Kissing the Witch (10 page)

It smelt of blood and shit, but it kept me warm. Lying curled up in ditches and caves, night after night, I hoped the predators would take me for a rotten carcass. The stars looked down on me
and laughed. Was this freedom? I wondered. Was this better than a throne?

As I drifted from my father’s kingdom into the next, following the caravan of days, I shed every layer of pride. Hair began to grow in unexpected places. It hung about my face like a
thorn-bush; seeds and insects clung to my head. I began to learn the lessons of the ass. Eat anything that doesn’t move. Snatch any warmth going. Suffer and endure.

I kept moving only because I had nowhere to stay. Children in tiny villages threw old boots at my head, called me Stinking Donkeyskin. I lived on what I begged or stole. I had meant to sell my
dresses, but I found I couldn’t part with them; they were the only brightness I had left. The first month of winter, my shoes felt like iron; by the third, they had worn out. I didn’t
notice losing them on the road at last; my feet were as hard as the scraps of shoe leather by the time they slid off. I had never felt so ugly, or so faint, or so strong.

I had lost count of the moons by the time I came to a strange kingdom where the trees were not green. The first time I saw the turning of the leaves it bewildered me; I thought it might be the
end of the world. Not even the flower-woman could make a dress as bright as this destruction. I thought some invisible fire must be burning each leaf from the outside in; I could see the green
veins retreating before the crisp tide of flame. When leaves fell on me I staggered out of their way. More colours than I had names for covered my feet as I walked. At night I slept on piles of
crackling leaves, strangely comforted that all things were sharing in my fall.

My last night of vagabondage, or freedom, felt like any other. I curled up in a hollow tree to keep out of the wind. I was woken at dawn by the jangle of the hunt. Catch it alive if you can,
came the cry. The dogs had sniffed me out. The huntsmen wept with laughter when I limped into the light. They carried me through the crackling forest, over the river, as a living trophy for their
prince.

Now I was back in the land of the living, I could smell my own lowliness. Who are you? asked the prince, glancing up from his leather-bound book.

A poor donkey without mother or father.

What are you good for?

Nothing but to have boots thrown at my head.

He was the most handsome man I had ever seen. He seemed amused by my answers, and rewarded me with a corner in the kitchen. In return for washing dishcloths, peeling turnips and raking ashes, I
had the right to sleep. The animal in me was glad of the fire, but I hated to hear the heavy bolt slide home, last thing at night. The turn-spits joked so coarsely I could barely understand them.
One of them with a face like a cabbage tried to find out what was behind that hairy hide of mine, but I brayed like a mad donkey and he backed away.

At last it was spring, and the air softened. There came a feast day when I was released from my duties. I wandered through the empty kitchen after dinner. A round-bellied copper pot hung on the
wall; I caught sight of my own face in it, and flinched.

Down by the river I dropped my heavy skin and rinsed the past away. The comb hurt me but I was glad of its teeth. My mother’s wedding ring slid easily on to my thin finger. I drew the
golden dress from my pack, shook out its creases, and danced for my own reflection till it seemed the sun had come up twice. Next I tried the silver dress, spinning to make the birds think it was
moonrise. Finally I slipped over my head the dress that glittered like the stars. Even without looking I knew myself to be beautiful. My fair hair flowed bright as the river. I was a princess
again, right down to my slim toes in their shining slippers. From the castle, music enticed my footsteps.

No one challenged me when I entered the ballroom: the dress’s magic opened every door. The prince followed me with his disbelieving eyes, and asked me to dance, three times in a row. It
seems to me that we have met before, he said, but I only twirled faster. There is something so oddly familiar about you, he said, and yet you are unique, a swan among these common ducks.

I laughed, and began to tell him stories of my own kingdom. It was like a miracle to be speaking aloud again, to say more than three words at a time.

I slipped away when he wasn’t looking. Down by the river I dressed myself in rags again and muddied my face and nails. I couldn’t stop smiling.

The next day I expected to be the last of my time of trial. With a light heart I threw bones to the dogs and scrubbed fat from the floor; behind my donkey skin I walked like a queen. I knew the
prince must be searching every room, every inch of the castle, for his missing beauty. The kitchen was bubbling over with gossip about the stranger’s golden hair, lily cheeks and ruby lips. I
knew exactly what would happen; my ears were pricked for the royal step on the stair.

It was evening by the time the courtiers reached the bottom of the castle. I had gravy and flour on my cheeks, but fanfares in my heart. I did not even look up as the royal party made their way
through the kitchens, lifting their robes above the dirt. As I knew he would, the prince stopped and said, Come here, girl.

His eyes must have fallen on my mother’s wedding ring, a thick band of gold that no amount of soot could hide. I looked up at him with a hint of amusement.

Who are you?

A poor donkey, I repeated.

What brought you into this kingdom?

Fear and need.

He was staring now, as if trying to see past the layer of grime. I smiled, to make it even easier for him. My features had not changed since yesterday; my voice was as sweet as ever, if he could
only hear it. Inside my head I said, Look at me. Make me beautiful in your beholding.

The prince’s eyes narrowed.

Was he drugged, that he couldn’t hear my heart calling to his? Surely he would know me all at once, any minute now, and burst out laughing at the absurdity of all such disguises?

He shook his head, as if collecting his wits, and turned back to his courtiers.

Was I tempted to cry out, to declare myself? It never seemed to me, thinking about it afterwards, that there had been any chance, any time, anything worth saying.

I listened as courtiers ascended the stairs, discussing to which kingdoms their prince should send messengers in search of the mysterious princess. I swayed yet stood. When everyone else had
finished their work and left the kitchen, I remained, a hollow tree refusing to fall.

