How did the boy know Martin? And Nero?
Isabelle forced her eyes open. Slowly they focused on the boy’s face. Now she knew why his eyes had looked familiar. Why she wondered if she’d seen him before. She had. Every day of her childhood. Climbing trees. Dueling with mops. Playing pirates.
She still saw him every night in her dreams.
“Blackbeard,” she whispered.
“Anne Bonny,” the boy said with a bow. And the softest, saddest of smiles.
“It’s been a long time, Pirate Queen.”
Isabelle didn’t trust herself to speak. She wasn’t sure what would come out of her mouth. She just nodded as best she could, given that she was lying flat on her back.
He’s older, she thought. Taller. He has cheekbones now and stubble on his jaw. His voice is deeper, but his eyes are exactly the same, that faded indigo blue. Artist’s eyes. Dreamer’s eyes.
She longed to reach up and touch the face she knew so well, to run her fingers over the edge of his jaw, his lips. To ask how he got the tiny scar above his right cheekbone.
“Felix,” she said, sitting up.
“Isabelle.”
“It’s so … um …” She cast about for a word. “… wonderful to see you again.”
Felix gave her a worried look. “Maybe you shouldn’t get up. I saw the fall. You hit your head. Can you see straight?”
“I’m fine,” Isabelle said, standing up. Then she yelped. Pain, sharp and hot, shot up her leg as she put her weight on her bad foot.
“I think you should sit,” Felix said, his eyes on her foot.
Isabelle followed his gaze. Her white stocking had a bloom of red on it. The pain from the fall had been so intense, she hadn’t even realized she was bleeding. Felix took her hand and the warmth of his touch, the feeling of his skin against hers, made her feel woozy all over again.
He led her to a stone bench under a tree. She sat, glancing around for Martin. He was munching grass in the shade, his reins looped over his neck.
“He has a few scratches on his nose. Nothing terrible,” Felix said.
“Thanks. I’m fine now. I won’t keep you,” Isabelle said, forcing a smile. “You have a stage to build.”
“I do. And the marquis wants it done quickly. He’s paying us—my master and me—well for it.”
“Your master?”
“Master Jourdan. The carpenter in Saint-Michel. He hired me a month ago.”
Isabelle digested this. Felix was back in Saint-Michel. She didn’t know if she should be happy about that, excited, furious, or all of the above.
“So you’re a carpenter now,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. Instead, she sounded ridiculous. He’s sawing boards and hammering them together, for God’s sake! she chided herself. What else would he be?
Felix nodded. “I learned the trade working for other carpenters. In other villages.”
“You were always carving, I remember that. You wanted to be a sculptor. Like Michelangelo.”
“I wanted a lot of things,” Felix said quietly, looking down at his scarred, work-roughened hands.
An uncomfortable silence descended. Isabelle longed to break it. She longed to shout at him, to tell him she wanted things, too. To ask him why he lied to her. But pride prevented it.
Felix looked up. His eyes met hers. They drifted down to her bloodstained stocking.
“I heard about it,” he said. “All of it. The prince. Ella. The glass slipper.”
Isabelle looked up. The bird that had spooked Martin was perched on a branch above them. “You know, I’ve never seen a raven that big,” she said, trying to change the subject.
Felix glanced at the bird; then his gaze settled on her again. “Why did you do it? Why did you hack off half of your foot?”
Isabelle blanched. “Ever hear of something called small talk, Felix?”
“I never made small talk with you. I’m not going to start now. Why did you do it?”
Isabelle didn’t want to talk about it. Not with him. But Felix was not going to let it go.
“Isabelle, I asked you—”
“I heard you,” Isabelle snapped. She felt cornered.
“Then why?”
Because you left. And took everything with you, she thought. My dreams. My hopes. My happiness.
But she couldn’t admit that to him; she could barely admit it to herself. “To get something—someone—I was supposed to want,” she finally said.
Felix winced. “You did that to yourself for someone you were supposed to want?”
