“Actually, we’re hoping to bribe someone to take her off our hands,” admitted Brother Number One at last.
“You mean, pay someone to marry her?” asked David.
“He’d have to be really desperate, of course, but we’d make it worth his while,” said Brother Number One. “Well, I’m not sure there are enough diamonds in the whole land to make living with her worthwhile, but we’d give him a pile to ease the burden. He could buy some really nice earplugs, and a really big bed.”
By now some of the dwarfs were nodding off. Brother Number One took a long stick and nervously approached Snow White.
“She doesn’t like being woken up,” he explained to David. “We find this is easiest for everyone.”
He poked at Snow White with the end of the stick. Nothing happened.
“I think you’ll have to do it harder,” said David.
This time, the dwarf hit Snow White a good, strong prod. It seemed to work, because she instantly grabbed the stick and gave it a sharp tug, almost flicking Brother Number One straight into the fireplace before he remembered to let go and landed in the coal scuttle instead.
“Unk,” said Snow White. “Arfle.”
She wiped some drool from her mouth, rose from her chair, and staggered to her bedroom. “Bacon in the morning,” she said. “Four eggs. And a sausage. No, make that eight sausages.”
With that, she slammed the door behind her, fell on her bed, and was immediately sound asleep.
David sat curled up in the chair by the fire. The house rumbled with the snoring of Snow White and the dwarfs, a complex arrangement of snorts, whistles, and dusty coughs. David thought of the Woodsman, and the trail of blood leading into the woods. He remembered Leroi, and the look in the Loup’s eyes. David knew that he could not afford to remain with the dwarfs for longer than one night. He had to keep moving. He had to make his way to the king.
He got up from his chair and walked to the window. He could see nothing outside, so thick and heavy was the darkness. He listened, but he could hear only the hooting of an owl. He had not forgotten what had brought him to this place, but his mother’s voice had not come to him again since he had entered the new world. Only if she called to him would he be able to find her.
“Mum,” he whispered. “If you’re out there, I need your help. I can’t find you if you don’t guide me.”
But there was no reply.
He went back to his chair and closed his eyes. He fell asleep and dreamed of his bedroom at home, and of his father and his new family, but they were not alone in the house. In his dream, the Crooked Man stalked the hallway until he came to Georgie’s bedroom, where he stood for a long time looking at the child before departing the house and returning to his own world.
XV
Of the Deer-Girl
SNOW WHITE was still snoring in her bed when David and the dwarfs departed the next morning, and the spirits of the little men seemed to lift significantly the farther behind they left her. They walked with him as far as the white road, then they all stood around rather awkwardly as everyone tried to find the best way to say good-bye.
“We can’t tell you where the mine is, obviously,” said Brother Number One.
“Obviously,” said David. “I quite understand.”
“Because it’s secret, like.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry snooping around it.”
“That seems very sensible.”
Brother Number One tugged pensively at his ear.
“It’s just beyond the big hill on the right,” he said quickly. “There’s a trail that leads up to it. It’s well-hidden, mind, so you’ll need to keep watching out for it. It’s marked by an eye carved in a tree. At least, we think it’s carved. You never can tell with those trees. Just in case, you know, you ever need a little company.”
His face brightened. “Ha!” he said. “A ‘little company’! See what I did there? You know, a little company, like friends, and a little company, like a band of dwarfs. See?”
David did see, and laughed dutifully.
“Now remember,” said Brother Number One, “if you come across a prince or a young nobleman, in fact if you see anyone who looks desperate enough to marry a big woman for money, you send him to us, right? Make sure he waits on this road until we appear. We don’t want him making his own way to the cottage and, well, you know…”
“Being scared off,” finished David for him.
“Yes, quite. Well, good luck, and stay on the road. There’s a village a day or two from here, and there’s bound to be someone there who can help you on your way, but don’t be tempted to stray from the path, no matter what you see. There’s a lot of nasty things in these woods, and they have their ways of luring folk into their clutches, so mind how you go.”
And with that the little company of the little company was lost to David as the dwarfs disappeared into the forest. He heard them singing a song as they marched, one that Brother Number One had made up for them as they went on their way to work. It didn’t have much of a tune, and Brother Number One seemed to have encountered some difficulty in finding suitable rhymes for “collectivization of labor” and “oppression by the capitalist running dogs,” but David was still sad when the song faded away and he was left alone on the silent road.
He had quite liked the dwarfs. He often had no idea what they were talking about, but for a group of homicidal, class-obsessed small people, they were really rather good fun. After they left him, he felt very alone. Although this was clearly a major road, David appeared to be the only person traveling upon it. Here and there he found traces of others who had passed that way—the remains of a fire, now long cold; a leather strap, gnawed at one end by a hungry animal—but that was as close as it appeared he was going to come to another human being that day. The constant twilight, which altered significantly only early in the morning and late in the evening, sapped his energy and subdued his spirits, and he found his attention drifting. At times, he seemed to fall asleep on his feet, for he had flashes of dreams, visions in which Dr. Moberley stood over him and seemed to be speaking to him, and periods of darkness during which he thought that he heard his father’s voice. Then he would awaken suddenly as his feet strayed from the path, his legs almost tangling beneath him as he moved from stone to grass.
