The Road to Ever After

by JC Runolfson

Once upon a

Time again. Coachman hears one of Folk calling, rises up out of pondwater, falls down from moonlight, makes use of rat or toad or whatever dark, secret creature this Folk has chosen. Folk have a different humor, but it amuses Coachman to play along. Rat and toad, cat and man; they have assumed she is stranger things, these girls with their cinder eyes and ember hearts.

The coach waits, polished by Folk magic as she herself once was, white as moon and stars and fine palace candles. The core is still hers, restlessness and glamoured graveyard fruit. She allows Folk's enchantment to touch her, drape her in the same white, then settles atop the coach and turns her attention to the girl. This one looks back, her eyes fire-hollowed, her beauty sharp as glass. Folk transforms her, and she would make a lovely mirror for any prince if she chose.

Coachman turns away when it is done. She has seen that ending to the tale before.

The faithful dog of a footman helps the girl up into the coach; it bows beneath the weight of her foot in the gleaming slipper, the weight of memory of a thousand such feet. The girl turns her head to catch Folk's last words coming up to her through the small window.

"You must be back before midnight," Folk says. "The enchantment ends then."

"Yes," this girl answers, an unexpected turn. "It does."

Folk frowns and the coach lightens without the burden of those words held inside it. Coachman smiles, flicks the reins, and the night begins with the jingling of harness bells.

When they arrive at the palace, the girl hesitates before giving the footman her hand and stepping out into the courtyard. As Coachman drives away, she looks back to see the girl still standing, watching. Coachman looks toward the coming road again.

She has seen that ending, too.

For half the night she carries girls to palaces bright as mirrors, then back to country houses, mansions, estates, townhouses, even a few hovels. Those who call for the return journey sometimes look dimmed, sad or fearful. Others look angry, as if they have tasted something bitter. Still others look peaceful or determined. Some do not call; those who know the tale and are brave enough, or desperate enough, to try. Some will succeed. Others will not. A few will even see Coachman again, on the other side of midnight. They will be her passengers again on one final journey that goes only one way. That, too, is part of the tale.

The girl who met her eyes does not call.

Soon, the clock begins to strike. If she has a passenger, one last enchantment twists the girl's mirror back on herself. She stands in midroad, ashes surrounding her like a protective shroud. The ruined pumpkin, the scuttling mice are a moment's illusion, but she will leave them behind, anyway. She walks away from the shadow-cloaked coach, her eyes still dazzled by the reflection of a thousand candles in a thousand mirrors, the reflection of her own face, or a prince's. Coachman watches her, poised on the brink between one enchantment and another. The clock sounds the twelfth stroke, and all the world tips to

Time again

on the other side of midnight. Coachman shrugs off Folk's glamour and into her long black coat. A tall black hat springs up from the thick nest of her hair, overshadowing her coal eyes, the one thing that never changes. Coach and horses both shake off white like stardust; white is bone and white is the shroud, but Coachman prefers black for this work, and the enchantment is hers to wield now. The footman drops down from the dark coach, dog again but no man's companion. He is the only thing that shifts still, black as pitch, white as the moon, red in ears or eyes or simply mouth. He looks up at Coachman and barks, eager to run, to race the night wind. Coachman knows the feeling well. She flicks the reins again. There are no bells to jingle now, but still the tale moves on.

She meets the first one at a crossroads, a stately old woman walking with the aid of a cane she no longer truly needs. Once bright as a butterfly, she was a passenger long ago. There is not much of the butterfly about her now, but there is a fire in her still. The dog sniffs at her, becomes a wolfhound and allows her to lay her hand on his head. She meets Coachman's gaze with steady eyes.

"I thought when I refused the prince I had lost the chance to ride with you again. It made me sadder than the loss of any palace finery." She smiles a little. "But I can see now I should not have worried."

