Grandma’s Teacups

Summer was the bestest time of year. Kaylee loved lying in warm grass, looking for cloud pictures. She loved running through the sprinkler. The ice-cream truck came every day.

But the bestest part of summer was going to Grandma’s house.

Grandma’s house smelled like wood and lemons. It had sunny rooms and dark corners. Kaylee could play mega-hide-and-seek with her big sister, Alyssa. They could spend whole afternoons in the attic, dressing up in Grandma’s old clothes.

But the bestest part of Grandma’s house was looking at Grandma’s teacups.

Grandma’s teacups were older than Grandma. Pink flowers danced on their thin, white sides. If fairies had tea parties, they’d use teacups just like Grandma’s.

After their last visit, Alyssa told Kaylee a secret. “We have tea parties while you’re napping,” she said. “And I drink from a teacup!”

“How come I don’t get a teacup?” cried Kaylee, who always used a plastic mug.

Alyssa smirked her big-sister smirk. “You’re not big enough for Grandma’s teacups.”

This summer would be different. Alyssa was going to soccer camp. If Kaylee was big enough to visit Grandma’s house by herself, she must be big enough for Grandma’s teacups.

Kaylee spent a whole week at Grandma’s. She caught pollywogs in the pond. She threw water balloons at the kids next door. She played dress-up without losing any buttons. But every afternoon, Grandma and Kaylee drank milk from plastic mugs.

On Kaylee’s last day, fat raindrops fell. It was too cold to splash in puddles. It was too dark for dress-up. The kids next door weren’t home.

Grandma was in the kitchen, making Kaylee’s favourite cinnamon buns. Kaylee put her hands on the counter and stood on tiptoe. “Can I help, Grandma? Can I?”

“Sorry, Cinnamon Heart,” Grandma said, kneading the dough. “You’re not big enough.”

“I’m not big enough for anything!” Kaylee stomped out of the kitchen and into the dining room.

Grandma’s teacups were in the china cabinet.

“I’m big enough,” Kaylee muttered, so Grandma wouldn’t hear. “Big enough for cinnamon buns. Big enough for tea parties, too.”

Quietly, quietly, Kaylee dragged a chair over to the cabinet. She clambered up. She opened the door. She reached for one of Grandma’s teacups.

The chair slipped. Kaylee grabbed the cabinet door. She didn’t fall.

But Grandma’s teacup did.

It crashed onto the dark wood floor and broke into a million jillion pieces.

Kaylee froze, listening. Quickly, quickly, she closed the cabinet door, replaced the chair, and stuffed the shards of Grandma’s teacup under the rug.

The door opened.

“There you are, Cinnamon Heart.” Grandma wiped her hands on a tea towel. “Since it’s your last day, let’s have a big-girl tea party. With cinnamon buns. And real teacups.” Grandma smiled and went back to the kitchen.

Kaylee’s lip wobbled. She ran to find her craft glue.

Kaylee liked jigsaw puzzles, but this one was hard. No matter how she moved the pieces, they didn’t fit right. And the glue wouldn’t stick! She got glue on her shirt and glue in her hair. The glue on the teacup was lumpy and bumpy. It covered the pretty pink flowers with crusty white glop, but it wouldn’t hold the pieces together.

“Time for tea, Kaylee!”

Kaylee gulped. She gathered the pieces of Grandma’s teacup. She crept into the kitchen. Slowly, slowly, she held out her hands.

Grandma looked at Kaylee’s hands and then she looked at Kaylee. Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Kaylee,” she whispered. “My Grandmother’s teacup.”

Kaylee wanted to run to the attic, climb into a trunk of dress-up clothes, and never come out again. “I’m sorry, Grandma,” she wailed. “I thought I was big enough!” Her icky, sticky hands shook. “Do you still love me?”

One by one, Grandma took the pieces of teacup and placed them on the counter. Then she wrapped Kaylee in a soft, warm hug. “Grandmas love their grandkids,” she said, “even when they’re bad. Besides…” She gave Kaylee an extra squeeze. “It takes a very big girl to admit she’s done wrong.”

Kaylee had to go to bed early, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t even mind not eating any cinnamon buns. Maybe being big isn’t about what you get, she thought. Maybe it’s about what you do.

Tornado Alley

Ann emptied her purse onto the bedspread and poked through the coins. Ninety-seven cents. A Barbie doll cost three dollars. She sighed. “I’ll never earn enough.”

Tree branches scraped against the window, and Ann flinched, her pulse jumping. “It’s just wind,” she said, to calm herself. “You’re ten years old. Too old to be scared of tornadoes.”

But she was. Had been, ever since she’d first watched The Wizard of Oz on television. That was six years ago, in 1956. The same year her family moved to Newton, Kansas, in the heart of Tornado Alley.

Mom rapped at the door, baby Tim on her hip. “Ann, the Hermansons just called: they need a babysitter. Nancy’s at the Millers’ but they said you’d do.”

Leave the house in this weather? “I’m kind of busy.”

“They’ll pay twenty-five cents an hour.”

Ann studied her little pile of coins. Twenty-five cents an hour would add up fast, but… “What if there’s a tornado?”

