Don't you forget...

Don't you forget about me...

I'm so far away from you

Don't you forget about me

I know it feels hard

I know it seems dark

I know winter never ends and the days are short and stark

But don't you forget

Don't you forget

Don't you forget about me

It will only be a day

A breath in a life

Of happiness and joy eternal someday

It's only a sigh

Hardly a moment

Apart from you, I promise

But don't you forget

Don't you forget

Don't you forget about me

Even if I'm far

Even if you're far

Even if you're drifting away...

Her mother always told her she stitched too quickly, but Eliza never cared. Her mother told her many things about herself she had long since learned were false. But now that she had her own household, it did not matter how quickly she stitched and how she pinned her hair and what she cooked and how much work she did every day.

She liked to believe she was more industrious than her mother, but as soon as that thought pleasured her mind, she pricked her finger with a needle and she was reminded of the sinfulness of pride.

"Serves you right, you arrogant woman," she chided herself, sucking on the injured finger so it did not stain her precious linen backing. That was something else her mother would scold her about if she saw. But at least Eliza could point out that she had two twin star quilts and her mother had none, because her mother could hardly sew a button.

"And there's pride again," she sighed, taking a sip of peppermint tea.

It was grown in her own garden, a lovely little sunny spot of the yard she had planted her first year of marriage. Will had teased her over it.

"Flowers and frippery all of it," he snorted. "Not even a vegetable garden."

But after he came down with a horrid influenza and Eliza stayed up every night nursing him with teas made from the very herbs in that "frippery," he said not a word against it again. He even helped her with it, which pleased Eliza indeed. Once she'd even heard him boasting of it in town to the other men.

"My wife's the smartest woman in the county," he said. "Has a garden full of herbs for any illness. Saved my life during the flu of '09."

Will was a fine man. He didn't smoke nor chew like the other men in town, and he never drank and he read the Word every day and led his household like a real man. He took fine care of her, too. Eliza always pitied the women at the quilting group who bemoaned their men who never came home for supper and who drank their money away and slept till the noon while the women did all the work. No, Will worked hard—harder than she did—and if they ever were short of food it was he who silently snuck the last tidbits onto her plate and refused seconds, even if Eliza argued that he needed it more for the plowing and the care of stock.

"You're my wife, and you're more important than I, love, so don't you try to persuade me out of it," he'd laugh, and give her a kiss.

And now he had even more excuse, for the baby inside her he had to protect as well as her, so Eliza had given up protesting. But they weren't short of food much anymore since their work had paid off and the farm prospered; only in the last days of winter when the storage was running low did they have to watch the servings.

But there would always be herbs a-plenty, and fresh peppermint for warm summer days like this one when she wanted a refreshing tea to keep her sharp for the complicated task of making her second twin star quilt.

The first she had made for her hope chest, not so long ago, when she was expecting to be married. It was blue and cream, since both she and Will favored blue, and it sat on their bed now. It was beautiful enough, though more juvenile work, the stitching somewhat untidy and a few of the corners not quite matched. But still Eliza saw it with pride, because it carried the hopes of a girl waiting to be married to the love of her life, hopes that had matured into the contentedness of a woman happy with her husband and her hearth and her home.

She fanned herself with a copy of the ladies' magazine after she finished the last stitch of a square. The summer sun seemed to stifle her in the house, and she wondered whether it would be better outside.

"Likely not," she thought with another sip of peppermint tea, the tanginess making her think of spicy autumn days and pumpkins and golden corn ready for harvest. The baby would be born then, too, right after the harvest. She hoped it would not be so close to the harvest; she didn't want to make herself a nuisance and set Will to fretting when he needed to be working. But she'd counted back and she suspected it would be near the harvest.

"I despise being a bother," she groaned, taking another swig of tea to settle her nervous stomach at the though. The baby kicked as if in protest, and she patted her stomach, leaning back with a sigh. "You're not the bother; I'm the bother if I'll be abed all through harvest with everyone fussing over me and your papa fretting every moment about such things that he knows nothing about."

