In a Glass Grimmly (4 page)

Do you see it, child?
the queen had asked.

Jill looked up at the merchant. “My mother was right,” she said. “It is more like autumn leaves.”

The merchant smiled. “Yes, my dear. Well, you can always hope to be as wise and beautiful as your mother one day. It’s a worthy goal for any daughter.”

Jill looked at the floor, curtsied, and turned to leave. But she ran directly into the king, who was coming to inspect the merchant’s gift. He was followed by his friend and confidant, Lord Boorly.

“And where is this wonderful silk?” Lord Boorly demanded as he crossed the threshold, his monocle fixed firmly between his left eyebrow and the top of his fleshy cheek.

Then his eyes fell on the loom. His eyebrows shot up his forehead. His monocle fell to the floor and shattered. At his side, the king stared wordlessly.

“Stunning, isn’t it, Your Majesty?” the merchant said.

“Uh . . .” the king began.

“The princess was just telling me that she has come to the opinion that your wife was most apt in describing this silk as like autumn leaves. Weren’t you, Princess?” And he smiled at her.

“Yes,” she said, studying the faces of Lord Boorly and the king curiously. “I was.”

“Ah!” said Lord Boorly. “Yes! I see it now! It’s hard to catch at first! So subtle! So fine! But yes! It’s magnificent!” He walked up to the loom to inspect more closely. “Yes, autumn leaves—I see that. But what about peacock feathers, eh? Wouldn’t you say that hits a little closer to home, Anderson?”

The merchant considered this. “It may . . .” he said at length. “It just may . . .”

The king had, by this point, come up closer to the loom. He was still inspecting it when the merchant asked him, “And you, Your Highness, what would you say it looked most like? Lord Boorly’s peacock feathers? Or your wife’s leaves? Or,” he added, “gold pieces kissed by the colors of sunset? That was the princess’s description.”

“It was, was it?” The king squinted at her, and then turned back to the loom. After a moment, he straightened up. “Well, I agree with my daughter! Gold pieces, absolutely!”

Lord Boorly looked crestfallen. “You wouldn’t say peacock feathers, Your Highness?”

The king looked at Jill. She shrugged her small shoulders. He looked back at Boorly. “I most certainly would not!” he said. “Gold pieces at sunset, if anything. Leaves, maybe. But really, gold at sunset. In fact,” he said, raising his voice and pointing one finger at the ceiling, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a color so like gold at sunset as this!” He reached out and shook the merchant’s hand. “My good sir, thank you for bringing us this magnificent specimen. I cannot wait to see my daughter arrayed in such a stunning gown!” He smiled at Jill and then turned and led Lord Boorly from the room.

Jill looked at the merchant. He was staring after the two men, wonderingly, smiling. She watched him for a moment and then slipped out the door.

Jill sat in her mother’s room, watching the queen sample different shades of eye shadow that had been given to her for her half birthday. After a while, she said, “Mother, can I tell you something?”

“Hmm?” replied her mother absently.

Jill studied the queen’s beautiful features. “Mother, sometimes I can’t see the silk.”

The queen stopped dabbing at her makeup, and their eyes connected in the looking glass. Slowly, her mother said, “Sometimes?”

Jill sucked in her breath. Her mother knew. She knew Jill couldn’t see it. She would be so disappointed. “Yes,” Jill said hurriedly. “Sometimes I see it as if it were the brightest, most beautiful thing in the world.” And then, she added quietly, “Except you.”

Her mother’s eyes slid back to the mirror. She
did
look disappointed. Her voice was flat when she said, “Well, perhaps one day you’ll learn to see it all the time. It takes a truly refined eye.”

The next day, Jill returned to the turret room. The merchant was still working away at the invisible silk, pumping and picking and weaving. Jill watched him from the doorway. After a while, he looked up.

“Ah, Princess! A pleasure to see you!” he said. “Come, come, look what I’m working on now!” Jill approached. “It’s the hem!” he said. “Can’t you see it? Along the edge, I’m running a slightly different color—something like the red mud at the banks of a yellow river. Do you see?”

Jill stared. She saw nothing. She hesitated.

At last, she said, “Yes.”

The merchant looked up from the loom. His eyes were so pale. “Do you see it, Jill?”

