Princess Academy Read online

  By a week following spring holiday, all traces of winter had vanished from the mountain. The last hard patches of snow melted into the mud, then the mud hardened and grasses grew. The miri flowers sprang up in the rock cracks, faced the sun, and twirled themselves in the breeze. On breaks, the girls spun the pink flowers and made wishes.

  Miri found herself again on a hill, watching the last miri petal fall. She touched the linder hawk hidden in her pocket and thought of one wish she could make. Then she turned west, away from the village, toward the pass and the lowlands, and thought of a different wish.

  She dropped the flower stem and laughed before she could even form the thought. Of course she did not wish to be the princess. How could she wish to marry someone she did not know? Katar’s talk about being special and doing great things had lodged in her head, Miri decided, and she just needed to shake that nonsense loose.

  But her eyes flicked back to the west. What wonders waited in the lowlands? There was, of course, that beautiful house for Pa and Marda, but whenever she thought of giving them that gift, she could not imagine herself actually wedded to a prince. For a moment she let herself wonder how such a future would change her.

  “Princess Miri,” she whispered, and surprised herself by feeling a thrill. The title added weight to her name, made her feel more significant. Miri was a scrawny, hopeless village girl, but who would Princess Miri be?

  Other girls on the hill watched the last petal on their miri flowers tick off and float away. Miri wondered how many were wishing to wear a silver gown and how many were wishing for a title before their name.

  “I used to think that was the whole world,” said Esa, sitting beside Miri with Britta and Frid. Esa’s eyes sought out the swells and slopes of the mountains dimming from green to gray on the northern horizon. “Now I feel so small, perched up here on our isolated mountain.”

  Miri nodded. That morning a lecture from Olana had shaken a dreary spirit over their heads—linder represented a tiny fraction of the Danlander economy, less than the sale of pig ears or cloth flowers for ladies’ hats; the entire population of Mount Eskel was smaller than the number of palace stable hands; the wooden chapel doors, so loved and prized by the village, were smaller and less ornate than the front doors of any Aslandian merchant.

  “The lowlands aren’t so different from here,” said Britta. “Just bigger and . . .”

  “A lot bigger,” said Frid.

  “It’s hard to feel like I matter at all,” said Esa.

  Katar strolled by, twirling a bare miri stem. “A princess matters.”

  When no one argued, Miri knew she had not been the only one contemplating the western horizon when making her wish. The world had never felt so wide, a great gaping mouth that could swallow all of them whole. It made Miri wish she could bite back.

  “It doesn’t seem to matter what we think,” said Miri. “The prince will come up here and look at us as if we’re barrels in a trader’s wagon. And if I’m salt pork and he doesn’t care for salt pork, then there’s nothing I can do.”

  Her eyes found Katar walking down the hill. But I can do something about academy princess, she thought.

  It would be harder than she had hoped. The older girls had been spooked by Miri’s tie with Katar after the first exam, and Bena, Katar, and Liana spent all their free time with open books. Miri gazed longingly at spring erupting outside the window but forced herself to study—at least, most of the time. Britta, Esa, and Frid could coax her outside for a nostalgic game of Wolf and Rabbit every so often.

  At first, the new arrangement with Olana felt little better than before. She was tense and short of temper, as if uneasy with the threat of tutoring ruffians in a swamp but unable to soften her hard demeanor. But gradually Miri felt the mood ease. The girls who at first tried to take advantage of the new situation found after a lost meal that they should still listen to Olana.

  Just before the arrival of the traders would afford them a week off, Olana held another exam and announced the top five scores. Katar was first and Miri second.

  “Sorry, Miri,” said Katar. “You know you’re too short to look right in that gown, anyway.”

  “You’re too tall to . . . ,” Miri stumbled, unable to think of a good response. She cursed herself silently. “Never mind.”

  Esa was shocked and thrilled to hear she was third, until Bena and Liana caught up to her on their walk home for the next rest day.

