Marmalade's Love Potion

Penelope awoke, eyes bleary, to a sharp rap on the front door. With a groan, she disentangled herself from the stirring Sisters and stumbled to answer.

Peering through the small port window of the door, Penelope spied a messenger dressed in jewel-hued silks bearing an elegant box. Rubbing sleepily at her face, Penelope opened the door as the Sisters muttered behind her about aching bones and bruised joints.

The messenger appeared startled at her appearance, tactfully averting her gaze as Penelope recalled her state of undress and fussed self-consciously with the belt of her robe.

“Apologies for waking you. I have a parcel for Princess Penelope of Royal House Starwood from Princess Ivy of Royal House Sweetwood.”

“Oh! Thank you!” Penelope received the box with surprised delight. A note attached to the ribbon conveyed Ivy’s gratitude for the lend of her gown, as well as assurances it had been returned in perfect condition.

“I apologise, I have not yet had the opportunity to clean Princess Ivy’s gown for return…” Penelope snuck a guilty glance at the heap of fabric and crusted cake where she had left it on the floor of the sitting room.

“It is no matter, our household staff will tend to it.”

Penelope nodded. “One moment, then.”

Penelope lumbered over to retrieve the gown, fished in the pockets for her purse, then hastily folded it into a spare box from her work station. She passed it to the waiting messenger, who was looking around with an anxious grimace as the trees rustled in the still morning air. Accepting the box with a start, she retreated with a blushing curtsy. She mounted her horse with a graceful arc and urged her horse into a canter down the crystal path, seeming eager to leave the woods behind.

“Well… that’s that solved then.”

“What’s what solved, ducky?”

Penelope smiled at Sister Rosin’s wide yawn and the licks of hair sticking up in all directions. Penelope supposed her own hair was in a similarly dishevelled state.

Over tea and breakfast cakes, Penelope filled the Sisters in on all they had missed of the previous night, including everything she had learned from her family.

“Those sneaky, heartless, manipulative villains!” Sister Rosin shouted, pacing the length of the small kitchen. Sister Heely’s face was stony with rage, her pale blue eyes burning with a fury Penelope had never seen in the woman.

“They just… To think they… They sacrificed you to… And left Grimwood to face…” Sister Rosin raged, spitting half-articulated thoughts as Penelope nodded, feeling exhausted.

“Do Grimwood know?” Sister Heely asked in a hoarse whisper as Sister Rosin fell into silence, lowering herself into a chair with slumped posture.

“I’m unsure… I told Steph. I don’t know if, or when, he intends to inform his father or brother. It sounds as though they may have suspected already, if what Clarity said of their mistrust of Starwood is true…”

The three women continued to discuss the events and revelations of the Dark Moon Ball as morning lengthened to afternoon.

In the late afternoon, Sister Heely answered another rapping knock on the door to a richly-garbed messenger bearing a wax-sealed missive.

“It’s from the Noble House Rivercourt, requesting a custom gown, gloves, cloak, and perfume for an upcoming spring festival… goodness! They’ve sent an advance to secure our commission…”

Sister Heely upended a small pouch enclosed within the letter and a pile of gold pidges spilled across the table.

“Well…” Sister Rosin blinked, eyes wide and owlish, as she took in the small fortune sitting between their tea plates.

Another knock on their door shortly after offered yet another request for a similar commission, with an even greater advance.

On a suspicion, Sister Rosin went to check the post box on Penelope’s window sill, and returned moments later with folded notes of enquiry for everything from gloves and frocks to perfumes and tinctures.

By the time a final knock sounded on their front door in the early evening, Penelope’s nerves were frayed with overwhelm, and she felt almost tipsy with gratitude.

Penelope opened the door to find two Grimwood Rangers she did not recognise bearing a sealed letter, which she accepted with grace.

Beyond them, in the clearing, stood several horses with shining coats of midnight black. As she watched the them whicker and flick their long silver tails, the Rangers explained two of the mares were a gift from the Royal House Grimwood, at behest of Prince Steph.

Penelope grinned, dashing forward to pet their long noses as Sister Rosin hastened to clear space for them in the small stable.

