Ash & Bramble Read online

  “All right,” I say. I’m not going to hurry for Stepmama, so I turn and take one last look at my mother’s picture before following the footman along the gallery and down the stairs to the blue drawing room.

  As I enter the room, my stepmother turns from the mantel, her face flushed and peevish. “Penelope, where have you been?” she chides.

  “Looking for something,” I say absently. Sitting in a brocade chair next to the hearth is a woman who, I guess, is Stepmama’s friend.

  Lady Faye gives me a careful, assessing look, from the tips of my scuffed shoes to my tousled hair.

  I study her just as carefully. Stepmama is all bluster and impatience. Somehow I am sure that Lady Faye is something else altogether. She is wearing an ice-blue velvet morning dress that is shaped perfectly to her form; priceless lace as fine as cobwebs edges the low-cut bodice and cuffs and foams in three flounces at the edge of her skirt. Though she is white-blonde and has silver-blue eyes, something about the sharpness of her features reminds me of the portrait of my mother.

  “Hello,” I say, testing.

  At the hearth, my stepmama blows out an exasperated breath. “Do you see, Lady Faye, what I must put up with?” she huffs. “A graceless hoyden! No address, no elegance.” She glares at me and hisses, “Curtsy to Lady Faye, Penelope, and mind your manners.”

  I ignore her.

  Lady Faye raises one perfect eyebrow. She has grace to spare, I can see. “Good afternoon, Lady Penelope,” she says in a low, musical voice with just the faintest edge to it. “I am so pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  If I were polite and elegant, I would say the same thing back to her, but since I am a hoyden, I nod and say, “I’m not looking for a husband.”

  Lady Faye cocks her head. “No?” She beckons to me, and I step closer, my feet sinking into the deep carpet. “Every girl wants a husband, Penelope,” she says softly, only to me. “A strong, brave man to love and cherish her and protect her from the outside world, to be a father to her children, to instruct her and counsel her and allow her to be the sweet and lovely adornment of his home.”

  I am about as far from sweet and lovely as any girl could be. And the very thought of a marriage like that makes me shudder.

  “I want the best for my girls,” Lady Faye goes on. “I want them to be happy, forever. If I choose to sponsor you, Penelope, you too will enjoy blissful happiness.” She looks me up and down, and when she speaks it’s louder, so my stepmother can hear. “But you will never attract a man dressed as you are, with such crude manners. You must seek to transform yourself.”

  “Exactly,” Stepmama interrupts. “She will not behave in a ladylike manner, and she refuses to change that shabby dress for something more appropriate to a young miss.”

  “Mm, it is a very ugly dress,” Lady Faye notes. “Though it suits her well enough.” Then she turns to talk further with Stepmama, and I stand there stupidly, like a piece of furniture, realizing that Lady Faye has just given me a carefully phrased insult.

  “Do you think there is anything to be done with her?” Stepmama asks.

  “Oh, she will be drawn in, despite her intransigence,” Lady Faye replies. “It is simply a matter of getting the wheels turning. Can I count on you to play the role we discussed earlier?”

  My stepmother draws herself up as if she’s about to sail into a sea battle. “Yes, indeed, Lady Faye. I know just what to do.” She turns to me and raps out an order. “Go to your room at once, Penelope, and await me there.”

  With a shrug, I go.

  IN MY ROOM I sit at my desk and look over the pages of writing. Maybe I got the calluses on my fingertips from holding a pen. I am beginning to think that my stepmother was lying when she said I haven’t been ill, because what else could explain the strange holes where my memories should be? Perhaps I had a knock on the head?

  A bustle at the door, and Stepmama barges into the room.

  Ah. Battle is engaged.

  “You have been living in this house at my sufferance, Penelope,” she begins. “You are an ungrateful girl, and far more trouble than you are worth, and you owe me much; more than you could ever repay. Your rudeness to Lady Faye forced me to this, you know.”

  I stand. “What are you talking about, Stepmama?”

  She stabs a finger at me. “Your father was a duke, but he had nothing—he was hardly a proper man at all, to be sure—and he left you nothing. Despite your proud ways, and your Lady this and Lady that, you are a pauper. You cannot depend on me to support you. From now on, you must earn your keep.”

