I despised Odette.  I hated her with a passion that surprises me, even now. But I get ahead of myself.  Please, sit down, have a cup of this exquisite tea. I assure you, it is harmless, my friend.  Have a cup of tea, and I will tell you the tale. I was raised by my father, a tall, dark man with intense eyes and wild hair.  I remember that he would take me for long, long walks in the wilderness around his castle and teach me the names of the plants and the animals and the winds. He did not mention my mother to me, ever, not on those walks, nor when he patiently began teaching me the magical arts.  Indeed, I suppose that I never thought of one at all, for we were always alone, save a rare visit from one of Father's colleagues, or once in a very great while, someone wanting him to do something for them.

Of course, such a state of affairs could never last; I might wish it had lasted longer, but then things might well have gone very differently.  There were four towers in Father´s castle;  Father used one as an observatory, and another sheltered bats.  The third was crumbling and unsafe, even for a light-footed child.  The fourth I had claimed as my own;  from its top, I could see the world, or so I thought.  There was a great castle, larger even than Father's, to the west, just visible over the trees from the top of my tower; it was entirely hidden from the ground.  One day, Father, set me to practice a distance-viewing spell, and I was curious.  I determined to see the castle and inside.

The spell was hard, then, to maintain, and I could not keep it long, but I kept it long enough;  long enough that even now, I do not know whether to be glad or regret it.  A man and a woman sat at the end of the great hall on tall thrones, with golden crowns on their heads.  The man had once been quite handsome, though now was growing fat and losing his hair.  The woman, though, gave me the greatest shock;  for her features resembled my own, and her eyes were the same brilliant blue.   That night, at dinner, I asked Father about my mother for the first time in eleven years.

He looked at me across the table.  "So.  You have seen the castle beyond the woods."

I nodded.  "Yes, Father.  Who is she, that queen who looks so like me?"

He sighed, and took a spoonful of soup and a mouthful of wine.  "Odile, my daughter, this is a tale best not told over dinner."  He brushed bread crumbs off his velvet jacket.  "I will tell you when we have supped."

I cannot now remember what I ate, and I do not think I knew then, for I was so curious.  Father was not so anxious.  I was impatient with him, I am afraid, and he was sharp with me for it.  He took me to his study, and lit the fire, then threw open the window, despite the chill.  He did not look at me or speak for the first few minutes, and I huddled by the fire in my green linen dress and white woolen shawl.

"Your mother," he began abruptly, "was an ambitious peasant girl, pretty enough, but not beautiful.  She wanted to be Queen."   He turned to toss a handful of herbs on the fire;  they sparked and sent up trails of aromatic smoke.  I looked into the dancing flames, to see what pictures might appear.  "She had heard of me,  Rothbart the wicked, Rothbart the greedy."  He laughed, bitterly, and turned back to the window.  "At any rate, by whatever name she had heard of me, and she asked for my assistance."

A log shattered in a haze of sparks, and in the sparks I saw a young girl's figure, and my father's, talking.  I smoothed wrinkles from my dress, and pulled the shawl tighter about me.  "Bah!  I had no need to cast petty spells for peasants.  I told her to go.  She would not listen and finally offered me an audacious bargain."  He paused, turned and looked at the fire himself for a moment, something I could not read on his face.  "She offered me her first-born child in return for the spell.  I had been seeking an apprentice for years, by then."  Figures came and went in the fire, never quite fully formed.  "There was no magic in her, nor in the prince she hoped to catch.  The child would have to be mine."

I looked up, startled.

"Yes, Odile, you are truly my daughter," he said with a gentle smile. "So we sealed the bargain;  I would father a child on her, when she was wedded.  I made very certain she would be wedded, so she could not slip out of our bargain.  I gave her great beauty, and she won the prince.  Little joy it has brought her now," he said, sounding satisfied, and turned again to the window.  The fire showed a grand wedding, full of jewels and fine gowns, firelight seeming to reflect itself in gold.  "She kept her end of the bargain, though not happily, and bore twins."

The fire showed a pair of babies, and whirled through the years until two young women, almost mirror-images of each other, were outlined in the sparks and flames.  I recognized myself, my plain, practical clothing and golden braids sharp contrast to my sister's elaborate, expensive gowns and elegant hair.

"And I was the first-born?" I asked.

Father nodded.  "I have never known how she had twins;  it is near-unheard of  among magicians.  Your sister is Odette;  they title her princess."

