She opened the other eye, just as cautiously. “You’re not?” She didn’t believe him. She saw with a start that the big heavy door was closed, her only escape route blocked.
“No,” he smiled, shaking his bald head. “Who took the box down?”
“We were playing. That’s all, just playing. I was putting it back for the Princess. She’s very good to me, so very good, I wanted to help her. She’s a wonderful person, I love her, she’s so kind to me…”
He put a long finger over her lips, to gently silence her. “I get the point, child. So, you are the Princess’s playmate then?”
She nodded in earnest. “Rachel.”
His grin got bigger. “That’s a pretty name. Glad to meet you, Rachel. I’m sorry I frightened you. I was only coming to check on the Queen’s box.”
No one had ever told her that her name was pretty. But he had shut the big door. “You’re not going to strike me dead? Or change me into something horrid?”
“Oh, dear, no,” he laughed. He turned his head, peering at her with one eye. “Why are there red marks on your cheeks?”
She didn’t answer, too scared to say. Slowly, carefully, he reached out, his fingers touching one cheek, then the other. Her eyes opened wide. The sting was gone.
“Better?”
She nodded. His eyes seemed so big, the way they looked at her up close like this. They made her feel like telling him, so she did. “The Princess hits me,” she admitted, ashamed.
“So? She is not so kind to you, then?”
She shook her head, casting her gaze downward. Then the wizard did something that absolutely stunned her. He reached around and gave her a gentle hug. She stood stiffly for a moment, then put her arms around his neck, hugging him
back. His long white whiskers tickled the side of her face and neck, but she still liked it.
He looked at her with sad eyes. “I’m sorry, dear child. The Princess and the Queen can be quite cruel.”
His voice sounded so nice, she thought, like Brophy’s. A big grin spread beneath his hook nose.
“Tell you what, I have something here that might help.” A thin hand reached into his robes, and he looked up into the air while his hand felt around. Then his hand found what it was looking for. Her eyes went wide as he pulled out a doll with short hair the same yellow color as hers. He patted the doll’s tummy. “This is a trouble doll.”
“Trouble doll?” she whispered.
“Yes.” He nodded. There were deep wrinkles at the ends of his smile. “When you have troubles, you tell them to the doll, and she takes them away for you. She has magic. Here. Try it out.”
Rachel could hardly take a breath as she reached out with both hands, her fingers carefully clutching the doll. She pulled it to her chest cautiously and hugged it. Then, tentatively, slowly, she held it out, looking at its face. Her eyes got all watery.
“Princess Violet says I’m ugly,” she confided in the doll.
The face on the doll smiled. Rachel’s mouth dropped open.
“I love you, Rachel,” it said in a tiny little voice.
Rachel gasped in surprise, she giggled in glee, she hugged the doll to her as tight as she could. She laughed and laughed, swinging her body back and forth as she hugged the doll to her chest.
Then, she remembered. She pushed the doll back at the wizard, turning her face away.
“I’m not allowed to have a doll. The Princess said so. She would throw it in the fire, that’s what she said. If I had a doll, she would throw it in the fire.” She could hardly speak, because of the lump in her throat.
“Well, let me think,” the wizard said, rubbing his chin. “Where do you sleep?”
“Most of the time, I sleep in the Princess’s bedroom. She locks me in the box at night. I think that’s mean. Sometimes, when she says I’ve been bad, she makes me leave the castle for the night, so I have to sleep outside. She thinks that’s even meaner, but I really like it, because I have a secret place, in a wayward pine, where I sleep.
“Wayward pines don’t have locks on them, you know. I can go potty whenever I have to. It’s pretty cold sometimes, but I got a pile of straw, and I climb under it to keep warm. I have to come back in the morning, before she sends the guards to look for me, so they won’t find my secret place. I don’t want them to find it. They would tell the Princess and she wouldn’t send me out anymore.”
The wizard tenderly cupped his hands around her face. It made her feel special. “Dear child,” he whispered, “that I could have been a party to this.” His eyes were wet. Rachel didn’t know wizards could get tears. Then his big grin came back, and he held up a finger. “I have an idea. You know the gardens, the formal gardens?”
