A Wish Made Of Glass (6 page)

* * *

The sound is so soft I barely hear it. In an instant I am sitting up in bed, straight as a poker. With a hiss, the covers fall from me and the cool night air brushes my skin. Something moves across the room in the shadows near the door. My heart trips as I remember the time the fey woman visited me once before on just such a night as this.

With a light step, a figure emerges into the wash of moonlight, and I see it is no fey creature, but Blessing. Her long nightgown whispers against the floorboards. Her golden curls are so beautiful that the moonlight reaches greedy fingers to grasp at them and turns them pale as hoarfrost. She wastes no time getting straight to the heart of her visit.

“Isidore, let us be friends again.” The catch in her voice tells me she is choking on tears already.

I peer at her, too shocked to speak. Of all things, I did not expect this. She sees my hesitation and takes advantage of it. Quick as thought, she is at my bedside and my hand is within hers.

“Please. I am so alone, Iz, and I know you are, too.”

For a moment, hope pushes at the walls of my heart. It is no more than the green knot on a winter branch, the promise of what will one day be a leaf.

Without warning, disgust sweeps down on that hope and chases it straight into the jaws of bitterness. I watch as its tender shoot is snapped to nothing.

I fling her hand from me like it is poisoned. I want to forget, but I cannot. I want to put everything behind us and be the sisters we truly are, but it is beyond me. It is too late. Has this
not been proven enough? Hatred swells, strong as a riptide in my breast, and it is all I can do to get the next words out. The force of the past three years is in them.

“You took him from me.”

“What?”

I swallow and try again. “You took Father from me.”

Blessing cringes from the venom in my voice. Then she slowly lifts her chin and I know she is digging in her heels for this fight. “I didn’t. It was you who turned from both of us. We beseeched you. I know you’ve not forgotten, so it’s no use looking so shocked. We were as groveling as dogs, Father and Mother and I, begging for your love these past years. And you gave us nothing but coldness in return.”

Her words are a knifepoint directed straight at my heart, and her aim proves pure and true. Fire flares beneath the surface of my skin. My cheeks are aflame. How does Blessing dare to argue about this? How can she compare her sorrow to mine?

I fling the covers aside and leap out of bed. Cold stings my bare feet as they hit the floor. Blessing skitters backward like a wary animal when she sees the fury in my eyes. As she does, her heel hits the bucket of ashes near the hearth. She flings her hands out and twists gracelessly sideways. With her arms at an awkward angle, she cannot catch herself, and goes sprawling. I hear the dull crack as her head hits the hearthstone. My stomach turns.

In the next moment, I am by her side. Already dark blood is pooling on the floor beneath her head. My hands flutter like ineffectual birds over the surface of her pale face. The overturned bucket is nearby and ashes hover like a cloud around me. Everything is covered in their fine, choking dust. Blessing’s beautiful hair is caked with them. They have settled like murky snowflakes on her lashes.

“Blessing.” I breathe her name like a charm that will make her eyes open, but it does not work.

“What’s all this?” Hazel’s voice comes from the doorway. Her silver brows are drawn together. Her gaze travels down to take in Blessing’s form on the floor. Suddenly a terrible fear is written in the deep shadows of her face.

“Isidore, how did this happen?”

At first I do not understand her meaning. In the next moment I reel, for her words smack of accusation.

“You cannot think I did this?” I say. “She fell. She tripped. I didn’t touch her.” Our prattle is taking too long. “Hazel, she’s injured—bleeding! Something must be done!”

Hazel nods. She believes me. She kneels upon the floor and lifts Blessing’s head gently. The shawl slithers off her shoulders when she tugs at it. She wads it and presses it to the back of Blessing’s head.

“Isidore, go for the physician,” she says without looking at me. “Don’t wake the servants, it will take too long. Go yourself. Hurry.”

I do not bother to saddle my horse. It will take too much time. I do not even notice I am still in my nightgown until the sweat from my horse’s back is slick on my bare legs. I ride with the black shadows of the forest on my left, and soon I am beating at the doctor’s door. Dogs scrabble and howl on the other side and, in another moment, lantern light blooms beyond the curtains.

