CW:
violence/gore
Princess Claude’s scream could chill the blood. Like the November wind that raged beyond the castle windows, Claude’s voice whipped the flesh and assaulted the ears. Not Marigold’s ears, however. Marigold had grown accustomed to it in her ten years as a lady’s maid. The princess’s volatile moods made her so bored she yawned, showing off her perfect teeth.
In fact, this visit from the doctor interrupted Marigold’s routine luxurious nap. Today’s appointment forced Marigold to stand at the princess’s bedside, stroking Claude’s ego when instead she longed to tuck herself underneath the quilt. It had become habit to drape herself in Claude’s nightgown and stretch out on the fine linens while Clause played chess in the parlor.
Claude was an unfortunate royal whom Marigold felt fortunate to serve. The princess had a hunchback, a club foot, and terribly low self-esteem. And though she limped through the hallways of the castle, she always stood tall above Marigold, sneering down her nose at someone of a lesser birth.
Yes, the position did come with occasional humiliations. She had arrived on the castle steps a broken, malnourished girl of eight years old with no one to care for her. Rather than flowing golden locks, the girl’s head was covered with rough pale bristles and rust-brown scabs that itched during long hours in the kitchen. When she first shuffled into Princess Claude’s nursery, the royal touched her tender scalp. The girl flinched and the princess smiled.
“Such a beautiful color. It’s delicate, like petals on a flower.” The princess took a blue silk scarf from her bureau and wrapped it tightly around the girl’s hideous head. “I’ll call you Marigold.”
And though it had been intended as an insult, a name of irony, Marigold grew into her title during her years at the castle. She was as beautiful and vibrant as the flower.
So, she could tolerate embarrassment here and there if it allowed for a comfortable life within the palace walls. A life that didn’t include begging in filth. Where she could spend her days in a castle, a real castle! Where she could tint her full lips with rouge and stare at her reflection in fine glass mirrors.
Today, the pitiful princess suffered from a stomachache and a toothache. A wicked combination. Marigold offered her a crystal bowl filled with chamber spice. The candy’s hard coating of melted sugar clacked around Claude’s jaw. When she bit down, crunching into the candy, she let out another shrill shriek.
“Where do you feel the pain now?” inquired the doctor. His bright pink forehead shone as he lowered himself toward Claude’s open mouth. His long brown beard grazed his chest as he leaned over to examine the patient.
Claude spat the candy into her palm, then pinched her face into a look of disgust. Thin pieces of ginger sparkled at the candy’s center, reminding Marigold of worms wriggling about. The princess bared her teeth up at the doctor; they were stained yellow and spaced out like tiny sharp knives. Marigold despised her villainous grin.
“I feel it everywhere.”
The doctor placed his thumbs on Claude’s cheekbones, applying pressure. She winced. Next, he reached into her mouth and began tapping on each tooth. Ding, ding, ding, down the line.
“If it is what I fear, then the tooth must be extracted rather quickly.”
Claude’s eyes widened. She had long been tormented by pain of the mouth. She had not been able to happily chew food for nearly a week. When the doctor first examined her and observed the excessive saliva dripping from her mouth, he declared she must be rid of all morbid humors. Bleeding would be most effective. He asked her to point to the site of pain and then placed a leech on her gums.
Yet still, the pain remained.
“Now,” the doctor continued, his voice slow with concentration as he pressed Claude’s gums with dirt-stained hands, “I believe we can replace your diseased tooth with a healthy one. But I must perform the implantation immediately after extraction. That is important.”
“Marigold,” snapped the princess. She pointed to the bowl of spice candy growing heavy in Marigold’s hands. “Soften one for me.”
Marigold reached into the crystal bowl to retrieve a candy. She put it on her tongue and sucked, softening the sugar coating. She bit into the candy, relishing the sweetness as it washed over her taste buds and down her throat.
“Of course, I would hate to remove the incorrect tooth, so we must be certain of the source of pain.”
Princess Claude grunted as the doctor busied himself in her mouth. Perhaps that evening Marigold would fill a basin with warm water and soak her tired feet. She might nab a sprig of lavender from the kitchen and let the lovely aroma waft under her nose. She might breathe deeply and sigh with relief at her good fortune.
