“Gothel! Did you sleep at all?” It was Hazel. She was standing on the threshold of the balcony. “Come inside. It’s cold out there.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t? Come inside.” Hazel walked out to meet her sister and saw that Gothel was looking at the ruins of the conservatory. “She’s not going to rise from the ashes, Gothel. All of the rapunzel was destroyed.”
“Not all of it,” said Gothel, taking one small flower from the pocket of her dress.
“That’s not enough to bring her back, is it?” asked Hazel, fearful her mother’s spirit could somehow use the flower to rise from the dead.
“I’m not worried about Mother coming back. I’m worried about us. I’m worried about how we’re going to survive without her. Without her blood. Without her powers.” Gothel stood there a moment, looking at the smoldering ashes below. “I thought I’d lost you forever last night, Hazel. You and Primrose. It was terrifying finding you lying there in the darkness so still and so quiet. I thought you were dead.”
“But we’re fine, Gothel. And we’re home. We’re together. Together forever.”
Sisters. Together forever.
Gothel smiled. And then she remembered. “Wait! Primrose! She has Mother’s blood. Some of it, at least. We can do the ceremony again when she’s recovered. Then we won’t be so defenseless!”
“Gothel! We can’t put her through that! Not after what Mother did to her! Not after everything we went through last night.”
“We have no choice, Hazel! We have to! You didn’t see what happened to Mother! The way she died was horrible, and the same thing will happen to us if we don’t replant this flower and learn Mother’s magic.”
“Or we can destroy it and the entire forest and leave this place forever! Live normal lives without magic. There is nothing for us here, Gothel! Nothing! There is no magic to learn now that Mother is gone.”
“Primrose has some of Mother’s magic! She forced her to drink the blood! Maybe it’s enough, Hazel! Promise me we won’t give up. Please. Let’s just talk to Primrose about it when she’s feeling better. I promise we’ll only do it if she agrees. I promise I won’t force her.”
“But we still don’t know how to do the ceremony even if she agrees!”
“We still have all of Mother’s books. All her spells. Her history. The history of our ancestors! Everything is not lost! I can replant the flower and we can start again. We can still have the life we imagined. Please?”
“Okay, Gothel. As long as Prim doesn’t mind doing the ceremony.”
“What ceremony?” It was Primrose. She was standing in the center of the library in the shadow of a large stone bat hanging from the rafters. She looked drawn and pale in her white nightdress, and the cuts and bruises on her face and neck were all the more striking in contrast to her pallor.
“Prim! What are you doing out of bed?” scolded Hazel, running to her sister.
“I’m fine, Hazel. I promise! What were you two talking about?”
Hazel and Gothel just looked at Primrose. They weren’t ready to have that conversation right then—and they knew Primrose wasn’t ready to hear what they had to say.
“What? What is it?” Primrose insisted.
“Nothing, Prim. We can talk about it later. Let’s go downstairs and have some breakfast,” said Hazel, patting her hand.
“No, I want you to tell me what you were talking about right now!” Primrose put her hands on her hips and gave her sisters her infamous I’m very serious look.
“Gothel and I were discussing our options.”
“What options are those?” Primrose was clearly starting to get annoyed.
“Staying here in the dead woods or going into the world,” said Hazel, looking at Gothel.
“Well, we should go, of course! I don’t want to stay here!” said Primrose. “Why in Hades would we stay?”
Gothel sighed.
“What? You want to stay?” Primrose scoffed and continued. “Of course you want to stay! Well, you can stay if you want! You can stay forever for all I care, but I’m leaving! And I think Hazel wants to come with me!”
“Hazel wants to stay with me, Prim! And I wish you would, too! I need you both,” said Gothel as sweetly as she could, trying hard not to upset her sister even more than she already was.
“Gothel was hoping you’d be willing to share Mother’s blood with us, Prim. That way we would all have her powers. At least some of them, anyway.”
“Oh really? That’s why you need me? For Mother’s blood! What’s happened to you, Gothel? What in Hades is wrong with you? Fine! I’ll share Mother’s blood with you, but I’m not staying here. I will not stay in a place that houses dead children! I will not stay here and watch you turn into Mother! I don’t want any part of this sick fantasy you have in your head, the three of us being witches together. Doing magic. And controlling those things out there! Those children! Those dead children! You don’t think I saw you last night commanding them to their graves after you found me and Hazel? You don’t think I saw the look on your face when they followed your orders? You looked like Mother! Just like her, Gothel! And I won’t stay here watching you become more like her every day!”
“Then why are you sharing her blood with me, Prim? Why not just leave now?”
“Because! I need you to find the spell that lets me out of this place, and I know you won’t go with me no matter how much I beg! And as much as I want to hate you, I can’t! I love you, and I won’t just leave you here defenseless! With nothing. Now go to Mother’s books and figure out how we do the ceremony.”
