Chapter 21
After a couple days roaming and wandering aimlessly about the mountains, I asked Bavmorda if she could “transport” us to Lucinda and her sons. I had a hard time remembering why I would ask such a thing, but after a lot of arguing with myself, I determined my fake mother really was the only person that might be willing to help Harry and me.
We stood directly in front of the cabin— my old home. My limbs were frozen, and I stared the simple, wooden door down with a fierce determination, but too much of my mind was trapped under fear to take the necessary steps and knock.
“Wow.” Harry whistled. “If a look could burn, that door would be in flames by now.”
Without a second thought, I grabbed Harry’s hand into mine and squeezed it.
“Hey.” He turned to me and grabbed my shoulders. “I will not leave your side. I have your back, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Before we took even one step towards the door, the knob slowly turned open and a tired-looking Jacob with unruly, brown hair and a wrinkled nightshirt appeared. It was as if he’d just woken up, even though it was already noon. Though, waking up late was normal for him.
Harry and I stood directly in front of my stepbrother— no, my cousin. He didn’t seem to notice us as he brought a scrawny hand up to his mouth and yawned. I felt my entire body grow stiff, and I squeezed Harry’s hand so hard, he retracted quickly and shouted out in pain.
Jacob leapt about two feet in the air at the shout. Then, as he landed and finally was able to regain his balance, he stumbled backward as the sight of us.
“Ellie?” He started approaching me slowly with his arm outstretched, as if wanting to touch me and determine if I was really there. “Is that you?”
I gulped. I had never expected to see Jacob, Jared, or Lucinda ever again. And just seeing Jacob before me made my palms sweat, and my lip tremble.
“Is Moth—” I grimaced at my near mistake. “Is Lucinda home?”
With wide eyes, Jacob nodded quickly and scrambled about clumsily, trying to open the door once again and let us through. I gave him a half-hearted smile and stepped over the threshold and into the dimly lit living area with Harry on my heels.
I took a slow look around and let out a shaky breath. It was precisely the same with the ugly but functional furniture, and the small hearth with a stone or two falling out of its construction… It was home. But then again, as I took in my surroundings of the cabin I’d lived in my entire life, I felt disconnected and like I didn’t belong. I felt more out of place at the little cabin I’d spent my life in than at a castle, and with a family I knew little to nothing about.
I shook my head. There was no chance I would ever be welcome as the missing Princess again— not as an outlaw. I needed to stop thinking back to the ball and accept that fact.
“Ellianne?”
I held my breath as Lucinda appeared from the hall leading out of the kitchen. Her regular, stained apron was wrapped around her plump waist, and her honey locks were plastered to her face from sweat— most likely from cooking all day as she typically did. But she looked beautiful, as always, of course. I couldn’t help but marvel at the radiant glow from her face as her smile grew at the sight of me.
She rushed towards me with arms outstretched, getting ready to wrap me in a tight embrace, but I stepped back and gave a slight shake of my head. Her smile quickly faltered, and her arms dropped to her sides.
“Of course,” she said in a hushed tone. “I’m sorry.”
“Uh, hello, everybody! I’m Harry!” He gave a hesitant wave to Lucinda and Jacob. Leave it to Harry to try to lighten the mood, but neither paid any attention to him.
He raised his eyebrows. “Tough crowd.”
“Where’s Jared?” I said, also ignoring him. Harry threw his head down and began to mutter under his breath.
Lucinda’s face lit up once again. “Oh, he’s visiting his fiancée’s family! Isn’t that wonderful? He’s getting married!”
For a moment, all awkwardness I felt from the situation dissipated, and I chuckled. “Really?”
I flashed a look in Jacob’s direction. His face was red, and he avoided my eye contact. He was the older brother, and it was a shameful thing not to be married first. At least, that’s usually how it was in Greriveth.
“Ellie, if I may ask, what brings you back here?”
