"I don't want it!" Miranda's mother sobbed in her disappointment. "It's cursed! I know it."
"But, My Lady," the midwife said gently. "It's not the fault of the child that she lacks beauty."
"Lacks beauty?" The mother snorted with insane, humorless laughter. "It's repulsive. I can't believe that I've carried that thing inside me."
Miranda wailed, and the midwife once again attempted to place the warped bit of humanity to her mother's breast, but this time the woman grasped the sharp dagger which had been used to cut the umbilical cord and jabbed it in the baby's direction.
Gasping in alarm from the sin nearly committed by a mother against her own child, the midwife took the baby from the chamber. As if in a trance, she left the cold palace walls and the even colder mistress of the palace behind her.
The Sisters accepted Miranda. They had no choice. They were bound by the vows they took to serve humanity, and though disfigured, Miranda was a child born of a human mother and father.
The Sisters cared for her, nourishing her on animal milk and teaching her to walk and speak, but none of them grew truly fond of her. A baby with soft skin, rounded face, and plump body was easy to adore and care for when she cried in the early morning hours, but Miranda was attended by motion alone. Her tears were dried by hands which longed to slink back from her repulsive appearance, and she learned from a very young age to feed and dress herself.
She grew up with her ugliness shrouded by robes intricately embroidered by care givers who tried to replace a lack of affection with what few material gifts they could offer and an education exclusive to women of the church.
Miranda read beautifully, though often alone in the dim chambers with only the cats who watched her curiously from a distance, for all creatures kept apart from the girl with lank hair the color of old straw and sallow skin the texture of a lake's rocky bottom.
Though the convent was miles from the nearest village, Miranda would look out her chamber window and see in the distance the red-flagged peaks of the castle in which she'd been born. She often wondered about the interior of the grand building and the lives of those who inhabited it, particularly the Queen. She had only once seen the monarch as she rode through the fields between the castle and the convent. Surrounded by a party of soldiers clad in silks and mail which glimmered in the sun, the Queen's beauty somehow shone even brighter than the impressive uniforms of her guard. Her hair was of the darkest blond, a perfect compliment to the pale smoothness of her skin. With her delicate features, slender lines, and grace of movement, the Queen looked to Miranda like one of God's seraphs, but even in her awe, she wondered why one could possess such beauty while another's hideousness lay buried beneath embroidered robes.
Miranda had been gathering herbs when the Queen and her entourage had passed. She had remained on her knees, her longing eyes concealed by her robe, and imagined what it would be like to be the Queen. She had no way of knowing that the beauty's blood was her own, and that it was she, not the second born, round-cheeked, rosy-lipped child born seven summers ago, who was the rightful heir to the throne. The Sisters had thought it too cruel to tell Miranda that even her own mother had spurned her. The Queen would never admit that she had borne Miranda, and if the girl somehow found the anger or courage to press for acknowledgment, the Queen would order her death. It was better that Miranda thought herself an orphan and the Sisters her only dutiful yet indifferent family.
Years passed, heat and storms cracked and soaked the ground, and Miranda grew into young womanhood. Still repellent, still alone, she even convinced herself that she had lost the longing for human ties, until the visitor spent one night at the convent.
Lightening illuminated the warm summer sky as gray, bulbous clouds waited to christen the drought-stricken ground with long- awaited tears while the figure draped in obsidian robes waited at the convent door.
Reluctantly, the Sisters allowed the visitor to pass into their hallowed walls, but only for one night to wait out the storm. The figure in dark robes was of an old religion. He was Pagan, feared, and rejected by the Sisters' and their truer faith, yet out of their duty to humanity, they could not refuse him sanctuary.
Miranda, hidden in the shadows at the top of the steps, watched as the Sisters, their expressions fearful in their wimples, led the visitor to an upstairs room. Like all the chambers in the convent, it contained only a bed, a simple wooden chest, and a single window scarcely large enough to look through.
They left the visitor hastily to return to their own solitary chambers, their own fears, and their own unholy dreams which were vented through and blamed on the untamable power of sleep.
