Want a sneak peek inside the distressing world of Damselle? You can read Chapter 1 from my upcoming fantasy/comedy, Damselle in Distress just below this rather spectacular image. What is this rather spectacular image? I'm glad you asked. This is a work-in-progress preview of the cover art by Ariel Burgess. You'll have to wait to see the whole thing, but trust me (you can always trust fantasy novelists) when I say it is going to be amazing.
Damselle in Distress
Chapter 1: Trouble
Kiley Kellermeyer
Once upon a time a girl named Damselle was about to die.
It was at least the third time that week.
That didn’t make it any better. There are some things that don’t get easier over time and staring into the face of death—or of a giant spider—is one of them.
Damselle was currently sprawled high in a sticky spider web. The small kitchen knife she’d taken to carrying, for all the good it had done, lay on the forest floor among tiny bones. She struggled in vain to free her herself as the enormous spider crept toward her. Its clicking pincers dripped with venom.
Scream, common sense said. Call for help.
“I’ll get myself out,” she growled, but the more she squirmed, the tighter the web held. Determined to liberate herself without aid, Damselle gave one final lurch. She ripped herself free and fell forward. A moment of satisfaction swept across her before she landed face first into a web below. Now she couldn’t even see the creature, but she could hear legs rustling. Feel the web swaying. Damselle writhed and fought. She could not move. She could not get away. “Oh, Stars,” she whispered. “Not again.”
There was only one thing she could do. She hated to do it. She was sick of doing it. But she was desperate now. Useless and helpless and desperate. Damselle grunted and then cried, “Help! Somebody help me!” She took a breath and listened. And listened.
Then… hoof beats. The clanking of metal armor and a deep voice: “Leave the maiden be, foul creature, and turn your sights this way! It is I, Sir Banton, and I shall bring an end to your reign of terror!”
Damselle just rolled her eyes.
*
Sir Banton the knight slowed his mount as they approached the town. “Next time, you will want to avoid the nesting grounds.”
“I did,” Damselle said flatly, staring at the back of his armor. Her sea-green eyes and cobweb-crusted red hair were distorted in the metallic reflection.
“They are very dangerous creatures.”
“Are they really?” She wondered what would happen if she rapped on the back of his helmet.
The knight grunted and shook his head as they passed through the metal gates of the burgeoning town of Woodswyck. Remote as it was from the rest of the world, Woodswyck had grown up around the headquarters of an order of knights called the Swords of Valor. People flocked to the protection of the knights, building their small wooden homes and squat stone shops in the shadow of the order’s fortress. Their governor, the cobblers, innkeepers, bakers, butchers and all the rest slept peacefully at night knowing a contingent of armored men guarded their town. It was a sentiment Damselle did not share.
The horse clip-clopped down the cobblestone street and Damselle fixed her eyes on the knight’s back to avoid looking at the crowds. Her normally fair cheeks felt as red as her hair. Sir Banton had spent the trip advising her how to keep out of trouble. Every knight who rescued her—and there’d been a lot—tried this. It must have been part of their training.
The problem, however, was that she could not stay out of trouble. Of course, she didn’t try to get into trouble. She avoided strange people and places. She spent a lot of time at home, and when she did not, well…she always tried to steer clear of things like trolls, wicked witches and giant spiders.
These things never steered clear of her. If she didn’t go looking for trouble, it surely came looking for her. Damselle’s first clear memory was not of pony rides or dolls. If she tried very hard, she could remember a hairy face with an evil smile. She could recollect shrill voices, maniacal laughter, and other nightmarish things. When she was five, she had been playing kick-the-ball by the gorge when someone knocked the ball over the edge. A wyvern in a cave plucked Damselle—out of all the children—off the ledge and stowed her away in a little cavern until a knight came to rescue her. At twelve, she had been minding her own business when an ugly woman on a broomstick appeared. The witch snatched her up and locked her away. Damselle managed to get a bit of reading done during her imprisonment before another knight showed up on a winged stallion. Those knights were more expensive, her father had later explained, due to the dietary restrictions of flying mounts.