The doctor opens the door, his medical bag already in hand. He wastes no time to stop and speak, but bids me tell him what has happened while he readies his own horse. In a matter of minutes we are flying back along the path. But the physician’s horse is fresh, and mine has made
this journey once already, and at a furious pace. I soon fall behind. I do not care, so long as he arrives swiftly at Blessing’s side.

The gardens sprawl ahead of me and I am just turning my horse to go around them when I hear it. I pull on the reigns and sit still, tilting my head. The sound comes from the wood and mingles with the shadows that stretch toward me. It is a strange song, with pain and beauty in it. Its notes pierce me to the heart like only one thing has ever had the power of doing.

Figures move between the trees, in and out of shadow and moonlight. When I strain to listen again for the fey song, I hear only a night hawk screaming a warning at its prey and, after that, only the wind running its fingers through the trees.

Though the song is gone, it still glints through the air and tingles across the surface of my skin. More than this, it has sunk to the deepest part of me. Perhaps it is knowing that Blessing may lie dying which brings the sudden burn of tears to my eyes. Perhaps it is merely that I realize now what I was prepared to throw away.

Love.

Again, I was ready to turn my back on it. Again. Despite the festered wounds left by bitterness, I was prepared to throw it aside. I am twice a fool.

Or was ready to be.

But the fey music has whispered something new, and now my heart drinks it in as if it has been dying of thirst for an age.

Love.

Just like that, Blessing is my sister once more. If she lives, I will never cast aside such a gift again. That I ever threw it away at all makes my heart ache with shame and grief.

I am not so dull that I do not see this for what it is. Another chance. Perhaps my last. I fix my gaze on the shadowy woods and make a fierce promise that I will not squander it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It is no use to deny Blessing’s injury is a severe one, but the doctor assures us she will live. We must keep her in bed a fortnight, perhaps more. She is not to be moved under any circumstances. Head injuries are tricky things. He gives us thorough instructions as to her care and the food she must eat and not eat. I hang on every word, determined I will be the one to see her healthy again.

I stay by her side that first night, and when her eyes flutter open, minutes before sunrise, mine is the first face she sees.

“Iz?”

“I’m here.”

Her fingers tremble at the edge of the bedclothes, and I reach to touch them.

“What happened?” She groans. “Why does my head feel so … strange?” Her lashes droop as if this handful of words is more than she has strength for.

“No, don’t go to sleep,” I say. “I’ve something to tell you.”

My sister’s eyes open again and she offers me a weak smile. “I already know what you will say, Izzy.” The pressure of her hand is on mine, light as butterfly wings. I smile at her just as sleep draws his curtain between us.

But it is enough. I know that, against all odds, we have begun again.

* * *

I tell Blessing stories as she recovers. We talk a little, but when I see how this exhausts her I decide stories are safest. I tell her the tale of the proud, cruel lord who lost his way in the wood
and emerged a century later to find his kin dead and gone. I tell her the tale of the fey prince who loved the human maid and took her to be princess of his kingdom. I tell her of the mortal king laid to rest in the fairy realm, ready to rise and fight for his people when the time grows ripe. And as I tell these tales and more, the cord which used to bind my sister and me together is taken up again from where it had lain, dusty and forgotten.

In the end I give up my most precious secret, the only one I ever kept from her. I tell Blessing of how I used to dance with the fey.

I think Blessing must be able to hear the longing in my voice. I can certainly feel it, heady as wine in my blood. When I speak of the glass slippers the fey women wear, she sits up in bed, eyes bright. I laugh at her and bid her lie down. She will have none of it. She insists on knowing what the slippers look like.

The whirl of fey feet dance back from my childhood, and the light streaming from the glint of glass that is delicate as cobweb. My mother’s words sound in my mind.
With every step they take, they tread upon their own hearts
.

But that is what the slippers are, not what they look like.

So I say, “Moonlight.”

Blessing sighs. “Moonlight …” she whispers to herself.

I smile. “Moonlight and prayers and glass and frost and wishes. That’s what they look like.”

“Oh, Isidore,” she says. “It is a wonder you are still here and not searching for the entrance to the fey kingdom this very moment.”

“I don’t need to find their kingdom to get a pair of the shoes.” I pause for suspense and Blessing slaps my hand impatiently.

“Well, tell me, then!” she says.

