by Wendy Mass
As I debate the question, I stir the mixture a bit. It is such a small amount that it will heat through in only a moment. I am fairly confident that my tiny rule-breaking will simply escape Mother’s notice.
Before I change my mind, I blow on the smoldering embers, secure the lid on the pot, and close the furnace door. Since a watched pot never boils, I pick up my latest notebook and record the details of the experiment while I wait. I then return to the recently deceased worm on my workbench in the hopes that it has somehow revived itself.
I am about to poke the worm with my finger when BOOM!
The furnace explodes with the loudest noise ever to ring through the castle, shattering most of the glass in the room and forming a furnace-shaped hole clear through the wall.
Now THAT Mother’s going to notice.
The beautiful woman laughs sadly and says, “I am sorry, dear, I am not your mother.”
I stare at her, wishing I had known what my mother looked like. But if Papa had a portrait of her, he had never hung it up. And now, of course, it would have been destroyed in the fire.
“I … I am sorry,” Clarissa says, her brows furrowed with confusion. “At first you looked just like her. But now, I mean, it must have been a trick of the light.” She releases the woman’s arm and steps back onto the overgrown path. “Again, I am sorry.”
“It is I who should apologize,” the woman says. “I hope you do not mind that I took shade in your home. I am looking for someone and thought he might have come this way. Come in, come in. This is your house after all.”
She steps aside and holds open the door. Clarissa goes in first, and I follow. The woman stays at our side, for which I am glad. I had not looked forward to entering the strange new place without Papa.
I am very pleased to see that the front room of the house is actually quite lovely. Not nearly as grand as our old house, but the furniture is sturdy and colorful, and the yellow rug is thick. The room gets a lot of light, and we can cover the bare walls with crafts.
I had almost forgotten the woman’s presence until she says, “Would you girls have happened to see a man in a long silver cloak today? Very tall? I am looking for him.”
“We have indeed seen such a man,” Clarissa says, clearly happy to be able to help this nice woman. “He was solving disputes up at the mill.”
The woman smiles. Two rows of perfect white teeth. I have never seen such teeth. “Thank you,” she says. “I shall set out, then.”
“But it is growing quite dark,” Clarissa says. “And the mill is a good hour’s walk from here. ’Tis not safe for a woman alone. You should stay the night. Papa will be home soon, and he would not mind.”
She shakes her head. Her hair ripples like blackbirds in flight. Perhaps my sister is correct. I should indeed comb my hair more often. “I shall be fine,” the woman insists, still smiling. “Thank you for your kindness.”
“But we did nothing,” I say, thinking we should have at least offered her tea. Not that we have tea.
“You did a lot,” she says, turning away. “Now I must —”
She stops mid-sentence as Papa steps through the door, his face streaked with the grime of a busy day spent delivering his last few sales. He lugs his empty chest behind him. He sees the woman and freezes in his spot, dropping the chest halfway through the doorway. “Who are you?”
The woman pushes her hair slowly away from her face. “I am nobody of consequence. Your daughters were kind enough to point me toward the mill. I shall be going now.”
Papa makes no move to dislodge the chest, so the woman is forced to climb over it. “Papa,” Clarissa hisses, “you are being rude!”
But Papa does not reply. When the woman has both feet on the brick path, Papa yanks the chest out of the way and closes the door so quickly you would think the grim reaper himself was standing outside.
“Papa!” Clarissa says again. “What has gotten into you? I am certain that beautiful woman meant us no harm.”
“Beautiful?” Papa repeats, sounding astonished. “She was hideous!”
“Hideous? But she —” The words get stuck in my throat. I am too busy noticing that the room is not at all as lovely as I first thought. The furniture is nothing more than discarded pillows on the floor, mold streaking their edges. The walls have holes clear through to the forest. No amount of charcoal drawings or watercolor paintings can hide those. Was the light indeed playing tricks on us as Clarissa suggested? The shadows hiding the holes and adding a rug where there is now only bare stone? “Clarissa,” I say shakily, “did the room look different a moment ago?”
