Free The Fairest of Them All by Carolyn Turgeon Page B

stand looking out over the trees to the distantpalace, imagining my son there in a golden crib, surrounded by adoring courtiers,swathed in expensive silks. They were dangerous thoughts but when they came, less and less often through the next years, I found them comforting. Imagining that somewhere, he lived still.

    A nd so the years passed. Our garden flourished and died and then flourished again. Women came to see uscomplaining of broken hearts and unfaithful husbands and lovers, and later their daughters came to us with the same troubles. We heard news, eventually, that the queen mother died, and reports that the princess Snow White was growing into an uncommonly intelligent child. Crimson flowers bloomed on my child’s grave every spring, vanished again every autumn. The seasons passed and the world did notstop the way, sometimes, I was sure my own heart had.
    The king never came to see me, though I often thought of him, and sometimes tried to call him to me the way I had once. By all accounts, my beauty only grew greater with each passing day, but it did me little good. I would avoid the tower for weeks on end and then find myself gripped by passion, nostalgia, running up those stone stairs tothe room where our child had been made. There, sometimes, in the mirror, I found him. I’d look at my own reflection and see the prince—now king—sitting behind me on the bed, holding our child on his lap.
    “You’re really here,” I’d say, the way I had before. “Aren’t you?”
    But he never answered, though every year he grew more distinguished, and every year my child grew bigger, with bright blondhair like his mother’s. I’d see them in flashes, behind myface in the glass, but whenever I’d turn to them, my heart swelling, my eyes burning with tears and hope, the vision would vanish and the real world, with its constant needs and ever-present hunger—of the earth, the body, and the heart—asserted itself once again.

S even winters had come and buried us in snow when one afternoon an unusual woman came to see us.
    Itwas nearly dark outside, despite the time of day. Mathena and I were indoors by a massive growling fire, mixing batches of herbs into poultices. It was easy, soothing work that allowed each of us to only be half there—until a knock on the door yanked us into the present.
    “I’ll get it,” I said.
    Outside, a figure stood hunched over, the wind whipping around her, furs pulled tightly against herbody. Behind her, the trees swayed, shaking snow into the air.
    “Come in,” I said, stepping back to give her room.
    She looked up at me and I was struck by how lovely her eyes were, wide and gray. “My horse,” she said weakly.
    “I’ll take him to the stable and make sure he is tended,” Mathena said, grabbing her own skins and moving outside.
    I looked at the girl more closely, and was surprisedto see that her face was marked with tears, which had frozen on her skin in tiny crystals. What a beautiful effect, I thought—it was as ifher skin were covered in jewels. She stepped inside, shivering.
    Underneath her furs, which I helped her take off and then hung by the fire to dry, she was dressed richly, in silk and velvet.
    “Come and sit,” I said. I led her to the far side of the couch,next to the fire, where she could warm herself, and put the kettle to heat with herbs for a nice tea. I watched, transfixed, as her tears melted and ran down her face.
    Mathena returned a few minutes later, her face red from the cold.
    “How far did you travel?” I asked.
    “I came from the palace,” the girl said, her voice cracking, and I looked at her in surprise.
    Aside from the prince, no onefrom the court itself had ever come to us, in all this time.
    The fire crackled, kicking up shadows over her face. She had a small red heart-shaped mouth, auburn hair twisted in braids around her face. And on her face, a faint black marking, next to her right eye.
    “My name is Clareta,” she said.
    I handed her