Grassina didn’t sleep at all that night, although she tried for the first few hours. After that, she wrapped herself in her blanket and curled up on the window ledge to gaze at the night sky. She didn’t know what to do. The life she’d always known was over; nothing would ever be the same again now that her father was gone. Chartreuse would probably become queen soon since she wanted it so much and their mother obviously didn’t care. Because Chartreuse seemed to blame Grassina for everything bad that had ever happened, Grassina was sure that one of Chartreuse’s first acts as queen of Greater Greensward would be to banish her younger sister. And if she didn’t banish Grassina, she’d probably see her married off to one of the least desirable suitors. Perhaps it would be the one who hadn’t bathed since the day he was born. Then again, if Chartreuse didn’t marry her off, she might keep her at the castle as some sort of slave to appease Olivene, making Grassina do all the nasty chores for their mother. As far as Grassina could see, her future at the castle would be awful no matter what Chartreuse decided.
As the first rays of sunlight turned the night sky from black to gray, Grassina collected a change of clothes and all of her throwing stones, wrapping them in a blanket. Loaded down with this bundle, she was the first person to cross the drawbridge that morning.
Grassina went as far as the edge of the practice field before glancing back at the castle one last time. The sight of the mist-shrouded moat, the pennants floating from the tops of the turrets, and the silvery stone of the castle fortifications almost made her want to cry. “No more of that,” Grassina muttered to herself, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. She’d cried enough over the last few days to last her a lifetime and was afraid that if she got started again, she might not be able to stop.
Hurrying past the practice field, she tried not to think about the last time she’d seen her father there, talking and laughing with his men. She ducked her head, refusing to look at the tree house. After bringing Marniekins and Hector back to the castle, she’d left them in a special hiding place in the buttery. She knew it was foolish, but she regretted that she hadn’t taken the time to say good-bye. It almost felt as if she’d deserted old friends. And then there was Pippa, a new friend who must think she’d been abandoned, too.
“Pippa!” Grassina called as she passed under the ruined tree house. “Pippa, where are you?”
After pausing for a reply and hearing nothing but silence, Grassina shifted her bundle in her arms and continued walking. Pippa may not have stayed around the tree house, but she still might not have gone far. Calling the little snake’s name, Grassina followed her usual route to the swamp, looking for Pippa the entire time.
She was still calling to the snake when she reached the last of the trees that grew at the edge of the swamp. Suddenly, something fell off a branch and landed on her shoulder. Grassina shrieked and dropped her bundle, then began slapping at herself with both hands.
“Hey!” Pippa said, squirming under the neckline of Grassina’s tunic to avoid being slapped. “What’ss wrong with you?”
“Help! I . . . Oh, it’s you. Why did you do that? You nearly frightened me to death!”
“Ssorry,” said Pippa, “except it wass your fault. You kept calling me! I wanted to sstay away from you. After all the bad thingss my luck hass done, I thought you’d be better off without me. But you’re my only friend, and when you kept shouting my name, I decided that you musst really need me for ssomething. Iss everything all right?”
Grassina took a deep, shuddering breath, ready to tell the little snake about her father’s death and her sister’s cruel words, but she found she didn’t want to talk about it, at least not yet. Instead she let her eyes wander from the blue sky that seemed to go on forever, to the light reflecting off the water half hidden by cattails, to the bees humming around a patch of wildflowers, and she realized that she felt better than she had in days. Her stomach had been in knots from the last time she spoke with her sister, but now that she had reached the swamp, she was finally able to relax.
“It’s been awful, but I think it’s about to get a lot better,” Grassina told the little snake. After all, she had a friend, a place to go, and the beginning of a plan. She didn’t expect the Swamp Fairy to be easy to find. If she hadn’t shown herself yet, she wasn’t likely to just because it was what Grassina wanted. Even so, Grassina knew exactly what to do. She’d make herself a shelter deep in the swamp at the end of one of the more difficult-to-find paths, somewhere safe where nasty relatives would never find her should they ever think to come looking. She would go out during the day and look for the Swamp Fairy, who was bound to want to meet her face-to-face eventually. Grassina wasn’t sure what she would do then, but at least she could thank the only person who’d helped her. In the meantime, there would be plenty to eat, at least for the rest of the summer, and she was sure she’d meet the fairy before the weather grew cold.
