The Princess Curse

by Merrie Haskell

  He snorted. “Good luck. Fern seeds are invisible. Which is why they confer invisibility, I suppose. . . .”

  I cannot guess how the expression on my face looked at that moment, but fortunately, Brother Cosmin had his nose buried in a preparation for Prince Vasile’s aged mother. “In—visibility?” I asked, almost choking in the middle of the word.

  Brother Cosmin shrugged. “So the stories say. They also say you can collect fern seeds only on Saint John’s Eve—your birthday, no?—and only by placing twelve pewter plates beneath the fern. The seed will fall through eleven plates, but will be stopped by the twelfth.” He stopped peering at his measurement of powdered cat’s wort and dumped it into a bowl with flour, water, lard, and vandal root, then looked at me. “That is, if fairies don’t snatch the seed from the air as it falls.”

  I must have looked dubious, because Brother Cosmin opened up one of his herbals and found the passage for me. I read it carefully and sighed, frustrated. If it was in a book, it must be true. . . .

  There were just no breaks for invisibility seekers, I guessed. I added to the Test Six entry: “Abandoning fern seeds, as they are invisible.”

  It looked like the nepenthe seeds would soon be my only hope.

  My work in the herbary suffered without Didina to compete with. I found myself powdering herbs that only needed to be crushed, or overlooking bits of mold on the herbs in the drying racks. I often fell into daydreams over what it would be like to be invisible, or reveries pondering the secondary issues of invisibility. I thought about chewing strong mints so that neither stinking breath nor heavy breathing would give me away. But too much mint might give me away just as easily—

  “Reveka,” Brother Cosmin said, thumping the table in front of me. “Reveka!”

  Startled, I glanced up.

  “I’ve asked you three times to go out and transplant the rue,” Brother Cosmin said.

  “Oh. Sorry.” I got down off my stool and wandered distractedly into the garden, still thinking furiously about how to be invisible scentwise, as well as to sight. I knelt down in the dirt and dug eight small holes to put the rue transplants into—and was well into the ninth hole when I realized someone was calling my name.

  It was Otilia, appearing distressed. She glanced around and ran over to me, grabbing my wrists. Astonished, I just stood there. She pressed a knotted handkerchief into my hands.

  “These are for the girl,” she said.

  “The girl,” I repeated.

  “The other apprentice, the one who . . . who fell asleep.”

  I was frozen into silence by this absurd claim. Didina fell asleep, did she? Just like the apple “fell” into Eve’s hand. No one helped either of them along?

  When I made no move, Otilia worked at the knot of the handkerchief to reveal a handful of stones, white-clear, tiny, imperfect. Uncut diamonds?

  “Her parents can sell these for a lot of money,” Otilia said. There were twelve diamonds. I stared at them with wide eyes. “They can take her away, try to cure her elsewhere.”

  I cupped the stones, weighing them against each other. They were light, not heavy as I’d expected gemstones to be. “Didina is an orphan,” I said. Otilia’s face fell, and she reached to take the gems back. “But her grandmother might find a use for them,” I added. Might. Adina could take just one diamond and be able to seek the best physicians to try to cure her family.

  You could leave tomorrow with all but one of those diamonds in your pocket, a sneaky and mean little voice said inside of me. Almost immediately, my face grew hot for even thinking that.

  “Definitely, give them to your friend’s grandmother!” Otilia was nodding enthusiastically, happy that someone would care for Didina.

  Any convent in the world would take you with eleven of those—make you herbalist, if you wanted, make you abbess, if you wanted that instead, the voice went on. Truly, Didina and all the sleepers needed only one diamond. My fingers curled around the stones. Unbidden, a vision rose before me of whitewashed walls hung with drying racks and shelves arranged just so. Could I really be so close to realizing my dream?

  In the distance, a voice called Otilia’s name. My vision slipped away as I flinched, recognizing Lacrimora. Otilia flinched, too.

  Otilia slapped frantically at my fistful of diamonds. “Hide them!” she whispered. I stooped down and dropped them into one of the holes I’d dug for the rue, and scooped a little dirt over them loosely just as Lacrimora came into the small garden courtyard.

