The Amaranth Enchantment

  The prince’s eyes were unreadable. “Good day to you, Miss Lucinda.”

  “And to you,” I called over the thunking of the door. I watched him dart away down the street until his coat was a blue smudge on my window. Hoped he’d heard me. Hoped he hadn’t.

  Uncle and I faced each other, dumbstruck.

  “What would Aunt say?” I whispered.

  He put a finger over his lips. I nodded. Aunt, probably in her bedroom dreaming of all the things Beryl’s coins would someday buy, need never know that Crown Prince Gregor was in her shop.

  Then Uncle’s eyes twinkled. “Handsome, ain’t he, Lucinda?”

  I hid my face behind my hands. “Handsome” didn’t even scratch the scratch.

  Chapter 3

  The what was in my shop?” Aunt shrieked. “The WHAT?”

  Uncle and I eyed each other. From where I knelt washing the floor, her neck seemed to swell like a bullfrog’s.

  “The Amaranth Witch, my good lady,” said Father Julian, who had burst into the shop out of breath a moment before. Now he stood mopping his shiny face with a handkerchief, as if it were August and not December. “She who put a curse upon Queen Rosamund these many years ago, when the queen was with child for the first time. She’s not aged a day since. The witch, I mean to say. Comes of being in league with Satan.”

  This didn’t strike me as a powerful reason not to be in league with Satan.

  The red drained from Aunt’s face, leaving it the color of cheese curd. She gripped the edge of the countertop.

  Nobody spoke for an awkward minute. A day of bewilderments, to be sure. Nothing like this ever happened at Montescue’s Goldsmithy.

  “But are you certain?” Her imploring eyes searched Father Julian’s face.

  He nodded, his jowls quivering. “I saw her leave your shop. She frequents the city, and must live nearby, but she’s managed by her arts to remain concealed. I endeavored to follow her, but I”—he patted his chest feebly—”I succumbed to her trickery. One moment she was a few paces ahead of me, and the next”—he snapped his fingers—”she vanished.”

  Aunt crossed herself.

  Losing someone on a city street was no great marvel. Pickpockets did it daily.

  But Father Julian nodded as if this were ominous news. “She led me to some part of the city I’d never seen before, and I doubt if I searched I’d find it again.” He smoothed the strands of hair on his balding crown. “I came back to warn you,” he said, bending forward, “against accepting the devil’s gold.”

  It was hard to judge who looked more scandalized—Father Julian, who could act onstage if ever the Church grew tired of him; Aunt, whose boundless greed was matched only by witless superstitions; or Uncle, who wasn’t avaricious, senseless, or pious, but who knew well how hard the mortgage money had come of late. I felt for him. Here at last was a customer, with worthy traffic and solid payment, and now we must turn her away?

  “We haven’t taken any of her gold,” Uncle said.

  “Oh, what should we do?” Aunt implored, as if she hadn’t heard Uncle. She clasped both hands together atop her considerable bosom. “How do we cast this evil from us?”

  “Turn away her business,” the priest said. “Send back her accursed objects and have no more to do with her.”

  “What if she puts a curse on us?” Uncle asked. I watched him. The corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly.

  I knelt forgotten in a shadowy corner, trying to picture the woman Beryl as a dangerous witch. It seemed laughable. But then, if she was a sorceress, she’d be practiced at deceit. Witches wore many disguises. Still, someone that exquisite?

  I decided I didn’t believe Father Julian. A shocking lack of piety, no doubt, but then, Aunt rarely let me go to Mass, so if I’d grown into a heathen, it was no one’s fault but hers.

  Aunt, who hadn’t stopped crossing herself, raised both hands in the air.

  “Enough!” she cried. She glared at Uncle, then reached for Father Julian’s hands. “We shall send her away,” she announced. “Though it cost us the roof over our heads and the bread in our mouths, we shall send her away.”

  Father Julian bowed low. “May God protect this establishment from the works of darkness.” Avoiding Uncle’s gaze, he left and disappeared down the street.

