Four

The next morning, Queen Olivene sent for her daughters, telling them to meet her by the moat. Chartreuse arrived first and looked disappointed when her sister appeared on the drawbridge. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“The same thing you are,” said Grassina. “Don’t bother telling me to go away. Mother told me to come.”

Chartreuse was about to reply when Queen Olivene stepped off the end of the drawbridge. “Come along, girls. We have much to do today. I’ve invited you to join us, Grassina, because Sophronia has gone home. She told me there’s no use trying to teach someone deportment and the courtly graces if that person can’t be found. Finished with your lesson, indeed!”

“Well, I was,” said Grassina. “Lady Sophronia just didn’t know it.”

“And so I’m stuck with you,” muttered Chartreuse.

“It could be worse,” said Grassina. “It could be Prince Rinaldo.”

“I hope we can get through this fast,” Chartreuse said as the girls turned to follow their mother. “The princes are waiting for our morning walk.”

“All of them?” asked Grassina.

“Of course,” said Chartreuse. “You wouldn’t want me to play favorites, would you?”

“Not yet,” Grassina said under her breath. “You’re having too much fun the way it is.”

The queen took the girls down the road leading away from the castle. When they reached a farmer’s hayfield, they picked their way through the stubble left over from a recent cutting until they reached the overgrown thicket that divided the field from the one beyond it. Using an impromptu spell, Olivene cleared away a strip of ground facing the thicket and had the girls sit on either side of her.

“Now listen carefully, Chartreuse,” said the queen. “I’m going to teach you a spell to call animals. This spell is longer than the one I showed you yesterday. Pay particular attention to the tone of voice I use. That’s critical in a number of spells.”

Resting her hands in her lap, the queen opened her mouth to begin, but a voice called out, “Pardon me, my dear. I must speak with you.” The king was walking toward them with one hand behind his back, looking pensive the way he did when considering a serious problem. “Girls, please leave us. Your mother and I need to be alone.”

Gathering their skirts around them, the girls took their leave, although they didn’t go far. When Chartreuse would have returned to the castle, Grassina stopped her, saying, “We can’t go home. They’re going to fight, I know it.”

“It’s none of our business,” hissed Chartreuse.

“Of course it is,” said Grassina. “They’re our parents. Everything they do is our business. Did you see the expression on Father’s face? He looked odd.”

“Fine, we’ll listen in, but only because we care.”

“Precisely,” said Grassina.

Moving as quietly as they could, the girls crept through an opening in the thicket and down its length until they could see their parents while remaining hidden.

“. . . a lesson,” said the queen. “Chartreuse is doing so well at memorizing the spells.”

“Very nice,” King Aldrid said, sounding as if he wasn’t really paying attention. He cleared his throat with a loud harumph before saying, “I thought about what you said yesterday. I wrote a poem for you. I know it isn’t very good, but I never was much at writing, although you always seemed to like whatever I wrote. Here it is.”

Though I forget from day to day
To find the words I ought to say,
You’re half my heart and half my soul.
Without your love I can’t be whole.
So please forgive me if I fail To say how much I love you.

“That was so sappy!” whispered Grassina. “I can’t believe he said that!”

Chartreuse sighed. “I think it was terribly romantic.”

Tears glittered in the queen’s eyes. “It was perfect,” she said, smiling up at him.

“I got you these myself,” he said, pulling a bouquet of wildflowers from behind his back. “I didn’t have time to get you anything else. I hope you like them.”

The queen gasped, her eyes growing wide when he laid the bouquet in her lap. The petal of a daisy brushed the back of her hand, and a breeze sprang up, carrying the heavy scent of roses and lilies, although there were none in the bouquet.

Grassina suddenly felt uneasy. She turned to look around her, thinking that the weather might be changing or someone might be coming, but nothing had happened as far as she could tell. The sun was still shining in a cloudless sky, the birds were still twittering in the thicket, the fields were still empty, and her parents . . .

It was then that she noticed that her mother had begun to change. Her softly curling strawberry blond hair was becoming lank and dull, turning the color of wet mud. Her well-shaped nose was growing long and hooked, nearly meeting her increasingly pointy chin. The once-flawless skin of her cheeks was becoming bumpy and coarse, and her gentle eyes were now beady and piercing.

Unfortunately, her appearance wasn’t the only thing that had changed. “What are you staring at?” she rasped. The voice that had been declared the sweetest in the kingdom now sounded like a rusty saw sharpening on a dull whetstone.

Grassina and Chartreuse gasped behind the concealing thicket and reached for each other’s hands. King Aldrid’s sun-bronzed cheeks went pale. “Then it was true,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Your mother told me of the curse, but you said she was crazy. I thought she was, too. She was afraid of so many things—men wearing pointy hats, shadows in the snow, red shoes on little girls.

