"Lazy, good for nothing girl! Do you have plans to lay in bed all day?"
The door opened so forcefully it swung a full 180 degrees on its hinges and clattered against the wall. Lady Wellington stood in the doorway in a garish red velvet robe, hair like a bird’s nest, and heeled slippers on her feet. She narrowed her eyes at the small cellar room.
Last night Andi blew up an air mattress in front of the smoldering fireplace, the warmest place in the room and covered it with a thick down comforter and squishy pink pillows. Fredrick even found a tiny folding table she stood across the room.
"What happened to your room?" Lady Wellington asked, clearly suspicious.
"My room?” Andi spun around as if trying to find what was out of place. “It's just as I remember it." She smiled inwardly; two could play this crazy game.
"You're needed," Lady Wellington spat. "I've been calling for five minutes and don't like to be kept waiting." Her voice took on a false waver. "My baby girl is in no condition to get out of bed. You," she grabbed Andi's bicep in a grip so tight she felt like a vice snapped around her arm, "will be waiting on her today."
Barefooted with her buttons half done and curls corkscrewing crazily, Andi was marched upstairs and thrust into the kitchen.
"Bring up her breakfast. Now!" Lady Wellington barked before tapping off angrily.
The kitchen was a cacophony of people, smells, and sounds Andi felt lost in. Where was she supposed to find Coriander’s breakfast? Someone thrust a cap on her head from behind, and as Andi tried to disengage herself from it, she felt large steady hands fixing her buttons. Trying to turn, she was jerked forward.
"Be still!” Ann's voice commanded. “Tuck those curls away girl, before you get me in trouble. Here."
Andi hurriedly stuffed her hair up in a mobcap identical to Ann's and she thrust a slice of bread and butter in her pocket. She picked up a breakfast tray and was shoved back out of the kitchen before she could blink.
"Top of the stairs, second door on the left, and you'd better hustle, girl,” Ann yelled after her before being swallowed back into the continual whirl of the kitchen.
Andi tripped up the smooth wooden stairs. She found the right door and, balancing the tray unskillfully on her hip, opened it with her elbow.
A small projectile whistled past Andi and shattered on the wall behind her, just missing her left ear. She ducked back out of the doorway into the hall and coarse laughter wandered out after her.
"You'll get another one, this time on that perfect little nose, if you don't hurry with my breakfast,” Coriander said.
Andi risked a peek around the doorframe. Coriander was propped up in bed, earbud cords winding from each side of her head with her supposedly injured ankle raised conspicuously on a pillow.
She wound up with a small glass figurine. Andi drew her head out of the way as the tiny glass object flew through the doorway and hit the far wall. She had an excellent arm, Andi had to admit.
Ready this time, she hurried into the room as another unfortunate figurine winged its way past her; she hoped to at least give Coriander a moving target. Sliding the tray on her bedside table with a clatter of cutlery, Andi sped toward the door to make good her getaway, when she spied her grandmother's book lying tented on Coriander's bed. Coriander had lost interest trying to nail her in the head, distracted by exploring her breakfast. Creeping back to the book, her movement caught Coriander's attention. She had found fault with her breakfast.
"What’s this garbage?” She shoved the tray back into Andi's arms, banging it into her bottom rib. "Get me a new tray. Maybe this time it will be hot, and you’d better not take all day about it." She tossed a heavy hairbrush between her hands. "I'll be waiting." Coriander smiled, exposing crooked, yellow teeth.
She hummed to her music as Andi, in her rush out the door, missed the size ten slippered foot protruding past the doorframe. She tripped and stared in horror as the tray and all its contents hit the wall, scattering into the far reaches of the hall.
"Oops, didn't see you there, Cindy,” Portia hissed in her face. She waited for a reaction, her calculating eyes sunk into folds of fat.
Careful to keep her expression neutral, Andi let her fury rage on the inside. Portia wasn’t her first bully.
Resentment flashed across Portia’s face. “Here let me help," she said, her voice dripping with false sincerity. Portia drew back and kicked the tray, as if she were trying for a midfield soccer goal. It sailed down the stairs with a clang.
