The Princess Imposter Read online

  “Just the one I was going to say,” Phleg said. There was a mirror attached to the door of the cupboard, and Phleg caught sight of herself as Princess Gabriella. The princess did indeed have blue eyes, which seemed an oddly unbecoming shade to Phleg, since fairies have violet-colored eyes. And Princess Gabriella had dark brown hair that obviously hadn’t been cut in ages, for it fell over her shoulders in gentle waves, whereas Phleg’s hair was short and iridescent white and spiky. Phleg felt sorry for the princess. Here she had all these beautiful dresses, but they couldn’t hide the fact that she was a big and galumphing human, and warthog ugly.

  The servant had gone to other cupboards and was now pulling out more clothing.

  “I thought I was going to wear the sapphire dress?” Phleg asked.

  “Certainly. I’m just setting out your undergarments.”

  “Undergarments,” Phleg repeated. “That would be for … ”

  “Underneath,” the servant finished for her.

  “Hmmm,” Phleg said again. “Better set them out in the order I’m meant to put them on.”

  “Certainly,” the servant said. It seemed her favorite word. “And then, afterward, I can brush your hair for you.”

  Brush it? How would Princess Gabriella’s hair ever come in spiky if it was brushed?

  People! They were going to take some getting used to.

  Once the fairy children saw that Gabriella would not lose her patience and yell at or chase after them—or lose her nerve and break into dramatic weeping—they quickly grew bored.

  “Wanna go pull the laundry lines down so the clothes fall into the dirt?” one of them suggested, and before Gabriella could say, “Oh, surely not!” the number of children went down from eleven—Gabriella had finally had the chance to count—to one. That one was the toddler of indeterminate gender. (Well, indeterminate to Gabriella. Presumably its family knew.) But the toddler couldn’t keep up and was left behind, so it threw itself down on its well-padded bottom and began to wail.

  One of the few subjects that had not been covered in Gabriella’s education was the tending of babies, especially irate fairy babies whose faces were turning purple from screaming so hard.

  “There, there,” Gabriella said, and because she spoke so kindly and soothingly, the heartbroken child lifted its arms to her in a gesture even one unaccustomed to babies could recognize as the universal sign for pick me up.

  “Oh,” Gabriella said in a tone that—coming from anyone but a perfect princess—could almost be mistaken for a moan.

  But, with tears still pouring down its cheeks, the child hiccuped what might have been the word up, so Gabriella took it in her arms, being careful of the tiny, delicate wings. She felt more unsure of herself now than she had since, at five years old, she was asked to be the judge at the countywide baking competition. She had needed to declare whose sugar cookies were better: those made by the mother of her best friend, Amanda (and they were scrumptious), or those made by the mean old wife of the miller (who’d put hazelnuts in hers, which was indisputably an inspired addition).

  Safe in Gabriella’s firm, if somewhat unenthusiastic, embrace, the fairy child stopped screeching, sniveling, or turning purple, and started playing with Gabriella’s long, dark, wavy hair, so unlike that of its siblings. Gabriella forced herself not to think about how the child’s fingers had been grimy to begin with and were now coated with tears and snot.

  What Gabriella longed to do was to carry the child out of the room and find some adult fairies, in the hopes that she could:

  1.  hand over the child, and

  2.  talk them into returning her home, since this whole changeling episode had apparently been thought up by the children.

  But she had been taken at night, and all she was wearing was her nightdress. True, it was cotton, not gauzy or see-through, and it covered her about as well as one of her summer dresses—and more than the fairy girls’ dresses covered them. Still, it was a nightdress. There had been no protocol lesson to cover this, but she felt confident that princesses—even kidnapped-by-fairies princesses—should not wander around unknown places wearing only their nightclothes. Surely, surely, the children’s mother would eventually come looking for the missing toddler. Or the missing Phleg.

  So Gabriella sat down—on the floor (!)—and rocked the little one until it fell asleep, sucking on a strand of Gabriella’s hair.

  Still no adult fairies made an appearance.