I was silent for a while, seeing things dancing in the flames.  Nothing that mattered, I thought then;  only half-seen images of birds.  "Is she a magician like me?" I asked finally, almost timidly.

Father shook his head. "No;  she is too old now to learn.  They will marry her off soon enough, and she will live out her life without any touch of magic."

I felt almost sorry for her then.  Father left me alone with my thoughts, and I watched the fire burn down to embers.  I was not angry at my mother;  I had no regrets about living with Father instead of in a grand castle.  I was curious about Odette, though, this person who I might have been if I had been born second, instead of first.

I used my distance-viewing spell to watch Odette and my mother, as well as anything else that caught my fancy, but I came back to them.  My mother was quarrelsome, and often petty;  I thought I understood why she had needed Father's spell.  She was dangerous, though, in her foolish way, for she pushed the King to make war on Rothbart my father, but even foolish Mikail was not quite foolish enough for that.

Odette was a different matter.  I watched her grow up through my spells.  I was jealous when men came to court her, for a while.  Odette, I thought, would never know magic and the men seemed such fools to me.  But soon enough I learned better.  My sister was had just enough talent to influence people;  she could not truly control, or do more than apprentice-work of changing leanings, but she could do that much.  She wasted her talent for the most part, wasted it on petty foolishness and the young men of the court.  But she hated Father, for reasons I could never discern, and she took her mother's side against him. She tried to work her little talent on Mikail, turning him against Father, the summer we both turned fifteen;  even then, he still had better sense than to give in to her and our mother.

I loved Father fiercely, and they were nothing to me;  I spied on them only to protect him, for they began to revolt me.  I mentioned their hatred to Father one day, when we were walking in the woods.

"The Queen and Princess wish to war against you," I said.

He nodded, and I suspected he had been watching them as well.  "The Queen is afraid I will reveal the truth," he replied.  "Princess Odette, I do not know.  Perhaps the Queen has told her the truth, and she is afraid she will be as nothing if I tell."

I laughed.  "It was I got the best of the bargain you made, Father."

Father smiled, and laid his arm across my shoulders.  Whatever evil may be said of him now, and there is much, he was never anything but good to me.

It was when I turned sixteen that the end began.  Father refused to assist a nobleman;  he would never say what it was the man wanted, but I believe it involved a blood feud.  The noble, raging, went straight to King Mikail, and told him Father had threatened to blight his crops and kill his livestock. That was folly.  Father would simply have killed him;  he wasn't worth the trouble for such a curse.  My mother and sister believed him;  they would, I thought, believe any ill spoken of Rothbart my father.  I kept a close watch on the castle, then, for that might be enough to stir even Mikail to action.  It proved to be so, and he began mustering his strength for war.

Father was angry, but curiously resigned, when I told him.  I did not understand until it was done, why he was resigned to this.  I continued to spy on the castle, to know when the attack would come.  I knew none of the battle-magics, yet, but there was much I could do and did to establish our defense;  I thought on ways to prevent another attack.

I saw my sister at night, some two weeks later, with our mother.  They were talking in quiet, worried tones.  "Sh, Odette.  Soon enough the magician will be dead, and there won't be anything to worry about but your marriage."

"If there is a marriage," Odette sighed, brushing her hair. "There has to be a Prince out there for me."

"There is, dear," Queen Marya replied, putting confidence in her voice.  "All the omens have been excellent.  Now, go to sleep, Odette; you must be fresh to see the warriors going off to battle."

I dropped the spell and hurried downstairs to tell Father the news. "Thank you, Odile.  I will need your help on some of this.  Please make tea."

I made tea, and we planned.  We had not been idle these weeks;  the castle's defenses were in place, only waiting on need.  But we were two, and they were many;  we needed a way to prevent them attacking again.

"Odette," I said, simply.  "If we hold her, they will not dare to attack for fear of harming her."

He nodded, his eyes warm.  "Have you a plan to keep her from running away?"

I explained my carefully thought-out plan.  "Hold her in another shape, a bird or doe, perhaps, unless she is here.  If she leaves, she will be hunted and unrecognized."

Father approved my plan, and set about working out the details.  Shape-changing is a chancy and delicate art, and I was not skilled enough yet to do so. Father wished me to trick Odette into our territory and lure her to the castle.

My sister was a fool.  A lost kitten drew her and her maids away from the King's castle, into the woods.  Once there, it took only the smallest illusions to turn our friendly woods into a nightmare;  deer became perytons, foxes dark and savage, and the trees themselves monsters intent on blood.  Our castle must have been a positive haven to them;  perhaps they even thought themselves at home, and safe despite torn clothes and scratched flesh.  They collapsed by the lake; I wrenched Odette to her feet and dragged her with me to the defenses, ignoring her feeble protests.

