The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2019 Edition

Beautiful ^{Juliet Marillier}

There were no mirrors in our house. My mother would not allow them.

“What need have you for a mirror, Hulde?” she asked. “You are beautiful.”

“To fasten my gown… plait my hair…” My hair was fair as summer wheat, thick and coarse. Loose, it reached down to my knees. The harder I tried to keep it tidy, the clumsier my fingers became.

“Why do you imagine we have servants, stupid girl?”

True, we had a small army of them: cooks, cleaners, scullions, gardeners, washerwomen, guards. Maids to dress me in the morning and undress me at night. Maids to brush and braid my hair, when I let them. It was a lengthy and painful process, and often I dismissed them with the job half done.

I did not ask the servants if I was beautiful. There was no point, since they were allowed to speak only the words essential to doing their duty, such as Yes, my lady. Those who erred were punished, and my mother had a heavy hand with the whip. So I was careful what I asked them. I hardly ever heard the servants speak, even to one another.

Our servants did not look like my mother. Their hands, though work-roughened, were finer and daintier than both hers and mine. The skin of their faces was softer. Although each had two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth in more or less the same position as those I saw on my mother’s face, their features were different from hers. The servants were all of a kind, and that kind was not ours. It made me wonder.

“As for beauty,” Mother said, “have you forgotten that when you are sixteen, you will marry the Prince of the Far Isles? He is the most beautiful man in all the world. He would hardly have chosen you, Hulde, if you could not match him.” Her eyes were gimlet-sharp, examining my face. “Have you been gazing into bowls of water again? Seeking your reflection in a bronze plate or silver ewer? I have told you how those images distort the truth. They would make of the most fine-featured woman a monster. Turn your thoughts elsewhere, Daughter. Vanity does not become you.”

I did not tell her how often I glanced at myself in the castle pond; how, when Marit or Lina brought me a bowl of water for washing, I looked with something like hunger into my reflected eyes. I did not tell her what I felt as I thrust my hand into the bowl and erased that girl who was a younger version of my mother.

I had never met the man I was to marry. The Far Isles were a great distance away. To reach our castle, the prince faced a long and arduous journey, across the sea and over wild lands full of unspeakable perils. Our home lay east of the sun and west of the moon, atop a mountain of glass. No wonder he did not come to visit. Nobody came.

On fine days I would watch the geese cross the sky and imagine myself as a crippled bird, left behind when the flock moved on to warmer climes. Though that was wrong. I never had a flock. I had no brothers or sisters. I had no friends. My father died when I was a babe, killed in a conflict my mother refused to talk about. From that great sorrow arose one blessing: she secured as my future husband a man who was not only beautiful, but wealthy beyond measure. How she had done this, she did not say; but she never let me forget the debt I owed her.

A child thinks little about marriage and what it means. My sixteenth birthday seemed as far away as those isles where my future husband lived. Time stretched out in an endless parade of empty days. I had no duties to carry out. The servants were afraid of me; they tended to my needs only because they had no choice. My mother was always busy, and I did not want her company anyway. I feared my mother’s displeasure above all things.

On the matter of visitors to the glass mountain, there was one exception. At midwinter a horde of folk who resembled my mother would come all at once, and there would be a great fire, and whole pigs and sheep roasting on a spit. There would be shouting and singing and things smashing. On those nights I would hide away in my bedchamber with my head under a pillow and my heart pounding. The next day, they would be gone.

“Who are they?” I asked my mother.

“Kinsfolk,” she said. “From the Realm Beneath. Be glad we need tolerate them only once a year.”

I told myself those wild, loud folk with their grinning mouths and mad red eyes could not be the same kind as me. I tried to convince myself that I would never, ever be like them.

The year I turned seven Rune came, and my whole life changed. He climbed up the glass mountain with no trouble at all, using his claws. Rune was a bear. I was at my high window when he came, and as I watched him climb steadily onward, I felt my heart turn over with wonder. If anything in the world was beautiful, he was. His eyes were the blue of a summer sky. His fur was long and soft, with every shade in it from shadow grey to dazzling white. His ears were the shape of flower petals, and his smile… Could a bear smile? It seemed to me that this one could, and although his smile was full of sharp teeth, it, too, was beautiful. There was a sadness in it that went deep down.

There were many grand chambers in our castle; too many to count. Some held only scuttling spiders. Some were furnished with huge ancient beds like squatting monsters and dark hangings that moved strangely in the draughts. When I peered in, I saw ghosts in the shadowy corners, monstrous shapes concealed in the tapestries, awaiting the moment when I should take one step too close. I liked exploring the castle; in the long, lonely hours I had discovered secret passages and hidden stairways, deep cellars and high perches. But I was afraid of those echoing rooms.

I had thought Mother might house Rune there. Instead, she put him in a disused storeroom set underground, with steps linking it to an old walled garden. At the far end of the garden there was a locked gate, where two guards stood at all times. Perhaps my mother thought Rune would turn wild. Perhaps she only wanted to keep him safe.

The walled garden was planted with hardy, small-leaved herbs. Their tiny flowers hid half-under the leaves as if afraid to show their faces. Lichens crusted the walls, clinging hard against the mountain winds. There were two spindly trees. Each winter they bowed down lower.

At first, when Rune came, I was both shy and fascinated. I peered through the bars of the gate, and there he was, looking right back at me. My mother had ordered the guards not to let anyone in.

Perhaps I should have feared the bear, but I was too ignorant to be frightened. I did not even know that in the outside world, bears do not speak as men and women do. I had my own secret route into the garden, behind a row of thorn bushes that grew hard against the wall, then up and through a gap where two stones had fallen away. From within, the hole was concealed by the creepers; from outside, the thorns covered it.

I climbed through, then sidled across the garden and sat down on a bench, in a corner where the guards could not see me. Rune approached me little by little. He settled near me, without a word, and began playing a game with pebbles and sticks. Dexterous with his long claws, he would hop a pebble, roll a stick, glance at me over his shoulder, then go on playing. And almost before I knew it, I was squatting beside him, using a twig to sweep his stones away as the two of us laughed together. When my clumsy fingers knocked something over, he did not snarl or slap me as my mother would have done. He did not scold me when my too-long nails scratched him. He was a bear, and understood such things.

After that I came every day, and if the guards saw me, they made nothing of it. Rune never told me to go away. He never said he was busy or that I was wasting his time. But every day when dusk fell, he retired to the storeroom and closed the door. He told me I was not to visit him by night. I never questioned that. I understood, somehow, that to want more would be to risk losing what I had.

My mother did not come to the garden. Sometimes she called for Rune. The guards took him to the house while I waited alone. Sometimes I heard an argument, my mother’s voice shrill, Rune growling. He would return sombre and silent.

Apart from that, between sunup and sundown he was mine. When I had learned all his games we invented new ones. The guards brought food and the two of us ate it together, enjoying the quiet, watching the birds fly over. I learned to smile. And if I did not quite learn to trust, not so quickly, one thing was certain. Before that first summer was half over, I had given him my heart.

Rune had brought a leather bag with him, slung around his neck. In it he had gifts for me: a wax tablet and a stylus. The tablet was set in a hinged wooden cover, and was small enough for me to hold comfortably. Rune showed me how to write on it, and he showed me that the writing could be erased, the wax smoothed so that the tablet could be used over and over. That summer, he taught me my letters and began to show me how they fitted together to make sounds and words. He said that when I had learned some more, I would discover that those words opened up a whole world of tales. Tales of wonder. Tales of princesses and ogres and giants. Tales of humans turned into creatures and creatures turned into men and women. Tales of quests and adventures and far-away places. If I practised hard, Rune said, then next time he came he would teach me to read. With his claw, he scratched a whole alphabet on the storeroom wall. Then he asked me which words I wanted to learn first. I told him: Kitten. Sky. Free. Bird. Magic. Far. Sea. Beautiful. After he had written all of these, and made pictures of them—for beautiful, he drew a flower—he wrote his name at the bottom.

He left on the last day of summer. When he was gone, I sat huddled on the storeroom floor, filling my tablet with crooked letters. Rune, I wrote. Rune. Rune. Tears ran down my face and splashed onto the wax surface. My mother would have called it foolishness. But I hid the tablet, and I hid the stylus, and she never saw the markings on the wall.

“He’ll be back in three years,” Mother said the next morning. “That is the agreement. You’ll be ten next time. Then thirteen, and a woman. Then sixteen, and ready to be wed.”

If I had been ten, or thirteen, or sixteen, I would have known not to ask the question. “Why can’t Rune come back every summer? Why can’t he be here all the time?”

“Don’t be a fool, Hulde. Rune has his own castle, his own lands, his own responsibilities. You are lucky that he spares any time for you.” Her tone told me she could not imagine why anyone would want to do so.

