I’m afraid of heights, and nobody knew. They took me in, when I came to the door, scared and cold and hungry as the pack of wolves which had been following me since noon. A little figure carved of ice, I must have looked, but they took me in and let me sit by the fire.

A bed was more than I expected, a feather bed at that. I would have been pleased with a shelf in the kitchen, as close to the oven as I could get. Instead they led me up, all the way up, the spiraling stairs of the tower. The stone was as cold as I and did not welcome me. They shut me in a room, with a single candle and a bed. Oh, but what a bed!

One and twenty mattresses. I counted them twice, Peter had taught me how, practicing with stones or my fingers and toes. A tower of a bed in a tower of stone. There was a ladder, like the one to get to the loft in the barn, only this one was thin and spindly, not sturdy and well worn by countless boots.

The bed sagged, it reminded me of the old woman who sells us eggs, corners rounded and soft in the middle. I reached out carefully to touch the first, the lowest of them, nearly flat beneath the weight of twenty others. For just a moment I considered sleeping on the floor, but that would be rude, so I reached for the ladder and shut my eyes tight. I began to climb, one, two, three, four rungs. Hand over hand, heel before toe, five, six, and then I slipped. The floor was hard as stone tends to be and by the light of the candle I counted the bruises.

I did not sleep that night. Perched high on one and twenty mattresses. I was too afraid, too afraid that if I rolled a little to this side or that I’d find myself back on the floor, with broken bones to join my bruises. In the morning I couldn’t even bring myself to look over the edge.

There was a knock, they were calling me, I barely know how I got back down that ladder except maybe the idea of solid ground beneath my feet was more appealing than breakfast.

They led me down, down the tower. Up in the evening, down in the morning, wasn’t that the opposite of what was meant to be? I found myself standing before a fine woman, in velvet and fur and a young man with straw coloured hair. I wiped my hands on my apron. What a sight I must look, dark wells beneath red eyes and bruised black and blue. The woman asked how I slept, I considered lying, to be polite of course, but I gave myself away, I hadn’t slept a wink. The lady beamed at me and pulled three dried peas from her pocket. The straw-haired man had a smile like a wolf.

I’m afraid of heights, and nobody knew.