by Dawn Steele
“Technicalities.” Gustav waved his hand. “So are we going or what?”
“We’re in a tower accessible by only one stairway, and the only door to it is locked,” Snow White said. She was still winded by the sudden turn of events. Outside the window, lightning zigzagged in a devil’s trident, followed by thunder so loud that it juddered her eardrums.
“Whatever we’re going to do,” Wilhem said, “we’d better do it fast.”
Rain began to spatter the window sill.
“Right,” Snow White said. Her mind was a jangled mess of half-formed thoughts. She strode into the hallway and into another chamber. She stopped short when she saw the bed. “What is this?”
Gustav wrapped his neck around the doorway. “Oh, it’s thirty mattresses stacked on top of one another.”
Wilhem chimed in, “Old wives’ way of telling if you’re a virgin by putting a pea into your – ”
“ – under the bottommost mattress, technically,” Gustav interrupted.
Snow White studied the stacked mattresses all the way up to the ceiling. She noted the sheets layering each mattress and the ladder against the pile. Her eyes gleamed.
Two minutes later, Wilhem was on top of the ladder, stripping off the sheets. Dust motes swirled like snowflakes. The brightly patterned pieces of cloth billowed as they floated gaily down. On the floor below, Snow White and Gustav tied the ends of the sheets together to form a makeshift ladder, adding knots for footholds.
“You missed that bit over there,” Gustav said.
“Do it yourself,” Snow White shot back.
When they finished, Snow White surveyed the grounds. Outside, the rain poured down as if heaven’s trapdoor were sprung. She could make out the whipping trees as the wind rustled through them with a constant whooooooo. Wilhem was right. It was now or never.
She flung the sheet-ladder out of the window. A torrent of rain spattered her face. Water wormed into her nostrils and she spluttered.
“I actually have vertigo,” Gustav announced.
“Deal with it,” Wilhem said unkindly. He looped the other end of the sheet around a wall lamp fixture and tied several complicated knots to secure it.
“I suppose now isn’t the time to say I’m a little overwhelmed by all this,” Gustav whispered to Snow White.
She nodded, understanding. He was only twelve after all. “Is that thing going to hold?” she asked Wilhem worriedly.
“Only one way to find out.” Wilhem swung to his brother. “Seeing as you’re a scaredy-cat, you better go first before this thing breaks.”
“I’m not scared, I just have vertigo!”
“Same thing.”
“Rear orifice.”
“What did you call me?”
Gustav went first into the slinging rain. Visibility was so poor that Snow White was sure he had been blown away by the storm. She pictured Gustav floating like a kite towards Lapland, his yells snatched away by the wind. After an interminable period, she felt two sharp tugs on the sheet ladder. She hurriedly threw her shoes out of the window, wondering if she would ever see them again.
She grabbed the hemline of her gorgeous dress and hiked it up above her knees, aware of Wilhem’s eyes on her legs. As she vaulted over the sill, the wind immediately knocked her against the wall. She clung precariously on. The rain struck her with sharp pellets that stung like pine needles. Down, down, one step at a time, she repeated to herself to the tune of an old nursery rhyme that Hanna Cherry used to croon to her. Home seemed so far away that she felt a sudden pang despite the blistering cold. Oh, what she would give for things to go back to the way they were – when she was ugly (comparatively), young, and blissfully unaware of anything but insects.
Before she knew it, the balls of her feet struck bottom and she almost fell.
“Here he comes.” Gustav’s face turned skyward into the lashing rain.
Wilhem’s falling silhouette was a stark puppet against the lighted oblong of the window. He bounced beside them, as sprightly as a cat.
“Quit showing off,” Gustav said.
“Quit talking out of the wrong hole.”
They sped to a cluster of dark structures, occasionally lit by a lightning fork. As they approached, Snow White could smell the pong of excrement and wet horse flesh. Excited neighs greeted them as they entered the stables. In her sodden gown, Snow White almost tripped over a bale of hay. Every memory of why she hated fussy dresses came back rushing to form an expletive on her tongue, which she bit back in present company.
