The Kindness Curse

by Michelle L. Levigne

  Once, she managed to follow him into the city without him noticing her. They ended up in a small chapel, warm and softly bright with hundreds of candles. Bryan bought five candles, the expensive, bright green ones. He found a spot where previous candles had burned down and out in the long rows of shelves. Merrigan was touched that he took the time to clear out the expended candles and put the pieces in the barrel for that purpose, instead of just brushing them onto the floor as so many people seemed to do. Bryan set up the candles, then took his time to get a spill and light it from the central flame of the chapel. He lit each of the candles in turn, and let out a deep sigh as he waved the spill to extinguish it.

  "Merrigan ..." He took a step back, gazing at the flames. "Be happy."

  She fled before the sobs escaped her aching throat. If she made a sound, Merrigan was sure she would collapse in the slush and sleet and still be there when he left the chapel.

  The only person more miserable than herself, she realized one day, was Bayl. She followed Bryan when she delivered the latest letter from Belinda, who was busy helping to bathe the babies that afternoon. The squeals and giggles and splashing sounds could barely penetrate the chatter and clatter and laughter of the children at play, and the shouts and sharper clatter of the ones who were arguing. The weather was having a negative effect on some of them, so that the foster parents prayed for clearer weather, just so the children could go outside to play. Merrigan intended to keep going once she saw the letter safely delivered to Bayl, and had her cloak in her hands. She didn't think to stop when she saw Bayl tuck the letter into his shirt with one hand, snatch up his coat with the other, and nearly run to the main door out of the warehouse.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Merrigan made no effort to follow him, but his deep footprints in the thickening slush and icy mud outside were clear and went the same direction she had planned to go. She didn't slow her steps, but listened for the sound of him ahead of her as she walked down the long side of the warehouse, heading away from the main street. The splashing of booted feet faded, so she didn't expect to see him when she turned the corner, into an open field. Many of the carting businesses and merchants in that part of the city pastured their horses there. Bayl stood in the open, arms spread, head tilted back to the sky. She shuddered, sensing the pressure building in him.

  "No, don't," she whispered, unsure what she feared about to happen.

  "Belinda!" he cried, the last vowel turning into a howl that fractured into a sob. Bayl dropped to his knees, head bowed, bracing himself on his arms as he crouched there in the mud and thickening slushy snow. "Belinda." His voice shuddered, dropping to a whisper so Merrigan more felt than heard the name. "So close. Can you hear me, love? Belinda..."

  A sensation washed over her, as if all the world held its breath. Then for two seconds, utter darkness splashed across the field. It rippled out from Bayl as if he was the point where a massive rock was flung into a mud puddle, sending it splashing out in all directions.

  Mi'Lady? Bib's voice sounded thin, scratchy, torn—the sound she imagined all his pages would make as they were ripped, a dozen at a time, from his binding. Mi'Lady, are you all right?

  Merrigan couldn't seem to gather her thoughts enough to concentrate and respond. She took one more glance at the prince. She remembered how her father wept when her mother died, and did not want to hear Bayl sobbing now.

  No, wait. He wasn't sobbing.

  He wasn't there.

  A massive, churning black shadow swirled around the spot where he had knelt, and then spun up into the sky, to vanish.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid ...

  Now they knew at least one of the contingency spells that Belinda's sisters had cast, in case Bayl did find her. Was it possible that Belinda heard, if only with her heart, when Bayl said her name? Did that trigger this malicious bit of magic?

  Merrigan turned and ran, back into the warehouse. She nearly knocked several children over as she kept running, down the narrow aisle between different living areas. Back to the sewing room and her shelf bed, where she had left Bib and Crystal having another long talk.

  "What did that fool do?" Crystal cried, before Merrigan could do more than tug aside the curtain across her bed.

  "You felt that too?" Merrigan flung off her cloak and dropped down next to the two magical beings. Now she shook, hard enough she thought she would be sick.

  "The more important question," Bib said, "is if the enchantresses felt it."

