by Sarah Cross
The footsteps she’d heard. Whoever it had been … they’d told Jasper.
Or it had been Jasper standing there. Watching them through the I-love-yous and the long embrace.
“Surprised?” he said. “I know I was.”
He got away, she told herself.
They got his cloak, but he ran.
“I thought we were both trying to make this work. I thought, at least, that I didn’t have to compete with your Huntsman anymore. So to find out your dead lover’s alive and you’re only staying here because you want to destroy my father, well—that was eye-opening. I guess you fancy yourself a hero, and not just a spoiled bitch.”
She flung the coffee carafe. It hit the wardrobe instead of Jasper, bounced, and barely splashed him. He wiped the drops away with the back of his hand.
“Throw your tantrum,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re pissed at me.”
“Get out!”
“Would you say it means I loved you if I gave him a head start? Not that it mattered in the end. The guards are good at catching intruders. They enjoy meting out punishment. It’s probably the only release they get.”
Viv held the cloak to her face and inhaled—afraid she’d catch a hint of cigarette smoke, or Henley’s skin. Something that would tell her it was his. But there was only the smell of the underworld. Wet stone. Blood and silver.
“You’re lying,” she said. “This could be anyone’s.”
It could be Henley’s—but it wasn’t. She wouldn’t let it be.
“And I’m not staying. You can’t keep me here.”
“Can’t I? Where are you going to go? The bottom of the lake for one last kiss?”
She pushed past Jasper out of the room and he didn’t try to stop her. He shouted: “You, kissing a dead boy—how ironic! But you can’t revive him. You can’t do anything!”
His taunts followed her as she ran from the palace, and as she stumbled through the forest she kept hearing him—you … can’t … do anything.… All the way around the lake, until she was panting so hard her breaths drowned out that inner voice. Her throat felt like it had been scraped with a dull knife and there was a pain in her side like someone had stabbed her.
She’d known, when she ran, that there would be no escape. The doors to the surface were closed at this hour. But she’d let a desperate hope drive her. As if her defiance and anger could create a way out, the way Rapunzel’s tears could heal her prince’s blindness. But Viv wasn’t pure of heart like that, and the tears that poured down her cheeks didn’t have magical powers.
“I hate this place!” she screamed. “Let me out!”
… out …
… out …
She felt like the underworld was mocking her with each echo.
You … can’t … do … anything.
The shadows didn’t shift to reveal a secret door. No kindly fairy appeared to dry her tears and make her dreams come true. But she wasn’t alone.
“Why are you crying?”
Viv turned to see who had spoken, and found a woman sitting in the forest, facing away from her. She was dressed in a blue-and-yellow Snow White costume—the Disney-inspired dress found in countless costume shops, complete with curled black hair and a red headband. The woman was dressed for the Fairy Tale theme night, but the club had closed hours ago.
“Are you lost?” Viv asked. It wasn’t the kind of thing you said to an adult, but something about the woman struck her as childish. Maybe it was the props scattered around her: a stuffed fawn, a hand mirror and comb, a fake apple covered with red glitter.
“Lost? Always.” The voice seemed darker, tragic somehow, and Viv took a second look. She remembered those glittery apples. As light as puff pastry. Dusting her hand with red sparkles when she held them. Her stepmother had used them as Christmas ornaments once.
“Regina?” she whispered.
The girlish Snow White turned around, and Regina’s face smiled back at her. Berry-red lipstick. Porcelain foundation. Her pupils as wide as if she’d dripped poison into them.
“What are you doing here?” Viv asked.
“Waiting for you. Come sit with me.”
Viv was wary, but overwhelmingly lonely, and Regina was smiling at her in a way she hadn’t in so long.…
Cautiously, Viv came closer, and sat down just outside Regina’s circle of princess accessories.
“How have you been?” Regina asked.
“You should know. You poisoned me yesterday.”
