Once Upon a Curse

by Peter Beagle

  Herbs of the magic brew, six and six,

  Blend at my will into potent mix…

  My serving women formed a circle around the kettle boiling over the cooking fire, hiding it from view, producing a lonely spot for me to do my magic. I settled in the grass, chanting, sorting out the herbs, counting their stems to make the exact amount needed for the Drink of Love. Through the air of detachment surrounding me I could hear the voices outside my magic circle—people singing as they danced around the glade. But I paid no heed to them.

  Six herbs of darkness, six herbs of light…

  My pile of herbs was getting smaller as the brew became thicker, gradually acquiring its rich, sweet smell. I watched it grow dark-blue, swirling as the dark herbs, speck after speck, disappeared in its dark depths. The smell was so dizzying that a carelessly taken breath could easily cloud an unprepared mind.

  …Grant me the power, grant me the sight.

  I threw in the last ingredient and spoke in my head the last line of the incantation. The Drink of Love was ready. I turned to my servants and nodded.

  Alyona was beautiful in her ceremonial garb that mirrored mine—a long white dress, a wreath of lilies crowning her long, loose hair. She looked ghostly, almost transparent, as she was led through the glade by a procession of men and women from the palace, each holding a candle in their hands. Her eyes were closed and my father, walking behind, carefully guided her steps.

  As the procession stopped before me, I took a mouthful of the rich, bittersweet brew and held out the ladle for Alyona to drink. My father and two serving women had to guide her to me and support her as she took a sip with trembling lips. Then she moved on like a sleepwalker, guided by the women’s hands. I served the drink to my father, briefly meeting his gaze. Trying to distance myself from the power of the brew, I continued to hold out the ladle for each and every one of my subjects, until the giant kettle was almost empty, and there were no more people waiting to receive their share.

  Everyone by now crowded around the Sacrifice Pool, carrying candles. Tiny dots of light reflected in the still waters of the lake like stars, flickering in the slight movement of the night air. Two women at Alyona’s side pulled off her white dress, leaving her naked. I admired her beauty in the wavering candlelight. The aura of the Solstice made her look like an immortal spirit of the river.

  Everyone stepped aside as I approached her and laid my hands on her shoulders. “Great God Kupalo. Accept this maiden as our gift to your powers and a token of the coming season. May love stay with your subjects, may our fields be fertile and our cattle be aplenty, may you take what you need and leave us what you will.

  “Go,” I whispered to her gently, turning her around and pushing her toward the water.

  She walked forward on trembling legs, straight into the Sacrifice Pool. The waiting waters reached out to her like welcoming arms. She swayed and disappeared from sight almost instantly, without any struggle. As the water covered the top of her head, her lily wreath came loose, floated a little way and sank.

  One by one, the people around us set their wreaths afloat in the glimmering candlelit waters and turned to leave the lakeside.

  “A fine Sacrifice, Marya,” my father whispered at my side as the last of them walked through the line of bushes into the distant glade.

  A crackle echoed through the bushes and a shape emerged into the moonlight.

  Ivan.

  I was certain I’d never see him again. Entranced, I watched him step forward, holding out a hand.

  A faint glow emanated from a small vial in his open palm.

  “The Water of Life. I brought it. I did what you asked.”

  “I don’t believe you,” my father whispered. “It was a task impossible to fulfill.”

  A row of silent shadows emerged from the darkness along the edge of the glade.

  The Immortals. My breath caught in my throat as I watched my father with sudden fear. Could the rumors about the sacrifice be true?

  “Impossible for a mortal,” Ivan agreed. “But I had help.”

  My father ran his gaze around the glade. “This is a hoax. Even with the help of the Immortals, you couldn’t have done it in three days!”

  “It is the Water of Life,” Ivan said. “If you don’t believe me, Kashchey, I’ll show you how it works,”

  He tucked away the vial, pulled off his shirt, and jumped straight into the Sacrifice Pool.