Distressful events like these had occurred at alarming intervals—often several times a week—throughout Damselle’s entire life. In her sixteen years of existence she had been captured and chased, then had escaped or been rescued what felt like thousands of times. Even when other people were around, horrors chose Damselle.
Naturally, she couldn’t explain all this to Sir Banton. She had tried explanations years ago with Sir…whoever he was. Brave as the knights might be, most had not mastered the ability to listen to anyone besides themselves. So Damselle silently picked at the spiderwebs on her dress. She tried not to pay attention as people stared. Some even shuffled farther away from her, the girl who had needed to be rescued again.
The strange girl to whom bad things always happen, she thought.
Damselle supposed she should be happy she hadn’t been eaten like a big fly. It was just that today had been going unusually well. It had been warm and sunny. There had been a feast in town last night, leaving a lingering air of celebration and congeniality. When Damselle had come upon a small group of girls earlier that day—ones who usually avoided her—they had not run. They had held their ground, watching her from their picnic in the meadow.
“Aren’t you afraid?” said one.
Damselle nearly tripped. No one ever spoke to her. “Afraid?”
They looked at each other and back at her. “Of your bad luck,” the girl said. “We’ve been talking, and we wondered if you’re frightened.”
Damselle approached. The girls shifted on their blanket. Damselle thought about the question for a moment, four sets of eyes fixed upon her. “Yes. But not as much as I used to be.”
The girls nodded and looked at each other again. Their leader, a plump girl in a pretty green dress, cocked her head. “It cannot be all that bad,” she said.
Damselle gaped at her. Not all that bad? She couldn’t explain how bad it was. They were curious enough about her that they didn’t run away, though. That was new, and she began to feel a sense of hope in spite of herself. “It’s, um…” Say something interesting or clever, she told herself.
The girl in green spoke first. “You get to meet so many knights.”
“I—”
“Do you know them all?” asked another.
“Well—”
“Which is your favorite?”
Damselle was out of her element. She didn’t particularly like any of the knights. However, the girl in the green gown gazed around the meadow and said, “You can sit down if you’d like.”
Small jolts of excitement coursed through Damselle. There was an empty spot on their red blanket. Several small loaves of bread and a wheel of cheese had been spread out. The sweet smell of wildflowers swirled past. The nearby trees swayed in the breeze. It was perfect. She took a seat, attempting to rifle through all the knights in her mind. She couldn’t seem to remember names, so she made up “Sir Donal.”
“And he saved you from something terrible?” They leaned in, watching her.
“Oh, yes. Terrible,” Damselle said. “An, um, giant…bird. Thing.”
“What was it like?” asked one of the girls, wide-eyed.
“Well, giant.” Damselle floundered a bit. “With beady eyes and a sharp beak. And horrible talons.”
Then the girls screamed.
Damselle hadn’t thought her description had been all that good. The four girls hopped to their feet. They pointed and ran and screeched “Call the knights!” as a giant spider scuttled up to the picnic…
Now Damselle sat on Sir Banton’s horse. She glowered at two ladies pointing shamelessly at her and could take it no more. “Leave me here,” she said. “I can walk the rest of the way.”
“Nonsense.” Banton flashed a grin at the women. “I shall escort you to your home.”
“No.” Damselle ground her teeth. “Thanks. I can take care of myself.”
Sir Banton brought his horse to a stop by a wiry hedge. He jumped down and then lifted her off the horse, watching her with an air of haughty superiority. Damselle avoided his eyes, staring instead at the sigil upon his breast, a sword upon a dragon. “I have known people like you before, ah… Damsel, is it?”
“Dam-selle. It rhymes with bell,” she said. “What do you mean, ‘people like me’?” She crossed her arms across her chest.
“Adventure-seekers. People who look for trouble and think they can best it.”
“Look for trouble?” She felt tempted to hit him, except people were still watching. She doubted it would hurt through his armor anyway.
The knight mounted his horse. “It is altogether unwise to continue searching for danger. Carrying a weapon does not make you a knight, whatever you may wish.” He looked at the small knife she’d retrieved. “There may come a day when a knight cannot save you. Then what will you do?”
“I…I don’t search for…I only…”
“Good day, Miss Damsel.” Sir Banton urged the horse to motion.
