The Treacherous Secret Read online

  Hazel watches her sheep drink for a time, careful not to look at the water, where she is certain the mermaids have by now gathered for their morning laugh. Every now and again one of the sheep wanders over to her, and she strokes its curls absentmindedly.

  Hazel has many other things on her mind.

  Last night’s sleep, you see, was filled with nightmares that felt more like real life than just mere dream. One who has experienced a nightmare like this knows how very difficult it is to escape the black cloud of unease that follows one into a morning. And so Hazel broods. Her sheep drink.

  One of her favorites, Bluebell, a sheep she named for the tinkling bell tied around its neck and the bluish tint to his wool, approaches her. He nuzzles her arm. He gazes into her eyes, as if he is speaking.

  And Hazel, dear reader, understands. It is most astonishing.

  “Oh, I do not know,” she says. “I simply cannot get that dream out of my head.” She picks a piece of grass and watches it twist in the wind. “It was not a dream, really. It was a nightmare.”

  Bluebell nudges her again.

  “I do not wish to speak of it,” Hazel says. “It was too horrid.”

  Bluebell lets out a breath.

  “I do not know if I did right,” she says. “I do not know if I fully assured them that Theo does not have the gift of magic.” She looks at her sheep, scratches his head. “I fear I am not a very good liar.” Another sheep near the water lets out a startled bleat. The mermaids have most certainly returned. “They will not believe me.”

  Bluebell nuzzles her hand. She scratches him more. “I know,” she says. “I did my best.” Hazel looks at the sky, brightening into a richer blue, like her brother’s eyes. “I do not want Theo to get hurt. I have a bad feeling about all this.”

  Bluebell rests his head on her shoulder. Hazel pulls on a ringlet. “All will be well,” she says. She turns to the sheep and takes both sides of his face in her hands. She kisses him right between the eyes. “You are a dear. I always feel better after speaking with you.” She whispers the next words. “Thank you.”

  She stands and taps her staff to the ground. The sheep gather about her, not even needing the rounded end of her staff to draw them closer and tighter. Hazel walks them back to their field, paying no mind to the splash of water and the angry voices of mermaids behind them.

  ONCE the sun wakes the day, Hazel and the girls sit at a great oak table, where cookies are gathered in a bowl. Every now and again a small hand will reach into the bowl and grab another of Maude’s famous pumpkin sugar cookies.

  They are listening to Arthur lecture about the dangers of magic. He has followed the trail of danger, after a child asked why the former King Brendon did not simply vanish from the danger of King Sebastien, so that his life might have been spared. Arthur has told them about the instability of this vanishing spell, how when one tries to vanish from a place of danger to a place of safety, one never knows how they will reappear—or whether they will reappear at all.

  But if they do not reappear, where do they go? they ask.

  No one knows, for the ones who did not reappear have never been found, Arthur tells them.

  And what if they reappear? they ask.

  One will not reappear with the same face, Arthur says. One could be years older or years younger or a nobleman or a pauper. There are even tales of the fortunate ones who reappeared taking animal form.

  “I would be a bear,” says a tiny girl sitting at the end of the table. The children call her Lina, for Thumbelina is a name with four syllables, and most everyone knows that a name with four syllables can grow cumbersome to children.

  “Alas, you do not get to choose,” Arthur says. “The magic chooses for you. The spell must be handled with the utmost care, avoided at all costs.”

  He fears that they do not understand the dangers that accompany playing with a spell such as this one. The girls, to tell the truth, are more than a little distracted by the scrumptious goodness of Maude’s cookies.

  And one is distracted by the boy in the back of the room.

  Every now and then Mercy glances back at her best friend’s brother. Does he have magic? Does he not? Why would they not tell her if he did? Was she not to be trusted?

  Theo’s face is dark this morning. It holds only secrets, so she cannot read his eyes. She merely knows that he did not sleep last night, for his eyes are shuttered by blue-black circles top to bottom. He watches his father and does not seem to notice her watching him.

  But then he catches her staring. He grins, his whole face lighting up with the simple act of lips pulling toward ears, and she turns quickly back to the front, trying to pay attention.

  Why would they not tell her?

  “Mercy,” Arthur says. “What say you show us how to do a simple transformation spell?” He holds up a dish towel that was draped over the wash basin. “Turn this into a shoe.”

  “Arthur.” Maude snaps the towel out of Arthur’s hand. “Not my best towel.” The girls giggle. Mercy looks at Hazel and grins. They have never been able to execute a simple transformation spell in this house, for in order to transform something into something else, you must have something first. Maude does not allow for the transformation of her household items, for her house, as is the case with most houses in the village, has only what is absolutely necessary in it. Extra would be lavish. Sometimes, though, the children are fortunate enough to turn an old, tattered shoe into something like a new towel. In fact, Mercy is quite sure a shoe is what this towel used to be, judging by its leathery smell and a hint of, well, foot.

  Why would not one simply reverse the transformation spell? That is one of the first questions Mercy asked Arthur back when he began teaching the village girls how to use their magic. “An object can only be transformed once,” he said. “If you turn a shoe into a towel, a towel it must remain. Use your transformation magic wisely.”

