The Woodcutter Read Online Free PDF Page B

turned.
     
    Snow White stood, silhouetted in the moon. Her eyes held the wildness reserved for beasts. They were eyes that had seen too much.
     
    She had seen the Hunt.
     
    And she had not run.
     
    The Woodcutter knew the price she must have paid to still her legs and will them to hold their ground.
     
    “Princess…” he said as he stepped towards her.
     
    She shook her head as her blue blood, blood thick with ancestry of fae, claimed a mind that no longer wished to be human.
     
    “Princess…”
     
    Like a hind, she stood ready to fly. Like a creature of the Woods, she dared him to follow.
     
    “Princess…” and he waved his hand, quietly striking her with his spell.
     
    She slumped to the ground.
     
    He was suddenly tired.
     
    Very, very tired.
     
    But the night was not over, for, at that moment his ears picked up the most peculiar sound – a million tiny bells, pinpricks of gladness within the wild night.
     
    The wind stopped abruptly, although the trees outside the clearing still swayed.
     
    All exhaustion left him.
     
    He reached a hand to the tree beside him to keep the glamour from his eyes. He could feel its sap beat in time with his heart. He breathed in, trying to force his mind to remember that which was drawing close.
     
    The bells awakened a memory from a lifetime ago.
     
    A memory at his father’s side.
     
    Honeysuckle.
     
    Night blooming jasmine.
     
    He breathed out and welcomed the soft purple light as two small creatures flew into the meadow and then another two.
     
    Faeries filled the clearing, their radiance chasing away the darkness. A happiness settled into his heart as the trees whispered glad greetings.
     
    And then his heart seemed to stop.
     
    It was a sight not meant for human eyes, but he had seen it once before.
     
    On a litter, supported by four cloven-hoofed fauns, rode an impossibly beautiful couple with skin so pale it seemed to capture light and reflect it. Flowers bloomed at their feet in a never-ending cycle of birth and fell from the litter, leaving a trail of life wherever the couple was carried.
     
    The Woodcutter fell to his knees, his hand still pressed against the tree.
     
    The fauns lowered the litter to the ground and the couple rose. Their slender limbs seemed to glide.
     
    “Your Highnesses,” the Woodcutter whispered.
     
    Queen Titania smiled gently at him before touching her husband’s sleeve, “Oberon, we have found here our greatest friend.”
     
    The glamour was almost too strong, the ecstasy of being in their presence too much.
     
    Only one finger remained on the tree.
     
    Only one finger guarded him from madness.
     
    Oberon looked at the tiny bodies of the murdered pixies. His face held such infinite sadness. He walked to their circle and waved his long fingers over their forms, “Sleep my young ones. No longer children of air, I give you to the earth.”
     
    Quietly, the earth cradled their bodies and, quietly, the earth covered them in a blanket of dirt as soft as an embrace. Soon, there was nothing but a barren ring of freshly turned dirt.
     
    “Until we meet again,” he said.
     
    Oberon walked to the hangman’s tree and touched the elm’s sturdy trunk, “Gentle friend, we thank you for your sacrifice. By my touch, I remove the deed from your sap and once again you grow untainted.”
     
    The tree seemed to lean into King Oberon’s hand, seemed to almost sigh.
     
    But then, Queen Titania raised her chin, listening to a gentle whisper. “But there is reason to celebrate,” she said. She walked to the outstretched limb of one of the trees and ran her hand across the fresh cut that covered the injured pixie, “Gentle friend, within you rests one who otherwise would have died.”
     
    A million lights danced in the night.
     
    She lowered her lips and laid a silver kiss upon the wound, “In the spring, indeed you shall blossom and, in the spring, such life you will bring forth. You will live for many ages and your