And stayed.
And stayed.
None of them had any money. None of them were any use to the duchess in the constant battle against the leaking roof, the rising damp, the crumbling brickwork, and the hunger.
In another life, the duchess had laughed and danced until her feet hurt, but now, like her house, she was tired.
And then came the princesses.
“Mama told us to show you this.” Sonya’s hand shook as she held out the mirror.
“She told us all about the snowdrift,” coughed Petra.
“She’s coming for my birthday,” Tatiana yawned.
One child sick, and another practically a baby, the duchess noted—more trouble than they were worth. She fingered the mirror. She had a vague memory of skating on a frozen river, an excited child—the girls’ mother?
“She said you’d help,” scowled Anya.
The duchess looked her up and down. She might be useful, she thought. Her and the older one.
“You’d have to work,” she said. “I can’t keep you here for nothing.”
“Oh, we’re good at working!” said Sonya. “Mama’s been teaching us embroidery!”
Embroidery! Four more mouths to feed, and embroidery!
“On second thought,” said the duchess, “my house is full.”
She tried to close the door, but Anya had already pushed past her into the courtyard.
Three months later, Anya paced the princesses’ bedroom like a bear in a cage.
“Sixteen!” she thundered. “That’s how many fireplaces the old witch made me scrub today! Sixteen, then she made me clean the stairs!”
On a mattress on the floor, Tatiana sucked fingers, raw from scouring pans. Sonya, skin boiled red from washday, lay flat on her back beside her. Petra, still heavy with cold, was wrapped in moth-eaten blankets, sniffing and snuffling her way through a mountain of mending.
“Please stop pacing, dear,” begged Sonya. “You’re making me dizzy.”
“She was meant to look after us! Kind and good, Mama said!”
“At least she feeds us,” wheezed Petra. “All that soup!”
There was a pause while they thought, glumly, about the soup.
“And Mama and Papa will be here soon,” Petra went on.
“Ormyirday,” mumbled Tatiana, still sucking her fingers.
“Exactly!” said Petra. “On your birthday! Then everything will be lovely again.”
Anya threw herself on the mattress and pulled a blanket over her head.
Later, in the bathroom, she scowled at her reflection in Mama’s mirror, hanging on a nail above the basin. She looked gray, like the city. They all looked gray, even boiled-red Sonya. She picked the mirror off its nail and snapped it shut. A lump rose to her throat as she traced the flowers on its casing. She remembered their first day in the City of Lights, her dream of the white-and-gold drawing room at home. . . .
Other flowers, pink and blue, the name of a square . . .
Oh, Mama!
She opened the mirror again and gazed once more at her face.
There must be more to the city than this!
She was a princess.
She was a princess.
She had to do something.
At home, Anya had never been allowed into the street alone.
Princesses don’t. She imagined Mama’s voice as she slipped out of the house early the following morning. But Mama wasn’t here, and Anya now knew Mama made mistakes, because just look at the duchess! Besides, the old rules couldn’t possibly apply now that she’d escaped unaccompanied across half a continent and spent her whole time scrubbing.
It had rained in the night. The air was damp and cold. Anya pulled her coat tight around her shoulders and walked fast to warm up, taking long, very unprincess-like strides. Quickly, she came to a crossroads and asked a stranger for directions. In all the time she had been here, she had never used the city’s language, painstakingly learned in the schoolroom at home. The words felt clumsy on her tongue, but to her amazement the stranger understood and pointed.
She hurried on, feeling taller.
Everywhere black-clad clerks and smart shopgirls were rushing to work, delivery carts shuddered over cobblestones, country folk pushed carts of onions and potatoes. Every time Anya moved, someone shouted at her to get out of the way. She stepped off the pavement, then jumped as a carriage thundered past through a puddle, soaking her skirts with stinking water. A messenger boy laughed. Anya’s cheeks blazed.
I am a princess.
I am a princess.
I am a princess.
An hour after leaving the duchess’s house, Anya stood on the big square with the bare trees and the fountain, frowning at a shop window.