  “Good,” my father said. “He saved us the trouble.”

  Wings flapped as Raven flew out of the darkness and settled on a branch above our heads.

  “The Immortals are gathering,” he croaked. “I must join them.”

  The silent shapes around the edge of the glade nodded their heads. They were all here, I realized. The hag, Baba Yaga, and her cousins Leshy and Vodyanoi, the spirits of the forest, water, and swamps. The ancient and powerful beasts, Wolf, Bear, and Cat. And, my Raven.

  “What do you all want?” my father demanded.

  The Immortals remained still. After a long moment splashing echoed behind the bushes, followed by rustling of the reeds and a sound of something heavy crushing through the forest undergrowth. A silhouette outlined itself against the moonlit waters of the lake.

  A man, carrying a naked woman’s body in his arms.

  “Alyona.” Entranced, I watched Ivan come up to us and lay her gently on the ground.

  She was quite dead, as far as I could tell. The green weeds covered her arms and legs and tangled in her long wet hair. She was paler than the moon, now shining brightly in the sky, and her half-opened eyes didn’t have a single spark of life in them. A grimace of agony twisted her once-pretty face into an ugly snarl.

  I sank to the ground, my legs suddenly unable to support my weight. Tears flooded my eyes as I took her cold, stiff hand.

  “Don’t cry, Marya,” Ivan said to me gently. “I brought life to her.”

  He opened the faintly glowing vial and sprinkled water over Alyona’s body.

  Her grimace gradually smoothened out into a peaceful expression. Color flowed back into her cheeks. Her eyes closed and then reopened, filled with new life.

  “Mistress,” she whispered, seeing me bend over her.

  I took her into my arms and sobbed until I couldn’t cry anymore.

  “Here are your clothes,” Ivan said to her, reappearing with her white ceremonial dress in his hands.

  We helped her back into the dress. She tossed her wet hair behind her back and looked around the glade with fear. My serving women appeared and led her away.

  “Give me back the needle,” my father demanded.

  “Will you uphold your end, Kashchey? Will you give up the Solstice Sacrifice?”

  “Give me back the needle!”

  Ivan reached down into the grass and picked up the rectangular object he had put there earlier.

  My Mirror.

  “How did you—” I whispered.

  Ivan turned to me, his guarded expression melting into a smile. “It’s for you, Marya. I brought it here so you could see your past.”

  “My past? But—”

  He reached over and held the Mirror in front of me.

  Its surface glimmered, giving way to the familiar gray mist. Then it faded to reveal a forest meadow, with a cozy little house cradled in a curve of a quietly tinkling brook.

  A young woman ran into sight. A wreath of wild asters crowned her head and she carried a large bunch of forest bluebells. She sank onto the grass by the brook and dropped the flowers, breathing heavily and looking with expectation in the direction she came from.

  She was so beautiful that my breath caught with the longing to watch the perfect movements of her slender fingers rummaging through the flowers, her hands absently smoothing the waves of her long black hair, the elegant line of her neck. Her clear green eyes glowed like two emeralds on her warm, lively face. I shivered as I realized why her face looked so familiar. It was my own face—but warm, happy, so full of love that it made our
incredible likeness almost unrecognizable.

  What sort of magic was this?

  The girl didn’t have to wait long. Another shape emerged from the bushes at the edge of the glade. A man. Pale, dark-haired, with dreamy eyes and a beaky nose. He also looked strangely familiar, but I couldn’t place why.

  They looked into each other’s eyes and laughed. Then she fell into his arms and, after a lifetime of embraces and kisses, settled her head in his lap. He looked down at her with such love that my heart ached for him.

  It was so real. I could smell the flowers in her hands, the fragrance of her skin that resembled a fresh smell of water in a clear forest spring.

  The love in the man’s eyes was unbearable to watch.

  “I have to go, Elena,” he said, his voice low and deep, more so than I expected from his slight form.

