The Stepsister's Tale

by Tracy Barrett

  The prince snorted, but without humor. “Do not insult me, Madam. But just to make sure you understand—” He gestured to one of the men, who dismounted and removed a box from his horse’s saddlebag. The servant knelt, holding the box up to the prince, who snapped, “Don’t be stupid, man! How can I reach it from horseback? Do it yourself.”

  The man flinched. “The prince orders—er, commands,” he said, stumbling as though reciting a hastily learned piece, “that each unmarried lady of the land attempt to place this shoe upon her foot.” He opened the box, and Isabella’s glass-covered slipper glinted at them. “Each lady upon whose foot the shoe fits will be called to the palace, where the prince will choose his br— from among them his bride. Sit.” He pointed at a step. “Put out your left foot,” he ordered Maude. She obliged, her face a study in misery and fear. Although her foot was cleaner than usual, due to the scrubbing before the ball, there was no disguising its length or the calluses worn by going barefoot. The man looked up at the prince.

  “Put it on,” said the prince.

  “But, Your Majesty—” the man protested.

  “I said, put it on!” The prince slashed his riding crop down against the man’s neck. The man winced but set his teeth in silence. He yanked the slipper over Maude’s toes. It dangled far short of her heel. Her foot could no more fit in the shoe than Sal could fit in Mouse’s harness.

  “Why don’t you cut off your heel, girl?” the prince jeered, and he pulled a dagger from his belt. “It’s not too high a price to pay for marrying a prince, is it?” Maude shrank back and shook her head violently. The prince turned to Jane. “What about you? Will you cut off some of your toes?” He tossed the dagger from one hand to the other as his horse restlessly shifted its weight. Jane swallowed hard, and she, too, shook her head without speaking.

  “What, nobody wants to be my bride?” The prince laughed and resheathed the dagger.

  Jane was disoriented from her sleepless night, and fear battled for dominance with despair. She tried to pull herself erect, telling herself again, You are a Halsey. It still didn’t help. Mamma gripped her shoulder, and that gave her strength.

  Now the prince’s expression changed from a scowl to something indefinable. He looks like a snake, Jane thought. Or a fish. Something with no feelings. “Where’s the other one?” His voice was hard.

  “The other one?” Mamma’s tone matched his.

  “You know who I mean. Your poor little abused stepdaughter.”

  Mamma didn’t answer.

  The prince narrowed his eyes. “In the house, is she? Have you imprisoned her? Or is she busy drudging?” He jumped down off his horse and tossed the reins to one of the mounted soldiers. He strode through the door, barking, “Come,” at the man holding the shoe, who followed him at a trot. Jane and Maude ran after them and nearly collided with the prince in the entrance to the South Parlor. He stood as still as an oak tree, looking in and blocking the doorway. Jane and Maude exchanged glances, and then with one accord, they ran out the way they had come in. They sped to the rear of the house, through the kitchen door and then the dining room, and from there to the back entrance to the South Parlor.

  What they saw was familiar enough to the two girls, but would certainly look strange to anyone else. Isabella had put on her old rags. She had poured the cooking water onto the few embers that remained in the fireplace and now sat on the hearth, running her fingers through the wet cinders. She shot Jane and Maude a warning glance, not stopping her play with the ashes. Half under her breath, she sang the melody the orchestra had played while she’d danced with the prince only a few hours before.

  Isabella lifted her head and appeared to notice the men in the doorway for the first time. She jumped up and threw her arms wide. “My prince!” she exclaimed, and ran to embrace him. He shrank backward, and one of his men stepped between them with his sword drawn. Indeed, she was a disturbing sight: her bare feet were blistered and bruised, she wore soot-stained rags, her hair tumbled around her neck, and gray-and-black streaks marked her face and arms.

  Isabella stopped short. “Do you not know me?” He didn’t answer and looked at her warily. “But I am your princess, my lord. The lady you danced with last night. Do you not remember?” She hummed the dance tune more loudly and swayed back and forth, her arms outstretched to hold an invisible partner.

