As much as I love my brothers, I hadn’t expected to miss them after only a week. I could picture them all clearly, sitting around our worn kitchen table or gathered around the fireplace. I wondered if they were thinking of me. Perhaps they were talking of me or my mother was retelling her favorite story—my birth.
My birth had been unspectacular, although I was instantly pronounced beautiful. This was despite the fact that I imagine I was born, like most babies, looking thoroughly displeased with the process of birth. I think my alleged beauty had a lot more to do with my being a girl than my physical appearance. It seems that after four boys this was a delightful change. Some people think that being both the baby and the only girl I must have led a spoiled life. I can only say those people clearly do not have four brothers.
Apparently, I was only an hour old when I received my first brotherly poke. Now a poke may not seem like much to you, but I’m told I didn’t appreciate it then (after all, I’d just been through a very traumatic experience), and I still don’t appreciate it now.
My brothers weren’t intentionally cruel, but they just could not understand that their endless pinches, pokes, and slaps truly hurt me. They would leave my arms, legs, and sides throbbing for hours. I had accepted early on that I was more physically sensitive than others, and that my pain threshold was very low, but my brothers couldn’t seem to accept it.
I quickly learned that outsmarting them was my only hope of living pain free. That, or keeping them too entertained to think of harassing me. That’s what got me started on story-telling. I figured if Scheherazade could keep her head attached to her shoulders with her stories, I could at least keep myself free from poking.
Stories were the constant under-current of village life, and I discovered at a young age that I had a knack for giving old stories a new twist. And even for coming up with new ones altogether. If I carefully chose the stories I invented for my brothers, who can blame me? And if the stories tended toward the ‘young man is polite to unlikely person who turns out to be a godmother and goes on to help him marry a rich and beautiful princess’ type, then all the better. My stories were more likely to involve a hedgehog princess than a frog prince, but they still ended in true love and happily ever after, as all good stories should. And if the hedgehog fell in love with a simple woodcutter after observing how lovingly he treated his mother and sisters, who could blame me?
My parents approved of my storytelling because they approved of anything that kept us sitting still in a house that wasn’t big enough for the rough and tumble of four large boys. Winter nights could be very long, and while they may have secretly agreed that I needed a little toughening up—after all, woodcutting is hardly a trade for weaklings—they very quickly lost patience with my brothers’ preferred methods.
Thinking of those warm winter evenings and imagining my family sitting around the fire threw my current miserable situation into stark relief.
That’s it Alyssa! I thought sternly. No more messing around trying to find the camp. The woods are crisscrossed with roads. Pick a direction and start walking, once you find a road you only have to follow it, and eventually you’ll find some sort of shelter.
By now, more and more drops were making it through the canopy, so I started moving at a sort of shuffling jog, trying to cover as much ground as possible while not ending up flat on my face in the dark.
It was hard to tell how much time had passed, but I thought it must have been nearly an hour, and I still hadn’t found a road. Luckily the ground was fairly flat—I had good stamina as long I wasn’t going uphill. I had also stayed warm for the first half of my walk thanks to my movement and my warm cloak. The cloak had been a farewell gift from my mother and was the most beautiful thing I had ever owned. It had been a wedding present, put away in a cupboard as too fine for everyday use. It was much better quality than any of my other clothes.
But the rain now crashed through the trees, and I was thoroughly drenched, shivering violently and with an ache in my eyes and head from the constant strain of trying to see through the darkness.
I had been talking fairly sternly to myself the whole way but was still feeling uncomfortably close to desperation when I finally saw the light. It was just a flicker, swallowed up by the trees almost immediately, but I changed direction to veer toward it anyway. ‘Any port in a storm’ they say, and this was rapidly becoming a very bad storm. The wind was picking up, and I could hear branches creaking in the most ominous manner possible. The thought of a branch, or even a tree, falling and pinning me underneath it—leaving me trapped and in pain for endless hours—made me swallow back a sob and start to move faster.
After only a minute I saw the light again, and this time it steadied, beckoning me forward. Now that I could see somewhat, I began to run, and I found that the trees ended just ahead of me. I had soon run out from under the leaves and begun crossing a large garden, the rain almost blinding me with its force. I could spare only a quick glance upwards to see what I was running toward, my attention focused on my feet in an attempt not to slip and fall. I approached a stone building, far larger than any I had seen before, but it was hard to make out any details through the rain.
Sheltered as I had been in my village, I still knew there was only one building this could be. The royal Winter Castle. Normally I wouldn’t have dreamed of approaching it, but now I didn’t even hesitate as I ran toward the large wooden front doors. When I reached them, I lifted the heavy bronze door knocker and gave several hard knocks against the door.
Read on in The Princess Companion: A Retelling of The Princess and the Pea
Acknowledgments
This novella was largely written during an extended family holiday, so the first thanks go to the many family members who put up with my unsocial and hermit-like ways!
And in particular, of course, thanks to Marc and Adeline who supported my un-holidayesque behavior. Buckets of your patience goes into every book I write, and I appreciate it every time.
On this occasion, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to finish the first draft if it hadn’t been for the support of Diana Peterfreund. Thanks for coming online at just the right times and suggesting we sprint!
A big thank you also to my early readers, Rachel, Ber, Priya, and Katie. Thanks for being just as interested in this book—number six in a series you hadn’t read—as in my normal series. You guys rock.
I’ve never been involved in a joint project like this before, and it was a lot of fun building a shared world. Especially since I have such an amazing and lovely group of authors to help make everything easier. Thank you Kitty, Brit, Shari, Kenley, and Aya for basically just being completely awesome. (As well as gracious, enthusiastic, funny, and talented, of course!)
And the final thanks goes to God, who keeps me going when I feel like I’m running on empty.
About the Author
Melanie Cellier grew up on a staple diet of books, books, and more books. And although she got older she never stopped loving children’s and young adult novels. She always wanted to write one herself, but it took three careers and three different continents before she actually managed it.
She now feels incredibly fortunate to spend her time writing from her home in Adelaide, Australia where she keeps an eye out for koalas in the backyard. Her staple diet hasn’t changed much, although she’s added choc mint rooibos tea and Chicken Crimpies to the list.
Her young adult Four Kingdoms and Beyond the Four Kingdoms series are made up of linked stand-alone stories that retell classic fairy tales.
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An Inconvenient Princess Page 17