Regina laughed. “I mean beyond that. Your Prince Charming. Your regrettably loyal Huntsman. How’s that working out?”
“You probably know that, too. You keep pretty good tabs on me.” She didn’t think for a second that Regina wanted to have a heart-to-heart. If anything, she probably wanted to rub Viv’s face in the mess she’d made of her life. “How did you get here? The doors are supposed to be blocked to you.”
“They are. They’re blocked to your friends, too. Well—that’s what I’ve heard. It’s powerful magic. More than I can undo with witchcraft. But there are some rather, well, you’d call them evil fairies who think the fairest is being a little unfair. Skipping out on her curse and going straight to happily ever after. Although if they think you’re happy, they don’t know you very well.”
Viv looked away. “They gave you a way in. Did they give you a way out, too? Could you … take me with you?”
Regina smiled. “You want to continue the show for our fairy friends back in Beau Rivage? An interesting proposal.” She extended a pale hand, and her fingertips grazed Viv’s hair, her ear, before Viv pulled away.
“Your hair’s a mess,” Regina said. “You still don’t know how to fix it.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“Yes, but you never have. You’re like a boy, except a boy has the sense to put on a baseball cap. Come here. Let me do it.”
When Viv hesitated, Regina cleared the toys away and pulled Viv in front of her, almost into her lap, as if Viv were five years old again. She picked up the comb—a beauty tool, but also one of the poisoned items from the fairy tale—and Viv grabbed her wrist.
“No,” Viv said. “No comb. If you want the rest of this curse to play out, you have to take me back to Beau Rivage with you.”
“Fine.” Regina released the comb, and Viv picked it up and flung it away from them. “I can fix your hair with my fingers. Remember how I used to do it? Braid it when we were at Seven Oaks and it was hot and you wanted it out of your face?”
“I remember,” Viv said. “Yours was braided, and I wanted to look like you.”
“Come here. Let me do it for old times’ sake. I have to wait for the fairy to open the door for me, anyway.”
“You’ll take me with you?”
“I might as well. Otherwise your dad will complain about the money I wasted on that glass coffin.”
“Has he … asked about me?”
“I haven’t seen him. He’s been hearing some vile things about me lately, most of them true. He knows enough to keep his distance.”
Viv sighed and settled into the space in front of her stepmother, the way she had when Regina had first come to live with them. She knew nostalgia was dangerous—it had made her prey to the apple—but right then she didn’t care.
Regina finger-combed Viv’s hair, teasing apart the tangles. “I know you probably hate me. But I did you a favor when I took your heart. I don’t mean that business with the Huntsman; I took it from you long before that. Little by little I was carving away at your weakness, making you colder, killing that naïve, innocent part of you. I wish someone had done that for me. Well, life did that for me, but it took its sweet time.
“If your heart is too big, everyone can see it. They know exactly what will hurt you, and they’ll do it, because it gives them power over you. Power. That’s what you need. Not love. Love depends on somebody else. Power you can get by yourself.”
Regina’s nimble fingers tugged Viv’s hair this way and that
, lifting it above her ear, twisting, braiding.
“I knew how to hurt you … and it felt good to do it. You wouldn’t believe how good. I hated how easily everything came to you. How adored you were. That love you had—as a child—why did you get a love like that? I would have given anything to be loved that way. But you, you just …”
Viv closed her eyes, sick with regret. “Why do you act like no one ever loved you? I loved you.”
For a second Regina’s fingers were softer, almost caressing, at the nape of Viv’s neck. “Hmm. Maybe you did. But it’s funny … how we want love from certain people, and if we don’t get it from them, it’ll never be enough coming from someone else.”
“Coming from me.”
“It’s not your fault, Viv. It’s just the way things are.”
A few last twists, and then Regina tucked the loose strands behind Viv’s ears. “There. Do you want to check the mirror?”
Viv reached for the hand mirror, nervous to admire her reflection in front of her stepmother. And as she leaned forward, she felt the stab of a hairpin, deep into her scalp.
