Snow Roses

by Taryn Tyler

  The walk wasn't long. The forest was still. Quiet. I was almost able to convince myself it was just an ordinary forest until we passed a large oak and I could hear the cruel tittering of hobgoblins. And once I could have sworn a ghost child winked at me from out of the shadows. Snow kept her knife gripped in her hand in case we ran into anything with teeth but we arrived at the village unscathed. Perhaps the sunlight was enough to keep the dangers at bay.

  Or perhaps the forest wanted us out not in.

  I shivered at the thought, turning to face Snow. She slid her knife into her belt. I'd given her one of Gran's shifts and bodice to wear since I hadn't been able to clean the blood out of her velvet gown. The dark brown and cream colored fabrics hung loose around her chest and legs and arms, almost as if they were trying to swallow her. I hadn't considered before how small she was. The top of her head only reached my chin.

  The village was quiet, even for late morning. Probably because of the snow. Each home was already stocked with all the supplies they would need until spring. There would be little trade in the months to come. Still. I had expected to see at least a handful of women gossiping at the well.

  We reached Greta's house across the square. I knocked but there was no answer.

  “Greta.” I said.

  Nothing.

  I made my voice louder. “Greta, it's Rose.”

  Still no answer.

  I pushed against the door. It slid open at my touch. My stomach swirled with uneasiness. Greta always kept the latch down. Even when she was only going to the woodshed.

  Snow followed me inside. I'd forgotten how small the house was. How gray the walls were.

  “Greta.” The floorboards creaked underfoot as my eyes adjusted to the shadows. The cupboard door was left open. A shattered plate lay next to the stove, which looked like it hadn't been cleaned out in days. I stared at the piles of ash inside. It wasn't like Greta to be untidy. But there was something else. Something different I had noticed the moment I stepped inside but hadn't been able to place.

  “The spinning wheel.” I said. “It's gone.” Greta would never part with her spinning wheel. Not for anything. It was her livelihood. Her life.

  And then I knew. The cupboards were left open because Greta had emptied them in a hurry, not even bothering to pick up her precious china when she'd dropped it, too busy to clean the soot out of the stove or latch the door shut when she'd gone.

  Gone. But where? And . . . why?

  I couldn't stay in the village without a spinning wheel. There would be no way for me to earn my bread. 'There is nothing there for you.' the huntsman had said 'It isn't safe.' He had been right about the books. Perhaps . . .

  I was worried about Greta. I was. But the thought of returning to Gran's cottage --even through the terrible dangers of the wood – sent my blood dancing. As if I belonged there. As if I wondered why I had even left.

  A clattering sounded from outside. Faint at first but it grew louder as it came closer. A sharp, grinding sort of tapping. I turned to Snow. “Is that . . . horses?”

  Snow already had her hand on her knife. “Soldiers.”

  No one else in the village had horses. I stepped up to the window and peered out. Half a dozen soldiers pulled their mounts to a stop around the well in the village square. They dismounted, laughing gruffly with each other as they filled their water skins. I turned around to face Snow.

  Snow pulled away from the window, melting back into the shadows. She leaned against the wall and clutched the hilt of her knife. “I have to go.” She said.

  “Where?” I glanced at the door. They would see us the moment we stepped outside.

  I looked back at Snow. Her expression was familiar. Dangerously close to the dazed, unseeing way she had stared through me when she'd woken in the night. Pale. Transfixed.

  What was she so frightened of? Soldiers in the village was unusual. Especially when the taxes had already been gathered this season --twice. But what interest would they have in . . .

  A noble girl with no place to go. A fugitive.

  I stepped away from the window, careful not to be seen. “They don't know you're here, Snow. They can't see you.”

  Snow nodded. A glimmer of understanding returned to her eyes.

  We sat down on the floor with our back against the thin wooden wall. The soldiers' voices carried from across the square. I couldn't make out what they were saying but from the tone of their laughter it couldn't have been very polite. Snow closed her eyes. Her breath began to deepen in long slow droughts. Every few minutes her whole body would twitch.