  Uncle lumbered over to his workbench and sat down heavily. “Well, there it is,” he said.

  Aunt whirled to face him.” There it is, Husband, and I’ll hear not another word about it. I’ll have no traffic with the devil, not if we’re down to our last speck of flour, and no more would you, if you had your proper feelings about you.”

  Uncle held a magnifying glass to study a broken pendant. My broken pendant.

  Aunt stood fuming. She yanked the red leather book from its shelf. She opened it to the last page and scrutinized the writing. “That’d be a witch’s hand, all right. Too fancy for an honest woman.” As if she’d know.

  She watched me, biting her lip, which she always did when scheming new punishments. Then she smiled, which was even more frightening.

  “Lucinda,” she said—she never used my name—”you’d like an outing, wouldn’t you?”

  I smelled treachery. From her pocket, she produced Beryl’s luminous gem.

  “Go to this address and return the jewel to the witch. Tell her your uncle is poorly, and he won’t be able to do the job.” With each sentence she nodded, as if explaining something to a simpleton. “Do you understand?”

  For heaven’s sake. I wasn’t a baby.

  “Yes, Aunt. I understand.” I understand that just in case this witch puts a curse on the messenger returning her stone, you’re sending me.

  Aunt straightened up and reverted to her normal manner.

  “Then get going!” She left the room.

  Uncle looked over at me. I said nothing, but with my face I wordlessly begged him to reconsider. We needed the money. But he shook his head.

  “Take it straight there, Lucinda,” Uncle said. “We don’t want a gem like that getting stolen.”

  The subject was closed.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  Chapter 4

  That night, after finishing the dishes, I climbed the ladder to my attic bedroom, sat down on my cot, kicked off my shoes, and did some hard thinking about Beryl’s gemstone.

  I hadn’t returned it. I didn’t search out Beryl’s house, or even try. I left the shop repeating over and over to myself the address where Beryl lived, but I never went there. I meandered until supper. And I only thought of the prince two-thirds of the time.

  It was ridiculous to return the stone! That was all I could figure. We needed the money desperately. I’d decided, out there on the gray streets of Saint Sebastien, that Uncle could forge a new setting in secret, and I could deliver it and collect the payment. Uncle could use the money as he saw fit, and for once he’d have control of some of the gold he’d earned.

  I told Aunt I’d returned the stone. I decided to corner Uncle in the morning and explain my plan to him. He’d be worried about Aunt, I knew, but I was sure I could persuade him. For once, we might be able to have beef for Sunday dinner and enough coal for the fire. Beryl would get her gem, everyone would be happy, and Aunt, none the wiser.

  I pulled the stone from my pocket and admired it by candlelight.

  “What are you?” I asked it. “Milk made crystal? Child of pearl and diamond?”

  It was no great stretch to imagine the gem could answer.

  I’d carried it concealed in my pocket all afternoon, but now, lying in my palm, it shimmered with energy. It seemed lit from within, burning but never consumed. Perhaps that was only a trick of the candlelight. And so heavy! No wonder Beryl’s former setting had broken.

  I set it on the crate that served as my bedside table, and dressed for bed. I pulled my second dress over my first, and my good stockings over the everyday ones for warmth, lay down on the cot, blew out the candle, and pulled my thin blankets up to my chin. On a second tho
ught, I reached for the stone and slid it into the pocket of my outer dress.

  The sky was starless, covered with clouds threatening snow. I hoped so. Better snow than mud. Snow felt like Christmas, and Christmas, no matter how Aunt might spoil it, felt like Mama and Papa, and roasted goose trimmed with holly, salted nuts and candied cherries, and oranges and apples imported from the sun’s winter home.

  I rubbed my feet together and tried to remember being warm until I drifted off to sleep.

  A scuttling noise overhead woke me. Rats on the roof. I squeezed my eyes shut. The second thump was much too heavy for a rat. I sat up, half-asleep, half-terrified.

  I went to the window, rubbing my eyes. A few lamps at street level gave a faint glimmer to the roof just below my dormer window. Its slate tiles were covered in frost.

