After a moment it said, almost to itself, “I don’t dare tell the dryad. Chirrrp!”
In the way of all good stories, there was another ball announced within the week. “So soon!” said Hannah’s stepmother. “I cannot get dresses fitted so quickly! Still—this is your chance to charm him again, my dears.”
“No strange girl is getting in my way!” vowed the eldest.
“I still wish I had that dress…” said the youngest wistfully. “Even just long enough to see how they sewed the sleeves. And my blisters haven’t healed yet.”
Hannah heard all of this because she was in the kitchen, checking her seed tray. The seeds atop the oven had sprouted twice as fast as the ones outside. “Warm dirt,” she muttered. “How do I keep the dirt warm?” She fisted her hands in her hair, not caring that there was earth on them.
The titmouse was on her the moment she stepped outdoors. “Another ball,” it said. “Here’s your chance. You can go and charm the prince—”
“Duke’s son.”
“Yes, him. You can charm him with your—um—graceful swaying—”
Hannah heaved a sigh. “You’re talking an awful lot for a temporarily enchanted bird.”
“It’s because I’m supposed to get you to the ball. I’m your fairy godbird. Apparently. Anyway, I’m getting used to it. Now, go to the tree after your sisters leave for the ball…”
Hannah sighed again. “I don’t have the least interest in the Duke’s son, you know.”
“I’m sure when your eyes meet, it’ll be magic.”
“I doubt it.”
The bird thought for a moment. “If you marry him, you’ll inherit an orangery.”
This gave Hannah pause. Her finger drifted to her lower lip. “Hmm…that’s a thought…”
“And someone else can do the weeding for you,” said the titmouse.
Hannah frowned. “Will they? But how will I know if they can be trusted? You have to be very careful with the ones with taproots, you know. And bindweed. You leave even a shred of bindweed in the ground and it’s all over.” She put her hands on her hips. “And come to think of it, are Duke’s son’s wives even allowed to garden? Don’t they make you wear white gloves and do deportment or something?”
The titmouse was forced to admit its ignorance of the doings of nobility. “I don’t know.”
“I shall check,” said Hannah forthrightly. “The servants will know. I’ll ask that nice servant girl about it tonight.”
“You will?” asked the bird.
“Yes. She’s bound to talk to me. I’ll give her another dress.”
The dress this time was the color of a summer sky and the mask was dusted with tiny crystals. The titmouse kept its grave reservations to itself. The dryad creaked approval as Hannah picked the bodice off the fence and went into the house.
The stepsisters returned an hour after they left. Their mother had a grim set to her lips.
“Where is she getting those dresses?” demanded the eldest.
“I wish I knew,” said the youngest. “I don’t even want to wear it. I haven’t the hips for the one she wore tonight. I just want to see how they fitted it together.” She chewed on her lip.
Hannah returned an hour later, carrying a sack. She dropped it in the shed and went inside, then returned a few minutes later carrying a lamp.
The titmouse, resigned to its duty, landed in front of the shed and squeezed in through a knothole.
Hannah bent over the potting bench, spilling out her sack. It contained dozens of little lengths of stem, some with bits of dirt at the bottom, some severed with a sharp knife.
“Dare I ask?’ said the titmouse.
“Cuttings,” said Hannah. She pulled out jars. “Willow water, willow water…ah, there we go!”
“Cuttings,” said the bird. “I might have known.”
“I think I can get most of these to root,” said Hannah. “The servant girl’s mother is an assistant gardener. She let me have free run of the gardens. Had to do it by moonlight, so some of these aren’t as clean as I’d like.”
The bird’s beak gaped in distress.
“And she gave me some nasturtium seeds,” added Hannah.
“And the Duke’s son?” the bird asked wearily.
“Useless,” said Hannah. “I asked. Apparently if you’re a Duchess, you don’t garden. You sit around and tell other people to garden for you. What’s the good of that?”
“Some people might like it.”
“If other people are doing the gardening, it’s not your garden. And they expect you to have heirs and such.”
