Authors: Patricia Wrede

Snow White and Rose Red (11 page)

WHEN SUNSET NEARED AND BLANCHE AND ROSAMUND had not returned from their herb-gathering, the Widow began to worry. She set rushlights in each window, to guide her daughters in the growing dark, and peered anxiously out at the forest every few minutes as if watching would call them home. But the last shreds of light vanished without bringing the smallest sign of either of the girls.

The Widow made one last trip to the door and peered out at the dim, ominous wood just beyond her garden wall. She stood for a long time in the chill wind, watching and listening. When she could no longer make out the shapes of individual trees, she bit her lip and carefully closed the door.

Inside, she turned and leaned her back against the door, her face grey with worry. Her eyes roamed restlessly about the room and came to rest at last on the shelves of herbs and crockery above the trestle table. She pressed her lips together firmly and looked away, but her eyes kept returning to the shelf. Finally she sighed and stepped away from the door.

With a decisiveness she had not shown a moment earlier, the Widow moved rapidly around the room. She collected the rushlights and put out all but one; then she partially filled her kettle and hung it on the iron hook above the fire. Finally she pulled the blanket from the bed and draped it over the windows, so that no gleam of light could escape, and no one could see in. This done, she went purposefully to her shelf of herbs.

First she took down a small, flat dish made of tin and set it carefully in the middle of the trestle table. Then she sorted rapidly through the herbs. A small heap of dried and crumbling leaves grew in the center of the tin dish: angelica and juniper for protection from harm; rosemary for life and constancy; eyebright, rue, and yarrow for vision. Then the Widow took up the dish and began carefully reducing the herbs to powder with her fingers, mixing and spreading them in a thin layer across the bottom of the dish. A sharp, penetrating scent rose from the herbs and clung to the Widow’s fingers.

The kettle began to boil. The Widow set the tin dish gently on the table. Wrapping one hand in an old rag, she swung the iron hook out and lifted the kettle. She carried it to the table and paused briefly. Then, in a low, clear voice, she said, “Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest, now is the time that face should form another.
Fiat
!” and began to pour.

Boiling water hissed across the powdered herbs, and a heavy, aromatic cloud of steam rose from the dish. The Widow closed her eyes and breathed deeply; then she set the kettle on the end of the table, opened her eyes, and bent over the bowl.

At first the water was a froth of tiny, foaming bubbles that formed around the powdered herbs and swirled in meaningless patterns. Then a ghostly shape coalesced in the steam above the bubbles: a horrible figure, half man and half bear. As the Widow stared grimly at this apparition, it changed to a handsome, dark-haired young man with anguished eyes. Then, slowly, the figure melted and shifted until it became a black bear roaring defiance. But the eyes of the bear were the same as the man’s.

The bear vanished suddenly, and the surface of the water cleared. The Widow saw Blanche and Rosamund sleeping, side by side, on the mossy floor of the Faerie forest. At the foot of a nearby tree sat a man dressed in elegant white clothes, gazing at the girls with a thoughtful expression. The Widow stiffened; then she saw the ring of protective herbs encircling her daughters, and she sighed in relief. The breath of air was faint, but enough to disturb the surface of the water. The vision disappeared.

The rushlight had burned nearly down to its holder. The Widow stared at it unseeing for a moment, then shook herself and reached for a replacement. She picked up the kettle and took it outside to empty. When she returned, she lifted the blanket down from the windows and replaced it on the bed. For some minutes she kept herself busy with these commonplace tasks, avoiding another look at the tin dish on the table. Finally she came back and bent once more over the half-full dish of water and herbs.

Her eyes widened in surprise. The swirling water had calmed and the herbs had settled to the bottom, forming a dark pattern against the carefully burnished brightness of the tin. The shape was one the Widow recognized, but not one she had expected; it was the glyph for protection coming out of Faerie.

The Widow stared for a long time, as if she wished to burn the pattern into the backs of her own eyes. At last she picked up the bowl and carried it to the door. She poured off most of the water onto the ground around the rose trees; the herbs she brought back inside and threw sizzling into the fire. Then, assured of her daughters’ safety, at least, she sat down beside the hearth to puzzle over the other things she had been shown.

The Widow’s spell of scrying, carefully guarded though it had been, did not go unnoticed. John, sitting watchfully beside the sleeping girls, felt a shiver run down his arms and knew he was being observed. His head came up, and as the Widow’s spell began to fade he spoke a word of warding, then one of knowledge. He learned enough to know that the spell came from outside Faerie.

That knowledge reawakened all his misgivings about the two sleeping girls. Innocent they might be, in themselves—he could not bring himself to believe harm of the dark-haired girl who had blushed rose-red at his teasing, yet had still been able to look him in the eye and answer back—but evil men had made use of innocence before. After the accusations his mother had hurled at his head, John knew he could not afford to take the risk that the girls might mean ill to Faerie, however small he himself might think it.

