I wonder if there was a story, long ago, with roses and thorns, two thimbles, and two girls, one dark and one fair. Was that story where Story had its beginning?
I stand and think for a long time about how the story of my life will roll out from this moment if I decide to keep the Godmother’s thimble. Templeton is right—Story will rise again, and the thimble would be a powerful weapon in the fight against it. But—oh, the irony—to keep it would be to lose too much.
In the end, letting it go is easy. I drop the Godmother’s thimble, and it falls down and lands with a satisfying plop in the flowing water of the river. I put my own thimble safely into the pocket of my coat.
I need to see Owen. I need to hear from him that the Godmother is dead, or exiled, or imprisoned in the deepest cells below the castle. Only then can I decide what I’m going to do next.
HALFWAY DOWN THE street of shoemakers is a small shop with a sign over the door that has a shoe painted on it. The glass of the front window is polished, and three pairs of newly made shoes are lined up there; cards beside them are neatly labeled with their prices.
Owen’s shop. My skin feels hot and prickly, nervousness mixed with excitement. It’s been weeks; so much has happened. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I open the front door. A customer passes me, going out, and gives me a polite nod.
In the shop is a workbench, tidy with tools neatly racked. Owen is there. He’s talking to someone sitting in a rocking chair whose back is to me. A woman; I can see the edge of her skirt.
“No, I don’t think so,” Owen is saying to the person in the chair, and he smiles at her.
It makes me catch my breath.
I let the door close behind me, and Owen looks up.
“You again,” I say, trying to make a joke.
The smile drops from his face. “Pen.” With a clatter he sets down some sort of shoemaking tool and gets to his feet. His hair is cut shorter than it was before, and he looks sturdier, not thin and stretched, as he was when we were caught up in Story. “Hello,” he says uncertainly.
“Hello,” I say. “I thought you might have gone home to Westhaven.”
He shakes his head. “I sent them a letter. They want me to come visit.”
The woman in the rocking chair gives a loud, meaningful cough.
“Oh,” Owen says. “Um.” He rubs his head, and his hair sticks up on one side. “Will you come in, Pen? There’s somebody here for you to meet.”
I come farther into the room and look down at the person in the rocking chair.
I stare.
She is a white-haired old woman with a shawl over her thin shoulders. Her eyes are pale blue and sharp; her face is wrinkled, but some of her old beauty lingers in its lines. She has a cloth in her lap that she’s been stitching. “Who’re you?” she asks.
“This is Pen,” Owen tells her.
“She’s a customer?” asks the old woman, with a glance at my feet.
“No, she’s a—a friend,” Owen answers. When he looks up at me, there is a smile in his eyes. “Pen, this is my grandmother, Faye Shoemaker.”
I find my voice at last. “Your grandmother?”
He gives me half a grin. “That’s right.”
The old woman is giving me the eye. She looks at Owen and then back at me again. “Oh, I see how it is,” she says. “Can you cook, girl?”
I blink. “Um, I made toast once, I think.”
“Good,” the old lady says. “My grandson can’t cook either.” She points at Owen, who shrugs. She sets aside her sewing and puts her hands on the arms of her chair. Owen is quick to go to her side and help her to her feet; she pats his hand and hobbles toward a door leading farther into the house. “I’ve got some stew on. You’ll stay for dinner.” She goes out.
“Dinner?” I say, dumbfounded.
“We-ell, no,” Owen says. “She’s a terrible cook. She thinks she isn’t, but she is. I don’t think she can taste anything.”
“But you eat it anyway,” I guess.
He laughs. Owen laughs. “Sometimes I do. Usually Missus Natters brings us dinner.”
I frown. “Owen, what is she doing here?”
“She was just as caught up in it as we were, Pen,” he answers. “Once you took away the Godmother part of her, she seemed . . .” He shakes his head. “Sad.”
“I imagine so,” I say tartly.
“She’s an excellent seamstress, it turns out,” he goes on. “She does some work now and then for your sister Precious.”
There is a loud bang and clatter from the next room. “It’s all right,” a sharp voice calls. “I only dropped the kettle!”
Owen draws me toward the shop door. We stand on the doorstep, half in the shop, half out. The early spring air is crisp and clean, and it makes my heart tremble in my chest.
