Snow White and Rose Red- The Curse of the Huntsman Read online

  Snow White and Rose Red: The Curse of the Huntsman

  By Lilly Fang

  For my father—

  because I never knew he was a writer until after he was gone,

  and because writing this got me through losing him

  and reminded me that the world can be full of magic.

  THERE was once a poor widow who lived in a humble cottage. She had two children and one was called Snow White and the other Rose Red. Snow White was quiet and gentle. Rose Red liked to run about in the meadows and fields seeking flowers and catching butterflies. The two children were so fond of each other that they always held each other by the hand, and when Snow White said, “We will not leave each other,” Rose Red answered, “Never so long as we live.”

  - Grimm’s Tales

  Chapter 1: The Queen of Roses – Rose Red

  The Festival of Roses is the best day of the year. Firstly because our village celebrates with baked sweet breads, rosewater tea, and a dance at night where the Queen of Roses is crowned. The second reason is because it is my birthday. When I was little, I believed that nothing bad could happen to me on this day, that I was protected by the magic in the world from any harm. How wrong I was. Not about magic in the world—no, that was all too real—but about being protected.

  I woke early, the smell of sweet bread pulling me out of my slumber. I knew there must be three little loaves sitting on the stove waiting for us to eat them at breakfast. On festival days, my mother always sprinkled extra sugar on the top of mine.

  I slipped out of bed and peeked between the curtains of the little room that I shared with my sister. Outside, I could already see caravans of visitors setting up around the well. For most of the year, our village was quietly ignored, but the Festival of Roses always drew in a crowd. There would be those who came to see the roses in bloom and spend their coins as well as those who came to make their living with juggling, fortunetelling, and music.

  These visitors watched as the men of our village placed roses and other wildflowers around the well. At sunset, there would be a race for them, as all of the littlest girls finished their work and ran to get the best flowers to braid into their hair.

  When I was little, I thought everyone was celebrating for me. Because it was my birthday, everyone always had an extra treat, an extra smile, or an extra song for me. So this was always my celebration. After all, my mother tied me to this day with my name—Rose.

  When I was six, I learned the real reason why our village celebrates so. We live deep in the forest at the top of a hill. There is only one reason why traders and visitors risk the dark forest and the monsters within it to come to our village, and that is because all around the bottom of the hill, we are surrounded by roses. We make rosewater and perfumes, press the petals for decorations, and make a deep red dye the color of roses. The roses are what keep our village alive, and so every year when they are all in bloom, we celebrate the harvest.

  It wasn’t until I was nine that I first learned the day could be sour. I don’t mean to sound jealous. I was happy for my sister the first time she was crowned the Queen of Roses—the most beautiful girl in our whole village. Besides, I was nine and not even old enough to be considered.

  But then it happened again, and again, and again. The unwed men cast votes by leaving a rose outside the door of the girl they choose. Every year there would be a pile of roses left by the door on one side marked for my sister, and never a one for me.

  My mother always told me not to envy my sister. We are both beautiful, she always says, each in her own way.

  There is a piece of tin that my mother hung in our room. She polishes it every week and it still shines as good as any mirror. I went to it and stared at my face, trying to see the beauty that my mother is always praising.

  My nose was small and round, my eyes wide and the color of amber. My face was heart-shaped. I was hardly hideous, but the most I could ever be was “cute.” Now, “cute” I may have been happy with, except for my sister.

  With a yawn, Snow rolled out of bed. Where I am named for my rosy cheeks and cheer, Snow is the opposite. She regarded me with her large, dark eyes. “Staring into the mirror again? You worry too much about how you look.”

  I made a face at her. With pale white skin, jet-black hair, and ruby-red lips, my sister couldn’t look ugly if she tried. “You wouldn’t understand, you’re staggeringly, stupidly beautiful.”

  She stretched and came up beside me. “Beauty is a curse,” she told me, pulling my curled, dark locks back with a string. “Remember that. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to get something from you.”

  “Why are you always so dour?”

  Snow gave me a hug. “Because you’re the cheerful one.”

  “Oh, right. Wouldn’t want to have too much cheer,” I said.

  “Ready to open the door and see what everyone thinks of us this year?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “If it’s any consolation, I’ll be right there with you.”

  I sighed, my eyes skimming over Snow’s full lips, long eyelashes, and smooth, perfect skin. “Honestly, Snow, that really makes it worse.”

  We left our room and sure enough, our mother was waiting with sweet bread and warm mugs of cocoa. We gathered around the hearth, warming our hands against the chill in the morning air and speaking of the quiet things that are talked about at home. William, the woodsman’s son, had chopped more wood for us and still would not take payment. Snow had finished the embroidered cloak she was making to trade to one of the travelers who had come for the festival.

  She bit her lip as she ran her fingers over the rose-dyed thread, worrying that it was not fine enough until my mother forced her to put it aside.

  “Today is a celebration!” my mother said. “Rose, this is a very special birthday for you.”

