Garden Princess

by Kristin Kladstrup

  “Miss Adela! It’s me!” He tried to help her up.

  “Let me go!”

  He gripped her wrist.

  “Stop! You’re hurting me!”

  He couldn’t not hurt her. There wasn’t an inch of her skin that wasn’t covered with cuts.

  “You’re bleeding, Miss Adela! What’s happened to you?”

  “Please! Let me go!”

  But he was leading her back to the front of the house, even as she struggled to escape. “There, now!” said Garth. “Don’t be frightened.” He pulled her to the fountain and set her down on the edge of it, gripping her wrist with one hand and using the other to find his handkerchief. He dipped it in the water and dabbed at her cheek. “You look as if you’ve had a fight with a cat!”

  His voice was so kind that tears filled her eyes. “Only a rose tree,” said Adela.

  “Trying to do a bit of pruning, were you?”

  “No!” Adela tried to pull away again, but Garth held tight. He rinsed the handkerchief in the water and resumed his ministrations.

  Adela dropped her voice to a whisper. “Garth, please listen to me! Everything here is magic — even the plants are under a spell. You’re under a spell —”

  “There you go again, poor thing! Lady Hortensia says it’s the mountain air —”

  “Lady Hortensia is a witch! Why can’t you believe me? I can show you. . . .”

  If he came with her — if she could show him the rose tree — he would see for himself.

  “You’re wrong, Miss Adela,” Garth said firmly. “Lady Hortensia is good. She only wants to help you. Come on inside and you’ll see.”

  “No!” She jerked her arm free and jumped to her feet, but this time Garth grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side. He pushed her toward the open front door.

  “My lady!” Garth bellowed. “I’ve found her, my lady!” And then, “Stop struggling, Miss Adela! You’ll only hurt yourself.”

  “Let me go!”

  But it was too late.

  Adela saw the figure of Hortensia in the doorway, and a sob escaped from her. She tried to pull away again, and Garth’s grip tightened. “It’s just as you said, my lady! She’s not herself at all.”

  Adela shoved back against Garth with all her weight so that he had to let go or lose his balance. At last, she was free! She turned to run. She took one step and then, to her horror, she couldn’t go farther. Something was wrong with her feet. They wouldn’t move!

  “You may go inside, my dear boy,” said Hortensia, her voice calm.

  Now it was not only Adela’s feet but her entire body that would not move.

  “Are you sure, my lady?”

  “She won’t hurt me.”

  “I will hurt her!” shouted Adela, even though that seemed highly improbable at the moment. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she move? “Don’t listen to her, Garth! She has you under a spell! She’s going to put me under one, too! She’s a witch, I tell you! She’s —” But Adela choked on her words, her tongue suddenly as immobile as the rest of her.

  Garth said, “You told us whoever found the princess would sit beside you, my lady! I found her!”

  “Yes,” said Hortensia as she walked toward them. “But you must go inside and wait for me there.”

  “You’ll come soon?”

  “Very soon.” Hortensia brushed her hand against Garth’s cheek.

  He grinned and headed for the house. The door didn’t even have time to close behind him before Adela heard him call out, “I’ve found her! I’ve found the princess, and my lady is going to sit beside me!”

  Adela opened her mouth, struggling to speak. Hortensia made a small gesture with her hand, and Adela’s voice returned. “Garth! Help!” she shouted.

  Hortensia laughed. “He’s not going to listen to you.”

  “What have you done to him? You’ve bewitched him, haven’t you?”

  “My dear girl, have you never seen a man in love before?”

  “Garth doesn’t love you!”

  Hortensia raised her eyebrows. “If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.” Then, before Adela could answer, she put her hand to her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh, but don’t tell me! You think he’s in love with you!”

  “I do not!” Adela protested.

  “But, of course, you do! How could I have missed it?” Hortensia’s voice oozed pity. It was horrible to be frozen, to have to stand still and listen to her. “Garth has spoken of your kindness toward him,” said Hortensia. “That’s what he calls it — did you know? Kindness. But you and I know that your feelings are more than simply kindness —”

  “They are not!” said Adela.