But she smiled nonetheless, at the thought of a baby in the cradle before winter, a baby to see the vibrancy of autumn, to laugh and cry and make the house a bit fuller than it was before. This thought calmed her, and she curled up in the chair for a rest, her eyes drifting shut wearily as she waited and the sweet smells of linen and sweet summer grass and tangy peppermint tea lulling her to sleep.

Snow. It flickered around him, purity upon purity like the reflection of her unpolluted heart. Snow. They've killed you, Snow. They've taken you from me and the rest of this undeserving world.

The snowfall pattered against the ground; it caressed his face, soft yet cold, as her hands had always been in his.

"Why are you always so frozen?" he teased her.

"I was born in the winter. The wise women said I took the curse from the land," she would laugh back, trying to pull away in that shy way she had.

"Like snow. You're like snow. Cold and beautiful and pure."

"That's why they call me Snow White."

She never knew how beautiful she was. The Queen would keep her locked away, the castle mirrorless, the staff silenced if they dared breathe a word about the princess's beauty. For the strength of a kingdom is marked by the fairness of its ruler, and the fairness of a ruler is marked by the fairness in her heart, and the Queen's heart was diseased and decrepit, like an apple polished red on the outside and rotting with worms within. Conrad, even in his early days fostering with the mysterious bayerische royalty, had sensed the darkness within. He remembered as a boy watching the Queen with suspicion, draw to her for her beauty, yet repelled by the malice beneath her entrancing ice-blue eyes, golden hair, and goddess-like figure. And with Snow—Princess Lisbeth—he could never see beyond her perfection to the shadow of her stepmother. Yet it was a shadow that loomed over both of them as the years drew on and Snow's beauty increased.

Some said the young princess was an immortal, blessed by the moss folk, the creatures that lived in the woods, for her mother was greatly favored by them. Conrad had certainly though much the same when he had met Lisbeth, all those years ago as children. The Queen would have never allowed the meeting, had she known. Lisbeth was supposed to have been shut away, like the flowers and things of beauty sacrificed on the Queen's altar to the dark goddess of fertility Éostre. But somehow that day, she had escaped from her hidden rooms, and the young fosterling Conrad had found her in the woods, lying in the snow with her head against a tree.

He had thought her an immortal too. After all, who but an elf herself could possess skin as white and flawless as new snow, eyes green like fresh spring sprouts, hair dark as the coals from a dying midsummer fire, and lips scarlet as the vibrant leaves of autumn? He was in love immediately, even if he wouldn't admit it for years.

And now it was too late. Snow. I will find you. I will bring you back, even if I weep every step of the way that I must carry your body instead of have you walking beside me in your winter. His steps seemed to falter, as his heart did, at the thought of what he would find in the Black Forest. Already the shadows seemed to draw long, the playful snow deepening into the menacing blizzard so far from Snow's laughter filled winter glade where they often met. Why did I never tell her?

How could he have told her he loved her? Snow herself was never allowed love. Every year the Queen watched her with growing antipathy, watched the princess thrive and laugh and love and give her heart to everyone she met despite the agony of her own hidden existence, while the Queen shriveled and snarled and loathed and let her heart shrivel with every heart of her enemies she ate to preserve her allure and power. It seemed Éostre was a dark master indeed, for every evil ritual the Queen performed seemed to grant her little beauty and much torment to her chained soul. And yet still Snow lived, a reminder of innocence and love and a heart true and noble.

A heart she gave me. A heart I should never have been trusted with. Snow herself had hardly trusted him with it.

"I don't know if I've ever loved," she'd told him, days before she was sent away with the huntsman.

"What do you mean? Everyone who meets you, you love," he'd replied, for it was true.

"That's different. That, I cannot help, and it is not the same at all," she'd laughed. "Love that I could speak; love that I could know was love and recognize as good and beautiful. That is hard to find. Papa didn't love me because I was a girl, and the Queen certainly doesn't because I threaten her. The only one I know might have loved me is Mama, and she is dead."