Rachel nodded. “I go through them to go to my secret place, when I’m put out at night. The Princess makes me go through the outer wall at the garden gate. She doesn’t want me to go out the front, past the shops and people. She’s afraid someone might take me in for the night. She told me I mustn’t go to the town or the farmland. I must go to the woods, as punishment.”
“Well, as you walk down the central path of the garden, there are short urns, on both sides, with yellow flowers in them.” Rachel nodded. She knew where they were. “I will hide your doll in the third urn on the right. I will put a wizard’s web over it—that’s magic—so no one but you will find it.” He took the doll and carefully tucked it away back in his robes as her eyes followed it. “The next time you are put out for the night, you go there and you will find your doll. Then you can keep it at your place, your wayward pine, where no one will find it, or take it from you.
“And I will also leave you a magic fire stick. Just build a little stack of sticks, not too big now, with stones around it, and then hold the magic fire stick to it and say ‘Light for me,’ and it will burn, so you can keep warm.”
Rachel threw her arms around him, hugging and hugging him as he patted her back. “Thank you, wizard Giller.”
“You may call me Giller when we are alone, child, just Giller, that is what all my good friends call me.”
“Thank you so much for my doll, Giller. No one ever gave me anything so nice before. I’ll take the bestest care of her. I have to go now. I’m to scold the cooks for the Princess. Then I have to sit and watch her eat.” She grinned. “Then I have to think of something bad to do so the Princess will put me out tonight.”
The wizard laughed a deep laugh as his eyes sparkled. He mussed her hair with his big hand. Giller helped her with the heavy door and locked it for her, then handed the key back to her.
“I so hope we can talk again sometime,” she said, looking up at him.
He smiled at her. “We will, Rachel, we will. I’m sure of it.”
Waving back at him, she ran off down the long, empty hall, happier than she had been since she first came to live at the castle. It was a long way, through the castle, down to the kitchen, down stone stairs and halls with rugs on the floors and paintings on the walls, through big rooms with tall windows hung with gold and red drapery, and chairs of red velvet with gold legs, long carpets with pictures on them of men fighting on horseback, past guards who stood still as stone at some of the big fancy doors or marched in twos, and by servants who rushed everywhere carrying linens, trays, or brooms and rags and buckets of soapy water.
None of the guards or servants gave her a second look, even though she was running. They knew she was Princess Violet’s playmate, and had seen her running through the castle many times before on errands for the Princess.
She was winded when she finally reached the kitchens, which were steamy and smoky and filled with noise. Helpers were scurrying around carrying heavy sacks, big pots, or hot trays, all trying not to bump into one another. People chopped things she couldn’t see on the high tables and huge chopping blocks. Pans clanged, cooks yelled orders, helpers took pans and metal bowls off hooks overhead and put others back. There was a constant rapping of spoons mixing and whipping food,
the sharp hiss of oil and garlic and butter and onions and spices in hot pans, and everyone seemed to be yelling at the same time. This chaotic place smelled so good it made her head spin.
She tugged on the sleeve of one of the two head cooks, trying to tell him she had a message from the Princess, but he was arguing with another cook and told her to go sit and wait until they were finished. She sat down nearby, on a little stool by the ovens, her back pressed against the hot brick. The kitchen smelled so good, and she was so hungry. But she knew she would get in trouble if she asked for food.
The head cooks were standing over a big crock, waving their arms around, yelling at each other. Suddenly, the crock fell to the floor with a big thunk, splitting in two, sending light brown liquid flooding all over. Rachel jumped up on the stool so it wouldn’t get on her bare feet. The cooks stood still, their faces almost as white as their coats.
“What’re we going to do now?” the short one asked. “We don’t have any more of the ingredients Father Rahl sent.”
“Wait a minute,” the tall one said, holding his hand to his forehead. “Let me think.”
He put both hands to his face, squishing it together. Then he put both arms in the air.
“All right. All right. I’ve got an idea. Get me another crock, and just keep your mouth shut. Maybe we can keep our heads. Get me some other ingredients.”
“What ingredients!” the short one yelled, red-faced.
The tall cook leaned over him. “Brown ingredients!”
Rachel watched while they ran around snatching up things, pouring in bottles of liquid, adding ingredients, stirring, tasting. At last they both smiled.