“That’s the general way of things, yes.”
“Not gonna happen,” said Hannah, dunking a stem in water infused with willow chips. “And don’t tell me I’ll change my mind when I’m older.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said the titmouse. It devoted a few minutes to settling the feathers on one wing. “Well. This is a fine mess.”
Hannah shrugged. “The servant girl’s happy. Her name’s Kara, by the way. She knows how to dance, too. Apparently they practice in the servant’s hall. And she has quite good manners, which I don’t, and she’s soppy about the Duke’s son. Let her marry him.”
The bird was silent.
Hannah carefully shook out her seeds into various jars, and labeled them in her rough, scrawling hand.
“There’s going to be a third dress,” said the titmouse finally. “Dryads like things that come in threes.”
“Poison ivy comes in threes.”
“Magic’s similar. You don’t notice you’ve run into it, and then it itches you for weeks.”
“Well, I don’t have to go,” said Hannah. “I’ve seen the orangery and I’ve got all the cuttings I’ll ever need. And Kara’s got two dresses. She can wear the first one again.”
“You’ll have to take the dress, though,” warned the titmouse. “The dryad will get very upset otherwise.”
“She’s a tree,” said Hannah. “What’s she going to do, drop nuts on me?”
“For my sake?” asked the bird. “It’s her magic in my head, you know.”
“Oh!” Hannah looked contrite. “I’m sorry, bird, I didn’t know. Of course I’ll take the dress. I don’t want her to take it out on you.”
“She probably should,” said the bird mournfully. “I’ve made a hash of things.”
“No,” said Hannah. “You’ve been very helpful. I’ve been glad to talk to you.”
She held out her hand, and after a moment, the titmouse jumped onto her thumb. Its tiny feet scratched at her skin, and it seemed to weigh nothing at all.
The titmouse was an excellent prophet. Three days passed, and then another ball was announced. Hannah’s stepmother threw her hands in the air in despair.
“No,” said the youngest stepsister, with rare stubbornness. “I’m not going. My feet are completely raw. And he’s only going to look at that one girl anyway.”
“She can’t possibly have a new dress this time,” said Hannah’s stepmother.
“Then there’s even less reason to go,” said the youngest and locked herself in her room.
She stayed there for three hours, until Hannah tapped on her door. “Psst! Anabel!”
“Hannah?” She opened the door a crack. “Are they gone?”
“Long gone,” said Hannah cheerfully, “and I’ve got something you might like to see. Open the door, will you?”
Anabel opened the door, and there was her stepsister, with her arms full of fabric.
The youngest stepsister let out a long breath. “That’s a dress like that girl wore! But—but that’s not—you’re not—” She looked up, her eyes suddenly wide. “But you’re not her! She’s got totally different colored hair—”
“Ugh, no,” said Hannah. “What would I do at a ball? But I’ve been supplying the dresses. It’s—well, it’s complicated. But I thought you might want to look at this one.”
They laid the dress out on the bed. Hannah fidgeted while Ana
bel went over the seams, inch by inch, making appreciative noises, like “Will you look at what they did here?” and “Goodness, that’s very clever. I wouldn’t have thought to do that…”
“All wasted on me, I’m afraid,” said Hannah cheerfully. “Anyway, keep it hidden, will you? If your mother finds out, there’ll be questions, and I’ll deny everything.”
Anabel nodded. “I will,” she said, sounding much less vague. “I can make a pattern from this, I bet. Thank you, Hannah!”
And she flung her arms around her stepsister, heedless of the dirt on Hannah’s knees.
“You’re welcome,” said Hannah. “What are sisters for, after all?”
Long after midnight, Hannah’s stepmother came home with her oldest daughter. Her eyes were bright—not with triumph, but with gossip.
“You will not believe what happened!” she crowed when Anabel came down to meet them. “It was—oh my, what a thing! You missed it!”
Anabel put the kettle on. Hannah came from her small room by the back door. Hannah’s stepmother was in far too good a humor to protest. A story like this needed to be shared with as many people as possible. She would have rousted the neighbors if it hadn’t been nearly dawn.
