A Grimm Curse: A Grimm Tales Novella (Volume 3) (3 page)

“Wasn’t it?” Remi laughed. “Anyway, the witch starts railing and ranting how she’s sick of us running amok on her property
—”
—“

“She used the word ‘amok’?”

“Yeah,” Remi grinned at the memory. “She might have let it go had Laron been the tiniest bit sorry, but instead he said, ‘It’s just an apple, you old bat.’”

“Oh, no.” Cynthia bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“Oh, yes.” Remi sighed. “She’s a spiteful old thing. She began mumbling under her breath and twitching her fingers and I knew she was about to cast some sort of spell on Laron so I
—”
—“
Remi swallowed hard before he continued. “—I jumped between them.”

“Why?” Cynthia asked. A strong, undesirable emotion had grabbed her. It took a second to identify it as jealousy. No one would have done that for her.

“I—“ Remi stopped and squirmed. “I don’t know. At the time I just did it. It was an instinct. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since then. He’s my brother…” he trailed off again and Cynthia let him collect his thoughts. “But he’s also second in line to be king and I’m just—me.” He shrugged and gave her a sad smile. “As the youngest brother I’m more expendable.”

Cynthia leaned her head back and rested it against the cool stone wall. “What happened after that?”

“There was a bright flash, and my entire body felt like it was on fire.” Remi shuddered at the memory. “The world seemed to… grow. Laron high-tailed it back over the wall and the witch picked me up and said, ‘In this form you shall remain until a princess shows no disdain.’”

“Catchy.”

Remi laughed and quickly sobered. “I’ve been wandering around ever since.” He turned his big eyes on her. “That’s why I was hoping you were a princess. You’re the only one so far that hasn’t despised me.”

Pity tugged at Cynthia. “How long have you been this way?”

“A few months… I think. Time seems to pass differently as a frog.”

“Why didn’t you go home?”

“I couldn’t
find
home.”

It was the first time Cynthia had heard him frustrated.

“Everything looks so different when you’re three inches tall. I’ve been chased by herons and raccoons and anything else that thinks I might be a tasty snack. Every time I try to talk to someone…”

Cynthia remembered that part of his story.

“Should I write to your family? Tell them where you are?”

Tension left his shoulders, and he looked up at her, grateful. “Yes, that would be… thank you. My mom will be out of her mind. She always was a worrier.”

A door slammed far above them, followed by muffled voices. Cynthia shot to her feet, brushing crumbs from her dress. She whipped a clean scarf from the coatrack and wound it around her head, using her elbow to open the door before she was even finished.

“Wait!” Remi called from the floor. “What about me?”

“You’ll be fine. They never come down here.”

“What if I want to go with you?”

Cynthia paused, even though they had already started calling her name. “You want to be squashed in my pocket for the rest of the day?”

Remi shrugged and offered her a tiny smile. “Sure. It’s better than sitting around down here by myself.”

“I could end up mucking pig pens.”

“Bring it on.”

She eased him into her pocket and dashed up the stairs. “If you’re really a prince, you’ve probably never cleaned up after the dirtiest creatures on the planet. It’s not going to be pleasant.”

Chapter
4

“
W
ould you have called the wife of a warlock a thieving toadstool with dung for brains?”

PANDEMONIUM GREETED CYNTHIA UPSTAIRS. Coriander clutched her arms to her chest and cried in a wordless howl. Her hair was still the color of a day-glow carrot. Lady Wellington was shouting, trying to make herself heard over Coriander’s noise. Portia was dashing back and forth around the foyer, peering at Coriander’s hands and then backing away, only to come back for a closer look.

“Let me see!” Lady Wellington finally succeeded in wrenching her
daughter’s
palms away from her chest and clamping them between her hands. Coriander’s slender white hands, really her best feature, had become brown and gnarled. They were sprouting coarse brown hair. Her fingers had become stubby, her nails long and curved.

Coriander snatched her hands back, stuffing them in her armpits. She thundered up the stairs. Her door slammed hard enough to make the house vibrate.

The sudden silence was charged. Cynthia held very still, staring at her toe that had begun to poke through the end of her worn, right boot. Being able to blend into the wall would be helpful right now.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping the pig keeper?” Lady Wellington’s voice was just above a whisper and cold enough to give her frostbite.