  What was going on at home? Surely no fairy—especially no fairy from this family—could pass for her, even if magically altered to wear Gabriella’s form. Not for a moment.

  Well …

  Gabriella had to admit to herself that the servants might not like to rush to judgment. But her father would definitely notice.

  Well … assuming his duties as head of state didn’t keep him away.

  In which case her mother … her mother …

  While Gabriella had to admit her mother was often distracted by her royal social obligations, she would know. If not immediately, soon.

  Soonish.

  Sooner or later.

  Eventually …

  But not to worry. Amanda, who’d been Gabriella’s friend since they were as young as this indeterminate fairy child, Amanda could be counted on to raise the alarm within moments of meeting the false Gabriella. She would see, and she would not rest until the king and queen were convinced. In fact, a search was probably already under way. Gabriella would be rescued in no time.

  Meanwhile, however, Gabriella had nothing to do but to study her surroundings. She might be in a tower, judging by the curve of the walls, which were constructed of stone like the walls of her parents’ castle. But these were stones of sparkly pastel colors. Very pretty, she had to admit. And yet there was only one window, in the ceiling. Didn’t it ever rain here where the fairies lived? Even if there were shutters on the outside—which she could not see any evidence of—surely some water would drip in. That might have explained why the room was bare except for the piles of straw that apparently served as sleeping mats: no chests for clothing, nor any place to store possessions of any sort. No nightstand to hold cups of milk, even for the youngest. The heaps of straw were more scattered than arranged into neat piles. Despite her annoyance with the fairies—which Gabriella was too well-bred to let show—she felt sorry for them, thinking that even the peasants in her father’s kingdom had more.

  Eventually the child awoke, hungry apparently, for it started crying again, and stuffing fistfuls of Gabriella’s hair into its mouth.

  This will not do, Gabriella told herself. The child must be attended to, despite the risk to her own royal dignity.

  So, tucking the squalling child beneath her arm, Gabriella marched out of the room—and straight into the only fairy whose name she knew: Parf.

  Not sure whether she was a prisoner who was supposed to stay put and would be punished otherwise, she immediately explained about the baby. “He’s hungry.”

  She said he because it sounded insulting, and she had a fifty-fifty chance of being right.

  But also a fifty-fifty chance of being wrong.

  “He?” Parf said blankly, despite the fact that she’d made to hand the toddler to him. Her meaning had to be clear.

  “Excuse me,” she said without a trace of sarcasm. She cleared her throat, as though it was dryness that had made her intended word come out sounding wrong. “I meant to say she’s hungry.”

  Parf snorted, not fooled for an instant. “Dumb twit of a human girl,” he scoffed, which was not an acceptable thing to say in any social circumstance. But he did take the child. And he seemed perfectly capable of distracting his little sister by bouncing her.

  “What,” Gabriella asked him, “is my status?”

  “Your what?”

  Gabriella suspected Parf didn’t know the word. “My position,” she clarified. “My standing.”

  “Well, that’s it exactly,” Parf told her. “Your position is that you’re standin
g.” He held the tot up so that they were face-to-face. “Isn’t she the stupidest human girl?” he cooed to the child. “Yes, she is. Indeed she is.”

  Gabriella took a steadying breath. “I am not stupid,” she said—not arguing, just clarifying. “I simply do not understand what’s expected. I’ve never had experience being … ” She wasn’t sure if there was such a word. “… changelinged.”

  “Well, duh,” Parf said. “Phleg took your place, you took hers. Didn’t I tell you this already?”

  “Yes, but … ”

  “So you take over Phleg’s chores.”

  “Oh.” So apparently she wasn’t meant to be held captive in the children’s bedchamber. But … chores? She suspected this did not mean judging baking contests or declaring spring officially started or dancing with the ambassadors who came to her father’s court. She could have refused to cooperate, but that didn’t seem the princessly thing to do. Besides, she didn’t want to anger the fairies in case they might confine her to one room. “What sort of chores does Phleg do?” Gabriella asked.

  “Miss-mot,” he announced, looking very pleased with himself.

