Pearl and Silk

I cringed as, for the 2,191st night in a row, Von Rothbart descended onto one knee. One knobby, crooked knee.

“My pearl, my precious little swan, will you finally be mine and be free of this enchantment?” he spoke. His ugly voice held a ridiculous amount of hope and greed that truly was uncalled for. “Let me make you my wife, and together we will reign over the entire forest.”

I let a sigh slip through my lips. Unfortunately, I was as familiar with these words as I was the back of my very own hand. It had been six long years since the first time he spoke them to me, and when before the words had sounded like the most repulsive and terrifying things a little girl could hear, now they were simply a part of my daily routine. Wake, bathe, eat, marriage proposal.

To be honest, not once had I ever considered becoming his wife. Of course, I had occasionally contemplated what would become of my future if I accepted his hand, but I always knew that it was never truly an option for me. It was not my path, plain and simple.

‘There is freedom right before your eyes, Odette,’ he would tell me. ’Just accept my hand and be my wife.’ But I could not.

I came to terms with the fact that I would never have the future I once dreamed of. I accepted that my only future would be a lonely one, here in this beautifully sad place. 2,191 times I had heard those words of freedom, and 2,191 times I had refused the offer, without a hesitant chord in my voice.

When I was about thirteen, I also acknowledged the fact that I would never be delicate. I was graceful, no doubt—there was no way that you could be what I was and not be graceful—but I did not exercise my poise in a reserved, well-mannered way. One could say that I had a graceful heart and a sharp, aggressive wit. Especially during the many years I spent dealing with Von Rothbart, there was never a time when my shoulders weren’t held back with defiance, nor a time when my face did not display a look of strength of will. When the sorcerer referred to me as “his little pearl,” as he liked to do so often, I somehow always managed to keep a certain grace about me whilst spitting at his feet.

And let it be known that I did spit at him most often. Every night I refused him, and every night I did so with all the venom I could muster, for he chained me here with a wicked enchantment, one that only allowed me to be my human self by the light of the moon.

You see, he did not fail to grant me my wish those years ago, when I asked to be beautiful. Oh no, he kept his word, but it was a cruel and unfair deal on my part. By night, I was human, but by day, I was cursed to remain the most graceful and beautiful swan. Those feathers of pearl and silk have been my prison, and this evil man—no matter how innocent he attempted to act in the whole scheme—my captor.

And so the years had made me tough. I was no longer the weak little girl who cried and cried for days when she realized that she would never again gaze upon the sun as a human, or would never again see her father, or know if he lived or died. I was no longer the little girl who looked to the stars every night and wished on them until her heart broke. I was no longer a little girl.

Today, however, I felt different. I was not sure how or why, but today, on the first day of the sixth year, there was a sense of change in the air. Perhaps this was because, even though I woke in complete darkness, I could feel the undeniable freshness of a new day—or night, rather. For tonight the full moon shone so brightly that it made me forget that night was meant to be dark. But I had experienced an abundance of full moons here at this magical lake, maybe close to one hundred of them, and none had ever felt as special as this. For whatever reason, tonight I had no crude or obnoxious remark waiting to be thrown at Rothbart as soon as he finished his proposal.

“I’ve told you once, and I will tell you a thousand times more, Rothbart. I shall never marry you.” There was no spite in my reply; it was just a simple statement of fact.

I sighed restlessly and let my eyes roam around the glowing lake. When I first discovered this place that day with Derek, I thought that I would never see anything more beautiful as long as I lived. That was before I saw the lake during the nighttime. Even after living here for six whole years, the place did not lose a bit of its glamour.

“Oh, my little pearl, can’t you see how much I need you?” he pleaded. He often tried to pull this act, attempting to seem like a poor old thing that simply was not strong enough to resist my ‘enticing femininity’, but I knew his true nature, and this act pretense did not sway me in the slightest. He trapped me here. He trapped me here until the day that I accept his stubby, mangled hand in marriage. He might as well have cursed me for all of eternity. “Surely in the past years you have thought yourself too young to accept my hand, but now you have blossomed into a woman, a woman that-“ he stopped to ogle my body up and down with ravenous little eyes, “that I need to call my own.” When I still made no effort to answer his plea, he continued in the same manner. “Precious, why can’t tonight be different?”

