The Woodcutter (3 page)

The woman blinked.

And then she sighed and reached across the table to do another line of pixie dust.

He waited as she let the magic slide from her nostrils down the back of her throat.

“Little bitch had it coming.”

Blonde curls against the wooden floor.

He sat down in a chair. The free magic was making him dizzy.

He willed his lips to move, “Do you have any enemies?”

She looked at him incredulously, “She was probably killed by one of those wolf things that’s always going around eating up children.”

A true mother would never have sent her child-daughter into the Woods dressed in a red cape.

The flowers scattered…

He looked down at his folded hands, “She did not have a mark upon her. Neither she nor your mother.”

The woman sat up, suddenly alert. “My mother? What happened to my mother?”

She read it in his eyes before he was able to say the words.

She began screaming.

Screaming that he was a liar. Screaming that it wasn’t true.

Screaming.

And screaming.

And screaming.

The Madam rushed into the room and held the woman tight to her bosom, rocking her gently and forcing a vial of liquid to her lips.

The screams slowed and then stopped, and the woman fell into sleep.

The Madam looked at the woman and then at the Woodcutter, “If you hurt a hair…”

“Her child and her mother were found dead just a few hours ago.”

The Madam stroked the whore’s head and sighed, “She won’t be much use to me for awhile.”

She fell silent, her cold words hanging in the air.

“Did she have any enemies?” asked the Woodcutter.

“None that I know,” the Madam shrugged.

“The dust trade?”

“She used. Never dealt.”

“Any other girls gone missing lately?”

The Madam shook her head, “None that I know…” She stopped herself, “Wait. Not one of mine, but some servant a few nights back.… Whatever the night the Prince had that ball. Stella. Ella. Something. She might have shown back up, but her stepmother was looking for her.”

The Woodcutter rose and flicked a wooden coin at her. The Madam caught it in her palm.

“Let me know if you see her.”

Chapter 10

He stared at the ceiling, awake in his spartan room at the empty inn. Midnight had come and gone. The bed’s straw tick poked at his skin. He tossed off the blankets and walked to the window, opening it to the night air.

The one body had become three – a woman in glass slippers, dressed in a ball gown of white, a grandmother sleeping in her bed, and the half-fae child with golden hair. All three killed without a mark, but all three covered in the same stench of fear.

He looked at the moon and he could almost feel his wife’s soft hair against his skin, the way she fit perfectly between his jaw and his shoulder. There had been that day so many years ago…that day when she had first rested her head against him, when everything was still new and tentative. They had watched the sun go down and waited to count the stars in the sky, speaking of everything and nothing.

I shall look at the moon and wait for you, my love…

Three chances before he would have to visit the River God again.

He lay back down and closed his eyes.

Chapter 11

The village disappeared beneath the horizon as he made his way to the Woods. The trees swayed in greeting; they knew him here.

The Woodcutter inhaled deeply, searching for the tainted scent he first smelled on the woman with glass slippers. The wind brought him no answers. He slowed his pace, looking at the vegetation for bruises or broken branches. He searched the ground, looking everywhere for a sign.

The boot impression was almost hidden in the dry dirt and pine needles. The next footprint was small and delicate, slightly larger than the palm of his hand. Deeper and deeper into the Woods he followed the track left unwittingly by its owners.

A flash of dark hair between the branches and leaves caught the corner of his eye. He crept forward.

A young girl cried softly.

Hair as black as ebony.

He relaxed and allowed the leaves to crunch beneath his feet.

Skin as white as snow.

She leapt up.

Lips as red as blood.

As blood.

Blood.

And that was when he realized things were horribly wrong.

In her hand was a dagger. Lying at her feet was the body of a huntsman. And upon her snow white skin was the dark red stain of blood.

She cried out hysterically, “Do not come a step closer!”

The huntsman. Slashed across the neck. Stabbed in the heart. Fresh crimson poured from his still-warm body.

The Woodcutter held out his hands as a sign of peace to the terrified princess.

“I know you! I know you, Huntsman! Come to cut out my heart and deliver it in a box to the Queen,” she screamed.

He saw the glamour on the blade.

He softened his voice, “I am but a humble woodcutter, not a huntsman.”

Her trembling hand lowered a fraction of an inch.

“I was drawn by your cries,” he said.

She wiped away a tear, leaving a streak of red across her cheek.

“I mean you no harm.”

She gulped. Then hiccupped.

“You seem to have some trouble here.”

Her voice wavered, “He tried to kill me.”

The Woodcutter nodded as he glanced over her body from head to toe. She was marked purple and blue by bruises and scrapes. Huntsmen were supposed to be moved by pity to leave young girls untouched in the Woods. Her innocence lost, she would no longer be able to converse with the animals that would have protected her.

The Queen’s power was growing. The story was being changed – the girl in the glass shoes, the Small One with the red cape, now the Princess of the Sixth Kingdom herself.

The trees seemed to cry.