Cynthia bobbed her head once and ran out of the house.

She was in sludge up to her calves for the rest of the afternoon. The pig keeper had taken off with a whistle and
a
spring in his step when Cynthia had shown up. Remi sat on the fence post and kept her company.

“What was that all about? It hate not being able to see what’s going on.”

Cynthia checked over her shoulder as she heaved another shovel of what might as well been toxic waste into the small garden wagon. They were alone.

“Her hands. They looked like an animals.”

“Do they usually?” Remi asked.

Despite the smell that was now burning the back of her throat and her achy shoulders, she smiled.

“Kidding, kidding,” Remi said. “What do you think happened?”

She lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I don’t know, but we won’t have to wait long to find out.”

He watched her push the wagon out of the pen and start spreading clean straw down. “I wish I could help.”

Cynthia called him on the lie. “No you don’t.” She had an itch on her nose that her hands were too filthy to scratch. She raised one eyebrow at him. “Probably the first time you’re grateful for being a frog.”

He chuckled. “Probably.”

She drew a bucket from the courtyard well and scrubbed in the cold water until the pig manure smell had faded. She left her filthy boots by the back door and crept into the kitchen in her stocking feet. It was well past dinnertime and most of the bustle had died down. She rummaged in the icebox for some kind of dinner.

Two scullery maids were still working, blathering as they kneaded bread for tomorrow’s breakfast. There was no one like the staff of a big manor to be up on the latest gossip.

“Didn’t she know?” the one with short
,
red hair asked. Cynthia thought her name was Nora.

The tall dark-skinned girl next to her dashed another handful of flour on the board and continued to pummel her dough. “I guess not. I mean, would you have called the wife of a warlock a thieving toadstool with dung for brains?”

“How long is the curse going to last?” Nora folded and tucked her dough into loaf shapes, her eyes wide and glued to the dark girl.

“I don’t think he gave her an instruction manual as he kicked them out the door. Some just fade over time. But with most curses, you have to complete a task before it’s lifted.”

“Whoa.” Nora blew a stand of hair out of her face as she covered the lo
a
ves with a clean towel. “I guess she’s not going to be redying her hair any time soon.”

“Sam took her dinner to her room and caught a glimpse of them.” The scullery maid rubbed her face on her shoulder as she finished her own loaves. “He said they’re getting worse. Look like bear paws.”

Cynthia had heard enough. She balanced the remains of a meat pie and small bottle of milk in her hands and used her hip to open the swinging door.

She snagged a few logs from next to the sitting room fireplace and tucked them under her arm. Lady Wellington hadn’t noticed yet, but Cynthia was careful never to take a lot. She trod carefully down the stairs, swinging into her room.

She freed Remi from her pocket and he plunged into his bowl for a soak.

When the sun went down her room got pretty chilly, even in the summer. She stacked the logs in her fireplace and lit them with her small stash of pilfered matches. Remi flopped out of his makeshift pool and hopped toward the warmth.

“Don’t get too close, we don’t want crispy frog.”

He smiled a
t
her and closed his eyes, seeming to fall into a kind of stupor.

She filled a small kettle from a bucket of water in the corner and hung it over the fireplace. She unwound her hair from her scarf and hung it next to the dirty one. She’d have to wash her only dress tonight if she didn’t want to be covered in pig refuse all day tomorrow.

“Why do you do that?” Remi asked from beside the fireplace. Cynthia had forgotten about him for a minute. She was used to being alone most of the time.

“Do what?” She settled on the floor in front of the fire and set a small portion of the meat pie in front of Remi.

“Cover your hair like that.” His tongue flicked out snagging a morsel.

“Keeps it clean.” Cynthia shrugged, wondering what he was getting at.

“No.” He shook his tiny head and watched her out of the corner of his eye. “It’s more than that. You never take it off unless you’re down here. And that boy wanted to see if you were
bald
. No one’s seen your hair in a long time.”

Cynthia chewed her meat pie, wondering what to say.

“It’s just… pretty,” he said.

An embarrassed frog. Cynthia smiled into her meat pie then sighed.

“It attracts unwanted attention.”