I pursed my lips and watched mindlessly as Lucinda began to wring her hands together. Harry brushed his fingers on my shoulder encouragingly.
“We need your help,” I said.
Harry, Lucinda, Jacob, and I sat at the dining table in silence. After first arriving, Harry and I were given space and time to rest. Once night fell and Lucinda served dinner, conversation was not present as each one of us shoveled bite after bite of the beef stew she’d been laboring over for the bulk of that day.
As Lucinda cleared her throat and stood to clear our bowls, I clasped my hands in front of me and kept my gaze on the various gouges and scrapes in the table. I didn’t have to look up to know the others were avoiding any eye contact, as well. Once Lucinda returned, however, all eyes flew up to meet hers as she sat and clapped her hands together.
“Well, I would very much like to know exactly what is going on,” she said.
I bit my lip nervously, and Harry stretched his hand over to my knee under the table. Jacob seemed to notice the movement and cocked his head curiously at the two of us. That only made me more nervous.
“Lucinda,” I said, “I think you should start by explaining what happened when I was a baby. It might clear up some of my questions.”
Lucinda pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “I had a feeling that might come up.”
Jacob sat up straighter in his chair, the quick movement causing the single candle in the center of the table to flicker.
“What’s so interesting about Ellie as a baby, Mother?”
I raised an eyebrow. Were Jacob and Jared not told the truth, either? I frowned and looked at the woman who had raised me. How many secrets did this woman actually have?
Lucinda stretched her arms across the table and took a deep breath. “There’s no point in hiding it any longer.” She glanced at me, then quickly moved her dark, green eyes away, ashamed. “My sister gave birth to twins. A boy and a girl. I was insanely jealous, I’ll admit that. I’d always wanted a girl.”
Jacob stuck out his bottom lip and pouted, but Lucinda ignored him.
“In my mind, my sister had enough, and I convinced myself that she could get on just fine with her new son and let go of her daughter. So… I took the baby girl— you, Ellie— and hid in the mountains for a few weeks so as not to be found, then I made my way back to this cabin.”
“You’re leaving out an important part,” Harry interrupted. His hand was still on my knee, and he squeezed it gently. “You need to tell us who your sister was.”
I had explained to Harry in the mountains what happened at the ball— mine and Prince Gerald’s strange connection, the royal family’s discovery of my identity… He was obviously pushing Lucinda to say what she wasn’t for my sake— that my parents were the King and Queen of Greriveth. I leaned forward in my seat, the legs of the chair tipping forward precariously, as well. I was about to find out, once and for all, if I really was Princess Adelaide. I had relished in my time at the ball and getting to know my family before the King and Queen were ripped away by their own son— my supposed brother— but a part of me still couldn’t believe or accept that my royal lineage could be true.
Lucinda looked back and forth from Harry and me, then to her son, who was also inching forward to the edge of his seat. She sighed.
“My sister is Queen Catherine of Greriveth.”
“What?” Jacob exclaimed, throwing his chair back onto the floor with a loud clang. “How? What?”
Lucinda gestured for him to calm down. “Please, don’t be angry!”
“Angry? I’m furious!”
My co
usin’s mouth dropped open, and he pointed to me firmly. “Are you saying that Ellie is a Princess? And that you kidnapped her?”
I sat back in my chair, shocked. Jacob seemed to care a lot more about my history than I thought he might. But then again, his mother had lied to him his whole life, and I knew the feeling. That thought made me feel a strange bond with him I’d never experienced before.
“I knew she wasn’t my sister, and I respected your desire to keep quiet about a possible scandal or affair…” He shook his head violently. “But stealing a baby?”
Jacob threw his hands up into the air and stormed out of the dining room. He pushed Lucinda away as she rushed after him and tried to console him with an embrace. Harry and I jumped at the sound of the front door slamming.
