Annie turned around to watch it enter the courtyard, where it trundled toward a row of carts that had come from town. The driver added his cart to the end of the row, then pulled his hat low over his eyes and seemed to fall asleep. Now that it was closer she could see that the cart wasn’t exactly like the ones in front of it; the back of the seat was curved instead of straight, and there were curious markings on the side, as if someone had tried to paint over an emblem using too-thin paint.
One by one, the contents of the carts were inspected before servants hauled the goods into the castle. Because of Gwendolyn’s birthday, there were more carts than usual, and many of their burdens were gifts for the princess. Even so, each was inspected, including the gifts that had been wrapped. Containers big enough to hold a spinning wheel were given special attention.
Growing bored, Annie moved on until she was able to look out over the Crystal River. She loved Treecrest and wouldn’t have minded spending the rest of her life there, but thinking about Gwendolyn’s marriage made her wonder about her own future. Normally, princesses were expected to marry handsome princes who would ride up on fiery stallions and carry the loves of their lives off to their own magnificent castles, where they would, of course, live happily ever after. Those were normal princesses, however, made perfect through a fairy godmother’s magic, not ordinary girls with ordinary talents. Girls who hadn’t been given magic gifts were considered less than desirable. No prince had ever shown the slightest interest in marrying Annie.
For the last three centuries, the few princesses in their family who had never married remained at home, living with their parents, and later with whatever sibling inherited the throne. Everyone knew that Gwendolyn would marry soon after her sixteenth birthday. As the older daughter in a family without sons, whomever she married would join her on the throne someday. If Gwendolyn married Digby, Annie was convinced that he would hate the idea of having her live with them.
The shriek of a hawk made Annie look toward the woods, where the strange cart she’d seen arrive was trundling back to the forest, moving faster now that it was free of its load. Reaching the edge of the woods, the driver jumped down and another man emerged from among the trees to take his place. Annie thought this was very odd, and even odder still when three men climbed down from the trees and clapped him on the back as if he’d done something special.
When the men melted into the forest, Annie headed for the stairs. There was something not quite right about what she’d just seen, so she wanted to talk to the captain of the guards. He looked up at her approach.
“Thank you for your help this morning, Your Highness,” said the captain. “If you hadn’t been there, the witch would have turned my men into beetles. I know my men. They would have made lousy beetles.”
“You’re quite welcome, Captain. I’m glad I was able to help. But there’s something that you might want to look into now. I saw a man who delivered a trunk here take his cart into the forest. Another man changed places with him and he went into the woods on foot.”
“It’s odd, but nothing criminal,” said the captain. “Perhaps someone else was going to take the cart back so the man you saw could visit friends in Shelterhome. Did you hear anything unusual when you saw him?”
“No, there was nothing.”
“Then it must be all right,” the captain said, his expression lightening. “Magic would have been the biggest threat. And no one tried to slip any spinning wheels past us in the gifts today. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Annie replied. “I’m probably worrying more than I should.”
“It was your worrying that saved us this morning,” said the captain. “And everyone’s grateful for that.”
CHAPTER 2
ANNIE NODDED TO THE MESSENGER and hurried up the stairs to the queen’s chamber. Ordinarily she would have been surprised and delighted to be summoned to her mother’s rooms, but this time she knew why her mother wanted her, and it wasn’t to thank Annie for finding the witch.
Annie almost never entered her mother’s rooms. It wasn’t by choice, however. In accepting the fairy Moon-beam’s gift, the king and queen had unwittingly accepted a second “gift” on Annie’s behalf. The same spell that prevented magic from touching her worked as a damper on other people’s magic. Should anyone be close to Annie for any length of time, whatever magic gifts they had been given began to fade, whether it was beauty, charm, or something as simple as the ability to unravel even the most difficult knots. Gwendolyn hadn’t been the only member of the family to be given magical gifts at a christening. Both the king and queen had as many magical attributes as their elder daughter. On the rare occasion that Annie entered the chamber of one of her family members, she was expected to sit in the back as far from them as she could without climbing out the window. The same was true of the Great Hall when everyone assembled for meals; Annie had to sit in the opposite end of the room with the daughters of lesser nobles, none of whom had much magic.
