Thorny

by Lelia Eye

  And thus it went, with me coaching Elle on how to move the lamb from inside the ewe to out. And when Elle was finally holding a baby lamb, with its umbilical cord cut and confirmation that there wasn’t a twin, she said in a panic: “It’s not breathing!”

  My heart rate spiked a little, but I tried to remain calm. “Grab its hind legs and swing it back and forth a few times.”

  “What?” she exclaimed.

  “Just do it, all right?”

  She did as I had told her. The lamb started breathing, and Elle heaved a sigh of relief.

  I took a moment to examine the sheep and then said: “Congratulations. It’s a hideous baby girl.”

  Elle snorted and then gazed at the lamb with a smile.

  “Now, go ahead and put it down,” I told her.

  “Don’t I need to clean her?” she asked.

  “The mama sheep will do that.”

  And so it was. Soleil quickly dove into her work, noisily licking the newborn clean as sheep had done for generations.

  “She’s talking to her baby,” Elle marveled, gazing at the two ugly beasts in wonder.

  “That’s not talking,” I grumbled. “It’s just sheep babble.”

  Elle looked at me with a secretive smile on her face, like she knew something I didn’t, and that made me want to start grousing, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “The lamb isn’t moving much,” observed Elle. “Is she all right?”

  I refrained from rolling my eyes with some effort. “Being born is hard work. Lambs will usually stand up around half an hour after birth to nurse. We should probably let them have some time alone.” I especially didn’t relish the thought of watching the ewe eat the placenta. Talk about disgusting. But I sure wasn’t gonna take care of it.

  Elle, though she had cleaned her hands and picked up my cape, seemed inclined to linger. “Shouldn’t we make sure the lamb’s going to be all right?”

  “Trust me—it’s fine.” Being covered in blood was a natural part of the process, which the ewe was taking care of. I still wasn’t thrilled to look at it. “They need some time to bond.” There, I thought. That should sell it.

  And it worked. Elle gave one last look at the newborn lamb, whispered something about the cuteness of its ears, and then followed me over to the edge of the pen, where I waited for her to open the gate. But before she did, she held my cape out and helped me into it.

  “The miracle of life is amazing,” she said when she started to swing the gate open. “It’s wondrous how a little body like that can grow inside the body of another.”

  “It’s been that way for centuries,” I pointed out as I walked forward.

  “That doesn’t make it any less incredible.”

  I did roll my eyes then. “Well, now that you’ve helped a sheep give birth, surely all your lifelong dreams have been met.”

  Evidently, she missed my sarcasm, as she said, “No, not yet.” She stopped moving, and I turned to look at her. “You know, I’m amazed at your sheep knowledge.”

  “I know a lot more than you think,” I said, lifting my head slightly with a feeling of stubborn pride.

  “Maybe you should be a sheepdog.”

  “Erm, I have more glorious things in mind for my life, thanks. Besides, the Invis take care of this sort of thing all the time with no problems. I think I’ll let them handle it.” I started moving again and gave her a sidelong look. “Still—you did well.”

  I noticed a small smile on her face at that. She crossed her arms and said, “So, what do you have in mind for your life?”

  “I have to keep some secrets,” I said. I simply happened to have a lot of secrets.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said—about how you asked me if there was something I liked myself, not just because it was something my stepsisters like. And I thought of something.”

  We had been walking toward the castle, and I was glad she was beside me, though I still had those panicked moths dancing in my stomach like they were holding some sort of aerial ball in there. “What?”

  “I’d rather show you,” she said. I had the feeling she would have grabbed my hand if I were human, but since I wasn’t, she only reached out and gave me a pat on the head—or maybe it was a light stroke. I wasn’t sure. I just knew it was perhaps the first time she had touched me willingly without a good reason. And it increased my level of jitteriness.

  “Uh, s-sure,” I stammered.

