Stories and Poems
Copyright Information
Snow White Learns Witchcraft
Stories and Poems
Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, locations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used in an imaginary manner to entertain, and any resemblance to any real people, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.
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Cover art © 2019 by Ruth Sanderson, goldenwoodstudio.com.
All rights reserved.
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FIRST EDITION
February 5, 2019
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Published by Mythic Delirium Books
mythicdelirium.com
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“A Welcome to the Coven: Introduction” by Jane Yolen. Copyright © 2019 by Jane Yolen.
“Snow White Learns Witchcraft” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“The Ogress Queen” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“The Rose in Twelve Petals” first appeared in Realms of Fantasy, April 2002. Copyright © 2002 by Theodora Goss.
“Thorns and Briars” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Rose Child” first appeared in Uncanny Magazine 13, November/December 2016. Copyright © 2016 by Theodora Goss.
“Thumbelina” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Blanchefleur” first appeared in Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales, Prime Books, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Theodora Goss.
“Mr. Fox” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“What Her Mother Said” first appeared in Journal of Mythic Arts, Fall 2004. Copyright © 2004 by Theodora Goss.
“Snow, Blood, Fur” first appeared in Daily Science Fiction, November 17, 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Theodora Goss.
“The Red Shoes” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Girl, Wolf, Woods” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Red as Blood and White as Bone” first appeared in Tor.com, May 4, 2016. Copyright © 2016 by Theodora Goss.
“The Gold-Spinner” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Rumpelstiltskin” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Goldilocks and the Bear” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Sleeping With Bears” first appeared in Strange Horizons, November 2003. Copyright © 2003 by Theodora Goss.
“The Stepsister’s Tale” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“The Clever Serving-Maid” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Seven Shoes” first appeared in Uncanny Magazine 16, May/June 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Theodora Goss.
“The Other Thea” first appeared in The Starlit Wood, Saga Press, 2016. Copyright © 2016 by Theodora Goss.
“The Sensitive Woman” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“The Bear’s Wife” first appeared in Mythic Delirium, April 2016. Copyright © 2016 by Theodora Goss.
“The Bear’s Daughter” first appeared in Journal of Mythic Arts, Winter 2003. Copyright © 2003 by Theodora Goss.
“A Country Called Winter” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“How to Make It Snow” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Diamonds and Toads” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“The Princess and the Frog” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Conversations with the Sea Witch” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“The Nightingale and the Rose” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
“Mirror, Mirror” is original to this collection. Copyright © 2019 by Theodora Goss.
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Our gratitude goes out to the following who because of their generosity are from now on designated as supporters of Mythic Delirium Books: Saira Ali, Cora Anderson, Anonymous, Patricia M. Cryan, Steve Dempsey, Oz Drummond, Patrick Dugan, Matthew Farrer, C. R. Fowler, Mary J. Lewis, Paul T. Muse, Jr., Shyam Nunley, Finny Pendragon, Kenneth Schneyer, and Delia Sherman.
Table of Contents
A Welcome to the Coven: Introduction by Jane Yolen
Snow White Learns Witchcraft
The Ogress Queen
The Rose in Twelve Petals
Thorns and Briars
Rose Child
Thumbelina
Blanchefleur
Mr. Fox
What Her Mother Said
The Red Shoes
Girl, Wolf, Woods
Red as Blood and White as Bone
The Gold-Spinner
Rumpelstiltskin
Goldilocks and the Bear
Sleeping With Bears
The Stepsister’s Tale
The Clever Serving Maid
Seven Shoes
The Other Thea
The Sensitive Woman
The Bear’s Wife
The Bear’s Daughter
A Country Called Winter
How to Make It Snow
Diamonds and Toads
The Princess and the Frog
Conversations with the Sea Witch
The Nightingale and the Rose
Mirror, Mirror
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Theodora Goss
More from Mythic Delirium Books
For Terri Windling, Queen of Faerie
A Welcome to the Coven
Introduction by Jane Yolen
I have known Theodora (Dora) Goss for a number of years but in the shorthand way we busy writers get to know each other—reading one another’s blogs or Facebook pages, spending quick time at conferences, on panels together, the occasional email. Sometimes we even get to read one another’s books—when we are not mired in research or writing our own.
