Stepsister(8)

“It’s geometry, actually.”

The old man scowled at being corrected. “Yes, well, whatever it is, the feminine mind was not made for it,” he cautioned. “You’ll tax your brain. Give yourself headaches. And headaches cause wrinkles, you know.”

Tavi looked up. “Is that how it works? Then how did you get your wrinkles? I can’t imagine you tax your brain very much.”

“Well, I never … Not in all my days … What a rude girl!” the old man sputtered, shaking his walking stick at her.

That was when Ella stepped forward. “Tavi didn’t mean to be rude, sir …”

“Yes, I did,” said Tavi, under her breath.

“… it’s just that Euclid vexes her,” Ella finished.

The old man stopped spluttering. He smiled. Ella had that effect on people.

“What a pretty girl you are. So sweet and pleasant,” he said. “I shall ask your papa to marry you to my grandson. Then you’ll have a wealthy husband and live in a fine house and wear lovely dresses. Would you like that?”

Ella hesitated, then said, “Might I have a little dog instead?”

The two men burst into laughter. The younger chucked Ella under the chin. The elder patted her blond curls, called her a pretty rose, and gave her a bonbon from the pink box he’d brought for Maman. Ella smiled and thanked him and eagerly ate the sweet.

Isabelle, still up in the tree, watched the exchange longingly. She dearly loved bonbons. Mop handle in hand, she jumped down, startling the old man. He yelped, stumbled backward, and fell.

“What the devil are you doing with that stick?” he shouted at her, red-faced.

“Fighting Blackbeard,” Isabelle replied as the younger man helped him up.

“You almost killed me!”

Isabelle gave him a skeptical look. “I fall all the time. Out of trees. Off horses. Even out of the hayloft once. And it hasn’t killed me,” she said. “Might I please have a bonbon, too?”

“Certainly not!” the old man said, brushing himself off. “Why would I give such a nice treat to such a nasty little monkey with grubby hands and leaves in her hair?”

He picked up the pink box and his walking stick, and headed for the mansion, muttering to his companion the whole way. His voice was low, but Isabelle—who still had hopes of a bonbon—followed them and could hear him.

“The one is a charming little beauty and will make a splendid wife one day, but the other two …” He shook his head ominously. “Well, I suppose they can always become nuns or governesses or whatever it is that ugly girls do.”

Isabelle stopped dead. Her hand came up to her chest. There was a pain in her heart, new and strange. Only moments ago, she’d been happily slaying pirates, completely unaware that she was lacking. That she was less than. That she was a nasty little monkey, not a pretty rose.

For the first time, she understood that Ella was pretty and she was not.

Isabelle was strong. She was brave. She beat Felix at sword fights. She jumped her stallion, Ne, over fences everyone else was afraid of. She’d chased a wolf away from the henhouse once with only a stick.

These things are good, too, she’d thought as she stood there, bewildered and bereft. They are, aren’t they? I am, aren’t I?

That was the day everything changed between the three girls.

They were only children. Ella had been given a sweet and had preened under all the attention. Isabelle was jealous; she couldn’t help it. She wanted a sweet, too. She wanted kind words and admiring glances.

Sometimes it’s easier to say that you hate what you can’t have rather than admit how badly you want it. And so Isabelle, still standing under the linden tree, said she hated Ella.

And Ella said she hated her back.

And Tavi said she hated everyone.

And Maman stood on the terrace listening, a dangerous new light in her hard, watchful eyes.





Ten


“Isabelle, I’m leaving now. I—I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.”

Ella’s voice pulled Isabelle back from her memories. She leaned down and kissed Isabelle’s forehead, her lips like a hot brand against Isabelle’s skin.

“Don’t hate me anymore, stepsister,” she whispered. “For your own sake, not mine.”

And then she was gone and Isabelle was alone on the bench.

She thought about the person she once was, and the person she’d become. She thought about all the things she’d been told to want, the things she’d crippled herself to get, the important things. Ella had them now and she had nothing. Jealousy burned in her, as it had for years.

Isabelle looked to her left and saw Tavi struggle up the steps to the mansion, limp across the threshold, and close the door. She looked to her right and saw the prince hand Ella up into the carriage. He climbed in behind her, and then he, too, closed the door.

The grand duke swung himself up next to the driver. He shouted a command at the soldiers ahead of him, all atop their horses now, and they started off. The driver cracked his whip, and the eight white stallions lurched forward in their harnesses.

Isabelle watched the carriage as it rolled out of the long drive, headed down the narrow country road, and crested a hill. A moment later, it was gone.

She remained where she was for quite some time, until the day grew cool and the sun began to set. Until birds flew to their roosts and a green-eyed fox loped off to the woods to hunt. Then she rose and whispered to the lengthening shadows, “It’s not you I hate, Ella. It never was. It’s me.”