CHAPTER 1
If anyone had told me a year ago that I would find true love through a pea, I would have laughed. I mean, when you live in a forest and never see anyone who isn’t related to you, or at least overly obsessed with wood, it’s kind of hard to see how a vegetable could lead you to love. But, of course, it wasn’t just the pea. You could also say the light led me there, and in this case, that wouldn’t be metaphorical.
Sometimes I have good ideas, sometimes I have bad ideas, and sometimes I have colossally bad ideas. It turns out leaving the merchant camp for an evening stroll was one of the colossally bad ones. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like a big deal—I just wanted to stretch my legs after a week of riding in a wagon. Even when it got dark too quickly, and I discovered I’d lost my way, I didn’t realize just how bad an idea it was. And then it started raining.
The rain didn’t reach me at first because the forest canopy was too dense. I could hear the raindrops hitting the leaves above me, though, and occasionally a fat drop amassed enough weight to push through the foliage and land on the top of my head. But I certainly wasn’t wet—only starting to feel a certain dampness in the air and an utter certainty that I had no idea which direction led to the camp.
“Well, here’s where your stupid pride has led you,” I muttered to myself.
Ariana, the merchant in whose wagon I had secured passage to Arcadie, our kingdom’s capital, had warned me not to go too far, but I’d been supremely confident. After all, if I didn’t know the woods, I didn’t know anything. Turns out I didn’t know anything.
In some ways, this revelation wasn’t much of a surprise. I had been born in my family’s remote house and had slept there every night since, except for the last six in the back of Ariana’s wagon.
“Should have been paying more attention instead of daydreaming about ArcadieeeEEK!”
My recriminations turned into a particularly embarrassing shriek at a sudden clap of thunder. I instinctively looked around to check that no one had heard me. My brothers would be laughing over my fright for days. But then I remembered that my brothers weren’t here—that, in fact, I was completely alone. Three big drops fell off a branch and ran down the back of my neck, and I had to gulp and angle my face upwards to prevent an equally large tear from slipping out of my eye.
As much as I love my brothers, I hadn’t expected to miss them after only a week. I could picture them all clearly, sitting around our worn kitchen table or gathered around the fireplace. I wondered if they were thinking of me. Perhaps they were talking of me or my mother was retelling her favorite story—my birth.
My birth had been unspectacular, although I was instantly pronounced beautiful. This was despite the fact that I imagine I was born, like most babies, looking thoroughly displeased with the process of birth. I think my alleged beauty had a lot more to do with my being a girl than my physical appearance. It seems that after four boys this was a delightful change. Some people think that being both the baby and the only girl I must have led a spoiled life. I can only say those people clearly do not have four brothers.
Apparently, I was only an hour old when I received my first brotherly poke. Now a poke may not seem like much to you, but I’m told I didn’t appreciate it then (after all, I’d just been through a very traumatic experience), and I still don’t appreciate it now.
My brothers weren’t intentionally cruel, but they just could not understand that their endless pinches, pokes, and slaps truly hurt me. They would leave my arms, legs, and sides throbbing for hours. I had accepted early on that I was more physically sensitive than others, and that my pain threshold was very low, but my brothers couldn’t seem to accept it.
I quickly learned that outsmarting them was my only hope of living pain free. That, or keeping them too entertained to think of harassing me. That’s what got me started on story-telling. I figured if Scheherazade could keep her head attached to her shoulders with her stories, I could at least keep myself free from poking.
Stories were the constant under-current of village life, and I discovered at a young age that I had a knack for giving old stories a new twist. And even for coming up with new ones altogether. If I carefully chose the stories I invented for my brothers, who can blame me? And if the stories tended toward the ‘young man is polite to unlikely person who turns out to be a godmother and goes on to help him marry a rich and beautiful princess’ type, then all the better. My stories were more likely to involve a hedgehog princess than a frog prince, but they still ended in true love and happily ever after, as all good stories should. And if the hedgehog fell in love with a simple woodcutter after observing how lovingly he treated his mother and sisters, who could blame me?