  The manservant stepped forward. “Shall I try the slipper on her, Your Majesty?”

  The prince looked at the man and appeared to reflect. “The slipper? Yes, I suppose so.” Then to Isabella, “Have your stepmother and stepsisters done this to you?”

  “Done what, my lord?” Isabella giggled and extended her small foot to the servant. The prince shook his head without answering. The shoe slid on as though it had been made for her, as of course it had. She looked even odder now with that one shoe sparkling under her torn dress. The prince looked at it and then at Isabella’s soot-marked face, her red eyes, her wild hair. He hesitated.

  In the silence, Jane stepped forward. “Since you were interested in my stepsister’s estate,” she said to the prince, “you may also be interested in this.” She indicated the cedar box on the table and held her breath.

  The prince gestured to one of his men, who opened the box and pulled out the letter Mamma had received from Lady Mathilde. He glanced at it and then muttered something in the prince’s ear. “Yes, yes, go ahead,” the prince said impatiently.

  A small noise outdoors caught Jane’s attention. It sounded like—yes, it was a few notes of a song. It had to be one of the people of the woods. She wished she knew what they were saying. There it was again, closer now, and this time she recognized the voice. Will. What was he doing out there? Then she heard the sound of feet—many feet—moving over the gravel of the drive, up the broken steps, and through the outer hall. Carefully, cautiously, Jane edged to the door and allowed her eyes to swivel toward the hall.

  Faces, bodies, hands holding axes, mallets, shovels, picks—people with grim expressions silently crowded the hall. Will and his father were in the front. Behind them stood Ralph next to Hannah Herb-Woman, who was gripping a sickle, her red hair tied back, her freckled face set in a stony expression. Even the old woman who had shared the Foresters’ wagon the day of the fair was there, a wooden mallet in her wrinkled hand, her face set in grim determination.

  And they were moving, slowly and so quietly that if there had been only one or two—or even ten—of them, Jane knew she never would have heard their footfalls. It was only the sheer number that brought their sound to her ears.

  No one else in the South Parlor seemed to have noticed. All eyes except hers were on the king’s man, who whispered again in the prince’s ear. The prince flinched, and he hissed something at the man, who backed away hastily.

  The prince turned to Isabella. “You lied to me.” His eyes narrowed. “That day, when we came here hunting, you lied.”

  “I lied?” she asked with a gasp. “Oh, no, my prince, I would never lie to you!” Jane marveled at the lightness of her tone. Wasn’t Isabella afraid? Then she saw how the girl’s hands, clasped behind her back, were trembling.

  The prince appeared to hear nothing. “You said—you said—” he choked.

  Isabella swayed, and Jane caught a glimpse of her face. It was white, and her green eyes looked glassy. She’s about to faint, Jane realized.

  “She didn’t lie,” Jane broke in. “She said she was her father’s only heir, as indeed she is.” All eyes in the room turned to her now. The color started to return to Isabella’s cheeks. Jane swallowed and went on. “She said that her father made a huge fortune, as indeed he did. You did not ask how much of it remained, but if you had she would have told you—nothing. Less than nothing. Debts.”

  “You—you—” The prince still couldn’t speak. Jane’s heart pounded as his hand strayed from his dagger to the hilt of his sword.
Jane took an involuntary step forward, then stopped as Mamma’s hand gripped her shoulder. What could they do, she wondered, if the prince unsheathed the weapon?

  Isabella neither moved nor spoke. She stood erect, looking the prince full in the face. Jane couldn’t see her expression, but something in it made the prince drop his gaze. If the prince had received the full force of those green eyes, as Jane herself had more than once, it was no wonder that he couldn’t meet them.

  The prince’s grip on his sword loosened. So you’re just like everything in your palace, Jane thought with an inward shock, marveling at the sight of the steady girl and the young man who looked like a dog threatened with a whip. You’re all show and no substance, and rotten underneath your fine looks. Nobody need fear you. She glanced through the door and saw that an even larger crowd had gathered in the hall.

