Ash & Bramble (32 page)

“W
E HAVE TO GO AFTER THEM,
” I
ANNOUNCE.

Templeton and Zel and the Huntsman are sitting around the hearth in a wide, high-ceilinged bedroom that must be the Godmother's, because it is decorated with swags of lace and blue silk that look incongruous against the stone walls. Somebody must have raided the Godmother's supplies; on a low table they've laid out wine and cheese and coffee, dried fruit and three kinds of nuts. The Huntsman's two trackers are stretched out before the fire sharing a bone.

They all stare at me where I'm standing in the doorway; I'm holding my staff and a knapsack that I've loaded with supplies.

Templeton swallows down a mouthful of cheese. She points with her chin at the window. “Pen, we're all worried
about the boys, but it's the middle of the night.”

“I know what time it is,” I snap.

She raises her eyebrows and holds up her hands, as if in surrender.

“As long as you are away from the city, your story can't continue,” the Huntsman points out.

“I know that! But she will kill him!” I take a shaky breath. “Sorry. I know—” I have to stop and clear my throat. “I know that the last thing I should do is go after them. I know that Story is weakened if my own story doesn't play out, and I know that I should stay here while you bring the battle to the city. Do you think I haven't thought that through?” I take a second deep breath to steady myself. “But I have to go after them.”

“If you don't mind my asking,” Templeton puts in, getting to her feet, “which
him
is it that you're so worried about?”

“What?!” I shake my head. “I'm worried about both of them, of course.”

“Of course,” Templeton repeats. She rubs the scar that slashes across her cheek; then she and Zel exchange a speaking look. “It's only that you said ‘she will kill
him
,' and Story is pushing you and the prince together—we saw you going into the forest with him before we invaded the fortress.”

I am not the blushing kind, I realize. I am the biting kind. “Yes, Templeton, I kissed the prince.”

“So it's Cor you're worried about,” Templeton pushes.

I shake my head in frustration. “What does it matter? We have to go after them.
Now
.”

“It matters a lot,” Templeton says.

I am about to snap again, when the Huntsman interrupts. “Pen,” he chides. “Tempy.” Then he falls silent. “Let's just think about this.”

“Yes, a little thinking would be good,” Templeton says. “Before we all run off without a plan to rescue the boys, let's think. What does the Godmother want?”

“To serve Story, obviously,” I say. I drop my knapsack on the floor and take three nervous paces into the room. “She'll use her thimble on me so I'll forget Owen and then she'll kill him and turn me into a happy-puppet who will marry the prince and live in the castle and smile for the rest of her life until she rips all of her hair out and dies.”

“She just did it again, did you notice?” Templeton asks. Zel and the Huntsman nod.

“What did I do?” I ask, looking wildly around at them.

“Pen,” Templeton asks with surprising gentleness, “are you aware that you are in love with Owen?”

“I'm not in love with Owen,” I say. They all stare at me. Then I say it again slowly to convince them. “I am not. In love. With Owen.” Zel cocks her head in a questioning way, so I add, “I just . . . I just can't stand the thought that the Godmother is going to kill him. She detests Owen, and she's not likely to kill Cor—he is a prince, after all. . . .”

“All right, if you insist,” Templeton says. Zel rolls her eyes. “Here's what we know about the Godmother,” Templeton goes on. “She is clever. She knows that this story—
your
story, Pen—is
crucial. For years Story's power has been growing. You're the daughter of the Witch who opposed it for so long. If Story can force you into an ending, its power will never be broken. The Godmother must be under nearly unbearable pressure to complete your happily-ever-after. Soon she will know that she has lost this fortress and all the slaves she's got working for Story, and she will guess that we are coming to the city. She will want to have all the pieces in place for her ending. She needs you. And as long as she thinks she might find a use for Owen, she won't kill him. Or Cor, for that matter.”

The Huntsman nods. “That's right. The Godmother will keep them on hand, just in case she needs them.”

I take a moment to think about this. “All right,” I say slowly. “This makes sense. But I'm coming. And we're leaving in the morning.”

W
E DON'T BOTHER
with sleep. I spend hours with the blank-faced people in the tower, using the thimble to restore their Befores. Some of them are frozen with shock and fright, but some are able to come fully back to themselves. We find them clothes and invite them to fight Story with us. We are joined by the lead Jack, who won't put down his ax, and the slave with the spinning wheel, who wants to be called Spinner because she doesn't like the word
spinster
, and many of the other slaves. We make sure everybody has supplies to carry and some sort of weapon.

