Ash & Bramble (34 page)

I
SPEND WEEKS WITH
C
OR IN
E
AST
O
RIA, MEETING HIS
mother, the queen, and explaining to her during excruciatingly long and formal meetings what Story is and how dangerous it can be. I show her my thimble and the Godmother's and tell her about their power. The queen doesn't seem to realize how easily Story could rise again to threaten the land, even though so many people from her own kingdom disappeared, stolen out of their lives to serve in the city or the fortress. “You might open your eyes,” I tell her acerbically, “and look about your realm every now and then to see what's been going on.”

Obviously, we don't get along.

All the while I miss Owen. It's a constant, almost physical ache, this feeling, and I realize that when I first awoke in
the cinders in my stepmother's house it was Owen that I was grieving for. The loss of him, when we had only just discovered each other.

It is quite possible that I am going to lose him all over again.

Before leaving the Godmother's city, I went to Cor's room to tell Owen that I was going.

“He's still out,” the Huntsman had said as he met me at the door. “He's a strong lad, but he was pushed too far this time.”

Cor's room was full of dark wood, heavy tapestries, a wide fireplace. I only had eyes for Owen in the canopied bed. On quiet feet, I approached. He was so still, so pale. One of his hands was folded around a crumpled edge of the sheet, as if he'd fallen asleep while holding on to it. I could see bandages wrapped around his chest and his arm.

“Hello,” I whispered. I sat on the bed and took his hand. Turning it over, I traced my fingers along the calluses that lined his palm. He was just a shoemaker, and he was so much more than that, too. He was everything. All I wanted to do was to crawl into the bed and wrap my arms around him; I wanted him to turn his face to me and open his eyes just for a moment.

But he slept on. With trembling fingers I reached out to brush aside the lock of sandy hair that had fallen over his closed eyes.

From the doorway I heard footsteps, and then the rustle
of movement as the Huntsmen got up to meet someone in the hall. A low murmur of voices. I was being summoned; it was time to go.

“Good-bye,” I whispered, and I brought my face down and laid my cheek against his so that I could hear his quiet breaths in my ear. Then, softly, with a feather's touch, I kissed him. I got to my feet. And it felt as if I was tearing myself in half, but I did it; I went to the door, and I went out, and I left him.

N
OW
I
AM
so afraid that our time together has ended. Story treated Owen so cruelly; he might have already left the city to go back to his family in Westhaven. I wouldn't blame him if he did. And I did a terrible thing, taking the Godmother away from herself, even though he asked me not to. At the moment I did it, it seemed necessary. Now I'm not so certain. She had to be stopped, but maybe there was a better way.

Cor has made plans to come visit the city as soon as he can leave East Oria. He hopes to find homes for all the animals—especially the dogs—that the Godmother turned into footmen in her service, and who turned back when Story's power was broken. He's been helping the former slaves from the Godmother's fortress find new lives for themselves, too. Some of them returned to their Befores, but for others too much time had passed. They can only go on, not back.

A
T LAST IT
is time for me to return to the city. “We need to come up with a name for it,” I tell Cor.

“Write to me when you get there,” he suggests. His dog Bunny, who is expecting puppies, nudges his leg and he reaches down to stroke her long ears. “Tell me what the people are calling it.”

He has given me a fine black mare to ride. Templeton and Zel are saddling their horses too, in the courtyard of the royal residence. They're to be my bodyguards on the ten-day trip.

Cor gives me a leg up into the saddle. Apparently I've ridden before, because my hands know just what to do with the reins, how to set my feet in the stirrups and balance my weight. I check my coat pocket for the thimbles. “Keep working on your mother,” I tell him. “Try to convince her that she must remain vigilant.”

“I will,” he assures me. “I hope you and Owen will be very happy.”

I nod, but I can't answer.

Because I know very well that making my own choices and living a real life is harder in some ways than living in Story. Owen can love me and I can love him, but we still might not be able to be together.