  “I remember my fourteenth birthday,” Snow said, sharing a smile with my mother. “She’s right. It’s bound to be a very exciting day.” Snow’s hand went to the heart-shaped locket she wore around her neck. Though it was only cast in iron and worth next to nothing, it had been a gift from my mother on her fourteenth birthday and Snow wore it every day without exception.

  I shook my head. “I can’t see why today should be any different than last year.”

  “Well, to start, why don’t you two go look outside?” my mother asked.

  I hid a frown. Another year that I had to pretend I didn’t mind the pile of roses Snow would receive.

  My mother was unusually happy as she pulled the door open, and I soon saw why.

  Outside our door, around the protective markings that my mother had carved around the doorway, both my name and my sister’s name had been carved into the wood when we were old enough.

  Underneath her name, Snow had her usual pile—of course—but on my side of the door where my name was marked there was—for the first time—a rose! A rose of my very own!

  I fell to my knees in front of it, almost afraid to touch it for fear that it would disappear and I would find this was all in my imagination. It was a deep, dark red, with a long stem all lined with thorns.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Snow watching me and hiding a smile.

  “Someone thinks you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” Snow whispered to me.

  “And dozens of people think you are,” I pointed out, but I couldn’t look away from my very first rose!

  I reached out and touched one of the petals. It was so soft! I trailed my finger down to the stem, stopping at the tip of a thorn.

  A crashing sound clanged through the air. My hand slipped and the thorn sliced into m
y fingertip.

  I looked toward the sound and saw Jacob, the smith’s son. He had fashioned a sword out of an iron rod and was banging it against an iron plate that he held as a shield.

  “Fairest Snow White!” he cried, banging the sword against the plate after each word. “Tonight, I fight for your honor and win a kiss!”

  Each night before the dancing, the unwed boys would fight for the title of the King of Roses. The winner was given a kiss from the Queen of Roses when she was crowned.

  The smith’s boy was the loudest of Snow’s admirers, but he was hardly the only one. It wouldn’t be long before all of the boys would be shouting her name and declaring their love.

  I stuck my finger into my mouth, tasting the coppery blood. There was a fat, red drop on the thorn where it had torn my finger.

  Red is the color of roses, but it is also the color of blood.

  After we had collected our roses from the doorstep, my mother and Snow wanted to give me my birthday gifts. As much as I wanted to find out what they were, I knew we couldn’t afford to waste any more time.

  The festival is the first day of harvesting the roses, and everyone in the village helps with the harvesting. By law, the Rosewood family owns the land that the roses grow on, but they need the help of everyone in the village to harvest the flowers. They live in a port city for most of the year, but return every festival and offer us the price of one rose to keep for every hundred delivered. The festival runs for the better part of two weeks, and hard work during those days can feed a family through the winter—providing of course that enough traders come for the festival to make the bargaining fair.

  I don’t remember my father, but Snow says that he was strong as a bear and tall as a mountain. When he was here, we didn’t need to work so very hard gathering roses. He was a hunter, and so he walked in the forest, day or night, and feared no monsters. He would bring home meat for us every night. What we had left over was sold to the rest of the villagers, and we used every rose that we picked for our own rose tea or rose cakes or perfume.

  But that was long ago. Now we have to save every rose and stretch every petal as far as we can to make our living.

  Most people in the village wait until noon to begin harvesting, particularly on the day of the festival. But Snow and my mother and I made our way down as the sun was still rising. The fields of roses stretched out as far as I could see—it felt like descending into a sea of vines and blossoms. From afar, you couldn’t see the thorns.

  We had each brought a basket that would soon be filled with flowers. My mother handed each of us two scraps of cloth to wind around our hands. I took care to wrap my cut finger, and then the gathering began.

  It took half of an hour to fill my basket with roses. The climb up the hill took twenty minutes.

  Latham Rosewood, the oldest son of the Rosewoods, was waiting at the counting booth. He had a piece of parchment with all of our names nailed to a post, and as he counted each set of one hundred flowers, he would make a mark on the page beside your name to show how many flowers you would be owed at the end of the festival.

  Then it was back down the hill again.

  The sun was shining brightly that day, but there was a cool, soft breeze that kept the work from being a labor. At noon, the Rosewoods children came around with cool water and sweet bread they bought from the village baker. Then it was back to work again.

  The first flowers to be plucked were always those closest to the hill. As the day wore on, we had to venture farther and farther into the tangle of vines to find the blooms. The first day was always the most important for those who made their living by the roses—it was when you could gather the most in the shortest amount of time. By the end of the festival, the roses would be so picked clean that it would take an hour of walking into the brambles to find enough flowers to fill a basket.

  It was almost at the hour for the workday to be done when I stumbled on a secret glade. I had bent to reach for a lower flower—many people forgot to look under the rose bushes—and saw that the bush I was in front of had a space behind it.

  I stepped into it and found a little enclosure blocked on one side by a tree and on another by a rock. All around were roses that no one had yet spotted.

