The Fairy Stepmother Inc.

by Maggie Hoyt

  “Then why does the prince—”

  “Tomorrow you will be attending the Finleighs’ ball.” Roompilda turned back to Fan. “The Allenby garden party is in little more than a week. All eyes will be on you, and if you fail to impress, you will never gain your standing back. You will be a drain on your stepsister rather than an asset. It is my hope that you will redeem yourself this weekend; therefore, in today’s lesson I will give you a script to follow. I had assumed you had the sense to choose your own topics of conversation, but since you do not, we will not leave it up to chance. That will be all,” she said to me. “We are ready to begin.”

  You can’t just send me away! I wanted to shout. Unfortunately, I still had a headache from the night before, and I was short on comebacks, so I just stormed out.

  I was about to retreat into my study and go back to sleep when I heard something drop through the mail slot. As I bent to pick up the folded note that had fallen to the floor, the pressure in my head stabbed like a dagger in my left eye. I hissed in pain and read the letter with my good eye.

  It was a brief note from Clarrie.

  “He’s picked a date—the twenty-first, right before everyone goes back to the Capital. And he said I only had to spin seven thousand crowns’ worth!”

  The exclamation point had a heart instead of a dot. I breathed a sigh of relief. Last night’s emotional wringer had been worth something after all.

  The next day I ordered spools of thin copper wire and zincum filings. I went to two separate merchants—an inconspicuous seller of odds and ends (who made regular trips to the Capital) for the wire, and Milburn for the zincum. Not that I imagined anyone would see Clarrie’s gold straw and think, “Say, wasn’t that Radcliffe woman in here buying the ingredients to make brass?” But I really didn’t want to take a chance.

  I considered Milburn’s explanation of the process. I could use lye, which was disgusting and would leave a noticeable odor in my kitchen, or a crucible, which seemed imminently preferable. He very kindly sold me one, and I went on my way.

  When it came to performing the actual alchemy, I would have to find a time when Gerta, our cook, wasn’t here, I realized when I got home. I would have to use the kitchen stove, and I didn’t want to be seen. I could give Gerta the day off—and Mina, who would be far more curious—and I’d have to wait until Roompilda was gone, as well as get Fan out of the house. Or, I thought, I could simply work in the middle of the night.

  I had only just settled down in my study with a book when Mina came and found me.

  “Hmadam Hradcliffe, Hlady Hfrandsen his here to hsee Hugh.”

  “What?” I said. I didn’t wait for Mina’s explanation. I just went to the door to see for myself.

  “Yoo-hoo, Evelyn!” Maribelle called out. “It’s time to get ready for the ball!”

  “Come in, Maribelle,” I said. “Already? Thank you, Mina.”

  “Where’s Fanchon?”

  “Fanchon?” I called.

  “I love your new maid! She’s adorable!”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I couldn’t really understand what she was saying, but she looked like she takes her job so seriously!”

  “Hi, Maribelle,” Fanchon said as she entered.

  “It’s time to start! The Finleighs are so much more important than the Courtenays. I know that’s an awful thing to say, but that’s how the Season is!” She giggled.

  I really should have anticipated that Maribelle would be cripplingly indecisive. We spent at least an hour trying on all of Fan’s gowns. Just when I thought we’d narrowed it down, Maribelle would have Fan retry a dress. Then, when we’d finally settled on an ensemble, Maribelle began to dither over painting a little rouge on Fan’s cheeks.

  “Mom, I think my bodice needs to be tighter,” Fan said when Maribelle had finally stepped back from her face.

  “What? No, it doesn’t.”

  “Roompilda said it has to be too tight to fit your fingers in underneath.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re supposed to be able to fit two fingers.”

  “Ooh, not anymore,” Maribelle said. “Not for the young women.”

  “Fine.” This was probably going to lead to Fan passing out, but apparently, she was going to have to make this mistake herself. “Hold on to the bedpost.”

  “Now, we have to decide what to do with your hair,” Maribelle said as I gave the laces a massive tug. Fan gasped. Don’t inhale, I thought. You won’t be able to breathe out.