“My name is Dam-SELLE!” she yelled after him. Several more people turned to look at her.
Damselle watched the wary townsfolk a moment longer, then turned and plunged through the hedge, seething with anger. She strode off down a dirt path covered in fallen leaves and twigs that crunched under her slippered feet.
Too much. It had been too much for one day. She had been so close to having one normal moment in her otherwise horrible life when distress had struck again. Just when she thought she might have made some headway, she’d nearly been eaten. And rescued—again.
She never sought out danger, but still everyone pointed and whispered. She was a joke. Worse, she was bad luck. She would never have any friends. Who would want to be around the girl misfortune followed like a shadow? Her parents had tried to raise her as normally as possible, but keeping her safe had become more difficult each year. Damselle was an outsider in the town. When she went out, people gawked at her as if she had sprouted a horn upon her forehead, or avoided her as though her bad luck were contagious. The pointing and whispering did not stop her from going out, not any more than the inevitable danger, but she thought it might hurt more than all the fangs and talons in the world.
She pulled the knife from her belt and flung it toward a tree on the side of the path. It struck the bark with its handle and fell to the grass and she sniffed. Why shouldn’t she be prepared? She was tired of waiting around for someone to come find her. Tired of waiting for the next bad thing to happen. There had to be some reason why she was a target for trouble. If there was a reason, there was a way to find it.
And to stop it.
Damselle spotted a disused well and stalked toward it. It was wide—unnaturally so—and chipped at the edges. The handle once used to lift buckets of water was missing. She paused to lean against the lip, breathing hard. Her mind whirled with thoughts nearly as dark as the shaft before her. She needed to be rid of all the creatures. She needed to be rid of the knights. She would find a way.
She nodded once to herself. Narrowing her green eyes determinedly, she pressed her lips into a line. Then the stone beneath her hands gave way, and she fell into the well.
*
Damselle tumbled, screaming.
When she finally landed on something soft and velvety, she opened her eyes to a faint, golden light lingering in the air. “Oh no,” she groaned. “This is perfect.”
She wobbled to her feet on a purple cushion in what appeared to be a massive wooden bucket suspended from the top of the well. Damselle started to walk across the cushion and the bucket swayed. She took a breath, then stepped toward the edge until she could peer over the side.
The bucket hung several feet above black water that shimmered with a golden aura. Damselle could not have said what made the water glimmer, but it dazzled her eyes and lit up the bottom of the well. She tore her eyes away from the glow and looked up, attempting to see the top of the well. It was very high up.
Damselle gave an exasperated shriek and then sank down to the bottom of the barrel. “Distress. Always distress,” she sighed, aware she was talking to herself. “Why? That is all I want to know. I just wish I knew why bad things always happen to me.”
A bald, gnomish creature appeared with a sudden pop! above Damselle’s head, making her yelp. He was the size of a man’s hand, with thin, blue-veined wings. His wrinkly skin was the brown of a potato. He looked at her with large black eyes, held up a piece of parchment, and read in a squeaky voice:
“Say the word, we’ll tell you true.
We’ll do what you’ve asked us to.
What you most want we shall provide
if by these rules you do abide.
Of messenger you must not tell
once you leave this wishing well.
Of how we gave our little gift
you must not speak once bucket lifts.
Fall in again you’ll get no wish.
Just icy depths and hungry fish.”
Damselle gaped at the little flying thing. “Wish?” she said. “Then… I’m not a prisoner here or anything?”
The creature alighted on the bucket’s edge and said, “Prisoner? What would give you that idea?” He shifted the little plain tunic he wore.
“Long story,” she said, staring at the creature for a moment more. “What are you?”
“Ixby.”
“Bless you.”
“No, Miss. I’m an Ixby. A Well-Ixby, Giver of... ah, hang on.” From a hidden pocket in his little white tunic, he pulled a thin white card and read it aloud: “Granter of Wishes Requested Within the Well.” The Ixby stuffed the card back in his pocket. “Sorry. It’s—it’s my first day. I didn’t know I’d have to read a poem. I’m not very good at it yet.”
