Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

by Gregory Maguire

  “I’d rather die,” says Clara. “He is a rapacious bird, a crow.”

  “But what choice do you have? You won’t even leave the house, so if Nicolaes van Stolk is going to possess it and move in, he will have to possess you too . . .”

  “I’ll take to the woods. I’ll follow the bridlepath to Amsterdam or Leiden. I’ll find my windmill and bury myself in the changeling’s room. I’ll drown myself in the Haarlemsmeer.”

  “Talk, talk. You who are timid at every threshold.” Margarethe heaves herself away, and the knife that she carries seems to make several comments of its own by how it slices the air.

  “Don’t you want to go to the ball?” says Iris softly.

  “This house is about to fall in upon itself with her maneuverings,” says Clara. “In a week’s time we will be ruined. She is living in her crazed mind. But I won’t marry van Stolk, not after how he’s treated my father. I would rather kill my father and myself both.”

  “You should come,” says Iris. “Come to the ball!”

  “Stop about that,” says Clara. “I’m taking this firkin of hot water and honey upstairs to Papa. It soothes him to see me as the afternoon fades; otherwise he is agitated. Soon the day will be here when I can’t do this.”

  Iris follows Clara up the back stairs and along the passage to the front room. Van den Meer has climbed out of the bed, but sits in a state of half dress, looking glassily about him. “Papa, adjust your clothes, you have female visitors,” says Clara at the door, and van den Meer pulls his dressing gown closed.

  “It is all a game of verkeer-spel, isn’t it,” he mumbles. “The game of turns. Anything can happen.”

  Clara gives him the concoction, which he sips without apparent relish. “All things change, Papa. You know that.”

  “So do you, my changeling.”

  “Change from what?” says Iris. She can’t help herself. Clara seems older, through all this disaster; she should be able to answer now. “Who were you before you were a changeling?”

  Clara sits down heavily on a stool and runs her hands on the painted tiles on the wall, as if their blue designs show pictures of her past rather than of Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Moses with the stone tablets.

  “I was a foolish, ugly child,” says Clara, “a bad child who didn’t mind my mother. I strayed from her apron hem, and they found me and turned me into a good child. They made me fair and obedient, and gave me beauty and gifts of music and language.”

  “They did this in the windmill?” says Iris. “They put you in a hole in the windmill and taught you music?”

  Clara shrugs and nods. A ghost of that old look, a thinner, transparent version of it, flutters on her face.

  “Who did this to you?” says Iris. She can’t help it. She turns to van den Meer and says, “Was it you?”

  “It wasn’t me.” He isn’t even offended at her accusation. “We never did learn who it was.”

  “It was the bird spirits who swarm on the banks of the Haarlemsmeer,” says Clara.

  Van den Meer bobs his chin agreeably and says, “It was probably rogues passing through from Antwerp. Or who knows, maybe the hairy-chinned gypsies.”

  “Papa!” says Clara sharply.

  “Tell me,” says Iris, putting her shoulder between Clara’s face and her father’s.

  A decade-long habit of reticence slips off van den Meer as easily as his enthusiasm for business has. He tells Iris, while Clara draws in a series of small breaths, one two three, one two three.

  “Henrika had gone to the market for lobsters and lemons. Clara was three or four, an eager, ambitious child, full of spunk in the legs and wind in the lungs. She was hard to manage, and Henrika lost sight of her in the crowds. I think it was the evening before a feast day. Clara was well known on the streets then, affable and easygoing, and we were frightened. We hoped some good soul would find her and bring her home to us.”

  “It was the spirits who found me!” whispered Clara. “The bird.”

  “But evening came and there was still no word. Henrika had me call in the civic guards and the schout—the sheriff—and his men also took up the hunt. Haarlem treasures its children. How much it treasured Clara van den Meer, daughter of Cornelius van den Meer and, more importantly, daughter of his wealthy and important wife, Henrika Vinckboons! Citizens and militia alike joined the search, but it was terrifying, for the more places we could think to look, the more distraught we were to find she wasn’t there. We feared she had stumbled into a canal and drowned. Or worse.”