She does not reply. She simply takes my hand, her face as pale as when we watched our house burn.
“Now, girls,” Papa says, “I know this house is not too pretty, but soon enough I’ll be on my feet again and we can move back to town, into a proper home again.”
“When, Papa?” Clarissa asks, tearing her eyes away from the largest of the holes. I can see the weeds through it.
He pats our heads. “Any day now I should get word about a trunk full of books that will fill our pockets with coins once again. The ship was delayed in a storm, but the latest report is that the waters have cleared.”
“And until then?” she asks.
“Until then, I shall knock on the door of everyone who still owes me money. That will be enough for the bare necessities. And, Beauty — I found you a job already!”
“You did?” I ask, trying — but no doubt failing — to sound enthusiastic. I had hoped to be able to choose my own job. I suppose that was naive of me. I know how things work.
“Well, most places had little interest in taking on a girl apprentice, but the butcher said that in return for your assistance, he will allow you to take home a chunk of meat at the end of the day. Is not that wonderful?”
“Yes, Papa,” I say, knowing it is what he needs to hear.
“That’s the spirit!” he says, clapping me on the back a little too hard. I think sometimes he forgets I am not a son. If I were a son, I would be allowed to make more of my own choices. I wonder if I cut my hair … hmm, no. I am fairly certain no one would believe in a boy named Beauty.
That night I toss and turn in my small bed. The smell of lavender and tansy rises up from the straw mattress. It shall keep the fleas away, but it is causing my head to ache (although hunger may also be to blame, because all we had for dinner was cheese so hard that Papa had to hack at it with a hammer).
Clarissa’s bed is within an arm’s reach of mine, and I hear her tossing, too. Part of me is glad to share a room with her in this unfamiliar place, but I miss what little privacy I used to have. At home, when everyone else slumbered, I could sift through whatever treasures I had found that day. The brass button in the gutter behind the marketplace, the sea glass washed up on the riverbank, the perfectly round beechnut stuck under a tree root. Then I would make up a story about how the object wound up there. The pirate on the high seas who broke a bottle overboard, only for it to wash up as sea glass dozens of years later. Or the little girl whose button popped off her coat after she ate too much plum pudding. Perhaps it does not matter. My whole collection is gone now, and with it the leisure time to collect it in the first place.
An animal howls. The wind howls along with him. I shiver and hope that the thin pieces of wood that Papa used to mend the open holes will hold against both animal and wind.
I sit up. “Clarissa, do you slumber?”
“No,” she says, with no sign of sleep in her voice. “Is something the matter?”
I pause. “Will you comb my hair?”
“Some people will do anything to get out of going to a ball,” Alexander says. “But was it truly necessary to blow up the castle?”
He and I stand beside the large pile of stones, shivering as we stare out at the moonlit night. Even with the flurry of activity swirling around me, I cannot help but admire how well I can see the moon and stars now that half the wall is missing.
Nearly all o
f the residents of the castle had rushed upon the lab, most in pajamas, some with weapons, ready to respond to whatever threat they came upon. I had to insist over and over that we had not been attacked. Upon seeing the damage, and hearing my rushed explanation of my experiment-gone-horribly-wrong, Father had wanted to call the castle doctor who lives on the outskirts of the castle grounds. Instead, Mother inspected me from head to toe and declared me all in one piece. She then left to instruct the stonemasons to rebuild the wall upon first light.
“I did not do this on purpose,” I tell Alexander as the maids begin to sweep up the mess. I wince at the loss of so many precious ingredients — jars of herbs and minerals and potions that took me years to collect.
“Nobody faults you,” Alexander assures me. “But I would not be surprised if Mother turns your laboratory into another sewing room.”
I sigh. “No doubt you are correct.”
