Stepsister(44)

The bottle of wine he’d guzzled, the one that had made him feel so happy only an hour ago, now sloshed around like bilge inside him.

It was somebody’s fault, what had happened to him. It had to be. He wasn’t quite sure whose, but he would find out and then that somebody would pay.

He’d lost his job that day. For stealing from his employer. And then he’d gotten drunk on borrowed coins and had staggered home. His wife had thrown him out of the house after he’d told her there was no money left to feed their children. “Go to hell!” she shouted at him. And now here he was, stumbling down a lonely road in the dead of night, halfway there already.

But wait … what was this? People? They were jeering, yelling. They were throwing handfuls of mud. At what?

The drunken man hurried closer on his unsteady legs and saw that it was a house—no, a mansion. The moon had come out from behind a cloud, and the drunken man could see that it was shuttered and dark.

“What are you doing?” he asked a boy, short and loutish, with small eyes and bad teeth.

“The ugly stepsisters live here,” the boy replied, as if that was the only explanation needed. Then he picked up a rock and lobbed it at the front door.

The ugly stepsisters! The drunken man had heard of them. He knew their story. What nerve they have, he thought. Being mean when girls are supposed to be pleasant. Being ugly when girls are supposed to be pretty. It was an insult. To him! To the village! To all of France!

“Avenge it,” whispered a voice from behind him.

He whirled around, lost his balance, and fell on his face. It took him a few tries to get up, but when he was finally on his feet again, he saw who’d spoken—a kindly old woman, dressed in black, with a basket over her arm and a raven on her shoulder. She was holding a torch.

“What did you say, grandmother?” he asked her.

“Here you are out on the street, penniless and alone. And there they are in a big, comfortable mansion. Each one an uppity shrew, just like your wife. How they shame you, these women. You should avenge their insolence.”

The drunken man turned her words over in his head. A light, dull but dangerous, filled his bloodshot eyes. “Yes. Yes, I will. This instant!” he said, thrusting a finger into the air. But then the finger sank down again, little by little, until it hung limply at his side. “But how?”

“You look like a clever fellow,” the old woman said.

“Oh, I am, grandmother, I am,” he agreed. “You won’t find any man more cleverer than me.”

The old woman smiled. “I know you’ll find a way,” she said.

And handed him the torch.





Forty-Eight


Isabelle, legs tucked underneath her in a window seat in her bedroom, was blinking up at a silvery crescent moon that was playing peekaboo behind filmy, drifting clouds.

She was so tired, but she couldn’t go to bed. She hadn’t even undressed.

People had come again tonight, to shout and jeer and throw things at the house. They would stop after a while, when they saw that no one was coming to the door, when they finally grew bored, but until then, she would not sleep. Until then, she would remain wakeful and watchful, peering out between the slats of her shutters every so often to make sure the crowd did not drift too far into the yard, or go down the hill towards their animals.

Isabelle hoped the noise woudn’t wake Maman and upset her. Tavi would be fine. Unlike Isabelle’s window, which faced the front yard and the drive, hers overlooked the back gardens. She wouldn’t hear a thing.

Isabelle yawned. Her body craved sleep. She’d worked from the moment she’d arrived home from the Chateau Rigolade to sundown, only stopping for a bite to eat at midday.

She’d scrubbed the kitchen floor. Beat the dust out of rugs. Washed windows. Swept steps. Weeded the garden. Pruned the roses. Did anything and everything to keep from thinking about Felix, to keep from remembering his kind eyes and lopsided smile. His gentle hands. The way tendrils of his hair, worked loose from his ponytail, curled down the back of his neck. The stubble-covered line of his jaw. The freckle above his top lip.

Stop it, she told herself. Right now.

It was treason, this wanting. How could you long for the very person who’d hurt you worse than you’d ever been hurt in your entire life? It was like longing to drink a glass of poison, pick up a cobra, hold a loaded gun to your head.

She forced herself to think about something else, but soon regretted it, for only memories of the day’s other disaster came to her. The taunts of the children at the orphanage rang in her ears. So did the outraged shriek of the mother superior.

She was no closer to finding a piece of her heart, and Tanaquill's gifts weighed heavily in her pocket, reminding her of her failure.

She still had hope, no matter how fragile, of becoming pretty. She just had to find another way of earning the fairy queen’s help.

Tavi made jam, she thought now. I could bring some to an elderly shut-in … if only I knew one. I could knit socks to bring to Colonel Cafard’s soldiers … but I never learned how to knit. I could make some soup and bring it to a sick person, or a refugee, or a poor family with lots of children … but I’m not a very good cook.

Still looking out of the window, Isabelle heaved a deep sigh. “How’d you do it, Ella? How did you always manage to be so good? Even to me?” She leaned her weary head against the wall. Shouts and laughter and ugly words drifted up to her from outside. She knew she mustn’t sleep but she didn’t think there would be any harm in closing her eyes. Just for a minute.