The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

for the books, mi corazón. How did you know that we have developed an interest in Trickster legends? One of the creatures here is a Trickster. I have named him Crow. He amuses me, but sometimes he can be very trying… And thank you indeed for finding The Moon Wife by Rosa Bete, you have made Cooper happy. He read the book as a child, you see, and has been longing to read her tales again. Fairy tales and myth and legends—they are the meat of his diet now. He has become quite the expert on the subject, dear Maisie—now, aren’t you surprised?

Our days out here are quiet ones. The harsh summer heat fills the valley below and reaches us even here. The paints have failed me, the images fled, Crow and the others, all disappeared. Or perhaps the heat has driven them away, pushed them farther up into the hills along with the wolves, the coyotes, and the deer. I am lonely without them. I was lonelier still when Cooper was far away from me. I was afraid New York would steal him back—but he belongs to the mountain after all.

We are together here, and yet we are alone. No one else lives in the canyon now. At night, the desert air is soft. The tall saguaro are crowned with fruit, and the birds pick at the sweet red pulp until it runs like blood. In the hills of Mexico, my grandmother’s people are busy turning it into wine.

I often think of Mexico. Of my family. Of my sisters, married women now, with growing children of their own. The paintings will be my children since we have decided I shall not bear ones of the flesh. Perhaps this sounds paltry to you, but when they leave me, those children, then I know I am a mother indeed, for it feels as though my heart will break.

Perhaps I will have to tell Riddley that I simply can’t exhibit anymore.

• • •

September 10, 1948

My dearest M.,

I have been thinking of you all day. I am sending you kisses and bottles of champagne and a chariot pulled through the New York sky by six white birds and a seventh of black, taking you to your opening night in a dress the color of the Rincons. I know it will be wonderful. You must send us all the reviews—as well as a picture of this new man of yours. He’d better love you as much as we do or I shall place a hex upon him! I could do it. My mother’s mother was a witch, although no one ever liked to speak of that. She was a small fierce Indian woman, from one of the Northern desert tribes. But no one liked to speak of that either.

I have no news to match your own. My life is quiet, the hours slow. Some days I do not speak at all, at least with the voice you know. I have learned to speak with chalk and paint, to listen to the wood and stone. When you and Richard come at Christmas, you’ll see the paintings, and then you’ll understand. Then we’ll talk about real things, true things—all the things I cannot speak of here. Then Time will be our pathway, Maisie, and Distance shall never come between us.

• • •

November 9, 1948

My dearest M.,

I have learned so much. I have learned at last how to talk to the paint, and through the paint to the fire, the water, the stones, the wind in the mesquite. There are seven paintings that must be done, and yet I only know six of them:

The Windmage

The Rootmage

The Floodmage

The Woodmage

The Stonemage

The Nightmage

Those are their names. I have not discovered who the Seventh is, or even if the Six are true images, or merely the reflection of my own ideas. But I work hard every day. I am thin and strong. I can walk for hours into the hills. I will learn to walk the spiral path and when I do, ah, then how I shall paint!

Can you send more of those brushes I like? Riddley will give you a check.

• • •

December 4, 1948

My dearest, dearest M.,

I am sorry about Richard. You say you are past tears now, but I would still give you this shoulder to cry on, or even just to lean on, if only I could step from Here to There, walking on the spiral path. I came across this in a book yesterday, by Dorothy Sayers, and I thought of you:

‘The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth.’

The first two I know you have in abundance, so I am sending you a wishing stone for the third, this little desert quartz wrapped up in silk. And the turquoise stone is for protection, of your heart, of your precious self. Cooper and I send all our love. If you took ten Mr. Richard St. Johns and stacked them all together end to end, you would still be worth more than all of them. I still can’t believe he already had a wife. Was he going to tell you at the altar?

• • •

December 20, 1948

My dearest M.,

Enclosed are two Christmas presents for you—I wish that they were better ones. I wish I could give you all the magic in the world filled into a great copper tub. Then you could warm it and step inside and have yourself a luxurious soak.

Yet in this simple copper band is more magic than most of our kind will ever see. You must not wear it, but keep it close. Someday it will want to return to the mountains, but now I think you must have it. Keep it close, and I will be close too.

The other gift I have drawn for you. I am sorry it is not a painting, as you’d