Mom laughed. “There’s never been a tornado in Newton, honey.”

Ten minutes later, Ann rang the Hermansons’ bell. Mr. Hermanson opened the door, adjusting his hat. “Just keep them busy, Ann. We’ll be back before supper.” They dashed for their car, strands of hair whipping around Mrs. Hermanson’s head. Her stylish bouffant was already ruined.

Ann shut the door and turned to the kids. Joey, not yet two, was happily stacking wooden blocks. Five-year-old Dixie, however, stood with hands on hips. Uh-oh.

“Hi, Dix,” Ann said hopefully. “Want to play dolls?”

“They’re sleeping.”

“How about jacks?”

“Boring.”

“Um. I could show you a new yo-yo trick?”

“Mine’s broken.”

Ann rolled her eyes. All big sisters were impossible. “Then what should we do?”

“I wanna play kick-the-can.”

“No!”

Both kids stared at her.

Taking a deep breath, Ann lowered her voice. “It’s too windy. We have to stay inside.”

Dixie’s eyebrows pulled together, and Ann cast about for a way to diffuse the coming tantrum. The Hermansons didn’t have a television, but there were newspapers on the table. And—thank goodness!—a familiar plastic egg.

Soon Dixie was perched over the funny pages, squashing Silly Putty over Charlie Brown’s face. Ann showed her how to peel it off so the picture transferred, and she squealed with delight. Relieved, Ann settled in with Joey and his blocks.

Until lightning flashed. Ann jerked, knocking their tower down. Why was the room so dark? It was only—she squinted at the clock—6 pm. Wiping sweating palms on her shorts, Ann got up and switched on the radio.

“ – tornado heading directly for Newton. Seek shelter now – ”

Ann clicked the radio off. A tornado. But tornadoes never came to Newton! Crazy laughter bubbled up in Ann’s throat, but she choked it down. They’d be OK. They just had to get underground. “Where’s your cellar?”

Dixie looked up from the paper, forehead wrinkling. “Don’t have one.”

No cellar? Why would you live in Tornado Alley without one? “My house,” Ann said. “I’ll call my mom.” She snatched up the phone. No dial tone. The wind must have knocked the lines down. Mom wouldn’t know to come get them. The only way to reach the cellar was to go out into the storm alone.

Ann’s legs turned to string. She slid down the wall, panic flapping in her gut. She couldn’t. She couldn’t go out there alone.

Something crashed against the side of the house. “I’m scared,” Dixie said, and Joey whimpered.

Ann met their wide eyes. She wasn’t alone: she had the kids. And they needed her to do something.

Thunder boomed, launching Ann to her feet. “Come on,” she said, and hustled them out the door.

Up and down the street, people ran for shelter. Leaves and litter sailed through the air as purple-green clouds roiled above. Scooping Joey up, Ann clutched Dixie’s hand and pelted towards home. Her gum-wrapper necklace, folded from a winter’s worth of Bazooka, tore free and disappeared.

Half a block. Ann glanced at the sky. Not a tornado. Tornadoes. There were twisters all around them, demonic fingers reaching for the town. Dixie screamed. Ann ran faster, gasping for breath, the tang of ozone filling her lungs.

Then she was stumbling up the steps as her front door burst open. “Downstairs,” Mom cried, “hurry!”

They reached the cellar. The air grew heavy and still. Then wind struck with new fury. Glass shattered somewhere upstairs. Mom clutched Tim to her chest, rocking back and forth as the baby sobbed. Joey’s lip trembled and Dixie began to snuffle. Ann wanted to cry too, but she couldn’t. She was ten years old.

Old enough to be brave.

Ignoring her wobbly knees, Ann pulled the kids into the center of the room. “Who cares about a little wind?” she said. “We’re having a dance party. Let’s twist again,” she sang, showing them how to swivel. Joey started shaking his bottom, and Ann laughed so hard she forgot to be scared.

The storm passed. When the Hermansons arrived, Ann was reading while Joey and Dixie curled against her, sound asleep.

“Here,” said Mr. Hermanson, as his wife gathered the children into her arms. “You earned it.”

Ann looked at what he’d given her and grinned. Seventy-five cents for babysitting. And a $10 tip.

French Braid

It’s been seven years now, but I still remember exactly when it began. The end, I mean. Not that I recognized it at the time. It’s not like twelve-year-olds can identify a famous painting from the first brushstroke.

It started on a Sunday, my favourite day of the week. There was no homework on Sundays—at least, not for me. First, we’d all go to church and out to lunch. Then my mom—a history professor at the University—would curl up with her research or a backpack full of student papers, while Dad would take me anywhere I wanted to go.

Dad taught in the Drama department, but he never scheduled rehearsals on Sundays. We’d visit the zoo, the amusement park, or best of all, the art gallery. Other times we’d go to the public gardens. I’d set up my easel and Dad would spent hours just watching me work. It didn’t matter what we were doing, as long as we did it together.

Mom and I had a special Sunday ritual, too. On schooldays, we wore ponytails and barrettes, but Sunday was the day for French braids.