  “But I did do my hair!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, love!” Maribelle cried. “But for something like this, it’s got to be more complicated than piling it on your head.”

  “I can’t do anything more complicated! Not to myself. Can you do hair?”

  Maribelle froze, cringing.

  “Well, what do I do?” Fan asked in a panic.

  “Ooh, I’m so sorry! Here, I can …” Maribelle fretted, hands hovering over Fan’s head. I noticed no one asked me.

  “I can do hair!”

  I turned around to see Mina’s head peeking around the door. She’d been eavesdropping shamelessly, I realized. Oh well.

  “Can you?” I said, more skeptically than was polite.

  “Oh!” Maribelle laughed. “I can’t believe you forgot you had a ladies’ maid!”

  That’s because I don’t, I thought.

  Mina pranced into the room, grinning with pride. She looked at Fan’s reflection in the mirror and tapped her chin.

  “I think we shall do … a half-twist Winsom knot chignon with a triple tuck.”

  I just covered my eyes and whimpered.

  Well, as much as I was sure Mina was just stringing random words together, she could, apparently, style hair. Not even in my wildest imaginations had I pictured us getting out the door, but somehow, we found ourselves at the top of the stairs leading into the grand ballroom of the Finleighs’ massive estate.

  “Ooooh!” Maribelle squealed. “I just love this! The first real ball of the Season! Isn’t it exciting? The lights are so beautiful, all the people are so beautiful! Even the smells are beautiful! And just imagine, the garden party will be ten times more beautiful!”

  Fan looked out at the crowd and turned a little green.

  “Now, this gentleman is going to introduce us, and then we get to go in. I wonder if my husband already went in.”

  “Can’t I just sneak in?” Fan whispered.

  Maribelle giggled. “Of course not! Excuse me, did you already introduce Lord Frandsen? Oh, you probably don’t remember. Hmm, I didn’t really look for him in the foyer.”

  Maribelle wrung her hands, craned her neck, and started spinning around much too quickly to spot her husband—even as he approached us from where he’d undoubtedly been waiting in the foyer.

  “Maribelle! Maribelle,” he said, waving at her. I put an arm on her shoulder and pointed.

  “Oh!” She burst out laughing. “There you are!”

  “Here I am? I’ve been waiting for you for an hour.”

  “Oh no! Well, it’s actually a funny story …”

  He took her arm and strode toward the steward, while she practically had to run to avoid being yanked off her feet. She still didn’t stop talking.

  “Lord and Lady Frandsen,” the steward announced.

  I motioned to Fan to follow. She reached tentatively for my arm, but I shook my head.

  “Miss Fanchon Envers,” the steward said as she walked down the stairs. “And Mother.”

  Well, I’ve had worse introductions.

  “Ooh, now there are so many people to introduce you to, I can’t decide where to start!” Maribelle was telling Fan as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Urrnggh.” Her husband let out a strangled grunt and walked away, giving Maribelle a half-hearted wave.

  “I think … no, maybe—do we want to meet people in the ballroom or people by the punch?”

  “Regardless, I think we shouldn’t block the bottom of the stairs,”
I said.

  “Oh yes. Evelyn’s so sensible.”

  Maribelle shuffled us toward a corner and we surveyed the ballroom. I swear I really was watching the crowd, but I was still surprised when a familiar figure emerged.

  “There you are,” Roompilda said. Good Lord, the woman was a cat! I wouldn’t have thought a woman with such vibrant red hair could somehow hide from notice, but she managed to fit right between servant and noble—too drab and uncharismatic to be important, but poised and self-assured enough that no one would dare ask her where the toilets were.

  She looked Fan up and down. “Satisfactory,” she said. “You will go into the hall, that way, and immediately enter the room to your left. The young ladies there will introduce themselves. You will remember what we spoke of and say only the things I told you to say.”

  Fan nodded. Roompilda pointed toward the hall. Fan swallowed hard and set off, giving me a shy wave. I tried to smile encouragingly, fighting the impulse to kick Roompilda in the shins. I wouldn’t have had a chance anyway. She melded back into the crowd as soon as Fan left.