My parents approved of my storytelling because they approved of anything that kept us sitting still in a house that wasn’t big enough for the rough and tumble of four large boys. Winter nights could be very long, and while they may have secretly agreed that I needed a little toughening up—after all, woodcutting is hardly a trade for weaklings—they very quickly lost patience with my brothers’ preferred methods.
Thinking of those warm winter evenings and imagining my family sitting around the fire threw my current miserable situation into stark relief.
That’s it Alyssa! I thought sternly. No more messing around trying to find the camp. The woods are crisscrossed with roads. Pick a direction and start walking, once you find a road you only have to follow it, and eventually you’ll find some sort of shelter.
By now, more and more drops were making it through the canopy, so I started moving at a sort of shuffling jog, trying to cover as much ground as possible while not ending up flat on my face in the dark.
It was hard to tell how much time had passed, but I thought it must have been nearly an hour, and I still hadn’t found a road. Luckily the ground was fairly flat—I had good stamina as long I wasn’t going uphill. I had also stayed warm for the first half of my walk thanks to my movement and my warm cloak. The cloak had been a farewell gift from my mother and was the most beautiful thing I had ever owned. It had been a wedding present, put away in a cupboard as too fine for everyday use. It was much better quality than any of my other clothes.
But the rain now crashed through the trees, and I was thoroughly drenched, shivering violently and with an ache in my eyes and head from the constant strain of trying to see through the darkness.
I had been talking fairly sternly to myself the whole way but was still feeling uncomfortably close to desperation when I finally saw the light. It was just a flicker, swallowed up by the trees almost immediately, but I changed direction to veer toward it anyway. ‘Any port in a storm’ they say, and this was rapidly becoming a very bad storm. The wind was picking up, and I could hear branches creaking in the most ominous manner possible. The thought of a branch, or even a tree, falling and pinning me underneath it—leaving me trapped and in pain for endless hours—made me swallow back a sob and start to move faster.
After only a minute I saw the light again, and this time it steadied, beckoning me forward. Now that I could see somewhat, I began to run, and I found that the trees ended just ahead of me. I had soon run out from under the leaves and begun crossing a large garden, the rain almost blinding me with its force. I could spare only a quick glance upwards to see what I was running toward, my attention focused on my feet in an attempt not to slip and fall. I approached a stone building, far larger than any I had seen before, but it was hard to make out any details through the rain.
Sheltered as I had been in my village, I still knew there was only one building this could be. The royal Winter Castle. Normally I wouldn’t have dreamed of approaching it, but now I didn’t even hesitate as I ran toward the large wooden front doors. When I reached them, I lifted the heavy bronze door knocker and gave several hard knocks against the door. Unfortunately, these perfectly coincided with one of the loudest, longest cracks of thunder yet. As soon as the thunder faded away, I lifted the knocker and rapped again, even more enthusiastically.
I tried to listen for the sounds of footsteps inside, but the rain drummed down too hard, and I no longer had even the minimal protection of the trees. I huddled right up against the door, trying to shield myself with the tiny overhang. This turned out to be another bad idea when the door was at last wrenched open, causing me to stumble forward into the entryway. I would have fallen if the footman who opened the door hadn’t caught me.
For a second, all I could take in was the blissful warmth. Then I looked around and observed a large stone entryway. The only light came from a lantern being held by the footman, so I couldn’t see the whole space. As he closed the door behind me, I observed a cold stone floor and impressive stairs that broke off half way up the flight to curve in opposite directions. A red carpet ran up the middle of the stairs and probably along the gallery at the top. I thought I saw a flicker of movement in the gallery and strained my eyes, trying to make out some more welcoming person than the footman who was now staring at me in silent surprise. But the movement was gone, and I was distracted by the realization that it wasn’t as warm inside as I had first supposed. I began to shiver violently.