He realized that he was very hungry. He had eaten with the dwarfs that morning, but now his stomach was rumbling and aching. There was still food in his pack, and the dwarfs had added to his supplies a little by giving him some pieces of dried fruit, but he had no idea how far he might have to travel before he reached the castle of the king. Even the dwarfs were of no help there. As far as David could tell, the king didn’t have very much to do with the running of his kingdom at all. Brother Number One told David that someone had once come to the cottage claiming to be a royal tax collector, but after an hour in the company of Snow White, he left without his hat and never returned again. The only facts about the king that Brother Number One could confirm were that there was a king (probably) and that there was a castle, somewhere at the end of the road upon which David was traveling, although Brother Number One had never seen it. And so David walked on, his mind drifting, his stomach hurting, and the road glowing whitely before him.
It was during one of his near tumbles into the ditch that David saw apples hanging from the branches of a tree in a clearing near the edge of the forest. They looked green and almost ripe, and he felt his mouth begin to water. He remembered the dwarfs’ injunction, their warning that he should remain on the path always and not be tempted by the gifts of the forest. But what harm could it do to take some apples from a tree? He would still be able to see the road from it, and with the help of a fallen branch he could probably dislodge enough fruit to keep him going for a day, perhaps more. He stopped and listened but heard nothing. The forest was quiet.
David left the road. The ground was soft, and his feet made an unpleasant squelching noise
with each step that he took. As he drew nearer to the tree, he saw the fruit at the farthest ends of the branches was smaller and less ripe than the apples higher up at the heart of the tree, where each one was as big as a man’s fist. He could reach them if he climbed up, and climbing trees was something that David was very good at indeed. It was the work of only a few minutes to scale the trunk, and soon he was seated in the crook of a branch, munching on an apple that tasted incredibly sweet to him. It had been weeks since he’d eaten an apple, not since a local farmer had quietly slipped Rose a couple “for the little ’uns.” Those apples had been small and sour, but these were wonderful. The juice trickled down his chin, and the flesh was firm in his mouth.
He devoured the last of the first apple and discarded the core, then picked another. He ate this one more slowly, recalling his mother’s warnings about eating too many apples. They gave you stomach pains, she had said. David supposed that stuffing yourself with too much of anything was a recipe for feeling ill, but he wasn’t sure how that applied if you hadn’t eaten for almost an entire day. All he knew for certain was that the fruit tasted good and his stomach was grateful for it.
He was halfway through the second apple when he heard a disturbance below. Something was approaching fast from his left. He could see movement in the bushes, and a flash of tan hide. It looked like a deer, although David could not see its head, and it was clearly fleeing from some threat. Instantly, David thought of the wolves. He cowered closer to the trunk of the tree and tried to shield himself with it. Even as he did so, he wondered if the wolves would detect his scent upon the ground as they passed, or if the lure of the deer might be enough to blind their senses to it.
Seconds later, the deer broke from cover and entered the clearing beneath David’s tree. It paused for a moment, as if uncertain of which direction to take, and in that moment he got his first clear look at its head. The sight made him gasp, for it was not the head of a deer but that of a young girl with blond hair and dark green eyes. He could see where her human neck ended and the body of the deer began, for a red welt marked the place where the two beings had been joined. The girl glanced up, startled by the sound, and her eyes met David’s.
“Help me!” she begged. “Please.”
And then the sounds of pursuit drew nearer, and David saw a horse and rider bearing down upon the clearing, the rider’s bow drawn and ready to release its arrow. The deer-girl heard them too, for her back legs tensed and she bounded toward the cover of the forest. She was still in midair when the arrow struck her neck. The blow threw her body to the right, where it lay twitching upon the ground. The deer-girl’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to speak her final words. Her back legs kicked at the dirt, her body trembled, and then she stopped moving.
The rider trotted into the clearing upon a huge black horse. He was hooded and dressed in the colors of the autumn forest, all greens and ambers. In his left hand he held a short bow, and a quiver of arrows hung across his shoulder. He dismounted from the horse, drew a long blade from a scabbard upon his saddle, and approached the body on the ground. He raised the blade and struck once, then again, at the neck of the deer-girl. David looked away after the first blow, his hand against his mouth and his eyes squeezed shut. When he dared to glance back again, the girl’s head had been severed from the deer’s body and the hunter was carrying it by the hair, dark blood dripping from the neck onto the forest floor. Using the hair, he tied the head to the horn of his saddle so that it hung against the flank of his horse, then placed the carcass of the deer across the horse before preparing to remount. His left foot was already raised when he paused and stared at the ground. David followed his gaze and saw the discarded core of the apple at the horse’s hooves. The hunter lowered his foot and stared at the core, and then in one swift movement drew an arrow from his quiver and notched it to the bow. The tip of the arrow was raised toward the apple tree and came to rest pointing straight at David.
“Come down,” said the hunter, his voice muffled slightly by a scarf across his mouth. “Come down or I’ll shoot you down.”
