Snow White Learns Witchcraft

by Theodora Goss

  Think like a witch.

  “It’s not the door. It’s a door. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Wait for me, okay?”

  Cordelia didn’t answer. She stretched out in a sunny spot on the coverlet and started to wash herself.

  Twenty minutes later, Thea was ready. In her backpack, she had a change of clothes, toiletries zipped into plastic bags, a notebook and pens, a battered copy of A Wrinkle in Time that she had been rereading, and half a chocolate bar.

  “Are you coming?” she said to Cordelia. “Or did you wake me up this morning just because you felt like it?”

  “I’m coming.” The cat jumped down from the bed, then looked up at her. “Which door?”

  “Kitchen. That way I can grab some breakfast along the way.”

  Thea walked quietly in case anyone else was still asleep, down the back stairs and to the kitchen. Last night, Mrs. Moth had shown her where everything was kept. “Just make yourself breakfast anytime you like,” she had said. Thea found a bagel, then cream cheese to smear on both sides. She put them together to form a sandwich so it would be easier to carry. She put an apple into her backpack. That would have to do.

  “All right,” she said, holding the bagel in one hand, with the backpack slung over her shoulder. “Let’s see if I’m right about how to do this.”

  She walked to the kitchen door. Standing in front of it, she took the notebook out of her backpack, scribbled a few lines…Then she put her hand on the door handle and read,

  “An entrance, entranced,

  you open into the brightness

  of summer and winter dancing,

  white snow on white blossoms,

  in the country of my longing.”

  Not her best effort, but perhaps it would do. And she did like the pun: entrance, entranced. The trick was to tell the door what it was, what it could become. “The creation speaks two languages,” Miss Gray had told them in Introduction to Magical Rhetoric. “Poetry and math, which are the same language to anyone who speaks them correctly. You must speak to the creation in its own language, so it understands what you want it to do.” Thea took a deep breath, hoping the spell had worked, and opened the door.

  It was summer. It is always summer in the Other Country, or rather it is always no season at all: the apple trees are always blossoming, and in leaf, and bearing fruit at the same time. Sometimes it snows, and white flakes settle on the ripening fruit. But today seemed to be a perfect summer day. Thea and Cordelia walked down the sloping green hill toward the castle. Tall grass brushed against Thea’s jeans, and the sun was warm enough that she stopped for a moment to take off her jacket and stuff it into her backpack. Beyond the castle was a lake, shining in the sunlight, and beyond the lake were mountains with forested slopes and snowy peaks. It looked like a postcard, or something that had been Photoshopped.

  The last time she had been here, Shoshana had squealed in delight and Lily had said, “Seriously, are you making that noise? Because stop.” Miss Gray had said, “Come on, girls. We’re on a schedule.” The castle looked just as Thea remembered—beautiful, but strange. As she and Cordelia walked down the hill and came to the gardens, she could see more clearly the stone towers, some going straight up and covered with small balconies, some spiraling like a narwhal’s horn, some curled like a snail’s shell. The buttresses, some of them supporting nothing but air, resembled a whale’s skeleton. The whole structure was improbable, like a castle out of a dream, and reminded Thea of an Escher print. One of those towers, probably the largest, held the Tapestry Room, where gold spiders with jeweled eyes crawled up and down, weaving the threads of life into an enormous tapestry, whose front no person had ever seen. Her thread was somewhere in there. She wondered what it looked like, which part of the pattern it formed.

  “And this,” she remembered Miss Gray saying, in a voice like a tour guide’s, “is the Library of Lost Books. All the books that are lost in the worlds are kept here. To our left, you will see the extension built specifically after the burning of the Library of Alexandria.”

  Thea stepped onto a garden path. Cordelia ran ahead and stood by the side of a long stone pool with yellow lotus flowers at its farther edge.

  “Something interesting?” asked Thea.

  “Fish,” said the cat, staring down intently.

  Thea sat on a stone bench beside the path and put her backpack next to her. She was starting to feel hot, and the bench was shaded by a linden tree, both blossoming and in leaf. “Anyway, I need a plan, you know,” she said.

