Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue Read Free Book Online Page B

him.
    Weave his shirt in one piece
    Polish his silver horn
    For he comes to bring ease
    To his lady all forlorn
    I had only just finished when his voice rose from the darkness. Will you come down to me? he asked.
    I cannot. I’m afraid of waking the woman.
    Is she your mother, that you fear to wake her?
    No mother nor nothing to me, I said.
    There was a long silence, so I thought he had gone. I was about to call out after him when he asked, more hoarsely, May I come up to you?
    For a minute it seemed impossible, and then I remembered the rope. I knotted it round a sharp stone in the wall and threw it down, bracing myself for his weight.
    The prince was all I had imagined. His hand grasping mine at the window was strong as a willow; his neck smelt of lavender, and the shirt on his back was clean as water. His voice was rough, but
musical, and his lips against my cheek were soft as rabbits’ whiskers. I laughed and tried to pull off his hunting gloves, but he held my hands still. I asked him, What do I sound like?
    He said, I was so stirred by your song, I knew I would have no peace till I saw you.
    I asked him, What do I look like?
    He said, I was so moved by the sight of you at the window, I knew I would have no peace till I touched your face.
    I tried to ask, What do I feel like?, but his mouth was stopping my mouth.
    We were in accord by sunrise. If he heard me sing it was safe to call up to me. If he sounded the horn he wore in his belt I would climb down to him. If he brought me a gold ring I would give
him my hand.
    The next day, the woman brought me a basket of peas from her plot, and we shelled them together. She was snappish; she hadn’t slept for the howling of the wolves. I nodded and shut my eyes
to make a deeper darkness. I couldn’t stop smiling.
    What ails you today? she asked in her habitual whisper.
    Nothing, I sang out. Nothing you need know, or maybe something you never will.
    The bowl crashed against the wall; I could hear peas race across the stone. There is nothing I do not know, the woman bawled. Everything you think you know you have learned from me.
    I tried to answer but she put her cold leathery hands over my eyes. You see nothing, she said; you are helpless as a lamb still wet from the ewe. Yet you have deceived me.
    I bowed my head under the weight of her palms.
    I have used up my years to keep you warm and fed, she said in my ear.
    I answered, The fruits of the forest are free for all. I have given my days to keep you from loneliness.
    The birds and the beasts are more faithful, she shouted. I have worn out my arms piling stone on stone because you begged me to keep you safe from the wind and the wolves and the hunting
horn.
    You should have known better than to give me what I asked for, I whispered, tears creeping down my face. Now the wind is scented with lavender, and the wolves howl because they cannot have him,
and when he blows his royal horn, I will go to him.
    There was a long silence. Nothing less royal, she said at last, smashing something down on the slab between us.
    She guided my hand over the pieces of horn, common horn. The horn was mine, she said. I knew I would have no peace till I found you a prince. As she spoke her whisper deepened into a hoarse,
musical voice, a voice I knew.
    I pulled back and threw the sharp fragments in her face, calling her witch, monster, carrion, all the words she ever taught me.
    When her footsteps had died away I heard the heavy bar fall across the door at the bottom of the tower. I waited till my pulse had stopped roaring. Not a sound. Did she mean to leave me to
starve till I begged for forgiveness, she who had been the worst deceiver? I scrabbled in every corner of the room for my coil of rope, but she must have carried it away with her.
    I wept into my hair. I wept enough to fill up another whole body, until the plaits grew heavy and matted. Weighing them between my hands, I realized that my hair was my own to do what I would
with. The