Queen Maisie took this very much in stride. “I suppose that’s why she sent me out for shells, isn’t it?” she asked.
“No,” the washerwoman answered. “She sent you out for shells because she is going to throw you the best-ever birthday party, with cake and presents and games and apple-bobbing and fireworks, and she’s busy setting it up. Just the very best party you could have wished for. Then she’ll kill you after, when you’re sleeping off all the sugar you’ve eaten.”
Queen Maisie hugged the bloody nightgown to her chest. “Is there nothing I can do?”
The washerwoman pointed to the nightgown. “If you had not caught me before I finished washing that, there would be nothing. But you have, and so you may be able to stop it.”
“How?” the queen asked.
Bean-Knee shook her head. “I am obliged to answer only three questions, and that question makes four. But you’re a kind girl, and I appreciate that you tried to help me with the folding.” She turned and rummaged in a work basket full of bottles that sat beside her on the beach and took one out.
Now, here I am going to tell you exactly what Bean-Knee said when she gave this bottle to Queen Maisie. I don’t say that I agree with it, but it’s what the washerwoman said, and I will relay it faithfully, because the alternative is lollipops, and you’ve rejected those.
I suppose really you’re a bit too old to be satisfied with lollipops. I apologize.
The washerwoman said, “You’re a good, kind, sweet girl. And goodness and kindness will take you a long way on the right sort of day, and if I could make one wish for you, Your Majesty, and for all of your friends, it would be that you never meet anyone undeserving of your noble heart. But the truth is, there are people out there who will throw you a birthday party in the afternoon and kill you in the evening, and that’s a sad fact of this terrible world. You cannot save yourself unless you can become a different sort of person when you need to.”
“Become a different sort of person?” Queen Maisie repeated, and she was fearful. “Will I turn back afterward?”
The washerwoman smiled sadly. “That’s your fifth question, and I’m not obligated to answer it. But surely you understand that whether you succeed or fail, you will never again be a girl who no one has tried to kill.”
For a moment, Queen Maisie cried, and I think we can forgive her for that.
The washerwoman put a hand on her shoulder. “But I suspect,” she said quite gently, “if you succeed—if you survive—you will discover something new about yourself that you will be glad to know. You will find that you are brave. And not because you had to become brave, but because you were brave all along. So there is that, if it is a consolation.” And here she put the bottle from her basket into Queen Maisie’s hand.
Queen Maisie examined the bottle. Inside was something like a swirling mist, gray-blue and shifting. Maisie began to ask what was in it, but of course that would have been her sixth question, and she didn’t want to push her luck. Fortunately there was a label pasted to the glass, and the one word written on it was FOG.
Now, of course you can be sure that questions seven, eight, and nine were also on the tip of the queen’s tongue as she looked at the washerwoman’s bottle. But Bean-Knee was not obliged to answer any more, so the queen didn’t ask.
“By your leave, Your Majesty,” Bean-Knee said, because one doesn’t take one’s leave from royalty without you get their say-so, and also because, since Queen Maisie was still holding that ruined nightgown, the washerwoman couldn’t just go anyhow, not without being granted permission.
“Yes, of course,” Queen Maisie said, and she held out the nightgown.
“Oh, you mustn’t give that back to me,” Bean-Knee told her. “If you give it back, I must wash it, and then all hope is lost. Not to mention,” she said with a wink, “who’s to say it won’t come in useful?”
So the queen and the washerwoman parted ways. Queen Maisie put the bottle of fog and the nightgown into the bottom of her sunset-colored basket, and then she piled shells on top of it. Then she went back to the nettle patch where Fred-Morty-Tucker was still munching.
“That was odd, no?” asked Fred.
“Could’ve knocked me over with a nettle,” said Morty.
“What’s our plan?” asked Tucker, who was the pragmatic one.
“I’m not sure,” said Queen Maisie as she mounted up. “But anyhow, let’s go get this stupid party over with.”
And it was no easy feat, pretending to care about the cake and games and apples and the basket-colored frock. It had even occurred to Queen Maisie that the dress might be poisoned—such things happened, after all, out there in the world—but then she remembered the state of the nightgown she’d gotten from Bean-Knee, which certainly looked more like the aftermath of a stabbing, and anyhow, if the plan was for the new dress to kill her, she’d never have been wearing the nightgown to die in. So when Lady Dorcas suggested she go and try it on, Queen Maisie agreed. She had been told about the wishing-bird feather-trimmings, so as she put on the frock and hat, she tried desperately to wish the whole situation different—but of course nothing happened. You can’t pluck a magic bird for a dress and still expect it to grant wishes for you. So Maisie sat in that dress out on the balcony with her dearest friends as the sun went down and fireworks exploded over the sea, which I don’t need to tell you drove the golevants positively out of their minds, so that the fireworks reflected off of waters as choppy as Queen Maisie’s heart and mind. She still had not figured out what to
