Free Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine Page B

Now, what to do with it? If I threw it into the dying fire, the smell might wake someone. I could drape it over the head of the china cat that adorned the mantelpiece, but if Hattie woke early, she could rescue it before anyone saw.
    So I took it with me, a trophy.

CHAPTER 13
    I SLIPPED through the sleeping house as silently as a needle through lace. Outside, I waved farewell to the sleeping topiary.
    As I walked, the sky lightened. On the edge of Jenn, I gave a baker the first sale of the day, two currant muffins and two loaves of traveler’s bread in exchange for Hattie’s wig, which he declared the finest he’d ever seen.
    He’d never heard of Uaaxee but said there were several giant farms “up north.”
    “I hear they bake cookies as wide as my waist,” he said.
    He drew a map for me in flour on his pastry board. The road would fork after I left jenn. The right-hand fork led back to Frell. The left fork was the one I wanted. My first landmark would be the elves’ Forest. After the Forest I would come to another fork. The road to the left, which I was not to take, led to the Fens, where the ogres lived. The road on the right would take me to the giants. When the cows became as big as barns, I would be there.
    It didn’t seem far on the pastry board. My fingers could travel the distance in a trice. The baker thought the trip would take five or six days by coach.
    “How long do you think it would take to walk?”
    “Walking?” He started to laugh. “On foot? Alone? With ogres and bandits roaming the road?”
    Beyond Jenn, I left the road, following it, but too far away to be seen from it. I didn’t fear pursuit by Madame Edith, who would probably conceal my disappearance for as long as possible in hopes I might return. The baker’s worries about ogres and bandits I thought exaggerated, since a solitary traveler would hardly be worthwhile prey. However, I was wary of strangers. With my curse, I had to be.
    I wondered if I would meet Char on his way to the Fens. I liked thinking he might be near, but whether he was ahead of me or behind, or whether he had taken this route at all, I had no idea, and I wished my magic book had told me more.
    The road was little trafficked, and I was too happy about my escape to feel much fear. I was free of orders. If I wanted to eat my breakfast under a maple tree and watch the day grow between its leaves, I could — and did. If I wanted to skip or hop or run and slide on dew-wet leaves, I could — and did. And when the mood took me, I whistled or recited poems that I made up on the spot.
    I spent two glorious days this way, the best since before Mother had died. I saw deer and hares, and once, at twilight, I swear I saw a phoenix rise, trailing smoke.
    On the third day, I began to despair about reaching the giants in time. I hadn’t even come to the elves’ Forest. If I had any chance of getting to the wedding, I should have passed the Forest on the second day, unless the baker had been mistaken about the distance from the Forest to the giants. Perhaps they were much closer to each other than he thought.
    On the fourth day, I finished my last bit of traveler’s bread. The land changed to sandy fields and low scrub, and I began to despair about reaching the giants before the newlyweds celebrated their first anniversary.
    On the fifth day, I knew I was doomed to wander in endless barrens till I died.
    On the sixth day, there were more trees, but I was too dazed by hunger to realize their significance. I was searching the ground for the lacy flowers of the wild carrot when I caught a shift in the shadows ahead of me, a flash of motion among the tree trunks. A deer? A walking bush? There, I saw it again. An elf!
    “Kummeck ims powd,” I called. It meant “sun and rain,” or “hello” in Elfian.
    “Kummeck ims powd.” An elf woman approached me hesitantly. Her robe was woven in a dappled pattern, the shadow of leaves on the forest floor. “Speak Elfian?”
    “Yun