Fairest

  The duchess and Dame Ethele took up residence at court too. Dame Ethele’s gowns drove the tailor to such distraction that he designed a new wardrobe for her, colorful and intricate, but tasteful.

  Because of the duchess, the castle’s cat population swelled and the rat population dwindled. A kitten adopted Oochoo and followed her everywhere. Oochoo lived to a great age and was the best friend of each of our three children. She bayed when they sang, howled when they cried, and frolicked when they laughed.

  I didn’t try to change my appearance again. But fashions in beauty change, and perhaps my ascension to royalty hastened the alteration. Pulpy cheeks never became the rage, but my complexion came to be called vivid. My size became stately. Only Ijori deemed me a beauty, but I was considered handsome.

  The children resembled him, although each of them had htun hair. Furthermore, they could see htun when zhamM held their hands.

  I never discovered the identities of my birth parents. But zhamM consulted his family tree and found a great-great-great-grandmother who had married an Ayorthaian count. It was possible that we truly were cousins. Our children were his cousins, too, and they could illuse as well as sing.

  And so, with song and love, Ijori and I, our family, and our beloved kingdom lived happily ever after.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  Many thanks to opera star Janet Hopkins for introducing me, with kindness and encouragement, to the mysteries of singing.

  An Interview with Gail Carson Levine

  When Ivi Was Wren: A Deleted Chapter of Fairest

  A Sneak Peek at Gail Carson Levine’s Next Novel, A Tale of Two Castles

  An Interview with Gail Carson Levine

  Do you always write in the same place?

  I write anywhere: airports, planes, trains, cars (when I’m not driving!), and at home. When I was learning to write, I read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. In that book there’s an exercise that trains the aspiring author to write anywhere at any time.

  What’s your workspace like?

  When I’m home, I do most of my writing in my office, which is in our very old house. The ceiling is low and the two windows are small—as they were in houses built before central heating—so it’s quite cozy. I have file drawers, a desk, a computer, a printer, and bookshelves. Some of the books are for reference, including four books on English usage, how-to books on writing, several fairy-tale books, and books on fashion history. The walls are painted a soft blue. Hanging on them are two children’s book illustrations by Cor Hazelaar, a childhood drawing of me by my sister, and five framed photographs taken by my husband—including a shot of our dog, Baxter, sleeping. One window faces the road, but the other looks out on our backyard: flowers spring and summer, a huge hemlock, bushes, several ancient maples, and the old outhouse (no longer in use). I adore my office.

  When you are not writing children’s books, what do you write?

  I write poems for adults about whatever is going on in my life. Some of my poems are sad.

  How much research do you do for your books in general? What did you read or learn for Fairest in particular?

  The amount of research depends on the book. I certainly did the most for Dave at Night, because it’s historical fiction, and I wanted to be as accurate as I could. For Fairest, which is fantasy, I mostly looked at books on fashion history, both to get the terms right and to see what people wore. I jumped from century to century, so there is no historical consistency. Almost all of Ivi’s and Dame Ethele’s costumes came from real outfits. The things that men and women wore were astonishing and often hideous. And I haven’t even mentioned the hats!

  How many times do you revise a book before it is published?

  I revise as I write. By the time I finish a first draft I may have saved fifty versions in my computer. Once I have a first draft that I think is more or less reasonable, I may revise it three or four times before I send it to my editor. Then I may revise twice for her before the manuscript goes to the copy editor. After the copy editor sends me her edits, I usually see the book three or four more times, and each time I make changes. Then, whew! it’s published. If I happen to look at it afterward, I always find things I wish I could change.

  Do you write from a strict outline?

  I don’t outline at all, strict or otherwise. But when my story is based on a traditional fairy tale, the fairy tale itself gives me something to follow.

  In Fairest, Aza and Ivi both get into trouble because they want to be more beautiful. What is your own relationship to beauty, and how has it changed over the course of your life?