“Oh.” Remi sat in silence for a minute. “What are you going to do about your sister?”

“Stepsister,” Cynthia said automatically. She’d been attempting not to think about Coriander and the part she’d played in her hairy hands. There was no denying that Cynthia was mostly to blame. Had Coriander been less nasty—to Cynthia to Mistress Camilla—this incident would have gone much differently. But the repercussions had gone way beyond what she had intended.

“What do you think?” Cynthia was struck with how odd it was to have someone to ask for advice.

“I’m always up for a good prank.” Remi puffed out his chest in a froggy kind of sigh. “But this one seems to have gone a bit far.”

Cynthia nodded and swallowed hard. “I guess I’ll have to confess.” She wondered what Lady Wellington would do. So far, they’d never beat
en
her. Would they turn her out of the house?

“Whoa! I wouldn’t go that far.” Remi didn’t have a lot
of
control over his webbed feet, but he waved one frantically at her. “Can’t you go and see the warlock? Or his wife?”

That option seemed almost as grim. Almost.

The kettle began to shrill.

“I guess it’s a place to start.” She stood and shook a few crumbs from her dress into the fire. Using the edge of her skirt to protect her hands, she unhooked the kettle and poured it into her bucket of cold water. She checked the temperature with the tip of her finger. A little cool, but she was too tired to heat more water. She reached behind her neck and began to unbutton her filthy gray dress.

She remembered Remi a second later and looked over her shoulder at the little frog watching her with wide eyes.

“Turn around.”

“I’m just a frog,” he tried to argue.

“You’re not a frog. You’re an enchanted prince. And that’s a direct quote.”

He grumbled under
h
is breath and turned his back to her. Cynthia stripped, giving herself the world’s fastest sponge bath. Even directly in front of the dying fire it was
cold
. She slid into her nightgown and put her dress in the bucket with the rest of her bathwater to soak.

“All right,” she said to Remi, as she took her last sheet of paper from the three-legged table. Folding herself onto her cot with the nub of a pencil in her hand, she looked at him expectantly. “What do I say to your parents?”

He hopped onto her bent knee and looked at the paper with a frown. “Dear Mom and Dad. This is your youngest son, Remington. I am a frog because Laron is an ass.”

Cynthia smiled down at the paper and began transcribing—with a few alterations.

Chapter
5

“Now you know why that poor guy was throwing pebbles at your window.”

“REMI.”

The frog opened his eyes and blinked several times. He was curled up on Cynthia’s pillow like a cat. There was no light in her room. The fire was dead and it was still dark outside.

“Hmm?” he asked, still sleepy.

“I’ve got a few errands to run. Want to come?”

Remi looked at the black window and back to Cynthia. “What time is it?”

“Five. We’ve only got an hour.”

He nodded once and that was all it took for her to scoop him into her pocket. She tiptoed up the stairs and eased out the courtyard door.

“Where we… going?” Remi yawned from her pocket.

“Post your letter.”

The hazel tree filled the space. It was lofty with sweeping branches that seemed to push the building on either side. She stepped over her mother’s small headstone, placing a quick kiss on her fingertips and pressing them into the cool marble.

“Hey Mom.” She didn’t come to her mother’s tree often. If Lady Wellington found out how much it meant to her, Cynthia wouldn’t be surprised if she had it chopped down. Placing her boot on a worn, familiar knot, she grabbed a lower branch and swung herself into the tree. The path through the branches as well-known as the road to town.             

“This is not a post office.”

“It’s
my
post office.”

Remi poked his head out of her pocket. “Let me guess, your stepmother was intercepting your mail so you found a way around that.”

“You could say that.”

Cynthia balanced on her toes, gripping a s
l
ender branch for support. She reached into a large hollow just above her head
,
. She
smil
ing
ed
when her fingers closed on a letter. She placed it in her pocket. Whistling the same tune as earlier, she paused and waited. The bright red head and yellow body of a tanager fluttered overhead. He perched on a branch that brushed Cynthia
's
shoulder, fluffed his feathers and sang to her softly.

She smiled and held out Remi’s letter. “Haven’t seen you in a while, Weston.” He peeped at her his head darting forward to grasp the letter in his beak. “Landry Keep, please.”