Rune had said nothing about a castle, but I saw it in my mind straightaway. It would be all gardens and greenery, and the rooms would have big windows through which light would pour in. It would be by the sea. I hardly knew what the sea was, only that it sounded like a true adventure. I wished I could marry Rune instead of the Prince of the Far Isles. But Rune was a bear.

“Nothing to say for yourself?”

When Mother used that voice my insides shrivelled up into a tight ball, and I lost all my words. I shook my head, staring down. The black and white floor tiles blurred into grey. I must not cry. She hated it when I cried.

“You’ve grown attached,” she said. I could not tell if she thought this a good thing or a bad one.

“Rune is kind.” That seemed safe enough.

“Kind!” Mother spat the word out as if it were spoiled food. “What use is kindness? Strength, resolve, an iron will, those are the qualities a leader requires. More pity that your father died when you were a babe in swaddling, Hulde. Now he was a fine example of a man. A true leader.”

I did not understand. If my father had been a true leader, how was it that he had lost a battle and been killed? “Is there a picture of my father?”

“What a foolish question! If such a portrait existed, do you not think it would hang in pride of place here in my reception hall? Off with you, Daughter! You’re wasting my time.”

As I walked out, she spoke to my back. “Tears are for the weak, Hulde. There is a softness in you that does not bode well for the future. Let me not see you with reddened eyes again or, believe me, I will give you something worth crying about.”

The years between were hard to bear. I had nothing to do but wait. My mother considered household duties beneath me. She saw no reason for me to have lessons, and besides, there was nobody to teach me. Our servants did not have children; that was not allowed. I asked, once, if I could have a puppy or kitten, and Mother said I would only kill it with my clumsy hands. I spent my days in my chamber, or in the walled garden, now empty. The storeroom was locked, but I knew where the key was hidden, in a crack between the stones. I touched the markings on the wall—free, far, beautiful—and wished him back. But he did not come until the summer I turned ten. He was more beautiful than ever, and he seemed even sadder, though he greeted my mother courteously and found a smile for me. Suddenly shy—it had been a long time—I looked down at my feet, and my mother reprimanded me.

“You are a king’s daughter, Hulde! Stand up proudly!”

It shamed me to be scolded in front of Rune. I squared my shoulders, set my jaw, blinked back tears. “Welcome,” I whispered.

“It’s good to see you, Hulde,” said Rune. “You are much taller.” He did not ask me about my writing; it was our secret.

I was taller. It was no longer so easy to squeeze through the gap in the wall. But I managed.

Rune had brought me a book. The pictures were in rich colours, with here and there a touch of gold. There was magic in every one of them. The stories on the pages opposite were written in big clear letters, and because I had been practising hard, I could read a word here and there and guess at others. I wondered if Rune made the book himself, but I did not ask him. I practising my reading all day and late into the night, devouring the book over and over by candlelight.

Rune asked me which was my favourite picture. There was the princess in the tower, her long golden hair drifting in the breeze, and a little bird perched on her graceful hand. There was another I loved, with a handsome young man and a lovely young woman riding a black horse together, laughing, a dog running along behind. There was a strange picture of a half-woman, half-fish, seated on rocks with wild water crashing all around her. I did not choose any of those.

“This one,” I said, showing him a picture of a girl in a grey hooded cloak. She was making her way through dense woodland. Her hands were scratched by briars, her skirt was torn, her bare feet were bruised and bloody. She was not as lovely as the golden-haired princess, or as happy as the laughing woman on the horse, or as magical as the woman with a fish’s tail. What I liked was the look on her face. Her eyes blazed with courage. Her mouth was set firm. Even if I had not read the tale, I would have known this girl could do anything. “If I could be a person in a story, I would be her.” Her tale was called Faithful Solvej.

“You are a person in a story, Hulde,” said Rune. “We all are. You can shape that story any way you choose. Don’t forget that when I’m gone.”

He was wrong. While I lived here on the mountain, my story was shaped entirely by my mother. The only part that belonged to me was my precious time with Rune.

In my thirteenth year, my mind was full of doubts. The weight of them kept me awake at night and fearful by day. Mother said moodiness was common in young women of my age and made me drink a foul-smelling tonic. I longed for someone to confide in, someone to talk to, anyone who was not her. Two men came sometimes with deliveries on a cart. Their oxen breathed painfully after the long haul up the mountain. The men spoke one to the other, mostly things like “Over here,” or “Easy now.” They did not linger. They drew up the cart and unloaded their cargo, one of our servants gave them a little bag of silver, and they were on their way again with the beasts still exhausted. I sat on a wall and watched them, just to hear their voices. Sometimes I came close to thinking that the outside world was only a dream; that even Rune was only my imagining. Those men and their shaggy creatures helped me to be strong.

And there was the book; the precious book. Although I’d been careful, the cover was showing signs of wear, rubbed patches, little nicks where my nails had caught the cloth. One of the pages was torn. I had wept over that. I did not know how to mend it, and there was nobody I could ask. I wanted to copy the stories, to keep them safe. But my wax tablet could not hold so many words. I practised saying them over, without the book. I hid them away in my mind.

That summer, Rune brought me powders to make ink. He brought me quills and a knife and parchment. He showed me how to scrub and dry a sheet so I could use it more than once. He brought me a little book of beasts, and a book about the stars, and a book of maps. One of the maps showed the glass mountain, with the north wind puffing his cheeks out. Tucked away in a corner were the Far Isles.

“Oh! It is such a long way,” I said. “How will I get there, when I marry the prince?”

Rune went very still; so still it was as if he had frozen where he sat. “I don’t…” he said, and stopped. “That is not…”

There was a long silence. I felt my heart beating. Somewhere within the house my mother was shouting at the servants.

“What has your mother told you about that, Hulde?” Rune asked.

Something was wrong. I heard it in his voice. “She said that once I turn sixteen, in three years’ time, I’m to marry the Prince of the Far Isles. Long ago an agreement was made that it should be so. I don’t mind going away from the mountain.” When he said nothing, I went on. “But… I am a little afraid. The prince is a stranger. What if he is not a kind man?” My mind shrank from that possibility. I might escape my mother only to find that he was even worse. It was all very well for her to say the prince had chosen me. But how could he choose, when he had never seen me?

Rune was silent for a long time. Then he said, “You should ask your mother to tell you the truth, Hulde. Ask her about your father. About what happened.”

My father? What had he to do with this? I was afraid to ask my mother; afraid of her sour tongue and her quick, sharp-nailed hand. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“You must ask her.” Oh, he sounded weary; as weary as those oxen after they had laboured up the mountain. I crept away without another word.

Later, I gathered myself and went to my mother. She was hanging her smallest whip back on its hook.

“Wretched woman,” she muttered. “One would think that after fifteen years in my service, she would know how to fold a gown without creasing it.”

It was not the best of times to ask a question, but if I did not ask now, I would lose my courage. I wanted the truth, good or bad.

“Mother, it is only three years now until I’m to be married.”

She looked me up and down, brows raised. I saw in her eyes that she thought me still a child, and a tiresome one at that. “So?”

“Will you explain what the agreement was with the Prince of the Far Isles? How did it come about?”

“Have you been deaf all these years, Hulde? When you turn sixteen, you wed the prince. That is the agreement. There is no more to be said about it.” In defiance of her own words, she went on. “Remember one thing only: your intended is wealthy beyond imagining. We will be able to restore this place to its original grandeur. Think, Daughter! Farewell forever to leaking roofs and holes in the walls! The treasure room once again awash with gold!”

What could she mean? “But… will I not be living in the Far Isles once I am wed?”

“Are you so desperate to run away? Who will be Queen of the Mountain after me, if not my own flesh and blood?” A darkness entered her eyes; her hand reached out toward the coiled whip.

I had words ready, but they dried up in my mouth. Faithful Solvej would have stood strong and asked the questions that should be asked. It seemed I was not as brave as I’d thought.

Still later, when I was in my chamber alone, I heard her and Rune arguing. She was shouting, stamping about, thumping her fist on something. His answers were quieter; I could not hear what he was saying. I caught a few of Mother’s words: …owe me… gave your word… don’t think you can get out of this… I could make no sense of it, so I held my pillow over my head to block out the sound, and thought instead about what she had said earlier. Had she really meant that the Prince of the Far Isles would move here when we married? That I would stay on the glass mountain my whole life? Surely not. Why would anyone want to come and live here, trapped with the silent servants and Mother’s rages and my clumsiness? And where did Rune fit in?

Nobody to ask. Nobody to explain. Soon enough, Rune was gone and three more years of waiting began. I studied the books he had brought me, in particular the book of maps. Some of the maps had tracks marked on them, paths I thought might lead to the bright and wondrous places spoken of in the stories. Birch forests inhabited by slender fey folk. Broad rivers on which barges floated up and down, visiting settlements where as many languages were spoken as there were stars in the sky. Lakes and rivers. Valleys and grazing fields. The sea. If a person could keep walking long enough she could reach all of those. I looked again at the Far Isles on the map. Why would the prince come to live here if he could be there? Who would look after his castle and his people?

