Once Upon a Time: The Villains (9 page)

“What are you doing here?” Evie demanded in hushed, harsh tones upon opening the door and finding me there.

“I was just…um…” I blinked, empty headed.

Excuses were futile. What I was doing was plain to both of us.

“If I cannot trust you—”

“You can!” I assured her.

“Your actions speak otherwise. Now go,” she said, pointing to the kitchen.

Barred from her knowledge, and now banned from the fireside. I despaired of ever learning her secrets.

As Evie’s startling beauty faded into a softer visage lined with faint wrinkles and mine grew flush with a woman’s promise, I encouraged her to rest. At those times, I would search for her secrets. But she kept them well hid.

Frustrated, I devoted myself to my work. My cakes and sweets now sold more than Evie’s. As I labored in the kitchen, I could hear Evie converse with our customers.

“Thank you,” she would say when someone praised my cakes. “We take pride in our confections.”

“You are a wonder, Evie. Truly talented,” the customer said, taking a loaf and a basket of sticky buns.

“I try,” came Evie reply.

Our confections? Ours? Nay. They were mine. I pounded the bread dough into submission. Resentment grew. What of me? Where were my accolades? Oh, that’s right, Evie stole them. How dare she take credit for what I created.

I grew more discontent. Why should she take all the glory? I worked harder than her. I always had. My cakes were more popular. Certainly if she taught me, my magic would be more powerful too. I had all the real talent. She was getting old, and soon she would be useless.

Old and useless. I cringed. I would give anything, do anything to avoid the inevitable. I had watched as Evie went from a vibrant, beautiful woman to a sad, old spinster. I was all Evie had. I wanted more. So much more.

And then the day came which had me shrieking at the top of my lungs.

Evie burst into the kitchen, her gray hair in disarray from being jerked from a nap. “What is wrong?” she demanded, her eyes wide with fear.

I pointed to the corner of the kitchen. “A rat!”

In our kitchen. A rat. Unheard of. In all the years I’d lived there, I’d never seen even a mouse, but there the big, ugly hairy beast was sitting proudly in the corner grooming itself.

Evie screamed and joined me on the table.

“What are we to do?” I cried.

“I don’t know.”

“Please,” I sobbed, terror infused in my heart. “Don’t call the rat catcher. I couldn’t bear it if you did.”

“The rat catcher…?” she looked dumbfounded. “No,” she said finally. “I can’t.” She crawled off the table and darted to the door. After a few calls, our cat sauntered in and Evie pushed it toward the rat. The lazy feline earned her keep that day. We both cowered on the table until the deed was done.

After opening the door so the cat could carry out its prize, I sighed. “Thank you, Evie.”

“For what?”

“For not calling the rat catcher.”

Her face paled. “I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

“Why?”

She quickly busied herself sweeping up the evidence of the cat’s deed, and didn’t look at me. “He’s dead.”

Dead? That horrid man was dead? “When?”

She didn’t appear to want to talk about it. It took her a moment, along with another prod on my part, to get her talking. “Years ago. The authorities caught him with the body of a child he’d lured from the village. He was hanged along with his accomplices — children I was told. I’m surprised you didn’t hear of it. It was only a few months after you’d come to live with me. The whole village was in an uproar.”

“I didn’t.” I frowned. All those children he used to catch his rats, all those horrible children. Were they all dead? “Why would he do that?”

“You know I don’t deal in gossip. He was a sad, broken man. He deserves our pity.”

“No he doesn’t,” I muttered. “None of them do.”

As I lay in my bed that evening, the conversation replayed in my head.

Only a few months after you’d come to live with me. Only a few months. A few months.

She’d known for years. She’d kept me here, and I’d worked my hands raw, afraid she’d return me to that horrible man. My relief at learning the rat catcher was dead slowly turned to anger at Evie. She’d used me. I’d been her slave.

Forgotten was the kindness she’d displayed year after year. Forgotten was my insistence on helping, of blindly loving her for so long. Our relationship was now tainted, and bitterness burned in my chest.