  "What did he do?" Bryan demanded, sliding to a stop in front of Merrigan's shelf. He went to one knee and caught hold of her shaking, cold hands. "Mara, are you all right? What did my idiot brother do?" He shook his head. "No, I can imagine. We need to brace ourselves for attack."

  "What attack? He's gone." She stumbled, her tongue tangling, as she told them what Bayl had said, what she had seen, ending with, "They've won."

  "That kind never considers themselves winners until all hope is utterly shredded," Crystal said. "They've taken Bayl away, but if they felt the reaction, those two hags have to know Belinda is nearby. They'll come looking and deal with her, to make sure she can't find and rescue her prince."

  "All right then. We need advice. Some magical help. Defense." Merrigan could almost have laughed at the fractured way she talked. "It's time you met Bergomass." However, when she tried to get up, to take Bryan across the city to meet the enchanter, her legs didn't want to support her weight.

  She hated being so weak. Her sewing girls came to report that a massive snowstorm had swept in, surrounding the warehouse with howling winds and dropping gobs of snow that threatened to bury them by nightfall. They couldn't have gotten across the city in that mess outside, but Merrigan wouldn't forgive herself.

  Bryan admitted he knew it was hopeless, but he had to try to get some clue to what had happened to Bayl. He took Crystal with him. Belinda showed up a short time later, the baby bathing finally done for the day. She exclaimed over the signs of shock on Merrigan, and immediately fussed over her. When Bib asked how she felt, they discovered Belinda hadn't sensed the reverberation of magic.

  More than a dozen people were caught in that part of the city, blinded so they couldn't find their way. The storm swept them into the warehouse. Most buildings around the orphanage were uninhabited, with no one to respond to shouts for help, no heat, no blankets, and no smoke from fires burning. Nearly everyone who stumbled up against the orphanage doors reported they had smelled the bread baking for dinner and followed their noses.

  The next few hours were a tangle of scrambling to get frozen, drenched strangers into dry clothes and settle them near the heating stoves and braziers. Merrigan hated the tight, coiled sensation in her chest that kept curling tighter with every task to help make the refugees more comfortable. She wanted to snap every time one of the other adults asked her to oversee something. Find another blanket or to send a child to haul wet clothes to the laundry to dry. Or send a boy to bring in more charcoal for a brazier, more wood for a stove. Knowing she was being ridiculous just made the sensation worse. Knowing something was wrong with her, blaming these poor people for the predicament they were in, just made her more irritable. She tried not to look at the strangers, and somehow that was the worst part of it. She wanted to dive into her bed, tug the curtain closed across the shelf, and hide under her blankets.

  The pressure eased once everyone was dried and warmed up and dinner had been served. Once Bryan and Crystal returned, safe even if covered with slushy ice. They hadn't found anything, not even an echo of the magic that had snatched away Bayl. Still, Bryan was safe indoors, and she felt much better. She could breathe again.

  Her uneasiness, however, seemed to transfer to the children. They wouldn't sit still for more than a few mouthfuls of food at a time. She couldn't understand it. Usually the presence of strangers in the warehouse put them on their best behavior, wanting to impress possible adoptive parents. The usual dinner chatter, the clatter of spoons in bowls, munching and slurping, and
requests by adults to "chew with your mouth closed, please," became raised voices. Chairs scraping on the stone flooring. Arguments and thuds of milk mugs on the tabletop. Barked orders to sit down and finish their meals before they were sent to bed without anything to eat.

  "I just don't understand," Belinda said, near tears, as the seamstresses took refuge in the sewing room, trying to find some peace and quiet once the washing crew got to work.

  "It's the storm. Or whatever brought the storm." Merrigan shivered from a cold that had nothing to do with the weather. The clatter of wooden bowls hitting the floor resounded through the warehouse, followed by the howls of someone who got his ears boxed and someone else shrieking it wasn't his fault. She tried to find some humor in the situation, and could only be grateful their bowls and mugs tonight were wood, not the good crockery.

  She wondered for the first time why Belinda hadn't noticed that Bayl hadn't come to dinner. Was some nasty magic working, blinding her? Or had she just been distracted by the extra noise and fussing from the children?

