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That evening, Merrigan looked up at the sound of the library door creaking open to see Cook with her supper tray, instead of Flora or Fauna. He paused in the open doorway and looked around the room. For just a flicker of time, he wasn't the iron-gray, stooped man with the weathered face and a stained leather eye patch. He was taller, younger, straighter, with two eyes that shone like emeralds, and flickers of purple magic spun around his outstretched hands, cradling a bowl full of rose-colored smoke. Then he was simply Cook again. He limped a little as he walked down the length of the table. His gaze raked over the books on their shelves with regret, rather than the awe Flora and Fauna displayed when they looked at them.
"You'll need this," he muttered, his tone soft and earthy, almost gritty, as if it came from deep underground. He put down the tray and shrugged one shoulder, letting a thick strap slide down, attached to a sturdy, thick shoulder bag, such as foot travelers or apprentices used to carry their masters' equipment.
His hand brushed over Bib as he set the bag down next to him, and Merrigan shuddered, fully expecting him to snatch up the book and walk out.
"Thank you," she said, her voice softer and weaker than she liked.
"I'm not him." Cook winked at her, which was odd, since she had always thought it difficult to wink with only one eye.
"Not who?"
He gestured around the library, then spread both arms, taking in the household. She understood. He meant the enchanter who resided here when this had been a castle.
"What happened?" She reached as if to catch hold of his sleeve, then thought better of it. "Who are you, if you aren't him? You know about ..." She rested her fingertips on the edge of Bib's cover.
Cook smiled, and again she had a glimpse of the young man he had been, strong and ruggedly handsome and full of power.
"I am usually blocked from coming in here, until I have learned my lesson thoroughly and permanently."
"Usually?" she prompted.
"Some of us take longer to learn our lessons than others. I suppose the higher the heights of the fall, the longer the climb upwards again. The wise learn from the mistakes and foolishness of others, Highness."
She shuddered. Hearing this man acknowledge her rank, her position, was entirely different from hearing Bib say it. Merrigan wondered why it frightened her.
"Learning is more than gathering facts and knowledge. Learning leads to wisdom, but we stopped at knowledge, like a dragon hoarding gold and jewels, only to sleep on them."
"Where is ..." She gestured as he had done, indicating the former castle.
"It doesn't matter, except that we each must learn a bitter lesson. I am pleased to note that I have ... paid, learned enough, to see a little of the spells swaddling you like a baby. Yes, that is an apt metaphor. You must be reborn, remade."
"How long have you been suffering?" she whispered.
"I don't really know. Time passes strangely, for those under enchantment."
"That is so unfair."
"There is no law that says magic that teaches a necessary lesson must be fair. At least," he added with a smirk that made his remaining eye brilliant green for a few seconds, "not fair while the spell is in force. When the change is complete, well ... let the enspelled judge."
"I don't want—" She squeaked as he pressed a gnarled, calloused finger against her lips, silencing her.
"It is useless to complain, and no one to appeal to for a change in judgment. I had to wait more than a century before I learned that. Learn from me, Highness. Don't waste your energy complaining or fighting. Focus on learning and becoming better than you were."
"Why are you telling me this?" Merrigan muffled the urge to shriek in a most un-royal manner.
"Learning requires passing on knowledge, especially lessons learned through pain. I would not wish my lessons on anyone. Not even the enchanters who were once my enemies." He executed a graceful bow, so utterly incongruous with his crooked form. He turned and went to the door. "I daresay we shall not see each other before you leave, which I recommend you do quickly. Your hair is darkening. Leave before someone notices the change and suspects you of magical doings. It could be uncomfortable."
Then he stepped through the door and out of sight. Merrigan couldn't even hear his footsteps moving down the hall. Then again, she hadn't heard him approaching the library.
"Well," she said, letting out a deep breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.
"Indeed," Bib said.
~~~~~
ROSCO SHOWED UP TO take away the dinner tray and announced that he had been told to take a message for her to the baker. Before she could ask, "What message?" Bib's pages riffled and a piece of paper slid across the table toward her. She gave Rosco the note and thanked him.
"So, be prepared to flee for our lives tomorrow?" she said, when the door had closed again.
"Once we give the documents to the Overseer, we don't dare come back."
