The Wide-Awake Princess (17 page)

“Lizette!” shouted Prince Cozwald, scrambling off the floor. “I’ve come to rescue you, my love!” Grabbing the princess by the arm, he yanked her from the chair and shoved her behind him as he turned to face the ogre.

The ogre’s forehead crinkled into a ferocious scowl. “Get your paws off her!” he roared. Shoving the table aside, he sent it crashing to the floor as he heaved himself to his feet. Standing, the ogre was well over seven feet tall and towered over everyone in the room.

“Prepare to die, you foul fiend!” shouted Cozwald, lunging at the ogre with his sword.

The ogre grunted as he tugged a cudgel from the back of his sagging pants. Wielding the nail-studded weapon, he took a step forward and knocked the prince’s sword aside with a
clang
. The sword flew out of Cozwald’s hand and across the room, leaving the prince defenseless. He looked desperate until he remembered the ax still
tucked in the loop on his belt. Flipping his long hair out of his eyes, he stuck out his chin and shouted, “Now you will die, you horrible monster! This is a magic ax made to kill creatures like you!”

Torchlight reflected off the etching on the metal head of the ax, sparkling in a way that might have convinced Annie that it was magical if she hadn’t known better. The ogre saw the ax at the same time and took a step back as if he, too, thought that it was magic. When Lizette sobbed and threw up her hand in appeal, the ogre glanced at her, then back at Cozwald, and he growled. Raising his cudgel high, he swiped it at the prince, who swung his ax at the same time. One of the weapons would have connected if Lizette hadn’t stuck her foot out and tripped Cozwald. The prince went down and the cudgel whistled past his head.

Liam jumped into the fray now, beating the ogre back with powerful blows of his sword. It was obvious that Liam was a much better swordsman than Cozwald, who scooted out of the way as the ogre used his cudgel to ward off Liam’s blows. Annie was so wrapped up in watching them that she almost didn’t notice Lizette take a candlestick from a niche in the wall and sneak up behind Liam.

“No!” Annie shouted as the princess raised the candlestick over Liam’s head.

Annie wasn’t the only one who had seen Lizette, however, because Cozwald threw his arms around her and
dragged her away from the fight. “What are you doing, Lizette?” he asked as she struggled to get free. “We’ve come to rescue you!”

“What makes you think I need to be rescued?” she asked, and stomped on his toes. Cozwald yelped and let go of the princess, who turned and brandished the candlestick in his face.

Cozwald backed away, fending her off with his hand. “Your father said an ogre had kidnapped you, yet I find you playing cards with the monster. Do you mean to say that you like it here?”

“He isn’t a monster!” said Lizette. “And I’d rather be with him than with anyone else in the world. I’m happier with Grimsby than I’ve been in my entire life.”

“But he’s an ogre!”

“Yes, and you have a head shaped like a cantaloupe, but I don’t hold that against you.”

“I do?” Cozwald said, reaching up to feel his skull.

“Grimsby is special. He makes me laugh.”

Cozwald blinked. “I know they say that no one has ever heard you laugh, but that was you laughing earlier, wasn’t it?”

“Liam,” Annie called. “I think you should hear this.”

The ogre, who had been busy fighting off Liam’s blade, seemed relieved when the young man stepped back.

“If you’d grown up the way I did, you wouldn’t laugh, either,” said Lizette. “My mother died when I was born. My nursemaid told me that my parents laughed all the
time, but after my mother died my father never smiled again. When I was little, he scolded me whenever I laughed. He said that my mother died because of me and I didn’t have any right to be happy. I grew up thinking that laughter was bad. None of my suitors made me laugh, including you, and I thought I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life until I met Grimsby.”

“Where did you meet him?” asked Liam, eyeing the ogre.

“I was out riding with my ladies-in-waiting one day and we ran into Grimsby. He’d gotten pine tar on his hands and picked up a goose, which stuck to him no matter what he did. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen and I laughed until my sides hurt. My ladies ran away screaming, but Grimsby and I became friends. When I couldn’t stand living at home any longer, the only place I wanted to go was Grimsby’s castle.”

