Page 21 of Disenchanted
Mal gave a wry smile and nodded. No more was said about birthday favors or the king’s ball. We spoke of indifferent matters until it was time for me to go. Our parting was cheerful enough on the surface, but I sensed that I had deeply disappointed Mal and I hated it.
I had hoped my visit to Mal would cheer me up and take my mind off this wretched ball and all my other cares. I left his shop, feeling worse than when I had arrived. As I emerged onto the street, I once more had the eerie feeling of being watched.
I thought it might prove to be the witch’s cat again, but this time it was the witch herself. Delphine lingered upon the stoop of her crooked house; arms folded across her bosom. I raised my hand in a halfhearted greeting she ignored. I have no idea what I might have ever done to offend the woman, but for some reason, Delphine did not like me any better than her cat did.
When I had expressed my concern about this to Mal, he had said that Delphine did not get on well with any other women. The witch much preferred the company of men. If I was ever worried about where I stood with her, I had only to glance at Delphine’s hair which had the curious property of changing color according to her moods.
When her wild mane waxed golden orange, it indicated Delphine was feeling happy. Bright red, she was excited orpassionate: green, she was envious or perhaps coming down with something. Deep blue, the witch was sad, and purple… Mal had never been able to figure out what purple hair meant. If I ever saw Delphine’s tangled tresses turn black, Mal had warned me I had better keep my distance and be right quick about it.
As Delphine studied me from the shadows of her doorway, her hair darkened from green to a hue as black as pitch, the look in her eyes pure malevolence. I shivered and hurried on my way.
five
The next two weeks passed by with grinding slowness. “Grinding” being a very apt word because I had begun to feel like a millstone being worn down by a steady deluge of water, the water in this case being my stepsisters’ tears. Any hope I had that Amy and Netta would grow more resigned to my decision about the ball was put to rout. As the days passed, their beseeching only waxed more desperate. Add my stepmother’s pleas into the mix and I felt driven to distraction.
Everywhere I turned in my own home, I encountered pleading looks, melancholy sighs, and morose silences. Netta plucked out sad tunes on her harp that could have reduced to tears even the laughing loons that flew over the Conger River. Amy’s latest campaign consisted of drawing sketches of languishing maidens with visibly broken hearts and leaving them for me to find pressed between the pages of my book, at the bottom of my marketing basket or tucked inside my favorite shoes.
As I entered the kitchen that morning to bake bread, I found Amy’s latest effort pinned to the flour bag. It was a watercolor of two dark-haired young women contorted into paroxysms of grief as they stood, locked outside the gates of the castle. I hadto suppress a chuckle. Amy was not good at drawing people. Her sorrowful maidens resembled a pair of stiff necked, miserable trolls.
My stepsister did have a genius for depicting buildings. She had accurately captured the royal castle with its gleaming white walls and proud towers. The softness of her sky, the wisps of clouds infused the palace with a fairylike beauty, a place of dreams and the promise of romance.
Although I smiled at Amy’s drawing, I sighed as well. Mal had insisted the girls would recover from their disappointment. But it still pained me to see them so deeply unhappy. If I was ever tempted to grow impatient with their histrionics, I reminded myself it was not their fault.
I had been raised on stories of Queen Anthea, the Magnificently Wise. Amy and Netta had grown up with stories of princesses being rescued by bold heroes and carried away on white chargers to a beautiful palace where they all lived happily ever after.
My stepmother would often tell such tales at bedtime. Imelda was a gifted storyteller and even I got caught up in the sagas she wove, although I rewrote them a bit in my mind, so sometimes I was the one rescuing my prince or at least fighting beside him.
But at the age of seventeen, I had been just like Amy and Netta in one respect, longing to find my hero and fall in love. My heart was open and eager when I first clapped eyes on my handsome bard. I was smitten at first sight, although I convinced myself I was not like the other silly girls, captivated by Harper’s golden hair, sky blue eyes and charming voice.
I was not merely infatuated, as my father had insisted. I was genuinely in love with Harper, valuing his intelligence, his talent, his sense of humor and above all else, his honesty and sincerity. When my bard proved false, he did far more thanbreak my heart. He completely shattered my confidence in my own judgment.
I caught myself about to sigh again and sternly suppressed it. I do not know why I had been thinking so much about Harper of late and once again feeling all the old pain and longing. Perhaps because the entire female population of Midtown was so giddy over the prospect of this ball. Nothing else was spoken of except romance and finding true love, hopefully in the arms of a handsome prince. I wondered how many of those starry-eyed young women would someday end up as disenchanted as I was.
I could have endured all this royal ball madness much better if I had Mal to turn to, but I had seen nothing of him for the past two weeks. When I tried to visit him, the Hawk’s Nest was closed. No one answered my knock, although sometimes I suspected Mal was in there. I might have been desperate enough to inquire after Mal at the witch’s house next door, but there was never any sign of Delphine or her horrid cat either. I finally gave up going to Misty Bottoms, but I keenly missed my friend’s sharp wit and sense of humor, which would have helped me keep all this royal ball nonsense in perspective. Although I knew my refusal of his birthday favor had disappointed Mal, it hurt that he could shut me out this way.
I also worried that the reason for his absence was that he was neck deep in some insane plot he did not want me to know about. My nights were tormented with hideous dreams of Mal being caught trying to steal that orb and being strangled with the Lord High Garroter’s noose.
Between lack of sleep and the daily barrage of misery from my family, I was being worn down. Two more weeks, I tried to comfort myself as I set Amy’s drawing aside. Two more weeks and this wretched ball would be over. Perhaps it would take another week or two for my stepmother, Amy and Netta to realize the world had not ended and return to a semblance oftheir usual cheerful selves. In the meantime, there was bread that needed baking.
I was just tying my apron strings when the kitchen door burst open. Glancing around, I was startled to see my stepmother. Imelda was not an early riser. She was seldom out of bed at this hour of day, let alone out of the house. But there she stood in her best pelisse and velvet hat, the one trimmed with the most dashing ostrich feather.
Although she was approaching fifty, my stepmother looked years younger than her age. She was a beautiful woman, her hair still a lustrous shade of black with not a hint of grey, her face remarkably smooth and unlined. Perhaps this was because, despite the tragic loss of her first husband and her subsequent unhappy union with my father, Imelda had managed to retain her optimism and a youthful outlook on life. I envied her for that. I shuddered to think how haggard I would look when I reached her age.
This morning, Imelda looked every one of her forty-eight years. Her features were pale and drawn and instead of her normal graceful carriage, her shoulders slumped. Even her ostrich feather drooped.
Alarmed, I hurried over to her. “What is wrong? Are you ill?”
She looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “Oh, Ella, I have done s-something very foolish.”
“What?” I cried. “What did you do?”
She began to weep so hard, I could barely understand her, but two words stood out disastrously clear… borrow money.
“You didn’t!” I began, but my stepmother was in no fit state to be scolded. She was trembling so much; I feared her knees might give way beneath her.
I guided her over to the kitchen table and eased her down onto one of the chairs. “There, there,” I soothed as I removed herhat and her pelisse as though she were a distraught child. “I am sure you have done nothing that cannot be set right.”
Imelda hiccupped on another sob. I dug inside her reticule and found her handkerchief. While Imelda dabbed at her eyes, I gave her a brisk hug and settled into the chair opposite her. I waited until her weeping had subsided before saying gently, “You know whatever money you received, you will have to take back. We have discussed this before. We cannot afford to borrow what we can never repay.”