Templeton and Zel and I travel for four days through the queen's realm and then six more days through the forest. Every night when we stop, Templeton makes me practice my staff-work. “You never know when Story will rise again, Pen,” she warns. “You'll have to be ready, just in case.”

As we ride, I think about all the misery caused by Story
and the Godmother. The unhappiness of ordinary people, not just princes and princesses, but the ones trampled on or cast to the side or left behind. Marya and Tobias. Natters and his Missus and their apprentice who was like a son to them, who died in the Godmother's fortress. And all the other slaves kidnapped from their homes, their memories erased. The Huntsman and his lost Bianca. Lady Meister. Dulcet's beautiful voice silenced and Precious's talents, all set aside for the pursuit of an appropriate ending.

And Owen, with his scars, and his rare and fleeting smile.

I
'M NOT QUITE
sure what to expect when we arrive in the city. Before leaving with Cor, I'd spent two days using my thimble to give back the memories of everyone living there. They might have all gone back to their Befores; the city might be empty, abandoned.

We arrive on a bright afternoon on the edge of spring. To my surprise, the streets are bustling with people going about their business, looking perfectly content and normal. None of them are wearing blue. The streets of the upper city are not quite as terrifyingly clean as when I lived here before; the lower city seems not as dark and twisted. The air even smells different—dankly of the river, and of frying meat and baking bread, woodsmoke, and a faint whiff of drains. The castle has been repaired; new stone covers the huge hole in the tower where the clock face used to be.

While Templeton and Zel go to find us an inn and stable
our horses, I walk through the streets to my stepmother's house. She's not really my stepmother, I know, but it's still how I think of her. Once she gets over the fact that I'm wearing trousers—“as no proper lady should!” she exclaims—she and I sit down for tea and talk. She's been ill—her heart, she tells me. Dulcie, she says, has become a professional singer. She gives wildly popular concerts and has a studio where she teaches voice lessons. “And Dulcet misses those dogs you left behind with us,” Stepmama tells me.

“Maybe the prince will bring her a puppy when he comes to visit,” I say. I smile, wondering if Cor likes music. He has such a lovely, deep voice; I'll bet he's a wonderful singer.

Stepmama goes on to tell me that Precious has opened a dress shop and has three seamstresses working for her. They've asked about me, she says.

In the Before, Dulcet and Precious weren't her daughters. She knows this, but she will not mention it. It is enough that they are her daughters now, that she is not alone.

“I've wondered about you too, Penelope,” she says. “I'm very sorry about . . .” She sighs. She looks bleached, thinner, her hair gray. She is another one that Story used for its own ends.

After kissing her on the cheek, I go up to the picture gallery at the top of the house to see my mother's picture. I've realized how strange it is that the picture is here. I didn't live here in my Before; the house never felt like a true home. Yet here my mother's portrait stands in this neglected room with
a layer of dust as fine as ash covering her face, dulling her eyes, the forest tangled and wild in the background.

Perhaps the Godmother, confident in the rising power of Story, left her here on purpose. Like a trophy: the Witch, defeated.

I still have no memory of my mother. It doesn't seem to matter as much as it used to.

I can only go on, not back.

A
FTER LEAVING MY
stepmother's house, I head for the lower city. On the way, I stop at a bridge over the river. I pull the Godmother's thimble out of my coat pocket. It chills at my touch and glimmers with a cold light against the palm of my hand. I pull out my own thimble and compare them. Not so different in looks. Both are untarnished silver; both have an entwined line of brambles engraved around the base, but my thimble has its roses, too. And its warmth.

I wonder if there was a story, long ago, with roses and thorns, two thimbles, and two girls, one dark and one fair. Was that story where Story had its beginning?

I stand and think for a long time about how the story of my life will roll out from this moment if I decide to keep the Godmother's thimble. Templeton is right—Story will rise again, and the thimble would be a powerful weapon in the fight against it. But—oh, the irony—to keep it would be to lose too much.

In the end, letting it go is easy. I drop the Godmother's
thimble, and it falls down and lands with a satisfying
plop
in the flowing water of the river. I put my own thimble safely into the pocket of my coat.

