The fourth book in the Sisters Ever After series of fairy tale retellings, this is the wild story of Mera, the only one who can save her beautiful older sister when she is kidnapped by the Beast who viciously rules over their small village. For as long as Mera can remember, she and her sister Darina have feared the Beast who lurks in the castle above their village. On countless nights they have locked themselves into their home while the Beast led his hounds on the Wild Hunt, preying on anything in his path. Now Darina has been kidnapped by;the Beast, and only Mera can save her. But she soon finds that in the Beast’s eerie, magic-haunted castle, nothing is quite what it seems--including her own sister. Here, Mera will discover the dark secrets that have bound her village to the Beast for so long. But in order to set them all free, she will have to face the most dangerous secret of all: the truth about herself.

Autorentext
Leah Cypess is the author of Thornwood, Glass Slippers, and The Piper’s Promise, the first three books in the Sisters Ever After series. She lives in the kingdom of Silver Spring, Maryland, with her family and wrote large parts of this book in a rose garden.

Leseprobe
1

You’d think that when your sister gets kidnapped by the evil Beast who has terrorized your village for centuries, people would leave you alone. Give you some space. Respect your grief.

You’d think that, if you hadn’t met the people in my village.

The morning started with Foren the woodcutter pounding on the front door. When I finally stumbled downstairs, still dressed in my nightclothes, he explained that he wanted to know if he should reduce our winter order of firewood “now that you and your grandmother . . . er . . . won’t be needing as much . . .”

“As much warmth?” Grandma said crisply, having finally made it downstairs. She was also in her nightclothes, but somehow, she managed to look dignified. (It helped that her nightgown was made of white silk and lace and fell elegantly to her ankles, while mine was one of Darina’s old tunics that came down to just below my knees and was always falling off my shoulder.) “It’s my old bones that need the warmth, Foren, and our house hasn’t gotten any smaller.”

The truth was, the house did feel like it had gotten smaller in the few months since Darina had been taken. Smaller and darker and lonelier, without Darina there to dance as she set the table or to laugh at Grandma’s sharp tongue. I didn’t say so, though. I stomped upstairs to get dressed and let Grandma deal with Foren.

But she wasn’t there to deal with my sister’s most devoted admirer, Sederic, who accosted me when I was on my way to market that afternoon and brooded lengthily about how heartbroken he was. Or with the fruit-seller, who gave me an extra apple “to help with what you’re going through.” (How was an apple supposed to help? Especially since it was a yellow apple, blech.) Or the fishmonger, who leaned over the counter of his stall and said, “We all still miss her. But that’s the trouble with beauty, isn’t it? You can’t be sure whose attention it will attract.”

I left without buying any fish. Which meant we’d have vegetable pottage for dinner that night. Grandma wouldn’t be happy, but then again, what could make her happy these days?

It had been three months, two weeks, and four days since either of us had been happy. I could remember, in precise detail, the last moment when life had been good. I had woken up in bed with sunlight on my face, already excited because it was the day of the village soccer game. I’d yawned and stretched, then turned to start the torturous task of getting Darina to wake up.

And found myself staring at an empty bed.

With anyone else, I might have thought she’d gotten up early. But this was Darina. She’d once slept through someone dumping a pitcher of ice water on her head. (In my defense, she had promised to wake up early that day to build a snowman with me.) And her boots were gone.

My gut had twisted with a sick, clenching dread, even before I glanced out the window toward the outhouse and saw no sign of her.

I vaguely remembered screaming for Grandma, and leaping onto the floor, and getting my legs tangled in my blanket, and falling flat on my face. I’d had a bruise on the side of my forehead for days. Grandma hadn’t mentioned it--perhaps she hadn’t even noticed it--and Darina, of course, hadn’t been there to badger me about it.

We knew at once what had happened to her. Everyone knew. We had all been afraid of it our entire lives.

Since then, every morning, I kept my eyes closed for an extra half second before I woke. I opened my eyes and turned, and Darina’s empty bed hit me like a blow.

After storming away from the fishmonger’s shop, I couldn’t face the town square, where most of the other village children were playing. None of them had ever had much to say to me, except when their parents forced them to; now that everyone knew what had happened to Darina, all they had were nosy questions and pitying looks. So instead of going home that way, I crossed to the other side of the market and started down the forest path that bypassed the village. It would take longer, but unlike everyone else in the village, I liked being in the woods. And I was in no rush to get home, especially now that I’d finally managed to be alone. . . .

“Mera! There you are! Wait for meeee!”

My shoulder blades tightened. I considered picking up my pace. But I knew there was no point.

Darina’s friend Ressa fell into step beside me. That would have been enough to ruin what was left of my day, but when I glanced over my shoulder, her younger sister Talya was trudging reluctantly behind her. Talya met my eyes and gave me a look that made it clear she was no happier about this encounter than I was.

Ressa and Darina had been friends--were friends--and Talya and I were supposed to be friends because we were the same age and our sisters were friends. This was an expectation that both of us found burdensome.

Sure enough, as soon as Talya caught up to her sister, she said, “Can’t I go back? I was in the middle of a game of marbles. And I was winning.”

“Hush,” Ressa said. “You can play with your other friends later. Mera needs you now.”

“I really don’t,” I said, without much hope that Ressa would listen. Usually, Ressa avoided the woods even more zealously than the rest of the villagers, since she favored silly shoes that made walking on rough ground treacherous. She had clearly followed me on purpose. Which meant there was no chance of getting away from her.

“I saw you talking to Sederic earlier.” Ressa looked demure, with her long black hair always wound into neat braids, but she had a knack for being the first to know every bit of gossip in the village. Darina called it a talent. I had another word for it. “He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Did he tell you how he’s feeling?”

He had. At length. But the subject of Sederic’s pining for my sister could go on forever, and I was not in the mood. I shrugged.

“I heard he wrote a new song about Darina.” Talya’s voice, as usual, had a sharp edge that could make even the most innocent comment sound like an insult. “Do you know if that’s true?”

He had written several songs. Sederic was in training to be a minstrel. Since there was no one in our village to actually train him, what that mostly meant was that he spent his time writing verses, singi…