~~~~~
MERRIGAN REFLECTED there were some benefits in having very little to call her own. She could leave the house with her two bags hidden under her cloak, and no one to suspect she had no plans to return. She put the finished clothes on the table, neatly folded, ready for pressing, and wished for a moment that she had left some undone details on each piece. She never had remembered the spell for the collars, but yes, this judgment falling on the judge was far better than choking him for moons to come.
"I don't suppose you can arrange for the seams to start unraveling once we're far away and safe?" she murmured as she looked around the library one last time. Bib just riffled his quiet, papery laughter.
In the kitchen, she asked Flora and Fauna to take care of pressing the clothes, then announced she was going to do some shopping in town before she returned to finish the last bit of hemming work. Cook nodded to her, but didn't turn away from the soup he was stirring. When she climbed into the wagon with Rosco and Oscar, she had to fight not to take one final look and wave a cheerful goodbye to this rather sad, if grand household.
The baker looked thinner, when Merrigan walked into his shop. He finished sliding a tray of buns into the tall rack standing next to the counter, and his welcoming smile struck her as somewhat pitiful. She remembered overhearing him talking to Judge Brimble about his bakery suffering because of the nasty rumors. And then how the judge and Swickle laughed together over those same rumors and the baker's reaction.
This man had been kind to her, without knowing she was a queen. Didn't that deserve some reward?
"Why did you want to ride with me to Carnpotz?" the baker asked as he led her to the small, rather flour-dusty wagon behind the bakery. "How did you know I was going today?"
"I overheard you telling Judge Brimble. I was working in the room over his office."
"Ah." He offered her his hand to help her climb up, and tugged a pad over onto the seat before she sat down.
"I want you to know," she said, once they had put two streets between them and the bakery, "I think all those lies people are telling about your shop are awful. Your bread is the most delicious I have ever eaten."
"Thank you." He patted her hand. "You didn't say why you need to go to Carnpotz."
"Actually, I'm fleeing the judge. The things I overheard discussed in his office make me fearful for my life."
"What sort of things?" He frowned, but Merrigan suspected he wasn't quite as surprised as he should have been.
"He helped Swickle cheat that good boy, Corby, out of his inheritance, for one thing."
"Hmm, I don't find that hard to believe at all. Why would that frighten you?"
"I'm an old woman alone, a stranger in these parts. We all know from the fables that cheating and lying and injustice eventually ..." She sighed. "They gain enough weight that eventually some magic intervenes. I don't want to be blamed when that justice strikes. Judge Brimble is not so foolish it wouldn't eventually occur to him that someone sitting above his office could hear all his schemes."
"Hmm. Wise."
They rode in silence for another hour, until she saw the sign indicating Carnpotz was over the next hill.
"You should know," she said, touching his arm, "that I overheard Swickle and the judge plotting to take over your bakery. They're the ones spreading the nasty stories about your bread."
"I am not surprised," the baker murmured. He pressed his hand over hers on his arm. "Yesterday, he claimed he wanted to become partners, that he would provide the flour and ensure the quality was of the best. He offered me a contract to sign, and then was most upset when he learned I could read."
"He was counting on your not knowing what was in the contract," she guessed.
"Took it away before I could read anything, and said he would bring it back for me to sign in a few days, after I had time to think about his generous offer." He nodded twice. "I guess I'd be signing away my livelihood. Thank you for warning me."
"Would you do something for me?" she said, after the wagon had climbed to the top of the hill and the much larger town of Carnpotz spread out before them.
"Gladly."
"I have been helping the serving girls, Flora and Fauna, practice their reading. If the Overseer believes me and acts against the judge, will you make sure they find good positions elsewhere, and continue their studies?"
"Again." He patted her hand. "Gladly."
Merrigan couldn't understand why she felt like crying. At the same time, a curiously light sensation settled in her chest. What was wrong with her?
She was out of that gloomy, stifling household, back out in fresh air and sunshine. She had a friend to advise her and help her, someone who understood her. Why shouldn't she be in a better mood than she had been since long before Leffisand died and she lost her throne?
~~~~~
"IT'S THE CURSE," BIB whispered, once he and Merrigan were alone in the room where the Overseer's secretary had led them.