By my sixteenth year I was growing desperate for answers. Though she had never admitted it, I knew that my mother was capable of working magic. Not grand, powerful magic of the kind that conjures dragons and makes whole cities fall. Hers was a small, cruel kind of spellcraft. She used it sometimes to punish the servants. One of the women might find her nose lengthened threefold for a day, or her feet turned into a horse’s hooves, or her garments rendered transparent. Sometimes Mother grew so angry that magic seemed to burst out of her. I had seen her hurl a chair the full distance of the reception chamber. When it hit the wall it shattered, not into splinters of wood as I might have expected, but into a cloud of tiny buzzing insects that flew madly about until she waved a hand and they dropped dead onto the floor tiles. She made her maid gather them up one by one. I did not think I possessed the same gift, if gift it could be called. I was surely too clumsy to work even the simplest of spells. But I went searching for mirrors again, no longer frightened of the shadows in the empty chambers. It was easy enough to avoid Mother’s notice. Between tormenting the servants and counting our store of gold coins over and over, she was occupied all day. She had never shown much interest in how I occupied myself, and that had not changed now I was older. I wondered how she expected me to be the next Queen of the Mountain, if she never taught me what a queen should do. Perhaps she believed she would live forever.

I made a plan, as Faithful Solvej might do, and set about carrying it out. I ordered my maidservants to stay out of my sight all day; they backed away, looking relieved. I began a search of the empty bedchambers. I left no corner unvisited, no mouse-hole untouched. My hair was veiled in cobwebs; my gown turned grey with dust.

As a child, I’d wanted a mirror so I could see what I was not. I’d hoped its reflective surface would show me someone beautiful; a girl who could match up to the Prince of the Far Isles. At fifteen and a half, I knew I was no such girl. I knew I was my mother’s daughter, and no amount of wishing could change that. But Rune had said I could make my story any way I chose. There was a story in my mind about a girl who found a magic mirror: a mirror that could change the future. A mirror that would give her choices. Who was to say I could not make that story come true?

So I hunted until my hands were raw and my back ached and my nose streamed. I hunted for days and days, as the season passed and my sixteenth birthday drew closer and closer. I hunted on the day Rune should have arrived for his summer visit; the day when he did not come. I searched on the days that followed, hoping the magic mirror, when I found it, would offer an explanation for his absence. Would he not want to be at my wedding? A gown was being sewn, a feast was being planned, though I could not imagine whom we would invite other than Rune and our quarrelsome kinsfolk from the Realm Beneath. But maybe the Prince of the Far Isles would bring a whole retinue of courtiers. His family. His own mother. How would they get up the mountain?

With thirty days left until midsummer, I found it. It was not in any of the echoing bedchambers, but in Rune’s empty storeroom. I was looking for somewhere safer to hide away my books, and when I stuck my hand into a crack between the stones, there was the mirror. It was small enough to fit on my palm, and simple, with a tarnished metal frame and a surface that reflected the chamber dimly, as if through a mist. The moment I touched it I knew it was the one I needed. I made the mirror vanish into my pocket. Then I went straight to my own quarters and closed the door. Mother was busy overseeing the wedding preparations. Too busy, I hoped, to bother with me. My gown was ready, a stiff, awkward thing encrusted with gems. It hung on my bedchamber wall, mocking me.

I drew the little mirror out and held it before me as carefully as if it were a new-laid egg. My heart was doing its best to escape from my body.

“Show me,” I whispered. “Show me the story.” And it seemed to me the spiders in the corners and the scuttling things in the walls and even the creaking boards under my feet echoed my words back to me. There was magic everywhere.

I gazed into the polished metal, and there in the depths I saw a girl. Not me; a girl of the same kind as our servants, only she did not have their worn-out, beaten-down look. This was a fierce, determined face, the face of someone who was quite sure where she was going. For a moment I thought it was Faithful Solvej, but no—this girl had hair the colour of autumn leaves, and eyes as green as grass, and a scattering of freckles across her face. Her gown was tattered and dirty; her shoes had holes in them; hers were not a fine lady’s soft hands, but a working woman’s, worn and reddened. She had a pack on her back and a sturdy knife in her belt. The girl was crossing wild country pitted with great stones and grown over with thorn trees. Above her in the sky, heavy clouds massed, threatening storms. She came steadily on.

“Where are you going?” I whispered, but she could not hear me. And I wanted to ask, Can I come with you? but I did not. Because in the mirror, in the far distance, rising up above the expanse of wild country, there rose a great mountain of glass. The girl was coming here.

Soon enough the mirror turned back to mist and shadows, and no matter how hard I pleaded, it would reveal no more. The story must wait until another time.

Against my expectations, the house filled up. There were not only the wild folk from the Realm Beneath, but folk like the ones in Rune’s book of tales, only not so beautiful. They brought their own guards and maids and serving men with them. I had captured the mirror only just in time, for Mother had ordered the servants to scrub and clean every corner of the castle, including the outbuildings, before our guests moved in. I, so long starved of company, now found that company scared me. All I wanted was to be alone with the mirror and my imaginings. I longed for Rune. But Rune did not come.

The wild kinsfolk cared nothing for formal dining, or walks in the garden, or admiring the view. They made their own amusements, mostly by night, and slept off their revels next day. The other folk, whom I assumed to be connections of my future husband, were housed in a different part of the castle, and I saw little of them. The summer advanced and there was still no sign of Rune. I did not go into the walled garden. I was too big to squeeze through the secret entry now, and my mother had said nobody was to be let in the gates.

The mirror yielded up its story at its own pace. As the days went by, I caught a glimpse of the green-eyed girl talking to an old woman beside a swift-flowing river—I knew rivers from Rune’s books. I could not tell what they were saying, but the crone seemed to be pointing the way forward. Before the girl rowed herself over, using a boat so rickety I thought the story would end with her drowning before my eyes, the old woman gave her something small and black, and the girl tucked it away in her pack. She crossed, and walked on, and the mirror-mist swallowed her.

One day I saw her traversing a bog, leaping across the sucking expanses of mud on nimble feet. Another day there was nothing at all, and I wondered if she was sleeping, or had given up her quest and gone home. Why would anyone make such a journey? Why would anyone want to visit us? I found myself hoping, day by day, that she would succeed. I thought she and I might be friends; she would be a companion, like Rune, someone I could talk to and play with. Then I remembered that I was to be married at midsummer, and that I must live here, and that I had not even seen my future bridegroom. I remembered what I was, and how the servants shrank from me. A friend? The green-eyed girl would likelier befriend a warty toad.

I endured the fitting of a wedding veil. I squeezed my feet into narrow shoes with silver rosettes on the toes. Hobbling along in them, I felt as if knives were piercing my feet.

“Your bridegroom will love you in this,” said Mother, tweaking the delicate folds of the veil. “How could he not?”

“If he does not get here soon, he may miss his chance.” Even as I spoke I regretted it. She would surely strike me for such words.

But no; her face wore an indulgent smile. It was the smile of someone who has been keeping a delightful secret. “Oh, but the prince is here, Hulde,” she said. “He has been for some time.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded. I could not think what question to ask first.

“Go,” my mother said to the seamstress, who fled without a word. When the woman was gone, Mother said, “Hulde, there is something you must understand.” She began to pull out the pins that held my veil, not bothering to be gentle. “A bridegroom must not catch sight of his bride for the last turning of the moon before the wedding day. To do so would bring down all manner of bad luck on the marriage, and we wouldn’t want that, would we, Daughter? The Prince of the Far Isles will remain in his quarters and you will remain in yours, and all will be well. Think, only ten days left! Ten days, and then your whole life will be transformed. Be grateful, Hulde, and do not ask questions. You are the luckiest girl in the whole world.” She wrenched out the last of the pins, making me gasp with pain. I heard the fabric rip. “Now look what you’ve made me do! Stupid!”

“But, Mother… How could the prince have travelled here without my knowing? When did he come? Where are his servants? His courtiers? His family?”

“Are you deaf, Hulde?” Her gaze passed over me, cold as hoarfrost. “I have told you all you need to know. He is here. You will marry him. You will be Queen of the Mountain after me. Now go! You are to remain within this part of the house, understand? No running about in the garden. No sticking your nose where it is not wanted.”

Foolish me. I could not hold back the question. “Is Rune not coming to my wedding?”

Mother did not hit me. She did not rake my face with her claws. Instead, she laughed. “Oh, Hulde! Nearly sixteen, and still such a baby! Off with you now!”

As I fled, I heard her bellowing for her maids, then berating them over the torn veil. There was the slash of the whip, and a cry. I stuck my fingers in my ears.

