Godmother: a novel

  A stairwell led to a cluster of rooms downstairs. A painting caught my eye immediately as I walked in. I stepped closer. The colors seemed to shimmer off the canvas, greens and blues and golds. I focused in. A fairy scene. Three fairies next to a lake, dancing on the grass beside it. Behind them, a scattering of lights.

  I could reach into the painting and feel water, grass

  228

  light. I could feel the wind breaking against my face as I flew through it. The water skimmed against feathers as I dove in, exchanging the air for the fairy lake, pressing into the water, my wings spread out like sails as I went deeper and deeper into the other world. The elders sat at their thrones; the gnarled trees swayed back and forth in the water.

  I checked the date of the painting: 1831. I leaned in but could not make out the fairies' faces. They could have been my own kind but also could have been any other fairy tribe. Had they shown themselves, too?

  I didn't want to step away. The colors were rich, like juice or candy. My body, with its aches and fatigue, felt different, as if I were one gesture from flight. Back in the other world, flying had been as natural as breathing. I barely had to tilt my wings, think of air, before I was gliding through it. In the water I could dip my head and propel forward like a great fish, the water skimming through each feather, massaging them.

  A guard stood at the edge of the room, watching me. I nodded to him, then saw the painting to the left of the one I'd been looking at.

  It was a forest scene. A beautiful girl with pale blond hair lay in the grass, her body spread out and angled strangely. The grass was covered in blood. Over her hovered the small body of a fairy, the unmistakable sheen of wings. It was evening, and the moon was above, shining through the trees.

  In the background you could see the coach, a horse barely visible against the black night. The trees dropped over the scene, their leaves pale green in the moonlight.

  I couldn't breathe. I looked up at the guard, but he

  229

  didn't seem to know what was happening. He was just standing there as if everything were normal.

  The fairy was tiny, her wings a blur of movement, but still bright white. You could just make out the red of her hair, like a tiny flickering flame.

  I looked at the plaque next to the painting.

  1834, ANONYMOUS.

  "What is this?" I said, turning to the guard.

  He looked up at me, confused. "Ma'am?"

  "Do you know anything about this painting?" I asked.

  "No," he said. "I'm sorry."

  I turned back to the canvas. Her pale skin, her peaceful face. The blood, sickly and dark in the moonlight. I could have been right there. As if not one minute had gone by.

  I studied the painting, tried to memorize every detail. There was something strange about the trees, I saw after a minute, and I looked more closely. Up in the right-hand corner, in the array of heart-shaped leaves dappled with moonlight, leaves that shifted from pale to dark green, there was a smattering of lights. Fairies.

  "You were there," I whispered. "You were there, watching."

  The room was silent.

  "Are you here now?"

  In the corner of my eye: the curve of a wing, the blurred light above me. I turned, and there was nothing.

  I did not know how to feel. What to think.

  My head spun. Someone had recorded that ancient scene. And if it had happened, if it had become a part of history, hadn't it been destined to happen? What if everything had turned out the way it had been destined to all along?

  230

  What if it had happened exactly as it was supposed to? Maybe they were never destined to be together, Cinderella and the prince. Maybe it was him and me, all along.

  I felt dizzy. After a few more minutes, I went upstairs, moving back through the rooms, passing angels and mirrors and overstuffed couches and chairs and the guards staring out at me, until I heard the sound of water and entered a columned marble room with a long fountain in the center. The water tumbled down from it into a shallow pool below.

  Above, the glass ceiling arced and glowed, filtering a strange light into the room and onto the water. Around the fountain, green plants jutted, and the leaves spread like long fans in the air. White flowers drooped from the stems. It was a courtyard, right in the middle of the building, with lights hanging from the ceiling around it.

  On the other side from where I was standing, there was a statue, a tall bronze statue of a creature with flaring, jagged wings.

  I dropped then, next to the water.

  My face stared back at me, and I bent down into it. Relief poured through me.

  I thought of Cinderella, what the modern world had made of her. The flat cartoons, the children's books, the films that surrounded her with birds and mice and all the creatures of the forest. That showed her with a pouf of hair and a dress like a cape. Her hand raised to her mouth, her eyes as big as saucers.

  I hadn't realized until then how many times I had doubted myself.

  231

  Chapter Fourteen

  SHE WAS PULLING ME IN. I'D HEARD OF FAIRIES who couldn't find their way once a human heart grabbed hold of them like this. The pain was moving from her to me so fast--the memories, her sickness--that soon there would be nothing left of me. My powers were already almost gone. Concentrate, I thought. I pulled myself up, lifted myself off the ground, stood over her.

  "Cinderella," I said, making the words that I would speak as fierce as I could, willing all my strength into them. "You have to go to the ball. You cannot turn your back on your own destiny. I was sent here by the fairies, to get you there. Whatever you feel now, he will erase it."

  She just stared back at me with those hollow eyes.

  "Cinderella," I repeated. "Are you listening to me?"

