Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(77)

Justus closed his eyes. He should have known.He shed silent tears for Gudrun, his beautiful, vivacious sister. She was never going to paint another ink mural on the whitewashed cottage wall, never fight for the first dipper of well water or call him “Padda” again. Had this awful creature abused Gudrun before her death? Forced himself on her, hairy and cruel and wild? Did he tear out her perfect white throat with his teeth? Justus suppressed his sobs, because while the tears helped his cause, any accidental noises might betray his masculinity.

He’d cultivated a habit of silencing even involuntary sounds.

“Don’t be so upset,” Monster coaxed. “You look obedient.”

“Yes, Monster,” Justus said, swallowing hard.

“I’m sure you’re very tired. Valfrid will take you to your chambers.”

Justus turned to find the lanky servant waiting at his elbow. Eager to leave Monster’s overwhelming presence, Justus wrapped his shawl tighter and hurried after Valfrid, who locked him in his room with a sharp iron click.

? 241 ?

? Castle of Masks ?

A large looking glass held court on one wall, over a table with a high-backed chair; a cozy bed with a billowing silk canopy occupied one corner; tapestries of flowers and pastoral scenes obscured the walls. In this one room of the gloomy castle, the stone had been painted white. Roses withered in a vase, their table too near the fire.

Justus thought he would feel safer once he was alone, but now he was haunted by the ghosts of every lie he had told that day. This ridiculous scheme had gotten this far, but for all he knew, Valfrid had suspected his secret from their first introduction. They could be merely toying with him.

Justus padded to the window, peering out at the other lights across the courtyard. Behind one green pane, a girl carried a basket of laundry. She paused to offer a beautiful smile, and nearly dropped the linens when she waved at Justus. Her simple gesture calmed him long after she had disappeared; even in this horrid museum of death, people went about their jobs, and sometimes they were clumsy.

Justus slipped from his dress, bundled into his wool pajamas, and ducked under the covers of the massive bed. The cutlass he tucked under the pillow.

As he drifted off, he wondered if Gudrun had slept here, and before her, how many others. Tomorrow he would look for his sister among the masks in the foyer.

Justus slept poorly and was up early. He changed into his dress again, and he was shaving in front of the mirror when Valfrid knocked on the door.

“One moment,” he said, hurriedly scraping off the last traces of the salve and hiding his shaving instruments. When Justus opened the door, the kohl with which he’d lined his eyes was still smeared from tears and a night’s sleep, but at least he had no stubble.

“This is Rigmora,” Valfrid said. “She’ll help you dress for breakfast with the Greve. She doesn’t hear or speak, but she’ll do a better job than I would.”

A girl with too many freckles watched from just behind Valfrid’s ? 242 ?

? Cory Skerry ?

shoulder. Not the cheerful laundry girl, which disappointed Justus, but Rigmora possessed an air of quiet capability. She guided Justus back to the chair by the looking glass.

The smeary, tear-stained makeup of the night before disappeared under Rigmora’s careful application of a rag and cool water from the corner basin. She happily combed Justus’s ringlets into a glossy cascade that poured forward over his shoulders.

When she finished, Justus looked more feminine than he had upon his arrival, and with a sigh of relief, he followed her down to breakfast.

Monster crouched at the end of an informally short table, his bulk housed in a large seat crowned in antlers. Rigmora led Justus to a much smaller chair and curtsied to Monster before disappearing.

The windows in the dining hall were among the uncolored few in the castle, and sunlight spilled in swathes across the table and floor. When Monster asked how Justus had slept, Justus had the wit to parrot his answer from the night before.

“As well as I imagined.”

Monster’s mismatched eyes squinted in mirth—one a golden glittering yellow, the other an entirely black orb. A snake and an owl, Justus thought. When Monster reached for a jug of filmj?lk, he exposed a raw, red wound just below his ribs. He chugged the filmj?lk, then patted his muzzle clean with a napkin. A moment later, Monster turned to grab a plate of sm?rg?s, and Justus noticed a matching wound on the opposite side of the beast’s torso.

“What happened?” Justus asked, gesturing. Monster only stared until Justus added, “You’re wounded.”