In the mirror, the green-eyed girl climbed through a dark forest, just like Faithful Solvej in the picture. A fierce storm came over, and her fiery hair was plastered to her pale cheeks. She shivered, hugging her cloak around her, but kept on until she reached a tumbledown cottage, where another old woman gave her shelter. In the morning the sky was clear and she set off again. Before she left, the crone gave her something small and white, which she tucked into her pack. The glass mountain looked closer now. Would she be here by midsummer?

I disobeyed my mother’s command. How could I bear to stay within the confines of my own quarters? How could I survive without looking at the sky, and watching the birds fly over, and hoping beyond hope that Rune would come? Or, if not him, the green-eyed girl? I knew it was foolish. She was a stranger. If she was like other folk, she would be scared of me; too scared to speak. But I needed to imagine it. I needed to believe that Rune was right, and that I could make my own story.

There was no going into the walled garden, though I longed to sit there and dream of how things had been. I could have scared the guards into opening the gate. But that would have been to bring down Mother’s anger on them and on myself. I found a sheltered spot high on a ledge, a good vantage point for watching the pathway up the mountain. With luck, Mother would not think of looking for me in such an out-of-the-way place.

The sun was shining; the day was almost warm. I could see a long way before the landscape vanished into a mist of brown and grey and purple. How far had the green-eyed girl come? Would she be here today? Tomorrow? If she came after midsummer it would be too late. I would be married, and trapped here forever.

Stupid, I told myself. She cannot save you. You have to save yourself. But how? If I refused to wed the prince, my mother would kill me. When she got into a rage, she hardly knew what she was doing. I could not simply pack a bag and walk away down the mountain. She would send guards after me. She would find me.

What was that? A flash of blue inside the walled garden; from this perch I could see over the wall. Someone was there. I stood up, wobbling on my ledge, my body tight with longing, though I knew it could not be Rune. Rune would not have come here without telling me. He was my dearest friend.

Ah. Only a serving man in a blue shirt. He came up the steps carrying a bucket, tipped its contents out on the garden, then went back down. Down into the storeroom where Rune had lived when he came to the castle. Down into the chamber with the letters scratched on the wall. The empty chamber.

Rune had taught me puzzles and how to solve them step by step. This one did not make much sense. Perhaps our servants’ quarters could not hold the additional maids and men, and some had been housed in the storeroom. So perhaps what I had seen was nothing more than it seemed: a fellow emptying a chamber pot.

But then, if only serving folk were using the storeroom, why were there so many guards on duty at the gate, far more than before? Why had my mother forbidden entry to the walled garden, even to her own daughter?

There was someone in that storeroom that she didn’t want me to see. The most obvious choice was my future husband, banned from my sight for thirty days before the wedding. But it couldn’t be him. The storeroom was all very well for a bear, but my mother would never have put the Prince of the Far Isles in such modest accommodation. To ensure he and I did not meet before the wedding, all she’d needed to do was house him in a distant wing of the castle and order me not to wander about. Which was what she had done, as far as I knew.

I waited and waited, but there was no more activity in the walled garden. So I went back to my own quarters and fished out the mirror. This time I sat by the open window, so I could keep one eye on the track up the mountain. I did not expect the mirror to cooperate. But no sooner was I settled than the face of the green-eyed girl showed clear as clear. And for the first time I heard her voice. I’m coming to fetch you, she said. Hold on. I’m coming to save you.

It was true! Rune was right, I could make the story come out the way I wanted! “Hurry,” I whispered. “You need to get here before midsummer, and it’s only a few days away.”

The girl in the mirror showed no sign of hearing me. She pulled her pack higher on her back and kept on walking. But she understood. I was sure she did. I watched as she climbed a rocky hillside, traversed a deep valley, then made her way across a desolate plain where the grasses grew no taller than one joint of my little finger. The north wind whipped her hair into a brave red banner. I’m coming to save you. Those words thrilled me deep inside.

She stopped for the night in a little hut by a frozen pond. The hut had icicles hanging from its eaves: winter in summer. I guessed she had reached the foot of the glass mountain, where it was always cold, and my heart raced. Night fell in the mirror, and dawn came rosy bright. The girl and an old woman stood outside the hut, and the old woman pointed the way. She gave the girl something small and golden, and the girl slipped it into her pack. Before the mirror misted over, she turned her forthright green eyes straight on me. Wait for me, she said.

“I will, I will!” I whispered. “But hurry!” It was a long, hard climb up the mountain. Unless you were a bear.

Seven days until the wedding. Mother made me put on all my finery and practise walking up and down with my head held high and a smile on my face. When I was not straight enough to satisfy her she corrected me with a long stick.

“You will be on show, Hulde. The future Queen of the Mountain. You must shine. What is the matter with you? You are all a-tremble, and your smile is a death’s-head grimace. Even a simpleton would not be convinced by it.”

“It feels odd to be marrying a man I have never met, Mother. And… I am sad that Rune cannot be here.”

“You’ll be happy soon enough, when the fellow’s bedded you.”

Not being quite sure what she meant, I said nothing.

“As for Rune, that puzzle will resolve itself with no need for your interference, Daughter. After your wedding you will never see the bear again.”

I endured the rest of my deportment lesson with my heart near-breaking. My wedding was only a few days away, and Rune was not here. He would never be here again. How could I live without him?

I waited for the green-eyed girl to come. Or for a miracle to bring Rune up the glass mountain. Or for myself to turn into a beautiful princess like the ones in the stories, and for the Prince of the Far Isles to decide he and I would ride away to live in his castle after all. There were six days left. Then five. Then only four. What would Rune advise me to do?

Don’t wait for other folk to solve your problems, I thought. Take hold of your story. Shape it the way you want. Don’t be afraid.

But I was afraid of my mother; scared almost to death. Too scared to ask questions. So scared I had accepted half-truths and tales that made no sense. What if there was no old superstition about it being bad luck for a man to see his bride in the thirty days before the wedding? What if the real reason she was keeping me away from the prince was that, once he saw me, he would no longer want to marry me? What if Rune had stayed away because… because… But no. A woman could not wed a bear.

In the mirror, something strange happened. It was as if a different story was beginning, in a different time and place. But not entirely different, because the green-eyed girl was in it, with a man so beautiful to look on that he must surely be the Prince of the Far Isles. His features were noble, his nose straight and strong. His hair was dark and glossy as a crow’s wing, his skin pale and unblemished. I saw him fast asleep, lying on a bed hung with rich red cloth. The girl was in a nightrobe. She had a candle in her hand. She leaned over the man, looking down at him with her face all soft with love. Oh, I had never seen such a tender look! Three drops of wax fell from the candle onto his shirt, and instantly he was awake, springing up so fast the girl shrank back in terror. The candle wobbled in her hand, making strange shadows dance around the chamber.

Oh, Wife, the man said, taking the candle in its holder and setting it safely on a chest. What have you done? His words sent a shiver through me.

I’m sorry, dear heart. My mother made me do it… I’m so sorry. The green-eyed girl was shivering; she put her hands over her face.

I must leave you now. You have broken your vow, and I cannot stay. A long journey lies before me, a journey from which there is no returning. He enfolded her in his arms; she wept on his shoulder. Goodbye, Beloved. I must go.

Wait! she cried, stepping back from him. Oh, Husband, please wait a little longer! Let me come with you!

I must travel alone.

???

I love you! the girl said. I would do anything to break this curse! Is there no way out?

A long silence. Oh, how they gazed at each other! My hand was hurting. I had been gripping the mirror almost to breaking point. Then the man said, There is a way. It is long. It will tax you hard.

Tell me! the girl pleaded. Whatever it is, however long it takes, I will save you. I promise.

The mirror misted over, leaving only grey.

I was troubled. It seemed the green-eyed girl might be coming not to my rescue but to her husband’s. And if she was climbing the glass mountain, that meant the beautiful man was here. Here, but under a curse only she could break. If he was the Prince of the Far Isles, how could he marry me? He had called the green-eyed girl Wife.

I thought again about the storeroom, the guards outside the walled garden, my mother’s orders that I was not to stray. I thought about the blue-clad servant. I remembered the other way in, through the cellars and along a narrow passageway. The green-eyed girl was not here and time was running short. Be brave, Hulde, I told myself, shivering. As I made my way to the cellars, what frightened me most was not the prospect of my mother’s wrath. It was the knowledge that to get to the heart of this, I would have to do what I had spent my whole life trying not to do. I would have to act as she would. I would have to be what I had most feared to see in the mirror: my mother’s daughter.

Outside, it was close to dusk. Down in the maze of passageways and chambers that ran into the heart of the mountain, lamps hung along the walls to light the way. Here and there servants perched on ladders to trim wicks and top up the oil. I tried not to remember the time my mother had lost her temper and kicked out a ladder from under a boy. She had escaped unhurt; he had not. I could still see him burning.