Alexander pats my shoulder and I feel my body begin to shake a little less. The crisp autumn air is not the only thing causing my limbs to quiver. Had I not walked away from the furnace when I did, there would also be a Riley-shaped hole in the wall. I shudder again as I think of what could have happened had I used cupfuls of those ingredients rather than spoonfuls.
“What material did you use to ignite such a powerful flame?”
“I do not know,” I admit. “The labels were in a language I could not recognize. There is no need to point out the error in my judgment. I am well aware.”
“Do you still have the bottles? Perhaps I can read them.”
I look around at the rubble and broken glass. “They were likely destroyed, but I shall endeavor to find what I can.”
I pick my way through the mess, glad for the thickness of my slippers. I try not to look too closely at what I am stepping around, lest I weep at the loss. Thankfully, the precious books Master Cedrick loaned to me were on the highest shelf against the farthest wall, where they remained safe. The crate that the mystery ingredients came in was totally destroyed, and the hay burnt to a crisp. But to my surprise, the three bottles remain intact, lying in a pile on the ground beside the workbench. I lift them up, certain that the labels must have been burnt off, but they are as crisp as when I saw them last. I make my way back to Alexander and hold them up to him.
He peers close, then shakes his head. “I am sorry, but that is not any script I have seen before. How did you come to be in possession of them?”
I begin to tell him about the error with my order, when Father returns from examining the damage outside the castle. I slip the bottles into the pockets Godfrey had sewn into my pajamas and wait for the lecture I am certain is about to come.
“Young Riley,” Father begins, placing his hand firmly on my shoulder. “So curious about life, so inventive and creative. Your mother and I have decided that after all you have experienced this night, you shall remain home to rest under Godfrey’s watch while we travel to the ball.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “Truly, Father?” Not that staying home from the ball was worth blowing up my lab for, but I cannot help be pleased at the turn of events.
“No, Riley,” he replies. “Not truly. In fact, you should be prepared not only to attend the Harvest Ball but the winter, spring, and summer balls as well.”
“Good trick, Father,” Alexander (the traitor!) says.
I wrangle myself out from under Father’s grip to glare at my brother, who had been so supportive only a moment prior. “Why is it that the only time you think Father’s jokes are funny is when they are at my expense?”
Without giving him a chance to answer, I turn my back on the ruins of my once-favorite place and hurry from the room. Immortality shall not come tonight.
Clarissa manages to scrape together a breakfast of sorts. She had picked berries from the bushes out back before Papa or I awoke (getting scratches on her arms in the process), and gave us each a chunk of bread from the loaf the baker had kindly given to Papa after the fire but which is now harder than a rock. We tell her how delicious it is. She forces a smile and says, “It was no trouble.” We are all lying.
Papa and I walk into town together as the sun begins its climb. We are both wearing our finest clothes. In his case, that means his only clothes, which he has worn for five days straight now. I am stuck in one of Clarissa’s dresses and I am certain I look ridiculous. Why did she have to grab a basket of her clothes and no one else’s? Why I need to wear a dress with white lace around the edges to stand amongst animal parts and all manner of grime, I do not know. But I am always the dutiful daughter, and I did not want to argue with Papa. He has been through so much.
By noon I have been fired. Apparently it is “bad form” to pet and nuzzle the pig before slaughter. It is even worse to let him out the back door and yell, “Run, be free!” But I could not help it! I kept thinking that perhaps, somewhere out in the woods, that pig had a mother who was looking for him.
So now I find myself sitting on a tree stump at the edge of the marketplace, wondering how I shall break the news to Papa that we will be having hard cheese again for dinner. No one tried to sell me anything as I crossed the square. Clearly they can see I am no longer carrying a pocket of coins.
A group of girls walks right by me with nary a glance. Their parents traveled in the same social circles that Papa used to, which I suppose means they used to be my friends. They do not ask what new downturn has led me to this spot. Nor why my ill-fitting dress is dirty with the splatterings of those animals I could not save. Until we are back in the village in a proper home, I am not a suitable companion for them. I do not take it personally. Again, it is the way of things.
