The Princess Imposter

by Vivian Vande Velde

  “It was more,” Ardforgel told them, “like a wish that my hand was clean. I probably didn’t even cause magic to happen. It was probably more the tiny lick I gave my hand while you were all paying attention to Benlos.”

  The Council members were all looking at Ardforgel in much the same way they had looked at Benlos the previous day.

  “You saw I was holding the tooth!” Ardforgel said. He picked it up out of the bowl and held it up. “Most of the stickiness must have come off on Benlos’s hand. I can repeat my testimony.”

  It was Parf who came to the rescue. He suddenly ducked under the table. “Aha!” he cried.

  “What?” Irate Fairy Woman asked.

  Parf didn’t answer but only repeated, “Aha!” He was pointing at something beneath the table.

  Everyone ducked their heads to look, the Council members no longer worried about their dignity.

  And there, on the floor, was another dragon’s tooth.

  Irate Fairy Woman leaned way over and picked it up. A dust bunny had gotten stuck to it. With her other hand, she scooped up the dragon’s tooth Ardforgel had been holding.

  “This one,” Irate Fairy Woman said, “this used-up old dragon’s tooth, is sticky.” She shook then blew on it, and still the dust bunny continued to cling to it. “This other one is not sticky. It is also not used up.”

  “You substituted one of your own,” Council Fairy Man said. “You tossed away the tooth the changeling handed you while you distracted us by knocking over the bowl.” He reached over and pulled Ardforgel’s locket out from beneath his shirt, flipped it open, and revealed its emptiness. “Then, once you saw you needed to show you were holding a tooth, you pulled out the one you had in here.”

  “It was a stupid human test,” Ardforgel protested.

  “That you were afraid to take,” said Moderately Annoyed Fairy Woman.

  Irate Fairy Woman said, “Benlos, we will speak to you later.”

  And then Gabriella found herself once more in Mumsy’s kitchen, with Parf and Benlos. The rest of the family had apparently finished breakfast, for the kitchen was tidy and empty.

  “Was that true?” Parf asked.

  “Was what true?” both Gabriella and Benlos asked.

  Parf looked annoyed that he had to explain. “That humans use dragons’ teeth to poison liars?”

  “It was a story,” Gabriella answered.

  “Hmm,” Parf said.

  “It was a very good story,” Benlos said. “Did you make it up yourself?”

  “Yes and no,” Gabriella said.

  Parf threw his hands up in exasperation. “Oh, here we go!”

  “I meant: I used what I had—the dragon’s tooth—to remake an old folktale into a story that would fit the circumstances. The circumstances being that suspicion makes cowards of the guilty.”

  “More human logic,” Parf said.

  Gabriella shrugged.

  Parf glanced at his father before mumbling to her, “But thank you.”

  Phleg woke up in the wonderful princess bed she had been in that first morning. Someone—either Gabriella’s father or one of the servants—must have carried her here. Someone—again, there was no telling who—had taken off her shoes, but she was still wearing the same intensely blue dress she’d been wearing since her morning in the garden, when she’d lain on her stomach behind the shrubbery, listening to Fred entertain his little brother with stories he made up. It was the same dress she’d been wearing when she fell into the moat, and ran into the woods, and spent the night there; the same dress she’d gone into the stream in, and sat next to a bear in, and ridden a horse in, and eaten a dinner in with the king and queen last night, when she’d been too tired to consistently get the food into her mouth.

  She was aware that there was something in the room that didn’t smell as nice as that other morning, and she suspected it was her.

  There were twigs and leaves and a bit of algae on the pillow, evidently caught in her hair these last two days—another disadvantage to the long hair Princess Gabriella favored, beyond its sheer weight. When she sat up, something dug into Phleg’s side. She fished out a piece of bark from the tree she and Fred and the bear had been leaning against while they awaited rescue. Phleg hadn’t even been aware of the dress ripping. She supposed, considering how all of the princess’s dresses looked just-made, that she would not be allowed to wear this dress again.

  She wondered how Fred was doing and hoped a good night’s rest had done as much for him as it had for her.

