Gifted

  Gifted

  A Fairytale Memoirs novella

  By M. Marinan

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2019 M. Marinan

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please delete it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Inspired by French fairytale ‘La Belle et la Bete’ (Beauty and the Beast).

  For Mum.

  There’s a reason fairytale characters are so often orphaned

  – because if parents are there to do their jobs, there’ll be far

  less danger and drama. Thank you for doing your job well,

  and for letting me read so many books as a kid.

  And as always, thanks to Anne-Marie and Kate

  for helping to shape and polish this story.

  Table of Contents

  1. The Letter

  2. The Veest

  3. The Tragedy

  4. The Change

  5. The Wyse

  6. The Games

  7. The Treaty

  8. The Revelation

  9. The Lie

  10. Cutie and the Veest

  Afterword

  Excerpt of The Mostly-Forgotten Memoirs of Rose Red

  Booklist

  One

  The Letter

  Enorian tent settlement, South Nordante, 1673 FTE (fairytale era)

  The letter crumpled in my tightly clenched fist, and as I looked up at my companions, I realised I was shaking. Master and Missus Streeth were the leaders of our nomadic group. They wore the same dusty brown colour as I did; the same dusty brown as the tents we stood in. Master’s lined face was creased with worry, and Missus’s with anger. I’d known her long enough to see that her anger was worry – for me.

  But the other person standing in the tent… He was young, and as pale in colour as were all the Nordante locals. Compared to our golden skin and black hair, his looked like he’d been left out in the rain until the dye ran out. His clothing was more cheerful though: green and yellow. He met my eyes with his own weird, light grey ones, and I struggled to hold that gaze for a moment before looking away.

  “Well?” Master Streeth demanded. “What does it say, Claire? This boy wouldn’t let us look at it, said it had to go to one of Alden’s daughters.”

  Alden being my father, and me being the oldest and most responsible of his three girls. “Um,” I began. I swallowed. Would the Veest emissary be offended at being called a ‘boy’ like that? He was tall and skinny, sort of half-grown in appearance, but he looked so serious. “It’s from Father. He says that he’s well.”

  “Come on, Claire,” Missus Streeth prompted. “He wouldn’t have written just to say he was well, even though those Veest are keeping him hostage and of course we’d want to know. What do they want?”

  “Peace,” the boy said, speaking for the first time since I’d answered the Streeths’ summons. I could feel his eyes on me. Was he judging me in contrast to the requirements outlined on the letter? “Peace between our people. A place for yours to settle, and so that ours may hunt and travel freely in our ancestral lands without fear of getting an arrow in the head.”

  There was a moment where I could see the confusion in Master and Missus’s expressions, and the emissary wasn’t helping at all. That was such a vague answer.

  “An arrow in the head?” Master Streeth said in a low voice. “That was only once. How many of ours have you killed or injured? We just want to live here, not fight! The war comes from your side!”

  Oh, help. This was not the way to make lasting peace. I didn’t know about Father’s suggestion, either, but… “Marriage,” I blurted out. “They want to join our peoples by marriage. The son of their ruler, to the daughter of ours.”

  The Streeths’ eyebrows shot up in identical startled expressions. “But we don’t have any girls,” Missus pointed out. “And we don’t have an official ruler. We just lead the meetings because…well, no one else does it.”

  And that was pretty much how our people worked. About fifty of us had grown tired of the constant corruption, famine and drought in our tiny country of Enoria, and headed north. Two years later we’d made our way far into the mountains of the neighbouring kingdom, and were yet to find a decent place to settle that wasn’t already taken. This area in the south-east of Nordante was damp, green and wild in more ways than one. And the locals, who called themselves the Veest? Wilder still.

  “Then the daughter of one of your high-ranking officials,” the Veest emissary said. Out the corner of my eye I could see he was studying me speculatively. “This one is too young, I think. Is there an older sister?”

  I didn’t flinch, well accustomed to that kind of comment. As for the Streeths, they didn’t point out that we didn’t have any high-ranking officials. Father was respected by our people, and perhaps that was the next best thing.

  “Too young for who or what, exactly?” Missus demanded stridently. “Claire here is seventeen, coming up eighteen, for all that she looks twelve. Her mother was the same. Besides, we’re not all as enormous as you lot.”

  Did I look twelve? I’d argue for fourteen. Some people just grew short and round-cheeked. Especially me. “Peace,” I said again quickly. “That’s the goal, right? Father has found a lovely valley, a lush, uninhabited one on the edge of the Veest lands. And if we can all get on, then we can settle. Build houses, plant crops for the first time in years.”

  “We know what our goals are,” Master cut in gruffly. “We’ve been planning this since you really were twelve, missy.” He turned to the emissary. “Look, whatever your name is-”

  “Damon.” The Veest pronounced it like ‘Day-mon’.

  “Damon. How long have we got before you folks start slicing and dicing our Alden?”

  A twinge of fear twisted my belly. That was my father they were talking about. My only surviving parent! He’d headed out a few weeks earlier to try to find us a better place to settle, and had been captured by the locals instead. I was glad they hadn’t hurt him – but I didn’t know how long that would last. I turned to stare at the emissary. “Well?”