“Candy, Marigold.”
Marigold reached into the bowl and placed a hard candy into Claude’s hand. The impatient princess bit down and a startling crack made them all freeze.
A gust of wind rattled the glass window in its pane. This time, Claude’s scream pierced straight through Marigold’s heart.
“My lady, your tooth!”
“You imbecile! What did you do to me?”
Marigold faltered over her words. Without thinking, she had placed a hard candy in Claude’s hand. She did not want to admit to her mistake, to commit to her error. Instead, she chose silence.
Princess Claude rounded on Marigold. She pushed her to a kneeling position and though Marigold wanted to struggle, wanted to fight, she forced her body to acquiesce and bowed to her superior.
“Where will you find a healthy tooth?” Claude asked the doctor.
The doctor drummed on his chin, deep in thought.
The princess sneered down at Marigold. “Will any tooth do?”
Marigold stiffened under the royal’s grip. The chamber spice roiled in her stomach, threatening to revolt. She knew she had to think quickly: “Allow me to find one for you.”
Claude leaned in close to her face and slipped her fingers into Marigold’s mouth. She wrenched Marigold’s lips from her gums and still, the maid uttered not a sound. She would not beg for mercy.
“I believe I found the perfect replacement.”
Marigold leaned back, freeing herself from examination. She ignored the sting in her flesh. “As you can see, my teeth are far from perfect. But I will aid in your search. I will scour the entire city.”
“Ma’am, we must—”
But Marigold spoke over the doctor’s concerns. “I will not rest until I find you a tooth.”
“Then make haste, Marigold.” Princess Claude gnashed her teeth, snarling like a mongrel denied a bone. But her eyes betrayed her—they revealed a flash of pain. Marigold felt a sliver of satisfaction watching the royal grin through her misery.
Filthy beggars reached toward her, grasping at her silk scarf as if it offered them some kind of magic. As if it offered the promise of a warm fire on this snowy day. She tucked it protectively around her head and palmed her leather purse heavy with coins. Urchins with soot-smeared faces and tattered clothes packed into alleyways. Horses thinned to the bone stared at her enviously. All of these beings were the same to her; they bore fleas and bit like rats.
Her mother, a hard woman with hair the color of blood, was one of these rats. If she wasn’t dead by now.
Marigold could taste their desperation; it tasted as sweet as chamber spice. Her purse rattled with denier against her soft hip. Any of these vermin would happily sell a healthy tooth in exchange for a pocket full of coins. Any scum would sell their body for a hefty price.
Just as her mother had sheared and sold her hair.
Sour notes from a lute poured out from a tavern on the corner. Marigold stepped inside and squinted into the dark and smoky room. The scent of stale beer and fire singed her nostrils. Plumes of body odor rose from the men who sat thigh to thigh along the narrow table. Marigold felt a thrill watching their hungry eyes track her across the room. She stopped before one man, his mustache dark and thick. His hands hovered at her waist as if about to reach and graze her skirts.
Marigold clicked her tongue. “Is this how you look at all women? Would you dare look at the princess with lust?”
She lifted her chin high and strutted to the kitchen where she purchased a loaf of bread. She made quite a show of retrieving her coin purse from her side. The baker passed the loaf to her.
Back on the street, she found a woman huddling low against the tavern wall, attempting to keep three young children warm. Perfect. Marigold approached slowly, the way one would greet a frightened rabbit. She knelt before them so they would not fear the hunter. The woman pulled the little ones close to her sagging breasts. Her cotton dress was thin, no match for the snow falling in thick clumps. The children were too young, they hadn’t yet lost their small teeth. Marigold smiled, showing her own two clean rows of teeth, coaxing the woman to return the gesture.
Marigold had always taken pride in her teeth. Those neat little fangs that could charm a man and tear into the tough exterior of meat at the servants’ dining table. They were strong and fierce. They did nothing to betray her unmentionable origin, her low social status.
It must have pained the woman to part her cracked lips. A ghost of a smile flickered across her face. Marigold studied the teeth inside. Surprisingly, each one stood in its rightful place.
Marigold tore the crust off the bread, offering it to the wild beasts. The children swiped at it, knocking each other’s hands out of the way while the woman eyed it with a cocked brow.
