Текст книги "Hero"

Автор книги: Alethea Kontis

Соавторы: Alethea Kontis
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

2

Distraction

THE MESSENGER came as Mama was making dinner. It was a proper messenger this time, not the usual itinerant troubadour curious about the family of legendary Jack Woodcutter and willing to trade dubious ditties of derring-do for a crust of bread and a dry patch of hay for the night. Saturday was the first to dash for the door. Whoever answered the door got out of doing ridiculous household chores for as long as it took to deal with the company.

The boy on the stoop looked about Trix’s age, or at least the age Trix appeared to be. With his strong fey blood, Trix would always appear younger than his foster siblings, and it would be his fate to outlive them all. But this messenger boy—assuming he was human—could have been no more than thirteen or fourteen. He had no pony, and his skinny bones stuck out at sharp angles from underneath his tattered clothing. Over those bones was skin of a hue that Saturday knew from experience was due more to birth than to long hours under the unforgiving summer sun. When the boy took his hands off his knees and straightened, skinny chest still heaving with breath, he looked up at her with kaleidoscope eyes of green, blue, and yellow. Straight black hair stuck out from under his dusty cap like the bristles of a horse brush. He was from the south, then, somewhere beyond the perilous desert sands. Had he run all the way from there? Judging by his ragged shoes, it was entirely possible.

The boy eyed her as if he expected something. Money? No one in his right mind would approach a shack like this with dreams of riches, however great or small. He put a hand to his chest and coughed dryly into one bony elbow. “Water,” he managed to croak, at the same time it occurred to Saturday. She barreled through the empty living room and the full kitchen to the pump in the backyard, her sword sheath banging against her calf as she ran. She heard Mama call, “Who’s that at the door?” before telling Papa to go and see. Papa slowly rose from his usual resting place by the kitchen fire and dutifully obeyed.

Everyone obeyed Mama. They didn’t have a choice. That was her gift. Everything Mama said came true, so Mama didn’t talk much except to bark orders to her husband and children. Aunt Joy said Mama didn’t speak because she was lazy. Mama said it was the only way she knew how to live a normal life.

Saturday thought they were both full of beans. As the only normal member of the family, Saturday knew good and well that Mama was nothing like normal at all.

Saturday worked the hand pump until the water ran clear, then rinsed out a dry bucket before filling it and toting it back into the kitchen. “Come in, son.” Papa’s booming voice echoed through the house. He led the boy into the kitchen and sat him at the table between Peter and Trix. Saturday handed the boy a dipper full of cool water and he drank greedily. He wiped his mouth on the back of an unclean hand and said without ceremony, “I come to Seven Woodcutter from the abbess.”

The statement meant nothing to Saturday, so she looked to Peter for guidance. Peter looked at Papa. Papa looked at Mama. The hand with which she’d been stirring the stew had gone still. “Rose Red” was all she said.

“The very one,” said the boy.

“My sister,” Mama reminded the rest of them. “Youngest but for me.”

“Six,” said Peter. Mama nodded.

As if naming your children after a day of the week wasn’t silly enough, Granny Mouton had numbered her daughters One through Seven. Over the years, they had all taken other names: Sorrow, Joy, Teresa, Tesera, Snow White, and Rose Red. Only Seven had remained Seven.

“I come from one sister with news of another,” the boy said eloquently, as if he were reading a letter. “Tesera is dead.”

Tesera. The fourth sister. Trix’s wayward actress mother. Papa walked over to where Mama stood by the fire and eased her into a chair. Trix hurried over, took the spoon from her hand, and resumed stirring the stew. Mama’s face was wistful and sad. Trix’s face was turned to the fire. Saturday could only guess how her foundling brother felt about the death of the woman who’d handed him off as a baby to be raised by someone else.

“The abbess asks that you come to her,” the messenger boy said to Mama.

“Yes,” Mama said automatically. Her voice sounded far away. “Of course. Right away.”

“Where is the abbey?” asked Peter.

“To the east and north,” said Mama. “On the plains between the mountains and the sea.” It sounded far. Very, very far. Mama rarely even left the yard. Her sister was asking her to leave the kingdom altogether.

“How will you get there?” asked Saturday. Surely Mama wasn’t expected to run in the footsteps of this scrawny boy.