  “And bear in mind that we’ve got you here too,” Missus added quickly. “Your people hurt Alden, and you won’t be going home either.”

  Oh, they looked so very fierce while they said it, even though they were both half a head shorter than him. But if he was a shapeshifter and could become a bear, a wolf, or an eagle, then what could we do?

  But Damon’s pale eyebrows shot up. “Peace,” he said again, enunciating the word in his strange accent. We all spoke the same language, but even if we hadn’t looked so different, we would have known it by those tones. “That means no, er, slicing and dicing.”

  “How long, boy?”

  He shrugged. “I’m expected back within two days. We’d need a decision by sunset.”

  It was midday now, and the sun was high in the sky, warming our already-warm plain to baking level. It wasn’t as bad as what I remembered from Enoria, because there was plenty of water here, but it wasn’t comfortable either.

  But I thought of my father again, and of my two younger sisters. If Father was killed, then they’d be orphans. I’d be an orphan, and our people would have to leave…again. “I’d do it without hesitation to save my father’s life,” I said. “But I don’t think I fit the requirements.” I handed the letter over to Missus, and she and her husband leaned in to read it. I could see her squinting to make out the text, and his lips moving slightly. The problem wasn’t Father’s handwriting, which was quite tidy. It was the content.

  After a minute Missus looked up at me frankly. “I see what you mean. Ah, well. It’s not like we’ve got single beauties to throw around, have we?”

  I shrugged, but inside my heart was beating double-time. This wasn’t about me. It was about Father, and about everyone. We needed a home. We needed peace.

  She sighed, then handed me back the letter. “Go see your sisters, Claire. We’ll talk a little more with this lad here.”

  At least he’d graduated from just being ‘the Veest’.

  I nodded, then left. I already knew what I was going to do, but it didn’t mean everyone else was going to like it.

  “I don’t see why we can’t just stay here,” my sister Tabitha said staunchly. She folded her slender arms in front of her chest, pouting. At fifteen she was a mere eighteen months younger than me, but her temperament wasn’t nearly as relaxed. Hopefully she’d grow out of it. “There’s water here, and you wouldn’t have to marry anyone.”

  I sighed, moving over to my side of the small tent to sort through my meagre belongings. “Water, yes, but the land is made of rocks. We can’t grow anything here, and the summers would be brutal. The place Father found – the others say it’s beautiful. Green, a little damp. Things would grow like crazy. We could build homes…”

  “Ned says you shouldn’t marry an animal,” Tabitha cut in. “That would be disgusting. Your children would be hairy. Maybe some of them would have tails!”

  Ned being her ‘betrothed’. He was fifteen too, and just as outspoken. Unlike her, he didn’t seem to have the kindness that made her bearable, and the rest of the family had been unhappy when they’d announced themselves betrothed last winter. They couldn’t marry until they were sixteen, of course,
but I was hoping that either they changed their minds, or Ned fell off a cliff before then. (Ha, ha.) Except here was the upside of that betrothal – Tabitha, who was rather closer to the ‘beauty’ requirement, was already taken. I considered that a good thing. I’d bet that if my sister was in the Veest city for more than a day, she’d have started a war for real. And with us being outnumbered ten to one? We’d lose.

  “They don’t have tails, Tab,” I said patiently. “They look human. They just turn into animals sometimes.”

  “Disgusting!” she announced again.

  I rolled my eyes, turning back to my clothing. Now what should I pack? Brown dress one, brown dress two, slightly lighter brown dress three…and my dowry, which was my late mother’s silver comb and matching mirror. I’d always figured that one day I’d take the ‘wealth’ to my new husband. And unless the emissary turned me down, that day would be tomorrow.

  “I think it’s alright,” my youngest sister Amadine said from where she sat near my feet. She was only ten, and looked more like me than Tabitha: small and round-faced, with wide dark eyes. “Maybe they’d be like puppies. I like puppies.”

  Tabitha opened her mouth to no doubt say something scathing, and I cut in. “Don’t you want to hear the letter?”

  “Yes,” Amadine piped in. “Did Father send us a present with it? I asked for a jewel.” Meaning a pretty rock to add to her collection.

  “And I asked for a new dress, not that I’m likely to get that,” Tabitha retorted. “What does it say, Claire?”

  I unrolled the parchment once more, carefully setting aside the squashed yellow rose that was wrapped inside. Ironically, that had been what I’d asked for. A rose. This was worse-for-wear, but still fragrant.

  “Dear girls,” I began to read. “I trust you are all well. I have good news. Rose Valley looks even better on closer inspection, and it will surely be a perfect location for our new village. Even better, the local Veest that I’ve met are very keen on making peace after the bloodshed of the last few months.” I paused, taking a breath. By now I’d read this over and over, and it was the next part that still made me twitch.

  “Yes, we know that,” Tabitha prompted when the silence dragged on for too long. “What’s the next part?”