"Maybe it's something you don't know you have," he'd said, pleading desperately, earnestly with his mind that she would show something—anything—that she returned his feelings. And yet fearing if she did, for the Queen had forbidden love to her as well. It was only politics, after all. Should Princess Lisbeth take a husband, the Queen's rule would end. Should—God forbid—Snow marry him, his uncle would finally have his excuse to seize Bayern from "that usurping whore of a Queen." If he even got his armies within Bayern's borders, long ensnared by the dark creatures of the forest, of the Queen. And if the Queen let either of them live long enough for the wedding to even take place. No, it was safer to deny himself his feelings and protect Snow. It was always about protecting Snow, after all, because she mattered most, more to him than his own life.

If only he had been there. She had been taken by the huntsman in the night, and Conrad hadn't heard about it till the morning. And then he had nearly been killed himself after storming into the Queen's rooms, sword in hand.

"You deny us our rest. It is very precious to us. It is hard to sleep these cold nights," said the Queen, still in her shift. But even in her shift her skin shone supple and perfect, and Conrad felt the unpleasant sensation of wanting her, except he didn't want her, he couldn't want her, because she was not Snow and she was everything he detested. He tried to imagine her as a goblin, or a gargoyle, but every moment he looked at her it became harder to imagine.

The Queen saw, and she smiled, dismissing the maid combing her hair and approaching him, lips parted. She leaned close, so close, and for a moment Conrad thought she would kiss him, and he wasn't wholly averse to the thought, especially as her thumb brushed his face, ever-so-softly... But then he saw Snow in the wintry glade, Snow so close to him as they watched the birds singing to each other, and he remembered how then he had taken her hand and smiled at her, and she had smiled back, and he had promised himself that should he ever kiss a woman, it would be Snow and Snow only. And suddenly the Queen seemed to shrivel in his eyes. Her breath, puffing against his face, made him recoil with its dragon stench; her eyes sank in her face and the pupils narrowed to reptilian pinpricks; her hair dried up into thin strands on a diseased, tumorous head, and her body, seductively turned towards him, bent as if with a thousand years of death weighing her back and dissolved to bones and thinly-stretched flesh. At first he was afraid, and then angry, and then he remembered Snow and the watery well of pity surged in him. The Queen was dying. She who had lived for centuries off the hearts of her enemies and Éostre's dark power of malice could not stop the destruction of her corrupted soul.

And then he was back to the present, staring at a woman who saw what he saw and who was angry that he saw it.

"Éostre desired her blood to drink last night," she replied coldly, pushing him away and stalking to sit upon her bed of pillows—a bed that many bayerische soldiers had shared in return for their loyalty. "She threatened to destroy the kingdom in fire and darkness if we did not offer our best—our very best. To our dismay, that meant the offer of our own dearly beloved stepdaughter—the Princess Lisbeth. She was taken to the Black Forest at midnight and left. The dark creatures have taken her and left nothing. We are very sorry."

Except she had lied. The huntsman told him that very day that Snow lived—as if her beautiful soul could ever die!—and Conrad rode that very day to the Black Forest, where he found her.

And she was safe and she lived and when he saw her Conrad wrapped her in his arms before his sense could conquer his love. He would never forget that day, when she had died and lived all at once in his mind. If only it would be so now. If only I would find her and she would be alive. If only it was not true. But he knew with the darkness swallowing the kingdom that it was true, that Snow White, the life and love of the land was truly dead and the Queen had finally triumphed. And just as the land was dying, so his heart died too.

He told her that he loved her, that day, when he clasped her in his arms, tears streaming down both of their faces. He couldn't wait any longer; if this would be their last day together he had to tell her.

"I thought you were dead. I thought she killed you," he said, leaning his chin upon her head, breathing in the scent of the fir trees in her hair. "I love you too much to lose you, Snow. You are more precious to me than anything in this world."

She stiffened, sucking in a deep breath, like she would before diving into an icy river. Conrad pulled away, looking deep into her eyes as the tears froze on both of their cheeks. She could break his heart, but he cared not, so long as she lived. He could die every day of her not loving him, and yet he did not care, so long as he could know she still breathed and the Queen had not taken her from him—from Bayern.