Lucinda turned back to us with a pained look on her face and slowly returned to her seat. For a split second, I felt sorry for her, but that feeling quickly left me. As I watched the woman who had raised me move to sit across from me once again, I felt no respect for her. There was no excuse for the terrible things she did.
“I know what I did was wrong—”
“Wrong?” I scoffed. “It was more than that! It’s pretty unbelievable, actually. Kidnapped princesses is not a thing one might hear about.”
Lucinda grimaced. “I know. I was in a terrible, jealousy-filled place then. But raising you taught me so much! Not just as a mother but as a person! You’re kindness and innocence were things I admired, and I wanted to be better!”
She reached a hand out to touch mine, but I moved my hands away from the table and placed it atop Harry’s that was still on my knee. I studied Lucinda’s watered eyes getting ready to spill over. I believed her— I believed she wanted to be a better person, but nothing could change what happened.
“Look,” I said, lowering my voice to sound calm and comforting, “I think I can believe that you want to be better, and that you feel remorseful, but we need to move on.”
As soon as Lucinda retracted her outstretched arm, I placed my own hands back on the table. I was surprised by my firmness and ability to keep from crying. My experiences in Newvein had toughened me up more than I had realized, and I took that as a good thing.
“I met the King and Queen, and we all discovered my true identity. Not long after, however, my brother, Prince Gerald, had a hand in their assassination.” My voice cracked at mentioning the death of my parents, but I rolled my shoulders back and continued: “I have been bestowed with the blame. All the people in Newvein, and I’m sure it has spread further by now, think I killed them.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, beginning to feel a burning sensation in my throat as tears threatened to escape from my eyes. Harry moved his hand from my knee and around my shoulders. I leaned into him, grateful he was beside me.
Lucinda tapped her fingers quickly on the table. She seemed shocked, her pink mouth turned into a little “o.”
“My sister… she’s dead?”
I nodded, and then the color drained from her round face.
“That’s terrible,” she whispered.
Harry noticed my own face fall and decided to interject. “We’ve been hiding out for a couple days, but we needed somewhere safe to be. Somewhere with food, water, beds…”
Lucinda started nodding quickly. “Of course, of course! Anything!” She gave me a hesitant look. “Anything for you, Ellie.”
“Just until we figure out where to go next,” I said, avoiding her gaze.
“Did any guards come by here looking for us?” Once again, I appreciated Harry’s abilities to perceive my need for a change in conversation.
“They did. Yesterday. So they won’t be back here again.”
I sighed in relief and relaxed the tension in my arms. That was definitely good news. I opened my mouth to thank Lucinda for helping us, thinking it was the right thing to do but was interrupted by a light knock on the door.
I froze. The only people that might be visiting Lucinda’s secluded cabin at this dark hour might be Grerivethan soldiers coming to arrest Harry and me. I wanted to run for safety, but my feet would not allow me to move.
Lucinda leapt from her chair, and her breathing began to grow heavy. “Go through the back door, past the garden, and then hide in the line of trees out there. I’ll make sure they leave.”
I still couldn’t bring myself to move, so Harry had to pry my tight grip off of the table and drag me to the back door. We were out and past the garden before the distant sound of Lucinda opening the door reached our ears.
“What are they going to do to me?” I whispered as Harry yanked at my arm to speed me up.
Our boots crushed the twigs under our feet as we walked with a loud crunch, and he winced at the noise. Harry held a finger up to his lips, urging me to be as quiet as possible. He gave me a gentle push into the shadows of the broad trunks of the oak trees behind the cabin, then followed quickly behind.
The weather was chilly, but my uncontrollable shivering came more from fear than anything else. Harry inched forward as much as he dared to keep watch, but it was too dark to see anything clearly from our position.
About five minutes came and went, and I felt the hair on my arms begin to stand up from the agonizing anticipation of what was to come.
“Harry,” I said, daring to speak, “can you see anything?”
He squinted his eyes even more and took one more step forward. The candlelight shining from the cabin windows threw shadows into the angles of his jaw.