And so, just as the sun came up, he opened the sack he had brought with him and took out a ring set with three diamonds. One of the diamonds was cracked across its face; the other two winked and shimmered at him as they caught the first rays of the morning sun. John hesitated. The ring conferred invisibility on its wearer, but it could only be used three times. He had already used it once, years before, and if he put it on now, he would have only one use remaining. He was not sure he wanted to waste the ring out of what might, after all, be phantom worries created by his own fears.

His hesitation lasted too long. Blanche stirred, shifted, and opened her eyes. She was staring straight at John, and her eyes widened as she came fully awake and realized what she was seeing. She clutched at her sister, and Rosamund, too, awoke and saw him.

For a long moment, all three remained motionless. Then John smiled with as much pleasant reassurance as he could express, and slipped the ring onto his finger.

Rosamund and Blanche jumped as the white-clad figure vanished. They clung to each other, staring at the apparently empty space where John had disappeared. Finally Rosamund made an heroic attempt to chuckle. “That’s an uncommon way for a day to begin,” she said. “Perhaps we’re in Faerie.”

“Doubt it not,” Blanche replied, trying hard to sound calm. “Thinkest thou he’s truly gone?”

“Why should he stay?” Rosamund said practically. “If he could cross our warding ring, and so wished, he’d have done so earlier. Faerie power waxes in the night and wanes with day, or so Mother says.”

Blanche shivered. “Then let‘s—Rosamund, look!”

Rosamund turned. A few yards farther on, the spongy moss on which they lay gave way to a fringe of low-growing plants and brush. Beyond, she could see the silver ribbon of a stream reflecting the slanting sunlight, and purple mountains far away that rose more sharply and majestically than any range in all of England. Rosamund stared in awe, and only slowly became aware that the stream was below her, like the Thames seen from the top of a distant hill.

“What—” Rosamund started, then stopped and glanced quickly at her sister. Blanche’s face was white. Rosamund scrambled to her feet, paused, then stepped over the herbs she and Blanche had scattered and walked forward.

Blanche made a strangled sound and came after. Rosamund stopped where the brush began, staring downward. “It’s but a hill.”

“But ‘tis very steep,” Blanche pointed out, and her voice shook despite her efforts to keep it steady. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I think ’tis as well we went no farther last night.”

“I do agree,” Rosamund murmured.

In a subdued and wary frame of mind, the two girls returned to their bundles and prepared to resume their search for the way home. The herbs with which they had made the protective circle around their sleeping place were withered and useless, and Rosamund scraped them together and piled them under a bush so that they would not attract unwanted attention. The rest of the harvest was wilted, but this was no great cause for concern since most of it was to be dried in any case.

John watched with impatience, secure in his invisibility. At last the girls set off. John stayed close behind them, his mind carefully emptied of any interest in leaving Faerie and any thought of searching for its borders. He concentrated only on his need to follow his unknowing guides.

At Blanche’s suggestion, the girls retraced as much of their path of the previous evening as they could recall. It was clear to both of them that the border they sought was nowhere near the unfamiliar cliff where they had spent the night, and they both kept a sharp watch for anything better known to them. Rosamund was the first to cry out in relief and point to a patch of valerian, half of which had been cut back almost to the ground. A moment later Blanche recognized a rowan tree where they had stopped to rest and eat.

Much excited, the two girls hurried on. Soon they reached the place where they had expected to find the edge of Faerie the previous day, and to their surprise and great relief it was there. Blanche and Rosamund smiled at each other and stepped across.

Rosamund stumbled and half turned. “What is it?” Blanche asked anxiously.

“My skirt was caught on something, but it makes no matter; ‘tis free now,” Rosamund said. “Come quickly. Mother will be greatly troubled.”

Blanche nodded, and the two girls headed toward the edge of the forest at a speed just barely less than running.

Behind the girls, just outside the lands of Faerie, John lay panting, triumphant, and invisible on the leaf mold of the mortal woodlands. His guesses about the Queen’s spell had all been right. He could not find the border for himself, but once he stopped searching he could be shown. Even so, he had almost failed; his grip on Rosamund’s skirt had been what finally pulled him out of Faerie, and the effort had exhausted him.

After a time, John regained his breath. He sat up, fingering the ring of invisibility, then rose without removing it. It would look odd indeed for a man clad in finery to walk out of the forest. He had better make his way to London first, where his raiment would attract many thieves but little comment. He sighed, knowing that the walk would take him much of the day. London was a good ten miles from Mortlak, and John was impatient to begin his search for his brother’s tormentor. With a smothered groan, he pushed himself to his feet and started off.

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