She leaned against the window, enjoying the beautiful sunny day as she absently brushed her long hair. It spilled around her, almost like a living copper curtain. I really need to wash it when we get to that hunting lodge tonight, she thought. It takes me forever, but I want it to look nice when Victor takes me to Wenneria. She wondered how she should address the king and queen. She’d never addressed a king and queen before, besides Pavla. She’d really have to ask Victor that when he came…
That was when she heard the griffin’s loud, heavy flapping and saw how late it was. “Oh damn,” she muttered. “Pavla’s late.” The sun was slowly dropping behind the trees, sending the last rays of day shining through the rustling leaves. “Of all the days for her to show up right before dark! I’ll have to get rid of her fast.” She quickly threw her carpetbag under the bed, then wondered if she should wear shoes. Hers were next to the window, but it was such a nice, warm night! It wasn’t even humid.
“Maple!” Pavla’s Prague accent purred. “Maple, child, send down your hair, so I can come up the copper stair.”
“Ok, Pavla!” She dropped her hair as fast as she possibly could, sending it over the window in a flame red shower. “But don’t take forever! I got things to do tonight.” Her eyes went to Victor’s ring on her finger. She wasn’t about to explain it to Pavla, so she quickly threw it in her pocket.
Pavla glared at her when she finally made it into the tower. “What things, child?” She was dressed lavishly, even for her. Her own brown hair was pulled back into an elaborate mass of curls. Her purple and red gown glittered with sparkling gems and sequins. Every inch of her exotic high cheekbones and long eyelashes were caked with the finest makeup in Berlania. “What things? And why are you not dressed?”
“Dressed for what?” Maple frowned as Pavla went to her wardrobe.
“How could you forget?” She emerged with the mint green and silver gown. “We’re leaving the tower tonight! We’re going to Berlania. You’re being betrothed to Baron Pruitt tomorrow morning. He’s my chief financier and one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Berlania.”
“Pruitt?” Her eyes widened in horror. “That jerk? He’s boring! All he cares about is countin’ his money! And he has a face like a constipated bulldog! I’d never marry him!”
She narrowed her eyes. “I thought you’d be excited. I know for a long time that you’ve wanted to leave the tower.”
“Not if I have to marry him!” Maple yelped. “Besides, I have things to do tonight! I can’t go! I haven’t perfected my human transformation spells yet, and I have songs to work on. And I really don’t want to wear that tight dress again. Can’t I wear this?”
Pavla chuckled. “Silly child. We can do things there. And really, that dress is vulgar. Rather unbecoming of a princess.” She reached to rub her temples, but Maple pulled away.
“Oh no. You ain’t pullin’ that stuff on me again!” She glared red hot daggers at her guardian. “Every time you start in with the rubbin’ fingers, I can’t remember who I am for the next three hours! Why can’t you just quit playin’ in my head and leave me alone?” She shoved her fingers away so hard, Pavla almost ended up on the bed.
Her guardian narrowed those cat’s eyes of hers. “You’re resisting the control spell now. Your powers are getting stronger. I’m not sure I like this.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it.” Maple moved to the window and peered out as she heard hoofbeats. “Um, Pavla, can we move this along?” She stepped away from the window, dragging her hair along as she went to the wardrobe. “It’s gettin’ late. The woods ain’t the nicest place to be after dark, and really, you’re the pokiest hair-climber I’ve ever seen! Victor n’ Scotty ain’t as graceful, but they take less time than you!”
“What?” Pavla narrowed those eyes, her razor-sharp cheekbones turning the same cherry red as the trim on her gown. “What did you say, child?”
Maple’s eyes widened. Oh, how she wished she could take those words back! “Uh, no one. Two of the birds. I’m friends with most’a the birds around here, you know.” She heard Eugenia twitter a warning, but she waved the bird away.
“Victor and Scott?” Pavla circled her like she was a top. “Child, I heard what you said. Who has been up here? You can be honest with me. I’m your guardian.”