“When was the last time they filled their stomachs?” Marigold asked.
The woman only glared. Perhaps she couldn’t speak. Perhaps she was too dumb to spin words into sentences. Marigold pulled back the bread and the children cried out in despair. She ripped the loaf into four pieces. The mother pushed the children’s hands out of the way to claim the largest prize first. Marigold nearly slapped the woman. She recognized the greed of her own mother, the desire to claim the best for herself, to neglect her own child. This woman did not deserve her gift.
The woman grunted like a pig as she devoured the crust.
Marigold spoke slowly. “This bread is not going to last. You need money.” She pulled a handful of coins from her purse and shook them under the woman’s nose. “Sell your teeth. I offer twenty denier for every tooth.”
The woman eyed the purse with blatant hunger. She swiped at it as she had the crust of bread, knocking the coins from Marigold’s hand. They jingled like pretty bells against the street as they rolled out of sight. The purse’s string tightened around Marigold’s wrist, then broke with a snap.
Marigold shouted in surprise as the woman pawed at the purse’s clasp. Looking inside the dark bag, the woman beamed. The children scrambled for the bread as it tumbled to the ground.
Marigold’s heart pounded in her ears, muting their cries. She felt her own desperation whine in her throat. She choked it back down and told herself to think.
The woman had long dirty nails. Marigold had trimmed her own the previous day, leaving her with nothing to fight with. She felt the back of her neck prickle with fear. She struggled to catch her breath.
“Cateline!”
Marigold and the woman both startled at the scolding voice. An older woman covered in a green cape sped toward them with her hand outstretched. Cateline clutched the purse to her chest.
The stranger stood shoulder to shoulder with Marigold, warming her with a new feeling of anxiety. Underneath the cape, Marigold saw pale curls, as if they had once burned red and faded over time. The mental image of red hair made her suck in a breath; it made her heart pound faster. For some reason unknown to her, she braced herself to be hit.
The stranger knelt before Cateline. She put her hands overtop the young mother’s. Her hands were wrinkled, gnarled like the claws of a monster. Marigold shivered.
The stranger whispered into Cateline’s ear as she gently tugged the purse from her grasp. Cateline slumped against the wall, engulfed by her children who licked away her tears.
Marigold watched the stranger rise. She opened her mouth, ready to thank the woman for her act of kindness, when the woman pocketed the purse and turned away.
Marigold yelped. The woman turned and beckoned Marigold forward. With tentative steps, Marigold followed the woman through the curved labyrinth of the dark side of the city.
“Where are you taking me?”
The woman stopped and turned to face Marigold. Marigold studied her hooded amber eyes and there she saw a familiar glint of bitterness. That awful condescension and hatred. Her mother once had the same look. It used to make Marigold shrink against the wall in fear. But not now. Now she stared back, willing the woman to act on that anger.
“You don’t know?” the woman replied in a silky voice.
A silky voice like the one that once forbade her from crossing the bridge alone. A girl so emaciated could be trampled by thundering hoofs, by faulty carriage wheels. Marigold felt breathless as she followed the woman across the Seine. Wheels rolled across the path, mere centimeters from her swaying body.
Then Marigold’s foot got caught on a scuffed stone, and she fell to her knees. She shouted in surprise, drawing the attention of the woman. When she looked down to assess the damage, she had to stifle another cry of shock. Some stones from the footpath had fallen away, leaving a gaping hole in the structure. The tumultuous icy river splashed below. One wrong step, and she would have surely plunged to her death.
Marigold believed she heard the woman chortle as she struggled to hoist herself up. Another striking similarity to her mother; the woman laughed in the face of pain.
She hoped she was wrong. She hoped her mother was dead.
They arrived at a weathered shack. The stones were gray, but perhaps they had once been midnight black. Marigold tried to hold the image of a home from long ago in her mind, but it faded like a nightmare, and all she was left with was a sick feeling.
The woman unlatched the door and held it open for Marigold. She stepped over the hearth and into the cramped room. The woman set the purse on the table. Marigold reached for it, but the woman stopped her with a cutting look.