“Please convey my utmost gratitude to Prince Steph and the House of Grimwood,” Penelope said, her smile widening as one of the mares nibbled gently at her ear.

The days after continued in a similar fashion, and the Sisters were kept busy responding to their increasing pile of missives requesting the services of their House.

For Penelope’s part, she had selected several requests which piqued her interest, laying the letters across her table with a satisfied smile as she set to work sketching designs with a steaming mug of tea at hand.

“We’ll have to make another trip to Grimwood Village for materials, Heels, and secure a reliable messenger to deliver everything, more than one likely, perhaps from Clear Lake Market… Do you think we should design a formal uniform? Oooh, we’ll need our own crest…”

Penelope listened to Sister Rosin chatter with Sister Heely as they discussed the logistics of their sudden influx in business, as she smoothed out the creases from a new letter from Clarity.

She smiled sadly at her younger sister’s words, inviting her, in time, to meet for tea, and expressing an earnest hope that they might grow to know each other better.

Penelope ached to know her sister, to have a relationship with her, yet the wounds of her parents’ betrayal were still raw. She set aside the letter, folding it away into a box for safe keeping, to answer at a later time when she had better untangled her snarled thoughts.

As the week continued, Penelope and the Sisters settled into a tentative routine. One that felt familiar, yet was made novel by the press of urgent demands.

There was an anxious thrill to the activity in the cottage as they adjusted to their new understanding of family, feeling out unsure paths towards a new future and growing promise of fortune that each secretly feared might be snatched away from them, as so much before had been.

During the early mornings and dusky evenings, Penelope began to venture into the woods to gather scattered feathers and flower heads for her designs. She would return home to find a new request for gowns or potions, or to find a gift had been delivered.

For each day, a pair of Grimwood Rangers would appear on their doorstep, bearing new gifts and stoically masking their apprehension of the woods but for tight-knuckled grips around the handles of their clubs.

One pair brought a set of fine carving tools for Sister Rosin. Another brought new crucibles and crafting plates for Sister Heely. The next delivered a small tower of beautifully bound journals with creamy pages, along with all manner of sketching implements, for Penelope.

After several dizzying days, Penelope sat at her writing desk, watching the stars rise beyond her bedroom window and, with a smile and a sip of sweet cocoa, began to write.

She set off the very next morning towards her favourite tree. With steady hands and sure movements, Penelope began her climb to the top of the feathered willow.

She sat for a time staring across the gold-kissed canopies of the Faewood, basking in the vibrant pinks sweeping across a dawn sky filled with pearl-bright clouds.

Withdrawing a folded star of parchment from the pocket of her belt, she gave it a kiss for luck and flung it to the wind. She watched as the cool morning breeze snatched it up and began to whisk it towards the eastern horizon.

Smiling, she shimmied down the rough-barked trunk, landing amongst moss and feathers, and made her way towards home.

The next evening, another knock sounded on their cottage door.

“No, stay, I’ll get it!” Penelope called to Sister Heely, who had emerged from her workroom looking vaguely harried, and skipped to the entrance.

Penelope grinned and, with a soft squeal, flung open the door to find a smiling Steph holding out a golden flower. She smiled in return, warmth spreading through her chest like syrup as he stepped forward to tuck it behind her ear.

As she invited Steph across the threshold, a sense of rightness, of home, settled within her. She didn’t know what the future would bring, what terrors she might face, or heartaches she might endure. Yet, in this moment, she allowed herself to savour the power of her own choices made, her own dreams claimed.

“Do you like gooseberry pie?”

Steph’s eyes lit up in delight. “I have no idea!”

Penelope closed the door against the last chill of a dying winter. In the coming weeks, the snow would melt and fill the streams. The canopies would shift from gold and mauve to verdant teals. Saplings would uncurl to meet the gentle face of a new season.

“Though, I would love to find out.”

Penelope flashed a toothy smile and clasped Steph’s hand, leading him down the hall towards the kitchen, following the scent of warm sugar and pastry.

Spring was a season of gleeful light and warmer winds, a season of new paths unwinding between ageless trees, of strange blessings emerging from dark earth and marred hollows.

Tomorrow, the day she would turn twenty, was the final day of her darkest season. Penelope was ready to embrace the turning tides of spring.

~ The End ~