A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Heloise moved closer to Benedict so that she could look at her face in the glass. How ghastly her reflection looked by candlelight! Her eyes peered out from great hollowed shadows under her brow, and her mouth looked as deeply lined as an old woman’s. Her hair, which she had tried to tie back but which had escaped yet again, surrounded her head like a mad woman’s. If she hadn’t known it was herself she looked upon, she would have been frightened. As it was, she wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue, which rendered the hag-like visage ridiculous and therefore bearable.
Benedict, observing this childish behavior, frowned. “Do you see anything?” he asked. “Your sister?”
“No,” said Heloise, and her reflection mimicked the movement of her mouth exactly. Still holding tight to the frame, she turned the mirror, bringing Benedict and his candle along with her. Gazing not at herself but at the room beyond herself, she searched the shadows among the looms.
“Anything now?” Benedict asked.
Heloise shook her head. She turned a little more and lifted the mirror higher. Over her reflected self’s shoulder was the doorway to the passage, the same place she had glimpsed Evette—or what had looked like Evette—a few hours ago.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“Do you see her?” asked Benedict, and glanced out the door. He saw nothing but dark, gloomy hall.
Heloise, staring into the mirror, saw moonlight.
It was impossible, she knew. There were no windows in the passage to allow light in.
Yet in the reflection, the passage was full of white luminosity, there could be no mistake. What’s more (and here Heloise put her face closer to the glass until her nose almost touched the surface) there were shadows upon the floor.
The shadows of wind-stirred leaves.
She took a step backwards, pulling the mirror and Benedict along with her. “Easy,” said Benedict, his candle flame flickering. She ignored him. She watched her reflected self, also stepping backwards toward the reflected doorway. She took another step.
So did her reflection.
Heloise was not very familiar with mirrors and their workings. But she felt her mouth go dry as she watched what took place. For with every step both she and her reflection took, the farther apart they drew. At first she didn’t notice. After all, they were backing away from each other, so it seemed natural the space should grow.
But no. No, they were both carrying a mirror, the real mirror and the reflected mirror. No matter how many steps they took, they should remain face-to-face. Yet it was not so.
“Go on,” Heloise whispered, and took another step. “Go to the door.”
Her reflected self took the third step, perhaps a fraction of a moment slower than Heloise did. Heloise saw that her reflection did not hold a mirror.
“Turn around,” Heloise whispered. “Turn around.”
Her reflection narrowed its eyes at her and gave a short shake of her head. Heloise realized that her own eyes had narrowed, her own head had shaken. She felt her hair bouncing over her neck and shoulders at the movement. She wondered who controlled whom now.
The voice in her head whispered in response, You are controlling you, child.
What, both of me?
There is only one of you. Your reflection is you.
You and you.
“Me . . . and me,” she whispered.
“Pardon?” said Benedict.
But she couldn’t be bothered with him. Her concentration was so intensely focused on what she saw in that mirror that her hands might have broken the frame in two were it not so stoutly made. Her face was now very close to the glass indeed, but her reflection stood several paces away, still mimicking her movements but not . . . not quite.
“Turn around,” Heloise said. As she spoke, she slowly turned her own head to look over her own shoulder.
And she was staring through the doorway of the weaver’s room into a forest full of moonlight.
EIGHTEEN
Heloise had been to the edge of the Oakwood on a summer night when the moon was full, and she, Evette, and their brothers were chasing fireflies and pretending they were Faeries. Even with the moon at its fullest, one could venture only a few paces into the forest before it was too dark to see another step forward, so thickly grown were the branches overhead, blocking out the shining sky above. They would laugh and dare and venture a few steps further, but it was useless and probably dangerous.
Evette, always the practical-minded one, would call them back; and though they protested mightily, Heloise and her brothers always obeyed, secretly relieved. With the moon on their shoulders, they would return across the fields to the brightness of hearth and home, leaving the mysteries of the wood at night behind them.
On winter nights, however, things were different. The branches bare of summer glory allowed more light to stream through but cast such stark and perilous-looking shadows upon the ground that not even Heloise liked to venture in. She and her brothers would stand hand-in-hand, their breath making pale clouds before their faces, their feet, wrapped in animal hides tied to their legs and ankles with stout flax cords, slowly freezing. How far they could gaze into the Oakwood on such nights! Yet the enigma of the forest was greater than ever. Never once did they dare to venture in, and they did not need to wait for Evette to call them away.
But that was all back then. And then was suddenly so long ago. So near and yet so far . . .
This forest, Heloise thought (or would have thought had her numb mind been capable of something so coherent in that moment), was like a strange mixture of the Oakwood on both a summer’s and a winter’s night. For the growth was thick . . . lush and thick . . . smotheringly, soothingly, deadly thick, with vines climbing trunks and blooming with tiny flowers like stars, and leaves shushing together like the taffeta wings of blackbirds flocking over the fields and away to the horizon.