The attackers surged toward the walls;  there were so many of them that I drew in a sharp breath of fear.  I spotted a battering ram being moved into position to take down the gate, many men down already from our other defenses.  Then the dragon swept down out of the skies, flying low over the soldiers.  My heart nearly stopped with terror and awe as it flew past in a single powerful beat of wings; it glowed dully like dying embers, and the air was full of the scent of brimstone and lightning.  I had never dreamed even Father could win the assistance of such a marvelous creature.  The barest touch of the dragon´s breath set the ram to flaming, and the hapless men carrying it dropped and ran screaming.  The dragon soared lazily in a circle, laughing in a deep rumble that set the very ground to shaking and made the stone of the castle vibrate; he dipped his great wings to Father before gliding back up into the night.

I gathered my wits, cast the sobbing and wailing Odette aside, and summoned lightning with father, which drove the remaining soldiers back onto the teeth of our defenses.  Father smiled at me wearily, then grabbed Odette and dragged her to the front of the wall, swinging her into his arms the way he had carried me when I was a child.  He seemed to grow enormous then, truly a wizard out of a tale, lit by the burning ram and the fires of our defenses.

"Mikail!" he roared, furious.  "You have made war on my house and now I make war on yours!"

A tiny figure below looked up and gestured the attackers back.

"I have your so-precious Odette!" he shouted.  "If you do not cease your attack, I will kill her!"

What was left of the attacking force straggled back to their King, trying to regroup in a defensive formation.  They were dispirited and frightened, and many slunk away from the battleground into the woods.

"Return Odette!"  the King shouted, his voice weak and tinny after Father's roar.

"I will not!  You have assaulted my house, and I hold your daughter here. If you try to rescue her, she will die!"

For the first time in my life, I was afraid of Father.  His fury was hot and dark like the dragon, almost burning me where I stood near him.  A wild wind whipped his hair and sent his cloak flapping, and the fire in his eyes would have felled anyone but myself.   Odette fainted was a streak of white and gold against his darkness, the last gasp of sun before the storm.

"There will be vengeance, Rothbart!" the King shouted as he rode away, his men following in a straggling line behind.

"Odile," Father said, weary, and suddenly reduced to ordinariness. "Take Odette back to the lake.  I will join you shortly."

I nodded and half-dragged, half-carried a still-unconscious Odette down the ramparts to the lake.  There her maids, weeping and whimpering, had huddled in a ruined temple, the only shelter available.  I dropped Odette in a spill of silks at their feet, and sat on a fallen block.  She was heavier than she looked, my sister, and I would ache in the morning.  They milled and wept and whimpered, Odette no less than the others when she awoke, until I thought I would go mad.  I held them there for Father, but truly, I wanted to wash myself of the mud and dust and the scent of Odette´s perfume.  Father smiled wearily at me when he arrived, his face lined and weary.  I wanted to tell him to wait until morning, but I could not hold them all the night.

"Watch for me, Odile, see that no one thinks to attack while I am working," he said quietly.

I bit back a protest;  I would have liked to watch the spell, and see how it was done.  But I went, and watched the army retreat back to the King's castle. There was no one brave or foolish enough to attempt a rescue, and for that I was glad;  there had been enough of fighting that day.  I was weary, and relieved when Father came up the stairs.
"Father?  It is done?" I asked, rising to go to him.

"It is," he replied, hoarse with exhaustion.

"You must rest," I said, hurrying to his side.  He was wearier than I had ever seen him, his eyes deep-sunken and his steps wavering.  I caught him before he could fall and supported him where he stood.

"They are all enchanted.  I will tell you all when I have rested." He was speaking as much to the air as to me, looking past me into the air.

I was worried;  that was a truly great enchantment to have put on all of them. "Yes, Father, but you must rest now.  Come, I shall help you to bed.” I was half-carrying him before we reached his room, and he fell on his bed without a word.  I removed his boots and his coat, pulled the blanket over him and put out the candle before seeking a bath and my own bed.
He showed me the enchantment he had wrought when we were both recovered, and I was frightened at the extent of it.  Not only had he bound them all into the shapes of swans, the spell could only be broken if the man Odette loved who loved her should die for her.  It was a splendidly crafted spell, elegant, wasting nothing.  I pitied the man who might be caught in it, but still ... it was a splendid spell.  Even now, I would be pressed to do so well.

