I LOOKED DOWN at further horrors. My bodice had ripped, but my apron strings held and were squeezing my stomach. Hastily, I untied them. The seams of both sleeves of my bodice had split. The hem of my skirt, which had hovered just above the floor, now fell a little below my knees. I had shot up a whole foot! My boots, which were visible now without raising my skirts, had come apart. When I lifted one foot, the sole flapped.
My stomach settled, though I didn’t know how it could. And it rumbled. But I’d had a big breakfast.
How delicious Wormy looked: a little lopsided because he always hiked up his left shoulder, which just added to his appeal, and those rounded cheeks, those plump earlobes (the sweetest part), that flawless neck, that skin the hue of a goose roasted to a turn. How healthy I’d kept him, like a farmer safeguarding her livestock. How dear he was to me.
Aaa! What was I thinking?
The fairy Lucinda frowned. I sensed outrage, though I couldn’t hear her thoughts. Her feelings buzzed, as if a quarreling crowd were packed inside her.
How could I tell? I’d never perceived feelings before.
She needed a dose of my bonny-jump-up syrup to calm her. Maybe she’d turn me back then. “May I treat—”
“Fairy Lucinda,” Wormy said, “pardon me. Proposing was just a prank. We play tricks on each other, as friends do.” I sensed his emotions too. He was frightened. Oddly, he wasn’t in any pain, though he’d told me that his headache hadn’t entirely gone away.
The fairy’s outrage mounted. She glared at Wormy. What would she turn him into?
Had he really been jesting about the proposal?
“Yes,” I said. “We have a merry time with our capers.” My voice sounded husky, as if I’d been shouting. “We’re never serious.” Turn me back! And don’t harm Wormy!
She surveyed us, her emotions still in turmoil. Finally, she decided. “No. I think he meant it. And you”—she poked a perfect finger into my large chest—“will remain an ogre until someone proposes marriage and you accept.”
I gripped my worktable to steady myself.
Wormy went down on one knee this time. “Mistress Evie, please accept my sincere offer. I think—I believe—I’m certain—we’ll be happy.”
I sensed his fear and desperation. Kind Wormy. Perhaps the first proposal had been a prank, and now he wanted to save me from its consequences.
He added, “You can work as hard as ever. As hard as you like.”
I did feel love coming from him. But we weren’t in love. I definitely wasn’t, and I didn’t think he could be, either.
Maybe I should accept him, become me again, and figure the rest out later.
It would be wrong to accept him just to be human and stop wanting to eat him. I couldn’t do that to Wormy. Not to my dearest friend. Not to anyone.
Lucinda clapped her hands. “See how true his love is.”
She didn’t mind destroying a person’s life? “Do you do this often?”
“Help people?” Her smile blazed again. “Yes, oft—”
“Turn them into ogres?”
“It’s my latest inspiration.”
She was insane. I turned back to Wormy. “No thank you.” I was young. Eventually I’d find love with someone who loved me, too, someone who saw beyond the ogre.
“Oh.” Now Wormy was sad as well as scared.
“But if you’re ill, of course, I’ll help you.”
Lucinda’s rage surged. I put my hands over my ears, which accomplished nothing.
I felt furious, too—at her and at Wormy for bringing this down on me, though he hadn’t meant to. I doubted I’d ever been so angry.
“Then, foolish girl,” Lucinda said, “if you don’t receive a marriage offer and accept it, you’ll remain an ogre forever. You have”—she tilted her head from side to side, deciding—“sixty-two days.”
Barely more than two months!
“Counting today?” asked Wormy.
“Certainly, counting today.”
“Might she have a little longer? A year?”
Thank you, Wormy!
“Certainly not! Sixty-two is twice twenty-eight.”
“Er . . .”
“What, young man?”
Wormy, the mathematician, saw my face—and my fangs.
“Er . . . er . . .” He collected himself and thought better of pointing out her error, which, if she corrected it, would cost me days. “Then the last day will be November twenty-second.”
“I suppose.”
“At midnight?” I asked.
“At four o’clock in the afternoon.”
Why then?
She went on. “Who else will want her anyway, even if she were human, defiant and contrary as she is?” She smiled. “You, young man, are exemplary. When you find someone who deserves you, I’ll devise a marvelous gift.”
“If I have to stay an ogre, will my human side disappear?”
“No. You’ll always know what you lost.” She disappeared.
And reappeared. “Do not think another fairy will come to your rescue, either, no matter how much you plead. The fools disapprove of me, but they fear their own magic too much to intervene.” She vanished and this time stayed away.
A fly buzzed over my basket. I needed to eat. I wished the fly were a lot bigger, but I caught it and licked it off my palm. Tasted like venison.
“Wormy, why did you?”
He blushed yet again. “I thought we could spend the next few years discussing it.”
A reasonable answer.
A fist pounded on our door, a large fist by the sound of it. Oobeeg! What would he do when he saw me?
