The Kindness Curse

by Michelle L. Levigne

  Her attention caught on something on the far side of the library. A stray beam of sunlight had moved across the wall as the afternoon aged, and landed on a jumble of old papers tucked into a corner bookshelf. She found that odd, because Flora and Fauna had done a splendid job of cleaning. Even odder, while the papers seemed jumbled and discolored and dusty, there was a sparkle in that dustiness. Still listening to the now-boring conversation in the room below her, she crossed to that odd bookshelf. Why hadn't the girls straightened out those papers while cleaning? Why did the papers sparkle?

  She shuddered at the idea that bit of glitter in the air might be magic. Merrigan shook her head. While there was plenty of magic in the world today, much of it was in the hands of solitary enchanters who preferred to be left alone, or in the hands of interfering, judgmental busybodies. Or people like Clara, who never took into account the dreadful circumstances that forced people to lie to defend their rights. Nanny Tulip had told her stories about the wars between great and powerful majjians who tried to impose standards on all others who worked magic around the world. Many had vanished, either drained by their battles or simply because they no longer cared. According to Nanny Tulip, the dreadful results of their battles remained in the world, and the non-majjian suffered for it. The chances of encountering some magic in Judge Brimble's too big, too ostentatious house were very small.

  "I should have guessed," she said on a sigh, when she reached the corner bookshelf and discovered a sheet of wavy, green-tinted glass across the nook in the shelves. Corner bookshelves were useless for storing books, because most of the books were tucked out of sight. They were most often used for hiding things, or getting useless things out of the way.

  Merrigan lightly ran her fingertips along the frame holding the glass in place, seeking the latch. Someone at some time had decided that jumble of papers was worth putting away behind the glass. She suspected Brimble might not have entered the library since he inherited it, and didn't know this corner and those papers existed.

  "I do wish I could find a latch of some kind," she muttered, and stepped back to let the fading light stream past her. It sparkled on the glass and the papers behind it, and Merrigan let out a sigh of exasperation. There, where her fingers had pressed not two seconds ago, was a hinge. She looked on the opposite side of the frame. There was an indentation, allowing her to slide three fingers in between the frame and the bookcase and tug the glass door out. Now why hadn't she seen that before?

  She opened it slowly, anticipating a swirl of dust from the movement of air. A loud creak. She jumped and froze. No, the creak came from the judge's office. She smiled at her jumpiness. Who would walk into the library without knocking first? Wasn't the library her domain now? Besides, she doubted anyone in this household cared about books.

  Merrigan, however, loved books, all the treasures of knowledge and secrets and useful information hidden inside them. A soft moan of dismay escaped her—that wasn't a jumble of papers sitting on two shelves, covered in dust that had filtered in behind the glass panes.

  That was a book, cruelly ripped from the binding, the pages tossed into uneven piles. She held her breath as she brought the piles out and put them on the table under the light from the chandelier. This was an old book, hand-written. Such odd, old-fashioned, looping handwriting. The yellowed vellum pages were stained by water and what might just be mud. The ink had run in some places—the words still legible, though—and in others were dimpled from water. She found the broken binding and empty wooden cover panels and torn pieces of the leather cover buried among the pages. Merrigan's hands shook from anger as she lifted a few pages to examine. Why would someone so utterly destroy a book, and yet save the pieces?

  "I suppose some idiot destroyed it in a fit of rage, and someone else salvaged it, intending to fix it." She lifted a few more pages, squinting at the loopy handwriting and old-fashioned spelling. The pages had headings, so she sorted through the first twenty or so pages and put them into groupings by the headings. That would certainly help in re-assembling the book.

  Merrigan stopped short at that thought. Why would she even want to assemble the old book?

  After a few moments of internal debate over the waste of time versus doing something she would enjoy, which Judge Brimble hadn't paid her to do, she put the papers down and dug out the broken cover. Merrigan move slowly, delicately. Not because she expected the book to be valuable, but just because it was a book.

