“But we can be strong, can’t we, child? We are not so weak as they like to think.”
The smell of her burned flesh was sickening. Rose Red wanted to turn away but could not, not even when the woman put out a trembling hand and almost, but not quite, touched her veil.
“Don’t let them fool you, child,” she hissed. “You are strong. You don’t need them. Not the Prince. Nor my Father. You don’t need anyone! You are alone and you always will be. So was I. But I became a goddess, did I not? Do not the worlds still tremble at the mention of my name?”
“You have no name,” Rose Red whispered. “It was forgotten.”
The woman stood as though frozen. Then she bowed her head, and her hand fell to her side. “Forgotten,” she said. “Always, we are forgotten.” She clenched her fists and, for just that instant, ghostly fire flickered in the corners of her mouth. “No, it cannot be so! I won’t believe it! The Dragonwitch will live on forever in the nightmares of all worlds!”
“But you were forgotten,” Rose Red said.
“I am the Dragonwitch. I need no other name, no other title.”
Suddenly her hands gripped Rose Red’s shoulders, pinching deep into her skin. It hurt. Rose Red screamed, as terrified by that horrible blind face so close to her own as she was wracked by the pain.
“Go back to the living world,” the Dragonwitch said in a voice as hot as steam. “Go back and show them all who you truly are. Forget who you have been. You don’t need any of them! Be beholden to no one!” She drew a long breath, then recoiled. She spat, and her hot spittle ate through a corner of Rose Red’s veil.
“I smell the devotion on you. Evil stuff! It will enslave you, this willingness to serve others at cost to yourself. What do they care for you? Have they ever even seen you? Yet you care for them . . . for one in particular.”
She flung Rose Red from her. The chambermaid screamed and lost her hold on the lantern, which rolled away in the darkness.
The light went out.
Rose Red lay in the half-light, worse than any darkness, for it did not conceal all but revealed only the horrifying shadows of the cliff, the witch flowers, and the looming Dragonwitch. She saw the long arms reaching out, feeling for her in the gloom. Rose Red pushed herself up and crawled away, her bare hand clutching at stones, feeling for a possible weapon. Where had the lantern gone?
“Love no one,” said the Dragonwitch. “That is the first lesson you must learn if you will become the woman you might be. Love no one. Trust no one. Make them love you instead.”
Rose Red tried not to breathe, afraid the sound might draw the Dragonwitch her way.
“You’re alone now. You must be strong.”
Rose Red could almost hear her own voice speaking, telling herself the same thing. Her own voice made far more horrible in the snarl of the creature’s words.
“Love will betray you. Better to betray love first.”
She did not know what the dead woman might do to her. She only knew that she did not want those burned hands touching her again.
Where was her lantern?
“You need no one. You need nothing.”
The voice was seductive. It seared down into her heart to brand its message there.
“Stand alone, stand apart. Depend on nothing but your own strength.”
Rose Red’s bare fingers touched something cold and smooth.
“Then you too might become a queen, a goddess, as I did.”
Rose Red grabbed the lantern’s handle, and the world filled again with light. It poured through the silver filigree, casting shadows far away, filling Rose Red’s heart with hope once more.
The Dragonwitch towered directly over her. The light shone into her ruined eyes, and she saw nothing. Nevertheless, she turned away, bowing her head and covering her face with her hands. And now, for the first time, Rose Red could see another strange aspect of her appearance. Though she was burned so badly that her features were scarcely discernable, she was also soaking wet.
“Leave this place,” she said. Water streamed down her face like tears, but she cried no real tears. “I would if I were you.”
Rose Red recalled the stories she had heard and shuddered. The Dragonwitch had not burned to death the third and final time: She had drowned.
Keeping the lantern between the Dragonwitch and herself, Rose Red got to her feet and moved toward the door. The light of the lantern cast images on the cliff wall . . . stars and moons and suns. Those images danced and changed as she moved, and became men, women, and children; they became birds and horses and trees; they became winds and waters, mountains and skies. All pictures made of light, moving through the darkness with hope and beauty.
The Dragonwitch saw none of it. She did not move until Rose Red stood at the little door in the cliffside and put her hand to the knob once more. Then she said, “You walk freely into Death’s arms. Why?”
Rose Red made no answer. The poor, dead monster could not understand. She turned the knob and stepped through into the inky blackness beyond, taking the light with her. The door shut behind her.