But she was smiling, smiling and crying all at once, and she squeezed him ever tighter. "Conrad," she whispered, pressing her face into his chest. "Conrad, I love you. I love you, and it is good, and it is beautiful and more wonderful than I ever imagined."

And they stood there, each holding the other, and Conrad never wanted the moment to end.

But it did end. Everything must end, as the beauty of spring becomes the darkness of winter and the flower fades and the darkness grows ever greater as the kingdom becomes the realm of the dark goddess Éostre.

Snow couldn't stay within the bounds of civilized Bayern; the moss folk living in the forest took her in, for the sake of her mother's goodness to them. Conrad rode whenever he could to see her, even as his uncle threatened war and he was often sent himself to spy out the borders of Bayern and send back coded missives to Preusa. The Queen detested him every moment he was in her walls, but she knew she needed him for his position—for negotiation and to keep his uncle from declaring war in haste. Conrad knew the King of Preusa, however; his uncle would not lose the wealth of Bayern to save a useless nephew who was not even his heir. But even as the shadow of evil encircled the kingdom, hope still existed for Conrad, because Snow existed.

And now she was gone. The trees seemed to taunt him with their dark branches clawing at his face, so different from Snow's gentle touch. He would cry, but his face seemed frozen in a mask of cold—or pain. My Snow. My beauty. The hope of the kingdom. The light against the Queen's darkness. Gone like the sun at end of days. Gone like the smoldering fields at Éostre's wrath. Gone like the beating hearts of the hundreds who had faced the Queen—and fallen.

Up ahead a clearing broke the darkness, and a circle of light seemed a haven for the last glimpse of brightness in Bayern. The moss folk. Conrad knew them little, but he respected their arts and their hatred of the Queen and their love for the good—for Snow White, their princess.

The eldest of the folk, a small wizened man, his face expressionless, nodded at Conrad as he approached. Some of the tree spirits seemed to weep, their bodies rocking as if with the cold winter wind. The elves watched the casket in the center of the clearing, and Conrad's breath caught as he spotted the pale face within. The casket was exquisite work, to be sure; jewels and inlaid silver adorned the structure, which was made from a strange crystal known only to the moss folk. But the woman inside outshone the casket like the sun outshone the moon. Even in death, Snow's face was tranquil, bearing always the quiet strength of her life and laughter. Conrad fought the tears rising in his soul. I was too late, my love. I didn't protect you. I should have been there. I should have killed her before she could hurt you. You never deserved this. You are fairest in heart, fairest in mind, fairest in appearance. You are perfect in every way and she's killed you—she and her dark goddess and her sniveling lackeys.

The moss folk let him be as he knelt beside the casket, taking Snow's hand, colder in death than it ever was in life. One by one they drifted away, yet the light in the clearing stayed and the blizzard began to dim.

"You're beautiful, Snow," he had told her one of the first days they knew each other. "You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen."

"Thank you," she had replied. "I don't know what that means, but thank you."

How could he explain it? How could he explain what beauty was to one who had never been allowed to hear the word, who had never been allowed to look in a mirror and see her own face or attend a ball and hear the compliments men gave women when they loved them?

He took her to the forest. She loved the flowers. Snow always loved nature more than the foreboding walls of the castle. "It lives and it breathes and it feels," she would say. "It was given us to tend; why would we not love it?"

"This," he told her, brushing a crocus coming from the damp soil, "this is beauty. It is pleasant to look upon and pleasing to be around and wonderful to experience. It shows us light and makes us wish for something greater."

Snow smiled, and, damp and all, laid on the ground, her dark hair sprawling around her as she pressed her face to the crocuses. "It is all of these things," she agreed. "But am I? The Queen thinks I am unpleasant to be around. I must be so, or else she would not keep me in this castle far from everyone, in the midst of nowhere."

