Ella Enchanted (18 page)

For a few minutes I continued to cry too hard to speak. When I was able to control myself, I told her. “Did I do right?” I asked at the end.

“Come with me, Lady.” She grabbed my hand and half dragged me to her room, passing several servants in the hall. Once there, she closed the door and turned to me. “Lady, you did right. Now I’m going to do right, something I should have done long ago. Get behind the curtains, love.”

I hesitated, pushing back the urge to obey. “Why?”

“I’m going to settle scores of scores with Lucinda. I want you to see me do it, but I don’t want her to see you.”

I hid.

“Lucinda! I need you.”

The scent of lilacs filled the room. I stifled a gasp. I could see Lucinda’s outline through the rough weave of the draperies.

“I never thought the day would come when the kitchen fairy would call me. I’m delighted. How can I help you, dear?”

“Don’t ‘dear’ me.” Mandy sighed. “But you’re right I need your help.”

“And I love to help.”

Safely hidden, I grimaced at her.

“I’ve been gathering my courage to ask you ever since the fairy ball.”

“One has only to ask.”

Mandy sounded regretful. “At the ball I got into an argument with Kirby.”

“You shouldn’t have. I never argue.”

“But I do. It was about you. Kirby said we should suggest you try being a squirrel and try being obedient. If you gave it a fair trial — three months as a squirrel, three as an obedient human — you’d find out that your gifts aren’t so wondrous after all.”

“I don’t have to try out my gifts to know they’re magnificent.”

“That’s what I said you’d say. There, I can tell Kirby I won the argument. I said you’d be too afraid you were wrong to put it to the test.”

Lucinda vanished. She must have been too angry at Mandy to continue the discussion. But then Mandy laughed. “Don’t forget to be obedient, little one. Here’s a nice walnut. I’m sending you to a comfortable park.” She paused. “You can come out, Lady.”

“Did she really turn herself into a squirrel?” I emerged cautiously.

“She did.” Mandy was still laughing.

“Do you think she’ll learn?”

“If she doesn’t, she’s even more of a blockhead than I think.”

“What if an animal eats her?”

“If that happened, I’d fear for the animal.” She chuckled. “What a stomachache it would have.”

“If she learns her lesson, will she undo all her gifts?”

“I don’t know. I just had to stop her mischief. You may yet break the curse yourself.”

“But if she discovers how wrong she was, she’ll want to lift the spell.”

“Maybe. But it would be more big magic.” Mandy drew me into a hug. “Oh, love, I know what that spell does to you.”

I pushed out of her arms. “You don’t know! And how can you warn against big magic when you just summoned Lucinda?”

“Nothing one fairy does to another is big magic, Lady.”

“Stop calling me ‘Lady.’ You used to call Mother that.”

“Now you’re a lady too. If you’d put yourself first and married the prince, someone would have come along to harm him and Kyrria, sure as cabbages. You’re a heroine, sweet.”

“I’d rather be his wife.” The tears welled up again, and I threw myself across Mandy’s bed.

She sat next to me, stroking my back and murmuring. “Oh, sweet, my Lady. Perhaps it will come right” She shifted her weight. Something crackled, and she exclaimed, “What’s this? Oh, I forgot! When I posted your letter, there was one for you.” She pulled a letter out of her apron pocket.

I flew up.

“It’s not in the prince’s hand, love.”

It was from Father, saying he wouldn’t come home. My servitude pained him, but not enough to return him to the arms of his odious, though beloved, wife. He wrote, “When I find a husband for you who is rich enough to satisfy me, you will be released from my Olga. Until then, I urge you to be, as always, my stalwart daughter.”

I fell back on the bed, laughing wildly. Father would make my letter to Char come true. He would marry me off to an ancient man who would soon die and leave me enormously wealthy. The irony! I couldn’t catch my breath. Tears ran down my face, and I didn’t know whether I was laughing or crying.

Mandy held me until I quieted. While she rocked me, I thought that Lucinda still might save me. Mandy might be wrong. Once Lucinda knew how it was to be obedient, she wouldn’t be able to leave me cursed. She’d have to help me.

*

A WEEK later I saw in my magic book that Char had received my message. I opened to an illustration in which he was burning my letters. I was glad to see his image, no matter what the image was doing.

