The Princess Imposter Read online

  Then she heard voices, and she remembered she had come in order to spy on Gabriella’s Fred.

  Moving carefully, so as not to alert anyone to her presence, she determined that the voices came from where the path curved around a towering wild rosebush. Phleg crept closer, then sat down on the ground behind it and peered through the thorny branches, to watch without being seen.

  Sitting on a stone bench were a young man just a bit older than her—probably about Parf’s age—and a boy who was closer to five or six. The older one had to be Prince Fred, as Amanda had said he and Princess Gabriella were betrothed. Phleg knew that sometimes, in the world of people as well as in the fairy world, two kings would make an alliance by declaring an upcoming marriage between the son of one and the daughter of the other. The declaration could be made while the children were still … well, children, with the actual marriage to take place once both were of age. But Phleg guessed that Amanda wouldn’t have sounded so excited at the prospect of Princess Gabriella getting a chance to meet her betrothed if he was a five-year-old.

  The boys had to be brothers, as they were bigger and smaller versions of each other. Their hair was not quite as dark brown as Gabriella’s, and curly, like the coat of a sheep. Despite the hair, she supposed Fred was attractive—for a person—although she knew she would never get used to how freakishly tall people were.

  Fred was the one who was doing the talking at the moment, with his brother listening intently. Fred was saying something about someone named Telmund, describing a fight with a band of wicked pirates, with much swordplay and wordplay and leaping about in dramatic stances—which Fred would sometimes jump to his feet to demonstrate, and the brother to imitate. Phleg was skeptical that any of this had much to do with the way a real encounter with pirates would go.

  Fred was telling his brother a story.

  The way the younger boy was sitting on the edge of his seat showed how caught up he was in the unlikely goings-on. Also, whenever he spoke the hero’s name, there was something about the way he said it that made Phleg suspect that hero and little brother shared the same name.

  Even without the hook of the hero being named after her, Phleg found that Fred’s words captured her, too. He might have hair like a sheep, but he could tell a good story. She could hear the sails snapping in the wind. She could taste the sea spray on her lips, feel the heaving of the deck beneath her feet. Then …

  “Oh no!” brother-Telmund cried. Story-Telmund, having been disarmed by the pirate king—through treachery rather than skill—now stood with the pirate’s blade pressed against his throat.

  Here it is, Phleg thought, sure of what was coming. She was disappointed, for she wanted the adventure to continue.

  If Parf could tell a tale so well, which he could not, this would be the moment he’d strike. Having engaged his younger siblings in the story so that all else was forgotten—having made them care about the hero so much that he seemed more real than reality—that was when Parf would say: “And so the pirate swung his sword, taking off the hero’s head, which bounced twice across the deck of the pirate ship, then once more and overboard, where the waiting sharks devoured it, so that all the prisoners he had come to rescue ended up spending the rest of their short, miserable lives as the pirates’ slaves. The end.”

  The siblings would cry and have nightmares for days.

  But that wasn’t what Fred said. Fred said that Telmund grabbed one of the lines hanging from the yardarm, then swung himself up into the pirate ship’s rigging.

  Could someone do that? Who cared? Phleg was relieved he had.

  And this was when Phleg realized that Fred understood his listener as thoroughly as Parf knew his, but that Fred used his knowledge to bring his brother just to the edge of real fear, and then he would back off, for his intention clearly was not to scare, but to entertain.

  She could let go and allow Fred’s words to sweep her away.

  Eventually, the hero Telmund overcame the pirate king, and his bravery and his good humor and his innocence won over the rest of the crew, and they were sailing back to a safe harbor when a sudden gale blew them off course and straight into another adventure.

  Phleg was enthralled by the story every bit as much as the younger brother was, so that she gradually realized she was coming to fall in love with the bold adventurer, whom she pictured as a fairy, though admittedly one who had Fred’s face—minus the silly hair, of course. And maybe she could imagine the hero a little bit taller than the average fairy.

  She was so entranced by the hero’s deeds that she was totally unaware of the passage of time. She was also totally unaware of one of the castle servants coming up behind her until the woman gasped, “Princess Gabriella! Oh, somebody help! Princess Gabriella has fallen!”

  It took several moments to come back to the real world. Phleg had, without realizing she was doing it, come to be lying belly-down on the ground to better watch the boys through the lower branches of the rosebush. Her elbows were in the dirt, her chin resting on her hands.

  Ellen, Phleg remembered, even as she made gestures to shush the woman.

  Too late. Fred had stopped speaking, and his little brother had catapulted himself off the bench and now stood in front of the bush, bobbing, trying to catch sight of her.

  “I’m fine,” Phleg whispered. She wished she could turn back time to before she’d been discovered, so that the story could continue. But she could not. She slapped away Ellen’s fluttering hands. Louder, she said, “Leave me alone.”

  By the time she got to her feet—without Ellen’s help—she saw that Fred had also stood. He was tall enough to look over the shrubbery at her.

  “Princess Gabriella,” he said, sounding as flustered as Phleg felt. “I didn’t realize it was you listening.”

  He had seen her? Of course he had. She realized Fred would have been able to glimpse the blue of her sapphire-colored dress through the brown branches, green leaves, and white flowers of the bush.