  She always had.

  Arthur must have forgotten that this towel was a shoe once upon a time. Mercy’s spell would not have worked anyway.

  “How about this?” one of the girls says. She holds up her shoe. A giant hole stretches across the toes. The girl has raven black hair and pretty red lips and carries the name Ursula. She is Hazel and Mercy’s age, or very nearly, and is known for teasing the mermaids in the cove, dipping her feet into the water and racing back out before they can latch on to her limbs and drag her down to their depths. She makes them dreadfully angry, for they enjoy pulling victims, particularly females, down to their deaths. “I shall go barefoot.”

  “That is the spirit,” Arthur says.

  “But dear,” Maude says. “What about her mother?”

  “The shoemaker is making new ones,” Ursula says. She grins at Maude, and there are dimples in both her cheeks and the middle of her chin. Mercy has never really noticed her before. She is a pretty girl.

  Arthur looks at Maude, as if asking, “Well?”

  “Oh, go on then,” she says. The children laugh again. They love to see Maude and Arthur in their home, as much for their kindness as for the love that passes between them. Mercy wonders if she will love her husband someday as Maude loves Arthur. Likely not, as her mother has promised her to Prince Virgil. Only the village girl with the strongest magic is raised to be a queen. Mercy shudders. Perhaps she should have hidden her powers to avoid marrying a boy like Prince Virgil.

  “Very well, then,” Arthur says. “Can you turn this shoe into a rose?”

  She would do better than that, of course. Magic like hers could do much more than a mere rose. She could make the whole bush. And that is exactly what she does, reader. It is really quite amazing. The bush falls into her hands, pricking a couple of her fingers, but she pretends not to notice. The bush is full and lush and beautiful, with thousands of pink roses blooming. Arthur applauds. Mercy bows and tosses the bush so it lands in front of Hazel.

  Some of the girls roll their eyes, but Hazel claps. “Beautiful!” she says, as enthusiastic as her fath
er. Even Maude appears impressed. Mercy does not dare look at Theo.

  Why did they not tell her?

  “You were made for a queen,” Arthur says, and, just like that, though it was entirely unintended, Mercy grows melancholy once again.

  Yes. She is made for a queen, and that is exactly what they will make her. But she does not want to marry a boy as horrid as Prince Virgil, even if it shall make her queen.

  “Yes,” Hazel says. “You are powerful enough and beautiful enough.” Hazel pats her friend’s arm and smiles into her eyes.

  Mercy does not want to be powerful and beautiful enough. She merely wants a happy life living among her friends, practicing magic when it suits her. She wants to stay in this warm kitchen with pumpkin sugar cookies forever. She wants to be a village girl with powerful magic.

  But we know, reader, that one does not always get what one wants. This is the way of life.

  Blackbird

  SOON after taking over the throne of Fairendale, King Sebastien found a beautiful wife, from the kingdom of Eastermoor, known for its beautiful women and strapping young men. His wife was said to possess a powerful gift of magic, though she never used it in front of him. She never did much of anything in front of him but smile demurely and dip her head. She was precisely the kind of wife a man such as King Sebastien desired.

  There were men in her own village who wanted to marry a woman as beautiful as Vivian, but her father gave her willingly when a throne was involved. King Sebastien admired her wild red hair and did not care whether she loved him or not. He merely needed a queen with magic to prove he was a king with staying power, passing along the gift to his sons and securing the throne for another generation.

  Not that King Sebastien was at all interested in any generation but his own. He did not, in fact, wish to have children. Children were what stole the gift of magic from a man, after all. He had taken the kingdom as a young man of magic, and he desired more than anything to hold on to that magic for as long as he could. He did not wish to become vulnerable as had that old man King Brendon.

  And he would not have chosen children at all but for an old, bent prophet who traveled to the kingdom wearing eyes that looked vaguely familiar to our dear King Sebastien, as if he had seen them before. But King Sebastien had met many a man over the years of his life and could not be expected to remember where he had met the one. The prophet seemed to know much about him, as is expected of prophets. King Sebastien did not fear the man. Not until he croaked out in an ancient voice as bent as his back: “Soon you will die, Your Majesty.”

  His words startled King Sebastien. Surely a man as powerful as he was had many more years to live. Surely he would rule the throne until he was old and grey and wrinkled. But no man or woman in the kingdom of Fairendale, nor in any other kingdom, no matter how powerful, has ever been so powerful as to prevent death.

  “Die?” King Sebastien said. They were alone in the throne room. King Sebastien had dismissed all the servants when the prophet asked to speak with him privately.

  “Yes,” the old man said. “You shall die.”

  King Sebastien cocked his head. “And how shall I die?” he said. “By your hand?”

  “No,” the old man said. “Of course not, Your Majesty. You will die by a blackbird’s beak.”

  King Sebastien drew in a sharp breath. He would not have believed something as preposterous as this had it not been for the nightmare he had had since he was a boy. In it, a bird chased him, relentlessly, hungrily, unmercifully. He could never escape from it, but he always woke before it landed upon his face.

