Snow White (Enchanted Fairytales) (7 page)

The room was dominated by
a large four-poster bed. The posts were made of gnarled, twisting tree trunks that sprouted pink leaves. The bed was covered by a thick comforter with swirls of pink, purple, and yellow
. Snow moved to the bed and realized she’d have to climb up to get on it. Apparently the men had thought of it since a step stool stood next to the bed. She climbed up and lay back on the bed. It surrounded her in comfort, as if she were sleeping on a cloud. This bed disproved Katarina’s assertion that you had to have money—and a lot of it—to have the finest things. This bed was finer than anything they’d ever owned.

A small bathroom led from the bed
room. T
he counter clear of seven razors and seven toothbrushes lying all over the place
to Snow’s gratitude
. A brush and mirror lay on the counter, and her backpack was propped in the corner.
She picked it up and moved back into the bedroom to put her clothes away.

Opening the closet, she was stunned
.
It
held quite a few clothes. She pulled one top out, and held it against herself. It seemed to be the right size. It was a beautiful, silky
white shirt with billowing sleeves. There were pants, skirts, and
even shoes
, all of it vintage
. Snow backed away from the closet until she was stopped by the bed.

It suddenly occurred to her that all of this was feeling very . . . permanent. A house
and
clothing that didn’t belong to her and
looked
as if
from a different time and place.
She’d even been worried about what she could do to earn her keep. None of that seemed to equal someone who was going to be leaving soon. Did she believe their stories? That she would never be able to leave?

Drained and overwhelmed by the possibility that this was her new reality, Snow dropped her bag to the floor and climbed up onto the bed, burying herself under the covers.

*****

Snow stood at the entrance of the bridge. She wasn’t sure if it would work again.
The area
looked like it had on her first visit, ending in a grassy area.
Blithe told her he didn’t think she’d be able to find
Philip
again, unless he wanted to be found.

She stepped on the bridge and felt the same rumble as the first time.
Maybe it was some kind of warning system when someone stepped on the bridge, like a doorbell, she mused. She crossed quickly and as she stepped off the other side, the world melted away and became the field of willows, blowing their red feathered branches in the breeze.

“It worked
,” she said, laughing.
She made her way through the trees, hoping to find him. She came to the same small clearing she’d met him in before, with the
same small bench. O
nce again a fresh glass of water stood next to the bench. This time, though, rather than chopping wood,
Philip
sat with a large wh
ite board
on a tripod
in front of him. She c
ouldn’t see what he did with the board, but he watched it intently, in spite of the fact that she knew he couldn’t see it.

“
I hear you have a new cottage
,”
Philip
said, not looking up from the board.

“You hear right,” she said.

Snow walked toward him, making sure he could hear her footsteps and
halt
her if he wished. She stopped before walking around to look at
the board. Philip
held a paintbrush.

“You’re painting!” she exclaimed.

“Yes.” His voice remained calm in the face of her outburst.

“But, how . . .”

He waved her around. “Come and see.”

She slowly walked around the white canvas, keeping her eyes on
Philip
s face. He star
ed intently at the canvas, as if he could see what he painted. When she stood next to him, she turned her eyes to the painting.

Philip
’s castle was depicted there, in absolute clarity. Th
e same white spires disappeared
into the sky, sun glinting off the windows in sparkles of light.
The grounds were covered in the same grassy green, only the flowers and plants looked different. They were the colors they were supposed to be, at least the colors she remembered them being at home rather than the bright, unusual colors of Fableton.

“How did you paint this?” Snow asked. “If you’ve never seen the castle, how can you paint it so clearly?”

Philip
turned his head slightly toward Snow as his brush stilled above the canvas
. “This is what the castle
looks like?”

“Well . . . yeah. You didn’t know?”

“No. As you said, I’ve never seen it.” He gave a derisive laugh. “Katarina is a clever one, isn’t she? Creating me a new castle identical to my own castle.”

“So you’re painting from memory? How do you remember where you left off and where to begin again? It’s very good, nothing overlapping.”

Philip
dipped his brush once again and began stroking the canvas, placing the tip exactly where it needed to be. “I can see only one thing,” he said. “Katarina enchanted the paints and the canvases. I can see them as clearly as I used to see everything
. She did it so I could create her likeness and remember what I’ve lost.”

Snow grunted. “And have you painted her?”

“Aye. Multiple times.”
Philip
grinned. “I don’t think Katarina would appreciate them though.” He turned toward her. “Perhaps I’ll show them to you sometime and you can give me your opinion.”

Snow shuddered at the thought of facing Katarina again, even if it were just via a painting. “Maybe sometime,” she said.

“Do you enjoy your time in Fableton?” he asked.

Snow wasn’t sure how to answer in light of her recent revelation that this could be her new, permanent home. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to find you again,” she said.

“I was hoping you would,” he replied. “Tell me about your new cottage.”

“I still can’t figure out how they built—and furnished it, in a single day.”

“Time here has different meaning,”
Philip
said.

“That’s what they said, but what
does it mean?”

“What felt to you like the passage of no more than a day could have been several days for them,”
Philip
replied. “Time is eternal here. Remember when I told you no one ages here?”