  I reach into my skirt pocket for my thimble and feel a little faint when I remember that it’s still missing. “Are you turning me out into the street?”

  “Believe me, I have considered it. Your mother knew the streets well enough, or so I’ve heard.”

  I seize on her words. “My mother? Did you know her before she died?”

  For just a moment, Stepmama falters, as if searching her memory for something that isn’t there.

  “Her picture is here,” I persist. “Upstairs, in the long portrait gallery. Have you seen it?”

  Stepmama stares blankly at me for a long moment, and then I see it—the memory slots into place behind her eyes. “Her portrait. Yes, of course,” she says, and then recovers her bluster. “But that is not to the point, Penelope. Lady Faye has convinced me to let you stay, if only to repay what you owe me. You’ve never done a stitch of work in your life, but you will learn—oh yes, you’ll learn.” She looks around the room. “I have long needed a second dressing room at this end of the east wing of the house. You may leave your things here. Go down to the kitchen, and one of the servants will tell you about your new duties.”

  I think about arguing, insisting that the house is mine, not hers, but I don’t have money or influence or lawyers. My stepmama is an implacable force, and for now I must bow to necessity.

  CHAPTER

  10

  “THERE IT IS,” THE HUNTSMAN SAYS TO SHOE AS THEY reach the crest of a hill. “The Godmother’s city.” After yet another day of walking, Shoe is stumbling with weariness, but he is stubborn about following the pull of Pin’s thimble. Having left the forest trails at midday, Shoe and the Huntsman and the horse and the two tired trackers are on a wide dusty road; in the distance are mountains, their snowcapped peaks turning pink with the setting sun. In a valley below the mountains, the late-afternoon light flows like honey over the city.

  To Shoe’s surprise, it is beautiful. At the top of the valley stands a graceful castle, its white towers tall and ephemeral in the golden light. Its central tower is the tallest; high in that tower is set a huge round clock that looks to Shoe like a giant, stern face watching over the valley. The streets around the castle are wide and lined with trees, interrupted here and there by green parkland edged with grand mansions built of pink-tinged stone. A gleaming silver river snakes through the middle of the city, ending at a high waterfall. There the river drops in lacy swags straight down to a long lake that is already in shadow.

  “I expected something more like the fortress,” Shoe says.

  “Aye, well.” The Huntsman shakes his head.

  Shoe looks questioningly up at him.

  The Huntsman shrugs his broad shoulders. “It’s more like her fortress than it looks, lad.”

  Shoe studies the city again. In his hand, the thimble gives a tug. Pin is in there, somewhere.

  As they go down the road, the sun dips behind the mountains, twilight falls, and the lights in the city begin to come on.

  “You’d better take your pack,” the Huntsman says as they reach the valley floor. The city, all dark shadows and gleaming points of light, looms before them. Shoe hears, faintly, the sound of the giant clock striking the hour. The road leads straight to a gate in a high wall that surrounds the whole city. From up on the mountainside, Shoe hadn’t noticed the wall, but here it is. Covered with brambles. He takes the pack from the Huntsman and slings it over his shoulder.

&nb
sp; Two guards dressed in neat blue uniforms stand on either side of the gate; their pikes gleam bronze in the flickery light of torches in sconces.

  The Huntsman gives them a competent nod, which they return, permission to enter.

  Shoe stumbles past them with his head down; the trackers slink after the Huntsman’s horse. In the shadow of the gate, Shoe pauses. There’s something . . . the faintest sound, at the edge of hearing. A suggestion of well-oiled, whirring gears. The air tingles just a bit, as if he’s passing through the thinnest icy curtain. Taking a deep breath, he steps through the gate and into the Godmother’s city.

  The street, paved here with cobblestones, winds up the valley. Buildings crowd its edges; graceful bridges span the river. Ahead, the castle looms. Fires burn blue at the top of its high towers. The clock on the highest tower seems alert, watching.

  “Where are all the people?” Shoe asks, noticing that the streets are empty; all the doors and windows are tightly closed. At every doorway is a lighted lantern.