  My breath fogged up the window.

  I jumped back as a dark face appeared, staring at me.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle a scream. Never. Wake. Aunt. Ever.

  The face came closer, and a ghostly looking hand rapped on the glass. “Let me in!”

  I stared at the shadowy face. A boy. Older than me but not by much. His face was pinched with cold and panic.

  Wait a minute. I knew that face. I’d seen him about town often enough. One of the city’s many youths who loaf about with no apparent aim and no parents to tell them not to. Harmless, more or less, I’d have said, unlike some I knew of. Just the other day I’d seen him loitering around our shop. When I’d stuck my head out the door to ask him his business, he laughed and took off running in mismatched shoes.

  Now he saw me and gestured frantically for me to open the window. “Let me in!”

  I put a finger over my mouth and signaled him to be quiet. He only pounded louder. The wavy glass rattled in its frame.

  “Stop it!” I hissed. “Don’t be stupid! You’ll get us both into big trouble!”

  He crouched on the thin lip of roof. Nothing between him and a three-story drop. He slid his fingers all around the casement, trying to pry it up. I grabbed the handle and pulled down with all my weight.

  I didn’t weigh enough. In an instant he had the window open and tumbled inside. He pulled the window shut, then grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “Don’t touch me!” I yelped.

  “Hide me!” he whispered.

  I blinked. “Hide you?”

  He shook me. “Are you deaf? I need a place to hide. Quick!” He let go and pawed around the garret.

  Another noise sounded from the roof. Approaching footsteps. He flattened himself against the wall beside the window, and I did the same, craning my neck to see him. In the darkness I could just make out long, dark sheets of dirty hair, a dirty face, and a moth-eaten coat. What a contrast to the other young man I’d met today—and the odds of me meeting young men, most days, were zero.

  He cocked his head, listening hard to the ceiling.

  The footsteps stopped close by. We stared at each other. His eyes were wide, and his finger flew over his lips. I nodded. My heart pounded as if I were the one being chased.

  The footsteps moved toward the window.

  “Back! Back!” he mouthed. I pressed myself farther into the shadows under the eaves.

  What was I doing? Why was I helping him hide? I ought to scream, I knew, but I didn’t. His eyes pleaded with me. From one penniless youth to another… I couldn’t toss him to the wolves, be they the constables, his pursuer, or Aunt.

  A shadow passed across the pale glimmer of light that came in through the window. It moved back and forth, snakelike, as if someone was searching for something.

  I willed my breath to be silent and slow. But each exhale, each heartbeat felt blaring. Surely whoever was on the roof would hear. The boy closed his eyes as if to pray, and waited.

  The shadow departed, the footsteps retracted then went silent. The boy in the shadows crept forward, motioning to me to remain quiet.

  We waited for an eternity. Then, “Well,” he said, cracking his knuckles, “that went well, don’t you think?”

  I jumped at the shattered silence, then shook myself. All my fear turned to indignation.

  “Listen here!” I said, whispering as loud as I dared. “You can’t just barge in here like this! I don’t care what you’re running from. If my aunt catches you, you’ll be worse off than if… whoever that was did.” I tiptoed to the stairs to see if Aunt and Uncle had slept through this ruckus.

  “Good of you to keep quiet,” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard a word I said.

  “That’s hard for girls. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against girls, but if there’s one thing about them, it’s noise.”

  He should talk about noise!

  No sounds came from below except snores. True, Aunt went to bed with two brandies, and Uncle slept like the dead, but the footsteps and window banging could have wakened a mummy.

  I turned back to my room. In the dark I could make out no sign of the boy.

  “Where are you?”

  Nothing.

  He couldn’t have left—not without my noticing. I groped around in the darkness, under a broken table, behind the old armoire, under the eaves. No sign of him.

  “I know you’re in here somewhere,” I said. “If you don’t show yourself, I’ll stick my head out that window and scream until your friend comes running.”

  Silence. Then, “There’s room.”

