by Finley Aaron
“A very good time,” I agreed. “I’ll tell you what’s happening. That man, that Raedwald of Nordheim—”
“Raedwald? He’s really Richard the fourth.”
“That he is,” I acknowledged.
“I don’t like him.”
“Good. He’s a terrible man. Madame Augusta tried to give Ella to him.”
“What? Give Ella—how? As a servant?”
“As a bride, I think, technically, but I’m sure she’d end up being more like a servant. Anyway, none of that matters. Ella ran away up the chimney and down the tree, and rode off on Mirage before they even knew she was gone.”
“Up the chimney! Now that makes more sense. I wondered why they’d need a fire. Our Ella’s a smart girl.”
“She is,” I agreed, sensing stronger kinship with Gustav than I had experienced before. “But now she’s homeless and penniless and doesn’t know where to turn. If Raedwald catches up to her…well, we can’t let that happen.”
Gustav’s face went pale behind its leathery exterior. “That we can’t. He’s as bad as they come.”
“Indeed,” I agreed, hurrying the conversation along, since I’d already taken longer than I’d meant to, and Ella might worry. “The point is, we might need your help. Bertie’s imprisoned in Devin and Robert is dead.”
“I’d heard that. Seems we ought to do something to free the boy.”
“That’s what Ella thinks, too. She’s going to visit Prince Henry and see if he can do something to help. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Gustav looked thoughtful. “I’ll keep an eye on things here, and try to learn where that Raedwald’s headed next. I’ll have my things ready to leave on a moment’s notice if you have need of me.”
“Oh, thank you! Now, I must be going!”
I flew back to Ella, and found her still scrubbing at her hair in the creek. There was a dry rocky shelf that jutted out from under the blackberry thicket on one stretch of the stream bank. I left my bundle there and shrunk back to the size of a bird, then sat there, panting.
“You’re back!” Ella sounded relieved to see me. “Is my hair clean? I can’t see on top—did I get all the soot out?”
I flew over and inspected her. “You’re as clean as can be. Come now, we’ve got to get you dressed. The ride to Charmont will take you at least an hour even at a full gallop—longer if you’re going to avoid the main road, which would be wise, since it’s the road Raedwald’s most likely to take, and I expect him to attend the ball tonight.”
Ella shuddered visibly. “Do you think it’s wise for me to go, if he’s going to be there?”
“Now, we’ve been over this already. You’ve got no choice but to go. We’ll just have to keep you away from Raedwald. He won’t bother you if you’re with Henry.” I waved off the rest of the discussion because really, there was every chance she would encounter Raedwald, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to prevent it or guarantee otherwise. But I couldn’t let her allow that to keep her from attending.
“Come on, then. Let’s get you dressed and off to Charmont.”
“But what am I to wear to the ball?” She’d placed the ugly brown dress on the berry thicket to dry. In addition to being still streaked with soot and berry juice, it now had several snags from the thorns.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Perhaps we can find a place for you to rent a dress.”
“Charmont is not Paris,” she reminded me. “And there’s no time to sew anything to fit. Besides, with the blockade—”
“Yes, I know, I know, but come on, Girl! Quit your lackadaisical lollygagging! We’ve got to get going!”
With my encouragement, Ella got her hair all combed out and braided, and dressed in the simple cotton dress I’d brought her. She rolled up the still-damp brown gown, and packed it in her saddlebag.
The leather shoes she’d been wearing were still quite wet from the creek, but she frowned at the pair of shoes I’d brought. “Mother’s glass slippers? Really? This seemed like the most practical choice for a ride into town?”
“You’re going to a ball! They’re the only appropriate thing you own,” I insisted.
Ella shook her head, but still slipped her feet into the slippers. They molded perfectly around her soles, thanks to their magic. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about them rubbing wrong and causing blisters.
Once she was ready, the next trick was finding a safe route to town. She couldn’t follow the stream any further, because the water grew much too deep. The banks were likewise steep, and choked with thickets. Ella rode back upstream until she reached a spot where the thicket thinned enough for her to ride up the bank and into the woods.
“Which way from here?” she asked. “I don’t dare go upstream much further, or I’ll reach Caprese. Raedwald might yet be there.”
“I’ll fly above the trees and see if I can spot the road,” I offered, and did so.
The usual road that led to Caprese was not far, but I could also see Caprese in the distance, and the Ulster brothers were readying the carriage for the women to ride into Charmont.
It didn’t seem wise to send Ella that route.
In the other direction, the woods gave way to a pasture, and I could see beyond another road, which led in the general direction of Charmont.
When I flew down and reported to Ella what I’d seen, she agreed we should stay off the usual road. Instead we made our way to the path I’d spotted from the air. We followed it until it forked, and then I again rose up to the sky, searching for the best route.
In this way we made it to Charmont by evening time. With less than an hour to go before the ball was scheduled to begin, Ella skirted the main parts of the city, traveling instead to the river and past the tournament grounds, alongside several riverside gardens, to the grotto.
She reached the salty hot springs and dismounted. Evening light streamed down through the fissure in the ceiling, and the sounds of dripping water filled the cave.