The entry to the storeroom ran off a guard post. In this small chamber three men were sitting over a jug of ale, but they leaped to their feet when I appeared. I did not need to do anything to make folk frightened. And yet, I had never spoken an unkind word to them. I had hardly spoken any word at all.

“I understand…” That voice would not do; it was too soft, too hesitant, not the sort of voice the green-eyed girl would use. “I understand you have someone staying in that storeroom.” That was better; a poor imitation of Mother’s imperious tone, but firm and strong nonetheless. I pointed to the narrow way that led to the storeroom door.

The men exchanged nervous glances. No doubt Mother had given them orders that I was not to be let in; not to be told anything. There was an assortment of bottles, large and small, and the remains of some bread and cheese on the table. I wondered if they had broken a rule and were expecting me to punish them.

“Yes, my lady,” said the oldest of them.

“That is an odd place to house a guest,” I said.

“The queen’s orders, my lady.” The man shifted his feet.

“Who is it?”

They looked at each other again; looked at the floor.

“Answer me!” I took a step toward them and saw them cringe, though I had no whip in my hand. I had not even clenched my fists. I realised I was as tall now as the tallest of the guards, and as strongly built. I was almost as tall as my mother. “Speak up!” My belly churned; I wanted to be sick. I hated this Hulde, the one who could make folk shrink back in terror. I wished she had never been born.

“A nobleman, my lady. A visitor.”

“Has this nobleman a name?”

“It’s the prince,” one of the others blurted out, earning himself a scowl from his superior. “The Prince of the Far Isles.”

“The chamber has been comfortably fitted out, my lady.” The head guard was pale. “This was… it was the prince’s choice.”

I was not as surprised as I might have been, having seen the green-eyed girl weeping over the man she called her husband. How could there be two such beautiful men in the world? I wanted to order the storeroom door opened, so I could confront the prince with the fact that he was already married. But perhaps the story in the mirror had been all my own imagining. And if it turned out the tale about ill luck and thirty days was true, charging in to confront the prince might set my whole future in jeopardy.

I thought could hear someone moving about in the storeroom, pacing to and fro with an odd, dragging kind of step. I wondered if my mother, in furnishing the place to befit my future husband, had ordered Rune’s drawings to be scratched off the wall. That was his room. It was my room. Within its stone walls I had wept long for him. I did not want anyone else in there. I did not want anyone touching what he had made for me.

“I imagine the prince is not confined there night and day,” I said, turning what I hoped was a fearsome glare on the head guard. “Yet I have not seen him at the supper table or in the garden. Does he receive visitors?”

“No visitors, my lady. We’re under orders to leave him alone during the day. We take in a breakfast tray before dawn and a supper tray in the evening, goblet of wine and all. Cooks send the food down.”

“The prince did not travel with his own servants?”

“No, my lady.”

“I thought I saw someone in the walled garden. A man in a blue shirt.”

That glance again, as if they were weighing up my mother’s anger against mine. “There’s a fellow,” the head guard said. “A mute. Does the dirty jobs. He goes in there to clean up sometimes.”

“A mute? What is that?” I had never heard the word.

“Fellow’s got no tongue, my lady. Can’t talk.” I thought he was going to say something more, but he thought better of it.

“I see.” What I saw was another part of Mother’s plan to keep the truth from me. Perhaps my future husband was already married. Perhaps he would think me so appalling to look upon that he would turn tail and flee at first sight—that would be why she was making me wear the wretched veil. Perhaps he was appalling to look upon, though I would not mind that very much, provided he was kind. Especially if he took me away from the glass mountain. Would he be strong enough to stand up to Mother? Was anyone?

“Thank you,” I said, and made my way back up to ground level. What now? Three days and three nights left, and I had no idea what to do.

The mirror had no answers. Its surface had turned to a sullen, flat grey with not the least sign of an image. Where was the green-eyed girl? Had she fallen to her doom half way up the mountain? Or was she still climbing? I wanted to rip the poxy bridal gown to shreds. I wanted to hurl the silver shoes out the window. I wanted to scream.

And then, when I had dismissed my maids after supper and was attempting to tidy my hair, there came a tap at my bedchamber door.

“I told you to go away!” I snarled as the comb caught in a tangle.

“My lady.”

The voice was not that of Marit or Lina. It was not my mother’s voice. It was… I did not dare turn around, for fear I should be only imagining her. I held up the mirror to show the doorway behind me, and there she was, looking right at me.

I wanted to leap up, to throw my arms around her, to confide my whole story. I wanted to ask every question at once. I had so longed for her to come, a friend, a companion, a confidante… But the look on her face halted me. That look told me what courage she had had to find in order to come near me. It told me how scared she was. Of me. Even she found me loathsome, though she was working hard to stay calm.

“Lady Hulde?” she said. “I am but newly arrived in this house. A maidservant. I have something here, a gift for you. I… I heard that you liked kittens.”

A kitten! I had longed for one since I was three years old. My hands ached to hold it. But I was no longer a child; I would soon be married. “I can’t have a pet,” I said. “I would kill it with my clumsy hands.”

“Oh, no!” the girl said, breaking all my mother’s rules by coming right into my bedchamber. She had a little bag with her, and now she set it down and lifted out something small and black. “You would not kill this kitten; it is very sturdy. If you wind up this little handle here, it runs about and chases a ball, and if you touch this little button here, it mews so sweetly. Its fur is very soft, and you can pet it all you like. When you are tired of it, just put it away somewhere. Let me show you.”

I was entranced. I could have played with the kitten all night. It was a gift to equal the precious things Rune had given me. As I sat on the floor watching the little one run about, I asked the girl, “What is your name? And why would you bring this for me?”

“My name is Laerke,” she said. “I thought you might be lonely, Lady Hulde.”

It did not seem to matter that she was breaking more rules every time she spoke. This was different. She was the girl from the mirror, and ordinary rules did not apply. Laerke. What a wonderful name. I wished I was named after a bird.

“The gift is given freely,” she said. “But I do have a favour to ask.”

I waited.

“I understand you are soon to be married,” Laerke said, glancing at the bridal gown on the wall.

“In three days.”

“I need to… I want to… This is difficult, Lady Hulde. I don’t know how to say it.” She looked at me as a friend might, eyes wide, mouth half-smiling.

“Tell me,” I said.

“I cannot explain why, but… the man you are to marry… he is a friend, familiar to me, and… and I need to speak with him alone. At night. That sounds odd, I know. But I hope very much you will grant my request. To… to spend the night in his chamber…”

“If my mother knew you had asked such a thing, she would have you killed. She would kill you herself.”

“Yes, I… I have heard that the Queen of the Mountain is somewhat fierce. Hulde—may I call you that?—if I promise you that he and I will do nothing more than talk… If I promise that I will not touch him… Please?”

Nobody had ever spoken to me so sweetly. Apart from Rune, and Rune was gone.

“My mother gets very angry,” I said. “Angrier than you could imagine. If she found out, we would all be punished. You, me, the guards, everyone. Her punishments are… rather harsh.”

“Then she must not find out.” Laerke’s eyes were ablaze with courage; it was an invitation to be as brave as she was. “Help me, Hulde. Please.”

She was sweeping the story forwards, and I could not resist her. “Very well,” I said. “I’ll do my best.”

I did not tell her about the mirror. I did not tell her I knew—suspected—that she and my bridegroom were married. Should my mother learn that, she would see a simple solution. If Laerke met with a fatal accident, the prince would be free to marry again.

I told Laerke that the prince was locked away on his own, because of the need not to be seen by me before the wedding. I told her where she would find him, and how she could get into the walled garden. I was too big to fit through the gap in the wall, but Laerke was slender; she could do it. I explained where the storeroom key was hidden. I took her to my window and showed her where the garden was.

“You could go now,” I said. “It’s getting dark, but not too dark to see the way. There will be guards at the gate. In the morning, make sure you come out before it’s light or they’ll see you. I’m not sure you know what a great risk you’re taking. If you’re caught, I won’t be able to help.”

“I do know,” she said. “Thank you, Hulde. I had heard that you were a kind person, and I see it is true.”

Who could possibly have told her that? “Good luck. You’d best go. Come back in the morning and tell me what happened.”

That night, I did not see Laerke in the mirror. I did not see the Prince of the Far Isles. But I did see a white bear running through a forest, his pelt catching the moonlight. “Rune,” I breathed, wondering if he was on his way to the mountain of glass; hoping beyond hope that he would be here before the wedding and that everything would be made right. I knew it was foolish. What could he do? But I wept, and hoped, and held my black kitten close to my breast.

Laerke was back in the morning, after my maids had cleared away my breakfast tray. She had her red hair tied up in a kerchief, and was carrying a bucket and mop.

“Come in,” I whispered, glancing up and down the hallway. I bundled her into my chamber and bolted the door. “What happened?” I saw, then, that her eyes were red.