Jill shivered. Then she heard her mother say, Perhaps one day you’ll learn to see it all the time
.

“Of course I can,” she told the merchant. Then she left.

At last, the day came. Jill was woken very, very early in the morning to help her mother bathe. As she rubbed the bath oils and soap into her mother’s smooth skin, she said, “Mother, do you think I will look beautiful today?”

The soapy water, lapping gently against the edge of the tub, was the only sound in the room. Then, slowly, the queen turned to her daughter. Jill could see her mother’s eyes working up and down her face. At last, the queen said, “Perhaps you will.” And she smiled.

Jill’s heart sang.

After Jill had bathed herself, the merchant came into her dressing room. He held his hands out wide before him. He beamed. He looked at the space between his hands, and then back at Jill.

“Well?” he said, “what do you think?”

Jill stared. She saw nothing.

“I . . .” she began. Then she stopped.

“Yes?” the merchant said, frowning.

“I don’t . . .” she said again.

His frown deepened. “Go on . . .”

She opened her mouth to speak. And then, in her mind, she heard the words,
Perhaps you will.

And she said, “Will you help me put it on?”

The merchant smiled. “Of course, Your Highness.”

He did not look at her when she dropped her towel. His voice was as tight as his eyelids when he said, “No underclothes, Your Highness. The silk will bunch up around it.”

Slowly, with eyes closed, the merchant lowered the dress over Jill’s head. “Light as air, isn’t it?” he asked wistfully. She nodded and swallowed. Her eyes, too, were closed, and she concentrated on how beautiful her mother always looked, how graceful and lovely she was.

And then Jill opened her eyes and looked at herself in the mirror.

She caught her breath. A silken gown, as fine and shimmering as any that has ever been, hung weightless over her slender little shoulders. It was red and orange and blue and yellow, just exactly like a glittering, sun-dappled pile of coins as the sky is fading from pink to black. Just so did the colors of the dress blend in and out, yellow fading to orange fading to red and back again as the dress shifted over Jill’s little body.

Jill clutched her hands to her chest. She had been right. Somehow, she had known just what it looked like. And her mother had been right. She did look beautiful. She knew she did.

She smiled at Holbein Cornelius Anderson in the mirror. “It’s very beautiful,” she said, beaming. “Thank you.”

The silk merchant suddenly looked confused.

The Royal Procession started at the gate of the castle. At its head were the trumpeters, blowing the fanfare to announce the royal party. Behind them, Lord Boorly led the group of the king’s and queen’s most favored courtiers, arrayed in their finest clothes. Behind them walked the soldiers in their silver armor,
clomp clomp clomp
. Then came the king and the queen, arm in arm. The king wore his purple ermine. But, of course, no one noticed him. For the queen walked beside him, wearing a stunning gown of aubergine and white lace. Garnets hung around her neck and rubies from her soft earlobes. Her pale skin shined, and her blue eyes echoed the immensity of the sky.

And then, behind them, came Jill. Little Jill. Her hair had been coiffed. Her nails had been painted. She wore clay-red shoes and red ribbons in her hair. Her silk dress—so light, so smooth, so shining—swished against her legs. She felt like she was wearing one of those mirages that appear on the road on a hot day—the dress was that light, that shimmering.

The royal party entered the roaring, adoring throng that lined the streets outside the castle. The trumpets blared and the people cheered. Lord Boorly and the other courtiers waved, and the crowd whistled and waved back. The king and queen smiled serenely at their subjects, and the people of the kingdom cheered like mad.

And then they saw the princess.

A hush fell over the crowd. It ran down the street like a shiver. No one spoke. They watched the princess walking, head held high, brows arched just as the queen’s always were, smiling and looking not quite at the crowd, but just above their heads.

Suddenly, a whisper shook the stillness.
“The princess’s new dress! The princess’s new dress!”
Jill heard it. Her smile grew a little wider. A little more confident. The whispers grew.
“The princess’s new dress! Beautiful! Beautiful!”
Princess Jill allowed her head to float just a little higher. Her bearing became more natural, more regal. She stopped looking above her subjects’ heads and started looking into their wondering faces. She smiled more broadly.

