The Princess Imposter

by Vivian Vande Velde

  “Only because we stayed to help,” Daisy pointed out, “not like some idle loaf-abouts who couldn’t get out of the kitchen fast enough.”

  It was a rude thing to say, and Gabriella was appreciative that Daisy was there to say it.

  Shrugging, Parf turned his back on them, as if he was too big-of-spirit to engage in verbal squabbles, though Gabriella suspected he more likely didn’t have a good comeback.

  There were two logs lying lengthwise in the yard, and Parf sat on one of them, Daisy on the other. Gabriella sat next to Daisy.

  “Become fast friends, have you?” Parf commented. “Lazy Daisy and Princess Gabby?”

  “Oh, cleverly said,” Gabriella acknowledged, trying to keep peace with Parf, since it appeared she was going to be spending more time with the family than she would have hoped. “Nice wordplay.”

  Daisy, who was younger, looked confused. But, on the other hand, so did Parf.

  “What?” Daisy asked.

  “Ahm … ” Gabriella explained for Daisy’s benefit, though she became increasingly suspicious that she was explaining to Parf also. “By saying fast, Parf could mean both that we became friends quickly, or that our friendship is firm. It’s a witticism—a pun.”

  “Usually,” Daisy told Gabriella, “Parf’s puns are more like his name: barf with pee.”

  “Usually,” Parf retorted, “there’s no one around who can get my more complicated witty-sisms.”

  Gabriella didn’t correct his pronunciation. “Look,” she said, her voice a whisper, “a baby deer.”

  It wasn’t exactly a baby—its spots were beginning to fade—but it was very young. It approached the clearing hesitantly.

  “Oh, you bad, bad thing,” Daisy chided, but in a gentle voice. “Did you leave the safe spot where your mumsy set you down, and now you’ve gotten lost?” She held her hands out, inviting the fawn closer. “That’s all right. Stay with us. We’ll watch over you. And your mumsy will know to come looking for you here.”

  The little deer approached Daisy as though it could understand, then folded its long, spindly legs beneath itself and lay down in front of the log where she sat. Where Gabriella sat, too. Gabriella held her breath at the wonder of it, never having been this close to a wild animal before. Daisy leaned down and petted its head.

  Gabriella was close enough that she could see the creature’s nostrils quiver. Such a soft, velvety nose …

  Perhaps Daisy could tell what she was wanting but afraid to do. She took Gabriella’s hand and placed it atop the little deer’s head, so Gabriella could pet it. There were cushions at home made of deer hide, but touching a living deer was totally different.

  “Here comes a wolf,” Parf said quietly.

  He said it so mildly and matter-of-factly that Gabriella knew he was making something up just to scare her.

  Until she looked up and saw the gray-and-silver wolf approaching.

  She yanked her hand back from the wonderfulness of petting a live deer and jumped to her feet, ready to run.

  “Take it easy, princess,” Parf said in the same low-key voice.

  “He won’t hurt you,” Daisy added.

  “Wolves never go after fairies,” Parf said. “And only rarely do they attack humans. Only if the person is hurt, or the wolf is starving.”

  “Or if the wolf is hurt.” Gabriella’s voice shook, for she saw that the wolf was limping. Everyone knows that injured animals are dangerous because they can lash out.

  “He knows we’re here to help,” Parf said.

  “And he won’t hurt the deer, either,” Daisy said. “This is a place of sanctuary.”

  Indeed, the deer appeared perfectly at ease, lying at Daisy’s feet. But that, Gabriella told herself, could be because its instincts warned it to be still so that it might be overlooked. This was a tactic that sometimes worked for young animals, and sometimes didn’t.

  Parf called to the wolf, the way Daisy had called to the deer. “Come on, big guy,” he urged. “We can help.”

  The wolf—it was bigger than the biggest dog Gabriella had ever seen—sat down in front of Parf and held its paw up, as though to let Parf take a look. Even from where she sat, Gabriella could see part of a stick poking out of the flesh between the pads of the wolf’s foot. The poor creature had stepped on the pointy end, she realized, which penetrated deep into the flesh. The wolf had chewed off part of the stick but hadn’t been able to pull it out.

