Fairest Read Free Page A

there and scolded me soundly. I didn’t tell her what I’d been doing, because it would have sounded ridiculous. I said I’d been woolgathering and returned to work. But from then on, whenever I had a minute of solitude, I tried again.
    I knew my stomach had done most of the work, so I pulled it in hard, trying to get enough thrust. For my pains I gave myself a sore abdomen. Still I kept at it, and sometimes I thought, Almost. Then, after a month, I had my first success. I was cleaning the Dove chamber, and I made the word apple sound as if it was coming from the floor two feet from my feet.
    Apples were the fruit I liked least, but they were delicious to sing and delicious to fling.
    I tried again and failed. But on the next attempt, apple rang from the windowsill.
    After that I made swift progress. Soon I could send my voice wherever I wanted, within reason. I couldn’t send it a mile away.
    My next endeavor was to learn to fling my voice without moving my lips. This required weeks of practice, touching my face to make sure it was motionless. I might have progressed faster if I’d looked in a mirror, but I never looked in mirrors.
    I named the new skill illusing . I was a good mimic, so I added mimicry. Alone in the stable, I learned to illuse Father’s voice—speech or singing—and make it come from the hayloft. I could conjure Mother’s voice answering from the yard outside, and I could call forth a whinny from an empty stall. I could even duplicate the creak of the stable door when it was opened.
    My first demonstration was to Areida, although I hadn’t planned it that way.
    She and I shared the Hummingbird chamber. Her bedtime was ten, while I was always up until midnight and later, washing dishes while Mother and Father and my brothers cleaned the tavern and prepared for the next day.
    It was a Saturday night. The tavern revelers had been boisterous. When the dishes were done I climbed the stairs, weary and angry. A drunken guest had called me an ogress.
    If I’d been an ogre, I could have persuaded him I was beautiful. I could have eaten him and made him think he was being caressed by the comeliest maiden in Ayortha. I may have been almost as ugly as an ogre, but I had none of their persuasive powers.
    Areida awakened when I came in. She sat up in bed. “Did anything happen? Did we get a new Master Ikulni?”
    This was her constant eager question. Master Ikulni was a legendary guest, who’d stayed with us only once, long ago, when Father’s grandfather was a boy. As soon as Master Ikulni had arrived, every mirror in the Featherbed shattered. No guest ever ate as much as he did. And the cook never cooked as well, before or after, as she had for him.
    Master Ikulni had paid in gold yorthys and tipped lavishly. But every coin melted into air the day after his departure.
    Areida craved the excitement of such an interesting guest.
    Tonight I had no patience. “Hush. I’m too tired.”
    â€œOh.” She plopped back down with a thump.
    I undressed to my shift and got into bed next to her. I kept picturing the guest’s flushed, foolish face.
    â€œWhat do you wish?” Areida sang the beginning of a rhyming game.
    She was a pest! “Shh! Father will come. I’m too exhausted to sing.”
    â€œI’m not,” she sang, more softly. “I wish for a moat and a boat and a float.”
    I wished she’d shut up. I was silent.
    â€œI wish for a twister, a blister, a wide-awake sister.”
    â€œIf you don’t hush I’ll smother you.” I felt tears coming.
    â€œI wish for—”
    â€œCan’t you just this once”—I squeezed my eyes shut. I wouldn’t let that taunt make me cry—“stop being a pest?”
    â€œNo. I wish—”
    â€œI hate you.”
    She was silent.
    I felt awful. A tear got out. Now I’d made Areida unhappy. “I don’t hate you.”
    She was