“Sixth grade,”
Amanda said with a sigh fully intended to convey a perfect blend of
satisfaction and wistfulness. “Middle school. We’re not kids anymore, kids.”
“I for one am glad
to leave childhood behind,” Audrey said somberly.
“You two are sure
full of yourselves,” Linda said, throwing a pillow at Amanda.
Amanda threw it
back, accidentally nicking Audrey on the elbow. Audrey lifted the hefty couch
cushion—the seat, not one of the lesser throw pillows—and whomped Amanda over
the head.
“Ow—that hurt.”
“Only a child
would complain about getting hit with a pillow,” Linda sneered, with just a
hint of the old unbearable Linda.
“Pillow fight,”
Thomas yelled, diving into the gaggle of girls with a squeal of glee and
grabbing the first thing he could find (which, unfortunately, was Amanda’s
slipper, not a pillow at all).
“Don’t, Thomas,”
Amanda cried, “it has a hard—“
“—sole,” Audrey
finished sadly, rubbing her leg where said sole had landed.
“Thomas, we’re
going to read. You have to go away now,” Amanda said sternly.
“I want to read, too,”
Thomas said petulantly.
“You’re not old
enough for this book,” Amanda said.
“And it’s just for
girls,” Audrey added.
“Say it isn’t so,
my dears,” Mrs. Grand said, entering the room carrying a pile of papers.
“Why?” Amanda
asked.
“I’d hate to think
only girls will read good books.”
“Why?” Amanda
asked again.
“Because,” Mrs.
Grand explained, “fully fifty percent of the world is made up of the male
gender. You don’t want to exclude half the world’s children, do you?”
“We,” Audrey
announced, “are not children.”
“Excuse me,” Mrs.
Grand said. “I’d forgotten.”
“Will liked the
first book,” Linda said. “Remember? Last year in detention?”
Amanda and Audrey
groaned in tandem.
“You’ve jinxed
us,” Amanda said.
“What?” Linda
said.
“By mentioning
detention on this, the eve of the first day of the new school year.”
“Oh,” Linda said,
abashed.
“Pshaw,” Mrs.
Grand said. “You brought detention on yourselves by the choices you made. You
have free will, you know. You can choose to behave yourselves and avoid
detention this year, or you can go off and do foolish, senseless things again,
and take the consequences of your actions. There is no such thing,” she said,
scooping a pillow from the floor and plumping it slightly before replacing it
on the couch, “as a Jinx.”
The girls looked
dubious, but assumed argument would lead to further delay in reading, and so
they said nothing.
Mrs. Grand settled the book on her lap, and began.
§§§
“I miss our dear sister,” Audrey said with a sigh.
“As do I,” said Alyxandra, raking the crude wooden comb through her
tangled and knotted auburn hair. “She could make sense of this mess on my head,
at least!”
§§§
“Auburn!” Amanda exclaimed. “She has auburn hair!”
“Why yes, yes she does,” Mrs. Grand said, smiling bemusedly as if the significance had just occurred
to her.
“Which one is
Audrey again?” Audrey asked.
“The second oldest sister,” Linda said. “And Alyxandra is next. Don’t you
remember? There were twelve kids.”
“Saints preserve us,” Amanda said. “Two is enough for any
family, I always say.”
“You,” Audrey
said, “are so weird.”
“Keep reading,”
Linda urged.
§§§
“’Tis one long
year since she left us,” Audrey continued, pausing in her task of filling a
bucket with clear stream water.
§§§
“I thought stream
water had giardia and other nasty bacteria,” Linda said.
“Not in the olden
times,” Amanda said.
“Giardia comes
from deer poop,” Audrey said. “Are you saying they didn’t have deer poop in the
olden days?”
“They boiled their
water before drinking it,” Mrs. Grand said, pursing her lips at the girls.
§§§
“Has been a good year for us,”Alyxandra pointed out, scowling as her comb hit a particularly obstinate snarl.
“True,” Audrey admitted. “Good things have come to us in goodly measure. And
we had that message, from the far-off kingdom where she now resides, that
Amanda is well and strong. And yet, oft it is I worry about her, and wonder
whether we should not go after her, to offer aid and comfort.”
“You,” Alyxandra said matter-of-factly, “are the last person on this
green earth who would go gallivanting into the wilds in search of kith and kin.
You have not the adventuring spirit.”
Audrey said
nothing, but hung her head. It was true, she knew. Amanda had the bold and
saucy spirit among the older girls; Audrey was and had been always shy, obedient,
and compliant.
§§§
“Thomas, I thought
I told you to go away,” Amanda said.
“But I want to
listen,” Thomas whined.
“No, you’ll bother
us by doing cartwheels and picking your nose and rolling around on the floor.”
“Will not,” Thomas
said.