The woman who couldn’t be her mother removed her cape. Marigold too removed her scarf, shaking out her yellow curls. Her hair fell around her shoulders, and Marigold hoped the woman might admire the shine. How she’d polished herself in the last ten years. But the woman busied herself with the bedclothes.
When she lifted the moth-eaten quilt, miasma wafted through the air. Marigold covered her nose with the crook of her elbow and breathed in slowly. She stole a look at the cot, at the impossible thing producing such an odor. The old woman stood at the feet of a corpse.
But it couldn’t be a corpse, for it blinked once and then twice. It gazed upon Marigold with dim brown eyes. The woman hummed a lullaby as she moved to the head of the cot to stroke the creature’s grey and blistered forehead. It had inconceivable gold curls atop its head. It opened its mouth to smile up at the woman, and Marigold saw two rows of lovely white teeth.
The woman turned to Marigold. “You have no smarts, girl, waving around money like that.”
“I mean to pay for what I receive. I’m as good as my word.”
“Your word,” the woman laughed. “What good is the word?”
“Don’t beggars need money?”
“Beggars?” The woman leered. “Is that what you think of us?”
Marigold burned with humiliation. Still, she set her shoulders straight.
“I come from the castle. The princess is in grave danger, and isn’t it the duty of the peasants to satisfy her?”
The woman scoffed. “Is that what they teach you up there, child?”
Marigold hardened her gaze. “I taught myself. I had no parental figure to teach me.”
Instead of offering kind words of pity, the woman took up an expression of mocking. The corners of her lips pulled downward, displaying a grotesque silent cry. She closed her eyes as if blinking away invisible tears.
“You wish to be coddled?”
“No,” Marigold insisted.
“You wish to be cared for and caressed?” The woman stepped around the bed and approached Marigold with the same hand she’d used to touch the repugnant creature in bed. She placed her cool skin to Marigold’s forehead to brush away a strand of hair. Then she tugged on the strand, plucking it from her scalp. Marigold flinched and pulled away.
The woman returned to the creature on the bed. It turned her face up toward the older woman, a look of yearning on her face. It nuzzled into her hand.
“You need money,” Marigold said.
“No, I don’t,” the woman mocked. “I have a purse full of denier. What does your princess need to achieve satisfaction?”
“A tooth. A healthy tooth.”
The woman grinned; her smile toothless. “What makes you entitled to make the exchange?” Her voice was as sweet as cinnamon.
Marigold leaned in, baring her teeth. “If you don’t offer it, it will be taken by force.”
“You have no such authority. You are but a servant, how can you offer such a gift? You are no different than me or my daughter, groveling in the street like us. They’ve made you think you’re one of them.”
Marigold scowled. “I am nothing like you.”
“Is that right? You won’t beg me for the purse? How will you pay for the golden tooth without it?”
Marigold set her jaw tight. She refused.
“If your word is so important, use it to beg.”
Marigold stamped her foot. “I will return with a soldier who will cut off your hand for such a crime.”
The woman turned to the girl in bed. In a soft voice, she whispered, “My child, would you like this?”
She dangled Marigold’s purse just out of reach. The girl-creature reached up with skeletal hands, mewling like a kitten. And though she couldn’t reach it, she stretched, a sharp look of pain flashing across her face. When the woman was satisfied with the performance, she dropped the purse on the girl’s lap. The girl looked at Marigold with a mean expression.
A memory jolted in her mind. An image of a young girl, her sister, just two years behind her, screaming when those men from the castle strutted in through the shack door. When they placed their hands on Marigold, she screamed. Marigold pleaded with her mother. But the woman only turned away, shielding her sister from the abduction. Marigold vowed she’d die before she groveled again.
Now the woman spat at Marigold. “You be careful what you promise. The higher you think of yourself, the harder you’ll fall.”
With an indignant breath, Marigold wrapped the scarf around her. She turned and fled, her cloak fluttering in the snow flurries.
Marigold waited until the last blade of sun gave way to an inky black night. She was certain no one had seen her lurking in the shadows of the gray shack. A flame in an iron candlestick holder shone through the grimy window. Marigold peered at the creature with curls of gold. As gold as flower petals. Marigold’s blood hammered in her ears.
