Snow White and Rose Red Read Online Free PDF Page B

for her sons is known. ”
    “What boots it? Will we, nil we, the human sorcerers will send their spells to seek for Faerie power on All Hallows’ Eve. If we do not guide those spells, they must still find something. If—”
    “Hugh’s the greater menace,” Bochad-Bec interrupted. The dark boughs of the oak creaked overhead as if in agreement. “He’s human, and at court.”
    “Thou‘st told us that till we have tired of hearing it,” Madini said. “Hugh’s blood is but half mortal, and his mind is wholly Faerie. ’Tis John whose wanderings keep our land close-tied to the mortal world.”
    “If I may finish?” Furgen said. Madini nodded, and Furgen went on. “If we guide the human’s spells, as we had planned, then John will be struck helpless. What matters it that all the court may see? They’ll blame the humans, Dee and Kelly, and not think of us.”
    “Thy point’s well taken,” Madini said, looking suddenly thoughtful. Her lips widened in a slow smile. “Yes, ‘tis well indeed; I’ll do’t. All Hallows’ Eve shall be John’s bane.”
    “It’s easy to say,” Bochad-Bec muttered.
    “‘Twill be easy, too, to do, an ye follow my direction,” Madini said. “Keep watch on the human wizards, Furgen, lest our preparations fail through some mischance of theirs. We’ll meet again All Hallows’ Eve.”
    “If thou‘lt have it so,” Furgen murmured.
    Madini nodded regally, and departed. The remaining two conspirators peered through the darkness after her for a moment; then Furgen said, “That one’s ambition may soon reach so high that she’ll too easily forget those who aided her.”
    “Then we must remind her,” Bochad-Bec said, scowling. The two exchanged glances of perfect understanding, then faded into the silent, moonlit forest of Faerie.

     

CHAPTER · THREE
     
    “The two girls were very fond of each other, and always went out together. Sometimes Snow White would say, ‘We will never part,’ and Rose Red would answer, ‘Never, as long as we live. ’ Their mother encouraged them in this, and always added, ‘You must share whatever you have with each othef.”’
     
    THE WIDOW ARDEN ACCEPTED ROSAMUND’S STORY, and the unseasonable rose she carried, with outward calm. Inwardly, she was seriously unsettled. Like her daughter, the Widow strongly suspected that the “peddler” had been more than mortal, and she knew that Faerie folk seldom showed themselves to mortals, even within their own borders. The peddler’s unexpected visitation, therefore, made her profoundly uneasy. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to turn away Faerie interest in her daughter, or so she told herself.
    This conclusion was not, in the strictest sense, correct. Though the townsfolk called her “wisewoman” because of her knowledge of herbs, the Widow had more right than they knew to be so named. She seldom made use of her knowledge of magic, and when she did it was the lesser spells of scrying or protection to which she turned. Even then, she kept her proceedings carefully hidden. The Widow had no mind to be among the women hanged each year as witches.
    The thought of using a scrying spell to seek the truth of Rosamund’s encounter certainly crossed the Widow’s mind. She dismissed it at once. If the hosts of Faerie so much as suspected that she might try to spy on them, she would be in even greater trouble than if she were caught in mid-spell by a church informant. The Widow had gone to great lengths to remain, if not on good terms with her unearthly neighbors, at least in a position of neutrality. She was not willing to endanger that neutrality out of unproven fear.
    She could, however, explain those fears to her daughters, and warn them to take more care than usual. On the morning after Rosamund’s encounter with the peddler, the Widow did just that, while the uncanny and impossible rose nodded at them over the edge of a tin cup in the center of the table.
    The girls listened