I knew Dora was a Hungarian American born in Budapest, a college teacher, fiction writer, and poet. I knew her writing has been nominated for major awards, including the Nebula, Locus, Mythopoeic, and World Fantasy awards. But we never actually got to really sit down for the kind of days-on-end chats that you share with close friends, for she lives almost three hours away in Boston. She’s a city mouse and I am a country mouse.
And honestly, the few times in the past years that I have gone to Boston, it was to see a granddaughter in graduate school, to sign at bookstores, to be on at Boskone, or visit one or two of my publishers there.
So I knew Dora enough to give her a hug whenever I saw her, to admire the poetry of hers that I’d read, to enjoy her on panels. Even to hear her read.
And then I was asked to write an introduction to her book of stories and poems. This book. Snow White Learns Witchcraft. My favorite topic—fairy tales fractured, reinvented, re-imagined, retold.
I am glad I said yes. No—I am thrilled I said yes. Here is the reason why: There are seven fema
le fabulists whose work always blows me away—Isak Dinesen, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Angela Carter, Robin McKinley, Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, Terri Windling. They each bring charm, clarity, magic, exquisitewriting, depth of fairy-tale/fantasy knowledge to their work, a constant inventiveness, and truth to their stories and poems. That's a devastating combination in any writer. But for the ones who deal in the folk tales and fairy tales of the past, absolutely crucial.
To this coven, I now add Theodora Goss. Her stories in this book are full of both folk and historical lore. She transposes, transforms, and transcends times, eras, and old tales with ease.
But also there is a core of tough magic that runs through all her pieces like a river through Faerie.
Here we have stories and poems that are and are not (or are more than) just Cinderella or Snow White or Red Riding Hood and other classics. They are those known tales totally made anew. In Dora’s hands they have become something special, unforgettable, often set in a quasi Middle or East European setting in the 18th to 20th century that feels both invented and true.
All I can add is this: read this book—you will not be sorry. Or rather if you do not read it, you will be sorry. I am ready to reread some of my new favorites: “The Other Thea,” full of shadows; the perfection of “The Rose in Twelve Petals”; the inventive twisting of the French fairy tale, The White Cat (one of my personal old favorites), into “Blanchefleur.”
Rereading is not something I do with most stories. But the coven’s work—that, I go back to again and again.
Welcome, Dora. It’s about time you got here.
Snow White Learns Witchcraft
One day she looked into her mother’s mirror.
The face looking back was unavoidably old,
with wrinkles around the eyes and mouth. I’ve smiled
a lot, she thought. Laughed less, and cried a little.
A decent life, considered altogether.
She’d never asked it the fatal question that leads
to a murderous heart and red-hot iron shoes.
But now, being curious, when it scarcely mattered,
she recited Mirror, mirror, and asked the question:
Who is the fairest? Would it be her daughter?
No, the mirror told her. Some peasant girl
in a mountain village she’d never even heard of.
Well, let her be fairest. It wasn’t so wonderful
being fairest. Sure, you got to marry the prince,
at least if you were royal, or become his mistress
if you weren’t, because princes don’t marry commoners,
whatever the stories tell you. It meant your mother,
whose skin was soft and smelled of parma violets,
who watched your father with a jealous eye,
might try to eat your heart, metaphorically—
would try to grab and kiss you before you ran
into the darkness of the sheltering forest.
How comfortable it was to live with dwarves
who didn’t find her particularly attractive.
Seven brothers to whom she was just a child, and then,
once she grew tall, an ungainly adolescent,
unlike the shy, delicate dwarf women
who lived deep in the forest. She was constantly tripping
over the child-sized furniture they carved
with patterns of hearts and flowers on winter evenings.
She remembers when the peddler woman came
to her door with laces, a comb, and then an apple.
How pretty you are, my dear, the peddler told her.
It was the first time anyone had said
that she was pretty since she left the castle.
She didn’t recognize her. And if she had?
Mother? She would have said. Mother, is that you?
How would her mother have answered? Sometimes she wishes
the prince had left her sleeping in the coffin.
He claimed he woke her up with true love’s kiss.
The dwarves said actually his footman tripped
and jogged the apple out. She prefers that version.