  Hortensia made a small noise that implied disbelief. “I’m sure Garth has been kind to you as well. He is a very friendly young man. I can understand how a girl like you might mistake friendship for something else.”

  It was the way she emphasized those words — a girl like you — that prompted Adela to say, “What are you talking about?” But even as she asked the question, a voice in her mind warned, Don’t ask her! Don’t listen to her!

  “Only the fact that you are not what anyone would call pretty.” Hortensia paused, as if gauging Adela’s reaction. “Has no one ever told you that before?”

  Adela couldn’t help but think of the many ways her stepmother had implied as much. “I don’t care what I look like. I care about what I do.”

  “My dear girl, we all do things. But some of us look more beautiful as we do them! Now, really, I must stop, for I can see that I have hurt your feelings. Truly, it must be hard to love Garth and know that he cannot love you in return.”

  “I do not love Garth!”

  “Well, if it isn’t Garth, it will be someone else,” said Hortensia. Then her tone brightened. “Though, really, I think you’re quite lucky!”

  “Lucky?” said Adela.

  “Why, being a princess! It doesn’t matter what you look like — you’ll still have plenty of willing suitors.”

  Hortensia couldn’t have come closer to echoing Adela’s father if she had tried: What does it matter how tall she is or what she looks like? . . . She’s the king’s daughter. Who isn’t going to want to marry her? At the memory of her father’s words, Adela felt tears spring to her eyes.

  “Oh, dear! I’ve said quite the wrong thing again, haven’t I?” said Hortensia. “I suppose you’re one of those girls who hope they’ll find someone who cares about what’s in your heart.”

  Adela swallowed.

  “You like to believe that a man will love you for who you are. Isn’t that right?”

  “Stop it!” said Adela.

  “Isn’t that right?” Hortensia pressed.

  “Yes! People do love each other for what’s inside!” Adela felt as if the confession were being ripped from her.

  “They love beauty,” said Hortensia.

  “They love other things! Like bravery and intelligence and kindness —”

  “But they love beauty most of all,” said Hortensia. “You saw that with your little friend Marguerite. Garth chose her, not you. And now he has chosen me.”

  “I never wanted Garth to choose me. And he doesn’t love you! He loves Marguerite —”

  “He thought she was pretty,” Hortensia said dismissively. “A pretty little daisy.”

  “I saw what you did to her!” said Adela.

  Hortensia shrugged. “I only gave Marguerite what she wanted.”

  “What she wanted!” sputtered Adela.

  “To be looked at, to be loved.”

  “So you turned her into a flower?”

  “What else? Can you truly say that you have never wanted to be looked at like that — to be loved like that?” asked Hortensia.

  “No! I have not!”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Hortensia. She gazed into Adela’s eyes, and Adela could not look away. Hortensia gazed and gazed — for how long, it was hard to tell. Adela felt her mind grow dreamy and wistfu
l, until it seemed as if she did want what Hortensia said she wanted — to be admired for her beauty, loved for her beauty. Adela thought of Hortensia’s mirror — how lovely her reflection had been in that magic glass. She thought of Marguerite and Garth. Lovely Marguerite, loved by Garth . . . the pair of them taking delight in each other’s beauty. Lovely and loved, thought Adela.

  “Truly,” said Hortensia, “my heart aches for you when I think of you among all the pretty girls I invited to my party. I suppose you dressed up in your best clothes, thinking that would help somehow. I suppose someone told you that you looked nice in blue.”

  Adela couldn’t help it. Her eyes filled with tears again. She could not wipe them away, and they rolled down her cheeks.

  “And here you are now,” said Hortensia, “a weed among the pretty flowers in my garden . . .”

  A weed among flowers. Was it regret that Adela felt then? Regret that she wasn’t pretty enough to be in Hortensia’s garden?

  Oh, but that was wrong. She didn’t want that!

  Or did she? Perhaps she did want to be a flower . . . to be lovely and loved.