“Now?” asked Gothel in shock. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. She wasn’t ready to lose Primrose. She wasn’t ready to say good-bye. Not like this. Not with Primrose hating her.
“Yes, now! We will do it tonight,” spat Primrose.
“That’s not enough time, Prim!” said Gothel.
“Well, it had better be, because I’m leaving at midnight either way, even if I have to use Mother’s powers to blast my way through the thicket!” Primrose turned to leave the room.
“Prim, no! It’s not enough time. Please!” Gothel begged.
Primrose laughed. “You’re more like Mother than you even realize, Gothel. You don’t care if I’m leaving. You only care that you won’t have enough time to work out how to do the blood ceremony before I go!” She left the room, slamming the door behind her and leaving Gothel gobsmacked.
“That’s not true! You know it’s not true. It’s not like she can leave anyway, not if I can’t find the spell.”
Hazel had tears sliding down her face. “I’m not so sure, Gothel. I’m going after Prim. Good luck finding Mother’s spell.”
Gothel stood alone in the library. She felt a terrible chill and wondered if her sisters were right.
Was she really like her mother?
No! They were sisters. Together forever. Wasn’t that the promise? It was Primrose who was breaking their vow. It was Primrose who was ruining everything!
Gothel grabbed her cloak, which was lying on the back of her favorite leather chair, threw it on, and left the library. The stone mansion was chilly that morning. She could feel the coolness of the stone floors penetrating her house slippers. The cold there was the coldness of death, and she hated it. We need to buy some rugs, some tapestries, Gothel thought. She had never understood why her mother hadn’t thought to make a proper home for them, why she was content to live in such a barren, cold place, always in the shadows of night creatures peering at them from the darkness.
Maybe if I made this a real home, Primrose would want to stay, she thought. I could let Primrose buy whatever she wants. We could make this place a real home, a beautiful place that she couldn’t possibly leave. And maybe she would be happy again.
Maybe.
Gothel went upstairs to her mother’s room. It was dark, all the curtains were drawn, and it was damp from the cold and mist outside. She felt strange going into her mother’
s room. The air was thick and stale, and there was a faint smell of her mother. It made her queasy. Gothel realized she had never really spent time there, in her mother’s room. The deep crimson sheer curtains hanging from the four-poster made the room even darker. She could almost see her mother sleeping there in her bed. No, it’s a trick of the light. She took a deep breath and looked around the room, trying to banish the image of her mother from her mind. The room was bare, like the rest of the house. It was drafty, without mirrors or furnishings of any kind aside from the four-poster, a desk at the window, and a little round table at her bedside. It seemed sad now, the empty room. Gothel almost forgot why she had gone up there.
The key.
It’s probably in the desk. Gothel went to her mother’s desk and opened the tiny drawer in the center. There it was: the key to Mother’s vault. She slipped it into the pocket of her cloak and left the room quickly. She couldn’t stand to be there much longer. She felt as if someone was watching her. As if her mother was there, telling her to get out.
As she left the room, she turned back to look at the bed again. And for a moment she thought she saw her mother standing there at the foot of the bed, her eyes blazing with anger.
“What are you doing?” It was Hazel. She was standing in the doorway.
“What? Oh! Hazel.”
“What’s wrong, Gothel? Did you see something?”
“I thought I did. Never mind. How’s Prim?”
“She’s fine. But she’s serious, Gothel. She wants to leave.”
“I know. But I have a plan!” Gothel smiled.
Hazel smiled, too. “You do, don’t you? Do you think it will work?”
“I hope it does! I really want Primrose to stay—and not just because I want to take over for Mother. I want you both to stay because we vowed to be together forever. I love you.”
“Then you’d better tell me about this plan. What can I do to help?”
Gothel, Hazel, and Primrose stood at the boundary of the dead woods. They rarely came that close to the thicket. They could see the villages in the distance and couldn’t help wondering what the people in those villages thought of the dreaded witches of the dead woods.
“Are you sure about this, Gothel?” asked Primrose.
“I am. Look.” Gothel had one of her mother’s books in her hand. It was open to the page that showed the spell to open a portal through the rosebush thicket. “We saw her do it, Prim. She squeezed her hand just like it’s illustrated here in the book. Look! Like this!”
“I see it, Gothel! But what am I supposed to do?”
“Concentrate! Think about what you’re trying to accomplish. Envision the red glowing ball that will open the thicket.”
“I don’t know, Gothel.”
“Prim, please! Do you want to get out of here? Do you want to see the world? We talked about this! I want you to make this place beautiful, make it a place you would want to stay in forever. We’ve lived in this dreary mansion our entire lives. It’s like a dead place. It’s not a home. Mother never made it beautiful, she was always so focused on her magic. I want you to bring it to life, Prim! I want you to decorate it with color. I want you to love it.”
Primrose laughed. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
Hazel smiled at both of her sisters. “Gothel wants us to stay because she loves us, Prim. She wants to keep our vow. Sisters together forever. And she wants to make a beautiful home for us. And the only way to do that is to get through that thicket.”