  “What is it?” The prince was peering at her with suspicion. “What are you looking at?” He strode over to where she stood. She clung to Maude, not knowing whether she was seeking or giving comfort. The prince stood unmoving, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He seemed to have forgotten all of them, his men, Mamma, Jane and Maude, even Isabella.

  “You came here to ask for my hand, Your Majesty. Do you still want it?” Jane jumped at Isabella’s clear voice. She stood behind the prince, her hand outstretched to him. Jane knew that one small thumb showed a blister, and that soot and ashes were trapped under the girl’s cracked fingernails.

  The prince turned, looked at her hand and then at her face, and hesitated. “You may keep it,” he finally said coldly. “Remove that shoe.” Isabella slipped her foot out of the glass-covered slipper.

  “And the other one?” Isabella drew it from her pouch. She laid it on the floor next to the first.

  So swiftly that none of them guessed what he was about to do, the prince stamped on both shoes, sending brightly colored shards of glass flying. “You’re living in a dream, all of you. A dream. This house...” He gestured with his riding whip. “A dream,” he repeated. He faced his steward. “I am returning to the palace. There is no lady in this land who may wear that slipper. Indeed, there is no slipper. It was created to bewitch me and has since turned back to its baser element, the way the carriage and horses turned back into a pumpkin and mice at midnight. That’s why I couldn’t find them.”

  “We couldn’t find them because you called off the search,” said the steward, clearly bewildered. “You said there was no need for haste in following her, that you knew where she lived and would find—” The prince’s riding crop just missed the man’s face as he leaped back with the ease of long practice.

  The prince ignored the interruption. “We searched all night. We were bewitched. I was bewitched. There was no heiress. She was an illusion, wrought by evil fairies. I promised to marry an illusion. That illusion has disappeared, releasing me from my oath. Do you understand?” He turned and strode heavily from the room, pushing his way through the crowd without waiting for an answer. The people parted without a word, all eyes on the prince’s back as he mounted his horse and turned in the drive.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the steward said, still looking confused. He hesitated, glancing first at the splinters of glass on the floor and then at the four women standing silent in the middle of the room, and finally, with a start, at the people massed in the hallway. He followed the prince out the door. After a moment the sound of hoofbeats came to those standing in the parlor.

  Chapter 26

  Mamma staggered toward the door as though to follow the prince, and nearly fell. Jane reached her first, and together, she and Maude helped her to a chair. Isabella ran for a cup of water. Jane stepped back while Maude patted their mother’s face with a damp cloth and Isabella held the water to her lips.

  A “psst” from the hall made her turn around. When she saw Will standing there, she glanced at Mamma, who seemed to be regaining some of her color, and slipped into the hall.

  Will stood awkwardly while the rest of the people of the woods filed quietly out. His ax was slung back into his belt, and his hand rested on it as though for comfort. “What is it?” Jane asked.

  Will reached for her with an expression that she couldn’t resist. She gave him her hand and let him pull her to him and kiss her deeply.

  “Janie?” Maude sounded tentative, as though unsure that the girl standing in the hall kissing a boy was her sister. Will sprang back, his cheeks flushed as deep a red as Jane knew her own to be. “Mamma wants to talk to us,” Maude went on, glancing back and forth from one of them to the other.

  “I’ll—I’ll be right there,” Jane said weakly, and then, “Go on, Maude,” as her sister lingered. Maude returned to the South Parlor, casting one last wondering glance at them over her shoulder. “I have to go,” Jane told Will. She started to turn, but he grabbed her wrist.

  “Come see me? Please? After all this is straightened out?”

  She took two steps to close the distance between them and kissed him again. “I will. Now go, and tell your mother that I’ll be there when I can.” She watched him leave through the large front door, and returned to the South Parlor only after she had heard his light footsteps run down the stairs outside.

  Mamma slumped in the big chair. “Are you feeling better?” Jane asked anxiously.

  Mamma nodded, then sighed. “Oh, my girls,” she said. “Whatever will we do?”