  “Will you be long?” she asked, too busy weaving together two bluebell stems to return the man’s look.

  Such anguish in his eyes! Such pain at leaving her! Why was I forced to watch this?

  “No, my love,” his voice was almost a whisper. “I’ll be back soon.”

  He gently moved her head from his lap onto a soft patch of grass and rose to his feet. From her lying position she watched him like a playful kitten.

  The man bent down and in a blink of an eye his form shrunk into a small black shape. In the place where a man had stood a moment ago there was now a raven.

  Raven?

  He spread his wings and flew out of sight.

  I drew away from the Mirror, breathing hard.

  “What did you see in there?” my father demanded.

  For the first time in my life I ignored him. I turned to watch Raven’s still form, perched on a low tree branch.

  “You had a human form?” I whispered.

  He didn’t reply. He merely shut his eyes against my gaze.

  “It’s not the end of the story,” Ivan told me. “Watch.”

  I looked.

  The maiden, Elena, was now alone. She spent some more time with her bluebells and then walked off, forgetting the blue heap in the grass beside the brook. She entered the house and came out again, throwing frequent glances into the sky.

  And then she froze as a new figure appeared in the glade beside her.

  As I caught sight of the familiar form I felt my heart leap and stand still in my chest.

  He walked toward the girl with the confident, springy steps of a born charmer. A conqueror, who had just spotted a prey worth his full attention.

  My father, Kashchey the Immortal.

  I didn’t need to watch further to know what happened next.

  It was as I suspected. The maiden fell head over heels for my father’s charms. She told Raven that Kashchey was her true love, and the silly bird-man let her go. He even gave her his blessing, instead of beating some sense into her pretty little head.

  His grief was hard to watch. He was so heartbroken he gave up his human form for eternity.

  But there was still more to see.

  I looked into a clearing at the side of the lake, the very same one in which we now stood. I could see the mirror gleam of the Sacrifice Pool with its treacherous currents churning underneath the smooth surface. My father and Elena came out of the trees near the large glade where the Solstice celebrations usually took place and stopped to admire the view.

  I could see Elena cradling something in her hands.

  “This is a good place to swim,” my father said. “The best one in the whole lake.”

  Don’t listen to him! I prayed silently. I didn’t care what my father did to his women once he was tired of them, but to watch him kill the one that was Raven’s whole life was too much.

  I didn’t want to see it.

  I couldn’t look away.

  “I’d love to go for a swim,” she said, her face glowing with happiness. “But I can’t leave my baby. She’ll freeze.”

  “Give her to me,” my father said. “I’ll keep her warm for you. For us.” He gave her an affectionate look that I knew was a lie.

  Elena hesitated for a moment. Then she opened her palm and handed the thing she held to my father.

  It was an egg. A spotted bird’s egg.

  “I wish she could grow up to be human,” Elena whispered, looking fondly at the egg.

  “She will,” my father said. “After all, her father had a human form once. After she hatches, I’ll teach her to change shape like he used to. Now, go, swim, my love, we’ll be waiting for you right here.”

  Elena was as gullible as I suspected. Without hesitation she pulled off her dress and jumped straight into the Sacrifice Pool. As soon as she did, my father turned and walked back into the forest.

  It took her a long time to die. She struggled with a force that I didn’t suspect in her slender body. As the air filled with her screams, a black bird flew out of the woods and darted straight to the Sacrifice Pool.

  Raven.

  He circled low over the water, trying to pull her up with his claws, trying to fetch something big enough for her to hold on to. He got so dangerously close that her gripping hands almost pulled him underwater with her.

  He would have given his life for her. But in his bird form he could do nothing to help her. If only he hadn’t forsaken his human form!

  His eyes were two ponds of despair as he watched her agony, drenched and exhausted, unwilling to give up and yet powerless to do anything for his love except to die with her. In the end, he chose life. Perhaps it was for the sake of the egg, his unborn child, now safely in Kashchey’s possession. As her screams finally ceased, as the water closed over her head one last time, he dropped in fatigue on the bank of the lake and lay there for a long time.