  Otilia’s eyes were panicked and pleading. I couldn’t understand why—was she not allowed to talk to me, if she wanted? She glanced back at Lacrimora with dread.

  “Oh! I’m terrible at thinking up lies on the spot—they never let me talk to anyone when—” Otilia gripped my hand. “Reveka, don’t tell her anything! She absolutely must not learn that I took the diamonds!” She kicked out of her shoes, gathered her skirts, and ran, fleet as a deer. Her silken bulb-nosed slippers remained in the dirt before me.

  Lacrimora came up, panting and glaring. “Cabbage Girl! What did Otilia want?”

  “Nothing,” I said, stalling for time to think.

  “She clearly had a reason to talk to you—and she clearly didn’t want me to know about it,” Lacrimora said. She pointed to the shoes in the dirt.

  I didn’t hesitate. Pa was never going to know, and the situation was urgent. And fortunately—as unfair as it was that the Abbess had so often accused me of lying—the truth was, I was a remarkably good liar. I had become so just to stay ahead of the Abbess’s constant accusations.

  “Of course she doesn’t want you to know it,” I said, making my voice sound angry. “It’s none of your business who she—” I clapped my hand over my mouth, as though I’d said too much.

  Lacrimora’s eyebrows arched. “Who she what?” Lacrimora asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “No one.” Then I looked toward the castle gates, where Armas stood talking to a guardsman, as was his wont.

  “Armas?” she asked.

  I tried to look defeated, though mostly I just made sure I didn’t look at the hole where I’d buried the diamonds. I said, “I didn’t say Armas!” in a loud, annoyed voice.

  “Why would Otilia come to talk to you about Armas?” she asked.

  I lifted my chin. “Maybe I’m friends with Armas! You don’t know!”

  Lacrimora’s mouth relaxed. I’d eased her mind, somehow. But even as her expression changed, her eyes narrowed. “Address me properly, Apprentice,” she said.

  For a moment, I thought about disobeying her, but I decided that would take the distraction too far. My goal had been to let Otilia get away, not to get into trouble myself. I curtsied. “Yes, Your Highness,” I said, doing my best approximation of meekness.

  Now her eyes really narrowed. I knew that look. The Abbess had gotten it whenever she thought I was faking good behavior. Lacrimora drew herself up taller and took a step closer. She wasn’t much bigger than me, but I still shrank back a little. “You’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time twice now, Cabbage Girl,” she said. “I hope for your sake there won’t be a third.”

  Was that a threat? Was she actually threatening me? After what she’d done to Didina? I pulled my shoulders straight and set my jaw. “I do what I have to do,” I said, dropping the acts of both Otilia’s defiant confidante and the meek peasant. I made to move past Lacrimora, to go into the herbary.

  Her hand shot out and gripped my wrist. “Stop stirring the pot, Reveka. Let it boil down to nothing, and you won’t get burned.” She almost sounded kindly, for all that she was holding me between her evil pincers.

  I tried to jerk my hand back, but she was stronger than she looked. Then I remembered that she was royalty, and if she wanted to slap me, she could. She could have Armas come and haul me off to prison if she wanted. I tried to cast my eyes down, I tried to be the docile commoner, but the words burst out of me.

  “How can it boil down to nothing, with you all stealing the
people of the castle like vampires in the night?”

  Lacrimora threw my hand back at me like it was a serpent. “What are you saying?” she asked in a frozen voice.

  “How many young men have gone missing? How many people, men and women, lie trapped in sleeping death in the western tower? Is that part of your nothing?”

  Lacrimora recoiled. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Cabbage Girl. Get out of my sight.”

  Pa’s voice cut across the confrontation. “Don’t worry, Princess. You’ll never have to see her again.”

  We both whipped around to see Pa bearing down on us like Greuceanu coming after the dragons that kidnapped the sun and moon—there was no mercy in him. Lacrimora caught her breath, drew herself up to her full height, and said, “I trust that is true, Gardener.” She nodded austerely to him and swept away.

  Pa grabbed me by my upper arm and propelled me in the opposite direction of Lacrimora, into the herbary.

  Chapter 14

  Brother Cosmin looked up when we came in, but Pa paid him no attention, spinning me around to face his icy wrath.

