Enchanted

by Alethea Kontis

  The shadow angel led him down several more hallways and up several flights of stairs. Up and up. The lack of garish furnishings suggested that few others took this path. The purple smell became muffled under the odor of dank and dust. Rumbold ran his hand up the bare stone wall. He must be in the tower beyond the clouds.

  “It should be you,” his father’s voice sounded from far above him. “You are meant to be by my side.”

  Rumbold froze.

  “I will ever be your companion,” said Sorrow. “I just can’t be your queen.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?” asked the king. “Thrice I have asked you.”

  “And thrice I have declined. You have my heart,” Sorrow confessed, “but I cannot give you this.” There was something familiar about this conversation.

  “You shame me,” said the king.

  “How? What is ‘queen’ but another need of yours I have no notion to fulfill?”

  There was a pause, and then heavy footsteps. Rumbold flattened himself against the cold stone. The shadow angel embraced him, cloaking him in her darkness. “I will toss her aside and take you instead.” The king’s tone was forceful, almost growling.

  “You will grow old and wither and die, and when your bones are dust, no one will remember your name.” There was a hitch in Sorrow’s voice. “I would not have you go like that. I would not have you leave me.”

  “You would see me wed to yet another woman instead?”

  “I have no choice,” said Sorrow. “You will wed her and bind her fey soul to yours. You will steal her shadow and eat her flesh and survive another generation, and that is how it must be.”

  There was no name for this monster whose tainted blood ran through Rumbold’s veins, this cannibal who had killed his own wife, and the wife before her. Rumbold was sick at the thought, gagging at the realization. He wanted to claw through his own skin, draw the blood, and coax the poison out. He reached for his dagger and opened his mouth to cry out his revenge, but the impish shadow stopped him. She trapped his arms at his sides and stopped his mouth with darkness so that he could not scream.

  “She is powerful,” said Sorrow, not referring to Wednesday by name or family connection. “You will not need to marry again for a very long time.”

  “How long?” asked the king.

  “Long enough for your son and his sons to die, and for another world to forget you all over again,” Sorrow answered. “Maybe even long enough for the pain of this match to fade from my mind.”

  There was another pause, this one without all the anger of the previous silence, it seemed. Rumbold could not stand to hear any more. The shadow angel released him. Lamps flared to life as he sped down the hall. He emptied his mind of everything but the wind in his mangy hair, the breath burning in his lungs, and his feet as they ran back from stone to carpet. He opened his mouth and screamed a silent scream.

  If all of this was destined to happen, as Wednesday had said, then why had the shadow angel led him up those stairs? Rumbold beat the walls with his fists and cursed a few gods. He might not be able to save Wednesday from her fate, but he had to try. He could not in good conscience let Sunday’s sister die. He could not knowingly allow his father to take one more innocent life.

  Rumbold, Rumbold, his heart beat frantically in his ears.

  Free me.

  17. If You Believe

  THE KING SENT two carriages that evening to collect the Woodcutter family. The carriages were confections on gilded wheels pulled by teams of white horses that marched in perfect step. The drivers and coachmen matched as well, as if someone had opened a set of dolls and ensorcelled them to height and life.

  Mama and Papa took the first carriage along with Saturday, who whined and wailed and carried on. She wore her new dress only because Mama had told her she must, and Papa flatly refused to let her bring her ax to the wedding, so Saturday was loudly doing her best to make them both regret their actions. It took Papa and three footmen to get the injured girl inside the vehicle; one would have thought Saturday was being manhandled by the brute squad. Sunday mentioned as much to Trix.

  “They should have sent the brute squad,” said Trix. “She’d be too fascinated to have any objections, and too proud to show weakness.”

  Tonight was one of those times Trix looked like the older brother he really was. Sunday wasn’t sure how Friday had managed to accommodate the extra length in the arms of his overcoat, or how Mama had managed to keep him so busy between dressing and leaving that he didn’t have time to cover himself in mud or soot or some other unquestionably malodorous substance. His hair was short and neat, his posture straight, his head high. If it weren’t for the white birds perched on each shoulder, Sunday might have guessed her brother was royalty himself.