After I gazed awhile and ran my fingers over his shape, I turned the page and found an entry in his journal.

_I’ve lost nothing. She never was what I thought her, so I’ve lost nothing. I’m only fortunate, and Kyrria is blessed, that she eloped before my letter reached her.

When I received the message from her sister, I thought it had to be a ploy to make me hate Ella, and I resolved not to be taken in. For a while I considered leaving Ayortha to discover the truth. Gradually, however, I realized the truth was in my hands.

The sister could have no reason to lie to me. If Ella and I had married, she would only gain. But Ella’s note convinced me in the end. It was in her hand, and the last phrase about smiling at her jewels and laughing at the world was certainly her own.

She charmed me as easily as she did the ogres. I never did discover why she hid after her father’s wedding. She was probaby avoiding a lovesick swain not wealthy enough or ancient enough to suit her. Her avoidance of me after the wedding was another trick, the meaning of which is too deep for me to fathom.

But her letters were the greatest deception of all. She seemed so good-hearted. But I suppose that’s the way with such women: They wouldn’t be minxes if they weren’t masters of artifice and fraud. How she must have laughed when I confessed my faults to her!_

There was more. In addition to minx, he called me flirt, harpy, siren, enchantress, temptress, and even monster. He ended by writing, “I wish I weren’t in Ayortha. The silence here offers too much time for thought. A thousand times a day I swear never to think of her. At least I can promise never to write or speak of her again, and can force my pen and my voice to keep my word.”

*

I ENDURED six months of Hattie and Olive and Mum Olga by imagining my freedom when Lucinda released me from the curse.

I didn’t give up writing to Char. Since the new letters were never posted, I told him the truth about my life in Mum Olga’s household. When Hattie told me that this earl or that duke loved her, I laughed over the absurdity of it to him. When Olive made me count her money again, he was informed.

“Every day she invents new hiding places for her wealth. There are coins in the hem of her gown, coins sewn into her sash, and coins buried in the stuffing of her waist roll. With all the metal concealed about her person, she had best not set foot on a boat.”

When Mum Olga had me clean out the root cellar, and I found a tabby with her litter of kittens, Char learned of my delight. And when Mandy taught me cooking secrets, I shared them with him.

I also described my future without the curse.

“My first act,” I wrote, “will be to confess that I love you. I’ll beg pardon a thousand times for causing you unhappiness and make reparations by making you laugh a thousand times.”

*

THE NIGHT before Lucinda’s reappearance, Hattie awakened me when she returned from a cotillion. She said I had to help her prepare for bed. I had never had to before, so I waited to learn her real reason.

“Tonight they talked of nothing but Prince Charmont’s return next month,” she began while I undressed her.

I knew exactly when he was coming home, so why was my heart beating so?

“They say that King Jerrold is going to hold three royal balls to welcome him. They say the prince will pick his wife at the balls. Ouch! Be careful.”

I had stabbed her with a stay. For once, it was accidental.

“Mama says if I…”

I didn’t hear anything more. Were the balls Char’s idea? Did he really mean to find his bride there? Had he forgotten me? Could I make him remember when Lucinda freed me?

Hattie dismissed me eventually, and I spent the hours till dawn imagining my release from the curse and thinking about my reunion with Char. I couldn’t decide whether I should steal one of Mum Olga’s horses and ride to Ayortha to surprise him, or whether I should wait and amaze him at the balls.

In the morning I woke Mandy and tried to convince her to feign illness so she could call Lucinda immediately. But no, first we had to prepare Mum Olga’s breakfast and wash all the dishes, and Mandy wouldn’t use the smallest magic to speed the process.

When we were through at last, Mandy and I repaired to her bedroom, and I hid as before.

This time the room didn’t fill with the scent of lilacs when Lucinda arrived. From my hiding place behind the curtains, I heard a rustling noise and then the sound of weeping.

“Stop sniveling,” Mandy said.

The weeping became louder, more despairing. “I can’t.” The music and lilt were gone from Lucinda’s voice. I heard panting as she fought to catch her breath. “But if I were still obedient,” she puffed, “I would have to stop crying just because you told me to.” More sobs. “What did I bring on those poor, innocent people? How could I have done big magic? And so carelessly!”