Maple shook her head, trying to look out the window at the same time. The hoofbeats were getting closer, and Eugenia’s song grew more and more urgent. “Um, no one! Pavla, look, I’m real busy. Can’t ya come back tomorrow? After all, it might rain, and…”
“Child, it’s sunny today and is supposed to remain so tomorrow.” She leaned closer to Maple. “I have heard of Prince Victor, King Thomas of Wennaria’s eldest son. I had, in fact, intended to call on the King and offer myself as a suitor for him, since I heard his fiancee Princess Elizabeth had vanished. It would bring our kingdoms together. Wennaria is small and poor, but it does have those iron works and rich crop fields.”
“You WHAT?!” Maple’s voice rose higher and higher with every word. “Oh no. Nothin’ doin’, Pavla! I don’t care if you did raise me! He proposed to me! We’re a-fianced! I love him!”
“Love? How could any man love you? I made sure no one could get in here!” Pavla growled. “You little…” She managed to shove Maple against the tower wall and pushed her hand against her heart. It burned her chest like that five-alarm chilli Scotty brought from the Lone Star Kingdom a few months ago.
“You little brat!” Dark almond eyes flooded with pure fury as her perfectly powdered cheekbones turned blotchy scarlet. “You…you’ve…you let him deflower you! Your magic…it’s so full of disgusting pure love…” She finally pulled her fingers away, shaking them out. “It made me sick, it was so pure. How could you let him do this?”
“He didn’t do it! I did! And I loved every minute of it!” Maple shoved Pavla away. “Pavla, maybe you can’t understand, but I love him. He loves me. He and Scotty are comin’ now to take me away, and there’s nothin’ you can do about it.” She got close to the window and tried to wave out of it, hoping Scott and Victor would see her and know to get away.
Pavla reached for her head. “I can’t marry you to Pruitt now. Your magic can’t be corrupted when it’s that pure. But I can still make use of your power…”
“Nothin’ doin’! I ain’t gonna let you mani-ip-lit me anymore!” Maple screamed as she ducked away from her hands. “I’m my own woman, Pavla, and I am a woman! I ain’t no child! Do kids have these?” She shoved her hands under her bosoms.
Pavla grabbed her ears, her face screwed up in pain. “Owww! Stop! Your voice…”
“Is this what you were afraid of?” Maple shrieked. “Is this why you always made me whisper? Huh?” Every piece of crockery in the room cracked the louder she got. What little glassware she owned smashed with a noisy crackle. “Huh? HUH?”
“Stop it!” Pavla’s own piercing shriek was drowned out by hers. She finally got her hand off her ear long enough to slap her in the face. “Stop that ungodly voice!”
“You…you…you witch!” Maple threw herself at Pavla, screaming at the top of her lungs. They ended up on the floor, rolling around, screaming and punching and kicking. Pavla yanked hard at her long hair as it got tangled in the legs of the table, pushing those sharp nails into her scalp. That just made her scream louder.
“Damn it!” She finally yanked a handkerchief from her pocket and wrapped it tightly around Maple’s mouth as she held her arms. “Pets!” She sang out the window, her voice carrying. “My precious pets, my fellow kin, come to me, for I have a job within!”
Maple’s eyes widened as the rustle of rusty black wings and the scratchy caw of a robin filled the skies over the tower. She remembered the bird creatures from Prague Castle. They were Pavla’s bird tribe who acted as her loyal guards. She sent them to attack and remove anyone or anything that disobeyed her or whom she disagreed with. Servants who argued with her, women whose beauty exceeded her, those who played music or wrote stories or poetry that were kinder and gentler than she approved of…all vanished after a visit from the bird creatures.
She kicked hard at Pavla, but her legs got tangled in her own curls. “Now, now, child. Behave yourself!” She dragged her to her little stool near the hearth, where she couldn’t be seen from the window. “Calm yourself. You won’t have much use for your magic where I intend to send you.” It was all she could do to hold Maple to the chair and avoid her kicks. “Boys, hold her down. I need to give her a little trim.”
