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CHAPTER 1
Like a Red, Red Rose
Susan Wade
At a time not so long ago, in a land much like our own, there was a cottage at the edge of a dark, haunted forest. In that cottage lived a woman and her daughter, and it was said by those in the villages and landholdings nearby that the woman was a witch.
Martine and her daughter lived in solitude, tending their animals and their garden, gathering herbs in the forest where none other dared go. The cottage was plain, perhaps a bit larger than most, but the only thing to set it apart was the magnificence of its garden. Luxuriant growths of every succulent fruit and vegetable known to that land (and some unknown) graced the garden: lush figs and grapes and pomegranates and perfect almonds and pears and beans and a myriad of other bounty. Even the stream that fed the garden was lined with watercress and mint. Among the villagers, it was whispered that the witch's magic was so powerful that, in her garden, a discarded rose would take root and flourish.
And if, of a dark night, people slipped away to visit the cottage by the wood — young girls in search of a love philter by which they might marry, or young men in search of a potion by which they might gain love without benefit of clergy — such things remained unspoken in town.
So it was that little Blanche, for that was the name of the witch's daughter, lived with her mother, never knowing what it was to play with other children: no May games or ring-a-rosy or catch-as-can. Her games were fashioned for one: rose petals floated on a surface of the small garden stream, or pine cones stacked to form a castle in which tiny flowers bloomed, visited by princely bees. It may have been that Blanche was lonely, but having never known company other than her mother's she did not notice it.
She was called Blanche (we must assume) because of her milky-fair skin, as pure and fine and fragrant as a petal from the great white rose tree which grew at the boundary between the cottage and the wood. Her hair was richly brown, as if carved from the polished wood of that same tree; her eyes as deep and true a green as its leaves. And each day, as soon as she had risen from her narrow bed, her mother would say to her, "It is morning, Blanche. Fetch me a rose from your tree, my child, that I may see how my daughter grows."
Blanche would scamper to the rose tree to pluck a newly-awakened blossom (and her mother must have been a witch indeed, for even in the depths of winter there would always be at least one glowing bloom).
And bringing that blossom to her mother, Blanche would always hear, "Ah, I see my child is like a white rose, pure and sweet as the morning." And her mother would catch Blanche up in her arms, and Blanche would place the rose in her mother's auburn hair where the flower would remain all that day.
As Blanche grew older, her life continued its solitary course; the only differences were in the nature of her games and the fact that her mother could no longer lift Blanche in her arms. But each morning, she still asked Blanche to bring her a rose from the tree, which she would wear in her hair for that day.
One day, as Blanche and her mother returned from gathering herbs and roots in the wood, Martine collapsed. Blanche raised her mother's head and gave her a sip from the bottle they always carried with them, filled with the spring that fed their garden.
Martine's color became more its usual shade, rosier than Blanche's fair skin ever was. Even so, Blanche thought her mother looked ill and far older than she had that morning. Blanche quickly crushed the amaranth flowers they had collected for one of the potions, a healing salve, and fed them to Martine. The deep purple-red of the blossoms stained her fingers and she scrubbed them on the grass.
Her mother's breathing became easier and she laughed a little. Blanche was reassured. "The peasants call it 'Purple-Heart' or 'Love- Lies-Bleeding.'" Her voice still sounded strained. "Shall we go now?"
Blanche decided that it was too soon for them to continue; they would wait until Martine seemed more herself. So she merely looked at the dark stain on her fingers and said, "You never told me that."
"I prefer its true name," her mother said. "Amaranth."
Martine sat up then, determined to go home. She needed to reach the cottage, but once there seemed to revive.
"Mother?" Blanche asked, once Martine had recovered. "What is wrong? Are you ill?"
"It is nothing," said her mother. "Only that I am no longer young."
Blanche found this difficult to credit, seeing her mother's face, its lovely color restored. With her smooth skin and rich auburn curls, Martine seemed unchanged from Blanche's earliest memories of her. "You must tell me if you are unwell," she said. "You must rest."
Martine sighed. "Perhaps it would be better if you went to collect the herbs. You know as well as I what is needed."
And so Blanche became the chief gatherer, while her mother remained at the cottage to prepare and blend her potions, and life flowed much as it always had for the two of them.
Until the son of the largest landholder in the area, arriving early of an evening, caught a glimpse of the witch's lovely daughter (for she was quite lovely, as you have no doubt surmised). He had come for a consultation during which he would purchase a certain potion he found useful; the witch kept such sundries in a cupboard near her front gate, as she was reluctant to allow local folk to enter the cottage.
He himself was a comely youth, with a lavish tangle of black curls and eyes like midnight. His name was Allain, and he was well known among the women of the village, a fact which pleased him.