  Parf spoke reassuringly and the wolf looked directly at him, as though understanding every word. Finally, Parf took hold of the ragged end of the stick and pulled. The wolf whimpered, but made no move as though to lunge or bite.

  “There, all gone,” Parf said. “You’ll be better in no time. Gabby, you going to sit there like a great lump, or do you want to help?”

  “Of course I want to help,” Gabriella said, though she was less sure than she made herself sound. What if she did something wrong—something that would hurt the wolf, or would encourage it to hurt her?

  Parf said, “Get the cocklebur leaves out of the bag beside me.”

  Gabriella hadn’t even noticed before that Parf had brought a satchel outside with him. Slowly, she stood, aware that the wolf’s amber-eyed gaze followed every move she made as she crossed over to where Parf and the satchel sat. It was full of all sorts of packets of ointments and leaves, fresh and dried. Burrs Gabriella would have been perfectly capable of recognizing. But cocklebur leaves?

  “Ahmm … ,” she said, her hand hovering over several that might have been.

  But which apparently weren’t.

  “Nope,” Parf said. “Nope. Nope. Keep moving. That one. Don’t you know nothing?”

  “Apparently not,” Gabriella said. The leaf was triangular and felt a bit rough.

  “Rub the leaf on the wound—it’ll help stop the bleeding.”

  “Me?” Gabriella gulped. Fetching it was one thing. Handing it to Parf to use was all well and good. But tending the wolf herself? She held the leaf in her hand and looked at the wolf. “So … ,” she asked Parf, “… this doesn’t sting, does it?”

  “Of course, it stings like crazy. We’ll use the comfrey for his pain afterwards.”

  After what? Gabriella thought. After the wolf bites off my hand?

  The wolf gave a throaty growl as her hand hovered over his paw.

  “Just do it,” Parf said. “You’re making him nervous.”

  The last thing Gabriella wanted was a nervous wolf. She touched the leaf to his paw and he yelped. Gabriella recoiled.

  “Speak sweetly to him,” Daisy recommended.

  Gabriella took a deep breath. “I just want to help,” she assured the wolf. “I’m new to this, but Parf and Daisy are helping me to help you. They’ll see to it that I’ll help you get better.” Had anybody ever used the word help so often?

  Finally the wound stopped bleeding, stopped oozing, and then Parf gave her the go-ahead to use the comfrey.

  After that, Daisy wrapped the paw with a bit of cloth that may have started life as an ivy vine. “Well done, Gabby!” she said.

  The wolf lay down, resting his muzzle on his paws for a nap after all that tension.

  “Not half bad,” Parf corrected his sister.

  And that was how they spent the morning, tending to animals that seemed to know to come to the fairies’ house for help: a fox who’d had a run-in with a porcupine, a weasel with an eye infection, a stoat who was having trouble delivering her babies, animals with cuts or who had eaten something they shouldn’t, or who—in some cases—just seemed to want attention, affection, and reassurance. Parf—though he continued to chide Gabriella as a know-nothing and to call his sister both Lazy and Crazy—was incredibly patient and gentle with the animals.

  “Why do you do this?” Gabriella asked the fairy children.

  “It’s what fairies do,” Daisy said.

  Eventually Mumsy came home; Gabriella hadn’t even realized she’d been away. She was carrying a goshawk whose wing was splinted.
Daisy explained, “Mumsy goes deeper into the woods to help those who are more badly sick or injured, who can’t make it here on their own. This one will need looking after till the seasons are about to turn.”

  “That’s … sweet,” Gabriella said. She swallowed the word she’d been about to stick in between those two words: unexpectedly. Clearly, it was unexpected only to her. She felt small, and mean-spirited, and useless.

  By then the deer mother had picked up her wayward offspring and Mumsy said, sounding deeply weary, “Midday meal in a little bit. I’ve got to nap.”

  And Gabriella didn’t even think badly of her for that.