“You’re doing it
right now,” Amanda said, exasperated. “Besides, you’ll interrupt.”
“And of course,”
Mrs. Grand said, “we can’t have anyone interrupting.”
The girls nodded
in agreement, oblivious to the irony.
“All right,
Thomas,” Mrs. Grand said. “Scoot on up to your room. Dad will be up in a few
minutes to read to you and tuck you in.”
Thomas reluctantly
faded from view, picking his nose (guilty as charged), wandering in the general
direction of the basement stairs rather than the stairs to his bedroom. This
was an old trick of his, and had often gained him an extra hour or two before
bedtime, as each parent assumed the other had escorted Thomas to bed, only to
find him downstairs quietly playing.
“Now then,” Mrs.
Grand said.
“Wait,” Audrey
said.
“Wait?” Three
voices said.
“I’m not shy and
obedient and—what is she called in the book?—‘compliant.’”
“No,” Mrs. Grand
agreed. “Although you are practical, and sensible—all wonderful traits. But
just wait and see. There may come a time when Audrey-in-the-book must take
courage to step outside her natural character.”
“Okay,” Audrey
said, sounding dubious.
§§§
A
sudden noise interrupted the girls’ conversation. It was Peter, the baker’s
apprentice.
“Audrey! Alyxandra!”
he called urgently, crashing through the underbrush. (“There is a path,”
Alyxandra muttered.) “Come quick!”
“What is it?”
Audrey said, suddenly pale.
“Your father,”
Peter said. “The cart fell. He was delivering wood to Baker Samuel, when the
axle broke, and the wood fell upon him. He is in a bad way, I’m afraid. You
must come quickly, for he is calling for you.”
Quickly was not
possible, unfortunately, as the town lay far from the outskirts of the fey
forest where they lived. The girls, wishing they had wings to fly, moved as
quickly as they could through the woods, along the rutted track to the outskirts
of town, and down the winding, cobbled streets to Baker Samuel’s home. There
they found their father laid out on a makeshift bed of hay on the ground, in a dark
corner. As their eyes adjusted to the dim light, the girls
could just make out the mangled legs, the bloodied torso, and the ashen face,
wrenched with pain.
“Father,” Audrey
whispered, too horrified to cry.
“Don’t worry,” he
said, summoning a ghastly smile that was clearly intended to be reassuring but
failed utterly. “I’ll be fine. Just need to rest here, for a while.”
“Father,” Audrey
whispered again.
“Stop saying
that,” Alyxandra commanded. “What can we do, Father? Has the Barber been
summoned?”
“Yes,” Baker Sam
answered, approaching from behind. He had blankets in his arms.
Peter stood in the
doorway, trembling and visibly aching to be useful. “Shall I fetch some water?”
he said.
“Yes, boy,” Baker
Sam answered, “and put it on to boil then.”
[This section withheld - you'll just have to wait until the sequel comes out to read this part!]
Alyxandra sensibly
pulled her sister out of the house, to give the barber more room and
light to work. When, a moment later, they heard their father cry out, she
pulled her further down the street to sit on the low stone wall beside the town
well.
“He’ll be fine,”
she said, but even confident Alyxandra did not sound convinced.
Audrey looked
around at the town as if seeing it for the first time. The sun shone merrily on
the houses and store fronts, dilapidated and grandiose alike. The birds sang,
and the town’s solitary horse stamped and huffed in the yard where he was tied.
Everything looked exactly as it always did, and yet somehow, Audrey knew, from
this moment forward nothing would ever be the same.
§§§
“That’s it?”
Amanda said. “You’re going to leave us hanging, not knowing whether their
father lives or dies, or whether one of them falls in love with Peter, the
baker’s apprentice, or whether they ever hear from Amanda again?”
“I thought you
didn’t like romance in your stories,” Mrs. Grand said.
“That was last
year, Mom,” Amanda said. “I was just a kid then.”
“I’ll keep that in
mind,” Mrs. Grand said without a trace of sarcasm (which was in itself a rather
amazing feat).
“I thought it was
perfect,” Linda said, “and I can’t wait to hear what happens.”
“Once a suck-up, always a suck-up,” Audrey said, and everyone, including Mrs. Grand, looked at her in surprise.
“Once a suck-up, always a suck-up,” Audrey said, and everyone, including Mrs. Grand, looked at her in surprise.
“Wait, isn't it my job to be tactless, and blurt out things without thinking?” Amanda said.
Audrey said
nothing, and Mrs. Grand saved them from more awkwardness by announcing that
there were more likely than not cookies in the pantry that were only slightly stale, if anyone was
interested.
“Anyone!” Amanda
shouted (a childhood game she and Audrey shared, that started when a very young
Amanda had demanded to know who “anyone” was and why they would want cookies), and
they scrambled to their feet to investigate.
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