Nobody so much as looks at me cross-eyed, and as the
night sky lightens to gray we're ready to head out, climbing through the gap in the wall left by the broken spell. With the former slaves, including four of the spryer seamstresses, we have about seventy fighters. Not many, but if Tobias has gathered Natters and the Missus and they've rallied the people inside the city, it might be enough.

There shouldn't be any road through the forest—the Godmother has traveled here through magic—but as we step through the gap we find a wide path before us, unmarked by wagon wheels, smooth, dry, and edged with snow.

“The forest,” the Huntsman says with a shrug. “It's no friend of the Godmother's, as you know.”

I nod and set the pace, using my staff as a walking stick, the knapsack heavy on my shoulders; I'm wearing Owen's coat, the one he borrowed from the Huntsman, with the sleeves rolled up.

The Godmother is cruel, and her footmen are worse. Cor, I figure, is safe because he is a prince, and useful to her. Owen, though. I remember how the Godmother looked at him—with fury and venom and the promise of a
special ending
. I can't bear to think what might be happening to him at this moment. Instead I call up a better memory, a conversation we had in the rebels' cave.

We were sitting on the sandy floor with our backs against the cave wall; we had bread and a pot of raspberry jam, and we were sharing a tin cup of tea. Owen was still Shoe at that point; I hadn't given his Before back yet. He was having
trouble keeping his eyes open because we'd arrived there late the previous night, and he'd been up at dawn to scout the forest with Tobias.

“Why does Story have so much power?” I wondered. I'd been thinking a lot about that, about where its power came from. If we could identify its source, we might be able to block it, somehow.

Shoe took a drink of tea, then passed me the cup. My fingers warmed where they touched his. “It's because people are afraid.”

“Of what?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Because there's just one ending.”

“Happily ever after,” I said.

“No,” he said. “Death. Death is the real ending.”

I loaded another spoonful of jam on my bread and thought. Stories, I figured, offered people different endings—not death, but the possibility for happiness in the time that we have to live.
That
is why we like getting caught up in stories. They are bigger than we are. They help us understand the shape of our lives and the nature of our own endings.

“Story's not necessarily a bad thing,” I said aloud. “Story doesn't want power. It's not evil, necessarily. Endings are just what Story
does
. That's its nature.”

Shoe's head was tipped back against the wall and his eyes were closed. I nudged him. His eyes snapped open. “What?”

“We need stories, don't we?” I asked.

“Um. Yes,” he said. “I think we do.”

“Well, that's irony for you,” I said.

For just an instant, Shoe looked stricken, but before I could ask him why he nodded and said, “Everything about this is ironic, Pen.”

“It is!” I exclaimed. “We're fighting Story, Shoe, but its power comes from
us
. We've given it too much power, and we have to take some of it back. We have to make our own choices.”

I know Owen. Bone-deep, I know him. I know that he's thought all along that Story's ending for him is not happiness, but death. He's struggled against Story and tried to break it, but it's too big for him. And no matter how desperately I want to help, I don't know if there's anything I can do about it.

T
HANKS TO THE
forest's wide, smooth path, and our fear that Story is still turning, we make good time, hiking along the river, and then camping for the night.

“Stop pacing, Pen,” Templeton says from where she's sitting on the ground by the campfire. Zel leans against her shoulder, eyes closed. The Huntsman crouches next to them, cooking our dinner in a pan. The trackers are curled together asleep, as close to the fire as they can get; other fires burn in the clearing.

I stand with hands fisted on my hips, staring out at the forest. It surrounds us, almost as if the trees are embracing
us, keeping us safe. I wonder how far from the city we are. Surely we'll get there tomorrow. Where is he, right now? Is he still alive?

“Come now, Pen,” the Huntsman adds.

I turn back to them. Seeking comfort, I take out my thimble, holding it in my hand.

Which reminds me of something I might not have another chance to do. “Do you want me to give back your Befores?” I ask them.

“No,” Templeton says immediately, with a shrug that wakes Zel, who raises her head, blinking. “I love Zel,” she goes on. “I don't want to know about anything that happened before her.”

“Here,” the Huntsman says, and holds out a tin plate of potatoes and bacon.

Taking it, and the fork he hands me, I sit across the fire from them. As I settle on the ground, I feel suddenly how weary I am. “How can you be so sure?” I ask.

Templeton rubs her blunt nose. “What, about loving her?” Zel smiles sleepily. “Love is pretty simple, Pen.”

“No it isn't,” I say. I take a bite of potatoes. They're peppery and hot. “I mean, if you don't know who you are, how can you love somebody else?”