I debate walking through the marketplace to see what lost objects I can find, but I fear that now people will mistake me for a thief if they find me searching the ground and dropping items into my pocket.
Someone sits down on the next tree stump over and begins taking food out of a sack. I glance over and then quickly away. It is the last person I want to see right now.
“Sorry about the other day,” the baker’s apprentice says, biting into an apple. He chews fast and swallows hard. “Mama says I am cursed with the worst social skills in all the northern kingdoms.”
I do not reply, hoping he will go away if ignored. Instead, he chomps faster. My stomach rumbles with hunger. I hope he does not notice. My own social skills may be somewhat lacking (since I usually hid behind Clarissa at every social event Papa dragged us along to), but even I know it is not polite to talk with your mouth full of food.
“I laugh when I have the nerves,” he explains, spitting out tiny drops of apple between each word. He truly does have the worst social skills. I wish he would stop talking to me. But on he goes.
“I get the nerves when I have to tell people my name,” he continues. “The baker thought I was called Thomas till you came in and I let the cat out of the bag. Not a real cat, of course, for a cat in a bakery would be bad for business.”
Since my subtle ignoring is clearly too subtle, I turn to look directly at him. “You are making no sense.”
He tips an imaginary hat at me, just as he did when first we met. “Handsome’s the name, miss. Although I know I am far from it.”
I blink. “Sorry?”
“Me, too. But what can I do?”
“What? No, I meant I do not understand. You are telling me your name truly is Handsome? You were not insulting me the day I came in for rolls?”
“I was not.”
I shake my head, trying to clear it. “That is truly something.”
“Never met anyone with a name like mine before,” he says.
“Nor I.”
“’Tis a burden.”
“Indeed.”
Silence. I think we have run out of topics to discuss.
He reaches into his sack. “Barley roll?”
I hesitate, unsure if I should be taking food from a stranger, but then my stomach asserts itself and rumbles again. I take the roll, still warm from the baker’
s oven.
“If you do not mind me asking,” he says, “how is it that you are sitting here alone, midday, with what looks like, um, animal parts splattered across your dress?”
When I do not reply right away (for I am enjoying my roll too much), he quickly says, “Do forgive my forwardness. I warned you I am socially lacking.”
I shake my head, and swallow my last bite. “No, it’s all right. I have just been fired from a job with the butcher.”
“Why? Did you let the animals go free?” He chuckles at his joke.
“Yes.”
He chokes on his last bite of apple and spits it out. “Truly? You did that?”
I nod.
“The butcher must have been quite irked.”
I nod again. “Quite.”
Handsome grins. His lips do not appear nearly as thin, nor his chin as sharp, as when I thought him insulting me. In fact, his face is quite pleasant. He may not exactly live up to his name, but at least he is talking to me, unlike everyone else who looks the other way.
“So you are in need of a new job, then?” he asks, tossing the apple core into the clump of bushes behind us. It is instantly set upon by two squirrels and a mouse.
“I suppose I am.”
“The fuller is without an assistant,” he says, standing. “I heard him complaining just this morn that he needed someone to work the cloth once it comes from the loom. He has piles of it and the weavers are getting tired of waiting for him to prepare it.”
I have never had a need to visit the fuller, but I have seen him at work. A happy man, stomping in his huge bucket late into the eve, marching like it matters not that he never goes anywhere. “I can stomp,” I tell Handsome. “I have a lot of experience stomping away in a huff.”
“Indeed,” he agrees. “You did that quite well when first we met.” To my surprise, he sticks out his hand. “Friends?”
Again, I hesitate. That word has never meant much to me. I always knew the only real friends I had were Clarissa and Papa. But he still has his hand out. And he’s clearly not the type to turn his back on a friend if she has a little animal gore on her skirt. I am not certain I have what it takes to be a friend, but I shake his hand and he grins. “All right, then, friend. I shall introduce you to the fuller, if you like.”