“No,” he whispered back.
I jumped at the touch of a finger digging into my shoulder.
“Was that you?”
Harry raised an eyebrow at me. “Was what me?”
I felt my eyes grow wide and slowly turned to find the source of the touch. And, relieved, I found the witch standing directly behind me with her usual grin and rancid smell that burned the inside of my nose.
“Hello, you two!” Bavmorda chirped.
Harry whirled around at her greeting, not having seen her yet.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
She shimmied her shoulders playfully. “I led someone here who wants to speak with you, Ellie. I think you should go back inside.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, and she laughed.
“Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe!”
Chapter 22
We were wary, but Harry and I both knew better than to ignore what Bavmorda told us to do. As soon as we decided to listen to her, the witch disappeared and left us to fend for ourselves.
Upon re-entering through the back door, slowly and with breaths held, I was shocked to see Prince Gerald conversing with Lucinda in the living area.
I gasped and rushed over to the dining table, ducking underneath it.
Harry was not as quick to react, and Prince Gerald turned his head to him with a nervous smile. He ran his fingers through his copper hair and tiptoed into the dining room with Lucinda right on his tail. She darted her eyes about the room. Through the legs of the table and the chairs to my right, I could see her mouth the words, “Where’s Ellie?” to Harry.
“Excuse me,” Prince Gerald said. His voice wavered as if he’d been crying. “Do you know where Princess Adelaide might be? I was told she’d be here.”
“Uh… I—I don’t…” Harry stammered.
I curled up into a ball as the conversation continued. Then I thought back to Bavmorda telling me her purpose was to help the people who deserve it— people like me. She wouldn’t have led the Prince here if she didn’t think I’d be completely safe, right? I sighed, knowing I would inevitably be found, anyway.
With a grunt, I pushed myself out from hiding. Prince Gerald jumped, startled at the sight of me appearing from underneath the table. Harry chuckled nervously and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“There she is!” he blurted.
I stood up slowly and brushed the dust from the simplified version of the blue dress I still had on from the
ball two days ago. I couldn’t bring myself to look in my brother’s eyes.
Prince Gerald took a few steps forward until he stood just inches away from me. “Adelaide—”
“My name is Ellie.”
The Prince gulped. “Ellie…”
He dropped his head to the floor, and his hands began to shake. Then, as if remembering something, he fumbled to reach the black satchel hanging at his side and dug his hands into it. I watched, curious, as he did so, and everyone else remained silent. With a satisfied grunt, Prince Gerald caught hold of the object he’d been searching for and pulled it out. My mouth dropped open as he held it up high enough for the little candlelight in the room to reflect against it.
“My slipper?”
Prince Gerald quickly grabbed my hand and placed the shoe into my grip. My fingers wrapped around the cool glass, and I stared at it with shock.
“A peace offering,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say, but then I remembered what my brother had done. I dug my nails into the glass, and the heel cracked slightly from the movement. Everything I knew about his selfish plotting and killing our parents started to overwhelm me, and I quickly forgot to feel afraid.
“Peace offering?” I spat. “For what? To apologize for killing our parents, then blaming me for it?”
Without thinking, I threw the shoe behind me. It shattered with a loud crash, and many shining pieces flew around at our feet. I winced, surprised by my rash decision, but then straightened my back and stared my brother down, ignoring the dropped jaws from Harry and Lucinda.
“I think I deserved that,” the Prince said dejectedly.
I didn’t reply and began to furiously pace the length of the dining room. Harry rushed over to me once I made it to the furthest end away from the Prince and stopped me before I could continue the other way once again.
“Ellie, are you okay?”
I looked up to Harry with my lip trembling. I couldn’t hold it in any longer, and I collapsed into his warm arms as the tears finally spilled over. Prince Gerald slowly approached me as I sobbed into Harry’s chest.
Pumpkins and Princesses (The Tales and Princesses Series Book 3) Page 12