“Sunday,” said Papa. Clever Papa. His youngest daughter was Queen of Arilland now, with her bright and generous nature intact. She would happily give Mama a carriage and horses and whatever else she needed to make the trip north. Sunday would also be distraught on behalf of her favorite brother . . . far more distraught, it seemed, than Trix himself.

Saturday didn’t understand Trix’s lack of reaction. Happy or sad or otherwise, Trix always felt something, and plenty of it. Now his face was turned to the fire, his back to the room. “Don’t you want to go?” she asked him.

“No,” Trix said quietly to the stewpot.

“Probably for the best,” said Mama. “I must ready my things.”

“What’s your name, son?” Papa asked after the boy had drained another dipper full of water.

“Conrad, sir.”

“Conrad. I would have you run one more errand today if your legs can manage it. You will be well rewarded.”

Conrad’s grimace at the mention of another run melted away at the word “reward,” but he still seemed skeptical. He twisted his grubby hat in his grubby hands and nodded at Papa.

“Do you know how to get to the castle near here?”

The boy’s dark hair flopped as he nodded. “I saw a tower on the horizon that scraped the clouds. Most of the roads lead there.”

“Yes. Go there and say you have an urgent message for my daughter the queen.”

Conrad sat up straighter. Smart boy. He was in the presence of the royal family, after all. Not that it made Saturday feel any different.

“Tell her what you told us, and ask her to please send a carriage. She will see you properly recompensed.”

Conrad popped out of the chair and snapped to attention like a jumpy summer insect. “Right away, sir!”

Papa chuckled. “Now, now. Not so hasty. Won’t you stay for a bit of supper?”

“No, thank you, sir. I’ll be on my way. If you please, sir.”

“Very well, then.” Papa clapped the boy on his scrawny back. “Off with you.”

Conrad bowed quickly, wiggled his toes in the holes of his ragged shoes, and ran out the still-open front door. Papa, Peter, and Saturday watched him from the doorway, kicking up dust as he made his way back down the hill to the main road.

“I admire that boy’s energy,” said Papa.

“He has almost as much as Saturday,” said Peter.

“That he does,” said Papa as he shut the door. “If she were younger, I might marry her off to him.”

Saturday scowled. She was excessively good at scowling. Papa just laughed. “Peter, you go finish up outside. Saturday, please help Trix with dinner. I’ll see to Mama.”

Saturday paused before heading back to the kitchen. She wasn’t sure what to say to Trix; she wasn’t even sure yet how she felt about the situation herself. Peter and Papa were so much easier to talk to. They chatted and argued and laughed every day in the Wood. Trix was just so . . . Trix. Sometimes what came out of his mouth was as regular as the sunrise, and sometimes it was more cryptic than Wednesday’s poetry.

Now that Wednesday was off in the land of Faerie, Friday had been apprenticed to an esteemed seamstress, and Sunday was a queen, Trix spent more of his time talking to animals than humans. As the last sister remaining in the Woodcutter household, Saturday supposed that it was her responsibility to comfort her cousin-brother. But she couldn’t very well talk to him directly about what had just happened . . .

Saturday snapped her fingers and raced up the stairs to her bedroom to fetch the one thing she knew Trix prized above all else: distraction.

When she returned to the kitchen, Trix was just as she’d left him, silently bowed over the fire. Trix usually wasn’t allowed to stir the pot, or milk the cow, or churn the butter, or spend time around anything else that might spoil in the presence of his strong fairy nature. Chances were Mama’s taste buds would be too coated with remorse to care what passed her lips tonight. Saturday hoped for her own sake that the stew was palatable.

“So I was thinking,” Saturday said to Trix’s back. She’d learned from the years of working with Papa and Peter to start a sentence like this, with little pertinent information. If whomever Saturday addressed was wrapped up in his own thoughts, she could garner attention without having to repeat herself. Clearing one’s throat also worked. Or yelling.

“What,” Trix said into the fire, not at all his joyfully optimistic self. His voice was deep and apathetic. He sounded like Peter, thought Saturday, and that was strange enough.

“I was at the guards’ training grounds today,” she began again. Sunday always chided Saturday for never starting her stories in the right place. When Papa told stories, he engaged his listeners like this, encouraging them to ask questions. At the moment, however, this tactic did not seem to be working for Saturday.