"No, it is not so," he'd told her, lying beside her. "Because you are all of these things, so you are beauty, you are fairest, and someday you will show the entire kingdom that what I say is true."

"And the Queen will be gone and the shadows will disappear and all of my kingdom will be beautiful," she'd laughed, as if she'd never expected it to happen.

But he'd made a promise in his heart that someday it would happen. Because if anybody could reverse the darkness that had been descending upon Bayern from centuries of greed and depravity, it was Snow.

The snow had stilled by dawn. Conrad had wept and watched and wept again. It was over. It took merely an apple, a fruit of the forest, to steal from him his love and from the kingdom its life. Snow must have thought she was helping a poor old woman when she bought the fruit. She knew enough of her subjects' poverty. Loving even in death, he thought, gazing upon her still face. Smile. Please. Smile and wake up and tell me it was all a dream or a lie, that you're alive.

"My lord," a voice murmured from behind him—it was the wizened man. "My lord, the Queen's men have been pillaging the towns nearby. They're looking for you. It may be best if you take the secret paths out of Bayern to Preusa."

"A moment more," he whispered, rubbing a finger over Snow's small hand, as if she could feel it and respond.

"Watching her and wishing will not change the past," the moss man said. "She is gone, and you are the only one who can fight for us, Prince Conrad."

Conrad knew he was right. I will do this for you, my love, he thought as he released her hand and stood. Even if I should die facing the Queen's dark magic, I will do this for the kingdom you loved. He looked upon her face once more. We could have been married. Entwined for life, two trunks of one tree, man and wife in perfect unity. Snow would have adored children. She loved all things innocent and good, and her light would have made them good. We cannot change the past. She is gone. Hope had died with her.

He looked down at her face, and on an urge bent to kiss her—their first and last kiss. I will love you even in death. And perhaps soon I will join you and we will be together at last in the Halls of the Mighty King, where there is no dark Éostre or Queen to harm you.

Her lips were soft against his, and a tear dropped against her cheek. She won't wake up. She won't sit up and put her arms around you and kiss you back. She's gone. It is time to go forth and fight the last battle for her.

He pulled away, squeezing his eyes shut, steeling himself with a ragged breath for the war that must be fought, the war he would not return from. But as he looked at her face for the last time, it almost seemed as if life returned to it. The cheeks seemed to grow rosy, the eyelids to flutter, the breast to rise with air. His tears were deceiving him—but no! A flash of green appeared under her long lashes—the green of spring and life and hope. Suddenly he was by her side, and she was coughing, and he was cradling her in his arms and holding her as the last wedge of the poisoned apple left her throat and she leaned against him—cold, gasping, and weak, yet alive!

"Conrad—Conrad," she whispered when she'd caught her breath. "Conrad, the Queen—"

"I know," he said, now tears streaming down his face in earnest. "You're all right. Somehow—I know not how—you're alive."

"The kiss of true love," whispered the wizened man, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "A long-ago legend proved true. It seems there is light left in Bayern."

"Snow, Snow," Conrad said into her hair. "I love you. I love you more than my life itself."

"And I love you," she replied. "And our love will vanquish the darkness of the Queen and sent Éostre to the underworld and bring back the beauty of my kingdom."

For indeed, love is the greatest beauty left in this dark world, and the only thing that can restore what was lost to us.

Verity is our love

And beauty is our light

Love hath no other source

Ever true amidst the fright

Never tell me I'm not yours

Till the sun should pale

In the midst of darkest night

Never shall we fail.

End of days can come and go

Seal us in a tomb

Death yet us shall never part

And rose of love still bloom.

Yours always, Em.

We thought we would begin the search for the outlaws here, in the canyon, known to most in the area as Crooked Canyon because of an ominous Apache legend. The legend warned of a half-man-half-crow-like creature with crooked legs who murdered any who dared trespass on the ancient secrets.

"Foolish talk," Eliza claimed, and since her mother was Apache I didn't argue.