  It was late morning by the time the soldiers left. Sunlight pierced through the window, bright and strong over the floor of Greta's abandoned house. I listened as their shouts and laughter died away bit by bit. The square outside was silent but for the low whistle of the wind. I nudged Snow, lying still with her head against the wall. Her eyes fluttered open. Long lashes blinked in the wall's shadow. I held my finger to my lips for silence and together we crawled to the window.

  The square was empty. We watched the wind drift across the trampled snow then turned to face each other.

  “You're the princess.” I said “The one who ---the dead king's daughter. They said you were dead.”

  “I'm not dead.” She said it in a monotone, as if she didn't quite believe it.

  “What now?” I asked. I should look for Greta. I should find out why the soldiers had come here, why the villagers seemed to have expected them.

  “Back to the cottage.” Snow said. “Unless . . . unless you want to stay.”

  I shook my head. The huntsman had been right. There was nothing for me here. If Greta had taken her spinning wheel she wasn't in the village. If she wasn't in the village . . . I had no idea where she had gone. She had never spoken of any life outside of it. No past. No dreams. She had just lived here with me. And now she didn't.

  I followed Snow out of the house and back through the dormant village. Our feet crunched against the snow in the silence. Once I thought I saw a pair of eyes peering at us from inside one of the houses but when I looked again it was only a smudge of dust and frost on the windowpane.

  At last we reached the edge of the wood. The long chilling shadows of the trees seemed to welcome us back with a thrill that was almost fear and almost joy. I released a sigh of satisfaction as we walked along the path, listening to the winter birds flutter through the branches above us. Rabbits and foxes –and probably hobgoblins – scurried in the bushes. I listened for ghosts but heard only the wind and the trees themselves. Snow limped a little beside me, already tired from the long pointless walk to the village. I offered her my arm for support but she shrank away from my touch, insisting she could manage on her own.

  We had almost reached the bridge. The air was clear but for the warm steam of our own breath. I heard a sound. A whisper though the trees. Only it sounded almost like the gentle moan of a human child. The air began to moisten.

  I stopped, turning toward Snow. She stopped too, her deep red lips open in a circle of surprise.

  A mist settled around us, thickening from white to silver to a deep unearthly gray. A moment later –hardly more than the drop of an eyelash –I could hardly make out the small dark form of her silhouette beside me. It was darker than night.

  “Ghosts.” Snow whispered. Almost a gasp.

  I opened my mouth to answer but a different voice shivered through me. The quiet hissing whisper of a child.

  “Rose.”

  I shut my eyes. How did a ghost know my name?

  “Rose?” That was Snow. Her voice was surprisingly steady. “Are you there, Rose? I can't see the path.”

  “I'm here.” I reached through the fog until I felt the tight grip of her fingers. I closed my hand around hers, feeling the warmth of her skin, no longer scorching with fever. Her pulse beat against mine, both cupped inside our palms. Just the right amount of alive. Just the right amount of steady.

  “Did you hear that voice?” She as
ked.

  “Yes.” I said. There were two of us this time. We could keep each other from spooking into madness. I fought back a shiver. “Sit down. We'll get lost if we try to find the path. We'll have to wait out the mist the way we did the soldiers.”

  I sat down, cross legged, onto the ground. Snow lowered herself beside me. She did not let go of my hand. I wouldn't have let her if she had tried. The ghosts could play tricks on our eyes but they couldn't replicate the warm hold of a human hand. Especially not one clammy with sweat like Snow's.

  “What if the mist doesn't clear?” She asked.

  I didn't answer.

  Snow shivered beside me. I could hardly see her through the mist but I could feel the sudden twitch in her wrist as her body tried to fight off the cold. The motion vibrated through me and I shivered to.

  “What's that song you hum?”

  “Gran's song?” I asked.

  “The one you hummed when you mixed the herbs and tidied the cottage. It's always different but also always . . . the same. Warm and rampant. Like fire.”

  I shrugged, forgetting for a moment that she couldn't see the gesture through the fog. I hadn't realized I'd been humming in the cottage. “Just a song I hum.” I said. “It comforts me.”