The morning it happened, I put on my dress and ran to my parents’ bedroom. Mom sat before the mirror, running Great-Grandma’s silver-backed brush through her walnut hair. I perched on the bed, watching her slender fingers as they parted and plaited. The locks, smelling of warm cinnamon, slid through them like water, falling right into place.

Once when I was ten, I’d tried to braid my own hair. I’d struggled for what felt like hours, arms on fire from holding them up. The sections had tangled and skipped, the plait wandering all over the back of my head. Mom achieved smooth perfection with no apparent effort; from my braid, wisps and tufts struggled to break free. I’d finally given up, shaking my head to untangle the mess, and asked Mom to take over.

Now she twisted an elastic over her ends, and I took her spot on the stool. Mom’s fingers, soft and gentle, smoothed my hair back from my forehead. She started to brush, taking her time, humming as she worked. She brushed until my hair—the same colour as hers—shone like hers too. I closed my eyes as she began to braid, feeling the plait take shape. She hugged me when she was finished, our faces side-by-side in the mirror.

Dad swaggered in, arms spread so we could admire him in his Sunday best. “Are my beautiful ladies ready to go?” He tugged the end of my braid and we followed him outside.

He was holding the door of the Mercedes for me when our neighbour came out of the house she shared with three other graduate students. Dad waved and winked. “Don’t be late for class tomorrow, Mona—it’s Juliet’s big day!” She tipped her sports drink at him.

I slid into the back seat as he watched her jog away, her blonde bob flapping. After waiting what seemed like forever, I called, “Daddy?”

He wheeled back to face me and smacked his forehead with his palm, making his goofy-dad face. “Sorry, Peaches. Thought-train derailed again!” Closing the door, he circled to the driver’s side, leaving Mom standing on the pavement. She hesitated before opening the passenger door herself.

I stared at the sky as we drove away. It was summer blue, but a cloud had blown over the sun.

There are supposed to be signs, right? The end of my world should have been foreshadowed, like with fires and floods, or two-headed chickens. At the very least, by the muffled sounds of fighting behind closed doors.

But life seemed to go on pretty much like normal. Maybe Dad worked a little later, or started going out when Mom settled down with another musty old book. Maybe Sunday lunches were a little more subdued. Maybe Mom’s eyes, the soft grey of the sea, started to look a little more like fog. Hardly reasons to panic.

Then Dad announced he was moving out, and panic seemed like a perfectly acceptable response.

“Sorry, Peaches,” he said, heaving a suitcase into the trunk. “The apartment Mona picked out is pretty small. We’ve only got one bedroom.”

“It’s OK.” I passed him his gym bag, trying to look cheerful because he did. “I want to start high school with my friends, anyway.”

“You’re a trooper, kiddo. Maybe when we get a bigger place…. See you Sunday!”

I called for backup the moment the Mercedes was out of sight. Bex’s parents had died in a car accident when she was eight—if anyone would understand how frantic I felt, she would. “Don’t worry,” she said, settling cross-legged onto my bed. “It’s just a phase. One of those mid-life whatevers. Aunt Mom says all the men she dates are going through it. It could be worse.” She cocked her head. “At least he didn’t spend your college fund on a Ferrari.”

I choked a laugh and she patted my knee. “Don’t worry, Kat. He’ll be back.”

I should have known from the way she twiddled her eyebrow ring that she didn’t really believe it. But I did. I didn’t doubt for a second that Dad would come home. Until a few days before my fifteenth birthday, when the divorce papers showed up.

He’d granted my mom sole custody.

I hunched in front of my mirror the Sunday morning after, elbows on the desk, fat raindrops flinging themselves against the bedroom window. It was still early, and the house was silent. It was always silent now. When Dad left, he took all the noise and motion and happiness with him.

I glared at my hideous reflection. Birthday or no, I still looked twelve. Why couldn’t I be lucky like Bex? One day she was a cute, spunky kid; next, she was a woman, all curve and grace and fire. Compared to her, I was stretched and skinny, pimply and awkward. My eyes were too big in my long thin face, and my hair… was exactly like my mother’s.

And just like that, I snapped. It sounds lame, I know, but that’s how it felt, like something inside me had broken. I yanked my drawer open, riffling through pastels and brushes and inks until I found my scissors. The blades gleamed in the lamplight.

It was easy—the easiest thing in the world. The strands parted like silk over a scalpel, locks scattering around me. How could hair, so strong when braided, fray so easily? The blades clicked as I hacked and slashed, cutting and cutting, even when I couldn’t see what I was doing anymore, because of the tears.

Hinges creaked, and I heard my mother gasp. “Katrin? What are you doing?”

I lowered the scissors almost calmly. “It’s your fault.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s your fault!” I whirled to face her, the words bursting from my throat. “It’s your fault he left us! You didn’t try hard enough, you weren’t there for him! You spend so much time reading books about dead people, you forgot about the living ones! It’s your fault! It has to be.”

Mom started shaking her head, over and over, her braid swinging like the pendulum of the grandfather clock in the front hall. Her eyes shimmered and I felt a twinge of guilt, but it was too late to back down.