But there was more than just the sound of water—the deep reverberation of distant voices echoed from somewhere.
Silently, Ella crept toward the opening of the tunnel that led to the dungeon, wine cellar, and stables. I flew above her, listening closely.
Sound moved down the tunnel as though through an echo chamber. Voices.
“How much wine are we going to need?”
“They’ve invited all the nobility. Plan on making this trip all night. They might well drink it all.”
Ella met my eyes and gave me a resigned look and whispered, “They’re going to be coming and going to the wine cellar all evening—and likely the kitchen will be a busy place, as well. That leaves only the dungeon.”
“I don’t think you should go up that tunnel at all. Who knows if the dungeon even connects to the castle any other way? I doubt it would, for safety. And if you got caught in there, anyone could lock you up. You’d be no use to your brother imprisoned here.”
“What are we going to do, then? The ball starts in far less than an hour. I’d hoped to arrive early, before Raedwald arrives, so I can talk to Henry without Raedwald seeing me.”
“Come on back up the path to the garden. I spotted a field of pumpkins.”
“Pumpkins?” Ella asked, sounding confused, but following me anyway. “They wouldn’t be ripe yet, not this time of summer.”
“They don’t need to be ripe for what I have in mind. The only question is, are you willing to use another of your two remaining wishes?”
“I already burned one for nothing, so what’s one more?” Ella took hold of Mirage’s bridle and led the horse back down the path toward the riverside gardens.
“Now Child, you don’t really believe that wish was wasted, do you?”
“Am I living happily ever after?”
“You’re going to go to the ball, aren’t you?”
“Am I?” Ella asked.
“You can, but as I said, it’s going to take a wish. That will leave you only one le
ft, and once you’ve used all three, I disappear out of your life.”
“That’s right,” Ella remembered aloud. “You’re only with me until I’ve used my wishes. But weren’t you with my mother always?”
“Almost. Did she never tell you how she used her three wishes? One was for the glass slippers. The second put out a fire that had gone out of control in the kitchen, and threatened to burn down the house. And the third was when you were being born.
“Your mother was older than most new mothers. I don’t know if that was the problem or something else, but she was having a terrible time bringing you into this world. I thought we’d already lost her, and of course if we lost her, we’d likely lose you, as well. But I screamed in her ear that she needed to wish for you to both survive. She wished her wish, and I was gone until you were born. Then I was back again as your fairy godmother. So, no, I wasn’t gone from her life for long.”
“I never knew any of that.” Ella confessed as we reached the garden. “But if wishes end at midnight, how is it she survived longer than that?”
“The magic ended at midnight. That’s all,” I reminded Ella. “Whatever was going on in her body that was draining her life away had to be stopped for her to live. By the time midnight came, she’d regained enough of her strength to continue on, all on her own.”
“Did you know that would happen?”
“I had no idea. She might well have died at midnight. That was certainly a risk, and I held my breath when the clock chimed the hour. But what good would it have done her to save the wish? She couldn’t use it dead. And we needed you safely birthed. That’s what the wish really gave us. Surviving—she did that on her own.” I looked around the garden and blinked, recalling that we had work to do.
“Now,” I announced, breathless from my long story. “Let’s pick out the prettiest pumpkin.”
“Does it have to be pretty?” Ella asked.
“I don’t know, but it can’t hurt. We’re going to stretch the limits of my magic as it is, so if we can start with a pretty pumpkin, that’s one bit less for me to do.”
“And what are we doing with this pumpkin?” Ella lifted several gourds, inspecting each until she found one she liked. “We’ll have to pay the farmer if we take it.”
“Well now, Dear, you can pay the farmer back later. You know you can’t sneak into the castle by the back way, so you’re going to have to arrive like a real guest.”
“Like a real guest?”
“Yes. So we’ll need a pumpkin and—ragamuffin rodentia! Are those mice? Catch them! Catch them, Dear. We’ll need as many as we can get.”
Ella caught the mice and scooped them into her skirt, which she held like a basket. “I’ve got four,” she announced once she’d captured them all.
“Only four?” I tutted softly. “A coach and four, that’s good enough, two matched pair, but oh, we need a footman.”
“A footman?” Ella asked.
But I’d already come up with an idea. “Mirage can do it!”
“Mirage can be a footman?”
“Yes, she’ll do grandly.”
“But Mirage is a female.”
“She’s also a horse, Dear. If my magic can overcome that, her being a girl won’t be any obstacle at all,” I assured her. Although, truth be told, I’d never changed a horse of any gender into a footman, so I spoke from conjecture and wishful thinking. “Now let’s see, what else? We’ve got to get everything we need all at once, and we’ve got to do the wish just right.”
“I’ve got to have an invitation,” Ella reminded me, as she led Mirage and carried the pumpkin up a path that led from the nearest street through the garden.
“Ah, yes, that! We don’t need magic for that. Look in your pocket, Dear.”
Ella reached into her pocket and pulled out the invitation I’d swiped from Madame Augusta’s bedroom during my visit back to the house to claim her dry clothes.
“You got it! Oh, but she’s going to be angry.”