The whisper become a wave—“The dress is beautiful!
She
is beautiful!”—undulating through the admiring crowd. She was certain her mother could hear it, too. Jill’s chest swelled near to bursting.

And then Jill noticed a little child, sitting atop her father’s shoulders. The child was just a year or two younger than Jill. She even looked like Jill, a little. Similar hair. Something in the eyes, perhaps. And then Jill noticed that the little girl was staring at her strangely. Her little mouth was hanging open. Her eyebrows were crawling up her tender, rounded forehead. She raised a little finger and pointed at Jill. The smile left Jill’s face.

“Why is the princess naked, Daddy?”

Jill stopped walking.

The wave of whispers faltered, then died.

“She’s naked, Daddy! Why?” the child said.

The blood rushed to Jill’s cheeks. She dimly perceived that, ahead of her, the procession had stopped. Her parents had turned to look at her.

“The princess is naked!” someone in the crowd cried. “The princess is naked!”

Jill looked down at herself. The reds, the yellows, the blues—were gone. There was nothing. She was, indeed, completely naked.

Jill looked up. Her mother was there. The queen’s eyes were furiously wide, her nostrils flared like a bull’s. Her lips were moving, but it was as if Jill had gone deaf. The world was suddenly silent, dream-like. She tried to make out what her mother was saying. Then, suddenly, she could hear again. “Cover yourself, you fool!” the queen bellowed.

And then Jill heard them. Waves of laughter crashed around her. She turned and began running, trying to cover herself. The faces around her were wild, howling. Their eyes were wide like moons, the makeup they wore cracked like caverns. Wild, wondering, piercing laughter cascaded down upon her. She ran, ran, ran as fast as her bare legs could carry her.

Suddenly a hand shot out from the crowd and caught her by the arm.

She turned to look. It was a beggar. His back was bent and his beard was long and scraggly. He said, “It’s cold out here, Princess. Would you like a blanket?” And he handed her a rough, woolen blanket. Then he smiled. Jill covered herself with it and then sprinted back to the castle, her clay-red shoes clicking on the cobblestones, her red hair ribbons waving in the wind, her naked body running past the lines and lines of howling, laughing, weeping people.

Wow. That was unpleasant.

I am really sorry I had to tell you about that. I, who have heard this story a number of times now, am upset just retelling it. You, dear reader, must feel positively ill.

Anyway, before we conclude this story (it’s not quite done!), you have a question. I know you do, because when I first heard this, the true version of this famous tale, I had the same one. It is a practical question. A small detail. And while the adults are thinking, “It’s not important enough to ask,” the children are demanding an answer immediately. As well they should.

The question is this:
Why couldn’t Jill wear any underclothes?

Yes! Excellent question. Exactly the right question to be asking.

The answer?

I have no idea.

Really. No clue. Because the merchant wanted to humiliate her even more? Or because he was trying to teach her a lesson? Maybe.

Or maybe it had something to do with being totally naked before all the world.

But don’t listen to me. I just made that up. Make up your own explanation.

It had been many, many years since a human had entered the clearing with the well. But one cold, sunny day in spring, when the buds were tiny green pillows for the heads of silkworms and the musty perfume of thaw rose like a memory from the ground, the frog was staring up at the cerulean sky when he heard a peculiar
stomp-stomp-stomping
on the forest floor. It was followed by a sudden
whoomp
, and then a cry. Curious, he climbed the slippery stone walls to the top of his well and peered out.

Sitting on the forest floor, with matted hair and muddied clothes, was a little girl. Her face was red with anger and exertion. Her lips were all scrunched up and furious. But her eyes . . . The frog studied them. Her eyes . . . Well, her eyes looked just like the patch of sky above his well when it was its clearest, deepest blue.

The girl sat on the ground and wept. The frog felt dizzy. Was this a memory, come to life? But the longer he stared at the girl, the more certain he became that it was not. She had the same eyes, yes. But the hair was darker, curlier. Her face was not so perfect. Not nearly so perfect. And the way she cried. It was more genuine. More human.

Also, she was completely naked, save for a ratty brown blanket that she had wrapped around her body.

Should he? After twenty years? He’d lost his leg, and his heart, the last time . . .

And yet . . .

The frog took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and said, “Please, dear girl, let me help you.”