Red as Blood: or tales from the Sisters Grimmer Read online

  “Then, what difference does it make to you?” she asked him, sensing omnipotence, fire, aeons, and all of them his.

  “Because, quite simply, unless I am believed in, I shall die. And when I die, Cleci, some part of the spirit of humanity dies with me.”

  “Yes,” she said. She sighed, and sat on the grass between the stocks. She could not see the grapes, or his hair. If she had been able to, they would have been the same red. “Couldn’t you,” she said, “perform some magic to convince them?”

  “The magic is everywhere. They’re not convinced. Water can be turned into wine, or blood. I shall have to die for them, before they believe in me.”

  “I believe in you,” she said.

  “I know you do. That is why I am here.”

  “But the children,” she said. “You mustn’t take the children away.”

  “I’ll spare you,” he said.

  She said hotly, “I’m not a child.”

  When he laughed gently, she knew for sure how dangerous he was. The others had been determined not to know, averting their eyes from the truth of him. He was like a snake, coiled in the shadows, smooth as amber, with the bite of death in his mouth which had made music.

  “You spoke of love, but you’re cruel,” she said.

  “Yes. Love is cruel, when denied. I’m sorry for your village, but I would do that again, too, if it were to be done. I will be remembered. Somehow.”

  “They’ll remember wrongly.” She looked away into the vines and the night. She knew she would not see him physically anymore. “How,” she said, “will you take the children? Will you play the pipe and make them follow you, as the dogs and rat’s followed you? Will you pipe them into the deep water below the ford and make them drown?”

  “No, Cleci,” he said. “It’s easier, and more vile, than that. But still, recollect when you are older, I promised I would spare you, and I shall. Because you believed in me, and through you I can exist. A while longer.”

  “How long have you lived?” she murmured, dazed.

  “I was born on the day the first men thought of me. I shall die on the last day, when the last man forgets.”

  She beheld his loneliness then, like a pale mote in the night. She stared at it, and pictured him, a god who was lonely and dying. And somewhere in that staring, sleep came, and the night folded itself behind the world.

  When the sun rose, she got up and looked about her, and saw only the fields and the vinestocks, the shallow river, the dusty lindens, and the sprawling village. And when she had gone home alone, she saw the poverty of her mother’s house. And when her mother slapped and cuffed her for being gone all night, and called her horrible names, Cleci saw that, too. Yet through it all she dimly perceived, as if through smoke or water, how the earth had been, and how it still might be, under its veil of misery and lies.

  —

  In the days which followed, and in the weeks which followed these, the Piper was spoken of in fear and whispers, and later in noisy jibes and sneers. No one heard the pipe, and soon no one listened for it. The children ran about the streets and yards, and along the river bank. Despite his threat, he had not taken the sons and daughters of Lime Tree. Not only was he a vagabond and blasphemer, but a charlatan also.

  Not until the first still-births occurred at the summer’s end, did any nervous awe steal through the prosperous village. And then, when winter had come, and spring and summer, and another summer’s end, and no fresh births with them, only then did a leaden horror blow through Lime Tree like the winter winds. And like the winds, which stripped the lindens of their leaves, so Lime Tree lay under the snow, stripped of its future. No new life was conceived, or born, and would never be. He had said he would take their children, in place of their love and their gold, and he had done it. Lime Tree withered among its wheat fields, and year by year its crops grew thin, its vines tarnished, and, one by one, its lindens died.

  When Cleci was eighteen, the river mysteriously silted up. That was the year her mother died, too. She died of hard work more than anything, for hard work does actually kill, when it is too hard, too hopeless, and has too meager a reward.

  Cleci went away to the south, and some years later, when she had borne her first child, she carried him to the shrine she had made, and laid an offering on the altar—grapes, and a lock of her own dark hair, and a flask of wine. And, as each of her children grew, she taught them who they must worship.

  She did this not out of fear of him, but out of pity. Because she had come to see the ultimate terrible truth behind all others. Which was that the stupidity and avarice and hatred of mankind had finally begun to make him also stupid, avaricious, hating, and cruel beyond reason. Even though he was a god, a god of love.