A fierce burning pain, and then—
Body oozing down, her muscles useless. Regina’s hands guiding her to the ground, where she lay on her back, lovely coiled hair flat against the earth, eyes gaping, lungs frozen.
It felt like the instant you took a deep breath, and held it, no air moving in or out, your body stiff, full, anticipating. A moment that went on and on with no change. She wanted to exhale, to move—but her body was paralyzed by the poison. Her eyes stayed open like those of a doll.
Regina circled her, slipping in and out of view.
“Only one of us can survive this. I didn’t choose this curse. I wanted to be you. I wanted to be the beautiful girl the prince wants to save. But it wasn’t meant to be. I have to ensure my own survival.”
Regina bent down and kissed her, once, on the lips.
“Good-bye, Viv. I hope death comes for you soon.”
Regina fluttered out of sight. Butter-yellow satin and tiny black shoes.
The silver branches sprawled across the sky, as stiff and still as bones. Viv could hear Regina’s footsteps, crunching, fading, until they were drowned out by the music of the trees, the heartless, shivering laughter of the underworld.
She felt her breath catch, her chest strain with pressure—but it was all in her mind, a memory of what panic felt like, because she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything.
Like a true princess, all she could do was wait.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A GUARD FOUND VIV’S BODY, and an eternity passed before he returned with Jasper. Together they carried Viv back to the palace; they even dropped her, as if she’d choked on another apple and they only needed to jolt it free, but her body just tumbled to the stones. The hairpin didn’t come loose. She felt every burst of pain, but couldn’t cry out, couldn’t even prove she wasn’t dead. Jasper had listened at her chest and found no heartbeat, and muttered, “But that doesn’t mean anything; she has no heart.” They brought her to her room in the palace and laid her on the bed. The guard left, and Jasper sat down somewhere, out of sight.
She didn’t want him to touch her, but she thought he would kiss her, check her body for poisoned jewelry, at least try to revive her. He didn’t. He sighed; she could hear the tap of his shoes on the floorboards as he paced.
And then he turned out the light and left her there.
* * *
Viv couldn’t sleep. She remained painfully alert, but unable to twitch her finger or shift her eyes or signal to anyone that she was awake inside her body.
Hours passed. The door opened. The glow of the lamp drew a circle of light on the ceiling. She heard the sigh of springs in an armchair, then scattered footsteps on the floor.
“Did you kiss her?” Garnet’s voice. “Did you look to see if she’s wearing anything new? A cursed ring, perhaps?”
“No.” Jasper.
“Aren’t you going to?”
“I haven’t decided. I don’t particularly want to.”
“Jasper! You can’t just leave her like this.”
“Can’t I? Who would know?”
“You’re being cruel.…”
“I’m cruel? She was using me. Letting me believe—”
“Yes, I know—and I don’t think she was right—but still. You can’t leave her to waste away as a … statue.”
“I think I’d like her better as a statue.”
“Jasper!”
“I really thought it was meant to be, Garnet. From the first night I met her, I thought we could be something together. That it would last. But we were nothing. She never had any intention of trying to love me. She was so angry when we got engaged—well, now I know why. Her Huntsman. And I owe her something? As a thank-you for playing with me like that?”
“You do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
“I already saved her once. I don’t have to keep saving her unless I want to. And I don’t want to.”
“Jasper …”
“If I wake her, I’ll have to marry her. Father’s already making the preparations. I’d rather be alone and lonely than married to a girl like her. Maybe I’ll change my mind in a few years,” he muttered. “I could always store her in a closet until then. It’s not like she’s going anywhere.”
“You’re just angry right now. You have to calm down, and then …”
“I’m tired of looking at her. Let’s get out of here.”
The light clicked off. Darkness descended. Viv was alone.