  Aunt Joy did not join them on this journey. Sunday wondered what good her aunt could do at home, but Joy had simply shrugged her off, said she was needed here, and that was that.

  There was no riot this night. The courtyard fell to silence as the carriages approached, and the crowd parted for them. The soldiers edging the yard snapped to attention; the one with the copper hair and the barrel chest had the wheeled chair from the garden. Oh, to be in that quiet garden again with her head pillowed on the prince’s shoulder, exchanging whispers. Sunday shivered and glowed at the memory. Her birds, having followed the carriages from the house, settled into the hedge behind the guard.

  The people closest to the pathway curtseyed or bowed their heads. Sunday recognized none of them. That’s right, she thought. Be glad I don’t remember any of you who didn’t stoop to help my sisters and me.

  The sky above them was ominous with cloud; the uppermost spires of the castle disappeared into the climes. Sunday could taste rain on the wind. There would be no moon peeking through this cover with curious rays so that the gods might bless this union. Sunday thought it fitting.

  The sisters made a show of displaying their bare forearms to the guards at the Grand Entrance. Friday had modified the sleeves of all their garments, splitting the seams to the elbow so that the flesh of the lower arm, when displayed, would be framed by colorful layers of fabric. They knew the king’s men would be examining the arms of all the young women that evening, to ensure that the branded Savage Seven did not make an appearance. Judging by the sound of rending fabric Sunday heard behind her, Fridays new fashion was already a trend.

  “Fancy,” Trix breathed. Sunday had forgotten that neither he nor Peter had ever seen the palace before. Papa might have chanced to visit back when Jack Junior had been in the king’s employ, back when her brother had been alive, back when her feelings for Rumbold wouldn’t have been such a burden.

  Trix wasn’t wrong: it was fancy, the decorations exceeding the extravagance of either of the nights before. Guards lined the path from the Grand Entrance all the way to the giant staircase. The ballroom still had heavens full of magical crystals, but the floor below was now covered in rows of chairs and benches and more flowers than Sunday had ever seen—red and blue and yellow and violet—more flowers than were currently blooming in all of Arilland. They had to have come from Faerie. For her shadow sister, Sunday expected nothing less.

  Sunday and her family came to a halt at the top of the stair, and when they were announced, the assembly bowed as one. Sunday restrained herself and did not run down the red-carpeted stairs to take the hand of her prince, who waited expectantly below, but she had it soon enough.

  “Isn’t this is a bit much?” she whispered.

  “No. You look beautiful.”

  He said she was beautiful and so she was, with words full of no more magic than a sincere desire to compliment. She could have been made of gold and not been happier. “Thank you.”

  The prince bowed to Papa, who did not look amused. Prince Rumbold folded Sunday’s hand into the bend of his elbow and—without letting his skin part from hers—led the family two by two to the rows of elaborate chairs situated at the front of the assembly. The redheaded guard followed behind them
all, having come in through a side entrance with Saturday in the wheeled chair. Just as Trix had foretold, Saturday’s caterwauling had stopped as soon as there were soldiers present.

  Rumbold dismissed himself to the dais beyond the small orchestra where the minister stood patiently awaiting the arrival of the king. Sunday wrung her fingers together, wishing she had her journal to calm her racing heart. The whispered voices around her were an anonymous cloak of soft noise that settled around her shoulders, echoing the manic thoughts in her mind.

  The ballroom filled; the wave of voice-noise crested and broke as the musicians began playing. From behind a curtained wall, the king emerged to stand by his son. The assembly stood as one and turned in anticipation of Wednesday’s arrival. Sunday, her eyes still locked with the prince’s, did not.

  Wednesday floated up the aisle, a posy of indigo wildflowers clutched in her pale hands like ink come to blossom. Monday attended her, organizing the shimmering train of the dress as she stopped beside the king on the dais. The rest of the dress caught the magical light and shimmered, too, overpowering even Wednesday’s haunting fey beauty.