“You know what Maman is like. I couldn’t fight anymore. Not after I’d lost all the things I lov—” She bit the word off. “Not after I’d lost all the things that were important to me. Not after I became an ugly stepsister.”
“Ugly? Where did that come from? I never thought you were ugly,” said Felix. “I liked your laugh. And your eyes. I liked your hair, too. I still do. It’s russet. Like a red squirrel.”
“I have hair like a squirrel?” Isabelle said in disbelief. “Is that your idea of a compliment?”
“I love squirrels,” Felix said with a shrug. “They’re scrappy. And smart. And beautiful.”
With that, he put his bag down again and knelt by Isabelle. Then he lifted the hem of her skirt and pulled her stocking off.
“Hey!” she cried. “What are you doing?”
Felix held her heel in his hand. “My God,” he said, his voice catching.
Isabelle was horrified. The scar was livid and raw; part of it was split open and dripping blood. She tried to pull free of his grip, but he was too strong.
“Let go!” she cried, trying to cover her foot with her skirt.
“It’s bleeding. I have bandages and medicine. I’m always cutting myself.”
“I don’t care!”
“Let me fix it.”
“No!”
“Why?”
“Because … because it’s mortifying!”
Felix sat back on his haunches. “I’ve seen your feet before, Isabelle,” he said gently. “We used to wade in the stream together. Remember?”
Isabelle clenched her fists. It wasn’t embarrassment over her bare feet that was bothering her. It was that Felix saw more than her feet; he saw inside of her. He’d always been able to do that. And she felt scaldingly vulnerable under his gaze.
“Just let go!”
“No. You got dirt in the wound,” Felix said, setting her heel down. “If we don’t do something, it’ll get infected. And then you’ll have to cut off your entire leg. I don’t think even you could manage that.”
Isabelle slumped down, defeated. She’d forgotten how stubborn he could be. Felix walked to a nearby tree and picked up the leather satchel and canteen of water that were lying at the base of it, then carried them back to Isabelle.
He opened the canteen and doused the wound. Then he unbuckled his satchel and dumped out its contents. Chisels came spilling out. Pencils. Carving knives. A rasp. Rulers.
And a tiny soldier, about two inches high.
Isabelle picked it up. “Did you make this?” she asked, glad to have something to talk about other than the mess she’d made of her foot. And her life.
“I carve them in my room at night,” Felix said. “I’ve made a small army complete with rifle companies, fusiliers, grenadiers, their commanders … It’s almost complete. I just have a few officers to carve.”
“What are you going to do with them all?” Isabelle asked.
“Sell them. To a nobleman for his sons to play with. A wealthy banker or merchant. Whoever can pay my price.”
Isabelle regarded the little soldier closely. “He’s incredible, Felix,” she marveled. Beautifully carved and intricately painted, he was so lifelike that she could see the buttons on his coat, the trigger on his rifle, and the determination in his eyes.
“It makes a change from building coffins,” Felix said ruefully. “I sometimes think we’ll need to cut down every tree in France to make enough to bury
all the dead.”
Isabelle put the soldier down. “Is it that bad?” she asked quietly.
Felix nodded.
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“I don’t know, Isabelle.”
Some boys would have told her a happy story about how the king’s forces would win, of course they would, so as not to upset her feminine sensibilities. Not Felix. He had never sugarcoated things. She’d always loved that about him.
At least that hasn’t changed between us, she thought wistfully. Even if everything else has.
He continued to sift through his things until he finally found what he was after—a folded wad of clean linen strips and a small glass vial. He tipped a few drops of the vial’s contents onto Isabelle’s wound. It burned. She howled. He paid her no attention and carefully bandaged the wound.
“You’re welcome,” he said when he’d finished. Then he pulled the boot and stocking off her other foot.
“Felix,” Isabelle said. “You can’t just go around peeling girls’ stockings off. It’s inappropriate.”