  “What do you mean, Mamma?” Jane asked. “It’s all right now. The prince has gone, and I don’t think he’ll be back.” She glanced at Isabella.

  “I don’t mean the prince,” Mamma said, and Jane waited for her to continue, I’m worried that we have no money, that you girls work all the time, that we’ll starve if we have another winter like the last one. But Mamma said nothing more.

  “We can sell the diamonds,” Isabella said suddenly.

  “What diamonds?” Mamma asked.

  “The diamonds that a fairy left out for me so I could find the carriage and the gown.” Isabella pulled a gleaming handful from her pocket. They glinted in the rosy morning light coming through the window.

  “Oh, Isabella, those aren’t diamonds,” Jane said.

  “Yes, they are,” Isabella snapped, her chin raised in a hint of her old defiance.

  “No, they’re not.” Jane picked a few out of Isabella’s hand. “And no fairy left them for you. I did. They’re just paste, from the costume jewelry upstairs.”

  “They’re diamonds,” Isabella insisted. For answer, Jane dropped a shining stone on the floor and ground the heel of her boot into it. She lifted her foot, but instead of the white powder she expected, the stone glinted as brightly as before.

  “I thought they were false,” Jane said, confused. “I thought they were false, but they’re real.”

  “Jane,” Mamma said, her voice sounding odd, “you say you left them for Isabella to find. Where did you get them from?”

  “In the jewelry box in your—in the room with the rosebud wallpaper. Maude fetched them while I was harnessing Mouse.”

  “Maude?” Mamma demanded. Maude was trying to slip out of the room, her face a mixture of shame and fear, but Mamma’s voice froze her in her tracks. She stood in the doorway, her fingers twisting around one another.

  “Did you fetch the jewels from my chamber, as Jane says?”

  Maude shook her head rapidly, meeting neither Jane’s nor Mamma’s eye.

  “But I told you to—” Jane began, but Mamma gestured at her to be silent.

  Maude continued twisting her fingers, and then blurted, “I didn’t want to go up there by myself. I’ve never gone by myself, Janie,” she appealed to her sister.

  “Then where—” Jane started, but once again Mamma held up her hand.

  “So I went to the henhouse,” Maude went on. “There’s a box I keep there that I found under one of the nests when I
was little. It has rings and pins and brooches in it, and I used to like to play with them even though they’re not as big and fancy as the ones in Mamma’s box upstairs. That’s where I got the diamonds from. There’s still a lot of other ones left, but they aren’t as shiny as these, so I left them.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Jane asked.

  “Because you would have taken them,” Maude answered.

  “Can you show me this box?” Mamma asked. Her voice was tight and peculiar. Maude, obviously relieved at the halt in the interrogation, ran out. Jane avoided Mamma’s eye, and then Maude reappeared, holding a small casket of red-and-black painted wood in both hands. Mamma stared at it like someone in a dream.

  “Where did you keep it?” Jane asked.

  “Under Delilah,” Maude answered. Jane smiled. Underneath the ferocious Delilah was a good place to hide something. No wonder no one else had found it.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” Isabella asked.

  Mamma didn’t answer. After a few minutes, she said faintly, “This box,” and stopped. “This box,” she went on, her voice stronger, “disappeared from my room the night your father left. I’ve always thought he sold the jewels in it for drink.” She sighed. “What was he thinking? Why did he leave it in the henhouse?” The girls glanced at one another without speaking.

  “Perhaps,” Mamma went on, “perhaps he took them, intending to sell them, and then repented. The jewels are mine, from my mother and father, and their families before them. Maybe at the last moment he—he had enough conscience left not to steal them from me after all, but he didn’t want to come back right away, not after the way we parted.”

  Jane remembered the shouting, the crying, the terrible sounds that she had heard right before her father had left. No, he would not have wanted to come back. He would have sought comfort in gambling and drinking in the city, far away from Mamma. Far away from all of them. She hoped her mother was right, that her father had changed his mind about stealing from her. “He must have been planning to come home later,” she ventured. “He hid them where he could find them again when he did.”