And worms…
With the root cellar mostly a bad memory, Thorn made a show of meek obedience and slavish repentance, all the while plotting when she would attempt her next escape. That wardbreaking technique had worked, even if Jada had somehow sensed it from afar or, suspicious of Thorn, had lurked nearby. Perhaps, if Jada had traveled farther away, she wouldn’t know. Or maybe it would take her too long to travel back and Thorn could run away and hide in one of those vast cities where Jada could never find her. Or she’d find the prince’s castle and he’d protect her.
And next time, she would try going through the briar hedge instead of via the gate. Maybe Jada wouldn’t detect a differentkindof wardbreaking. Jada didn’t know Thorn had memorized more techniques from the book than that first one she’d attempted. Yes, Thorn would wait a full night and day for Jada to be gone and try making a small doorway in the bramble of thorns itself.
Except that Jada outmaneuvered her, as she informed Thorn the morning of her departure.
“I’m going to sleep the whole time you’re gone?” Thorn echoed, not quite able to believe it.
“A kind of sleep,” Jada amended. “An enchanted rest, where you will not feel the passage of time. You’ll close your eyes and when you open them, I will have returned.” Jada reached across the kitchen table, where they had all their most important conversations, and patted Thorn’s hand. “You won’t be troubled byloneliness this way, nor will you feel trapped. It will be as if no time passed for you at all.”
“But… But what if I need to visit the necessary? What if I get my menses?” She was due any day. Thorn felt on the verge of tears, from crushing disappointment or frustrated wrath, she couldn’t discern. Perhaps both. “Food, water!”
“Your body won’t need any of those things. You will simply sleep. In truth, I could leave you that way for a hundred years and you wouldn’t age.”
“No!” Thorn gasped in horror. “No, please, you wouldn’t. You can’t.”
“I can,” Jada replied meaningfully, “and I would, if you made it necessary for me to do so, but I won’t. Not yet. Not for any longer than a few days, like usual.”
“But how will I know it’s only been a few days?” This wasn’t the aspect to fix on, Thorn knew, but her thoughts flew in scattered shards like bluebirds when the hawk passes through and she couldn’t seem to order them again.
“Stupid girl, I willtellyou how long it’s been. Would I lie to you?”
Yes,whispered that sullen, rebellious voice that had led her into so much trouble. “Please don’t do this,” her mouth said aloud.
“If you had obeyed me, I wouldn’t be forced into such an extreme measure. But there’s no need to fear. You’ve done this before with no harm. You will sleep and my wards will protect you.”
“Before?” Her mind and heart snagged on that, the sunny kitchen taking on a glare of cruelty, the whites too white, the sky outside mockingly blue.
“What do you think I did when you were an infant, a toddler?” Jada asked incredulously. “You didn’t imagine I left you alone to your own devices before you could care for yourself, did you?”
As with so many things, this had never occurred to Thorn. “I don’t remember,” she whispered. But… maybe she did. Old,vague, and distorted memories fluttered at the edges of her mind, of lying frozen, unable to move, but awake.
“There was no reason to tell you,” Jada said, waving that away. “I put you to bed at night, invoked the Sleep of Ages, then awakened you when I returned. See? Totally harmless and you never suffered. I have never wanted you to suffer, Thorn. I hope you know that. All of this is only to keep you safe.”
Safe.Thorn was beginning to loathe that word. “What about Nessie and the chickens?”
“They will also sleep, safe in their beds, just like you.”
“What if you don’t return to wake me?” she asked, at last voicing the fear that plagued her the most.
“I always return,” Jada answered. Somehow, the words sounded like a threat.
“Just in case, though,” Thorn persisted, hearing the desperation in her own voice, feeling it in the cold sweat slicking her palms, “I should stay awake. I won’t try to go out.”
“I can’t take that risk,” Jada replied. “One day you will understand.”
Thorn doubted that.
“Now, you have a choice,” Jada continued briskly, casting a glance at the position of the sun outside. “I can put you to sleep where you sit and you’ll awake with a crick in your neck that will take days to dissipate, or you can cooperate, lie down in your cozy bed, and awake rested and refreshed.”
Thorn wanted to refuse to cooperate, but her hands, still bruised from pounding on that immovable cellar door, reminded her of her powerlessness. She could not force her way out. Only via guile could she escape this concentric series of briars that bound her. This time, she would sleep. And later, she would find a way to research this spell. The Sleep of Ages. With a fancy title like that, the enchantment would be in a book somewhere.
“I’ll lie in my bed,” she replied with quiet dignity.
“Good girl,” Jada said. And that, too, sounded like a warning.
Thorn opened her eyes to find Jada standing over her, wearing a different gown and a smugly satisfied smile. “There now,” the sorceress said. “Wasn’t that sweet and easy?”
