A Grimm Curse: A Grimm Tales Novella (Volume 3) (9 page)

“No! Not negotiable!” he said.

A glare on a frog was kind of a funny thing.

“Aren’t you the one who begged me to go? It’s still the best place to find a princess to break the curse.”

“You know I would have never asked if I would have know
n
that’s
how it was going to turn out,” he said.

“I know.”

“Honestly, I don’t know if I can watch you melt down like that again,” Remi said, looking down at his webbed hands.

Typical boy. He’d risk getting eaten by a heron without a second thought, but a hysterical woman frightened him beyond reason.

“No more screaming and shoe throwing, I promise.” She sighed and
slid down the wall, sitting on her pallet. She
pulled her knees up until she could rest her chin on them. “You’re right. It is time for me to leave. I’m tried of being a bystander in my own life. I want to do something for myself.”

“We’ll never get back in the castle,” Remi said.

“Oh, we will. In fact, I don’t think anyone will
even
recognize me, including my stepfamily.”

She began to outline her plan.

Chapter
11

“Nice to have a friend who can climb walls.”

CALLING SOME OF THE SMALLER birds through her open window, Cynthia sent them searching the house for a heavy brass key. She explained how to get in through the upstairs window in a small bathroom that was usually left open a crack. Going down the chimney was also an option, but they didn’t like flying straight down into that dirty black tunnel, and Cynthia didn’t blame them.

The shrieks from overhead told Cynthia the birds had found their way in. She knew they wouldn’t be in any danger. Her stepfamily would scream and wail and hide under furniture like they were being bombed, but they’d never do anything as proactive as taking a swing at them. She smiled as she imagined the panic two little sparrows and a chickadee were causing. She should have done this months ago. Rouge birds in the house would never get traced back to her.

The yelling died down after a few minutes and the birds that had braved the indoors fluttered
through the window
to report.

“The key is hanging on a peg outside the basement door,” Cynthia translated for Remi. “Thank you,” she told the tiny birds, wishing she had crumbs to give them. They peeped at her before flying away.

“Well that’s a stupid place to put it,” Remi said rolling his eyes.

“I guess she didn’t want to have to bring my meals down herself, which means the staff needed to have access to it.”

The heron hung around. He seemed to like the shade underneath her mother’s hazel tree. She had explained that Remi wasn’t food and she thought he understood, but Remi kept his distance, just in case.

From the
slant of the
sun outside her window
, Cynthia guessed
it was almost noon. She kept fresh water in her room, so she wasn’t particularly thirsty, but her stomach was clenched tight with hunger. She thought they planned on feeding her. Hoped so, anyway.

“I can get the key,” Remi said.

“That’s sweet of you, but I don’t think you can lift it,” Cynthia said.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t patronize me. I wouldn’t have said it if I couldn’t. And I won’t have to lift it. I just have to knock it off the peg and push it under the door.” He flexed his toe pads at her. “Nice to have a friend who can climb walls.”

“Will it fit under the door?” Cynthia asked.

“Let’s go check.”

Cynthia opened the door and almost tripped on a white bakery box someone had set outside. Curious, she placed it on her wobbly three-legged table and flipped open the lid. They were fresh, store-bought, powdered donuts. Cynthia seriously doubted Lady Wellington had left them there.

She snatched Remi away from the box as the thought crossed her mind. He had been preparing to dive in. “They could be poisoned,” she said. Honestly, Cynthia didn’t put it past the woman.

“They’re not poisoned,” Remi scoffed, flicking his tongue at the powdered sugar and licking his lips. “See? You’re being paranoid.”

“Who would leave them? Ann?” she asked no one in particular.

“Ann wouldn’t leave these. She’d leave one of her éclairs or apple pies, or turnovers…”

An image of Portia and her constant snacking surfaced. These were her favorites. Cynthia remembered fixing her makeup last night.

“I think Portia might have left them,” Cynthia said, amazed at the first gesture of kindness she’d ever received from her stepsister. “She must have known Lady Wellington hasn’t been sending down food.”

“I think you’re more shocked than when I started talking to you,” Remi said with a shake of his head.

Cynthia picked up a donut and took a bite, her stomach contracting with happiness.

“Come on.”

A quick trip up the stairs revealed that there was indeed a small gap between the door and first stone step that would probably accommodate a key.

“How are you going to get in there? Can you fit under the door?” Cynthia asked.

Remi tried, but he was just a little too big.

“What about the kitchen door? Or the front door?” he asked.

“I think the seal on them is pretty tight.”

They sat on the top step, silent for a minute while they thought.

“The heron,” Cynthia said, standing and starting down the stairs. “I have an idea.”

“If it involves the heron, I don’t think I’ll like it,” Remi mumbled, jumping after her.

The sun was at a sharp
angle
through the hazel tree
’s
branches when Cynthia heard the door at the top of the basement stairs open. She and Remi had both been dozing. With the tap, tap, tap of stiletto heels on the stone stairs, Cynthia was pretty sure it wasn’t a servant coming to see her. She tossed the edge of the blanket over a sleeping Remi.

Lady Wellington opened the door to Cynthia’s room slowly, as
i
f she was fearful of what she’d find. She was dressed in shiny black gossamer with black lace that looked like spider webbing making up her sleeves. In her hand she carried a simple black mask with a bright red hourglass painted on it. They must be leaving for the masked ball night of the feast soon. Fitting she chose to go as a black widow.

One of the kitchen maids, Nora, edged into the room behind her with a tray of bread and water, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.

Cynthia took her time standing. Her head was a little fuzzy from having nothing but powdered donuts that day, but she looked at the bread with disdain. Was this really how she was going to treat her? Like some kind of prisoner?

Lady Wellington looked around the circular stone room with something like shock on her face. To Cynthia’s knowledge, she had never come down here.