“Does your father know this?”

“He should. Grimsby and I are engaged and I’ve already sent Father an invitation to the wedding. I doubt he’ll come, though. He’s probably embarrassed that I ran away from home to come here. I’ve been living in this castle for three weeks now and I’ve never been happier.”

Cozwald looked disappointed when he asked, “So you don’t need rescuing?”

“No, but thank you anyway,” Lizette said.

“Then I guess our work here is done,” said Cozwald. Bending his knee in a courtly bow, he added, “I wish
you both well,” then turned to Liam and Annie. “Come, my friends, it’s time we go. We’ve disrupted their lives enough already.”

Annie glanced back as they were leaving the room and saw that Lizette and the ogre were holding hands. She also saw the way they were looking at each other. It was a warm, tender look and one she’d never seen before, not even on the faces of her parents, who everyone said were madly in love.
It’s the look of true love,
she thought.
If a princess and an ogre can find it, why can’t I?

Once he’d left Lizette, all Cozwald seemed to want was to get out of the ogre’s castle as quickly as possible. “That’s the last time I help a damsel in distress,” he muttered as they hurried down the stairs to the room with the dirty table.

“At least she’s happy now,” said Annie.

“Huh!” said Cozwald. “She’s marrying an ogre! I bet their marriage doesn’t last a month.”

Annie glanced at the prince, noting the sour look on his face. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “She was too happy. When she gets tired of being happy, she’ll run back to her father for a good dose of miserableness.”

AFTER SPENDING AN uncomfortable night in the forest, Annie and Liam went with Cozwald to see his cousin. Because the cousin was a prince, Annie had expected to go to a castle, or at least a large, imposing manor house, and was surprised when they rode through the forest to the edge of a mist-shrouded swamp.

“He should be somewhere around here,” said Cozwald as he dismounted from his horse. “Emilio!” he called. “It’s me, Cozwald!”

“Is his castle in this swamp?” asked Annie as they waited for the prince to appear.

Cozwald laughed. “He hasn’t lived in a castle in years. Emilio comes here to reminisce about some things and forget about others. Ah, there he is now. Emilio, I’d like you to meet some friends of mine.”

At first Annie couldn’t see anything, but then a shape moving in the swirling mist resolved into a handsome
yet bedraggled young man. His hair was darker than his cousin’s—almost the color of walnuts, and his features were more refined than Cozwald’s, but she could see a family resemblance. The biggest difference between them, however, was their eyes. While Cozwald’s eyes smiled when he did, Emilio’s eyes looked as if he had known nothing but sadness.

“Princess Annabelle, I’d like you to meet my cousin Prince Emilio,” said Cozwald. “His mother is my father’s sister. He’s also my second cousin on my mother’s side. Emilio, the princess and her escort are looking for someone to kiss her sister, and you’ll never guess who that is! If you go with her, you stand a chance of marrying Princess Gwendolyn, the most beautiful princess in all the kingdoms!”

Prince Emilio gave Annie a halfhearted smile, then turned back to his cousin. “What’s wrong with Gwendolyn?” he asked. “If she wants to marry me, there must be something wrong with her. No one in her right mind would want to marry me.” His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed and he blinked at the same time.

“Gwendolyn is asleep,” said Liam. “And will stay that way until her true love kisses her.”

Emilio looked puzzled. “Why would you think I’m her true love? Once you get to know me, I’m sure you’d see that I’m not at all suitable.”

“We don’t know who her true love is, so we’re inviting all the unattached princes we meet to kiss her.
We’re hoping that one of you will be the right one,” said Liam.

“That doesn’t sound very good,” Annie said.

“Maybe,” Liam said, shrugging, “but it’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“What about you?” Emilio asked his cousin Cozwald. “Are you going to kiss her, too?”

Cozwald looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought about it. I mean, I was planning to marry Lizette, but that didn’t work out. I suppose I could kiss Gwendolyn. It would certainly make my parents happy. They’ve been after me to get married for years.”