My sister, of course, saw it in an entirely different light, and she did not care at all for her new life.  I heard far too much of it then, for it was I had to take them their meals.  Water, of course, there was in plenty.

"Water?"  Odette said incredulously.  "We are to drink water from the lake, and eat only bread and fruit?"

I set the platter down with a thud.  It was heavy, and I had not liked carrying it;  it was far lighter a load when it was only Father and myself.  "There are herbs and vegetables there as well, Odette.  If you do not like the food nor the water, do not eat nor drink;  there will be nothing else given you."

She stamped her foot.  "I am a princess !  I deserve finer fare than this ..." She picked up a piece of good bread, and threw it into the lake.  "This ... slop !"

I looked at her coldly.  That bread had been much work on my part.  "You are no princess here, Odette.  You are only a hostage.  If you will not eat this, then I will take it back."  I picked the platter back up and made to go back inside.

"No, wait!" she cried.  "Please, forgive me, I lost my temper. Perhaps you can intercede with the magician, convince him to release us."

I shook my head.  "I cannot, will not."  I would not;  I had no more wish to be attacked again than Father, and certainly not for the sake of this spoiled child.

"Please try!" she begged.  "I will intercede with Father, ask him to let you come back with us."

I set the platter down again and walked away without answering.  Odette had not eyes enough to see any likeness between us; my plain clothing and plain braids made me only a servant girl in her eyes, and nothing would convince her I did not live in fear of Rothbart.  She hated him far more than being enchanted would warrant, even had she known the extent of it.  She had learned love could break the spell, but not the how and why of it.

“You brought this upon yourself, Odette,” he said quietly.  I stood nearby, gathering up the empty dishes; pride had fallen to hunger and thirst. “You have been urging your King to make war upon me; did you think I would not defend my home?”

"You are evil!  You tried to murder my mother!" she shouted, near tears, pretty face in a unflattering scowl.  "Why do you hate her so?"

Father shook his head, folding his arms across his chest.  "I have done nothing but what she asked of me.  If you should see her again, in this world or the next, you might ask her what bargain she struck with Rothbart."

Father never spoke of those conversations to me, but I heard enough to know what lies my mother had told, the hatred she had spewed and created to protect her vaunted place as Queen.  Odette would not see, would not listen, no matter what Father said.  She would not listen to me at all; I was only a servant, and not worthy of anything but contempt.

"Odile, why do you stay here?  If you are afraid of him, Father will shield you if you take us away with you," Odette said, sweetly.  "You have free run here, it would not be so hard."

"I am not afraid of him," I replied, setting down the platter with a sigh.  "Why should I be?"

"He is evil!  Look what he has done to us.  We will turn again to swans in a few moments!"  she said, angrily.  Indeed, the spell was sparkling around the edges of their rags; they had refused to give up their silks and laces for any plain clothing I might have given them.  Odette had been furious at the mere idea of dressing like a servant girl.

"Swans," I said coolly, "are lovely birds.  You should feel privileged." I admired the beauty of the spell again, clean and spare and elegant like a painting from the farthest East.  Such lovely work ... it was almost a shame to waste it on Odette.  I remembered the battle, though, and the Queen´s hate; anything was worth the cost to prevent such from happening again.

"Peasant!" she snapped.  "I want to be a princess, not a bird! He has no right to do this!"

"He is defending his castle," I said, watching as the transformation began.  It was a marvelous thing, spare clean lines of power bringing a shimmering vision of feathers.  It was splendid and edifying, though I still could not have cast it.  "It is no different than if your king was to hold me hostage against him."

She sneered, an ugly expression on her pretty face;  I shuddered, and schooled myself against ever doing the same.  "Rothbart would not worry about a peasant servant;  he would let you die."
"I am no more peasant than you," I replied.  "And you are wrong. He would never let me die."  I wanted to shout the truth at her, that she was no less peasant than I, that we shared a mother and a father, but I would not.  Even if she had believed me, I did not want her to know, did not want her to think she dared claim anything of my father´s.  Any reply she might have made was lost in the transformation, her body contorting itself impossibly until massive white wings lifted her into the air.

She and her maids soared up into the sky and flew away, not to return until dawn; they were human only here, only at this lake, and they would not fly out of reach of it.  After that, they spent the night flying, no doubt seeking some poor fool to break the spell upon them.

"Odile," Odette said weeks later.  "Rothbart will fall.  My father will see to it."

