The Rose and the Thorn

by Kate Macdonald

  Thorn is usually the far more patient out of the two of us, but after a while of practising his letters and still having little more than a few, untidy scrawls, he grows frustrated. One evening, he picks up his paper, crushes it into as much of a ball shape as he can manage, and hurls it towards the fireplace. It falls a little short. I can still make out the occasional, shaky letter. R, S, E, O...

  “This is hopeless!” Thorn cries.

  I hurry over before he spills his ink. “You're doing fi-”

  “I'm not, Rose!” he thumps his hands against the table. “These ridiculous paws- nobody can write with them!”

  I take his hand and imprison it in mine. I wait until he looks at me, which takes some time. I can still feel his shame. “I love these hands,” I assure him. “They are by far the most gentle that I have ever held.”

  The rage in his face softens as he holds my gaze, and somehow, I find the courage to ask him something I have been longing do to so for a some time now. An impossible request, but one I must have his answer to.

  “Thorn,” I start, swallowing a lump in my throat, “When the gate opens, and I go home again... would you come with me?”

  Thorn's silence makes my heart beat faster. The weight of what I have just asked is crushing. I cannot breathe until he speaks.

  “No, Rose, I cannot.” His hand slips from mine, and he gets up, moves closer to the window.

  “But why not?” I knew this would be the answer. I even know why, and yet... and yet I wanted to be wrong. I was not expecting the misery the answer would bring me.

  “Well, I admit I know little of the outside world, but I am sure I am right in guessing that it knows little of magic, and thus might be a little hard to explain... me.” He gestures to his body.

  “I wouldn't mind explaining,” I say quietly, and truthfully, because I honestly feel that I wouldn't mind anything in the world, if he were there too.

  “I would,” he responds, almost as quietly. “That's even if I lived long enough for you to begin explaining.”

  “Don't talk like that.”

  “You know it's the truth. The outside world is not a place for me. They would kill me or put me in a cage... one much smaller than this.”

  I want to tell him that I would never let that happen. I want to tell him that they would have to get through me first, that I would fight and scream and tear them apart if they even tried. I know I would want to. But he is right, they would put him in a cage, and try as I might, I would never be able to stop them.

  How can it be that there is no place for him in the outside world -my world- when he is so very much a part of mine? I had heard the saying so many times before, “you are a part of me” but I had never understood it, until him. He is more than a part. He is some intangible force that both surrounds me and lives in me. Greater than my skin, my flesh, my heart. Sometimes, I found it impossible to tell where I ended and he began.

  And other times, it was all so very clear.

  A coldness settles in the air between us. I stare at his back for a long time, before I gain enough strength to continue.

  “I... I'm not sure, if I go back, and I never see you again,” I start, somewhat lamely. How to express something, but not too much? “That I will ever be... truly happy again.”

  Thorn chuckles hollowly. “A touch dramatic, I fear.”

  “Will you be happy, without me?”

  Thorn pauses for a while. “No,” he says, “but that is because I will be alone. You shall have your family to distract you from any immediate loneliness, and I've no doubt, after some time, you shall move on from this experience.”

  Now it is my turn to laugh. “Move on? How can you think such a thing?”

  “All the others did.”

  “Well, I'm not all the others, am I?”

  “No,” says Thorn, a little sadly, “you certainly aren't.” I do not know why he looks at me this way.

  It is not the first time either of us have insinuated this, this fact, this idea. I am different from the others. This is the first time I want to know why.

  “Why am I so different?” I ask him.

  Thorn looks at me for such an age that for a while, I do not expect I will receive an answer. Finally, he says, “You always treated me like a person,” he says. “And then, very quickly, like a friend.”

  This is not the whole truth. “My mother did the same,” I add, assuredly. “And you said one or two you might have called friends. I am more than a friend, whatever we are. Why?”

  Thorn's silence is once more deafening. “I do not know,” he says eventually. “I wish I did. Perhaps then, it might be easier to explain while I shall not move on, but expect you will. I never... I never knew what it was like, to truly be myself with another person, until I knew you, and your soul slipped so easily into mine that I so quickly forgot what life without you was like. If only it were so easily expressed, if I could squeeze it into numbers rather than words. If it were logical, rather than akin to madness. You are more than a friend. You are more myself than I am.”

  I cannot think of what to say to this. I agree with him unutterably. It's like he said- my soul slipped so easily into his. They cannot be so easily separated. He is with me always.

  “I'm going to come back,” I tell him. “On the next solstice.” I'm not prepared say goodbye forever. I won't ever be.

  Thorn exhales deeply. “It won't be enough, Rose.”

  “Enough for what?”

  “Either of us. I don't think I could bear to see you only for a few hours every year. The rest of my existence would be suspended, waiting for those few moments. I would be like an unfurled flower, all year long, waiting for those few moments in the sunlight with you. I don't... I don't presume to imagine your feelings, but... you will have a life outside of this place, a life that shouldn't be held back by a promise you made to me, when you were lonely and had no one else.”

