Page 12 of Roses in Amber
Beyond our peculiar little rectangle of safety, where the snow still fell constantly and swiftly, a ferocious storm raged. Had clearlybeenraging all along, but until we began to look hard, we had been as protected from knowledge of it as we were from its ravages. The more I watched, the more I realized that the trees just beyond us danced and rattled with wind, and the harder I listened, the more clearly I could hear that wind howling and shrieking, as if enraged it couldn't reach us. The snow outside of our enchantment didn't merely fall, but whipped and lashed and spun, creating a whiteout that we would never have been able to pass through safely.
I remembered Pearl's reading of the cards, and wondered, with a shudder, what would have happened if I had not been with Father. I said nothing, though, and rather than guess at our location, we rode on in silence, letting the enchantment guide us through the storm.
I looked up when Beauty stopped again as darkness fell, then stood, shaking snow off my blanket and quilt, to gape at iron gates twenty feet tall set into stone walls their equal in height. Father had gone back into the wagon to rest; I tried to say his name and produced only a squeak.
Beauty stood not two lengths from the gates, which, like our enchanted rectangle, were enveloped in a hard, steady snowfall nothing like the howling maelstrom surrounding them. I hadn't seen them before she stopped, either more magic or the storm itself blocking them until their enchantment melded with ours.
The gates were laden with a copper design that took every advantage of the metal's natural properties: golden-red roses 'grew' all over them, stems and leaves blueish-green with patina. The girl I had been a year ago admired the artistry, and the one I was now felt sorry for the servants who had to polish the roses while leaving the stems rough and green. Then again, the gates were clearly protected by charms, anyway, so perhaps the roses stayed polished of their own volition.
As if I'd guessed a secret and earned passage, the gates swung open—inward, silent, brushing snow into arches as they passed over it—to invite us down a long straight avenue lined with massive oak trees. The length of the road and the whiteness of oncoming night hid what lay at the road's end, but I remained on my feet, swaying with the wagon's motion, to await what would be revealed.
Even expecting it, it made me laugh. A manor house—apalace—with wings unfolding from a central edifice, rounded facades that spoke of ballrooms, ground level arched doors in the straighter sections, no doubt leading to storage, stables, kitchens; towers at corners, wide shallow—and currently frozen, but cleared to skate on—ponds carefully kept in beautifully sculpted basins; gardens that backed onto forest, and all of it unheard of, a hidden castle in the woods. The gates could lead to nothing else; the enchantment that had saved us could hardly lead to anything else, and I laughed again at the astonishing absurdity of it.
Father, hearing my laugh, opened the front of the wagon cover, and breathed, "Sweet mother of the stars," in genuine reverence.
Beauty ambled around the ponds, stopping, as if a stablehand came to stand at her head, directly in front of the sweeping stairs that climbed to the castle's main doors. Father and I sat there like lumps, and after a minute or so, the doors—themselves easily ten feet in height, and carved with the same rose relief as the gates—opened.
"You go," Father finally said. "I'll…bring Beauty to the stables."
"You want me to go into an enchanted castlealone?"
"Ah," Father said. "Well. When you put it that way—"
Beauty stomped a foot impatiently, drawing our attention to her. The reins slipped, causing me to lurch for them, but a pecularity inhowthey slipped made me look again, and then swallow. "Father, is someone…holding…that rein?"
It looked for all the world like someone was: a firm but fair hand, like Flint's, just below Beauty's dribbling chin. As we watched, the rein tugged a little, not quite enough to coax Beauty into action, but more than enough to jolt Father and myself out of the wagon to see what was going on.
No sooner than we were on the ground than the reins' tension increased, and Beauty walked placidly away in the wake of an invisible guide, leaving us alone in the snow with an inviting door already opened to us.
"It's an impossible castle in an enchanted snowstorm in a haunted forest," I said in a voice slightly more shrill than I had hoped for. "Naturally there are invisible servants to care for the horses."
"Naturally." Father sounded as rattled as I, which made me feel a little better. Together we mounted the stairs, I, at least, having already given up on an expectation of a footman or butler standing at the door to greet us.