“Wormy . . . Tell Oobeeg what happened. Tell him I’m me.”
He left the apothecary. A bowl of late peaches rested on the kitchen table.
Ugh.
But I loved peaches.
No longer. I was angry they were even in my presence.
The stew for dinner bubbled over our low fire. I wondered if I could fish out the meat and ignore the flavor of carrots and onions.
Wormy returned and blushed. “Somehow I thought you would be you again.”
“I am me.” I forced my eyes away from his meaty thighs. “What did Oobeeg say?” The stew would have to wait. Aeediou couldn’t.
“I couldn’t tell him. The words wouldn’t come out. I think the fairy won’t let me.”
Would I be able to say them? I grabbed my basket and left.
As soon as he saw me, Oobeeg screamed.
I tried to explain, but the words seemed to choke me. Oobeeg jumped on his enormous horse and spurred it. His terrified wail wafted back to me. I watched him grow a little less huge in the distance.
Aeediou would die without doctoring. Ogres are fast, so I started running, clutching my basket to my chest and stumbling in my broken boots. Ahead of me, the streets of Jenn cleared, as if Lucinda had cast another spell.
Beyond town, I stopped to strip off my boots. Luckily, the soles of an ogre’s feet are calloused, so the dirt and pebbles of the road wouldn’t hurt. I ran again.
Aeediou’s farm lay ten miles from town. I hoped ogres had stamina. Ahead of me, Oobeeg crested a hill. As he descended, his height, especially on his mount, kept his head visible until, finally, all of him disappeared into the valley.
My mind returned to Wormy. Blockhead!
Edible blockhead.
Ugh! I wanted to leap out of my skin, as if the ogre were just a covering. I let go of the basket with one hand to touch my face, hoping for a miracle.
No miracle. Still hairy. Nincompoop fairy.
Why did I keep thinking this one or that one stupid? Was being angry part of being an ogre?
A side of beef hung in our shed at home, untainted by vegetables. I’d eat it raw. Mother wouldn’t have to see.
As I streaked along, a new feeling mingled with the misery and rage—pleasure in the strength of my legs, the energy in my muscles, the depth of my breathing.
By now, Aeediou’s large leg had probably swollen to three times its size.
Again I thought of Wormy’s proposal. As a healer, I had seen too much unhappiness in marriage. Stomach complaints and worse were the result! The commonest cause, I’d observed, was youth. So I had decided that no one younger than eighteen should wed, no matter how in love they believed themselves to be. Many married at fourteen, and then—for example—one or the other grew ten inches! And height was the least of it.
My calves were aching when I finally reached a stile for giants and had to boost myself up each step with my arms. When I descended the other side, Aeediou’s bull, an acre away, pawed the ground and lowered his horns.
I heaved myself up the far stile with his breath on my neck.
There was Aeediou’s vast farmhouse—made of boulders, thatched with a mountain of straw. I banged on the door.
No one answered, but Aeediou and Oobeeg had to be inside. Exee trotted to me, clearly meaning no harm. His back, which used to be as high as my shoulders, now came up only to my waist. He rubbed himself against me. Did he know me despite my form?
I wondered how dog tasted.
I wouldn’t eat a dog!
The door didn’t open.
“Exee trusts me!” I cried. “Uueeetaatii (honk) obobee aiiiee.” I am a friend. I knew a few words of the giants’ language, Abdegi, which includes sounds as well as words.
Oobeeg’s face appeared in a first-floor window, right above my head.
“I mean no harm. I’m—” The words your healer, Evie wouldn’t come. “I’m a healer ogre. Aeediou needs me.”
Oobeeg’s face left the window. Was he going to let me in?
Five minutes passed.
Aeediou had to be in pain, which would soon rise to agony, and shortly after that, she’d be beyond my remedies.
Now was the time for ogrish persuasion. A born ogre would have had the door open before the end of her first sentence.
“Oobeeg, I won’t hurt anyone.” I tried to soften my voice, but it still came out rough. “I’m as kind as . . .” As what? “As a good human.” In exasperation I cried, “If I were an ordinary ogre, wouldn’t I have convinced you by now?”
Nothing happened. I was furious. Two stupids.
I couldn’t reach the door latch, which hung too high for me even now. I saw nothing to stand on to get to it, either.
My rage melted as my own leg ached in sympathy with Aeediou’s. I backed away and put down my basket. “Oobeeg! Aeediou! I’m leaving my basket and going away.” I told them what was in it and how to use the ingredients. “Be generous with everything except the purpline. A few drops are all you need. I want the rest back. Aeediou, don’t stand up—Oobeeg, don’t let her stand—until the pain is completely gone. Coat every bit of the wound.” Now I was just repeating myself. “If you wait another half hour, nothing will help. I’m going now.” They’d pay me next week. You can trust a giant.
Please, Oobeeg, be brave enough to go outside for my basket. Aeediou, please let your son go out and save you. Be well, both of you.