More than anything, Annie wanted to feel as if she belonged. But instead she felt as if she were a remote and not-too-fondly regarded cousin who was allowed to live in the castle. Although she’d tried very hard to please her parents, nothing their ordinary daughter could do had ever been enough to earn her the same affection that they showered on Gwendolyn.
Annie sighed, and knocked on the door. When one of her mother’s ladies-in-waiting let her in, Annie found her mother waiting for her in a chair by the fireplace. Although she was over forty years old, the queen looked as young as her daughters. The only time she showed her age was when Annie came near, which the queen was careful to avoid.
“I want you to go straight to your sister’s chamber,” said Queen Karolina. “I’ve heard that you spent the morning looking for spinning wheels, when the guards are quite capable of doing it without you. Today is Gwendolyn’s birthday. The least you can do is sit with her while she opens the rest of her presents.”
“But I’ll have to sit in the back of the room and I won’t see a thing when everyone stands up.”
“I’ll be there and I’ll make sure they stay seated. Your sister wants you there today and so do I. We don’t do enough together as a family.”
“Will Father be there, too?” asked Annie. She saw her father even less than she saw her mother and sister, and looked forward to talking to him.
Queen Karolina appeared puzzled. “Why would he be? He hates this kind of thing. We’ll see him during the jousting and races this afternoon. You’ll sit on the other side of the field, of course, but we’ll all be there. Now go attend your sister. You know I do everything I can to make you feel included. It isn’t as though I ask very much of you.”
“Of course not, Mother,” said Annie. She would have liked to have kissed her mother’s cheek as she’d seen Gwendolyn do, but she knew it wasn’t allowed. Even the mention of it would make her mother angry, not at Annie, but at the situation, as the queen told anyone who would listen. Annie was the one she would take it out on, however, lecturing her on being considerate of others and how awful it would be for the kingdom if she, the queen, were to lose her beauty.
Once she was dismissed, Annie bowed to her mother and escaped from the room. She still didn’t want to go to Gwendolyn’s chamber, however, and when she arrived, the first thing she said was, “Maybe I shouldn’t stay. I don’t want to make you look less than your best on your birthday.”
“Pish posh!” said Gwendolyn. “Just sit in the back like you always do and nothing bad will happen.”
Annie glanced at the ladies-in-waiting. She could tell by the expressions on their faces that they didn’t want her in the room any more than she wanted to be there. The daughters of high-ranking nobles, they each had been given magically enhanced qualities like beauty and charm, although none of them were as beautiful as Gwendolyn.
“We were just admiring the gowns Prince Digby sent me,” said Gwendolyn as Annie made her way to a chair by the back wall.
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The ladies-in-waiting watched her go, their expressions turning to one of approval when she finally sat down. Annie knew that they would be friendly, as long as she didn’t get too close.
“He sent twenty gowns of the finest linder cloth!” announced Lady Cecily, the youngest of Gwendolyn’s attendants. She held up a gown of violet trimmed in silver. “Isn’t this lovely!”
“It certainly is,” said Annie. “The color matches your eyes, Gwennie.”
Gwendolyn blushed, her perfect cheeks turning a lovely shade of pale rose. “I’ve asked you not to call me that. It doesn’t sound very regal.”
“Neither does Annie, and you’ve called me that my whole life,” Annie replied, and turned to look out the window. She didn’t want to see her sister pout or let tears gather in her eyes or any of the other ploys Gwendolyn used to get her own way.
“There you are, my dear,” said Queen Karolina from the doorway. “I’m delighted to see that you decided to join your sister while she opened her presents.”
Annie sighed and turned away from the window. If her mother wanted everyone to think that Annie had come there voluntarily, that was her business. “Good morning, Mother,” she said, getting to her feet just as everyone else had already done.