  “Nothing like that,” says Clara. “Nothing at all. The long boat ride to the other world, where I would be changed. My little house under the floor. It was warm. There was a blanket. There were nice sweets and fruit, and the saw-voiced spirit sang to me when I cried.” Clara rocks a bit, as if she has a baby in her arms.

  “There was a note found stuck in our front shutters. They would return Clara if Henrika gave them many florins in a chest. It was half of the Vinckboons fortune. Quickly we had to arrange to sell off the outlying farms that brought in rent. Not much left except this house and what was in it. But Henrika, a natural mother, would hear of nothing else but to supply what was asked and get our Clara back.”

  “They had no use for florins,” says Clara. “They wanted to change me into a good girl, that’s all. They comforted me and kept me warm.”

  “For three days,” says van den Meer, “I whipped the schout and his men into more and more furious searching, offering rewards nearly equal to the amount that Clara was being ransomed for. Some suspected it was a plot of the Spaniards, infiltrating Haarlem and demoralizing the town before an attack. Some guessed it was witches wanting the child’s blood for their unholy sabbath.”

  “They were pretty,” says Clara. “They were kind. The spirits of the water.”

  “And Henrika was mad with fear. So we paid the fee, leaving it at night in the middle of the forest as directed. We hid ourselves and watched it for many hours, till a note came to the house saying the money wouldn’t be collected nor Clara returned until we’d given up our vigil. In the end, we were too distraught to do anything but stay at home and wait. And a note then was delivered to the alehouse where I had been accustomed to having my midday meal, saying that Clara was hidden in a windmill to the south of the town.”

  “When I was changed, they left me. They gave me the windmill toy to remember them by,” says Clara. “The one Ruth took from me, and that she has chewed to pieces.”

  “Was Clara hurt?” says Iris. She drops to her knees and wraps her arms around Clara’s shoulders from behind. “Did they hurt her?”

  “In none of the worst ways that you can imagine,” says van den Meer. “Didn’t we make sure of that at once? It was money they were after, not evil deeds.”

  “I am a changeling,” says Clara.

  “So Henrika allowed her to say,” says van den Meer, “and ever after has Clara been kept to the house, until in time she herself chose to stay within its walls. It’s as good a story as any, the changeling story. Who knows, perhaps it’s true. But the spirits who changed her had a big appetite for cash.”

  Clara makes a half turn on the stool. Her face is slack but open. The eyes have lost that pierced appearance. One hand claws at the thumb of the other for a moment, then falls as if utterly exhausted.

  “And so until Henrika died, you rarely left the house again?” says Iris.

  “My mother was affrighted for me, and I learned terror from her. But if I heard of other changelings, I wanted to meet them,” says Clara. “But I never could meet any. People say a lot about changelings, but they are hard to find. When I first saw her, I had thought that Ruth was one—”

  There’s a thump at the door. Ruth has been standing there listening, and she has lost her balance.

  The Changeling

  The household is asleep except for Clara and Iris.

  They sit in the flickering light of the embers, holding hands.

  “Don’t you see
?” says Iris. “It’s a way to avoid having to marry van Stolk, and it’s a way to save your father. You may not be able to save this house, but you don’t need this house. You are changed again, you’re back to the person you were when you were three or four. You’re strong and have brave muscles and ample breath. And a good heart, Clara, a good heart! You can manage the act of charity!”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” says Clara. Her voice is small, but it isn’t weak.

  “Look at the picture I’m drawing for you,” says Iris firmly. “I mean, close your eyes and look at it. Stare at it inside yourself so you can see it. I am painting it for you. There’s little Clara in the dark. She isn’t scared, she’s not hurt, she’s just having an adventure, and the bird spirits are being nice to her, but now the ceiling is opening up. The light is coming down. She is holding up her arms and being lifted high. It’s her mother. It’s Henrika. She’s saying, Come now, Clara, come; it’s time to grow up. And up you come. You aren’t a changeling. You’re still yourself. The dark hole is too small for you now. You can leave the little box, you can climb out. All the way out.”