“Who are you?” The footman had finally found his voice and asked the question with equal amounts of surprise and disgust in his voice. I instinctively stiffened. My parents had always impressed on me the importance of being polite, and if courtesy was taught in a woodcutter’s cottage, surely it was taught in a castle. I determined to show him a polite way to address a complete stranger.
“My name is Alyssa. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you. I was separated from my group and caught in the storm. I must beg a place to shelter for the night.” He seemed mildly impressed by my manner, and I congratulated myself on having given him such a gentle and much-needed lesson in manners.
“I guess I’d better get Dorkins.” His eyes lingered on the embroidered border of my cloak.
This statement made no sense whatsoever to me, but at least it was said in a friendlier tone. “That would be appreciated, thank you.” I said, still determined to be polite. But when the footman began to walk away, I felt some stirrings of alarm. I took a couple of steps to follow him, but he quickly turned back around.
“You stay here. You can’t go tracking that all through the house.” He pointed at the pile of water where I’d been standing.
“But… you can’t leave me here,” I gasped, my eyes focused on his lantern.
“Oh, right.” He turned to fumble around in an alcove next to the door. When he swung back toward me, he was holding a lit candle in a bronze candle holder. He held the candle out to me, and I gratefully accepted it.
This time when he turned to leave, I stayed in place, still shivering and hoping he would return quickly—preferably with a warm blanket. I looked around the entryway again, trying to distract myself from the cold. Tapestries hung on the walls, and a large fireplace filled the wall to my left, next to the door that the footman had disappeared through. But I couldn’t make out the details of anything, it was much too dark with only a candle.
A noise pulled my attention back up toward the gallery. Perhaps there was someone there, after all. But the light of the candle was too weak to reach that far, so I couldn’t be certain. I was just debating whether or not I should call out to my potential company when I heard a louder sound of movement from my left. Before I had time to do anything other than turn around, a tall, middle-aged, and solemn-looking man came through the doorway and moved toward me.
He also carried a lantern and was trailed by the footman who now looked rather sheepish. The tall man gave me a swift glance up and down, taking in my bedraggled state, and then, to my surprise, gave a slight bow and spoke.
“I am Dorkins, their majesties’ butler. I apologize for your reception—we weren’t expecting you.” He paused here as if he was waiting for me to say something, so I said,
“Thank you. I don’t want to be any trouble, I simply need some hospitality for the night.”
“Of course. If you will follow me. I’ve already sent the housekeeper ahead to prepare the room.”
“Thank you,” I said again, this time with more feeling.
I expected him to turn back toward the doorway to the left, but he began to walk toward the stairs. I followed him, and the footman would have followed me if Dorkins hadn’t gestured for him to go back the way they had come. Once he had disappeared from sight, Dorkins seemed to unbend a little and even smiled graciously at me. Some of my nervous energy began to dissipate, and my feet started to drag a little. I was so very cold and tired.
When we reached the break in the stairs, Dorkins led me up the left branch and then down the left gallery. As we walked, he said, “My apologies for the footman. Naturally he is not in their majesties’ confidence and cannot be expected to handle anything out of the ordinary.”
I didn’t reply to this as I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. What did being in their majesties’ confidence have to do with anything? His words reminded me that it was winter, and the royal family must be in residence at the castle. I began to wonder if I had committed some huge social solecism by coming to the front door.
Luckily, Dorkins didn’t seem to expect a response but stopped and opened one of the doors lining the gallery to our right. He gave another bow and gestured for me to precede him into the room. I did so and was surprised to hear the door click shut behind me. I whipped around, but Dorkins was gone, and I faced only a closed wooden door. I slowly turned back around to survey the room and confused apprehension swept over me.
The chamber was large and sumptuously furnished. Across from the door, a row of windows was hidden behind thick red velvet curtains. A set of armchairs, also covered in red velvet, sat beneath them, and a small desk and chair made out of pine stood to my right. In the far corner, a fire that had clearly just been lit was already beginning to glow cheerfully. I barely had time to register the narrow four-poster bed, on a slight dais to my left, before my feet moved unconsciously toward the fire.