I paused.

“Tonight will be different,” I explained slowly, still not putting any malice into my words. Maintaining a shocked expression and a sluggish pace, he rose from his kneeling position.

“So, you accept my proposal?” He licked his lips and grinned. “Oh, Odette, I knew that one day you could not refuse any longe-“

“No, old man. I do not accept.” My heart indeed was beating a few beats faster tonight with the anticipation of change, but surely it was not pushing me to finally accept the sorcerer’s marriage proposal. No, that was not the change that would happen tonight. “But something will change tonight. In fact, it is happening as we speak. I can feel it.”

Indeed I could feel something in the works since I woke at sunset. Living in the wilderness for as long as I had, I had developed a separate sense from the other; I could feel when things were right or when they were wrong, or when they were in the process of moving towards one or the other.

All was silent for a moment, and then he threw his head back with cacophonous laughter.

“Ah, I see,” he snickered with malevolence in his coarse voice. And just like that, his act of weakness was discarded, and he was back to his normal state of wickedness. “You think that your little boyfriend is coming back for you, don’t you?”

I paused. I didn’t think that Rothbart was actually expecting me to respond to his question, but I searched for the answer in my mind anyway. Did I actually think that Derek would finally come back for me, just like he had promised? Would tonight be that night that I had never dared let myself hope for?

“No, Von Rothbart. That’s not it.” Just like I had come to terms with the fact that I would never again be free, I had time to accept the fact that Derek lied that day.

He never would come back for me.

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“Ouch,” I muttered with all the vehemence my little ten year-old self could muster as yet another thorn pierced my leg. I was frustrated, cold, and riddled with mosquito bites. “Derek, I don’t think this is such a good idea. It’s past dark and we should be home!” He scoffed at me. Loudly.

“We don’t have to be anywhere tonight! It’s our day off, remember? Mother specifically told me that I had a whole day without any of my normal prince duties, a whole day to do what I wanted. And this is what I want to do.” I didn’t question why he always seemed to want to spend his free time wandering the woods, as I didn’t quite mind it when we wandered in the light of the sun, but wandering at night just didn’t seem… sane.

“Yes, an entire day to yourself. It’s nighttime, Derek!” He rolled his eyes.

“You know, sometimes I wish that the other servants had children my age that I could play with. But there’s only you,” he said, his voice full of unreserved disdain whilst he sent a glance of contempt my way. “So quit being a coward.”

This struck a chord deep within me that continued to resonate for the next several moments. There were times that Derek and I managed like close friends normally would, but then there were moments, more often than not, that I wanted to send my ‘girlish’ fist barreling into his face. He would tease me, and for some reason which I did no understand, it hurt me. It hurt me more than when Father scolded me for losing my hair ribbon. It even hurt me more than the few trips to the village in which the other children avoided me like the plague out of fear and intimidation of being the Prince’s best friend. And that hurt a great deal. I don’t know why I craved being in good favors with him so much, but it frightened me and made me severely angry all at once.

“Well,” I huffed, still miffed and put-off but not quite sure with what to reply. “I’m so sorry Your Highness, but I guess you’ll just have to-”

I cried out suddenly as my right foot slipped through an unnoticed hole beneath the leaves. I heard the sickening crack before I felt it, and it took a moment or two for the pain to come. When the pain did come however, it was not polite enough to gently ebb its way into my ankle. Instead it came in harsh, abrasive waves that nearly made me pass out. I cried out a twisted and agonizing howl and contorted my face.

Derek, about three paces ahead, whipped around and raced toward me without a moment’s hesitation. Taking a tight grip my shoulder that would have made me wince were I not already in so much pain, his expression was a fusion of horror and concern.

“What is it?” He looked down at my foot, now lodged in the deep opening in the sodden ground. “Is it your ankle?”

Unable to concoct a comprehensible answer, I sucked in my bottom lip and nodded my head up and down. Tears were already flowing freely now, despite how much I wanted to keep them in. I blubbered out a sob or two. Later, I would hate myself for looking so weak in front of Derek.