The three bird creatures looked like massive crows, with their rusty black feathers, long, razor-like beaks, piercing beady eyes, and strong wings that sounded like thunder when they fluttered. One wrapped his wings so hard around Maple, most of her upper half disappeared behind them. The second grabbed her arms, pulling her down, and the third sat on her legs. She struggled, but couldn’t move a muscle.
Maple continued to scream under the gag, even though her voice was hoarse and sore by now. “You brought this on yourself, child.” Pavla emerged from the drawers by the hearth with a pair of sharp scissors. “You should never have disobeyed me and brought men into this tower. This is your fault for being a naughty child and disobeying your guardian. I gave you everything a girl could want. Your long hair, that angelic voice? They’re mine.”
“Oh dear.” Pavla opened the blade of the scissors and drew one down Maple’s cheek, leaving a ragged scar. “I seem to have slipped and cut your pretty face.” She slashed it even slower down the other cheek, ignoring Maple’s gasps and winces. “Oh dear. How will your precious Victor recognize you now?”
Her fingers moved through Maple’s miles of hair, letting it flow into silken pools on the floor. “Beautiful,” she murmured, watching the flaming orange curls run through her fingers. “Fine as silk, strong as cotton. The source of all your magic. Just like your mother.” She stroked her cheek with the scissors, then ran them up her neck, leaving a long cut.
It took all of the monsters to hold Maple down as Pavla grabbed a thick lock of her hair at the top of her head. She held the scissors as closely to her scalp as she could, then slowly sheared it off with a sharp, audible snip. “Yes.” She ran the hair against Maple’s bleeding cheek as she struggled, then down her shoulder. “Yes, you need this haircut. See how lovely this is? And it’s mine now.”
Hot tears sprung to Maple’s dark eyes as Pavla continued to chop off her long tresses. Her salty tears mingled with the tang of blood on her cheeks and stung like hell, but they still flowed. Pavla cropped every lock as closely to her head as possible, letting her hear every clang, every snip-snip. Maple wiggled and threw herself around so hard, it took everything the monsters had to hold her down.
Soon, the two women were surrounded by enormous masses of shining copper curls. Pavla was ankle-deep in them. “Stupid child,” she sneered, running her fingers through Maple’s choppy locks. “How will you let your precious Victor and that meddling woodsman in now?”
That was when Maple heard the hoofbeats, the two faint voices and familiar growl of a bear cub on the horizon. Eugenia’s trills were louder and more insistent than ever. Maple kicked as hard as she could at the monsters on her feet, finally freeing them. She bit the wings of the ones wrapped around her, ignoring the feathers that tickled her mouth.
“NO!” She ripped off the handkerchief and screeched at the top of her lungs, pushing Pavla aside. “Victor, Scotty, get outta here! Don’t come! She’s gonna…”
The birds all wrapped their wings around her at once, yanking her back before she could continue. “You just did me a favor.” Pavla smirked as the monsters dragged her back. “You brought Victor right to me. However,” she turned to Maple with that cruel smirk. “I’m going to need one last thing from you. That voice of yours is too strong and much too pure, but it can be useful for me. After all, your Victor must know it well, if he’s in love with you.”
“Damn it, Pavla!” She flung herself wildly in their wings, trying to kick and bite. “Don’t you touch him! I’m gonna marry him, and there’s nothin’ you can do about it!”
Her little smile became even more cruel. “Open your mouth, dear.” She rubbed her throat hard, then stroked around her chin and lips as a dark light formed at the base of her throat. “Yes, yes. Come from the throat, voice so fine, what was once yours, is now mine.”
That was when she felt the rough tearing in her throat, a roaring fire like a sharp knife had been taken to her vocal cords. Heavy, musty feathers pried her lips apart, allowing the black light to yank a trailing golden light from her mouth to Pavla’s open fingers. Maple watched in horror as Pavla cupped it, holding it like water from a golden well.