“Come with me,” the Woodcutter murmured.

She raised the knife in panic.

He continued to hold out his hands, speaking to her gently, “The blade you hold has been spelled.”

She seemed to be listening, but he could see her pulse pounding in her throat.

“It will turn your hand against yourself if it does not cause death again soon. If you put it on the ground, I can help you. There is a cottage nearby that I can take you to, a cottage where you will be safe…”

His voice repeated the instructions over and over. He allowed just a little bit of magic to whisper into the words. Snow White’s lids began to drift closed. Her fingers relaxed and the blade slipped.

He had her in his arms before she could fall.

As the knife sped towards the earth, it spun and impaled itself hilt first into the ground. Its bewitched blade stared up at him hungrily, like a baby bird begging for food.

“You are a nasty one,” he said to the knife.

He knew it was not his imagination that a shadow winked back at him along the metal’s sharp edge.

He carried the Princess to the safety of a tree and leaned her against its strong trunk. The tree shifted its branches to cradle her reclining form.

The Woodcutter unsheathed the Silver Ax and walked towards the knife.

The energy seemed to sizzle as the two objects sized each other up. He felt the Ax tremble in his hand with excitement, a guard dog being held back from attack.

He swung the Ax above his head and struck the tip of the knife true.

A thunderclap sounded as storm clouds darkened the sky.

He gritted his teeth as the Ax powered its way through. He heard the knife scream. Its wild magic was no match for the elemental powers contained by the Ax.

The wind whipped around him.

The Ax continued its work, cutting through the knife from point to hilt, fueled only by the authority of the Woodcutter.

A lightning bolt struck the Ax and the knife disappeared in its flash of blinding white light. The Ax dissolved into water.

But, the storm did not break as it should have. Instead, the wind cried,
RUN!

The Woodcutter threw Snow White over his shoulder and raced into the day as dark as night.

The Beast raised his nose.

His blind eyes shone silver in the darkness.

He chuffed the cold air, coating his mouth with the taste of the wild, untamed magic calling him to the Hunt.

He howled at the trees, howled at them as they screamed warning to his prey.

The Woodcutter stopped. He did not breathe. He covered the Princess’s mouth with his hand. The trees whispered,
Quietly! Quietly!
as they lowered their branches to hide him.

A wind roared past and he knew it held the creature he sought.

But, he waited. He waited with the Princess until the night lifted and the day returned to its proper hour. He waited until the voices of the trees returned to their gentle sigh.

Then he gathered up the princess in his arms, leaning her head against his shoulder, and continued walking.

Chapter 12

The door to the cottage was open. The small body of a tiny man lay over the threshold. His hand still clasped the handle, although he no longer breathed.

The Woodcutter wearily placed the princess down.

The body was followed by six more throughout the cottage, each in a position of flight, each dead without a mark.

The Woodcutter returned to the front door and leaned his hand against it. It was a door made of solid oak. The life of the tree should have warded the home against evil, if only the men had been able to make it inside.

The door to the Grandmother’s house was ajar…

He did not understand this force that had been summoned by the bewitched knife, this thing that killed without a mark, this creature that did not have to wait for the sun to go down to strike.

He carried the Princess and laid her across the seven small beds. He knew that this was the appointed place for the Princess to hide. If it was no longer safe, then the force they faced was beyond his powers.

He then carried the seven bodies out into the yard and buried them, not willing to risk the magic necessary to give them the traditional rites of pyre and light. He could sense that their spirits had already left. They were not clinging to their bodies. He could feel it. It was strange that the knowledge brought him no peace.

He sighed and ran his fingers through his beard.

He would stay.

If the creature returned, he would protect the Princess.

And he did not want to risk the coming night alone.

Chapter 13

The Princess’s eyes fluttered open. They seemed to focus upon the seven headboards. She sat up, taking in the room and its diminutive furniture.

She turned to the Woodcutter. The crusted blood cracked on her face and lazy flakes dusted the sheets.

“Do little children live here?”

The Woodcutter looked at the young woman. Not yet seventeen. Sixteen and at the prime of magic’s peak. Her heart would have been a dear treasure for the Queen.

“There are no children here,” he said. The Woodcutter could not help the deadly chill that ran through his bones. “No one lives here anymore.”

She looked at him. She had more intelligence in her eyes than most princesses he had met.

“There were supposed to be people living here…weren’t there…”

The question trailed off.

But it remained in her eyes.

Those intelligent eyes.

Blue eyes against the blonde curls.

His mind retched at the thought of the tiny hands gathering flowers just yesterday, of the small hands of the men he had just buried.

The Princess looked down at the burgundy stains upon her white skin.

“There was supposed to be someone here,” she whispered.

She began trying to rub off the blood, dabbing her fingertips to her tongue and furiously wiping the red upon her arms. “This should never have been on my skin,” she said.

The Woodcutter took her hands in his and held them upon her lap until they stilled.

She looked at him. Her eyes were brown, not blue.