The twins saddled three horses while Snow White kept an anxious lookout. The rain continued to drum upon the stable roof.
“Do you think anyone’s seen us?” she said.
“No, but the way you’re shouting,” Gustav said, “they are bound to hear us. Come on.” He held out the reins of something big, black and heaving. “I assume you can ride.”
The stable suddenly flared to light. Snow White started back in fright. A figure at the doorway held up an oil lamp, yellow flame flickering upon its wick. The shadow it cast on the stable wall was like the Grim Reaper’s itself.
“Going somewhere?” Gretel inquired politely, the large butcher’s knife gleaming in her other hand.
CHAPTER TEN
“Please,” Snow White said in a rush, “this is my fault. The twins have nothing to do with this. I talked them into helping me.” The air rushed in her ears and panic spilled into her mouth. When did she start caring so much about the twins?
With his blond hair plastered wetly around his neck, Gustav shot her a withering look. “She didn’t talk us into anything we didn’t want to do.” He turned back to Gretel. “We’re going to Lapland.”
“Sssssh.” Snow White flapped her hands.
“I’m going to be the next Omar Khayyam and Wilhem is going to be the next Robin Hood.”
“William Tell,” Wilhem put in.
“Whatever. And Mantodea here is going to open a bug farm.”
“An entomology university,” Snow White said nervously.
Gretel halted several feet away from Wilhem, who for some strange reason did not have an arrow notched in his bow. Perhaps he too was as spooked as she was. The butcher’s knife caught the lamplight suggestively. Snow White thought of her own stolen knife amidst the toppled brazier far, far away. In her haste, she had forgotten it.
Gustav said to Gretel, “You want to be the best chef in the world, not just this closeted village where the eats you make are likely to be puked out in morning sickness.”
He’s trying to talk her out of it, Snow White thought. Can cannibals be negotiated with?
“You know we’ve been wanting out for a long time,” Wilhem added. “You’ve been thinking about it yourself, but your love for Grandmam kind of chained you down. Mantodea here is going to get us an audience with the Lapp King. By the looks of her, she can do it too.”
Yes, I can. Snow White wondered if the three of them could collectively charge Gretel. Or better still, scare one of the horses into creating a ruckus. Her eyes darted to the nearest horse, whose reins were still in Gustav’s surprisingly steady hands. Why wasn’t Wilhem doing anything violent?
“So do you want to come with us . . . Mother?” Gustav said.
Snow White gasped.
Her knife still raised, Gretel appraised her twin sons. The look on her peasant face was measured. Wilhem’s cheeks were flushed while Gustav suddenly wore the look of a hunted wolf.
Snow White couldn’t help noticing details – a single white hair in the otherwise nut brown tail of the nearest horse, Gretel’s multilayered green dress falling like wet leaves.
Did cannibals eat their own children?
All three swung their heads to Snow White. The silence was crushing. She took an uncertain step backwards. There was no physical resemblance between mother and children, but the intensity in their gazes was identical.
Oh God, they’re all cannibals!
Just as she was about to turn frantic tail an
d bolt out of the stable window, Gretel spoke: “You’re an interesting person. Mantodea. I suspect there’s a lot more to you than you’re telling.”
Snow White paused. All her senses were still shrieking. She tossed off a nervous laugh.
“What makes you think that?”
“I’d like to see where you’ll lead my boys. Gustav, saddle me another horse.”
Gustav beamed. “See? I told you she’d come along if we ever made the run for it one day,” he smirked at Wilhem.
Snow White was aghast. “You’re coming along?”
“Oh yes. We’ll be sticking onto you like a leech on Mother Baron’s arms,” Gretel said smoothly. “You have a problem with that?”
“You can’t stick to me forever.”
“Not forever but until we get what we need. You’re not going to run out on my boys here, whatever you promised them.”
Her trepidation rising like steam on the horses’ flanks, Snow White watched the little family scuttle about to gather supplies. Her thoughts mirrored the frenetic howling of the storm outside. What had she gotten herself into?