  No, wait. That couldn’t be right.

  Sunday stopped examining Rumbold from sash to shoes and concentrated on Wednesday’s wedding gown. She glanced back at her family; no one else seemed blinded by the power radiating from the fabric. If some enchantment were embroidered into the elaborate patterns, wouldn’t Friday have been the first to notice? But her moon-faced seamstress sister just smiled up at the couple while the minister began his speech and made his blessing. Friday would never grow out of being a romantic.

  So Sunday was on her own. She blinked, took a deep breath, and then blinked again. She could make out lines of power covering the gown, crisscrossing over and under themselves around Wednesday from neck to toe and beyond, pooling around Monday with the rest of the train. Along the lines were markings in some strange alphabet Sunday did not know. Wednesday was like a mermaid, her pale skin tangled in a magical net cast by a wayward fisherman.

  Sunday blinked again and the net disappeared; now there was only the feathery white lace of the wedding gown. She blinked again and the net was back, its strange markings dancing in the air around her. Sunday turned once again to her haefairy siblings, amazed that none of them would notice such a thing. And then Peter blinked.

  Sunday waited until he blinked again, and his dark brows knitted above his pale blue eyes. Peter? Of course! Sunday had seen those strange symbols before; they were the runes Aunt Joy had been teaching Peter to carve into his sculptures. Sensing her stare, Peter looked to Sunday, the same questions mirrored in his face.

  Even if she had possessed the freedom to speak, Sunday could not have answered those questions. She knew only that Wednesday had to do this unstoppable thing. Somehow the gown must be as vital a part of the ceremony as Wednesday herself. That dress had been worn by Rumbold’s mother and the queen before her: women both gone now, asleep forever in the dark of the Great Beyond.

  Sunday’s eyes burned at the thought of losing her sister. Wednesday was a great comfort to her, if only because her unique presence meant that Sunday was not the most extraordinary of the Woodcutter brood. Having her removed to the castle would be a difficult adjustment; having her removed from Sunday’s life altogether was unfathomable.

  Trix shifted to cover Sunday’s hand with his and gave it a little squeeze. People were supposed to cry at weddings; they just weren’t supposed to cry because they suspected that the bride was going to die. Sunday blinked again, willing away the disturbing vision of the magical dress that held her sister prisoner. Angrily, she blinked again. Again. And then Wednesday turned to her.

  Only ... Wednesday didn’t turn to her. The service continued uninterrupted. The minister droned on, the bride and groom seemingly lost in each other before the warm sea of huddled masses below them. It was a ghost of Wednesday that she saw, a vision of her sister in the same body, in the same cursed gown, who turned in her place. Wednesday blew her little sister a kiss and then raised a ghostly unwed finger to her lips. Whatever Sunday saw, whatever distressed her, this inner, secret Wednesday urged her to keep it to herself.

  Sunday nodded to the apparition of her shadow sister, and then shook her head cautiously at Peter, who was still staring at Sunday inquisitively. She took a deep breath, squeezed Trix’s hand in hers, and waited for the torturous ceremony to be over.

  Like mother like daughter: Wednesday said only the two words required of every bride in every wedding ceremony, and the deed was done. There was leaping and cheering, calls of congratulations and blessings of good fortune. Servants collected chairs and distributed wine to hungry hands; there was dancing even before the music started up again, even before the king and new queen had left the dais. It was a new day for the kingdom and hope for a better tomorrow. Trix grabbed Sunday’s other hand, and they skipped wildly in circles through the crowd, just as they had around the monster beanstalk. Sunday was swept up in the excitement, toeing the line between exquisite happiness and hysteria.

  As if she had summoned him, Rumbold appeared at her side once more. “Sunday, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “My sister just became your stepmother.” She shook her head. “Please, don’t speak, for my sake. Let’s just dance.”

  “As you wish, my lady.”

