by Holly Cox
Roses.
Dense and deep at the heart of the wood roses grew.
White roses mingled with red roses whose sharper thorns tore the petals of the
white. They seemed to spread and flex the moment anyone drew close.
When Jean was young and filled with curiosity he
would run off into the woods and play beneath the branches of the rose bushes.
Time and again he pestered the woodsman Franz until
he told him the story of those roses.
'At the center of those roses,' Franz said, 'there
lies a sleeper.'
'A tomb?' Jean asked. He knew the soft words people
said when they meant death. He could imagine how a tomb, once lovingly planted
with roses, could become so overgrown.
'No,' Franz said. 'A sleeper; one day, someone will
approach and wake him.'
'Oh?' Jean was not sure he believed this story but
he wanted to believe it.
'At the center of those roses, so they say, lies an
enchanted Prince,' the woodsman frowned and hefted his axe. 'But who knows if
the story is true or not.'
'Have you never seen it for yourself?'
'No, the roses will not let me near.' The woodsman
gestured for Jean to watch as he swung his axe down on the mass of roses which
strayed over the borders of the path. They swayed for a second and then, where
the blade had struck, fresh shoots erupted each tipped with a tight red bud.
'Whatever lies within, it is touched by magic. That
much I know for sure. The woodsman hefted his axe onto his shoulder and walked
away humming an old country wedding tune. Yet it seemed to Jean that he the
roses whispered to him, whenever he drew near he heard them saying;
‘Come to me, my love. Come to me.’
Jean stayed a moment longer and then he had gone
home into the setting sun.
Years passed. Jean grew out of his
habit of playing in the woods and applied himself to his studies instead. He
forgot the roses and the woodsman's fairy tale till one evening, Midsummer Eve
as it so happens; returning home from the University at which he studied Jean
had cause to pause in the shade of those woods. He should have hurried through
them, for at night the trees creaked and the shadows howled and it was all too
easy to lose ones way. Ah, but Jean was a rational young man, student bold and
brave. Jean did not hurry.
The roses were still there; growing in greater abundance
than before. They bowed invitingly to Jean as he approached. The blooms so
vivid; so mingled in their red and white he could not resist temptation but
reached out a finger to touch them. The rose he touched was white as snow but
beneath his finger it flushed as bright as a maiden's cheeks. How beautiful
Jean thought and he touched the next bloom and the next till they were all
flushed beneath his hand. Flushed their petals fell. With a creak the stems of
the roses drew back. Dry bark sighed against dry bark. How could this be? Jean
reached out again. He touched the bark of a branch but it shrank away from him.
He watched the branches wither and part into the unmistakable shape of a
passageway.
He recalled the story and he hesitated. One day,
someone would come to awaken the Prince. However, even if there was any truth
in the story that person would not be him. He was not a prince or even a
nobleman. No, he was a poor student who would, in the fullness of time, inherit
a bakery in the town.
Yet the roses parted to grant him entry.
He put one foot on the hearth and then, feeling a
little bolder, he stepped all the way into the passageway. It was dark ahead of
him; he put out his hand to feel the way and felt the rose thorns prick his
skin. He feared that the entrance would vanish behind him; he feared that the
roses would swallow him up but the woods remained behind him, twilight blue and
full of noises. He took a few slow steps forward; he felt the prick of thorns
with each step. There was a light up ahead, a flickering lantern flame whose
light fell on a stone wall and a door of metal furnished oak.
There was a ring on the door and he reached for it.
The door fell open at his touch. Dust hung in the air before him, bright sparks
in the light of torches that ringed the walls of a large circular chamber. At
the center of the room stood a dais draped in velvet which must once have been
sublime but had succumbed to the passage of time and hung in dusty folds. All
of this must have been here for some time yet the torches still burned and
perfume scented the air.
'It cannot be.' Jean said to himself and he half
expected that it would all fall away then like the figments of a dream. Nothing
moved. He looked at the dais again and he saw, resting on the velvet, an object
both beautiful and horrible: a glass coffin. Within the smooth crystal walls he
could make out the shape of a body. Jean stepped back, he did not mind
admitting that even his rational mind was afraid of the decay time must have
wrought. However, fascination got the better of him. He stepped forward and was
astounded to see the body of a young man about his own age and still very much
whole. There were spices and solutions he reminded himself that could make a
body seem whole for centuries. A clever trick, so carefully done in this
instance that he could have sworn the young man was alive. Dark curls tumbled
around a fresh face with flushed pink cheeks and lips red as cherries. Jean's
footsteps echoed on the floor as he moved closer. He saw the hands of the
Prince folded at his waist. He saw the Princes clothes, the style two or three
hundred years out of style. He must have lain here that long at least. Jean
brushed a little dust from the lid of the coffin. As he did so the whole coffin
fell to snow and blew about the room leaving nothing between him and the
Prince.
It must have been very fragile after all this time
and shattered, Jean told himself. After all, glass does not turn to snow.
He could have sworn he saw the Prince's lips part a
little revealing moist pearly teeth. The Prince's nose twitched with breath.
Jean leaned forward and stared at these signs of life. He must have lost his
footing for a second because in a second his own lips touched the Princes lips;
lips deceptively hot as blood. He drew back, reached for the handkerchief in
his pocket and dabbed at his lips. He was not a superstitious man in the habit
of kissing dead lips and relics.
'At last,' a soft voice whispered, 'you have come!'
The Prince's dark eyes were open and his mouth
curved into a smile. He spoke in the most beautiful voice and with each word
the roses that choked the windows fell away with a great rustle of leaves.
'I knew you would come,' The Prince said. His lips pressed;
warm, against Jean’s lips. Jean’s arms slowly moved to enfold the prince.
Outside the windows of the tower, the roses died away to a last few delicate
blooms and the moonlight fell cool upon the tower floor.
falling asleep, on the cusp of dawn, the sunlight of the longest day found them and warmed them as
one.
©Holly Cox 2019
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