  “Curfew after the clock strikes eight,” the Huntsman says. “In most of the city, at least. It’s all under strict control, lad.”

  The Godmother’s control, Shoe guesses. She must have enormous power. The cobblestones under his feet are lined up with exact precision and are scrupulously clean, not a pothole or puddle or pile of horse manure to be seen. It even smells clean, like bleach and soap instead of woodsmoke and drains and dinners cooking. The houses that line the street, too, are whitewashed, and each one has a neat square of garden below its windows. Gardens full of flowers. Blue, Shoe guesses, and no weeds.

  The main road goes over a bridge, then continues its winding way toward the castle.

  As they reach a corner, the Huntsman pulls his horse to a stop. He nods at a dark alleyway. “She’ll be looking for a runaway shoemaker,” he says. “You’ll want to keep your head down and stay to the lower city, which she doesn’t watch as carefully.”

  Shoe looks up at him. “So you really are letting me go?”

  “You’re the one who chose to come here, lad,” the Huntsman says.

  True enough. “Will you get into trouble, not turning me over to the Godmother as you were ordered?”

  The Huntsman shrugs his broad shoulders. “I’ve been spying for my friends in the forest, as you can likely guess. I’ll go to them now, and I’ll be safe enough. You, though—be careful when you start looking for your girl. She won’t be in a prison or anything simple like that. She’s too important.”

  Important because she’d tried to escape? Or for some other reason? “What does the Godmother want Pin for?” he asks. The Huntsman is right—it has to be more than a simple punishment. A whipping, or prison, or impalement on a wall of thorns would be so much easier for the Godmother to carry out than bringing Pin here.

  The Huntsman shrugs. “I don’t know.” He leans closer and lowers his voice. “You won’t have much time. If both of you come into the forest, we’ll find you if we can.”

  Shoe nods.

  The Huntsman reaches a hand toward Shoe. “Good luck to you, Shoemaker.”

  “Just Shoe,” Shoe says. He reaches up, and the Huntsman gives his hand a firm shake. “Good luck to you, too.” And he ducks into the alleyway.

  THE FIRST NIGHT, it’s all he can do to stagger to the darkest alley off the most twisted street, where he finds a doorway to curl up in. He falls into a deep sleep as soon as he’s settled.

  When he wakes up in the cold light of morning, with the echoes of the striking clock lingering in his ears, small hands are trying to tug his backpack out from under his head. Somebody else is unlacing his boots. “Go ’way,” he mumbles, and sits up, as two ragged children skitter down the alley, jeering as they go.

  Shivering, he creaks to his feet, stomach growling. Stupid to forget that even perfect cities like this have thieves in them, assuming he ever knew it. With a lurch, he remembers Pin’s thimble. But it’s still there, clutched in his hand, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

  Before he does anything else, he needs something to eat. He crouches on the step and reties his bootlaces, then goes through the backpack. During his travels with the Huntsman, he shared all of the cheese with the sad-eyed trackers, and all of the gingerbread too, even though he’d wanted to save a bit of it for Pin. Sadly the pack is empty of food, but instead he finds a small pot with a cork stopper in it. Pulling out the cork, he smells something sharp and green—it’s the salve that the Huntsman was putting on the trackers’ backs to soothe their whip welts. He can use it on his own memories from the Godmother’s fortress. “Thanks,” he whispers, and hopes that the Huntsman won’t meet his own punishment at the Godmother’s hands for letting him go. Digging further in the backpack, he finds the bag of gold coins Pin had put there. He’ll be able to buy something to eat. He puts the thimble in his coat pocket and heads out.

  The streets of the much smaller lower city, where he spent the night, are dark and narrow and twisted and smell very strongly of inadequate drains. It’s not under control, and the city guards in their blue uniforms stay away from it. The lower city is for the street sweepers and shovelers of night soil and the thieves and beggars and brothel-keepers. It’s as if the Godmother’s city needs these dregs and drabs of humanity, but it sets them aside because it doesn’t want them dirtying up the place.