“I’m sorry this happened, Katrin,” she said at last, her voice tight and strange. “I understand why you blame me. I hope someday you’ll understand the rest.” She turned to go, but paused with her hand on the doorframe. “You’re right about one thing, Kat. It’s not your fault.”

I slammed the door so hard Dad’s framed playbills clattered against my wall. I wasn’t going to church that day. I never wanted to go again.

It was clear my parents had given up, or maybe just lost their minds. But I knew it wasn’t too late. All I had to do was remind Dad of what he was missing.

I worked on the sketch for weeks, alone in my room where Mom wouldn’t see. I must have started over a dozen times. My fingers cramped and charcoal dust imbedded itself in the grooves of my skin, but it was worth it. When it was finished, it was the best piece I’d ever done.

On Sunday—Visitation Day—Dad took me to a movie. Something with biceps and explosions that neither one of us really enjoyed. When we finally got back to the car, I handed him the drawing.

I’d captured Mom’s dazzling smile, the love in his eyes as he’d looked at her. My younger self, in a polka dot bikini, swinging from their hands. “It’s from that photo,” I said. “San Diego. Remember?”

“Of course, Peaches.” Dad leaned over and kissed my forehead. “When did you get so good, huh?” He stuck the key in the ignition. “Want to come over for dinner? Mona orders a mean pizza.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to hit him, or just burst into tears. “Thanks, Dad, but I should go… study.”

“It’s not over, Kat.” Bex sipped her venti half-fat-no-foam cappuccino. “So OK, he’s lusty for Miss Peroxide, but he loves you. You still hang every Sunday, don’t you?”

I stared at the moisture rings on the table, the milk from my chai latte curdling in my stomach. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“We’ve only missed a few,” I said defensively. “He’s been really busy.”

The flash of pity that crossed her face nearly killed me. Then she smiled—her “take no prisoners” grin. “Maybe you need to show him how hard things suck when he’s not around.”

“I tried to tell him—”

Bex flicked the freshly-trimmed ends of my bob. “I said show him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well… How do you feel about a little teenage rebellion?”

“Um. Isn’t acting out for attention totally cliché?”

“Totes. That’s because it works.” And she clinked her mug against mine.

We got our tongues pierced the very next day. When I showed Dad the stud, he burst out laughing.

I leaned back in the passenger seat. “You’re not mad?”

“Tell you what, Peaches.” He flicked on the turn signal and changed lanes. “Promise to wait until you’re eighteen before you get the matching tattoo, and we’ll call it done.”

“Not even a paternal good-judgment lecture?”

“Not on a Sunday, kid.” He chucked my chin. “You and I have better things to do on Sundays.” Dad pulled over in front of a drycleaner’s.

“Aren’t we going to the gallery?”

“Mona asked me to run a few errands on the way.”

I glared at him, tongue throbbing. “You just said you and I had better things to do.”

“So come in with me.”

I didn’t move. When he’d gone, I pulled out the antiseptic spray the piercer had given me, promptly dropping the cap. I fished for it under the seat and found something else. My drawing, crinkled and yellowed.

He’d never even taken it out of the car.

I cut my first class that week. Two months later, I spray-painted the side of the gym.

That one landed me in the principal’s office. Mom told Dad about the meeting, but he didn’t show. When I picked up the extension that night, I overheard him tell her, “Look, I’m sorry. But if you didn’t want sole responsibility, you shouldn’t have asked for sole custody.”

I replaced the receiver, snuck out to a house party, and got totally, horribly, drunk.

“Did your mom ground you for life?” Bex asked the next day.

“Yeah.” I was holding the phone away from my ear, trying not to aggravate the hangover. “After she cleaned me up and put me to bed.”

She made a wistful little noise. “Aunt Mom made me clean up my own mess.”

I remember the beginning of the end, and I remember the day we started over.

I sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window at a threatening sky. It was a Saturday afternoon, a few weeks after I turned seventeen.

I recall every single emotion I felt in that moment. Uncertainty, terror, grief. But there was hope, too, excitement, and relief. I’m not proud of it, but part of me was thinking it had finally happened—something so terrible, a need so powerful, it would bring Dad home again.

I clenched my fingers to stop the shaking, then punched in his number.

“ ’Lo?”

“Hi, Dad.”

“How you doing, Peaches? We still on for tomorrow?”

“Well—”

“This isn’t a great time, kiddo. Mona and I were on our way out.”

“I really need to talk to you, Dad.”

“What’s wrong?” He didn’t say “this time,” but I heard it in his voice.

“It’s about Mom.” I took hold of the tablecloth and began folding it into pleats. “She’s… she’s sick.”

There was silence, so I continued. “Um. She’s been having these weird symptoms, and she went to the doctor… They said it’s ALS. You know, Lou Gherig’s Disease?”

He still didn’t speak. I tried again, the words coming in a rush. “Um. The doctors said she’d start to lose mobility pretty quickly. She won’t be able to walk or talk or do things for herself, and I have school, and art school after that, and it just gets worse and worse until…” I took a breath and forced myself to say it. “She only has a few more years to live.”

I waited until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Why wasn’t he saying anything? “Daddy?”

“Uh.” He cleared his throat. “Wow. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, Peaches. Your mom deserves better.”

