The Woodcutter (23 page)

The Woodcutter could say nothing.

The Lady in Blue glared at the Woodcutter’s vest pocket, as if she could burn a hole with her eyes.

Absently, the Woodcutter placed his hand inside and his fingers brushed against his bumpy handkerchief. The Woodcutter pulled it out and wiped his nose before placing it away again.

Confused, Iron Shoes reached into her bodice and removed her own handkerchief. It was wadded up, wrapped around a handful of fish bones. She looked at the bones and at the tower and then back to the bones again.

But as she looked up, her hands tilted and one of the bones fell onto the earth, landing upon its vertebrae.

It landed and grew in size and strength.

Iron Shoes looked at the bone and then took out another piece and attached it to the first and then took out another piece and attached it to the next. On and on, just as before, they grew until they formed a ladder made of backbone and ribs.

She placed her foot upon the first rung and climbed to the top and then placed another bone. Her handkerchief never seemed to empty. She climbed while her husband watched. She climbed with the weight of the world upon her shoulders, climbed one hundred feet until she reached the top and disappeared over the edge.

The Woodcutter’s heart caught in his throat as Iron Shoes shifted to counter the balance of her leaning tower.

Iron Shoes shouted, “It feels like the mattresses are slipping.”

The Green Dancing Lady laughed, “I wonder why they feel like that.”

Her laughter rang cruelly out over the courtyard.

The Lady in Blue looked at the Queen, “What have you done?”

“Why, nothing. I assure you. You know as well as I that I have done nothing to alter the outcome of this competition,” said the Queen. She gave the Gentleman a smile. She turned to the Lady in Blue, “Tell me, Ruler of the Seventh Kingdom. Do you like peas?”

Hours passed as the two girls adjusted themselves to the mattresses’ movement.

Iron Shoes’ tower moved dangerously with each breath.

The night wore on and torches were brought out to light the courtyard.

Six hours into the night, the false princess poked her head over the edge. “I’m hungry,” she shouted.

The Gentleman shouted in exasperation, “You can eat in the morning.”

“This is stupid.”

“You must endure this trial. Then you can have all the food that you want.”

“But I’m hungry now.”

The Gentleman exchanged an angry glance with the Queen before shouting back, “I understand, but now is not the time. Go to sleep.”

“How am I supposed to go to sleep on a pile of one hundred mattresses threatening to topple over on me any moment. This is NOT what I agreed to when I decided to let you make me a princess.”

The Queen hissed in through her teeth, “Silence, girl.”

The foolish thing threw herself back upon the mattresses in a huff.

That was her mistake.

The tower began to sway. The Green Dancing Lady screamed a piercing shriek.

As if in slow motion, the tower of the Green Dancing Lady fell. It fell against Iron Shoes, knocking both towers down at once.

The Lady in Blue and the Queen rose to their feet.

The false princess’s cries followed her as she tumbled down head over heels onto the mountain of mattresses.

But Iron Shoes’ mattresses fell one way and she fell the other, plummeting straight towards the cobblestones of the courtyard.

The Prince gripped the Woodcutter’s arm and cried, “Help her!”

“Iron Shoes has won!” the Woodcutter declared, and thus, the binding was broken.

The Woodcutter reached out.

He reached out to the wind, the wind of the North and the South. He called out to the wind of the East and the West. He called to the winds that had carried the girl upon their backs.

He called and asked them to help her once more.

But the West Wind was sleepy from carrying the scent of coconuts in the summertime breeze.

And the South Wind was tired from driving the scent of coriander and spice over the hot desert.

The East Wind was too busy dancing through the bamboo forests and playing with kites and flying machines.

Only the North Wind heeded the call.

And so the bitter North Wind swept down from the mountain, sped like an eagle of ice and sleet.

The North Wind caught Iron Shoes as she fell, caught her up in his embrace and considered for just a moment that he would keep her forever. But, the North Wind looked upon her lips and there he saw the mark of true love and knew that she would never be his, and so the North Wind set her roughly upon the stone ground.

But the North Wind was angered at those who would violate the mark upon Iron Shoes and he bit sharply at the Queen and her Gentleman. He bit at the bones of the false princess. With driving ice, the North Wind chased them from the castle. He drove them with hail and with drenching, freezing sleet.

And the Queen and her Gentleman ran.

The false princess with her green dancing shoes screamed as the North Wind tore at her hair and cut through her skin.

Only Iron Shoes, her Prince, the Lady in Blue, and the Woodcutter were left.

Iron Shoes, her Prince, the Lady in Blue, the Woodcutter, and a treacherous pea that lay among the mattresses.

They stood in the castle as it was covered in new snow; new snow that covered the mattresses and erased the trial, leaving soft hills where the North Wind had touched.

Baba Yaga stood on the balcony of her castle, watching as it all unfolded, sipping a tea made of blue roses.

Chapter 68

The Woodcutter stood upon the riverbank, the covered bridge before him. The grass was thick and green beneath his feet. On the other side of the river was the Second Kingdom.

There, the grass was brown and wild. The tree branches hung skeletally.

The Woodcutter began to cross the bridge.

Trip trap, trip trap.

His feet clattered upon the wooden slats as he walked in the cool shadows of its roof. The sides were open, allowing him a view of the water, clear and sparkling.