  Her memories were so sharp in my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to will them away, but they flared up at me like suns. I saw all that her stepmother and stepsisters had done to her. What the servants had done to her. The beatings she had received, the ways her body had been abused. I was angry, suddenly, at my world. Swooping down to save her

  232

  and give her a new life when we should have seen what the old one was doing to her. She was obviously damaged, those eyes, the bruises on her skin, her dark heart. And her thoughts. I could hear them. Little twitterings between the locks of her moonlight hair: "I am not fit for a prince." "I am nothing.""A little cinder girl."

  "Please," she said. "I do not want to go."

  I stared at her. She had everything. We had given her the greatest gift a human girl could have, and she was willing to toss it away.

  The anger came up on me in a flash. "This is your fate," I said. I wanted to spit the words at her, turn them into knives and arrows. "What we have fated for you. Do you think you can ignore that? We all have to do what we are fated to do. Every one of us."

  Again I could feel the ball and what was happening there. It pulled me so strongly. I could feel Cinderella's memories roiling around inside me, but they were no longer wiping out everything else.

  And I could feel him. Waiting for me. Taste his lips as he stalked across the marble floor, his eyes sweeping in every direction.

  "No, Godmother," she said, shrinking back from me. "I can't go. Please do not be angry with me."

  I bent down, leaned into her. The tone of my voice changed, shifted. "You would defy fate?" Even on the ground, with tears running down her cheeks, she looked like a princess. I could feel him. I knew what would happen the moment he saw her. "A little cinder girl like you?"

  She did not move. She didn't even seem to have heard me at first, but then she looked up, straight into me, and for a

  233

  moment I thought I saw something ferocious in her staring back. Could she hate me? Me, who had been sent to help her?

  I tried to dip into it, what she was feeling, but something was stopping me, something in her. Why couldn't I change her? Why couldn't I enter h
er thoughts, fill her with excitement and desire?

  The horses and carriage glimmered faintly, barely visible in the darkness, and the thoughts seemed to rush up on me: Because I am the one who desires him. And then, Because I could go in her place.

  Even as my mind reeled against it, told me that this was something I could not have, I felt a soaring from deep within my body. I wanted this. This night.

  She was right: She did not deserve it.

  And someone needed to go to the ball, make the prince fall in love. It was supposed to be her, but I could go in her place. They might never know it was not her. Later I could fix everything.

  I took a deep breath. "Fine, Cinderella," I said. "You will not go, then."

  I would need to dress as she had. I would need everything back again, the way it was.

  "Please, Godmother," she said. "If you came here to help me, take me back to them. My mother and father."

  I looked up at the moon. Now that I knew what I was going to do, I had to hurry. "I have to leave you," I said. "We have only until midnight. But I will come back."

  "Please," she said, standing up and reaching for me. "Don't go. Please help me. I need you!"

  "No," I said. I pushed her away. "I will be back soon. Wait here."

  234

  I turned, concentrated. Focused all my energy. I reached down and picked up a leaf. I rubbed it between my thumbs, felt it start to come apart, threw it to the ground.

  A pair of glass slippers appeared. Glittered like two chunks of ice from the grass.

  I walked to a tree, pried away a bit of bark with my fingers. I crumbled it in my hands and dropped it over me, imagining, as it fell, my hair sweeping past my shoulders. I gathered up a pile of leaves and blew them over my body. A dress appeared on my form, like a river shifting in the light.

  "What are you doing?" she said behind me.

  "I will not be long," I said as I slid my feet into the slippers, one by one. "I will be back soon."

  "Why are you dressed like that?" she said. "Stay and help me, please! I can't go back there. I need you!"

  I looked at her. She was desperate now, trembling. Her memories tumbled over me, and I swatted them off. I had offered her the perfect life, and she had refused it. How could we ever have thought she could be with the prince?

  And then something in me softened. It was not her fault. None of it was.

  "Wait here, my child," I said. "I will return soon. I promise. I will help you then." I reached out and pulled her to me, held her close. "Shh," I said, stroking her hair. "Just wait a little while longer, and I will help you."

  "Hurry," she said. "Please."

  I let go of her, then turned and stepped into the coach, which seemed to flicker to life as I entered it. The horses stamped their feet, and the driver looked back at me, his face translucent, the night fully visible behind him.

  I felt amazing, powerful. In this world I could have

  235

  everything. I could devour it. Him. I could go to the ball and make them forget everything else. I could have the powers the fairy world gave me but also be one of them. I could wield this power and still feel the love and pain and desire move through me. The rot and despair.

  I leaned toward the window, reaching for the door, and then the horses snapped into action, the driver yelled into the night air, and we were off. The coach bounced and rumbled along the narrow road. I looked back at her, lying in the grass now, under the moon, her dress already flickering as the magic began to wear away, and at the same time I could feel him, waiting.

  And for that moment I felt as if everything was exactly as it should be.

  VERONICA LIVED right off of Tompkins Square Park, on Seventh Street between Avenues A and B. The early evening was crisp, and it was the first time it felt as though summer was actually ending. The whole city seemed to be coming to life again after the months of heat and haze.