Miranda preferred to walk the convent halls by night when she could lift the veil from her face without the threat of startling one of her benefactors. She always wandered into the library which contained books and scrolls long-kept by the Sisters which told of history and myths beyond Miranda's most thrilling imaginings. That night, as she settled into a straight-backed chair to read, she was shocked to realize she was not alone.
A flash of lightening revealed the tall, robed figure standing silently by the narrow window, and Miranda gasped in fright.
"I didn't mean to startle you." The visitor's voice was low and soft. Miranda longed to stare at the face which accompanied such a voice, yet she reached for her veil out of habit. The voice spoke again. "Don't put it on for my sake."
Still Miranda wrapped her mottled face in the embroidered cloth. The visitor approached and sat beside her, glancing at the book Miranda was reading.
"Lies." The visitor motioned toward the book as his graceful hands removed his hood. Like his voice, his face was androgynous in its beauty. White-blond hair was pulled back from his pale face with its sculpted cheekbones, fine lips, and eyes as gray and powerful as the stormy sky outside. The expression was hard and delicate, all-knowing yet wondering, and Miranda's own mud- colored eyes widened in wonder.
"That book is full of lies," the visitor repeated. "It speaks of us as if we're demons, but that's the only way to get rid of the old and clear the path for the new."
"It's about magic and spells," Miranda said. "Such things come only from evil."
"Evil can be found everywhere, not just among those who use magic."
"I know that." Miranda lowered her eyes to her gnarled and spotted hands. "But there is also good in the world, like the Sisters who took me."
"So good that they ask you to cover your face?" The visitor reached for Miranda's veil, but she shrank back, unused to human contact. He dropped his hand.
"I must cover my face. Even animals run from my ugliness."
"Ridiculous, child," he scolded kindly. "Animals don't judge beauty from ugliness. They flee for fear of your power."
"My power?"
"You don't know." The visitor smiled in bewilderment. "Perhaps all the reading of such lies has turned you against your true self. I could teach you, Miranda."
"How did you know my name?"
"It's my power. Will you come with me?"
"No." Miranda drew back deeper into the chair, terrified at the thought of leaving the safety of the convent and facing a world which spurned her. The few times she'd ventured into the village, people had shrunk back in disgust, pulled their staring, screaming children from her distorted image, and flung rocks to drive her from the marketplace. "I couldn't possibly...Your faith is in the wickedness of the old world."
The visitor leaned closer and lifted Miranda's veil. This time she didn't protest as the pale, exquisite face leaned so close to hers that their cheeks touched. She closed her eyes and sighed with contentment as no one had ever made such intimate contact with her before. All the longing which she thought she'd forgotten rushed forth, threatening to strangle her with the assault of emotions which trapped tears in her throat.
"When you're ready," the visitor whispered, leaving Miranda alone once again.
Snakes were common in Miranda's homeland, so common that during certain seasons, they overran the general population. They slithered into houses, killed children in their beds, and destroyed livestock with their deadly venom. During their reign, people could only pray, hope, and await the colder winter weather which, for a few short months, freed them from the creatures' poisonous wrath.
While others traveled in alert and frightened groups, wary of the green and brown villains, Miranda alone was able to continue unhindered with her solitary walks in the fields and woods. Only she could enter into the very realm of the Snake Queen and not fear retribution, for, like all creatures, the snakes fled from her as well.
This wounded her perhaps most of all, for nothing was more hated and hideous than a snake. Hairless, mottled, glassy-eyed, they were living monsters, and as she had once seen her reflection in a pool of water trapped behind some rocks in the brook, she knew they were her kin.
Months had passed since the visitor spent the night at the convent, but still Miranda could not forget the unusual beauty and the haunting offer from the tall, pale stranger.
What power had the visitor been speaking of? As far as Miranda could tell, the only power she possessed was to terrify.
"They flee for fear of your power," the soft, calm voice spoke over and again in her dreams.