  “But I am a changeling,” says Clara.

  “Look at what you can change to, then,” says Iris carefully. She hardly knows if she is colluding with her mother—to save the family fortunes by marrying one of them off to the Prince, anyway, the most likely one—or if she’s merely trying to bring poor forgotten Clara back into the world—any world but her sadness. She thinks she may never again be sure of why she does anything—but it seems the only thing to do. Iris pushes on. “Clara, no one disputes that you are the most splendid beauty of the town. A beautiful young woman, and brave. You can go outside. No one will take you or steal you or hide you away. Come to the ball, Clara; come to the feast. At least see what it is like.”

  “I’m not ready to be seen,” says Clara.

  “No,” says Iris, “but, like me, you are ready to look. Look at yourself.”

  Clara closes her eyes for a moment and bows her head. In the moonlight her hair is the color of alabaster. When she lifts her gaze to Iris’s again, she says in a sober voice, untroubled by notions, “The truth of what I’ve learned today isn’t about changelings. It’s that my family’s financial worries are partly my fault. Maybe all my fault. If I hadn’t wandered away from my mother, those rogues wouldn’t have stolen me. My family lost half their wealth to preserve my life, and that set up the conditions for their zealous husbanding of their resources.”

  “You didn’t make them wealthy, nor did you make them greedy,” says Iris firmly.

  “No,” says Clara, “but I made them poor. Without intention and without guile, but nonetheless. So maybe it is time to do my part. I won’t marry van Stolk, not for all the caskets of pearls you can import from the Indian Ocean. But if I can go in disguise, cloaked as a nun, as a crone, I will allow myself to meet this Prince. One step at a time. I’ll climb out of the dark hole and go, at least, to look at him, as you say. And then we will see what we will see.”

  Iris clasps Clara’s hands again, and then goes to find a quill, a pot of ink, a scrap of paper, and her cloak.

  Small Magic

  The next day, when so much needs to be done, Margarethe develops a redness along the rims of her eyes. She knows cures herself—the larder has been filled with small jugs and vials and pockets of herbs and powders since the first few weeks of Margarethe’s arrival in the strict house—but she has no balm for sore eyes. She decides to hie herself along to a nursewife for some unguent. Not daring to try to step out on the streets alone, she takes Ruth for a strong arm to lean upon. When she leaves, barking instructions about Papa Cornelius’s breakfast over her shoulder to Iris and Clara, the girls go into the kitchen. There, in a little heap under an upturned saucer, stands a red trace of hot ground pepper.

  “Ruth brought Margarethe her morning cup,” muses Clara. “And Margarethe demands that her eyes be wiped by a clean linen every morning, for the crust of night makes things even worse . . . You don’t suppose . . . ?”

  “Ruth is the foolish one,” says Iris briskly, “haven’t you noticed? Are you suggesting that Ruth irritated my mother’s eyes with red pepper? Why would she do that? You can’t possibly think her capable of such wickedness.”

  “No doubt Margarethe’s tears will have healing properties eventually,” says Clara. “That is, if Margarethe could ever bring herself to shed a tear over anything. But this is puzzling. Are you and Ruth scheming at something?”

  “Mama is the capable herbalist,” says Iris. “Though I suppose her daughters must have picked up something of the properties of plants along the way. But I can’t worry about this. There is too much else to do, my dear.” She grins at Clara with the force of her secret idea.

  They put together a tray—a hard crust of bread softened by holding it over a steaming kettle, a cup of tea—and Clara brings it to her father in his room. While Iris is fiddling through the wardrobes to see if there is anything that might be smart enough to serve as a gown for Clara, she hears a voice in the kitchen. She calls, “Just a moment,” and goes down to find Caspar lounging on a bench, his legs stretched out to the fire.

  “You found my note in the door,” she says.

  “You must have been up very early to deliver that before we were awake.”

