Read Online [Books of Bayern 1] The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale - Free Book Online

in amazement. How could she have been so blind all those years?
    "Oh, Selia, I am so sorry I never saw." Ani placed a hand on her shoulder. Selia slapped it away.
    "That is because I was careful that you would not see," Selia said. Her eyes dried up.
    "For years I have been waiting for my chance, and now here it is. Don't touch me and don't call for me. I am no longer your servant. You, what are you? The brat of lucky parents who were related to a childless king. There is no such thing as royal blood. I believe we are what we make ourselves, and as such, you, Crown Princess, are nothing." Selia spoke as though she had held those words inside for too long and they burned her mouth as she spoke them.
    "But I—you said—I thought you wanted to come." Ani knew this was not fair but found it difficult to protest. Her thoughts spun and bumped against one another like dizzy children.
    Was this the effect of the gift of people-speaking? livery word Selia spoke seemed to be the purest truth. You are nothing. You make yourself nothing. She took a step back, prepared to back down, as always, ready to apologize and wait for time to ease the memory.
    A warm breath of wind came from the deeper trees and ran across Ani's neck. A corner of her mother's handkerchief stood out from her bodice, and the wind tapped it against her breastbone. Ani thought its touch sparked her heart to beat faster, her skin to tingle, her blood to warm her hands and feet. A gift from my mother, Ani thought. Protection, she had said.
    Ani met Selia's stare and straightened her neck.
    "Put down the dress, Selia," she said. Selia paused. Ani had never commanded her in anything. "Put down my dress," she repeated.
    Selia tossed the dress back in the wagon. Her face was flushed, and her nostrils flared.
    "Go tell your guards, Crown Princess. Go stir your army. Go demand your throne and teach me a lesson—anything! I dare you."
    "I am no longer a crown princess," Ani said, and her own steady tone encouraged her.
    "You mock me with the title. From now on, you will address me as Princess, or mistress, if you prefer, since you have never seen fit to call me by my name. My friends call me by my name."
    "You don't have any friends."
    "I don't want you to be my friend, Selia, or my servant, not now. I thought you were both. You have let me know I was wrong. So are you to treat me so. You are wrong."
    "Oh, my dear, dear Royal Majesty, you don't know the half of it." Selia started to smile, but she dropped her eyes from Ani's face and walked away.
    Ani did not move until she had caught her breath. Her limbs were trembling, and the anger that had suddenly flushed her face and steadied her voice now left her a little worn and a little cold. But, for a moment, she had almost sounded as confident as her mother, and she wondered where the courage to stand up to Selia had come from.
    Ani pulled the handkerchief from her bodice. The cloth was old, the original white dimmed with age. Her mother's blood stood out clearly, three spots of dark brown. She fingered the delicate lacing around the edges.
    Maybe, she thought, it is a thing of magic. Maybe my mother's blood renewed its power.

    She thought of the bedside tales that spoke of mothers and blood. A mother who nurses her baby on one breast of milk and one breast of blood, and her child grows to be a powerful warrior. A young girl is cursed to never become a woman, and when the mother lies dying of old age, she cuts her wrist and washes her daughter in the blood, and the curse is undone.
    These stories had intrigued her with their strange mix of violence and love, so unlike the distant, passionless affection of her own mother.
    She thought, she hoped, that the handkerchief was something fantastic, like a piece of a tale, but real, and just for her, a symbol of the real, hidden love of her mother. She so desperately wanted something magical, something powerful, something that meant her mother had not flung her aside but loved her as