  She saw writing on the spine. Tiny and faded, but retaining enough golden sparkles to make the letters legible. The fact someone had written with gold ink had to mean it was valuable.

  "Of the great secrets of this land," she read aloud, slowly piecing together the words. "I do like secrets." She put the cover down slowly, carefully, spreading it out flat so the inside surface faced upwards.

  The book waited for its torn pages to be put back into place. Like a hand waiting to be filled.

  She shuddered from some feeling she couldn't understand, and shut the glass panel with a careless, soft thud. Merrigan fought the urge to stick her tongue out at the piles of pages, and walked back around the table to resume her sewing. She had work to do, a little bit of justified punishment to levy.

  Oddly, when Fauna brought her supper tray, the girl didn't notice the broken book lying at the far end of the long worktable. Even more odd, Merrigan kept looking at those papers all through her evening of sewing. She imagined sewing the pages back into the binding with the same ease as she sewed the first seams of the snowy linen shirt. She couldn't push aside the thought of reweaving the book together, even when she was tired enough to lower the chandelier on its long chain to blow out the oil lamps. She left just one lamp to light her way to bed in the thick chair cushions piled in the big, deep window seat. Sighing with satisfaction, she adjusted the clean blankets that smelled of lavender, and closed her eyes, falling swiftly into sleep.

  Merrigan heard a voice through her dreams, whispering, pleading with her to fix the book, and promising her rewards beyond her wildest imagination.

  She didn't believe in wild imagination. She believed in common sense and having a careful plan and making calculations and carrying through. And not trusting in anyone but herself for success, as she had learned through bitter experience.

  Still, would it be so bad, hedging her bets?

  When she woke the next morning, she dismissed the night's dreaming and pleading and considerations as just that—dreaming. Yet the idea of putting the book back together lingered at the back of her mind while she cut out the material for a second shirt and basted the pieces together. During her noon meal, she overheard the judge laughing with someone about the baker's frustrations with all the lies being told about his wares.

  That decided her.

  The book had to be valuable, to someone. She would repair it and take it with her when she left, and serve Judge Brimble right if it turned out to be a treasure he had overlooked. The man was odious, and his cruel treatment of a book just proved it.

  She had to do something to punish the egotistical bag of hot air, since she still couldn't remember Nanny Tulip's handy little spell for choking collars. After a full day of listening to that man talk, the false joviality in his voice, comforting and advising one man over problems that provided amusement to someone else two hours later, Merrigan wanted to do more than frighten him. That was all the collar would do—choke him a few times, frighten him, turn his face red and cut off his voice at inopportune moments. Eventually the spell would wear off, or he would throw the collar away. She couldn't do anything permanent. She had never been able to do anything permanent.

  "That's the problem, isn't it?" she muttered as she put aside the tray with her half-eaten meal and picked up the pieces of the first vest. "Only simpletons get permanent. Granted, if they have the wisdom to protect it. Most of them do learn to be a little more alert. Why can't I get permanent? My problem is that I get soft and rely on other people. I never should have trusted Leffisand to ho
ld onto the kingdom. Or his own life, for that matter. Oh, Leffisand, why did you have to be so stubborn? Would it have been so bad to let that noble idiot cousin of yours heal you?"

  Merrigan stopped, the words catching in her throat, at the sight of three, now four, now five, drops of water on her sewing. She wasn't crying, was she? She hadn't let herself cry in years. It was such a waste of time and energy. Someone always came in and caught her crying, and that was simply embarrassing.

  Sniffing and then swallowing hard, to ensure a sob didn't escape her, she got up from the table, walked around it three times to steady herself, and blotted at her eyes. Rubbing only added to the redness from tears, and that simply wouldn't do. Whatever was wrong with her, to get so weak and weepy?