"What do you mean?" She nearly leaped up from the wooden bench with the dark blue cushion that was very welcome after the long, bumpy ride into Carnpotz. "Are we going to be imprisoned? They can't force you to disgorge the papers, can they?"
"Oh, forgive me, Mi'Lady. Not that kind of—well, let me start over. I didn't mean to frighten you. Didn't it seem a little too easy to gain an audience with the Overseer? You're not even a resident of this kingdom. Anyone can tell that by your accent. So why should a penniless, frail widow be allowed to see the Overseer, who is obviously very busy?"
"They decided anyone who came with a complaint against Judge Brimble, especially a foreigner, has to be lying and needs to be punished right away. Oh, what was I thinking, to try to make anything right? That Fae who advised me to do something, to pay back the help I received, he's in on it with Clara, isn't he? He deliberately set me on the wrong path."
"Mi'Lady, no, no."
Bib's words didn't penetrate her heart-thudding moment of panic, but the suspicious hint of laughter in his voice did. Merrigan nearly burst into tears right then and there. Bib wasn't part of the plot to destroy her, was he? Why had she been such a fool to believe he was her friend?
"No, Mi'Lady, the curse isn't to hurt you and keep punishing you, but to guide you in, as you said, making things right. The curse isn't really a curse, if you think about it long enough. Clara did it to help you."
"Hmph. Clara's kind of help, I can do without, thank you very much." Still, now that she sat and thought about it a moment, Bib might be right. "So we gained our audience without any waiting or trouble because the curse is fiddling circumstances in our favor?"
"Let's call it a spell, Mi'Lady. Much easier on the ears. And quite frankly, if the wrong people hear you say you're cursed, they'll never give you a chance. Imagine all the princesses who never would have been kissed to awaken from an enchanted sleep if everyone considered them cursed, rather than enspelled. Princes and knights on quests must be triply cautious. I could turn your hair white again with tales of otherwise intelligent, talented, brave young men who thought they were lifting a spell and got themselves tangled in a curse that refused to be broken. Enspelled, not cursed."
"Semantics." Merrigan snorted, then managed a somewhat unsteady smile. "Thank you, Bib. It's so good to have a friend with some common sense."
"Delighted to be with you, Mi'Lady."
Despite Bib's reassurances, Merrigan tensed the first time a door opened and another servant came in. This one was a woman in a simple, dark green dress, white cap and white apron. She inquired if Merrigan was hungry or thirsty, and when she said she was, brought her a large wooden mug of cider and a napkin with three warm, honey-glazed pastries. Now Merrigan could believe magic worked on her behalf. Certainly, if she was about to be accused of some crime, she wouldn't have been treated like a guest.
Another servant, this time a balding man with an enormous moustache that gleamed with wax, led Merrigan out of the reception room. He took her down the hall to a double set of doors. They swung open as the man approached. Merrigan saw a man and woman, just a little older than Master and Mistress Twilby. They stood in front of a tall man wearing somber black robes and an old-fashioned short, white-powdered wig. That had to be the Overseer. The man shook the Overseer's hand, and the woman curtsied. They glanced once at Merrigan as she followed the servant into the room, then they turned and left by a door on the opposite side of the room.
"Well, so you are Mistress Mara," the Overseer said, after he had gestured for her to take one of the seats facing him. "I was wondering when I would see you here."
"Excuse me? You—you have?" Merrigan clutched the shoulder bag holding Bib, pressing him against her side. Maybe he had been wrong after all? Had someone lodged a complaint against her? "You know me?"
"Oh, indeed. Judge Brimble made sure everyone knew he had a foreign royal seamstress making his clothes." The Overseer's voice was deep, with a rumble that hinted at both contained amusement and anger. Merrigan found that highly confusing. "You can understand why a stranger who goes to work in the home of a high official would be investigated."
"And what did you find out about me, Your Honor?"
"I employ a very clever young woman to flitter from town to town and gather up the images of people I want investigated. She uses magic to peer into the hearts and the dreams of such people. She had to resort to simple pen and ink to capture your image because you are so thickly shielded with magic, her own magic refused to work."
"Please, Your Honor, I'm not a spy."
"And yet you come to me straight from Judge Brimble's household, naming yourself a plaintiff."