Maple opened her mouth to scream in the nearest bird creature’s ear, but nothing came out. She tried to sing, but not a sound emerged. Screams came out as silent coughs. Pavla only laughed as she watched the light flow around her cupped palms. “Silly girl. I have your lovely voice. I made sure you’ll never make a sound. And now…your voice is mine.”
Pavla lifted the gold light to her own perfect vermillion lips and drank deeply, down to the very last spark of light. When it was all gone, she gave Maple a sharp smirk. “Well, whaddaya know?” Maple’s own cheerful Yorkalia accent said to her. “I think I’m going to go deal with my fiancee. I don’t need him seein’ too much, ya know?”
Victor and Scott’s voices and the sounds of their horses Hamlet and Ferdinand prancing and snorting could be heard from the trees. Maple struggled, trying to kick at the monsters, but they pulled her back under their wings until she was almost entirely covered in black feathers. She could just barely see the window from under them.
She thought she heard Scott tell Victor not to do it, it was too dangerous. He could hear loud voices in the tower. The sound of Victor’s footsteps indicated that he hadn’t listened. “Maple, my love!” He called up to the tower in his most commanding and concerned voice. “I’m coming for you! Maple, let down your hair, so I can climb your copper stair!”
Maple’s eyes widened as Pavla gathered her hair, then tied it to a nail in the window. She heard Victor huffing and puffing, his knees scraping against the wall. “Maple?” He called. “Maple, my love, what happened to you? Woodsman Sherwood and I heard your warnings. We…”
She could just see the top of his balding head and those intense whiskey eyes peering over the window. “Maple? Where is she?” He tried to peer around Pavla. “Who are you? What have you done with my fiancee?” His fingers just barely gripped the hair.
Pavla leaned as close as she could to him. “Your pretty red bird has flown. She is lost to you. You will never see your little scarlet songbird ever again!”
“No!” Victor’s fingers scrabbled for the slick, silky hair. “No! I can’t have lost her! Maple!” He tried to reach for his sword at the same time to attack Pavla, but between that and the slick hair, he lost his grip on Maple’s curls. “NOOOO!”
The moment he fell, Pavla turned to her bird monsters and the wide-eyed girl thrusting and sobbing wildly in their arms. “Get rid of her,” she hissed. “Drop her in the wilderness. Make sure she’s in a place where no one will ever find her again.”
The largest of the birds took her in his talons, gripping her so roughly, it nearly took her breath away. He flew out the window, carrying her in his talons. She looked down, struggling, waving her legs…and a chilling sight met her eyes.
“Maple! Maple?” She could barely hear Victor wail as he struggled in the vines, running his gash-covered hands against the tower wall. The fine navy uniform was torn to shreds, hanging off his body in ribbons, every button gone. “Maple, where are you? Scott?” His face was a mass of dark purple bruises and deep cuts, and his eyes…those intense, lovely eyes that had once gazed so deeply into hers were now covered in blood, scarred and battered…and unseeing. They stared straight ahead, staring at nothing. “Maple, I can’t see! My eyes…the pain is unbearable! Please…help me…”
That was when Pavla appeared below in a puff of smoke. Maple’s red hair was attached to her own, pooling around her in shining copper rivers. She wrapped her arms and hair around Victor, pulling him from the vines. The moment he fainted into her arms, leaving a smear of blood on her black gown, she carried him to her griffin, who pranced and snorted nearby. She threw him onto its back, then climbed on herself. The majestic creature took off to the east after two of the bird monsters.
As Maple struggled and sobbed, she happened to get one last familiar glimpse of shining black hair and a familiar worried cherubic face. She had no chance to wave to him or try to get Scott’s attention. The bird creature turned in the opposite direction, to the south, into the increasingly heavy gray clouds.
The bird monsters soared for hours over the kingdoms, going far from the Dark Woods, or even from known civilization. Maple wished she could ask the bird monsters where they were going, or even just to let her ride on their back instead of in their talons. The way they squeezed her around her middle hurt! They didn’t have to dig in those nails so hard! She struggled and kicked, but could no longer scream.