  “Young Mihas will take your flowers to the princesses in the evenings. You’re to be done with your herbs for Marjit before the princesses arrive in the morning. Do you understand, Reveka?” Pa shook me until I nodded. He looked at Brother Cosmin. “Do you understand, Brother?” And Brother Cosmin nodded, too, though he was also scratching himself under his robe and looking out the window and muttering about betony.

  “Pa . . .” I began.

  “No, Reveka,” he said, his voice deadly. “No. You will not argue. You will not plead. And you will certainly not lie. That’s it. The princesses will not see you; they will not know you are in the castle. You will be invisible to them—”

  I couldn’t help jerking my head back in surprise at the word invisible. Pa didn’t notice, didn’t care. That’s when I caught Brother Cosmin sliding out the door, avoiding every pleading glance I sent him.

  “You are the ghost that makes up their flowers and scents their baths. Now tell me, Reveka. Do you understand?”

  “Pa, I—” But I stopped talking and shrank back as he loomed over me, eyebrows knit together frighteningly.

  “Do you understand?” he barked, and I understood better than I ever had what he had been like as a soldier and a leader of men, and why my mother had been so eager to leave him to his wars when she got pregnant with me. He was scary right now, in a way he’d never been even during the worst of my punishments.

  I wanted to lie then, and I might have, if I hadn’t been so afraid of him. “Yes, Pa,” I whispered. “I understand.”

  “Good,” he said. “And in case you don’t understand . . . I am this close to sending you away. For your own good. Do you understand that?”

  My heart froze for a long moment, then thudded back into motion. Send me away—from him? Send me away from . . . the castle? Perfect timing, the sneaky voice said. You have the diamonds. You can join a convent. Any convent you like! Pick one far from Sylvania, far from the Turks.

  If I left now, with the diamonds in my hand, could I live with myself? I probably wouldn’t get caught in my thievery. I could leave with no one the wiser about how I’d achieved my heart’s desire. It was the perfect opportunity: Otilia would never betray her own secrets to expose mine.

  And Pa? Would Pa track me to the convent and demand to know how I’d paid the dowry to join? What lie would I tell him about how I got there? It wouldn’t be hard to break a promise, if I’d already stolen eleven diamonds.

  You’re going to have to break your promise anyway, said a new voice in my head. It wasn’t the nasty, greedy voice. This was the normal, practical tone of my everyday thoughts. Whatever you do from now on to break the curse, you’re going to have to lie to Pa.

  And that’s when I knew I couldn’t leave Sylvania. I couldn’t leave Didina and the sleepers, not when I might be able to break the curse—not when I might be their only hope.

  I squared my shoulders, bracing myself for the shame I would feel in lying and breaking my vow to Pa, and for the harsh blow of losing the convent and my own herbary—when they were for the first time within reach.

  “I do understand,” I said to Pa. That much was true. I had no lack of understanding. “I understand everything.”

  I just left out the part where I’d obey.

  After Pa left, I peeked through the window to see him corner Brother Cosmin, no doubt to set the poor man to watching my every move like a hawk. I sighed.

  Brother Cosmin came back and put me to work pulverizing celery seed with powdered rue, nutmegs, cloves, and saxifrage, for Prince Vasile’s gout. Every time I tried to make up a reason to leave and collect the diamonds buried in the garden, Brother Cosmin made me stay and quizzed me on the properties of celery.

  Admittedly, I had not known that much about celery prior to that day, but by late afternoon, I knew that celery juice was good for watery eyes, and that when cooked, celery makes healthy humors—but no one should eat it raw.

  Or perhaps it was the other way around. I was too distracted, my thoughts careening between Didina, Lacrimora, and breaking curses.

  And the diamonds buried in the garden, too. Adina was going to burst apart crying when she saw them.

  Brother Cosmin said, “So celery is cold and dry?” and I nodded. “Wrong! Celery is hot and green in nature.”

  I repeated “hot and green” and went on with the celery seed, glancing furtively at my personal herbal, trying to reread the notes I’d written about the lizard skin.

  “Well, Reveka?” Brother Cosmin said.