Along the winding, rock and root-strewn paths in the wood behind the convent, Miranda walked, a basket of herbs in her hand. She whistled along with the sparrows nesting in a distant tree. Gazing along the side of the path, she noticed something strange, long, hollow, and filmy. She stooped and realized it was snake skin left after shedding which looked even more horrible than on a living snake. She drew back from it, wrinkling her flat, lopsided nose, then she blinked in shock. The skin had followed her.
"Impossible," Miranda whispered, wanting to run but compelled to remain. She took another step backward. The skin moved after her, translucent, like an apparition. It slipped around her ankle, much like the convent cats rubbed against the legs of the Sisters.
For a moment Miranda thought she was going to be sick, then realized that was how people must have felt in her presence, and she allowed the snake skin to follow her down the path. She soon became accustomed to its presence.
A short distance from where she had first found the skin, a fawn lay in the dirt, its sides heaving its final breaths, as a snake disappeared into the vegetation and away from Miranda. She felt pity for the dying fawn and knelt beside it, knowing there was no way she could save it from the poison.
The snake skin moved closer to her, brushing her hand as it crawled upon the fawn and found the bite of the living snake. She watched in amazement as the hollow body drew in a line of poison-tainted blood from the stricken animal and rolled onto the path as the fawn, fully restored, bounded to its feet and galloped into the safety of the trees.
"It can't be from me." Miranda stared at the snake skin, once again remembering the visitor's words. "What kind of a power is it to make dead skin come alive?"
"To save lives..." the wind whispered against her cheek.
The snake skin left Miranda at the convent door, and though some of the Sisters noticed a strange silence about her that night, none of them ventured to ask what troubled her. In her bed, she was restless as she remembered the unusual occurrences of the day, and when she finally drifted to sleep, she thought it might have all been her imagination.
The snake skin awaited her in the wood the next morning. As she walked, she noticed other skins. Each time she rested her eyes on them, they came to life and followed at her heels, silent companions who existed solely for her.
Sometimes at night when the sky was clear and the moon as full, she would creep silently from the convent to walk through the fields and stare at the village from a distance. The occasional sound of a barking dog or the mewling of farm animals disturbed the stillness and only further reminded her of her separation from all living things. The animals waited until sunrise to accept the care and touch of their human masters, but Miranda would never receive a touch. She had given up her only chance of following one who dared to bless her with the sensation of flesh upon flesh. The visitor was gone, and Miranda had no idea where to find him again.
The sound of whispers and hushed laughter aroused Miranda from her morbid thoughts. Keeping to the safety of the trees, she wandered close to the river where she'd heard the human sounds.
She stood transfixed, staring at the loveliness of the man and woman before her. The woman was young, slender, and delicate, with hair that shone fiery in the moonlight and lips which pressed innocently, tentatively to the smiling mouth of the man. He was lying on the grass, the girl, fully clothed in a cream- colored gown, pressed to the muscular length of his body. His hair was dark, his face sculpted, his eyes narrow and glistening onyx.
Miranda's eel-like lips twisted into a smile as she watched in wonder, realizing she shouldn't eavesdrop on such intimacy, but unable to turn away.
The man's sword lay a short distance from where Miranda hid, and she noted the jewels and symbols upon it and realized that he was one of the Queen's guard. A scream from the girl drew Miranda's eyes back to the couple, and she was horrified to see the girl weeping as the man lay stunned in the grass, his face frozen in pain, terror, and impending death as a snake slithered by the girl's foot and disappeared into the long grass.
Snake poison caused swift death, and Miranda knew she had only moments to act. Pulling her veil tightly around her so as not to frighten the girl even more, she hurried from the trees, the snake skin close at her heels.
"Help us, please," the girl pleaded as Miranda approached. "He's been bitten by a snake."
Saying nothing, Miranda stooped by the man and lifted the snake skin upon him. The girl shrieked at its ugliness and stepped back, but her terror turned to deep shock, and she stumbled to her knees as the poison was lifted from her lover's body. He sat up, bewildered.
"It's some sort of magic," the girl said. "You must be thanked properly. My mother is the Queen. You'll return to the palace with me, and she'll give you anything you ask for."
"I can't." Miranda drew back into the shadows and hid her mottled hands.