“Hello, Owen!” calls somebody passing in the street.
He waves a hand in answer, but his attention is fixed entirely on me. “I was starting to think that you might not be coming back.”
“I wasn’t sure,” I confess.
“Oh,” he says quietly.
“Owen,” I say. “Tell me the story of the first time we met. When you were Shoe and I was Pin.”
He lifts his hand and with his fingers traces the line of my cheek. “But you did come back.”
“Yes, I did,” I say. “Now tell me.”
“There wasn’t much to it. I’d gotten this requisition for a glass slipper.”
“Glass?” I interrupt.
“Impossible, I know,” he agrees. “I went down to ask the Seamstresses’ Overseer if she knew anything about it, and as I was leaving the newest Seamstress gave me a speaking look.”
“Speaking, really?” I ask. “What was I saying?”
“You were planning some kind of trouble.”
“Of course,” I add.
He gives me a wry smile and my stomach does a happy flip. I will never get enough of his smile.
Then he turns sober. “You were brave, Pen. I was afraid—no, terrified—but you led us out. Over the wall and the rest of it.”
“Mm,” I say. “And here we are.” We are silent for a long moment. “I won’t be a shopkeeper’s wife, Owen,” I say.
“I know you won’t.”
“There are no happily-ever-afters,” I add.
He looks me in the eyes, holding my gaze. “I never thought there were,” he says.
I step closer. Then I lean in and brush my lips across his. His arms come around me. “Do you know what true love is, Owen?” I ask him.
“I know that you’re about to tell me,” he answers.
“It’s this,” I say.
And I kiss him, and he kisses me, and it is the beginning of everything.
The End.
(SORT OF)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS, AS ALWAYS, TO MY EDITOR, ANTONIA MARKIET, with whom I am so honored to work. And to her assistant, Abbe Goldberg, and to wonderful senior editor Alyson Day. Go, A-Team! Kate Morgan Jackson, any crispy bacon in this book is for you.
To Greg van Eekhout, Deb Coates, and Jenn Reese. Especially for the guy stuff (Greg) and the dog stuff (Deb) and the title stuff (Jenn). And to Jenn and Deb for the trip to Oregon, which is where the forest came from.
To my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, and the intrepid crew at the Liza Dawson Associates agency, especially Havis and Liza Dawson.
To the rest of my team at Harper, including Joel Tippie, Amy Ryan, Kathryn Silsand, and Ruiko Tokunaga.
To Susan Adrian for a quick read of the first part of the book, Rae Carson for continued support and wise advice, and Sandra McDonald for Corneeeeelius.
Genevieve Valentine and Ingrid Law for help making the dresses sufficiently gowny, and to Jeffery K. Richard for the shoes.
Thanks to my ultra-brother-in-law, Matt Prineas, for describing what it feels like to run (er, shuffle) ridiculously long distances.
To Malinda Lo, whose speech at the Sirens conference (www.sirensconference.org) in
spired me to start writing this book.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Courtesy Sarah Prineas
SARAH PRINEAS lives in the midst of the corn in rural Iowa, where she wrangles dogs, cats, chickens, and goats, goes on lots of hikes, and finds time to write. She is married to a physics professor and has two kids.
You can visit Sarah online at www.sarah-prineas.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY SARAH PRINEAS
Ash & Bramble
CREDITS
Cover photography © 2015 by Michael Frost
Cover art and design by Joel Tippie
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
ASH & BRAMBLE. Copyright © 2015 by Sarah Prineas. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Prineas, Sarah.
Ash & Bramble / Sarah Prineas. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: After Pin and Shoe escape from servitude in the Godmother’s fortress, they learn that she has taken control of Story, which can warp the world around it, forcing people into its shape, and they decide to try to break out and create their own destinies in this tale that features many familiar characters.
ISBN 978-0-06-233794-8 (hardcover)
EPub Edition © August 2015 ISBN 9780062337962
[1. Fairy tales. 2. Fairy godmothers—Fiction. 3. Characters in literature—Fiction. 4. Storytelling—Fiction. 5. Memory—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Ash and Bramble.
PZ8.P94Ash 2015 2014041198
[Fic]—dc23 CIP
AC
15 16 17 18 19 PC/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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Sarah Prineas, Ash & Bramble
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