  “Why?” said Cordelia, reaching a paw tentatively into the water.

  “Well, because I need to find my shadow, and then I need to take it back with me, and I don’t know how to do either of those things, is why.” What she really wanted to do was stay here, in the warmth and sunlight, with the sound of bees buzzing in the linden flowers above her. After all, she had no idea how to find her shadow, or what to do after she had found it. She would sit, just for a little while…At least it was better than sitting in her apartment, scrolling aimlessly through her Facebook newsfeed.

  Cordelia leaned down and patted at the water, then jumped back, shaking her head from side to side.

  “That’s right, stupid cat!” came a shrill voice. “If you put your head down here, I’ll spit at you again!” Thea leaned forward just enough to see an orange head sticking out of the water. One of the fish, looking rather pleased with itself. Thea heard a clucking sound and realized that it was laughing. Then it disappeared back beneath the green surface of the water. Cordelia hastily licked herself all over and then stalked off along the path, as though nothing had happened.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Thea called, but the cat did not turn back or answer. She was alone in the still, sunlit garden.

  “I want my ball back, and I want it now!”

  She turned in the direction of the voice. A girl about her own age was walking toward her, dressed in a bathing suit that looked as though it had come from the 1930s, with a frilled bathing cap on her head. “Where is it, Thea? I swear, if you don’t give it to me right now, I’m going to turn you into a toad, or worse!”

  Thea stared at her in astonishment. The girl pulled off her bathing cap, and down fell long black hair, with stars tangled in it. “Seriously, I don’t know why my mother puts up with you. If I were her, I’d put you back in that box!”

  “Lady Morgan?” said Thea, hesitantly. This must be Mother Night’s daughter. Was she supposed to curtsey or something? They had not met her on the field trip, but who else would be walking around the castle gardens as though she owned them, talking about her mother? And what was that about a box? “I’m not Thea. I mean, I’m the other Thea. I mean, she’s the other Thea—I’m the real one.”

  “Oh!” said Morgan Morningstar, looking at her with astonishment. “Why, so you are. You’re faded around the edges. Well for goodness’ sake take her back with you—she’s such a pest. You’d think being in a box for twelve years would have calmed her down, but evidently not. Last week, she almost started a fire in the library—there’s a reason that fireplace is never used! She and one of those annoying satyrs thought it would be a good place to toast marshmallows. Can you imagine? Now that you’re here, you can take her—where are you from, anyway?”

  “Miss Lavender’s,” said Thea. She stood up, but decided not to curtsey. The time had passed for it, anyhow.

  “Oh, how nice. Say hello to Emily and Mina and dear old Lavinia for me. You must be one of the students.”

  I graduated, Thea wanted to tell her, but Morgan had already taken her arm and was pulling her down the path toward the castle. “The problem is finding her. She stole my Seeing Ball, and now she can see me coming and hide. You know a shadow can hide in very small places, and the castle has lots of those. But now that you’re here, maybe we can convince Mom to send her back. It’s clear that Thea—the other Thea—should go home with you. I mean, look at you…”

  Thea didn’t k
now how to respond, but she didn’t have to. Morgan Morningstar was pulling her through the gardens: between flowering borders, and through a privet maze that Thea would surely have gotten lost in, and over a lawn laid out like a checkerboard, with chamomile forming the white squares. Where had Cordelia gone? Drat all cats. Then they were in the castle courtyard, with its Egyptian and Greek and Indian statues, and through the arched doorway.

  The great hall was cool and dim after the sunlit courtyard. Just as she remembered, it had no ceiling: tall pillars ascended up to the blue sky. But the sun was already sinking toward the mountains, so the hall was mostly in shadow. It was empty except for a small group of people at the far end, close to the dais.

  “Mom!” Morgan called. “Look who I found by the lotus pool.”

