Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall (Black Forest Trilogy) Page 6

  Not unfamiliar with their fears, Cinderella listened with the ear of one who had heard many lies in her lifetime. Men went missing, they said, but not one amongst them could list these men by name. The woods carried unimaginable horrors, they said, but every danger they talked about Cinderella imagined quite easily, for those same threats lived within the forests of Troyale.

  Her kingdom had its specters, phantoms that came out at night and filled the forest with howls and foreboding, but only in darkness, as scared of the day as the good citizens of the kingdom of Naxos were of the woods even at highest sunlight.

  Since they did not think the forest worth walking, Cinderella wondered if their land lacked the fruits of summer, for, in Troyale, she always found the forest more escape than fright, especially when the warm air and summer rains made it burst with color and flavor. Her stepmother could keep her from the flowers and berries upon the tables in her home, threatening her with all means of punishment, but she could not stop a girl's indulgence in the forest, where the sights, scents, food and shelter belonged to everyone equally.

  Perhaps free did exist in Naxos after all, but, as in Troyale, only beyond the walls where men feared to tread.

  Determined to find out if the woods of Naxos were truly worse than those of her own kingdom, Cinderella sat out on the third morning to find refuge in the shade and moisture and abundance of the forest, knowing she would have to return to take shelter in the depressing world beneath the buildings of Naxos when the sun began its retreat.

  Once in the woods, she discovered, much to her relief, but not to her surprise, they were without fear, the same rustles and thumps she knew well, nothing as ominous as the villagers warned, and far more familiar to her than the barren land inside the walls of the city.

  While the sights and smells of summer were different than in Troyale, they were just as satisfying. Greens and purples and oranges hung from above and sprouted at her feet, grown tall from lack of human traffic. Quietly wading through the river of color, Cinderella came upon rabbits and squirrels, bigger than were common in her home kingdom, with strange black stripes along their backs. The deer in Naxos were also different, taller and broader with dark strips of hair upon their heads, like the manes of horses.

  For a while, she watched the creatures of the forest, and learned from them what she could and could not eat. Picking the safe pods from the trees, she found some so sour her neck crinkled in protest as they hit her tongue, and some so sweet they soothed her aching palate. Different, as it seemed everything was, the fruits of Naxos were diverse, and Cinderella wondered how the villagers lived without them, how they did not crave what they were missing just beyond the safety of the wall. Abundant and owned by no one, the fruits of the land became hers, and Cinderella ate herself beyond full, feeling justified by the fact that she did not know with any assurance when she might eat again.

  At home, when she wandered deep into the woods, there was always purpose. At the order of her stepmother, she searched for a specific flower thought to eliminate aging or for food stores for winter, those months when her family was the most gluttonous and also the stingiest, in which Cinderella's own hunger grew the most gnawing.

  No one's tea to fetch, slippers to mend or hair to comb, and nowhere to which she had to return, Cinderella wandered aimlessly through the forest of Naxos, delighting in each new taste or animal, walking past a grove of trees, through an opening lined with hanging berries, and into a patch of stones, set up in a bizarre fashion she thought must have some significance. Refusing to let her fear of the coming night overshadow her current freedom, however temporary it may be, she hopped between them as if they were arranged just for her.

  There was danger, though, in slipping into fantasy, Cinderella was reminded when she looked around at last and nothing looked at all familiar. In Troyale, she knew the trees, how they formed, which grew closest to the village, which grew furthest. Away from her own kingdom, she could not roam without consequence. The forest around her a maze of foreign flora, Cinderella could not decide which way to turn.

  Rushing in one direction, it felt wrong, and so she turned in the other, but that felt wrong too. Glancing upward, she wondered how long the light would hold, as it occurred to her she could not be more lost. The realization flooding through her, she felt the pang of regret she had not allowed herself since running from the prince. Perhaps, she had been wrong to flee. Perhaps, she would pay for not obeying the royalty of her land. Perhaps, the prince was her only hope for salvation.