Although she doubted that anyone would care enough to try to find her, Grassina planned to hide her trail by stepping on rocks and avoiding the softer mud. Taking the less obvious routes, she could go places that only she knew existed.
“I’m going to live in the swamp for a while. Things have gotten worse at the castle and I have to get away,” said Grassina.
“It got worsse when I wassn’t even there? Maybe my bad luck rubbed off on you!”
Grassina sighed. “I don’t think you have bad luck. If anything, I think your luck is good, at least for you. When that monster broke into the witch’s cottage and wrecked everything, he set you free, didn’t he?”
“Yess, and sstepped on my tail!”
“Which wasn’t bad enough to kill you. Think about what would have happened if he’d stepped on your head!”
“That’ss true,” said Pippa. “But what about your little housse in the tree?”
“It was ruined, which was lucky for you when you think about it. I hadn’t brought you any food; if the tree hadn’t broken the cottage roof, you couldn’t have gotten out and found something to eat.”
“I never thought of it that way!”
“That’s what I mean. It’s all a matter of how you look at it. So I don’t want to hear any more about your bad luck,” Grassina said as she set her feet just so, to avoid the sucking mud.
“All right,” Pippa said. “But I have sso many other thingss I want to tell you. Even though I’ve been frightfully cold, I’ve learned a lot during the lasst few dayss. Did you know that dollss can live in trunkss and don’t need to breathe?”
“Most of them don’t talk either,” muttered Grassina.
“What did you ssay?”
“Nothing. What else have you learned?”
“That thosse metal birdss couldn’t ssay anything but nonssensse. I don’t think they have any real thoughtss in their headss. Mice aren’t too bright either. They go the ssame placess time after time, which makess them eassy to catch.”
“I’m sure it does,” said Grassina.
“And the hairy humanss who run on all fourss are much fasster than the oness who aren’t hairy and run on two feet.”
Grassina stopped walking. “Hairy humans? Do you mean werewolves? Have you seen any around here?”
“A few. They were on their way to your casstle. They came back talking about the guardss and the fori . . . forfif . . . the moat and wallss and sstuff.”
Grassina nodded. “You mean the fortifications. They’re the things that keep the castle safe. Have you seen any hairy humans today?” she asked, glancing behind her.
“I never ssee them when the ssun iss out. Do you think they could be related to owlss? Owlss come out at night, too.”
“I’m sure there’s no connection,” said Grassina. “Please do me a favor. Tell me if you see any sign of those hairy humans. I’d like to know where they are and what they’re doing.”
“Ssure,” said Pippa, “although I don’t know why anyone would want to talk to them.”
While the little snake kept watch for the hairy humans, Grassina followed the secret pathways that only she knew, zigzagging where the hidden path required it, jumping across patches of quickmud to another path when the first arrived at a dead end. She thought she smelled smoke, but the wind changed direction, carrying the odor away before she could locate its source. The possibility of dragons in the area made her walk faster, yet it still took her most of the morning to reach the heart of the swamp.
Grassina knew exactly where she would build her cozy little home. An island about a quarter the size of the Great Hall supported a spring and a scattering of wild plum trees. With its own moat of quicksand and open water surrounding it and a thick screen of trees and brush concealing it, the island was almost impossible to find let alone reach unless one knew exactly where to look. Grassina had visited it many times and was familiar with every tree and rock.
To her surprise, when she arrived at the island the little grove of plum trees was occupied. A makeshift lean-to stood between two of the larger trees. Only a short distance away, a pile of kindling and a still-smoldering log marked a fire pit ringed with stones. Draped over the branch of one of the plum trees, a ragged tunic and a pair of breeches dripped water onto the trampled grass, evidence that someone had been washing laundry. Even so, one quick glance around the tiny island showed her that no one was home.
“Now what will I do?” Grassina murmured.
“Iss that where you’re going to live?” asked Pippa. “It doessn’t look very warm.”
“That lean-to isn’t mine,” said Grassina. “I don’t know who made it. It wasn’t here the last time I came this way.”
She considered turning around and going in search of another likely spot, but her feet refused to obey. Her whole plan had been centered on this island, and to find that living there was no longer an option was almost more than she could bear. Shouldering her bundle, Grassina crossed onto the island and began to look around, wondering who had taken over her secret hiding spot.