“You’re supposed to ask me what I was doing there,” she prompted.

“You’re always at the guards’ training grounds,” said Trix.

“Only on my days off.”

“Which is almost every other day now,” said Trix.

“I know. It’s annoying.” Saturday shook her head. “But that’s not the point! Monday came to see me today.”

Trix banked the fire and covered the pot with a lid. “You should have started the story there.” He sat down across the table from her.

Saturday stuck out her tongue.

“Gee, Saturday, whatever was Monday doing at the guards’ training grounds today?” The humor in Trix’s voice relaxed her a bit, even if it was at her expense.

“Monday showed me her nameday gift.”

“She did? What was it?” This time, Trix’s intrigue was in earnest.

“It was a beautiful little hand mirror,” said Saturday.

“How beautiful?”

“As beautiful as anything the fairies could make.”

Trix grimaced. “You need to work on your descriptions.”

“Almost as beautiful as Monday herself,” said Saturday.

“Ooh, that’s much better.”

“Better still—it’s a magic mirror. A looking glass.”

“Really?”

Saturday nodded.

“How does it work?”

“She holds it in her hand, says a little rhyming verse, and the mirror shows her whomever she’s asking to see.”

“That’s a pretty clever gift.”

“I thought so too,” said Saturday.

“Almost as clever as yours.”

It was Saturday’s turn to grimace.

“Hey, nobody else got a gift that changes with her destiny.”

“That’s because everybody else got magical powers,” said Saturday.

Trix tilted his head and sighed in defeat. “So why does Monday’s mirror suddenly fascinate you?”

“Do you remember the trunk Thursday sent this spring?”

“No fair answering a question with a question,” said Trix. “Of course I remember.”

Saturday knew he would. He’d spent hours killing an army of trees with the bow and arrows Thursday had included for him inside that trunk. Trix hadn’t aimed for any animals—on the contrary, the squirrels, birds, and chipmunks made up his arrow-retrieval team. In that trunk had been the miles of material Friday had used to make dresses for all those ridiculous balls Sunday’s true love had forced them to attend. Saturday twisted the blue-green bracelet around her wrist, briefly reliving that torture.

“Do you remember what Thursday gave me?” asked Saturday.

The answer took him a moment; he had been too busy testing out his new toys at the time to give much notice to anyone. Then his eyes widened. “You got a mirror.”

Saturday nodded and pulled the silver-backed mirror from her swordbelt. There’d been an ebony-handled brush in the silk purse along with the mirror, but Saturday had left it up in her room.

This mirror was larger than Monday’s; the silver framing it made it unwieldy, top-heavy, with no balance whatsoever. Saturday had no idea why Thursday had given her the fool thing; she had more use for it as a club than as an instrument of vanity. Roses stood out in relief all over it; the embellished thorns around the handle made it incredibly difficult to hold.

“What’s it say on the back?” asked Trix.

He was right; there was a word faintly etched between the petals. “‘Very’?” Saturday guessed. “Or . . . ‘Merry’?”

“I think it’s French,” said Trix.

“How would you know?”

“Wednesday,” said Trix.

Until her recent emigration to Faerie, Wednesday had often spouted impromptu poetry in foreign languages. They only knew it was poetry because Wednesday used her lofty poetry voice during the recitations, but Saturday wouldn’t have been able to tell French from Cymbalese or Trollish. Papa couldn’t tell the difference either—he’d told Saturday as much once—but he always applauded Wednesday’s performances. Animals talked to Trix; maybe some of them had French cousins. “I think it means ‘glass.’ Or ‘water.’”

“Or ‘flamboyant useless object’?” suggested Saturday. Trix made a face. “Well, that’s what I would have written. Want to see if it works?”

In a flash, Trix leapt over the table and landed in the chair beside Saturday, much like she had vaulted the fence earlier to sit with Monday. As impressive as the move was, it was a good thing Mama hadn’t been around to witness it. “Do you know what to say?”

“I’ll make something up.” Saturday and Peter often played rhyming games while they worked in the Wood—games that Saturday won more often than not. She could easily come up with something that might coax a smile out of her brother. She straightened again in her chair and held the great gaudy thing before them. She and Trix looked back at themselves over her outstretched arm, fascinated by their humble reflections.

