Free Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia Wrede

produce a torch, or a path out of these woods,” she added with more sharpness than usual. Blanche was tired, frightened, and all too conscious of the responsibility that rested on her as the elder of the two.
    An owl hooted twice, and was answered by the slow creaking of a tree branch. “Thou hast the right of it,” Rosamund said grudgingly, “though it likes me not.”
    “Thinkest thou that I’m more fond of this than thee?” Blanche snapped. “Needs must, and there’s an end on’t.”
    “Vent thy anger elsewhere,” Rosamund said in a tone as cross as her sister’s. “This is not my doing!”
    Blanche opened her mouth to respond in kind, then closed it firmly. After a moment she said with credible calm, “I know, and I’m sorry for my temper. ‘Tis my fears that speak, and not myself.”
    “Belike tomorrow we’ll have better fortune,” Rosamund said, trying hard to sound reassuring. “But how shall we sleep safe?”
    Blanche frowned into the darkness. “If we say our prayers, no evil in Faerie will harm us,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “Also, we’ve found valerian, and vervain, and herb-of-grace; we’ll lay them all around us to ward off Faerie folk. Mother will not grudge us some for such a purpose.”
    “More likely she’d urge us to use them all,” Rosamund said with a small smile, for she was often impatient with her mother’s caution. “But ‘tis well thought of.”
    Blanche blinked at her younger sister, then set her basket carefully on the ground and curtsied. “I do thank thee for thy approval, O wise one,” she said demurely.
    A handful of twigs and leaves showered over Blanche’s head. “Goose!” Rosamund said, fixing her sister with a mock scowl. “There’s thy approval, if thou‘lt make fun of me.”
    “Not soon again, thou mayest be certain,” Blanche responded, brushing bits of plants from her shoulders. “Come, let’s lay the circle.”
    The two girls put their bundled herbs on the mossy forest floor and removed the plants they needed. These they set on the ground around them, placing them carefully to form an unbroken circle. A warm breeze made soft rustling noises in the leaves above them and stirred the strong herb smells into a single, pungent scent. Then they knelt beside their baskets and said their prayers aloud, before laying themselves side by side on the moss to sleep.

     
    In the days that followed Hugh’s collapse, John remained close to his brother’s bedside. At first, Hugh lay motionless, his face a lifeless, waxen mask that by its lack of expression betrayed just how many of his thoughts and feelings had formerly shown through his Faerie manner. Gradually, a flush rose beneath his skin. His long fingers plucked fretfully at the quilted satin coverlet, and soon he was tossing feverishly on his sickbed.
    For a week, Hugh lay in an airy, light-filled room, alternating between deep unconsciousness and fits of restlessness. He would take water from his brother’s hands, and sometimes a little barley gruel, but even on the rare occasions when his eyes were open there was neither reason nor recognition in their depths. The vast array of Faerie powers that were brought to his aid were helpless; the most that they could do was to still, for an hour or two, the querulous motion of his hands.
    “Can you do nothing?” John demanded of the chief physician for the twentieth time.
    “Without exact knowledge of the spell that troubles Prince Hugh, my skill avails but little,” the healer replied with regret.
    “There’s the spell; observe it!” John said angrily, waving at his brother. Hugh lay like a marble statue on the bed, the coverlet barely moving with the rise and fall of his chest.
    “This have I done, so far as I am able,” the healer said carefully. “That is to say, the effects of this enchantment are plain, as you have said. But what of the purpose of this charm? What of the mechanics of the spell? Can you tell me if it