A Wish Made Of Glass (3 page)

At least, I imagined they loved me, before I knew it was all pretend.

One day, as Blessing and I approach the farthest side of the garden, I stop. “What’s beyond these bushes?” I ask, hopping awkwardly on tip-toe to see over the tall hedge.

“Only the forest.” Blessing’s voice is dismissive.

“How can you say only the forest?” I ask, aghast. “No forest is
only
a forest.”

The memory comes of fey feet dancing, quick as light and shadow on the mossy forest floor. I try to push it away, but it is too late. My heart is fluttering against my ribs and I know nothing will stop me from getting a glimpse of this forest Blessing dismisses so easily.

“Izzy, what in the world are you doing?” Blessing watches with wide eyes as I grunt and heave, pushing the hedges apart to make a path between them. It is no small feat for a girl like me who is more accustomed to books and chocolate than to vigorous activity such as this. In less than two minutes there is dampness beneath my arms and beading on my forehead.

“Help me, Blessing,” I say irritably. Just as I think I must be close to working my way out the other side, a hand grasps my shoulder. Blessing yanks me away from the hedge with a strength I never would have credited.

I open my mouth to say something sharp to her, but fall silent when I see how white her face is, and how large her blue eyes in it. “It’s forbidden,” she whispers. “I am forbidden to go there and so are you. What did you think you were doing, Iz?”

I gape at her a moment and then do the only thing I can think of. I laugh. “What do you mean, forbidden? Who says so? Why?”

“Mother has always said so, since I was a child.” Blessing casts a glance at the ragged hole I have worked in the hedge. “Once you’ve lived in the North long enough, you’ll understand.”

Now I am well and truly exasperated. “So there are monsters in the forest, is that what you’re trying to say?”

“No.” Blessing’s chin lifts a little. She is offended I would accuse her of believing in monsters. Very well, then.

“Well, I won’t know until someone tells me,” I remind her none too gently. “But,” I shrug, “if you are too frightened to speak of it …”

Before I can take full advantage of my own bluff by turning from her, Blessing blurts, “It is the fey.”

My heart begins to thunder so loud it will be a miracle if anyone in the North does not hear it.

“What?” I manage to croak at last. I work hard to control my face, though I fear it is of little use. I nearly spill everything then. I nearly hand Blessing this one last secret, the only one I have kept from her. That I have known the fey. Danced with them, sang with them, touched their hands.

But I do not tell it. I do not speak. Somehow I cannot. My mouth will not cooperate. My throat contracts in rebellion. If I am honest, I know it is because this secret is my most precious. I am not sure if I could hand it so easily to anyone. Even Blessing.

So I say, hating myself for uttering the words, “Stories? Wives tales, do you mean, about fairies and such? Surely you don’t believe in those things, Blessing.”

Blessing’s hair bounces on her shoulders as she shakes her head. “I thought they were,” she says. “All my life I thought they were simply stories told to keep children from wandering too far. Until …” Her expression changes. One moment it is fearful and the next it is full of a strange but undeniable calm. That is when I know for certain she has seen the fey for herself.

“When did you see them?” I cut quickly to the core of it. Jealousy rages beneath my skin, screams in each beat of my heart. The fey were mine. Are mine. Now I face the thought that perhaps I am no more special than anyone else who happens to wander into their wood.

Blessing’s mouth turns up in a guileless smile and she takes my hand. I walk beside her like a wooden toy, staring straight ahead as we make our way to the house.

“It was just once,” she says. “It was the very day you arrived, Izzy. In the morning, when I was sick with worry at your arrival, I looked out my window.” She sighs, remembering. “There they were, a half a dozen of them, straight and strong beneath their cloaks. I nearly missed them, for the mist was thick all around the edge of the wood. But somehow I think they wanted to be seen. They wished me to see them, so I would know everything would be fine.”

It takes me a moment to understand. Then it is all I can do not to whoop with joy right there on the front steps of the house. As it is, I am nearly drowning in happiness.

They came for me. They followed me. They are here in this frozen land, far from their home, because of their love for me
.

The disbelief I clung to these past three years falls away like chaff. I am amazed it took me so long to see through its flimsy mask.

They came on the day I arrived. They came for me
, my shameless heart sings.