  Before she quite knew it, she had a bundle of pages cradled in one arm and had sorted several dozen according to the headings of the pages. Oddly, she found the motions somewhat soothing. She glanced at the headings and sorted and her mind drifted. At least she wasn't dithering over Leffisand and his foolish—

  "Scorch it," she muttered, and nearly threw the papers down. "Just when I was starting to feel better. I wish I could—no, I don't really want to forget about Leffisand entirely. Those few years we had together were rather enjoyable. I liked life in Carlion much more than I did back home." A sigh escaped her. "I don't want to forget Leffisand. After all, what use would it be trying to get my kingdom back if I couldn't remember why I was Queen of Carlion? No, I just wish it would stop hurting so much."

  She paused in reaching for another stack of pages to sort. Odd, how this work was going much quicker than she had anticipated. Merrigan could have sworn someone called her name. Her real name. She was going by the name Mara. False names were much better for protecting her dignity. It wouldn't do for someone she had met along her exile travels to show up in Carlion, expecting payment for the piddling little good deeds they had done for her.

  Merrigan paused, half the pages sorted, caught between the urge to fling them across the room and to sort faster. What was wrong with her? It was like there was an argument in her head, correcting her every time she spoke her thoughts aloud.

  "Granted, Leffisand employed far too many lies and nasty tricks, but wasn't he justified in punishing people who got in his way? He was the king. He had to protect his throne, his kingdom, his people ... his lies." Merrigan looked at her empty hands and the sorted piles of pages. Somehow, she had gotten through the first stack of ripped-out pages and had ten piles of pages now. She rubbed at her temples. She actually felt a little better, as if she were accomplishing something important.

  "Poor Fialla. She simply wasn't the right wife for Leffisand. Much too sweet and good-hearted and weak. King Conrad would have been a much better choice for her." Another snicker escaped her. "Thank goodness he ran away in horror when someone proposed he ask for me. The only one who really wanted me was Bryan, and he ..."

  Merrigan closed her eyes to wish away the image of a long-forgotten, handsome, young face. She hadn't thought of Prince Bryan of Sylvanglade in years. Had it been ten, or more than that? At least he had never formally proposed marriage. The youngest son of a large royal family in a small kingdom, he had no chance. Even before she learned to always consider power and never accept anything less than an heir, she had known better than to encourage Bryan.

  It just showed how low she had fallen in the world, to think of him now. Better to concentrate on other things. Such as all the handsome crown princes who had looked at her and either shuddered in fear or stomped away in disgust and wounded pride when she refused them. Conrad of Jardien had been one of the former.

  Chapter Four

  Merrigan sat in front of the piles of pages, rested her head in her hands, and let out a few odd, teary chuckles. It was the dust from the pages that got on her hands. The paper dust got in her eyes. That was where the tears came from.

  Someone whispered behind her, "If that's what you want to believe, go ahead. It'll just make everything take a little longer."

  "Who asked you?" she snapped, and looked around, making her neck ache a little from the sharp, quick movements.

  She was losing her mind. There was no one else in the room. While it was all well and good, and rather relaxing to be shut up in a library all day, she might just need someone to talk to. Or at least to hear some voices other than Judge Brimble pontificating and lying and mocking, his voice coming in hollow tones from the room below her. She had thought the plan was brilliant at the time she came up with it, but Merrigan saw flaws in it now. Sitting still all day, sewing in solitude, with servants to bring her tea and check if there was enough oil in the lamps, had seemed a wonderful, intelligent plan at the beginning. Now, though ... she might just be losing her mind, if she was hearing voices in her head. And worse yet, voices arguing with her, correcting her. No one had dared correct her since her mother died and she lost Nanny Tulip.

  "Oh." Flora peeked around the door, instead of coming in to pick up the tray with her empty dishes. "Didn't you like the stew? Or the apple dumpling?"

  "Hmm?" Merrigan rubbed at her face and got up. Yes, she simply needed to get up and walk and get her blood flowing a little faster. "Oh, yes, they were delicious. I'm simply not used to eating so much at a sitting, and so regularly."

  "Are you all right, Mistress Mara?" The dumpy serving girl peered up at her, wrinkles of concern around her eyes and mouth.