  I do have no one else. Logic wrestles in the back of my mind. I have a family. A family who loves me. And yet... no one... not even Honour, understands me in the way Thorn does. I mean to tell him that it won't be just a few hours, that I was thinking of spending my year between two homes, but I see the future he is suggesting for himself mirrored in my own. I will live for those months with him, and live as he will, like a flower unfurled, awaiting the sunlight his presence brings to my life. The days without him will be cast into shadow. I feel my soul will shatter the minute I splinter from Thorn's side, and all the love my family could ever heap on me would not plug up that wound. I will bleed inwardly for the rest of my days.

  Thorn says nothing more. It is probably my turn to speak, but I cannot. I move towards the door. My fingers clasps around the handle, my throat just as tight.

  “I was always lonely, until I met you,” I say softly, and then slip away to my room.

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Shadow and the Soul

  Anything that passed between us last night is ignored when dawn comes around. We fall back into our routine and pretend the question I asked was never ushered, and Thorn never told me that his life would be spent waiting for just a few brief moments with me. The weight of both is shouldered, shelved, or ignored.

  A few days later, I am walking down to breakfast when I hear Thorn talking to Ariel. Neither has noticed me, and for reasons I cannot explain, I find myself slowing and coming to a stop. Perhaps I don't want them to think I am eavesdropping, or perhaps it is precisely the opposite.

  “You two are killing me,” Ariel buzzes.

  “Not as much as it will kill me, I'm sure.”

  There is a long pause between the two of them.

  “I'm sorry,” says Ariel, unusually seriously. “I didn't mean-”

  “I know, Ariel.”

  “Can you... can you feel it? Your heart?”

  “No. Yes. Sometimes.”

  “I don't think she's as fey as some of the others, you know. She doesn't seem to feel her heart at all.”

  “She was fey enough
to bring the castle back to life.”

  Ariel pauses.

  “Ariel?”

  “I think,” she says carefully, “That we might have to accept the possibility that it may not have been her, not completely.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are fey as well.”

  Thorn exhales. “You think it might not be her at all.”

  “I am certain that she cares for you.”

  “But not enough.”

  Not enough? Not enough? The word 'care' barely scratches the surface of how I feel for Thorn- but what does that have to do with the castle? I chew on this thought for a while before I remember Thorn's other words: She was fey enough to bring the castle back to life.

  Part-fey. I don't have any powers that I am aware of, but that might explain the dreams, and maybe it does explain the castle coming back to life. It might explain why I saw the gateway in the first place. Thorn had theorised as much before, that I was descendant of one of the fairies who escaped from the war. It makes sense, but I fail to see what difference it makes, especially if, like Ariel suspects, it might not be me bringing life back to the castle at all. It might be Thorn, who is clearly completely fey.

  I try to put it out of mind, ashamed of my eavesdropping, and of the pain in Thorn's voice when questioned about my affections.

  I head along to the parlour. Bramble is already there, waiting under my chair for any scraps, even though he is far too large to manage to get more than a nose under it now. I lean down to kiss him, guilt dancing about my insides.

  Thorn enters the room almost immediately after. His voice is unusually bright; I think he is trying to hide what has just transpired.

  “Little creature gets more kisses than I do,” he moans, sitting down on the settee.

  “Don’t grumble,” I say, equally cheerfully. “You sound like my father.”

  “I am quite sure I do not wish to sound like your father. I am equally sure I would wish for a few more of your kisses.”

  I throw a nearby pillow at him, and he throws it back, so I seize it, sit on his lap, and hit him with it again. Then I relax my hands a little, kiss his forehead, then both cheeks, and stop. The pillow slides from my grip. I look at Thorn’s eyes, and the patches of his face I’ve kissed seem to stick out, shining, a triangle of kisses that should be a diamond.

  I am unfinished.

  I slide my fingers onto his lips.

  Then I kiss his nose with my own.

  I care enough.

  That night, I turn and twist in the darkness, and think of Thorn’s lips. What would they feel like, pressed against my own? Should felt and fang touch flesh? I only see Thorn in his face, I only hold Thorn in my arms- will I feel Thorn in his kiss? Would I attempt the cross that bridge, and risk getting stranded in the centre, unable to cross? Unable to go back?

  Thorn has wormed his way into my thoughts, inflicting himself on every passing moment. Even my dreams offer no escape. He is there, always, his presence heavy. His face taunts me, and his voice rumbles my soul like thunder.

  I have another dream of phantom kisses, but this one I know is just a dream. I rouses me from my slumber, and sleeping again would be pointless. I tiptoe along to the chamber of mirrors, bringing a pillow and a blanket with me. I will not move until I am completely exhausted.

  “Show me the moment my mother and father met.”

  My mother and father grew up in the same village. They first passed each other in the market place. My mother was in a pram, my father a scrawny ten-year-old with no interest in babies. He rolled his eyes when his mother stopped to coo at her.

  “Show me the moment when they first noticed each other.”

  Time moves forward. My father is playing with his friends in the woods, and they come across Mama have a tea party with her friends. One of my father's group decides to throw a snail at them, and pretty soon, all the other boys are joining in, pelting the beautiful tea party with sticks and slugs and anything then can get their hands on. Even Papa joins in, although he looks guilty about it.

