Marmalade's Love Potion

Penelope rolled over as the silver light of morning pierced the window, groaning loudly into her pillow.

“I think our princess has awoken.” Sister Rosin’s chuckle carried from across the landing and through the wood of Penelope’s door. Penelope kicked her feet against her mattress in childish pique, feeling absolutely mortified by the revelation of last night’s conversation.

All the pieces had been there, in hindsight... How could she have missed that Steph was a prince? Rolling out of bed with a grumble, Penelope stuffed her feet into a pair of slippers and padded downstairs for breakfast.

“I told him I didn’t want to fall in love with a Grimwood prince,” Penelope moaned as the Sisters joined her for porridge. Sister Rosin at least tried to muffle her amusement as she rubbed soothing circles across Penelope’s back while the princess glared into her oats.

“He said he’d slept like royalty,” Penelope wailed while she cleared the table, spoon clattering as she dropped it into the sink.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” Sister Rosin nodded in appreciation as Sister Heely sniffed in disapproval.

“The forest attacked him because... because... Oh! That was his brother in the Darkwood!” Penelope gasped in horror as she took Sister Heely’s measurements for her gown in the afternoon. Sister Rosin paused where she sat carving wood by the lounge hearth.

“He should have told us who he was,” Sister Heely bit out, breathing hard through her nose, pale cheeks pink with anger. “He could have been killed, he very nearly was! Which is terrible enough! But a prince? Grimwood would have had our heads. We could have been charged with kidnapping and murder, maybe even treason if they had incited war with Starwood—”

“Heely, love,” Sister Rosin cleared her throat pointedly as Penelope clutched the measuring tape tight between her hands, icy panic constricting her chest and making it difficult to draw air. “I think we should all take a few deep breaths. None of that happened—”

“But it could have—”

“Yes, but it didn’t—”

“—false pretences—”

“—don’t think he meant any harm, love—”

Penelope sank onto the lounge by the fire as the Sisters continued to argue back and forth.

“He said he thought I’d hate him, if I knew the whole truth about him,” Penelope whispered, feeling close to tears.

The Sisters ceased their argument, falling to abrupt silence as they sat either side of her on the narrow seat.

“Do you?” Sister Rosin asked quietly with a soft poke to her ribs. Penelope gave a watery smile and shook her head.

“No, I don’t think I do... Though I wish he hadn’t lied about who he was. I told him who I was when we met, which—”

“Which you’ve been instructed since you were five not to do when you meet strangers,” Sister Heely interjected, huffing wearily at the long-worn argument.

“I know, I know...” Penelope ducked her head with a sniffle and a sheepish grimace.

The Sisters had often scolded her growing up for being too open, too trusting. She knew they were right. As a child she had curtsied and offered a formal introduction to nearly every new face at market, much to the Sisters’ chagrin.

Yet it was the way of her nature. In the courts of Starwood she had been taught to be truthful, and proud of her heritage. The courtiers in all their elegance and finery had cooed over her, praising how sweetly she presented herself, how well she spoke her title.

She hadn’t understood it when, after moving to the cottage in the woods, the Sisters had told her to speak a new and dishonest name. To swallow down her title and pretend it didn’t exist. She hadn’t understood that not everyone had the best of intentions.

She had tried to restrain herself, truly she had. She had worked for years to shape herself into the ideals of the princess she knew she ought to always have been. Brave, kind, graceful, honest.

Yet sometimes those ideals seemed to conflict with what was asked of her, which had confused the young princess. And so, by the end of their first year in the Faewood, everyone at the Clear Water markets and surrounding villages had known of little Princess Penelope, First Scion of Royal House Starwood.

Even now, a woman grown, she could never quite help her own candour.

“I just wish he’d been honest,” Penelope muttered with a rueful huff. The way I was with him... she thought, feeling foolish. Even a little betrayed.

The women sat together in silence, watching the dancing flames as they ruminated.

Penelope thought back to their conversations. The truth of it had been right there, yet Steph had always danced so neatly around it. Even before the incident in the Darkwood. He could have told her who he was, and had chosen not to.

Yet, he had told her there were truths about him she didn’t know. Things he feared would turn her against him. She had reassured him that she was patient, that he could share things with her in his own time. She wanted to hold true to that promise. To those principles. She wanted to be the kind of person who was compassionate, gentle with those she cared for. She wanted to be worthy of trust earned.

Though her heart clenched with hurt, anger roiling in her gut. Had she not already earned that trust with her own shared truths? Uncertainty prickled under her skin and humiliation gnawed at her stomach.

Embers popped in the hearth, throwing flares of golden light across the polished wooden bookcases and the bench which served as Penelope’s sewing space. Bolts of cloth were stacked atop its surface and half-finished patterns were laid out across the table, weighed down by strewn haberdashery.

Normally the cosy square nook by the back lounge window was a space of solace. Penelope's own creative sanctuary. Now, it was shadowed by the falling winter’s evening and her own foreboding. Now, the scraps of cloth, clustered spools of thread, and the glimmer of scattered buttons seemed less like enchanting possibilities so much as the scales and ragged plume of a stalking beast.

Penelope blew out a breath and turned back to face the fire. She curled her feet up onto the couch as she snuggled against Sister Heely’s side, tucking her cold toes under Sister Rosin’s thighs.