  I continued, “As you’re by now aware, I’ve been taken into the care of the Veest. They say they’re tired of the skirmishes, and want to broker true peace between us. The ruler of the city, Kanut, thinks that if one of our girls marries his son, then we’ll not want to fight anymore, and I daresay he’s right. They’ve requested a high-born, sweet-natured, beautiful maiden as bride.”

  There was a long pause as my sisters and I all looked at each other. Then Tabitha’s nose wrinkled. “Stars above, that’s a big ask. There are what, five girls of marriageable age? Three of those are already betrothed, including me. And then there’s you and Halley.”

  Halley was sweet-natured, that was for sure. She was also simple – with the mind of a child – and no more ‘high-born’ than any of the rest of us. “So there’s really no choice,” I said again. I didn’t bother to read the rest of the letter aloud, for we already knew what it contained. “I might not be a beauty, but who else will do it?”

  “I think you’re beautiful,” Amadine said staunchly. She set her arms around my waist. “But I don’t want you to go!”

  “The Veest city isn’t that far from Rose Valley,” I replied calmly. I put my arms around her comfortingly, but inside I was as tense as a drawn spring. “I’ll see you all the time. It’ll be an adventure.”

  “But would Father really want you to go?” Tabitha asked. “I mean, he wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself to a Veest. He wouldn’t make you do something that horrible.”

  “That’s not true,” Amadine interrupted. “He makes me go to bed early every time there’s a feast, and he even made me eat a whole plate of horrible sprouts once, just because Missus Bloomer made them and he wanted to please her. Remember?”

  “Nobody cares about your sprouts, Amadine,” Tabitha cut in tersely, pushing her hand over the younger girl’s mouth to silence her. “And Claire, he wouldn’t want you to do something that dangerous. The Veest aren’t even real people! For all we know, they’re cannibals! We could end up roasted on a spit!”

  I didn’t point out that in order to be cannibals they’d need to eat their own kind, therefore saving us. Instead I sighed, my tone not betraying my twisting gut. I could see where this was going, and I didn’t like it. “Don’t be ridiculous, Tab. There’s no evidence that the Veest have ever eaten a human.”

  “Only because no eaten human ever got a chance to tell anyone about it!”

  There was a long, heavy silence interrupted by a scuffle as my youngest sister tried to shove my middle sister’s hand away from her face, and succeeded. She was a lot smaller, but she was determined, and there may have been some saliva involved.

  “If they don’t eat people, I wouldn’t mind marrying one,” Amadine announced. “I could have chocolate cake and wear a white dress.”

  Oh, what a lovely, innocent view of marriage. If only it was about chocolate cake rather than avoiding war. And as for white dresses – nobody wore white back home in Enoria; it was asking for trouble. We all wore boring, boring brown so the marks didn’t show when our skirts dragged through the dust. But here in this foreign kingdom, we’d actually started thinking about a better life…until the locals decided they didn’t want us living so close. These last few years had been precarious, and finally having peace would be a miracle. All we had to do was send a bride…

  “They don’t want to eat us,” I pointed out as mildly as I could in the circumstances. “I believe the letter states that they want to marry one of us. And as I’m the only one who isn’t already taken – or far too young – I suppose that means me.”

  “Stars above!” Tabitha exclaimed, tossing her long black hair over one shoulder. “You sound as if you don’t even care that you might be marrying some sort of big, hairy beast within a month. Do you even have emotions, Claire?”

  “I didn’t say I don’t care,” I replied. “Besides, speaking of marrying big hairy beasts, you’re betrothed to one and you don’t seem to mind. It can’t be that bad.”

  “Ned does need a haircut,” Amadine agreed. “His hair covers his eyes sometimes.”

  “I can’t believe you’re comparing my betrothed to one of those- those monsters!” Tabitha spat, then as usual at this point in the argument, her face crumpled. “Oh stars, they’re going to kill and eat Father unless you go and marry one of them. But how can you?”

  How could I not? “I’m pretty sure they don’t eat people,” I said once again, hearing the terseness in my tone. “I was reading the reports that were written when we first arrived, and it said that a few of them are shapeshifters, but not cannibals.”

  “Always with the reading! Do you trust everything you read?”

  “When it’s a well-written, logical report by someone with actual experience, yes,” I retorted. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going back to talk to the Streeths.”

  I made my way back to our meeting tent to find there was now quite a crowd. The Veest emissary stood quietly off to one side, watching us with a seeming lack of interest, but our people had already got into hot debate.

  “Oh, let the girl do it!” someone said. “This is what we all need, isn’t it? This is what we’ve been working towards.”

  “But will she be safe?” someone else cut in. “We don’t know what those creatures are capable of!”

  I coughed quietly. No one heard me, so I nudged the closest person, one of the younger, married girls. “Are they talking about me?”

  “Claire!” She turned to the others, raising her voice. “Claire’s here!”

  Suddenly I was the centre of attention.

  “Look at her,” I heard one of the older ladies say. “She’s so cute. Who would hurt her?”

  I glanced across to where Damon stood. His expression hadn’t changed. “My father wouldn’t have written that letter if he thought it was dangerous,” I said loudly. “He knew I was one of the only options, and he wouldn’t have me put into a situation like that.”