When I reached it, I heard a noise behind me and once again whipped around. A young girl around my own age emerged from a doorway in the wall next to the desk. She smiled nervously when she saw me and dipped a small curtsy. Then she hurried toward me, already talking.
“Why miss, you must be freezing, wet through like that. You’ll catch your death!” As she spoke, she took the candle from my hand and placed it on a small table next to the bed. Removing my cloak, she allowed it to fall into a wet pile on the floor as she undid my dress. I only half noticed what she was doing, much too distracted by the warmth coming from the fire. The whole time she kept up a distracted monologue about the storm outside and the state of my clothes and hair. Before I knew what had happened, she’d completely stripped me down and was asking me to lift my arms so she could put a long, dry nightgown over my head.
When I obeyed, I found myself enveloped in the softest, most beautiful material I’d ever felt. It was pure white but had elaborate embroidery around the neckline, wrists, and hem. I wondered why anyone would put so much effort into a garment that was only worn to bed. And then I began to feel uneasy again. This was not a room or a nightgown for a woodcutter’s daughter. It was something more suited to a princess.
“I think there’s been a mistake,” I said to the girl helping me.
She froze, her arms full of my wet clothes which she was gathering up from the floor. “Oh no,” she said quickly, “there couldn’t be. Mr Dorkins never makes mistakes.”
I now noticed the curiosity in her gaze and began to feel even more uncomfortable. “This room, this gown, it’s much too nice. Do all the guests here get treated the same?”
“Oh yes,” she breathed, her eyes shining. “Their majesties are famous for their hospitality.
“Oh, well…” I trailed off uncertainly.
“You just hop straight into bed. I’ve put a warming pan between your sheets so it will be nice and toasty for you.” This comment drew my attention toward the bed and the idea of climbing in, between the toasty sheets, began to override my lingering concerns. I took a step toward it, and the girl smiled.
“That’s right, just climb up and don’t worry about a thing until morning. I’ll set your clothes out to dry and bring them back first thing.” She turned around at that and left the room through the door I had entered, leaving me to climb up onto the bed on my own.
This turned out to be a surprisingly difficult feat as there seemed to be at least two mattresses on top of the bed. But I managed to clamber rather inelegantly up and pulled back the blankets, slipping between the sheets. I was overwhelmed by the warmth of the bed and the tingling relief of my feet now that they were relieved of my weight. I blew out the candle and prepared to fall instantly asleep.
Unfortunately, however, before I had time to get more than drowsy, my initial comfort wore off. Although the pillow was the perfect density, and the sheets seemed to be made from the same soft material as my nightgown, the mattress had an uncomfortable lump in the middle of my back. I rolled over onto my side, but the bed was so narrow, I could still feel it. I sighed in frustration.
I was sure a normal person would have just ignored it, as tired as I was, and gone straight to sleep. But I’d never been able to cope with physical discomfort. I knew the pain would distract me too much for sleep. I figured it must be a spring that had broken through the covering of the top mattress. I considered getting up, stripping the bed, pulling off the top mattress, and putting the sheets onto the bottom mattress. But I doubted I’d have the strength to pull off the top mattress on my own, and I had no idea how to call back the girl who had been helping me. The idea of attempting to relight my candle from the fire and then wandering around the cold, dark castle was so unappetizing I didn’t even contemplate it. Instead I twisted around and curled my body into a C shape. If I did that, I could just fit my body between the spring and the edge of the bed without rolling off. With the digging pain gone, I was asleep within seconds.
CHAPTER 2
This time when I woke up, my eyes stayed open. I had jolted awake after rolling over in my sleep and landing once again on the spring. I quickly shifted back into my curled position but, unlike all the other times, sleep felt far away. Enough light was coming in around the edges of the curtains to tell me it was well and truly day time, and I was now well rested enough that fatigue couldn’t overcome my stiffness. My back and neck protested my unnatural sleeping position, and my legs ached from my run through the woods the night before. I tried to stretch myself out straight and nearly rolled off the bed. I quickly rolled back into the center of the mattress and lay on the spring, grimacing as I did so.
