So . . . I’m glad my wish didn’t come true. And I’m glad some of yours did. I can’t wait to hear how our stories are going to turn out.
Lots of Love,
Your Pen Pal, Allie
P.S. I don’t know if you remember the poem you sent me. Do you? I hope you keep copies of everything you write, and put all your poems and stories someplace safe. Anyway, in case you don’t remember, this is the poem:
“Good-bye,” he said
and strode away
clapping his hat
on his head.
And I called after him,
“You’ll be back. I know you.”
But his footfall
faded.
Maybe this isn’t a bad thing.
There will be others
who will come along
with a surer step.
Two things, Jennifer:
1. I just want you to know that I read this over and over again. Partly because you wrote it and partly because I think it has a really hopeful message. Did you mean it to be hopeful? (It’s funny that you wrote it before Starla left.)
2. It doesn’t have a title, so I’m going to give it one. I know—pushy, pushy. But I don’t care. Your poem is important and it deserves a title. So it is now called “What’s Around the Corner.” I think it (the poem, I mean, not the title) applies to lots of things in our lives that we’re afraid of but that have happy endings.
P.P.S. Write back soon!
Love Again,
Allie
Refugee receiving a grain allowance from World Food Programme supplies.
Photo Credit: UNHCR / H. Caux
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
SECRET SONG
Wishing is an open bowl.
I used to have one of my own.
It was shiny inside, with a wide fresh mouth.
I saw the bowl recently
in someone else’s hands.
Till now I am hoping
a person would say to me—
Please, could you help me hold this bowl?
And I would be so happy to.
An alley between tents in Kounoungou Refugee Camp.
Photo Credit: UNHCR / H. Caux
CYNTHIA VOIGT
THE STEPSISTER
The Stepfather weighed over nineteen stone, broad as a bear in his embroidered velveteen waistcoat. He was clumsy around them, loud-voiced, as if he were bellowing about in his warehouses. They forbade him entry to their salon. This freshly painted room was furnished with the choicest pieces from their former, grander home, the dainty-legged chairs and tables, gilt mirrors, carved German cupboards displaying Venetian glassware and Chinese porcelains. The Stepfather traded in teas and coffees, spices, perfumes, so he had promised to tell his captains to keep a lookout for the best pieces of Venetian glassware and Chinese porcelains, and to spare no expense. The Mother shook her head, gently but firmly, to tell him: No, my dear, you are men, how could you be expected to have a dainty eye, you will end up foolishly wasting money if you attempt this gift. He almost—As the Mother guided him out of the salon, his thick arm almost struck a shelf of glasses so small, they might hold only three thimblefuls of liquor, blue, with rims of white glass spun like lace.
Which would have been a tragic loss, if the Mother had not kept him from it.
Yetiffe, who was the youngest and burdened with more imagination than the others, thought of them as a triptych. Not a holy triptych, for that would be a vainglorious thought, but a secular one. The Mother, with her fine eyes and high proud forehead, stood full length in the center portrait, with Lysette’s head in profile on one side of her and Yetiffe’s head in profile on the other. The tone of each portrait was the same, the colors bathed in light; the clever gray eyes were the same in each of the three faces. They were a mother and her two daughters. They were two sisters and their mother. They turned to one another, like a triptych closing.
They had a salon when the Mother married the widower; they had a carriage. They had each her own bedchamber, on the first floor, Yetiffe’s and Lysette’s rooms at a distance from their mother’s, as they had been before their own father died and the great house they had lived in gone to his brother, who had sired sons to inherit the estate. The house the Stepfather moved them into didn’t entirely lack grandeur, and they were grateful. Although they had hoped for personal maids and there was only the stepsister, a pretty enough girl, but she lacked their strength of character. And even if the house had no great staircase, had neither ballroom nor stables, nor majordomo nor more than a cook who lived out and the two little maids for the heavy cleaning and washing, still they could remember to be grateful.
As could the Stepfather, for the honor their mother did in marrying him and allowing him to stand as father to her two daughters. He could, and he did, remember how much he had to thank the well-born widow for. For example, his house would never have opened its door to one of the King’s footmen, who presented a paper sealed with the King’s royal signet, had he had not married their mother. Yetiffe took the folded paper from the stepsister—who had answered the knock on the door, looking for all anyone would know like one of the servants of the house. Which was a blessing, because her manner was too modest for a daughter of such a house as this had become, when the Stepfather brought them to it. If she had been a genuine domestic servant she couldn’t have done better. Yetiffe read the words of address: The Merchant Orlov and His Family.
So they could open the message without delay, and know that they were invited—at the Queen’s pleasure, at the King’s behest—to a ball.
A great ball, the word spread quickly, the grandest of balls, to which were summoned all the maidens of the country so that they might all be presented to the King’s son, who was of an age to wed, and of a mind.
Yetiffe would wear rosy pink, which color brought out the pink tones of her pale skin. She must have her garnet coronet to set off her dark hair, and red roses to cascade down her skirts. The satin dancing slippers for her feet, which were as fineboned as her hands, must be dyed to match the garnets.