Though she smiled when the other woman squealed at the chill, Penelope couldn’t ignore the sour frustration that had settled in her chest. She had felt such a fast and close kinship with someone who hadn’t fully reciprocated her honesty, her easy trust. It left her feeling that she had, yet again, failed in some fundamental test of character.

Her naivete made her feel small. As small as she had under the taciturn scrutiny of Starwood’s royal advisors.

All the years she had lived in the cottage, she had diligently practised her etiquette, arranging herself with poise and quiet elegance the way her books had taught. Each year a royal advisor had come to test her studies. The highlight of her younger years, she had been so eager to show off how well she sat, how gracefully she walked, how tidy her embroidery.

She would spend days ahead of each annual visit sat by her craft table, sunlight streaming through the windows, as she stitched the most beautiful dress she could, weaving flowers into a matching crown fit for a princess.

The advisors would come and demand of her task after task, from recitations of history and literature to demonstrations of dance. They would occasionally prod at her posture or peer at her sketches with a stern press of the mouth, but otherwise make no comment.

In her nerves, Penelope would forget herself and speak too brashly or move too exuberantly, impulsive enthusiasm cracking the brittle shell of her self-discipline. Inevitably, their brows would crease, and Penelope would at last wilt into solemn quiet in the face of their austerity. At the end of each visit, the advisors would nod, provide books for the next year of learning, and depart in a gleaming Starwood carriage.

After each visit Penelope would hope and hope her efforts had been enough to prove herself. That she was proper enough, mannered enough, learned enough, to at last be welcomed home.

She never was.

Then, the year she had turned fourteen, they had stopped coming. She waited for the next year, and the year after that. By seventeen she knew she had failed their measure. She knew she was not enough. Yet somehow also too much.

Even now, day by day, she practised her poise as best she could. It was a comforting sort of routine. A shining thread connecting her to a heritage of splendour, even while the cottage around them grew ragged with age.

Yet the rigidity of decorum had always chafed. Her thoughts and emotions spilled out of her regardless, always too big and unruly to ever fully contain. Like the gardens that sprawled beyond their cottage fences, reaching for the wilds of Faewood, the wilds within her seemed to surge ever outwards.

“I’m so angry.” Penelope blew out a breath, startling the two women beside her with the sudden outburst. With an apologetic grimace, she tilted her head back to rest against the seat, blinking against the hot prickle of tears. “At Steph,” she clarified, voice small and rough with emotion. “Though I think more so at myself.”

Sister Heely clasped Penelope’s hand in her own, threading their fingers together.

“I truly don’t think the lad meant any harm,” Sister Rosin said, frowning thoughtfully at the small hearth table where she had set her carving tools. “He was foolish, and should have told us the truth of himself, I agree. We wouldn’t have absconded with him to begin with if he had,” she added with a snort. She pursed her lips then, expression turning serious. “It must have been some shock for him, what happened in the Darkwood.”

Penelope recalled Steph’s stricken face as he had watched the Grimwood Rangers and the prince—his brother—luring ghosts for capture.

“I do believe him, I think,” Penelope said. “I believe that he didn’t know about the Grimwood Rangers and... whatever it was they were doing with those spirits. The look on his face...”

Penelope hunched forward to cradle her cheeks in her palms, losing herself in memories of that awful afternoon. She could sense the Sisters having a silent conversation over her head, yet felt too weary and heartsick to pay any mind.

“Penelope, sweetling, we have something that might cheer you. Cheer all of us, really.” Sister Rosin sighed. “Something we picked up in Grimwood Village on our visit, but haven’t had the time to give you.”

“Oh?” Penelope sat up, feeling intrigued as Sister Heely rose to fetch a bundle that she hadn’t noticed sitting on a high shelf above the sewing bench.

With gentle steps, the older woman returned to sit by Penelope’s side and placed the bundle in her lap. The parcel was soft, wrapped in smooth, shimmering paper and tied with bright silver twine.

Penelope ran her hands over the parcel, enjoying the crisp crinkle of the wrapping. Feeling strangely nervous and a little dumbfounded, Penelope glanced at each of the Sisters. At their encouraging smiles, she reached out with jittery hands to untie the bow.

As the paper fell away to reveal a tidy square of folded cloth, Penelope felt as though she couldn’t breath.

“We know this ball has caused us all nothing but drama,” Sister Heely started, “But... But if we’re to go—well, we are going—then, we wanted you to have the very best—”

Sister Heely cut off with a strangled cry as Penelope flung her arms around the startled woman’s neck, sobbing into her collar.

“I think she likes it, Heels,” Sister Rosin teased, before she too had an armful of teary princess.

“Thank you, thank you! I love it!”

Penelope sniffed and wiped her eyes dry, brushing a hand across the glittering, diamond fabric in her lap. Starweave silk. Enough for a whole gown, at least. Enough that it would have cost a small fortune.

Penelope sat in a dazed sort of awe, understanding how long it must have taken for the Sisters to have saved up so much.

“All...” she stammered, “All your savings...”

“Oh, hush,” Sister Rosin chided with a kiss to her temple as Sister Heely clasped her hand. “It’s what we wanted for you.”

Penelope felt overwhelmed and so utterly cherished by this incredible gesture, by the Sisters’ generosity, now and in all the years past. She had no words to convey the depth of her love, her gratitude. So she simply embraced them both again, holding them tight with a whispered, “Thank you.”