"I'm so clumsy sometimes. Maybe it’s best I don't help." She turned on her heel, dodging the land mines of cold eggs, limp sausage, and dented flatware, and disappeared down the hall. Andi looked through the open doorway just in time for Coriander’s hairbrush to clip her on the cheek.
"I said, HURRY!" Coriander screeched.
Andi stamped down the desire to take up the discarded brush and beat Coriander about the head with it. She lurched to her feet and careened down the stairs.
The morning passed by as a kind of personal hell for Andi as she ran back and forth to the kitchen, having to correct phantom mistakes in three breakfast trays. After which she scraped the first one off the walls and acted as Coriander's personal nurse, laundry maid, and masseuse, all while being hounded at intervals by Portia and Lady Wellington in turns.
Ann wasn't exactly sympathetic, but did try to ease her burden as much as possible while keeping the kitchen running. After lunch, Coriander fell asleep, tired from a busy morning of torturing the help, and Lady Wellington and Portia tripped out the door mentioning hair appointments.
Staring numbly at Coriander's closed door, hope rose in Andi’s chest as minutes passed and no one screamed her name. Not my name she reminded herself, her grandmother's name.
"Here you are,” Ann huffed up the last step. “Did you ever eat your breakfast?"
Andi pulled a mash of greasy crumbs out of her pocket, the remains of the bread and butter from the morning. She’d completely forgotten to eat.
"Thought as much. Come with me."
In the kitchen, Ann handed her a fresh slab of bread with some kind of creamy cheese and a slice of meat on it. She popped an apple in her pocket and put a bucket in her free hand.
"The water’s stopped running again. Go get some from the well for me, would you? And I don't want to see you back here for half an hour. You hear?” She slid a berry tart into her empty bucket, still warm from the oven. “You make sure Fredrick gets this. He’s far too skinny," Ann said, propelling her gently out the door.
Hemmed in by all sides of the house was a deserted and quiet courtyard. It didn't have the extensive vegetation of the outside gardens, but in the center of the courtyard was the well, next to which grew a giant tree. It extended its leafy branches until they brushed the building on all sides. Andi felt like she was in some light, airy cave as the leaves rustled against one another.
Hypnotized by the moving patterns of shadows in the branches, Andi bumped into the trunk. She put her hand on the sun-warmed bark and a throbbing hum tingled her hand. She jerked it away alarmed. It felt... alive was the only word she could think of to describe it, which was silly because all trees were alive. But this one was different.
"Finally. We thought she’d eaten you." Dylan appeared—from where, Andi wasn't sure. He strolled toward her with his hands in his pockets, Fredrick and Quinn trailing behind.
"How was your morning? Any new information?" Fredrick asked.
"What happened here?" Quinn ran a light finger over Andi’s cheek as she stopped in front of her. She pressed her hand to her face and felt the dull throb of a forming bruise.
There was no point now. She sighed and told them about the whole retched morning, from the flying hairbrush and the breakfast tray to the added abuse of Portia and Lady Wellington. She gave a hollow laugh at the unreal situation. “I thought I told you to pull me out at the first sign of scrubbing.”
"Where are they now?" Fredrick's drawl thickened and his jaw tightened, whic
h Andi had learned was a subtle sign of his anger. This made her feel slightly better; until now, she had been operating under the assumption he barely tolerated her.
"Coriander’s asleep. The other two are getting their hair done.”
"This is our fault. We should have been helping you more,” Quinn said.
"What could you do? You can't be running up and down the stairs with breakfast trays,” Andi said, slumping against the well, exhausted.
"I say we engage in a little sabotage,” Dylan suggested, rubbing his palms together. “Shaving them bald in the middle of the night will take the wind out of their sails.”
Quinn gave a small chuckle. "Not that I don't love the idea, but Andi would be a prime suspect. If we do something, it's going to have to be sneaky."
"I did find the book. It’s in Coriander's room. I haven't seen the cloak or my shoes. Lady Wellington or Portia probably has them."