Although Evie never let me help with her potions, she had taught me a few medicinal tricks. The one I was most familiar with was a purger. We used it to clear our stomachs of illness. Only one large dose would see the job done. But I had grander plans. The next day, I slipped a little into her food. That first day, she said she felt a bit off. Each day, her stomach grew a bit sourer. Soon she took to her bed. By the end of the week, Evie rolled in agony on her pallet, until even that became a chore.

“What can I do?” I asked in a caring voice. I forced a tear down my cheek and wiped it away.

“I know not,” she moaned.

Must I lead her? “Tell me your secrets. I can cure you if you do.”

“Nay. It is too dangerous.”

I gritted my teeth, and swallowed down my anger. “I am quick to learn. You said so.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t.”

Frustration flushed my cheeks. “Why?”

“You were supposed to die.”

Had delusions claimed her? She looked parched. I placed a cup of water to her lips and urged her to drink. She gulped the water as if she would drown herself in it. Mayhap I had taken measures too far. True panic set in. “You aren’t making sense, Evie. If you don’t tell me, you may die.”

She sat back and shook her head. “I tried to change fate. I saved you from death.”

“From the rat catcher?”

“Aye. But…I set something in motion I had no idea would happen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can never teach you my secrets. To do so would bring about disaster.”

A ray of light broke through the lace curtains and showed me just how sickly-yellow Evie’s skin had turned. Not a trace of the beautiful woman she had been was present. “Keeping quiet will bring about your end. Tell me. Where do you keep your potions? Tell me, Evie. I can’t help you unless you do.”

“I can’t.”

“You must.” I began to cry in earnest. My plan was quickly disintegrating around me.

“I will die for the children.”

“What children?”

“I saved you from death. I’m saving so many. Surely I am redeemed now. That poor child. He killed that poor child…because of me.”

She had collapsed into a litany of woe that made no sense. I backed out of the room, horrified by what I’d done. Evie was truly ill. Unto death ill.

And I had caused it.

I quickly made her a restorative soup. As I spooned the liquid between her lips, she smiled. “Promise me you’ll be good.”

“When have I ever been bad?”

“You are so beautiful. A reflection.” Her hand rose briefly, and I fed her another spoonful of broth. Her throat convulsed and she choked. A look of fear washed over her face. “Children. Never hurt…”

Spasms shook her, which forced her head off the pillow. She collapsed and grew quiet. I readied another spoonful and lifted it to her lips. But they did not part. Her breath no longer stirred the air. Her eyes no longer saw.

“Evie?” I whispered.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Evie?”

She couldn’t have died. There was so much she hadn’t told me. So much I needed to learn still. But in one week she had grown so old. Sickness had claimed her beauty, had claimed her mind.

“Evie!” I cried and dropped the bowl, splattering my skirts and the bed linens with the soup. I rose and backed out of the room. Seeing her in the full light of day, a wasted mass of flesh, made me ill. I was now alone in the world. Evie was all I had. I ran to the parlor and paced.

“What to do? What to do?”

A knock sounded on the door. Did someone already know of Evie death? I opened the door hesitantly. A woman, red faced and sniffly stared back at me. “Hello,” I said.

“Hello. Who are you?”

“I’m—”

“Is Evie here?” she demanded.

I looked behind me. “Y-yes.” I turned back to her. “But she isn’t feeling well. I’m her assistant. Can I help you?”

“I didn’t know Evie had an assistant.” She swiped at a tear, her face a circle of sadness.

“Not many do.” I opened the door wider. “Come in.” She stepped inside and went directly to the table and sat. I followed. “How can I help you?”

“It’s my husband. I don’t think he loves me anymore. He says he does, but his eyes wander. I need something to bring his eyes back to me.”

I studied the woman. Sour disposition. Portly. Slightly balding. Bad skin. It would take more than a simple spell to correct her relationship. “I see.”

She looked me up and down and frowned. “Are you sure Evie can’t see me?”

“I’m sure.” Unless she was able to resurrect herself in the last ten minutes, Evie’s days of dealing with people were over. “Don’t worry. I have just the thing for you.”

I was bluffing, of course. I had no idea what she needed, but what Evie did probably had more to do with sugar coating than the supernatural. I put a handful of small hand-dipped, chocolate-coated sweet peas in a pouch and returned to the woman. I held out the bag.

She took it and peered inside. “This isn’t what I expected. What are these?”