“Then there’s no need for me to go,” Emilio said, looking doleful. He glanced at Annie, saying, “You wouldn’t want me to kiss your sister if you knew more about me.”

“Emilio is a little self-conscious about his past,” said Cozwald. “He was married to a lovely princess who bore him two sweet children. They were living happily ever after until one day he rode past the swamp and his horse’s hooves splashed mud on a nasty fairy. The fairy was furious and turned him into a frog.”

“I lived in the swamp for season after season until a princess came looking for frogs,” said Emilio. “Apparently there was a shortage of available princes and she’d heard that kissing a frog was a good way to find one. She kissed me and was delighted when I turned into my old self, but when she learned that I was already married she dumped me for the next handsome frog to come along.”

“You mean handsome prince,” prompted Cozwald. A fly landed on Annie’s wrist, tickling her. She shook her hand to dislodge the fly and it flew off, buzzing. Emilio watched the fly go, his eyes tracking it as it zigzagged back into the swamp. Cozwald nudged his cousin with his elbow.

“That’s right,” Emilio hurried to say. “So I rushed home to see my family, only to learn that my stepmother had given my wife a poisoned apple and sold my children to a woodcutter who took them with him when he moved away. I’ve scoured the kingdom looking for them, but no one has seen them anywhere.”

“Emilio was a wreck,” Cozwald said. “My mother invited him to stay with us, but he was so depressed that he made everyone else depressed. After a few weeks, my father made him go home. He spends most of his time in the swamp now.”

“It’s the only place that doesn’t remind me of my family,” said Emilio, dabbing at unshed tears glistening in his eyes. “Even so, my memories torment me every minute of the day. My wife was as pretty as a swamp rose and even sweeter. Little Clara was only a baby when I was turned into a frog, but Tomas was a strapping lad who could already ride a horse and draw a bow. If I could have anything in the world, it would be to have my family with me again. Without them, life just hasn’t been worth living.”

Annie felt sorry for the poor man, but she could see
how he could make everyone depressed. She wondered if they’d been a little hasty in making the offer to Emilio.

A tree branch cracked in the forest behind them. Emilio jumped into the air, landing three feet away. Muck geysered out from under his feet, splashing Annie with droplets from head to toe. He looked wildly around for a moment, then seemed to remember himself and came back to stand beside his cousin, looking even more downhearted. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I can’t seem to help myself.”

“Uh-huh,” said Annie. Not only was he depressing to be near, but it looked as though he hadn’t lost his froggie ways yet; she wasn’t sure she wanted him as her brother-in-law. Even so, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t help him if she could. “I might have met your children,” she said, trying to brush off some of the bigger clumps of muck. “At least, I met a boy named Tomas and his little sister, Clara. We were in a wicked witch’s cottage, but they ran away when we escaped. They said something about living with a woodcutter who wasn’t really their father.”

Emilio’s eyes lit up and suddenly he seemed younger and more alive. “That must be them! Where did you see them? Is it far from here?”

“The cottage was in the forest south of the royal castle of Treecrest by, oh, I’d say, twelve to fifteen miles. I met a bear who was an enchanted prince and asked him to keep an eye out for them. His name was Beldegard. He
was very nice and I’m sure he would have kept the children safe, if he found them.”

Cozwald looked thoughtful as he rubbed his chin. “I used to know a Prince Beldegard. He was my aunt’s sister’s husband’s second cousin. A nice fellow, as I recall.”

“I have to go!” said Emilio. “My little ones need me! I’ll look for them until I find them, even if it takes me season after season. Thank you for telling me,” he said, taking Annie’s hand in his and giving it a hard squeeze. “I haven’t been this happy since before Voracia turned me into a frog. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get ready and—”

“Did you say Voracia?” asked Annie. “That’s who I’m looking for! She’s the one who cast the spell on my sister.”

“Then perhaps I can help you just as you helped me,” said Emilio. “Voracia lives only a few miles from here in the Great Greasy Swamp. I’d take you there myself, but I want to go find my children. Perhaps you can show them the way, Cozwald?”