“Not as angry as you might think.” I shook my head. “She and her daughters had their own, as well. They are noble, too, you know.”
In the distance, the castle clock chimed the seven o’clock hour.
“Are we all ready?” Ella asked, looking down at her simple cotton dress with its skirt full of mice.
“I think so. Let’s see—mice into horses, pumpkin into a coach, horse into footman—”
“My dress for a ball gown.”
“Yes. That. Oh! Sticks and snails and puppy dog tails! We need a driver!”
“A driver? Can’t you just make one out of thin air?”
“I could, I suppose, but that would take a great deal more magic, and we might not have enough left for your dress. We can’t risk that now, can we? Let me see what I can find,” I told her, and flew off.
The riverside garden wasn’t far from a row of houses, which probably belonged to the people who kept the gardens. I saw a few chickens first, but they’re notoriously dim-witted, and would almost certainly try to eat the mice before we finished the wish. I spotted a dog next, which fortunately was not tied up in any way.
But how to get him into the garden? I flew close to his face, growing just large enough to capture his attention. The dog lifted his head, gave one sharp bark, and leapt after me.
I flew just ahead of him all the way to the garden.
“Catch him, Ella, Dear! Catch the dog!” I called as I flew past her.
“I don’t want to lose my mice,” Ella reminded me, but she crouched down and somehow managed to intercept the animal without losing the rodents in her skirt.
“Now wish it, Dear! Wish everything to be right to go to the ball!”
“I wish,” Ella said clearly, even as she restrained the dog, “for everything here to be what I need to go to the ball.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was a great deal of swirling fairy dust then, and the dog howled, which turned into a manly groan as he became a well-dressed if slightly long-eared fellow. The mice swelled and popped from Ella’s skirt into four white horses, as pretty as you please. Mirage’s eyes grew wide with alarm, and she reared up on her hind legs before changing into a footman. The man shook his head, much as Mirage would have tossed her mane, and he stomped one foot in consternation.
The pumpkin was an odd thing. It was clear we’d been wise to select a pretty one, because all it did was swell up large enough to sit inside, with doors and wheels and a perch for everyone. It was pretty enough, but no matter which way you looked at it, it still looked like a pumpkin.
I was particularly pleased with how Ella’s hair came out—an intricate wonder of braids and curls, swept high, with delicate tendrils cascading down to frame her face.
Ella’s dress was the best of all. About the same moment the mice flew into horse form from her skirt, the skirt itself ballooned into a flouncy gown of silvery blue, almost the precise color of Ella’s eyes, but with a bit more silver for effect. The floral jacquard bodice hugged her figure graciously, and the neckline swept low.
I tutted regretfully. “I didn’t think to do anything for jewelry, and a jeweled necklace would have looked so fine.”
But Ella twirled, admiring the skirt, which fluttered almost like flower petals as she moved. “It’s lovely. It’s the loveliest dress I’ve ever seen.”
“Flummoxing frippery! You should be on your way if you’re going to find Henry before Raedwald arrives.” I motioned to Mirage, the footman, who held open the door of the pumpkin coach.
Ella stepped inside.
To my relief, the inside of the coach was not moist with seeds and pumpkin flesh, although it did smell faintly of pumpkin pie.
“Now remember—the magic ends at midnight, so you’ve got to be gone before then.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll remember. Thank you so much, Fairy Godmother!”
She had to call out the last little bit as the carriage rolled away. The horses, perhaps knowing that their driver was a dog, and feeling
instinctively, as mice, that they ought to run away, seemed to be in a hurry to move.
They rolled up the street, and quickly found the line of other carriages headed to the castle.
I followed, of course, twinkling like a sparkle of leftover fairy dust high above the carriage. From there I could see the other guests lined up to arrive, and recognized the coach from Caprese just a few coaches behind Ella in the line.
Voices echoed up from the open windows.
“When are we going to get there, Mother?”
“The ball started at seven. It’s past seven now. He’s going to choose a bride before we even get there!”
“Can’t this line move any faster? What’s taking so long?”
“Don’t touch my hair. Mother, she touched my hair!”
Curious to see who was driving their coach, and expecting it to be Gustav, who’d driven for them before, (Madame often drove, but only for informal shopping trips when she wished to leave Ella behind. She wouldn’t dream of driving to the ball.), I was surprised to spot two very large figures seated as driver and footman.
Einhard and Uliad.
But where was Raedwald?
I flew low and looked inside the carriage, but it was clearly just Madame Augusta and her two daughters inside.
Had Raedwald stayed behind? That seemed unlikely. No, he’d almost certainly gone ahead on his own horse.
Which meant he’d already be at the ball.
I flew back to Ella and warned her, explaining all I’d seen.
“Yes,” she agreed. “It had occurred to me that Raedwald might be there already. I’ve got to hope he’s concerned enough about public opinion that he won’t make a scene, even if he recognizes me. But I am at least a little out of place, and he won’t expect me to be dressed like this, so that should help.”
“Indeed,” I agreed. “You’ll just have to stay alert for him, and turn the other way immediately if you see him. Don’t let him get close enough to recognize you. I’ll watch for him and let you know what he’s wearing if I see him.”