The place with the flowers was a baker’s shop. That was all. A completely ordinary baker’s shop. And there weren’t even flowers there anymore. And definitely no magic.
She was so tired, and so cold in her wet clothes. She leaned her forehead against the glass. If she could only rest before the long walk back. . . .
She pushed the door to see if it would open.
It did.
Home slammed into her as soon as she walked in. The air in the shop was warm and sweet. Anya took a breath and tasted butter with cherry jam, felt the soft silk of Mama’s dressing gown, the brush of Papa’s beard as he kissed her, heard their voices and the cheerful crackle of a morning fire. . . .
Something moved. As fast as it had come, the magic pulled away.
A rat sat on the counter, nibbling a cake.
A cake!
Anya’s tummy rumbled. There was a crate of eggs on a table by the door. She reached out, never taking her eyes off the rat.
Take that, rat! And that, and that, and that!
Bam! Crack! Splat! Eggs flew through the air like hard-packed snowballs, spattering the counter like bullets. The rat fled, dropping the cake. Anya pounced and crammed it into her mouth. Almonds and sugar, butter and orange flower exploded on her tongue, spring blossom and country picnics and . . .
“What is going on?”
Cheeks bulging, Anya froze. A man stood in the doorway. Not a man—a giant, with a sack of flour on each shoulder, blocking the light from outside.
The baker!
He stared. Anya glanced at the counter, dripping eggs.
“Ah,” she said.
The baker folded his arms.
I am a princess.
I am a princess.
I am a princess.
Anya stood as tall as she could—which wasn’t very tall, compared to the baker—and stuck her nose in the air.
“There was a rat,” she announced. “Eating this!” She brandished the cake. “You’re lucky I frightened it away.”
The baker’s eyes flicked to the cake, now missing a princess-sized bite as well as rat nibbles. He held out his hand.
“Oh!” Anya clutched the cake tighter. “Can’t I keep it? As a . . . as a reward?”
The baker pushed past her to rummage behind the counter and returned with a square tin box. Anya’s mind whirled.
What was in the box?
A gun? A knife? Handcuffs, to arrest her?
He shoved the tin toward her.
“Take one. They’re broken, but no rat’s been at ’em. Go on, take one, then clear off.”
Cautiously, she stood on tiptoe to peer into the tin, and saw that it was full to the top with broken biscuits. Her mouth watered. Her hand inched forward. Then, very politely . . .
“May I take some for my sisters?”
The baker frowned.
“How many sisters do you have?”
She held up three fingers.
“Parents?”
“They’re coming soon,” she said in a small voice.
The baker frowned again. It was a big frown, which took up his whole face. Anya stared at the floor and hoped that he wasn’t about to call the police.
“I need a good rat catcher,” the baker said. “If you nee
d a job.”
A job! Did princesses have jobs? What would Mama say?
“I’d pay you.”
“How much?” she asked.
The baker named his sum. Anya smiled and held out her hand.
She had no idea if princesses shook hands with bakers, but she didn’t care.
A paid job was a hundred times better than cleaning the duchess’s house for nothing.
The baker, whose name was André, gave Anya the tin of broken biscuits to take home. The sisters ate them after their evening soup, all squeezed up together on the mattress, and Tatiana said they tasted of feather pillows, and Sonya said they tasted of parties. The crumbs made Petra cough, but after she’d recovered she told them a huge, marvelous story about a brave princess who tamed a dragon with cake, and they laughed and laughed for the first time in forever.
It was Petra who insisted that they share with the old people in the house.
“Why?” demanded Anya. “What have they ever done for us?”
“Yes, why?” echoed Tatiana, her hand creeping back to the tin.
But Sonya said Petra was right. And so the princesses went downstairs and offered broken biscuits to old Prince Vasily, who said thank you very much, and to the Countess Kaplinska who cried even more than usual, and to Baroness Maranova, who laughed like a little girl and got crumbs all over her bed.