“I couldn’t wake him. I tried and tried. All night. I think he’d been given a sleeping draught. But who would do that?”

Why was she looking at me that way? Could she be thinking I had drugged my bridegroom? My heart clenched tight; I had thought we were friends. “My mother has a store of such potions,” I said. “She might have ordered it done. I don’t know why.” I could not stop myself from adding, “I couldn’t have done it, Laerke. There wasn’t time. Besides, why would I help you see him, then prevent you from talking to him? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, with a sweet smile. “I’m worried, that’s all. Could we try again tonight?”

“I’ll think about it.” Only two days until the wedding. If Rune was on the way here, it might be better to wait until he arrived before taking such a risk. Maybe Laerke would uncover the truth, whatever it was. Maybe she would cause a disaster with her meddling. “Hadn’t you better go and do your cleaning, so nobody gets suspicious?”

When she came back later, she had her little bag with her. I was on the floor playing with my kitten, but when she took out a snow-white puppy and made him run and jump and let out little wuffing sounds, I could not wait to play with him.

“Oh, how precious! What wonderful things you have!”

“For you, if you would like it. It’s a gift, yours even if you say no to my request. We are friends, aren’t we?” She put her hand on my shoulder. It was an offence that would have earned her a whipping if Mother had seen, but it filled me with warmth.

“We’re friends,” I said. “Try again tonight if you wish.”

“Could you… is there a way to find out about the sleeping draught? Perhaps to be sure he does not take it?”

“Without alerting my mother? Almost impossible. I’ve already been down to the guard room once, asking questions about who was in that chamber. I don’t see how I can do it.”

She turned her eyes on me; laid both hands on mine. It was like a picture in a book of tales: Faithful Laerke pleads with the Queen’s Daughter. “Please, Hulde.”

“Why is it so important that you speak to him?” I made myself ask, though I was not sure I wanted an answer.

“I cannot tell you. I promised. If I tell, I will bring down a curse.”

A curse! This really was like a tale of wonder and magic. And I was part of it. I must not be the part that prevented the happy ending. “I will try to find out about the sleeping draught,” I said. “But I can’t promise anything. This is very dangerous, Laerke. I don’t think you can understand how dangerous.”

I meant to do as I’d promised. I meant to go down to the cellars and find out if anyone was drugging the prince’s wine. But my mother called me to her quarters and made me spend all day there learning a dance she said everyone would be performing at the wedding, a swaying, turning, tripping thing that made me dizzy. When I said I felt unwell, she made me lie down on her bed to rest. When I said I was hungry, she had her servants bring a tray of delicacies. By the time I escaped, it was dark outside and Laerke was nowhere to be seen.

I was tired and sad. I felt defeated. I had tried to be a hero, like Laerke, but I was no hero. I was clumsy and stupid. I had thought there might be friends for me. But Rune was gone, and Laerke would go, and I would be all alone again. Except for a prince who, I suspected, did not really want to marry me. And my mother.

I tucked my kitten and my little dog in my bed, as if they were real. I did not feel like playing with them. I took out the mirror. I did not feel like looking in it, but something in me, a spark that was not quite extinguished, made me look anyway.

The storeroom was almost in darkness. One lamp burned in a corner, throwing soft light over the sleeping form of the most beautiful man in the world, and the figure of Laerke bending over him, just as she had before when she had held out a candle to illuminate his face, and had startled him with drops of hot wax.

But it was not the same. Then, she had been trying not to wake him. Now she was pleading for him to wake. But the drug held him immobile, his chest barely rising and falling. Oh, he was indeed a beautiful man. Noble, strong and good. I need not hear him speak to know that. I need not look in his eyes. I knew it in my heart. Such a man would never, ever have chosen to marry me.

I watched a long time as Laerke wept and begged, and the prince lay deathly still. Finally, exhausted, she laid her head down on the bed and fell asleep. That was when I saw the shirt. It was draped over a chest, and even in the deceptive surface of the mirror I could tell it was the same one he had been wearing before. I knew that somewhere on that shirt there would be a mark from hot wax. I thought I remembered, in one of Rune’s tales, that hot wax could be used in a magical charm. Laerke had said the prince was under a curse. And as soon as the wax drops had touched his clothing, he had told her he must leave her. Why would he bring that stained shirt all the way to the glass mountain, when he was wealthy enough to own as many shirts as he wanted?

I was afraid Laerke might sleep late and be discovered when the servant took in the prince’s breakfast, but when I looked out my window in the morning there was no sign of a disturbance in the walled garden. The guards stood at the gate as usual; otherwise the place looked deserted.

One day until my wedding. One day and one night to shape the story the way I wanted. But what did I want? I did not want to be married on the strength of a lie or a curse, even if the bridegroom was beautiful and rich and my mother’s choice. If I refused to marry him, Mother would be so furious she would probably kill me before she realised what she was doing. If I told her he was already married, she would hunt out Laerke and kill her. That was my mother’s way.

Laerke came to my chamber in mid-morning, carrying her mop and bucket. She was sickly pale and her eyes looked bruised. She didn’t say anything, only shook her head.

“I’ve made a plan,” I said when we were both safely inside with the door bolted. “I couldn’t do what you wanted yesterday, but I may have better luck tonight.”

“Really, Hulde?” Her voice was trembling.

I wanted her to be brave. I needed her to be brave. Today, I had to lie to my mother. “I’ll do my best,” I said. “Be ready at nightfall, and don’t alert the guards.”

My plan depended on three things. Firstly, that my mother did not think it odd that I sought out her company for the day. Secondly, that I had guessed right about the sleeping draught—where it came from, and how it was being used. Lastly, that I could steal a small bottle from my mother’s chamber and get it down to the guard room. It’s a quest, I told myself. An adventure. I had not realised how terrifying a real adventure could be.

“Mother?”

“What do you want, Hulde? Can’t you see how busy I am?”

“I was hoping… I need to practise the dance again. And walking up and down in my wedding gown. Could I do that here? I will keep out of your way. If you happened to have a moment or two free you could help me to get it right. To tell you the truth, I am a little nervous about being married. I would be happier if I could spend some time with you.”

She hardly listened; she was sorting out the contents of a jewel box, perhaps deciding which of her adornments she would wear tomorrow. “Of course, if you wish,” she said without bothering to look at me.

I had brought the gown, the silver shoes, the veil. I changed in and out of them. I practised dancing. I practised walking like a princess. I perfected my curtsy. I spent a great deal of time brushing my hair. When a maidservant brought refreshments on a tray I sat down with my mother to share them. The day passed, and I waited for my opportunity.

It came when a serving man knocked on the door, and told my mother the banqueting table was set up and ready for her to check. She rose with a sigh.

“How tiresome! These folk cannot be trusted to get anything right. I won’t be long, Hulde. Perhaps you should come with me. One day, this sort of thing will be your responsibility.”

“My feet are hurting.” This was true. “I’d best go back to my own quarters. Thank you for helping with my dancing.” She had been almost kind; the kindest I had ever seen her. If she knew what I was planning her mood would change in a flash.

“Very well. Make sure your maid irons that gown again and steams out the veil—there must be not the slightest crease. I can hardly believe it: my little Hulde, about to wed the most beautiful man in the whole world. Our lives will be transformed.”

She swept out of the chamber, leaving me alone. I moved fast, bolting the door, then going to the special cupboard where she kept her draughts and potions. She used the sleeping draught every night. It did not fell her as it had the prince. I had seen that in order to sleep, she needed more of it now than she once had. She had the household apothecary make it up in small bottles, each a single dose. There were ten of them lined up on the shelf. I hoped she had not counted them.

With one bottle tucked under my sash, I closed the cupboard, collected my belongings, unbolted the door and returned to my own chamber. I tipped the sleeping draught out the window and refilled the bottle from my water jug. So far, so good.

Something flew past, whistling, and I ducked in fright. It flew by again, then landed on the window sill. A bird. A golden bird. Laerke had left me another gift. It was curiously made, its many interlocking parts fashioned of fine metal, though the feathers were soft to the touch. Its voice was high and clear. I could not hear it without imagining an open sky. “Oh, you are beautiful,” I said, holding out my finger for the little one to perch on. It tilted its head to the side and examined me with eyes so bright and clever that I wondered if there was magic in the making of it. Over on the bed, the black kitten and the white puppy were sitting up, aquiver with excitement as they watched the newcomer. I did not remember turning any handles or pushing any buttons.

However this works out, I thought, when it is all over at least I will have them. No matter that they are not truly alive. They are almost as good as real ones. And I will still have more friends than I had before.

Later, I sent Marit with a message to my mother saying I would have my supper on a tray in my bedchamber. That seemed not unreasonable on my wedding eve. The kinsfolk from the Realm Beneath were celebrating for me, with a lot of shouting. There were flaming torches and folk running about outside. That scared me. What if Laerke was caught as she climbed through the garden wall?