  “Hot and green,” I said obediently.

  “That wasn’t even the question! You’re useless today. Go to bed. Without your supper!” And he pointed at the ladder to my loft above the herbary.

  I climbed up and waited for Brother Cosmin to leave so I could get out to the garden. But the day was hot and drowsy, and before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.

  I woke to evening twilight and to blessed silence below me. I strolled out into the herb garden, looked around—including up at all the castle windows—to make sure no one was watching me, then went to dig up the diamonds for Adina.

  I easily found the eight holes I’d dug earlier. But instead of the ninth hole, where I’d dumped the diamonds, I found only a small, tightly clustered patch of very strange-looking weeds. Weeds that shimmered white, almost like glass, and instead of the usual false leaves that sprout first from most seeds, these plants were small and tightly curled . . . like fern heads.

  It hit me then, like the bolt from a hultan’s thundercloud: the diamonds were gone. The diamonds had never been diamonds. These ferns had grown from them. Otilia hadn’t given me diamonds at all, but fern seeds! Magical ones that grew just a few hours after planting.

  How stupid had Otilia been, to believe that fern seeds were diamonds?

  How stupid had I been, an herbalist who didn’t recognize seeds when she saw them?

  I cursed and stomped about, working myself into a right frenzy. I’d missed the only chance I was probably ever going to get to test fern seeds! I’d never seen seeds like those before. Well, I’d never seen ferns like these before either.

  I went back to bed, hungry, disappointed, angry. I curled around all the hollow feelings in my midsection and forced myself to sleep, until the Little Well’s unfortunate gift of dreams filled my mind once more.

  When I woke the next morning, I was on my side, facing Didina’s empty pallet. I lay still for a long moment, thinking about all the things on the Plantes Which Confer Invisibilitie list, and how each item seemed so easy, and how each one had managed to fail so pathetically.

  Something about the whole Plantes list was off. Wrong, somehow. I didn’t know much about magic, but wasn’t it a complicated business, as complicated as herbalism? You shouldn’t be able to create a magic as powerful as invisibility by simply plaiting a wreath and tossing it on your head, should you? No more than you could
make an effective salve by throwing comfrey into a pot and letting it sit for three weeks. There’s more to herbalism than the right ingredients: There is also method. The same must be true for magic as well.

  It came down to this: I needed a witch.

  The problem was that the only person who had ever mentioned witches to me in any sort of authoritative manner was Marjit the Bathwoman.

  After the bathing chambers cleared out from the servants’ jolly baths, I stole down to visit Marjit.

  I didn’t mean to sneak, but I moved too quietly, and the lady squawked like a crow with pulled tail feathers when I came up behind her. “Why are you trying to frighten old Marjit?” She asked it jokingly. Even if she wasn’t in the prime of her life, she felt young. She’d said so many times.

  “First,” I said, “let’s establish that I have a secret. And I need you to keep this a secret. All right?”

  Her lips twitched, and she laughed. “I would have thought that anyone who brought a secret to me wanted its truth trumpeted around the land!”

  “No! No, it’s important to keep this a secret. Because if my father finds out, he’s going to send me away. And if the princesses find out, they’ll probably . . .” I trailed off, wondering how to end that supposition. Poison me? “I came to you because I need a witch, and I thought maybe you knew one.”

  The laughter left Marjit’s eyes. “This is a lucky day for you,” she said. “For I am a witch.”

  Chapter 15

  In the end, it was the very fact that she’d been able to keep her witchcraft a secret that made me trust Marjit. I told her everything about the list.

  Right away, she saw a number of things that I’d done wrong in trying the herbs on the list of Plantes Which Confer Vpon the Wearer Invisibilitie. “You’ve no intentions. You’ve not called on any Holies. There’s nothing to spark the magic. Invisibility en’t a simple quality of these plants, it’s a sleeping quality that must be drawn out, with a rhyme or holy water or sommat similar.”

  I understood this. It was like how burdock works best on burns if you say a prayer for frost first. At the same time, I didn’t like it, because it wasn’t very clear or precise. None of this was written down on the list, and Marjit seemed very blithe about waving her hands, chanting a few words, and expecting it all to work.