Snow White and Rose Red (18 page)

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Authors: Patricia Wrede

BOOK: Snow White and Rose Red
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The Widow stared, completely at a loss. Blanche leaned forward. “Wouldst thou know more, bear?” she asked, and Hugh nodded emphatically.
The lopsided explanation went on well into the night. Hugh tried hard to understand, to decide whether the spell would have a chance of succeeding or would only make matters worse, but he was defeated by the complexity of the arrangements. His frustration was even greater because he knew that once he would have had no trouble whatever comprehending what Blanche and Rosamund were telling him.
After a time, it occurred to Hugh that being entirely a bear would be better than this half-and-half state. He stopped trying to understand, and when the Widow asked anxiously if he would chance the spell, he nodded at once. If the attempt made matters worse, it would not matter, because he would not know. In a way, even that would be a relief, and if nothing else it would eliminate the danger his continued visits posed to the Widow and her daughters. Hugh sighed and settled by the fireplace to sleep while the Widow and Rosamund went back to their notes. Only Blanche cast a look of concern in his direction, and she did not voice her disquiet.
 
CHAPTER · ELEVEN
 
“When it was time to go to bed, the mother told the bear, ‘Stay there by the fire, where you will be safe from the storm.’ So the bear slept all night by the fire, and in the morning the two girls opened the door and let him go back out into the forest.
“After that, the bear came back every evening to sleep by the hearth. The girls liked his company, and they became so accustomed to his visits that they always left the door unfastened until their black friend had arrived. ”
 
