by Sky Sommers
I need a break from all this! I’m tired. From all of it. From being treated like a slave-girl. From worrying if the people at school are whispering about what happened in Ailmsworth. From the debacle with John. From worrying if John’s lecherous father will someday put to use what he knows about me.
I just need a few days of peace and quiet!
Here, it’s too many kids and too few rooms.
And TOO MANY CHORES!
Wait…Mellie is away… I could have her whole house ALL TO MYSELF!
No more stupid household rules, nobody telling me what to do… I’ll be free!!!
If Mellie happens to be home, I’ll just cook her a lovely dinner and ask if it’s ok for me to move back. She has to take me in, she owes me after not showing up in Ailmsworth. I’m sure she’ll let me stay. As a courtesy, I will leave a note so Father won’t worry. When he returns from his trip, which should be any day now. It’s not like I’m running away or anything.
Chapter 17. Wishes Granted
Grace
I wake up to this note waiting for me in the kitchen:
I can’t stand it anymore! I need a break.
I’m moving back to Godmother’s for a while.
Ella
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!
That’s the second half of the Chinese curse.
The first half is - may you live in interesting times.
By Chinese standards, I am cursed.
I sigh and venture into Ella’s room.
It’s as bare as can be.
Her bed linen and towels are heaped next to the bed for me to wash.
All her important things are gone.
Overnight.
In any case, her letter seems to point at me as the reason for her moving out.
She could have been kind and said, ‘I want to live with my Godmother because her house is twice the size of this one and I can have my own bathroom where I can spend an hour getting ready at no risk of somebody’s bladder bursting.’
No, instead she said ‘I can’t stand it here anymore!’
Stand what?
Finding out if our ruse worked or not?
She can find out soon enough by how people treat her.
After almost three years with us, Ella has moved out! Hallelujah!
Knowing Mellie and what she fears, she will either get Ella married off or she will ship her back.
But until then…
A few days of reprieve.
No more bickering over anything.
No more picking up bowls and goblets from the garden.
No more rudeness.
Peace.
And quiet.
For a few days.
I smile.
Freedom!
When the difficult behaviour started, I did wish she would go back to her Godmother’s.
Good to know that wishes come true quickly in this dimension.
If you can call almost three years quick.
You might think I hate her.
I don’t.
I made a deal and I’m sticking to it.
This is only a reprieve. She’ll be back. Knowing Mellie.
Her stay with us is almost over anyway. It was always temporary.
That’s why I signed up for this.
She’s of marriageable age now.
Her reputation is safe.
She’s already interested in boys.
Soon the proposals will start coming in.
We’ll find her a nice boy to marry.
Maybe even an aristo, although judging by John and his lech of a father the lustre and pull of aristocracy might have faded a little. At least for me.
She’ll be gone for good soon enough. My job will be done.
But until it is, this small reprieve is freedom!
I do hope her prince charming will fill the huge dark void that is crying for love.
Because she does need to be loved.
To a degree that is impossible to fill.
I’ve seen it all before. Hell, I’ve been her before.
Abandonment issues. Because her mother abandoned her. And then the closest person she conducers as a substitute, her aunt did as well. Because Mellie did abandon them all, no matter how you look at it. Ella was left with a huge void that keeps screaming ‘LOVE me, love ME!!!’ Because she can’t get that from her own mother, nobody else will do. Something will always be missing. Or rather, someone.
And all the love in the world will never be enough until she starts to believe she is worthy of love, until she starts to love herself, just like she is.
Because when a mother abandons you, it wrecks your self-esteem, it makes you think ‘Am I really that unimportant to be left behind?’.
I get all that.
And I should be kinder.
Except I promised I wouldn’t be.
* * *
The next morning, the sun wakes me up.
That and the noise coming from downstairs.
Everybody is up already?
The kids let me sleep in?
Content, I smile and stretch like a cat across the bed, feeling every muscle in my body.
The spring sun feels good on my skin.
I feel good in my skin.
I haven’t felt this good in a long time.
Too long.
Winter is always a dead zone.
The skies, people’s faces, nature - everything is grey.
Everything and everyone is cold.
Conversations are forced.
The only laughter is around Christmas, christenings and birthdays.
It’s as if everybody dies a little inside during winter.
I certainly do.
Which is why I turn into someone else.
Someone I don’t recognise.
Someone Peter doesn’t recognise either, since it is in the winters that he goes on longer research trips for his newspaper more often and looks at me with caution.
I can’t blame him.
They say a woman cannot be all sunshine all the time. That every woman needs to walk her dark side.
Well, I walk my dark side half of the year, which is how long the winter lasts here.
My dark side is the evil witch, the nagging wife, the wicked stepmother.
Someone who rarely smiles, yells at everyone, throws things.
Someone who only sees problems and does the absolute bare minimum.