Luckily, the stepsister dressed hair, whether plain for every day or elegant for evening, as well as any real lady’s maid could. Luckily, she was a clever seamstress, so Yetiffe could hope to have fresh roses at her slender waist on the night of the ball. Lysette would wear yellow, for her skin was browner, and scattered with freckles. Lysette would have no flowers, would wear instead amber, at her neck and in her coronet. “You must do something original with amber on my hem and sleeves,” Lysette told the stepsister, because Lysette was sturdier that Yetiffe, her waist, like her hands and feet, less small and dainty and in need of disguise and distraction.
Luckily, the stepsister slept little, so they didn’t have to fret about having their gowns ready on time. “It’s too bad you can’t come with us,” they said to her. “We’ll bring you sweets—if we have a chance to carry some away with us. We’ll tell you everything that happens, and how it is to dance with the Prince. If he dances a waltz with bold turns, how he holds his partner’s waist. I’m sorry,” they said when they saw how dejected the girl grew.
“What would you wear, if you were going to the ball?” Yetiffe asked, to cheer her.
“A gown of white,” she answered, so readily that they knew she had dreamed of going. White was a good color for her creamy skin, they agreed. “White as sea foam. And pearls in my hair.” This they agreed showed some taste and a realistic sense of what it was possible to wear if your hair was as gold as the coins of the realm. “But no other jewels.”
“Bare-necked?” Lysette asked, and said, “It’s lucky you aren’t going, if that is how you would present yourself. To the Prince. Before the world. Did you make a sweet custard for today’s dinner? Did you polish the silver bowls, and the silver platters, and the silver forks, spoons, knives?”
Yes and yes, the stepsister answered, but why should she sound impatient at the question? Did she not care for the honor of the house?
&n
bsp; “For I am very hungry,” Lysette said.
“And our father’s cousin is bringing her two sons to dine with us today,” Yetiffe said.
“Everyone looks forward to the sweet at the end of the meal, but especially young gentlemen.”
“It’s too bad that you’ll be so fully occupied in the kitchen that you must miss the dinner, and the two sons.”
“We are always so jolly together.”
“But you can see them when you serve. And we’ll tell you all that we say among ourselves, the jests especially.”
“Except you must not ask us to remember all the jests, when we are so very merry.”
“And you must tell us which of the gentlemen you judge the better choice for husband.”
The stepsister’s blue eyes filmed with tears, and she bit her lip with vexation, to miss all the gaiety. She tried to hide this, as if she needed to cough, but Yetiffe understood her. However, for the evening to pass pleasurably, as it should at her mother’s table, the stepsister must be too busy to have a chance to sit down to dinner with the company. “What will I wear?” Lysette asked Yetiffe, who answered, “I shall wear my blue silk gown, and my sapphires.”
The Stepfather hired a coach and six to carry them all to the palace doors on the great night of the ball. It was a windy, mysterious, and black night. The stepsister held the carriage door open for them, bracing it against the wind. Her face glowed pale in the moonlight whenever the moon could break free from behind the clouds, to shine light down. In the coach they sat two to each side, facing each other, all four transfixed by anxiety, and excitement, and their own dreams. The Stepfather crowded his corner of the carriage, and his waistcoat gleamed as white as the moon. At the palace door, he waited while the King’s footman handed down the three women, and then he emerged from the carriage. He accompanied his new wife up the stairs and into the palace from which—had he not been married to her—he would have been barred. The common people, who had nothing better to do, cheered from the roadside, or made mock from the darkness beneath the trees where the torchlight didn’t reach. The Stepfather stayed at their side until their names were announced to the splendid gathering and they could descend into the ballroom. There he left them, to join the other fathers at the card tables.
The Mother found a chair for herself at the thronged edges of the room and set her two daughters out before her on smaller chairs. They waited for their dance cards to fill up. Yetiffe, the youngest, waited in rosy pink; Lysette waited in buttery yellow, her skirt scattered with glowing amber stones.
“Wouldn’t our stepsister wish to be here now,” they said.
They said this at every new wonder—the forty violins, the handsome cavalry captain, the Prince and Queen and King making their entrance in a blinding wave of royalty, the duchess’s diamonds. “We must tell her of this,” they said. They opined that there would be dishes she would wish she could taste when the midnight buffet would be served; perhaps she could duplicate them for their own table. They knew how she would have liked to dance with the Prince, as they did, first Lysette, who was the older. He danced with each unmarried woman in the room.
Each unmarried woman of eligible age, that is, for matrimony was the purpose of this ball. All understood this, although none spoke of it. The captains of cavalry and sons of ministers, the lords from their country estates and all of their male cousins, they were present to assure each maiden a satisfying ball, partners in plenty; but not one of the gentlemen would have presumed to court a bride for himself. Not until the Prince had made his choice.
The Prince’s choice was the great surprise of the evening. She surprised even the Prince, it seemed, arriving unfashionably late, just as the clocks struck ten, and standing unannounced at the center of the doorway, unaccompanied by any parent or duenna. A mask made of green apple leaves covered her face. The Prince rushed to her.
