Read Online Once Upon a Time: The Villains by Shea Berkley - Free Book Online Page A

you through the coming winter.”
    My parents’ eyes lit at the thought of money. “Yes,” they told their friends, “that is an excellent idea.”
    I never liked old people after that.
    Two weeks later, I saw my first town. A man, rotund and red cheeked, bought me for six pieces of silver.
    “It’s fair,” the man said, counting out the silver in front of my parents’ eager eyes. “One piece for every year of life, plus a half penny for good measure.”
    My mother would have held off for more, but my father was tired and his feet hurt. “Me gout, woman,” he complained, pushing me toward the man. “Let’s be done with it and go home.”
    Not a tear was shed, nor a backward glance when they handed me over to the stranger and trudged down the lane, a small silver fortune jingling in their threadbare pockets. The man stared at me, his pudgy fingers thrumping on his hip. “Poor little mite. The wife will smack me but good when I come home with you. Ah, well. Come along.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me after him.
    Though his wife scared him, she did not me. I had lived on a steady diet of kicks, wallops and pinches. My poor boney knees poked through my skirt as I followed him, and I prayed his wife would like me enough to fatten me up as much as she had her husband. I was tired of my stomach growling from dawn till dusk.
    Because I was so thin, I grew tired easily, and I couldn’t keep up. When I fell for the third time, he turned and looked at me. His face grew as pale and puckered as my hands after scrubbing the floor. Picking me up, he placed me on the edge of a wagon stacked with barrels of onions, garlic and other nasty smelling vegetables and studied me from top to toe. At length, he shook his head, his cheeks wobbling like a turkey’s wattle and scratched his head. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What have I done? A soft old fool I am. The wife will surely bean me brains if I carry you home.” He looked around, and called over a man hawking apple dumplings and presented me with one. As I sank my teeth into the hot pastry, drool running down my chin, he looked me in the eyes and commanded, “Wait here.”
    I would have waited there forever if he wanted me to. If this was how I would be treated, I would not miss my home. No, never. I ate my fill and waited. I know not where he went, but when he returned another man followed.
    Tall and thin with fine clothes, but dirty fingernails, the stranger stared at me. I stared back.
    “Wipe your mouth, little one,” the kind man said.
    I did.
    “This,” he said, pushing my filthy hair behind my ears, “is her.”
    “Not much to look at.”
    “But promising. I have it on good word that she don’t complain much.”
    I didn’t. What good would it do but cause me more pain? Though young, I’d already learned when to keep silent.
    The man grabbed my hands and turned them palms up. “Rough enough, I guess.” He pressed his ear to my chest and thumped on my back. “Good and clear.”
    “And tiny. She can fit anywhere.”
    “Eight, you say?”
    “I do.”
    Eight? But I was only six years old, not eight. And why would he wish to tell this horrible man with the cold eyes how old I am?
    The man dug into his pocket and counted out eight pieces of silver. “Lucky for you business is good.”
    The man who’d bought me from my parents, who’d fed me the most wonderful thing I’d ever eaten, and who’d shown me more kindness than I’d ever thought possible was selling me to another. Devastated, a tear blurred my vision.
    He looked away from me. “You will take good care of her? She’s such a tiny thing.”
    “I’ll treat her as me own,” came the promise.
    That seemed to appease the kind man. He ruffled my hair and gave my wet cheek the softest of tweaks. I loved him. I’d do anything for him. Couldn’t he see that? Why would he do this? What had I done wrong?
    “Be good,” was all he said and waddled away like a well-fed goose.
    The tall man with the