They finally dumped her in the middle of a thick gray mist. She ended up face-first in a mud puddle, surrounded by dead leaves, rotting logs, and colorful mushrooms. The glittering eyes of animals watched her from the lifeless hulks of leafless black trees. Everything smelled like decay and stink, including the thick red mud she ended up in. It did no good to kick mud at the bird monsters. They let out great screeching caws of laughter at her and flew away with only spots of moist dirt on their wings.
As she picked herself up from the mud puddle, she swore she saw hundreds of glittering little eyes around her. She opened her mouth to call to the animals…but not a sound emerged from her lips. Her throat still burned with that fierce, stinging pain. As she listened, she realized she wasn’t the only one, either. The wilderness was eerily quiet. Her footfalls squishing in the mud and the occasional padding of an animal’s paws were the only sounds. There was no birdsong, no chatter of little creatures. It was as if the mist had drained the sound from the entire swamp.
She wasn’t sure how long she spent wandering the wilderness, searching for someone, anyone who could help her out of there. It rained for days, a hard, cold downpour that soaked her to the skin. It was probably a good thing she didn’t still have all that hair. It was heavy and impossible to move when it was wet. She sought refuge in rotted logs and damp, empty caves and subsided on roots, berries, and the few seeds from the trees and bushes that the birds hadn’t eaten.
At one point, she caught a glimpse of herself in a shallow pool where she’d stopped for a drink. Ragged scars slashed her high tanned cheekbones. She’d long since washed off the blood, but the scars remained. What little remained of her copper curls stuck out in all directions, giving her the look of a terrified orange porcupine. Her flowery peasant dress was a stained and tattered mess after being caught one too many times in thorny berry bushes and stained with berry juice. She ran her fingers through the reflection, breaking it up into a ripple that distorted it even further, before breaking down into sobs.
That was when she saw the twitching nose. Two brown button eyes and short, bristly whiskers poked out from behind a fallen log. Soft brown ears wiggled, hopping towards her. Foley gently rubbed at her outstretched fingers, even as she sobbed silently. He climbed into her lap, leaning into her considerable chest. She cuddled him, soaking his fur with her hot tears. He gave her a lick when she rubbed his belly.
Just as her shaking had subsided, he jumped out of her arms and hopped into the swamp. From his nod and the twitch of his little pink nose, she assumed he wanted her to follow him. She stumbled to her bare feet, scratched and sore from too much walking over sharp roots and sandpapery leaves, and followed him.
Wait…she looked up at the same time his soft brown ears twitched. For the first time in days, she heard birdsong echoing in the misshapen black trees. Familiar birdsong, too. She knew that song. It was one Eugenia had taught her, one that they used to dance together to. One that she’d danced to with Victor and Scott…
“Maple!” Scott Sherwood stumbled over roots, but he was still beaming. Walter followed him, barreling right into his mama and nearly knocking her to the ground. She hugged the little cub, ruffling his soft cinnamon fur. “Oh man, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Are you all right? I saw those giant crows of Pavla’s carry you off, but I couldn’t get to you. I’m not a magician. Wish I was. I might have been able to do more for both of you.”
At that moment, Maple didn’t care who he was or what he could do, only that he was there. She sobbed harder and quietly into his rough green tunic.” “Aw Mapes.” He gently rubbed her back as Walter leaned into her legs, rubbing his smooth snout against her mud-spattered knees. “We’ll make things all right. We’re together now. You owe your bird friend one. I don’t speak bird, but I got the gist of what she was saying and followed her here.”
Eugenia twittered happily, settling on Maple’s shoulder. She rubbed the little bird’s chest, feeling her tiny heart beat under the yellow-gray feathers. Eugenia’s song was triumphant, happy that she’d brought two of her favorite people back together. She then fluttered to Foley, trilling in his long ears as he rubbed around her chest with his tiny pink nose.