It feels less burdensome, less like she owes him.
Because she never forgave him for the shoes,
red-hot iron, and her mother dancing in them,
the smell of burning flesh. She still has nightmares.
It wasn’t supposed to be fatal, he insisted.
Just teach her a lesson. Give her blisters or boils,
make her repent her actions. No one dies
from dancing in iron shoes. She must have had
some sort of heart condition. And after all,
the woman did try to kill you. She didn’t answer.
And so she inherited her mother’s mirror,
but never consulted it, knowing too well
the price of coveting beauty. She watched her daughter
grow up, made sure the girl could run and fight,
because princesses need protecting, and sometimes princes
are worse than useless. When her husband died,
she went into mourning, secretly relieved
that it was over: a woman’s useful life,
nurturing, procreative. Now, she thinks,
I’ll go to the house by the seashore where in summer
we would take the children (really a small castle),
with maybe one servant. There, I will grow old,
wrinkled and whiskered. My hair as white as snow,
my lips thin and bloodless, my skin mottled.
I’ll walk along the shore collecting shells,
read all the books I’ve never had the time for,
and study witchcraft. What should women do
when they grow old and useless? Become witches.
It’s the only role you get to write yourself.
I’ll learn the words to spells out of old books,
grow poisonous herbs and practice curdling milk,
cast evil eyes. I’ll summon a familiar:
black cat or toad. I’ll tell my grandchildren
fairy tales in which princesses slay dragons
or wicked fairies live happily ever after.
I’ll talk to birds, and they’ll talk back to me.
Or snakes—the snakes might be more interesting.
This is the way the story ends, she thinks.
It ends. And then you get to write your own story.
The Ogress Queen
I can smell him: little Helios.
He smells of cinnamon
and sugar. I can smell him even though
he is down in the garden, playing with a ball
and his dog, whom he calls Pantoufle.
“Here, Pantoufle,” he cries. “Here, catch!”
I would like to catch him by the collar,
lick the back of his neck, suck up
the beads of sweat between his shoulder blades
(for it is a hot day, and there is no shade
in the castle garden except under the lime trees).
He would taste like brioche, oozing butter.
(Oh, his cheeks! so fat! so brown!
as though toasted.)
He would taste like sugar and cinnamon
and ginger.
And then little Aurora. She, I am convinced,
would taste of vanilla and almonds,
like marzipan. Less robust, more delicate
than her brother. I would save her for after.
Look, there she is in her white dress,
all frills and laces, like a doll
covered with royal icing,
rolling her hoop.
If I dipped her in water,
she would melt.
And walking along the path, I see
her mother, reading a book.
Love poems, no doubt—she is so sentimental.
She has kept every letter
from my husband,
the king. She has kept,
somehow, her virtue intact, despite
the violation, despite the rude awakening
by two children she does not recall conceiving.
She resembles a galette:
rich, filled with succulent peaches
and frangipane. I will eat her
slowly, savoring her caramel hair,
her toes like raisins
dried from muscat grapes.
I will particularly enjoy
her eyes, which stare at me
with such limpid placidity,
as though she had not stolen my husband.
They will taste like candied citrons.
Today, today I will go talk to the cook
while the king is away at war
and order him to serve them up, one by one,
slice by slice, with perhaps
a glass of Riesling. Then at last my hunger
for my husband beside me in the bed at night,
for a son to rule after him while I am regent,
for warm, fragrant flesh,
spiced and smelling of cinnamon,
may be appeased.
The Rose in Twelve Petals
I. The Witch
This rose has twelve petals. Let the first one fall: Madeleine taps the glass bottle, and out tumbles a bit of pink silk that clinks on the table—a chip of tinted glass—no, look closer, a crystallized rose petal. She lifts it into a saucer and crushes it with the back of a spoon until it is reduced to lumpy powder and a puff of fragrance.
She looks at the book again. “Petal of one rose crushed, dung of small bat soaked in vinegar.” Not enough light comes through the cottage’s small-paned windows, and besides she is growing nearsighted, although she is only thirty-two. She leans closer to the page. He should have given her spectacles rather than pearls. She wrinkles her forehead to focus her eyes, which makes her look prematurely old, as in a few years she no doubt will be.