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

“So what was it that happened to frighten Anna?” she asked, although she already knew the answer. But how much did Cooper know, she wondered? He hesitated before he spoke.

“She became pregnant,” Cooper told her frankly, his blue eyes holding shadows of the past. “She never wanted children—she wanted to paint. Art was everything to her. I confess I never wanted them either. Poems and paintings were enough for us both.

“Anna never told me when she conceived. They helped her to end the pregnancy before it had gotten very far along. But it turns out the little Catholic girl was strong in Anna after all. It was an impossible situation for her; she saw it as a choice between being a mother and a painter. That’s a choice no one should have to make. Afterwards, it haunted her—she lost her faith in her art, in the mountains, and even her faith in me. She replaced it with her childhood faith … and once that came back into her life, then the rest of us were damned to hell.”

He poured himself another shot of whiskey, the wound as raw as it had been decades before.

“How did you find all this out,” Maggie said, “if Anna never told you?”

“The stones, the water told me. Tomás has taught me to listen to them. It took me many years to learn, but I’m a stubborn old man.”

“They told you what happened to the child?” she said carefully.

“There was no child. I told you, she ended the pregnancy. Afterwards, she suffered. And then she made that last painting.”

Maggie frowned. Something was bothering her. “Why,” she asked, “do these creatures come to ask you where the painting is? Why not go back and ask Anna herself?”

He smiled. “Because that clever witch-woman made herself, and the painting, invisible to them. They can’t find her on the spiral path. It’s as if she never existed at all. But I can find her. I know I can. I can find her in hell itself if I have to.”

She looked at him, alarmed. “What are you planning, Cooper?”

He leaned forward, and confided to her, “Tomorrow I’m going to walk the spiral path. It’s because of you that I know it can be done. Tomorrow night is April sixteenth. I’m going to return to that night so many years ago, when it all fell apart. But this time, I’ll be with Anna. This time she’ll keep the child.”

“You can’t,” said Maggie, suddenly cold. “You can’t, Cooper. That will change everything.” And Anna Naverra would miscarry. And Fox would never have been.

“Exactly,” he said to her. “Look at me. I’m a drunk, a recluse, an unfashionable poet. I’m an old and broken man. This is not the future I wanted.”

“I’m in this future, Cooper. And Johnny Foxxe. Tomás Yazzie. Juan and Dora. What’s going to happen to us if you do this?”

“Maybe we’ll know each other anyway. Or maybe not. That can’t be helped. Don’t judge me harshly, Marguerita. You’ll still be a fine poet without me—remember that, my dear, if you can. Somewhere at the core of your being. Try to understand. I’d give the sun and moon themselves to be with Anna again.”

She looked at the old man’s ruined face, and saw that this simple statement was true. Yet she knew what would happen tomorrow night. He would join his lover, but not by walking into the past on a pathway of stars. She swallowed hard, knowing that he was going to his death, and that she must not stop him.

She stood, averting her face from Cooper so that he wouldn’t see the sorrow written on it. She walked to his desk. She could feel the floorboards swaying gently underfoot; she could hear the distant song of the stars; and she wondered how much longer she would be able to stay here with him. She leaned against the poet’s desk, bracing herself against the shifting of the room. Her eyes resting on the list of her own poems pinned to his bulletin board.

“What is this?” she asked, pointing at it.

“Your essence, my dear. As clear a portrait as any photograph could be. Those poems are the reason I knew that you could learn the language of this place—even if you’d never walked the spiral path and come from the wood that night. Are you writing poems?” His voice became stern. “Or are you still running away from your true nature, Marguerita Black?”

She turned back to him. “I’m hearing them again; I can feel them growing inside of me. You were right to bring me here, Cooper. This is the land of poetry. And you, you’ve been writing poems yourself. Why didn’t you bloody tell me?”

His smile was rueful. “I would have, my dear. As soon as The Saguaro Forest was complete. But now, I’m afraid, I’ve bargained them away. The poems will go to the mage who will set me on the spiral path.”

Maggie looked at him sharply. “A mage? It isn’t Crow who is taking you?”

“Crow? That creature? Heavens, no. It’s the one I call the Drowned Girl. An enchanting little fairy, she is. And yet she drives a hard bargain.”

“All your poems, Cooper? You’ve given them all away?”

“Yes. But don’t look so sad, my dear. They were for the mountain. And for the wood wife, who’s been good to me for all these years. Perhaps they were never meant for the world. No great loss. The world doesn’t want them.”

“And is that why you’ve kept Anna’s paintings here? Do they belong to the mountain too?”

He frowned. “No, I think I was wrong about them. They should have been exhibited. It was not dammas to keep them here; they need to move out into the world. Anna couldn’t let go of them. They were precious to her, our only children. I couldn’t let them go either. But you, you should exhibit them.” Then Cooper looked up at her and smiled. “Yet, what does any of this matter