The Rose Tree
Alike to Terra-Cotta Sadness' story, and they spring from juniper tree groves. Not nearly as good, but just a thank you.
Cries of pain echo around the room, the candles casting flickering shadows on the earthen walls. The woman's wails entwines with her child's, brought into the world with her mother's blood and tears. The midwife lifts the child to her chest and releases a pent-up breath.
"Rejoice! You have a beautiful daughter!" The white-faced husband staggers to press his trembling lips on his wife's sweaty brow streaked with damp gold hair. "My love, you have given me a wondrous miracle." The woman lifts a hand, smiles, and whispers, "Be happy." Then her hand falls, already as pale and cold as marble.
It is the man's turn to weep.
~o~
An ebony coffin is lowered into the cold ground. After the mourners disperse with hushed dirges and consolations, a lone man remains by the newly turned grave, his infant daughter sleeping on his shoulder.
She needs a mother to love her, he realizes and sighs.
He need find a wife.
~o~
A man could not be happier.
The man smiles at his children. A beautiful red-lipped daughter, a handsome, strong-faced son. Then his eyes fall on his new wife. Her lips are pressed tightly together, her eyes narrowed. Then she shakes her head and laughs, gazing fondly at her son. Always her son, the man worries.
But it is nothing.
~o~
Awful child.
Naughty girl.
Greedy one.
The second wife watches her stepdaughter with dangerous eyes. The girl throws her back and laughs at something her brother said, the light glinting on her golden hair, her cherry lips, her sapphire eyes. The woman purses her lips with wicked thoughts. The girl will receive the money.
That girl will have the inheritance.
Not her darling son.
She must go.
She must die.
"My darling child," she calls. She smiles. The little girl runs to her, her eyes eager. Suspects nothing. "Go to the grocer's shop and buy me a pound of candles." She gave her the money; she watched the girl go; and the little girl goes, skipping happily, calling an impassioned farewell to her brother.
The woman sneers.
~o~
The girl comes home crying.
Disgusting.
"Child, why must you cry?" "A dog stole my candles, Ma. I spent all the money." The woman wants to strike her, but she does not. That would not do. Trust is fragile. "Come, lay your head on my lap that I may comb your hair." She does so. And when the woman combs the hair, it falls over her knees, a cascade of gold.
The woman only hates her more. She says, "I cannot part your hair on my knee, my child. Fetch a billet of wood." And the girl fetches it.
"I cannot part your hair with a comb, fetch me an axe," the stepmother lisps. The child obeys, her eyes shining.
"Now," say the woman. Her lips twist into a ghastly smile. "Lay your head down on the billet whilst I part your hair."
Down comes the axe. The small golden head thuds to the floor, its crimson lips still smiling, still smiling. Petals from the rose tree blow in through the open window
"A dainty girl makes for a dainty meal."
~o~
Blood. There was so much blood.
The boy cradles his sister's bones, sobbing in a puddle of blood. His mother had forbidden him entering her room, but curiosity overtook him, and saw... saw bloodstained bones and a blue pinafore that would never be worn again.
"Darling?" The woman enters her room. Sees her son. The entrails in his hands. And screams, but her cry is nothing, nothing compared to her son's.
"Witch! Witch, I will kill you for this!" The boy lunges forward, grasping for his mother's neck. Wildly, she strikes out with whatever she had in hand. A carving knife she had used to kill the demon-child.
It was self-defence, not filicide.
The demon-girl's spirit had possessed me!
The witch, it was the girl, not me! I am not the witch!
The plea falls upon deaf ears.
She will be killed tomorrow.
~o~
The woman was hooded before her execution. The last things she saw was her husband, deathly pale and furious, and two children holding hands. A boy and a girl.
She screamed a long, long time before dying.