Hero (2 page)

But Saturday’s gift from Fairy Godmother Joy? An ax.

A ridiculous present for a baby, Saturday’s gift was nothing more than a plain old ax, a boring tool that lightened Papa’s load in the Wood. And yet, that same ax had chopped down a monstrous, giant-bearing beanstalk and turned into “that damned sword” Velius despised so much.

He might as well have despised Saturday outright. Without her gift, Saturday was just an overly tall girl with overly large hands and an overly loud mouth. She wasn’t even as useful anymore. Since Friday’s needle had healed a goose that laid golden eggs, Papa didn’t have to go into the Wood as often, which meant Saturday and Peter now had days off. Who had ever heard of days off? Saturday used this idle time to come to the Royal Guards’ training grounds to be yelled at and told how lazy she was. It’s not like she had anything else to do.

Blessedly, Erik said nothing more, so Saturday hurried back to the practice area, where Velius stood waiting for her. His dark, lithe form leaned against the fence as he chatted to someone in a very large hat and pile of white skirts who had no business muddying herself in the red clay and muck of the training grounds.

Monday. Of course.

Saturday’s estranged eldest sister had visited the palace in Arilland for the series of balls held by the royal family and then stayed to witness the marriage of their youngest sister, Sunday, to Prince Rumbold. But instead of returning to some faraway castle in some faraway land the moment the bouquet was thrown, Monday had chosen to stay in residence with Sunday.

Personally, Saturday felt that Arilland had lately suffered from an abundance of royalty. (As Saturday suffered from an abundance of sisters, she knew what that was like.) Queens turning into geese, giant kings falling from the sky, frog princes, and princess-sisters. Saturday’s goal was swordsmanship decent enough to get her hired on the first caravan out of this magic-drenched insanity.

“Good afternoon, sister.” Monday’s voice was butter and honey on warm bread.

“What are you doing here?” asked Saturday. Monday held one of the wooden practice swords, more as a walking stick than a weapon.

“I’ve come to see my sister’s infamous sparring,” Monday answered politely.

“Verbal sparring or physical sparring?” asked Velius.

The corner of Monday’s lips turned up, revealing a slight dimple. “Whichever upsets you more, cousin.”

Saturday was suddenly very pleased to see her sister.

“Gentlemen, might I have a word with my sister in private?”

Velius bowed to Monday, as did Erik, who had magically appeared in the practice area to bask in Monday’s glow. He wasn’t the only one. Saturday looked around the field. Every guard, to a man, was staring at the princess.

Monday tilted the brim of her hat up and slowly let her gaze drift across the field. As if released from a spell, each pair of eyes she met reluctantly turned away. Velius and Erik wandered in the direction of the well. Monday indicated a bench at the edge of the practice area and moved to sit. Saturday leapt over the fence and plopped down beside her sister in a cloud of dust.

“How are you faring?” asked Monday.

“Get to the point,” said Saturday.

“As you wish.”

Saturday wondered if anything ruffled her sister’s feathers. She shuddered a little, remembering the brief time their sister Wednesday actually had
had
feathers.

“They tell me you rely too heavily on your gift.”

It didn’t matter if “they” were Erik, or Velius, or both. “They” were a big rat. Saturday rolled her eyes.

“I’m not here to chide you,” said Monday. “I’m here to tell you a story.”

“Like Papa.” Saturday missed being in the Wood with Papa and Peter, telling stories, playing games, and being useful. Stupid, gold-laying goose.

Monday smiled and Saturday beamed back at her, though she had no idea why. “Yes, like Papa.” Monday’s face turned thoughtful. “Saturday, who am I?”

“You’re beautiful,” Saturday answered immediately.

“That’s what I look like. Who
am
I?”

Saturday wrinkled her nose. What type of person
was
Monday? She’d gone off and married a prince after surviving a hailstorm and sleeping on a pea. Saturday knew nothing of Monday’s life beyond that tale. For the most part, she had grown up without her eldest sister. What had Monday accomplished? What was she like? Saturday had no idea. This was already the longest conversation the two of them had ever had.

“You’re a storyteller?” she guessed.

“Sunday’s the storyteller,” said Monday. “What about me?”

“I don’t know.” Saturday felt bad, and not just because she couldn’t answer the question.