“It’s true, Prim! I really do!”
“I know you do. I can tell. It’s just…”
“What?”
“You seem like your old self again. Like the Gothel I love. That’s all.” Primrose took a breath. “Okay, let’s try to do this spell.” She looked again at the book Gothel was holding. “So, is this right?” She was holding her hand the way it was illustrated in their mother’s spell book.
“Yes. That’s right. Now just think about creating a red ball that you can use to open the thicket.”
“Okay,” said Primrose, not convinced it would work. She reached out her hand and closed it on something invisible. “Oh! I can feel something! I can feel something small, but I can’t see it! Can you see it?”
“That’s amazing, Prim! You can feel the ball in your hand?” asked Gothel, feeling giddy.
“I can!” said Primrose, laughing, excited that the spell was working.
“Visualize the ball, Prim! Make it solid!” Gothel said.
A tiny ball of light appeared in Primrose’s hand. It was wispy and silver, almost like smoke.
“Ah! Look! I made something! Should I throw it? Should I throw it?” asked Primrose, afraid to hold it in her hand too long.
“No! Imagine it larger, make it red,” urged Gothel.
Primrose screwed up her face. Her cheeks were flushed and splotchy from straining so hard. “I can’t! It won’t turn red.”
“Concentrate, Prim!” said Gothel. “Concentrate!”
“Ow!” Prim flicked her hand the way her mother had the night she opened the thicket. It sent the wispy silver ball into the rosebush thicket, where it dispersed the moment it made impact.
“Prim!”
“I’m sorry! I tried. I really did, but it started to burn my hand.”
“That’s okay, we can try again,” said Gothel, determined to make the spell work.
“Let’s try later, Gothel. Prim is tired.”
Gothel sighed. “I’m happy you tried, Prim. Don’t worry, we’ll figure out how to get out of here. I promise. Let’s have some breakfast.” The sisters walked the long path of dead weeping willows, passing the ruined conservatory as they made their way to their mansion on the hill. “I was thinking. Maybe we should do something with Mother’s ashes.”
Primrose shot Gothel a disapproving look, but Hazel answered. “I think Gothel is right. We should do something with Mother’s ashes. We should put her to rest. I think we should build something in the conservatory’s place, something beautiful so our minds don’t always go to that horrible night every time we pass it.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Primrose. “That’s a good idea, Hazel.”
“Well, who wants breakfast?” asked Hazel, leading her sisters back to their house. “We have scones waiting for us.”
The house seemed heavy with their mother’s memory. More than ever Gothel thought she had made the right decision to let Primrose decorate the house as she wished. Not only would she have her sisters; she would have the time she needed to work out the blood ritual, since Primrose had agreed to stay. Now they just needed to figure out how to get the thicket open so they could get the things they would need to make their somber mansion a home—a home she and her sisters would share forever.
The sister witches sat at the long wooden table in the dining room. It was a deep cherry wood. The only decorations in the barren room were carvings of ravens on the walls and over the archways. There was a blazing fire in the large stone fireplace, which had a mantel supported by two enormous statues crafted to look like dead trees with ravens perched in their branches. It was a cavernous room with many windows, open to the elements, overlooking the dead woods and the graves of their mother’s minions. The entire landscape was bleak, with its gray sky, black trees, and white headstones. The sisters just sat there, silently staring at the plate of scones on the table, which was littered with dried leaves that had blown in from the windows. The scones were untouched, with the hazelnut butter and preserves sitting beside them.
“We have to figure out how to open the thicket. Our pantries are full now, but we will have to refill them at some point,” said Hazel.
“I don’t even know where Mother went to get all our supplies. I mean, I don’t recall her ever leaving the dead woods, do you?”
“I wonder. Do you think the tall creature Jacob would know?” asked Gothel.
“I don’t know, Gothel. I’d rather never wake them again,” sai
d Primrose, finally taking one of the scones and putting it on a small gray plate edged with silver.
“I understand,” said Gothel, not wanting to upset her sister by saying she didn’t agree with her. She quickly changed the subject, directing their conversation to the house renovations. “We should have shutters made for these windows, don’t you think? I never understood why mother wanted this room open to the outside. What do you think, Prim? Shutters?”
“I think that’s a good idea. We can open them when we want to let in the light.”
“Yes! You know, I’m going to find Mother’s journals and see if there is something written about the thicket, and where she got our food and other supplies. Hazel, can you take an inventory and see how long our current supplies will last?”
“Good idea, Gothel,” said Hazel.
“And, Prim, would you like to go around the house and make notes on everything we will need to make the house as you would like it? Furniture, drapes, paintings, statues—you name it—whatever your heart desires.”
“Do we really have enough gold to do all of that?” asked Primrose.
Mother Knows Best: A Tale of the Old Witch Page 5