  A dance was what Sunday needed to work out her troubles. Tuesday’s silver and gold dress wanted to dance as well. The beat of the music was intoxicating, the tapping of toes and waving of arms, the polite bows and the swinging of skirts, the beads of sweat that curled the tendrils of hair by her ears. One dance led to another, and another, and Rumbold seemed happy to partner her for as long as she required. Couples beside them tired, and new couples took their places. The hours ticked by, and still Sunday and her prince danced on.

  Rumbold pulled Sunday up onto his hip during one turn of the set, and in spinning her moved them both off the dance floor entirely. “Enough,” he said when he sat her down, and she realized how much her frantic need for activity had exhausted him.

  “I’m sorry. That was selfish of me. We should have taken a break long ago.” How callous of her to wear out a man so obviously fresh from the sickbed!

  “I am just as selfish,” he said. “I don’t want you to dance with anyone else.”

  “You honor me.”

  “It’s really not honor I’m feeling right now.” He straightened his sash and blotted the back of his neck with his sleeve. “Shall we get some air?” He led her onto a balcony that overlooked a very familiar garden. Perhaps now that Wednesday was queen, she would let Sunday visit this garden to relive the pleasant memories of Rumbold she had here. Sunday breathed deeply, catching the scent of lilacs on the cool night air. The generous display of fey flowers in the ballroom might have confused her senses, but spring was still very much at hand in the world.

  A guard appeared, the redheaded man who had been tending to Saturday, the same guard who’d kept watch for them the night before. Sunday hadn’t heard him approach.

  “Erik, would you please have a servant fetch us some refreshment?”

  “Of course, Highness.” Erik bowed, which Sunday expected, and then he pointedly glared at the prince, which she did not.

  Rumbold cleared his throat. Sunday wondered if she should fetch the water herself. The two men exchanged something understood but unsaid, and with a curt nod, Erik left them.

  “I have to tell you,” he said as soon as they were alone. “I...” He pulled at his sash again. “I hated letting you go last night. The party wasn’t the same without you.”

  “I missed you, too.” The truth hurt just as badly when spoken aloud. She’d hoped all the dancing would make a conversation with the prince less awkward. She needed to tell Rumbold about Papa’s discontent and his expectations, which meant presuming on a relationship between them she wasn’t even sure existed. It was time to find out. “Your Highness—”

  “My friends call me
Rumbold. Sunday,” he asked softly, “will you be my friend?”

  Sunday could not address him so familiarly. Not yet. But his request gave her hope. “Your Highness, we can’t be anything. This pretense can’t go on any longer. Surely you know who I am, what my family is.”

  “The past is past,” he said. “Can’t we put it behind us?”

  How could he shrug off her brother’s death so lightly? Jack Junior’s fate had ruined her family. Rumbold had led a princely life, spoiled and pampered and locked away in his ivory tower, and Sunday could see that he was blissfully unaware of the exact situation. It was her duty to set him straight.

  She held a hand to his mouth. “Please, let me finish.” He began to kiss her fingers. She must be dreaming. Someone in the crowd had handed her a poisoned goblet of wine and she was having visions. That would explain the wedding dress, the ghost of Wednesday, and what the prince was now doing with his lips to the pad of her thumb. “I am a Woodcutter,” she said, determined to make him understand. “Sunday Woodcutter.”

  “‘...and you are doomed to a happy life,’ ” he finished. “I already know that part.”

  Sunday froze. All the familiar words hit her in the gut at once. His asking her to be his friend. The first words that she had spoken to a frog all those very long, very hard days ago. The world spun around her and clicked—slammed—horribly into focus.

  Grumble.

  Rumbold.

  The prince hadn’t been sick or off on holiday. He’d been enchanted. That last kiss she had given the frog, the one filled with all her friendship and gratitude and ... love, that had finally broken his spell. Grumble hadn’t died in the thunderstorm. Or, rather, he had, and had been reborn into the man who stood before her. The trading of the golden bauble for royal tokens, the prince picking her out of the crowd only seconds after her arrival. How worried she had been, how torn, how miserable! She had tormented herself with first Grumbles absence and then Rumbold’s presence. She had wondered if her feelings were unrequited. Only he’d been in love with her the whole time—and toying with her like a puppet on a string.