  Red As Blood

  The beautiful Witch Queen flung open the ivory case of the magic mirror. Of dark gold the mirror was, dark gold like the hair of the Witch Queen that poured down her back. Dark gold the mirror was, and ancient as the seven stunted black trees growing beyond the pale blue glass of the window.

  “Speculum, speculum,” said the Witch Queen to the magic mirror. “Dei gratia,”

  “Volente Deo. Audio.”

  “Mirror,” said the Witch Queen. “Whom do you see?”

  “I see you, mistress,” replied the mirror. “And all in the land. But one.”

  “Mirror, mirror, who is it you do not see?”

  “I do not see Bianca.”

  The Witch Queen crossed herself. She shut the case of the mirror and, walking slowly to the window, looked out at the old trees through the panes of pale blue glass.

  Fourteen years ago, another woman had stood at this window, but she was not like the Witch Queen. The woman had black hair that fell to her ankles; she had a crimson gown, the girdle worn high beneath her breasts, for she was far gone with child. And this woman had thrust open the glass casement on the winter garden, where the old trees crouched in the snow. Then, taking a sharp bone needle, she had thrust it into her finger and shaken three bright drops on the ground. “Let my daughter have,” said the woman, “hair black as mine, black as the wood of these warped and arcane trees. Let her have skin like mine, white as this snow. And let her have my mouth, red as my blood.” And the woman had smiled and licked at her finger. She had a crown on her head; it shone in the dusk like a star. She never came to the window before dusk: she did not like the day. She was the first Queen, and she did not possess a mirror.

  The second Queen, the Witch Queen, knew all this. She knew how, in giving birth, the first Queen had died. Her coffin had been carried into the cathedral and masses had been said. There was an ugly rumor—that a splash of holy water had fallen on the corpse and the dead flesh had smoked. But the first Queen had been reckoned unlucky for the kingdom. There had been a plague in the land since she came there, a wasting disease for which there was no cure.

  Seven years went by. The King married the second Queen, as unlike the first as frankincense to myrrh.

  “And this is my daughter,” said the King to his second Queen.

  There stood a little girl child, nearly seven years of age. Her black hair hung to her ankles, her skin was white as snow. Her mouth was red as blood, and she smiled with it.

  “Bianca,” said the King, “you must love your new mother.”

  Bianca smiled radiantly. Her teeth were bright as sharp bone needles.

  “Come,” said the Witch Queen, “come, Bianca. I will show you my magic mirror.”

  “Please, Mamma,” said Bianca softly, “I do not like mirrors.”

  “She is modest,” said the King. “And delicate. She never goes out by day. The sun distresses her.”

  That night, the Witch Queen opened the case of her mirror.

  “Mirror. Whom do you see?”

  “I see you, mistress. And all in the land. But one.”

  “Mirror, mirror, who is it you do not see?”

  “I do not see Bianca.”

  The second Queen gave Bianca a tiny crucifix o
f golden filigree. Bianca would not accept it. She ran to her father and whispered, “I am afraid. I do not like to think of Our Lord dying in agony on His cross. She means to frighten me. Tell her to take it away.”

  The second Queen grew wild white roses in her garden and invited Bianca to walk there after-sundown. But Bianca shrank away. She whispered to her father, “The thorns will tear me. She means me to be hurt.”

  When Bianca was twelve years old, the Witch Queen said to the King, “Bianca should be confirmed so that she may take Communion with us.”

  “This may not be,” said the King. “I will tell you, she has not been Christened, for the dying word of my first wife was against it. She begged me, for her religion was different from ours. The wishes of the dying must be respected.”

  “Should you not like to be blessed by the Church,” said the Witch Queen to Bianca. “To kneel at the golden rail before the marble altar. To sing to God, to taste the ritual Bread and sip the ritual Wine.”

  “She means me to betray my true mother,” said Bianca to the King. “When will she cease tormenting me?”