  But then she saw that someone had placed a cup on the little table beside the bed, and she got distracted from thinking about Fred by the sweet milk that Gabriella apparently drank every morning.

  Could it really taste as good as she remembered?

  Phleg reached for the cup, and managed not to fall out of the bed.

  And, yes, the milk was every bit as wonderful as she remembered.

  “Delicious,” she said out loud—because it was so delicious it warranted her saying so.

  Someone must have been listening by the door. There came the rapping of knuckles against the wood. Gabriella’s servant, Ellen, came in. “Are we feeling better?” Ellen asked with what struck Phleg as an overabundance of cheer.

  “Better than what?” Phleg asked. “Or who?” Was the question Ellen’s way of indicating Fred was not doing well?

  “Better than we were feeling yesterday,” Ellen said. “Or … even the day before?”

  Phleg had to pause to think this over. “Well,” she finally said, considering that she felt rested and that she hadn’t bumped her head this morning, “I’m feeling better. But there’s no way for me to know if you are.”

  Ellen blinked a couple of times before saying, “I’m feeling better if you are.”

  “Well, I am,” Phleg said.

  “Then I am, too,” Ellen told her.

  “Well, now that that’s settled,” Phleg said, “I wonder if Fred—Prince Frederic—is feeling better.”

  “I am told he is much improved.”

  “Good.” Phleg swung her legs off the bed. “Then I’d like to see him.”

  “First,” Ellen said, more forcefully than was her custom, “a bath.”

  “For you, me, or Fred?”

  “For you. I’m sure Prince Frederic has been attended to already.”

  “All right,” Phleg agreed, because she could see there was no way Ellen was going to let her pass unless she did agree. “Is there a lake nearby, or will I bathe in the moat?”

  Ellen sighed, but then she clapped her hands, which must have been a signal to more servants, who were apparently waiting in the hall.

  Two came in bearing a huge metal container—more like a cooking cauldron than anything else Phleg could think of, but big enough to hold more stew than her family could eat in a month—and this they set on the floor.

  Curious, Phleg looked inside. It was empty, which made sense because unless it was carrying a cloud it would have been too heavy for the servants to have lifted.

  Phleg looked up in time to see a whole line of servants entering the room, each bearing a huge pitcher. Were those empty, too?

  No, the servants poured water out of their pitchers into the container.

  “Oh,” Phleg said after the fourth or fifth servant, “you’re bringing the lake to me.” At least twice as many more were still waiting their turns.

  “Mmm,” Ellen said.

  The last servant had a much smaller pitcher, and when she emptied this, the smell of lavender filled the room.

  Ellen leaned over to put a hand in the water. “Feels just right,” she declared as the other servants filed out. “Princess?”

  “Um … ” Phleg wondered if she was supposed to wear her clothes into this indoor lake the servants had provided. It would save time if she washed both herself and the dress, but she had already suspected that this particular dress would be judged no longer fit for a princess.

  Ellen crooked her finger. Phleg approache
d and let the servant help her out of her clothes and into the warm, fragrant water. Ellen took charge of washing Phleg’s hair, which was a good thing because Phleg wouldn’t have known where to start with hair that long.

  Eventually both hair and body were scrubbed to Ellen’s satisfaction, and then it was time to get dressed. “Any particular gown?” Ellen asked, once all the variety of undergarments were in place.

  “Since I smell of lavender,” Phleg said, “why don’t I put on that lavender-colored dress?”

  “Very good, my lady,” Ellen said. “An excellent choice.”

  Phleg suspected she would have said that no matter which dress Phleg had chosen, so long as it wasn’t the one she had just come out of.

  Dressed and combed, she followed Ellen, who, surprisingly, led her outdoors into the garden, but not to the same section where she had spied on Fred and Telmund two days ago. The two queens sat in a shady clearing, at a table that was set with fruits and a variety of breads and jellies. Fred sat there, too, though his chair wasn’t pulled up to the table. He had his leg outstretched and supported by a stool.