Yet, clever as he was in the arts of love, his expertise deserted him when he first saw Blanche. He abandoned his conversation with an abruptness few would have dared, and demanded of the witch the name of the irresistible creature who had appeared beside the stream.
"She is my daughter," Blanche's mother said, speaking with an awful emphasis which even a smitten lover could not misapprehend. "Do not trouble your heart with her. She will never marry."
And so taken was Allain that he never considered that it was not ordinarily marriage which he sought from his inamorata. At least his experience of women did not desert him with Blanche's mother; at her angry words, he bowed swiftly and said, "It is clear then whence came her beauty." And concluding his business with great charm and greater dispatch, he spoke not again of the vision glimpsed beside the stream: of a girl with hair like polished wood and skin as fair as a pearl.
All his way home, that brief scene was reenacted in his imagination: the lovely apparition, as of a nymph from the forest, with gleaming hair and brilliant eyes that glanced toward him and swiftly away. He recalled she had carried a basket woven of peeled willow branches, overflowing with greenery. It was not difficult to deduce that she had come from gathering herbs in the forest.
And with the deduction, a simple solution to Allain's dilemma was found: he would seek the witch's daughter in the wood, which, whatever its reputation, was far less intimidating than the witch herself. He knew from personal experience how effective Martine's magic could be.
So it came about that on a day soon after (as soon as he had learned the name of the witch's beautiful daughter, in fact), Allain entered the wood. He kept to its nearer boundaries, despite his reputation for daring. But the forest growth was of such density as to be nearly impenetrable, so he was well hid from the witch's view even as he passed by the cottage. And he was well rewarded for entering that dark place, for not much of the day had passed before he came upon Blanche, seated on a fallen pine in a small glade as she investigated a promising growth of bit-moss.
A more striking pose could not have been found had she studied for one: with a beam of sunlight touching her hair to reveal strands of gold hid among rich brown, and her back a graceful curve which led the eye naturally to the even more graceful curve of her waist. And her skin! So pure and milky-fair was she that, for an instant, Allain wondered whether her mother had magicked the girl from a lily.
But then she turned, and saw him, and started; as shy as a dove. Any thoughts of her sorcerous nature faded from his mind.
"Blanche," he whispered.
Appearing even more startled, she looked up at him again, and he saw fully the glow of her eyes, so brilliant that they put the emerald shade of the forest to shame.
He came nearer, and when she would have gathered up her basket and fled, stayed her with a soft, "Ah, no, please!" And when she paused, he said, "I've come such a long way to speak to you, you couldn't be so cruel as to run away."
She turned to him at that, all her wondering curiosity in her eyes, and asked, "You've come to speak to me?"
"Why, yes," he answered. "Did you not know I would, after our souls met in the garden? I could not but come," he added, and possessed himself of her hand.
Blanche turned as if she would escape, and a hint of delicate color came into her cheeks.
The flesh of her hand, just of her hand! was so softly sweet and firm that Allain longed to test it with his teeth, trace it with his tongue; to consume that flesh with all the passion of which he was capable. But she was clearly innocent. Allain contented himself with a chaste kiss.
And saw, as his mouth caressed the tender curve of her palm, her lips part and her eyes become darker and lose their focus.
For Allain, these delicate signs of awakened passion were more inflaming than the intricate tricks of a seasoned courtesan.
His heart was lost from that moment.
For Blanche, the brief encounter in the forest filled a need she had never before recognized, never named. A need born of loneliness, perhaps, or simply a longing for companionship both more complex and less demanding than that of her mother. And with the satiation of that unspoken need, there came an awareness of an entire enchanted dimension beyond companionship.
Blanche turned in her narrow bed to see daylight streaming through the high, small window. Had she slept at all? Or had it been simply a reliving of that waking dream of him? He had touched her, his mouth against her palm. She twisted her face against the bed linens to cool her skin.
She heard her mother stir in the single bedroom of the cottage, then footsteps as she came into the main room where Blanche's small bed occupied a corner.
"It is morning, Blanche," her mother said, as she did each day. "Fetch me a rose from your tree, my dear, that I may see how my daughter does."
Blanche smiled at the familiar request. She rose and stretched, then pulled her gown over the simple shift that served as her nightwear.
In her bare feet, because it was summer (though, in truth, the garden was always in summer), she ran to pluck a rose from her tree. But when she reached it, she stopped, stunned.
In place of the snowy blossoms that had graced the tree all her life were creamy buds with a dusky golden-pink tinging the edge of each petal.
What could it mean? She reached a trembling hand to touch a blossom, then drew back. The roses were lovely, with a scent richer and more enticing than she remembered. And yet, and yet ... they were not her roses, not the roses that were Blanche. Yet she knew she could not have mistaken the great rose tree, queen of all the garden there on the verge of the wood.
