#chuckwendig

Princess Ella stepped out of the carriage and took a long, deep breath. This was not going to be easy.

“Shall I wait here, Your Highness?” the driver asked.

“Yes,” the woman answered. “I shan’t be long.”

Did she have everything? The basket of food and blankets? Yes, she had picked it up.

A servant, an elderly woman, answered the knock. Even though it was small house, and Constanza was no longer a wealthy young girl, she would always have one servant, even if she had to starve to pay the salary.

“Wait here. Lady Costanza is in the garden and will come in shortly.” The servant gazed for a few moments at Ella, a curious look on her face, then dismissed the look and went out of the room.

A cracked mirror hung on the wall and Ella faced it. Still beautiful, she thought, with the same blue eyes, just ten years older, probably not much wiser. She adjusted the veil and made sure the pins were holding tight. Sometimes a heavy breeze would push it out of place.

The servant returned.

“Lady Costanza would like to know if you will join her for tea,” the old woman said.

In the back of the small house, a door shut and she could hear irregular shuffling on the slate floor.

Ella nodded. “I brought some things.” She held out the basket.

 **

“Well, look who it is,” Lady Costanza called out from the back porch. She was standing with the help of her crutch. Costanza, ten years after Ella’s wedding. She looked so much older now.

“Hello, sister,” Ella said. “I thought you might appreciate a visit, and I’ve brought you pastries and cured meats.”

“Humph,” said Costanza. “It’s been 10 years, but I suppose better late than never. We’ll have your gift with the tea. Good thing too, as my larder is bare this week.”

**

It was an awkward picture, the two sisters sitting together in the small house, the tea things arranged and some humble sandwiches.

“How is Prudence?” Ella inquired.

“Our sister has been dead these last 4 years,” Costanza replied. “The pies are very good. My compliments to the royal chef.”

There was a silence in the room thick as pea soup.

Ella sipped her tea, looked at her older sister. Her hair had turned completely gray, her skin was leathery from decades working in the sun, her clothes neat and mended but plain. And the stump, yes, there was that. The eyes that were once so cruel seemed not so cruel, but sadder, and still angry. And why not, with such a betrayal?

“Your voice sounds different,” Costanza observed.

Ella nodded, then gracefully lifted up the veil slightly to sip tea.

“You don’t need that veil here,” the older sister said. “Is that something His Highness commanded of you?”

Ella shook her head, cast her eyes down. “I wear this veil of my own volition.”

**

Costanza took her sister out to the garden and showed her Prudence’s burial place. A tree was growing out of the grave. The garden was lush and full and well-tended and fragrant. It seemed that the beauty not given to the two sisters expressed itself in the plants.

“Prudence did not love him like I did,” Costanza said. “She just wanted his money, and comfort, and a name.”

Ella nodded. “I am sorry things turned out this way.”

Costanza faced the beautiful woman, her sister, her betrayer. “You have wealth and a pretty palace and children to make you feel better, I suppose.”

Ella looked up, the veil shifting lightly in the breeze. “I have everything, yes,” she whispered. Her eyes, seen above the veil, were red and full.

“You have given so much,” Ella said.

Costanza laughed. “Foolish girl I was,” Costanza said. “Actually believing the Prince would do what he promised. All I had to do was cut off a few toes, so the shoe would fit. He would take me as his wife and we would live happily ever after. But he didn’t care about promises. He dropped everything because you were more beautiful. What a fool I was!”

“It was all my fault,” Ella said. “You are lame because of me.” She dropped her pretty head. The veil wafted in the breeze.

Ella looked up at her sister. “I betrayed you both. Now you are lame, and Prudence is dead. Well – I am here to give you your revenge.”

Costanza watched as Ella’s small hands picked up the veil and revealed her face. Costanza’s eyes widened and she took a step back as she stared at Ella’s face: her nose was partially gone, revealing a skull-like grimace.

“Yes,” Ella said. “He fooled us all. You sacrificed your foot for him – behold what I have sacrificed! He quickly grew bored with me – and now I bear the foul disease he picked up from his whoring! Cursed I am, cursed forever, I shall live another few years like this, and then I will go mad and die!”

Costanza, stunned, took her sister in her arms. “We are all cursed because of that man,” she said. “My sister, you have been punished for your betrayal, but I see now it is not your fault. Come, sit with me and let us put together a plan for true revenge!”

As I’ve said in my other reviews, I try to find a common thread in them. I want to connect to the stories personally. Sometimes, I can do that easily; sometimes, I can’t. Chuck Wending is a favorite author. Wanderer’s is a book that my wife and I devoured in a week for me and a few weeks for her. It got us through lockdown in 2020 and everything that year threw at us. It’s a big book about a…