The old crone placed a cloth atop the girl’s somber head, and her eyelids fluttered closed. She kissed the girl’s forehead. Marigold felt bile burn her throat. She wanted to spit on the window, but she restrained herself. She was nearly a lady, after all.
She was patient. She waited an hour until the woman extinguished the light. To her good fortune, the woman left the shack, her head covered by an emerald hood. Marigold lifted the door’s crossbar and slipped in. The girl’s rattling breath filled the room. Marigold stepped lightly to avoid the creaks and groans of the floorboards. How thankful she was not to live like this any longer. What a miserable life.
Marigold looked down at the girl, who slept fitfully on the cot low to the ground. The cold seeped up from the stone floor. And still, beads of sweat tricked around the girl’s forehead. She tossed and she whimpered but she did not wake.
The purse lay on the table next to the cot—unprotected and within an arm’s reach. Marigold smirked at the woman’s foolishness.
The girl’s mouth was open wide. Marigold leaned in closer, smelling the girl’s stinking breath and peered at her teeth. Neat little squares; a harmless version of the princess’s grin.
Marigold unwrapped her head. She bunched the fabric in her fist and stuffed it into the sleeping girl’s mouth. She pushed the fabric in past her teeth, smothering her tongue, suffocating her. The poor thing barely put up a fight. Her limbs seemed to succumb to desire for a long slumber. Soon all life drained from her.
Marigold released the pressure, wiping the saliva from her hands. Even in repose, stress lingered on the poor creature’s face. Deep lines were etched into her flaky skin.
Marigold breathed in and out, in and out.
Then, oh then. The girl suddenly gripped onto Marigold’s arm as if reaching for a savior to pull her from the depths of death. Her eyes looked maddeningly upon Marigold’s surprised and guilty face. A rage, a vulgarity. The girl was not begging for help but fighting back! With a gasp, Marigold realized the girl would fight until her last breath.
Marigold reached for the iron candlestick holder. She extinguished the flame, dangerously hot and close to her face, and threw the candle to the ground. She raised the weapon high above her and brought it down onto the girl’s gold head.
The princess whistled in her sleep. A low, eerie note. Marigold stepped into her chambers walking quickly to the ornate bed. With a snap, Marigold struck a match. Smoke curled around her mouth, crept into her nose. She placed the candle back on the side table and watched the princess’s face glow in the orange light.
She shook the royal almost violently. With a snort, the princess sat up, gripping her jaw with a pained expression in her eyes. When she saw Marigold there, she recoiled with horror.
Marigold’s curls had dried in tangles around her neck. Her right hand soaked to the elbow in blood. And she beamed down at the princess.
Marigold covered Claude’s mouth before she could scream.
Then she dug into her pocket and produced a fine tooth.
The table had been set for four. The doctor and the queen sat nearest to Claude, watching with apprehension. With an unsteady hand, the princess raised the fork to her mouth. A thick piece of duck impaled on the silver prongs. Her mouth opened wide.
Marigold watched the princess chew on the gristle with tentative bites. The queen closed her eyes as if she couldn’t stand the tension, but the doctor leaned in closer. Claude chewed luxuriously, boastfully. She broke into a wide smile.
“I feel no pain,” she cried. Her fork clattered down onto the China plate so she could wrap her arms around her tearful mother. The doctor clapped his hands, and the king called for more wine. Marigold stepped forward with her vase and poured the drink into each goblet.
Marigold watched Princess Claude gulp as if to satisfy some deep thirst. When she drained the glass, she signaled for more. Marigold filled the goblet so high, red wine splashed onto the tablecloth.
This time, Claude wasn’t careful with her hands. The insatiable princess brought the glass up so quickly that the rim knocked into her tooth. Her new, perfect tooth.
The ivory incisor fell onto Claude’s empty plate with a clatter. She looked down in shock, then her eyes found Marigold’s. And she screamed with rage.
The doctor began shouting orders. His voice rose above the queen’s scream and the clatter of silverware. “We need a new tooth immediately! There is no time to spare!”
Marigold dashed into the hallway, ready to don her scarf and take to the streets once again. She’d enter the first house she saw and find the perfect tooth for the princess. Her hands knew what to do now.