  Chapter 12: Water Girl Wants

  Elle led me into a room that I had been in once briefly before fleeing. It was basically a large pool room.

  Oh, there were candles everywhere and hundreds of small silver wind chimes on the ceiling, but the main focus of the room was an indoor body of water unlike any pool I had ever seen before.

  It was difficult to understand the design from the ground without some concentration, but from above, it would look like a giant rose. The effect was accomplished by a series of slender curved pools that wrapped around each other in order to create the illusion of rose petals. The floor between the pools was a shiny black (as were the walls and ceiling), and the bottoms of the pools were painted red. Add to that countless tea-candles in alcoves along the walls and floors (the only sources of light since there were no chandeliers or giant torches or windows or anything of that sort), and it made for an intimate setting. I didn’t care. I hated the room.

  “Uh, you like looking at new places?” I guessed hopefully.

  She had a half-smile on her face. “No-ooo,” she said. “Something else!”

  And then took off her shoes and started stripping off her dress as I stood there goggle-eyed.

  She quickly got down to her thin cotton chemise—even taking off her corset—and then, after removing the roses from her hair, she slipped into one of the thin pools. I had to fight to keep my tongue in. She was in her underwear! In front of me! Of course, she thought me a crude beast, but that was beside the point! Her chemise was . . . well . . . clingy and stuff. Her feminine curves—only hinted at before—were all but completely revealed as she floated on her back and the water made her shift adhere to her form. She had no idea what sort of image she made to me—the blissful expression on her face was as guileless as that of a child—but I wasn’t actually a wolf inside this beast’s body. I was very much a teenaged male.

  “What are you doing?” I rasped.

  She lowered her legs into the water and tilted her head at me, kicking at the water to keep herself afloat. “I’m swimming. That’s one thing I really like to do.”

  “Why?” I was trying to look at her face.

  “It’s fun,” she said. She spun in a circle as if to emphasize her point.

  I squinted at her. “You’re crazy.”

  “Come in,” she invited, moving upright. Her body was now mostly hidden in the water. For some reason, I felt like whimpering.

  “I don’t even know how to swim.”

  “Surely you can doggy-paddle.”

  Now I felt like growling. “I’m not a dog, remember?”

  “Come in,” she pleaded. “I’m sure you can do it if you try.”

  When I continued showing resistance, Elle swam around the slender pool and said, “Look, it’s shallow in this spot. Start out here, and we’ll work our way from that.”

  I steeled myself and plopped down into the water with a grunt. Shallow though it was, the water still came up to my chin. And it was cold. Feeling like a wet cat, I looked at her sourly. “Now what? Assuming I don’t freeze to death first.”

  “Do you know what a doggy-paddle is?” She was standing up, too, and her body served as enough of a distraction that some of my unhappiness leaked away to be replaced by something else.

  “I just kick my legs,” I said, my mouth dry.

  “You do it in a sort of circular motion. Watch this.” She dropped down in the water, and I felt a sense of relief and loss. I tried to pay attention to her example, but the lighting in the water wasn’t such that I could easily see what she
was doing.

  “How about I just watch you?” I said. I hated water. Nearly drowning as a kid can do that to a guy.

  “Please?” she begged. Looking into those eyes, made somehow more beautiful by the water glistening on her face, I knew I couldn’t deny her.

  So I walked forward, feeling the ground slope beneath my feet, and then it was gone, and I was doggy-paddling like there was no tomorrow.

  I was absolutely terrible at it. But still, I was keeping my head above water, even if Elle was laughing at me.

  “You don’t have to kick your legs quite that fast,” she said in between those lovely gales of laughter.

  But since I was keeping my head upright, I—sure as a troll under a bridge—wasn’t going to change my method.

  “No, thank you,” I said tightly. I was already getting tired. “But I think maybe I will go back to the shallow end.” And I did, overjoyed to feel something flat and hard beneath my feet. Maybe that was why I didn’t like heights or water—I wanted to feel firmly grounded.