  “Me too.”

  So I began to hum. Softly at first, letting the melody seep into my lungs. Then I closed my eyes. The vibrations took over deep inside my belly. I felt the music shoot up through my throat and scatter into the air, shaking each particle of mist. The droplets collecting on my skin slid off, one by one. A soft, subtle warmth filled the air around me. Snow and I both stopped shivering. Snow leaned her head against my shoulder. Her breath tickled the surface of my neck. Soft. Gentle. I knew she needed rest after our walk to the village so I thought of sleep as I hummed. I thought of soft beds and long, sweet dreams.

  Snow's breathing slowed. Her head rolled limp onto my breast. I lowered her onto the ground beside me, never letting go of her hand, and stretched out on the grass next to her. The grass was dry. The air was warm. Snow moaned peacefully in her sleep. My eyes drooped.

  I woke with a start. The air was clear, illuminated by a steady stream of moonlight in front of my eyes.

  “Rose.”

  I looked up, propping myself onto my elbow. The ghost child – the first one I had seen that night when I was looking for Gran –stood in front of me. I could see all of her but for one of her shoulders and a leaf shaped piece of her chin where the moonlight didn't shine.

  I sat up, my heart pounding. I gripped Snow's hand. Remembering the feeling of warmth. Remembering where I was. Like touching the earth. Like coming home. I took a deep breath and stared straight through the ghost girl.

  “What do you want?” I demanded.

  “You.” The ghost girl said. Then a moment later, as if it took all her strength to pound out each syllable. “Per. . . mis. . . sion.”

  “Permission? For what?”

  “To. . . speak.”

  “Speak.” I said, before I could wonder what it was she might say. What she might know that could drive me mad even with Snow's hand gripped in mine. I could feel the ghost girl's story swirling around her. Fear. Abandonment. A sharp, soul wrenching pain in her chest. Screams no one heard. Soft, delicate hands.

  “We are sorry for the mist.” Her voice sliced through my mind, pushing it away from the visions of her past with an almost feral force. “Witching hour is the only time we are strong. We needed you to wait. We needed to ask.”

  “Ask what?”

  “You are the witch of the wood. Will you claim us?” “I'm not ---what do you mean 'claim' you?”

  “If you claim us you will be safe here. If you claim us we will protect you.”

  “Why?” I asked. I'd never heard of ghosts protecting anyone.

  “To hear your song.” The breathy monotone of her voice broke for a moment, almost as if she would burst into tears. But ghosts couldn't cry. They could only moan and whisper. “We can't hear it unless you claim us the way Sable did.”

  I held my breath, almost afraid to speak. “Who is Sable?”

  “You know.”

  And I did. The one who had taught me the song. The one who had lived in these woods year after year, protected by ghosts.

  Almost protected.

  “I claim you.” I said. If Gran had done it there could be no harm in it. “You may hear my song. You may protect my home.”

  Snow

  Rose said that the wolf creature wouldn't come back. I believed her. She said Hans had told her that it wouldn't. I believed him.

  Winter waxed on with Rose and I inside the cottage. Her grandmother had stored enough food to last us until spring. I sometimes wondered why she had stored so much. Almost as if she had known that she would be feeding two rather than one. Two that weren't her.

  In the mornings I helped Rose make a fire and boil a wheat porridge. I'd never cooked before. My help slowed her down at first but after a few days I could manage the porridge and even the washing up on my own. Once my foot and shoulder healed I took to chopping wood and resuming my knife practice while Rose rambled through the dormant vines of her grandmother's gardens, but each day there was less and less daylight to work by. Most of our time was spent on the hearth rug as I taught Rose to read by the faint glow of the fire.

  She was a quick learner if sometimes impatient. We didn't have any paper or quills to write with so it took some time to show her where one letter stopped and another ended. Especially with her grandmother's thin, inconsistent penmanship.

