Malvolia does not bind me or place me under a spell during the night. Rather, she enchants the locks on the windows and doors so that I cannot escape without her knowledge. Jack’s family had a similar invention in the twenty-first century, an alarm system, it was called.
When morning comes, I return to sewing. The bodice is nearly finished but for the buttonholes. The skirt should be short work. I hope I might live another night.
I stop to admire my handiwork.
“Keep at it,” Malvolia snaps. She has been in a particularly sour mood today.
“I am sorry. It is just so…lovely.” I must try again to strike up a conversation with her. It is my only hope of survival. “You have been kind to me. Were you to release me, I would speak to Father on your behalf. I would persuade him to make amends…for not inviting you to my christening party.”
“Your christening party? Is that what you believe this to be about?”
“That is what I was told, and you have not told me otherwise. Is it not the case?” I make one small stitch, then pause, awaiting her response.
“No. It is not.” She glances at the stitches, and I believe she will hurry me on, but instead she says, “Were I you, I would not be so determined to live. Your father is angry for what you did. You have destroyed his kingdom. Indeed, it may not be a kingdom at all, and he may not be a king. And as for your marital prospects, any prince you might have married is dead. What have you to live for?”
It seems that if I had nothing to live for, allowing me to live would be far worse punishment than killing me. But I say, “I am in love.”
“Impossible.” But the old lady leans toward me. “With whom could you be in love?”
“His name is Jack.” I abandon my sewing entirely. “He is the boy who kissed me awake.”
“A commoner who woke you under false pretenses. He was not your true love—merely some youth who stumbled upon you and thought you pretty.”
“This may have been true. But as time passed, we fell in love. He was kind, and he watched over me.” Malvolia does not attempt to silence me, so I continue on, telling her of Jack, of running away, of the airplane and the party and Jack’s parents and, finally, of the moment when he said he loved me. “You were there for that,” I tell her. “At least, I thought I saw you in the face of the water lily.”
“Aye. I was there. And you say you are in love with this boy?”
“Yes. I was not at first, when he woke me. But as I grew to know him better, to see how kind he was, not merely because I was a princess, but because he liked me, I grew to love him.”
Malvolia’s face is thoughtful. “Indeed. And what did you say this boy’s name is?”
“Jack.” The syllable comes out as a sob, not merely due to my sorrow at not seeing Jack, but for another reason. “He cared for me, and I fear he will be destroyed if I die. He is innocent in this.”
“And he loves you, too?”
I nod. There is something in Malvolia’s black eyes, a humanity I have not seen before.
But then she says, “We have wasted enough time. Back to your sewing.”
I start slowly again, admiring the beauty of each and every stitch. After some time, I say, “Please, Malvolia. Will you not tell me why you hate my father so? You intend to kill me. The least you could do is explain why.”
“The least I could do is nothing.” She gestures at me to return to my sewing. “And you had better to ask why he hates me so much, for it was with him that the animosity began.”
I nod. “Then tell me that. My parents were far too inclined to keep me in the dark, and I am afraid there is much I know not.”
“Indeed. What you know not would fill books.”
For a long while, the only sound in the room is the smooth silk against the roughness of my cotton sleep pants. But finally, she says, “Did you know that your family had another babe before you?”
“That is a lie!” I say, and I am certain it is. Had I not been told that I was my parents’ only child? That they had dreamed of having a babe? That I was the answer to their prayers—the sole answer?
“Indeed, then, they did not tell you much. Two years before your birth, your parents had another child, a boy named George.”
A boy! And named for my grandfather George. How happy my father would have been to have a male heir. Still, it cannot be true.
“I was employed as a seamstress in the castle, as were many of the kingdom’s fairies.”
I know that Malvolia is a witch, not a fairy, but I elect not to press this point. Rather, I lay down my sewing and listen to her story.
“As after your own birth, your parents planned a lavish christening party, and I—as the most accomplished seamstress in the land—was assigned to make the clothing for the occasion, a christening gown for your brother, and a dress for your mother.
“The christening gown was the work of many weeks. It was made of cotton imported from Egypt, and the skirt was over three feet long. The bodice was smocked and embroidered, and the skirt was sewn with hundreds of seed pearls.
“The day before the christening, I entered the nursery, that I might try it on the babe to make certain it fit his wee form.” The old woman’s eyes grow misty with memory. “Lady Brooke was with him, but he slept. He looked so peaceful, lying upon his stomach, thumb in mouth. Lady Brooke asked me if I might keep an eye on him while she checked on his bath. She was then quite young and stupid, and I suspected her errand might have had more to do with flirting with one of the gentlemen of court than the baby’s bath. Still, I agreed. In the nursery, I could sew undisturbed by Lady Brooke.”
I smile at the idea of imperious Lady Brooke ever being a silly girl. Malvolia does not see me, though, so engrossed is she in her own tale.
“Besides, I enjoyed seeing the sleeping babe,” she says. “He was beautiful. So she left me there. The babe slept on, so I engaged myself in sewing more and more seed pearls to the train of the gown. I stayed an hour, and when I sewed the last, Lady Brooke had not returned, and the babe had not yet awakened. Annoyed at this waste of my time (for I had still your mother’s gown to finish), I approached the crib to check upon the babe.”
Tears fill her eyes, and I know what is coming, know why my brother was never spoken of by my parents.
“I expected to see the baby sleeping peacefully. Instead, I saw an infant, blue and still. Dead.”
The fabric slips from my lap to the floor.
“I tried mightily to revive him, shaking him, even slapping his little cheeks. Then, failing this, I tried magic. It was then that Lady Brooke entered the nursery. Seeing the baby dead, and me standing over him reciting incantations, and perhaps fearing repercussions for leaving her post, she began to scream. She screamed so loudly that everyone came, and when they did come, she concocted a story of how I had put a spell on her to remove her from the room, the better to suffocate the baby.
“All who came believed her, for I was a solitary being, not well liked by the others. And soon, the king heard tell of it, and in his grief, he had me removed from the castle. He wished to kill me, but I was too clever, with knowledge from my hundreds of years of existence. I outwitted him. I slipped into my realm, and later I disguised myself so that he could not find me. Still, he declared that, evermore, I should be known as a witch and not a fairy, and I was ostracized by one and all.”
“But it was not your fault!” I say.
“Nay. I loved the babe. It would have been my pride and joy to see a prince wearing a dress of my creation. But no one would listen to me, and I felt lucky to escape with my life. From that moment on, I was ostracized as a child killer. It was not fair. It was not fair.”
I remember my fear at Father’s anger. I touch her black-clad shoulder. “No. It was not fair.”
“But I will make it fair,” she says. “I was accused of killing one of King Louis’s children, when I had not done so. If I kill the other, ’twill be the perfect revenge.”
I look away, eyes filling with tears. She will kill me. It is all over. But I cannot let that happen. I swallow my tears and turn to her. “Good fairy, I am sorry for your misfortune. My father was, indeed, wrong to accuse you in such a way. It was cruel.”
The old woman nods. “Aye, it was. And it is for that reason that I must seek justice.”
“But killing me for my father’s cruelty is not justice. Can you not see that?” I allow the tears to run down my cheeks and implore her. “I am not my father. To kill me would be just as great an injustice as was done to you. Please do not do this.”
I wait for her response. She starts to speak, then stops and looks down. Finally, after a long while, she says, “You had best return to your sewing.”
I do, wishing that I might have a quantity of seed pearls to sew on, to prolong the job. But, of course, I do not ask. It is no use. It is no use.