The bird cocked his head to the side, regarding her with one beady eye. He flapped
h
is wings twice in agitation.

“He needs more of an address than that,” Cynthia addressed her pocket.

Remi jumped out of her pocket, wrapping the pads of his webbed hands and feet around a twig. He hung on in an impossible looking vertical position. “South of the Lustrom River. Near Bremenstein.”

The bird’s beady eye studied Remi a moment before darting into the air.

“Now we wait.” Cynthia looked down and started picking her way down the tree. Remi hopped down several branches until he could climb on her shoulder.

“Have you always been able to talk to birds?”

Cynthia glanced at him clinging to the thin gray fabric of her dress. “No. It was a gift from my mother.” She paused, placing her palm on the bronze, peeling bark. “What’s left of her spirit is in this tree.”

Remi was silent as Cynthia jumped the last few feet to the ground and headed toward the front of the house. She transferred Remi back to her pocket.

“You’re going the wrong way. My warm cozy bed is in the opposite direction.” Cynthia smiled at the lightening sky.

“It was
your
suggestion to visit the apothecary.”

A single light was on in the little apartment behind the apothecary shop. Cynthia tapped on the door and hoped that visiting too early wasn’t an offense that would get her
cursed
. It took several minutes of knocking before she could hear a heavy tread inside. Madam Camilla with her salt and pepper hair tumbled around her shoulders was still in her nightdress and a shawl. She blinked at Cynthia in surprise.

“What do I owe this pre-dawn wake up call?” the woman sniffed.

“I’m so sorry. You must think me crazy coming here at this hour.”

“Crazy or guilty.”

Cynthia’s eyes met the woman’s in surprise.

“Don’t look like that. It didn’t take the wisdom of the ages to figure out what had happened to your sister’s hair.”

“Stepsister.” Cynthia took in Madam Camilla’s smug look. “Then why did your husband curse her?”

Madam Camilla stepped out of the doorway and waved Cynthia inside. She pointed her to a seat at a tiny table under the shop window. She lit a candle and maneuvered herself into a chair.

“That girl needs to be taught a lesson in manners. She had no business to come in here and threaten me, no matter who did what to her hair.” The older woman folded her hands on the table. “Besides, my husband has
a bit of
a temper.”

“What should I do?”

“There’s nothing for you
to
do.” Madame Camilla pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “The
curse
is not yours to be undone.”

In her pocket, Remi gave her a little poke.

“Only an act of compassion will return her to her rightful form.”

Cynthia had known Coriander since she was eleven. She searched back through the last six years and tried to remember one instance of kindness, one moment of gentleness or sympathy toward anyone. She came up blank.

“Does she know?”

Madame Camilla nodded. “She does.”

Cynthia did not see this having a happy ending.

Madame Camilla stood and led her to the door. “Now you get home before they wake up.” Cynthia jerked her head up. The woman’s eyes held a trace of pity. Cynthia tightened her lips in an insincere smile and hurried from the shop, her mind whirling.

Occasionally
,
she wondered what others in
this
small town thought of her situation. Certainly no one had ever come to her aid. And even though she had never spoken with anyone about her circumstances, they had to have an idea of what was going on. Gossip spread like wild fire in this community where the most exciting thing for stretches of time was the prince’s new hairstyle.

Pity was the last thing she wanted from anyone. She had been alone since her mother died when she was eight. Cynthia didn’t count the years her father had left nannies to raise her as he first wallowed in his grief and then was so absorbed with his new family it was as if she didn’t exist. She didn’t need or want anyone’s help. She’d been doing this by herself a long time.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Remi’s quiet voice asked from her pocket. He’d stuck his head out in the chilly early morning air. She’d forgotten him again.

Cynthia blinked at him while she tried to organize her tumbling mind.

“I don’t know if there’s anything to be done.”

“One act of compassion? I wish my curse were that easy to break,” Remi said.

“It’s not going to be easy for her.”

“Can you help?
” His bulbous eyes blinked, fixing her with his gaze. “
Do you want to help?”

She slowed as she got closer to the house. More lights were on and
the
sounds of the house waking drifted to her in the silence.

“I guess I feel obligated to help her.” Cynthia glanced down at his earnest face. “Is that bad?”