Templeton starts to answer, but Zel reaches over and places a slim finger on her lips. Templeton falls silent. Turning to me, Zel puts one hand on her breast, over her heart; she puts the other hand over Templeton's heart. Bringing her
hands together, she kisses them tenderly.

“See?” Templeton says. “Simple.”

For them, maybe. Not for me.

“I don't want to know either,” the Huntsman puts in. The firelight gleams on his bald head. He forks up a last bite of potatoes. “Figure I've got enough to think about right here, really.”

Maybe they're right. There's my mother—the Witch—and my thimble, and I want to know what those things mean for me. But maybe all that doesn't matter, and who I was—Pin, or Pen, or someone with another Before—is less important than who I am
now
, what I choose to do
now
.

Maybe . . .

And maybe the person I am becoming can choose love.

T
HE NEXT DAY
we continue through the forest until we hear a roaring in the distance. Coming around a bend, we see the waterfall slamming into the river with the city high on the cliff beyond. The sun is setting, and the waterfall looks like a veil of lace, and the white stone of the castle in the distance is tinged pink and gilded at its edges.

Then the sun drops out of the sky and the hollow boom of the castle clock rolls out—it is the sound of a gravedigger knocking on a tomb door.

S
NAKES OF FOG WRITHE AROUND OUR FEET AS IF THE FOREST
is impatient to begin. We will not wait until morning.

Surely the Godmother knows we are here, so we must be like a knife fight—strike first and fast, without warning. Quickly, in a dark clearing—we dare not show any lights—I give out orders. “When the fog rises,” I tell the Jack and Spinner, “you'll lead an attack on the city gates closest to the lake.” It's the main assault, I tell them, and it will prompt the rebels inside the city to start fighting too. That's the message Tobias took to the Missus and her people, and we've spoken to a messenger he sent to meet us. They are ready.

“Righty-o,” says the Jack, hefting his ax, and he and Spinner lead the bulk of our force through the trees toward the city.

The Huntsman, Templeton, Zel, and I make our way along the pebbly bank of the lake. We are guided through the darkness by the sound of the waterfall and by the feel of spray on our faces. We find the steep stone stairway and start up it. The steps are slippery, and my fingers are numb with cold as I steady myself with my staff and continue climbing.

At the top, the stone steps turn into a narrow path, which then leads to an alley between what smells like a tannery and some kind of warehouse. The night is still and dark; the fog is thickening, and soon the attack outside the gates will begin. We have to get into place by then. At the edge of the alley, I stop with the others behind me and peer into the dark street, which is lined by shuttered shops.

“Tsssst,” hisses a voice.

Templeton makes a quick move toward her sword, but I hold up a hand, stopping her. “Who's there?” I whisper.

From out of the shadows steps an old woman, nearly as wide as she is tall. She pauses and looks me up and down. “You're Shoe's Pen, are you?”

“I'm my own Pen, thank you,” I answer.

Her eyes narrow. “So you are. I'm Natters's Missus, come to meet you.” She glances behind me. “This the rest of your lot?”

“The ones that aren't at the gate, yes,” I answer.

“Good.” She gives a brisk nod and starts down the street, moving surprisingly fast for someone with such short legs. As we walk, she fills me in on what's been happening in the
city. For the past few days, the Godmother's footmen have been extra vigilant. Houses have been raided, weapons confiscated; suspected rebels have gone to the post; one by one the prince's castle guards have been disappearing. The castle clock has struck the hour at shorter and shorter intervals. The city is wound up and terrified and waiting.

She glances again at the others. “I'm half surprised not to see Shoe with you.”

The worry I've tried to set aside comes rushing back all at once. “He—” My voice trembles, and I fall silent. Owen must be in the Godmother's hands by now. I can't speak of it.

The Huntsman fills in my silence. “He was captured along with Prince Cornelius,” he says.

The Missus stops suddenly, staring straight ahead. “The Godmother has him?” She closes her eyes, then lifts her fist and presses it into her forehead as if she can somehow push the thought of Owen's capture out of her mind. “I can't tell my Natters. We've lost two already; he can't bear to lose another.”

She can't bear it either, I can see that clearly.

“We'd better get on,” the Huntsman puts in gruffly. “It must be nearly time.”

As he speaks, I look up to see a white wall rushing down the street toward us; a moment later, we are enveloped in a thick, damp fog that smells of the forest's snow and pine. In the distance is a sudden roar of sound. The battle has begun.

