Adult Fairytale Competition 2018 - Runner Up

In every witch’s life, there is a spell that haunts her. A wicked deed that, once released into the world, cannot be undone. Like a bird freed from its cage, a spell ceases to be yours the moment it is cast.  
For me, it was the boy in the castle.
It was the eve of the winter feast — I had been travelling for days to reach a small village where I knew I would be welcomed, a rare sanctuary where a solitary woman could break bread with the townsfolk. But even to one such as I, who knew nature’s moods better than most, the forest could still confound. I had finally begun to accept that I was lost, when I saw it in the distance; a glimmer of light through the trees. I stumbled towards it, the ground shifting beneath my feet in the rain. At first I took it for a house, but as I grew nearer, I realised it was a chateau.
Pain rang out through my knuckles as I knocked on the door. After what felt like an age, I tried the wrought iron handle, and felt it yield. Through the doorway I glimpsed an entrance hall lined with mirrors, lit by a kaleidoscope of reflected candlelight. The thought of warming my hands on the flames overtook me, and I crossed the threshold, pulling off one of my tattered gloves.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ The voice that echoed throughout the hall was gilded and melodic; the voice of somebody who knew his prized station before he even learned to speak. I began to stammer an apology, conscious of the picture I presented. I was drenched, and had left a trail of filthy footprints in my wake.
As the young man came nearer, I was struck by his beauty. Flaxen hair framed a perfectly symmetrical face, with lips the colour of rose quartz. He looked like something out of a painting; an archangel or golden god, a capricious being of infinite grace, power… and rage.
‘How dare you enter my house, hag!’ He balked. He couldn’t have been any older than fifteen, but he carried himself like a king. I tried to speak, but he held up his hand to silence me.
‘Leave now,’ he commanded.
‘Please,’ I implored. The thought of going back out into the rain, of trying to find my way in the darkness, of going yet another night without food, made my lips tremble.
‘Get out!’ He screamed.
I bit back my tears, lowered my eyes, and turned back to the door.
‘You vile, ugly bitch.’
I halted.
‘Well? What are you waiting for? Go!’
I turned again to face the god of this house.
In those cold eyes and that proud mouth, I saw every man I had ever hated. Every man who raised his hand to a woman, who took as he pleased without pause or conscience.
‘You fool,’ I whispered. ‘You rich, pretty fool.’
I threw back my hood. He had taken me for a crone; I watched as he realised his mistake. My hair glowed in the candlelight, my eyes shone, my pale skin suddenly pearlescent. My beauty almost surpassed his, but he could never know that to a woman, beauty is as wild a gift as magic. Men claw at it until only scars remain.
‘You brute,’ I said, my voice shaking with fury. ‘Swine.’
I reached up to caress his face with my ungloved hand.
‘Beast,’ I whispered, as my fingers lightly grazed his cheek.  
He howled in pain as the curse left my skin and spread across his. He doubled over, clutching his sides as his bones broke and changed shape, and that flawless skin stretched across shaking flesh. Only his eyes stayed the same. They looked up at me beseechingly, begging for mercy.
But it was too late for mercy. I stepped back in horror at what I had just done.
‘Forgive me,’ I said. But the wretched creature twitching before me on the carpet showed no sign that it could comprehend me any longer.
Magic is a living thing. I could no more undo this spell than I could stop breathing; it was part of the world now.
‘But tricks can be tricked themselves,’ I said, remembering my tutelage. This hex was newborn. Its flesh and bones were malleable.
I glanced desperately around the hallway, seeking anything I could use to help the beast before me. I grabbed two items and knelt beside him.
‘The all-seeing eye,’ I said, placing a small looking glass on the carpet with my left hand. ‘This will be your window to the world.’ In my right hand, I held a single rose. I pricked my thumb with a thorn, and smeared the petals with my blood. I laid it down, and whispered my bargain into the prince’s pointed ears.