  And then it was happening! Adela could feel her feet digging into the ground, pushing down into the soil. Her arms raised themselves up, and she saw that they were green! They were flattening, splitting, stretching out in all directions, turning into broad leaves with curves and spiny points! And still her feet were digging into the ground, her legs twisting together as they drove downward. “Stop!” she remembered to say. Only her voice was so tiny. And she was so tiny. She was shrinking away. Her head was becoming smaller, her hair shooting outward in a brilliant yellow crown. This is what it’s like, she thought as her vision blurred. This is what it’s like to be a flower.

  And then, just as it occurred to her that being a flower was not what she wanted, everything went dark, and Adela thought of nothing at all.

  Krazo was hiding under the wheelbarrow. He was watching and listening to Hortensia and thinking of a cat. There was a big gray tabby that lurked around one of the farmyards he visited, and Krazo had once seen it creep up on a mouse. The mouse had seen the cat; Krazo had thought it would run away, but the mouse had simply stood there, staring at the cat until it was too late to run.

  Now it was too late for the princess.

  Hortensia leaned over to touch her new flower. Krazo, remembering the silver key, held his breath. But Hortensia stood up, empty-handed, and Krazo saw the same satisfied look he had seen on the face of that farmyard cat. “Don’t you worry, my dear,” Hortensia said to the flower. “I’ll be sure to tell your friend Garth to look for you in the morning.”

  Krazo waited for her to go inside before he searched for the key. He found it hidden among the flower’s long, toothed leaves. He tugged at the chain, but it was caught. He tugged harder and very nearly ripped the plant apart before he caught himself. He jumped back, watching the plant’s yellow flowers snap upright. They swayed and grew still, standing alert above the plant’s green leaves, as if they expected him to say something.

  “Princess?” said Krazo.

  He had never given much thought to the flowers in Hortensia’s garden. My garden girls, Hortensia called them, as if she owned them. As she now owned the princess. Because the flower was the princess. The princess was the flower. The princess was, as she had put it herself, under a spell.

  Krazo looked at her. Even if he managed to pull the chain out of her leaves without harming her, what good would it do him? He couldn’t dig up the treasure himself. “Princess?” he said again. He stood there for a long time. He waited until the lights in the house went out. And then, because there was nothing else he could do, he went home to bed.

  He didn’t sleep well. For one thing, his nest was too crowded for comfort. The belt buckle kept poking him, and the coral beads clacked against one another whenever he stirred. For another thing, his roof was gone. He wasn’t used to sleeping in the open air. But the worst thing of all was that Krazo dreamed about the woman again. This time he dreamed that he was showing her his treasures, only there were far more than he had ever had before — a shower of diamonds and emeralds and rubies pouring from his hands into hers. “They’re for you!” he said proudly. “This one here belonged to a princess,” he added, showing her the necklace with the blue stone.

  The woman raised her dark eyes. “Oh, Neddy, you must have stolen them!” she said. The tears were rolling down her face, and Krazo knew that he was the cause of them.

  “I didn’t!” he cried.

  “Why, Neddy? Why must you steal when you know it’s wrong?”

  He woke up shivering. It was nearly dawn — he could tell by the light filtering through the leaves. He waited for the ache in his heart to subside and waited for the dream to fade from his mind.

  Only it didn’t entirely. The sun rose, the day was here, and the pain in his breast eased a bit, but Krazo could not stop thinking about the woman. She had spoken to him. She had called him Neddy, just as if it were his name, as if she knew him. And the way she had cried! As if he had never brought her anything but sorrow and disappointment. But how could that be, when it was clear that he had wanted to make her happy?

  Krazo closed his eyes, bringing to mind the image of the jewels pouring from his hands into hers.

  Hands. Was it only the dream that made him feel as if he knew what it was like to have them? Krazo stretched his wings, trying to imagine his feathers as fingers. He remembered what the princess had said to him: You might be under a spell. . . .