“Mirror, Mirror, gift of doom,

Show us Mama in her room.”

Trix giggled. Saturday waited for the image to blur and resolve into a picture of Mama rummaging through her wardrobe, but the mirror did nothing. She wished to see something so hard, her eyes began to hurt. It took her a moment to notice that Trix was no longer interested in the mirror, and another moment to realize what an incredible fool she’d been. She’d said “Mama,” and Trix’s mother was currently dead. It would have been just as easy to say “Papa.” Why hadn’t she done that instead? But it was too late. She almost wished the glass had shown those terrifying floodwaters. Anything but this.

“Gods,” she sputtered, “I’m such an ass.”

Trix left her glaring at herself in the mirror and went back to minding the stewpot. “You tried,” he said. “I appreciate the effort.”

“I only wanted to—”

“Just set the table, Saturday. Please?”

“Okay.” Saturday shoved the offending mirror back into her swordbelt and went to put her stupid, idle hands to work. As she set the bowls and spoons clattering upon the table, she said, “I’m sorry,” before she forgot.

“So am I,” he answered.

Peter returned to the kitchen. Saturday gave him the rest of the spoons and the cloth napkins and a look that explained exactly how far she’d shoved her big foot into her big mouth. He took them all from her without a word and finished setting the table. Saturday and Peter didn’t need words to communicate, but for Trix’s benefit she said, “I’m going to fetch . . .”

She stopped before saying “Mama” and reopening the wound she’d just kicked with her boot. She thought about switching it to “Papa,” and then wondered if Trix knew who his father was . . . or if his father was even human. As there was just no good way to finish the sentence, she fled the room.

She didn’t bother knocking; her parents would have heard her footsteps echoing through the living room and down the small hall. Everything about Saturday was large and loud. Trying to pretend otherwise was a waste of time.

“Dinner’s ready,” she called.

The door opened a crack to reveal Papa’s face. “We’re coming, m’girl. Thank you.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No,” said Mama, thus effectively tying Saturday’s hands.

The look Saturday gave her father said, There she goes opening her mouth again without thinking. You can’t say I didn’t try.

I know, Papa’s wrinkled forehead said in return. At this point, there’s really nothing any of us can do. “Come now, Seven,” he said to his wife. “I won’t ship that stubborn mouth off in a carriage without kissing it first, and I refuse to do that until it’s been properly fed.”

Mama granted Papa a smirk, only slightly less rare than an actual smile. She tossed whatever garment she was holding onto the bed next to her carpetbag and pushed past him. He patted her shoulder, and then smacked her playfully on the rump. Making Mama smile in earnest was a knack only Papa had. And Thursday . . . not that she’d stuck around long enough to take advantage of it, or teach it to any of her younger siblings. With no other course of action at her disposal, Saturday followed her parents into the kitchen.

The smell hit them before they’d reached the table. Saturday closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Mama’s cooking skills were none too shabby, and the palace cook had presented a scrumptious feast in celebration of Sunday and Rumbold’s royal wedding, but this aroma left those dinners all behind.

Peter was already at the stewpot, helping himself to a generous bowlful. The divine dish was a result of Trix’s stirring, for sure. Saturday snuck a glance at Mama before snatching up her own bowl and following Peter’s suit.

“Go on, girl,” said Mama. “I’m not going to scold your rascal brother. It seems the gods decided we’ve had enough misery for one day.”

At Mama’s blessing, Saturday shamelessly filled her bowl. Mama had always been stingy with ingredients and kept an eye toward portion control, but she’d mothered ten children in her life. The current population of the Woodcutter household was half what it had been in the spring, so the stewpot was nowhere near as overflowing as it once needed to be, but there was still enough inside for each of them to have seconds, if they so desired. Saturday anticipated that desire this evening, and happily.

Only . . . when Saturday sat down at the table her appetite left her, fully and completely.

She waited politely for the rest of her family to serve themselves and sit, though Peter had forgone manners and dug deep into his bowl, as if he’d felled a dozen trees that day and toted them all the way back from the Wood barehanded. The rest of them similarly devoured their bowls, as if they’d been starved for a fortnight.