I grin at Blessing. I cannot help it. She grins back. The wind ruffles the fur on our hooded cloaks, so sweet it is as if spring herself has reached down to kiss us.

“Do you believe me?” she asks, drawing her brows together in a charming show of worry.

“Yes, I do.” I lean to give her a swift kiss on the cheek. This new knowledge has burned away the bile of jealousy I felt moments before. “I will always believe you, no matter what.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The deepest hour of the night has come, the hour the night birds and the insects revere with their silence. I cannot think what woke me. Stillness ripples like silk all around my chamber. Yet something is different. The air is thick with an unspoken, undeniable promise.

I go still at the touch of something on my hair. It is a caress, delicate as a moonbeam. This night is so strange, anything may be possible. That is the only way I can account for the feeling that rises in me, half anguish and half elation. As I twist around beneath the covers, the word slips from my mouth before I can call it back.

“Mother.”

But the face I look into is not my mother’s. It is the face of a young woman, beautiful and lithe as a willow. I know at once she is one of the fey folk. The tips of her ears curve into gentle points beneath the swoop of her hair. Shadows move across her features, and it is hard to tell, but I think she is familiar to me. She looks to be not many years older than I, though the fey do not age as humans do. She might be a century old or more for all I know.

As I shift to sit up, she clicks her tongue against her teeth. “No, no,” she says. “Lie still. I’m nearly finished.”

Obediently, I stop moving. All but my head, which I turn slowly to see what she is doing. Her long fingers are working my hair into a series of looping, intricate braids. I give a little gasp when I see that each twist of the braid is interlaced with dozens of tiny flowers. They are Northern flowers. I have seen them over the garden hedge, scattered at the edge of the forest. Blessing told me they are called Dewdrops. The fair, watery blue of them is a striking contrast with the black of my hair.

“There!” The fey girl says with a satisfied breath. A smile flits to her mouth and is gone in the space of a moment. “Finished.”

“It’s lovely,” I whisper, although my gaze is still fastened on her face. “Thank you.”

I am not sure what to do or what to say. I am almost afraid to move at all for fear this is a dream and it will disperse like fog if I dare to breathe on it. Yet the fey girl’s hand is real enough as she rests it coolly on my arm.

“Isidore,” she says softly. I wait to see if she will say more, but she allows silences to unravel between us.

Her hair is the color of rich earth and her eyes are as green as forest ferns. They are the eyes of a friend, I am sure. The night is so still and her presence is so comforting that I begin to grow drowsy. It is just as my eyes begin to flutter closed that I remember how I know her. She used to play the fiddle as I danced in the fey glade, her bare feet tapping the rhythm upon the moss between the bright, speckled toadstools.

I open my mouth to whisper this memory to her, but she is speaking already.

“Be strong, Isidore,” she says, squeezing my hand as if she would transfer strength straight to my veins. Over her shoulder, from within the deeper shadows of my room, I think I see the glint of midnight eyes. I lift up on one elbow, straining to see the face to whom they belong. But her voice is a lullaby I cannot resist, and I am suddenly weary to my bones.

I am falling fast, yet not so fast that I do not hear the last thing she says. Her voice becomes as rich as the deepening night. “Dear one, do not lose your heart.”

When I wake the next morning my belly is wound in sorrowful knots, for I do not doubt I have dreamed every second of the fey woman’s visit. The folk have not shown themselves to me in years. Why would they do so now?

Yet when I rise, I find the delicate blue petals of Dewdrops strewn across my pillow. And when I leap from my bed to twist before the mirror, I see tiny flowers woven through my braids, as bright as winking stars against a night sky.

* * *

My joy at knowing the fey are near is full to bursting over the next few days. Both Hazel and Blessing see the change in me, although they attribute it to the fact that Father will return soon.

As if Blessing’s account of the fey folk on the day of my arrival had not been enough to thrill my blood, now I have seen them with my own eyes. It is as if I have believed someone I loved was dead, only to discover they have been alive and waiting for me years on end. If only I had been able to open my eyes and see it before now.

I determine then and there that I will forget the hurt Father has caused and throw myself into his arms when he returns home, just as I used to do. I will even embrace my stepmother and kiss her hands and learn to know her better. Indeed, I believe I am ready to love anyone at all.