  I jumped. His voice came from close by, on my bed.

  I recoiled in disgust. Thought he and I’d be cozy now, did he?

  “There’s room here beside me,” came his voice again, sounding impatient. “It’s warmer that way. Why don’t you lie down?”

  “Next to you? No, thank you! You’ve gotten my help, but if you think you’re going to get a kiss out of me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  “I’m not going to touch you.” He sounded amused. “I just need a place to sleep. So you can either lie down or sleep standing up. It makes no difference to me.” My bed creaked as he shifted in it.

  I feared him about as much as I feared a moth, but I felt I needed to remind him that I, at least, had a sense of propriety. “How do I know you’re trustworthy?”

  “Gentleman’s honor,” he drawled.

  “Gentleman indeed!”

  Sanctuary was one thing, lodgings quite another. To rescue a soul in distress, yes; to give up my bed for a cocky ruffian, not tonight. I reached for my bed and felt him in it, his shoulder damp with rank cold sweat, cozying up under my blanket. Those blankets might not have been much, but they were mine, and clean. I grabbed his ear and twisted it. He squawked.

  “I don’t know who you’re hiding from or why. You’ve put me at risk of a smacking, and it’s going to cost you, And you’ll not have my bed, nor stink up my blankets, not for all your cheek, and I don’t care who you are. You can sleep on the floor.” I gave his ear another twist.

  He swatted at my hand. “Git off! Not the floor. I won’t!”

  “Then hang from the ceiling with the bats,” I said, “but get out of my bed, or I’ll pluck out your eyes.”

  “I get this blanket, then,” he said. “Some lady you are.”

  I snatched the blanket back. “There are some canvas bags in that corner. And I never claimed to be a lady.” Though once I could have.

  He gathered a handful of sacks and arranged them under a stream of curses.

  “I suppose you’re used to better?” I said, tucking myself back into bed.

  “Missing our silk sheets tonight, are we?”

  “For your information,” he said, “I’ve slept in some of the finest beds in Saint Sebastien. Even slept in the king’s bed, once, at his country house.”

  “You have not, you liar.”

  “Have so.”

  “Does the king snore?”

  “He wasn’t in it, idiot,” he said. “He wasn’t at home at the time.”

  “How’d you get in, then?”

  He was silent for a momen
t. Then, “I’m handy with a lock.”

  “Shouldn’t wonder.”

  I listened to his breathing. It was odd to have someone else in the room with me. For an instant I remembered sleeping in my infant nursery, with my nurse nearby.

  “Who was after you?” I asked. “Let me guess: the king’s constables.”

  “Pah. Not at this hour. And not on the rooftops!”

  “Well? Who was it?”

  A long pause. “A thief.”

  This made sense: some alleyway fisticuffs, flight up a ladder to evade his assailant, a mad dash across slippery roof tiles. It could have come right out of a novel. Boys had all the fun.

  “Why was a thief chasing you?”

  Floorboards creaked as he shifted around, looking for a better position. “Do you always talk this much, or just at night?” he said.

  I chose not to answer his rudeness. He lay still, except for his gurgling stomach.

  “You’re hungry,” I said.

  “No. I just ate a stuffed pheasant, and I’m here for tea.” He paused. “You got any bread?”

  I smiled in the dark. “No. When did you eat last?” He said nothing.

  I chewed on my lower lip. “I can get you some early in the morning, if you promise to clear out after that.” I took his grunt as a yes.

  Warmth began to tingle and spread over me once more. Even with tonight’s commotion, I could feel sleep claiming me. But there was one more thing I needed to know.

  “What’s your name?”

  He snorted like he’d just been startled awake. “What?”

  “Your name.”

  He slapped something—his forehead, I presumed—and groaned.

  “What’s the matter, are you sick?” I asked.

  “Peter,” he said. “It’s Peter. All right?”

  “It’ll do,” I said. “As names go. I myself might have chosen Edmond, or Roderick, but Peter will do well enough.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Hmph,” he said.

  “I’m Lucinda. Thank you for asking.”