Chapter 40
The next morning, excitement helped me rise before the sun and I slipped out of the house with my work supplies tucked under my arm. My heart pounded as though I were about to commit a crime. In a way, perhaps I was by trespassing on Cynthia’s most private hopes.
At the Fairy Godmother Tree, the clearing was hushed, the grass still dampened with dew. I knelt before the hollow and unwrapped the plain brown paper to view the carefully folded gloves. My fingers lingered on them for a long moment. Would this be enough to restore her hope?
Rewrapping the paper, I slid the wrapped gloves into the trunk’s hollow, then backed away, finding my perch behind the screen of brush where I had spied on her before. From here, I could see everything, but if I was still, she would never see me.
The wait was agony. I tried to focus on my translation notes, but the words swam uselessly on the page.
My thoughts kept drifting to Cynthia and her hopeless slouch every time she returned from here empty-handed.
But now, I thought, joy was waiting for her.
Real joy, hidden here like a treasure from her father himself.
The anticipation thrummed inside me, sharp and sweet, the way I used to feel when Curtis and I planned some prank on Hubert, waiting for the exact moment when surprise would strike.
But this time, there was no bucket of water waiting to be dumped on someone’s head.
This time, the surprise would bring pure happiness.
Perhaps, I thought, this was exactly how Algernon once felt when he left his trinkets for us, watching as we pulled things from the tree.
Then I heard her. The soft tread of Cynthia’s shoes crunched along the path and her skirts rustled against her legs.
She appeared before the tree just as she had before, head bowed, lips moving in words too soft for me to catch.
Her hands clasped together, then slowly, almost fearfully, reached into the hollow.
For a moment, her shoulders began to slump, but then she froze.
Her hand emerged clutching the wrapped gift. She stared at it, wide-eyed, glancing around as though the forest itself had conjured the gift. My breath caught; I dared not even blink. Slowly, she unwrapped the paper, and her trembling fingers pulled the gloves free, one by one.
Her face transformed. I had never seen her like this. All the hardness, all the bitterness, melted away in an instant. She slipped the gloves on, flexed her fingers, turned her hands this way and that, marveling as though she’d been handed a crown.
And then she smiled. Not the thin, forced smile she sometimes gave out of politeness, but a smile so radiant and beautiful it startled me.
She tipped her head back to the heavens, her lips moving again, and though I couldn’t hear her words, I understood the meaning behind them.
Warmth bloomed through my chest, so strong I thought it might burst.
All the rest of that day, everything felt lighter.
My translations came easier, the words flowing between languages without any delay.
And that night, when Cynthia finally drifted off to bed, Mother, Comfort, and I gathered around the gown once again.
The hours blurred together as we snipped, pinned, and stitched by candlelight until our fingers ached.
We were all hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, but it was worth the sacrifice.
Each secret stitch brought us closer to something beautiful.
Ever since Cynthia had discovered the gloves, her complaints had ceased; she hummed sometimes, even laughed.
I could see why she and Comfort had been best friends before.
One evening, as I hemmed lace along the gown’s edge, Comfort asked why I wasn’t going to the ball.
I kept my eyes on my stitching. “You know why.”
“No,” she shot back. “I don’t. Tell me.”
I hesitated, my throat tightening. “Because…I don’t have friends there anymore. Not from the old days, anyway.”
“You have Curtis.”
The needle in my hand stilled and a hard lump swelled in my throat. “No. I don’t.”
Comfort shot me a quizzical look. “Why would you say that?”
I swallowed hard. I had never told them. I stared very hard at where my thread was looped into the needle’s eye. “Because I wrote to him and told him we couldn’t be together. I told him to move on.”
Mother gasped, pressing a hand to her lips. “Sweetheart…when did you do that?”
“Right after we moved here. He wrote to me, but it didn’t seem fair to him to keep him waiting when he deserves happiness. He deserves…” I broke off, unable to finish he sentence. “I just couldn’t bear it. So I ended it.” I bent my head over the hem again, though my eyes blurred with tears.
Comfort’s voice was maddeningly casual. “Don’t worry about that letter. You should still go see him.”
I stared at her. “Don’t worry about it?”
“Nope.”
“Why ever not?”
She answered with a shrug. “Because your letter never got sent.”
The world spun. “What?”
Mother and I both gaped at Comfort as she calmly basted a sleeve.
“What do you mean it never got sent?” My voice cracked.
Comfort snorted. “Oh, come on. You really thought I’d post that letter? The one you gave me when you were all dramatic and emotional? Please. You’re a terrible liar, Truly. I saw through you right away.”
I stared, aghast. “So…so you didn’t send it like I asked?”
“Nope.” She smirked. “I waited until you left then I opened it and read it.”
“Comfort! That was private!”
She laughed. “I know. That’s why I read it.”
My stomach lurched. “So…it was never sent?”
“You keep asking that. No, I never sent that letter. I burned it.”
The needle slipped from my fingers. “But he never wrote back! If he hadn’t heard from me, he would have written again!”
“Oh, he did,” Comfort said airily. “I wrote to him.”
The blood drained from my face. I stood so fast my chair scraped against the floor, my sewing scattering to the ground. “You what?”
“I wrote to him,” she repeated calmly. “I told him that you needed time and that you still loved him. I said that if he gave you space and time, you’d come around.”
For a moment, I could only gape at her, too stunned for words. Finally, I found my voice, shaking with fury. “You had no right.”
“I had every right,” she countered coolly, “to keep my sister from ruining her own life. Don’t you still love him?”
“That doesn’t matter!”
“Why not?”
“Because!” The word tore from my throat and my hands shook. “Because he’s engaged to someone else.”
Silence crashed over the room. Comfort froze, a horrified expression on her face, and Mother winced.
“He’s engaged to someone else,” I repeated, the words breaking as tears welled up. “He—he took Hubert’s place and is betrothed to Aria.”
My voice cracked, and I covered my face with my hands. The tears came hot and fast, dripping onto the blue satin of Cynthia’s gown. The fabric darkened with each drop, a cruel stain on something meant for joy.
For once, Comfort had no reply.
Mother whispered, “Are you sure, Truly? How do you know?”
“I heard it in town. They said Hubert broke it off with Aria, and Curtis…Curtis took his place.”
“Oh.” Mother’s voice was small.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “So you see, I can’t go to the ball. I can’t.”
Comfort opened her mouth, then closed it again. At last she said quietly, “He probably needs closure. You do, too.”
But I shook my head like the coward I was. My heart ached too much to endure any more pain. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
I stooped to pick up my dropped thread, my fingers clumsy from shaking. “I can’t do any more tonight,” I whispered. Then I left everything and went up to my room.
I was alone, and that was all I could see in my future.