  So I stood there and watched her. She seemed to me like a white seal gliding through the water. Maybe that was stupid, but I couldn’t think of a good way to describe her. She was at peace, in her element.

  So often, even though she tried to hide it, she seemed troubled. I didn’t want to think about her being unhappy—didn’t want to think about how there were so many different reasons for it. She was perhaps the prettiest girl in the world, but instead of fending off hordes of suitors, she had a wolf at the door. She wasn’t able to see her family (though I was convinced she couldn’t actually care about her loser stepsisters and stick-up-her-butt stepmother). Furthermore, she would never even be able to have children if she couldn’t leave here. The closest she would come to that was delivering—ugh, the very thought made me shudder—baby sheep.

  I was aware of all this peripherally, but I was also aware that I couldn’t give her up. There were different moments—like this one—where I thought she could be happy with me. Maybe it wasn’t what she really wanted, but maybe it could be enough.

  She was every teenaged boy’s dream out in that water, but there was such a purity to her happiness that it made me feel like a voyeur, straining as I was for any glimpse of flesh. So I hauled myself, dripping wet, out of the water.

  In the middle of all the pools—at the center of the rose—was a large mass that looked like a rose statue. But that was an illusion; it wasn’t a statue. Instead, it was a chair that could only be recognized as such from certain angles.

  It was up into this chair that I jumped. It wasn’t comfortable since it was unpadded, but I would have looked pretty stupid if I immediately jumped down after sitting in it. As it was, I probably already looked dumb seeing as I was a drenched wolf perched on a rose chair.

  “Aren’t you going to shake dry?” Elle called.

  “Not a dog,” I called back as a reminder. I had actually shaken myself dry more than once, but I wasn’t about to admit it.

  I thought about asking the Invis to towel me off, but that was one of the things they were forbidden to help me with. And I certainly wasn’t going to roll around on a towel in front of Elle.

  Never having been a swimmer meant I knew no words to describe the movements Elle was making, but that didn’t mean I was unable to appreciate her grace. If swimming was something she loved, well, I was happy I could provide that for her here.

  When at last she exited the water, glistening and joyful, she smiled at me and said: “Thank you for keeping me company.”

  “Elle,” I said, swallowing, “your company is something I will always keep.” I instantly regretted the words, as they could be taken the wrong way, but Elle must not have noticed, for the smile did not leave her face. In fact, it grew as the Invis produced a towel and wrapped her in it. I gave the towel a dirty look and then mentally admonished myself.

  “Do you know how many rooms the castle has?” Elle asked. “I was so pleased to find this one.”

  “I haven’t explored that much,” I admitted. Most of the rooms I had seen were visited in a blind rage that left me with little recall of their contents. Though Silverthorn was something I could leave, I would view it as my prison so long as I was in this body. And it was hard to enjoy a cage, even if it was gilded.

  “You haven’t?” she asked, surprised. “Why not?”

  “What use do I have for any room but my own?” And hers, of course. But that was beside the point.

  “But there are so many wonderful rooms to look at!” Elle exclaimed. “You’ve been surrounded by treasures and not even known it.”

  I’m only interested in one treasure, I thought to myself. Out loud, I said, “Then show me what I have been missing. Be my guide.”

  She stared at me, and for one confused and almost panic-stricken moment, I thought she was going to refuse. But then, to my relief, she said, “I’d like that.”

  We took a few minutes for her to change into dry clothes, and then she led me around the castle.

  To my amusement, she had named many of the rooms, though she could have been doing some of that on the spot. Often, the names lacked imagination—the Pink Room was, of course, pink and filled with mirrors and girlish trinkets, and the Blue Room was filled with fish-laden aquariums and aquatic décor like anchors and ropes and a large ship’s wheel. But in some cases, Elle had put more effort into the naming. The Transformation Place was a room that looked slightly different every time you opened and closed the door, which I found as fascinating as Elle did—the change could be something as small as a repositioning of a loveseat or something as large as a new rug and new paintings on the walls. The Key Room was filled with every sort of key imaginable (including, to my amusement, piano keys), and Elle said that was where she found the key to her armoire, though she didn’t say what she had found inside the armoire. There was even a Sunroom right next to a Moonroom.

