Oleg was snoring fit to blow the rafters off. He had greedily taken Magda’s suggestion that they should sample the latest batch of fruit brandy when she had returned to the house. He did not stir as she swung herself out of bed. Nevertheless, Magda moved quietly as she slipped out of their room. First she tiptoed out to the Dvorovoi’s shrine. The air was still and she could hear the animals shifting in the barn. Magda picked up the comb, its metal chilled her fingers. A small breath of air stirred the hair about her face, as she turned back to the house.
Climbing the stairs once more she held her breath, but Oleg’s snores covered the sound of creaking boards. She had insisted that the girl should try the liquor too, and Anya’s eyelids had already been drooping when she had gone to bed. Magda waited in the doorway to be sure the girl did not stir. In the moonlight her hair formed a silvery pool flowing over the pillow and counterpane, mirroring the silver in Magda’s hands: the comb in one and scissors in the other. Working gently she sliced through the torrent of silk. A gust of wind rattled the window, then all was still again except for the sound of falling water made by the blades. Magda collected up the skein of hair and placed the silver comb next to Anya’s shorn head. It would be obvious to everyone: Anya had stolen the Dvorovoi’s offering and he had punished her by shearing off the glorious river.
Magda retreated, back past her own bedroom. To complete her plan there was one thing yet to do. Downstairs she blew the embers of the fire back to life. But the flames were reluctant. The wind had begun to swirl and knock against the shutters. The chimney would hardly draw. There was a lick of flame. Magda began feeding it the hair. Suddenly the wind shouted down the chimney, filling the room with hot ash and soot. Magda clapped a hand to her eye, feeling screaming pain sealing it shut.
Her wails woke the others, and Anya joined her lament, realizing the catastrophe that had happened while she slept. Even with her eye streaming stinging tears, Magda felt satisfaction. Her rival looked like a scarecrow; Nikolai would never want her now.
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The cart was decorated with sweet-smelling garlands and Magda’s neighbors cheered as Nikolai and Anya drove off to start their married life. After the Dvorovoi had cursed them, Oleg had insisted he and Magda had no right to keep Anya with them, and Nikolai claimed to love his bride just as much with her halo of blonde curls.
Magda put back her veil as they left. She knew the neighbors thought she wore it so she would not have to see their horror at her ruined face with its bulging red-veined eye, but they were wrong. It was the happiness of the newlyweds that she could not bear to see. As she passed the Dvorovoi’s shrine, she unfastened the silver comb from her hair and tossed it into the dust.
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"Many fairy stories feature wicked stepmothers and are told from the point of view of the beautiful goody-two-shoes heroine. It seemed to me, that maybe the stepmothers behaved the way they did out of self-defense, but the reader would never know because they never had a chance to tell their side of the tale. The Songbird and the Silver Comb is an attempt the redress the balance - well, maybe a little.
"More than 50 of my stories have been published including in Dark Horizons, Fear, AlienSkin, From the Asylum and Time for Bedlam, and among the competitions I have won are QWF, The Jo Cowell Award, Lymm Festival and Dark Tales.."