  I was a hippie in the ’60s and ’70s, and hippies weren’t allowed to be very beauty-conscious. There was a code. Eyeliner was allowed, the thicker the better, but lipstick was a violation. Still, I wanted to look good. I am not exempt from caring about beauty. My first college boyfriend criticized me because I dressed too well! Now, many years later, I dislike the changes that aging brings, both external and internal: the wrinkles, the aching knee, the effects of gravity and time. In my books I usually write about what interests and worries me, and beauty does both. We want to present ourselves as attractively as we can, which is reasonable. Still, a glance at the cover of almost every magazine reveals that we care too much. Much too much.

  When Ivi Was Wren: A Deleted Chapter of Fairest

  This is taken from a much earlier draft of Fairest. Ivi’s name at that point was Wren, and the King’s name was Otto. Wren’s brother, Milo, and her mother, Effie, are characters, although they don’t appear in the published book, and Lucinda is here in all her craziness. This draft is in the first person told from zhamM’s point of view.

  A stranger stood in the room with them. She hadn’t come through the door, and she hadn’t flown in the window. She was beautiful, so beautiful that Wren’s comeliness seemed unexceptional and uninteresting. The stranger was tall and stately, with long auburn hair, peacock-blue eyes, and generous full lips.

  She beamed at the humans and enjoyed their astonishment—all three of them frozen with their mouths forming perfect Os. “I am the fairy Lucinda. I adore weddings and brides and bridegrooms.” She held her arms out to Wren and Milo.

  Wren curtsied, looking pale and frightened.

  Milo bowed. “I’m only the bride’s brother.” He wondered why she’d revealed herself. Fairies almost never did.

  Lucinda shifted her full attention to Wren. “Darling, you needn’t be afraid. I’m here to give you a gift.”

  Effie curtsied. “I’m Mistress Effie, the mother of the bride.”

  Lucinda continued. “This gift—”

  “I wish you could make me as beautiful as you are.” Wren drew back, scared by her own audacity.

  “I thought you wanted steadfastness,” Milo said.

  Lucinda frowned at Wren’s interruption and then smiled at her compliment. “Darling, everyone is beautiful in her own way, and I am a fairy.” She thought for a moment. She had planned to give the bride and groom one of her favorite wedding presents, the gift of always being together. But she could give them something else. She nodded, deciding. “I’ll give you what you desire. My gift will make you as exquisite as a mortal may be.” She held out her hand, palm up. A large box appeared on it, wrapped in gold-leaf paper and tied with a purple satin bow. She set the box down on the bed. “Go on, darling, open it.”

  Wren’s hands trembled.

  “Don’t tear the paper, dear,” Effie said.

  Wren and Effie removed the paper gingerly to reveal a pasteboard box. Wren opened the box. Within was another box—an intricately carved wooden one—and a mirror. The mirror wasn’t much larger than her face. It was framed in silver with a silver handle.

  Wren looked at herself in the mirror. For a moment she saw her reflection, but then the glass turned cloudy. She caught her breath. Effie leaned close to see why.

  Milo stood apart, feeling vaguely troubled. He thought Wren would benefit from less beauty, not more.

  A man’s fa
ce appeared in the mirror. It was neither old nor young, with a narrow nose, small pursed lips, and sharp eyes that took in the three humans at once.

  The face in the mirror spoke. “The maiden is passable, but hundreds are prettier. Her mother was lovely a dozen years ago, but time has not been kind. The brother’s nose is impossible, as large as a cucumber.”

  Milo, who liked his nose, was pleased with the comparison, but his unease increased.

  The mirror continued. “The fairy is a delight to behold.” Its eyes snapped back to Wren. “I suggest you make use of the wooden box immediately. I dislike the sight of you.”

  Lucinda’s laugh was musical, burbling. “Dennis never minces words. Now open your box, darling.”

  Wren put the mirror back on the bed and picked up the box. For a moment she had trouble with the clasp. Then she got it and the box sprang open. Inside was a garden-variety cosmetics set and a tortoiseshell comb. She was disappointed, but knew better than to say so to a fairy. “Thank you, but I’ve already combed my hair, and Mother doesn’t let me paint my face.”

  “Try the comb, darling, and your mother may make an exception about the rest, just this once.”

