Pandora's Box, Part 16

Pandora pulled the red cloak over her head, hiding her black hair. She rubbed a lump of charcoal between her fingers and rubbed her face to disguise her angular features. She felt in her tunic pocket, relieved to find the spherical object still within. Her fingers tingled with anticipatory delight as she walked up the garden path and rapped three times on the cottage door.

Aurora hurried to the door, raising her hand to open it, and then paused, Epimetheus’s words sending a warning through her anxious mind.

“I am afraid… Aurora, you must not trust anyone who comes this way. Don’t let any strangers come inside the cottage.”

The tapping on the door was repeated. One - two – three, each one sending a jolt of longing through Aurora’s body. How desperately she needed company at that moment, a friendly face, a helpful neighbour to share her anxiety over Sylph. She reached out a hand to open the door, but still paused.

“Who is it?” she cried, pressing one cheek to the door.

Pandora leant her own cheek to the door, pursing her lips. The brat had learnt some sense since leaving the palace then. How irritating. She coughed, held a hand to her own throat to adjust her voice and began speaking, her tone appearing as frail and elderly.

“Just an old woman selling her wares. Come and buy, my sweet girl.”

“What do you have to sell?” Aurora asked.

“Beautiful fruits, the most delicious you will taste in your life.”

Aurora sighed. “I am hungry, I admit, but I cannot let you in. I’m sorry. Now, I must return to my mother. She’s sick.” She turned to go.

Pandora’s long nails flexed and her eyes sparked with white-hot flames. “Ah, but wait,” she wheedled. “I have not told you all. I have here a red apple and one bite of it will recover anyone’s health; anyone’s strength.”

Aurora paused. “Really? It can make the sick well again?”

“Open the door and see for yourself, my child.”

Aurora undid the latch and threw the door open, staring at the crooked figure in front of her; an old woman, wrapped in a red cloak, holding out the shiniest red apple Aurora had ever seen. If she had looked closely, she would have seen dark shadows of desire, greed and gluttony dancing around the apple, but she only had eyes for the fruit.

Aurora’s lips opened, trembling as desire leapt towards her. “How much is that apple?” she asked.

Pandora grinned to herself. “Ah, my pretty one, I will exchange this delicious apple for just one of those oatcakes I see yonder.”

“An oatcake?” Aurora laughed in surprise. “You are more than welcome to that.” She rushed to pick up an oatcake, turned and hurried back to Pandora, who now had one foot inside the cottage.

“Take a bite of the apple yourself. You know you want to,” Pandora urged.

“I should take it straight to my mother,” Aurora said, hesitating, though her hand contradicted her words, gripping the bright red apple before she had finished her sentence. Her mouth salivated with hunger and longing.

Pandora took another step inside the cottage, her charcoal-blackened face wrinkling with anticipatory excitement. “Just one little bite, my pretty girl. What harm could it possibly do?”

Aurora’s vision blurred and her head span with desire. The only important item in the world was the scarlet apple, dangled before her. She reached out and grabbed it from Pandora, pulled it to her teeth and bit into the juicy flesh with a satisfying crunch.

A hissing sound whipped through the air. Poison oozed out of the apple, devious and horribly slow, infecting Aurora’s gums, tongue, roof of her mouth and tonsils. Her throat tightened around the large chunk and with bulging eyes and a horrified whimper, she collapsed to the floor.

Pandora pushed the red cloak back from her coal-black hair, eyes gleaming in the firelight as she pressed a foot down onto Aurora’s silent heart.

“Aurora is dead at last!” she cried, her cackling laughter shaking the cottage’s wooden beams. Pandora danced around the room, victorious hatred and revenge whirling alongside her withered soul.

Lying in her sickbed, unable to rise, Sylph heard Pandora’s triumphant roar and her own heart cracked into two. The heavens above growled and a blanket of snow plummeted down, shrouding the cottage, hiding it from the eyes of the world.

Pandora clicked her fingers and the wolf’s angular, hungry body shot to her side instantly.

“I have won,” Pandora declared.

“Yes, your Majesty. And now, I get my reward,” he reminded her, bravely, though his tail trembled under her chilled gaze.

“Your reward?”

“You said you would give me food, and set me free.”

Her grey eyes met his pleading gaze with scorn, and his head quickly drooped in defeat.

“You think you can give me orders?” she spat. “Not so, beast. Now take me home before I kill you too.”

Pandora climbed onto his back, kicked him with vicious intent and screamed an order to go at once. The wolf leapt away from the cottage, lips smacking with hunger, his heart seething with resentment and despair.