Stepsister(23)

Isabelle lurched after her. “No! Wait! Please wait!”

The fairy queen whirled around, her lips curled in a snarl. “For what, girl? Ella knew her heart’s deepest wish. Do you?”

Isabelle faltered, frightened, but desire made her bold. A dozen wishes welled up inside her, all born from her happiest memories. In her mind’s eye, she saw swords and books, horses, the Wildwood. Summer days. Daisy chains. She remembered a promise and a kiss.

Isabelle opened her mouth to ask for these things, but just as the words were about to leave her tongue, she bit them back.

All her life, everything she’d wanted, everything she’d loved … they were always the wrong things. They got her into trouble. They broke her heart. They weren’t for her; the world had said so. So why ask for them? They’d only bring more heartache.

There was one thing, though, that could fix everything. It could make people stop hating her. It could make her what Maman wanted her to be, what the baker’s wife and Cecile and the villagers and the old merchant and all the suitors who came to the house and the whole entire world demanded that she be.

Isabelle looked Tanaquill in the eye and said, “I wish to be pretty.”

Tanaquill growled low in her throat and Isabelle felt as if she’d given the wrong answer, but the fairy queen didn’t refuse her. Instead, she said, “Wishes are never simply granted. They must be earned.”

“I’ll do anything,” Isabelle said fervently.

“That is what all mortals say,” said Tanaquill with a scornful laugh. “They’ll do anything. Anything but that which must be done. Only one thing can rid you of the bitterness inside. Do it, and perhaps I will help you.”

“I’ll do it. I swear,” Isabelle said, clasping her hands together. “What is it?”

“Find the lost pieces of your heart.”





Twenty-Five


Isabelle blinked. “Find the pieces of my heart?” she repeated, as if she hadn’t heard the fairy queen correctly. “I—I don’t understand. How do I find pieces of a heart? How did Ella?”

“Ella did not have to.”

Isabelle scowled. “Of course not. I bet all she had to do was smile.”

Her words, prompted by resentment, were tart and disrespectful. Tanaquill’s emerald eyes hardened; she turned away.

Panic exploded inside of Isabelle like a dropped glass. Why could she never control herself? “I’m sorry. Tell me what the pieces are. Tell me how to find them. Please,” she begged, running after her.

Tanaquill relented. “You know what they are.”

“But I don’t!” Isabelle protested. “I have no idea!”

“And you must find your own way to them.”

“How? Show me,” Isabelle implored, growing desperate. “Help me.”

Still clutching the struggling rabbit, Tanaquill bent down by the base of the linden tree and, with her free hand, raked through the small bones scattered in the grass around it. She picked up a small, slender jawbone that had belonged to a darting, wily animal—a weasel or marten—and the empty half shell of a walnut, and gave them to Isabelle. Next, she reached into the thick blackbriar climbing the linden tree’s trunk, drew a spiky seedpod from between its sharp thorns and handed that to her, too.

“These gifts will help you attain your heart’s desire,” Tanaquill said.

Isabelle looked down at the things she was holding, and as she did, the emotions she’d tried to hold down spiked like a fever, weakening everything strong and sure inside her. Her blood felt thin, her guts watery, her bones as crumbly as old mortar. The apology she’d made only moments ago was forgotten. Angry, jealous words burst from her lips.

“Gifts? These things?” she cried, staring at the bone, the nutshell, and the seedpod. “You gave Ella a beautiful gown and glass slippers! A carriage and horses. Those are gifts. You’ve given me a handful of garbage!”

She looked up, but Tanaquill had turned away again. As Isabelle watched, the fairy queen disappeared into the hollow in a swirl of red hair and green skirts. Isabelle hobbled after her, but as she did, a thin, high-pitched scream rose, and was abruptly cut off—the rabbit’s death cry. She took a wary step back.

Her gaze returned to the objects in her hand. The fairy queen was mocking her with them, she was certain of it, and that certainty was painful to her.

“Ugly,” she said as her fingers touched the jawbone. “Useless,” she said as they brushed the nutshell. “Hurtful,” she said as the seedpod pricked them. “Just like me.”

She would toss the objects into the hearth in the morning. They could at least help kindle a fire. She shoved them into her skirt pocket, then walked the rest of the way to her house, convinced that there was no help for her, no hope. There was only despair, heavy and hard, weighing on what was left of her cutaway heart.

Most people will fight when there is some hope of winning, no matter how slim. They are called brave. Only a few will keep fighting when all hope is gone. They are called warriors.

Isabelle was a warrior once, though she has forgotten it.

Will she remember? It does not look good. Then again, few things do in the dead of night. The small dark hours are the undoing of many. Candlelight throws shadows on the walls of our souls, shadows that turn a mouse into a monster, a downturn into disaster.