The campsite held little of a personal nature. An old wooden trencher and a small iron pot rested on the ground beside the fire pit. Inside the lean-to she found a simple pair of leather shoes in good condition and a neatly folded blanket, clean, sweet smelling, and serviceable despite the patches that seemed to hold it together. She didn’t think there was anything else to find until she picked up the blanket and saw that it had been concealing a slim wooden chest. With water marks discoloring the wood and deep grooves and scratches in its top and sides, the chest looked like it might have come from a trash heap, but there was something about it that intrigued her.
Pippa flicked her tongue at the chest. “What’ss that? Iss there a doll like Marniekinss inside? Hello there!” she called, sliding down Grassina’s arm so that she was closer to the wooden chest. “Can you hear me?”
“Pippa, not so loud! I don’t think a doll would fit in there. Just a minute and I’ll see if I can open it.” Grassina knelt beside the chest and tried to lift the lid. It stayed shut as stubbornly as if it had been made of one piece.
“That’ss not going to work,” said Pippa. “Maybe if you bit it, or hit it with a sstick . . .”
“I think I know a better way,” said Grassina.
Determined to know what the interloper on her island might be hiding, Grassina inserted a slim, pointed stick in the tiny gap between the lid and the base, and attempted to pry it open. Aside from jamming her thumbnail, nothing happened, however, so she took the chest in both hands and was shaking it when an angry voice behind her said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Startled, Grassina stood, bumping her head on one of the posts that supported the lean-to. The lean-to tottered and swayed. A strong arm reached out and pulled her to safety just before the shelter fell with a crash. While Grassina staggered and tried not to fall, Pippa slipped under the neckline of her tunic.
“Ow! What are you doing? Oh . . . my . . . ,” said Grassina, glancing from the scowling boy who had saved her to the jumbled branches that had formed the lean-to moments before. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”
The boy let go of her arm and stepped back. “To what? Destroy the only shelter I have or snoop around in my personal possessions?”
“Both. Neither. I mean . . .” Grassina bit her lip. “Wait a minute. I’m not the one in the wrong. You shouldn’t even be here. Who are you, anyway?”
“That’s not the point,” said the boy. “Hey, give me that!” Snatching the dilapidated chest from her hand, he inspected it as carefully as if it were his most precious treasure. Grassina decided that, from the way he was dressed, it probably was. The oversized tunic he wore came down past his knees. His feet were bare like an urchin’s and his sandy brown hair was long and uneven, as if he’d trimmed it himself. He was taller than Grassina, although not by much, and she might have been afraid if he hadn’t had such an open, honest face and warm brown eyes that would have looked friendly if he weren’t so angry.
“Why are you here?” asked the boy, looking up from the chest to glare at her. “You weren’t supposed to come anywhere near . . .” His voice trailed off as if he’d said something wrong, leaving Grassina wondering what it might have been. “I mean, no one was supposed to come here. This is my home, and I want to be alone.”
“You can’t make me leave! I have more right to be here than you do. I’m . . .” It occurred to Grassina that it might not be a good idea to tell this stranger exactly who she was. Although some people might respect her royal status, others might try to use it to their advantage. He didn’t look like a bad person, but looks could be deceiving, as her old nurse used to say. Grassina didn’t know anything about this boy—who he was, where he came from, and certainly not what his intentions might be should he hear the truth about her.
“You’re what?” asked the boy.
“Not leaving, that’s all. I spend more time in this swamp than anybody else. What makes you think you can show up all of a sudden and lay claim to it?”
“I’m not claiming the whole swamp, just this island. And I didn’t just show up. I’ve been here for a while.”
“Then how come I haven’t seen you before?”
The boy shrugged. “I guess you haven’t gone to the right places. It doesn’t matter though. I built my home here, so this island is mine. You can just—”
“If that’s all it takes to claim it, I’m going to build my cottage here, too. It will be a lot better than that thing you had. Your home was all crooked and wobbly . . .”
“It was a perfectly good lean-to!” said the boy, sounding indignant.
“It was more of a lean-from, if you ask me!” said Grassina. “I hardly bumped the thing and it fell over.”
“Ha!” said the boy. “I doubt you could build anything, let alone a cottage.”
“We’ll see about that!” said Grassina.
“Fine!” said the boy. “Tell me when you’re finished. I could use a good laugh!”