  At last, we came to the Memory Room, which Elle might as easily have called the Portrait Room, though “Memory” fit better. There were paintings everywhere, each a picture of a different supernaturally beautiful woman or girl. No human men were to be seen—the only males in the pictures were animals, and even then, it was hard to determine gender most of the time without an antler or a blue bow to act as an indicator. Every frame and every painted setting was unique, and there must have been hundreds of paintings covering both the walls and ceiling. There were even paintings in strange places—like on the back of a couch or decorating a grandfather clock.

  But despite the assortment of pictures to focus on, I found my eyes drawn to one specific painting. It was a mid-sized picture—not the biggest or the smallest—of a girl who was perhaps Elle’s age . . . or maybe a little younger. She had red hair that fell in curls down her back and eyes that were closed in soft pleasure as she craned her neck down to smell a scarlet rose held in her hand. The rose was perfect, its delicate petals extended outward in full bloom, but its perfection meant little beside the radiant beauty of the girl who held it.

  I believed Elle was far more beautiful—no feminine figure in the world could change my mind about that—but I knew as I looked that there were some who would think otherwise. That face was familiar to me, but that look of pure happiness—unmarred by the troubles of the world—was not.

  I sat there staring for a long time. Elle must have sensed my concentrated intensity, as she said nothing. I heard the door close and knew she had left me alone, but all I could do was continue to gaze at the painting.

  Eventually, I heard a muffled noise, and the door opened. Soft footsteps came near which I knew did not belong to Elle—I would recognize hers anywhere—but I did not turn to look. My nose told me all I needed to know.

  “I will always love the woman who helped raise me, Scarlet,” I said, still staring at that painting, “though it’s not always easy, all things considered. But I do have to wonder if she was ever happy after marrying my father—if even for a moment she experienced true joy.”

&
nbsp; “Every child brings his mother equal amounts of sorrow and joy,” she said, somewhat evasively. “But a mother will love her child forever, and love is a far greater thing than happiness.”

  I continued to gaze straight ahead, studying the happiness displayed before me, and at last, she asked me: “What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking of a quote from Marking Magic,” I said softly.

  “Which one?” she prompted. There was a sense of agitation about her that was unmistakable. I thought of not answering, but it felt like that would be unnecessarily cruel.

  “It’s a quote that always stuck out to me, and it is something to this effect: ‘Supernatural beauty, such as that possessed by the ever-elusive fairies, is untouched by time. But a beauty that is internal can shine through any form, though the ravages of time—hate and loss being much more destructive than the years themselves—can tarnish it unexpectedly.’ I know which I prefer for myself.”

  I heard her sad sigh. “You still have so much to learn. Supernatural beauty is not without its price.”

  I let out a bark of laughter. “I certainly can’t see it.”

  “Look at all the beautiful women and girls before you. The one thing they have in common—despite the deer or sheep or dogs or other manner of beasts at their sides—is that they’re all alone.”

  “A painter’s choice—”

  “There’s more to it than that,” she cut in. “One day, you’ll learn. And it will be an excruciatingly painful lesson.”

  I wanted to snap at her, but instead, I asked with strained calm, “And how do you know that?”

  “Because I can see the future. Because I know where your journey will lead you.”

  I turned and watched as she left the room without looking back, her head erect and proud, but her red tail drooping down.

  A painful lesson? I wasn’t surprised. Lately, it felt like my life was full of those.

  I reached a paw up and placed it on the painting of the red-haired girl, ready to scrape downwards and turn it into tatters. But even in a fit of pique, I couldn’t do it. Some things were too pretty to destroy.