“I remember,” Snow said. “Doesn’t it get . . . I don’t know, boring I guess? Or monotonous? Doing the same things day in and out, day after day.”

Philip
smiled. “I’ve never considered
it.
At first I spent a great deal of time trying to find an escape,
then a great deal of time trying to fill my kingdom with others so I wouldn’t be alone. Finally, I resigned myself. If I worried about being bored, I’d probably be crazy by now. So I fill my days as I would have had I not been taken from my kingdom
, except for riding and hunting
.” He paused and glanced up from his painting. “Are you bored, Snow White?”

Snow shook her head, then remembered he couldn’t see it. “No. I’ve had so much going on each day I haven’t had time . . . to be . . .” She laughed. “Time. Time has a different meaning here.”

Philip
nodded. “Right. I can only mark the passage of time in the outside world when someone new comes. But no one has come for over three centuries. I was surprised when you came and told me the year.”

Snow shook her head. It was such a strange concept.

Philip
turned
her way
and tipped his head.
“I have an idea,” he said. “A way I might be able to see you. But I’d need your help. Are you willing to play a game with me?”

Curious, Snow said, “Sure. Why not? Apparently we have all the time in the world.”

*****

“No, a little less bushy,” Snow said.

Philip
dabbed the brush into the flesh colored paint and thinned the eyebrows on the painting. Snow sat in front of a large mirror next to
Philip
, trying to describe herself as he painted. It made her think of the police drawings when a criminal was searched for. Only
Philip
’s painting was vibrant and colorful, and nearly reflected the image she looked at in the mirror. Any inconsistencies were because of Snow’s lack of ability to clearly describe what she saw.

“Now your eyes,”
Philip
said.

“Blue,” Snow said.

“That doesn’t tell me anything,”
Philip
said. “What shade of blue?”

“I don’t know, just blue. Like . . . like when you’re outside on a day that’s a little overcast, so it’s not so clear and bright.”

Philip
mixed some blue with a little gray and dabbed the painting. Snow was stunned
.
T
he shade he painted was the same as what looked back at her in the mirror. “Shape?”
Philip
asked.

“Round,” Snow replied.

“Not of your iris,”
Philip
said. “Of your entire eye.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’m not very good at this. Almond shaped, I guess.”

Philip
painted her outer eye. Snow glanced back at the mirror, then at his painting again. “Tilted up just a bit at the edges,” she said.

The experiment
was painstaking,
getting the shapes just right—he
r mouth, her cheeks,
her chin, her nose.
Philip
insisted that everything be exactly right.
Eventually,
Philip
leaned back and said, “Is it finished?”

Snow stood and looked at the painting, then back at the mirror. Back and forth her eyes went. She couldn’t tell when she was looking in the mirror or looking at the painting, other than one reflected her stunned look and the other remained still.

“Yes,
Philip
, that’s me.”

Philip
stared at the painting. Finally he laid down the brush and turned to Snow. “I see now.”

“See what?” she asked.

“Why Katarina hated you so much.”

“You can tell that by nothing more than a painting of me?”

“Yes.”

“Then please, share with me.”

Philip
stood, rolling his shoulders and flexing his hands. “Walk with me?” he asked.

Snow wondered if she should offer him her arm to guide him, but he began walking, neatly sidestepping any obstacles. She chided herself. Of course he’d know the place better than the back of his hand after having been there five hundred years. She quickly caught up and walked by his side.

“If there’s one thing that I know without a doubt, it’s that Katarina prizes beauty. But not as someone else would prize beauty. She’
s
obsessed with it—in herself. She will create any number of spells and enchantments to maintain her beauty.” He sighed and looked
toward
Snow.
“And she destroys anything that she deems as more beautiful than herself.”

“Yeah, I get all that. It still doesn’t explain why she hates me.”

Philip
stopped and Snow stopped with him. “You really don’t understand, do you? It’s you, Snow. You are the thing that is more beautiful than her.”

“You really are blind,” she muttered. Then she gasped. “I’m sorry, that was so rude. I didn’t mean—”

Philip
laughed. “I may be blind, but I saw you clear enough in the painting.” He lifted one hand and
drew his
thumb down her cheek. She blushed beneath his touch. “Someone has convinced you that you are less than beautiful,” he said. “And I can guess who that was. You’re beauty is complete, Snow, from the blue of your eyes to the purity of your heart. You are everything she rebels against, everything she cannot be.”

Snow shook her head and he let his hand drop.

“Do you want to see something amazing?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Sure,” she said, unable to push his words from her mind. Could it be true? Could Katarina have done such a horrible thing to her, arranged her murder, just because she was somehow
jealous
? It didn’t seem fathomable. But then again, nothing here seemed fathomable, and yet it was.

Sh
e heard the water before
it
came into view
.
Philip
stopped and she walked ahead of him, jaw gaping. The waterfall must have been thirty feet high. It rolled down glistening rocks, the water sapphire blue and sparkling like thousands of diamonds in the sun. She glanced back at
Philip
and saw that he had his eyes closed, a smile on his face.