I shrugged, and set down the platter.  "He has not seen to it yet, in the six years and six months you have been here."  There had been many messengers, most blustering and rude and quickly sent back.  The few that had the sense to be polite had been given shelter and a meal.  One had treated me as a lady; perhaps he had better eyes than my sister did.  That one had not been sent back; perhaps he had been too polite.

Odette shook her head.  “What will you do when your master dies?  He cannot live forever.”

“I have been provided for,” I said, my heart aching at the thought. I could not imagine life without Father; I had no other kin, though Father´s colleagues might take me on as a student.  There was a cache for me, but I prayed it would be long and long before I needed it.

"Do you think he will remember you on his deathbed, for your years of service?" she laughed.

"He will,” I said.  I walked away, thinking of the spell Father had set me to learn, refusing to think of losing him.

That was the last time Odette spoke to me, she or her maids.  A relief, but a worry, for they were planning an escape, and I did not know how to counter it. Father only nodded when I spoke to him, as if he had expected this, and set me a difficult magical problem to solve.  It distracted me from the worry, but it did nothing to ease it.

Some weeks later, there was a terrible, terrible row by the lake, and I engaged a spell to see what it was about.  Father was roaring at Odette and holding a bow - a hunter´s long bow, sleek and deadly.  Odette had found her suitor, or he had found her.  I set aside the magical problem I had been studying and was hurrying to Father before he summoned me.

“Odile,” he said, voice heavy with weariness and worry.  “I would not ask this of you, but Odette´s suitor must be stopped before he can break the spell, and this may defy the restrictions I placed upon it.”

I frowned, and then remembered.  "He has only to be willing to die for her?"

He shook his head.  “Not precisely, Odile.  An oath powerful enough will, for magical purposes, be death.  Not, I think, that Odette knows this ... but she knows that if he swears an oath powerful enough, he will bring an army to crush me.”

"And she has made him promise to swear?" I asked.

“Yes.  In time, you would be able to defend us both, but not yet.  And I am too old now to summon the powers I did when Mikail attacked.”

"Must we leave?"  I was fond of the castle, drafty as it was, and I would miss the observatory and the lake and the woods.

“No.  There is still one way to defeat this.  Siegfried is a princeling, and he will declare his love and swear his oath at a great ball in two days time.  But he will not swear it to Odette, he shall swear it to you.”

"To me?" The idea terrified me; such an oath, misdirected, might have magical effects no one expected.  And I ... I had never been to a ball.

"To you," he said, firmly.  "You are her twin, he has seen her only a handful of times.  And that shall prevent him ever breaking the spell."

"Very well, Father.  I shall go and find something suitable for the ball," I said, fighting down trepidation and enthusiasm both.

He took my hands in his and smiled at me.  “Odile, my daughter.  Always remember that I love you.”

I blinked back tears.  He did not say he loved me often.  "I love you, Father."

He let go of my hands then, and I hurried to my rooms to seek something appropriate.  Finally I found a gown of black and silver, with a fitted bodice and dagged sleeves, I had made for the rare occasion Father´s colleagues visited.  It would do; I let it out and altered it, for it had been some three years since I wore it last.  It took me much of the night and part of the next day to finish.

Father and I worked a spell the next day to send me to the ball; had we horses, and had I been willing to run them to death, perhaps I could have gotten there another way.  But we did not, and so we worked a spell; a fine spell it was too, though I am afraid my part of it was not as smooth and fine as Father´s.  I had dressed my hair as Odette did, with a handful of ebon pins and a black ribbon.  Perhaps I should have been more careful to mock her; Odette would never wear black.  But then, I think it would have changed nothing.

When I arrived, the last of the expected guests had arrived, the ballroom full of ladies in brilliant gowns, like a host of twittering songbirds.  The songbirds would have been in key and quieter, though, and their colors would not have clashed so alarmingly.  I remembered watching deer and foxes, and moved gracefully into the hall, stopping at the top of the stairs.  A young man, pleasant enough to look at, came rushing up to me.

"Odette," Siegfried said, worship in his eyes.  I almost pitied him; he reminded me of a puppy I had once nursed back to health.

"Siegfried," I said, softly.

I followed him to the dance floor; the musicians struck up a lively tune, and we danced.  I had never danced like this before, and Siegfried was a marvelous partner.  I wished I could give myself up to it and enjoy it, but Odette flying around the windows was a constant reminder that I dared not.  It was easy enough to keep Siegfried´s attention on me, and only me, to keep from ever glancing at the windows as Odette became more and more frantic.  If he ever knew something was wrong, it was only briefly.