I sent Marit early for the tray, then dismissed her. Most of the household was heading in for supper. I waited in a shadowy corner until no more guards came up from the cellars, then I went down. If I was wrong about the sleeping draught, this would be useless.

There was only one man in the guard room. When I came in he leapt to his feet.

“Only one?” I bellowed in my best imitation of Mother.

“Supper time—change of shift —”

The guard had turned grey with terror. It disgusted me that I could do this so easily. “Has the tray come down for the prince yet?”

“No, my lady. Should be here any moment.”

“Go and check. Now. And keep your mouth shut, you understand, or you will pay for it.”

“Yes, my lady.” He fled, leaving the storeroom door unguarded. This was not as lax as it seemed, since heavy iron bolts were drawn across it. If I had so chosen, I could have pulled them open and marched right in. I could have confronted my future husband and made him tell me the truth. But that was not what I had promised Laerke; Laerke who had brought me my three little friends; Laerke who had crossed a wilderness and forded a river and climbed a mountain to get here. Laerke who stuck to her mission even when she was sad and lonely and scared half out of her wits.

That’s what being brave is, Hulde, I told myself. Not doing great deeds. Just keeping on going, whatever happens.

No time to waste. I searched the cluttered table, hoping I was right about what I’d seen there the first time. Where was it? Ah! Here in a clutter of wine bottles. I snatched it and slipped it into my pocket, then brought out the other, identical container I had taken from my mother’s cupboard. Provided this was where the prince’s nightly wine was doctored, my plan would work. If the sleeping potion was already in the cup when the tray left the kitchen, Laerke would have another wasted night, and the wedding would go ahead as planned. I might be a little brave, but I was not brave enough to tell my mother outright that I refused to marry the prince. If I did, she would force the reason from me, and Laerke would die. I knew it in my bones.

The manservant was back. He set the laden tray down on the table, then stood waiting. Waiting for me to leave.

“Go ahead, take his supper in,” I said. “Don’t mind me.”

Still he stood there, awkward, not quite prepared to speak.

“Shall I help you with that?” It was foolish, perhaps; but it would protect me from Mother’s wrath if she found out. I stepped forward, picked up the little bottle, took out the cork and poured the contents into the goblet that stood on the tray beside the prince’s covered platter. “There.”

“You know about this, my lady?”

“Did I ask you to comment?”

“No, my lady.”

“Then hold your tongue. Take the prince’s supper in and, if you know what is good for you, stay silent on this matter.”

There was a narrow escape on the way back to my bedchamber, as Mother came along a hallway and I was forced to shrink into an alcove, holding my breath. She passed, not seeing me. I fled. In my chamber, my three friends were waiting, the kitten and puppy now on the floor rolling about—most certainly, I had not wound them up—the golden bird perched on the peg that held my wedding gown. Curse it! I would have to call Marit or Lina to press the wretched thing.

I hid the three friends away in my storage chest, murmuring an apology. I called my maids and ordered them to take gown and veil away, get every crease out, and not bring them back until tomorrow. I closed and bolted the door after them. My supper tray was waiting on the small table, but I was not hungry. Outside, the light had faded into the long summer dusk. Soon Laerke would make her dangerous trip across the walled garden and into the storeroom. I let the little ones out, setting the kitten and puppy on the bed and letting the bird stretch its wings.

Time for the mirror. You can do it, Laerke, I thought. Make the story brave and true. If he’s yours, take him and be happy. Because a good story always had a happy ending, didn’t it?

In the mirror, the Prince of the Far Isles lay on his bed in the storeroom, the strong planes of his face turned to gold by the lamplight. His supper tray stood on a chest, the goblet empty. His eyes were closed, the dark lashes soft against his cheeks.

The outer door creaked open. He started, sitting up abruptly. There was Laerke on the threshold, in her serving woman’s clothes, with her red hair loose over her shoulders. She closed the door and turned to face him.

“Oh, gods!” she said, her eyes alive with joy. “She did it! You’re awake!”

“Laerke!” The prince was on his feet. He opened his arms wide. “My love, my dearest, you’re here!”

She ran into his embrace, weeping against his shoulder. He stroked her hair; she nestled against him as if he were her home, her heart, her safety from the storm. It was just like something from a grand old story, and it made me cry, but I did not know if I shed tears of happiness that he and she had found each other, or of sorrow that nobody would ever look at me like that, hold me like that, love me like that. I was clumsy and stupid. I had achieved this for Laerke only by doing bad things: lying, stealing, frightening people.

Laerke and the prince held each other for a long time, whispering words I could not hear. They touched each other in ways that were strange and new to me. At length they sat down side by side on the bed, hand in hand.

“Tomorrow,” the prince said. “After sunset, since the queen will not let me out until I am in this form again. The key is the shirt, Laerke. Wash the shirt clean and you will win me my freedom. I will be a man forever, and we can go home.”

“The queen will be furious,” said Laerke. “When she’s angry she kills people. She rips them apart with her bare hands. One of the serving women told me.”

“Nonetheless,” said the prince, putting his arm around her, “a curse follows rules, like any other form of magic. Once it’s lifted, it’s lifted entirely and forever. I will no longer be forced to switch between human and animal form; no longer required to come here every third summer; no longer bound to this marriage. She must let us go. We will be free to live our lives and to shape our own story.”

I couldn’t breathe. My heart hurt. A flood of tears waited to fall, somewhere behind my eyes.

“This is all my fault,” Laerke said, hanging her head. “If I had not been curious… if I had done as you bid me, and not tried to look at you by night…”

“It is not your fault.”

I wondered, now, that I had not recognised his voice, so deep and soft, so gentle and sweet. How could I not have known?

“We could not have gone on that way forever. It would have destroyed us. Now we have the chance to make things right, Laerke. That is thanks to you. I don’t know how you did it. How you travelled all this way to find me.”

“Could you not see me in your little mirror?”

“I lost the mirror,” he said. “I thought you might not come. But you’re here, my brave one.”

“I do not deserve you,” she said. “You are too good for me, dearest Rune.”

“Nonsense.” He kissed her on the lips. “You are precious beyond any treasure, my love. You’d best go now. Tomorrow, perform your usual duties all day and try to avoid notice. Just make sure that when the ceremony is about to begin, you are there, concealed in the crowd. Leave the rest to me.”

“Rune?”

“Yes, my dearest?”

“What about Hulde? What will happen to her?”

The most beautiful man in the world smiled as he thought of me. It was not the sort of smile he bestowed on Laerke. It was the smile of a friend; the smile a kindly man might give to a child. “I have tried to help her,” he said. “To give her the means to help herself. But I cannot do more. She must make her own life.”

“I am a woman,” I whispered. “And I love you. You are the sun, moon and stars. Don’t leave me, Rune!”

But Rune could not hear. The mirror misted over and turned to grey.

For a heartbeat I was cold stone. Then the bird flew past me, trilling merrily. I snatched her in her flight and hurled her against the wall, where she smashed into a thousand tinkling pieces.

I wept until I was sick. I wept until there was not one tear left in me. For a little, I must have fallen asleep, for I woke to find the kitten pressed against my neck and the puppy curled by my side. They forgive everything, I thought. Even the most terrible of rages, the most violent of acts, they forgive.

It was possible, then, to get up from the bed. I poured water from the jug, washed my face, cleaned up as best I could. I knelt down and gathered every fragment of the bird, every last golden cog and wheel, every last tiny glittering feather. She was broken; she would never fly again. I wrapped her pieces in a silken kerchief and held her in my hands. She weighed almost nothing.

When someone dies, there are supposed to be words spoken. I could not think what they might be. “I’m never going to do that again,” I whispered. “I’m never going to let anger get the better of me. I’m not going to scare people into doing what I want. I’m not going to let people scare me into doing what I know is wrong. I’m sorry. You were so beautiful.” After all, there did seem to be more tears. When I had shed them, I tucked the silken kerchief into my secret hiding place, alongside my books and my wax tablet.

Then I had to face it, the wonderful thing, the terrible thing. I could marry Rune. If I went to my mother now and told her the truth, it could still happen. I loved him. Maybe he didn’t love me, not the way he loved Laerke, but he was fond of me. Mother could dispose of Laerke; nobody in the household would even know she had existed. The wedding could go ahead as planned. If I told Rune how scared I was on the glass mountain, if I begged him to take me away, surely he would do it. Hadn’t he said I should make my own life? Wasn’t this the life I had longed for through all those lonely years of waiting? It was within my grasp. If I wanted it, I could have it.

I lay down on the bed with my kitten on one side and my puppy on the other, and told them my plan.