The Woodcutter wrinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of something foul, the smell of rot and garbage.

From beneath the shadows crawled a creature of green, whose arms were long and legs were short. His face was pocked and covered in ooze. His breath was rank and smelled of dead things.

“Who’s that tromping over my bridge?” said the troll as he blocked the Woodcutter’s way.

The Woodcutter cursed.

He had forgotten. He had forgotten a troll lived under this bridge. The Woodcutter rubbed his forehead and sighed wearily.

“It is I, a humble Woodcutter,” he said.

The troll looked at him and drooled, “Now you shall fill my stomach.”

The Woodcutter fingered his Platinum Ax.

One last chance.

The Woodcutter leapt up upon the railing of the bridge and cried out, “You have disturbed my water!”

The troll looked at the Woodcutter suspiciously, “What? I haven’t touched your water.”

“Yes, you have,” the Woodcutter replied.

“You some sort of river god?” the troll asked.

“Yes, yes I am and I have brought you a gift.”

The troll shambled close. The Woodcutter leapt from the railing and backed up towards the entrance of the bridge.

“Give it here,” said the troll.

“No, you must come and get it. I cannot leave the river shore.”

The troll scratched his head, knowing there was some reason he was not to leave the shadows of the sheltered bridge.

“You bring it here. I said so,” said the troll.

The Woodcutter leapt from the bridge and onto the banks of the river, pretending as if he was about to drop the Ax into the water.

The diamonds twinkled in the sunlight, transfixing the troll’s gaze.

The Woodcutter shifted uncomfortably as he saw the surface of the water shift.

Something swam beneath, a shape of blue and green. Dark eyes stared from the water at the Platinum Ax. The River God had seen him.

The troll shook his fist at the Woodcutter, “I said bring it here or I shall rip your teeth from your bleeding gums.”

“I’m afraid I must return to the water.”

The Woodcutter stepped closer to the bank.

The troll stepped closer to the edge of the bridge.

So close to the edge, he could not run for the shadows as a large billy goat charged at him and knocked him into the sunlight.

The troll froze, his body transformed to rock as he flew.

As the troll landed, he shattered into three large boulders.

The Woodcutter leapt away from the shore just as the surface of the river exploded, the River God crying out angrily before he disappeared back into the water.

The Woodcutter looked at the billy goat and tipped his hat.

The billy goat nodded in return.

The Woodcutter stepped aside as two smaller goats quietly crossed before continuing his journey to the Second Kingdom.

Chapter 69

The trees were gray, their voices silent.

The Woodcutter found it hard to breathe.

It was like walking through a graveyard.

The words unsaid hung in the air – this was the fate that awaited all Kingdoms if the Queen took power.

The Woodcutter quickened his pace.

The castle rose from the earth, gray stones upon gray stone. The forest around it had been cleared, the land was littered with stumps. The road forked, one branch leading to the castle’s gate, the other branch flanked the barren ground and led far away.

Upon a stump between the two branches sat a gray-cloaked figure with a deep cowl that hid her face.

The Woodcutter stepped closer and the figure lifted her head. Her voice let out an eerie keen, the keen of the bean-sidhe, the Banshee.

The hair upon the Woodcutter’s arms stood and chills ran up and down his spine.

“Whose death do you mourn?” the Woodcutter asked.

His heart slowed its racing as she pointed to the castle.

The Woodcutter nodded and she let him pass.

Chapter 70

His footsteps were muffled as he walked to the inner gate.

There, a single man in a rusted suit of armor started at him, his face gaunt and his lips cracked.

He reached to the Woodcutter and begged, “Food.”

And then he fell.

The Woodcutter opened the flap to his pack and hurried to the guard’s side. He reached in and withdrew a bit of the rations replenished by the Lady in Blue.

The Woodcutter softened the bread with water and placed it in the guard’s mouth.

The guard chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed as the Woodcutter continued to feed him.

Slowly, the guard began to drift back into consciousness. He focused upon the Woodcutter. “You must go away from here. You must fly far away,” the guard warned as he struggled to stand, but could not gain his feet.

He lay for a moment.

The Woodcutter held him for a moment more, “What happened here?”

The guard looked at him, “The new Queen. The new Queen destroys us all.”

He rolled to his stomach and began dragging himself down the path that the Woodcutter had just come.

The Banshee’s head turned as the man crawled past her feet. Slowly she stood and began to walk behind him, singing his funeral dirge.

Chapter 71

The Woodcutter stepped into what should have been a fine palace. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling. A hungry mouse skittered along the wall, skirting the furniture that lay upended. A shattered mirror reflected a broken image when he stared into its face.

A tattered throne stood in the throne room and upon it sat a young woman dressed in indigo.

Eyes closed, her head rested in the crook of her arm. Her red shoes were worn and dirty. They moved restlessly upon the floor.

The Woodcutter stepped into the middle of the room and cleared his throat.

She opened one eye and then curled into a tighter ball, her feet never stopping.

The Woodcutter cleared his throat again.

“What do you want? I am trying to sleep,” she muttered.

“Your Highness, your kingdom is in peril,” said the Woodcutter.

She flipped her body the other way and settled her head upon the armrest.