  The day she was thirteen, Bianca rose from her bed, and there was a red stain there, like a red, red flower.

  “Now you are a woman,” said her nurse.

  “Yes,” said Bianca. And she went to her true mother’s jewel box, and out of it she took her mother’s crown and set it on her head.

  When she walked under the old black trees in the dusk, the crown shone like a star.

  The wasting sickness, which had left the land in peace for thirteen years, suddenly began again, and there was no cure.

  —

  The Witch Queen sat in a tall chair before a window of pale green and dark white glass, and in her hands she held a Bible bound in rosy silk.

  “Majesty,” said the huntsman, bowing very low.

  He was a man, forty years old, strong and handsome, and wise in the hidden lore of the forests, the occult lore of the earth. He could kill too, for it was his trade, without faltering. The slender fragile deer he could kill, and the moon-winged birds, and the velvet hares with their sad, foreknowing eyes. He pitied them, but pitying, he killed them. Pity could not stop him. It was his trade.

  “Look in the garden,” said the Witch Queen.

  The hunter looked through a dark white pane. The sun had sunk, and a maiden walked under a tree.

  “The Princess Bianca,” said the huntsman.

  “What else?” asked the Witch Queen.

  The huntsman crossed himself.

  “By Our Lord, Madam, I will not say.”

  “But you know.”

  “Who does not?”

  “The King does not.”

  “Nor he does.”

  “Are you a brave man?” asked the Witch Queen.

  “In the summer, I have hunted and slain boar. I have slaughtered wolves in winter.”

  “But are you brave enough?”

  “If you command it, Lady,” said the huntsman, “I will try my best.”

  The Witch Queen opened the Bible at a certain place, and out of it she drew a flat silver crucifix, which had been resting against the words: Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night. … Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness.

  The huntsman kissed the crucifix and put it about his neck beneath his shirt.

  “Approach,” said the Witch Queen, “and I will instruct you in what to say.”

  Presently, the huntsman entered the garden, as the stars were burning up in the sky. He strode to where Bianca stood under a stunted dwarf tree, and he kneeled down.

  “Princess,” he said, “pardon me, but I must give you ill tidings.”

  “Give them then,” said the girl, toying with the long stem of a wan, night-growing flower which she had plucked.

  “Your stepmother, the accursed jealous witch, means to have you slain. There is no help for it but you must fly the palace this very night. If you permit, I will guide you to the forest. There are those who will care for you until it may be safe for you to return.”

  Bianca watched him, but gently trustingly.

  “I will go with you, then,” she said.

  They went by a secret way out of the garden, through a passage under the ground, through a tangled orchard, by a broken road between great overgrown hedges.

  Night was a pulse of deep, flickering blue when they came to the forest The branches of the forest overlapped and intertwined, like leading in a window, and the sky gleamed dimly through like panes of blue-colored glass.

  “I am weary,” sighed Bianca. “May I rest a moment?”

  “By all means,” said the huntsman. “In the clearing there, foxes come to play by night. Look in that direction, and you will see them.”

  “How clever you are,” said Bianca. “And how handsome.” She sat on the turf and gazed at the clearing.

  The huntsman drew his knife silently and concealed it in the folds of his cloak. He stooped above the maiden.

  “What are you whispering?” demanded the huntsman, laying his hand on her wood-black hair. “Only a rhyme my mother taught me.” The huntsman seized her by the hair and swung her about so her white throat was before him, stretched ready for the knife. But he did not strike, for there in his hand he held the dark golden locks of the Witch Queen, and her face laughed up at him, and she flung her arms about him, laughing.

  “Good man, sweet man, it was only a test of you. Am I not a witch? And do you not love me?”

  The huntsman trembled, for he did love her, and she was pressed so close her heart seemed to beat within his own body.

  “Put away the knife. Throw away the silly crucifix. We have no need of these things. The King is not one half the man you are.”