And that was how the second magic started.
The next day, when Anya arrived home from work, carrying two scorched loaves and three apple turnovers André claimed he couldn’t sell, she heard Petra’s voice, coming from the kitchen. Running down to show off her treasures, she found her sister on the kitchen table, telling her dragon story to Baroness Maranova, who stood at the stove stirring a steaming copper pan full of twigs.
“Chamomile, rosemary, lavender, mint!” said the baroness. “Our old nurse used to make it for us whenever we were ill. I found them in the garden, hiding in the ivy and nettles!”
“I think she got up to look for more biscuits,” Petra whispered. “But then she heard me cough, and she’s been ever so kind.”
“She sent Sonya to pawn her watch and used the money to buy a jar of honey, and she’s going to make Petra better!” Tatiana was sitting cross-legged under the table with an enormous book on her lap. “I’m learning to read,” she whispered. “But I’m hiding in case the duchess finds me and makes me scrub again.”
The door swung open, and the prince limped in, shakier than ever because he was only using one stick and carrying a pile of books.
“I knew I was right to bring them from home! Everyone said I was crazy! Leave the books, Vasily, they said. Take diamonds instead. But see how useful they will be! From now on, Princess Anya, I shall be taking care of your education.”
“My education?” stammered Anya.
“Not only yours,” said Petra. “Ours too.”
“Mathematics!” said the prince. “Philosophy, history, and literature! And reading, for the child! What do you think of that?”
Anya wasn’t sure what she thought of that. She had just gotten a job. Must she have an education as well?
“Tea’s ready!” called the baroness. “Drink this, Petra, dear. It will go splendidly with your sister’s pastries.”
The apple turnovers tasted of holidays and hugs. The tea tasted—well, the tea tasted of twigs. “But nice twigs,” Tatiana said, “and look, Petra’s not coughing!”
Sonya dragged herself in from the laundry, took one bite of pastry, and sighed happily that Mama had been right—it did melt in the mouth. The Countess Kaplinska, hearing the noise, came downstairs and ate and cried, then amazed everyone by bursting into song.
The duchess had refused the biscuits the evening before, and she refused the apple turnover now. But when Anya toasted the bread and spread it with some of Petra’s honey, the tiredness that followed her everywhere finally lifted, and she smiled.
“It tastes of how home used to be,” she said. “And do you know, I do remember the day your mama and I dug that mirror out of a snowdrift, and how happy we both were to find it! I remember it perfectly.”
Spring came to the City of Lights, and the streets began to lose their gray. The plane trees in the fountain square came into leaf, and outside the bakery André planted bright red geraniums. In the garden of the old house, Baroness Maranova discovered currant bushes. Anya found a rusty lawnmower and, after a lot of fighting, worked out how to cut the grass. When it was almost (but never quite) even, Sonya dusted down some old deck chairs and set them in a circle on the lawn where, on fine afternoons, Petra, the baroness, and the countess worked together on the mending they were taking in now for money.
Every morning, Petra and Tatiana took lessons with the prince. Every evening, when Sonya had finished her chores and Anya was back from the bakery, they did their lessons.
New foods began to appear in the soup, like beans and even bacon. One Sunday, there were sausages. Sometimes there were eggs.
Tatiana, exploring the attics, uncovered a piano. André brought his brothers to carry it downstairs. Sonya began to play again.
André’s sister brought her daughter, Camille, for Sonya to teach.
Camille told her friends about the piano teacher who was also a princess, and soon Sonya was teaching every day. She used her wages to pay for a doctor for Petra, and a chicken to roast, and new shoes for her sisters. Ugly shoes, they agreed, not like their satin slippers of old, but at least they didn’t pinch, or let in water when it rained, and that was all that really mattered, even for princesses.
Summer arrived, bringing butterflies to the garden, and Sunday outings to the river, sunburned skin and picnics and paddling, and Tatiana’s birthday. . . .