"I didn't intend ..." Merrigan took a deep breath to steady herself and gain a few more seconds to think. If she was utterly honest, she had indeed gone into the judge's household to spy on him—just not for a foreign country.
"Mi'Lady?" Bib riffled his pages, nudging her arm where it lay across him, in the bag on her lap. "Shall I speak for us both?"
"Yes, Bib. Please do." She reached into the bag and put him on the massive desk between her and the Overseer. The man tipped his head to one side and didn't appear at all startled to see the book, or what happened next. All he did was listen, his face entirely unreadable.
Bib flipped open and proceeded to empty himself of all the documents. He explained what they were, and why he and Merrigan had taken them. She thought he spoke rather like a minister in a king's council, with a compelling combination of brevity and elegance. He then backed up and narrated how Merrigan arrived in Smilpotz, challenged by a Fae to find some justice for young Corby. Then he explained how she had overheard first the baker's complaints and pleas for help from Judge Brimble, then later heard the judge and Swickle laughing about the baker's plight and making plans to worsen the situation. He finished by repeating what the baker had told Merrigan on the ride to Carnpotz that morning.
The Overseer studied her in silence, over the tips of his steepled fingers, so long that Merrigan was ready to slap him, just to get him to blink. "You have been given a quest by someone magical, I presume? Other than the Fae who gifted the lad, Corby."
"Yes, I suppose you could call it that," she said.
"My assistant said she couldn't decipher all the layers, but it was applied with uncommon wisdom and purity of heart."
Merrigan swallowed hard, rather than release a thoroughly unladylike snort. She had enormous doubts about the "purity" of Clara's heart—or whether she had a heart at all.
"She believes much of the spell muffling you is to protect you. I agree."
"That's ... comforting."
For some reason, the Overseer found that amusing. He spent the next hour asking questions to bring out more details of the official complaint against Brimble and Swickle. He admitted that complaints had been registered against Swickle over several years, but no one had been able to bring him evidence. The knowledge that Brimble participated in the schemes explained the difficulty in finding any justice.
"A bitter truth that the whole countryside must learn," the Overseer said, as he stood and crossed the room to pick up a small copper bell, "is that the longer justice is delayed and lies replace truth, the heavier justice will strike when it finally does so." He rang the bell and returned to the desk, to offer his hand to help Merrigan rise. "I must presume you do not wish to return to Smilpotz."
"No, and there's no need. I finished my work and I have all I own in the world right here." She bent and picked up the bag with her few possessions, her new clothes, and the empty bag for carrying Bib.
"Forgive me, Mistress Mara, but I will need you to return, for the investigation. You will, of course, be housed at the expense of the tribunal, and a servant will guard you at all times, so there is nothing to fear. But I do need you to go back there."
"I understand."
Merrigan hoped the Overseer would understand when the spell of no return wouldn't let her retrace her steps to Smilpotz.
~~~~~
FOUR DAYS LATER, AFTER being housed in a nice, sedate inn, Merrigan climbed into a very large coach with the Overseer, four secretaries, six officers of the court, and massive boxes of documents and inkwells and ledgers. They were escorted by other court officials in open and closed carriages, and three dozen mounted soldiers. A good twenty people had been found to testify how they had been cheated out of gardens, horses, shops, or homes, and couldn't prove it wasn't entirely legal.
The coach rolled heavily and smoothly and slowly away from the Overseer's massive house, through the central square of Carnpotz, and toward the main road that cut the kingdom in half going north and south. Merrigan tucked herself as far into the corner as she could go without sliding between the cushions, and trembled in anticipation of what would happen next.
"Mistress Mara?" The Overseer looked up from the massive journal spread open on his lap, took the spectacles off his long nose, and frowned at her. "Are you feeling well?"
"Very well, sir. Why?"
"You look ..." His frown deepened. "You look rather ... transparent around the edges."
"It's started," Bib announced.
Most of the other people in the coach flinched at the voice coming from the bag sitting on Merrigan's lap. The Overseer had specifically requested she tell no one about Bib.
"What has started?" the Overseer asked.