“All right, all right, it’ll work. I think. Just let me do the talking,” the tall one said.
Rachel stepped tiptoed across the wet floor and tugged on his sleeve again.
“You! You still here? What do you want?” he snapped.
“Princess Violet said not to make her roast dry again, or she would have the Queen make those men beat you.” She looked down at the ground. “She made me say that.”
He looked down at her a minute, then turned to the short cook, shaking his finger. “I told you! I told you! This time, slice hers from the center, and don’t mix up the plates or we’ll both end up losing our heads!” He looked back down at her. “And you didn’t see any of this,” he said, stirring his finger around in the air over the crock.
“Cooking? You don’t want me to tell anyone I saw you cooking? All right,” she said, a little confused, and started tiptoeing across the wet floor again. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I don’t like to see people getting hurt by those men with the whips. I won’t tell.”
“Wait a minute,” he called after her. “Rachel, isn’t it?”
She turned and nodded.
“Come back here.”
She didn’t want to, but she tiptoed back anyway. He took out a big knife that
scared her at first, then turned to a platter on the table behind him and cut off a big, juicy piece of meat. She had never seen such a piece of meat, without fat and gristle all over it, at least not up close. It was a piece of meat like the Queen and the Princess ate. He handed it down to her, put it right into her hand.
“Sorry I yelled at you, Rachel. You sit on that stool over there and eat this, and then let us be sure you’re cleaned up, so no one will be the wiser. All right?”
She nodded and ran off to the stool with her prize, forgetting to tiptoe. It was the best, most delicious thing she had ever eaten. She tried to eat it slowly while she watched all the people running around, clanging pots and carrying things, but she couldn’t. Juice ran down her arms and dripped off her elbows.
When she was finished, the short cook came and wiped her hands and arms and face with a towel, then he gave her a slice of lemon pie, placing it right in her hands the way the tall cook had done with the meat. He said he baked it himself and he wanted to know if it was good. She told him, quite truthfully, that it was just about the bestest thing she had ever had. He grinned.
This had been just about the best day she could ever remember. Two good things in the same day: the trouble doll, and now the food. She felt like a queen herself.
Later, as she sat in the big dining room on her little chair behind the Princess, it was the first time, ever, that she hadn’t been so hungry that her stomach made noises while the important people ate. The head table, where they sat, was three steps higher than all the other tables, so if she sat up straight she could see the whole room even from her little chair. Servers were dashing all about, bringing in food, taking out dishes with food still left on them, pouring wine, and exchanging half-full trays on the tables with full ones from the kitchen.
She watched all the fine ladies and gentlemen dressed in pretty dresses and colorful braided coats, sitting at the long tables, eating from the fancy plates, and for the first time she knew how the food tasted. She still didn’t understand, though, why they needed so many forks and spoons to eat with. One time when she had asked the Princess why there were so many forks and spoons and things, the Princess had said it was something a nobody like her would never need to know.
Mostly Rachel was ignored at the banquets. The Princess only turned to look at her once in a while; she was just there because she was Princess Violet’s playmate, for looks, she guessed. The Queen had people standing or sitting behind her when she ate, too. The Queen said Rachel was for the Princess to practice on, to practice leadership.
She leaned forward and whispered, “Is your roast juicy enough, Princess Violet? I told the cooks it was mean to give you bad meat, and you said not to do it again.”
Princess Violet looked back over her shoulder, gravy dripping from her chin. “It’s good enough to keep them from getting whipped. And you’re right, they shouldn’t be so mean to me. It’s about time they learned.”
Queen Milena sat at the table, as she always did, with her tiny little dog held in one arm. It kept pushing its skinny little stick legs against her fat arm as it shook, making little dents with its feet. The Queen fed it scraps of meat that were better than any Rachel had ever been fed. Before today, that is, she thought with a smile.
Rachel didn’t like the little dog. It barked a lot, and sometimes when the Queen set it on the floor, it would run over to her and bite her legs with its tiny sharp teeth,
and she didn’t dare to say anything. When the dog bit her, the Queen always told it to be careful, not to hurt itself. She always used a funny, high, sweet voice when she talked to the dog.