We never thought any of it was real.” “What are you yammering on about, you addle-pated fool?” demanded Queen Olivene. “And men say women talk too much.”

“If only I’d realized that the old woman was right about the curse. She said that if you touched a flower after your sixteenth birthday you’d turn into a horrible hag. To think that it’s my fault that you’ve—”

“Enough of this blathering!” the queen snapped. Pointing her finger at her husband, she chanted,

Go hide inside your hidey hole,
You mumbling, bumbling rat.
Stay in the dungeon till I say
You’ve had enough of that.

There was a squeak like a rat might make, and King Aldrid disappeared.

Chartreuse cried out and hid her face in her hands, while Grassina jumped to her feet, shouting, “No!”

Queen Olivene’s head whipped around. “So you were spying on me? I hope you got a good eyeful.”

Ignoring the thorns that tore at her clothes, Grassina forced her way through the thicket. “Where’s Father?” she asked. “What have you done with him?”

“I sent him to the dungeon, where he can talk all he wants and I won’t have to listen to him.” Olivene chuckled, making her long nose quiver. “Serves him right. He didn’t say anything that I wanted to hear.”

“What happened to you?” asked Grassina, unwanted tears thickening her voice. “Are you going to be like this for good?”

“For good or ill, who’s to say? Why, do you have a problem with it?”

Grassina held out her hand to the queen. “I want you back the way you were!”

Queen Olivene hopped to her feet and stuck out a long, crooked finger. Prodding Grassina’s collarbone, she said, “Well, we” poke, “don’t always” poke, “get what we want.” With one last poke, she pushed so hard that Grassina fell backward into the thicket, crying out as the thorns scratched her.

Hot tears stung the cuts on Grassina’s cheeks. She sobbed, turning her head aside so she wouldn’t have to look at Olivene’s awful, leering face.

Olivene’s lips curved down in disgust. “Look at that! Frightened of your own shadow! Why, you’re as scared as a rabbit!” An idea occurred to her, changing her expression to one of glee. “In that case,” she said, “if you’re going to act like one, maybe you should be one and see what it’s really like.” Pointing her finger at Grassina, Olivene chanted,

Turn this silly, wretched girl
Into a frightened rabbit.
Let her see how she would feel
Were fear a lifelong habit.

“No!” cried Grassina, struggling to get out of the way of the crooked finger, but the thorns held her in place like a skewered roast in the kitchen. She cried out when her skin began to prickle and her skull began to itch. When the world seemed to tilt, she shut her eyes and tried to hold back a sudden swell of nausea.

Although Grassina had never known her mother to turn herself into an animal or talk about it if she had, she had seen her turn someone into a dog once. A soldier had beaten a homeless hound, so the queen had changed the man into a small, ugly cur until he’d agreed to mend his ways. The soldier was a changed man after that, but it wasn’t what had made the biggest impression on Grassina. It was the way he had looked while he transformed, shrinking in some ways, growing in others, his clothes melting into him as his fur sprouted and his hands and feet became paws. It had frightened her at the time, watching the man change while his expression vacillated from horrified to pained and back again. The experience had given her nightmares for weeks, but she’d never thought she’d have to live through it herself.

Thankfully, the pain wasn’t nearly what Grassina had expected. In fact, it didn’t hurt exactly, although it did feel extremely odd. As her hands and feet curled into paws and her ears lengthened and moved to the top of her head, she kept waiting for the pain to begin. It hurt a bit when her body shrank, but it was more of an ache than a pain and didn’t last very long. Her ears had nearly stopped growing when she heard a chicken squawking and a nasty, rasping laugh. Frantic, Grassina wiggled free of the last few thorns that held her in place and looked around her. There was no sign of her mother or Chartreuse, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by. A snapped twig made her go deeper into the thicket where the leaves concealed her from anyone outside.

Learning how to hop the way rabbits do wasn’t easy in the confines of a thicket. Grassina managed, however, tripping only a few times and hitting her head only once. She found it hard to avoid catching her ears on thorns, and her fluffy tail was almost yanked off after it got snagged, making her move even more cautiously.

When she heard a whisper of sound nearby, Grassina had already worked her way so far into the thicket that all she could see was a wall of green. She crouched down to make herself as small as possible and froze, listening to the muted rustling, scraping, and scratching common to a thicket. It occurred to her that she wasn’t alone and that some of the other animals might be bigger and meaner than a rabbit. Any predator that came along would be unlikely to know or care that she was really a thirteen-year-old girl.

Unfortunately, Grassina had always had a vivid imagination. With each new sound, she pictured all sorts of creatures that could live in a thicket, any one of which might enjoy a nice rabbit meal. When nothing appeared, she began to worry about other things like whether her mother’s transformation was temporary or permanent and whether the queen would come looking for her. She thought about her father and how he must feel, then began to worry about what would become of her family if her mother didn’t change back. When nothing new happened, she worried that she was going to have to spend the rest of her life as a rabbit.