IN SPITE OF THE URGENCY FELT BY ROSAMUND AND Blanche, it was nearly a week before all the preparations for the bear’s disenchantment were complete. Some of the ingredients the Widow had chosen were not easily come by or required painstaking grinding, measuring, and mixing. Blanche took these tasks on herself, while Rosamund and her mother searched the woods and garden for the first swelling hawthorn buds and the early shoots of violets and wormwood. Their everyday chores were neglected while they gathered dry branches of oak and ash and rowan wood, or searched their mending piles for red-dyed thread to knot into an intricate web. Each evening, they went over the day’s work with the bear, anxiously asking his opinions and advice.
The most time-consuming task was the preparation of a special ink to be used in the early part of the spell. Blanche spent half a day boiling dried rosemary leaves and rue in the copper kettle, hovering constantly nearby to make sure the brew neither stopped boiling nor boiled dry. When the fragrant mixture had cooled, she poured it into a new crock and added three juniper berries. Then the crock had to stand untouched in a cool corner for four days, after which the liquid inside was pressed through a linen cloth and sweetened with a drop of rosewater. Only then could it be used to draw a circle, a square, and a cross on one side of a dried oak leaf, and the word “return” on the other.
At last everything was finished. Blanche and Rosamund packed two willow baskets with the tools, ingredients, rushlights, and cloths, while the Widow tied their carefully chosen firewood into faggots. Then they waited with considerable impatience for nightfall, and the bear’s arrival.
It was full dark when Hugh came at last. Rosamund was inclined to scold him for his tardiness, but the Widow and Blanche refused to let her waste more time in this pursuit. The three women took up their faggots and baskets, and the Widow led the way out into the fields between Mortlak and the woods. The Widow had chosen the time and location of the spell herself. She claimed to base her choices on the theory that the spell Blanche and Rosamund had watched on All Hallows’ Eve day was indeed the one which had stricken the bear, and that their counterspell should therefore be in some ways opposite to the one Dee and Kelly had worked. So the Widow proposed that they work their magic at night instead of at midday, and in the open fields instead of in the forest, and Rosamund and Blanche agreed.
The Widow’s argument owed as much to her misgivings about the whole enterprise as to her thoughtful consideration of ways to insure its success. No travelers would interrupt them after dark, nor was it likely that their strange antics would be observed. The little hollow the Widow had picked as a location was protected by a screen of bushes, which further reduced their chances of being seen. Even if someone noticed their fire, it would almost certainly be put down to charcoal burners or traveling tinkers. Furthermore, the shifting border of Faerie was somewhere in the woods; it never approached the fields and commons of the village. Thus the Widow was reasonably sure their activities would not attract unwelcomed attention from her unearthly neighbors either.
When they reached the hollow, Rosamund and Blanche untied the three faggots of oak, ash, and rowan branches and laid the wood in alternating layers to make a bonfire, while their mother drew a large circle on the ground with a pointed stick. When she finished, the Widow helped the girls lay out the other ingredients on the ground, then checked everything while Rosamund fidgeted impatiently. The bear hovered in the background, trying to watch and stay out of the way at the same time.
“ ‘Tis ready,” the Widow said at last. “To your places, girls. Bear, thou’lt stand beside the fire, and for all our sakes I pray thee not to move before this work is finished.”
Hugh nodded and walked clumsily over to the heap of wood. He studied it for a moment, then backed away a little and looked inquiringly at the Widow.
“Come this way a little,” the Widow commanded. “There! ‘Twill do. Art ready, Blanche? Begin!”
Blanche bent and picked up a tin pannikin, half full of clear water. Carefully, she lifted it above her head, and said in a voice that shook only slightly, “Lord God, Thou rulest all; we pray that Thou wouldst bless our work this night.”
“Be with us, Lord,” the Widow and Rosamund echoed.
Again, Blanche bent, lowering the pannikin to the ground. From a small linen bag at her feet she took four whole, dried leaves. One by one, she dropped them into the water, saying as she did,
“As these dead leaves soften and return to a semblance of themselves, so let our living friend return to his true form. Fiat.”
As Blanche picked up the pannikin and rose, the Widow began to speak. “Lord God, Thou rulest all; we pray that Thou wouldst bless our work this night.”
“Be with us, Lord,” said Rosamund and Blanche.
The Widow picked up a small linen bag, very similar to the one Blanche had used. She poured its powdery, sweet-scented contents into her left hand and dropped the bag, then flung the powder into the air with a wide, sweeping motion. “As the winds of spring return to this cold land, so let this bear return to his true form. Fiat.” She drew her arms into her chest in a swift, complex gesture, then let them fall to her sides as Rosamund in turn began to repeat the blessing prayer.
Again the Widow and Blanche responded. Rosamund stooped and picked up a clod of dirt and a third linen bag. From the bag, she poured the freshly gathered tokens of returning life: the curling green shoots of new violets; the silvery, feather-edged knots of the first wormwood leaves; the swollen, reddish leaf-buds of hawthorn and apple, just beginning to break. She crumbled the dirt in her hand and mixed it with the greens, saying as she did, “As these plants return from their winter sleep i‘the earth, so let our friend return to his true form. Fiat.”
“So have we said; so let it be,” the three women said together. Rosamund scattered her dirt and herbs over the unlit pile of wood, while Blanche lifted her pannikin of water over her head. The Widow spread her arms once more and began a long recitation in a singsong voice. A puff of air swept over the hollow, ruffling the bear’s fur and bringing with it the damp, cold smells of late winter or very early spring. Blanche shivered very slightly, and a drop of water fell from the upraised pannikin onto her cheek.
The Widow finished, and Blanche lowered her arms. Rosamund knelt beside the pile of wood and carefully tipped four glowing coals out of the small stone crock in which they had been carried to the hollow. The coals fell among the smallest twigs, which caught quickly. Rosamund rose and backed away, and for a moment there was no sound or movement but the crackling of the growing fire and the hungry flicker of the flames. Then the Widow crossed her arms against her chest and began to chant again.
Hugh stood like a statue through the first half of the spell-casting. He felt nothing, no hint of change nor pull of magic, and his last faint hope began to die. His head drooped, and if it had not been for the Widow’s warning he would have walked away in the middle of the spell. But that warning, and some lingering memory of courtesy, held him where he was through the whole long process in spite of his despair.
Sparks rose snapping on the heat of the bonfire, making a scintillating column against the dark. The Widow raised her arms for the final invocation. Blanche, still holding the pannikin of water, stepped closer to the fire. On the other side of the fire, Rosamund picked up the oak leaf inscribed with the laboriously made ink. As the Widow began the final line, Rosamund dropped the leaf into the fire. For the barest instant, the leaf lay among the flames; then it curled and charred and vanished. Hugh felt a stab of pain like the cut of a sword, and Blanche flung the pannikin of water onto the blaze.
With a fierce hiss, a cloud of smoky, herb-scented steam billowed out of the fire. There was far more of it than could be accounted for by the amount of water Blanche had flung. The cloud spread quickly in all directions, hiding Hugh and the three women completely from each other’s sight. Only the light from the fire was visible, a dim, reddish glow at the center of the mist.
The Widow’s voice rang through the hollow in the final “Fiat!” The fire flared once and died. The scented cloud hung a moment longer, then broke apart and vanished, leaving the Widow and her daughters blinking at the silent darkness. A shadow moved among the other shadows in the center of the circle, and Blanche said uncertainly, “Bear?”
Hugh shook himself to rid his fur of the bits of ash and leaves that had settled on him during the spell, and without thinking said, “My name’s Hugh.” He blinked at the ragged sound of his own voice, and realized that the spell had been at least partially successful. His mind was clear, and he could talk again.
“We’ve done the thing!” Rosamund cried triumphantly.
Blanche stepped forward eagerly, then stopped short. “Nay,” she said in a flat voice. “He’s still a bear.”
“But a most uncommon bear, I do assure you,” Hugh said. His voice rasped in his bear’s throat, but the discomfort was nothing compared to the pleasure of being able to speak.
“The bear speaks?” the Widow said incredulously, coming around the remains of the bonfire.
“Aye, and you have my gratitude for‘t,” Hugh answered. “If there’s a service I may do you, you have but to ask.”
“This is a hopeful sign, though all unlocked for,” the Widow said.
“Then dost thou think we should make another attempt?” Blanche asked quickly.
“Nay, Blanche, only a fool repeats a spell that’s partly failed. We must consider what this means before we try again.”
“But not here,” Rosamund said pointedly. The Widow laughed and agreed, and the women began gathering up their belongings to carry back to the cottage, where they could discuss the effects of their spell in relative comfort.

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