  When he ventures onto the pristine streets of the upper city, the first thing he notices is that the castle tower marks the hours with absolute rigidity. At seven the shops open; at twelve they close for an hour. At eight, the bells will send everyone scurrying indoors to lock their houses up tight. The people he passes are well dressed and seem to have their heads cocked as if listening for the bells that regulate their day. They are all wearing varying shades of blue; they all smile stiffly and nod politely to one another as they pass. It’s all too regimented. Too perfect. It makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

  In his ragged, dirty clothes, he’s a bit too noticeable, and a couple of blue-coated guards eye him, fingering their pikes as if they’d like to run him through.

  After fleeing back into the lower city, Shoe steps into a shabby shop where a baker has just placed a tray of piping hot rolls in the window. “Could I have three of those?” he asks, and takes the clinking purse out of the backpack.

  “Aye, to be sure,” the baker says, and bends to reach for the rolls.

  “Have you always lived here?” Shoe asks her.

  The woman straightens. “I don’t know what you mean,” she says blankly.

  And oh, Shoe knows that blank look—it’s the look of a fortress slave who’s been ripped out of her old life and given a role in whatever elaborate plan the Godmother has for this place. Are all the people in this city like that? “Never mind,” he tells her. “How much for the rolls?”

  “Three coppers,” she says, and holds out her hand for Shoe’s money. The coin he pulls out of the bag is heavy gold, as thick as his pinkie finger, and a little smaller than his palm. The baker’s cheeks go pale. She stares at Shoe, looks him up and down, evidently taking in his ragged clothing, his thin, hungry face. “You must have stolen that,” she whispers.

  “No, I didn’t steal it,” Shoe says. “Well, not exactly.” Pin had taken it from the Godmother’s fortress.

  The baker wrings her hands and backs away from the counter. “Go.” She shoos him. “Take it out of here.”

  “But it’s money,” Shoe protests. He doesn’t remember having money before, but he knows how this is supposed to work. “I give it to you, and you give me three hot rolls for it.”

  The baker leans forward. “You could buy every house on this street with that golden wagon wheel you’ve got there. You must have stolen it. It’s dangerous. Put it away and get out of here, you thief.”

  “I’m not a thief,” Shoe insists. Nervously he puts the coins away and leaves, hearing the baker slam and lock the door behind him.

  The thimble tugs toward the upper city. Even though he doesn’t hav
e much time to find Pin and help her escape, he can’t risk showing up like a blot on those perfect streets again. He needs a base, a place to start, some sort of work so he can earn money for food. A plan is starting to take shape in his mind, something he thought about during the long trudge from the ashy mountainside to the city. Pin was so sure that whatever she would find beyond the fortress walls was a way out—the Before, maybe even her real life—but he knows for certain now that it is not. There’s something wrong with this city, something that begins with the Godmother, or whatever she calls herself here. And he knows he must act, quickly.

  The streets closest to the river are where the merchants do their business, so he starts looking for work there, but is scorned and turned away. After a long morning of wandering, he makes his way to the street of shoemakers. At one end, the street abuts the upper city, and that’s where the fine ladies and gentlemen of the grand mansions shop for their shoes. At the lower end, the cobblers and shoemakers make rough shoes for the servants and poorer classes.

  Shoe starts at a shop halfway down the street. He can’t sell his services as a shoemaker—that would risk drawing the Godmother’s attention—but he might work as a servant. The first shoemaker he asks for work sneers and slams the shop door in his face. The second calls for her two burly sons, who chase Shoe out of the shop, scowling as he dodges their fists. The third looks shifty-eyed and points farther along the street. “You might try old Natters, down the end. Now, get along with you.”

  His stomach now hollow and echoing in new and interesting ways, Shoe trudges to the shoemaker’s shop at the end of the street. It is a narrow building of three stories squeezed between other buildings. Compared to the pristine houses in the upper city, this house is almost aggressively dilapidated. On the ground floor there is a row of grime-coated windows made of tiny, thick panes of glass. Above it hangs a sign with the outline of a faded red shoe on it. The door is warped and covered with cracked brown paint; it groans, scraping across the floor as Shoe pushes it open and goes inside.