A Heavy Heart to Carry
The raven is following her, watching her with dark eyes.
It's pecking her eyes, pulling them out, and she wakes screaming, her poor Greta rushing to her side half-asleep. The girl hushes her like a child, it's alright now my queen, we're alright now. All the while she is painfully aware that it should be her doing the comforting. She hadn't been the one to be sucked dry and left to rot. Still, nothing can loosen her fingers from Greta's nightdress, not even shame.
Later, she doesn't remember falling asleep, hadn't thought she could, but when she wakes up, Greta is still pressed to her side, warm and soft in the morning light.
lll
The courtyard is filled with people and noises of work, stonemason and his apprentice repairing the damage to the outer wall, men unloading huge barrels from wagons, swearing all the while, a groom walking a horse back to the stables, muttering to himself, a servant rushing across the yard, getting in the way and being shouted at.
It makes her smile. She stands and watches and hopes to go unnoticed. What if her small window had a view to the courtyard instead of the sea? Would she have learnt from watching the people instead of now being hopelessly adrift among them? Would she have felt less alone or more so?
A passing maid happens to glance to her shadowy corner and almost drops her load of laundry in her haste to curtsy. Soon the clanging and the chatter and the noises of life stop and there is only the reverent murmur of your majesty and bent knees. She tries to smile. There's a flutter of dark wings in the corner of her sight. She doesn't turn to look.
lll
She used to go through her memories every day, coaxing their faded colors back to bloom. Her parents' faces and how they loved each other, loved her. How her horse Prim always wanted a carrot before a ride, how smooth her brown mane was. How much she hated fish pie and loved apples. All the places where she and William played and ran and fought.
So when William says, this is the hallway where we raced as children, do you remember, she is ready to deny it. No it isn't, it can't be, for she doesn't remember it. But he sounds so certain, his voice teasing, declaring, this is the way it was.
What else has she forgotten?
And then her doubts are pushed aside, for the memory changes colors again. From that moment onward, it's the hallway where he takes her hand, kisses her fingers. She blushes, races away, heart sinking like a stone.
lll
The sheets are stained with the ever spreading red, and her father's corpse is welcoming her home.
She manages to trap her shout, shuddering awake with a voiceless terror. Greta rests in front of the lit fireplace, no doubt waiting for her queen's nightly distress. The fire makes shadows play on her slight form. She watches Greta sleep for a while, feels her heart calm from its erratic flight. Then quietly, she gathers her robe and slippers, slips from the room to the darkness beyond.
lll
It's so dark, and in the dark, the beating of wings.
She knows her way, how many steps to climb, which door to push open. The air is cold and salty and familiar. Along the corridor, her hand brushes stone and iron, counting the doors. Hers is open, a gaping mouth to an empty cell.
A sliver of moon peeks from the small opening in the wall. The sea crashes to the rocks below, singing her old lullaby. Here nothing has changed. She pauses, thinks she shouldn't want to step inside. There's no one to see her here though, and so she curls in her small cot, fits her back to the hard press of stone.
She thinks, I'll be just a moment, and falls asleep.
lll
When she opens her eyes, a man is watching her. For a moment she is a girl again, until he steps into the moon's light, until she remembers the shape of him.
It doesn't look too comfortable, he says.
She answers, looks can be deceiving, and somehow her words sound sure and firm, although her whole body shakes.
Indeed, and he says it with a smile, short and sharp. He reminds her of a wolf, lean and hungry and dangerous. She tells herself she isn't afraid.
He comes inside and sits on her cot, looks at her. His thigh touches her leg.
I killed her, she says and it's a question, a horror, a relief.
He gathers her to his arms, and oh, her heart. Despairingly, she knows, she could make him do whatever she wants.
In the corner, the raven is following them, watching them with her dark, dark eyes.
lll
The boughs are still bare, the branches twisting in on themselves. Here, her mother stood and wished for a daughter. She has heard the story countless times; white as snow, red as blood, black as ebony. The thorns are sharp, and she presses her fingertip against one, the skin breaking easily.
A few drops of red fall to the muddy earth. I wish -
An old gardener, with a stooped back, walks slowly but surely towards her. She draws her blood smeared hand behind her back and thinks of something to say. She gestures to the rosebushes; I don't think there will be roses this year.
It's slow to heal, the wounds go so deep. But fear not my queen; someday it will bloom again, fairer than before. So says the gardener, his small dark eyes like the eyes of her magpies, intelligent, smiling, kind.
With your help sir, I'm sure it will. Her smile feels small and fragile, but holds true.
With the help of many others, the whole kingdom, he corrects and then bows and takes his leave.
She watches him go and for a moment doesn't fear the beat of dark wings or the flutter of her own small heart.
fin.