The Stepsister's Tale. Tracy Barrett

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      Mamma shook her head. “Those are not the kind of people I grew up with, and not the kind of people I want you to grow up with.”

      “The people you grew up with aren’t here anymore. They all moved to the city.” It was an old argument, and one that Mamma always refused to answer. Jane went on stubbornly. “And if they were here, I wouldn’t want to grow up with them. I like Hugh and Hannah and the people in the village.” What had been so wonderful about the past, to make Mamma cling to it so?

      “You should be going to parties and meeting young men and—” Mamma said again.

      “And getting married,” Jane finished for her. Mamma nodded. Of course she and Maude had to get married one day. Mamma said it was because that was what a lady did; Jane knew that they had no other way to live. Maude had begged to be allowed to learn healing and herb lore from Hannah. Hannah had been willing, as she no longer had a daughter to whom she could pass on her knowledge. Jane could sew better than any seamstress in the village—as well as some in the city, she thought, after seeing their work on city-made gowns that ladies wore to church. But Mamma would not hear of either one of them working for pay.

      “And I want you to have a father. You and Maude did not have much luck with your real father, and Harry is so gentle. He does not drink, either.” Mamma’s voice was bitter.

      Jane thought, We don’t need a father.

      “And you two must set an example—” Mamma ignored the exasperated sound that Jane could not help making “—and be good, obedient girls.”

      “Yes, Mamma.” Jane tried not to let her irritation show again. Wasn’t she getting too old to need her mother to tell her to be a good, obedient girl? She had already turned fifteen; Mamma had been married at sixteen.

      A few chickens followed them hopefully to the back door, where Isabella stood, her bare feet poking out from under her white nightdress. She looked no more than ten years old, with her golden hair loose about her shoulders. “Where is my father?”

      “Good morning, Isabella,” Mamma said, and she nudged Jane, who repeated reluctantly, “Good morning.”

      “Good morning,” Isabella said, with an obvious effort, and then she asked again, “Where is my father?”

      “Your father is still asleep,” Mamma answered. “You may wake him, if you like.”

      It was late, and the cow and goats would be uncomfortably full of milk. Jane hurried to the barn, which was familiar and calming after the strange, awkward-feeling parlor with those two new people inside it. Even when the house had fallen into disrepair, they had kept the barn sound and dry. Here the wood was solid, and instead of odors of mold and decay, she was bathed in the warm, living smells of healthy animals and clean hay.

      The big door was open to the fenced-in field, letting in the morning sunlight and the rapidly warming air. A few flies buzzed, and the spiders crouched in their webs, ready to run out and wrap up anything that flew into their traps.

      Baby shifted her heavy weight from one foot to another and swished her tail against her rump. The two new horses poked their brown noses through the bars of their stall, and she gave each a rub. “At least you’re friendly.” She laughed when they tossed their heads as though nodding in agreement.

      She always tended to Sal first. The old gray hunter didn’t look like much now, but in his day he had been famous. “Like Lady Margaret taking a fence on Saladin,” people in the village still said, when they meant that someone had done something in a particularly fine way. His back was swayed now, and his eyes were dim, but when the girls blew one of the rusted hunting horns that hung in the nearly empty tack room, his neck would arch and he would paw the ground, and they could see a shadow of what he had once been.

      “Good boy.” She rubbed Sal’s hard forehead between the ears as he ate. An impatient moo broke in on her thoughts, and she pulled the milking stool and bucket over to Baby.

      Betsy and her puppies must have just woken up, and the fat little bodies squirmed over one another to get their breakfast. Betsy saw Jane looking at her and thumped her tail. Jane poured a little milk in the bowl that one of the puppies was blindly trying to climb out of, and Betsy lapped it up. Jane milked the goats next and then fed all the livestock. While they ate she mucked out the stalls and scattered a handful of straw over the floor. She drove Baby and the goats out to the pasture.

      She was about to go back to the house when she thought she saw something flicker in the woods. She stood still and shaded her eyes against the early-morning sun. Yes—there it was again. Something pale flashed behind the trees and then disappeared. Fairies? No, they wouldn’t dare come so near the barn. Fairies and witches and all their kind were terrified of iron, and there were rivets and old horseshoes and nails all over the barn. Outlaws? She had heard of them living among the trees. She strained her ears and thought she heard a little ripple of laughter and then a few notes from farther off. The notes were repeated, and then echoed closer by. She turned and ran back to the house.

      In the South Parlor Maude had put out their least-stained tablecloth and least-chipped dishes. A tall vase of bright blue flowers stood in the middle of the table. No one else was there.

      “Maude!” Her sister looked up from the fire she was tending. Jane told her what she had seen and heard.

      “It was probably just one of the people of the woods,” Maude said, but Jane heard the uncertainty in her voice. There was nothing that would bring one of the wild folk close to their house—she and Maude had gleaned all the nuts and berries and most of the edible roots, as far into the forest as they dared to go.

      “I heard singing,” Jane said, but before she could continue, Harry came in, stretching and yawning.

      He called back over his shoulder, “Come, Ella dear. Breakfast time.”

      After a moment, she appeared. This time she was wearing a yellow frock, with ribbons threaded through the lace at her neck and wrists. Her long pale hair was held back by a matching ribbon.

      Without looking at Mamma or the girls, Isabella sat down at the table and placed her hands in her lap. Mamma took the eggs out of the water with a wooden spoon and placed them in a blue bowl on the table. Mamma looked at Harry.

      He cleared his throat. “Ella, dear, what do you say to your mother?”

      She looked up at him and then at Mamma. “I say to my stepmother that I had eggs for supper last night, and I would like something different for breakfast today.”

      Mamma crossed her arms. “There is nothing else yet. When we’re finished with breakfast, we will all unpack the carriage and find what else there is.”

      The girl’s eyes were shining with tears. She stood and flung herself on Harry. “Take me home, Father,” she sobbed. “They hate me here.”

      “Darling,” Harry soothed his daughter, stroking her hair. “This is your home now.”

      She raised her swollen eyes to him. “This is not my home. You can’t make me stay here! You can’t make me live with this—with this wicked stepmother, and these two ugly stepsisters.”

       Chapter 4

      Jane СКАЧАТЬ