"Of course you can. I command it." The Princess stood up, not realizing that it was her own sister to whom she was issuing orders, a sister who was the true heir to the throne.
"But, My Lady, you don't understand," Miranda said quietly. "My appearance...I was born with deformities which others find repellent. I live at the convent, and the times I traveled to your village, I was driven off."
"This time you will be welcome," the Princess spoke with the naiveté of youth. "I give you my word. You've saved the life of my fiancé, the future Prince Consort of this land. For that you will be honored."
Knowing better than to disobey a princess, Miranda returned to the palace and was brought before the Queen. Though older, the Queen was still a beautiful woman with the same pale hair and fine features Miranda remembered. The Queen listened, smiling benevolently, as her daughter told of the robed woman's rescue and the magical power she possessed to combat the venom of the hated snakes.
"Come closer." The Queen beckoned with her finger, and hesitantly, her heart beating wildly for fear of rejection, Miranda approached and knelt at the Queen's feet. The sleeves fell from Miranda's malformed hands as she reached up to better hold the veil to her face, and the Queen drew an audible breath. "Let me see your face, woman."
"But, Your Majesty, I fear that . . . "
"Do as I command!" The Queen's voice was so sharp that it lost all its beauty, and even the Princess flinched at her mother's tone.
With trembling hands, Miranda unwound the veil from her face. All color drained from the Queen, and she staggered back onto her polished throne. Immediately Miranda draped the veil back about her face.
"It's not important what she looks like," the Princess said, but was unable to keep the quiver of disgust from her own voice. "She has the power to save lives."
"Yes. She has," the Queen said, regaining her composure, but the sweetness of her smile had faded, and she watched Miranda with cold eyes. "However we have come to learn from the Sisters that such power is derived from evil, even if the intended use of it is for good."
"I live with the Sisters," Miranda spoke softly.
"Good. Then they have most likely curbed any wickedness in your ways. Your assistance was appreciated, but I'm sure you wish to return to the convent. Is there any gift you would like as payment for what you've done?"
"No," Miranda whispered. "Nothing."
"Surely she should be given something?" the Princess insisted, and Miranda was almost grateful for the girl's kindness, but there was nothing she wanted from the Queen, or from anyone, except the one thing no one would give her.
The Princess ordered a guard to escort Miranda back to the convent to ensure that she would be unhindered by the curious villagers. Though Miranda had longed to walk through the streets and marketplace without fear of attack, she found that now that she was able, she had no desire to do so. The scorn of the Queen and the fear of those few in the palace who had seen her unveiled ugliness compelled her to keep her eyes lowered and her face deeply hidden in her robes.
She wanted nothing more than to be out of the village and back to the safety of her own chamber and wondered furiously why the guards had suddenly stopped walking.
A man approached wearing the worn, dirt-stained clothes of a farmer. She listened as he pleaded with the guards that his dying grandmother wished to speak with the charmer of snake skins. The old woman was so desperate to talk with her that her grandson feared an even quicker death.
Though she had no desire to see another human being, Miranda agreed to meet the old woman at her hut. Withered, ashen, little more than flesh-covered bones, the old woman reached for Miranda's veil, but Miranda refused to expose herself to any further humiliation.
"I must be sure..." The old woman's voice was dry, faint, and so near death that Miranda allowed her one brief glance at her ugliness. The old woman smiled. "It is you."
"How do you know me?" Miranda prodded gently.
"I was the midwife attending your birth. I brought you to the convent."
"Then you know who my parents are?" Miranda's muddy eyes widened with curiosity.
The woman nodded slightly. "Perhaps it's best that you don't know, and it's only my own selfishness at not wanting to take such a secret to my grave that forces me to tell you. You were the first born child of the Queen and her Prince."
Miranda stared at the old woman, momentarily stunned. It had to be a lie, a warped wandering of an old woman's dying mind. Surely the beautiful Queen had never spawned a miserable creature like her. The Prince Consort, dead for the past ten years, had also been an exquisitely handsome man. They had produced the young, beautiful Princess, not the bent and mottled charmer of snake skins.
