Her lower lip started to tremble. If she did it, she’d be hateful for true, deserving of all the nasty looks she got.
After setting the stew to simmer, she put the knife back on the mantel and refused to think about it again.
Three weeks later, her hidden vase was full, and her ankle was healed well enough that she could walk long distances. Tonight, she told herself. Tonight, when the monster woman was asleep, she would sneak out of the cottage and flee into the forest. It was a good night for it. Winter was losing its frozen grip on the village. Meltwater tinkled as it dripped from the roof. The earth smelled rich and loamy. Birds were beginning to sing again. This time, she wouldn’t be so cold.
Besides, Mula was smarter now, a more grown-up girl than the last time she’d fled. Instead of running aimlessly, she would go west, to the place where sand stretched across the world like a sea, where the weather was warm and no sorcerers lived.
Mula rehearsed it all in her mind. She would wait for the woman to start snoring. She would quietly slip on her shoes, don her mother’s now-hoodless cloak, grab the knife from the mantel, and slip out the door. She would sneak to the outhouse and unbury her glass vase full of food scraps. Then she would tiptoe westward, away from the village and into the woods. She’d walk as long and far as her sore ankle would allow. By the time the monster woman woke and discovered her missing, she’d be too far away to find.
The girl spent the day in a state of terrified excitement. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Her heart felt like it was going to scamper out of her chest. She dropped the water bucket on her way back from the creek and had to return for a refill. She nicked her forefinger slicing an apple. Their last apple, but Mula hoped that if she stewed it with some sugar and nutmeg, it would put the monster woman in a good mood and help her sleep.
Finally day became night, and the woman came trudging up to the door. She stopped before entering, just stood there quietly on the stoop.
Mula held her breath.
The door creaked open, and Mula knew right away that something was terribly, terribly wrong, because the monster woman’s bright blue eyes shimmered with fire, like sparkle stones about to destroy the winter stores.
The girl’s legs twitched to run, but the woman stood huge and menacing in the doorway. There was nowhere to go.
The girl squeaked out, “Would you like some apple stew, my lady?”
In response, the monster woman lifted something she was holding in her hand. It gleamed amber in the firelight.
Her glass vase, full of food scraps. Water slipped down the sides and dripped on the floor.
“I found this by the outhouse,” the woman said. “Half buried in melting snow.”
Mula said nothing. The fire crackled. Outside, a chunk of snow dislodged from the roof and plopped onto a drift.
“You were going to run away, weren’t you?”
“No,” the girl whispered.
“You were, you lying mule!” The woman was screaming now. “You were going to leave me! After everything I’ve done for you. How could you?”
“I’ll stay!” Mula said, and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I promise, I’ll stay, I’ll stay, I’ll st—”
The woman threw the vase at her head; Mula ducked. The vase exploded against the fireplace, a crystal sound that spiked deep into her soul. Bread crumbs and nuts and shimmery glass slivers rained down onto the hearth.
“Come with me.” The woman darted forward, grabbed her arm, and dragged her toward the door.
“I need my cloak,” Mula pleaded. Her arm hurt. The woman was squeezing way too tight.
“Shut up,” the woman snapped.
“You’re hurting my arm.”
The woman stopped so suddenly that Mula collided with her hip. The monster woman rounded on her and stared down at the girl, gripping so tightly that Mula feared her arm might fall off.
“Your arm?” the woman said. “Your arm?”
“Y . . . yes?”
The woman crouched before her and speared the girl with her sparkle-stone eyes. With her free hand, she softly caressed Mula’s smarting skin. “Sweet thing,” she said, “this is my arm.”
“I . . . no . . .”
The woman fingered the bit of black hair that had escaped the girl’s braid and hung down her forehead. “This is my soft hair,” she said, so quietly it was almost a whisper.
Mula tried to grab her braid, reclaim it, but the woman batted her hand away.
The woman’s forefinger traced her cheek. “My cheek. My sweet little nose. My chin.”
The girl discovered that she couldn’t breathe.
The woman’s forefinger was so soft on her skin and yet somehow like fire as it traced the line of her neck, swirled down her chest, rested between her not-yet-budded breasts. “Mine. All mine. I own you, Mula. I can do whatever I please with you.”
Mula remembered her dream, when she had looked down to discover a gaping nothingness where her belly ought to be. Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe she was disappearing for true.
The monster woman yanked her out the door. The girl’s bare feet squelched in the melting snow. “Where are you taking—”
“We’re going to teach you a lesson.”
The monster woman dragged her past the glassmaking shed, across the icy creek, around the waterwheel and miller’s cottage. They stopped in front of a small one-room house with a large porch and two windows. Whoever lived here must be very rich, to afford two windows.
The monster woman knocked.
The door opened, and out stepped the blue-fingered man, the one who had tattooed Mula’s feet. He wore a leather apron with pockets filled with his strange, sharp tools. He wiped his hands on a rag—also stained blue.
“What do you want?” he grumbled.
“This slave,” the monster woman said, shoving Mula forward. “She tried to run away. She needs to be taught a lesson.”
“Oh?” The blue-fingered man grinned through his beard.
Mula tried praying. Please, God, make me disappear for true.
The man vised her shoulder with one hand and dragged her into his house. With the other hand, he lifted a large iron ladle from its place on the mantel. He studied the ladle a moment, admiring it. It gleamed gray in the firelight.
The door slammed shut behind her.
The girl doesn’t remember what happened next.
10
Now
WE’RE all so exhausted that we stumble to our bunks in near silence. Almost everyone is asleep before Guardsman Bruno can blow out the lamps.
One of the army recruits near the door snores loudly, and I’m glad. Maybe it will help me stay awake. Faintly, filtered through stone and mortar, comes the cymbal clash of iron and steel. Perhaps the second years are doing a nighttime training maneuver. No, the direction is all wrong for that. It must be the Guard blacksmith, mending weapons well into the night. Everyone is taking the opportunity to catch up on work while the empress is away.
It means that sneaking around at night would be impossible . . . if I didn’t know every corridor and passage so intimately.
The monastery bells ring twelve times. In an hour, I’ll wake Iván, allowing us plenty of time to make the journey. I have no idea how I’ll keep myself from falling asleep until then. My thighs burn, my shoulders ache, my eyelids are as heavy as millstones, and I want nothing more than to sink into this thin, poking mattress and drift into oblivion.