“They’re powerful. Evie warned me to handle them with care and not to give them just to anyone.”

Her eyes rounded with awe. “What do they do?”

“Enchant. Put one in your mouth and one in your husband’s, and by the end of the week, he’ll be begging at your feet.” I pulled her up onto sturdy legs. “That will be…um…” I had no idea what to charge her. “The usual amount.”

She counted out fifty pence. “You’re sure this will work?”

Twenty pence? If I saw only four people a week that would be almost a full pound. I shrugged, fingering the coins lovingly. “Evie says—”

“Well,” she nodded, as if Evie’s name held some kind of power in itself, “if Evie says, then all’s good.”

Every day another desperate soul found themselves at my door, and I dispensed candy like it was medicine from heaven. And it was. Comfort never tasted so sweet, nor so sinful, I was told.

I kept Evie’s demise a secret for a whole week. It took me that long to build up the courage to go upstairs, drag her down and bury her behind the house near the weeping willow she loved to sit beneath. I hated that tree. Every autumn it made a mess of the back garden. Someone saw me bury her and reported the sight to the villagers.

The sheriff came. I spoke of finding her lifeless after a nap. I showed him Evie’s room. Death saturated the air. The sheriff held a cloth to his face and warned me only the purifying heat of fire would stem the tide of disease before beating a hasty retreat. I shivered as I shoved the mattress out the window and burned it by the light of a full moon.

Evie gone, the house cleansed of disease, and me attracting more customers by the day, I grew flush with success. I created more treats to soothe the villagers’ broken hearts. It was during one episode of creation that a rather hard knock sounded. With a tune on my lips, I opened the door. The portly, slightly balding woman with bad skin stood red-faced and glaring. She jabbed the pouch I had filled with candied peas in my face and snarled, “What did you give me?”

“I told you, they’re—”

“They’re rubbish. Pure rubbish. My husband left me.” A tear slid down her face. “You said he wouldn’t. That these would keep his eyes on me.”

“H-he didn’t like them?”

“Oh, he loved them well enough. But he didn’t love me.”

“I see,” as if her announcement came as a surprise. “I can make you—”

“Don’t bother. Evie never approved of them, did she?” As I stammered for a reply, the woman sneered. “I thought so. You’ll never be like Evie. Never.” She threw the pouch at my feet and stormed away.

I picked up the empty pouch. Her husband’s departure hadn’t stopped her from eating the lot, did it? I closed the door, only to open it a couple of hours later. Another dissatisfied customer stood glaring at me. Words just as spiteful spewed from her lips and in the end, she too, left in a huff. By the end of that week, all who had come for help the previous week had returned angry and bent on burning my ears with their tales of loss.

They blamed me for their failures. How ridiculous. But in the days that followed, as I waited for people to come, I waited in vain. Word had spread. I was no Evie.

“I’m better than Evie. I swear I am, and I’ll prove it,” I said to the wind.

I would tear down the house searching for Evie’s potions, her spells and her darkest secrets. They had to be here, somewhere. And when I found them, everyone who had spoken ill of me would come crawling back on all fours, contrite, apologetic and ready to pay whatever price I deemed worthy of my skills.

I didn’t sleep. Not for days. I ripped through the house, plundering everything. I easily found the money Evie had saved, along with pearls and gold coins and precious stones. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I had to know her secrets, yet they continued to elude me. The villagers thought I had gone mad, and I guess I had.

I was possessed. It didn’t matter what anyone thought. No one ever bothered me. I wasn’t Evie. They were positive I never would be.

And then, after weeks and weeks of searching, I decided to clear out the kitchen pantry, object by object. This had been Evie’s beloved place. Surely her secrets would be kept here. Deep within the pantry, a place I had been time and again, I saw a crack in the floor. And under a sack of flour so heavy I had to grunt in order to push it aside, I saw a small iron ring. It looked more like a finger ring than a pull. But when I bent to pick it up, a hatch opened on well-oiled hinges.

Excitement bubbled within me. I fetched a lantern and descended the stairs. When I touched bottom, I saw a room, filled with bottles and books — a virtual treasure trove of knowledge. Evie had hidden more than even I had dreamed possible.