‘This flower will not wilt for many years. If, in that time, you can become kind… You will be man once more.’
I stood, turned back to the door, and tried not to think of food or warmth as I headed out into the downpour. Such things were more than I deserved.
*
It is a witch’s lot in life, to be alone. To belong nowhere and to nobody.
In the years that followed my encounter with the prince, I travelled far. If anybody began to behave as if I were familiar to them, I would depart. I rarely slept, and when I did, I dreamed of the castle. I would hear his voice. What I had mistaken for the authoritative timbre of a man, I knew now, was the sound of a boy playing a part. A boy living alone in a castle in the woods, with no parents, only servants. Little wonder he had done his best impression of a grown man, all bluster and arrogance.
I vowed many times to return, but shame prevented me on each occasion. I knew I would never be able to look that creature in the eye.
There was another promise, though, that I did keep; to give up my craft. I built a fire in a clearing and burned all of my herbs, screaming into the flames, my face hot with smoke and tears. ‘I relinquish my gifts,’ I wept, but the spirits gave no sign that they had heard me.
I grew older. The long hair that had once drawn the hungry eyes of too many men went from lustrous gold to tarnished silver, and I found myself fending off far fewer advances in taverns and on the road.
The years passed, and my roaming took me further and further south, away from the cursed castle, until one day, I reached another house. This was smaller, more modern. The lane I was walking on ran alongside the estate, and I paused for a moment to rest my weary feet and admire the garden.
Two girls sat under a large parasol, drinking tea. They were lovely enough, with ivory skin that betrayed a life of leisure. But their smiles looked more like sneers. And although they looked alike, were clearly sisters, they regarded each other with something more akin to disdain than love.
They reminded me of the prince. My cheeks flushed with guilt at the memory, and I was about to continue on my journey when they spotted me.
‘Look, a beggar!’ One of them hissed. The other wrinkled her nose.
‘Well?’ The first sister said, waving her hand in the air. ‘Remove her!’
She was signalling somebody who had previously been out of sight. A servant came rushing out and approached me.
The familiarity of the situation felt like a cruel joke. I found my breath quickening and my eyes started to sting. Were the fates punishing me? But as the girl neared, I knew she was nothing like her mistresses. She saw me for what I was — an old woman in distress — and dug her hand into her apron for a handkerchief.
‘Thank you,’ I said, once she had offered it to me. I dabbed my eyes, then sheepishly handed it back to her. It was smeared with grime and dust, but the young maid pretended not to notice.
‘They don’t mean to be so rude,’ she said of the two girls on the lawn.
‘They do,’ I said. ‘But they will learn decency one day.’ I desperately hope it, I thought. For that poor boy’s sake.
‘I trust they treat their staff well, at least?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I…’ The girl trailed off, embarrassed. ‘They are my sisters.’
For the first time in many years, I felt my old intuition stir, as this girl’s story made itself known to me. I saw an infant, adored by her parents. I saw a child of ten, in a black dress, weeping as they lowered her mother into the earth. I saw her father’s second wife; beautiful, but hard, like a jewel. And her new sisters, who treated her like a slave.
I saw all of this in no more than a moment, and my tears threatened to flow again as I began to understand that my gifts had not left me after all.
 I thanked her, and continued my walk down the lane, swearing a silent oath as I went. It was no simple promise, but a magical vow, one to which the spirits would hold me for the rest of my days.
I felt like such a fool, that only now was I realising the true purpose of magic. Not to punish, as I had done so eagerly all those years ago, but to protect. This would be my penance, I decided. To help this girl. To offer comfort and hope to the most vulnerable, those who had been abandoned or betrayed by the people who were supposed to love them. The more I dwelt on the idea, the more I felt my powers waxing. A gentle thrum under my skin; the sort of fire that warms, but doesn’t burn.
It might be a witch’s lot in life to live apart from the world, but that wouldn’t stop me from watching over it.