  The uninvited thought pressing in on her, it was accompanied by a song. Darker, more haunting than the forest around her, it had no words, yet Cinderella understood it perfectly. Resonating within her, it too sounded lost, and Cinderella felt suddenly found.

  Drawn deeper into the dense forest, it was as if the notes were visible, floating on the air before her, beckoning her onward. At their call, she forgot about the setting sun and her hunt for the path back to the walls of the village, at last coming to the tree from which the music sprang. Pushing toward the sky, the tree matched those around it, but was somehow different, much as the people of Naxos and its customs were to her, similar, yet not quite the same.

  Loping around a thick trunk, Cinderella discovered the difference was in the tree's contents, as she watched an old woman who seemed, at once, to lack both beauty and soul crawled down a long expanse of fine golden rope that stretched to the base. It was only as the old woman reached bottom, and the rope began to recede, that Cinderella looked up to find the song, flowing from the lips of a young woman who, at once, seemed to steal Cinderella's breath and restore it. For all the beauty and soul the old woman lacked, the young woman possessed, despite the fact that her face shone sadly against the sinking sun.

  The rope of gold disappearing inside the tree, which Cinderella realized was only disguise, for it was really a tower crafted of branches and leaves, the young woman leaned upon the edge of the hole in the trunk that must have been a window, mesmerizing eyes staring down at the old woman below.

  "Goodnight, my Rapunzel." The woman tried to sound sweet, but Cinderella recognized the voice with disquiet. It was the same tone her stepmother used on her in public, so the townspeople would never know the cruelty she bestowed upon Cinderella at home.

  "Goodnight, Mother," the young woman returned, but there was no joy in the term, and Cinderella thought she must know the sweetness was not true. Though, it was a strange thing to her, for she had always thought having a mother alive was the thing most worth longing for in the world.

  With a whirl much too graceful for a woman of her advanced age, the old lady disappeared into the forest, and the young woman's song began again. The clear sound of sorrow falling over her, Cinderella stood rapt, letting it move through her senses, until it ceased abruptly and the woman retreated from the window.

  Rushing at once to the tower's base, desperate to see the woman again, to hear her song, Cinderella discovered it surrounded by briar, piled high against the sides, and searching for a door to knock on, she found none. No way in, no way out, but for the strange rope she had seen the old lady descend. Circling back to the side of the tower with the window, she thought of calling up, but darkness falling quickly, she knew she would not be seen.

  Without consideration, she turned her attention to the trees, the real ones whose branches grew as they chose, low, high, thick or thin, to create pathways toward the sky. Finding a ladder in the fall of the branches, Cinderella went to the lowest, dropping the bag from Akasha into the dirt at the tree's base and cursing what she wore of the gown and its bulky weight as she pulled herself upward.

  It was a stretch to the next lowest branch, a dangerous walk almost on thin air, before her fingers closed around it and she swung into the next tree.

  Her stepsisters had loved making her childhood an arduous journey. Instead of having her back as good sisters would, their presence forced Cinderella to watch her back, and she was turned into an outsider as they suc
ceeded in coaxing the other children in town to join in their torture of her.

  It was a disadvantage she would liked not to have had, but Cinderella found the advantage in it. The constant chase and attack had forced her to learn to scale almost anything, from the walls of a cottage to the pillars of the gallows, and she had climbed many an object to get away from those who came at her on the ground, knowing they could not follow.

  Finding the knots and dips on instinct, hand and footholds seemed to grow as she went, until, finally settling across from the window, she could see light cast upon the walls of a room, books piled higher than the window's ledge, but she did not see the woman and wondered if she had been an illusion.

  "Hello," Cinderella called across the expanse, too loud in the darkening wood, for she could already hear the specters stirring.

  Slow to appear at the window's edge, the woman glanced toward the Earth, and Cinderella's heart gave a violent beat against her ribcage as she realized the beauty she had seen from the ground was no match for the beauty up close.