  "If it weren't storming like that," Verbena offered, her long-fingered, agile hands pressed over her ears, "I'd be running for my life. It has never been so noisy awful before."

  "It's all our fault." The speaker's creaky, powdery sort of voice startled all of them.

  Several girls let out squeaks or yelps. Merrigan clutched her pincushion and nearly flung it at the source of the voice before she really looked.

  Four little, wrinkled, crooked old women stood in the doorway of the sewing area. Their hair was still damp and their borrowed clothes were far too big for them. They looked like kittens someone had tried to drown. Their noses were too big and their mouths sank in from missing teeth, so Merrigan wondered how any of them could speak clearly. She stayed where she was, grateful that she looked like a little old woman too, while her girls showed their good manners and got up to make the women welcome.

  Merrigan kept busy pinning a pair of trousers for basting and let Belinda and the girls answer the questions from the women. She didn't like their too-bright eyes, so big in their shriveled faces. They kept looking around the table, studying the girls as if they were boiled sweets to be devoured, asking their names, where they were from, how they became such clever seamstresses so young.

  "You've all been so good to us," one of the women said. Merrigan couldn't tell them apart. They all sounded the same. She only knew she disliked the voice.

  Belinda looked uncomfortable, too. That was a relief. Merrigan feared something was wrong with her. Why was it so hard to think clearly?

  "We don't know what we would have done if we hadn't found your home," another woman said. She smiled, displaying an incongruously bright, full set of teeth.

  Merrigan shuddered. She was positive that all the women had been toothless when they appeared as if out of nowhere just a few minutes ago.

  "We wanted to thank you for being so kind to us, just poor old beggar women."

  What were beggars doing in this part of town? There was no one to beg from, in the warehouses. Merrigan flinched, feeling as if her ears had popped.

  Can you hear me? Bib's voice sounded oddly raspy, like his pages had been rubbing against each other long enough to start shredding.

  Yes. She barely stopped herself from speaking aloud.

  Then she understood and she shuddered as she looked at the old women. Why hadn't she noticed before that they were two sets of identical twins? Surely someone would have remarked on them coming in from the storm—unless they hadn't come in with the other people lost in the sudden snow?

  Stop them! Crystal cried.

  "Shut up!" one of the women shouted, rising from her chair and standing suddenly two feet taller.

  None of the girls reacted. Merrigan held still and held her breath, as the woman looked around, turning and glaring as if she could see through the walls. The woman's gaze passed over her. She nearly laughed aloud. Being just an old woman made her invisible. No threat at all.

  Merrigan waited, watching them. A shimmering sound seeped through the air, growing stronger with every heartbeat.

  "We wanted to thank you. We've only got a few treats to share, and you girls were especially nice to us, so we want you to have them." The woman shrank back into herself, once again short and crooked.

  Moving in perfect unison, both sets of twins reached into the pockets of their oversized skirts and brought out enormous, brilliant red, perfect apples. In unison, the eight girls let out sighs of delight.

  Merrigan frowned and concentrated on the apples, looking from one to the other. Something seemed odd about them, and not just the fact that old beggar women wouldn't have such large, perfect, beautiful apples this far past harvest. Certainly not eight apples, all exactly alike.

  That's it, Bib said. Only one is real.

  The fog filling her brain vanished as if before a chill, refreshing breeze. Seven apples turned transparent. Only one remained solid and glossy. She could actually smell the sweet-sour, rich perfume of the apple. It made her mouth water.

  Nothing in the world was going to convince her to bite into an apple that was clearly enchanted. Did they really think she was so stupid?

  "Just like with the peas," a richly malicious voice whispered, clashing with the shimmering that grew stronger in the air. "It's a test. Only a real princess can see the real apple. Only a real princess can pick it up. Only a real princess can bite into it. Don't you want to prove you're a real princess?"

  "No," Belinda whispered. "Not ... safe."

  "But one bite will fix everything," the woman whispered, and now Merrigan could see another image, behind the mask of the wrinkled little, smiling, harmless, beggar granny face. Dark eyes glittered with triumph over those full, cruel lips. "No more hiding. You and your prince, together forever. Don't you want that?"