Felix snorted. “Feet don’t do much for me. Especially sweaty ones. And anyway, I don’t go around peeling girls’ stockings off. Only yours.”
He pulled her legs straight and placed her feet together, side by side, heels on the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“Maybe something, maybe nothing,” he said, taking measurements, then jotting them down on a scrap of paper with a nub of pencil.
When he was done, he put her stockings and boots back on. Then he stood and said that the marquis was a kind employer but an impatient one, and that he’d better get back to work. Isabelle stood, too, and convinced him that she was fine to ride home. Together they walked over to Martin.
“Hello, you old bastard. Miss me?” Felix said to the horse.
Martin lifted his head. Pricked up his ears. And bit him. Felix laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, patting the horse’s neck.
Isabelle noticed that his eyes had become shiny. Old horses still make him cry. That hasn’t changed, either, she thought. Or made it any easier to hate him.
She climbed into her saddle once again and took up Martin’s reins. “Thank you, Felix. For fixing me up,” she said.
Felix, scratching Martin’s ears now, didn’t respond right away. “Loved,” he said at length.
“What?” Isabelle asked, sliding her feet into her stirrups.
“Earlier, you said, Not after I’d lost all the things that were important to me. But you were going to say, Not after I’d lost all the things I loved.”
“What if I did?” Isabelle asked warily. “What does it matter?”
“It matters because once I thought …” His eyes found hers. “That I was one of those things.”
And suddenly, Isabelle lost the small amount of composure she’d been struggling so hard to hold on to. How dare he, after what he’d done.
“And people say I’m heartless? You’re cruel, Felix!” she shouted, her voice cracking with anger.
“Me?” Felix said. “But I didn’t—”
“No, you didn’t. And that’s where the trouble started. Good-bye, Felix. Yet again.”
Isabelle turned Martin around and touched her heels to his side. Martin must’ve sensed her upset, for he obeyed her command immediately and launched into a canter. They were across the clearing in no time.
Isabelle rode away without once looking back.
Just as Felix had.
In the Wildwood, Fate bent down to a patch of mushrooms, slender-stalked and ghostly in the pale light of a crescent moon.
She plucked a plump one. “Amanita virosa, the destroying angel. Horribly poisonous, Losca,” she said, handing it to her servant. “And essential when making any ink with a greenish hue such as Jealousy, Envy, or Spite.”
Fate had brought some inks with her from her palazzo, and she’d been making more, but she needed to get Isabelle’s map back in her clutches before she could use them. Getting Isabelle in my clutches would be helpful, too, she thought. How can I convince her of the folly of struggling against her fate when I never even see her? Chance had contrived to meet the girl twice already. Fate knew she needed to pull Isabelle firmly into her orbit, but how?
“Making ink tonight? Even though you don’t have a map?” said a voice from the darkness.
Losca squawked with fright. Fate, not so easily startled, turned around. “Chance?” she called, peering into the shadows.
There was a whoosh, and then a brilliant, blazing light. Three flaming torches illuminated Chance, his magician, and his cook.
“How uncharacteristically optimistic of you,” Chance said baitingly.
Fate gave a contemptuous laugh. “How does the skull look? The one on Isabelle’s map? Has it grown any lighter?”
Chance glowered.
“I didn’t think so.”
“I’m winning,” Chance said, jutting his chin. “I’ve given her one piece of her heart back. The boy loves her and she loves him. Love has altered the course of many lives.”
“I hear that meeting didn’t go quite to plan,” said Fate, with a coiled smile. “I hear they didn’t exactly fall back into each other’s arms.”
“Next time I see that raven, I’m going to shoot it,” Chance growled, casting a menacing glance at Losca.
“You’ve won a battle, not the war,” said Fate dismissively. “It’s easy to love the lovable. Can Isabelle love when it hurts? When its costs? When the price of love may be her life?”
“Mortals aren’t born strong, they become strong. Isabelle will, too.”
“You are many things,” said Fate, shaking her head. “Most of all, you are ruthless.”