“Neither do I.” Monday removed a tiny, ornate mirror from her skirt pocket. “This was my nameday gift from Fairy Godmother Joy.”

Saturday snorted. “A mirror?” Surely Aunt Joy could have done better. As gifts went, a mirror was pretty useless, even if you were the most beautiful girl in the land.

“A looking glass,” Monday corrected. “It’s for looking.”

“To see what?” asked Saturday.

“Right now, I see the most beautiful face in all of Arilland.”

“That’s got to count for something.” Not to her, of course, but Saturday felt sure that beauty was very important to some people.

“Perhaps. But behind that face, inside the woman, all I see is nothing,” said Monday. “The beauty has only ever brought me pain.”

Saturday wasn’t very good at polite conversation, but she was very good at arguing. “That beauty won you all sorts of prizes when you were younger. It got you a prince. It got us a house.” The tower that supported the ramshackle cottage in which Saturday and her parents currently lived had been given to Monday by her royal in-laws as a bride gift.

“What help was beauty the day my twin sister danced herself to death? It snared me a prince who never loved me and then cast me aside for another woman, a witch who killed my daughter.”

“What?” Saturday’s grip on her sword’s hilt tingled. Monday had said it all so casually, as if it had happened to someone else. Saturday hated all their horrid family secrets. She felt bad that she was not closer to Monday, that she had not been able to rescue her eldest sister in her time of need. She wanted to kill the woman who’d hurt Monday and dared harm a niece she’d never known.

“I’m sorry.” The words were useless, but Papa had taught Saturday to say them anyway.

Monday cupped her soft, alabaster hand around Saturday’s dirty cheek. “Don’t worry,” she said brightly.

“You’re not sad,” Saturday realized. “Why?”

Monday held up the mirror again, turning it so that Saturday might see herself in the glass as well. “Look deeper,” Monday said. And then with her honeyed voice, she rhymed:

“Mirror, Mirror, true and clearest,

Please show us our mother dearest.”

Inside the small oval surrounded by jewels, Saturday watched the image of her dusty hair blur before resolving into that of her mother. Mama was in the kitchen, as ever, kneading dough as if she were scolding it for keeping supper waiting. Saturday could almost smell the smoke from the oven fires, almost feel their heat as Mama mopped her brow with a sleeve.

“Thank you, Mirror,” said Monday, and the vision vanished.

“Huh,” Saturday snorted again. “Not so useless after all.”

“It is the reason I do not believe my daughter is dead.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“Bits and pieces, yes. She’s not using the name I gave her at birth, so she’s been difficult to find, but I have the sense that she is there. The mirror has shown me the world from a young girl’s eyes. I believe my daughter is that girl. I believe she still lives.” Heedless of her iridescent white overskirt, Monday took her sister’s mud-covered hand in hers. “Saturday. When you leave this place, if you ever find my daughter, please tell her that I love her. And that I’ve never stopped looking for her.”

Saturday nodded, interested that Monday had said “when” and not “if.” “What does she look like?”

“Hair as black as night, skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood,” said Monday, as if reading from a recipe book. “She is the fairest of us all.”

Every mother thought her daughter the fairest of all, but coming from Monday, this was undoubtedly more truth than compliment. “Okay. I mean, I will.”

“Thank you.” Monday released Saturday’s hands. “It may not tell me who I am, but at least it’s given me hope.”

A thought occurred to Saturday, so she blurted it out, as she did with most of her thoughts. “You are a butterfly,” she said. “You are beautiful and light and airy, and you make people happy just by being present.”

“Ever at the whim of the wind and fated to die young?” Monday laughed, and a murmuration of starlings flocked to the fence posts to listen. “I may be beautiful, but I don’t think I’ve blossomed yet. I feel more like a caterpillar: atop a leaf, admiring the view.” She stood to receive Erik and Velius, who had returned from the well. But before she greeted them she turned back to Saturday and asked, “But tell me, sister, who are
you?
”

It was a good question. Without swords and sisters, who was Saturday Woodcutter? Besides a clumsy giantess with a big mouth and a never-ending supply of energy?