Feed everybody.
Sleep.
Last to bed, first up.
Except today.
I smile again.
Come spring, I am always exhausted from all the dark thoughts, all the grey.
So I ignore them.
The sun switches me on and I switch on the sun.
And it IS spring!
Finally!
I smile and stretch again.
Bliss!
I raise my face to the sun and run my hands over my body.
Still youthful.
Still curvy.
Maybe I can tempt Peter when he comes back from his research trip?
A couple of more nights to sleep my fill and I will have energy to spare.
When Peter’s back, we could put Henry to bed early and then…
Why not?
* * *
The next evening, I read Henry his favourite bedtime story. ‘Once upon a time, a little boy lived with his mama and papa and brothers and sisters in the mossy woods. The little boy’s grandma gave him a red T-shirt for his birthday and he loved it so much that he wore it everywhere - at home and to school, to weddings and parties, to the market and when he went to visit his grandmother. He loved his red T-shirt so much so eve
rybody started calling him Red,’ Henry smiles and pats his red night-shirt, ‘even his own mother and grandmother. Once, Red’s mother got word that the grandmother was ill. So she baked her pancakes, put some jam in a jar and put everything in a basket and asked Red if he could deliver it. She told him not to talk to strangers and not to dally, since she knew he was prone to forget himself picking flowers in the woods. A wolf who lived in the woods and loved pancakes had been sniffing the air all morning. The hungry wolf knew Red’s mother had baked pancakes and thought he’d ask for one nicely…’
I look up and see Henry fast asleep, his red night-shirt riding up. I cover him with his light blue soft blankie and tiptoe out of the room.
Turns out I have time to read bed-time stories to my own child when I don’t have to worry about the foster ones. One in particular.
Chapter 18. Reunion
Grace
‘Hans, Greta, go get Henry from the garden, we’re going out! Don’t forget his toy wagon!’
‘Where do you need to go that is so far you need that wagon?’ Hans asks.
I don’t need to go anywhere, you do.
Out loud I say, ‘We are going to do a kindness and visit a poor soul who was done wrong by a lot of malicious gossip.’
‘Gossip? You mean someone told bad things and now everybody is avoiding that person?’ Hans asks.
‘Worse.’
Thanks, Mellie!
‘The person we are going to see did a kindness once, except the person who should have been grateful took offence instead and made up awful, unforgivable things about her. As a result, the poor soul lost her entire family.’
‘They died?’ Hans asks and I shake my head.
‘But they are as good as dead to her and she to them.’
‘Oh, no,’ Greta says. ‘Are we going to bring her food and be good company?’
‘I surely hope so.’
I pick up Henry and we set off.
Henry nods off on my shoulder by the outskirts of the village before we even get into the woods.
The path is long and winding.
‘Grace, this is the way to the witch’s hut,’ Hans says sternly. ‘We are not allowed to go there and you know it.’
‘Who said you cannot go there?’ I ask.
Greta stops. ‘Godmother. On the pain of death she made me swear I would never ever go into the woods alone again and would avoid Grizelda at all costs.’
‘Well, isn’t it nice then that your Godmother keeps sending you to your father’s where Grizelda is a regular guest?’ I point out, hoping they will see the light.
‘She probably didn’t know you would let her in,’ Hans sulks.
I motion for us to stop and sit down on a fallen tree, laying Henry gently down in his toy wagon on top of his blankie and covering him up so thatl only the tip of his nose is showing.
‘Kids, you know I love you and would never ever do anything bad to you, right?’
They nod.
Greta first, Hans much later.
‘You and father took us in, we have our own room and we no longer go hungry,’ he admits grudgingly.
‘And she pays us for being servers, on top of the tips we get,’ Greta nudges Hans. ‘That is good pocket-money. I’ve been saving up, in case I do get to go to school next year….’
I smile, ‘We will try to make that happen, Greta, I promise. Ella will be finishing school, so it makes sense for you two to go. That’s not why I sat you down. You already noticed we are on the path to Grizelda’s. Remember what I told you at home about who we are going to see and what happened to her?’
‘Why? What has that got to do with the Witch? She almost ate us! If she lost touch with all her family, maybe it serves her right. Why don’t you tell them to go visit her?’ Hans argues.
I look at Greta, who is the sharper of the two.
Greta’s mouth falls open. ‘We…? We are the family she lost? But…but…she tried to eat us!!!’ she jumps up.
‘Shhh, Henry’s asleep. Listen, do you honestly think I would put you two and Henry in danger?’ I ask.
Greta looks like she’s thinking. Hans is picking at the grass.
‘No,’ he says at last.
‘Remember I told you about the lies?’
‘About?’
‘She didn’t try to eat you.’
‘Then why do I remember the heat of the stove? Why do I remember being fattened up? Why do I remember the horror of walking through the wintry woods?’ Hans asks.
