24) Thorns

She woke cocooned in the softest white down she had ever touched. Her skin was filthy, her clothing in rags, but she was warm for the first time in what felt like years. She heard the soft lap of water nearby, and a cold doggy nose began to lick at her sore hands.

The cloud white cover lifted above her, and she saw the skies blue and hard above her. A black eye and orange beak rose from beside her, and the great swan carried them to the edge of the misty lake, gently putting her down on the bank. The bird shimmered and changed, and Aodhan Tinker squatted to sit beside her.

"I should be dead," she said, almost disappointed. The little God's Hound reached up to lick her face, accidentally putting an eager paw in her wounded shoulder.

"It's a disturbing feeling, yes," Aodhan agreed.

"The village?" She bowed her head, afraid of his answer.

He laughed, throwing his head back. "Oh, my dear witch, it was the best ever. They can't abide to say they let you get away, so they have said you were a mighty warrior, and when they stoned you and set fire to the wood that you were snatched up by an angel of God Himself and carried direct to heaven.

"So do they still hunt the Witch?" she was weary of fleeing, weary of the rage and anger and vengeance.

"Vanished like the warrior woman. Her great walking hut is simply a tree now."

She shivered, and he wrapped her cloak closer around her shoulders.

"What will you do now?" he asked, handing her the flask and pouch, and a second bundle that she knew would be a simple dress to replace her rags and clean under garments.

"I don't even know," she answered. "There is so much I've seen, so many things I've done, good and evil."

"What does the magic tell you?" He stroked her sooty hair and it fell white and soft to her hips, and gently touched her shoulder with healing hands.

"Only that I must see one more thing, that there is one spell left unfinished."

He rested his hand on the nape of her neck, thumb against her skull in just the right place, as if she was a chicken or a rabbit. "Is your heart healed a little, that you can trust yourself in the world?" His eyes were infinitely compassionate, but she was suddenly very afraid of him and how sure his hand was.

"Can you trust me?" she asked the tinker who was not a man, and not quite a god, and who carried a responsibility to the people to know all of the songs and arrive at convenient times, sometimes to make things easier, though sometimes he chose not.

He drew her into a tight hug, the first embrace she'd felt since her Giant had died, and he did not let go until her tears were done. He kissed her forehead.

"Do you need a task, Madame Witch? Or do you know what you must do?"

"I know what I must do, but thank you Aodhan Tinker."

When she was dressed and presentable, he handed her a single swan feather. The little God's Hound leapt up into her arms as she clutched the feather tight and they were whirled away on a column of cold air, and dropped invisible into a deep forest. Her ankle ached terribly with the cold and the abuse of being bound up at the stake, and she took only a moment to wonder why the tinker had not healed her leg as well. She smiled bitterly at the twisted limb, knowing that it served to limit her, to remind her of all her lives before.

They followed the track, coming upon an old black nag, sway backed and temperamental, and the Mare bit the witch hard on the shoulder for all the trouble the horse had following her. They limped down the track together, coming to an overgrown gate. The witch sat on a piece of fallen wall, waiting patiently.

The merchant who had married Rue a lifetime ago came to the gate. He wore poor homespun that was yet carefully mended, and he put his hand on the gate. "Hello?" he called, pushing it open. The witch followed him unseen, looking around her, curious. She watched as the former merchant took shelter in the old hunting lodge for the night, heard the whispers of invisible servants. She saw the row of roses grown in the window box of what was once a prince's quarters, and she left him as he slept.

More roses grew in every available container, in every patch of ground that was not paved or otherwise planted. She looked upon them in the moonlight, and saw that they grew in hundreds of varieties, garden roses and tea roses, richly scented blossoms and waxy blooms with barely any scent at all. She saw the great beast, taller than any bear, as it walked in rags tied to its body and tended the bushes with great tenderness.

When morning came, she watched the Beast as the Beast watched the merchant. The merchant broke a single stem, a fragile bloom from a far off land falling into his hand.

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The Beast roared, and she whispered the words with it as it spoke. "How dare you repay my hospitality thus? How dare you steal my roses?"

"Forgive me, Beast, I thought only to take a single bloom to my youngest daughter. She asks for so few things, and it was only a rose -"

The Beast roared again. "Then if you would take my rose, then you shall pay me in kind with your daughter. Send her to me in three night's time, or I shall come after you and keep you myself."

"I can't do that! She is my youngest, my Briar Rose! What kind of monster - " he cowered beneath the Beast's menacing shadow.