Grassina turned her back on the boy so fast that the end of her braid whipped around and stung her cheek. She was careful not to look his way as she studied the ground, trying to decide where to build her cottage. Finding a level spot, she cleared away the debris and left the island in search of long, straight branches.
Although she’d envisioned the cottage as roomy and large enough to walk around in, she began to think that might not be practical if she was going to build it all by herself. Without an ax or saw, she’d have to take whatever windfall she could find, which wouldn’t leave her much to work with. She found a few branches that might suffice, although they weren’t nearly as long as she’d hoped.
Grassina was about to start back to the island when Pippa said, “I’ll sstay here for a while. I don’t want that boy to ssee me.”
“I wouldn’t let him hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Grassina.
“It’ss not that. I don’t like meeting new people. You’re nicer than mosst sstrangerss. The old witch wouldn’t come near me without a forked sstick in her hand. She alwayss looked like she wass afraid I might bite her.”
“Would you?”
“Only if I had to, but that’ss besside the point. I think it’ss better if I keep to mysself while you’re around him.”
Grassina shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”
“What I want is a nice fat mousse,” said Pippa. “But that’ss ssomething elsse I’ll have to do on my own.”
Thinking about building a shelter was a lot easier than actually building one. It took Grassina a number of botched attempts before she finally found a method that would work. After carefully placing the branches where she wanted them, she lashed them together with willow wands, propping them up again each time they fell down. It was frustrating work, made all the worse because she knew the boy would be watching. When she had the branches angled well enough that they could stand on their own, she covered them with twigs and stuffed the spaces with mud and grass.
Pippa returned shortly before the shelter was finished. “It lookss like an upsside-down bird’ss nesst.”
Grassina shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m too tired to care.”
“What’ss that noisse?” asked Pippa.
Rubbing her growling stomach, Grassina said, “I’m hungry, that’s all. I haven’t eaten all day.” She glanced at the boy, wondering if he was watching her, but he was still reinforcing the lean-to he’d rebuilt and didn’t seem to notice her.
“Sso, are you going to call that boy over to ssee what you did?” asked Pippa. “I’ll wait in the grasss if you are. You sure showed him, making thiss housse and all. It’ss sso much better than that thing he built.”
“Not really,” said Grassina. “It isn’t at all what I wanted to make. It’s not a cottage. It isn’t even big enough to call a hovel.”
“That’ss all right. You don’t have to show him anything. We don’t want to look like we’re bragging.”
The sun was setting, and with the advent of nightfall came a cool breeze and the scent of rain. Grassina shivered and slipped into her cottage on her hands and knees, avoiding the still-wet mud in the walls. She was cold, her skin felt grimy, and her stomach ached with hunger. It was hard not to think about all that she’d given up—hot food, a roof over her head, clean, dry clothes, and the safety of solid stone walls. While Grassina pried a small rock out of the ground so it wouldn’t dig into her side when she lay down, Pippa investigated the little bit of floor space, then slithered up the wall and disappeared among the branches.
Grassina’s tiny cottage creaked as the wind picked up, finding its way through the holes she’d missed. Wrapping herself in her blanket, she huddled in the center of her shelter, yawning so hard she could hear her jaw creak. A larger gust shook her shelter, and Pippa dropped out of the ceiling. Gathering the little snake to her, Grassina curled around her friend, trying to warm her. When the wind died down for a minute, she thought she heard the boy talking, but then the rain began and the gentle tapping lulled Grassina into an exhausted sleep. Even after the rain became a steady downpour, she did little more than pull her blanket over her head and continue sleeping. As the rain grew heavier, globs of mud washed through the chinks in the walls and ceiling. Plip! Plip! Cold mud dripped on her blanket, trickling down her hunched figure and turning the blanket into a sodden weight.
“You might want to get out of there before this thing collapses,” the boy said from the doorway, but Grassina was sleeping too deeply to hear him.
She didn’t wake when Pippa slipped away, or when the boy sighed and crept into her shelter on his hands and knees, then carried her out, still wrapped in the saturated blanket. As the rain lashed them both, the boy held Grassina closer, smiling to himself when she snuggled into the warmth of his arms.
It wasn’t until Grassina smelled meat roasting over an open fire that she finally opened her eyes. The sun had risen, making the drops quivering on the leaves of the closest plum tree shimmer like diamonds in a world washed clean by the night’s rain. A small flock of sparrows flitted among the branches, greeting the day and each other with a chirping chorus. Confused when she didn’t see the stone walls of her chamber, Grassina threw off the dry blanket that covered her and sat up. Even as the events of the previous day came back to her, she couldn’t remember leaving the shelter she had built.