The mirror exploded with bright colors as the earth cracked and spewed forth geysers of water. Storms raged and towns flooded. Families were swept away from each other, their cries out-howled by the wind and their bodies drowned in the rain. The mirror flashed one horrible scene after another at them, and then went still. Even Monday’s lovely reflection couldn’t allay Saturday’s sense of dread after what she’d just witnessed.

“What was that?” asked Velius.

“I don’t know,” said Monday. “It doesn’t normally do that.” She graciously accepted the cup of water Velius had brought her as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Erik likewise thrust a mug into Saturday’s hands. His eyes never left Monday.

“Velius, would you mind escorting me back to my rooms?”

Velius gave a small bow. “Of course, milady.” He turned and bent his elbow so that Monday could rest her hand upon his arm.

“Good day, Erik,” Monday said to the guard.

“Good day, Highness.” Erik might have been blushing under his beard, but as both blush and beard covered his cheeks in red, it was hard to tell.

“Good day, sister,” Monday said to Saturday.

“See ya, Monday.” Saturday let Erik watch them walk away for a while before punching him in the arm. “You’re in love with my sister,” she teased.

“Have been my whole life,” said the guard. “So have the rest of these men. In fact, the only bachelor in Arilland
not
in love with your sister is the one whose arm she’s on.” Erik swung the wooden sword Velius had handed him in wide circles, stretching out his muscles and warming up to spar. “So, what did you ladies talk about? Girl secrets?”

Saturday didn’t know the first thing about girls, or their secrets. “She asked me who I was.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing.” She thought about it again briefly, but those thoughts were instantly swept under storm winds and rains and the cries of the doomed from the magical glass of Monday’s mirror. Saturday shook it off. Who was she? She knew who she wanted to be: an adventurer. Someone about whom stories were told, like her brother Jack. But right now, she was neither of those things. “Yeah, I got nothing.”

Erik settled into an attack position. “I beg to differ. You got a sword and a destiny. That’s more than most people get.”

“I guess so.” That damned sword again. It was time to find out who she was without it, before she was Monday’s age and still had no idea. Saturday unbuckled the swordbelt with difficulty and tossed it in the dust by the fence. The vigor she’d been feeling immediately left her limbs, and her muscles began to ache. She picked up the wooden sword that Monday had left behind and prepared to die once more.

“Let’s go,” she said.

2

THE MESSENGER came as Mama was making dinner. It was a proper messenger this time, not the usual itinerant troubadour curious about the family of legendary Jack Woodcutter and willing to trade dubious ditties of derring-do for a crust of bread and a dry patch of hay for the night. Saturday was the first to dash for the door. Whoever answered the door got out of doing ridiculous household chores for as long as it took to deal with the company.

The boy on the stoop looked about Trix’s age, or at least the age Trix appeared to be. With his strong fey blood, Trix would always appear younger than his foster siblings, and it would be his fate to outlive them all. But this messenger boy—assuming he was human—could have been no more than thirteen or fourteen. He had no pony, and his skinny bones stuck out at sharp angles from underneath his tattered clothing. Over those bones was skin of a hue that Saturday knew from experience was due more to birth than to long hours under the unforgiving summer sun. When the boy took his hands off his knees and straightened, skinny chest still heaving with breath, he looked up at her with kaleidoscope eyes of green, blue, and yellow. Straight black hair stuck out from under his dusty cap like the bristles of a horse brush. He was from the south, then, somewhere beyond the perilous desert sands. Had he run all the way from there? Judging by his ragged shoes, it was entirely possible.

The boy eyed her as if he expected something. Money? No one in his right mind would approach a shack like this with dreams of riches, however great or small. He put a hand to his chest and coughed dryly into one bony elbow. “Water,” he managed to croak, at the same time it occurred to Saturday. She barreled through the empty living room and the full kitchen to the pump in the backyard, her sword sheath banging against her calf as she ran. She heard Mama call, “Who’s that at the door?” before telling Papa to go and see. Papa slowly rose from his usual resting place by the kitchen fire and dutifully obeyed.

Everyone obeyed Mama. They didn’t have a choice. That was her gift. Everything Mama said came true, so Mama didn’t talk much except to bark orders to her husband and children. Aunt Joy said Mama didn’t speak because she was lazy. Mama said it was the only way she knew how to live a normal life.