I need to see Owen. I need to hear from him that the Godmother is dead, or exiled, or imprisoned in the deepest cells below the castle. Only then can I decide what I'm going to do next.

H
ALFWAY DOWN THE
street of shoemakers is a small shop with a sign over the door that has a shoe painted on it. The glass of the front window is polished, and three pairs of newly made shoes are lined up there; cards beside them are neatly labeled with their prices.

Owen's shop. My skin feels hot and prickly, nervousness mixed with excitement. It's been weeks; so much has happened. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I open the front door. A customer passes me, going out, and gives me a polite nod.

In the shop is a workbench, tidy with tools neatly racked. Owen is there. He's talking to someone sitting in a rocking chair whose back is to me. A woman; I can see the edge of her skirt.

“No, I don't think so,” Owen is saying to the person in the chair, and he smiles at her.

It makes me catch my breath.

I let the door close behind me, and Owen looks up.

“You again,” I say, trying to make a joke.

The smile drops from his face. “Pen.” With a clatter he sets down some sort of shoemaking tool and gets to his feet. His hair is cut shorter than it was before, and he looks sturdier, not thin and stretched, as he was when we were caught up in Story. “Hello,” he says uncertainly.

“Hello,” I say. “I thought you might have gone home to Westhaven.”

He shakes his head. “I sent them a letter. They want me to come visit.”

The woman in the rocking chair gives a loud, meaningful cough.

“Oh,” Owen says. “Um.” He rubs his head, and his hair sticks up on one side. “Will you come in, Pen? There's somebody here for you to meet.”

I come farther into the room and look down at the person in the rocking chair.

I stare.

She is a white-haired old woman with a shawl over her thin shoulders. Her eyes are pale blue and sharp; her face is wrinkled, but some of her old beauty lingers in its lines. She has a cloth in her lap that she's been stitching. “Who're you?” she asks.

“This is Pen,” Owen tells her.

“She's a customer?” asks the old woman, with a glance at my feet.

“No, she's a—a friend,” Owen answers. When he looks
up at me, there is a smile in his eyes. “Pen, this is my grandmother, Faye Shoemaker.”

I find my voice at last. “Your
grandmother
?”

He gives me half a grin. “That's right.”

The old woman is giving me the eye. She looks at Owen and then back at me again. “Oh,
I
see how it is,” she says. “Can you cook, girl?”

I blink. “Um, I made toast once, I think.”

“Good,” the old lady says. “My grandson can't cook either.” She points at Owen, who shrugs. She sets aside her sewing and puts her hands on the arms of her chair. Owen is quick to go to her side and help her to her feet; she pats his hand and hobbles toward a door leading farther into the house. “I've got some stew on. You'll stay for dinner.” She goes out.

“Dinner?” I say, dumbfounded.

“We-ell, no,” Owen says. “She's a terrible cook. She thinks she isn't, but she is. I don't think she can taste anything.”

“But you eat it anyway,” I guess.

He laughs. Owen
laughs
. “Sometimes I do. Usually Missus Natters brings us dinner.”

I frown. “Owen, what is she doing here?”

“She was just as caught up in it as we were, Pen,” he answers. “Once you took away the Godmother part of her, she seemed . . .” He shakes his head. “Sad.”

“I imagine so,” I say tartly.

“She's an excellent seamstress, it turns out,” he goes on. “She does some work now and then for your sister Precious.”

There is a loud bang and clatter from the next room. “It's all right,” a sharp voice calls. “I only dropped the kettle!”

Owen draws me toward the shop door. We stand on the doorstep, half in the shop, half out. The early spring air is crisp and clean, and it makes my heart tremble in my chest.

“Hello, Owen!” calls somebody passing in the street.

He waves a hand in answer, but his attention is fixed entirely on me. “I was starting to think that you might not be coming back.”

“I wasn't sure,” I confess.

“Oh,” he says quietly.

“Owen,” I say. “Tell me the story of the first time we met. When you were Shoe and I was Pin.”