“Take hands,” Missus Natters says, and I feel her
blunt-fingered hand seize mine; the Huntsman's big hand rests on my shoulder.

“Lead on,” I say.

The Missus hurries us through the fog to a group of city rebels armed with staffs and swords and stout clubs. I catch a glimpse of the ratcatcher among them, the one who brought me the message from Owen; he winks and gives me a gap-toothed grin.

We attack the Godmother's footmen—the ones guarding the city gates—from behind so our rebels can bring the battle inside the city itself. We are quick and fast and our people flood in. I join in the battle, and it is a whirl of sound and strikes with my staff, and glimpses of snarling mouths with too many teeth in them. It seems like chaos at first, but just as it was in the fortress, I get a feel for the rhythm of the battle, its surges and sudden attacks. Every time I turn around the Huntsman is there, stalwart with his ax, protecting my back.

The Godmother has been busy, it is clear, because there are many, many footmen, most of them naked and half wild, and fanatically fierce. She must have found every dog and cat and rat in the city and used her thimble to bring them into her service. They emerge in snarling clots from the fog, striking us from the side, and we fight through them toward the castle. That's where we'll find the Godmother.

And, I hope, Cor and Owen.

I am in the midst of the fighting, striking with my staff, receiving reports from the Jacks and Spinner. We push on, and
I catch a glimpse of Anna and a footman from my stepmother's house fighting back to back against too many footmen; they are about to be overwhelmed. Then I hear a piercing shriek and my stepsister Dulcet is there, wildly swinging a staff; Precious, beside her, follows it with a precisely placed thrust. I step toward them to help, when suddenly there is a flurry of attacks and I find myself shoved aside and stumbling into an alley. From the other end of it comes a snarl; I whirl toward the sound.

“Come'n fight me, girlie,” taunts a guttural voice.

I glance behind me, but the fighting is too close for me to plunge back into it. Gripping my staff, I pace toward the challenge. The fog swirls away from me and then closes in behind me again. I trail my hand against the brick wall to my left and peer ahead through the fog. There are lumps of trash on the ground, and here and there a doorway. The air smells of fires burning and of scorched metal; in the distance I hear the clash and crash of glass breaking, shouts, running footsteps. “Afraid, are you?” the voice taunts. I keep trying to catch it, but it recedes before me. Above the fog and the roofs of the city I can see the tower clock, its face shining luridly red, a kind of beacon, and a place of power. I head toward it.

At last I stumble out onto a wide street that leads directly toward the castle. As I orient myself, four naked footmen, half dog, half man, slink from the alley behind me. Fog smokes around them. They must have been following me, their paw-like feet silent on the cobblestoned street. I gulp and back
away from them, holding my staff ready.

They lope toward me, their heads jutting forward, sniffing, ropes of drool trailing from their muzzle-like mouths. One of them lunges at me and I stumble back and swing with my staff, but he twists away, and then another nips at my side and I whirl and strike out and miss again. They growl and I back away again; with a glance over my shoulder, I see that I'm closer, now, to the castle, to a door at the base of the clock tower. The footmen dart in again, but they don't bite—they are herding me.

“Well, that's enough of that,” I gasp. I give one last sweep with my staff and then turn and run straight for the tower door; snarling, they follow.

I am at the door, scrabbling for the latch, when the guards' strong, clawed hands grab my arms and shoulders.

A wave of cold air washes over me. I grope in my pocket for my thimble.

“Hello, my dear,” the Godmother's voice says in my ear. “I have been waiting for you.”

A touch of ice at my temple, and all goes dark.

I
COME TO
myself.

And I
am
myself. I am still Pen; she didn't take that away from me.

Something is wrapped tightly around my ribs, and I can barely catch my breath. I blink and a curved wall swims into focus. It is hung with paintings of blue flowers and girls in
blue dresses. And there is—I blink my bleary eyes again—a mirror in a gilded frame.

I sit up straight, my head whirling. I am in the castle . . . in the clock tower. The chairs are covered with blue damask; candles gleam; a thick white carpet covers the floor. Shakily I get to my feet and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I am wearing a dress of deep-blue velvet, cut low over my corseted breasts; the skirt is cut wide over layers of petticoats. My hair is held back from my face by two diamond-encrusted clasps. One of my feet is covered only by a pale-blue silk stocking; on my other foot is a thin slipper, replacing the sturdy boots that Owen made for me.

Owen
.

He must be here, somewhere. I have to find him. Blinking black spots from my eyes, I see a door and stagger over to it, but the knob doesn't turn. Locked. Thimble. I need my thimble to open the door. I fumble at the stiff velvet of my skirt. “Bother this dress,” I mutter. No pockets.