"More dratted magic. I was hoping for a reprieve, for a worthy cause, but ..." Merrigan spread her hands in helplessness, and saw they were indeed turning transparent. She clutched the bag holding Bib with one hand and the nice, new, larger bag for her possessions, supplied by the Overseer. "It seems I'm not allowed to retrace my steps. Please be kind to Flora and Fauna and Cook and—"
The carriage turned upside down around her. A moment later Merrigan decided she had turned upside down, instead. She tumbled around for a few breaths, then landed in a loud rustling and an explosion of spicy green scent. When the world stopped tumbling, she opened her eyes, checked that both her bags were there, felt for her cap and her shoes, and looked around.
She sat in the middle of a candlespice bush, the feathery fronds dropping spicy-sweet powder all over her. More black powder rained around her, tossed upward by her landing.
"Mi'Lady? Are you all right?" Bib asked.
"That depends on your definition of 'all right.'" Merrigan turned carefully to get onto her knees, and from there to her feet.
She still felt somewhat wobbly and faintly dizzy, so she moved with caution and took deep breaths, fighting the hints of impending nausea. Then there were the tickly, feathery, long fronds of the candlespice bush that clung to her, tangling her legs, shifting when she took steps, so she couldn't be sure she could stay upright.
At last, she stumbled her way free of the bush, which had to be at least fifteen feet wide and high—on the small side, for a candlespice, actually. Merrigan's heart caught in her throat as she recognized the classic markings of a crossroads. From the broken bricks tossed into the ditches bracketing both roads, and the visible signs of patching with new bricks, she guessed this had to be a major roadway. What kingdom had she landed in?
"Bother," she muttered.
"What's wrong, Mi'Lady? Where are we?"
"You tell me." She dug Bib out of the bag and let both bags drop as she clasped the magic book in both hands and held him up, facing the tall stone pillar with mile markings and arrows pointing in all four directions, accompanied by city names. "I have no idea where these cities even belong."
"Hmm ..."
She did not like the sound of that.
"Have we found another limit to your magic, Bib?"
Merrigan stopped short, startled by the snap and sharp edges to her voice. What was more disquieting? The familiarity of it, like stepping into a favorite old ball gown from two years ago, full of comforting, delightful memories—or the realization that she didn't really like it? In essence, the ball gown smelled like someone had loaned it to a number of people who chose perfume over soap.
"Focus," she muttered, and held Bib up a little higher, closer to the signpost.
"I'm trying, Mi'Lady. Forgive me, but I think there have been some changes in boundaries and kingdoms and the names of towns and roads since I was essentially put into storage. My original master would update me regularly, feed me maps and reports on the political doings and wars in other kingdoms, so I knew who was who and what was where and ..." He sighed. For a few terrifying seconds, his cover turned spotty with wear. "I am sadly out of date. I must syphon information from other books or documents to catch up. I fear I am not much good as an advisor if my information is behind the times."
"It's not your fault," she said, hating the tight cords underneath her voice, and the effort it took to comfort him.
After all, who was the queen and who was the servant bound in the book, here? He was supposed to be looking out for her, not the other way around. By rights, she should have at least one servant just to carry Bib, so she didn't have to endure the weight of him, riding in that bag that bounced on her hip with every step she took.
But that was the problem with all this—nothing was right.
They stood there long enough that her arms got tired and she cradled the book against her chest.
"There's nothing to do but pick a direction, a destination, and start walking. After the good deeds we did, certainly we've earned some help from someone magical, don't you think?" he offered.
"Hmm, I suppose so." Merrigan sighed, slightly nauseous from the surge of anger that curdled through her belly.
What kind of fool had she been, to feel so utterly disappointed at this turn of events? She was under a curse, no matter what game of semantics Bib tried to play. Curses never let up so easily. What made her think that getting involved in the petty crimes and political games and lies of a minor town in a minor country would earn her a reprieve? Landing in a candlespice bush certainly proved there was no mercy extended in her direction.
With a decisive nod, she tucked Bib back into his bag, adjusted the straps of her two bags, and stepped up to the crossroads post, to study the names of the cities. Wardenkraft sounded pleasant, even friendly. Then again, maybe it was because the marker said Wardenkraft was only two miles away, while the other towns were eight, six, and twelve miles away, depending on the direction she walked. She had to be a pragmatist, after all.