Saturday filled her spoon with the delectable stew and brought it to her lips, forcing herself to chew and swallow. The tender bits of roast melted on her tongue. There was a hint of wine and cream in the sauce, and the potatoes and onions were cooked to perfection. Saturday didn’t normally like onions, but this was one of the most delicious meals she’d ever eaten. She only wished her body would stop whatever it was doing and behave. Her muscles were tense from her head to her toes, and her face felt flushed; the only cool spot on her skin lay under her sister’s bracelet. When she swallowed the spoonful, it felt like swallowing a rock. Her stomach tightened, and a cold sweat broke out behind her ears. Perhaps she was coming down with something. Couldn’t it wait until she was done with supper?

Mama noticed Saturday playing with her food. “Eat up, girl,” she said. “I’m not going to—”

Papa laid a hand on Mama’s arm before she could finish her sentence, in a subtle effort to force her to think before she spoke. It was obvious that she did not appreciate the gesture.

“Do you think I will be less sad if you starve yourself?” Mama said, turning the second phrase into a question instead of an order. But she had still commanded that Saturday eat, so eat she did, slowly and reluctantly, bit by stony bit, until her spoon scraped the bottom of her bowl.

Papa and Peter quickly jumped up for seconds, but Mama had her elbow on the table and her head in her hand before she came to the end. She set down her spoon and closed her eyes. Papa patted her arm again, but said nothing and continued to eat.

Peter was the second one to fall asleep. He pushed the bowl aside, cradled his head in his elbow, and began to snore. Papa only had time to glance quickly at Saturday and Trix before his own head hit the table. Saturday winced at the sound. Papa’s empty bowl spun around and clattered to the floor.

Saturday’s eyelids drooped. Her stomach spasmed and clenched. The heat spread down from her ears and cheeks. She wanted to move, to leave the table and run, but her body felt like a sack of the rocks she’d just swallowed. Slowly, she turned her head to Trix.

Trix stood and snatched up the rest of their uneaten bread into a small sack.

“What’ve you done?” Saturday managed to say without moving her teeth.

“It’s a sleeping spell, that’s all. You’ll be rested and fine in the morning. Or possibly sooner, thanks to that sword of yours. I’ll be long gone by then.”

“You said you didn’t want to go,” mumbled Saturday.

“If I’d told Mama I wanted to go, she would have ordered me to stay here, and I would have had to obey her,” Trix said. Curse him. Saturday had never been half so clever. “I can’t do that, Saturday. I have to go. Tesera was my mother.”

He certainly didn’t need to explain himself to her. She understood all too well the desire to leave this place, and would have for far less important a reason. “I . . . come too,” she managed to say. She may have failed at keeping his spirits up, but she could protect him on his journey.

Trix kissed her hot, stiff cheek. “And you would make a fine traveling companion. But I will move faster on my own. I may already be too late.”

Too late? Too late for what? His mother wasn’t getting any deader. But the words weren’t coming anymore.

“Goodbye, Saturday,” he said to her from the door. “I love you. And good luck.”

Anger made her skin even hotter, and she growled louder than her stomach. With a hand on her sword, she forced herself to rise from her chair, much as she had forced herself to eat that bowl of stew. With each slow step up the tower, Saturday cursed Mama. She cursed Trix. She cursed her Aunt Joy and every meddling fairy she’d ever known, and all the ones she hadn’t met yet to boot.

By the time she’d made it to the aerie and crossed to the window, Trix was a dot on the far side of the meadow. Saturday growled again, this time parting her teeth enough to let out a full-fledged scream from her tight belly. She wished she had enough strength to pound the walls or unsheathe her sword, but it took all she had to stand and look helplessly out at the disappearing form of her foundling brother. She adjusted her grip on her sword hilt. Her thumb brushed against cool metal thorns.

The mirror. Stupid, useless thing. As useless as Saturday herself, frozen in place at the casement. With the last of her energy she pulled the mirror from her swordbelt and threw it out the window with a roar. She tilted back on her heels. Her eyes rolled up into her head, and her eyelids drooped again. She did not hear the mirror hit the ground below, nor did she hear it break. She lost her footing as the world began to shake and tilt around her.