Damselle eyed him. “I’ve never read of Ixbies before. You’re not dark creatures, are you?”
The little creature looked surprised. “D-dark, Miss? Most certainly not, though we do tend to live in dark places; that is, places with little light. Not…evil. Is that what you mean? The population of Ixbies is not what it once was. Perhaps that is the reason you have not encountered us. But, we’d best be getting on with it, Miss.”
“Getting on with what?”
The Ixby cocked his head. “Getting on with granting your wish, Miss, of course. Your official file states an expressed wish to know ‘why bad things always happen to you’.”
Damselle sat up straight. “You can grant wishes?”
The Ixby folded the edges of his parchment anxiously. “I can grant one wish, Miss. The wish you made upon falling in the well, which was an expressed wish to know—”
“Yes, all right,” Damselle interrupted. “I know I said that, but I’d only just fallen in. I need to make a different wish.” This was how she could end it. She wouldn’t have to find any reason for the distress at all.
“A different wish?” The Ixby wrinkled his brow.
“I wish for the distress to end. For all of the monsters and evil, the chases and captures, the escapes and rescues to go away.” Damselle’s heart thudded against her chest. “That is what I wish for.”
“Ah,” said the creature. “Apologies, but you have already made your wish. It was the expressed wish t—”
“I know,” Damselle said. “But I need this distress to end.”
“I am sorry, Miss. You do still want the answer?”
Damselle stared at the cushion beneath her feet, heart beating fast. Did she really want to know? “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want it.”
The Ixby turned his back to her, balancing delicately on the bucket’s rim, and faced the stoney well walls. “If you’ll lean your head over and gaze into the water, you will have the answer to your question.”
Damselle peered over the edge and watched as the black water began to churn. It bubbled and hissed. The golden glow sank into the waves. The dark liquid became as still and smooth as glass, and a scene—distorted slightly by a sheen of mist—appeared upon the water’s surface.
“Listen close, Miss,” the Ixby said. “The answer comes but once.”
*
Chapter 1: Trouble
Kiley Kellermeyer
Once upon a time a girl named Damselle was about to die.
It was at least the third time that week.
That didn’t make it any better. There are some things that don’t get easier over time and staring into the face of death—or of a giant spider—is one of them.
Damselle was currently sprawled high in a sticky spider web. The small kitchen knife she’d taken to carrying, for all the good it had done, lay on the forest floor among tiny bones. She struggled in vain to free her herself as the enormous spider crept toward her. Its clicking pincers dripped with venom.
Scream, common sense said. Call for help.
“I’ll get myself out,” she growled, but the more she squirmed, the tighter the web held. Determined to liberate herself without aid, Damselle gave one final lurch. She ripped herself free and fell forward. A moment of satisfaction swept across her before she landed face first into a web below. Now she couldn’t even see the creature, but she could hear legs rustling. Feel the web swaying. Damselle writhed and fought. She could not move. She could not get away. “Oh, Stars,” she whispered. “Not again.”
There was only one thing she could do. She hated to do it. She was sick of doing it. But she was desperate now. Useless and helpless and desperate. Damselle grunted and then cried, “Help! Somebody help me!” She took a breath and listened. And listened.
Then… hoof beats. The clanking of metal armor and a deep voice: “Leave the maiden be, foul creature, and turn your sights this way! It is I, Sir Banton, and I shall bring an end to your reign of terror!”
Damselle just rolled her eyes.
*
Sir Banton the knight slowed his mount as they approached the town. “Next time, you will want to avoid the nesting grounds.”
“I did,” Damselle said flatly, staring at the back of his armor. Her sea-green eyes and cobweb-crusted red hair were distorted in the metallic reflection.
“They are very dangerous creatures.”
“Are they really?” She wondered what would happen if she rapped on the back of his helmet.
The knight grunted and shook his head as they passed through the metal gates of the burgeoning town of Woodswyck. Remote as it was from the rest of the world, Woodswyck had grown up around the headquarters of an order of knights called the Swords of Valor. People flocked to the protection of the knights, building their small wooden homes and squat stone shops in the shadow of the order’s fortress. Their governor, the cobblers, innkeepers, bakers, butchers and all the rest slept peacefully at night knowing a contingent of armored men guarded their town. It was a sentiment Damselle did not share.