  “I think you girls on the fourteen-year-olds’ row are cheating,” said Bena.

  “I wasn’t cheating, Bena,” said Esa. “I’ve been studying.”

  “Oh? So have I, and there’s no chance both you and Miri could beat me. I’ll be watching you.”

  “Me too,” said Liana.

  “I guess they don’t like anyone who is competition,” said Miri after the older girls had moved away.

  “At least I am competition,” Esa said cheerfully.

  The girls were a few minutes from the village when the sound of a donkey bawling echoed off the mountainside. A caravan of trader wagons came up from behind, Enrik at the lead.

  “Britta, they’re here,” Miri whispered, pressing a hand to her belly. “What if it doesn’t work? What if they refuse to trade for gold, take away the supplies, and we can’t get the linder down to a market, and—”

  “The academy released you all for the trading, did they?” said Enrik, squinting at the girls as he rode by. “Well, I hope your people have been hard at work without you. I should be grumpy to come all the way here for half a load of linder.”

  Miri and the girls ran behind the wagons and reached the village a few minutes after them. The traders were stopped before a gathering of villagers. Os stood at their head.

  “This is outrageous!” one of the traders was saying. “We won’t buy your linder at such prices. Then what will you do? Starve, that’s what.”

  “That’s a risk we take,” said Os. A brief glance at Miri’s father was the only sign that he might be unsure. Pa folded his arms, a stance that made him appear twice as broad and as solid as the mountain.

  “If you refuse,” Os continued, “we’ll manage to haul our linder down the mountain ourselves, sell it at the first town for triple what you pay, and make the local merchants there rich when they resell the stone to the capital for triple what they paid. We’ll win, they’ll win, everyone will win. Except you.”

  The pause that followed made Miri want to hop from foot to foot. If it worked, their lives would change. If not, if Miri’s suggestion ruined everything . . . She shut her eyes, afraid to think about it.

  “Do you think they’ll agree?” Britta whispered.

  “I don’t know,” said Miri, curling and extending her toes inside her boots. “But I wish they’d hurry and decide, whatever they do.”

  “When we get back to Asland and the king hears about this,” said a trader with white hair and a smooth face, “he’ll send others to mine the linder. I’ve half a mind to do it myself.”

  “Go right ahead,” said Os, his arm open and gesturing to the quarry.

  The trader hesitated, and many of the lowlanders exchanged glances.

  “Do you have any idea what it takes to find quiet stone?” said Doter in her round, loud voice. “Quiet stone—the linder that sleeps, that is good and sound, has fissures in just the right places, but not too many. Do you have the ear to hear where to break it from the mountain, the eye to know where to slide the wedge, how many taps of the mallet, not one too many, not one too few? And then there’s the squaring to be done. You’re fools, the lot of you, if you think we’re not aware that we’re the only people alive who know this mountain and know linder and how to harvest it for palaces and kings. So don’t try that threat on us again.”

  A gush of warmth entered Miri’s chest, she felt so proud and happy to be part of a
people who knew a craft no one else did. She wanted to run to Esa’s mother and hug her, and the desire pricked in her heart the old, tiny wound that reminded her she did not have a mother of her own. She sidled up to her pa.

  After Doter’s lecture, both sides were quiet, waiting for a decision. Miri wondered if worry could actually kill a person.

  Enrik moaned, running a hand through his greasy hair. “I told you there was a risk all that learning at the academy might smarten them up, and now it’s come to this.” He turned to Os. “Fine, but your asking price is too high to account for our costs and reasonable profit. I’ll give you one gold piece for three blocks of linder.”

  Miri had to sit down, she was so dizzy with relief.

  “Enrik!” one of the traders shouted.

  “I’m not going back empty-handed,” said Enrik.

  Soon others were agreeing as well, some less reluctant than others, and trading began. Many villagers came to Miri to verify fair prices. Miri said, “Yes, I think so,” or, “I’d ask for a bit more.” For the moment, in her woolens and braided hair, she felt as important as she imagined she would in the silver gown and a crown.