Nor was I disappointed: the door had, by all appearances, opened on its own, just as it then gracefully closed behind us. I caught a glimpse, as it closed, of the storm closing in: the magnitude of the enchantment, it seemed, had been for our benefit, and not simply the magical manner of the place keeping its personal weather mild for the season. I tugged my cloak around me, aware, as I had not been before, that it was wet and cold, and turned to examine our shelter.
A foyer of preposterous size stretched before us, with a golden carpet nine feet wide laid over a parquet floor that glowed from the reflected light of beeswax candles lining the foyer walls. Massive curved stairways to our left and right led to ornately-railed halls on the floor above. Beneath the overhanging hallway, the foyer darkened ominously, and I shrieked when a pair of gentle hands settled on my shoulders as if to remove my cloak.
The hands, startled, disappeared at my shriek. Father and I both spun around to find no one there at all. I clutched my heart and my cloak, wild-eyed with something between laughter and fear. "Invisible servants," I said again, once more shrilly, and swept my cloak off before I could reconsider the action. There was hardly a moment's hesitation before the cloak's weight left my hands, and then, as if to entice us, the pop and crackle off a hearth fire suddenly lit the distant darkness of the foyer. Father handed his wet cloak to the invisible servant as well, and we went, with great haste, toward the fire.
By the time we arrived at it there were dry clothes waiting for us, and a changing shield with its warm side to the fire, that we might dress in privacy without sacrificing any moment of warmth. I hadn't realized how cold I was until we were out of it, nor how damp with snow all my clothes had become. I pulled on soft, thick stockings and whimpered at the warmth and comfort of them, and gratefully layered myself in petticoats, a dress, and shawls before emerging from behind the changing shield.
Fur slippers awaited me, and a hat and muff. I pulled them on and sat on a thick fur in front of the fire, shivering because I was now warming up. Moments later Father, as bundled and comfortable-looking as I felt, joined me. We hugged, as much to reassure each other ofournormality, at least, and fell back with sheepish smiles. A scrape sounded behind us and I turned to find two large, comfortable chairs had appeared, and between them, a small wooden table with two enormous, steaming mugs resting on it. "Oh, stars. Is that cider?"
It was, and no other drink in all my life warmed me so much as that mug did that day. Its rich, sweet, spicy flavor needed no alcohol to bring on weariness: the long day's travel through the snow, and the tremendous warmth of the fire, did that job. I drank the cider faster, determined to have it finished before sleep took me, and later, could only suppose that I'd succeeded, as I awoke eventually nestled in the same chair, and without cider spilled on my clothes.
Father had stretched out on the fur in front of the fire and was snoring gently. I chortled and went in search of a necessary, which I would never have found if an exquisitely detailed panel in the wall had not happened to open and reveal a latrine with a chamber pot. I said, "Thank you," to the empty air, and went about my business, wondering if invisible servants had senses of smell and whether it was unpleasant for them to empty latrines.
The necessary dealt with, I crept to the tall windows by the front doors and peered outside, where the only alleviation from the pitch-black night was the snow swirling madly around the palace. I could hardly hear it, even at the window, and so returned to the fire, grateful to sleep the rest of the night and wait out the storm.
In my absence, someone had brought a chaise in and placed it as close to the fire as it would fit without resting on Father. I whispered, "Thank you!" again, and crawled on to it, asleep within moments.
The scent of breakfast woke me again some time later. Eggs, toasted bread, bacon—oh, stars,bacon!—crisply-flavored apple juice, scones with salted butter and jelly: Father woke to the sounds of my feasting, and we both ate until our bellies ached. "All right," I said when I could eat no more, "I admit there's something to be said for unadulterated luxury."
"I could marry even Pearl off, with this bacon as her dowry," Father said with a smile, then lifted his gaze to the room and added, somewhat awkwardly, "Thank you."
An agreeable silence responded, and we sighed as one with content. "The storm hadn't stopped yet, last night, but I wonder if we can find our way to Beauty. I'm sure she's fine, but I'd like to check on her."
A handful of candles lit immediately, and then, when we didn't rise, a few more beyond them came to life as well. Father and I exchanged glances, ending with me shrugging my eyebrows and stealing another scone. "Lead on," I said to the candles, and, nibbling on the scone, followed the castle's guidance through tall, echoing halls down to a modest door that led into the stables.
