Goldmayne_A Fairy Tale by Kate Stradling

Author:Kate Stradling [Stradling, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Duncan surged forward in desperation. “You have to tell me the story! Dame Groach was once a fairy? She wants revenge against your family?”

Princess Alberta recoiled. “What do you know of Dame Groach?”

He pulled at his hair. “Where do you think I got this? She wants my head on a platter—she’s been sending treasure-hunters into Meridiana for the last two years trying to catch me!”

“Well she certainly can’t come herself,” said Alberta. “Not until the end of the summer, at least.”

Duncan’s heart seized up in his chest and his face went ashen. “What do you mean?”

“She was banned from Meridiana for a hundred years, so the stories say, but the time is up in another two months, maybe less.”

He was almost beside himself. “Tell me, please!”

Her sharp eyes bore into him like knives. “I suppose,” she said reluctantly, “that there’s no harm in telling the tale. Since your horse refuses to get out of the way, I might as well amuse myself by relaying a bit of family history. My grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather was a fool,” she began caustically, “a very handsome fool, but a fool nonetheless.”

Duncan thought this was a harsh way to describe a relative she couldn’t possibly have known in person, but he held his peace to hear her tale.

“In his youth, he had a fascination with all things magical: fairies, witches, shape-shifters, and whatever other creatures he heard of. Somehow, he encountered a fairy—probably was out looking for one—and he decided to give it a name. You know why you can’t name a fairy, right, Goldilocks?”

He scowled at her, annoyed by that nickname. “It creates some sort of charm, they told me,” he said.

“It gives the fairy a human form and human feelings. It makes them go crazy, especially if things don’t go the way they want. Most of them become the wicked witches of fairy tales you’ve no doubt heard. Dame Groach was no different—she let my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather name her, expecting that he would marry her and let her live like a human. Instead, he toyed with her like a plaything, and then married a girl he found washed up on the seashore. She had been a mermaid who fell in love with him at first sight and bargained with a witch to become human. He decided he preferred her looks to Dame Groach’s and married her without hesitation.

“Thus scorned, Dame Groach swore she would have her revenge upon him and his posterity until they dwindled into nothing. She turned his only son into a hideous beast cursed to live alone unless someone could love him. Amazingly, my grandfather’s grandfather’s mother came along and broke the spell. Their son, my grandfather’s grandfather, fell right into Dame Groach’s hands, though. Somehow she acquired a little girl that she kept locked in a tower. She charmed the girl’s hair to grow long—”

“I’ve heard that story,” Duncan interrupted in wonder. He thought he’d probably seen the tower as well, tucked away in the very back of Dame Groach’s gardens.

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