  “You go ahead and rest, Mumsy,” Parf cooed in a slightly-too-solicitous-to-be-believed tone. “You work so hard. Gabby can cook for us.”

  And Gabriella did think badly of him for that.

  The rabbit kept Phleg up half the night. Rabbits are nervous, twitchy sleepers, and they are most active at dawn and dusk. Just as Phleg was convinced she was exhausted enough to sleep through anything, the rabbit was deciding it was time for grooming and breakfast and more grooming and morning exercises, followed by yet more grooming—and, oh, was there time for a midmorning snack before grooming some more?

  “It can’t be midmorning if the sun isn’t even clear of the horizon yet,” Phleg grumbled. Enough was enough. “Go away.”

  The rabbit did—which left a rapidly cooling spot between her arm and her ribs, where the rabbit had been snuggled against her.

  Phleg missed the warmth, but not the constant stirring. Despite the fact that the sun was rising, which meant the birds were awake and calling to one another quite noisily—and even though normally her family rose early in order to tend the animals—Phleg was finally able to drift off to a deeper sleep than she had enjoyed all night. She dreamed that she was in the big, comfortable princess bed, and servants were bringing her trayfuls of pastries and sweets and that wonderful sweet milk. In another moment or so, she would sit up and start to eat. The princess’s friend Amanda was there, too, directing the servants, calling out, “More food! More food! Princess Phleg needs more food!” It was odd that everyone seemed to know she was Phleg but still called her princess, but dreams don’t need to make sense to be pleasant.

  Or scary, for that matter.

  Her brother Parf walked into her dream, and he wasn’t bearing food. He kicked one of the legs on which the bed sat, causing the mattress to jiggle. “Wake up!” he commanded.

  “Go away,” Phleg mumbled at him, or maybe she just thought it—though, in a dream, that should have been enough. But he wasn’t as amenable as the rabbit.

  He kicked the bed leg again. “Danger!” he said. He kicked again. “Danger!” Kick. “Danger!” Kick. “Danger!”

  Now Phleg could hear the vibrations, as well as feel them.

  Parf could be an infuriating annoyance, but he was—after all—her brother. Which might or might not mean that something was wrong.

  “What?” she demanded, for sure out loud this time. Not just in-her-dream out loud, but in real life—and this woke her up.

  Parf was no longer there, but the sounds and vibrations continued.

  It was the rabbit, thumping its hind leg in alarm.

  Phleg jumped to her feet. As soon as the rabbit saw she was awake, it clearly felt its duty was done and Phleg was on her own now. It dashed off into the underbrush.

  Too tall to follow its exact path, Phleg dove in the same direction. She didn’t yet know what the danger was but trusted the rabbit, who had seen/heard/smelled or tasted it in the wind. The woodland creature would know which was the best direction in which to flee.

  Phleg rolled, putting more distance, more forest vegetation, between her and the clearing where she had settled for the night. Should she get up and run, or hunker low and hide? The answer depended on what the danger was, and Phleg still didn’t know.

  But then she heard voices. Human voices. Distressingly close by. Calling, “Princess Gabriella!”

  Drat! A search party from the castle. Hadn’t they given up yet? What was the matter with them?

  And then the voices called, “Prince Frederic!”—which was a surprise. Why would they be calling him? Had he run away, too? Given how nasty his father seemed, maybe she shouldn’t have been so surprised.

  People—two of them, in the uniform of the men who formed the castle guard—entered the clearing with big, noisy, crunch-everything-in-their-path feet.

  Phleg peered through the clump of grass where she hid, and winced. Surely, if they were looking for evidence of her passing, they would notice the impression her head had made on that gigantic mushroom she’d been using for a pillow. They would know she had gotten up mere moments before and would realize she must still be in the vicinity. They would find her and return her to the castle, where she absolutely could not be, for she was ruining everything for the real princess, and for Prince Fred.

  But, no, she was giving the searchers too much credit.

  “This is impossible,” one of the men told the other. “She could be anywhere in this huge forest. Most like, she’s miles away by now.”

  The other grunted in agreement. “If the beasts haven’t eaten her already.”