  “I don’t know what that is,” she admitted.

  “Not what: who.” Parf grinned, and handed the baby back to her. He waved his hand in front of his nose. “Which includes diaper duty.”

  Of course.

  But before Gabriella could point out all the ways in which she was unqualified for this task, she heard what could only be a howl of rage come from not too far away. Anxiously, she tried to determine from which direction the noise had erupted. Impossible to tell. She and Parf were standing in a room whose sole function seemed to be to give access to other places. Like the sleeping chamber, this room was also shaped in a perfect circle, and there were six doorways—all the doors were open—including one that led to the outside, showing grass just beyond. She was not high up in a tower after all.

  In another instant, some (if not all, for they were too fast for her to be sure) of the fairy children came tearing in, separating and diving through various doorways.

  More angry howls. Coming closer.

  Gabriella saw that Parf, though looking grim, was standing his ground. “What—?” she started. But that was the only word she had time to get out before a new fairy strode into the entryway, one she hadn’t met before.

  This fairy was an adult. Gabriella could tell, though it would have been hard to say how she knew. The newcomer was no taller than Parf. It wasn’t that her face was lined—and of course they all had that silver-white hair—but something about her features and the way she held herself gave the impression that she was older. And furious.

  “Don’t think you can get away from me, you little brats!” the woman screamed at the open doors, shaking the piece of hyacinth-colored fabric she clutched.

  Parf looked at Gabriella. “Not what,” he told her once again. “Who.” Then, turning to the adult fairy, he greeted her. “Hello, Mumsy.”

  “Don’t Mumsy me!” the older fairy snapped. “I spent all morning washing the laundry, and somebody—somebody—has snipped the drying lines so that everything—everything—needs to be cleaned again.” She flung the offending skirt onto the floor and stomped on it. “Everything!”

  Gabriella gasped. She had heard the plan, but she had never considered that the children could be plotting against their own mother.

  The mother, Mumsy, glared at her. “Who in the wide world are you?” she demanded, which is not a good welcoming speech, no matter the circumstances.

  Still, Gabriella curtseyed. “Princess Gabriella of Fairhaven, daughter of King Humphrey and Queen—”

  “Nobody cares,” the fairy mother interrupted. By not introducing herself, she forced Gabriella to continue thinking of her as “Mumsy.”

  Parf stepped in. “Gabby is taking Phleg’s place.” He lowered his voice to add, “I think she may well have egged the others on.”

  Gabriella couldn’t even get her mouth to work.

  Fortunately, Mumsy knew her children better than that. “And you,” she said to Parf, “no doubt tried valiantly to stop them.” But then she turned her attention back to Gabriella. “Just what I need!” she cried. “Another mouth to feed.” She looked the human girl up and down. “And you’re enormous,” she said. Again, it was a phrase for which there is no correct social occasion. “I’ll bet you eat twice as much as any one of my children.”

  Helpfully, Parf said, “But she’ll be able to reach higher, so she can help with more chores.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Gabriella said.

  “More chores,” Parf repeated loudly. To Mumsy, he explained, “Gabby’s a bit hard of hearing, and more than a bit slow.”

  “I … I … ,” Gabriella stammered. “My name is Gabriella, not Gabby.” This was not being confrontational. This was simply setting the record straight.

  “Fine,” Mumsy said to Parf, totally ignoring Gabriella’s protests. “She can start with redoing the laundry and fixing the lines.” She sniffed. “After she changes the baby’s diaper.”

  “Yes, Mumsy,” Parf said.

  Mumsy shook her head and started for one of the doorways. “I don’t know what’s the matter with you children,” she said. “You act as though you were raised by wolves.”

  “You should know,” Parf muttered after her.

  “What?” Mumsy asked.

  Parf shifted to a totally different tone. “You should know,” he repeated, “that I will keep Gabby on task.”

  Clearly not fooled, Mumsy narrowed her violet eyes at him and shook her head. “Raised by wolves,” she repeated.