  “Yes,” Phleg admitted, “it was me.”

  He stammered, “I—I assumed you were one of the serving girls. I would have invited you to join us had I known … Are you all right?”

  “Well,” Phleg told him, “I’m not, you didn’t, and I am.”

  Young Telmund, who couldn’t see her over the branches of the rosebush, had moved to stand in front of the hydrangeas next to it, which were shorter. He used his arm to brush some of them aside so that he could gawk at her.

  Phleg looked down and saw that her pretty gown had grass and dirt stains on the front. She’d never before been concerned about such things, but now she made to brush the dirt away. At the last moment she instead waved her hand in the dismissive way she thought a princess might. “Carry on,” she told the boys, then asked Ellen, “What do you want?”

  “Richard sent me to find you,” Ellen explained. She restrained herself from tending to Phleg’s dress, but just barely. Before Phleg could ask who Richard was, Ellen continued, “He said you seemed quite interested in lunch before you asked for directions to the garden.”

  Lunch must be people’s name for the midday meal, as the other meal the servant had mentioned, supper, would be the evening meal. “I did not,” Phleg protested, “ask for directions to the garden. I am the princess here. How could I not know my way to the garden?”

  “Is that a trick question?” Ellen asked.

  Ellen’s question itself sounded like a trick question. Phleg changed the subject. “So is it time for lunch?” Could she have been so wrapped up in Fred’s story about Telmund that she’d lost track of that much time?

  Apparently, for Ellen was nodding.

  “Well, then, let’s go.” Following Ellen would be easier than finding her own way back.

  Still, it was difficult to leave without looking back at Fred and his brother and wondering what new story she would miss.

  “Well,” Parf told Gabriella, while he continued to bounce his baby sister to keep her from fussing, “you better get
a move on.”

  “I’m sorry: I have no idea what you’re saying,” Gabriella replied, though she had a sinking feeling she might.

  “Those clothes need rewashing. And the day’s only getting hotter. You might be thankful for that while you’re actually riverside, knee-deep in the washing, but you’re gonna wish for the early morning cool while you’re lugging all that wet laundry up the hill, where the clothes are hung to catch the breeze.”

  He seemed to be saying you an awful lot. In the I’m-so-interested tones she’d use at a state dinner, Gabriella said, without letting any sarcasm seep through, “You sound like an expert in matters of laundry. You must help your mother and your sister often.”

  “Naw,” Parf said. “I just hear a lot about it, ’cause they’re both loud complainers.”

  Gabriella smiled apologetically. “Well, unfortunately I’m not going to be able to help, either.” She said help even though she suspected the plan was that she do it entirely on her own. At home, there was an army of servants whose sole function was the gathering of soiled garments and linens, followed by the washing, hanging, taking down, and folding of laundry. There was a whole other set of servants in charge of heating and applying the smoothing stones used to remove creases and wrinkles, and a master presser who was an expert at setting pleats. Gabriella had many duties as a princess, but laundry was not one of them.

  Parf protested her lack of enthusiasm with a bit of a whine to his voice: “Mumsy said.”

  The baby, Miss-mot, caught his unhappy tone and began whining herself.

  Gabriella’s diplomacy teacher always stressed respect for different cultures. Traveling to foreign lands was a privilege, he’d told her on many occasions, and the one unforgivable crime of tourism was to act superior, as though one’s own customs had more value than those of other people. Gabriella doubted the man had laundry on his mind when he’d said that, nor was she entirely convinced that being magicked away to the home of rude fairies counted as travel, but it was generally better to err on the side of friendliness. So she explained to Parf, “But I only have this nightdress. According to social convention, I shouldn’t have left the bedchamber wearing only this, and I definitely can’t go outdoors in such a state.” Perhaps a bit of sarcasm came through as she asked, “This washing river is outdoors, isn’t it?”

  Parf waved her objections away as though they were a bad odor. Or maybe he actually was waving away a bad odor, considering Miss-mot’s soggy clothing. “You look fine,” he assured Gabriella—as though that was what she had said.

  “And … ” Gabriella lifted her foot so that it would show beneath the hem of the nightdress. “No shoes.”

  Parf sighed and opened one of the doors. This did not lead to another room, but to a wardrobe. There were five shelves, which held some, though not many, articles of jumbled clothing. They were small, even given the fairies’ diminutive size. Gabriella guessed that this must be where Miss-mot’s clothing was stored. Everything looked too small to fit anyone else. Out of the basket beneath the lowest shelf, Parf plucked two tiny shoes and handed them to Gabriella.

  “She doesn’t need shoes,” Gabriella said. “I do.”

  Parf gave a throaty sigh of exasperation. “Are all humans as slooooow as you?”

  That was a question that had a variety of answers, but none of which her diplomacy teacher would approve. So Gabriella said nothing, just looked at the infuriatingly offensive fairy boy.

  “They stretch.” Parf tugged on one of the shoes, demonstrating.

  “Oh,” Gabriella said. “I didn’t know.” Don’t say it. Don’t say it, she warned herself, but she couldn’t help thinking: There was no way I COULD know.

