you follow my words through, you will save your brother.’ ‘And if we fail?’ Courage asks. ‘Then she will have you both,’ the old woman replies. ‘And it will make her very happy indeed.’ I square my shoulders and breathe deep. ‘Tell us what to do,’ I say. |