“Your gifts weren’t a boon?” I’d never heard Mandy be sarcastic before.

“They were dreadful, terrible,” Lucinda wailed.

I wondered if her experiences had been at all like mine.

“What happened?” Mandy asked, her voice kinder.

“It was much worse to be obedient, but being a squirrel was bad enough. Half the time I was cold and wet, and I was always hungry. I never got a decent night’s sleep because I was too cramped, curling up in knotholes. Once, an eagle carried me off. I was only saved because it flew into a violent storm and dropped me over a tree.”

“And when you were obedient?”

“I turned myself into the eight-year-old daughter of shopkeepers. I thought it was only fair to be a child, since I always bestowed obedience on infants. I suppose my parents meant well, but they insisted I eat the most awful food, and I had to go to bed before I was sleepy. My parents wouldn’t let me disagree with them about anything. My father loved to read parables aloud, and I had to listen to every word. They commanded me to think about the morals, so even my thoughts had to be obedient.

“And all this I suffered at the hands of good people who loved me! If anything had happened to them, I shudder to think what would have become of me.”

“You won’t bestow any more gifts, then?”

“Never. I wish I could take them all back.”

I stepped out from behind the curtain, even though I’d promised I wouldn’t. “Please do take them back.”

LUCINDA gasped.

I gasped too. She wasn’t Lucinda. Or was she? The enormous eyes were the same, but not the height. This fairy was stooped with age. And her perfect skin was wrinkled, with a mole next to her nose. I was seeing the real Lucinda, unshielded by magic.

“Mandy, who is this? You brought a human to spy on me!” She straightened for a moment, and I saw a hint of the young, beautiful Lucinda. Then she sighed. “You look familiar. Are you one of my victims?”

This was my chance, the chance for the freedom I always should have had, the chance to escape from my stepfamily, the chance to win Char back. But I was so nervous my voice was gone. I could only nod.

“What did I do to you, child?” she whispered, as though afraid of my answer.

I found my voice. “You made me obedient Now you know how it is.”

“I do, child.”

She touched my cheek, and my heart rose.

“But I can’t help you. I renounced big magic.”

“Oh, Lady,” I pleaded, “it would be a wondrous gifr. I would be so grateful.”

“Ella…” Mandy warned.

“Mandy, don’t you think? Just this once.” Lucinda shook her head, and wispy gray curls fluttered. “No, I mustn’t. But if you ever have need of small magic, call on me. You have only to say the words, ‘Lucinda, come to my aid.’ ” She kissed my forehead. “I remember you now. I thought you only spoke Ayorthaian.”

I begged her. I told her about my circumstances. I wept. She wept with me — sobbed harder than I did — but stood firm. I pleaded with Mandy to persuade her, but Mandy refused.

“I can’t, Lady,” she said. “It was big magic to cast the spell in the first place. But it would be big magic to undo it too. Who can guess what would come of it?”

“Only good would come of it. Only good.”

“I can’t bear this,” Lucinda wailed, wringing her hands dramatically. “I can’t bear your distress. Farewell, child.” She vanished.

I stormed out of Mandy’s room and rushed to the library, where I could be alone, where no one was likely to make me scour anything or sew anything or say anything.

Now I couldn’t go to the balls. Hattie and Olive would go with Mum Olga. They’d be free to dance with Char, and so would every other young lady in Frell. And some lass would win him over. His nature was loving, and he’d find someone to love.

As for me, I’d be lucky to glimpse him on the street. He wouldn’t recognize me. My dirty servant’s garb would rule out identification at a distance, and he’d never be close enough to see my face.

*

I COULD neither go to the balls nor escape from them. Hattie and Mum Olga talked of nothing else. Even Olive was interested to the extent of worrying about her gown.

“Sew it with gold thread,” she instructed her maid. “Shouldn’t I be as fine as Hattie?”

Shouldn’t I be as fine as both of them? I cooked and scrubbed and waited on them in a fury. For two weeks I wouldn’t speak to Mandy. The only sounds in the kitchen came from pots and pans as I slammed them down.

Then it came to me. Why couldn’t I go? Char needn’t know I was there. Everyone would be masked, at the beginning at least, although most would unmask quickly so he could admire their beauty. I never would. I’d see him, but he wouldn’t see me.