Just Ella (18 page)

 

I lowered the letter slowly, feeling torn. So Jed might end the war. Good for him! So I might not see him again for a long time. Bad for me. For I knew now what my answer was going to be. I missed him so much, I couldn't stand thinking about it.

I closed my eyes and leaned back, and thought instead about his belief that I had single-handedly changed my life. He wasn't entirely correct. The first time, I'd gotten help from Jonas the glassblower and from the coachman, who undoubtedly undercharged me for driving me to the castle gate. The second time, I never would have gotten out of the dungeon without Mary bringing the shovel and food. If I'd learned nothing else from the refugee camp, it was that even the most independent people sometimes needed help. And if I'd learned nothing else from my life thus far, it was that you don't always end up where you think you're going.

I smiled faintly, remembering the day I'd been swept off to the castle. Everything had happened in such a blur that my memories now were mostly just of scattered sensations:
the sound of the awestruck crowd whispering as they gathered around the prince's carriage, the feel of the silky dress the royal attendants put on me, the sight of the footman bowing low to me—to me!—before he helped me into the carriage. I couldn't have said now who was in the crowd, what color the dress was, or which hand the footman extended to me. Somehow only one detail still stood out clearly. I could still hear the voice of the old woman in my village, cackling as I rode by: “Now, there's one who will live happily ever after.” And I remembered how fervently I had wanted to believe her, how I had looked out at her wrinkled, wizened face as if hoping to see the countenance of a prophet.

I was young. I could be excused my foolishness. But evidently the woman's advanced years had not earned her the wisdom she deserved. The last nine months of my life had hardly contained endless happiness, and I had little reason to expect endless happiness in the future. Why did the woman's prediction still haunt me?

I stood and walked to the window. Outside, children with ragged clothes, runny noses, and wind-chapped faces were playing a game they'd invented, throwing clods of frozen mud at the roof and laughing when smaller clumps of dirt rained back down on them. It was an ugly scene—certainly any of the women back in the castle would have sniffed in disgust and turned back to their fancy silks and satins, their perfect little needlepoint designs. But I saw the joy in the children's eyes, the jubilation on their faces every time a particularly big clod broke. I saw, well, beauty.

And suddenly I understood the old woman's prediction in a new light. Happiness was like beauty—in the eye of the beholder. Maybe the old woman could be right in a way she'd never intended. I did know this: I liked my life the way I was living it.

I turned from my window and went back to work.