It was like a trap door had opened beneath me. “That’s it?”

“That’s it?” he echoed, using his playful-dad voice. “I’m already paying alimony, child support for you. And the University insurance program is comprehensive.”

“I didn’t call you to ask for money, Dad.”

“Then what, Peaches?”

“Dad,” I whispered, the tablecloth clutched in my fist. “I thought… I mean. I thought you’d take care of us. I thought you’d come home.”

He laughed, and it sounded like water, rushing in to fill the pit.

“Sweetheart,” he said reproachfully, as if he couldn’t believe his daughter was so naive. “You know better than that. Your mom and me… well. Mona’s my leading lady now. Besides, you’re my big strong girl and your mom has the money. What could you possible need me for?”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. I was drowning, and all he wanted to do was watch.

“I’m sorry, Peaches,” he said, a little uncomfortably. “I have to go. Listen. Instead of the theatre tomorrow, why don’t you come over so we can talk some more—”

The phone slipped from my hand, clattering to the table. I heard my father swear before I blindly stabbed the end key. He wasn’t coming back. Not even when I needed him most.

Especially when I needed him most.

I cried then, deep wracking sobs that tore my chest open. I cried until I gagged, until my eyeballs turned themselves inside out. Tears for a knowledge I’d denied since the moment he left, and tears for the heartbreak I knew was still to come.

Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to stop, I felt her touch my hair.

My short, cropped hair—the hair I’d cut for him. The hair I’d bleached, in hopes of becoming what I thought he wanted me to be. Of winning him back again.

But Mom had been right. It was never about me.

Her soft, gentle fingers smoothed my bangs from my face. “I’m so sorry, Katrin,” she murmured, and her hands were trembling. “You know I’d never leave you if I had the choice.”

Then she pulled up a chair and hugged me, and her arms were a fragile circle of warmth, a life preserver that would keep my head above water, keep me from flying apart.

Just like she’d always done, through my mood swings and plummeting grades and detention, when my tongue ring got infected and when I came home drunk. She held me, humming softly, until my tears were dry and I believed in her again. Believed in us.

We were alone. But together, we were enough.

Six months later, I told her I wasn’t going to art school.

“Katrin, you have to,” Mom protested. “I won’t let you sacrifice your dreams to take care of me.”

“Reagan offered me a part-time job at the gallery, and I’ve already signed up for correspondence courses.” I handed her my registration list, folded in the card Bex had made. “The credits are transferable.”

“But—”

“Please Mom.” I swallowed hard. “Even with everything I’ve put you through, you’ve always been there for me. Let me be there for you.”

That was the only time I ever saw my mother cry.

The sky is blue outside my window, and a lark sings in the spruce tree. It’s Sunday morning. I’m nineteen years old.

So much has changed in such a short time. More than medications and wheelchair ramps. More than learning to laugh when there should be tears. Not just who I am, but who I know my parents to be.

Dad called today, for the first time in months. He invited me to the dress rehearsal of his latest play. Whenever I refuse, he sounds angry, and confused. He still doesn’t understand how he lost me. I do not try to explain.

I have no doubt that my father loves me. When it’s easy. When it’s convenient. And a part of me still loves him, for his humor and flare, for the memory of the man I thought he was. But I’ve been backstage at the play, and now I can see through the illusion. Now I know what’s real.

I stand before my mirror, brushing my walnut hair until it gleams. Parting an area above my forehead, I divide it into three strands. I lift and add new sections, switching and alternating, plaiting straight down the back of my head. No bumps, no lumps. Not a single wisp out of place. Just one sleek, perfect French braid. A symbol of how far I’ve come.

When I cross the hall, Mom smiles at me, hands limp in her lap. I stand behind her chair and we look into the mirror. We share the same eyes, the same hair. I hope someday, we’ll share the same strength.

She doesn’t speak, but we don’t need words. For a moment, she presses her cheek to my hand, where it rests upon her shoulder.

I begin to braid my mother’s hair.

The Prince and the Hedgewitch

Once there was a land where stories had power. More than fireside amusements or cautionary tales, the events recounted in stories were not just fact, but fate. In this realm, the serpent was always slain, the dwarves always knew where to find gold, and the third son of a king, beyond all doubt or desire, would always have an adventure and inherit the throne.

* * *

Prince Alaric blinked stinging sweat from his eyes, drowning in the reek of hot oil and steel and skin. “I know to be kind to old women in the forest,” he muttered. “I know where to strike a dragon with my lance. I even know, though it matters naught to anyone else, how to tell when a butterfly will emerge from its chrysalis. With all I know, you’d think the arguments against beginning my quest on a cloudless August day would have been within my grasp.”

Gyrfalcon’s hooves rang against cobblestones that shimmered with heat. It was surely uncomfortable for the stallion as well, to bear from the imperial city 180 pounds of man and what felt like twice that in armour and equipment. Not that either of them had any choice.

Father or no, a royal command was a royal command: unalterable—and unavoidable—as the story itself.

At last, the city gates. Alaric waved to the cheering crowd one last time and they were through. His smile slipped away and he rolled his jaw, releasing the tension. Then he directed Gyrfalcon east, into the woods.