But the light, the lustrous moonlight, was as brilliant as a winter night, falling to the forest floor where it reflected off gleaming, knife-like grass blades and shot up to splash in white splendor across the vines, the trunks, the leaves, the branches. Everything was as clear to the eye as daylight, and yet completely unlike daylight, for all was rendered in the purest silver.
Silver. Find the silver . . .
The voice plucked at Heloise’s mind. But for the moment—perhaps for an age—she couldn’t acknowledge it. Her gaze passed through the shadows, through the leaves, through the sentinel-straight trees, and glimpsed the vast distances of forever.
She had to blink. If she didn’t, she would die.
Her eyelids closed, blocking out eternity, her lashes brushing her cheeks. When she raised them again and dared to look, the forest was still before her and still silver. But forever had retreated, and she could comprehend what she saw. Or at least come close to comprehending.
“Master Benedict,” she whispered, “do you see what I see?”
She realized then that he was not there. She could not feel his warm presence beside her as he held the mirror and the candle. Instead she felt the lack of him, which was a much stronger sensation now that she came to notice it. She turned to look for him.
Behind her was the weaver room. The great wooden looms stood as they had before, only now they too were illuminated in moonlight, and she could see them clearly, each bolt of cloth, each thread straining with the tension of creation. Almost she could see the weavers themselves, though this was silly. But maybe not so silly after all, for there was a certain timelessness here. She felt it even if she couldn’t understand. In that timelessness the weavers worked and did not work all at once. The bolts of red cloth were both completed and scarcely begun.
Heloise had no time to consider this, however, for she saw suddenly a shimmering oval of glass. Mirror glass, she thought, suspended in the middle of nothing. Through it she saw her own face peering after her.
“Oh,” she whispered, scarcely making a sound for fear of disturbing the moonlight. “I am my reflection.”
&
Now take the silver branch.
Heloise ignored this eager command. She was trying to wrap her mind around too many new ideas. When she tried too hard, everything went . . . wobbly. She felt her spirit shiver, and it seemed that, for the space of half a heartbeat, she stood beside Benedict in the (for want of a better word) real world, gazing into the mirror glass.
But that was unacceptable. So she stopped thinking about it. She closed her eyes, breathed in, breathed out. She felt the soft glow of the moon on her skin, felt the ground beneath her feet. It was warm ground. Not the cold, age-smoothed stones of the Tower’s lowest chamber. No, it was dirt and little ticklish blades of grass, and shining beads of dew or possibly rain. She inhaled again, taking in the scent of a recent shower coupled with the scent of moonlight (which is similar to jasmine, but Heloise had never smelled jasmine and therefore did not know). The scent of Night.
The wobbling stopped. When she opened her eyes, she stood firmly in the forest. She felt it all around her, and even the weaver room in which she stood suddenly seemed more forest than room. The looms could just as easily be tall trees, their branches caught with luminous spider webs or fibrous vines weaving in and out of each other. If she closed one eye, she fancied even the walls would disappear.
It was terrifying and wonderful all at once.
She laughed. She must either laugh or scream, and she thought a laugh would be pleasanter just then and possibly less offensive to the forest itself. With this laugh on her lips, she turned and stepped through the door of the weaver room out into the silver forest.
She stood uncertainly among the trees. There was rather a lot of wood all around her (and her mind had not entirely forgotten that glimpse of forever, though she did her best to suppress the memory), and she hadn’t the first idea which way to turn.
But she recalled her brief glimpse of Evette that morning. Evette in a gown of starlight . . . the perfect gown for this forest. Much more suitable than the peasant rags Heloise now wore.
Suddenly embarrassed that the forest should see her, Heloise looked down at herself. She half hoped, since this was apparently a magical place, that her own garments would have miraculously transformed into something more appropriate. No such luck. She was herself. Or her reflected self anyway. She still wore the too short gown she had worn to Le Sacre. There were straw bits all over the skirt from her long nap in the loft earlier that afternoon.
Oh, well. One could always hope.
Stop hoping, foolish girl. Start moving. Take the silver branch.
Heloise had seen that strange Evette disappear down the hall passage as though making for the narrow stair. There was no stair now, not here, only more forest. Still, it was a direction to try. So Heloise turned that way and . . . and . . .
“Hold on,” she muttered. “What’s this?”
The forest was gone. She stood in the windowless passage, surrounded by stone walls and wooden beams overhead. She sensed the open doorway of the weaver room nearby, and the first step of the narrow Tower staircase was before her feet. Master Benedict stood beside her, though him she could not see, only sense.
Her heart in her throat, she placed her foot on the first step.
The forest returned. She stood on flat, grass-covered ground, and her foot came down rather hard, causing her to stumble.
“At the rate you’re progressing,” said a voice behind her, “the next Le Sacre will have come and gone before you’ve taken ten paces.”
Some small part of Heloise’s brain tried to tell her that the voice was Benedict’s. But there was no mistaking this voice for Benedict’s. This voice had never, ever, in all the long ages of its existence, apologized for anything. This voice spoke to a person’s gut and echoed there long after the speaker had closed his mouth.