“What are you doing?” asked a young-sounding and rather beautiful voice. I flinched and quickly scanned the room, trying to find its owner. It definitely wasn’t the girl from the night before.
While I looked around, the voice spoke again. “Who are you?”
As she finished speaking I finally spotted her and realized it wasn’t a ‘her’ but a ‘them’. Two identical girls who looked as beautiful as they sounded were sitting on the floor and gazing up at me. When they saw that I was fully awake, one of them got up and pulled open the heavy velvet curtains. The room flooded with light, and I groaned and covered my eyes.
When I cautiously inched them open, I saw she had returned to the floor, and I was once again being regarded by four large eyes. Very blue eyes above perfect, straight noses and beneath perfectly-curled, bright-golden hair. The girls were identical and so beautiful they had to be—
“This is the Princess Room,” the one on the left said. “Are you a princess?”
I almost groaned again as all the uncertainty from the night before came flooding back. The lofty Dorkins must have made a mistake despite the maid’s belief in his infallibility. Why would he have put me in the ‘Princess Room’ otherwise?
“I’m Alyssa, and I’m not a princess. I just lost my way in the storm last night, and the butler gave me this room to sleep in.”
“Well, if Dorkins put you in here you must be a princess,” said the girl on the right. “Only visiting princesses get this room.”
Oh, great. Who knew what sort of trouble I’d be in now. But I definitely hadn’t said I was a princess! This wasn’t my fault.
“Well then, there must have been some sort of mistake.” I swung my legs off the bed, and they dangled down the side, not touching the floor due to the height of the bed and the two mattresses. “There was a girl in here last night. She took my clothes to dry and was going to return them. Have you seen her?” I peered around as I spoke, hoping to see my dress and cloak laid out somewhere for me.
“Oh yes. We sent her away because you weren’t awake yet,” said the girl on the left.
That got my attention. “Did she leave my clothes?”
“No, we told her to take them away. They weren’t very nice,” said the girl on the left again.
Anger washed over me. I might be a youngest child, and there was the possibility these girls might be princesses, but I knew how to deal with difficult children. Once the villagers learned of my skill in story-telling, they had often called on me to care for the children.
“Well, you'll have to go and find her then and retrieve my clothes yourself. They may not be to your taste, but they’re the only clothes I have with me. I can hardly walk around in this nightgown.” I spoke briskly and with authority and kept my eye trained sternly on the twins.
Oh no, we have a much nicer dress for you to wear,” said the one on the right who I now noticed had slightly paler eyes but slightly brighter hair than her sister.
“One more fit for a princess,” agreed her darker-eyed sister. “You just need to come with us to our rooms. It’s not far.”
These girls might live in a castle, but they were still children, and my patience had run out. I slid off the bed and stood towering above them to give me added authority.
“That is enough of this talk of princesses. I’ve already told you I’m not a princess, and I will not be going anywhere until you go and fetch my clothes.” I crossed my arms and glared down at them.
The darker-eyed one stood up and stepped toward me, smiling sweetly. “I’m sorry if we’ve made a mistake. Are you really not a princess?”
I relaxed my pose and smiled back at her. She was just a child after all, not more than twelve years old. “No, I’m really not a princess. But no harm done, if you could just—”
But before I could finish, the girl’s expression changed to triumph, and she cut me off. “Well, we are princesses. And if you’re not, that means you have to do what we say! And we say you have to come with us to our rooms – now!”
I stared at her in astonishment, but before I could think of anything to say, her sister leaped to her feet, and they each took one of my hands and tugged me toward the door.
I could have stopped them, of course, but I was now feeling a little unsure. I was probably in enough trouble already without the princesses complaining of me to their butler, or worse—their parents. So I let myself be dragged out of the room and down the corridor. Maybe I wasn’t quite as good at dealing with difficult children as I thought.
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