“Where’s her room?” Fredrick asked, scanning the windows facing the courtyard.
Andi counted the windows and pointed to the second from the corner of the building. “That one. Why?”
Fredrick jogged toward the kitchen door. "Let’s go, Dylan. We won’t get another shot.”
Dylan followed him, an up-to-no-good grin on his face.
“And no head shaving!” Andi shouted as they disappeared inside.
“Eat," Quinn said, looking at Andi's odd half sandwich. “Are you supposed to be filling that? Give it here.”
She took Andi's bucket and pulled out the berry tart with a confused look.
“I’d forgotten about that,” Andi said, reliving Quinn of the pastry and taking a bite. “Make sure Fredrick tells Ann it was delicious,” she mumbled with her mouth full.
Quinn grinned at her and attached the bucket to the rope dangling from the roof of the well. “She brought us breakfast herself this morning and told us to stay out of sight of the misses and her two spawn. If not, we'd better clear out, or she'd sick that she-devil on us herself." Quinn gave Andi a wink. "You should have seen her fawn all over Fredrick."
“Speaking of Ann, I have news."
Quinn paused cranking the handle. “Spill it."
"She remembers the night my grandmother disappeared. Said it was right after the first night of the feast. Ann thinks Cynthia found something at the castle,” Andi told her.
“What kind of something?” Quinn asked.
Andi shrugged. “Something important enough that she never came back to this place.”
Quinn's eyes gleamed. "You know what this means, don't you? We've got to get you to that feast." She slopped water down her front unhooking the bucket from the pulley and groaned, trying to shake her hands dry.
"There is no feast," Andi pointed out.
"Not yet," Quinn admitted. "We asked around last night and there hasn’t been one in half a century.” Setting the bucket at her feet, Quinn drummed her fingers on the side of the well. “When we were in town, it was—weird. Everyone seemed to be moving at the pace of a sloth. And apparently not just recently, but for a long time. But this morning, the town was almost unrecognizable. People were animated, excited, purposeful. They’ve been dusting off merchandise and reconnecting with friends.”
“Why the change?” Andi asked, licking berry juice off her fingers.
“It could be you,” Quinn suggested.
“That’s a big assumption,” Andi said, starting on her sandwich.
Quinn pulled herself up next to Andi on the edge of the well. “Well have to wait and see.”
"Cynthia!"
The calm under the massive tree broke, the familiar voice sending a shiver down Andi's spine.
“For now just try to keep your head above water and intercept any mail or notices that come to the front door,” Quinn said, squeezing Andi’s hand.
Andi jumped to her feet and ran for the kitchen door. She skidded to a stop and turned back for the bucket she had left and gasped, "The guys, they're still inside!"
One of the windows facing the courtyard opened. Fredrick and Dylan climbed out awkwardly onto the sprawling limbs of the tree, Andi’s book tucked under Fredrick’s arm.
"Cyn-thi-a!"
The voice took on a manic pitch and while the source was unclear, it was getting closer.
"Go," Quinn made a shooing motion with her hands, not taking her eyes off the boys edging toward the trunk on slender limbs. "We'll see you tonight."
Chapter 21
"Unexpected fairy godmothers or mice talking along with the birds would complicate things.”
Andi relaxed in warm, sudsy bubble bath. The temperature was just the comfortable side of too hot. She piled her curls on top of her head so she could sink until just her nose stuck above the water. The stress and worries of the day melted away.
Tap, tap, tap.
"Go away!"
Tap, tap, tap.
Her eyes snapped open, the dream fading as she peeled her face off the hard wood of her little table. She’d fallen asleep while trying to eat dinner. Blearily eyed, she struggled to find the source of the knocking.
The sharp rap sounded again, and this time Andi saw the source of the tapping at the window—a hand. She staggered across her little room and flipped the latch.
Three faces pressed against the ground and peered in at her. Andi could see the dark had deepened beyond twilight, which was when Lady Wellington finally her released back to her room.
How long had she been asleep?
"Sorry, we know you're tired. We'll make it quick,” Quinn said.