"That is exactly right. Go home to your daughters, merchant. Take with you the gift you have stolen from me and give it to your daughter, and tell her the price you have paid. I will see you in three night's time."

The Beast whirled to leave, and the witch whispered a cover of darkness to make it vanish.

The merchant, suddenly very old and more heartbroken than before, gathered his belongings into a threadbare sack and made his way out to the track. An elegant black mare stood waiting for him at the first bend, and bitterly he accepted the stirrup and mounted.

It took only a moment to return to his home, a simple wooden cottage at the edge of the wood. Lily and Violet spun and wove, singing as they worked, and Briar Rose ran headlong down the path to meet him. She was tall and strong, her hair a long tangle of golden curls. She looked so much like her mother that the witch almost reached out from the shadows to touch her, but pulled back before she was seen.

Wretched, the merchant gave her the rose, and she lifted it to her face in wonder, smelling the sweet spicy scent of a far off land.

He told them the tale that night before a fire bright with salamanders. Violet and Lily held one another and wept, but Briar Rose sat tall and resolute. "I will go," she said calmly.

"Never, I forbid it! Child, it is a Beast!" the merchant knelt before her, begging her to stay.

"How much a Beast can he be, if he loves roses so dearly?" she asked simply.

"No, we can not lose you!" he wept.

"Father, you will never lose me, for I love you so."

The witch filled the merchant's pack with beautiful things, practical things, and a small envelope filled with seeds. Briar Rose found them in the predawn silence, and planted every seed along the wall of the cottage closest to the forest. She tied the rose into her hair and mounted the waiting Mare before her family awoke, unable to face their tears and her own fear at once.

The witch wove the Beast's rags into decent garb as he watched the girl in silent wonder for days. He was frightened by her beauty and his ugliness, and meals would appear to them as if by magic each night when they met for supper..

"I must ask you, m'lady, Brrrri - " he stumbled over her name, his animal throat catching on the syllables with a growl until he roared in frustration.

Bravely she sat quiet, watching the Beast as she would watch a wild animal. Patiently she waited until he finished his bout of temper.

"Perhaps, you could call me Beauty?" she suggested.

He took a deep breath like the wind rustling in the trees.

"My lady Beauty, I must ask you, would you marrr- wed me?"

"What? Why do you have to ask me that? What shall I say?"

"Say only yes, or no, without fearrrr," he replied.

"Oh, no, Beast, I could never marry you!" She turned and fled, and the witch watched as the Beast crumpled in despair and then ran to rampage in the forests beyond the walls, frightening the deer and squirrels and birds, rousing a bear from her summer nap, always very careful not to do them any harm even as he crashed among the trees and hedges.

The next day they met in the garden, and he found her carefully trimming the dead wood from some of the older bushes. He watched, fascinated, as she worked, and eventually he even helped a little, pinching off branches beyond her reach, lifting fallen limbs out of her way.

Day after day, they put the garden in order, and the hunting lodge also came together as invisible hands restored walls and flooring and furnishings.

Night after night, he would say "My lady Beauty, I must ask you, would you wed me?"

Night after night, she would close her eyes and bow her head and speak, whispering or speaking clearly, "No, my Beast, I cannot."

The witch began to realize that even this girl might never love him, might never see beyond the blackness that was his soul writ large on his face and body. She felt pity for the Beast who had been her son, and compassion for the man he might have become.

Finally, the Beast sat at the massive gleaming table in the restored dining hall, gathering his courage. He saw the tears on Briar Rose's face and ever so gently reached out a terrible paw to cover her hands. He spoke carefully and clearly.

"You must go back to your family, my Beauty. Leave me here with my rrrroses. I love you too much to keep you here any longerrrr. Go home, Beloved, and be happy."

"What?" she asked, incredulous, taking his paw in both of hers. "But, Beast... I would miss you as terribly as I miss them now. I could never leave you here alone, even with your roses."

"You would stay?" he whispered, holding very still that he did not accidentally injure her.

"Yes, Beast." She stood, tall and resolute. "I will stay, and I will marry you."

There was a clamor of bells and a rush of sorcery so fierce the witch was deafened by its roar. She cast all of her magic into the maelstrom, every moment of joy and pain and love and consequence contained in her very being into one final spell, banishing the Wolf and bringing resolution to all of the broken bits within them. She touched her son's beastly arm as she was drawn past, and she was very far away by the time they all regained their senses.

When she woke, there was stillness in her soul, no tug of magic great or small, and she fell into a deep sleep.