  Wren took off her snood and shook out her hair. Holding the mirror in one hand, she ran the comb through the hair on the left side of her face. The hair going into the comb was light brown, fine, and wispy. The hair coming out was a golden honey color, thick, and nine inches longer than it had been, long enough to reach the small of her back.

  Effie said, “Oh!”

  Milo gasped.

  Wren dropped the comb and fainted.

  Milo went to her, but before he reached her, she awoke. Frantically, she felt the floor for the comb. She shoved her skirts aside and found it. Without bothering to stand, she combed the rest of her hair as quickly as she could.

  “I can feel it growing!”

  “Of course you can, darling.”

  From the bed, Dennis (the mirror) said, “Worse than before. Your hair and face don’t match. Quick. The cosmetics.”

  Effie said, “Go ahead, dear. Hurry.”

  Wren picked up the powder puff.

  Milo snatched it away from her. He said wildly, “Don’t. Wren! Stop. Don’t.” He reached for the wooden box, but she got to it first and clutched it to her.

  The powder puff flew out of his hand.

  Lucinda caught it. “Cruel and selfish! You’d take away your sister’s gift?” She gave the puff to Wren.

  Effie feared for her son. “He’s sorry, Lady Fairy. He didn’t mean any harm, I’m sure.”

  “I certainly meant no harm,” Milo said, trying diplomacy. “In my eyes—and the king’s, I’m sure—Wren was just as she should be. Can’t you put her hair back the way it was?”

  “Milo!” Wren said.

  Lucinda laughed, her good humor restored. “I can, but I shan’t. Wait until she applies the cosmetics. You’ll thank me then.”

  Wren took the wooden box to the dressing table, which had an ordinary mirror. She sat and picked up the powder puff.

  “This is thrilling!” Lucinda said. “I wonder how the magic will interpret her.”

  Wren set down the puff. “Will you give Otto a mirror and cosmetics, too?”

  “What a sweet dear,” Lucinda said. “You want your love to benefit as you have.”

  Milo snorted—and disguised it as a sneeze.

  “I do.” She picked the powder puff up, then set it down again. “I can’t do it with them here. Mother, Milo, would you wait outside?”

  “Go on,” Lucinda said. “Nothing bad can happen.”

  Milo wanted to refuse to leave—or to leave, saddle his horse, and ride home. But he followed his mother and stood with her in the corridor, held by curiosity and fear.

  A sneak peek at

  Gail Carson Levine’s next novel,

  A Tale of Two Castles

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mother wiped her eyes on her sleeve and held me tight. I wept onto her shoulder. She released me while I went on weeping. A tear slipped into the strait through a crack in the wooden dock. Salt water to salt water, a drop of me in the brine that would separate me from home.

  Father’s eyes were red. He pulled me into a hug, too. Albin stood to the side a few feet and blew his nose with a honk. He could blow his nose a dozen ways. A honk was the saddest.

  The master of the cog called from the gangplank, “The tide won’t wait.”

  I shouldered my satchel.

  Mother began, “Lodie—”

  “Elodie,” I said, brushing away tears. “My whole name.”

  “Elodie,” she said, “don’t correct your elders. Keep your thoughts private. You are mistaken as often—”

  “—as anyone,” I said.

  “Elodie …,” Father said, sounding nasal, “stay clear of the crafty dragons and the shape-shifting ogres.” He took an uneven breath. “Don’t befriend them! They won’t bother you if you—”

  “—don’t bother them,” I said, glancing at Albin, who shrugged. He was the only one of us who’d ever been in the company of an ogre or a dragon. Soon I would be near both. At least one of each lived in the town of Two Castles. The castle that wasn’t the king’s belonged to an ogre.

  “Don’t finish your elders’ sentences, Lodie,” Mother said.

  “Elodie.” I wondered if Father’s adage was true. Maybe ogres and dragons bothered you especially if you didn’t bother them. I would be glad to meet either one—if I had a quick means of escape.

  Albin said, “Remember, Elodie: If you have to speak to a dragon, call it IT, never him or her or he or she.”

