At First Sight
Page 15
“I may not undo the curse since Mathilde is of greater rank than I, but I may amend it.” Jusilla leaned over the child. “Grow she shall, with all her might, until true love’s song does respite.” These words she breathed out and the helpless infant received her third dose of fairy godmother intervention on the day of her birth.
Her mother named her Meg, as if the size of her name might lessen the effects of Mathilde’s curse. It did not.
At three months a cow was required to meet the demand for milk. A month later, two cows. By the time sweet Meg was ready to wean, the local milk suppliers had been sorely abused. Lord Hornpew’s droves of sheep had to serve as her diaper factory. The lake became her bath, and four maid were needed to finish the task. Meg sang and laughed and splashed, bringing cheer to even the most sober, soaked faces. Still, nobody knew what to do with her.
When she outgrew the crib, the bed, the nursery itself, they put her up in the barn where she stayed with the cows and horses, who seemed not to mind. When the ill-fated servant boy came to muck out the stalls, he mucked out Meg’s as well. Instruction in manner and etiquette was supplanted by toilet training. At last she outgrew these measures and blossomed into a young lady of eight, able to gather her own food, cook her own meals, sew her own clothes, and see to her own toilet. The manor heaved a sigh of relief.
Each year on her birthday Meg’s parents held a feast where every eligible male far and wide was compelled, coerced, and bribed to sing to her an ode. But no true love was found and the curse continued its work.
Meg’s hair grew, true to Jusilla’s blessing, but raven black slowly faded to shimmering goldenrod. This was the last straw. Lady Hornpew blamed her husband for the entire matter as it was his family’s godmother that had gone astray.
“But you’re the one who summoned Jusilla,” Lord Hornpew fumed. “And how useful she turned out to be! You should have known Mathilde would be furious.”
A single tear trickled down the lady’s cheek. “Never trust a fairy godmother.”
With this declaration she packed her trunks and called for her carriage to convey her back to her own family’s estate. Meg would be left behind. After all, there was no place for a giant girl among the elite of society no matter how well she presented herself, how sweet her voice or gentle her temperament. The lady pressed a dainty handkerchief to the corners of her eyes to erase the evidence of tender feeling so unbecoming a woman of rank. On this subject her mind was made up. Mother and daughter would reunite when the curse was broken and the girl’s hair returned to an acceptable hue.
Meg shed mournful tears for the loss of her mother and these created a pool in the center of Lady Hornpew’s prized rose garden. And there Meg sat, alone and unloved. Lord Hornpew shook his head at the sight but offered no comfort. He would have to figure out something to do with the girl, but with her in her weepy state, not a thing could be contrived at present without risk of ruining his best suit. The servants, though sorrowful for the sake of the sweet child, deemed her better off without such a mother, and let her be.
When at last the tears dried, Meg’s father began to suspect great potential in the girl as a warrior. Yet it was only her size that was terrifying, her temperament being much too mild. His disappointment at her giggles and grins retreated when she landed her first blow, accidental of course, as she was bound to mow over a warrior or two over at some point. Still, a victory was a victory, however unintentional. Lord Hornpew doubled her training regimen on the spot.
But the girl was incorrigible. She refused to fight and only cried when his servants tried to teach her. Her father commanded her to charge the enemy. She sat and picked daisies. He demonstrated the art of savage battle cries. Her voice produced only song and giggle. Even her tantrums were mild and she was easily coaxed back into good cheer. At last he relented. The girl was useless.
When she reached the age of twelve and a height of four stories, his thoughts toward his daughter became more agreeable to him. He sought to let her out at an exorbitant price for any number of worldly pursuits. At least then she might bear the cost of her own upkeep. The bill for her tailor was insupportable and she was eating him out of manor and home.
That she would never be a soldier was plain from his own attempts to convert her in this respect. Nevertheless, he spread news of her far and wide and took whatever offers came. Many came to gawk at the giant called Meg, but Lord Hornpew only smiled at the throngs and refused the servants’ entreaties to send them away. Such notoriety was sure to bring about some happy end and he needed only bide his time.
Nobody had ever seen a giant girl before and Meg’s name soon became a common term for anything astonishingly large. At first Lord Hornpew managed to acquire only odd jobs for her, but as her stature increased, her potential could hardly be overlooked.
One day a hunter, imbued with a sudden stroke of brilliance, thought up the perfect use for Meg’s extraordinary capacity, and requested her services for an entire year to replace his dogs. She was to find and chase the game so he could shoot it. This was great fun until Meg realized the fate of the poor creatures and started chasing them away. Thereafter she refused to eat meat as well. Alas, the hunter had no farmland and could not bear the cost of vegetables to satisfy her appetite. He returned her to her father before the end of the first season.
The builder her father rented her to for the sake of transporting timbers and stones complained that the materials rarely made it to their destination. More often than not Meg used them to cook herself a loaf of bread, a porridge or a stew along the way. Alas, the builder could not bear the ravenous cost of her appetite and returned her before the lease was up.
The realm’s third richest man, owner of all the cattle and sheep on forty hills, proclaimed the giant girl’s real value was as a protector of flocks. Upon her release from the builder, the rich man immediately procured her services. For three whole months not an animal was taken by the wolves. He boasted loudly of his own resourcefulness until the afternoon he caught the object of his praise picking flowers and singing of true love when she was supposed to be guarding the sheep. It was then that he noticed how idle the girl really was and how his own storehouses had been ravaged to feed her. At this rate, in another month he would be only the fourth richest man in the realm.
With as much haste as he acquired her, he returned her to her father. The girl only ate and picked daisies and sang all the day long. That was the complaint. True, no cattle or sheep had been lost on her watch, but, alas, the rich man could not bear the cost of her ravenous appetite.
Hearing these grievances, Meg’s father realized the one trick he had missed. His giantess had become a woman.
He observed his carefree daughter sitting in his field picking flowers and humming a familiar tune. Her voice was lovely. Too bad she was such a case. But daisies and singing about true love could mean only one thing.
At last his opportunity had come.
The girl was sixteen years and seven stories tall. This, he knew. But what nobody saw, not even Meg herself, was a silver arrow, straight and true. It pierced her heart, her soul, her very being. The shooter whirled away in flurry of rose petals.
Meg continued as she ever was, oblivious to the magical scheme set in motion. Her only friend was George, a strange boy who called himself by another name and lived in a shoe. She was just passing through the forest at the edge of her daisy field and there he was, sitting in the upper branches of a pine tree.
But she didn’t see him at first and had grown a story or two since the last time she had attempted this shortcut. A few more curves graced her form, too, and one of them failed to squeeze through the path between the trees. Her clumsiness knocked the boy right off of his branch. Her eye almost missed her error, but she cupped her hands, lunged out and caught him just as he tumbled to his death in a howl of protest.
He landed with a soft splat in her palms and lay there on his back looking up at her. “Thank you,” he gasped out.
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��Oh.” Meg took a deep breath and lowered her voice. The poor boy must be terrified of her and her thundering. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I did not see you.”
The boy sat up. A swatch of pinecone-colored hair fell over his eyes. He swept it back with one of his miniature hands and turned a pair of twinkling eyes up at her. “I suppose you’ll want to know why I was in your tree?”
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