“Maple,” he added more softly, “you know, you’ve been kind of quiet. When Pavla dragged Victor out of the thorn bushes…maybe it was just me, but she sounded like, well, you. In fact, she sounded exactly like you.” His voice dropped. “I think,” he went on sorrowfully, “Victor thought she was you. He was blind, Maple. The thorns…” He closed his eyes. “Maple, he’s blind. The thorns scratched his eyes. I saw it happen.”
She nodded, blinking back a wave of fresh tears as she touched her throat, pulling her fingers from it to mime dragging her voice out. “She…took your voice? Used her magic, I’m guessing.” Maple nodded, sobbing into his shoulder. “And your hair…” He gently stroked her head. “Damn witch took that too, didn’t she? I thought her hair looked a lot longer and redder than it should have.” Maple put her fingers to her head, miming scissors. “She cut it off, probably so you couldn’t heal Victor or your own voice.”
He continued to hold her. Walter leaned into her, growling gently. He didn’t like to see his sweet mama cry or be so sad! And what happened to her pretty orange fur? It was so short now. Maple stroked his head, rubbing his round silky cinnamon ears.
“Oh god, Mapes…” He held her shoulders, looking directly into her wet eyes. “Maple, I heard Pavla. I hid in that thick grove of trees with Hamlet and Ferdinand, where she couldn’t see us. She’s going to tell her parents she’s you and marry him. Probably wants to take over Wennaria Kingdom. I doubt she cares about Victor. She tossed him on that lion-bird of hers like he was a sack of potatoes.”
Maple narrowed her eyes, her face turning the same shade of red-orange as what remained of her hair. She punched the air, nearly knocking herself over as she mimed what she’d do to Pavla when she got her fists on her. “Whoa, Mapes!” He chuckled. “I feel the same way, but first, we need to make a plan. And second, we need to actually find Wennaria Kingdom. I haven’t been there in years.”
Scott lifted her onto Hamlet, then placed Foley in her lap. “Your transportation, Madame!” He gave her scraped knuckles his idea of a courtly kiss. She grinned, shaking her head as she stroked Foley’s smooth brown back and ruffled Hamlet between his own long ears. “You know,” he added as he climbed onto his own dark brown stallion Ferdinand, “there’s something familiar about this place. It’s like…I know I’ve seen it before.” He nodded at the earthy mushrooms and the black trees where timid rabbits, raccoons, skunk, and deer peered out. “I think I’ve been here before.”
Eugenia twittered, soaring around the leafless branches. “Eugenia?” Scott made a face. “What are you doing? Where are you taking us, girl? I don’t think this is the direction of Wennaria Kingdom. In fact, I think it’s that way.” He pointed over his shoulder to his left.
Maple’s eyes widened. When Eugenia sang deep like that, it meant she had something important to show her. She spurred Hamlet, pushing him further and further into the wetlands. Walter trotted alongside her, trying to keep up on his little clawed paws.
The chirping yellow bird finally emerged into a dark, dank clearing, surrounded by bent-over hulks of lumpy ancient trees and stagnant water. On the very edge of the wetlands stood a little hovel. It leaned against the trees, a sad box with windows covered in tattered, faded lavender gingham curtains that fluttered in the breeze.
“Eugenia?” Maple made a face as Scott raised an eyebrow. “I think you need to read a map. This is not Wennaria Castle. It’s about as far from a castle as you can get.” He frowned and helped her off Hamlet. “Still,” he added thoughtfully, “I swear…there’s just something so familiar about all this. Maybe we can step in and ask for directions.” He nodded at the thin wisp of smoke drifting out of the chimney and the dim light in the window. “Looks like someone’s home, at least. Worst they could do is throw us out.”
Maple nodded as Walter trotted by her side. Scott went up to the splintered door that was little more than a few boards and a rusty metal knob. “Hello? Is anyone home? We’re travelers who have lost our way, and we need to ask directions.”
“Come in, if you must,” croaked an aged voice. “Come in, and see what’s become of us.”
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