  “Who was that?” Maribelle ventured.

  “A tutor,” I said. “The queen sent her.”

  “Ooooooh …”

  I spent most of my time hiding in a corner. I couldn’t help imagining what this would be like if Henry were here. He would have made me be sociable, and then I would have tried to make him laugh, which was altogether too easy. Without him, I just stood there.

  It wasn’t until I caught sight of Hugo Piminder that I was suddenly inspired to move. I didn’t think I could pull a Roompilda, so I pushed through the crowd into the hallway. I peeked into the room on the left but saw no sign of Fan. She could be dancing. We’d kept up our dancing lessons, and I think she’d improved some. She wouldn’t be stepping on toes, at least.

  I wandered through the Finleighs’ parlors and halls, hoping Lord Piminder hadn’t spotted me. I seemed mostly invisible to everyone else. I had no reason to be there, unless Fan needed me, at which point I would suddenly pop into existence. As I considered this, I came to a shocking realization: I’d spent most of my life being someone’s wife.

  It was how I’d always looked at myself. For years, I’d been the hated, unhappy wife of Bertram Envers. I’d been Henry’s behind-the-scenes partner-wife. But neither of those identities were current, and so I’d latched on to being Fan’s mom. And now she was very nearly grown-up, and I didn’t know how to just be me.

  I was so lost in my thoughts, I forgot to keep moving, and when you’re trying to avoid someone, standing still is sudden death.

  “Evelyn! I wondered if you’d be here this evening,” Lord Piminder said, bowing as he approached. Drat.

  “Yes, I’m here with Fanchon.”

  “I took your advice.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, I told Miss Babcock that I would consider it sufficient if she spun a much lower sum of gold.”

  “Ah. That is more sporting of you,” I said.

  “Can you believe she is here trying to impress me tonight?”

  In fact, I could, since that’s what I’d told her to do. Well, I actually wanted her to impress everyone else, but neither of them needed to know that.

  “Impress you how?”

  “Manners, I think. She’s the very picture of polite conversation.”

  “Maybe that’s just how she is,” I said.

  “And somehow, in an estate full of people, her conversations always happen to be within earshot of me.”

  “Well, she’s in love with your son. She wants to prove she’d be a good wife.”

  “Have you met her? She’s so utterly ordinary it’s dreary. Even if her father wasn’t trying to get out of his debt, I wouldn’t allow the marriage. Can you imagine her in my family home?”

  I was stung by how superficial his response was. First of all, Clarrie wasn’t ordinary or dreary; she was independent and brave and charming. Furthermore, she was the type he ought to imagine in his estate, as she was too sensible to squander his fortune. That aside, he was judging her solely on some first impression. She hadn’t dazzled him with wealth or beauty, so why should he spend any more time on her?

  He must have noticed I was offended. “It’s all a moot point, anyway. She’s not in love. The Babcocks are money-grubbers. You may put your delicate mind at ease.” God, I was so glad he was showing his true patronizing colors so quickly.

  “But you’re sending them to the poorhouse! That’s cruel!” I said, not listening to the inner voice telling me not to engage.

  “Ah, yes. Women always choose mercy over justice. Am I really supposed to reward their delinquency? When they’ve had years to pay their due?”

  “But you didn’t even know they owed you!” I exclaimed. The second the words were out of my mouth, I realized my mistake. I wasn’t supposed to know that.

  He looked confused, and it was only a matter of time before the dissonance resolved itself.

  “That’s what you said the other night,” I lied. “You didn’t realize your father had extended the loan until years later. Under such circumstances, couldn’t you afford a little mercy?”

  “But … I don’t see how the length of time …,” he stuttered, part of his mind still insisting that he hadn’t told me any such thing. If I could just make my escape quickly …

  “Um, excuse me, madam?” A young woman approached me and curtsied, halting our debate before it got started. “Are you Fanchon’s mother?”

  “Yes. Is everything all right?”

  “She said she needed help and to come get you.”

  “Where is she? Sorry,” I said to Lord Piminder. I didn’t pay attention to his response; I just followed the girl. If Fanchon had sent someone to hunt me down in a ballroom this crowded … well, it didn’t have to be serious, but that’s where my mind immediately leapt.

