Memento Mori 🙏🏻

The portraits in the palace hadn't done her justice. Queen Goldtree was beauty itself--luminous pale skin, glistening black hair, every line and feature of her face perfectly symmetrical. Though she'd been dead for more than a year, she looked for all the world like she'd just fallen asleep, as if a mere touch could bring her back to full life. I couldn't wonder that Moonstone had never buried her--putting her in the ground would have felt like burying her alive.

Goldtree's hands were folded on top of her covers, with smooth, slender, tapered fingers, not knobby and work-worn like mine. I examined them carefully, astounded by the difference. Then I saw the thorn in her right forefinger--barely more than a sliver, but it stood out as the only thing marring the perfection of that hand. Even though she was dead, it looked painful. Of course I removed it.

Not even a minute later, Goldtree stirred.

I screamed.

Goldtree sat upright, scared...I can't say to death, because she'd just stopped being dead, but I'm sure there are nicer ways to return to the land of the living.

"Who are you?" she asked me. Even her voice was beautiful--low and sweet, like distant birdsong in a woodland glade.

"I...I am Queen...Queen Willowbark," I stammered.

She bowed her head in graceful acknowledgement. "How do you come into my chambers?"

"I...opened the door." I babbled. "My husband was from home and I've so wanted to look inside."

"Who is your husband?" Goldtree asked me.

I felt all the blood drain from my face. The enormity of what this meant had just hit me. I wanted to hide it from her, but what was the point? She would need to learn the truth eventually.

"My husband," I said, "is King Moonstone."

I explained as best I could--neither of us could fathom by what magic she could seem dead for so long and wake so suddenly--and she did her best to understand. When Moonstone returned, Goldtree asked me to meet him alone, and I agreed it was best--it would do no good to set the palace in an uproar before Moonstone could learn the news for himself.

I dressed and met him in the dining room for dinner. His mind was far away--it usually wandered somewhere down the paths of grief--and I didn't know where to begin. How could I confess that I'd disobeyed the one command he'd given me--but how could he be angry with the results?

"Moonstone," I said at last. "You know that I would give anything to make you happy."

Moonstone sighed over his dinner plate. "I know you would, my queen, if anything it was possible to give could cheer me."

"I know of only one thing," I said. "Your wife, Goldtree, alive again."

He smiled sadly at that. "If only that were possible."

"If you will go into her room, you will find that it is."

The reunion between the two of them was wonderful to behold. For the first time in my marriage, I saw my husband radiant with joy, rejoicing in the love of another woman.

Naturally, I had no place there, and as soon as the first raptures were over and Moonstone could look at anything that wasn't Goldtree, I told him that I would prepare to return home to my father.

"I won't make you endure such disgrace," Moonstone said. "Not after you performed such a great service for me."

"You have one wife," I said. "You do not need another."

Yet the terms of our marriage alliance needed to be resolved, and it would take time to untangle the situation.

"There is no reason you cannot stay here," Goldtree said, "as an honored friend to both of us."

Jealousy has never been part of my nature, and it was so clear that Moonstone belonged with Goldtree that I couldn't begrudge their happiness. Goldtree was beautiful, kind, and sweet, and she admired my wit and pluck.

After a few days, Goldtree told me the story of how she'd died. Her mother, who'd grown so jealous of her daughter's beauty, came to visit her. Goldtree suspected murderous intentions and locked herself in her chamber, but her mother--sly and manipulative toward the daughter who'd always hungered for her love--wept and lamented over her heartlessness, and begged her to at least touch the keyhole, so her mother might at least touch the tip of her finger. The moment Goldtree obeyed, her mother stabbed her with the poisoned thorn that had left her in the sleep like death.

The moment I heard the story, I swore to protect Goldtree. A mother so heartless would attack again the moment she learned her daughter was alive, and a daughter so vulnerable would need a clear-sighted friend to protect her.

About three months after Goldtree's resurrection, Moonstone went out on another hunting trip. Goldtree and I kept the castle running in his absence. At dawn the next day, I heard Goldtree scream from one of the castle towers. She came to me in a panic and told me that she'd seen a longship come into the harbor--the same type that had been piloted by her stepmother.

"She is here to kill me!" Goldtree gasped. "You must help me hide!"

Hiding had not saved Goldtree last time. I took her hand firmly in mine. "No," I said. "We will face her together."

We reached the harbor just as Goldtree's mother, Queen Silvertree, disembarked from her ship. Silvertree was just as lovely as her daughter, if a bit worn and gray around the edges--until you looked into her eyes and caught a flash of a soul that was ugly as sin.

Servants came behind her, bearing traditional gifts between monarchs--fabrics, fruits, chests of jewels. The queen herself carried a bottle of wine and a golden goblet studded with diamonds.

Queen Silvertree held out her arms, as if to embrace her daughter from a hundred feet away. "Goldtree, my darling daughter! How glad I am to see you recovered from that horrible accident. Come and greet your loving mother."

Goldtree shrank away, stepping behind me.

Silvertree's smile turned to stone. "If you won't greet me as your mother," she said, "you have a duty to greet me as a queen." At a gesture from her, a servant uncorked the bottle of wine, and Silvertree filled the golden goblet. "It is tradition for a monarch to drink wine with a newly-arrived visitor."

She held out the golden goblet, and Goldtree, though terrified, stepped forward as if she couldn't help herself. She knew the tradition as well as her mother did--refusing risked an international incident that would further complicate our complicated situation. I could not step forward as queen without making that complicated situation even more public.

But I could step forward as a friend. I put myself between Goldtree and her mother, and pushed back the goblet with one hand.

I looked Queen Silvertree in her cold, dead eyes. "In our country," I said, "it is tradition for the monarch offering the wine to drink first."

She would not back down. Neither would I. She had invoked tradition to entrap her daughter, and I would follow it to the letter to protect her.

At last, that beautiful monster gave way. She held the cup to her lips and tilted it back the slightest fraction, barely pretending to drink. She was slow, careful not to let the liquid touch her lips.

I was fast. I lunged forward and knocked the stem of the cup upward. The wine--thick, blood-red, fragrant--spilled down her face, onto her dress, and into her perfect mouth. The moment the wine hit her stomach, she fell down dead.

I can't say that the situation got less complicated after that, but dozens of witnesses could attest that Queen Silvertree had died from a poisoned drink offered by her own hand, so I wasn't charged with murder. Goldtree was free from the terror that had so often endangered her life. I was hailed as a heroine who'd saved the queen twice over, and the king who loved her rewarded me well. Eventually, I married again, falling in love with one of Moonstone's most loyal knights, who didn't mind entangling himself in our complicated situation. Goldtree and I remained close as sisters, and we still see each other as often as we can.