  I nodded. Only a dragon knows ITs gender.

  Mother bent so her face was level with mine. “Worse than ogres or dragons … beware the whited sepulcher.”

  The whited sepulcher was Mother’s great worry. I wanted to soothe her, but her instruction seemed impossible to follow. A sepulcher is a tomb. A whited sepulcher is someone who seems good but is, in truth, evil. How would I know?

  “The geese”—Mother straightened, and her voice caught—“will look for you tomorrow.”

  The geese! My tears flowed again. I hated the geese, but I would miss them.

  Mother flicked a gull’s feather off my shoulder. “You’re but a baby!”

  I went to Albin and hugged him, too. He whispered into my hair, “Be what you must be.”

  The master of the cog roared, “We’re off!”

  I ran, leaped over a coil of rope, caught my foot, and went sprawling. Lambs and calves! Behind me, Mother cried out. I scrambled up, dusty but unharmed. I laughed through my tears and raced up the plank. A seaman drew it in.

  The sail, decorated with the faded image of a winged fish, bellied in the breeze. We skimmed away from the dock. If fate was kind, in ten years I would see my parents and Albin again. If fate was cruel, never.

  As they shrank, Mother losing her tallness, Father his girth, Albin his long beard, I waved. They waved back and didn’t stop. The last I could make out of them, they were still waving.

  The island of Lahnt diminished, too. For the first time it seemed precious, with its wooded slopes and snowy peaks, the highest wreathed in clouds. I wished I could pick out Dair Mountain, where our Potluck Farm perched.

  Farewell to my homeland. Farewell to my childhood.

  Mother and Father’s instructions were to apprentice myself to a weaver, but I would not. Mansioner. I mouthed the word into the wind, the word that held my future. Mansioner. Actor. Mansioner of myth and fable. Mother and Father would understand once I found a master or mistress to serve and could join the guild someday.

  Leaning into the ship’s hull, I felt the purse, hidden under my apron, which held my little knife, a lock of hair from one of Albin’s mansioning wigs, a pretty pink stone, a perfect shell from the beach this morning, and a single copper, which Father judged enough to feed me until I became apprenticed. Unless the winds blew against us, we would reach Two Castles, capital of the kingdom
of Lepai, in two or three days, in time for Guild Week, when masters took on new apprentices. I might see the king or the ogre, if one of them came through town, but I was unlikely to enter either castle.

  I had no desire to see King Grenville III, who liked war and taxes so much that his subjects called him Greedy Grenny. Lepai was a small kingdom, but bigger by half than when he’d mounted the throne—and so were our taxes bigger by half, or so Mother said. The king was believed to have his combative eye on Tair, Lahnt’s neighbor across the wide side of the strait.

  Queen Sofie had died a decade ago, but I did hope to see the king’s daughter, Princess Renn, who was rumored to be somehow peculiar. A mansioner is interested in peculiarity.

  And a mansioner observes. I turned away from home. To my left, three rowers toiled on a single oar. The one in the center called, “Pu-u-u-ll,” with each stroke. I heard his mate across the deck call the same. Father had told me the oars were for steering and the sail for speed. The deck between me and the far hull teemed with seamen, passengers, a donkey, and two cows.

  A seaman climbed the mast. The cog master pushed his way between an elderly goodman and his goodwife and elbowed the cows until they let him pass. He disappeared down the stairs to the hold, where the cargo was stored. I would remember his swagger, the way he rolled his shoulders, and how widely he stepped.

  The deck tilted into a swell. I felt a chill, although the air was warm for mid-October.

  “Go, honey, move. Listen to Dess. Listen, honey, honey.” A small man, thin but for fleshy cheeks and a double chin, the owner of the donkey and the cows, coaxed his animals into a space between the hull and the stairs to the rear upper deck. He carried a covered basket in his right hand, heavy, because his shoulder sagged. “Come, honey.”

  His speech reminded me of Father with our animals at home. Good, Vashie, he’d tell our cow, Good girl, what a good girl. Perhaps if I’d repeated myself with the geese, they’d have liked me better.