They celebrated it well. Sonya played the piano. André and his brothers and sister-in-law and her daughter sang in their language. The refugees sang in theirs, and then they sang in each other’s languages. André, under instruction from Baroness Maranova, had baked a honey cake filled with cream. His sister brought a miraculous pie filled with meat and gravy, and after they had stuffed their faces, they lay about in the garden complaining that their tummies hurt, and it was wonderful.
But Mama and Papa did not come.
Tatiana cried when her sisters took her to bed.
Petra made up a story for her about polar bears and icebergs and Mama and Papa riding across the snow in a dog sleigh.
Sonya sang her a song.
Anya cuddled her.
When she was sleeping, they cried too.
But after another winter and spring and summer, when Petra’s cough was a distant memory and Tatiana could read on her own, a letter came. And a few weeks later, another. And a few months after that, when the butterflies were gone again and the leaves had fallen from the plane trees but the old city somehow did not look gray, the bell rang early one morning when no one was expecting it and Sonya, Anya, Petra, and Tatiana ran to open the gates, and Mama somehow gathered all four of her daughters in her arms, and told them they were the most perfect of perfect princesses.
PRINCESS
IN THE
TOWER
Once upon a time, in a vast city, between a tower block and a railway line, there lay a magical place called the Horace B. Rivers Memorial Garden.
It was not magical in the usual way. There were no elves, no fairies peeping from flowers, no lurking witches. This garden had magic of a different kind.
Horace B. Rivers the man had been married to Grandma Lisbeth, who lived on the thirteenth floor. She was not really a grandma, but everyone called her that because she was kind, bossy, and good at hugs and stories. Grandma Lisbeth adored her husband, and when he died she stopped bustling about telling people what to do and shut herself away in her apartment to mourn. For a long time, her neighbors sat with her, brought her food, and cleaned her home, but after a year had passed and she still wouldn’t come out, they decided they had to do more to cheer her up. So Stan from the fourth floor, and Mr. and Mrs. Bata from
the seventh, and Khadija and Ali from the eighth, and Ian from the fourteenth, and lots more besides, crowded into René and Zahra’s apartment on the twelfth to think. And as they were thinking, Senhora Bel from the eleventh happened to look out of the window at the chestnut tree that stood in the wasteland between the tower and the railway line and said how lonely it looked, and Mrs. Bata said what a shame there weren’t more trees to keep it company, and Zahra shouted, “I know! Let’s write to the council and ask for permission to turn the wasteland into a garden!”
Everyone looked baffled.
“A memorial garden,” Zarah explained. “Where Grandma Lisbeth can look after living things and remember Horace.”
They wrote to the council immediately.
The council never wrote back.
After several weeks of waiting, Senhora Bel said, “You know, in my country, nobody ever bothers to ask permission.”
So, feeling daring because they were possibly breaking the law, the neighbors went ahead and planted the garden. Stan, who was a builder, cleared some land, while Zahra and René and the Kowalcyks sowed grass and bought as many plants as they could afford, and on a blustery spring morning when everything was ready Khadija and Senhora Bel brought Grandma Lisbeth downstairs to where all her friends and neighbors were waiting to unveil a shiny plaque that read: The Horace B. Rivers Memorial Garden. And after everyone had cried and sung Horace’s favorite song and eaten Horace’s favorite cake, Grandma Lisbeth inspected the garden and announced that they had planted everything all wrong, and she could see she had a lot of work to do, and everyone laughed because it was so good to have her back.
Over the years, the Horace B grew. Under Grandma Lisbeth’s directions, the neighbors planted seeds that turned into flowers, and saplings that grew into trees. They dug flowerbeds and a frog pond, they claimed more land for a vegetable patch, they added a sandpit and swings and benches, a bower for shade, a barbecue for parties. Children played there after school, couples lingered, holding hands, friends worked side by side and gossiped. The garden was a place born of love, Grandma Lisbeth said. A place that looked after its own, where friendships were tended alongside plants, and that is what made it magical.
Eight Princesses and a Magic Mirror Page 7