  The servant’s name was Ellen. She told that to Phleg the fourth or fifth time Phleg called her Hey, you.

  “Perhaps your memory has been affected by that bump to your head,” Ellen suggested as she set out the princess clothing Phleg was to wear.

  “Well,” Phleg pointed out, “Ellen is a very hard name to remember.”

  “Indeed,” Ellen murmured.

  At first Phleg thought Princess Gabriella must be the stupidest princess in the world to need a servant to get her dressed, but in the end, Phleg had to accept Ellen’s help, not only for the proper order, but also to get all the fasteners fastened, laces laced, and buttons buttoned.

  “This undergarment is itchy,” Phleg complained, scratching loudly at the stiff fabric.

  “Yes,” Ellen admitted, even though the sound of Phleg’s scratching made her wince, “but not so much once you put the dress on over it, and it will make the dress poof away from you so becomingly.”

  “I suppose I can try,” Phleg grumbled.

  Ellen wrestled the dress onto Phleg. “There!” she exclaimed, as though enthusiasm would cure everything.

  “Still itchy,” Phleg said.

  “So I see.” Ellen seemed to be having a hard time convincing her own hands not to take hold of Phleg’s hands. “I do believe you’ll get used to it, Princess Gabriella. You have worn this on other occasions, and it never seemed to bother you before.”

  “Perhaps the bump on my head has made my skin more sensitive,” Phleg suggested, using the servant’s own argument.

  “Perhaps,” Ellen agreed. “And perhaps, also, you might … ” She couldn’t bring herself to use the word scratch in front of royalty, so she just gestured with her fingers. “… be a bit more discreet.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Phleg, who had hoisted up the skirt of the dress to get at the itch under her ribs.

  Ellen must have realized she had to make concessions. She once again gestured with her fingers. “Over the garments,” she said, “and if at all possible, not quite so … vigorously.” In a clear attempt to distract the princess, she added, “And here are your beautiful shoes.”

  Phleg liked that they sparkled, but as soon as she put them on, she said, “They pinch.”

  “No, they don’t,” Ellen said, beginning to lose patience.

  “They’re not your toes,” Phleg pointed out, even t
hough strictly speaking they weren’t hers, either.

  “I meant,” Ellen said, “they never pinched before.”

  “Perhaps the bump to my head … ,” Phleg started.

  “… has caused your toes to swell?” Ellen finished.

  “Odder things have happened,” Phleg said. She slipped off a shoe for a closer inspection. “What are they made of?” she asked. The fairies used leaves that had been shaped and strengthened with enchantments.

  “Leather from a newborn calf,” Ellen told her.

  It was the newborn that for a moment confounded Phleg. It almost seemed to imply that the leather was something the calf had grown out of, like baby teeth. But snakes shed their skins, not cows. Phleg let the one shoe drop and hurriedly kicked off the other, forcefully enough that it bounced off a wall. “You mean they’re made of dead animals? You want me to wear dead animals on my feet?”

  “No … ,” Ellen said uncertainly.

  An awful thought occurred to Phleg, and a possible explanation for the itchiness of the unfamiliar clothing. She put her hands up to the neckline of her dress, ready to rip it off. “Is this a dead animal, too?”

  “No,” Ellen assured her. “The undergarments are starched linen, and the dress itself is wool.”

  Phleg tried to process this. “Linen comes from … ?”

  “From flax.”

  “Flax is a plant,” Phleg said, “so that’s all right. Wool … ” Her eyes grew wide with shock. “Wool is from sheep!”

  “Living sheep,” Ellen hurried to assure her. “Their coats are sheared, which doesn’t hurt them any more than getting your hair cut hurts you.”

  Considering how long the princess’s hair was, Phleg doubted if Gabriella had any personal experience with getting her hair cut. “You have strange customs,” Phleg said, then caught herself and corrected that to, “We. We have strange customs. I’ve often wondered about them.”

  “Hmmm,” Ellen said, not sounding convinced. “So are you going to put the shoes back on?”

  “No,” Phleg said. “I can go around in bare feet.”