“And you are dreary, madame,” Chance said hotly. “So dreary, you’d have everyone in bed at eight with a cup of hot milk and a plate of madeleines. Can’t you see that the courage to risk, to dare, to toss that gold coin up in the air over and over again, win or lose, is what makes humans human? They are fragile, doomed creatures, blinder than worms yet braver than the gods.”
“Challenging the Fates is hard. Eating madeleines is easy. Most mortals choose the madeleines. Isabelle will, too,” Fate said.
As she spoke, the moon disappeared behind a cloud.
“It’s getting late. Past midnight already,” Fate said. “There are dangerous creatures afoot in the woods at this hour, and I and my maid must return to the safety of Madame LeBenêt’s farm.”
Fate’s shawl had settled in the crooks of her arms; she drew it up around her shoulders. Her gray eyes came to rest on the three burning flames held aloft by Chance and his friends. Suddenly, she smiled.
“It’s so dark without the moon. So hard to find one’s way. Might I beg a torch from you?” she asked.
Chance hesitated.
“Come, now,” Fate chided. “Surely you wouldn’t deny an old woman the means to light her way home?”
Chance nodded and the magician handed her torch to Fate.
“Good night, Marquis,” Fate said. “And thank you.”
Chance watched her as she started off, her torch held out in front of her, her maid scurrying behind her. He could not see her face, nor hear her voice as she walked away. Had he, he might’ve realized how foolish he’d been.
“Yes, there are dangerous creatures afoot tonight, Losca,” Fate said to her servant. “And none more dangerous than I.”
The drunken man swayed back and forth as violently as if he’d been standing aboard a small boat in rough seas.
The bottle of wine he’d guzzled, the one that had made him feel so happy only an hour ago, now sloshed around like bilge inside him.
It was somebody’s fault, what had happened to him. It had to be. He wasn’t quite sure whose, but he would find out and then that somebody would pay.
He’d lost his job that day. For stealing from his employer. And then he’d gotten drunk on borrowed coins and had staggered home. His wife had thrown him out of the house
after he’d told her there was no money left to feed their children. “Go to hell!” she shouted at him. And now here he was, stumbling down a lonely road in the dead of night, halfway there already.
But wait … what was this? People? They were jeering, yelling. They were throwing handfuls of mud. At what?
The drunken man hurried closer on his unsteady legs and saw that it was a house—no, a mansion. The moon had come out from behind a cloud, and the drunken man could see that it was shuttered and dark.
“What are you doing?” he asked a boy, short and loutish, with small eyes and bad teeth.
“The ugly stepsisters live here,” the boy replied, as if that was the only explanation needed. Then he picked up a rock and lobbed it at the front door.
The ugly stepsisters! The drunken man had heard of them. He knew their story. What nerve they have, he thought. Being mean when girls are supposed to be pleasant. Being ugly when girls are supposed to be pretty. It was an insult. To him! To the village! To all of France!
“Avenge it,” whispered a voice from behind him.
He whirled around, lost his balance, and fell on his face. It took him a few tries to get up, but when he was finally on his feet again, he saw who’d spoken—a kindly old woman, dressed in black, with a basket over her arm and a raven on her shoulder. She was holding a torch.
“What did you say, grandmother?” he asked her.
“Here you are out on the street, penniless and alone. And there they are in a big, comfortable mansion. Each one a shrew, just like your wife. How they shame you, these women. You should avenge their insolence.”
The drunken man turned her words over in his head. A light, dull but dangerous, filled his bloodshot eyes. “Yes. Yes, I will. This instant!” he said, thrusting a finger into the air. But then the finger sank down again, little by little, until it hung limply at his side. “But how?”
“You look like a clever fellow,” the old woman said.
“Oh, I am, grandmother, I am,” he agreed. “You won’t find any man more cleverer than me.”
The old woman smiled. “I know you’ll find a way,” she said.
Stepsister Page 13
