Stepsister(13)

Isabelle lowered her head, her cheeks flaming. She and Tavi had only just arrived at the market and already the taunts were starting.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she remembered her sister’s directive: Behave. She counted out coins from her pocket and handed them over. The baker’s wife gave her an undersized loaf, burned on the bottom, and a sneering smile to go with it.

“Serves her right,” said a woman standing in line.

“Burned bread’s too good for her,” sniffed another.

The women stood there, nodding and pointing and making remarks, basting themselves in righteousness like geese on a spit, when just yesterday the first had slapped her small daughter so hard for spilling milk that the child’s cheek still bore a welt, and the second had kissed her sister’s husband behind the tavern.

No one jeers louder at a hanging than the cutthroat who got away.

“I hope you choke on it,” said the baker’s wife as Isabelle fumbled the loaf into her basket.

Isabelle felt anger kindle inside her. Harsh words rose in her throat, but she bit them back.

“I hope your ugly sister chokes, too.”

At the mention of her sister—Tavi, who’d grown thin since Ella had left, who rarely smiled and barely ate—Isabelle’s smoldering temper ignited.

The centrepiece of the baker’s display was a carefully constructed pyramid of shiny brown rolls. Isabelle cocked her arm back and smacked the top off. A dozen rolls tumbled off the table and landed in the muddy street.

“Choke on that,” she said to the spluttering baker’s wife and her squawking customers.

The look on the woman’s face, her shriek of outrage, her dismay—they all felt good, for a moment. I won, Isabelle thought. But as she limped away from the stall, she realized, with a sick, sinking feeling, that she hadn’t won. Her anger had. Once again.

Ella would not have done that, she thought. Ella would have disarmed them all with a sweet smile and soft words.

Ella was never angry. Not when she’d had to cook and clean for them. Or eat her meals alone in the kitchen. Not even when Maman wouldn’t let her go to the ball.

Ella had had a cold room in the attic and a hard bed; Isabelle and Tavi had blazing fires in their bedchambers and feather mattresses. Ella had had only a tattered dress to wear, while Isabelle and Tavi had dozens of pretty gowns. Yet day after day, it was Ella who sang, Ella who smiled. Not Isabelle. Not Tavi.

“Why?” Isabelle asked herself, desperate for an answer, certain that if she could get it, she could learn to be good and kind, too. But no answer came, only a pain, deep and gnawing, on the left side of her chest.

Had Isabelle asked the old wives of Saint-Michel, all sitting by the fountain in the village square, they could have told her what caused it. For the old wives have a saying: Never is a wolf more dangerous than when he’s in a cage.

At the edge of Saint-Michel is the Wildwood. The wolves who live there come out at night. They prowl fields and farms, hungry for hens and tender young lambs. But there is another sort of wolf, one that’s far more treacherous. This is the wolf the old ones speak of.

“Run if you see him,” they tell their granddaughters. “His tongue is silver, but his teeth are sharp. If he gets hold of you, he’ll eat you alive.”

Most of the village girls do what they’re told, but occasionally one does not. She stands her ground, looks the wolf in the eye, and falls in love with him.

People see her run to the woods at night. They see her the next morning with leaves in her hair and blood on her lips. This is not proper, they say. A girl should not love a wolf.

So they decide to intervene. They come after the wolf with guns and swords. They hunt him down in the Wildwood. But the girl is with him and sees them coming.

The people raise their rifles and take aim. The girl opens her mouth to scream, and as she does, the wolf jumps inside it. Quickly the girl swallows him whole, teeth and claws and fur. He curls up under her heart.

The villagers lower their weapons and go home. The girl heaves a sigh of relief. She believes this arrangement will work. She thinks she can be satisfied with memories of the wolf’s golden eyes. She thinks the wolf will be happy with a warm place to sleep.

But the girl soon realizes she’s made a terrible mistake, for the wolf is a wild thing and wild things cannot be caged. He wants to get out, but the girl is all darkness inside and he cannot find his way.

So he howls in her blood. He tears at her bones.

And when that doesn’t work, he eats her heart.

The howling and gnawing—it drives the girl mad.

She tries to cut him out, slicing lines in her flesh with a razor.

She tries to burn him out, holding a candle flame to her skin.

She tries to starve him out, refusing to eat until she’s nothing but skin over bone.

Before long, the grave takes them both.

A wolf lives in Isabelle. She tries hard to keep him down, but his hunger grows. He cracks her spine and devours her heart.

Run home. Slam the door. Throw the bolt. It won’t help.

The wolves in the woods have sharp teeth and long claws, but it’s the wolf inside who will tear you apart.





Fifteen


Isabelle managed to finish her market shopping without further incident. There was a cutting glance from the cheesemonger and a few harsh words from the butcher, but she ignored them.