  I cut through the park to get to her. I slipped along the paths that were usually open to the world but now felt like part of some secret, enchanted place. I loved everything. I ran my fingers along the benches and railings and the bark of the trees. I pulled off pieces of bark, bits of leaf and twig, and gathered them in my palms. A few people lay sleeping on the benches--homeless men with bags piled beneath them--but even they seemed enchanted, like princes who had fallen under a spell. I imagined myself perched on a tree branch, watching Veronica, and had to stifle my laugh.

  236

  I stepped up to her building. This is it, I thought. Every moment, every horrible day I'd spent on this earth, had led me here. My pain was forgotten. Trying to fly, trying to find them all before now--I had just been impatient. All the signs had been there. And they had all led me to this moment, right now.

  Bit by bit I dropped the bark and leaves and twigs to the ground, imagining, as they fell, a dress and a pair of shoes and a pair of crystal earrings rising in their places.

  I rang her bell. She buzzed me in. As I walked down the hallway, I could barely breathe.

  She stood waiting for me, and as soon as I saw her, I knew it had worked. All the magic I had summoned up for her. "Your hair," I said, smiling. It was so blond it was almost white. It was stunning next to her pale skin, her bright blue eyes.

  "Yes!" she said. She gleamed with excitement, tilted her head left and then right. "What do you think?"

  "You look beautiful. You look ... classic. I had no idea you could look so ..."

  "Glamorous?" she asked.

  "Very glamorous," I said. "And it's so long suddenly ..." Her hair swung down to her shoulders, curling up at the ends. Perfect moon hair.

  "Isn't it great? They're extensions. Kim did them for me. I didn't think I'd have time with finishing the dress and all, but we just stayed up the whole night and did it. I thought about having hair down to my lower back but went for the Veronica Lake look instead. I mean, it seems fitting."

  "It does," I said. "It is."

  "Are you okay?" she asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

  237

  "I think I have," I said. "You just ... look so much like someone I used to know."

  "Veronica Lake, maybe? Marlene Dietrich?" She posed, batted her lashes.

  "Maybe," I said.

  "So come inside," she said. "Make yourself at home. I know it's a mess. I meant to clean, though. Which I think counts for something. But yeah, there's clutter. I don't have medical insurance, but I've got two hundred pairs of shoes and fifty corsets."

  I stepped in. Her one-room apartment was like a jewelry box flung open: a crazy-quilt-covered bed practically lay on top of a sagging purple velvet couch; a dressmaker's mannequin with a sheet thrown over it stood next to it; clothes and lingerie and swatches of fabric were draped across the furniture and chairs and sewing table; gauzy red curtains hung in front of the windows. There seemed to be enough for two or three apartments crammed into one room. An old-fashioned vanity was sandwiched between the bed and the kitchen counter, and I walked over, fascinated by the elaborate hand mirror, the pots of gloss and blush and glitter and jewelry that lay on top.

  "So how did it go? Where's the dress?" I asked. "I'm dying to see it."

  "You know what we need first, Lil?" she asked. "Some sangria and some ambience." She lit a stick of incense that was poking out of a can on the coffee table, then went over to the refrigerator. "Go ahead, make yourself at home."

  I waded through the clutter on the floor to the couch. A black lace bra was draped over the arm, and I pushed it off and sat down.

  238

  She opened the small refrigerator and took out wine and seltzer and fruit. She reached down and pulled a bottle of liquor from a shelf below.

  "So you really think this is the guy for me?" she asked, looking over at me.

  "Yes," I said. "I do."

  "How do you know?"

  "I can see it."

  "I wish I could. I would have saved myself a lot of heartache, that's for sure."

  I lo
oked around. Herbs and dried flowers hung in the doorways. To attract fairies, I thought, smiling. A deck of tarot cards lay on her windowsill.

  A few minutes later, she handed me my drink. I sat forward and took a long sip, surprised by its sweetness.

  "Okay," she said, rubbing her hands together. "Ready?"

  "Yes."

  "I spent hours of my life on this thing, Lil."

  "Show me!"

  She moved to the mannequin, lifted the sheet, and flung it off.

  I closed my eyes, pictured it. Willed it into being. And then I opened them.

  The dress was a confection of ice blues and crystals, layers of silk and tulle, a petticoat underneath that made the skirt fluff out on either side. The tulle, strung through with crystals, hung over the silk like a watery net, just as I had envisioned. Underneath, the blue shimmered, seemed to change color.

  I reached over, ran my palm along the fabric.

  "Look at the back," she said, turning the mannequin so that I could see the line of tiny silver eyelets laced through

  239

  with silk ribbon. "This silk is so soft. Cutting it was like cutting butter."

  "It feels like butter," I said. I imagined it, my legs moving against it as I walked, the silk like water against me. "It's beautiful. It's ... it's just stunning. I couldn't have imagined anything better."

  She reached over and hugged me spontaneously. "Thank you for everything."

  "You're welcome," I said. "I envy you, the night you're going to have."

  "I just wish you were coming, too."

  "Now, don't be silly. You need to get ready, my child. The clock is ticking."

  She sighed. "It always is."

  She sat down at the vanity. Her long back facing me, curving in at the waist. Her hair dropping past her shoulders. I could see her face in the mirror, watching herself. Even in her T-shirt and black jeans, she was luminous.