Fredrick held out a small book to her and she gave a sigh of relief, clutching it to her chest.
“It’ll probably be safer in the barn,” Fredrick said quietly. Andi reluctantly passed it back, wanting to hug him, but not being able to reach him, she settled on giving his hand a squeeze. He gripped her hand back and smiled down at her.
“Lady Wellington noticed it was gone. Fortunately she thinks she misplaced it. I was cleaning her room all afternoon hoping I’d find it,” Andi said.
What Andi didn't bother telling them was Coriander made her do most of the cleaning with a toothbrush, including scrubbing of the toilet. What Andi didn't bother telling Coriander was she used her toothbrush.
"Were you able to find the cloak and the shoes?" Andi asked.
"We found them in Lady Wellington's room. That woman is a pig." Dylan shook his head. "My room's not that nasty, and that's saying something. We would have taken those too, but we thought if we did, she’d realize something was up. We'll just have to grab them a little later."
"We did bring you this." Quinn produced a large envelope with a royal crest stamped on the outside with Lady Wellington's name in fancy script scrolling across the front. The envelope was sealed.
Andi flipped it over curiously. "What is it?"
"That’s a dummy invitation to the king's feast,” Quinn said.
"She spent all day on it." Dylan nudged her gently. "Asking questions in town and gathering supplies. It should be pretty authentic looking."
“Where did you learn to do this?” Andi asked, with a mystified expression on her face.
Quinn looked slightly sheepish. “It’s not uncommon for Indian families to pass down their calligraphy skills to the next generation.” She rolled her eyes with a wry smile. “Dad couldn’t have cared less, but my daadi insisted I learn. The few times I saw her when I was a child are tainted by horrible memories of sitting in her stuffy kitchen, bent over a sheet of paper for hours while my brothers got to play outside.” Quinn gave a little smile and shrugged. “It’s been awhile, but my fingers remembered what to do.”
"Where is this going to send them?" Andi waved the envelope like a fan.
"Let's just say somewhere your step-family will have a hard time making trouble,” Dylan said with an impish grin.
"Just make sure you're the one to get the real invitation, then you can just hand that one off to the evil stepmother,” Quinn said.
"Evil stepmothe
r is an understatement,” Andi scowled.
"You running around covered in cinders is slightly amusing, though. Otherwise we would have left long ago,” Dylan said, reaching through the window and tweaking one of her curls.
Andi batted at his hand. "Yeah, I figured.”
"Goodnight, Andi,” Fredrick said.
"Tomorrow will be better,” Quinn told her.
Andi awoke as the sunlight tracked across the room from her tiny window, landing on her makeshift bed. She looked out the window with alarm. She didn't know exactly how late it was, but she knew it was too late for Lady Wellington to allow her to sleep. Had they been calling for her and she hadn't heard?
She threw on her filthy dress from the day before and, making sure the false invitation was tucked in her pocket, took the stairs two at a time. She pushed at the door at the top of the stairs, but it didn’t budge. Wondering if she was making a mistake, she banged on it with her fist and waited.
A key twisted in the lock, the bolt clicked, and one of the kitchen maids swung the door open, and darting away without a word. Andi slipped into the room. It was deserted, but the hum of activity came from behind the kitchen door.
"And where have you been, girly?" Ann glared at her over the bread dough she was kneading but failed to make Andi believe she was angry.
"Why didn't anyone wake me? Where is everybody?" Andi turned in a bewildered circle.
"They're sleeping,” Ann said shortly.
"Still?" Andi squinted out of the window at the bright sun, climbing still higher in the sky. "Are they feeling okay?"
Ann beat the dough into conformity. "Couldn't say, although I'm not one to be questioning the small miracles that come my way. Their sleep does seem unnatural, if you ask me. Like someone slipped them a pill or a potion." Ann looked up from her dough and raised her eyebrows, waiting.
Andi brought her eyebrows together, confused.
Ann just said gruffly, "You may as well sit down and have a proper breakfast while you can."
A Grimm Legacy Page 13