Remi shrugged. “Perhaps you can provide an opportunity for her.”

Cynthia turned the handle of the front door. If she got a move on she might be able to snatch a quick bite before she set the table for breakfast. “Maybe.”

It was lunchtime before Cynthia had a second to herself to read her letter. Coriander had not appeared for breakfast and had not been out of her room since storming upstairs the day before. Lady Wellington’s mood was distraught and dangerous. Cynthia took pains to steer out of her way as much as possible. Portia continued in her usual pattern of the spiteful follower.

Cynthia was alone in the butler’s pantry with a mountain of silver and a polishing rag. Remi sat at her elbow sorting the cutlery. At least he was trying to sort it. His webbed pads weren’t designed for wielding forks and spoons.

She slid the letter out of her pocket, checking over her shoulder twice before ripping the top open and sliding the creamy paper out. Her heart beat a little faster and she couldn’t contain her smile of anticipation. Letters didn’t come more than once a month. They were from the only person left from her old life, the life she had before her mother died.

Cindy,

“Cindy? No one calls you that.”

Cynthia twitched the bottom corner of the letter up, shielding it from Remi’s curious eyes. “You mind?”

Remi lifted a thin shoulder and hopped to the pile of silverware.

Cindy,

Six years, two months, and five days in this forsaken tower and it’s finally happened. My ‘handsome prince’ stumbled on me today.

He’s everything I’ve dreaded—arrogant, ignorant, possessive. He’s cruel, I know it although I don’t have any proof—yet.

What am I going to do? I can’t marry him. I can’t. I don’t care if it’s my only way out of this nightmare.

Please write. Give me advice, hope, an escape plan. Tell me you know where I am and you’re coming for me.

Do you remember last time I wrote, I mentioned my dreams were changing? Becoming more vivid? The details were so clear and familiar; it was like a reoccurring vision, although I know I’d never dreamt it before. The dreams are still there, and the people in them are the same every time. I know one of them now, although I don’t know how I know. Her name is Esha. I have the feeling she’s very important to me.

You don’t think my mind is starting to go, do you? The loneliness makes it feel like it is sometimes. Please write back soon. You’re little winged friends and the letters they carry are the only thing
s
I look forward to. The only thing
s
that keeps me grounded.

Rapunzel

“Cynthia?”

She jerked her head up. Remi’s worried eyes were watching her. She’d read the letter over and over until the words buzzed in her brain. She must have been staring at the sheet of paper a
while. Her neck was stiff.

“Bad news?” Remi asked.

She folded the paper back along the creases and slid it into the envelope. She picked up a spoon and started rubbing it with a soft cloth before she answered. “Possibly.” She fiddled with the bottle of polish. “Probably.
”

A ping on the window behind her made her turn. Another light chink, and this time she saw the pebble
d
that struck the glass and bounced away.

She stood and lifted the pane. Todd Levinson stood below her with a cheeky grin.

“Todd?”

“You look like a maiden some witch has locked in a tower,” Todd laughed.

Cynthia stared down at him, confused as to why he was here and what he meant.

“It’s hot as blazes today, come down to the river.”

She hesitated to answer and he noticed.

“My sister will be there and a few other kids from town.”

A bemused smile crossed her face. The fact that Christina was there was not enticing. The Levinsons had been her neighbors for over seventeen years. She wasn’t even positive of Todd’s name until yesterday. Christina had given her grief with Lady Wellington on more than one occasion
,
spying on her as she went about her work in the yard. Later, she’d catch hell from Lady Wellington for the tiniest infraction. Climbing over the pasture fence instead of going around by the gate, or sneaking a second to eat her lunch on the shady side of the well.

“Thanks, but I’ve got work to do.” Cynthia moved to close the window and Todd’s grin fade.

“I could cover for you.” He seemed a bit anxious now. “I could tell your mom we needed a hand over at our place for the afternoon.”

“Stepmother,” Cynthia corrected him. She watched as he shift
ed
his weight below the window, wondering if she were being set up. “No thanks, maybe some other time.” She didn’t wait to hear his protests, but slid the glass back in place.

“That was weird.” Cynthia settled herself back at the table and tried to set her mind on polishing.