Midsummer, and my sixteenth birthday. The wedding was set for dusk; if the guests thought it odd that the bridegroom did not appear earlier, they made no comment. The folk from the Realm Beneath had been quaffing ale all day and were in high spirits. When the time came to gather, the other guests clustered together at one end of the reception hall. Lamps hung from the walls; in the chamber next door, a long table was set with cups and platters I had never seen in my life before. They looked as if they were made of real gold. “My grandmother’s,” Mother had said. “Not used since I married your father. One day you’ll be bringing them out for your own daughter’s wedding, Hulde. That gives me great pride. Great pride.”

Now here I was, standing beside her in my stiff wedding gown, with my feet squeezed into the too-small shoes and my face covered by the veil, waiting. I was good at waiting; I’d had a lot of practice. But this was different. It was all I could manage not to collapse from sheer terror. My heart was juddering in my chest and my body was all cold sweat. It was just as well nobody could see my face.

There were musicians. Where Mother had got them from I had no idea, but now they struck up a fanfare, and into the hall came Rune, quite alone. He was clad in snowy white, the colour of the beautiful bear he had been, the bear I had loved with all my heart. He walked the length of the hall toward us, and I saw that the man had the same blue eyes as the bear, eyes as lovely as a summer sky. I began to understand why Laerke had broken the rules and looked at him, that night of the spilled wax.

He was very solemn. He looked more like a man attending a burial than his own wedding. At the foot of the raised platform where Mother and I stood, he stopped and bowed. “My ladies.”

Mother dropped into a curtsy. “My lord prince,” she said.

I bobbed my own awkward curtsy, but said nothing, lest my voice come out as a squeak of terror.

“Come up beside us, Prince Rune,” Mother said. “Take my daughter’s hand in yours.”

“Ah,” said Rune.

The crowd stirred. People craned their necks to see.

“There’s something I must tell you,” Rune said, half-turning so everyone could hear him. “I am bound by a solemn vow; a magical vow that I cannot break for fear of my life. I can marry only the woman who can wash this shirt clean.” He brought out the shirt from the pouch at his waist; though rather crumpled, it did not look soiled. “There are three drops of wax here, near the right sleeve. She who can wash them out is my true bride. She and no other.”

Mother was quivering with fury. Still, she managed to keep her voice in check. There was a whole hall full of people watching and listening. “I do not understand, Prince Rune,” she said. “We have an agreement. You have promised to wed my daughter, and here she is, waiting. Would you break your word?”

Rune smiled. “If your daughter can wash the shirt clean, then I will marry her.”

Mother cursed under her breath. She could not defy him. A magical vow had to be respected. “Very well,” she snapped, then waved a hand at the household steward. “Fetch a bowl of warm water, soft soap, a brush. Now!”

The crowd was loving this. They edged closer, not wanting to miss a moment. The hall was abuzz with excited voices, though, knowing my mother, most kept their comments to an undertone.

I stood there like a forgotten statue as the materials for washing were brought in and set on a small table, up on the raised area where folk could see. Rune had not moved; he was at the foot of the steps, grave and silent.

“Now,” Mother said grandly, “let us proceed, though I do find this all rather ridiculous. Daughter, push back your veil or you’ll get it wet.”

I lifted the veil and threw it back over my hair. Took a long look at Rune, with his glossy black hair and his summer-blue eyes and his fine man’s body. Looked back at my mother. Straight into her eyes. “I won’t do it,” I said.

For a moment she stood stunned, unable to believe it. Then she went white. Then an angry red appeared in her cheeks, and her veins stood out, and her eyes looked about to pop from her head. Despite myself, I took a step backward.

“What did you say?” She spoke so quietly most of the crowd would not have heard. Her tone turned my blood to ice.

“I said, I won’t do it. I won’t wash the shirt.” I willed myself not to faint, not to weep, not to lose control of myself in any way at all. “If that means I can’t marry the prince, then so be it.” I held my back straight and my head high, as she had taught me.

She lifted her hand to strike me. I did not flinch, though I knew what damage those long nails could do. Rune took a step forward, began to say something, perhaps, No! And Mother, maybe deciding she did not want her daughter to be married with a set of bleeding scars across her cheek, withdrew her hand. “Give me the shirt!” she snarled.

Rune handed her the garment and she plunged it into the water. She pummelled and wrung and twisted and scrubbed. She scratched at the stain with her nails. She rubbed it against the bowl. She spat on it and cursed it and, in the end, took the sodden garment from the water and held it up. What had been a tiny blemish, a mere three drops, now spread across the entire front of the shirt. The more she had washed it, the worse the stain had become.

“Sorcery!” Mother shouted. “Evil enchantments! Foul trickery! There’s no woman in the world who could get this wretched thing clean!”

Rune glanced sideways; gave the smallest nod of his head.

“I can,” said Laerke, stepping out of the crowd. She was in a gown and apron of plain grey, and her red hair was demurely plaited down her back. Her eyes were all courage. Brave Laerke confronts the Wicked Queen.

“Fetch clean water,” said Rune. “Let us make this quite fair.”

Mother was seething. She was simmering like a pot on the fire. I clutched my hands together, wondering if I would see Laerke torn apart before my eyes, and perhaps Rune too. If Mother killed them it would be my fault.

The steward brought clean water. When all was ready Laerke stepped forward, rolling up her sleeves. Rune handed her the dripping shirt; they were avoiding each other’s eyes. Laerke moved up to the bowl and dipped in the shirt. She soaped it gently. She swirled it around. She touched the stain with her hand, then lifted the garment out.

It was snowy white. It was as white as the most beautiful bear in all the world. It was a garment fit for a prince. “There,” Laerke said, holding it up.

The folk standing close nodded and pointed and exclaimed how perfectly clean it was. There was no way Mother could pretend otherwise. There was no way out.

“This is my true bride,” Rune said quietly, and he took Laerke’s hand in his. “I’m sorry, Hulde. I honour and respect you, but I cannot marry you. It could never have been. A man cannot wed a troll.”

A troll. I had barely time to take the word in when my mother let out an unearthly shriek. The sound made the whole hall rattle and shake. The torches flared; the benches wobbled; folk gasped and clutched on to one another.

She screamed again and the floor shuddered. There were words in her cry, ugly, terrible words, some for Rune, some for Laerke, and some for me. Things I had never thought I would hear, even from her. Things I wished I could un-hear. If I had ever thought my mother loved me, even the tiniest bit, I knew now that for her I was only a means to an end, a commodity she could use to gain herself a fortune. Vile things tumbled and gushed and spewed out of her. Even the folk from the Realm Beneath blocked their ears. Rune had his arm around Laerke; they had backed away from the platform. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Instead I stood motionless as the foul wave of insults crashed over me.

The third scream was her undoing. She filled her lungs, tipped her head back and gave a mighty bellow. There was a popping sound, a change in the air, and suddenly I was teetering on the brink of a great hole in the floor, a hole so deep it seemed to have no bottom. I threw myself backwards and fell sprawling on the tiles.

She was gone. My mother, the Queen of the Mountain, was gone. Her anger had destroyed her. I sucked in a breath. Staggered to my feet. Shucked off my silver shoes. Now I was queen, and there could be no running away.

I held up my hands. The crowd fell silent.

“Please leave the hall,” I said. “There will be no wedding.”

Things happened. I made them happen. Rune and Laerke helped me. There was a search for what remained of my mother, conducted by the wild kinsfolk, who were good at doing things underground. They found very little. I asked them, in passing, if there were others of our kind living elsewhere, and they said there were, though they could be hard to find. Everywhere there were mountains, there were trolls, they said. Everywhere there were bridges, there were trolls. Some friendly, some not so friendly. Troll was a name other folk gave them; they preferred to be known as hill folk. It was a good idea to take gifts, they said. They drew me a map, with likely spots marked on it. Then they left.

I despatched the other guests homeward. They went all too gladly.

Rune and Laerke offered to take me with them. Or, at least, he did. I was not so sure Laerke liked the idea, though she smiled and agreed when he said it.

“Thank you, but no,” I said. “I wish you a happy life.”

So they left, and I watched them go from my window, with my kitten in my arms and my puppy at my feet. My friends needed no winding up now; they were just like real ones. I watched until the most beautiful man in the world and the brave girl from the story vanished down the mountain on their long journey to the Far Isles and that lovely, light-filled castle I had once dreamed might be mine. I wondered for a little if I had been stupid to say no. But not for long.

I made a count of what was in the treasure room. I gave the servants three silver pieces each and told them they could stay or go, whatever they chose. The steward said he would stay. I put him in charge of the castle.

I packed a bag with a few clothes and all my treasures: the wax tablet and stylus, the books, the silken kerchief with the remains of my bird. Maybe, somewhere in the world, there was someone clever enough to mend her. I took a small bag of silver. I took some bread and cheese wrapped up in a red and white cloth, because that was what folk did in stories. I told the steward I would be back some time.

Then I set out, with my kitten on my shoulder and my puppy at my heels, to make my own story.