Nevertheless, as I gazed across the canyon from my vantage point at the edge of the dangerous cliff trail, I couldn't help but feel a threatening wind seem to howl across my senses. Eliza shivered beside me, and suddenly the sun seemed muted, the aerial roots of the cliffside plants dead and cursed to be dry.

"Perhaps we should go back, Will," Eliza whispered, turning her dark eyes upon me. "I've got some paper and paste back at home, and you can bring the tools. We can post wanted signs around town."

"No," I replied, refusing to budge. "Brett Gallaway is the reason Pa's laid up. I won't let them run at their liberty a moment longer."

Perhaps I should have thought of Eliza. Her face didn't betray her fears, but I sensed unease. She looked down, swaying, before kneeling.

"You all right?" I asked, hoping I hadn't sounded too harsh before.

"Vertigo," she whispered. "I hope. My mother always told me this place was taboo because of how our people died here. It was a fight within a tribe— brother killing brother, gallons of blood spilt. A magic spring hidden deep within the rocks made them go berserk. It was so horrible that a medicine man called down a meteor to create the Crow-Man, so that nobody would ever fight again."

I swallowed. "That's just where Gallaway would go."

We looked at each other, and nodded.

I try to forgive. I try harder than I've ever tried, but my horrid twisted tiny heart stretches and groans with the attempt. I can conceal the past and speak like I am your daughter and not a shell of a woman with a heart glued together again and again from the scars of your words, but inwardly I hate myself for the deceit. I've always been good at hiding my feelings, so that you will never know my true thoughts as I smile and speak with the respect you earn as my mother. Maybe it is because I don't want to be like you, and the only way I can avoid the raging and the outbreaks of anger is by turning off all my emotions. You call me insensitive, but I am doing it so that I don't hurt anybody. I won't let them take control of me like you do. I would rather disperse them to the wind than let one boil up and explode against people I love, and even people I must try to love—like you.

Sometimes I think I have forgiven you, and then I applaud myself for finally having gotten over years of hurt. And then something happens—it's the little things, now, that's how bad it's gotten—and I tense and I remember and it hurts again. But I keep smiling and I keep answering you with the respect a daughter must give to her mother, and I don't let you know, because if I did it would open a cavern of anguish and pain and resentment. I would rather forget than remember. And that is why I must forgive, and keep on forgiving. And maybe someday I will be free of it enough to reply with truth that I love you back when you say you love me.

I.

Brave and strong eyes blue

Looking down at me with love

Blue waves drown my heart

II.

Eyes of the ocean

Laughing with adventure's fire

Drawing me to life

III.

Eyes of azure skies

Promising me a future

Giving me a hope

I.

Blue and grey mountain

Bathed in gentle wispy mist

Home sweet Virginia

II.

Land my land native

Of rising peaks and troughs

Forested and green

III.

Climbing to the top

Speaking with the wind on high

Of the hill's secrets

It fell like sparkling crystals from the chandelier the new Queen had put in the grand hall. Only these crystals were bright and pure, needing no polishing, reflecting the light in a simple white, rather than the thousand rainbows of the gaudy manmade crystals. The young princess liked snow far better than the chandelier.

It crumpled beneath her feet as she walked away from the castle, away from the halls that seemed colder than the icy outdoors. The cold that froze the forests and fields had never been her greatest trouble; rather it was the cold entombed in people's hearts that bothered her more. This cold, outside, was comforting and beautiful.

It coated the trees like a frosting on a bedazzled cake, sparkling in the sun, grander than any garment on a beautiful female form. The princess knew too well how fickle human beauty could be; the beauty of the snow could never be marred by a cruel heart, for nature could only be pure.

It howled through the valleys as she went farther into the forest, sweeping around her black hair, nipping her pale cheeks like a dog. It played with her locks and she laughed, holding out bare hands as if to take the snowy winds by the wrist and dance with it. It danced with her, the whooshing snow the swish of skirts and the howl between the trees a careless laugh. The snowy winds didn't care about human trivialities.

When she went back to the castle, the princess was soaked through, her skin cold from the last embrace of the snow, but she did not shiver. Instead she smiled for the first time in a long time.