They were still some distance from the village of Cobham when the road curved, revealing a low stone wall speckled with flowering moss. Beyond the wall lay a yard. Wandering geese cropped the lawn, a surly white goat tied beyond reach of the rambling, meticulously weeded garden. At the rear, a riotous growth of red and purple roses clambered over a well-thatched cottage. The most promising sight of all, however, was the sun-browned girl, long dark hair tied back from her face, drawing water from the well.

Alaric guided Gyrfalcon into the yard, grunting a little as he dismounted. “We may be in luck, my friend,” he whispered, tousling the horse’s mane. “Let us see just how strongly this story seeks its ending.” He turned and bowed with a flourish. “My lady!”

The girl lifted a hand to her eyes, studying them as he would study a particularly unusual breed of lizard. A wry smile touched her lips. “Your timing is excellent, Your Highness. My well is the coolest and deepest in the kingdom, and it’s plain you’re both in need of refreshment.”

At least she’d refrained from curtseying. He hated it when they curtseyed. Alaric removed his gauntlets, stuffing them in a saddlebag. “I suppose it was too much to hope the news hadn’t spread,” he said, striding towards her. “But I accept your kind offer all the same, my lady, and beg you accept my assistance.”

The girl snorted and tipped the dripping bucket, filling a pail she’d set on the rim of the well. “I’m no lady, and I can manage quite well on my own.”

Alaric reached for the handle. “I insist.”

She drew the pail away. “That’s not necessary.”

“But if you’ll only permit—”

“It’s fine!”

“If you would just—”

“Really!”

“—allow me!”

“Let go, you royal oaf!”

She stomped on his armoured foot. Distracted by the clang, Alaric noticed they were scuffling for possession of a now-empty pail. Suddenly, the girl released its handle, sending him staggering backwards, and began to laugh.

No twittering bird-like giggle for this maid. Skirts dripping, hands braced against the well, she laughed with full, unashamed, indelicate abandon. And despite his embarrassment, her laughter drew a rough, long-unused laugh from him.

“My name is Nora, Your Highness,” the girl said when she’d recovered. “Come inside, and tell me what brings you to my door.”

She let him carry the pail.

* * *

Alaric sat cautiously at Nora’s table, afraid the chair might not take his weight. It creaked, but seemed sound enough. A mongrel with a splinted leg looked up, thumped its tail, and resumed napping beside a banked fire hung about with cut greens. The mingled scents of drying herbs and unwashed dog was pleasant somehow, almost homey.

“Hungry?” Nora asked, wringing a few stray droplets from her hair.

“Thank you, but no. Just water.”

The corners of her eyes crinkling with mirth, she filled a cup and handed it to him. Then she turned to the long workbench behind him. In contrast to the one in his own study, it held no preserved creatures or bits of wire and clockwork. The surface was bare and well-scrubbed, shelves above the bench crowded with baskets, jars, and battered books. Nora selected a small woolen pouch from one basket and began to fill it, rapidly and with confidence, from the contents of the jars.

Unobserved, Alaric glanced about for signs of the requisite maiden aunts; there were, unfortunately, none. “Do you live here alone?” he asked, just in case. “Have you no fear of beasts and bandits so far from town?”

Nora laughed again, adding a birch leaf to the pouch. “What beast would threaten the hedgewitch, or bandit steal from her? Who else would tend their wounds and treat their ills?” Tugging the pouch’s drawstring tight, she sat down across from him. Her gaze, unlike those of the court ladies who blushed and batted their eyelashes, was forthright. “And why, pray tell, is King Torrence’s third son seeking adventure in Cobham? Aren’t all the best marauding griffons and enchanted castles and dark knights to the West?”

Tired and empty eyes stared back at him from the depths of his cup. “I hoped it would not come to that.”

She didn’t respond, but watched him as though listening to words he’d left unspoken. Words he’d never spoken to anyone, because no one would understand. And yet, somehow he felt that she would.

“I’m the third son of a king.” Alaric rolled his cup between his palms. “It matters to no one that Rasmus is better with a sword, or that Eberhardt—”

“The eldest.”

“—has a firmer grasp of diplomacy and statecraft. It matters to no one that I spent every available moment reading the tales, studying the histories, searching for some pattern in the workings of the world that would hint at another way. I am destined to have an adventure and inherit the kingdom. As I cannot escape my fate, I thought perhaps,” he raised his hands, “if I met a peasant maid in a nearby village—”

“You’d stumble on a hidden princess and have the whole thing settled by suppertime?” Her voice was grave, but her eyes twinkled. “As plans go, it has a certain charming simplicity.”

Alaric rubbed the back of his neck, ears burning. “You don’t, by chance, know of any princesses in Cobham?”

Nora’s gaze slid past him, as if searching her shelves. “No,” she replied at last. “I don’t suppose I do.”