When Father and his wife return from their journey a week later, Blessing and I are ready for them. Hazel has washed and brushed our hair until it gleams, and scrubbed our faces pink. For a reason baffling to me, she thought it would bring our parents pleasure to see us dressed alike, thus she commissioned matching dresses. It is unfortunate for me that I am fully twice Blessing’s width, which is exaggerated by the ridiculous frills on our frocks. However, even this cannot stem my excitement.

Nothing can go wrong. Not now. Not in this moment.

With our noses pressed to the chill windowpane, Blessing and I watch as our parents alight from the carriage. From Father’s quick, white smile as he shares a joke with the driver, I see immediately that he is in high spirits. My heart flips with anticipation.

In another moment, he is in the hall coming toward us, his wife floating on his arm. He brings the smell of cool spring air with him, of green and growing things. His smile spreads wider beneath his mustache when he sees us. I return it, ready to spring into his arms the instant he opens them to me.

“My daughters.” His voice rings through the hall like a deep bell. “How I’ve missed you. Come give your father a hug.”

Blessing releases her hold on my hand and surges forward. Her laugh tinkles like music next to his booming one as she wraps her arms around his neck.

But I stand still as death, my belly churning a sickening hot and cold. The word that Father has so carelessly uttered is beating at my heart like a hammer.

Daughters
.

“Izzy, you’ve not missed me, then?” Father calls, holding out the arm not wound around Blessing. “Your sister is quick to greet me, as you see. Are you unwell?”

“But–” My words stumble out before I can stop them. “But, Father, Blessing is not your daughter. I am.”

Silence descends on the hall as if I have spoken the words to a curse. I hear the quiet swish of silk as my stepmother puts her hand to her mouth in a dainty show of shock. Blessing’s knuckles whiten as she grips Father’s shoulder, and I must look away from the pain on her face. Father’s smile is gone, but when he speaks, his voice is gentle.

“Isidore, that’s no way to talk, you know. Blessing is your sister now that her mother and I are wed. Of course, that means she is my daughter as well.”

“I am your only daughter.” My voice grows steadier as a flicker of fury begins to burn in my chest.

Father gives me a hard look. I immediately read his thoughts on his face. I do not love him so well for nothing. His eyes say,
Of course you are my only daughter, though this is neither the time nor place for such an argument
.

I recognize what he is doing for Blessing. He did it once for me. He knows as well as I that we are a patchwork family at best, with this marriage of necessity. But he is determined to make Blessing love him, as he was once determined to win my heart. It is in his nature to make people feel cherished. It is one of the reasons I love him as I do. Can I fault him for something so true and good?

Yet I see him kneeling there, one arm wrapped around Blessing, his wife standing at his side, and it is as if I am looking at a portrait. A portrait of which I am no part. It cuts me to the quick and I can feel my heart begin to bleed.

“Izzy, may we speak of this later?” Father asks quietly. “Perhaps I will come to your room.”

“No,” I say so abruptly I startle myself. “What is there to speak of? You have two daughters now, that’s all.”

But I have loved Blessing, I want to tell him. I called her sister and, more than that, I took her into my very heart as a true sister. I barely understand it myself. Even with the love I have for Blessing, I cannot stand the thought of Father calling her
daughter
. It is the same fierce possessiveness I felt when Blessing spoke of seeing the fey folk. There is no explaining it. I simply know it is gripping me by the throat so tightly I can scarcely draw breath.

“Anthony.” My stepmother’s voice is a breathy whisper. “I don’t want to cause any–”

Father holds up a hand and gets to his feet. “It’s not your fault.” His voice is suddenly weary. “I would like to rest in the library a while before dinner,” he says. “Izzy, will you come?”

I long to say yes. I ache to say it, and to follow him, and to make everything as it should be. But he is no longer mine. Even now, my stepmother is taking hold of his arm and drawing him away. She will not leave his side, not even to let me greet him properly. Jealousy and hurt are gnawing at me like a dog worrying at a bone. Though they are a misery, I am quick to recognize them as my one defense. So I cling to them and shake my head. Angry, hopeless tears stab at the back of my eyes.