  Phleg no longer thought his curly-like-a-sheep hair looked preposterous, and she was very happy to see him. “Fred!” Phleg cried. Then she hastily added, “… Rick!”

  “Princess Gabriella!” Fred held his hands out to her, which she took as a sign that she should go to him. Unexpectedly, he took both her hands, then kissed the backs of them, one after the other. “My champion,” he said to her, “my guardian angel.”

  “Now you’re just being silly,” she told him, but that couldn’t wipe the ridiculous grin off his face. Hers, either, she realized.

  One of the queens cleared her throat.

  Phleg turned and faced both queens. Which was she supposed to greet first? One was supposedly her mother, but the other was the queen of the kingdom her human family wanted to sign a treaty with, someone they wanted to impress. Besides, she felt guilty tricking Gabriella’s mother. So she took a step toward Fred’s mother, but in that instant saw the woman glance at the other queen. Fred’s mother gave a tiny shake of her head and an almost imperceptible flick of her hand, directing Phleg to the other queen first.

  “Mother,” Phleg said, though she still felt reprehensible for it.

  Gabriella’s mother held her hands out, much as Fred had done. But once Phleg placed her hands in the queen’s, the queen didn’t kiss them, just clasped them as though she never wanted to let go. But then she did let go, of one of them anyway, to caress Phleg’s face, all the while looking as though she couldn’t get enough of her. Could she tell? Phleg wondered. Could she see there was something wrong and that Phleg was not really her daughter? Was that what this examination was about?

  Phleg leaned in to distract her, to kiss her cheek. She was going to kiss both, the way Fred’s mother had kissed both her cheeks last night, but Gabriella’s mother had enough with one and threw her arms around Phleg’s neck and buried her face into the space between Phleg’s hair and shoulder.

  “It does smell nice, doesn’t it?” Phleg asked, afraid the queen was going to cry. “Ellen helped me wash it.”

  Gabriella’s mother laughed. She dabbed at her eyes but didn’t cry all out. She gave Phleg’s hand one final squeeze, then let go.

  Phleg turned to the other queen. She tried to remember how to curtsey, but bumped the table, so she probably got it wrong. “Um … hello, Queen.”

  She was going to just leave it at that, but the queen murmured, “Wilhelmina.”

  Since her name was supposed to be Gabriella, and there was nobody else around, Phleg deduced the woman was supplying her own name. “Hello, Queen Wilhelmina,” she said, trying another curtsey, which went better than the first.

  This queen held her hands out, too.

  Phleg had no idea what to expect, since everyone seemed to have a different way of greeting her.

  But Queen Wilhelmina just gave Phleg’s hands one affectionate squeeze, then she let go. “I am so pleased to see you,” she said. “Frederic has been full of stories about your bravery and your accomplishments.”

  “Well … ,” Phleg said with a friendly smile in Fred’s direction, “… don’t forget your son had a fever.”

  Queen Wilhelmina shook her head. “I am not so much interested in the specifics as in the fact that you stayed with him while he was injured, saw to his wounds, and brought him safely back to us. You are kind, and I very much appreciate that.”

  Nobody had ever called Phleg kind before. “Well … ,” she said. But she had no idea what to say next, and that eventually became obvious to everyone.

  Gabriella’s mother said, “Sit down. Eat. I’m afraid we’ve already started because the morning is so far gone.”

  Phleg sat down in the one remaining chair, the one closest to Fred.

  He blew kisses in her direction.

  Phleg looked at all the food and recalled the previous meal she’d had with Gabriella’s friend Amanda. They had quarreled, and Phleg had to admit to herself that it was probably because she had done something wrong, something to arouse the other girl’s suspicions. Not a clue what that could be, though. No doubt it was safest not to eat in front of the two queens and Fred … Well, she could probably stand on her head and recite poetry and she wouldn’t arouse Fred’s suspicions, but she had to be careful in front of the queens.

  “I’m not so much hungry,” she said. “But is there any more of that delicious milk?”

  Ellen, who had been waiting silently in the background, stepped forward to pour some milk into a cup for her.

  “This is just so good,” Phleg said, taking a big swallow.