  "Yes."

  "Then prove you're a real princess," one woman from the second set of twins whispered, her granny mask fading. She chuckled as Belinda reached out for the second apple in the row of perfect images.

  What happens if she bites it? Merrigan thought, and then repeated it in case Bib wasn't listening. She found it hard to do anything except watch the movements in front of her, slowed like they were mired in frozen honey.

  Standard sleeping spell, Crystal responded.

  Meaning? Merrigan caught her breath. It was a basic curse, old enough to be an irritating cliché. To break a sleeping spell required true love's kiss. But her true love is gone.

  Yes, another voice whispered, chuckling, the sound cold and sharp-edged. Like the image of her former self revealed in Crystal's surface. Gone. She'll sleep forever.

  "Take it," one of the old women urged, black eyes glittering, focused on Belinda like a cruel cat focused on a fear-paralyzed mouse. "Prove you're a real princess and take a bite."

  "I'm a real princess," Merrigan announced, fury unfreezing her mind and her muscles. She lunged across the table to snatch the apple just before Belinda's fingers touched it.

  "How?" the first woman shrieked, her disguise shredding. Two beggar women vanished entirely as she reared up like an offended cobra and her eyes widened in shock. "Only a real princess—"

  "You didn't hear me, you dunderhead!" Merrigan slid back and stumbled away, clutching the apple against her chest. "I'm a real princess. More real than you two ever were. At least I never tried to kill my sisters!"

  "You can't stop the spell," the second one snarled, her disguise and illusion shredding. Two tall women stood there, dressed all in black, silver, and crimson, with hoods hiding their hair. Their faces were so twisted with fury that their resemblance to Belinda sickened Merrigan. "Once magic starts, it can't be stopped. The spell wasn't perfect when we stole it. Too many holes in it. Too many escape clauses. We fixed it, though. And Father will never know. She'll follow that apple to the ends of the earth, until she takes a bite." A cackle escaped her. "The princess has to sleep."

  "The princess?" Merrigan sidestepped Belinda as her
friend came staggering after her, eyes wide and unseeing, reaching for the apple. "Just a princess? Not a specific one? You couldn't weave it too tight, or the blood tie would make you vulnerable. So only a real princess could pick up the apple, find the real apple—but you didn't dare specify which princess did you?"

  An unholy shriek erupted from the two women as they darted around the table, reaching for her. Merrigan stuck her tongue out at them, raised the apple to her mouth, and bit down hard. So what if it was an unladylike large bite? She had to make sure the magic worked.

  Numbness filled her mouth. She almost laughed at her disappointment that the apple didn't taste nearly as good as it smelled. Merrigan forced down the mealy, bland mouthful and the numbness spread through her in one huge, overwhelming ripple. Belinda caught her as she fell, and sweet weariness swept over her and closed her eyes. Her last thought was that at least she was going to get a decent night's sleep. For however long that lasted.

  Sleep.

  Nightcap. Turn it inside out. Why hadn't she thought of that before?

  Merrigan struggled against the sensation of falling into velvet blackness. She had to tell Bryan. If he took the nightcap from her magic box, and wore it turned inside out, he could go into Sylvanglade and reverse the sleeping curse.

  Sleeping curse.

  "Bryan," she whispered, shivering in a bitter, draining chill that she only felt as it evaporated.

  "I'm here," he said.

  Then he kissed her, slow and sweet, his lips warm and firm against hers, long enough for a delightful shiver to sweep through her body.

  No, Merrigan realized, as her eyes fluttered open and Bryan sat back, smiling down at her. This was the second kiss.

  He had kissed her awake.

  "Hello, Merrigan," he said. "Fancy meeting you here."

  "You know—" She sighed as he bent down and kissed her again. This time she managed to raise her hand, so heavy, everything about her moving slower than her thoughts, and she touched the side of his face. She could almost have wept when he stopped kissing her and sat back again, even further this time. "How do you know ... who I am?"