The smell of roasting meat was too hard to resist. Grassina climbed out from under the boy’s lean-to, rubbing her back to ease the stiffness. The boy must have helped her; it was his blanket that had been covering her when she awoke, and she couldn’t imagine how else she could have ended up in the lean-to. Before approaching the fire pit and the source of the tempting smells, she glanced around the clearing, expecting to see the boy. She saw her shoes, clean and drying in the sun, as well as her own soggy blanket draped over a branch, but the boy was nowhere to be found. Pippa was gone as well.
Peeking inside the shelter she had built, Grassina was dismayed at how poorly it had survived the rain. She thought the sagging roof was bad enough until she saw the mud puddle where she had sat the night before. Shuddering, she backed away and hurried to the fire pit.
Some sort of small animal had been skinned, skewered, and left with the stick resting across two forked twigs. The scent of fat sizzling on the coals of the fire was almost more than she could bear, but she rotated the stick to cook it on the other side, still expecting the boy at any moment. When he wasn’t back by the time the meat began to char, she took it off the fire and blew on its golden brown surface to hasten its cooling. With no sign of the boy, Grassina could wait no longer. She tore into the crisped morsels, savoring the flavor while watching the pathway for the boy’s return. Although she intended to eat only half, she was licking her fingers before she knew it, having already cleaned the bones.
After one last disgusted glance at the sorry shelter she’d made, Grassina decided that it was time to begin searching for the Swamp Fairy. While she was at it, she’d see if she could find the boy. She would thank him, but she’d also let him know that she didn’t really need assistance and could take care of herself.
Grassina spent the rest of the day visiting many of the places she’d frequented before her mother had changed. She went deep into the swamp where only muskrats, otters, and wildfowl left their prints. She circled the quagmire, collecting useful herbs that grew at its edge and nibbling berries as she picked them. At the pond that bordered the enchanted forest, Grassina kept an eye open for werewolf prints like the ones she’d seen before and was relieved when she failed to find any. She did smell smoke, however, and followed it to a patch of weeds that had been crisped in a fire. Because the burn mark was so small that only a very young dragon could have made it, she decided that it wasn’t worth worrying about.
The shadows were lengthening when Grassina returned to the island with a sack full of edible roots and found that the boy was there ahead of her. He offered her some plums and a seat beside the fire where two leaf-wrapped fish baked amid the coals.
“Where did you go?” Grassina asked, watching the boy poke the steaming fish with a stick.
“Someone had to catch our dinner,” the boy replied without looking up.
Grassina opened her sack to offer him some of the edible roots. “You didn’t have to get one for me. I can fend for myself when I have to.”
“I’m sure you can,” he replied, looking pointedly at her sagging shelter.
“Who are you anyway?” Grassina asked. “How did you end up here?”
“My name is Haywood. I ran away from home. I couldn’t live there anymore, not the way things were with my father. So I came here looking for someplace where I could be by myself.”
“Then I guess you couldn’t have found a better place than the swamp,” said Grassina. “No one comes here except me . . . and the Swamp Fairy, of course.”
Haywood chuckled. “The Swamp Fairy! That’s a good one.”
“Shh! Don’t laugh. She might hear you. You don’t want to make her angry.”
Haywood gave her an incredulous look. “You don’t really believe . . . I guess you do,” he said, seeing how serious Grassina looked.
“Of course I believe in the Swamp Fairy. She’s helped me more than once. Why, if it weren’t for her, I’d be a snail or something even worse.”
“Really?” said Haywood. “And what exactly did this Swamp Fairy do?”
“She sent a toad when I needed one and later a flock of blackbirds with eggshells.”
“How thoughtful of her. But if she’s so busy helping people, I wonder why I’ve never seen her.”
“I think she must be shy,” said Grassina. “To tell the truth, I haven’t seen her either.”
“Here,” said Haywood. “I think these are ready.” Using one of the longer sticks, he deftly flipped the leaf-wrapped fish out of the fire and onto a flat rock to cool.
“You’re a good cook,” Grassina told him between bites a few minutes later.
“Thanks,” he said. “You’d be surprised at all the things I can do.”