Swan Sister (5 page)

The Princess Sofia laughed. “Love is the only wealth that matters.” She turned to the barren dunes and opened wide her arms.

Around them the desert changed, becoming rolling hills of green grass. Flowers bloomed and palms sprouted from rocks, lifting graceful fronds to the blue sky. Water bubbled from the little spring and flowed into a sparkling pond and then a river. A castle shaped itself out of white clouds, the marble towers etched with flowers and calligraphy, the blue domes the color of the sky. A thick carpet of moss and ferns grew around the castle walls, while overhead doves cooed in their nests in the eaves. Falcons launched into the wind from the gold-roofed minarets.

“Look there,” said the princess. “Those are my subjects returning.” On a road cut into a valley of ripening wheat Khan saw wagons pulled by teams of oxen. Herd boys and farmers shouted, their dogs barking as they guided their sheep and cattle over the hills. A woman waved a bright-colored scarf in greeting. Children skipped beside a musician who marched along the road playing a fiddle as people streamed toward the castle.

Khan and the Princess Sofia were married soon after. For three days there was feasting and dancing. And so huge was the wedding cake that even now there are still crumbs of it to be found at the back of every cupboard.

M
IDORI
S
NYDER
writes, “When I was a child one of my favorite books was a large, illustrated version of
The Arabian Nights.
Long before I could read, I was making up stories to go with the enchanting and sometimes terrifying images on the pages: turbaned princes flashing curved swords, almond-eyed women whispering secret advice into the ears of sleeping heroes, feathered and furred creatures, and plates of exotic foods. I also grew up in a house full of cats, and much later, when I couldn’t have cats, my daughter kept golden hamsters. One day I read that hamsters originated from the Syrian deserts and, recalling my old fairy tale book, which my daughter was now reading, I imagined them as having escaped from the pages of
The Arabian Nights,
pursued by Persian cats. I wrote this story for my daughter, who likes to invent stories too, and to celebrate all the ‘golden furs’ who have provided us with such charming company over the years.”

M
IDORI
S
NYDER
is the author of the young-adult novel
Hannah’s Garden
and the fantasy trilogy that includes
New Moon, Sadar’s Keep,
and
Beldan’s Fire.
She lives with her husband, son, and daughter in Wisconsin, where she teaches high school English.

My family lived next door to Bluebeard’s country mansion all
my life. We shared a hedge with him, and we could see the fruit-tree tops in his orchard above the hedge from our orchard.

Bluebeard lived well. All his horses were strong and elegant, his carriages beautifully appointed and maintained. His gardens flourished. Even from a distance, his house sparkled. Yet he made everyone uneasy.

I, the youngest of five children and the one most often alone, spent much of my time pushing hedge branches aside to peer between them. I saw Bluebeard in snatches; I knew that his head was bald, his brows thick and black, and that his eyes, under the shelves of his brows, held dark fire.

His beard, though, as everyone said, was a strange color of blue, lighter than lapis but not so light as the sky, more as though he had dipped it into the sky’s reflection in a dark lake.

Like everyone else, I found him strange. On those rare occasions when I saw all of him, I shivered.

When I was young, my family kept our distance from Bluebeard with ease. My father, a merchant, prospered; we had friends all around us and could afford to ignore one neighbor.

After Father died, everything changed. None of us had learned Father’s bookkeeping practices. Most of our money evaporated.

My three brothers joined the army. They sent some of their wages home to our mother, my older sister, Anna, and me. We had almost enough money to live on.

Mother made lace. Anna took in laundry and mending from the neighbors. And I, well, I foraged; sneaking was what I had always done best, and now I put it to use.

On my forays I observed several of Bluebeard’s wives through the hedge and met two of them.

Our orchard was still bearing well when I met the first. She was chasing a small white dog, with little cries of dismay that her slippers grew wet from the dewy grasses of his garden.

I was picking cherries from one of our trees. The dog hid in my skirts.

The wife wore a hat so large it shielded not only her face but her shoulders from the summer sun. She did not
want to stoop to pick up the dog, fearing paw prints on her dress, so I carried the little thing all the way back to her house and set it within the door. She did nothing to restrain it. It ran out again.

She cried.

I fetched the dog for her twice more, the last time asking her for a cord to tie it with. That was the first time I went into Bluebeard’s house.

The rug in the living room showed a scene from some warmer country, where people sat outdoors and played musical instruments I had never seen nor heard, though somehow, as I leaned to look, I thought I heard an unknown song. The couches and chairs in that room were covered in cloth so soft it felt warmer and finer to the fingers than animal fur, and the colors were like flowers. Mirrors on the walls caught images of each other so that the room looked like it went on forever, framed in carved crystal. A cabinet against one wall held many small, marvelous bottles and figurines of colored stone, ivory, and pearl. The wife left me there to look. Each object was more delicate and astonishing than the last.

