Aster learned on her own what to do with the cards and bones and burning herbs, and she knew for long years that it was all a grift; people heard what they wanted her to tell ‘em and paid for the privilege, provided she give ‘em mouse bones and raven skulls and a bit of blood in a bowl to satisfy expectations, and any real magic, she knew, it was best to keep to herself.
The princess whose gown was black and silver as midnight learned on her own to stitch dreams into cloth; it took blood, fingers pricked on the spindle and the needle, and it took time, and it took courage to pin a plain brown cloak around her throat and leap from the tower window, trusting plain brown wings to carry her.
She said she needed a place to hide, when she landed outside the cottage with the bramble hedge, and Aster had no lies to tell even for all the gold around her wrists, so she asked the cards instead how to find a trail safe from hunting hounds: mouse bones and raven skull to point the way, a bit of blood to bid the trees bend down and shield them, and when they reached the clearing at the forest’s heart, the princess threw her midnight gown around them both as a concealing shroud; beneath that sky she was hidden only by her hair, and Aster, who had never let herself dream before of anything but riches, had to look away – until the princess took the witch’s weathered hand and placed it upon her breast, above her heart where the same magic beat, and the rest of that night’s story is a very different one indeed.
A Fairy Tale
The princess whose gown was black and silver as midnight learned on her own to stitch dreams into cloth; it took blood, fingers pricked on the spindle and the needle, and it took time, and it took courage to pin a plain brown cloak around her throat and leap from the tower window, trusting plain brown wings to carry her.
She said she needed a place to hide, when she landed outside the cottage with the bramble hedge, and Aster had no lies to tell even for all the gold around her wrists, so she asked the cards instead how to find a trail safe from hunting hounds: mouse bones and raven skull to point the way, a bit of blood to bid the trees bend down and shield them, and when they reached the clearing at the forest’s heart, the princess threw her midnight gown around them both as a concealing shroud; beneath that sky she was hidden only by her hair, and Aster, who had never let herself dream before of anything but riches, had to look away – until the princess took the witch’s weathered hand and placed it upon her breast, above her heart where the same magic beat, and the rest of that night’s story is a very different one indeed.