Perhaps those trees looming closer to the road, maybe half a mile away, harbored someone magical. Even if it was just a handful of pixies, or a brownie. Brownies always wanted to be helpful, didn't they? Merrigan considered limping, to gain some sympathy from anyone watching. While that might work with simpletons, like farmers and goose girls, that wouldn't work with magical creatures. They would see the spells woven around her, get suspicious and wonder why she was shrouded in magic. Merrigan dearly hoped curiosity would get her some sympathy, if not bring someone close enough to investigate.
"Bother," she muttered, when she walked far enough for the woods to close in on both sides of the road, and the paving was replaced by pebbles and dirt, then plain dirt. Merrigan found the lack of wheel ruts highly discouraging. "Bib, should I turn around?"
"It might be wise, Mi'Lady. You are vulnerable to any highwaymen or common thieves lurking in the shadows hereabouts. Even as poor and feeble as you appear to be, you do have two bags under your cloak. Someone might be desperate enough that whatever they take from you will make them richer."
"I do wish you would stop with the philosophy." Merrigan stopped and looked over her shoulder.
She glimpsed some sort of structure among the shadows. As she took a few steps closer, an errant gust of wind moved branches overhead, letting a beam of light reveal a simple slanted roof over a well, with several buckets hanging from the support posts, and two cranks to raise and lower the buckets on ropes.
"I don't suppose the water is enchanted, and if I drink some, it will break the spell?"
"We need to expand your education, Mi'Lady," Bib said as she followed the little beaten dirt path from the roadside to the well. "More often, an enchanted well will only make your situation worse, unless you drink from a special cup, or you have a magic coin to appease the guardian of the well, or you know the right words to say to convince the water to help you. You're better off if it's just plain water."
"I'm thirsty enough to appreciate plain water." She stepped up onto the platform of boards surrounding the round wall around the mouth of the well. "How do you propose to expand my education?"
"I could tell you stories as we walk along. It will certainly pass the time. Oh, and maybe if we're in a safe town, where some greedy magistrate or mayor or merchant doesn't try to take me from you, I could earn you food and shelter by telling stories. I'm sure even the simplest villagers would pay to hear a magic book talk to them."
"Bib, you are brilliant." Merrigan swayed for a moment at the thought of staying in a decent inn, and people waiting on her.
She looked down into the dark depths of the well. The water was far enough down, lost in shadows, she couldn't catch the slightest glimmer of the surface. She reached for the handle to lower the bucket.
"What do you think you're doing?" a young girl called. "You're supposed to wait for me to help you."
Merrigan looked around and located another path coming toward the well from the opposite direction of the road. A girl, maybe fourteen years old, dressed in bright clothes, probably her festival outfit, trudged down the path, lugging a silver pitcher.
"Oh, dear," she muttered, sensing she had stepped into a fable, but not quite sure which one and where she had entered. "Are you supposed to help me? Dear?" she added. After all, she looked like an old, skinny, helpless widow. Might as well play the part.
Did she have a part to play in this particular story? Merrigan hoped not. She was a queen, which meant she was the one who did the manipulating of others. No one manipulated Merrigan of Avylyn and Carlion.
"That's what Mother told me to do. I'm supposed to come to this old well that nobody goes to anymore, unless you're in trouble, and be polite and sugary like Drusilla and draw water for a ragged old granny, and she'll reward me. Then maybe we'll have enough money she can leave Drusilla's lazy old father and we can go somewhere far away and be better off." The girl plunked the silver pitcher down on the stone lip of the well. The pitcher rang slightly off-key, indicating the silver wasn't pure. Definitely a lower-class family. "You're not ragged, and your hair isn't that disgusting shade of white that really isn't white, so maybe you aren't a granny?"
"Oh, not yet. What's your name?" She settled on the edge of the well, careful to sit forward so she wouldn't topple in. If this was indeed an enchanted well, whoever lived in it would not be happy at having an uninvited visitor.
"Pearl."
"Well, Pearl, let me guess. Drusilla got sent to this well for a punishment, am I right?"
"Every time her nasty old father gets Mother angry, she makes Drusilla do twice as many chores as me—and he doesn't even notice! Who needs a lazy old useless father like that?"
"You are so right, dear. Let me guess. When Drusilla came here, an old lady was waiting and she asked for a drink of water, and Drusilla was, as you put it, sugary and gave the woman water, and the woman turned into a Fae and rewarded her?"
