Pandora's Box, Part 19

Rat-a-tat-tat. The door knocked again. There was a startled silence, then Tom gestured for Aurora to go to Sylph’s bedroom. She nodded, and did as she was bid.

Robert peered out of the window, his eyes struggling to separate the snow and a snow-white figure standing waiting in the doorway.

“Who’s there?” asked Tom. “Is it her again?”

“No, it’s a man,” Robert said. “Let’s see what he wants with us.”

“Careful, Robert!” Tom urged. “It could be another trick.”

But Robert seemed oblivious, drawn towards the door, as if under a spell. He flung the door wide open, staring at the tall man wrapped in a snow-white cloak, holding out a large, glowing cabbage.

“Have you come to help us?” Robert said.

“I have indeed, my friend,” the locksmith said, beaming widely. “If you can offer me shelter from this dreadful snowstorm, I believe I have something you need in return.”

Robert stepped aside, as if powerless, and the locksmith swept inside, looking around the cottage with keen, covetous eyes.

Tom stood scowling, arms crossed, guarding the entrance to Sylph’s bedroom. “What do you want, stranger?”

The locksmith smiled down at him benignly. “Ah, such a big question from such a little boy. What do I want? Nothing. I’m merely an interested bystander. I heard there is a young lady living here, who might need some help, that’s all. I have come a long way to see her and her famed beauty.”

Tom bristled. “Aurora doesn’t need help from anyone else but us.”

Robert frowned, shaking his head as if emerging from a deep lake. “Who told you about Aurora, anyway?”

“Epi something or other,” the locksmith answered, carelessly. “He’s otherwise engaged, or I’m sure he’d come himself. Now, marvellous guards you may be, but I have come to see Aurora, and Aurora I will now see.” He stooped low, picked up Tom and popped him in a rocking chair, as if handling a child’s doll, then lifted Robert up, depositing him by the fire. “Out of the way, boys. Let a man take care of business.”

The locksmith pushed open the bedroom door. “Aha,” he cried. “Found you at last!” The five young waifs and strays whirled round to see who was intruding on Sylph’s sacred peace, while Aurora draped a protective arm over her mother, glaring at him.

“Quiet!” she ordered.

“That lady is truly sick,” the locksmith said, hastening to the bedside, his mischievous smile abruptly wiped away. He ripped off a cabbage leaf, perched on the bed, and with a light, and surprisingly gentle touch, inserted the edge of the leaf into Sylph’s dry, grey lips. “Come on, Aurora, you must eat,” he urged.

Aurora frowned. “She’s not Aurora. I am!”

“What? You!” The locksmith gazed at her, his mouth downturned with disappointment and then turned back to the fairylike figure now smiling up at him, her hair spread out over the pillow in a rainbow arc. He longed to take a silver lock in his fingers and kiss it.

“Can I have more cabbage, please,” Sylph said, smiling sweetly. “I have a sudden yearning for it.”

She reached out to tear off another leaf herself, brushing his hand in her eagerness. The locksmith quaked, surrendering the whole vegetable to her, red-cheeked as a lovestruck boy.

“Your wish is my command, my lady,” he said, grinning bashfully.

Aurora stared from her mother to the locksmith and back again, battling with the sudden ache spearing her. With darkened eyes, her heart strangled in a knot, she tried to understand the overwhelming feeling shaking her soul. Its name was jealousy, a leftover gift from Pandora’s poisoned apple.

“What are you all doing in my chamber?” Sylph asked, bewildered. “Off you go, boys.”

The waifs and strays shuffled out of the room, whispering to each other, excitedly.

“You may go too, Aurora,” Sylph said, smiling to take the brisk sting from her tone. “I’d like a little privacy please.”

Aurora strode from the room, her cheeks blazing with anger.

“Don’t go,” Sylph said, her tone low and sweet. Aurora turned but the words were not uttered for her, only for the locksmith’s ears.

Aurora brushed past Tom’s sympathetic, outstretched arm, marching out of the cottage. She hurried to the stables, weeping furiously.