“I trust you’ve had time to consider your behavior yesterday,” Lady Wellington said. From her tone of voice, her anger toward Cynthia had not dimmed in the last twenty-four hours. She used her mask as a pointer. “You could have seriously jeopardized your stepsister’s future with the royal family.”

Cynthia
had
expected to be frightened of her stepmother, dreading
the
this
inevitable face-to-face meeting that had to occur. Instead a white-hot anger boiled inside her.

“Coriander risked her own chance at trapping the prince with a cruel prank at my expense. And if the future king is so easily angered by an honest slip-up, I don’t know why you’d want your daughter to marry him anyway!”

Several emotions flickered across Lady Wellington’s face. Cynthia caught a hint of surprise, then outrage. It could have been a trick of the light but the faintest trace of admiration blew across her features before the familiar livid mask settled into place. Nora was no longer in the room. Cynthia didn’t know when she had slipped out, but she didn’t blame her. 

Lady Wellington’s voice was just above a whisper, “
How dare you
insinuate my daughter is to blame for your short comings.”
Her stepmother straightened up, shrugging her spider web lace straight on her shoulders. “You will stay down here until you apologize. You will be given only bread and water until then.” She paused as if she expected Cynthia to start asking for forgiveness on cue.

“As you wish,” Cynthia said with a half shrug she knew her stepmother hated.

Lady Wellington narrowed her eyes at Cynthia before stalking out of the door and slamming it shut hard enough for ash to tumble out of the fireplace.

“Whoa!” Remi shrugged off the edge of the blanket he’d been under and hopped over to Cynthia’s worn boot. She hadn’t moved. “Who are you and what have you done with Cynthia Wellington?”

“I’m tired of being pushed around.”

“Apparently.”

The sounds of her stepfamily leaving drifted into the basement. Heavy tread all over the house, Lady Wellington’s sharp voice, and the front door opening and closing.

“It’s time.”

Through the window, Cynthia explained to the heron what she wanted. He bobbed his head at her in acknowledgement and strutted
through
the twilight for the kitchen door across the courtyard.

“Are you sure he knows what to do?” Remi called, hopping after the bird.

“He said he did.”

“Are you sure he knows not to eat me!” Remi’s voice came from under the hazel tree this time.

“He said he did!” she repeated. She’d lost sight of both of them. Because she was so short, she had a very limited view out of her tiny window. She strained her ears, but both the heron and Remi moved without much noise, and they were a distance away. The faint rap, rap, rap echoed from the direction of the kitchen door. Rap, rap, rap, the heron kept pecking hard against the door. Ann’s voice was muffled on the other side. Uh, oh, Cynthia had expected one of the scullery maids.

Rap, rap, rap. “I said just a minute!” Cynthia heard the door fling open and a hair-raising scream. The heron screeched back and took to the air, flapping his way back to his peaceful pond, where there were frogs he could eat and no one had strange requests for him.

“Of all the—! What is with
the
birds today!” Ann slammed the door shut, and Cynthia had no way of knowing if Remi had been able to slip inside.

She hurried up the steps and pressed her eye to the crack in the door.

She waited.

And waited.

And tried to rationalize how far it was for a frog to get through the kitchen and front hall all the way to the basement door. She tried not to image horrible scenarios where Remi was stepped on.

“Stay along the baseboards, and under the furniture where you can,” she had lectured him before he left.

“Yes,
M
m
other
,
”
h
e teased. “You’d think I would know how to get along as a frog better than you.”

Cynthia wished he
had been
be just a little more worried about it.

The faint slap of his feet on the wooden floor brought her back to the present and made her start breathing again.

“Remi?” she whispered.

“Almost there.”

It was agony waiting while he hopped to the wall and climbed. She could hear his labored breathing and the key clattering as he struggled to get it off the hook. The heavy brass key clanked to the floor, followed by Remi.

They couldn’t take the key before her family had left, it would have been missed.

Remi nosed the key under the crack in the door. Cynthia snatched it up, fumbling in her haste.

The key clicked in the lock, she flung the door open and scooped Remi
up
.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said wiggling in her grip.

She bowed her head until her forehead gently bumped his. “I know. I just worry.”

“Aren’t we going to get something to eat?” he asked turning in a pitiful way toward the kitchen.

She smiled. “Yes, food first.”

There were a few people still in the kitchen, including Ann. Cynthia ignored them and started rummaging in the icebox, but Ann would not be
disregarded
.

“Where’ve you been all day? I’ve been one person short serving all the meals,” she asked with a huff.

Cynthia pulled a pheasant leg and roasted potatoes out and glanced at Ann. “Lady Wellington didn’t tell you? Or Nora?”

She looked around for the kitchen maid, but didn’t see her.

“Tell me what?”

“I’ve been locked in my room all day,” Cynthia said, pulling up a stool to Ann’s counter. She fished Remi out of her pocket and placed him on the table next to her and broke off a piece of potato for him.

“Locked… what… frog! No frogs on my table!” Ann took her apron and flapped the end of it at Remi.

“Ann, I guarantee you he’s cleaner than some of your staff’s hands.” With the pheasant leg in one hand she waved it at the old cook. “Ann, Remi. Remi, this is the woman who’s marvelous cooking you’ve been enjoying all week.”

“Much better than flies,” Remi replied, flicking his tongue at another potato
chunk
.

Ann watched them with the end of her apron clutched tight in her hands. “He talks.”

“He’s an enchanted prince. We’re going to the masked ball tonight to find a princess to change him back,” Cynthia said, getting up to pour herself a glass of milk.

“You never said why the missus locked you in your room,” Ann said, her eyes riveted on Remi.

“Long story,” Cynthia sighed, shuttling her dishes to the sink and holding out a hand for Remi to hop on.