  “And you are good enough to answer my call for help, and here you are, making yourself comfortable.”

  “Why not?” he says. “I can sniff that the witch is out of the house.”

  “Oh, don’t be cruel,” says Iris. “She is my mother, after all.”

  “Don’t mind me,” he says. “I understand you’re now destitute?”

  “We haven’t got a crumb to spare,” says Iris, but looking at him makes her feel like laughing all over—as if she could laugh not just with her mouth but with her eyes, her heart, her very limbs.

  “Your mother might have done better to marry the Master when he asked her,” says Caspar. “He didn’t lose a fortune in the great tulip crash.”

  “So he’s told us, but he also says that his customers did, and that’ll mean that fewer people can come along to have their portraits painted.”

  “It does mean that,” admits Caspar. “It makes even more desirable the landing of the Dowager Queen’s commission. But he still has a lot of commissions to fulfill, and while the food on the table is plain, it’s plentiful.”

  “Well, Margarethe may have married the wrong man,” says Iris, “but there’s no changing that now. Margarethe will do what she will, and when.”

  “I hope you don’t marry the wrong man,” says Caspar.

  “That’s a pleasant assumption you make, that I will marry at all!” says Iris.

  “I don’t know whether it’s pleasant or not,” says Caspar. “Depends on your estimation of marriage, I guess. But I just hope, if you do wed, that you do so for reasons other than Margarethe’s.”

  “Margarethe married to keep her daughters fed,” says Iris. “Not that it’s any of your concern, but why shouldn’t she do that? Isn’t that her responsibility as a mother?”

  “I don’t want to argue,” says Caspar. He laughs and holds up his hands. “I was glad to find your note! I had to get out of the Master’s studio today. He’s making me mad. He’s in a frenzy of worry about this ball. The trimming of the beard! The brushing of the coat! The polishing of the buckles! The steaming of the sash! You never saw such goings-on. I’m glad I’m too lowly a little worm to be involved.”

  “What is this now,” says Iris, casting him an amused look, “I think I detect that you would like to go to the ball too.”

  “Anything else but that,” he cries. “I’d stomp on the train of the Dowager Queen of France and pull it to the ground, causing Louis the Latest to collude with Spain and rise in arms against the Lowlands. I’d say the wrong things to the wrong people and offend everyone. I’d get thrown out on my backside and land in a mud puddle. This isn’t something that I yearn to do.”
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br />   “Good,” says Iris, “for there’s only one miracle to perform in any given day, and I have my work cut out for me. And you’ll help me?”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  She sits on a stool and draws it close to him. She doesn’t need to speak so low, as only Clara and Papa Cornelius are in the house, and upstairs. But she likes to speak low, as it requires her to lean nearer. And then she gets to smell the splendid smell of him, the slightly damp cottony resiny vegetable smell. She tells him of her plan.

  “You’re going to usher Clara into a ball where she has no introduction?” he says.

  “We have invitations for four,” says Iris, “but Papa Cornelius is far too ill to attend. I’ll just tell the doorman than the fourth of our party is to follow.”

  “But without your mother’s approval? That cunning harridan will rise up like an asp and strike Clara dead—”

  “I don’t think so,” says Iris. “You haven’t been around enough to know how severely Margarethe’s sight has deteriorated. I think it’s possible she won’t even recognize Clara if she’s not expecting to see her there. Besides, if we can arrange a headdress with a veil in the Spanish style, there will be mystery. Clara can hide behind her veil, and none will identify her, nor see her beauty unless she chooses. She can dally on the margins and watch a little.”

  “I thought she didn’t want to go to the ball. What’s changed her mind?” says Caspar, leaning forward.

  “Never mind about that.” Iris is still amazed that her midnight conversation with Clara has had any effect. “Keep to the matters at hand.”

  “And you expect to find her a suitable gown—today?” says Caspar. “You’re taking this miracle of transformation onto yourself?”

  “I could use some help,” says Iris.

  “You could use some small magic,” says Caspar, “but there is no such thing in the Netherlands.”