The Starlit Wood

by Dominik Parisien

  “Why are you smiling so much?” demanded Carmela in a whisper. “Are you that happy for me?”

  “I am a romantic at heart,” said the Duelist.

  Storytellers gave names to everything because they knew, better than anyone, that names were power. To name a witch was to control a witch, and, in the old stories at least, to destroy her.

  The Duelist had dealt in death most of her life. If there was such a thing as a soul, hers was blacker than night. What would another stain matter? It was said that when a person died, their souls were weighed. Perhaps love would grant her some forgiveness. Such a thing happened in stories, sometimes.

  She did not wonder how the scales would weigh for the witch’s soul.

  There was a scandal, of course. Wild, torrid speculation that occupied the elite for years and had them looking over their shoulders at night, putting new locks on their doors, shivering in their underclothes with gruesome anticipation.

  Not one of them had imaginations humble enough to conceive a woman such as Carmela abandoning of her own free will the most powerful man in the south. And then, simply, disappearing. Leaving behind a household. Taking nothing with her, save jewels and gold.

  Everyone blamed that female beast that was her shadow. Such an ungodly creature, more man than woman. Gone, too. Not a trace. Probably a thief who had murdered poor beautiful Carmela and fed her dismembered body to the sewers. Or perhaps the man-woman was actually a secret agent of the north, bribed to murder the woman who had the Regent’s heart, to unmake him; a most grievous attack that some called an act of war.

  But war was coming anyway. It always was, always would be.

  The Regent dispatched hunters. They never returned. He hired mercenaries. They never came back for their gold. He hired spies, oracles, sent letters to the Lord Marshals of cities a thousand miles away, asking them to listen for rumors of a woman who looked like a man, who bore a sword, who called herself the Duelist.

  It made her chuckle, sometimes, when she’d hear tales of the Regent who had gone mad for the loss of a woman—only, the story changed, as stories sometimes do. It wasn’t long before the impossible beauty he was to marry was entirely forgotten—but not the woman warrior who had defeated him, shamed him. She lived on in tales, grew in stature, prowess, mercilessness.

  Even in beauty.

  “But you are beautiful,” Rose would say, tucking her scarf more closely around her throat, her silver earrings chiming in the wind. Faint wrinkles had begun to touch the corners of her bright eyes and mouth, deepening when she smiled. Which was often.

  “But you love me,” the Duelist would reply.

  Years passed. Not many, but enough.

  A rumor bloomed, with an unexpected origin; carried deep from the east, in wild lands never conquered, ruled by nomads on fast horses. Barbarians, they were called. Fur-wearing, slant-eyed mongrels.

  Who also, it was said, guarded veins of gold thick as a dragon’s neck, endless gold that blinded men in the sun, filled with healing powers; gold that would make a saint go mad with avarice. Deep in their mountains. Deep in the forests. Deep where no king had ever been able to send a single spy. Not without having his head returned in a handsomely embroidered velvet bag.

  Only silk and spice merchants could buy passage through those barbarian lands. Escorted, watched, gently (and sometimes forcefully) guided. The smart merchants minded their own business. Respected rules of passage. Bartered, drank, made gestures of peace with those wild men and women. Without forgetting, ever, that they would never be one of them.

  And so it was quite strange—impossible, really—when a spice merchant came home to his city telling a tale of two foreign women living amongst these barbarians—dressed in furs and silk, necks wrapped in loose scarves, riding fine horses. Seen with his own eyes, he swore. One of them huge, so broad in the shoulders he would have sworn she was a man until he saw the curve of her breasts beneath her jacket. Wearing a sword against her back, and her skin dark as a desert shadow.

  And then, there was her companion.

  “She was not human,” protested the merchant. “No human woman could be so beautiful. I thought I must be mad.”

  “You are mad,” said his colleagues. “No foreigners would ever be allowed to live amongst those horse-riding dogs.”

  “No,” replied the merchant, incensed. “I heard them. The mannish one told that beauty, ‘I would still kill the world for you.’ ”

  “Stop,” replied the others. “You’re drunk.”