“It is not quite time yet,” comes a voice from behind me.

I whirl. My head whirls too, and I lean against the door, dizzy.

Lady Faye—the Godmother—is standing behind a chair. She looks different. Story has taken its toll. Her white-blonde hair is now completely white, her mouth bracketed by wrinkles, her glittering eyes deep-set and shadowed. Her pursuit of us has not been easy on her. Yet she is impeccably dressed in ice-blue silk and her necklace of knucklebone diamonds.

“Where is he?” I gasp.

“I assume, of course, that you are speaking of the prince,” she says. “Don't worry. You will see him very soon.” She is trying to be smoothly controlled, but I can hear the edge of tension in her voice. “Won't you have some tea?”

“I don't mean—” I don't mean the prince. My head is so fuzzy, I'm not sure what is happening.

“I know exactly what you mean, my dear,” the Godmother says, and goes to a tea table, where she pours out two cups of tea and sets one on a table beside the chair I was sitting in.

I try taking a deep breath to settle myself and feel the corset cutting into my ribs. I look around the room again. The walls, I realize, and the door against my back, are trembling with the faintest low thunder, just at the edge of hearing. There is a grinding edge to the noise, as of gears clashing.

“It won't be long now,” the Godmother says, regarding me over the rim of her teacup.

I go to the table and pick up my cup with shaking fingers and take a long drink. I list my advantages. They are not many. I am still light-headed from the touch of the Godmother's thimble. I don't have my own thimble, or my staff. I am wearing this cumbersome dress and this cursed corset that is squeezing me into an uncomfortable shape. The door is locked and there is no other way to get out of this room. The Godmother is holding Owen prisoner somewhere and intends to kill him, and possibly Cor as well.

The advantages would seem to be all hers. There is no
hope of escape, and no one is going to rescue me.

My ears hear something faint, in the distance, but it sounds like shouting, the clash of swords. I hold my cup out for more, steadying my hand so that it does not shake. “It sounds as if the fighting is getting closer,” I say, calm and even, trying to hide my hopeless desperation.

The Godmother pours more tea and hands the cup back to me, but I stay on my feet. The tea is clearing my head; I take another gulp.

She shrugs. “Everything will be settled soon.” There is a low, heavy groan from the walls. “Ah.” She sets down her teacup with an uncharacteristic clatter. “It is time. Come along, Penelope.” She gets to her feet and shakes out her skirts. Moving stiffly—not her usual graceful self—she leads me to the door and opens it with her thimble. I am right on her heels as we come out into the hallway.

I can feel the floor trembling under my feet, especially the foot without a slipper. The low thunder has gotten louder. We go through another doorway and then up a narrow set of stairs that doubles back on itself, climbing higher and higher into the central tower of the castle.

By the time we reach the top I am panting for breath and cursing the corset and the petticoats that weigh heavily against my legs. We come out into a huge, high-ceilinged room that hums with power and seethes with shadows. One wall is taken up by an enormous clock face as luminous as the moon. Its hands are huge, taller than two men, and made
of heavy iron. I can see that the hands have nearly met in the middle; it is a few minutes until midnight.

The
clock
, I realize. As its power has grown, Story has taken this huge, implacable shape, and with iron hands and grinding gears it has imposed its will on the city. It is as if we've stepped inside a giant machine, one with invisible wheels and pistons. The stone walls almost seem to breathe in and out with the rumblings of the gears of Story turning. I swallow and my ears pop from the pressure.

The next thing I see is Owen pinned against the stone wall just to the left of the clock face. Brambles grow from the stone and wrap around him so that he is bound to the wall and can't move. His head is lowered, but I can see that his face is ashen and bruised. Without the brambles holding him up, he would fall.

My heart twists in my chest. “
Owen
,” I breathe.

He looks up, blinking. I see his cracked lips shape my name—
Pen
.

I take a quick step toward him, and the Godmother rests cold fingers against my shoulder. “Wait,” she orders.

I shrug off her touch and start toward Owen again.

From one of the brambles gripping him a knifelike thorn erupts; he flinches as it slashes a deep cut along his ribs. Blood seeps out, staining his sweater.

“The next one may find his heart,” says the Godmother from behind me.

I pause and feel as if I'm teetering on the edge of a cliff.
Under my feet, the floor shudders, and briars burst from the stone and wrap themselves around my legs under my skirt, holding me in place. My breath comes short. “No,” I whisper.