  She took one of the shoes. It was eggplant purple, not—to Gabriella’s fashion sense—a suitable shade for footwear.

  Miss-mot giggled and reached for the shoe.

  Gabriella let the toddler take it, thinking, Better her than me.

  But Miss-mot didn’t want to wear the shoe, she wanted to suck on it.

  With a how-could-you-be-so-stupid? look at Gabriella, Parf took the shoe away from his sister—who began to wail in protest—and handed it back to Gabriella.

  Gabriella shook off the baby spit, then tugged at heel and toe and was eventually able to wedge her foot into it, though it was a tight squeeze. “I think I need a bigger size,” she said, and tactfully refrained from adding, And a more appealing color.

  “They only come in one size,” Parf told her. “One size fits everybody.”

  “Apparently not me.”

  “That’s only because you have absurdly big feet.”

  “I—” Gabriella cut off a rebuttal. “Fine. I’ll make do.”

  “Good for you!” Parf, who had clearly never had a diplomacy teacher, made no attempt to disguise his sarcasm. He picked up a wrinkled doll-sized dress that was marigold yellow, not a color Gabriella felt flattered many.

  “For me?” she asked, trying not to let her distaste show.

  Parf gave her a you-are-so-tiresome look. “Do you need slits for your wings?”

  Gabriella didn’t bother to point out that she hadn’t noticed the design, meant to accommodate fairy wings.

  “Besides, our clothes can’t stretch that much,” Parf snorted. “And stop always thinking about yourself! I already told you what you’re wearing ain’t half bad. You need to change Miss-mot before you see about the laundry.”

  Selfish people always and only think about themselves. Gabriella didn’t want to become inconsiderate like that. It wouldn’t hurt, she told herself—it might even be good for her—to do as the fairies asked. The faster she finished the task they’d set for her, the faster they were likely to send her home. “Fine,” she said again.

  Except, of course, that Miss-mot thought the removal of her clothes was one big game. And the putting on of her new clothes was another game. Gabriella’s nightgown would never look nor smell the same.

  Parf stayed—in order to ridicule, not help.

  And he continued not to be of help as Gabriella got the baby settled and put her down for a nap, and as he tagged along to the place where the laundry and laundry lines rested in the dirt. And all the while he offered words of unneeded advice so that Gabriella could hardly think for all his chattering.

  Advice such as “There’s the basket,” as though Gabriella was incapable of seeing, and “Use your legs to lift,” which people always seem to say when someone else is doing the lifting. He ended with “Don’t fall” as Gabriella was scrambling down the stream bank to get to the water—as though anyone falls intentionally. She was just thinking, undiplomatically, what a useless boy he was, when she misstepped. (Gabriella was not the type of person to always point a finger in blame, but this may have had something to do with those fairy shoes pinching her toes.) She fell, sliding the rest of the way down the grassy incline and into the water, seat first.

  Parf shook his head. “I said your feet was too big,” he told her.

  “So you did,” she muttered. She wrung the hem of her gown to get at least some of the water out. There was little she could do about the mud and grass stains.

  “You’re lucky it’s a warm day and the sun will dry you off soon enough.”

  “Yes, lucky,” she said. “That’s what I was just thinking.”

  Parf snorted, which showed he knew she’d said the opposite of what she meant. Muddy bottom or not, that was a diplomatic transgression on her part.

  She needed to change the topic in order to smooth over her lapse in manners. “I’m surprised,” Gabriella said—not criticizing, but trying to learn more—“that your mother doesn’t use magic to launder your family’s clothing.”

  Parf snorted again. “That just goes to show how much you know—or, rather, don’t know—about magic. You can’t just wish things.”

  “I didn’t know,” Gabriella explained mildly.

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “I don’t have any previous experience with fairies.”<
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  “Well, I don’t have no previous experience with people,” Parf countered, “but I don’t go around thinking they can wish their laundry clean.”

  Gabriella wanted to point out that of course people couldn’t wish their laundry clean, because people were not magical creatures. People had to make clothing that fit whoever was going to wear it, rather than conjuring items out of the local vegetation for an entire family. But while she was mentally trying out different ways to say this so that she didn’t sound argumentative, Parf continued, “Present company excluded, obviously.”

  “I … ” Gabriella shook her head. “I’m not following your meaning.”

  “Princesses.”

  “Ahmmm … That didn’t clarify an awful lot.”

  “Princesses just wave a hand, and everyone jumps to do your bidding.”

  “That’s not true.” Argumentative or not, Gabriella had to set him straight. She repeated, “That’s not true.”

  Parf shrugged. “I’m sure you know.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Ever done the laundry before?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Ever make your own clothes?”

  “People have different tasks—”

  “Ever take care of younger brothers and sisters?”

  “I don’t have—”

  “Yup,” Parf said. “Princesses just have to say their wishes out loud. Sounds like princess magic to me.”

  Gabriella put her hands on her hips. “If that were true, I could wish myself back home.”

  “Too bad your magic don’t work here.”

  If she didn’t stop talking now, she would blurt out something unforgivable. She dumped the basket of fairy clothing into the water to begin washing.