Or perhaps it will be a burst of light.
Or perhaps it will be nothing at all.
2.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted to be a princess. She wanted a pretty ring that glimmered on a pink-tipped finger, a tiny foot slipped neat and tight into a smart, beaded shoe. She wanted a crown of curls framing a delicate face.
But, alas, she was large-footed and ungainly. Her face was broad and fleshy and unbalanced. Nothing about her twinkled. Nothing.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who came into a little bit of magic. Well, perhaps came into is the wrong phrase. Perhaps stole would be more apt. Either way, the girl felt, it was nothing more than semantics. When people inherit money they say came into, and since the magic’s previous owner was as dead as could be, came into was as good a description as any.
There once was a little girl who wanted to be a princess, and learned magic to make it happen. Magic—stolen, inherited, or otherwise—is an unwieldy tool, but like any other useful thing, can be mastered by anyone who bothers to learn it.
After several attempts on unsuspecting proxies, the girl turned her magic on herself. She marveled at her tiny feet, snug in lovely beaded shoes with heels that clicked over a blue tile floor. She marveled at her face, milky soft and delicately boned. A princess’s face. She looked longingly at her hands, her long-fingered hands, as pale as pearls. There should be, she felt, a ring on her finger. With a diamond that glittered. And a prince to go with it.
Once upon a time, there was a princess who stole a prince. No, she thought, not stole. Came into. And so what if she used her little bit of magic? Her little inheritance. So what if he needed some encouragement to turn his head? No one cared, anyway. If she could have her way, and she often did, she would tell a new story—the right story—and she would write it like this:
Once upon a time there was a princess. A very pretty princess. Prettier than you. Once upon a time, a very handsome prince stole the very pretty princess.
No, not stole. Came into. And he would not get out.
3.
The moment Ronia Drake died, her daughters turned to their stepmother and pointed.
“Girls,” the stepmother said, “don’t point.”
“You,” the girls said, their small fingers pointing to the stepmother’s pale gold curls, cropped prettily under her ears.
“You,” the girls said, pointing at the stepmother’s swollen belly, which had enlarged upon itself, doubling, then tripling its size until people joked that it must be a medicine ball shoved under her skin. Or a go-kart. Or a truck.
“Girls,” she said again, but she stopped. She never called them by their names. She only called them “girls” when she was feeling petulant and “ladies” when she was feeling fine. Now, with the pointing and the accusations, she was feeling petulant. But when she reached for the first one, the one with the scar over her eye (and if only she could remember which one had the scar over her eye), she caught sight of her own hand and drew it back with a sharp cry. The stepmother had always had lovely hands the color of pearls. Or, at least it seemed like always. She told people that when women let themselves go, the first place it shows is in their hands. No man wants to make love to a woman with red knuckles and cuticles jutting out like spikes. No man wants a woman with quick-bitten fingernails, or fingernails rimmed with dirt, or spots or wrinkles or cracks.
Ronia Drake had dreadful hands. It was no wonder her husband had left her. The stepmother said this as though it were true. No one noticed the way a smile slicked across her milk-pale skin. No one noticed the strange glitter of her terrible beauty. Or, at least, they pretended not to notice. Instead they nodded to her comment about hands. So true, they said. So very, very true.
But now. Now as the stepmother reached for one of the girls she saw a hand, her own, covered in blood. A hand missing a pinkie and a thumb. And what was worse, it wasn’t her own hand at all. It was Ronia Drake’s hand.
4.
As Ronia Drake ran along the path, the wind seemed to curve around her, twisting like yarn. Her hair wouldn’t stay tied back and instead wisped free, tickling her eyes and ears and nose. The left side of the path was a strip of grass that soon would be green but was currently brown, and though it looked prickly, she knew that if she removed her running shoes, the ground would be spongy and cold and soaking wet. Beyond the grass the ground fell away in a tangle of leafless branches and trunks and thorns that wove through each other in their tumble toward the river below. Ronia Drake always warned her daughters to stay out of those woods.
You never know who might be living in those woods.
As Ronia Drake ran, she did not notice the eyes in the woods. She did not notice the way the ravens gathered and re-gathered only just behind her as she ran. She did not notice the pale reflection that glimmered on the edges of the oil-slicked sheen of the dark puddles. Pale curls dancing on the rippling water. And a delicate mouth slashed open in a grin.
Every once in a while a bench made of river rocks held together by gravelly mortar with a few splintery planks set across for sitting on appeared along the path. So did occasional ancient barbeques and fire pits with chimneys that pointed effortlessly toward the sky. These too were made of river rocks. Once, when she had taken her daughters here for a picnic, Anna, or perhaps it was Alice, shinnied to the top of the chimney, her long,