"It's true," the old woman said. "But in spite of your lack of acknowledgment, you are the better. I know what a cold and vicious woman the Queen truly is. You've saved a life with your power which is more than the Queen has ever done. I knew I was right to save you on the day of your birth. I've lived long enough to have seen and felt the powers of the old faiths."
"There was a visitor at the convent long ago." Miranda hoped the old woman could tell her something of the intriguing stranger. "Tall, pale, so beautiful..."
"Shet." The old woman's eyes widened slightly, and she grasped Miranda's sleeve. "You've seen him?"
"So that's his name," Miranda sighed. "Shet."
"Returned after so long. Years before you were born, before even the Queen was born, Shet was an advisor to the Old King. He saw things before they happened and knew things about others before they even spoke of them. He worshiped his Pagan gods and goddesses and participated in rituals which are now considered the glorification of evil. Then the Sisters came, brought by warriors whose armor was draped in red and white silk and who preached against the faith of those like Shet. These men were wealthy beyond belief and powerful fighters. Those who would not convert to their beliefs were destroyed. Shet would not denounce his faith, so the King ordered his execution. He escaped, and though the King sent out guards to return him to the gallows, he had disappeared."
"He said I was like him," Miranda whispered.
"And he was right. You have a power, and you are benign. I did right to save you, Miranda. There are so few of you left, so please keep safe."
The old woman's eyes closed, and she faded into a shallow sleep as Miranda left for the convent, her mind churning with new discoveries. If only the old woman had told her sooner, she might have left with Shet. Now he was gone and with him her chance for happiness.
At the convent, the Sisters watched Miranda with new wariness and new fears. Though they didn't speak of it before her, Miranda knew that they had been discussing asking her to leave the convent. They feared her power and were repulsed by the stiff, hollow shells which gathered at the convent doors, waiting to crawl after their mistress as soon as she stepped outside. Duty to humanity could only go so far, and the Sisters had their own limits of endurance.
Early one morning, the Royal Guard dragged Miranda from the convent and raced with her to the side of the Queen who had been bitten by a snake in her bed.
As Miranda looked down upon the Queen's waxy face which was already half-frozen in death, she hesitated for the first time in using her power. The Queen had rejected her and had tried to squelch her life before it had even begun, all because she was void of physical beauty. Miranda sighed, the snake skin slippery in her hands, but found that she was unable to refuse her gift to anyone who needed it. She lacked beauty, but not compassion.
The snake skin drew out the poison blood, and color returned to the Queen's face only to be drained away again at the sight of Miranda, unveiled, hovering over her.
"Feeling better, My Lady?" Miranda asked as the Queen shrank back. "Don't concern yourself. I won't touch you. It was enough that you were forced to carry me for months."
"What?" the Queen demanded, her eyes narrowing as anger overcame her disgust.
"I know I'm your child. The midwife told me before she died."
"She's a liar. I have only one daughter."
"Those with my power can sense lies."
"Do you think you'll have the throne?" The Queen's voice was a malicious rasp. "No one would follow a demon like you. No one would believe that you came from me."
"A throne is nothing compared to affection."
"Affection?" The Queen laughed. "Who could bear the sight of you? Guards!" Instantly the door flew open and in stepped two soldiers and the Princess who were waiting outside. "Take this creature to the prison."
"But she saved your life." The Princess stepped between Miranda and the guards.
"Saved my life?" The Queen grasped her daughter's slender, white wrist as the guards, grateful for the gloves which covered their hands, took Miranda's scabby flesh and held her at sword point. "She sent that snake to bite me, fools! She wanted the recognition of rescuing the Queen. She wants to control us all with her demonic power. Look at her! Hideous, repulsive. The dead skins of those vile creatures slither to life at her command."
Lips curled in disgust, the guards dragged Miranda to the dank, rat-infested cell below the castle and left her to sit amongst the dripping, mildew-covered walls to await the execution ordered by the Queen. There, in the dimness and filth, she wept over the snake skins which had been ripped to pieces by the points of the soldiers' swords.