  "Over here," she called, and the woman's eyes moved up the trunk of the tree. Rapunzel, Cinderella remembered the old lady calling her, a lovely name that suited her well.

  "I cannot see you," Rapunzel said hesitantly.

  "Hold on," Cinderella returned at once, moving forward on the branch until it bent precariously with her weight and dropping into view, hands and ankles locking her in place as she dangled.

  Even at the distance, she heard Rapunzel's gasp, her hands jutting forward as if she thought she might catch Cinderella if she tumbled from the tree. "Please, be careful," she rushed to say.

  "I am being careful," Cinderella assured her, and, seeming satisfied, Rapunzel smiled, though from Cinderella's position, it looked like a frown.

  "How did you make it up there in that?" Rapunzel asked, and Cinderella glanced to the gown. Having earned her many a strange look within the town walls, it might also have protected her. No one seemed to know what to think of the young woman amongst them, dressed, as she was, like royalty.

  "It was not easy," Cinderella admitted. "How did you get in there?"

  "I am not sure," Rapunzel replied. "I have been here since I can remember."

  "You have never been out?" Cinderella asked.

  "No," Rapunzel answered quietly. "There are terrible things in the world."

  Watching her in the twilight, Cinderella thought she saw sadness, but could not tell with certainty from her upside-down position. Turning her gaze to the tree, she spotted the stub of a branch below and trusted it would hold her as she dropped her feet onto it, Rapunzel's cry giving her a jolt as she resituated her hands over the branch above.

  "Oh, you do frighten me." Rapunzel let out a heavy breath, and Cinderella smiled, the declaration ringing through her ears like a compliment.

  "You needn't be frightened," she declared, and, at that, Rapunzel smiled too, making her even more of a vision. "Why do you say there are terrible things in the world? Who told you such a thing?"

  "My mother," Rapunzel responded. "Why? Is it not true?"

  "It is not untrue," Cinderella acknowledged, hardly one to proclaim the fairness of the world or those in it. "But it is not wholly true. Is that why you are stuck in there?"

  Nodding, Rapunzel's head bowed, the falling darkness casting her face into shadow. "That is what she told me," she said so softly, Cinderella took a perilous step forward to hear. "But sometimes my mother's words sound hollow. I do not know what to believe."

  The sadness she thought she had seen returned to Rapunzel's face, and Cinderella felt a strange desperation to lift it. "What did she tell you?"

  "Many things," Rapunzel breathed.

  "I have all night," Cinderella returned, hearing the shrieks from deeper in the shadows, knowing she would have no choice but to find shelter nearby.

  "It will not be very comfortable," Rapunzel grinned.

  "I have endured worse," Cinderella replied, and Rapunzel's smile wavered.

  "I would hate for you to endure it on my account," she whispered.

  Reminded she had climbed to meet the woman at her own desire, and had not actually been welcomed to do so, it occurred to Cinderella Rapunzel may not want her staring in her window all night. "Yes, of course," she said, face warming. "I am sorry to have bothered you."

  Hefting herself back to the branch above, she slunk into the tree's shadow with the quickness she employed to outwit her stepsisters.

  "No, wait!" Rapunzel called out, stopping Cinderella's retreat, and, spinning at once, Cinderella lowered her head to catch the light from the tower. "I just meant..." Rapunzel said carefully, "you could come inside."

  It was an invitation Cinderella did not expect, or for which she even dared hope, for having met more people of ill-intent than of innate kindness, she would have been hesitant to let in a stranger, and she had not had a mother telling her about the dangers of the world her entire life.

  "How do you know you will be safe with me?" she asked, feeling inexplicably elated when Rapunzel smiled again.

  "How do you know you will be safe with me?" Rapunzel returned.

  It was a proper question, fair and sensible, and, yet, Cinderella did know. She had never known anything with such certainty. Smiling, she nodded.

  "Go back down," Rapunzel said. "I will let down my hair for you."

  "Your hair?" Cinderella's eyebrows shot upward, but Rapunzel's smile only grew.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Snow White

  He had a young daughter, the huntsman. It was the most vital morsel the queen had consumed during her afternoon repast with Lemi.