Coachman does not speak. She says all she needs with the bend of her head and the opening of the coach door. The hound remains under the woman's hand as she moves forward, and the steps of the coach lower for her foot. The coach itself bows no more beneath her weight than any of its previous passengers, and when she is seated inside, the door closes with something almost a sigh. Coachman signals the horses; it is a long, dark time before dawn, and they have much work ahead of them.

The smell of the sea grows as Coachman uses her passenger's heart for a compass. She draws the horses to a halt where their road disappears into sand, and the cry of seagulls draws her passenger forth from the coach. The old woman steps out into the night, draws a deep breath, looks up at Coachman and smiles.

"The prince offered me pearls, but I wanted the sea."

On this side of midnight, Coachman always watches where her passengers go. This one flings away her cane, moves toward the beach without its assistance, lifts her skirts and breaks into a run, the ocean roaring before her. The hound runs beside her, keeping pace in case she needs him. They hit the water, and over the tide Coachman can hear the woman laughing and the dog barking as they wade in. The laugh changes as the woman changes shape, stretching into her choice. She submerses herself beneath the water, does not break the surface again until she is far out, a smooth, sleek shape beneath the stars. The hound barks a farewell, then turns and runs back up the beach, toward the coach.

Coachman turns her eyes back to the road, flicks the reins. It is another ending added to her repertoire.

As they draw inland, there is the sound of bells again. Church bells, mournful and sonorous, echoing across a kingdom; the Dowager Queen has died. She meets them at the foot of the stairs up which Coachman remembers her running, her dress shining like moonlight. The dress she wears now is a more subdued white, human handiwork rather than Folk magic. Her hair too is white, and her wrinkled face. Her eyes still smolder.

"And what enchantment awaits me at the end of this night's ride?" she asks, her smile echoing the girl she was. "Will you take me to my prince again? It has been a long time since he left me."

The dog is white for her, sleek and pampered. It makes a soft whuffing sound at her and she laughs.

"Yes, I suppose the questions only delay the answers in this case, but I've become accustomed to questioning. Queens must."

Coachman shakes her head, but only flicks the door open. It is not her role to teach what has not yet been learned, not in this case. Again the coach bends to accommodate its passenger, and the Queen steps inside.

There's a sense of moving in a great circle, turning back toward the palace and backward in time. Coachman feels her passenger's wish for white rising up from inside the coach, but it cannot grab hold. This is the wrong side of midnight, decades after that first enchanted ride. The ball they drive toward now is not the beginning, but the end.

Even so, the palace is lit up as it was that first night, and the passenger has transformed herself when she steps out into the darkness, butterfly and flame and mirror once more. A figure emerges at the top of the stairs, backlit and thus faceless, but Coachman knows his name. The passenger catches her breath, and Coachman looks down to find her smiling, her eyes bright as she looks up at her waiting prince.

"No curfew this time," she says. "I am my own enchantment."

She lifts her wide white skirts and the slippers on her feet flash like fallen stars as she races up the stairs more swiftly than such a cumbersome dress should allow. She does not stop until she is in her prince's arms. He bends to kiss her, and Coachman turns away, flicking the reins. This passenger has reached her destination.

Coachman rides the tide of night into other endings. Some of her passengers' eyes gleam with the same old fire; some of them speak to her as the first two did. Others come silently, eyes dull with regret and sorrow. The dog changes shape for each of them, a faithful companion for as long as they ride. Coachman takes them to cottages and ships, estates and townhouses, mountains and forests and village streets that grow crowded with their memories. She marks each passing like points on a compass: the tale ends thus, and thus, and thus.

She has begun to wonder, these past nights, which ending hers will be. And now the night itself is nearly done.

It is almost dawn when she comes for her last passenger. The woman stands at a crossroads, and Coachman recognizes her first passenger from the other side of midnight. The palace is dark in the distance, and the woman steps forward as the coach comes to a stop; there is a sound like glass breaking, and she leaves the shattered remains of a slipper behind her. She no longer wears the finery of Folk, but she has clothed herself in dark velvet, the kind a fine lady would use to cover her mirror. Her beauty has become violent, opaque, and Coachman sees that her eyes have not changed.