He was on his feet now, pacing like the lion the royal menagerie. The dog whined, pulling its tail from his path; he stopped and rested one clinking forearm on the mantle above the hearth. “My mother died bringing me into the world,” he whispered to the flames, “and they say she smiled as she did, overcome with joy at producing the fabled third son at last. When my father looks at me, he sees naught but the fulfillment of that dream. It doesn’t matter that I do not want it; it matters only what I am.” Turning from the fire, he dropped back into his chair, exhausted and ashamed. “So it is written, so it must be.”

“Listen to me, Alaric.” Reaching across the table, Nora grasped his hands. At her touch, sparks of lightening blazed up his arms, setting his heart to pounding.

Did hedgewitches deal in love spells?

For an instant, the girl looked startled. Then, speaking as gently as to a child, she said, “Go home. Go home, give up this fated quest, make your own choices. Change the story.”

So many nights hunched over weighty tomes, dust in his nostrils, eyes straining in the candlelight, every word a stone on a mountain of certainty. “The story cannot be changed,” he said. “It is not possible.”

“Why not?”

He’d been wrong about her. She didn’t understand at all. Alaric drew his tingling hands from her grip. “I have to go.”

Nora closed her eyes, then nodded, smiling of rue and regret. She accompanied him to the gate and held Gyrfalcon’s reigns as he remounted, pushing off the wall.

“You won’t reconsider?”

Eyes on the road, Alaric shook his head.

“Then take this.” She pressed the little pouch into his gauntleted hand. “A charm for protection. And for luck.”

Alaric turned his mount westward. He didn’t know if she watched him, for he didn’t look back. But he clutched her token long after daylight faded into darkness.

* * *

In a land where stories have power, everyone wants to be the star.

* * *

At first light, the village maidens descended, chattering like geese, swooning like fools, desperate for news of Prince Alaric and his quest.

“I swear,” Nora muttered as she opened the door, “I do not know how word travels so quickly. It’s a magic far stronger than mine.”

“Was he handsome, Nora?” Sally demanded, batting her lashes in a manner she probably believed fetching.

“Sweaty, mostly.” The hedgewitch leaned over the fire. “He’d ridden down from the palace in the heat of the day.”

“He’s sure to be handsome,” Ellen gushed as though Nora had not said a word. “The third son of King Torrence here, in our village! If only I were a princess. Can you imagine anything more romantic?”

Nora stirred the tonic steadily, for it wouldn’t do to let it boil. This was the last of the season’s coltsfoot, and she’d need plenty of cough tincture for the coming fall. Something about rain made girls want to wander in it, as if it increased their chances of being rescued.

“A royal wedding.” Ellen clasped her hands to her chest. “Wouldn’t it be simply divine?”

“Divine retribution, you mean.” Nora removed the pot from the fire, pushing a steam-dampened tendril of hair off her forehead.

“Oh, Nora.” Alice giggled. “You’re such an ogre. It’s a wonder your love spells even work.”

“I don’t deal in love spells, Alice Miller, as you well know. People get into enough trouble of that sort without any help from me.”

“But tell us, you must,” Sally implored. “We want to know everything.”

So Nora told them. She told them of the tussle over the water pail (“What a gentleman he is!”) and of his ridiculous, over-gilded armour (“How strong and mighty!”). She told them of the charming way his mouth quirked when he forgot himself and smiled (“To kiss such a mouth!”) and how his hands were calloused like hers, and stained with ink.

She told them nothing of the hopelessness in his eyes. Of the desperation evinced by his constant motion, as though he beat himself against the bars of a cage too small to hold him. Of the resignation with which he took up the reigns, mute evidence of a weight that couldn’t be lifted, a despair she could not heal.

They wouldn’t have heard her, anyway.

When the telling was through, the girls sighed as one, eyes cast rapturously upward, and Nora’s heart softened in spite of herself. Who could be content with the life of a peasant maid when peasants became princesses every day?

Who indeed.

“To be a princess,” Ellen whispered. “How glorious it must be.”

“To be cinched and corseted?” Nora placed dried rosemary into her mortar and began to pound, the sharp crisp scent clutching her throat. “To be displayed on demand, and confined to gossip and embroidery the rest of your days? To know that your worth is defined, not by your skills or accomplishments, but how you look in a ball gown?”

They blinked at her, blinded by visions of dancing in such a dress. It wasn’t their fault. They were the same age as she, and yet too young to know that life continues past the story’s end. They had never wondered whether stories were strong enough to sustain those happily-ever-afters once the clock struck midnight.

They went away at last, silence thick and oppressive as a storm filling the spaces they’d left behind. Nora watched them go, stroking the dog’s velvety ears, and knew herself the worst of them all: both hypocrite and fool.

In no tale ever told does the third son of a king marry the hedgewitch.

* * *

In a land where stories have power, Nora heard them all.

As she dug potatoes and treated catarrh, Prince Alaric met a fairy in disguise who gave him an enchanted shield after sharing his meal. With the shield’s aid, he slew a bridge troll and freed its captive princess. The village girls cried into their pillows, for surely Alaric would marry and return to inherit the kingdom, bringing his story, and their hopes, to an end.

Snows fell. Nora cured chilblains and called stray milch-cows home, and a new tale found its way to Cobham. To the astonishment of bards and maidens alike, Alaric had returned the troll’s captive to her father’s castle. He received as reward a golden apple, which he used to cure a princess whose wicked stepmother had spelled her to sleep. Then he left her in the disenchanted forest, perplexed and surrounded by seven disgruntled dwarves.