"Blanche!" her mother called from the cottage. "Do not be dallying in the garden or your porridge will be done without you."
Blanche plucked a bloom then. It came to her hand no differently than the white rose had come the day before. Her mother would explain this to her; her mother's magic may have caused this to happen. Blanche turned and went to the cottage with hurried steps.
But the instant her mother saw the altered rose, her face grew terrible. She snatched the flower away and grasped Blanche's shoulder with a harsh hand. "Where do you see him?"
Shock tore the strength from Blanche's legs, and she nearly fell. Her mother had never spoken to her so, never looked at her so.
Her mother dropped the rose and shook Blanche. "Where?" she cried.
"In the forest," Blanche said.
At that, her mother released her and turned to pace a few steps. Then Martine turned back. "You are no longer pure, no longer the white rose. But it may not yet be too late to prevent the thing I fear most." She came close again to Blanche, her dark gaze holding the girl prisoner. "You know nothing of your own nature, nothing of what the world holds for such as we are. But you are my daughter and I will see that you do not live with the grief I have borne. I will see you to a new life, whatever it costs."
Blanche trembled. The things Martine was saying made no sense, and her intensity was frightening; the more so because it was unaccustomed.
"We must take the love potions and the amaranth salve I use to heal wounds. As large a quantity as we can manage. They will support us until we have the opportunity to establish ourselves elsewhere," her mother went on. "As for clothing and household goods, very little will be necessary. Some food and water is all. Perhaps we can sell the chickens and the goat in the village."
Blanche stared at her mother. "We are to leave? Where will we go?"
Martine said distractedly, "That is to be seen, but, yes, we will leave. Tomorrow."
"But why?" Blanche asked. "I was born here. Why must we leave?"
"It is the only escape, I tell you. I will not let you suffer as I have."
"My only escape from what? If my life is to be changed, I must know why."
Martine hesitated for only an instant. Then she looked down at the creamy rose petals scattered on the floor, each limned in dusky color. "We leave so you will not lose all that you love. Now gather your things. We must be gone by first light."
The next morning saw them on the road leading south to the nearest village. Blanche's heart was heavy at leaving her home, its garden more lovely than it was at that dawn: a glittering array of nature's jewels, all scent and color and light. Blanche was curious as well as frightened; her only experience of the world outside her mother's garden had been to wander in the forest, which seemed more an extension of the garden than a separate place.
The road was of dun earth, dull and gritty. Blanche was footsore before they had traveled far; keeping the goat and chickens to the road was a worrisome task, and the barrow she helped her mother push was heavy.
It was yet early morning when they reached the village. Blanche looked to her mother for guidance, but Martine was pale and listless and merely stood with her head low.
Blanche glanced around, curious at what the town would hold. A group of men stood by the village well, watching the two women. One of them moved forward at a difficult pace. His few strands of white hair did not conceal the brown marks of age on his skull. When he came within a few steps of them, she noticed that the whites of his eyes had yellowed, a condition for which her mother often prescribed an infusion of vervain. He cleared his throat and spat at Martine's feet.
"Witch!" he said, his voice cracked. "There is nothing here for you. Go back to your devil's garden."
Martine raised her head for the first time when he spoke the word "garden." She did not answer the old man, but only gazed at him. The other villagers crowded around. Blanche waited, certain her mother would wither this rude man with only a look.
He spat again. "Go back," he repeated. "None here will have you." Then he swung around and glared at Blanche. She saw that his yellow eyes were crazed with red lines. They looked as if they might crack open and spill blood in the dust, he stared so hard at her. "Nor her neither," the old man said, pointing at Blanche, "for all she is so fair. There's those here old enough to remember what your kind is. Go back."
Martine spoke then, in a voice so faint it was as if only the wind answered. "We won't trouble you. We only wish to sell stock before we go on." She paused, then added as if in afterthought, "I will not even drink from your well."
The old man cackled. "That you won't," he said. "Nor any here take your stock. Raised on the devil's flesh, they was, and we know it. There's nothing for you outside that plot sown with devil seed. Go back and reap what you have planted, witch." The other villagers crossed themselves and made signs against the evil eye.
Martine said quietly to Blanche, "Leave them, then, the animals. You must take the barrow now, for I cannot any longer." Blanche had never known her mother to betray weakness. What was wrong?
Then Martine tossed her head back in her imperious manner. Blanche, seeing the moisture bead on her mother's brow, wondered what even that small gesture had cost.
"Yes, Mother," she said.
Martine walked past the villagers, then paused. "Perhaps those with more sense will take these animals and care for them," she said to Blanche. Her voice was pitched to carry. "Not all the people here disdain the fruits of my garden."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Snow White, Blood Red"
by .
Copyright © 1993 Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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