He danced with no one else after she had appeared. For waltz after flowing waltz that same couple danced together, he tall and straight as a birch tree, while her skirts billowed out, the color of waves when the moon shines out from behind clouds and silvers their foamy crests.
When the music ceased, the Prince escorted his masked lady all around the ballroom and introduced the daughters and their families. She smiled at everyone and held out her gloved hand to be bent over by the men. When the couple came over to Yetiffe and Lysette, and their mother, the lady repeated their names, and complimented them on their fine dress, and asked how they enjoyed the ball. She picked them out from the hundred and more in the ballroom to speak to; she sought them out to admire. She was a great lady and most likely a great beauty too, although, as the Mother pointed out, she was so soft-spoken she couldn’t but lack strength of character. Yetiffe thought she might disagree with her mother about that, since the lady had shown them such attentions. How the stepsister would sigh, to hear of it; how all the others in the room now looked at them with admiration, and envy. How many questions were then asked of them, too. Who is she? What is her name? What is her family? Where is her home? To all of their eager partners Yetiffe and Lysette would say only that they could not answer those questions. All they could say was that she was a great and lovely lady, was she not?
At the midnight supper the questions came faster. Plates of dainty foods were brought to them where they sat, and goblets of wine. Where had she gone, this lady? Had she disappeared forever? Why had she left the ball so early, so precipitously? Would she return?
The Prince also came to ask, but they must say to him as to all the other lords and ladies that they could tell him nothing. “Why did she linger to talk with you, then?” the Prince asked.
“We can’t tell you that,” they said again. Yetiffe too was puzzled by the lady’s notice. If it had been she whom the Prince had chosen to pay such attentions to, she would not have wanted to share the glory with anyone. Lysette remarked, as the Prince walked sadly away, “It must be that she could see by looking the kind of people we are. Not like these others.”
“He will come back to you,” their mother promised, arranging her heavy skirts. “He must, because we are his only link to her, and he’ll hope to learn something from us. Even though we tell him nothing, he’ll come back, because our nothing is worth more than the nothing everybody else knows.”
She was proved prophetic. Lysette and Yetiffe had a successful ball, and as they were driven home at dawn, they could anticipate—sleepily, yawning, their toes now pinched by their dancing shoes—everything they had to tell the stepsister, who had missed all the wonders of the night. “How she will envy us,” they said.
“How she will wish she had been with us, to take part in the lady’s attentions.”
“How she must long to be a real sister to us, Yetiffe.”
“Yes, Lysette, and we must remember to be particularly kind and tell her everything that happened.”
“All we saw.”
“And heard.”
“Ate and drank.”
By next evening, stories had spread throughout the city and countryside. She was no lady, but a great princess, no, a queen, no, an immortal denizen of the land of fairies who had glimpsed the Prince and lost her heart to him. She would sacrifice all, leave all her familiar life and give up her immortality, too, to be with him. She was a magician’s daughter, sent to steal the Prince’s soul. She was a bold actress off the streets, hoping to hook the Prince by her beauty and reel him into marriage and thus with one bold cast to alter her state from actress to princess. She was a humble serving girl magicked by her fairy godmother—her dress magic, her coach and eight and serving men, too, magic—until the clock struck twelve. She was a maiden cleverer than most, who had found the very way to catch the Prince’s eye and bring him to marriage.
Each time the Mother and her daughters went out, they heard a new story, which they brought home to talk over among themselves, if there were no ladies come to drink cups of chocolate offered to them from a heavy silver tray by the stepsister. They would
talk, and weigh the information, and make judgment on each story. Then, when the story had grown dry and tired, they would take it down to the kitchen, where the stepsister’s interest made it lively again, and they could savor it again, until they went out again to gather up the next story, or a visitor brought a new tale to them.
Rumor flourished, but the Prince languished. He slept badly and found no pleasure in even the daintiest foods. He read verses, and sometimes even wrote them. He sent messengers in all directions to find her.
He didn’t even know her name.
Because she was masked, he couldn’t even describe her face.
“Her voice is like music, like moonlight. When you hear her speak, you will know her voice,” he told the messengers.
A week of this and the Kingdom was in an uproar. The King determined to give a second ball, three weeks hence. Invitations were hastily sent out.
Lysette wanted a gown as green as emeralds, with lace at the wrists and bodice; Yetiffe wanted a gown of silk as deep a blue as the evening sky before night has settled upon it, but she was the younger, so she had to wait longer for the stepsister to finish it and fit it. No other maiden would have gowns as wonderful as theirs, and all would once again ask Yetiffe and ask Lysette who their seamstress was.
It was the very afternoon of the ball when Yetiffe’s dress was completed, and that left them with barely enough time for the stepsister to wash their hair, and brush it dry before the fire, and wind ribbons into the heavy dark strands she lifted and twisted and coiled. As the coach drove away, they could see her in the garden, where, in twilight, she was gathering in laundered sheets. A wind filled the sheets, blew them out into swellings and flowings like sea foam riding the waves into shore. They waved to her, but she did not see them.
What You Wish For Page 13