  I never knew that birds could cry.

  Numb, I stumbled away from the Mirror and sank onto the grass.

  “What did you do to her?” my father demanded.

  “I showed her the true story of her birth,” Ivan said. “And, of the first Solstice sacrifice in this kingdom.”

  “The first sacrifice?” I whispered, trying to make sense of his words.

  “Kashchey killed the maiden and devoured her soul,” Ivan said. “But her love for him was so great it made him immortal. Or, rather, Undead. This ritual kept him young all these years. But it’s time to put a stop to it.”

  “Who are you?” my father whispered.

  Ivan smiled. “A man with nothing to lose. My family left me to die, and the Immortals gave me life back. In return, I promised to carry this through.”

  Dazed, I turned to Kashchey and met his dark gaze.

  “Why?” I whispered. “Why did you kill my mother?”

  Raven’s eyes opened in a flash. “You killed her, Kashchey?” The air trembled from the force of his shriek. “You killed her?” He shot down from the branch like a black arrow and grabbed the needle from Ivan’s hand. Rising high in the air, he bit it in half.

  The ground shook with thunder. Kashchey twisted in terrifyingly slow motion, losing his normal shape, turning from a dark, handsome man into a misshapen corpse, and then, gradually, to dust. A gust of wind rose from the ground and blew it away, until nothing remained.

  As the rustle settled above the tree crowns, the dark shapes of the Immortals turned and disappeared into the forest.

  I woke up to the feeling of a hand running down my cheek, arms holding me, supporting my lifeless body. I was blind and unfeeling. I was dead. I was a dove, the daughter of a raven who had given up his human form, and a beautiful maiden betrayed by her love. I had been the Mistress of the Solstice, but everything I did, everything I believed in, turned out to be a lie.

  A voice, gentle like the rustle of sunlit wheat and cornflowers on a bright summer afternoon, whispered into my ear. This voice made me aware of my body, limp against the lively form that supported it and kept it from collapsing on the ground. This voice slowly called my senses back to me one by one—the chill of the morning breeze, the soft murmur of the flowing water. But I s
till couldn’t see. My eyes were shut forever, unable to bear the sight of someone I thought to be my father, someone who was my whole world, turning into an evil devourer of souls, blown to dust.

  “Marya.” A soothing voice, gentle like the hands that caressed me, took away the pain.

  I stirred and opened my eyes.

  The new day was already dawning. In front of me was the lake, bathed in the soft eastern glow. A low branch was clearly outlined against the mirror-still water, a bird’s shape perched upon it, so black that it seemed to absorb the light.

  As he saw me looking, he turned and met my gaze.

  “Father,” I called out softly.

  “Be happy, Marya,” Raven said gently.

  I turned to Ivan, so infinitely close as he held me in his arms that I could never tell the two of us apart anymore. I felt as if I was coming home, as if a part of me that was missing for the longest time found its way back to its rightful place, making me feel, for the first time in my life, complete. Like the yellow flowers of a small forest plant, I found my way into the shelter of the purple leaves, which together made a complete living thing, a single inflorescence.

  Ivan-and-Marya.

  But Can Your Let Him Go

  by

  Cindy Lynn Speer

  This is me. The caution in your tale, the one with the thousand guises. Right now my disguise is nothingness, as I follow a farmer, leading his donkey down the dusty path into town. The donkey is well fed and the distance left to travel is long, yet the man has made no move to ride it, or the cart it is pulling.

  Kindness, then. It is confirmed when he reaches up and scratches the donkey between its long, dark grey ears, and says, “Not far, now. We will rest in a few minutes.” He is not thin, but one of those stocky, stable men, and soaked with sweat from the afternoon heat, so I am not sure if he is comforting himself or the animal. He has an air of being decently well off. Not rich, but his belongings are in good condition and unpatched.