  "It's rather quiet in here. When I was—when I had a home," she corrected quickly. If she said, "when I was queen," she would find herself locked up in the local madhouse, with others whose minds had been broken by too much magical interference. "My husband used to play his fiddle in the evenings when I did my sewing. Or he would tell me stories." She certainly couldn't admit she had a music ensemble to play soothing music, and someone else to read stories to her, when she had a headache or couldn't sleep.

  For the first time, Merrigan wondered what those servants did when she didn't need them for days at a time. She rubbed harder at her temples. Such thoughts were just more proof she was slowly losing her mind. Was that part of Clara's curse? Drive her insane, so she spent the remainder of her days huddled in a dark corner somewhere, whimpering and talking to herself?

  "I don't suppose there are any books of fables or humorous journals in here?" She gestured at the shelves of books. Judging by the bindings, the dyes in the leather still fairly strong, they had seen little sunlight or use since they had been bought and shelved.

  "There might be," Flora said with a little shrug and a glance around the room. Her eyes widened a little. "It must be lovely to be able to read anything you want."

  Most likely, Judge Brimble never gave his servants permission to read during their off time. Another reason to dislike him. The King of Avylyn wanted all his people able to read, and Merrigan had admired her father so much for that. He had established libraries in every major town throughout his kingdom. The surest way to protect the people from the lies of seditionists or infiltrators from enemy kingdoms was to enable them to read the laws and proclamations sent throughout the kingdom. Libraries and programs to teach children how to read engendered a sense that their king valued them. Merrigan disagreed with how much her father valued the peasants, but she understood the strategy.

  She loved to read. She loved the freedom and the protection that reading offered her. This was just another item on the list of things she disliked about Brimble. Deny his servants the simple joys of reading?

  "Are you all right?" Flora asked again, putting the tray down and stepping over to pat Merrigan's arm. "Should I ask Cook for a headache powder for you?"

  "No, I'm quite all right. I just have so many thoughts going through my head ..." Merrigan glanced down at the tray. She hadn't realized until now that she hadn't finished her meal. That was foolish. The stew and the apple dumpling were both delicious, and she did adore apple dumplings—despite the whole debacle with the magic apple tree. "Perhaps I should try to eat a little more."

  "
I could ask Cook to warm it for you, and give you more cream to pour on it," Flora offered, picking up the tray again. She chuckled. "He'd do anything for you, I'd wager."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Oh, it's not that obvious, but Fauna and I both think he's gone sweet on you, just in two days. We heard him talking to the big iron cauldron he uses for heating wash water, asking himself what Mistress Mara would like best to eat. He's never done that before."

  "Talked to the cauldron?"

  "Oh, he talks to it all the time. Some people think he used to be an enchanter, back about a hundred years ago. There's talk about enchanters that used to live in these parts, but there was a huge war. The losers were swatted like a bunch of snotty little boys, and had their magic taken away." Flora leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "There's even talk that this used to be the castle of one of them, or at least what's left." She giggled. "No, I meant Cook never cared about what any of us would like to eat. We all like him, never fear, and he's rare fun in the evenings when the judge is out. Seneschal is grandfather to Rosco and Oscar, and the three of them play fiddle and pipes and drum, so we have dancing. You'll join us next time we have the house to ourselves, won't you?"

  "I'd ... I think I'd like that," Merrigan admitted. How odd, that her heart would race for a few beats, then slow, race, then slow, all during the girl's spurt of babbling. Did it really disturb her—or worse, flatter her—that the one-eyed cook seemed sweet on her? She should be offended. After all, she was Queen of Carlion.

  Cook didn't know that, did he? All he saw was the thin, somewhat ragged old woman.

  "Would you do me a favor?" she asked, as Flora headed for the door with her meal tray.

  "I'll heat up the apple dumpling and bring it right back, don't you worry."

  "Besides that. Could you just mention, in Cook's hearing, that I'm a recent widow and still grieving my dear husband? I wouldn't want to insult Cook, you know. Just discourage him, a little. My husband ... well, my world was utterly destroyed when he died."