  Several of the—people?—stepped back. Thea noticed a man with the antlers of a stag, a woman with ivy growing over her head instead of hair, and a woman who looked exactly like Dr. Patel, only what would Dr. Patel be doing here? A pirate, in a black leather coat and tricorne hat, took off his hat and bowed to her. But between them all was Mother Night. Today she looked like her daughter, black hair falling to her feet, a face as pale as the moon, unlined. She could have been Morgan’s twin. The last time Thea had seen her, she had looked immensely old, with gray hair that wound around her head like a coronet. She had been sitting on her throne, and Miss Gray had introduced the Miss Lavender’s students to her, one by one. They had bobbed awkward curtseys, having learned how to curtsey just the week before. Thea remembered what Miss Gray had told them: “Don’t be nervous, but remember that she created the universe.” It didn’t matter what she looked like at any particular moment. You couldn’t mistake Mother Night.

  “Mom, this is…”

  “I know, sweetheart. Hello, Thea. We’ve been expecting you. How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty well, Ma’am,” said Thea, doing her best to curtsey, trying to remember how. This time she was sure she should curtsey.

  “How do you think she’s feeling?” said Morgan. “Look at her. Soon she’ll be as transparent as a ghost. I could poke my finger through her, not that I want to. You need to make Thea—I mean shadow Thea—go back with her.”

  “Your mother doesn’t need to do anything,” said the pirate. But he said it so charmingly, with a grin and a wink at Thea, that she could not help smiling back at him. “I know you’re in a bad mood, Morgan…”

  “Don’t you start with me, Raven,” said Morgan, still gripping Thea by the arm. “You said the same thing when she stole your cloak of invisibility. You said, ‘That shadow has to go.’ Remember?”

  So this was Raven! The famous, or infamous, Raven…Mother Night’s consort.

  “Stop, both of you,” said Mother Night. “I can’t make her go, for the simple reason that while she’s separated from Thea, she’s a person. Like any of you. Like Thea herself. I will not order her to leave here. I’m sorry, my dear,” she said to Thea. “You need to figure this out yourself.” Which was just what Mrs. Moth had told her. Thea felt sick to her stomach. She had no idea how to find her shadow, much less convince her to…what, exactly? She still wasn’t sure. And what had Morgan meant—as transparent as a ghost? Was she fading that fast?

  “Remember there’s a ball tonight,” Mother Night continued. “The other Thea will certainly be there—she loves to dance. And now, I have some things to attend to before the ball.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Raven, taking her by the arm. The antlered man and the ivy-haired woman followed them out, as did Dr. Patel before Thea could say hello as a fellow Miss Lavender’s alum.

  “He always takes her side,” said Morgan. “I guess I can’t blame him. They’ve been together for what, a thousand years? But I really wanted Mom to just do something for once.”

  “So where do you think we’ll find her?” asked Thea. “The shadow, I mean.”

  “Oh, Mom’s right. She’ll be at the ball. She wouldn’t miss a party, and I have to admit, she is a good dancer. Come on, we need to find clothes to wear. We can’t go to the ball looking like this—at least, you can’t.”

  Thea looked down at her jeans and gray Gap shirt. No, she couldn’t. Could Morgan really have put a finger through her? She looked solid enough. Tentatively, she poked herself in the stomach. She felt solid. But both Morgan and Mrs. Moth had talked about her fading at the edges, slowly becoming transparent. She wished she didn’t have to worry so much—about herself, and the shadow Thea. She was going to a ball in Mother Night’s castle! Shoshana was going to freak out. Even Lily might be impressed. Which reminded her…

  As she followed Morgan down a series of twisting stone hallways, she took out her iPhone. No reception here, of course, but she could take photos and share them later with Shoshana and Lily in their private Facebook group.

  Morgan’s room was the entire top of a tower. Out of a large wardrobe, she drew dresses and suits of silk and velvet and lace, tossing them on her bed, which was shaped like a swan with its neck curved to form a backboard, while Thea walked around, looking through all the windows. Below she could see the castle and gardens. In one direction, hills and fields stretched away into the distance, until she could see a darkness that must be the sea. In the other, the lake reflected the setting sun, which was just beginning to touch the tops of the mountains with pink and orange.

  “What else is there besides the castle?” asked Thea. “I mean, we only ever visited here. Are there—towns in the Other Country? If I went out there, what would I find?”