“If one of the fey folk can be found on a night when the full moon shines down upon the snow, a wish may be claimed,” I tell her as my heart begins to hammer my breastbone. “Why could the wish not be for a pair of glass slippers?” I direct the question to Blessing, though in truth I am asking myself.
And why not
, comes the swift answer.

Blessing is pale, and now I do insist that she rest. “The doctor will skin both of us if he knows you’ve excited yourself like this!” I scold, knowing full well it is my own fault for telling her this one last story. “Sleep a while and I will be back later with your supper.”

When I step into the hall, Hazel is there. She gives a fine show of busyness with the tray in her hands, but I am not fooled. She has clearly been waiting for me. I question her with raised eyebrows and a half smile. She immediately abandons her pretense and pulls me to the bannister which overlooks the second floor corridor.

“There is to be a ball,” she says without preamble.

I am sure Hazel expects more reaction from me than a shrug, but that is all I can muster. “And?”

My old nurse regards me narrowly. “And you will be going.”

I am already shaking my head. “Oh, no. I have no wish to dance. And it is too soon—”

“Too soon to find a husband? You are seventeen, and so is your sister, for that matter. Plenty old enough for marriage.”

She is being coy, for that is not what I meant and she knows it. I meant that it is too soon upon tragedy’s heels to think of things like dancing at balls. Before I can say as much, I realize what she has suggested.

“A husband?” I give a scoffing snort. But when I see she is serious I take a step back. “
No
, Hazel.”

“The young Lord Auren is seeking a wife,” Hazel says, clutching at my arm and tugging me down the hall. “From all accounts he is a handsome and kind young man. You could do worse. Much worse.” When Hazel sees the stubborn set to my jaw she continues, shrugging, “But if you want to wait a few years, go right ahead. There are plenty of rich men for the taking. Every one as old as I am, of course.” She smirks. “But with fewer teeth.”

I stop walking and Hazel halts next to me. “You should know better, Hazel,” I tell her. “It will take more to cow me into marriage than threats of old, toothless men.” But my mind is awhirl with the beginnings of an idea. “However,” I continue before she can protest, “I will consider going.”

Hazel’s mouth sags open. She was clearly winding up for an argument, and I have taken the steam right out of her. At last she nods, studying me all the while as if she suspects me of trickery. Her suspicion is well founded, in fact, for there is more which I do not say aloud. I do not tell her that I will only consider attending this ball if Blessing is well enough to go, too. I do not tell her it is Blessing who should meet and love this young lord, and not I.

I do not say these things, for Hazel would only argue, and I have not the patience for it. My mind is set.

* * *

Blessing begins to recover quickly when she hears there is to be a ball. She has always had more heart for dresses and parties and the conversation of silly people than I. However, I am glad to see the paleness in her cheeks turn to a rosy bloom. She is still weak, but if we are careful she will be able to attend this ball.

The days grow colder as winter creeps across the North with the slow, unrelenting steps of a frosty giant. Yet the more the air chills, the merrier we are. I can scarcely believe the pathetic thing I was mere weeks ago. My sister has returned. I should want no more than this.

But somehow, to my shame, I do.

Despite my joy, there is yet an unnamed ache within me, so deep and subtle it is easy to ignore most of the time. I wonder if it is Father’s death which causes it, for it is a blade in my heart I think I will never dislodge. Still, if I am honest, it feels like something even more than this. Surrounded by happiness and a bright future, now, unaccountably, I begin to lose my hold on hope.

It is not until the day before the ball that I think I understand the reason.

We are aflutter the whole day with final fittings and tryings-on of our gowns. I choose a shimmering taffeta that makes me think of the deep green pines in the wood. Blessing chooses a frothy silk, as blue as a morning sky. It is to be a masquerade, and countless hours have been spent deciding on the perfect masks.

I turn before my mirror, unable to reconcile the reflection with reality. In my mind I see the plump, round cheeks, the thick waist and the dimpled fingers of my girlhood. But the person looking at me is tall and slender and assured, nothing like the one I know still lives deep within me. Granted, I am not beautiful. My mouth is still too wide and is perhaps set in a more stubborn line than is considered attractive in young women of my age. At least, that is what Hazel often likes to remind me. Still, the overall effect leaves me gaping like a fool. Behind me, my old nurse clucks with approval.