  Since the traders had not hauled enough supplies to trade for the linder at the new prices, they purchased the surplus with gold and silver coins. Os asked Britta to make sure they were genuine, and Britta examined each one, hefted it in her palm, bit down, and nodded approval.

  Half the village put their shoulders to loading the finished blocks in the wagons. As the traders and villagers worked together, Miri was surprised to hear pleasant chatter. Some even agreed to stay the evening and share a meal with the villagers.

  Miri stood by her sister, observing a trader pat a quarrier on the back. “Seems strange. I thought they’d dislike us even more.”

  “Maybe it’s hard to respect someone you’re cheating,” said Marda.

  When the work outside the quarry slowed, Miri took Britta’s hand and they walked through the village, Miri recounting who had married whose son, recent quarry injuries, family secrets, and any other village tidbits she could think of to help Britta feel more at home.

  Just when Miri was enacting an exuberant retelling of the time Frid’s brother was so woozy after a spinning dance that he fell face first into goat droppings, Peder walked by. He did not so much as glance at Miri, as though she were a stranger, as though their conversation at spring holiday and the linder hawk on the windowsill had been daydreams. She stared, stunned by a twinge in her chest. She hated the feeling and needed a laugh to dislodge it.

  “Britta, did I tell you about when Peder decided to take a winter bath?”

  Peder stopped when he heard his name. Miri kept talking without looking his way.

  “He had stolen my straw doll, and I was chasing him out past the chapel. It’d been sunny the day before and melted snow filled up the old quarry holes, so you couldn’t tell flat ground from the pits. He’d just turned around to taunt me when, whoosh!” Miri mimed Peder dropping down. “He disappeared completely. You should’ve seen the surprise on his face when his head popped back up, like he thought the whole world had been tugged out from under his feet. He climbed out, soaked, his hair straight and hanging down in his face, and he said in this shocked, breathless voice, ‘What’d you do?’”

  Britta was laughing, and she snorted, turned red, and laughed harder.

  Peder grinned. “I still think you did something.”

  “Yes, that’s right. I dug a hole, filled it with icy water, tempted you into stealing my doll, and forced you to run directly into it. . . .”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” Peder said to Britta.

  “The doll was ruined, but it was worth it to see that surprise frozen on his face.”

  “You laugh now,” said Peder, “but best take care what your flapping mouth reveals or I might have to tell how one spring holiday you threw off all your clothes and ran out—”

  Miri put her hand over Peder’s mouth. “I was three,” she said through her laughs. “Three years old. Three!”

  Peder’s eyes widened impishly, and he laughed under her hand. She thought of trying to wrestle him to the ground, then realized that she was touching him and he had not pushed her away. Her old fear seized her, and she let him go.

  “Peder!” his father called, and he ran off to help in the quarry. Miri put her hand in her pocket and held the linder hawk.

  “You like him, don’t you?” asked Britta when he was too far away to hear.

  Miri shrugged. “Do you?”

  “I don’t think any of the boys in the village know I’m here.”

  “Oh, yes? Then what about Jans?”

  “Do you know that you avoid talking about Peder?” Britta asked.

  “Or maybe you just avoid talking about Jans.”

  “Miri,” said Britta with a touch of exasperation.

  Miri slumped onto a boulder. “What should I say? That I like him so much it hurts?”

  “Maybe you should tell him.”

  “But what if I do and he looks at me like I’m salt fish rotten in the barrel, and then I can never be his friend again?”

  Miri waited for Britta to say something reassuring, but she just nodded.

  “Never mind, I’m not really worried about it,” Miri said quickly, trying to affect indifference. “I guess I shouldn’t keep you to myself when you haven’t been home yet.”

  “Honestly,” said Britta, “the academy feels more like home to me than my second cousin’s house.”

  “Aren’t they kind to you?”