  He never knew what to do with that dream, but now, with the words of the prophet hanging before him, he felt the dark fog of fear settle over his chest.

  “And how will a blackbird kill me?” King Sebastien’s voice sounded strangled, as if the blackbird was already doing its work. King Sebastien wondered if the old man was a shape shifter. Would he die, now, in this very room?

  “The blackbird,” the man said, but he did not finish. He looked into King Sebastien’s eyes, and King Sebastien felt a charge of something he could not quite place. Respect, perhaps? Anger? Recognition. Where had he seen those eyes before? “The blackbird will tear out your eyes and feast on your flesh.”

  Perhaps it was gruesomely jarring for an old man to tell a king something like this, but this was what King Sebastien had feared his strange dreams were trying to tell him. And so it did not take much convincing for him to believe it.

  “What can I do?” King Sebastien said, for a dying man always wants to live. If one had looked into his face at that very moment, one might have seen something one had not seen on King Sebastien’s face since he was a boy: Fear.

  Perhaps this is what softened the old prophet’s heart, what made him tell the only thing left to tell. “Have a child,” the prophet said. “This will give you many more years.”

  “But the blackbird,” King Sebastien said.

  “It will come,” the prophet said. “Once you raise your son.”

  And so it was that King Sebastien fathered a boy at the age of forty-three. He gave his magic to his firstborn son and had nothing left to give to the one who came a mere ten months later. This is the way of magic. King Sebastien knew the rules, but he thought, perhaps, that by continuing to have children, he could somehow delay his death. Queen Vivian, sadly, died soon after their second son’s birth, and he could find no other woman who wanted to marry a man such as him.

  No other woman wanted to be a queen?

  Being a queen, dear reader, is not so attractive when it means you are forever chained to a disagreeable man. It is better to remain alone in such cases.

  King Sebastien raised his two sons, Wendell and Willis, alone. The kingdom knew them as twins. Only he knew them as first and second born.

  So it was that the secret began, and to this day remains.

  Death

  PRINCE Virgil did not sleep the entire night. He could not cease thinking about what his father intends to do today. He does not know for sure what his father has planned, of course, but he can guess. A man such as King Willis is not so very hard to read, after all. So in the dead of night, Prince Virgil decided that he would warn his friend on the morrow, and it was only then that he was able to fall into a restless sort of sleep.

  Our prince wakes this morning with dread in his heart and a mission on his mind. He dresses quickly, runs to the banquet hall but passes up the sweet rolls in favor of a slice of warm bread and melted butter, for he does not want to be like his father even the smallest bit, and then he races toward the castle entrance at the very moment he hears his father wheezing through the halls. He does not wish to run into his father, you see. He does not want his father to know where he is going.

  Prince Virgil slips out, thinking he is unnoticed, though the servants are always watching and listening, at every turn. They have, in fact, seen him today, flying through the castle doors and down the path that leads to the village. They wonder what would make a boy like Prince Virgil, a boy who walks slowly everywhere he goes, run like that. They have never seen him hurry in all his days. The sight of it stills their breath, until they remember he is a boy of twelve. He is a boy. He is twelve. Of course.

  Prince Virgil dashes toward the bridge, for once he crosses to the other side, he will be out of the sight of the castle. His father must not see him. He stops to catch his breath on the bridge’s safe side, listening for approaching footsteps. There are none.

  But there is a voice. It calls out to him. He looks down into the water. He has seen her before, this mermaid, but never so close. He ventures the slightest bit closer.

  “Hello, my prince,” she says.

  “Hello,” he says, unsure whether he should move any closer. He is on a mission, after all, and, besides, he knows the dangers of mermaids. He has heard the tales, about how they seduce men into the water and then pull them down into the depths until they cannot take another breath. The tales do not say what happens aft
er that, whether victims turn into mermen or whether their bodies populate the bottom of the Violet Sea, but Prince Virgil is not the boy to find out today.

  This mermaid is as beautiful as the rest of her sisters, but where the others are dark, she has white skin and flaming red hair and eyes the color of an evening sky moments before the sun disappears.

  Prince Virgil steps closer, without thinking, and then remembers that he plans to stay on dry land. He backs up again.

  She is very beautiful, though. The wind twists her hair around her face, and Prince Virgil thinks of Mercy, only this mermaid is ice where Mercy is grass.

  “I have seen you before,” she says. “Crossing this bridge. Walking into the village.”

  “Perhaps,” Prince Virgil says. He does not mention that he has seen her before.

  He takes another step back. He must go. The sooner he can get to his friends, the sooner they will be able to flee. The sooner they shall be safe.

  “Why do you go to the village?” the mermaid says. “Those people are not worthy of my prince.”

  “They are my friends,” Prince Virgil says. He turns. He does not know why he stopped on his way. The mermaid’s eyes freeze him.

  “Do not go, my prince,” she says.

  “I must warn them,” Prince Virgil says, though he does not mean to say these words aloud.