I’m no psychologist, how am I going to explain this to them?
‘Let me try to get to the bottom of this. That’s all you remember, right? How old were you, when you…got lost in the woods and ended up at Grizelda’s cottage?’
Hans shrugs, ‘Five, I think.’
‘Ok, you were five. It was winter. You remember being cold?’
Hans and Greta nod.
‘We didn’t have much in terms of overclothes. I don’t know how we managed to stumble out of the house the way we did…’ Greta says.
Thrown out, not stumbled out.
‘What exactly do you remember?’
‘I remember the witch feeding me and not knowing where Greta was,’ Hans says, toeing a pebble.
Greta looks up at him, ‘I remember feeling very weak, very ill, coughing when we reached the witch’s hut. I don’t remember anything much after that. Except the stove. How hot it was. All the time.’
‘You were probably running a fever if you felt hot all the time. Also, you had almost no clothes on and if you had been wandering the icy woods for a long while, any warmth would have felt scorching hot to your skin.’
‘I remember it felt hot, once we got inside,’ Hans admits.
’I don’t remember Grizelda trying to bake Hans or me shoving her in, though,’ Greta says. ‘Just how hot it was.’
‘Well, you didn’t shove her in, she’s very much alive.’
‘Greta, do you think you might have been ill and that’s why you don’t remember anything? Maybe you were lying down, sick, maybe Grizelda was looking after you?’
Greta nods, ‘I guess that’s possible…’
‘Hans, why do you think you were being fattened up?’
‘I’ve never seen so much food put in front of me in my life!’
‘Ok, but what if she was just trying to be nice and feeding a kid who was skin and bones and quite obviously starving?’
Hans shrugs, ‘I guess…’
‘Did your mother ask you what happened when you finally got back home?’
The twins look at each other. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t think it was right away. I think mama sat us both down and asked a lot of questions later, after we’d been home for a while…’
‘Where? Where did she sit you down?’ I ask. ‘When she finally asked you to tell her about your escapade?’
‘We were sitting near the fireplace,’ Greta says.
‘Was it lit?’ I ask.
Hans nods, ‘Mother had me carry in logs earlier.’
‘So, you were sitting near the fire when you were telling her how hot it was when you first came into the hut…’
‘Yes, I remember mother asking if it was as hot as our fireplace and I had to say no, it was way hotter, because it was how I had felt.’ Greta said.
‘Burning up. You really might have had a fever, Greta. Do you remember who mentioned the stove, was it you or Hans?’
The twins look at each other.
‘I didn’t mention it.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘So, why do you remember that the wicked witch was about to shove you into the stove?’ I ask.
‘Dunno,’ Hans shrugs while Greta squints her eyes shut.
‘I think mother said something along the lines of…you were lucky sh
e didn’t shove you in her stove…’
The twins look startled.
‘Mother said ‘she was fattening me…to gobble me up,’ Hans says.
‘Do you remember how you got home?’ I ask.
‘I remember waking up and seeing Hans much rounder than I remembered him…’ Greta says, ‘I kept asking after mama and he saw me and started crying and started asking for mama as well… and then we were back home and mama was rushing to meet us, looking like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She probably thought she would never see us again.’
That’s for sure.
Grizelda’s words echo in my mind, ‘I suspected she was either counting on them finding me and living to see another day. Or - and I still have trouble believing this myself - she purposefully sent them to die because she believed this was the best course of action.’
‘So, you were at Grizelda’s for a few weeks? Maybe even a month?’
Hans shrugs, Greta nods.
‘And weeks or maybe even months after you came back your mama sat you down and a story was born…of the wicked witch in the woods who lured you in with warmth and food, separated the two of you, fattened Hans up so she could cook him, while what really happened was that you were lost in the wintry woods, hungry, half-naked, stumbled on the witch’s hut, she warmed you, fed you, cured Greta and when you became homesick, she took you back to your mother…’
‘What do you mean took us back?’ Greta asks.
‘You got back to your mama. How did you find your way out of the woods?’
Greta shakes her head.
‘Mama used to say it was a miracle we stumbled out of the woods by ourselves….’ Hans volunteers.
Yes, a miracle called Grizelda.
‘Grizelda knew your mother,’ I say, ‘She took you back to her.’
‘Why?’ Greta asks.
‘Why not if you were healthy again and Hans was no longer starving?’
‘Why didn’t Grizelda let mama know that we were there and she could come pick us up?’ Hans asks.
‘Seeing how she moved out there when she was fifteen, vowing never to return, I doubt your mama would have gone back unless she had to,’ I say, stroking Henry’s head as he shifts in my lap.
‘Why was mother living with Grizelda until she was fifteen?’ Hans asks as Greta’s eyes turn to saucers.