My Unfair Godmother (27 page)

“Beg your pardon,” the older girl said. “My sister’s too young to say thank you.”

I hadn’t noticed until then how thin the girl was, how ragged her clothes were. I took the food out of my saddlebag and handed it to her as well. I reached for some gold, but Hudson grabbed my hand and shook his head. “Not that.”

The sternness in his face warned me not to argue, so I didn’t. I just stood silently by the horses while the girl left and Hudson went to buy more food. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, though. After we rode out of the village, I said, “Why didn’t you let me give that girl some gold? It probably could have fed her family for a month.” Hudson looped his reins around one hand. “If the village men knew we had enough wealth that we could afford to give gold to children, we wouldn’t make it a mile out of town before someone came to rob us. Or kill us. Less chance of reprisal that way.” 248/356

I looked back in the direction of the village, a sudden chill wash-ing across me. “But the people there were so nice.”

“One of the things I’ve learned here is that when your children are hungry, even nice people do bad things for money.” That thought sat with me for a long time. When I had asked for this ability, not once had I considered the problems of having magical wealth. Now it seemed to put me in danger everywhere I went.

We left on the main road in case someone asked the villagers which way we went, but as soon as we were out of sight, we cut through the forest to a different path. According to the map, in about ten miles, we would reach a river. We needed to travel alongside it for several miles, then cross a bridge and take a road to the wizard’s village.

Sunlight streamed through the forest, making the leaves look like jigsaw pieces of a hundred different shades of green. Birds trilled so loudly they nearly drowned out the sound of our horses.

My horse rode almost alongside Hudson’s. Close enough that I could peek at his profile without him noticing. His dark eyes were alert, scanning the forest and he looked all the more handsome for his seriousness. No, that wasn’t right. He was more handsome when he smiled. He didn’t do that enough.

“Did you learn how to ride as a castle guard?” I asked.

“No. My grandparents have a couple of horses.” His gaze wandered in my direction and he gave me one of his elusive smiles.

“That’s the sort of thing you do in hick towns.” I gave him a pointed look. “You’re never going to forget that I called Rock Canyon a hick town, are you?”

“Well, you’re a New Yorker. You don’t know any better.”

“New York is a nice place.”

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“If you like concrete, crowds, and that claustrophobic, closed-in feeling.”

I pulled my horse next to his. “Okay, hometowns are off our conversation list. What do you want to talk about next? Oh, and I’m ban-ning anything about computer games or professional sports teams.”

“You’ve got a list of approved conversation topics?”

“It’s a long way to the wizard’s house and we should get to know each other better.”

He tipped his head to the side. “Why? Aren’t you going to move to some luxury apartment in New York as soon as we get home?” My gaze went to his, trying to figure out if he cared or was just curious. I couldn’t tell. His eyes were intent and a little bit amused.

“Maybe not,” I said. “I haven’t decided. Besides, you brought up hometowns again. That’s off the list. You have to talk about something else.”

He shook his head. “This is such a girl thing—talking about what we’re going to talk about. With guys, if you’ve got a question, you ask it.”

“Okay,” I said, deciding to use the opening he’d given me. “I have a question. Why didn’t you go out for football this year?” His head swung over to me in surprise. “Where did that question come from?”

I fingered my reins. “I asked some girls at school about you. One said you didn’t go out for football or student body because you stopped caring about people at school.”

He let out a grunt. “How did my personal life get on your approved conversation list?”

“We’re doing this the guy way,” I reminded him. “I had a question. So is it true?”

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He paused and looked out at the forest. “I stopped doing extracur-ricular things because I have two younger sisters who want to be driv-en to dance lessons and need help with their homework. I have to be there for them since our mom isn’t.” He let out an irritated sigh. “I’m assuming you know about my mom too. The gossipy girls at school didn’t leave out that part?”

“They said she died over a year ago. That’s all.”

“She was hit by a drunk driver. Probably a teenager. They never found out who.”

Maybe by someone at school, then. I could see how that would make a person feel less social. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, everybody is sorry. That topic is off the list.” I didn’t speak for a few moments. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing again.