Torture. The worst tension she had ever felt. Her insides rigid with panic, her lungs tight with trapped breath. She wanted to run, cry, scream to release some of her fear, but it just kept building. There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t break her own curse. She was a princess who depended on her beauty … and that was enough to attract a stranger’s attention and get him to save her, but she and Jasper weren’t strangers. The curiosity of the prince who stumbles upon the lovely maiden in the forest was gone. He knew her well enough to despise her, to want to punish her. And that was what he would do.
Who knew how long she could survive in this state? A Sleeping Beauty enchantment could last for a hundred years, but this was different. Would she die after one year? Five? Twenty? She’d go mad after a month of this: trapped in her own mind, as helpless as a mannequin. They could store her in a closet, leave her on the bed to gather dust, use her as a toy …
She’d rather be dead. But death wasn’t hers to choose anymore.
I hate you, she thought.
And: Save me.
And: Please let this end. When she thought anything at all.
The door opened and light from the hall trickled in. It touched her face, and she drank up the sensation, that glow that proved she did exist.
Footsteps. More than one person—she wasn’t sure how many.
And then the troll’s face, leering over her, teeth bared as curiosity turned to glee. He was gloating, pleased to see her like this: immobile, silenced.
“Our dear Vivian … she doesn’t look like herself, does she? There’s a bit of terror in her eyes. It makes her prettier.”
The troll moved out of sight. “You don’t want to wake her … because you don’t want her, is that it? You’ll have her. And she’ll have you.”
“She doesn’t want to stay here,” Jasper said. “She never did.”
“Well.” The queen’s voice now. “We’ll tell her she can live here and be your bride, or we can bury her. She’ll learn to want it.”
“Very good, my dear,” the troll said. “Young girls don’t know what they want. That’s why they have fate and their elders to guide them. Send the servants in. We need them to dress her. The guests will be arriving soon.”
Viv didn’t know if it was a dream or really happening; she was too afraid to hold out any hope. Help … please … I hate you all but please just break the curse.…
S
oon there was the sound of silk rustling; the low voices of girls giving one another instructions. They pulled Viv upright, jerking her by the arms, then wrestled her body this way and that to get her into the enormous white wedding dress. They pushed her arms into narrow lace sleeves, buttoned her into tight silk brocade, slid a garter up her cold, limp thigh.
“Shouldn’t she have a bath?” one of the maids murmured.
“Just blow the dust off.”
The maids wiped Viv’s face and hands with a warm cloth, spritzed her with perfume, and began to loosen her braids and comb the dust from her hair. They did the job quickly, as if they were eager to be done with it, and she felt a jarring stab of pain as the comb collided with the poisoned hairpin. The pin was sunk so deeply that it stayed where it was, moving only enough to hurt. “There’s something in her hair,” the maid said. Steady fingers found the pin and pried it loose.
Viv felt her body come out of stasis as if it had been put on pause and all of a sudden thrust forward: air punched into her lungs; she sputtered and choked and almost started hyperventilating, she felt so desperate for air, and so afraid that the ability to breathe would be taken from her again. One of the maids pounded her back while she coughed; another held her upright. The rest jumped back as if a corpse had just revived.
“Excellent job waking the bride, girls,” the troll said. “Now we don’t have to worry about the groom seeing her in her wedding dress before the ceremony. It’s bad luck, you know.”
“I’m not marrying him!” Viv said.
The queen pinched the hairpin between two fingers, and pointed the bloodstained tip at Viv. “I can stab this back into your pretty little head and knock you out again. I don’t care if my son takes you to bed like that—it’s not unheard of in fairy tales. So play nice, won’t you?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE TROLL ESCORTED VIV DOWN an aisle littered with rose petals, a sea of guests on either side: fairies, trolls, and Royals dressed in black. Eleven princes, but no sign of Garnet. Jasper waited at the altar, his face as cold as if it were made of stone. A tall, dark-haired man stood beside Jasper, bearing a wicked-looking executioner’s ax instead of the wedding bands. There was no priest.
