CHAPTER 67

The Woodcutter stood upon a dais in the middle of the courtyard. The Prince stood at his side. The moon hung like a smiling crescent over the two columns of mattresses teetering one hundred feet into the sky.

The lords and ladies of the palace chatted merrily among themselves at the bit of sport. Their voices hushed as two trumpet players announced the arriving parties.

From a doorway on the left, Iron Shoes entered. The Lady in Blue stood at her elbow. Her skin glowed unearthly in the night.

From a doorway on the right, the Green Dancing Lady wobbled in with the Queen and the Gentleman.

The Gentleman gave the Woodcutter a wink.

The Woodcutter’s face was like stone. He was charged to remain an impartial witness to the proceedings and must do so until the competition’s end.

Iron Shoes stood at the base of her tower. She looked up to the top, her jaw clenched in determination.

The false princess teetered drunkenly upon her feet.

The Woodcutter turned to Iron Shoes and the Green Dancing Lady. “The sun has set and the trial begins. You shall climb to the top of your tower, and there you shall rest all the night. She who survives to the morning shall inherit the Kingdom.”

The Lady in Blue sat upon a throne to the left of the Woodcutter to bear witness to the trial; the Queen sat to his right.

“No tricks,” the Queen whispered to the Lady in Blue.

She turned to her coldly. “You know the binding.”

The Queen laughed.

The Gentleman held the false princess’s hand, and when he let go, she rose in the air, rose up and up until she reached the top of the tower.

The Lady in Blue looked at the Queen. “There is a binding!”

The Queen shrugged. “It is not of my doing. The young girl has become a crafter of her own right, and the power comes solely from the blood within her veins.”

The dust within her veins.

The Woodcutter stared steadily ahead as the Gentleman gave a wink and walked to the Queen’s side, whistling a merry tune.

Iron Shoes watched as the false princess crested the top of the last mattress, watched as the false princess poked her head over the edge and stuck out her tongue.

Iron Shoes placed her hand upon the mattresses to begin climbing, and they swayed dangerously. She turned to the Lady in Blue and to her Prince. “How shall I ever climb such a tower without it falling?”

The Woodcutter could say nothing.

The Lady in Blue glared at the Woodcutter’s vest pocket, as if she could burn a hole with her eyes.

Absently the Woodcutter placed his hand inside, and his fingers brushed against his bumpy handkerchief. The Woodcutter pulled it out and wiped his nose before placing it away again.

Confused, Iron Shoes reached into her bodice and removed her own handkerchief. It was wadded up, wrapped around a handful of fish bones. She looked at the bones and at the tower and then back to the bones again.

But as she looked up, her hands tilted and one of the bones fell onto the earth, landing upon its vertebrae.

It landed and grew in size and strength.

Iron Shoes looked at the bone and then took out another piece and attached it to the first and then took out another piece and attached it to the next. On and on, just as before, they grew until they formed a ladder made of backbone and ribs.

She placed her foot upon the first rung and climbed to the top and then placed another bone. Her handkerchief never seemed to empty. She climbed while her husband watched. She climbed with the weight of the world upon her shoulders, climbed one hundred feet until she reached the top and disappeared over the edge.

The Woodcutter’s heart caught in his throat as Iron Shoes shifted to counter the balance of her leaning tower.

Iron Shoes shouted, “It feels like the mattresses are slipping.”

The Green Dancing Lady laughed. “I wonder why they feel like that.” Her laughter rang cruelly out over the courtyard.

The Lady in Blue looked at the Queen. “What have you done?”

“Why, nothing, I assure you. You know as well as I that I have done nothing to alter the outcome of this competition,” said the Queen. She gave the Gentleman a smile. She turned to the Lady in Blue. “Tell me, Ruler of the Seventh Kingdom, do you like peas?”

Hours passed as the two girls adjusted themselves to the mattresses’ movement.

Iron Shoes’s tower moved dangerously with each breath.

The night wore on and torches were brought out to light the courtyard.

Six hours into the night, the false princess poked her head over the edge. “I’m hungry,” she shouted.

The Gentleman shouted in exasperation, “You can eat in the morning.”

“This is stupid.”

“You must endure this trial. Then you can have all the food that you want.”

“But I’m hungry now.”

The Gentleman exchanged an angry glance with the Queen before shouting back, “I understand, but now is not the time. Go to sleep.”

“How am I supposed to go to sleep on a pile of one hundred mattresses threatening to topple over at any moment. This is not what I agreed to when I decided to let you make me a princess.”

The Queen hissed in through her teeth. “Silence, girl.”

The foolish thing threw herself back upon the mattresses in a huff.

That was her mistake.

The tower began to sway. The Green Dancing Lady screamed a piercing shriek.

As if in slow motion, the tower of the Green Dancing Lady fell. It fell against Iron Shoes, knocking both towers down at once.

The Lady in Blue and the Queen rose to their feet.

The false princess’s cries followed her as she tumbled down head over heels onto the mountain of mattresses.

But Iron Shoes’s mattresses fell one way and she fell the other, plummeting straight toward the cobblestones of the courtyard.

The Prince gripped the Woodcutter’s arm and cried, “Help her!”

“Iron Shoes has won!” the Woodcutter declared, and thus the binding was broken.

The Woodcutter reached out.

He reached out to the wind, the winds of the North and the South. He called out to the winds of the East and the West. He called to the winds that had carried the girl upon their backs.

He called and asked them to help her once more.

But the West Wind was sleepy from carrying the scent of coconuts in the summertime breeze.

And the South Wind was tired from driving the scent of coriander and spice over the hot desert.

The East Wind was too busy dancing through the bamboo forests and playing with kites and flying machines.

Only the North Wind heeded the call.

And so the bitter North Wind swept down from the mountain, sped like an eagle of ice and sleet.

The North Wind caught Iron Shoes as she fell, caught her up in his embrace and considered for just a moment that he would keep her forever. But the North Wind looked upon her lips, and there he saw the mark of true love and knew that she would never be his, and so the North Wind set her roughly upon the stone ground.

But the North Wind was angered at those who would violate the mark upon Iron Shoes, and he bit sharply at the Queen and her Gentleman. He bit at the bones of the false princess. With driving ice, the North Wind chased them from the castle. He drove them with hail and with drenching, freezing sleet.

And the Queen and her Gentleman ran.

The false princess with her green dancing shoes screamed as the North Wind tore at her hair and cut through her skin.

Only Iron Shoes, her Prince, the Lady in Blue, and the Woodcutter were left.

Iron Shoes, her Prince, the Lady in Blue, the Woodcutter, and a treacherous pea that lay among the mattresses.

They stood in the castle as it was covered in new snow—new snow that covered the mattresses and erased the trial, leaving soft hills where the North Wind had touched.

Baba Yaga stood on the balcony of her castle, watching as it all unfolded, sipping a tea made of blue roses.