"Every time she talks, three copper pennies come out."
Cheapskate Fae.
Bib chuckled, his voice muffled by the bag and her cloak.
"Mother hopes since Drusilla used the old copper pitcher and she got copper coins, if I used the silver pitcher, I'd get silver coins."
"I'm sorry, dear, but that is not how all the stories go. You're lucky you ran into me, an ordinary old woman ..." She slid off the lip of the well and gestured for Pearl to follow her. "With a magic book," she announced, pulling Bib out of the bag, and putting him down on the bag on the edge of the platform. "Bib, my dear friend, please tell this poor deceived child what always happens to the well-dressed stepsister who gets sent to the well after her idiot stepsister gets all the good rewards."
Pearl jumped back a step when Bib flipped himself open. Her eyes widened with wonder as the words on the pages swirled around and resolved into line drawings to illustrate his stories.
I didn't know you could do that, she thought to him.
Not to be cheeky, Mi'Lady, but you didn't ask.
Merrigan managed a smile. She wasn't ready to laugh just yet.
Bib went through three variations on the same theme—the stepsister with the father was downtrodden and abused by the stepmother, the father paid no attention, and the daughter of the stepmother followed the instructions to the letter, prepared to be polite and sweet to an old lady. But of course, the Fae changed the rules halfway through. When the Fae woman showed up dressed like a queen, the poor stepsister, confused by the change and positive that she had lost her opportunity, was in a bad mood when she offered water to the royal lady. This always resulted in something nasty happening to her, in direct contrast to what her stepsister received—snakes or toads falling from her lips, instead of the jewels and flowers her stepsister received.
"That's not fair," Pearl murmured, when Bib finished his story and flipped closed again. "Drusilla isn't that bad. I mean, yes, she can be stupid sometimes, but look at her father. I'm sure Mother would take her with us when we escape, if she didn't think the law would accuse her of kidnapping." Turning, she sat on the edge of the well platform.
"What am I going to do? Mother is packing, ready to flee on the next coach to the capitol. We shouldn't even have to leave. It's our house, but that stupid old man wasted all the money my father left us and then he sold Mother's jewels and ..." She sniffled. "And for some reason, everyone in town thinks Mother is evil and we abuse Drusilla horribly. The fact is, nothing would get done if Mother wasn't constantly reminding him and arguing down our bills with the merchants. Drusilla is just too stupid to be mean-hearted and I don't mean to be angry with her all the time, because I did like her at the beginning, but she tries my patience so!"
Merrigan was quite impressed by the girl's self-control that she didn't burst into ugly, sloppy sobs that would turn her into a red-eyed, snotty mess in minutes. Still, she knew how much comforting a fourteen-year-old needed. Especially one so level-headed and yes, generous, because she seemed to like her idiot stepsister despite her flaws. She patted Pearl on the back and put her arms around the girl and let her cry against her bosom. Just until the tears started to soak through the front of her dress.
"Is there anything valuable left in the house that you can sell quickly? Starting with that pitcher?"
"A few things. So much disappeared, so fast, but one day I caught Mother putting a few things into hiding so ..." Pearl nodded. "Yes, I think so."
"The most important thing is to leave. Get as far away from here, away from people who know you, as you possibly can. If your stepfather doesn't know about the copper pennies, then take Drusilla with you. She might as well pay her way."
"Leave a note for your stepfather," Bib said.
"Why?" Merrigan nearly shrieked. "So he can follow them?"
The important thing was to get the women away from that horrid, selfish, lazy man. The sooner Pearl and her mother got away from him, the better. It was too bad they had to take Drusilla, but if they left her behind, her father would marry a truly wicked stepmother with three ugly, cruel daughters. That was how the fables worked. They would make the poor girl talk nonstop until they were rich.
"Tell him Drusilla met a prince on the way back from the well. Make sure it's a prince from a kingdom at least a moon's travel away. Tell him Drusilla eloped, and you and your mother have gone to find a wicked enchanter to reverse the spell of the copper coins. No one will expect the three of you to be together."
"I suppose that makes sense." Pearl rubbed at her eyes. "But what if he decides to go look for Drusilla and live off her and her prince?"