  The other girls burst into tears, and the boys laugh and start to run away. My mother, who can only be about six at the time, runs after them. She picks up a pebble and throws it at them. It hits my father squarely in the jaw.

  I have never seen my mother angry, and by the looks of things, neither as he. He stops, startled, rubbing the side of his jaw, while she yells at him.

  “Show me the first time they liked each other.”

  It is at a village fête, some ten years later. Mama is dancing with her friends. A lot of boys are looking at her now, including Papa, who is now more man than boy. Mama's eyes, however, keep looking back at a young girl sitting by herself on a bench. Her loneliness is palpable, as is Mama's desire to help her. She carefully breaks away from the rest of her friends, but before she reaches her side, Papa is there, asking the girl to dance. She is so happy.

  That night, my parents dance together for the first time.

  “Show me when they fell in love.”

  The screen flickers, as though searching a great deal of memories. It gives me nothing. It takes me a while to realise why; there is no moment, not one. Falling in love is a collection of moments.

  “Show me the moment when my mother knew that she loved him.”

  The mirror shows her to me in what must have been her old bedroom. She is reading a collection of fairy tales in a little seat much like the one I have, back home. All of a sudden, she puts down her book, and her eyes gaze towards the window. That's it, that's all. There's no fireworks, no flash of lightning, not so much as a sigh. She just knows.

  “Show me when he asked her to marry him.”

  They are walking through the woods. My father is speaking, though I cannot hear the words. He looks incredibly nervous, his eyes serious, his mouth thin. All of a sudden, my mother puts out her hand and stops him in his tracks. She is nodding fervently. Then, she puts her arms around his head, lifts herself up, and kisses him. The gesture catches him so off-guard that they both fall into a nearby bush and emerge a few moments later, covered in leaves and laughing giddily.

  I could waste hours in front of this mirror, asking for a lifetime of moments. Mama telling him she was expecting Freedom, was expecting each one of us. The look in their eyes when they held us for the first time. I could ask to see the dozens of family picnics, winter parties, birthdays. But those memories are already mine. I have seen all I need to of their past.

  I am in a curious mood the next day, lighter than I have been in a while. There is little to be done in the garden, so I spend most of my day in the music room, playing old romantic ballads that seem to make sense in a way I didn't fully grasp before.

  I tell Thorn what I saw the next evening.

  “I didn't realise they didn't like each other at first,” I admit. “Papa was so besotted with Mama, it seemed inconceivable to imagine it hadn't always been that way.”

  “And your mother,” asks Thorn. “Was she besotted with your father?”

  “Yes,” I say slowly. “But not quite in the same way. You could see the devotion pouring out of Papa in every glance he gave her. Mama was more subtle in her affections towards him. She showed her affections in what she did, not what she said. No wonder he looked so nervous when he proposed!” I smile at this fond remembrance, then a thought occurs to me. “Have you ever looked at your parents' lives?”

  Thorn nods.

  “What were they like?”

  “Oh, utterly besotted. It quite poured out of them as well.”

  I wonder what Thorn's parents looked like, if he would show them to me if I asked, but his past always seems to be a sad memory for him. Whatever happened to them, their early deaths, clearly weigh heavily on his shoulders still.

  “Do you miss them?” I ask.

  Thorn contemplates this for a long while. “It is difficult to miss a person you never met,” he says eventually. “But yes, I do. I cannot hope but imagine what my father was like,
what we would have been like, how different my life might have been if he had lived. My mother... yes, I miss her. I feel her presence, and her absence, almost every day.”

  I nod, because I know this feeling all too well. “I felt her absence so keenly for so long,” I tell him. “I was angry, for so long, that she wasn't here with us. I was angry at the rest of my family when they looked happy without her. That feeling faded, in time. I was less angry when people starting talking about her again. It was like she was still here.” Then I look at Thorn guiltily, because he has no one who remembers his mother, except- “Do the fairies remember your parents?”

  Thorn smiles. “Yes,” he says, “And I must admit, it is good to have someone who knows them, back in my life.”

  “I should like to know them,” I say.

  “And I should like to show them to you, one day.”

  “But not yet?”

  “No, not yet, Rose. Someday, I hope.”

  I wish to know why that day cannot come sooner, for I am sure in my heart that he trusts me, but perhaps this is a matter of privacy. There are things about me that I have not shared, do not wish to... not because I do not trust him, but because I do not want them spoken, known. How can I expect him to share everything with me when I would not return in kind?

  Although, a strange thought occurs to me: if Thorn was a creation of Moya's, how does he have parents? Parents that could love, could be remembered fondly by the fairies? What is it that I'm missing- that everyone is keeping from me?

  I have wondered time and time again if Thorn was secretly Leo Valerdene, made into another shape by Moya's magic. The dream I had in which the two of them were muddled up... and the faint remembrance of Thorn's reflection in the mirror of truth. But this didn't marry up with the knowledge that he had always been this way.

  Later that night, I ask Ariel as she runs me a bath.

  “Ariel, do you think that Thorn trusts me?”