  I quickly began to pluck them and put them into my basket.

  I was so consumed with picking the flowers quickly and quietly before anyone else discovered this secret bounty that I didn’t realize the other girls were approaching until they were nearly on top of me.

  My mother raised me not to eavesdrop. I swear I never intended to, but I couldn’t very well cry out and let them know about my hidden garden.

  “I don’t know why she always gets the most roses,” a girl was saying. I peered through the vines and recognized Hazel, the woodcutter’s daughter. She was swinging a basket lazily in her hand, only a dozen roses in it.

  “I know why,” another voice said. I could tell by the shrill tone that it was Lavender, the smith’s daughter. “She gives away her kisses to any boy that will give her a rose.”

  Anger shot through me. There was only one person they could be talking about. How dare they speak about my sister that way? She would never do such a thing!

  “No!”

  I shifted and saw sweet Alice, the baker’s daughter, clap a hand over her mouth.

  “I don’t believe it!” Alice said.

  “I do,” Hazel said. “How else would she get so many every year? She’s not that pretty.”

  I knew then that they were only being spiteful. You can say many things about my sister, but no one could honestly deny her beauty.

  “And it’s not just kisses. My brother said—”

  I had heard enough. I pushed my way through the rose vines, never minding the thorns that scored scratches along my arms and legs.

  “Yes, what did your brother say?” I demanded. I could tell my face was flushed and my hair tangled from running up and down the hill all day.

  Hazel and Lavender scowled at me, clearly unimpressed. Lavender was three inches taller than me, with soft brown hair braided with a golden ribbon. Hazel was about my height, but with shining golden locks that curled around her shoulders. I was very aware of how tattered I must look by comparison.

  “I wasn’t speaking to you, Rose,” Lavender said stiffly.

  “You were telling lies,” I said, glaring at her.

  “Who are you to say that I’m telling a lie?” Lavender said, dropping her basket. “If I say that your sister has been kissing every boy in the village, that’s because it’s true.”

  “Don’t talk about my sister!” I cried. My face felt it must be crimson in color, I was so angry. Even my palms felt hot.

  “How dare you?” She reached out and shoved me. I tripped and fell, my basket spilling over next to me. The thorns bit through the scraps of cloth on my hands and I had to hold my breath to keep from crying out.

  Hazel and Lavender laughed. Lavender loomed over me, stepping on the precious roses I had gathered with every step. “You’re nothing in this village. Don’t you ever think to tell me what to do.”

  She took Hazel’s hand and the two of them tromped over my roses and walked away. Alice looked back, torn, but followed them. She didn’t stomp down on my roses, but they were ruined all the same.

  I blinked, fury blinding my eyes with tears.

  My basket had been nearly full. That was half of an hour’s worth of work gone.

  I tried not to think of what that meant—how it would be one less pound of dried meat or one less piece of travelers’ bread to get my family through the winter, or worst of all, it could even be one more hungry night.

  My fingers itched, heat spreading over them. I pulled my hands up, wondering if I had landed in poison oak. But instead of finding any leafy plants beneath my palms, there was only grass… and two scorch-marked handprints. I looked at my hands and saw the wrappings were dark with ash and faintly smoking. I pulled them away quickly, examining my fingers beneath. There
didn’t seem to be any damage.

  I drew in a shuddering breath and looked up at the sun, then down at my hands. Then I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and hurried to pick up my basket. The last thing I needed was to be going mad. After my encounter with Hazel and Lavender, I’d need to work even faster to refill my basket. There would be time for hallucinations when my work was done.

  Chapter 2: The Fortuneteller – Snow White

  I have no fondness for roses. They serve no purpose other than to look pretty for a time and then die.

  I’ve vowed not to allow that to be the story of my life.

  “Ouch!” I shook my finger to clear the pain. It was growing darker, and as the light faded from the sky, yet another thorn had managed to work its way through the fabric wrapped ‘round my hands and stab me. I flung the rose into my basket.

  I suppose that’s one thing I could respect about roses. They have thorns.

  I’ve never been a creature of the briars the way my sister is. Rose was born to play in their vines and crawl through their thorns with never a scratch.

  I glanced towards the setting sun as it slipped behind the horizon. A cheer went up from the village—the end of the day’s toils and time for the festivities to begin.

  I heaved my basket up the hill and to Latham, who was counting the final roses of the day. That finished, I went to collect the cloak with the scarlet embroidery that I’d worked on all winter. I was hoping to get at least a silver coin for it. That would make for an easy winter for my family.

  I draped the cloak over my arm and headed to the center of the village where the visiting travelers and performers had gathered for the festival.

  Cheerful music filled the air, as well as the smells of cooking meat, apples, and fish. A juggler was performing by the well. A man with a lyre played while a woman next to him sang. A girl with coins sewn to her skirt danced for coppers.

  I threw myself into the crowd, approaching the first woman I saw.