  “They’re not unkind,” said Britta. “When I arrived, I brought food and supplies so I wouldn’t be a burden, but I still feel, I don’t know, not unwelcome, just unwanted.”

  “Do you miss your real parents?”

  “No,” said Britta. “Does that make me a bad person? I miss other people from the lowlands—a woman who used to take care of me, a family that lived nearby. But my father was always gone, and my mother was . . .” She shrugged, unable to finish her sentence. She stared hard at the ground with eyes wide open, as if trying to dry them out.

  Miri did not want Britta to cry and so changed the subject. “Would you like to spend this week at our house? You can share my pallet.”

  Britta nodded. “I’d like that.”

  “Then so would I, Lady Britta.”

  They had reached Britta’s house, so Britta stepped in to greet her relatives, and Miri continued on to the quarry.

  From the near edge, she could see the green stream come down the high slope, jog around the quarry pit, and then empty below it, now milk white. The air was powdered with fine, white dust. The half-exposed slabs and laboring villagers gave the place energy, a feeling that here was where all the work of the world was done. Here everything was important.

  Sometimes just looking at it made Miri’s chest feel hollow.

  Her father was loading a block onto a trader wagon. He saw her, brushed his hands clean, and put his arm around her shoulder. Miri thought the gesture meant he was proud of how she had helped with the trading, or she hoped it did. At least I have that much to offer the village, she thought. She turned to him and took in the father-smell of his shirt.

  Her father’s arm tensed, and she looked to where he was staring.

  Two boys were pulling a block up the steep slope of the quarry pit, and Marda was behind them. She acted as a stone braker, inserting two wooden wedges beneath the stone every few paces to prevent it from falling back in case the rope slipped. Miri was small, but stone braking did not take great strength. She had always believed she could be the best stone braker in the quarry, if given the chance.

  Pa did not take his eyes off Marda. “I don’t like it,” was all he said. He let his arm drop from Miri’s shoulder and started toward the quarry.

>   Miri heard the silent boom of a common quarry-speech warning—Watch out, said one of the boys pulling the block. The other boy had let the rope rub against the corner of the stone. It was fraying.

  “Marda!” Pa was running now. Marda did not turn out of the way. She was still trying to lodge a wedge under the stone. As the boys scrambled for the rope, it snapped, and Marda disappeared from view.

  Miri scrambled over the lip and inside the quarry for the first time in her life. Halfway down the slope Marda lay on her side, her face white with pain, strips of cloth ripped off her legging. Pa cradled her head in his lap.

  “Marda, are you all right?” Miri knelt beside her in the rock debris, while other workers rushed in. “What can I—”

  “Get out,” said her pa. His face was red, and anger filled out his voice and built it loud. She had never heard him speak much above a whisper.

  “But I . . . but—”

  “Get out!”

  Miri found herself stumbling and running backward even before she could swallow her shock, turn, and flee. She left the quarry and did not stop and thought to just keep running until she fell. But someone stopped her. It was Doter, Peder’s ma.

  “Let me go,” said Miri, kicking and thrashing. Until she spoke, she had not realized that she was sobbing.

  “Come here. Hush now, come on.” Doter held her tighter and tighter until Miri stopped struggling. She laid her head on the big woman’s shoulder and let herself cry.

  “There you go,” said Doter, “let it all slide out. Unhappiness can’t stick in a person’s soul when it’s slick with tears.”

  “Marda . . . was in an . . . in an accident,” said Miri through the sobs.

  “I saw. She’s got a hurt leg, but I think she’ll be all right. Take a moment and make sure you are, little flower.”

  “Why does he throw me out all the time?” Miri’s throat was sore from sobbing. She pounded her fist against her knee, angry and embarrassed to be crying in front of someone, hating how it made her feel like a helpless little girl. “Am I so small and stupid and useless?”

  “Don’t you know?” Doter sighed, and her chest heaved beneath Miri’s head. “Oh, my Miri flower, why do you think he keeps you out of the quarry?”