This voice never blushed.
Heloise considered her options. She could scream, but that still seemed like a foolish idea. What would it accomplish? A laugh would be about as foolish as a scream. More so, for this voice did not sound as if it would appreciate being laughed at. She could run but wasn’t certain she would make it very far in this shifting world that was sometimes forest and sometimes stone stairwell.
So she did the only thing she could think to do. Which was nothing.
“Aren’t you going to look at me?” said the voice. It wasn’t really a question when all was said and done. It was much more like a command.
Ignore him. Take the silver branch.
Heloise felt her limbs willing her to obey him despite her best efforts, despite the urging in her mind. She cleared her throat. Then, on impulse, she bobbed a curtsy. “You—you sound a bit frightening,” she said, her voice thin in her throat, “and I’m pretty much frightened to death as it is. So if it’s all the same to you, I think I’d rather not. Sir. My lord. Your Grace.” None of those titles were the right fit, but she gave each of them a try just in case.
The deep voice rumbled. It might have been a chuckle. It might have been a growl. Either way, Heloise was suddenly thankful that she hadn’t had anything to drink recently, since she might very well have soiled her drawers in terror.
“You may call me Your Highness,” he said.
“Your Highness?” she gasped.
“Yes. Your Highness, for I am Prince and Master here.”
Don’t talk to him. He’ll only confuse you. Take the silver branch and be gone.
Heloise tried to listen to the voice in her head, tried to make sense of the words. But the growl of the Prince behind her answered instead, “Ah! So you are here too.”
“Um . . . yes?” said Heloise.
“Not you,” said the Prince dismissively. “I’m talking to Sister. I know you’re present. Speak to me.”
I don’t want to, said the voice in Heloise’s head. Then, after a pause, it added, Go on, child. Tell him.
Heloise tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. “She . . . she says she doesn’t . . . want to.”
“What?”
Oh, great Lumé above! He would eat her now for sure! Whatever he was, enormous and growling and terrifying, he would swallow her up in a single gulp!
Don’t be silly. Ignore him. Take the branch.
But Heloise could not move.
“Sister,” said the Prince, speaking so close to Heloise’s ear that she felt warm breath burning her skin, “do not punish me for your sin! Do not punish yourself either. Accept the gift of our Mother and be grateful. Have no more dealings with these mortals.”
“Um,” said Heloise, “who are you talking to?”
A breath, deep and dark, wrapped around her from behind. “I am speaking to Sister.”
“And who is she?” Heloise asked.
“The Princess of Night.”
Something heavy moved just behind her. Something that made no sound, not even the barest rustle of grass, leaf, or twig, yet shook the ground where it stepped. Straining her eyes to one side, Heloise saw the enormous shadowy form of . . . of . . . She had no word to describe it. Nothing in her realm of experience fit what that form was. Nothing at all, except—
Across her mind’s eye flashed the image of the two ebony lions framing the mirror.
But even as she thought this, Heloise saw the form change. Or perhaps it didn’t change. Perhaps her perception altered. For the massive being she had thought she saw stepped into her line of view, and the moonlight shone full and bright upon him.
He wasn’t a beast at all. He was a man. A very tall man, the tallest man Heloise had ever seen. He smiled at her. She thought her heart would stop, for it was a dangerous smile. But it was also strangely beautiful.
Suddenly Heloise hated him. She was a girl of many and extreme passions, though she was not as a rule given to hatred. But she hated this man now, hated the way he stood before her, so masterful, so powerful, without the slightest hint of ill-ease or concern. His han
He wasn’t a beast. And yet he was: a magnificent beast, through and through. As much a lion as he was a man, perhaps more so.
Heloise crossed her own arms. She didn’t know what else to do with them, and she felt all elbows and knees under that predatory gaze. Her hatred made her suddenly either very foolish or very brave.
Don’t talk to him! the voice in her head warned.
But Heloise ignored this. She said, “I know who you are after all.”
“Do you?” said he, his smile growing. Heloise had thought at first that his skin was cast in deep shadow, which was strange since the moonlight illuminated everything in this place. Then she realized that his skin was like a shadow itself. Deep black, as black as the sky in which the moon danced, yet somehow full of life and color beyond mere blackness. A true black. But his eyes were like the bright blue sapphire eyes of the mirror lions. She knew when he spoke that she had guessed his identity correctly.
“You’re the one who sang up in the Oakwood the other day. The one who sang Le Sacre.”
“I am,” said he, and he blinked once, slowly. “I heard you sing as well, mortal creature. If you could call it singing.”
Oh, great dragon-eating abomination buzzards! Heloise felt her whole face erupt in fiery blushes. She had forgotten about that. He’d heard her! He’d heard her horrid, hoarse, hideous little croakings! She would remember this. She’d remember it for the rest of her life. Every sleepless night from now until she died, she would stare up at the thatch above her and remember that this person—this lion—this beautiful being had heard her try to hit that high note and crack into a million pieces.