Then the music ended and he drew me to stand in front of his parents.  “I make an oath,” he proclaimed.  “An oath to Odette, that I shall live and die for her, to make no other my bride and my love, and to die should I break this vow!”

There was a scream of despair from outside the hall, and Odette flew away. Siegfried started and looked at the fleeing swan in horror, dawning realization on his face.  I did pity him then; he did not deserve this fate, but fate does not care whether it deserved or not.

Screams of terror resounded as the hall went black, all the lights extinguished in a heartbeat.  Then Father was there, and a few flickering torches relit themselves, giving the hall the aspect of a nightmare.

“That which I have taken, I keep,” Father said clearly.  “You have lost her, Siegfried.”

I shook my head when Siegfried looked at me, withdrawing in horror as he realized the truth.  I walked over to Father and laid my hand on his arm.

"Come, Odile," Father said, gently.  "It is time to go home."

“Yes, Father.  Let us go home.”  He put his arm around my shoulders and we worked the spell to return us home.  There, he collapsed, shaking and shivering with the aftereffects of too much spellcasting.

“Father, you must rest!”  I pleaded, stripping him of his cloak and wrapping him in a blanket.

He would go to his study, and sit in front of the fire there, but that was all. He would not take to his bed, as he needed to.  I stayed with him, worried, thinking of Odette telling me he could not live forever.  I leaned against his legs, my knees drawn up to my chest, and listened to my heart beat.  Neither of us spoke.

I do not know how much later it was that I heard the horse.  A single horse, hard-ridden, crashing through the brush.  Father rose from his chair and I scrambled to my feet.  “It is time.”  He took the shape of an owl, gliding silently down to the lake.

"Father!"  I gathered the skirts of the gown and ran, ran until my legs screamed with running and my breath ripped in and out of my lungs like a knife.  I ran heedless of mud, heedless of sharp stones and branches, and still I was too late.  I do not know if I could ever have been in time.

Odette stood on a rocky outcrop over the deepest part of the lake, her ragged clothes torn by her own hands.  Her hair was free and flowing, and her maids were gathered beneath her.  Siegfried hurled himself from his poor lathered horse as my father alighted on a branch.

"Odette!"  Siegfried screamed, running to her.  "Forgive me."

She turned to look at him, tears streaming down her face.  "Oh, Siegfried, I forgive you, but I cannot live like this any longer."

They kissed, once, and then Odette hurled herself into the lake, and sank.  She did not rise.

“Are you happy now, sorcerer!”  Siegfried shouted into the night. “Two kingdoms left without heirs!”

Siegfried stabbed himself in the chest, aiming for the heart.  Father screamed and lost his shape, tumbling to the ground even as I ran across to him, blood soaking his clothes and pooling around him.

“Father! Father! ”  I screamed.  Siegfried´s aim had not been true, but they still were dying.  My father´s blood spilled over my hands and my arms and seeped into my gown as I cradled him against my chest.  It smeared my face when he reached up to wipe away my tears.

"I knew my fate," he whispered.  "Odile, my beloved daughter."

Whatever he had intended to say, he could not.  His eyes widened briefly, as if seeing something I could not, and then gently closed.  His last breath whispered softly out of him, and his head sank against my shoulder.

" Father! ”  I wailed.  “Father, I love you ...”

The maids, when I raised my head, were gone, fled.  The spell on them was broken with Odette's death.  It was, no doubt, one of them that began telling the story, and embellishing it with every telling.  At that time, I could not care.

I weighed Siegfried down with rocks and flung him into the lake, hating him, hating Odette, hating them both for my father´s death.  Let the fish eat the rotting flesh from their bones, let their bones molder at the bottom of the lake for eternity, lost and forgotten.

There was a place in the woods Father had loved, a place filled with flowers spring through fall, where he had given me my first lessons in magic.  I buried him there, buried him with his blood still drying on my skin and my gown, buried him and enchanted the grave so no one would defile it.

I fled, then, fled my home before the soldiers came to sack it, fled my memories.  I took the books and the cache, hid all that remained where no one would find it.  Father´s colleagues took me on as a student, and I studied in Paris, in Rome, in London and  in Madrid for a while.  But I came home.  I could not do otherwise.

If people choose to see me as a pawn, they will not bother me with foolishness. But no matter what the fools who tell and the fools who hear choose to believe, my father was not a monster.  He was always good to me, and he loved me.

Copr. ©2001 Sara A. Keating. This work will enter the public domain January 1st, 2032.