  He opened his eyes. Was it possible? Could it be that he was enchanted? “Neddy,” he murmured, searching inside himself for some inkling of who he might once have been, until a noise tugged at his attention. Someone was singing down on the lawn. Krazo knew who it was: Hortensia’s new gardener. The man had sung yesterday morning as well.

  Krazo hopped out of his nest, landed on a branch below, then dropped down and down until he reached the ground. By then the gardener had stopped singing. He was standing by the wheelbarrow, staring at something in the grass. The man crouched down, and Krazo saw what had caught his eye.

  The princess.

  Now the gardener was standing up again. He was digging through the clutter in the wheelbarrow. Krazo watched as he pulled out a long metal rod with a wooden handle on one end and a forked blade on the other. The gardener knelt down beside the princess and drove the rod into the ground.

  “Stop!” called Krazo.

  The man looked around. As Krazo came toward him, he pulled out the rod and shook it at him. “Get off, you!” he threatened.

  Krazo drew back, watching as the man pushed the rod into the ground again. He wiggled it back and forth, pushing on the wooden handle like a lever, until the princess popped out of the ground. Dirt flew from her roots as the gardener tossed her into the wheelbarrow. He tossed the rod in as well and stood up, brushing his hands on his trousers. Then, resuming his song, he picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and started off.

  “Stop!” Krazo said again. He flew toward the wheelbarrow. He landed on its rim. The princess was lying on top of the pruning saw. He barely noticed the silver key still twined among her leaves. “Where are you taking her?” he demanded.

  The gardener scratched his head. “Where am I taking who?”

  “The princess!” Krazo leaped down beside her.

  “Do you mean that dandelion? Rubbish heap, I guess. Lady Hortensia told me I must kill all the weeds I found this morning. Say! You’re that talking magpie Miss Adela told me about. I guess she was right about something, anyway.”

  “You killed her?” said Krazo.

  “Who?”

  Krazo leaned toward the princess.

  “The dandelion? I should think so! Lucky I got to it before it went to seed!” said the gardener.

  The princess didn’t look dead. Her leaves, sprouting up from her dirt-encrusted taproot, were crisp and green and speckled with dew. Krazo could smell her grassy, springlike scent.

 
“I can’t wait to tell Lady Hortensia,” said the gardener. “She said only last night she’d give me a kiss for every weed I pulled!”

  So the princess is dead, thought Krazo. She was dead, and it was Hortensia who had killed her, just as surely as if she had dug her up herself. In fact, Hortensia would probably tell him all about it later today. She would probably laugh about it. Krazo had never understood her laughter before. He didn’t fully understand it now. But as he thought of the satisfied look he had seen on Hortensia’s face, the same look he had seen on the face of that barnyard cat, it seemed to him that Hortensia’s laughter must be a cruel thing.

  “I don’t suppose you know where I could find more dandelions,” said the gardener.

  Krazo looked up.

  “I was just thinking about getting some more kisses from my lady.”

  The idea came so fast to Krazo it nearly knocked him over.

  “I don’t know about dandelions,” he said. “But I do know something she wants killed. Follow me.”

  “Are you sure she wants this cut down?” The gardener brushed his fingers against one of the blooms on the rose tree.

  “Yes!” Krazo lied.

  The gardener cast a look at the debris scattered across the grass — the remains of the princess’s battle with the rose tree. “Well,” he said, still sounding dubious, “it does look as if it’s shedding leaves and petals. But other than that —”

  “It’s what she wants! And then there’s some digging. . . .”

  “I’m good at digging. Maybe I ought to start with that.”

  “Tree first!” Krazo insisted. “Then dig!”

  “All right, then.” The gardener leaned over the wheelbarrow and pulled out the pruning saw. “This should work fine, but I’d better have a pair of gloves.” He began to dig among the other tools. He picked up the princess and tossed her to the ground.

  Krazo hopped over to her. When the gardener had killed the rose tree, he would show him the silver key. He would tell him to dig up the box. And then — would there be treasure inside it? Or, as the princess had promised, would there be something better than treasure? Something that would destroy Hortensia?