He looked over at me, and his expression softened. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

He hadn’t, really. “It’s okay,” I said.

He looked out at the forest again, but this time his posture had a tightness about it. “You’re lucky, you know—about the whole wish business.”

That made me laugh. “I don’t feel so lucky right now.”

“No, I mean you’re lucky that you had three wishes, and all you wanted was a visit from Robin Hood and some gold.” It wasn’t all I had wanted, but the point was the same. I didn’t ask what he would have wished for. I already knew, and it was off the list.

We spoke about other things. He told me about his sisters, and I told him about Kendall. We talked about what we would do when we got home. I wanted to sleep someplace that was not a barn floor. He wanted to eat a lot of junk food.

But the entire time we spoke, I thought about his wish.

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Hours went by. We stopped at another village long enough to feed and water the horses. Once we had eaten and they had rested, we went back to the trail. It was harder to climb back on the horse this time. I had ridden for so long my legs had gone beyond aching. They throbbed, and each bounce in the horse’s step made it worse.

I wished I had thought to ask at the last village if I could buy some kind of painkiller. People here must have some sort of herb or something they used. Better yet, I should have thought to take some ibuprofen from my parents’ provisions. They had a first-aid kit. I’d seen it next to a box of toilet paper—which was another thing I wished I’d brought. The privy at the last village had something that resembled corn husks.

In order to take my mind off the pain in my legs, I took the magic book out of my saddlebag. I might as well try to think up new morals.

I flipped through the book. A new painting of Hudson and me horseback riding had appeared. Hudson’s uniform looked crisp, and his black horse gleamed in the sunlight. I wore a sapphire blue dress with lace sleeves. The painting also showed me wearing some sort of blue bejeweled hat. In reality, I was pretty sure I still had bits of straw entwined in my hair.

The prose read, “The next day the guard and the miller’s daughter rode through the forest. Little did she realize the surprise that awaited her.”

I caught my breath and turned the page, but it was blank. No painting, no words. “Hudson, you need to see this!” He looked over his shoulder and I waved the book at him. “It says something is waiting for us. A surprise.”

“What?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure if he meant “What is waiting for us?” or “What are you talking about?” I waved the book again. “You need to read this.” 252/356

He halted his horse, and I rode to his side. He took the book and looked at the picture. “Love the dress. You really know how to travel in style.”

“Read it.”

He did, then flipped the page just as I had. “So what’s the surprise?”

“It doesn’t say.” I glanced around, wishing we hadn’t stopped.

Anything could be hiding in the forest.

Hudson shut the book and handed it back to me. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. Besides, it doesn’t say the surprise is something bad.”

I slipped the book into the saddlebag. “Oh, it’s going to be bad.

Surprises in stories are always bad. Robin Hood will ambush us or a troll will be waiting under the bridge. Something like that.” Hudson flicked his reins, but his horse had found a patch of grass by the path, and she didn’t seem in any hurry to move. Hudson let her eat. “Surprises aren’t always bad. It could be the surprise of …” His broad shoulders shrugged. “ ‘She found a patch of wild strawberries and got to eat something besides stale bread.’ ” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you ever actually read a book?” He tilted his head at the question. “Have you?”

“Of course I have.” My horse wandered a few steps off the path, chomping leaves from a nearby bush. There didn’t seem to be a point in pulling her away since Hudson’s horse was eating too.

Hudson was still surveying me. “Nick told me you refuse to read books as a way to tick off your dad.”

“Well, I used to read a lot, and I distinctly remember that all the surprises in books were bad. This is clearly a problem.”

“Clearly,” he said with a teasing lift in his voice. He directed his horse farther off the path. She went willingly, stepping over to the next 253/356

patch of grass. “The horses are tired and hungry, and so am I. We might as well find a place to set up camp for the night.” I didn’t move my horse. “That’s the last thing we should do. We should keep riding until we’re safe.” Hudson dismounted and walked his horse farther away from the path. The mare went, pulling up clumps of grass and chomping them as she went. “We have to set up camp sooner or later,” Hudson said.