  But the merchant leaned forward. “They held hands even when they rode. It was the strangest thing. And that fair creature, that most beautiful woman, kissed that immense mannish paw and said, ‘No. We are free, forever.’ ”

  “Fool,” they said. “Idiot.”

  It was beyond impossible. Offensive, even. Such lunacy.

  But the tale spread. It made the storytellers laugh.

  Once, they said, there was a witch who cursed a beautiful girl into a deep sleep. Until a warrior found and woke her, and together they killed the witch. A witch who had spread her curse through many lands—some, where her evil was still remembered. Where her killers would be welcome.

  Storytellers have a long reach.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Marjorie Liu: The problem of “Sleeping Beauty,” for me, is that ultimately it’s a story about a woman who is far more attractive “dead” than she is alive; a woman who has little agency, who is forced into an unnatural sleep, raped while she is unconscious, and then, when she finally wakes, must go and marry the man who took advantage of her. It’s a grim story—if you’ll forgive the pun—but not an unfamiliar one. It’s also one of my least favorite fairy tales, which is why I wanted to reinvent it as a story about women, and the power of women, and how women save each other and themselves through sisterhood and love.

  As most women I know will tell you, they don’t always sleep a lot—but they fight plenty.

  THE OTHER THEA

  Theodora Goss

  hea stared out the train window. Forest, more forest, and then a small town would flash by. And then more forest. She had taken this route many times while she was in school, although then she’d traveled with a large trunk filled with the clothes and books she would need for a semester at Miss Lavender’s. This time she had a backpack, with just enough for a day or two. How long would it take? She hadn’t really known what to bring. Should she even be going, in the middle of winter break?

  But she hadn’t known what else to do. She checked the text on her phone:

  Of course. Always pleased to see you, Thea. Let us know when your train gets in. Love, Emily

  Then a smiling black-cat emoji. It was not one of the regular iPhone emoji, but Thea was not surprised that Miss Gray had somehow gotten into her phone. After all, she taught Magic and Technology. Thea remembered her standing in front of the classroom: “Manipulating technology is no different from manipulating any other aspect of reality,” she had said. And then she had put some complicated equations up on the board. Math was Thea’s least favorite part of magic. The poetry part had always come more naturally to her.

  And then her text in response:

  Arriving Thursday 2 p.m. I’ll walk from the station.

  Miss Gray’s response was another black-cat emoji. It winked at her.

  “Next stop, miss,” said the conductor. She looked up, startled. “Aren’t you one of Miss Lavender’s girls?”

  “I was,” said Thea. “I graduated last year.”

  He nodded. “Thought I remembered you, with that ginger hair.” He pronounced it jin-juh. “If you need help with anything, let me know.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and smiled. It was a weak smile; she knew that. She hadn’t been very good at smiling lately.

  “Hartfield, Massachusetts!” he called down the train corridor. “Next stop, Hartfield!”

  Thea put her phone back in her backpack and zipped up her jacket. She made her way to the end of the compartment
.

  Forest, more forest. And then the first houses of Hartfield, with weather-beaten wooden siding. Suddenly they were in the town center, with its brick dental offices, boutiques, and coffee shops. The train slowed, then pulled into the station. The conductor put a metal bridge across the gap, and Thea walked over it. Here she was again, not for some sort of alumnae event, but because she didn’t know where else to go.

  From the station, she walked up Main Street, passing several antique stores, the food co-op, and Booktopia, where students from Miss Lavender’s always congregated on Saturdays, ordering cappuccinos and egg or chicken salad sandwiches, reading Sylvia Plath or Margaret Atwood or the latest Kelly Link. Should she stop in for a moment? Maybe . . .

  Before she could reconsider, she had stepped inside, and there was Sam at the counter. She had not expected him to be, well, right there.