“Can you move it?” he questioned swiftly. Cautiously, I lifted up my right thigh in attempt to free my foot. A razor-sharp, shooting pain bolted throughout my whole lower leg, causing me to drop it and cry out once more. I fervently shook my head ‘no’ in response to Derek’s inquisition. More sobs escaped my lips, worsening Derek’s look of concern.

We both were on the verge of hysterics when he said, “Alright, listen to me very carefully, Odette. Your ankle might be broken. I need to go get help, so you’ll have to stay here for a bit. I’ll be as quick as possible.” He made a move to un-crouch himself, but I grabbed hold of his forearm.

“No! Derek, don’t leave me here!” I looked around frantically. My vision was blurred from the never-ending flow of tears and it was almost completely dark out. I could see nothing of the forest around me, and that scared me half to death. I may have been a brave child, but I was a child nonetheless. I did not exactly want to be left out in the woods alone for God-knows-how-long.

“Shhhh,” he soothed me, “Odette, I must. You have to understand that if I don’t, you could very well be stuck out there until morning.” He paused, letting that soak into my brain. Yes, that would be much worse than being stuck out here for a half hour or so. My sobs quieted down, and he stroked my golden hair. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.” And then he was sprinting through the trees.

The minutes were long and excruciating. Five minutes became fifteen, and then twenty-five. After about half an hour, though, the hurt became somewhat bearable and my tears stopped coming altogether. It still was a harsh pain, but definitely less pointed. But because I was no longer focused on the pain and my vision was no longer blurred, I became aware of the surrounding forest and its dark, silent depths.

I was no stupid child that believed in monsters of the night and all those silly myths told by the older servants, but I knew that there were real and dangerous creatures that lurked in the woods at night. Sometimes from my cabin on the castle grounds, if I looked outside the little window above my bed, I could see the yellow eyes of some great, dark animal pacing back and forth—never close enough for me to make out the rest of its form, but just where I could see its glowing, haunting eyes. It was almost like a wolf, I think, but bigger. It used to give me nightmares, but eventually I accepted that it only came out at night, and even then, it never crossed the border between the forest and the castle grounds. I had never been in the woods at night, so I had never had a reason to worry over it—until now, that is.

My thoughts became jumpy and frantic. What if that great animal was out here, right now, just watching me? What could I do to defend myself? I was injured and tiny and weak. Or what if it got Derek before he could even get to the castle?

I cringed as even more dark thoughts began to consume my mind.

He purposely left me out here. He lied when he said he would come back. Oh, how didn’t I see it! He hates me, he even said so! He’s never coming back for me!

I suddenly began to claw at the dirt above the hole where my ankle was trapped, my arms frenzied and out of control. I had to get out of here, I had to get back. I had to find Derek.

I struggled with the dirt for about ten minutes before the soil was finally loose enough where I could pull my foot free without too much pain. I was completely prepared to limp or crawl or drag my lame foot all the way back to the castle. Just as I made a move to stand up, however, I heard loud movement from directly in front of me. I let out a strangled cry and tumbled backward onto the flat of my back.

“Odette?!” came the reply. Letting out a huge breath, I closed my eyes and allowed my head to loll back to the ground beneath me.

I gulped in a huge breath of air. “Over here,” I announced. He bounded forward at an alarming rate, skidding to a halt once he had reached me.

“Are you alright? How did you get your foot out? Did you hurt yourself any more?”

Too exhausted and relieved to say anything, I simply shook my head in response and continued my deep breaths. It did not answer all his questions, but it seemed to be enough, for next he stopped speaking altogether and crouched down to grab my hand. Eventually, I found that I was able to speak again.

“You… didn’t bring help?” I asked slowly, finally lifting my lids to glance around.

“They’re on their way. I got your father and Old Tommy, the stable hand. But they were too slow, so I ran ahead of them.” He was still panting from the run, and his dark hair glistened and curled with fresh sweat. I sat up laboriously and at a sluggish pace, using his large hand as support.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” I admitted. For a moment, he looked baffled. Then he grinned with a hint of wildness alighting his eyes, and gripped my hand tighter.

“I promised, didn’t I?”