The executioner's block, stained brown from previous deaths, awaited Miranda the following morning. The Queen had ordered her monstrous head to be severed from her shoulders and her remains to be burned to ashes so that even in death she would no longer offend humanity with her ugliness.
Unveiled, so that the waiting crowd could gawk at the vile charmer of snake skins who had sought to wound their Queen, Miranda walked silently and courageously to her death. Children hurled rocks at her while their parents spat in her face though she was unable to wipe away the offensive moisture as her hands were bound so tightly behind her back that her wrists bled. Some of the guards commented that her blood was red and that they believed demons to have blood the color of charred wood, but Miranda didn't care what they said. Soon the loneliness and pain of her life would be over, and she watched the executioner's sharp, glistening blade with longing in her mud-puddle eyes.
Briefly, her eyes met the Queen's before she was forced to her knees by the block. Her heart pounding, her breathing shallow, she waited for the death blow, but it never came.
The executioner fell backwards, his body twitching with pain as a snake meandered into the crowd which dispersed in terror.
"Kill her and be done with it!" the Queen bellowed over the panicking crowd, and one of the guards raised his sword to complete the dying executioner's unfinished task.
As Miranda faced death for the second time that day, fury and pride suddenly overthrew her sorrow and self-pity. The Queen condemned her for being physically repellent in a world where beauty was revered, yet it was Miranda who held the power of life and death over the lovely Queen and her smooth-skinned, well- formed subjects.
"By killing me, you sentence yourself to death," Miranda spoke quickly, her voice carrying over the panicked crowd as she held the Queen's eyes. Miranda's heart throbbed with hope, though for a moment she expected to feel the short, exquisite pain of death. Captivated by the intensity of Miranda's expression, the Queen felt apprehension dance across her spine like a mosquito on a sweltering summer eve. She motioned for the soldier to lower his sword.
"My power saved your life." Miranda kept the strength in her voice though her hands trembled in their bonds. "When I die, so will my magic which means so will you."
The Queen's delicate mouth pursed in anger and confusion as she narrowed her eyes at Miranda. "You're lying to save your own pitiful life."
"Perhaps." Miranda's posture straightened and her chin lifted. "But it would be terrible for you if you're wrong."
The Queen's hands curled into fists which tightened until blood stained her pale flesh. "Release her."
The guard hesitated, but the Queen flashed him a look which left no space for doubt. The tip of the sword sliced the rope from Miranda's wrists, and she carefully touched the raw skin.
"I grant you your life." The Queen's voice was tight with rage, and her anger detracted from her beauty. "Leave this land. Should we ever see your wretched face again, we will finish what was started here today."
Without acknowledging the Queen's threat, Miranda lifted her skirts and descended the steps of the gallows with such dignity that her hideousness was almost forgotten.
When she reached the outskirts of the kingdom, she noticed a slim figure riding toward her, his robes mingling with the black of his horse's mane.
As the horse stopped before her, Miranda looked up into the rider's all-knowing eyes. His fine lips turned up in the faintest smile as he said, "You're as clever as you are strong."
"Shet," Miranda whispered.
"I said when you were ready. Now will you come with me so I can teach you to refine your gift?"
"I'd like that." Miranda's mouth twisted in a smile. She reached for her veil, but realized it had been left behind in the prison.
"You won't need it anymore. Not where we're going."
"And where are we going?" She took his hand as he helped her onto the front of his saddle.
"Across the sea to a protected place."
She had hundreds of questions but at that moment couldn't sort them out enough to find the words. As they rode through the winding paths, snake skins followed behind them in a translucent trail. Miranda leaned back into Shet's arms, and he didn't pull away.
As if reading her thoughts, he spoke quietly against her lank hair. "The Queen is grotesque, Miranda. She is a lie. Honey- shrouded poison. Her only purpose was to bring you forth. Long after she is forgotten, your deeds will survive."
"You've seen this?" Miranda whispered.
"Yes. I have."
She believed him because for the first time she believed in herself.
Bio:Kate Hill is an enthusiast of dark and romantic fiction. She especially enjoys works which explore both the good and evil sides of paranormal beings.
E-mail: katehill@sprintmail.com
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