“Don’t stand there dawdling, child. Are you waiting for the cow to come calling on you? Get the bucket and go.”

Apparently I needed to milk a cow. It would have been helpful to know certain things, like how to milk a cow 74/431

and where the bucket was. You’d think that Chrissy might have helped me out with a few of those details before she sent me off to the Middle Ages. But no.

“Um, there’s been a mistake,” I said. “I’m not really supposed to be here doing this—”

“I know, I know. ’Twas your father’s mistake in marrying that she-wolf, but there’s no time now for regretting what the dead have done. If our lady doesn’t have milk with her breakfast we’ll both see her fangs.” Okay, so probably this was the right fairy tale since my father had married a wicked stepmother—oh wait, Snow White also had a wicked stepmother and so did Hansel and Gretel. Come to think of it, fairy tales just brimmed with the wreckage of men who’d chosen the wrong women. Which went to show you that men hadn’t changed over the centuries. Hunter. Humph.

Still, I needed to know what I was up against. When I met this stepmother was she going to work me to the bone or try to kill me?

I noticed a bucket hanging on a peg by a door and walked over to it. “Um . . . would you mind answering a couple questions for me? Do I happen to have a brother named Hansel?”

The woman looked at me blankly. Her bushy eyebrows knit together.

75/431

Which probably meant no. I took the bucket from the peg. “Or does anyone—particularly any enchanted mirrors— consider me to be the fairest in the land?” Now she laughed. I caught sight of several blackened teeth. “What a notion, Ella. You, the fairest of the land.

Yes, in between the suds and the cinders the bards line up to sing your praises. Off with you, and don’t come back for your breakfast until the swine and the chickens are fed.”

So I was in the right fairy tale, but none of the versions I’d read mentioned any other servants. How long was I going to be here before Chrissy checked on me? I mean, sooner or later she was going to have to come back and grant me my other two wishes. I walked outside, shivering as I left the warmth of the kitchen. I didn’t have any shoes and the way to the barn was littered with animal droppings. I dodged around those like a dancer doing some odd hopping routine.

The cook may have thought I looked like Cinderella, but the cow clearly knew I was a stranger. Every time I set the stool and the bucket down beside her, she decided to take three steps forward. I would move the stool and bucket over, sit down, and she’d walk off again. For fifteen minutes I scooted around the barn in a slow cow chase.

76/431

An old man with a matted gray beard came into the barn carrying a bundle of hay. I didn’t see him at first because I was busy giving a lecture to the cow on ham-burger. He watched me for a moment then took a rope from the wall, looped it around the cow’s neck and attached it to a peg on the wall. “You feeling all right today, Ella?” he asked me.

“Not really, well, you see . . .” Any excuse I could come up with—and actually I couldn’t come up with any—would be a lie. I’d told Chrissy I wouldn’t lie but I was only a few minutes into this fairy tale and already in danger of having reptiles drop from my mouth. I looked at the man, bit my lip, and then let out a sigh of defeat.

“I don’t know how to milk a cow. Could you show me?” He did. He also showed me where to get the feed for the chickens and the pigs. He clearly thought I’d lost my mind, and kept eyeing me over like a shopper eyes de-fective merchandise. As he helped me with the last of the chores I said, “Thanks. You probably think it’s strange that I’ve forgotten how to do all of this, don’t you?”

He shook his scraggly head. “Not my place to say nothing about the master’s daughter. God rest his soul.” I took the milk back to the kitchen and held the bucket out to the cook. She cut slices of meat onto a platter and glared at me as though I ought to know better.

77/431

“Pour it in the pitcher and take it to the table. It’s a mir-acle the mistress isn’t already down and screeching at your sloth.”

I found a pitcher in the cupboard, then walked out the door, wandering around the manor house until I found the dining room. Two girls who looked to be my age sat at a long wooden table. I was expecting them to be hideous—I mean, so far I’d met two people in this fairy tale and neither had been attractive. For the girls to be known as the “ugly stepsisters” clearly indicated some sort of horrible deformity. But besides looking as though they hadn’t showered in, well, ever, they both seemed like normal, attractive teenagers. One was a bit tall and had dirty blond hair—in this case the term “dirty blond” being a description of cleanliness, not hair color—but her features were even and proportioned. The shorter of the two was a bit on the plump side, but not overly so. It made her look healthy. When one overlooked her greasy brown hair, there was nothing wrong with her looks.

The surprise made me speak out loud. “You’re both so pretty. I don’t know why anyone would call you . . .” It was at this point that both girls smiled at me.

Between the two of them I saw only a dozen teeth.

“Oh,” I said. “Never mind.”

“Do go on, Ella,” the taller one said. “You were telling me how well I look in your dresses. I think so too.” 78/431

“Speaking of dresses,” the shorter one said. “What have you got on? Did you trade clothes with a plow hand?”

“I’ve never seen leggings so loose,” the tall one said.

“He must have been a fat plow hand. I should tell Mamá that we’re overfeeding them.”

The short one giggled. “Perhaps Ella has just lost weight. I shall save you some scraps from my breakfast, Ella, unless I’m very hungry.”

“You are always very hungry,” the tall one said.

“True,” her sister said. “Poor Ella will just have to find skinnier peasants to trade clothes with.” Yeah, that whole “ugly” part of their name just became much clearer. I set the pitcher down on the table so hard that some of the milk sloshed over the edges.

It was then that the WSM—wicked stepmother—swept into the room. I could tell it was her, both by her dress and her air of authority. Her light brown hair had streaks of gray, and her skin had begun to loosen around her jawline, but she was still a handsome woman. She walked to the table, dabbed a finger into the spilled milk, and sat down. “You stupid, clumsy girl. If you can’t do your duties inside I will send you outside with the field hands. Do you understand?” I stared at her for a moment. Normally I wouldn’t have put up with people treating me this way. I mean, it 79/431

did occur to me that if there were field hands around, some might know how to wield pitchforks, and it was entirely likely I could get them to side with me and turn against these encroachers. But that wasn’t how the fairy tale went, and I didn’t dare mess it up. If I wasn’t inside to hear about the prince’s ball, I wouldn’t get to the point where my Fair Godmother—aka Chrissy—stopped by to make my dreams come true. And when she stopped by, I was getting out of the wish.

I bowed my head in my WSM’s direction. “Sorry.”

“Sorry, what?” she repeated.

“Sorry I spilled the milk,” I said.

She pounded her fist against the table, making the silverware jump. “No, you stupid, ignorant girl. You’re to say, ‘Sorry, m’lady.’ ”

“Oh. Sorry, m’lady.”

She pointed to the door, her eyes sharp and glinting.

“Back to the kitchen with you and make haste serving us. I’ve plenty of chores for you today.” This, by the way, was not an exaggeration. Along with a couple of scullery maids and a kitchen boy, I washed dishes, swept floors, laundered clothes, set them out to dry, helped prepare lunch, washed more dishes, ironed clothes, and churned butter. I also shoveled ashes out of the fireplaces and did my best to clean the chimney.