  “Thea,” he said, a wide smile spreading over his face. It was accepted wisdom at Miss Lavender’s that Sam looked like a frog. Nevertheless, a respectable percentage of the students admitted to having crushes on him, despite or because of his rumpled hair, flannel shirts, and encyclopedic knowledge of literature. He had been a clerk at the bookstore through high school. During Thea’s sophomore year he had left for college, but his mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and since his parents were divorced, he had returned to Hartfield to care for her. After her death, he had bought Booktopia with the insurance. As he reminded the town council on a regular basis, every town needed an independent bookstore. Now he was finishing his degree by taking night classes at UMass–Amherst. At least that was what it had said on the Booktopia blog, the last time Thea had checked.

  “What are you doing back here? Don’t you live in Boston now? Wait, I’ll make you a cappuccino.”

  “No, that’s okay; they’re expecting me. But thanks. Yeah, Boston. I’m starting college next fall. I think. I mean, I am. I just took a gap year, that’s all. I figured I’d stop in here for a minute, you know, to check out the writing books.” There was a special section right up front, left over from National Novel Writing Month, with everything from The Elements of Style to Anne Lamott. “And to see where we used to hang out.”

  His eyes crinkled up at the corners. “Aren’t you a little young to be getting nostalgic? You only graduated six months ago.”

  “Yeah.” Thea laughed uncomfortably. “Way too young. Well, I’d better be going. They’re expecting me. Maybe I’ll come back . . . for one of those books. I always meant to read John Gardner.”

  “If you have time, come back and tell me about your life in the big city. I’ll give you a sandwich on the house. Or, to be more accurate, on the store.”

  “Yeah, all right, thanks.” She turned, then pushed the door open again. Standing outside in the cold air, she thought, God, I am such a dork.

  He hadn’t changed at all. Of course, people didn’t change that much in six months. Except her. She had changed, in ways she didn’t understand. That was why she had come back here. She continued up Main Street, then turned down Oak and Maple (seriously, how unimaginative were the people who named streets in small New England towns?). And there, at the edge of town, were the brick main house and buildings of Miss Lavender’s. And the familiar sign:

  Miss Lavender’s School of Witchcraft

  Founded 1812

  Thea had never seen the grounds looking so deserted. The last time she had been here, she had been graduating, and the town had been filled with students and their parents.

  Not hers, of course. Her parents had died when she was a child, and her grandmother had been sick for many years—far too sick to travel for parents’ weekends or even graduation. At those sorts of events, one or another friend’s parents had always temporarily adopted her, and she had felt what it would be like to have a family, for a little while.

  She walked up to the main house, which held the headmistress’s office. She rang the bell and heard it echoing through the building.

  “So you’re back.” She looked around, but saw no one. “Down here, idiot.”

  She looked down. “Oh, it’s you, Cordelia. Hello.” The tortoiseshell tabby stared up at her with yellow eyes.

  “Hello yourself. I’m not at all surprised to see you again.”

  Before Thea could ask why, the door opened and there was Mrs. Moth, looking just as she always did, in a respectable wool skirt and cardigan, gray hair a little messy as though she had been running her fingers through it. The image of a headmistress.

  “Thea, it’s so good to see you,” she said. “Do come in. I’ve just made tea. And you,” she said, looking down at the cat. “You could have told us you would be out all night. You know how Lavinia worries.”

  “I was out on cat business, which is none of your business,” said Cordelia. She slipped around Mrs. Moth’s ankles and disappeared down the hallway.

  “Cats!” said Mrs. Moth, shaking her head. “Come in, my dear. Let’s go into the parlor. I’ve prepared one of the guest rooms for you. I’m afraid everyone’s gone for the break—it’s just me, Lavinia, and Emily right now. We always give teachers and staff two weeks for the holidays.”

