Chapter 20 Ursula’s Secret
Ursula’s Secret
A few days after the first trial, Demelza woke to a piercing howl.
She bolted upright in bed. Every time she woke up in the mushroom residences, Demelza imagined she was in Hush Manor.
She pictured waking up in the library with a rare book nuzzling her fingers, her father’s latest research assignment waiting beside a steaming cup of tea.
It was odd to dream of such things when her dreams before Rathe Castle had always been the same.
In them, she would wake and stretch her arms and then gasp in shock at the sudden weight on her back throwing her off balance.
In those dreams, Demelza saw the sprawling shadow of swan wings on the floor before she realized they were hers.
But Demelza had not dreamt of swan wings in some time.
Of late, her dreams seemed infinite. Sometimes she was a crone tending to a cottage garden.
Sometimes she ruled an empire that the stars trembled to behold.
Sometimes she was surrounded by strangers.
Sometimes she was ensconced in her family nest, where her mother and sisters laughed at Prava’s pitiful attempts during a game of charades.
When Demelza heard the howl, she thought she had imagined it.
But she knew she wasn’t imagining the sudden brightness in her room.
Splashed along the walls was a familiar, shifting emerald light.
Was she so homesick that she had conjured the precise fragrance of Prava’s library?
She could smell her mother’s perfume of oleander and honeysuckle.
She caught the scorched book smell that filled the room every time the library wyvern had a nightmare …
But how?
Demelza turned to her right and saw that a tear had been rent into the stone wall. It was quite slender, no more than the span of one’s hand, but through it Demelza could see—
“Home,” she breathed.
A figure flickered past the tear in the wall. Demelza thought she saw a ripple of the library wyvern’s inky fur. And then:
“Demelza? Child? Is that … is that you?”
Demelza was convinced she was still dreaming.
She reached a trembling hand to the wall only for another howl to rip through the room.
She startled, her gaze whipping to the door.
A dream? It couldn’t be … it was too real.
Even now, the scorched smell of paper lingered heavily in her room. Unbidden, her father’s voice found her.
“The stones of Rathe Castle and Hush Manor taunt me terribly … They whisper, you know, for siblings talk…”
Siblings.
Demelza wished to think longer on this, but the howl had yanked her back to her surroundings. She grabbed her robe and ran into the sitting room. A blonde bear sat in a wreckage of what appeared to be various cushions, several glass bowls full of cream, broken eggs and at least a hundred lemons.
“RIGHT IN MY EYE!” she howled, tumbling to the floor and pawing miserably at her snout, only to bellow and wave her left paw in the air. “AND A SPLINTER? I HATE SPLINTERS.”
Talvi stepped out of her room and stared at them.
“This is a terrible dream, yes?” she asked.
“Ursula!” said Demelza. “What … honestly, what am I looking at?”
Ursula flopped onto her belly. “I got hungry.”
“How!” said Talvi. “The kitchens started leaving bread, fruit and cheese downstairs because of your petition!”
“But I didn’t want that,” said Ursula miserably.
“I wanted lemon cake. And it was going fine, but lemon juice got in my eye and I got startled and then a wooden spoon broke and now…” Ursula held out her paw.
“And now I have a splinter. I’ve been trying to get it out on my own for the past hour. Someone else has to do it.”
Talvi looked around the room. Her gaze lingered on the ripped cushion.
She scowled and tightened her robe around her.
In that moment, Talvi reminded Demelza of her sister Corisande.
Corisande was the sweetest of her sisters.
In her spare time, she was always bandaging the limbs of broken animals or soothing one of the ghost servants when they had to endure their death anniversary.
Corisande always had time for everyone …
except if she was woken up before she was done resting.
Then she was downright ferocious.
Prava, who had once gotten it into his head that their family ties would be stronger if they went on early-morning hikes through the moors, made the mistake of waking Corisande with a small trumpet.
The shrieking honk she let out in her fury made the foundations of the nest tremble and turned the fur of the wyvern hare white for an entire day out of pure shock.
Corisande didn’t even remember getting upset.
When she finally awoke at a more reasonable hour, she laughed as she spread beetle jam on her toast and told them all about how she had the silliest dream.
After that, Prava decided they would do evening puzzles as a family instead.