  “All the stories you ever heard of,” said Morgan. “And a whole lot you haven’t. What about this?” This was a dress of green velvet that looked as though it had come from a museum exhibit or a Hollywood red carpet. “You can wear it with this.” The second this was a mask of peacock feathers. Morgan rummaged among the clothes she had thrown on the bed.

  “What are you going to wear?” asked Thea.

  Morgan held up a black leather coat just like Raven’s, and put a hat just like his on her head. “With this,” she said, holding a mask of black feathers to her face. The smile beneath it was mocking.

  “You’re still mad at him, aren’t you?”

  “I just don’t like him telling me what to do. He’s not my father. And he’s, what, as old as civilization itself? That’s nothing.” Morgan shrugged. “That’s like a moment in time.”

  “But your mother also said…”

  “Well yeah, Mom. That’s different. But Mom’s never stopped me from doing anything I want to. She doesn’t, you know—interfere. She knows what’s on the front of the tapestry, the fate of every person in every world as it’s being woven. Sometimes I wish she would step in and act, especially when you otherworlders are doing something dreadful, like having another war. But she says that’s what we’re here for—you and me and Emily Gray. We’re the ones responsible for changing things. That’s why places like Miss Lavender’s exist. Come on, it’s getting dark. You can get dressed in the bathroom.”

  When Thea emerged from what turned out to be a surprisingly normal bathroom—but she figured people in Mother Night’s castle needed to pee just like everyone else—she looked as though she had stepped out of a painting. Green velvet fell to the floor, covering her red Keds. Morgan’s shoes had all been too small for her.

  “I suppose you could magic your feet smaller,” said Morgan, but at the beginning of junior year Mrs. Moth had told Thea’s class, “If I discover that any of you have used magic for such a vain, trivial purpose as changing your physical dimensions, you will come to my office and have a serious talk with me.” That had been enough to deter experimentation. Anyway, Thea wanted to feel at least a little like herself, underneath the dress and mask.

  Before they left, she took two selfies in the wardrobe mirror: one by herself and one with the Morningstar, in which Morgan held up two fingers in a peace sign. What would Lily and Shoshana think of that? And then she followed Morgan back down through the castle corridors, passing wha
t were obviously partygoers because they wore black tie or fantastical robes and gowns. Most of them wore masks, although sometimes she could not tell whether the masks were simply their faces.

  In the great hall, it was twilight. The moon hung directly overhead, surrounded by constellations Thea did not recognize. The hall was illuminated by bubbles of light that floated through the air, seemingly wherever they wished. Earlier the hall had been bare stone, but now between the columns grew a forest of slender birch trees, with leaves that shone silver in the light of the floating bubbles. Thea reached up to touch a leaf and found that it was, indeed, made of pliable metal.

  Beneath this forest moved the strangest, most fantastical people Thea had ever seen. There was the stag man, with flowers draped over his antlers. A woman with scaled blue skin was talking to what looked like a large owl. Three young girls with pig snouts were slipping in and out between the trees, playing tag. A satyr was bowing to a woman whose dress seemed to be made of butterflies—not just bowing, but asking her to dance, because now the music was starting. The butterflies fluttered as she took his hand. In the center of the hall was a dance floor that looked like a forest glade, with mossy rocks at its edges to sit on. A small stream ran through it, so dancers had to be nimble to avoid stepping in the water.

  “I’ll take it as a compliment.” Thea turned around. There was Raven, looking Morgan up and down critically. “You could be me as a beardless boy, a thousand years ago.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be mistaken for you tonight,” said Morgan, then burst out laughing. But who could blame her? The dashing pirate of that afternoon now had the head of a fox, with the same expression of sly humor under the tricorne hat. “Are you showing your true face, Monsieur Renard?”

  “One of them, at any rate. Hola, I hear a sarabande! Shall we dance, Lady Morgan?”

  “I’ll be back,” said Morgan to Thea. “The refreshments table is over against the wall. You’ll be all right, right?” Thea barely had time to nod before Morgan was swept away by the fox man. She took off her mask, which felt hot and strange. What was she doing here anyway? Suddenly, she felt lost and alone.