Read Online Fair Peril by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online Page A

foundation with her crying. Definitely not a princess. Who cared; there was nobody to hear her. Nobody gave a damn.
    Buffy cried her pillow wet, blew her nose on it, then turned it over, gave a few final yawps, and slipped into sleep.
    Bent over like a fishhook, Mom picked at the lawn. It was not dignified or seemly for a woman outside, where people could see her, to get down on her hands and knees like she was scrubbing a floor, so Mom bent from the waist to pick the bits of twig and maple wing, oh those messy maple trees, to pick the leaf stems and the litter the inconsiderate squirrels and chipmunks and birds had left behind, half-gnawed acorns, seed husks, scraps of eggshell. She had bent from the waist this way so long and so often that this was her body’s shape now, like the crook of somebody’s cane. Her hands had grown crooked too. She didn’t like it. Her back hurt, and her legs. She sniffled to herself; there was nobody else to hear her. Everybody else was in bed, but she had to get it done or he would be angry at her. She had to pick up all the mess off the lawn. It wasn’t fair. There wasn’t enough light for her to see properly, even with all those tall lamps on poles all over the place, but she still had to do it. Her trembling hands groped deep in the grass for leaf trash, separating the brown from the green. She had to get all the brown out, or he would be angry. She had to get every little bit, even though her back hurt and her legs hurt, too, and her hands were dry and crooked and sore, caked with brown, the skin of her fingertips cracking, rubbed open. Her bare knobby feet, too, they were getting sore. But she had to get the lawn clean. He would be angry if she didn’t.
    â€œMrs. Murphy!”
    Bent over, Mom had only a peripheral sense of something white moving, a person walking up to her.
    â€œMrs. Murphy! What are you doing out here? It’s nighttime.”
    It was one of those nice young women, nurses. Mom felt herself start to cry as she turned to her, unable to straighten as she held up the evidence. “Look at my poor hands!”
    â€œYes, I know.”
    â€œLook what he’s making me do. I have to pick up all this.”
    â€œYour husband? He’s dead, Mrs. Murphy. Nobody’s making you do anything.”
    â€œHe’ll be angry if I don’t get it finished soon.”
    â€œIt’s time to sleep.”
    â€œNo, I can’t. He’ll be angry.”
    Her back hurt. Her legs hurt. Her hands were cracked and seeping. And the nurse, trying to lead her away, still didn’t seem to understand. Nobody had ever understood, except maybe that other little girl in white, what was her name, somebody’s daughter, wide bride, got married way too young, what was that poor child’s name? Mattress? Madness? Maddie?
    Sometime later in the night, Buffy awakened to the touch of chilly hands slithering up over the edge of the bed. “Heard ya calling me, baby,” whispered a throaty voice.
    Buffy’s eyes popped open to encounter pop-eyes at close range. Huge, glistening golden eyes. She was so startled that she could not move or scream; she just gawked.
    â€œWhat a babe.” He hoisted himself onto the mattress with a grace perhaps owing to years of mounting lily pads. “You lay the eggs, baby,” he said in a voice froggy with emotion, “and I’ll squirt the milt on them.”
    Buffy yelped, thrashed her way out from under the blankets, and grabbed him.
    â€œAddie?” She hoisted him by the armpits. It took both hands to lift him. He was as big as a year-old baby. How had he gotten so large so fast? But it was indisputably Prince Adamus d’Aurca; she would recognize that green-lipped smirk anywhere. “Addie!” She was so glad to see him that she almost kissed him, which would not have been a good idea—but then she realized where he had placed his clammy four-fingered hands. “You grabby