“Oh dear,” said a voice from somewhere close by. Grassina pricked up her ears, swiveling them in the direction of the sound. She froze again when she heard the whisper of something brushing against the leaves. “And I thought thingss couldn’t get any worsse,” moaned the voice. “What should I do now?”

Although it wasn’t Chartreuse’s voice, it had to be her. Who else could be in this thicket, talking in a way Grassina could understand? Their mother must have changed both of her daughters at the same time. And if it was Chartreuse, it sounded as if she’d been hurt, perhaps by the magic that had changed her.

Moving as quietly as she could, Grassina crept through the hedge, listening for her sister. There was a sound—over there. It was close, too. If it was Chartreuse, whatever she had been turned into should be visible by now. Grassina couldn’t see her, but she did smell an unfamiliar, musky scent. She was watching the play of dappled light on the shadowy green foliage when a long narrow head moved, two glistening black eyes looked her way, and the shape that had blended into the thicket so well suddenly became apparent.

“Chartreuse?” Grassina whispered to the snake. “Is that you?”

“Go away!” whispered the snake. “Don’t come near me. Ssomething bad will happen if you do!”

Grassina hopped closer. “Don’t be silly, Chartreuse. It’s me, Grassina. What’s wrong with your tail?”

The snake had twisted around itself until the last few inches of its tail rested on the top coil. Part of it looked flatter than the rest, and whole rows of bright green scales were missing. “You don’t want to know. It’ss a very long sstory.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Grassina said, stretching out on the cool soil to listen.

The little snake sighed. “If you inssisst, but I warned you! It’ss my bad luck, you ssee. I’ve been plagued with it ssince before I wass hatched. My mother abandoned me, sso I wass all alone in the world when I broke out of my shell. I wass crawling to another branch when I fell out of my tree. It took me an entire morning to climb back up. The next day a witch named Mudine ssnatched me from my jungle where I was nice and warm, dropped me in a bassket, and whisked me away to her cottage in thesse cold, cold woodss. She locked me in a cage and fed me inssectss that made my sstomach hurt.

“Then bad thingss began happening to her. A sstorm made her roof leak and ruined her magic bookss. A rat wandered in and ate her mosst important herbss. Her potion sscorched when she took a nap. That’ss when she told me it wass all my fault; she ssaid that her bad luck began the day she brought me home. She called me a jinx, and I knew she was right. Bad luck followss me wherever I go.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Grassina as she took a step backward. Apparently, this wasn’t Chartreuse after all.

“Yessterday a hairy monsster broke into the cottage and ssmashed everything. The witch wass out, you ssee, or she would have turned him into a mousse and fed him to me. When the monsster broke my cage, I thought I’d finally be free. I wass almosst out the door when he sstepped on my tail. I thought he wass going to kill me, but he changed hiss mind and I got away after all. I sstill have bad luck, though. I can’t go far with a tail like thiss. Ah, I ssee you undersstand. That’ss it, move away from me. Maybe my bad luck won’t hurt you if you leave now.”

Grassina kept backing away until she bumped into the thicket behind her. Despite what the creature said, it wasn’t its bad luck that she found frightening. “You’re a real snake!” she said, her eyes widening as she realized something else. “Then why can I understand everything you’re saying?”

“Why wouldn’t you be able to undersstand me, unlesss . . . Is there ssomething wrong with the way I talk?” the snake asked, becoming agitated. “Are my wordss getting sslurred? Iss my voice getting faint? I’m going to die now, aren’t I? The end iss near. I can feel it! It’ss my bad luck, I tell you. That monsster musst have hurt me more than I thought when it sstepped on my tail!”

“I doubt it. You sound fine. It’s just that I’m really a human girl, not a rabbit, and I shouldn’t be able to understand you . . . unless . . . Is it because I am a rabbit now?”

“You’re crazy,” said the snake. “That explainss a lot. Only a crazy rabbit would want to hear my sstory. Monkeyss are crazy, and if you’re like them . . .”

“I’m not crazy. I’m a human girl who . . .”

“You’re no human; you’re a rabbit. Jusst look at that little twitchy nosse and fluffy puff of a tail! I think that . . . Shh! What wass that?”

A leaf rustled. Fur brushed a twig. A padded paw scraped an exposed root. Grassina raised her head to sniff the air. There was a new scent, like her own rabbity smell, yet completely different. This scent set her whiskers quivering and made the fur along her spine bristle. Whatever the creature was, she already didn’t like it.

Turning her head ever so slowly, Grassina glimpsed a flash of russet fur and the tip of a pointed ear. It was a fox, and it was only a few feet away inside the tangled thicket.