Coachman wonders if those eyes see it yet.

"I thought to save you some part of your journey," the woman says, her voice rich and dark as standing water. "Of course, I confess I also wished to be away from the site of my own death. I should probably have expected he would kill me if he could not have me, but I thought I would manage to kill him first."

"You did kill him," Coachman answers, and the woman goes very still.

"My sister wanted him. She never went to market, so she did not hear the rumors. She did not see the way he laughed when a horse nearly struck down a child. I meant to kill him." The woman steps closer, her eyes kindling. "Who are you?"

Coachman looks away for a moment, sees the ghostly image of a gallows under the trees and nods. This ending too she knows.

"They will hang your body at this crossroads for it. Your sister will never know how you saved her."

"I don't care; she is safe. Who are you?"

It is not quite the right question, not quite the right time for it. "And the next prince who catches her eye?"

"I did not intend to die!"

The dog growls at her shout, black to match Coachman now. Coachman says nothing for a long moment, watching the woman, waiting for that fire to flare true. She tilts her head, and the woman shifts.

"Despite your intention, you did die. Time to - "

In a flurry of movement, the woman has mounted Coachman's box. They tumble together to the ground, and Coachman allows the coach to dissipate like fog. They roll together into the trees, and the woman manages to dislodge Coachman's hat before Coachman brings up her cane to break the woman's hold. The woman grabs at the end of the cane, shakes it.

"Who are you?!"

Coachman laughs, jerks the cane away and rolls, rising up on the road. The woman lunges after her, grabs up a rock and throws it hard. Coachman bats it away, holds up her cane as though pointing a wand and the woman freezes.

"Have you come to curse me, then?"

"That would depend on what you consider a curse," Coachman answers. "Take your sister to the ball, let her make the choice, return for her on either side of midnight, again and again and again. Drive the long road with no threat nor promise of princes, with the hound your one companion and the coach and horses part of you. You did not mean to die, but you are dead. What will you do with your tale's ending?"

The woman breathes hard, staring at Coachman with her own eyes. She takes one step forward, another, until she is stopped just beyond where Coachman holds the cane, unmoving.

"Who are you?" the woman asks once more, and this time Coachman answers with a smile.

"Your first passenger, Coachman, if you choose it."

The woman puts out one hand, hesitates just before touching the cane. "Why have I never heard of this ending?"

"Who is there to tell it?" Coachman feels a pull like and unlike her passengers guiding her; it's her own heart tugging toward the end of the road. The woman's eyes on hers look like moonlight, pondwater, ember and cinders, and she speaks to that power with another passenger's words. "We are our own enchantment, and we alone know it."

For a long moment, they stand like that, and then the woman takes hold of the cane.

"Then this enchantment is mine," she says, and they both turn to see a black coach rising on the road. The horses, however, are dappled grey, and the new passenger laughs softly.

"We all have our preferences."

The dog comes up to them, sniffs at them both, shifts to something shaggier, lighter, licks the hand around the cane and then barks impatiently.

"Yes," Coachman says, "time we were off."

She climbs atop the coach while her passenger settles inside, and if the world seems turned inside out for a moment, it passes when Coachman takes up the reins and the passenger folds her hands in her lap. The horses surge forward at Coachman's signal, taking the crossroads away from the darkened palace. Dawn is coming, and it is once upon a

Time again the tale ends thus.

---

©J. C. Runolfson

J. C. Runolfson was lucky enough to grow up the daughter of a woman who loved and collected fairy tales and folklore, a passion J. C. shares. She likes to blather about said passion, among other things, at her livejournal. By the whim of the Navy, J. C. currently lives in San Diego, where she likes chasing the tide when not goofing off online or buying more books than she can possibly read.