  And the huntsman obeyed her, throwing the knife and the crucifix far off among the roots of the trees. He gripped her to him and she buried her face in his neck, and the pain of her kiss was the last thing he felt in this world.

  The sky was black now. The forest was blacker. No foxes played in the clearing. The moon rose and made white lace through the boughs, and through the backs of the huntsman’s empty eyes. Bianca wiped her mouth on a dead flower.

  “Seven asleep, seven awake,” said Bianca. “Wood to wood. Blood to blood. Thee to me.”

  There came a sound like seven huge rendings, distant by the length of several trees, a broken road, an orchard, an underground passage. Then a sound like seven huge single footfalls. Nearer. And nearer.

  Hop, hop, hop, hop. Hop, hop, hop.

  In the orchard, seven black shudderings.

  On the broken road, between the high hedges, seven black creepings.

  Brush crackled, branches snapped.

  Through the forest, into the clearing, pushed seven warped, misshapen, hunched-over, stunted things. Woody-black mossy fur, woody-black bald masks. Eyes like glittering cracks, mouths like moist caverns. Lichen beards. Fingers of twiggy gristle. Grinning. Kneeling. Faces pressed to the earth.

  “Welcome,” said Bianca.

  —

  The Witch Queen stood before a window of glass like diluted wine. She looked at the magic mirror.

  “Mirror. Whom do you see?”

  “I see you, mistress. I see a man in the forest. He went hunting, but not for deer. His eyes are open, but he is dead. I see all in the land. But one.”

  The Witch Queen pressed her palms to her ears.

  Outside the window, the garden lay, empty of its seven black and stunted dwarf trees.

  “Bianca,” said the Queen.

  —

  The windows had been draped and gave no light. The light spilled from a shallow vessel, light in a sheaf, like pastel wheat. It glowed upon four swords that pointed east and west, that pointed north and south.

  Four winds had burst through the chamber, and the grey-silver powders of Time.

  The hands of the Witch Queen floated like folded leaves on the air, and through the dry lips the Witch Queen chanted:

  “Pater omnipote
ns, mitere digneris sanctum Angelum tuum de Infernis..”

  The light faded, and grew brighter.

  There, between the hilts of the four swords, stood the Angel Lucefiel, somberly gilded, his face in shadow, his golden wings spread and glazing at his back.

  “Since you have called me, I know your desire. It is a comfortless wish. You ask for pain.”

  “You speak of pain, Lord Lucefiel, who suffer the most merciless pain of all. Worse than the nails in the feet and wrists. Worse than the thorns and the bitter cup and the blade in the side. To be called upon for evil’s sake, which I do not, comprehending your true nature, son of God, brother of The Son.”

  “You recognize me, then. I will grant what you ask.”

  And Lucefiel (by some named Satan, Rex Mundi, but nevertheless the left hand, the sinister hand of God’s design) wrenched lightning from the ether and cast it at the Witch Queen.

  It caught her in the breast. She fell.

  The sheaf of light towered and lit the golden eyes of the Angel, which were terrible, yet luminous with compassion, as the swords shattered and he vanished.

  The Witch Queen pulled herself from the floor of the chamber, no longer beautiful, a withered, slobbering hag.

  —

  Into the core of the forest, even at noon, the sun never shone. Flowers propagated in the grass, but they were colorless. Above, the black-green roof hung down nets of thick green twilight through which albino butterflies and moths feverishly drizzled. The trunks of the trees were smooth as the stalks of underwater weeds. Bats flew in the daytime, and birds who believed themselves to be bats.

  There was a sepulcher, dripped with moss. The bones had been rolled out, had rolled around the feet of seven twisted dwarf trees. They looked like trees. Sometimes they moved. Sometimes something like an eye glittered, or a tooth, in the wet shadows.

  In the shade of the sepulcher door sat Bianca, combing her hair.

  A lurch of motion disturbed the thick twilight.

  The seven trees turned their heads.

  A hag emerged from the forest. She was crook-backed, and her head was poked forward, predatory, withered and almost hairless, like a vulture’s.