“What is the matter with me?” she cried to the pony nodding in its stall. “Why should I care anyway?”

A grey figure shifted, hidden deep in the corner of the stable, its hackles rising with hunger.

“Who’s there?” Aurora cried, grabbing a pitchfork and staring into the gloom. The shape shifted and she peered into a set of huge eyes. She dropped the tool.

“Is that you, Jack Horner?” she asked. “Hiding in the corner again?”

The wolf shuffled his hairy feet. “Yes, it is I,” he lied. “Jack Horner.”

“Oh Jack, what a horrid day this has been,” Aurora said, twisting her hair between her fingers. “I can’t make head or tail of it, and I don’t feel like myself at all. Come and talk to me, please.”

The wolf crept closer, his tail low, his long face heavy with sly intent.

“Oh Jack, what big eyes you have,” Aurora said. “I never noticed them before.”

“All the better to see you with,” answered the wolf, his ears pricked high.

“Oh Jack, what big ears you have,” Aurora said. “I never noticed them before.”

“All the better to hear you with,” answered the wolf, licking his gleaming lips.

“Oh Jack, what big teeth you have,” Aurora said. “I never noticed them before.”

“All the better to eat you with!” cried the wolf, leaping out of the corner, all teeth and grey fur as he arched towards Aurora’s face.

Aurora screamed, grabbed the pitchfork and jumped forward, lightly as a fawn. “Oh no, you don’t” she cried, pushing the spikes upwards into the wolf’s chest. “I’ve had enough of this!”

The wolf twisted and turned in agony, his mournful howl filling the sky, shifting the clouds aside. The pony neighed in fright, while the pigs in the barn snuffled and snorted.

“Aurora!” Tom cried, racing towards her.

The other waifs and strays followed, brandishing dinner forks, spoons and twigs. They were ferocious and ridiculous, and Aurora loved them for it.

“It’s alright!” she cried. “I have beaten him.”

Sylph hurried to join them too, barefooted and uncloaked despite the wintry conditions. She was closely following by the locksmith.

“Aurora, my sweet, brave daughter, did that beast hurt you?” Sylph cried.

“No,” Aurora replied, scornfully. “Go!” she ordered the wolf. “Or we will kill you.”

“It is you that was meant to be killed,” sniffed the wolf. “She told me to.”

“She?” Aurora exhaled. “You mean Pandora?”

The wolf shivered at the very name. “I cannot return without your body,” he said.

“But you will not kill me,” Aurora said, with certainty. “I don’t believe you have it in you.”

The wolf crouched low, ashamed of the answer.

“Um, I might have the answer to your quandary,” the locksmith said.

Sylph turned to him, tucking her arm through his crooked elbow. “Tell us,” she urged.

“I know a place far beyond the rainbows where no-one would ever find you. It is my home – or rather, it was.” He smiled at Sylph. “I am not planning to return there now.”

“A new home? For me?” the wolf chewed the words between his gleaming, white teeth. “Is there plenty of food there?”

“All you could ever eat,” the locksmith promised.

The wolf’s tail lifted and wagged, hope elevating his heart.

Tom frowned. “But that still leaves the queen waiting for your dead body, Aurora,” he said. “You will have to hide forever and you’ll never be safe.”

“Yes, and no. Not if…” the locksmith paused. “No, I don’t think you’d do it.”

“Tell me what you are thinking,” Aurora said, eyeing him coolly.

“You could go to the land beyond the rainbow too. You would be safe there.”

Aurora gazed at the cottage, the boys, the locksmith and her mother, their arms now wrapped around each other’s waists. Their lives and futures were as certain as a happy ever after fairy story.

“Perhaps it is time for a new pathway, away from this world and all its rivalry,” Aurora mused. She sighed, bitterness dissipating in the wind. “A new start. Yes, I will do it.”

“But not alone, please!” Tom cried. “Take me with you.” He took her hands in his, trying to cling hold of the hope in his heart.

Aurora considered him; this honest, loyal, loving young man, who always had her best interests at heart, and her own heart softened. It would be good to have human company she could rely on.

“I will,” she said.