#
With Gretel’s help, they made their escape on the fastest horses in the village before anyone could raise the alarm.
“Will someone come after us?” Snow White kept asking anxiously.
“If you don’t jinx us by repeatedly asking that question, then they won’t,” Gustav retorted.
By dawn, the ground was soggy as they galloped out of the forest into a clearing. Snow White was tired enough to fall asleep on her horse. She was now comfortably dressed in a tunic, leggings and a thick woolen cloak. A dank smell rose from the drying wool, only marginally less cloying than damp horseflesh.
Over the tops of the trees, she heard a roar like a thousand beehives. They cantered out to a cliff where a magnificent waterfall thundered into a river. Snow White peered over the edge. It was a sharp drop, more perilous than the tower.
“Let’s stop here and camp before the horses drop of fatigue,” Gretel announced.
Let’s camp here before I drop from fatigue, Snow White thought.
They dismounted and tethered their horses.
“Where are we?” Snow White asked Gustav.
He pored over a map. As she looked over his shoulder, land masses swirled amongst white clouds on the creased parchment. The effect was startlingly three-dimensional. The map zoomed in onto a section of green bordered by blue.
“We’re right here at the fringe of the Enchanted Forest,” Gustav said. “Across the river are the Barren Lands. We must go through them to reach the sea, where we board a ship to Lapland.”
“And this is a stolen map from – ?”
“Queen Isobel’s secret chamber. The Queen, as you know, is whispered to be a sorceress of great power.”
“You don’t say.” Snow White ran her mind through the contents of the Queen’s antechamber, wondering what else she had missed.
Gretel observed them from the campfire, her face as closed as a Russian box. She stoked the burning twigs with a stick. On a spit, a roasting hare dripped fat into the flames, sending up a volley of sparks and crackling. Its aroma sent Snow White’s thoughts floating to Aein.
She said in a low voice to Gustav: “Do you know of a place where there is a mountain surrounded by seven hills? A green lake that looks like a mirror supposedly sits at the bottom of it.”
“Does it have a name?”
“Not one that I know of.”
“Then the map can’t tell me where. You’ve got to give me a better lead.”
“Not that magical after all, huh?”
“Magic is only as good as the instructions you pump into it. Rubbish in, rubbish out.”
After they had eaten, Gretel said, “I’ll take first watch while the three of you sleep.” She smiled grimly at Snow White’s worried expression. “Don't worry, Mantodea. If I wanted to gut you like that hare, I’d have done it while you were passed out on your horse.”
“I was not passed out on my horse.”
The twins were already fast asleep by the fire as Snow White laid her uneasy head to rest. She couldn’t shrug off the premonition that she was being watched, and not by Gretel alone. Blades of moist grass tickled her ear, and the air was pregnant with spruce, pine, and fresh water. At least she didn’t have to smell horse. The drone of the falls lulled her to a dream-filled sleep where she and Aein were being chased by horned metal demons wearing wet cloaks.
When Snow White awoke, the fire burned low. The roar of the falls was still omniscient in the background. The fluttering of wings rustled the leaves above her head, but other than that, all was still. She was alone. Gretel and the twins were missing. For a stark moment, a hand gripped Snow White’s chest, until she heard the soft neigh by the trees and saw that all four horses were still tethered. Surely they wouldn’t leave without their horses.
She almost laughed out loud. She – panicking because her pseudo-captors were leaving her behind! Now would be a good time run off and ditch them. But the twins’ faces floated up – good-natured and cherubic. What if they had fallen off the cliff?
“You’re not responsible for them,” she told herself sternly. “They wanted to come on their own.”
And yet, the thought of bolting away on a horse, leaving them to a possibly dire fate, rankled. Their mother was one thing, but the twins were innocent, uncorrupted despite their upbringing. Or so I’d like to think.
“Gustav?” she called.
One of the horses pawed the ground. At Snow White’s feet, a twig moved. Then another. She saw that they were not twigs at all but fairly large stick insects, a whole family of them blanketing the ground.
