Ballad of the Beanstalk by Amy McNulty

Author:Amy McNulty [McNulty, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: k'12
Publisher: Patchwork Press
Published: 2017-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

“This is going to be impossible.” Wilkin’s mother held the cut of silk she’d received from the queen earlier in the day. “I don’t know why, if she was to be a gift, Jacosa didn’t outfit her in something nicer.”

And this is actually one of Elena’s outfits. Considering the worn condition of her fine dress, Clarion lowered her arms as Wilkin’s mother sat down on the stool. The woman had grabbed her like a doll and set her on Wilkin’s workbench, going on and on about how the king had asked her to make Clarion a nice dress for the ball that evening after work. Which left her only a matter of hours in which to make it.

Wilkin leaned in to pick up the finished harp so his mother didn’t ruin his entire week’s worth of work. He raised his eyebrows at Clarion, who shrugged and sat down as his mother took a sharp tool to the fabric.

“It’ll be crude,” said his mother, tracing the outline of a dress. “It might be best if you wear it over that sole piece of fabric you thought to bring with you.”

Clarion nodded but didn’t say anything. Despite all her bravado as of late, she could never bring herself to talk around Wilkin’s mother. She felt so inconsequential around her. So inhuman. Like how her own mother viewed the pigs.

“I’d make you make it,” she grunted before settling into silence for some time, “but we haven’t needle and thread small enough.”

Clarion was thankful for that, as she had no idea how to make a dress. Behind his mother, Wilkin gestured toward Clarion’s little bed and changing corner of the table and Clarion made her way there. Wilkin placed a thimble of sudsy water and a small piece of sponge behind her towel curtain. “You should wash up for the ball.”

Wilkin’s mother paused in her work, a needle held high above her head, to glare at her son. “What are you so concerned about her washing up for?”

“I just thought—”

“You thought like your father would.” She sniffed and went back to her sewing. “Maybe if I’d agreed you should be married off, your thoughts would stray further from the gutter more often. Nothing like marriage to cure one of all those kinds of ideas, let me tell you.”

Clarion cocked her head a moment but figured it was none of her business. She stepped behind the curtain and wrung the excess water from the sponge.

Wilkin’s mother stopped in her work again. “Give the plaything its privacy, boy. Go deliver that harp. The king’s been asking to see it.”

“I thought I’d bring it with Clarion tonight—”

“Clarion?” The tone of the giant woman’s voice made Clarion flinch. “What have I told you about getting ideas and talking to these little people?” Clarion’s heart thumped at ‘little people.’ Had they seen more than just her and Jacosa then? “You’ll call her whatever the king decides to call her, and you won’t even see her after today, except when the king feels fit to bring her out for his amusement.

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