  She had inquired on them all, as if knowing of their lives before the castle helped them bring her dinner or sew her dresses more effectively, and Lemi was excited to be asked, telling the queen all the gossip, and of her son who, apparently, served as a castle page on the lower floors. Listening to the woman prattle on about how proud she was of him, as if her position had not all but assured his placement, through two full cups of tea was the price she had to pay for knowledge.

  Though it was not her own experience, the queen's life in the kingdom had proven many times the lengths to which good men would go to protect their children. A single well-placed threat, and Gurr became a marionette on her strings.

  "Snow White," he greeted, approaching Snow White where she lounged amongst a group of young citizens, children of servants and town's leaders alike, who had spent the day taking advantage of the frozen pond on the castle grounds, as, from her place on the elevated patio, Queen Ino pretended not to see.

  "Gurr." Snow White did not seem to notice the huntsman's tight smile as she grinned up at him.

  "Are you up for a walk?" he suggested, and Snow White jumped up, enthusiastically meeting her doom.

  Saying her goodbyes, she took Gurr's arm, and Gurr glanced to the queen as they passed. It was the haunted look in his eyes that assured Queen Ino of her choice, for as yet he had done nothing, so, if he was haunted, it could only be by what he was about to do.

  · · ·

  Cloak drawn tightly around her, the winter air still prickled her skin as Snow White skipped ahead of Gurr through the snowy landscape. The lantern she held cast light into the forests' shadows, so the frightful bend of the trees in late evening became a wrenchingly beautiful site, each unexpected sound revealing itself as nothing more than a scurrying forest animal. Snow White knew the phantoms would come out, but, for the moment, the forest still belonged to the living.

  At her back, she could hear Gurr's familiar heavy steps, a constant, comforting reminder that she was not alone. As long as Gurr was with her, Snow White was safe from harm. He had long been her protector, having stood before her waving off stags, growling against bears, and shooing wolves away as if he feared nothing. His courage had always wrapped around Snow White, making even the woods a safe place.

  Tossing light onto a tree, Snow White saw a few stubborn leaves that held tightly to the cracki
ng gray branches, and, below, the bushes were so thin it was impossible to miss the sudden burst of color. Bright red, it showed, hanging on to life in the midst of so much death.

  "Look, Gurr, look!" Snow White cried anxiously, rushing to the bloom to touch a delicate petal, amazed to find the flower real. "How did it survive?"

  "Sometimes they find a place to hide as the world turns cold around them," Gurr answered, far less excited by the discovery than Snow White expected.

  Glancing back, she smiled, but Gurr did not, and Snow White felt a frisson of fear she could not place. Gurr never had a hard time smiling, especially in the woods, which was the place where he seemed most fitted to the world. "What is it?" she asked, trying to coax him to joy.

  "It is a Dragon Flower," he returned dully.

  "I like this one very much," Snow White said.

  "It will not live forever," Gurr whispered, and Snow White's smile fell completely.

  Turning away, the shadows deepened around her and she turned up the flame in her lantern. Remembering the days were shorter, she glanced at the light fading through the trees.

  "It is growing late," she said uneasily, Gurr's presence at her back less a comfort. "Should we not be getting back?

  When Gurr did not respond, Snow White turned to him again, the light of her lantern catching on the blade she had seen him use many times to skin deer or rabbits brought in from the hunt. Raised high above her, the hunting knife looked terrifying, but not as terrifying as Gurr's face, which had taken on a demented quality Snow White never could have imagined on the gentle man she had known her whole life.

  Knife slicing quickly through the air, Snow White fell to her knees, the lantern tumbling from her hand, its light sputtering out.

  "Gurr," she pleaded, and the sound of his name changed Gurr's face, removed some of the threat from it and returned some of the man she knew. "Please. Why are you doing this?"

  "Do not talk to me," he barked, eyes darting around as if he was the one who was afraid.