“Plasmida,” she whispered.
The antenna on the insects collectively bristled but they did not answer. Some of them capered in a complex pattern.
“Are you trying to tell me something about the others? Are they nearby?” She took a step in one direction. The insects scrambled around her feet. “What is it? Are the twins in danger?”
The insects tumbled on top of one another in haste. Snow White could not tell if they were saying ‘Keep away’ or ‘Hurry, they’re about to die!’ She opted for caution, so she went back to one of the saddlebags on Gretel’s horse. Inside was a carving knife. She hefted it and felt the weight of steel in her palm.
“Try throwing this,” she muttered.
She set out on the path the insects were determined to keep her away from. It was obvious from the broken twigs and broad wheel tracks that someone had been here. Something heavy too, which had mowed the closely-knit shrubbery in its path. She walked on, the hairs on her arms rising with each step she took away from the waterfall.
On a low branch, she spotted something bright red. Immediately on guard, she raised the knife.
When the object on the branch did not move, she crept closer. It was an intricately woven lace ribbon, the kind she might have expected to see hanging from the Queen’s antechamber closet.
“Gretel?” she called.
When no answer came, Snow White cautiously stepped beyond the trees. She almost stumbled in surprise. The stick insects went into an ambulatory frenzy.
In a clearing, a caravan decked in gold, purple and crimson paint was parked in a sun-dappled area. Several horses grazed nearby, their blankets just as colorful. No one was in sight. In front of the caravan, several headless mannequins with tripods for legs displayed gorgeous gowns in ochre, indigo, orange, and shocking blue. The embroidery on the fabric was so intricate that even Snow White, who was not partial to dresses, was piqued.
“Gustav?” she called. “Wilhem?”
Instead of Gretel, an old woman appeared at the doorway. At first, Snow White thought she was a dwarf. Then she saw that the woman’s back twisted in some bizarre malformation that made her waddle as she walked down the caravan’s steps. The woman carried no crook or walking stick, and how she managed to move at all was a marvel. Untidy strands of grey hair spilled arou
nd her lined face. Her skin was a mottled yellow, and her clothes were seemingly thrown together without any semblance of pattern or style.
“Welcome, welcome!” the woman cheerily cried. Her voice was like air in a funnel. “Pretty things to sell. Very cheap, very cheap!”
“What are you doing selling things out here in the woods?” Snow White said suspiciously. “There are no customers around.”
“I’m on my way to Lapland, fair child.” The woman caught the glimmer of recognition from Snow White. “Ah, perhaps you are heading there as well? We’ll have many stories to share. I’m not selling things, dearie, but airing out my dresses. I am but a poor peddler woman on the way to see my youngest boy, a fur trapper in Lapland. Who are you going to meet, child?”
Snow White hesitated. The woman gaited to her in that awkward one step-swing that looked simultaneously painful and cruel. She lowered the knife.
“I’m looking for my friends, a woman and her twin sons. Have you seen them come this way?”
“Twins? No, no, haven’t seen the likes of those for a long time.” The old woman paused to rest a bit, propping herself against a mannequin. She began to wheeze.
“Are you all right?” Snow White said in concern.
The old woman waved her hand dismissively. “It's the vapors in this forest. So hard on my poor lungs.” Her wheezing worsened.
“I think you should go back into the caravan and lie down, old mother,” Snow White said, afraid that she might have to witness another death in the forest. She laid down her knife and went to the old woman’s side. Up close, the old woman smelled very strongly of old goat’s cheese. The mismatched clothes didn’t look too clean either. Snow White tried to temper her distaste.
“Just lean on me, old mother,” she said, trying not to inhale too deeply.
“Bless you, child.” The old woman’s eyes were very bright, almost as if they belonged to a far younger person.
They slowly trudged up the steps of the caravan. The old woman clutched at the doorway.
“Here.” Snow White tugged the old woman into the caravan. The scent of roses filled the musky interior. The caravan was cramped, full of aging furniture and unused mannequins. A Chinese screen hid one corner.