  “What is it?” Fred asked Ellen.

  “Just milk,” Ellen told him, “with a little dab of honey.”

  Phleg, who was just turning from looking at the queens to looking at Fred, choked and coughed, spraying milk out of her mouth and onto queens, prince, and servant alike. “Honey?” she managed to gasp out between wheezing, close-to-retching coughs.

  “Yes?” Ellen asked warily.

  “Don’t you know what honey is?” Phleg demanded. “It’s bee spit!”

  Ellen and the two queens looked at Phleg as though there was something wrong with her.

  “Bee spit!” Phleg repeated, because she assumed they must not have understood. “Bees drink up nectar from flowers, then spit it out, then walk all over it, and live on it, and … and … That’s disgusting.”

  Fred started to laugh. “Well, so it is,” he admitted. “I never thought of it that way before. Gabriella, you are a wonder. Isn’t she a wonder, Mother? I love the unique way she has of looking at things. I love the way she says exactly what’s on her mind. Gabriella … ” He shook his head, but not in a bad way. “Gabriella, I am so pleased I’m betrothed to you, and not to some ordinary princess.”

  “No,” Phleg said, for he was not betrothed to her, he was betrothed to Gabriella.

  A new voice thundered. Leopold’s. No telling exactly when he and Gabriella’s father had entered the clearing, but they were there now. “No is the first sensible thing the girl has said. I appreciate that she brought our son home to us—though he wouldn’t have been lost in the first place but for her strange ways!” He turned to Gabriella’s father. “Humphrey, she will definitely not be marrying my son. Much as an alliance with you would have benefited us, the betrothal is off! Wilhelmina, find Telmund. Frederic, prepare to leave. Immediately!”

  We’ve been here before, Phleg thought. But this time there was no way Fred could run after her, even if she was able to escape the garden. Which she probably couldn’t, because King Humphrey was blocking her way and eyeing her warily.

  Perhaps Fred also was worried that she planned to start running, for he leaped to his feet, though a bit clumsily because of the wrappings around his leg.

  But Fred didn’t throw himself in Phleg’s path to keep her there. Instead, he faced his father. “I love Princess Gabriella,” he stated. “And I have every intention t
o marry her, as has been decreed by our alliance with her father.”

  Leopold’s face turned a shade of purple Phleg had never before seen on any being, human or fairy. “How dare you defy me?” he sputtered. “This girl has been nothing but a bad influence on you. I say you will not marry her!”

  His wife, Queen Wilhelmina, stood also. “Oh, Leopold,” she said, “stop being a bully.”

  “I am not a bully!” Leopold roared. “I am the king. And what I say goes. And what I say is this: If King Humphrey does not agree to dissolve this proposed union between his daughter and my son, I will consider this an act of unforgivable duplicity, and I will declare war!”

  King Humphrey’s face was going through some purpleness of its own. “How dare you? If my daughter wants to marry your son and you stand in the way of our formal agreement and her happiness, then I declare war on you!”

  Rather than sit around and worry—even though it probably would have been only Gabriella and Parf who worried, as Benlos seemed physically incapable of anything besides good cheer—the three of them decided to go outdoors and see if there were any animals who needed tending. Mumsy had already gone into the woods, putting Daisy in charge of the younger fairy children. By the sounds coming from the back rooms of the house, it seemed they were involved in some major construction or demolition work.

  Benlos was kind and gentle with their patients, but didn’t seem as naturally skilled at determining what ailed a creature as Parf was, unless it was obvious enough that even Gabriella could tell. On the other hand, Parf didn’t ask more of his father than to calm whatever animal they were treating. Instead, he kept asking Gabriella testing questions: “What do you think?” and “What would you do?” Whatever her answer, he would invariably find fault with it. Finally Gabriella stood up from the log she was sharing with Benlos and announced that she was going to switch places with Daisy.

  “Well, how do you ever expect to learn iffen you can’t take anything less than all-out admiration of your wonderfulness?” Parf asked. “Is that the way they do things back at your castle? Not ask you to do much of anything, and let you give up iffen the little they expect is beyond you?”