Free Once Upon a Curse by E. D. Baker Page B

you were."
    I searched her eyes, hoping she would understand. "When Hazel said—"
    "Hazel is wrong more often than she's right, but you'd never get anyone else to admit it." Millie drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. "You can tell me the truth. I'm very good at keeping secrets."
    I shook my head. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
    "It doesn't matter. I think I already know. Aunt Frederika isn't your mother, but I bet Uncle Markus is your father, and he made his wife take you in and raise you as one of her own. She resents it, doesn't she? The look on her face said it all. Don't worry; it happens in the best of families. I'm right, aren't I?" Millie said, looking very pleased with herself.
    "You're too clever for me," I said, delighted that she'd found her own explanation.
    Millie sighed. "Not really. It's just that every family has secrets. Some are easier to figure out than others."
    "Don't tell me that you have a secret, too."
    Millie turned her head away. Something was troubling her, but I couldn't blame her if she didn't want to tell me about it. After all, we'd only just met. I was about to apologize for being nosy when there was a knock on the door and a pair of chambermaids came in carrying a pallet and an armful of clothes. It didn't take them long to arrange everything to their satisfaction. They were leaving when one of them glanced at my shoes and frowned. As the door was closing, I heard her say to her companion, "Did you see that girl's shoes? They looked like a dog chewed them."
    I tucked my feet under me, hoping Millie hadn't heard her. My shoes were scuffed and dirty from tripping in the dungeon, but I didn't think they looked chewed. Certainly none of my father's hounds could have done it, and as for King Grunwald's.... When I thought about it, I hadn't seen a single hound since I'd arrived, although they always seemed to be underfoot in my own time.
    "Don't your parents allow dogs in the castle?" I asked.
    Millie shook her head. "Not anymore. It's not my parents' idea, though; it's Hazel's. She doesn't like dogs. I suppose she's afraid they'll dig up her precious plants."
    "She does have a lot of influence, doesn't she?" I said. I didn't know anyone who could make my father get rid of his favorite hounds.
    "Hazel usually gets what she wants. It wasn't always that way, just since she discovered that she could do magic. My parents are afraid of her now, and they do everything they can to make her happy."
    I was shocked. The only people in my family who had tried to use magic against a relative had been under the influence of the family curse. The thought that someone might want to do it.... "Has she ever used her magic to hurt anyone?"
    "Not so far, but she's always dropping hints that she could if she wanted to. Even the threat of withholding her magic is enough to get people to do what she wants. Before she came into her abilities, the kingdom's crops were failing. Hazel turned all that around. I just wish she'd left it at that."
    "Then she hasn't actually done anything to anyone?"
    "I wouldn't say that. After she figured out that she could do magic, she experimented all the time, and she wasn't always nice about it. She used to have vines tie me up just for fun. Sometimes she'd grow prickly plants on my chamber floor during the night so I'd step on them when I woke up in the morning. She doesn't bother me so much since I learned to stay out of her way and let her think she's getting what she wants."
    "But she doesn't always get what she wants, does she?" I asked, seeing a hint of defiance and something I couldn't quite name in Millie's eyes.
    "No," she said, a secret smile curving her lips. "Not anymore."
    "Doesn't she use her magic for anything productive besides growing crops? What about protecting the kingdom or helping your parents?"
    "If only she would! Everyone likes to pretend otherwise, but Greater Greensward is in trouble. Werewolves have been raiding the outlying villages, and I