  Sure enough, when Thea went into the parlor, where Mrs. Moth usually met with prospective students and their parents, there was Miss Lavender sitting on the sofa. Whereas Mrs. Moth was comfortably plump, Lavinia Lavender was thin and angular. She was wearing a soft gray dress, and the white hair escaping from her bun formed a halo around her face. It would have been intimidating, having tea with the founder of the school, but Miss Lavender looked so perfectly harmless. She was so forgetful that she sometimes accidentally walked through walls. It was a good thing that Mrs. Moth had taken over as headmistress, long before any of the alumnae could remember. But older students who had taken her seminar on Philosophy of Magic warned younger ones not to underestimate Miss Lavender. How could you be expected to remember the locations of walls when you were contemplating the fundamental structure of reality?

  And standing beside the fireplace was Miss Emily Gray. Thea was almost shocked to see that she was wearing leggings and a loose sweater, as though she had just finished doing yoga or something. Her brown hair hung in a neat braid over one shoulder. It made Miss Gray seem almost human, although as soon as she said, “Hello, Thea. It’s so nice to see you again,” Thea mentally panicked at the thought that she might have forgotten to do her homework. Did she look a mess? She was sure that she looked a mess. She took a deep breath.

  “Cookies on the table, and I’ll bring the tea,” said Mrs. Moth, then disappeared down the hall toward the kitchen.

  Thea quailed at the thought of having to make small talk with Miss Lavender and Miss Gray, but she should have known better. Witches don’t make small talk.

  “So what’s the matter?” asked Miss Gray, sitting down on the sofa beside Miss Lavender. “You wouldn’t have called if there was nothing wrong.”

  Thea put her backpack down and sat in one of the comfortable armchairs. While she was gathering her thoughts, trying to figure out what to say, Mrs. Moth came in with the tea things.

  “Orange pekoe for Lavinia,” she said. “Oolong for Emily, and Earl Grey for me. Thea, I’m guessing you want a chai latte. You’ll have to add milk.” There was nothing in the cups when she poured out, but out of the teapot came four distinctly different smells and colors of tea. Thea added milk and sugar to her cup, then stirred.

  “The thing is, I’m not sure,” she said. “You know my grandmother died last summer, just after graduation. Thanks for the wreath, by the way. She would have really liked getting a wreath from the school. That was tough, but at first I was all right. I mean, we were never close or anything. I had to meet with her lawyer, then catalog all her furniture for the auction. I sold almost everything, except Mom’s stuff. And then I had to sell the house. After that . . . I was supposed to be at Harvard this fall. But I just couldn’t—I don’t know, I was so tired. So I deferred for a year, and I rented an apartment in Boston. I figured I�
�d write . . . you know, start becoming a great writer.” She smiled self-deprecatingly, in case they thought she was being too grandiose, although all through school that had been her talent: senior year, to her surprise, she had been chosen editor in chief of The Broomstick. “But I couldn’t do that, either. So I’ve been living in the apartment, doing—nothing, really. Some days I just wander around the city. Some days I don’t even get out of my pajamas.” Thea put her head down in her hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  Miss Gray took a sip of her tea. “When you went through your grandmother’s house, did you find your shadow?”

  It was the question she’d been dreading. When she’d first arrived at school, Mrs. Moth had sent a letter to her grandmother:

  Dear Mrs. Tillinghast,

  Thea seems to have forgotten her shadow. Since she will need it to participate fully in school activities, could you please send it as soon as possible?

  With best regards,

  Wilhelmina Moth, Headmistress

  A week later, she had received a reply:

  Dear Mrs. Moth,

  As Thea may have told you, several years ago Mrs. Tillinghast suffered a stroke. Although she has recovered a great deal, she lost some of her long-term memory and fine motor coordination, which is why I am writing this letter for her. She says she remembers putting Thea’s shadow in a box, but doesn’t remember where she put the box. She says it was a very troublesome shadow, and Thea is better off without it. I’m sorry not to be more helpful, and please give my love to Thea.

  Respectfully yours,

  Anne Featherstone,

  Mrs. Tillinghast’s secretary

  It had happened when she was six. After both of her parents died when their small plane went down, Thea had been sent to live with her grandmother. She had hated the gloomy old house and the gloomy old woman who told her that her mother should never have married that spendthrift, good-for-nothing Michael Graves. If she hadn’t, she would not be dead now.