“Please be seated,” the queen said, taking the chair closest to Gwendolyn, causing the young woman who had been sitting there to find another seat. “This is an informal gathering, after all.”
Gwendolyn sat with her hands in her lap while the ladies-in-waiting changed seats, vying for the best place to see what she had received. Everyone knew that once the princess tired of a gift, she gave it to whoever had admired it the most. Over the years her ladies had received some beautiful trinkets that way.
Once everyone was settled in their seats, Gwendolyn clapped her hands, saying, “I have a special treat for you.”
At her nod, Cecily ran to open the door, admitting a stream of servants bearing trays. One of the princess’s christening gifts had been a perfect figure, so she could eat anything she wanted to without gaining weight. Her favorite foods were sugary pastries and delicate finger foods, most of which were too rich for Annie. While the beautiful ladies with the perfect figures wolfed down one pastry after another, Annie nibbled the edges of the one she’d taken just to be polite. It was so sweet that it made her teeth hurt, but she smiled and tried to look as if she was enjoying it. After a few minutes her stomach started to gurgle; for once she was glad she was seated by herself.
Gwendolyn began to open her next present. Although the kingdom’s treasury was low, gifts had been arriving from every corner of Treecrest as well as most of the neighboring kingdoms. When the ladies surrounding her tried to stand up to get a better look, Queen Karolina ordered them to sit down, then turned toward Annie and smiled. Even so, Annie couldn’t see the gifts very well. She didn’t really pay attention while Gwendolyn held up jewelry and more gowns. However, when servants brought in the trunk she had seen delivered earlier that day, Annie finally stood. It was a distinctive trunk with etched metal hasps and she wondered who had sent it.
The ladies drew closer as Gwendolyn opened the trunk and reached inside to take out a piece of parchment, which she discarded without reading. Annie craned her neck, trying to see. There was a collective gasp as her sister lifted out a miniature tree about a foot tall. The tree was so delicately carved that even from a distance Annie was sure it had to be the work of an elf-trained master woodworker. She took an involuntary step toward the front of the room when the branches shivered and parted, revealing a jeweled bird no bigger than her fist. When her sister began to turn a key attached to the bird’s back, Annie drew closer. No one noticed, however, because they were all engrossed in watching the bird flutter its wings and tilt its dainty head. Annie held her breath when it opened its beak and began to warble a tune so sweet that some of the ladies-in-waiting wiped tears from their eyes.
The moment the bird stopped singing, the ladies burst into applause. They were still clapping when a seam appeared in the bird’s side, splitting it in two and revealing a small egg of an especially lustrous gold.
“Oh!” everyone breathed, including Annie. She wondered for a moment if it was magical, but decided it wasn’t when she didn’t hear anything that made her think of magic.
Gwendolyn turned the tree around, revealing another, smaller key at the base of the egg. Beaming with delight, she wound the key, which made the egg spin and play a merry tune that soon had the ladies tapping their feet. This time when it stopped, the sides split in quarters, revealing a tiny object covered with precious gems.
“What is it?” said Gwendolyn.
The sides of the egg continued to lower. When they were down all the way, the object tilted to one side and tumbled out of the egg.
Gwendolyn’s hand shot out and caught the object before it hit the floor. “I have it! Look! It’s lovely. What do you think it is? Oh!” she exclaimed, looking at her hand in dismay.
“No, it can’t be!” cried the queen, who had been leaning forward to see the object better.
Annie gasped at the sound of tinkling wind chimes that only she could hear. The air suddenly seemed denser. All the color in the room faded and sounds became muffled; only the faint dinging of the wind chimes remained. Although all the other ladies looked as if they were moving through thick soup, Annie could still run. She was nearly there when Gwendolyn’s eyes drifted shut and she slumped in her chair. A moment later, the queen, who had started to stand, fell to the floor as limp as a rag doll, while the other ladies collapsed around her.
Somewhere in the castle, something crashed and shattered, but the sound was muffled and Annie couldn’t tell its direction. “Help!” she yelled to the guards. “Come quickly!” But there were no answering footsteps. The only sounds that Annie could hear were the soft snoring of the sleeping women and the continued tinkling of wind chimes.