But the guard blocked her way. He nodded at a signal over Marigold’s head. She whipped around and came face to face with the doctor. His sour breath a gust on her lips.
“Subdue her,” he commanded.
Men dug their dirty fingernails into her arms while she screamed. Men from the servants’ quarters—the cook and the slaughterer. Men she shared meals with. Their hands rough, no strangers to hard labor.
She thrashed, throwing the cook from her. But the doctor moved too quickly.
“Hold her down!” The doctor commanded. The cook first mopped sweat from his upper lip, then again grasped her arm, this time with clammy hands. She yowled and hissed.
The doctor instructed the men to lower her to the floor. The cook positioned himself at her head, holding her shoulders down while the slaughterer restrained her ankles. She kicked, freeing one leg. If she could just fight some more, she’d be free. The man caught her rebellious leg by the ankle. With a swift turn, he twisted the joint until it cracked. She screamed. “Good, good,” the doctor said, straddling her shoulders so that her head was between his legs. His face loomed upside down above her. “Keep your mouth open wide.” His strong hand yanked down her jaw, rendering her open as a freshly dug grave. He drew near with his curved silver pincers.
Her screams grew hoarse and then faded to silence, but her mouth stayed open wide. Tears rolled down her face, dripping into her ears. The pincers grasped her left incisor. Pressure mounted in her gums, and she gave one last jolt.
The sweet release was only a momentary reprieve, for then came the gnawing ache of something lost. Blood poured across her tongue and dripped down her chin onto her white apron. With her duty done, the men released their grip, and she slumped against the tile, her body heavy.
A rattling across the floor let her know that several other teeth had been pulled free. The doctor examined something precious in his hands. There, reflecting in the light, Marigold saw what had been taken from her. Her perfect tooth.
The doctor pulled a glass vial from his pocket and dropped in his prize. He smiled at her. His teeth were small mounds in his mouth, the size of chicken feed.
“Your princess thanks you for your service.”
Marigold struggled to stay upright. Each time she bore weight on her right leg, torturous fire spread from her foot to her knee. To avoid bucking in agony, she braced herself against something still, something cold, and waited for her vision to balance. But her hand slipped down the brick, and she tumbled to the ground.
No one came to rescue her.
The city spun before her, and she thought the entire night would pass before she stood up again.
Her mouth rained blood. With her fingers, she felt the mess in her maw—the meat beaten and mushy. Beggars with their wretched, wrinkled faces laughed as she passed, flaunting their smiles.
She had to find the shack, had to put an end to the old woman’s curse. But she didn’t know which way to go. A wagon driver pulled to a stop at the end of the street. The scrawny man hopped out of the seat and stroked his chestnut mare. Marigold snuck up behind him, grasping his shoulders.
The man yelled and swore as he spun around to behold her. There was a look of horror carved into his face. She had to make him understand, but her tongue felt limp, powerless. Unrecognizable cries escaped her mouth. Then she released her jaw and howled.
The driver shook himself free, and then the world spun faster, faster.
Finally, she heard it, the relentless rhythm of the Seine. She had made it to the bridge! She hobbled, but her feet carried her none the less.
A figure draped in a black veil appeared on the other side of the bridge, floating toward her. There! The old woman. The witch could right the wrong.
Marigold hurried. The stone walkway had iced over, and her feet slid out from under her. So, she gripped the frosty railing and used it to pull herself along, bellowing as she proceeded.
Yet the woman ignored her.
Marigold stopped and waved her arms. She had no time to waste, this was her last chance. She decided she must grovel.
She lowered herself, waiting for knees to hit stone, holding hands to her chest in a hopeful prayer.
The river below grew in magnitude, roaring with desire.
Marigold’s knees failed their emotional appeal. They evaded solid surface. Instead, they hit the perfect target—the wild hole, the open mouth at the center of the footpath.
Marigold fell through. She struck the biting water, the plea still on her lips.
Rae Foster is a horror writer who lives in New Jersey with her husband and daughter. Her writing appears in The Cove, and she is currently working on a historical horror novel. She holds a Creative Writing Certificate from UCLA Extension. You can find her at https://raefosterwriter.wordpress.com/ or @RaeFosterWriter on Instagram and Bluesky.
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