With spring lambs and planting came word that Alaric had sailed to a kingdom beyond the Western Sea, where he’d reunited a royal mermaid with the prince she’d saved from drowning. The princess of the neighboring kingdom was less than pleased and rumor hinted she’d run off with the cinder-girl.

King Torrance, aging and bemused, proclaimed himself overcome with joy at his son’s great deeds and declared he would gladly abdicate in favour of Alaric, if the boy would just choose himself a princess and come back home.

Nora cast spells to repel brownies and brewed charms for fertility. She reset bones and drew thorns from paws. She midwifed human and beast alike. And day by day her longing grew, winding tightly ‘round her heart, piercing her with a regret sharper than any knife.

She’d had everything she’d ever wanted, until she realized what she’d given up.

* * *

In a land where no one knew him, he traded well-worn arms and faithful steed to an astonished merchant, taking in exchange a graying nag, a set of plain clothes, and a satchel of books. As he rode east towards Cobham, no one paid him any heed. If farmers and woodsmen thought it strange to see a poor scholar with a broken nose and a dozen scars, they did not speak of it.

On a still-warm day in late September, he directed his plodding mare past the village to the low stone wall, still covered with moss. Butterflies flickered over the rose bushes, which still perfumed the air. The goat was still staked away from the garden, chewing and glaring as he dismounted. Little, it seemed, had changed.

Except for him.

He closed his eyes, standing in memory on the arch of a wooden bridge, shield arm aching, the erstwhile prisoner of a vanquished troll beaming up at him.

“Good sir!” the princess had trilled, hands fluttering like birds as she straightened her brocade gown, smoothed her golden hair. “’Twas surely destiny you found me! My father shall see us wed by sundown!”

He’d been about to agree when the charm he wore for protection—unnoticed during the battle—flared suddenly hot against his chest. He clutched it as a whiff of herbs and dog struck him like a blow. But why now, at this moment, when all peril had passed?

Unless.

Was it possible that the danger the hedgewitch sought to ward him against was nothing more than himself? Was it possible that, to change the story, he need only believe it could be done?

He smiled now, for his story had begun to change before he’d even left her door… and yet the tale remained unfinished. He filled the pail she’d left by the well; as his palm began to sweat, he gripped the handle tighter. No book studied, no experiment made, no battle fought or won had prepared him for this. He rapped on the cottage door.

Nora opened it, taking in the pail before lifting her gaze to his face. Her eyes went wide. “Alaric.”

He shook his head, tapping his earlobe in warning. “You’re much mistaken, miss. I’m simply Aric.” He extended the pail.

Her eyes crinkled as she stepped aside to let him pass. “Come in then, stranger,” she offered, her voice as wry and rich as he’d remembered it in so many dreams. “A weary traveler can always find succor here.”

Aric put the pail down, waiting while she closed the door and drew the shutters tight. “There’s been no news of you for over a year,” she said conversationally. “You father believes you dead.”

He winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.”

“Why?”

Aric passed his fingers over the grain of the table, smooth from repeated scrubbing. “Eberhardt is more fit to rule than I could ever be. But he would never have had the chance. The third son of a king always inherits the kingdom.”

“So the stories say.”

He reached out, took her hand. Her skin was cool, but a spark surged up his arm to jolt his heart once more. “I’ve found a way to change the stories, Nora… just as you told me I could.”

“I’m pleased for your sake.” Nora tugged her hand free and turned away, busying herself at a lamp.

Aric watched as she fumbled with the match. “I knew the moment I’d defeated the troll that you were right, but it took several more adventures—and princesses—before I truly understood. I know not why,” he added, moving closer. “It was so simple. All I had to do was stop thinking about what I didn’t want, so I could understand what it is that I do.”

There was a long pause before Nora asked, “And what is that?”

Aric took the final step. He set gentle hands upon her trembling shoulders, turning her to face him. “I don’t want adventures, or kingdoms, or princesses,” he said. “Since first we met, I’ve wanted naught but you.”

She made no sound, but tears spilled over her cheeks. As he brushed them away, Nora smiled like sunrise, warming the very depths of his soul. “Me?” She clutched his wrists, her work-roughened nails digging into his skin. “Just as I am?”

“Just as you are, for always.” He grinned. “A hedgewitch can always use a water boy, can she not?”

Nora began to laugh, a sweet glorious laugh of unrestrained freedom. She didn’t stop until he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her.

* * *

In a land where stories have power, against all odds and likelihood, the third son of a king found the strength to change one. And thus the prince became a scholar and a teacher, marrying the hedgewitch and settling in a village overlooked by the palace that should have been his prize.

The hedgewitch treated and brewed and delivered and cast. And one night, under the dark light of a new moon, she crept from their blankets, took the clay pot containing the amulet—which proclaimed the royal birth of Noralessa Francesca Betina of Rue—off of her shelf, and sank it into the coolest, deepest well in the kingdom.

Then she went back to bed and dreamed sweet dreams of happily ever after.