“The girl came back,” said Hannah’s stepmother. “In the same dress she wore the first time—”
Hannah’s younger stepsister handed her a mug of tea, and they shared a secret smile.
“Not that the Duke’s son noticed,” grumbled the older stepsister. “Boys never notice clothes unless your neckline is halfway to your waist.”
“Don’t be vulgar, dear,” said her mother. “But yes, she was wearing the first dress. And they danced and then at midnight there was an unmasking—you know how it is with these costume balls, everybody knows who everybody is, but you have to do the unmasking—”
“And she’s been slipping out beforehand, apparently, so she never did unmask—”
“But this time the Duke’s son was watching her like a hawk, and she had to actually run away—”
“—but she left a shoe! A shoe on the ground!” finished the older stepsister triumphantly.
“And he’s snatched it up and is guarding it like it was the crown jewels,” said her mother. She grinned wickedly. “Never realized he was quite so into shoes, but the way he was caressing it—well, you wonder a bit.”
“What do you wonder about?” asked Hannah, who had been silent up until now.
There was a pause. The atmosphere in the kitchen, which had been cozy, started to cool—but her stepmother thawed, mellowed by the hot tea and the gossip. “Feet,” she said bluntly. “Some men like a lady’s feet. More than the rest of the lady. Fancy shoes are as good as ball gowns to them.”
Hannah blinked. Then she thought of her own large, stomping, mud-caked boots and relaxed. Surely there was no chance of such boots becoming objects of desire.
“Then I never had the least chance,” said Anabel, sounding decidedly cheerful. “A man who is into feet is not going to be interested in my blisters.”
Hannah took her cup of tea back to her room. She hoped Kara was all right. Of course the shoe would have come off—it was too large for her. Probably the cotton had come loose. Oh, dear.
She fell asleep wondering what the Duke’s son was planning to do with the dryad’s shoe.
Not long after breakfast, the question was answered. It was market day, and Hannah was delivering honey to Silas, when there was a commotion in the middle of the square.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” called a man in the Duke’s livery. “Hear ye! By order of the Duke, all young ladies are ordered to gather at their homes, to await the Duke’s pleasure!”
Heads snapped up all over the market. Silas muttered something about droit de seigneur and reached under his bench for a cudgel.
“We’re not going back to those days!” cried the cheesemonger, who had three daughters.
“And the Duke couldn’t get it up anyway!” shouted the herb-wife. “Although if he wants to try some of my teas—”
“No!” said the herald. “No, you didn’t let me finish! It’s not like that! Nobody’s droiting anybody’s seigneur! And he doesn’t need any tea!”
“Guaranteed to put fire back in an old man’s belly!” cried the herb-wife, sensing a marketing opportunity.
“The Duke’s son is seeking a mysterious woman!”
“I’ve got three,” said the cheesemonger, suddenly interested.
“A specific mysterious woman!”
“Nuts.”
“All girls of marriageable age in the village are required to present their left foot to try on a shoe!”
There was dead silence in the market.
Silas leaned over and murmured, “I always thought there was something a little peculiar about the Duke’s son…”
“I’m sure he’s very nice,” said Hannah weakly, and slipped away.
Word spread quickly through the village. It was garbled at first, but the details rapidly filtered out. The Duke’s son was coming. He had a shoe. Everyone had to try it on. The girl whose foot fit the shoe was the one whom he would marry.
“Oh, hell,” said Hannah, staring down at her mud-caked boots. She wiggled her toes grimly.
The shoe was going to fit. The shoe was made to fit. That meant she was going to marry a Duke’s son, and that meant no more gardening and no more beekeeping and instead graceful swaying and the producing of heirs—
“No,” said Hannah furiously. The bees swarmed around her, buzzing like a tiny army. “No. Bird! Bird!”
“Eh?” The tufted titmouse landed on the fence. “What?”