  “She’s in the ladies’ washroom,” she said, giving me directions.

  When I reached the toilets, I had to push my way through the line of affronted women.

  “I’m not cutting, I’m not cutting. Fan?” The Finleighs had taken your standard wooden bench with holes and separated them into little individual seats, surrounded by curtains. A clever way to add some privacy, but it meant I couldn’t see Fan.

  “There’s a line, you know,” one woman complained.

  “Fan?”

  “Mom?”

  I hurried toward her voice. She held the curtain open an inch for me.

  “I don’t think I’ll fit in there with you, sweetheart.” Here we came to the main flaw of the washroom’s design: there wasn’t really room for women’s skirts in the cubicles. They’d probably been designed by a man. “What’s wrong?”

  She tried to step back, wedging herself into the stall without tripping over the bench. I fit most of my right side in and assessed the situation. She looked paler than usual, her eyes wet.

  “Sweetheart, what happened?”

  “Every one of those boys asked me to dance. Damian, Herb, and Justice. And I really liked dancing with the first two. They were really polite. But then Justice wanted to dance a waltz, so he had his hand on my waist, and he kept … he kept moving it down to my—my hip.”

  Fan started to cry. I, on the other hand, had developed a taste for blood.

  “And when it was done, I told Rena—she’s one of the girls—and she said it meant he liked me, but it made me nervous, so I ate like three eclairs, and I forgot I wasn’t supposed to eat that much. So then, I know that some girls when they eat too much they make themselves gag and throw it back up, so I came here to the toilets, and I tried, but my bodice makes it so I can’t bend over, and I made a mess, and I think there might be sick on my dress, but I can’t bend over to see it! And I’m really embarrassed and my ribs hurt.”

  You’ve got to take care of Fanchon before you can behead anyone, I told myself.

  “All right, sweetheart. You’re all right. I’m going to find a damp cloth for you.” She’d tried t
o clean up after herself with her handkerchief, but that had only gone so far. I wet a cloth and wiped her face. Then I examined the front of her dress, dabbing at a few spots.

  “I think you’re all right, love. It’s not as bad as you think.” There was a spot on her shoe of—look, the lighting was dim and I didn’t examine it that carefully. I wiped it up.

  “It was really bad before you got here. I was worried May wasn’t going to be able to find you.”

  “I wish I’d known you were in trouble, darling. I’d have said three eclairs weren’t so bad.”

  She cracked a small smile amid the sniffles.

  “Do you want to go home?”

  She nodded.

  “All right. Well, you’re all cleaned up. Let’s go find Maribelle and have her get the carriage.”

  We worked our way back to the ballroom. Fan kept her head down, and as we hit the mass of people, she tried to hide her face in my shoulder. My instincts said Maribelle would be at the punch bowl and dessert table, and sure enough, she was. I told her Fan wasn’t feeling well, and before long, we were sitting quietly in a carriage, riding away from the hubbub.

  Fan had nestled up against me, still crying. I, on the other hand, was imagining hunting Justice Farthingbras down. When I got my hands on that little—

  No, Evelyn, I stopped myself. This is your fallback. It’s where you always go when you’re heartbroken. Sure, he’s a scumbag, but feeling angry is just putting off feeling devastated for Fan. How could a few parties be such disasters?

  “Shh,” I said, rubbing her shoulder. And then I remembered one more question. “Fan, why were you worried about how much you ate? You’re very healthy.”

  “It’s in style to be really skinny. Roompilda said I had to lose weight.”

  This time, no inner voice tried to calm me down.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “HOW DARE YOU tell my daughter to lose weight?” I shouted.

  As usual, Roompilda had arrived for Fan’s lesson in the morning, brushing past Mina and into the sitting room. I was waiting for her.

  Roompilda exhaled sharply in a way that said she was disappointed to have to explain this to me.

  “That’s dangerous!” I said. “It’s dangerous for her to be purging, and it’s dangerous for her to starve herself! Not to mention she’s perfectly healthy!”