Hero

Monday tilted the brim of her hat up and slowly let her gaze drift across the field. As if released from a spell, each pair of eyes she met reluctantly turned away. Velius and Erik wandered in the direction of the well. Monday indicated a bench at the edge of the practice area and moved to sit. Saturday leapt over the fence and plopped down beside her sister in a cloud of dust.

“How are you faring?” asked Monday.

“Get to the point,” said Saturday.

“As you wish.”

Saturday wondered if anything ruffled her sister’s feathers. She shuddered a little, remembering the brief time their sister Wednesday actually had had feathers.

“They tell me you rely too heavily on your gift.”

It didn’t matter if “they” were Erik, or Velius, or both. “They” were a big rat. Saturday rolled her eyes.

“I’m not here to chide you,” said Monday. “I’m here to tell you a story.”

“Like Papa.” Saturday missed being in the Wood with Papa and Peter, telling stories, playing games, and being useful. Stupid, gold-laying goose.

Monday smiled and Saturday beamed back at her, though she had no idea why. “Yes, like Papa.” Monday’s face turned thoughtful. “Saturday, who am I?”

“You’re beautiful,” Saturday answered immediately.

“That’s what I look like. Who am I?”

Saturday wrinkled her nose. What type of person was Monday? She’d gone off and married a prince after surviving a hailstorm and sleeping on a pea. Saturday knew nothing of Monday’s life beyond that tale. For the most part, she had grown up without her eldest sister. What had Monday accomplished? What was she like? Saturday had no idea. This was already the longest conversation the two of them had ever had.

“You’re a storyteller?” she guessed.

“Sunday’s the storyteller,” said Monday. “What about me?”

“I don’t know.” Saturday felt bad, and not just because she couldn’t answer the question.

“Neither do I.” Monday removed a tiny, ornate mirror from her skirt pocket. “This was my nameday gift from Fairy Godmother Joy.”

Saturday snorted. “A mirror?” Surely Aunt Joy could have done better. As gifts went, a mirror was pretty useless, even if you were the most beautiful girl in the land.

“A looking glass,” Monday corrected. “It’s for looking.”

“To see what?” asked Saturday.

“Right now, I see the most beautiful face in all of Arilland.”

“That’s got to count for something.” Not to her, of course, but Saturday felt sure that beauty was very important to some people.

“Perhaps. But behind that face, inside the woman, all I see is nothing,” said Monday. “The beauty has only ever brought me pain.”

Saturday wasn’t very good at polite conversation, but she was very good at arguing. “That beauty won you all sorts of prizes when you were younger. It got you a prince. It got us a house.” The tower that supported the ramshackle cottage in which Saturday and her parents currently lived had been given to Monday by her royal in-laws as a bride gift.

“What help was beauty the day my twin sister danced herself to death? It snared me a prince who never loved me and then cast me aside for another woman, a witch who killed my daughter.”

“What?” Saturday’s grip on her sword’s hilt tingled. Monday had said it all so casually, as if it had happened to someone else. Saturday hated all their horrid family secrets. She felt bad that she was not closer to Monday, that she had not been able to rescue her eldest sister in her time of need. She wanted to kill the woman who’d hurt Monday and dared harm a niece she’d never known.

“I’m sorry.” The words were useless, but Papa had taught Saturday to say them anyway.

Monday cupped her soft, alabaster hand around Saturday’s dirty cheek. “Don’t worry,” she said brightly.

“You’re not sad,” Saturday realized. “Why?”

Monday held up the mirror again, turning it so that Saturday might see herself in the glass as well. “Look deeper,” Monday said. And then with her honeyed voice, she rhymed:

“Mirror, Mirror, true and clearest,

Please show us our mother dearest.”

Inside the small oval surrounded by jewels, Saturday watched the image of her dusty hair blur before resolving into that of her mother. Mama was in the kitchen, as ever, kneading dough as if she were scolding it for keeping supper waiting. Saturday could almost smell the smoke from the oven fires, almost feel their heat as Mama mopped her brow with a sleeve.

“Thank you, Mirror,” said Monday, and the vision vanished.

“Huh,” Saturday snorted again. “Not so useless after all.”

“It is the reason I do not believe my daughter is dead.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“Bits and pieces, yes. She’s not using the name I gave her at birth, so she’s been difficult to find, but I have the sense that she is there. The mirror has shown me the world from a young girl’s eyes. I believe my daughter is that girl. I believe she still lives.” Heedless of her iridescent white overskirt, Monday took her sister’s mud-covered hand in hers. “Saturday. When you leave this place, if you ever find my daughter, please tell her that I love her. And that I’ve never stopped looking for her.”

Saturday nodded, interested that Monday had said “when” and not “if.” “What does she look like?”

“Hair as black as night, skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood,” said Monday, as if reading from a recipe book. “She is the fairest of us all.”

Every mother thought her daughter the fairest of all, but coming from Monday, this was undoubtedly more truth than compliment. “Okay. I mean, I will.”

“Thank you.” Monday released Saturday’s hands. “It may not tell me who I am, but at least it’s given me hope.”

A thought occurred to Saturday, so she blurted it out, as she did with most of her thoughts. “You are a butterfly,” she said. “You are beautiful and light and airy, and you make people happy just by being present.”

“Ever at the whim of the wind and fated to die young?” Monday laughed, and a murmuration of starlings flocked to the fence posts to listen. “I may be beautiful, but I don’t think I’ve blossomed yet. I feel more like a caterpillar: atop a leaf, admiring the view.” She stood to receive Erik and Velius, who had returned from the well. But before she greeted them she turned back to Saturday and asked, “But tell me, sister, who are you?”

It was a good question. Without swords and sisters, who was Saturday Woodcutter? Besides a clumsy giantess with a big mouth and a never-ending supply of energy?

The mirror exploded with bright colors as the earth cracked and spewed forth geysers of water. Storms raged and towns flooded. Families were swept away from each other, their cries out-howled by the wind and their bodies drowned in the rain. The mirror flashed one horrible scene after another at them, and then went still. Even Monday’s lovely reflection couldn’t allay Saturday’s sense of dread after what she’d just witnessed.

“What was that?” asked Velius.

“I don’t know,” said Monday. “It doesn’t normally do that.” She graciously accepted the cup of water Velius had brought her as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Erik likewise thrust a mug into Saturday’s hands. His eyes never left Monday.

“Velius, would you mind escorting me back to my rooms?”

Velius gave a small bow. “Of course, milady.” He turned and bent his elbow so that Monday could rest her hand upon his arm.

“Good day, Erik,” Monday said to the guard.

“Good day, Highness.” Erik might have been blushing under his beard, but as both blush and beard covered his cheeks in red, it was hard to tell.

“Good day, sister,” Monday said to Saturday.

“See ya, Monday.” Saturday let Erik watch them walk away for a while before punching him in the arm. “You’re in love with my sister,” she teased.