  “I'm tired of repeating sounds.” Rose complained one evening. She rolled onto her back, resting her head against the side of her arm. Thick coils of red hair curled around her wrist and the side of her neck like ribbons against silk. A storm raged outside, whirling ice into the windowpanes. “When can I read the words?”

  Wind shuddered against the walls outside. A fresh fall of snow gathered in the corners of the window. I held her grandmother's journal out to her. It was her favorite of the three books. I could tell by the gentle way she turned each page as if she expected them to crumble at her touch. I preferred the herbal and the recipe book. The stories in the journal were wild and frightening, changing threads halfway through and usually unfinished. The idioms were cryptic and the rhymes . . . something in their relentless rhythms made me almost afraid to speak them aloud.

  “Here.” I turned to one of the first pages. A list of spider lore that turned into a story about drowning in dew drops. “Find all the ls on this page.”

  Rose lifted her head and rested it in the palm of her hand. She took the book from me but didn't look at the pages. “You're different when you're talking about letters.” She said. “Almost . . . commanding.”

  “Find the ls.” I pointed to the page again.

  Rose smiled. A strange crooked smile that almost made me blush. “Like that. You don't hide.”

  My fingers tightened around my palms. A habit from gripping my knife hilt. “I don't hide.” But it wasn't true. If I didn't hide I wouldn't be here. If I didn't hide . . . .

  “Papa used to help me with my letters.” I said in almost a whisper. An image entered my mind of Papa lifting me onto his knee to peer at a big book painted with bright ink pictures of birds and angels. It had been so long ago. I must have still been in the nursery.

  Rose rolled her eyes toward the loft, almost, but not quite, stopping on the feather bed neither of us slept in. She bent her lip then looked down at the journal. She scanned her finger over the messy scrawl of text, concentrating as she looked for ls.

  The wind beat against the four walls of the cottage, howling and screeching as ice caked to the windowpanes all through the night. When morning came the storm had only grown fiercer. We could hardly see through the blurred fog of gray outside and Rose had to fill the cracks in the door with scraps of her grandmother's sheets to keep the icy wind from scattering the embers in the fireplace.

  Unable to go outside, we worked o
n Rose's reading but not even my concentration lasted long. Rose slammed the herbal I'd given her to work with shut after the first hour. A fresh rush of wind pushed against the cracks in the door, forcing its way through the snow drenched pieces of sheet. The soggy strips fell out of the cracks. Bone chilling air swirled through the cottage, filling every corner. I shivered.

  “I can't stay in here. “Rose paced back and forth from the door to the fireplace, shaking her head, twitching her nose. “I can't stay trapped inside like this all day. I can't.”

  I watched her from where I still sat by the fire with the herbal open on my lap. She stopped by the window and pressed her palms against the glass. The wind rattled the door. My palms itched for my knife.

  Rose whirled around to face me. “How can you just sit there? Sitting still –it's like . . . it's like hiding, only ---only we have no idea when it will end or if it even will. We're trapped in here. We're trapped, Snow and I can't breathe.”

  The wind howled. Remnants of nightmares shuddered through me. The sound of the lock I never heard when the pale woman clicked it into place. “The storm will end.” I said

  Rose glared at me. She bounced her curls against her back and scrunched her nose. “Eventually. That doesn't do us any good now.” She turned again to face the blank gray of the window.

  The cold hissed outside. It laughed like a snake. Nightmares stirred again inside my head. Vines around my chest. Me unable to move. Pale, soft hands.

  I stood and joined Rose by the window. “I don't like it either.” I said. “I hate waiting. I hate hiding. When Lucille first came to the manor –before her and Papa were officially wed –I thought I could hide from her. I thought . . .”

  I stared out into the gray of the storm. Like empty space inside my head. Empty space that wasn't empty at all. I wished it was.

  “Once --preparations were being made for the wedding. The whole manor was turned upside down. There were ribbons and flowers and people practicing marching all over the place. My dancing tutor was helping my flute instructor prepare the music so I had the afternoon free. I went down to the kennels first because I had heard there was a new litter of pups but the mother snarled at me and wouldn't let me near them so I meandered through the halls instead.