It was the most wonderful room I had ever seen.

Bluebeard’s wife ran to the kitchen and returned with a cake sweeter than fresh cherries and laden with buttery frosting. I had never tasted anything so lovely before. The wife let me wrap most of my piece up in a kerchief to take home to Mother and Anna. She kissed my cheek and showed me out.

My hands ached with longing to hold the little wonders I had seen in the cabinet.

I met another wife in the evening, a year or so later. By that time we had had to cut down half our orchard for wood; my brothers had no wages from the army to send home, for the war had been going on so long no one was being paid.

I had become a daughter my mother had never raised me to be, one who skulked about at night, foraging for fruit from other people’s orchards, beans from other people’s bushes, eggs from beneath other people’s chickens. My older sister held on to the rags of her dignity by taking in laundry and sewing, though the harsh soap roughened her hands. Mother was a little blind by then, or chose not to see how we put food on the table. She knitted endless pairs of stockings from wool my sister bought with laundry money and never asked where they went when she had finished them.

No one knew for sure what had happened to the wife with the little dog. Rumor said that she, like Bluebeard’s other wives, had been carried off by disease—that there was something unhealthy in the air near his house, which, after all, backed on the sea marshes. Some of the villagers had seen him mourning her, his best carriage shrouded in black, the horses’ heads capped with black ostrich plumes, when he rode out to take care of his business ventures. He did not bury his wives in the church cemetery. Some said he had sent her home to her family for burial.

Other rumors whispered of darker fates for Bluebeard’s wives.

The new wife was pale and had a gloomy face. She was searching for herbs that bloomed at night, she said. Did I know where the Angel of Death mushroom grew?

“Is a mushroom truly an herb?” I asked her.

“Perhaps not, but it might work like one,” she said. “My mind is troubled, and I want to make myself a tincture to help me sleep. The recipe comes from my godmother.”

The pockets of my apron were full of apples plucked from Bluebeard’s trees. I pulled the folds of my patched skirt forward to hide the bulges and led the wife into the Wastes, where high tide brought salt water so that no good crops would sprout, but one sometimes found shipwrecked things. There was a little hummock higher than the marshlands where curious things grew. I told her I had seen mushrooms there I didn’t dare pick, not knowing if they were useful or deadly.

The wife gave me a strange smile, and I left her there.

It was not so long afterward that Bluebeard came to visit. My sister and I hid upstairs when Mother opened the door, for neither of us wanted to meet him; but our mother’s voice was full of welcome, and presently she called up the staircase, telling us to tidy up and come down to meet the gentleman from next door.

Anna and I clutched each other’s arms, then took turns dressing each other’s hair and sponging spots from each other’s best remaining dress. I thought of the rug I
had seen in Bluebeard’s house, how stepping on it had reminded me of walking on feathers.

We went down to the front parlor, the only room where we laid fires so we could work with a little warmth. Bluebeard stood before the hearth. He was tall and broad shouldered, his clothes darkest blue, his cuffed black boots shiny. Something about him made me turn my head away. I could not look at his face.

“Daughters, here is Mr. Thanos from next door, with such a wonderful offer,” said Mother. She smiled. Her mouth looked stiff.

Anna and I curtsied. I fixed my gaze on the hilt of Bluebeard’s cutlass. A tiny ivory moon face smiled from the pommel.

“My dears,” said Bluebeard, and his voice was softer and gentler than I had imagined. “I have long admired you. I am in need of a wife. Though I hesitate to mention it, I can see that you have fallen on hard times.” He glanced toward the table, where lay three withered apples from his trees in a chipped bowl, remnants of last summer’s crop. “I can offer you and your mother comfort, food, and luxury. Won’t one of you marry me?”

Anna and I clasped each other’s hands, stared into each other’s eyes. “Anna is the eldest. She most deserves the honor,” I said, and my stomach soured.

“Sara is much prettier than I,” said Anna. Her cheeks lost color.

I thought of the cabinet full of small stone marvels. “His house is full of wonders,” I told Anna.

“Indeed,” said Bluebeard. “The finest furs, the most beautiful tapestries, the most intricate carvings, paintings by the best artists in the world. My cook is skilled in the cuisines of seven countries. I have enough coal to last us through twenty winters, enough lands to raise wheat and mutton and fruit forever. My trading ventures bring me tea and spices from all over the world. The one who marries me will want for nothing.”

Anna gripped my hands. I turned to stare at Bluebeard, forcing myself to study his face without flinching.

Mother could no longer see to match the colors for the stockings she knitted. We had to lay out the yarns for her. Though she didn’t complain, I knew her bones ached with cold most nights; the joints of her hands were swollen and twisted. She would be so much happier if she could curl up beside a fire.