After the poisonously green pears had been cleared away, the guests turned to her, expecting her to give the customary signal of the dinner’s conclusion. Making up her mind, she stood and crossed the hall instead. The prince, ever the polite host, was listening to the Duchess von Lieber, who prattled with animation, the woman’s small, pretty, slightly monkeylike face liberally sprinkled with velvet beauty marks, the woman’s eyes every bit the shade of an unripe pear.
She placed a quavering hand on the prince’s shoulder.
“Darling, I’m sorry to interrupt, but what were you doing in the east wing’s second-floor corridor this afternoon?”
She tried to speak softly, but the room had grown quiet and her words carried. She sensed the duchess’s astonished gaze upon her.
“An east-wing corridor, my love? But I haven’t set foot in the east wing all day. I was working in my office until they rang for dinner.” He smiled at her. “And now, my precious dear, would you please escort the honored duchess to the after-dinner tea?”
He spoke with his habitual kindness, and instantly she saw that she had indeed been mistaken, that the voice in the corridor, whatever it had been, had sounded nothing like this civilized, gentle voice, the voice of her husband. And then she heard the whispering behind her back, and understood that she had broken the courtly etiquette with her impulsive, childish question, had embarrassed her dear prince in front of all these foreign dignitaries. The prince, seemingly at ease, motioned for everyone to rise, and the awkward silence broke, filled with the scraping of two dozen chairs, the shuffling of four dozen feet. Still, she felt flustered and could not quite recover her poise during the ladies’ tea that followed, even as she played a conscientious hostess to the chatty duchess. But later that evening, she sat by Angie’s crib, singing a bedtime lullaby, when the prince paid an unscheduled visit to the nursery. He kissed them both tenderly, bounced the child on his knee, asked about her day. He did not allude to her faux pas at dinner, but his gestures, his words, were full of loving reassurance, and at last she was able to see the unfortunate episode for the trifle it had been. She looked at the two of them, her kind, considerate husband, her daughter giggling in her father’s arms, and thought: This moment, right here, right now—I want to hold this moment perfect and whole in my memory, so that even decades from today I will be able to see it, undimmed, undiminished, and know just how lucky I was.
* * *
• • •
The night. The crossroads. The cauldron. The witch. The fairy.
The witch and the fairy are snarling at each other.
“You can’t interfere, you bully, you must let her make her own choices!”
“You are the bully here, taking advantage of the poor darling in her fraught state! I am only helping her see the truth. Love will always triumph in the end. But I don’t expect you to understand, you bitter old prune, no one has ever loved you, no wonder you hate all men.” The fairy godmother faces me, her hands clasped in supplication. “I beg you, sweet child, cease this rash foolishness. Let me take you back where you belong, back to your happy marriage.”
“Two or three happy years don’t yet a happy marriage make,” interrupts the witch.
“Well, of course, one must be a bit more flexible after a decade together,” the fairy godmother admits, somewhat deflated. “Marriages are work.” She makes a visible effort to rally. “Still, whatever happened later, my child, I’ll help you move past it. The important thing is, you and the prince had such love between you once. You just need to keep the memory of that beautiful beginning alive in your heart.”
She has a gift, it seems, for saying precisely the wrong thing.
I am newly seared with anger.
“Does anything other than platitudes ever come out of her mealy mouth?” the witch asks with disdain. “Just throw in the lot and be done with it, madam.”
“No, child, no!” the fairy godmother wails. “Think of your little angels if nothing else! They need a wholesome family, they need their father!”
And just like that, the long-forgotten vision of Roland with little Angie laughing on his knee thrusts itself, unbidden, vivid, into my mind.
My fury is dampened. I look down at my hands.
One, three, five, eight, ten. And a half. Ten and a half hairs left.
Perhaps I should count again, just to be sure.
“Well, what are you waiting for, madam? You still want him dead, do you not?”
I do, indeed I do; but my daughter’s laughter continues to sound in my ears, guileless and carefree like her very childhood, which I want to protect with all my heart—which I am trying to protect, in truth, by doing this.
But what if this destroys her childhood, their childhood, instead?
Would they even understand I am doing this for them?
Would they still love me?
Anxiety tightens my throat.
“Perhaps not all at once?” I mumble.
“Once you decide to cut off a dog’s tail, you don’t hack it away chunk by chunk,” the witch notes with disapproval. “Moreover, my rheumatism is starting to act up.”
“Whatever happened to letting her make her own choices?” the fairy godmother cries. And immediately they are squabbling again. All at once I am starting to slide toward panic. I close my ears to their bickering, and next I close my eyes—and, with a feeling much like stepping off a roof, toss a bunch of hairs into the cauldron, without counting, without thinking.
Then, my heart pounding, I open my eyes to see what I have done.
Five or six strands are spiraling down into the potion.
Less than half are now left in the palm of my hand.
The Beginning of the Middle
Time had a mysterious habit of flowing faster the fewer events occupied it. The palace shone blue on summer mornings and glinted white on snowy afternoons. She turned twenty-six. Princess Angelina turned three. Prince Roland took frequent trips. She gained some weight, made preserves, presided over mouse polkas on her fireplace rug. Life was peaceful, pleasant, and predictable. On the occasion of her twenty-seventh birthday, Angie gave her a charming present: a tiny ballroom shoe that the child had painstakingly, if rather unevenly, carved out of pink soap. She ran to the west wing, to Prince Roland’s quarters, to show him, only to be told that he had departed on a mission to a nearby kingdom and was not expected back for several days. She stood before the closed door to his study, feeling the unaccustomed sting of disappointment, chewing on her lip. Then she clapped her hands in delight—she knew what she would do. She would give in to the marvelous spontaneity of this day.
She would surprise her husband.
And so, she ordered a carriage, kissed Angie good-bye, and, gently cradling the child’s soap carving in her hands, left for the neighboring kingdom, with just one aged groom minding the horses and only her trusty Brie and Nibbles in attendance. (These mice were cousins in the next generation. Brie the Third was much fussier than her mother, always anxious about everyone’s health, constantly nagging Nibbles to wear warm scarves and beware stealthy drafts. Brie was badly frightened at the prospect of leaving the palace, but Nibbles magnanimously promised to protect her. He thought her infantile and helpless, and saw himself as a fierce, even heroic, mouse; and indeed, his squeak did sound much like the roar of a lion, albeit a tiny one. Needless to say, he was thrilled to venture out into the unknown. He nurtured a secret hope that the princess might get ambushed by some ruffians along the way, and he would enter legend by rescuing her in some spectacular fashion.)