“Thiss iss the end,” whispered the snake. “Now ssomeone iss going to die becausse of my bad luck. I can’t sslither fasst with my tail like thiss, and you’re crazier than a butterfly that thinkss it can sswim. We don’t sstand a chance!”

Caught between the instinct to run and her desire to help a creature in need, Grassina paused for only a second before saying, “I’m not crazy, and I’m not leaving you here to die. There must be something we can do.” Her eyes fell on a broken twig. When she tried to pick it up, she had to use both paws to hold it, being careful not to prick herself on the wicked-looking thorns.

The twig wobbled as Grassina raised it between her paws and turned to face the fox. Smiling, the fox skirted a prickly branch while its eyes flicked from her to the snake. “What have we here?” it said, licking its lips.

“You don’t want to fool with me,” Grassina said.

The fox smirked. “And why is that?”

“Because I have this!” she said. Raising the twig over her head, she hopped once and brought it down on the fox’s skull as hard as she could. The fox jerked its head away, but Grassina followed, raining blows on it with the thorny twig.

“What are you doing?” the fox barked. “You’re a rabbit. You’re supposed to be afraid! Stop that! Ow! Ow!”

The fox dodged, trying to evade her blows. Grassina was still walloping the animal when her skin began to tingle, her paws to prickle, and her ears to ache. She paused and took a deep breath, but her vision blurred, making it hard to see when the fox turned to face her, its lips curled back in a snarl. Shaking her head to clear it made her feel woozy, so she almost didn’t notice the fox tensing its muscles to pounce. When she did, she swung at the fox one last time even though she was feeling so light-headed that she was afraid she might faint. She was halfway through her swing when her paws lost their grip on the twig; the tingling had grown until she could feel nothing else.

Grassina’s entire body shimmered, but she had her eyes closed, so she didn’t see it. Nor did she see the horrified look on the fox’s face when she began to change.

The fox turned tail and ran when Grassina’s body began to push the thorns aside, breaking some and bending others as she grew. The thorns scratched and bit into her flesh as she returned to her normal size and shape, leaving trickles of blood on her face, hands, and clothes. When the tingling stopped, she felt the thorn-inflicted pain in a rush of sensation that made her cry out. Her eyes fluttered open and she flinched; the thorns were so thick around her that she was afraid to move. Biting her lip at the pain of each new prick and scrape, she pushed the twigs aside as she forced her way through the thicket.

“Well, I’ll be . . . ,” whispered the little green snake at her feet.

Grassina looked down. “I can still understand you!” she said. “Now do you believe me? I told you I was a human.” Something rustled in the thicket only a few yards away. After glancing in that direction, Grassina turned back to the snake. “I don’t want to leave you here to get eaten. Come with me and I’ll . . .”

The snake drew back, rearranging its coils deeper under the protective thorns. “Pleasse don’t try to hurt me! Issn’t it bad enough that my tail iss ssquashed?”

Grassina was aghast. “I don’t want to hurt you! I have to go home now and see my family, but I don’t want to leave you here. If you go with me, I can keep you safe while your tail heals. You won’t bite me or anything if I pick you up?”

“Well, you did protect me from that fox,” said the snake. “I ssupposse I can trusst you. But I have to warn you that if you take me with you, my bad luck will come, too.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Grassina. “I don’t believe in bad luck.” Gritting her teeth, she touched the snake, expecting it to feel cold and slimy. Instead it felt nice, not cool, but not exactly warm either. Its scales were smooth, and it tickled when it slid across her palm and wrapped itself around her wrist.

“Ssay,” said the snake. “You’re not a witch, are you? You’re not going to sstick me in a kettle with toe of bat and ear of rat or ssome other dissgussting combination?”

Grassina laughed and shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about me. I don’t have a lick of magic. I told you, I just want to keep you safe.” Pushing aside the last branch, she stepped out of the thicket and stopped to tug her gown free of the thorns. She looked around, afraid of what she might see. The farmer’s field was empty except for a flock of scavenging crows; there was no sign of either her sister or her mother. She would have to go home to find out what had happened to her family.

Over the years, she had learned enough about magic to realize that because her mother had cast the spell that changed her, Olivene had to be the one to change her back. She had reverted to her human form, so perhaps her mother’s own transformation had been only temporary and she was her normal self again. But if she wasn’t . . . Grassina began to hurry, taking long ground-eating strides as she thought about her father’s disappearance. And then there was Chartreuse. Who knew what their mother might have done to her?

Grassina would have to tend to the snake first, of course. “Hold on tight. I don’t want to drop you.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. It would jusst be my bad luck again. But I should be fine. I wass hatched in a tree, after all. You know, you’re the firsst human I’ve ever talked to. Mudine talked at me, but she never tried to talk to me.”

“And you’re the first snake I’ve ever wanted to talk to,” Grassina said, still amazed that she could converse with an animal.