“We might as well do it while it’s light. If something is going to surprise us, I’d rather have it happen when I have a fire going.” I groaned but dismounted too. He was right. We couldn’t ride until we were safe. No place was safe until we knew what the surprise was.

My legs ached so badly I could only take tiny, awkward steps in Hudson’s direction. Eventually he found a spot he liked and turned back to check on me.

He watched my mincing progress. “Saddle sore?”

“Aren’t you?”

He took a section of rope and tied his horse to a tree. “I told you, my grandparents have horses. You’ll get used to it after a few days.” If my legs didn’t break off by then. Hudson walked over and took my horse’s reins, murmuring things to her as he led her to a tree. By the time I had winced my way over to help him, he’d already untied our provisions, put them in a pile, and was hefting off his horse’s saddle. I hadn’t even thought about the saddles and probably would have left them on all night.

I watched him effortlessly swing my saddle off my horse and place it on the ground. “Maybe the moral is ‘If you’re going to get stuck in the Middle Ages, make sure you bring along a country boy.’ They know how to build fires, take care of horses, escape from castles—really, is there anything you can’t do?”

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“Lots of things.” An emotion flashed across his expression that I recognized but didn’t understand. Self-recrimination. Some memory of a time he had failed had surfaced in his mind.

We gathered wood, set out our blankets, and made a small fire that crackled against the growing cold. We sat beside it and ate apples, cheese, and stiff bread. I tried not to keep checking over my shoulder for a surprise. Hudson ate without speaking. Whatever memory I’d brought up, it was still bothering him.

This was the Hudson the girls had told me about at school. The sullen one.

Finally, I got tired of the silence, of the undercurrent of pain that swirled between us. I put my hand on his knee, trying to console him.

“Your mom wouldn’t want you to be sad about her for this long.” He ripped a piece of bread from his loaf. “She’s off the list, Tansy.”

“She would want you to have a social life, to be happy.”

“What’s the point of crossing things off the list if you’re still going to bring them up?”

“You’ve got to let the sadness go.”

“Fine,” he said with a grunt. “We’ll talk about this.” He ripped another piece from his loaf, but didn’t eat it. “My mom and I got in an argument that night. I told her I was going to a movie with friends but I went to a party instead.” He turned the piece of bread over and over in his hand. “When you’re the police chief’s son, you’re not supposed to go to parties where there’s drinking. It would look bad if the party got busted. I wasn’t trying to undermine my father or the law or anything.

I went because my friends were there.” He looked straight at the fire, but I knew he wasn’t seeing it anymore. He was back in that night.

“Somebody called and told my mom where I’d been. When I came home, she was getting off the phone and was really steamed. She went off about how I was supposed to set an example. My friends weren’t 255/356

going to respect the law if I didn’t. And I was making my father a laughingstock.

“I told her I wanted to have my own life, and I didn’t want to be their son anymore.” The rest of the bread in Hudson’s hand crumbled under his grip, but he didn’t notice it. “She stormed out of the house, and I knew I should go after her. But I didn’t. That was the last thing I ever said to her—that I didn’t want to be her son.”

“You couldn’t have known what would happen,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He still kept his gaze on the fire. “I thought she might be headed to the party to yell at my friend’s parents. It wasn’t far away, just the next street over. So I called my friend and warned him that his party was about to get busted.” His voice wavered, dropped. “My mom was probably hit by someone leaving that party, someone who was drunk and going too fast. Because
I
warned them.” The breath went from my lungs. I didn’t know what to say. But Hudson didn’t stop, didn’t wait for my reaction.

“My father was on duty that night. He was called out along with the paramedics. He didn’t know until he got there …” Hudson’s voice broke off. “He’s never forgiven me and I don’t blame him.” I took hold of Hudson’s hand. “That can’t be true. Has he said that?”

“He doesn’t have to. I see it in his eyes every time I look at him.” Even though Hudson’s hand was stiff and unresponsive in mine, I kept hold of it, pressing it between the palms of my hands as though I could force comfort into his fingers. “He’s probably in too much pain to see what you’re going through.” I intertwined my fingers into his.