My ring I dropped in the royal soup bowl for him to choke on. The gold and silver and starry dresses I left scattered by the river; let him think his lost beauty drowned. The donkey skin I
pulled tightly around me as I set out for home.

Not on the whole length of my journey would I see any man half so handsome. Through the long nights in ditches and hollow trees I could not help thinking of him. I knew by now he would be
sickening for love. The physicians would be ordering the cooks to prepare rare delicacies, but all in vain.

If he guessed his mistake, if he wanted me back, I thought, let him suffer and work for it as I had worked and suffered. Let him follow me over a mountain of iron and a lake of glass, and wear
out three swords in my defence. But at my truest, lying awake trying to count the stars, I knew my prince would not follow. In my mind’s eye I saw him in his palace, stroking the gold and
silver and starry dresses which were fading now like leaves in winter, weeping for a spotless princess who did not exist, who had drowned in the river of time.

The king I had once called father had died childless and frothing, I learned over a beggars’ camp-fire. The throne was now occupied by a distant cousin.

The flower-woman was standing outside my cottage that winter day, as if expecting me. She was a little older, but still smiling.

She gave me a drink to clear my head; she washed me in scented water; she put on me a new dress of homespun wool. She took me to the king’s grave; there we spread the donkey skin, cracked
and frayed. I didn’t need it any longer; let it keep him warm.

These were my feet, balancing like a cat’s. This was my hand, the colour of a rose. I looked down and recognized myself.

There by the graveside I asked,

Who were you

before you learned how to make dresses?

And the flower-woman said, Will I tell you my own story?

It is a tale of a needle.

W
HEN
I
WAS
the age that you are now, I had never done an hour’s work. There was nothing I knew how to make or mend. I was
innocent of all effort; I was blank as a page.

As a child in my parents’ manor I used to play a game because I knew no better. I would walk into the kitchens ten minutes before dinner and lift my little hand. Stop, I would call at the
top of my voice. And they always did. How well the turn-spit made a gargoyle of himself; how carefully the cook stilled the ladle half-way to his lips; how obediently the maid held the soup tureen
until her face grew scarlet. Only when I clicked my fingers might the servants slump into ordinary life again, like grumbling giants woken from their sleep of ages. I had many games, but that one
was the best.

They had no choice: the turn-spit and the cook and the maid. My father always told them his little beauty was never to be crossed. My mother said no one was ever to make her baby cry.

You see, before they had me they were both so old they thought for sure they were barren. They swore complicated vows, swallowed medicines made from boiled frogs, and went on pilgrimages for
months at a time. At last, like a gift from above, my mother grew big, and my father put a chicken in the pot of every family on our estate. The day I was born they lifted me into my father’s
hands, and he roared out so all could hear: This is my beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased.

From the very first day of life I wore gold mesh gloves so that nothing would ever soil my fingers. When I was a baby, they told me, I used to try to tear them off, but soon I grew placid and
laid my hands across my belly like jewelled fans. For many years I didn’t learn to walk, because I was carried everywhere – not by my parents, who had grown frail, but by the most
sure-footed of the servants. Grateful fireworks erupted every month on the date of my birth.

The only lesson I had to learn was the list of my virtues: how my face was the fairest, my wit the sharpest, my heart the most angelic, my singing the most comparable to a lark’s in all
the land. Everyone who set eyes on me fell in love with me, I was told.

And I believed every word of it. Why would they have said it unless it was true?

I was content, I suppose, though having no basis for comparison I couldn’t be sure. It felt more like sleep than joy. The manor had a drowsy air to it. Even the fire seemed lazy as it ate
away at the logs. Whenever I asked a question that began with why, I would be told that things were done just as they had always been done for a hundred years before. What reason could there be to
change?

Our manor was surrounded by a wide ring of gardens, in which something was always in flower and something else in fruit. Beyond that stood a huge bramble hedge, its blades so thickly knitted
that when I stood near it I could see only chinks of blue light from the outside world. No one ever went outside if they could help it. Hadn’t we everything we needed here?

About this time I was becoming restless. The year before and every year before that I had been peaceful, but this year I was growing, my fingers lengthening and straining against their gold
nets. As the childish lines of my body were forced into curves, my mind began to writhe; it was as if some unseen hand was nudging me, magicking me into a shape that was not my own. I kept asking
for a kitten of my own to play with, even though my parents always said it might hurt me. Poisonous feelings rushed through me with no warning. Greed, when there was nothing I lacked. Anger, when I
had nothing to resent. Despair, when I was the luckiest girl in the world.

I thought I knew every room in the castle, having spent my childhood wandering up and down its many staircases, taking the freedom of each scullery, gallery or bedchamber. But one day I was out
in the rose garden playing with my golden hoop for lack of anything else to do when I looked back at the tall grey tower and realized that I had never been up there. No door was locked against me,
but I had never found a staircase that led to the tower. Its narrow windows seemed to wink at me.

When one evening after dinner I asked my mother to take me up to the tower, my parents looked at each other. It’s all shut up there, my father said; it’s not safe. Come here, said my
mother, I’ll tell you a story instead. She bent down and took me on her lap, though my feet almost touched the floor.

The only stories were family stories, and they were all the one story. As my mother told it, I could see it unfolding like a dusty tapestry, silted up with memory. How my great-grandmother had
long fair hair and married a prince and had five children and lived happily ever after in this very manor house. How my great-great-aunt embroidered cloth of gold and married a duke and had four
children and lived happily ever after across the mountains. How my grandmother had deep blue eyes and married an earl and had three children and lived happily ever after in this very manor house.
How my great-aunt danced like a sparrow and married a baron and had two children and lived happily ever after across the seas. How my mother married my father and had me.