David had no choice but to comply. He felt himself start to cry. He tried desperately to stop himself, but he could smell the deer-girl’s blood on the air. His only hope was that the hunter had enjoyed his sport for the day and might see fit to spare him as a result.
David reached the base of the tree. He was tempted for an instant to run and take his chances in the forest, but it was an idea that he rejected almost immediately. A hunter who could kill a leaping deer with an arrow while riding on horseback would surely be able to hit a fleeing boy with greater ease. He had no choice but to hope for mercy from the hunter, but as he stood before the hooded figure, he looked into the deer-girl’s sightless eyes and wondered if there was any hope of mercy from someone who could do such a thing.
“Lie down,” said the hunter. “On your belly.”
“Please, don’t hurt me,” said David.
“Lie down!”
David knelt on the ground, then forced himself to lie flat. He heard the hunter approach, and then his arms were wrenched behind his back and his wrists bound with coarse rope. His sword was taken from him. His legs were tied at the ankles, and he was lifted into the air and slung over the back of the great horse, his body lying upon that of the deer, his left side resting painfully against the saddle. But David did not think about the pain, not even when they began to trot and the ache in his side became a regular, rhythmic pounding, like the blade of a dagger being forced between his ribs.
No, all that David could think about was the head of the deer-girl, for her face rubbed against his as they rode, her warm blood smeared his cheek, and he saw himself reflected in the dark green mirrors of her eyes.
XVI
Of the Three Surgeons
THEY RODE FOR what seemed to David like an hour, perhaps more. The hunter did not speak. David felt dizzy from hanging across the horse, and his head hurt. The smell of the deer-girl’s blood was very strong, and as their journey drew on, the touch of her skin against his grew colder and colder.
At last they came to a long stone house in the forest. It was plain and unadorned, with narrow windows and a high roof. To one side was a large stable, and there the rider tethered his horse. There were other animals here too. A doe stood in a stall, chewing on some straw and blinking at the new arrivals. There were chickens in a wire run and rabbits in hutches. Nearby a fox clawed at the bars of its cage, its attention torn between the hunter and the tasty prey just beyond its reach.
The hunter dismounted and detached the deer-girl’s head from the saddle. With his other hand he lifted David and slung him over his shoulder, then carried him to the house. The deer-girl’s head made a soft thudding noise against the door as the hunter raised the latch, and then they entered and David was thrown upon the stone floor. He landed on his back and lay there, dazed and frightened, as, one by one, lamps were lit, and he was at last able to see the hunter’s lair.
The walls were covered with heads, each mounted upon a wooden board and fixed to the stone. Many of the heads came from animals—deer, wolves, even a Loup, which seemed to have been given pride of place at the center of the display on one wall—but others were human. Some came from young adults, and three came from very old men, but most seemed to belong to children, boys and girls, their eyes replaced with glass equivalents that glittered in the lamplight. There was a fireplace at one end of the room, and a single pallet bed beside it. Against another wall stood a small desk and a single chair. David turned his head and saw dried meat hanging from hooks at the other end of the room. He could not tell if it came from animals or people.
But the room was dominated by two great oak tables, so huge that they must have been assembled within the house itself, piece by piece. They were stained with blood, and from where he lay David could see chains and manacles on them, and leather restraints. To one side of the tables was a rack of knives, blades, and surgical tools, all clearly old but kept sharp an
d clean. Above the tables hung an array of metal and glass tubes on ornate frames, half of them as thin as needles, the others as thick as David’s arm.
Bottles of all shapes and sizes, some filled with clear liquid while the rest had been used to store body parts, stood on shelves. One bottle was filled almost to the top with eyeballs. They seemed alive to David, as though being wrenched from their sockets had not deprived them of the capacity to see. Another contained a woman’s hand, a gold ring upon its wedding finger, red varnish flaking slowly from its nails. A third contained half a brain, its inner workings exposed and marked by colored pins.
And there were worse things than those, oh, much worse…
He heard footsteps approaching. The hunter stood over him, the hood now lowered and the scarf removed to reveal the face beneath. It was the face of a woman. Her skin was ruddy and unadorned, her mouth slim and unsmiling. Her hair was tied loosely upon her head. It was black and white and silver, like the fur of a badger. While David watched, she released her tresses, so that they fell in an avalanche across her shoulders and down her back. She knelt and gripped David’s face with her right hand, turning his head back and forth as she examined his skull. She then released his face and tested his neck, and the muscles in his arms and legs.
“You’ll do,” she said, more to herself than to David, and then she left him to lie upon the floor while she worked on the head of the deer-girl. She did not say another word to him until her work was complete, many hours later. She raised David and placed him upon a low chair before displaying to him the fruits of her labors.
The deer-girl’s head had been mounted upon a piece of dark wood. Her hair had been washed and spread out on the block, held in place by a thin glue. Her eyes had been removed and replaced with ovals of green and black glass. Her skin had been coated with a waxy substance to preserve it, and her head made a hollow sound when the huntress rapped upon it with her knuckles.