“Ursula, I cannot remove your splinter as I, firstly, have no wish to be decapitated and, secondly, am so sleepy I am convinced that I am a figment of my own imagination,” said Talvi.
She turned to go back to her room, but then looked over her shoulder at Ursula, who pitifully waved her wounded paw. Talvi snarled.
Demelza sighed and held out her hand. “All right, let’s see that splinter.”
“No,” said Ursula, reflexively tucking her paw against her chest.
Talvi dropped her head in her hands. “Make it make sense.”
“Have you considered changing into your human form?” asked Demelza. “Would that make it less … painful? Perhaps?”
Ursula stared at her in horror. “Bear anatomy is nothing at all like human anatomy! Imagine someone took an axe to my hind leg! I’d probably be able to scamper off and tend to my wounds, but if I turned into a human after that injury I’d lose the whole leg!”
“So you’re saying that that splinter”—Demelza pointed at the splinter in question, which was impressively long but incredibly thin and very shallow—“would take out your whole hand?”
“I don’t know but I have no desire to find out!”
“Very well, then,” said Demelza. “Deep breath and on the count of three, ready?”
Ursula kicked her legs. Since she was a bear this had the effect of shaking the floor and sending lemons tumbling everywhere. Talvi had given up trying to be upright and had curled up on the rug. She was asleep, which was annoying, but she was still here, which was endearing.
“Surely this cannot be your first splinter,” said Demelza.
Ursula mumbled something.
“What?”
“First one away from home … My … my mother had a way of very deftly removing them.”
It was rare for Ursula to discuss her mother.
“And how did she manage that?” asked Demelza. “Poultice? Potion? Pure force?”
If Ursula could turn into a bear then her mother must be just as imposing. All the Wyldfolke possessed two spirits: one animal, one human. Most could only become badgers and rabbits, stoats and hedgehogs. It was far more rare for a Wyldfolke to take the form of wolves and bears, foxes and deer.
Ursula was the first Wyldfolke she had seen who could shape-shift into an imposing animal and had apparently not enlisted in the army.
The Isle was defended by a battalion of beasts, all recruited from the Wyldfolke, who had once been led by the fearsome General Azeria.
Demelza had always loved hearing tales of the great general and the clever ways she outsmarted her enemies.
Demelza eyed Ursula, who was still miserably pawing at her snout.
When there were no wars or skirmishes, the more imposing Wyldfolke served as mercenaries for distant kingdoms. For one who could take the form of a bear, the opportunities must be infinite …
And yet here was Ursula.
“Well?” prompted Demelza. “Tell me how your mother did it.”
“Stories,” mumbled Ursula. “She would tell me a story and then she’d just … do it, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t care because by then I was more drawn to the tale.”
“I know just the tale,” said Demelza, smiling.
Ursula looked at her hopefully. Demelza took hold of her great, warm paw.
Her fur was the color of watered-down honey and her paw pads were licorice dark and astoundingly soft.
“I will tell you the tale of a Wyldfolke lass who was a fox born into a family of badgers. In her youth, she could not attack like a wolf, but she could run faster than them. She did not have a snake’s bite, but she had a serpent’s agility.
She did not possess a bear’s strength, but she could leap through the trees as if she had wings. And her name was Lady Azeria!”
“No!” said Ursula. “The last thing I want to hear is another story of how great my mother is and—OW!”
Demelza yanked out the splinter. Only then did Ursula’s words fully register. Mother?
“Lady Azeria is your mother?” said Demelza.
Even Talvi had woken up at that. “What?”
“Yes, Lady Azeria is my mother, though I’m sure she curses her misfortune at being so as much as I lament being her daughter,” said Ursula.
She shook her shaggy head. A moment later, the blonde fur lengthened into golden tresses, and when Ursula tossed back her head she was human once more.
She eyed them warily, her shoulders hunched about her ears as if her body could not decide whether it wished to fight or flee.
Talvi was the first to speak. “I’m certain your mother doesn’t consider it her misfortune to have you as a daughter.”
Ursula snorted.
“Look how talented you are!” said Demelza encouragingly.
Ursula peered at the wreckage of eggs, cream, lemon and cushions.
“You’re an artist,” said Demelza. “Things can get messy.”