now, I must see about my own ending.’ She smiled at Godred, then she looked at me as if she had heard the questions surging in my mind. ‘Princess Rose made a queen’s choice when she decided to stay, for she understood that love cannot last if wrong is done in its name, that sometimes the cost of love is too great. But she cannot become Queen Rose until I am gone, for there can only be one queen here. Now let us make haste, for our lovers believe the gate will close at dusk and we must try to live up to their expectations. In truth, the gate will not close until I choose, but it will be best if your sister sees it close so that she will know the way is ever barred between her and her cat man. And all must be done before I abdicate and make your sister queen.’
We travelled back across the green hills and up into the snowy peaks, then Madame Torquemada summoned up a sled drawn by a pair of reindeer with bright yellow eyes and twelve enormous golden tines each.
‘An ending should always have a flourish, I think,’ she said as she climbed into the seat.
It was a thrilling ride that took us a different and much longer way than we had walked, and we saw many wonders. Once the queen indicated a distant spire and said this was the Palace of the Moon, where my sister would live. I realised, then, that this journey by sleigh was a gift from her to me, a way of showing me what my sister’s life would be.
‘This could have been yours to rule,’ said the policeman.
‘It is enchanting here, but I think that things have a way of working out as they were meant to. Rose will make a wonderful queen. I am only sorry that Silk did not choose to stay. I wonder if I would have had the courage to stay, too, if the man I loved had to go. Rose was always a better person than me.’
The old queen gave me a flashing look. ‘I think you would have surprised yourself, though in truth, you are something more complicated than a princess and I suspect you will have an interesting life back there in that other world, for it is no less complex than this one, and no less magical, in its own way.’
Time passed. We stopped to eat at an inn amidst trees with leaves of silver and gold and bronze, where jovial dwarves served us green wine and a badger sang a song, but I was wondering about time.
‘I have made the way long enough that Rose and her prince might have a little time to love before they part,’ said the queen, who had been growing gradually older as the long day unfolded.
‘Liar! Romantic!’ cackled Griselda who now seemed less servant than crotchety old aunt to the queen. ‘You hope he will change his mind!’
The witch queen pretended not to hear.
When we set off again, it was only a little while before we saw ahead of us the line of ghost trees that marked the border of the world where I had been born. And there was Rose, alone alongside one of the ghost trees, gazing across at our apartment. There was no sign of Silk or my stepfather, and I realised they must already have gone into the house. I saw her straighten her back slowly, and then she moved away through the trees. I watched until she was out of sight.
‘Do not fear for your sister. Her life will be full and good and she will be much loved and revered here. Your world would have had little use for one whose goodness was so pure. I wish her prince had stayed, but it is better that he went than stayed and blamed her for it. And he would blame her, for he proved at the last to be more a creature of thought than feeling. I should have guessed it from the cat he became, for there is always a bit of them that remains aloof.’
‘I don’t really understand how Silk came into it,’ I said, drying my eyes.
‘Young men are often a good deal more than they seem to princesses and even to queens,’ said the witch. ‘He loved the goodness and sweetness of your sister before she became a woman, and there was a yearning in him that the world did