Chapter 43
I lead the way down the little flight of stairs to my apartment. I dread what’ll happen once I bring my parents into my room. Whatever they think about what’s going on with me, however much they hate it, they’re going to hate it a lot more in a moment.
I murmur the little spell that makes the banked embers in the grate glow as I step through the door, and the fire merrily blazes to life.
My room is tidy: bed made, dishes washed, chairs neatly arranged.
I even have a bunch of leaves and berries arranged in a cup on the sideboard.
Amaritha’s original drawing of my new sign is fixed over the fireplace, and the little bowl holding Bash’s first gifts—or whatever they were—is to one side of the mantelpiece; the straw figures he’s left me are propped up next to it.
Only the little shell is missing—it’s still on the chain around my neck.
“Oh, Tandy,” Mother breathes, sounding a little heartbroken as she takes in my room. “You’ve been living here all this time? Here?”
“It’s not—” If I tell her it’s not so bad, she’ll think I’m lying. If I tell her I am happy here, she’ll probably start to cry. “I think it’s very cozy,” I eventually manage. “There’s even a bookstore cat.” I turn to my father. “An illusive cat. She’s probably even about somewhere.”
“An illusive cat,” my father says, his face lighting up. He loves rare animals. “Somewhere nearby, do you think?” he adds, hopefully.
“And there’s a little nest of bluecaps in the box bed.”
Father, at least, is intrigued by this. “Bluecaps! I’ve never seen an entire nest of ’em.”
Mother drops into a chair while I show him the nest, glowing warmly in the darkness of my box bed.
“They’re wonderfully helpful,” I say. “They can find anything. If a customer comes in and wants something, and I haven’t any idea where it might be, they just drift off and lead the way to something lovely. ”
“Extraordinary,” Father says.
“Customers,” Mother says.
Father and I exchange a look, and then he makes a little movement of his head, a clear signal for me to stop wasting time and go calm my mother down.
She’s sunk deep into her chair before the fire and has her head in her hand.
Her gown, despite being a traveling gown, is enormous, and spills in every direction, filling the room.
Behind us, by the sideboard, Honey is making tea.
It’s just like her to remember where everything is, even months later. It’s not like her to be so silent.
I catch her gaze and she gives me an inscrutable look. What I wouldn’t pay to pull her aside and ask her…well, everything.
“Tandy,” Mother says, and I seat myself on the floor beside her and put my head on her knee.
I can’t remember the last time we sat this way.
She strokes my hair, and I feel a little of the tension inside me drain away.
“Naturally, your father and I were extremely concerned when Honey brought us the news of your curse,” she begins.
Honey brings her a mug of tea—fortunately, not turnip-leaf tea; there’s still some around somewhere, but she found the good stuff and used it instead—and my mother sips, and then sets it aside.
“It’s not like you to fall under a curse,” she continues.
“When you were younger and more undisciplined, of course…Well, perhaps your sister was to blame for most of those. She was very high-spirited. Not you. Never you—not something like this. You’ve always been such a responsible young woman, so careful, that I can’t help but think there must be something more to it. ”
“There isn’t,” I say. “I just wanted a book, and I was in the bookstore, and the old lady behind the counter collapsed. There wasn’t anyone around so I went to her to see if I could help.”
“Great witches feed off the generous impulses of na?ve young women,” Mother says.
“Why, every fairy story you’ve ever read begins with some old woman saying, ‘Won’t you lend me your arm for a moment, young lady, that I may cross this dangerous road,’ and then suddenly the princess has become a swan or is locked in a tower or has fallen into an eternal sleep. ”
“They’re just stories, though,” I say. “Surely I’m not meant to live my whole life refusing to offer assistance when I can simply because the person asking for help might be a witch?
I’m not even sure Mrs. Gooch was a witch.
Some scholars even believe that some curses befall a person because the circumstances align in such a way that a few of the right words, spoken at the right moment, have unintended consequences.
” The curse books weren’t helpful in breaking my curse, but I certainly learned a lot about the theory of curses while reading them.
“I do think this was an accidental curse,” Honey says, the first words she’s spoken since walking into my room.
“I’ve not been able to find a single person in this town or anywhere else who can recall Mrs. Gooch being anything other than a bookshop proprietor, a nice old lady, or anyone who can recall her using any sort of magic beyond the usual little spells all shopkeepers use. ”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mother says. “We’ve invested too much time and money into this…
this issue. Seven princes: All of whom, for some reason or another, appear to have remained in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere even once it became clear they wouldn’t be breaking the curse.
All sent to you at great expense, the diplomatic repercussions of which will be felt for years to come.
“Your sister is pregnant; you’re old enough now that you can’t play at being Sally Shopkeeper for the rest of your life. You have an entire life outside this…this room. And it’s time for you to take your curse seriously; both the cause of it and the lifting of it.”
“I have taken it seriously,” I say, sitting forward.
My blood is, unaccountably, boiling. “I’ve let seven absolute idiots—well, five idiots, one actually quite clever and interesting person, and one shy preteen—kiss me.
One even knocked a bookcase onto me. A very heavy bookcase, I might add.
Despite the fact that I’ve felt no interest in kissing a single one of them, and being very aware that kissing princes wasn’t going to break my damned curse anyway. ”
Over my mother’s shoulder, I catch Honey’s expression: alarm, likely at the fact that I just swore. My mother doesn’t like raised voices or profanity.
“Tanadelle,” Mother says, rising to her feet.
“You’re dressed like a peasant, you swear like a sailor, and you’re being as argumentative as a teenager.
Which isn’t surprising, given your friends—and the fact that you’ve spent months engaged in commerce.
Clearly, this…this experience, has been even worse for you than we feared. ”
She pauses, and I bow my head, waiting for the blow. “I would have expected better from you,” she says, almost sorrowfully.
Something inside me breaks a little at her words.
“I can’t stay here another moment,” she says, turning to my father. “Honey’s found a sorcerer who can break any curse. She arrives tonight. Tomorrow, first thing, we’re coming back with the sorcerer and then we’re ending this charade, once and for all.”