The long-ingrained habit of not touching members of her family was difficult to break, but Gwendolyn had become so pale that Annie was afraid. Taking her sister’s wrist in her hand, Annie breathed a sigh of relief when she felt a strong, steady pulse. A hint of color returned to Gwendolyn’s cheeks, making Annie think that there might be reason to hope that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
Gwendolyn stirred, her eyelids opening a crack. “What happened?” she asked, her words slurred.
“I’m not sure,” said Annie. She glanced at the jeweled object still held in her sister’s hand. Although Gwendolyn hadn’t recognized it, Annie knew what it was right away. Someone had crafted a tiny model of a spinning wheel only an inch tall, yet perfect in every detail, right down to the tiny spindle, where a drop of Gwendolyn’s blood quivered.
“It was a spinning wheel,” Annie explained. “Someone sent it here to make the curse put you to sleep. It looks as if it’s put everyone else to sleep, too.”
“That’s nice,” Gwendolyn murmured, her eyelids sagging.
“No, it’s not!” said Annie. “It’s terrible. Do you think you can stand?”
“Course I can stand,” Gwendolyn grumbled when Annie shook her. “I have grace and poise, unlike some people.” Opening one eye, she gave Annie a baleful glare. “Poor little Annie. You never were graceful. I could always dance circles around you. Maybe I will later, when I’m not so tired.” Gwendolyn opened her mouth wide in an unladylike yawn. Her two front teeth were crooked now. Being so close to her sister was already taking its toll.
Annie pulled Gwendolyn’s arm across her shoulders and hauled her to her feet. “You’ll have to help me if I’m going to get you to your bed,” said Annie. “Put one foot in front of the other... That’s right.”
“I always have had to help you, haven’t I, Annie?” said Gwendolyn as she dragged her other foot forward. “No magic, that’s your problem. Always felt sorry for you. Told Digby, ‘I don’t care if she’s homely, she’s still my sister.’”
Annie jerked her forward a little harder than she needed to and said,
“You’re too kind.”
While Gwendolyn stumbled along, yawning mightily, Annie half dragged, half carried her into the next room. Gwendolyn’s movements were no longer so graceful and she looked awkward when she tried to climb onto the high bed. She couldn’t quite make it to the mattress, so Annie had to give her a shove. The older sister sprawled across the bed with an oof! and flopped over onto her back.
“That’s better,” Gwendolyn murmured as she stretched out her legs. Annie stepped back. The moment she let go of her sister, the color drained from Gwendolyn’s face again, but her teeth straightened themselves.
“I should check on the others,” said Annie. She had heard her mother snoring, so she knew she was all right, but she wasn’t so sure about the rest of the castle’s inhabitants. There had been that crashing sound, after all. Someone might have been hurt when the curse took hold.
Annie nearly tripped over a sleeping guard when she stepped into the corridor. It was littered with bodies and looked at first as though there had been a battle in which everyone had died without shedding a drop of blood. She started down the corridor and was relieved to find that they were all sleeping. A few people looked as if they were sleeping peacefully slumped against the wall, but there were others who Annie was certain must be uncomfortable with their bodies twisted at odd angles and their heads canted to one side. She helped the worst of these, touching them long enough to get them in more comfortable positions. They woke for the short time she touched them, but they were so drowsy that not one of them questioned her.
Just down the corridor from Gwendolyn’s room, Annie found a serving girl stretched atop the shards of a shattered pitcher, snoring. “This must have been what crashed,” Annie muttered, and made sure that the girl hadn’t cut herself. She continued on and was amazed that no one had gotten hurt, not even the scullery maid who had fallen asleep with her sleeve in the fireplace. It was almost as if the fire had gone to sleep as well, for it seemed to be just a shadow of flames and not hot enough to burn. Even so, she moved the girl away from the fireplace and doused the fire with a pot of soup cooling on the table. It barely fizzled when it went out.