“The Duke’s son is coming,” said Hannah grimly. “With a shoe to try on. You have to go get Kara. She has to be here to try it on.”
The titmouse opened its beak to argue.
Hannah leaned in close. Her large human eyes met the titmouse’s own small, dark ones.
She glared.
“Right-o,” said the bird. “The dryad won’t like it—”
“I’ll take an axe to the dryad if I have to marry a Duke.”
“Kara, you say?” The bird saluted and winged away over the garden.
Hannah exhaled through her nose and settled in to wait.
The shoe, when finally presented at Hannah’s household, was much the worse for wear.
It had stains on it. One embroidered rose flapped forlornly. It had been tried on several dozen times and was looking stretched and shapeless.
It was still far too small for Anabel, who took one look at it and began laughing. “Oh, no,” she said. “I’d have to hack my toes off. Will you look at these blisters?”
She wiggled her bare toes. The Duke’s herald averted his eyes. Hannah’s stepmother put her hand on Anabel’s shoulder and murmured, “Not in front of the Duke’s son, dear.”
Hannah lurked behind the shed, watching the road for Kara.
“She has to get here on time,” muttered Hannah. “She has to. I won’t marry him.”
The oldest stepsister tried on the shoe to no avail. The embroidered rose dangled by a single thread.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” said the herald, turning away.
“Hang on,” said Anabel. “There’s still Hannah.”
“Hannah was not the mysterious girl,” said her mother blightingly.
“She might be.” Anabel set her jaw stubbornly. “She ought to get to try, anyway.”
Her intentions were good, but Hannah could have stuffed her headfirst into a beehive when the whole Ducal procession proceeded into the garden.
“Not there!” she cried, jerking her eyes from the road. “Don’t step there! That’s where the poppies are sown, and you can’t compress the soil, or—oh, bother.”
“It’s ‘Oh bother, your lordship,’” said the herald.
His lordship stepped off the poppies and looked contrite.
“If you could just try on this shoe,” said the herald, looking at Hannah’s muddy boots with contempt. “Then we
’ll get out of your flowerbeds.”
“I’d rather not,” said Hannah, eyeing the shoe. “It looks…used.”
“Duke’s orders,” said the herald crisply.
Hannah sat down and began unlacing her boot as slowly as possible. Where was that titmouse?
She pulled the boot off. The Duke’s son was chased by a bee and began waving his hands frantically.
“You’ll only get stung if you do that,” said Hannah, much annoyed. She would not marry him, that was all there was to it. She spread her toes in an effort to make her foot seem wider.
The herald extended the shoe.
Her toes slid inside. She flexed her foot, hard, and said “Look, it doesn’t fit at all. Much too…err…”
There was a chirp and a whisper of wings on her shoulder.
The garden gate slammed open.
“Wait!” cried Kara. “Let me try that shoe!”
All eyes turned to her. Hannah took advantage of the pause to yank her foot out of the shoe and cram it back into her boot.
The Duke’s son’s head jerked up.
“That voice,” he said. “I know that voice!”
He snatched the shoe away from the herald and dropped to his knees, heedless of the mud. “Kara? Is it you?”
“It is!” she said, and stuck her foot in the shoe.
It was much too big and hung like a rag around her foot. The Duke’s son stared at it in dismay.
“It got stretched out,” said Hannah hurriedly. “Because my feet are so big. Tore the stitches, I imagine. Or the seams, or whatever they are. It’s definitely her. Ask her a question only she would know.”
“What did I say to you, during the first dance?” asked the Duke’s son.
Kara leaned forward and whispered something into his ear.
The Duke’s son’s face lit up and he flung the shoe aside.
A moment later, he had swept the servant girl up in his arms and was striding toward the gate, while she laughed aloud in delight. The herald squawked and ran after them.
Hannah let out a long sigh of relief.
“Could’ve been you,” said the titmouse on her shoulder.
“God forbid,” said Hannah. “All I want is my own garden and my own bees. And perhaps to work out a cheaper method of under-floor heating.”
Jackalope Wives And Other Stories Page 12