  Neither agreeing nor disagreeing with that possibility, the first simply stated, “We’ll never find her.”

  Good, Phleg thought. Give up. Call off the search.

  “Still”—the second man sighed—“I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to tell her parents that.”

  His companion made a sound of agreement. “Yeah, and I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to tell that other king we’ve gone and lost his son.”

  Fred? Fred was lost, too?

  Well … not too. She herself was not lost. She simply did not want to be found.

  But Fred?

  A part of her warmed in pleasure—an even nicer sensation than holding a rabbit: Prince Fred had come looking for her. Incompetently, apparently—seeing as he’d gotten himself separated from the others. But still. That wasn’t the point. The point was that he’d been concerned about her. Since his father had been set against her, Fred must have defied his father’s wishes to join the search for her.

  Well, not exactly, she reminded herself.

  He had joined in the search for Princess Gabriella. It was just a foolishness gone awry that he thought she was Gabriella.

  The men who were looking for the missing princess and prince paused where they were, so distressingly close to Phleg’s hiding spot that she barely dared to breathe. There, they discussed their options. They had been out all night and were tired and hungry. They wanted to return to their own homes, their families, their beds. For all they knew, one of the other parties of searchers might have already found the princess and returned her to the welcome embrace of her parents. True, the church bells were supposed to be rung if that happened, but maybe they had missed the tolling. There was no being certain the sound would carry this far into the woods.

  They listened, as though the bells might ring at that very moment.

  In the stillness, Phleg heard … not bells, but a voice—quiet, or very far away. “Hello,” the voice called. “Anyone there?”

  Yet another searcher, Phleg surmised. Give up, she mentally urged them all. The grass in which she was lying was damp from the morning dew, and she was eager to get up out of it.

  The men she was watching apparently could not hear the voice. “And most likely the prince has joined the company of some of the other searchers,” one of them speculated. “Which would mean there’s no reason for us to continue to tromp through the woods looking for him, either.”

  The other cupped his hands on either side of his mouth and shouted, “Prince Frederic!”

  “Yes!” the distant voice called back. “I’m here!”

  Phleg was positioned between where the castle guards stood and where—or rather wherever—Prince Fred was. The two men were scratching their bellies, stamping their feet, chattering to each other, and ju
st generally making enough noise that they couldn’t hear the prince. They continued to discuss. They were great discussers. They came to the conclusion that it was probably best not to be the first team to return to the castle without either the prince or the princess, and so they would search a little bit longer.

  Off they went, away from Phleg, and—also—away from the direction that would have led them to Fred.

  Poor Fred, Phleg thought. But surely he wouldn’t remain lost for long. As the men she had overheard had said, he’d no doubt connect with other searchers. Eventually.

  His voice carried to her once again, fainter, which meant he was moving away from her. “I’m here,” he called.

  KEEP moving away, Phleg thought. Though she felt sorry for him, because he sounded so discouraged.

  “Somebody?” the prince called.

  Phleg stood and began drying her dew-damp hands on her skirt.

  Was he getting more distant?

  Or was his voice fading because he was losing heart?

  Without much energy, Fred called, “Anybody?” And then, still listlessly, just on the threshold of her being able to hear, he said, “Help.”

  What was the matter with people? How had humankind ever survived long enough to build their towns and cities when they were so helpless in the woods?

  But she couldn’t just leave him, not if he was in trouble. After all, she thought, fairies were supposed to help the sick or injured animals of the forest. A lost prince wasn’t that different.

  Having her good fairy sense, Phleg could tell which direction she should go even after the prince had stopped calling for help. She also knew just how far she must walk to get there, no matter how the topography of the land forced her to shift her path.

  This did not stop her from muttering and complaining to herself all the while she walked toward him.

  She found Prince Fred sitting in one of the streams, the water almost up to his chest, and this showed so little sense on his part that she was tempted to leave him there. Though Phleg had been making no attempt to walk quietly, she could tell he was unaware of her, as he was looking down at the water rather than up and around. Phleg could have slipped back between the trees.