The horse clip-clopped down the cobblestone street and Damselle fixed her eyes on the knight’s back to avoid looking at the crowds. Her normally fair cheeks felt as red as her hair. Sir Banton had spent the trip advising her how to keep out of trouble. Every knight who rescued her—and there’d been a lot—tried this. It must have been part of their training.
The problem, however, was that she could not stay out of trouble. Of course, she didn’t try to get into trouble. She avoided strange people and places. She spent a lot of time at home, and when she did not, well…she always tried to steer clear of things like trolls, wicked witches and giant spiders.
These things never steered clear of her. If she didn’t go looking for trouble, it surely came looking for her. Damselle’s first clear memory was not of pony rides or dolls. If she tried very hard, she could remember a hairy face with an evil smile. She could recollect shrill voices, maniacal laughter, and other nightmarish things. When she was five, she had been playing kick-the-ball by the gorge when someone knocked the ball over the edge. A wyvern in a cave plucked Damselle—out of all the children—off the ledge and stowed her away in a little cavern until a knight came to rescue her. At twelve, she had been minding her own business when an ugly woman on a broomstick appeared. The witch snatched her up and locked her away. Damselle managed to get a bit of reading done during her imprisonment before another knight showed up on a winged stallion. Those knights were more expensive, her father had later explained, due to the dietary restrictions of flying mounts.
Distressful events like these had occurred at alarming intervals—often several times a week—throughout Damselle’s entire life. In her sixteen years of existence she had been captured and chased, then had escaped or been rescued what felt like thousands of times. Even when other people were around, horrors chose Damselle.
Naturally, she couldn’t explain all this to Sir Banton. She had tried explanations years ago with Sir…whoever he was. Brave as the knights might be, most had not mastered the ability to listen to anyone besides themselves. So Damselle silently picked at the spiderwebs on her dress. She tried not to pay attention as people stared. Some even shuffled farther away from her, the girl who had needed to be rescued again.
The strange girl to whom bad things always happen, she thought.
Damselle supposed she should be happy she hadn’t been eaten like a big fly. It was just that today had been going unusually well. It had been warm and sunny. There had been a feast in town last night, leaving a lingering air of celebration and congeniality. When Damselle had come upon a small group of girls earlier that day—ones who usually avoided her—they had not run. They had held their ground, watching her from their picnic in the meadow.
“Aren’t you afraid?” said one.
Damselle nearly tripped. No one ever spoke to her. “Afraid?”
They looked at each other and back at her. “Of your bad luck,” the girl said. “We’ve been talking, and we wondered if you’re frightened.”
Damselle approached. The girls shifted on their blanket. Damselle thought about the question for a moment, four sets of eyes fixed upon her. “Yes. But not as much as I used to be.”
The girls nodded and looked at each other again. Their leader, a plump girl in a pretty green dress, cocked her head. “It cannot be all that bad,” she said.
Damselle gaped at her. Not all that bad? She couldn’t explain how bad it was. They were curious enough about her that they didn’t run away, though. That was new, and she began to feel a sense of hope in spite of herself. “It’s, um…” Say something interesting or clever, she told herself.
The girl in green spoke first. “You get to meet so many knights.”
“I—”
“Do you know them all?” asked another.
“Well—”
“Which is your favorite?”
Damselle was out of her element. She didn’t particularly like any of the knights. However, the girl in the green gown gazed around the meadow and said, “You can sit down if you’d like.”
Small jolts of excitement coursed through Damselle. There was an empty spot on their red blanket. Several small loaves of bread and a wheel of cheese had been spread out. The sweet smell of wildflowers swirled past. The nearby trees swayed in the breeze. It was perfect. She took a seat, attempting to rifle through all the knights in her mind. She couldn’t seem to remember names, so she made up “Sir Donal.”
“And he saved you from something terrible?” They leaned in, watching her.
“Oh, yes. Terrible,” Damselle said. “An, um, giant…bird. Thing.”
“What was it like?” asked one of the girls, wide-eyed.
“Well, giant.” Damselle floundered a bit. “With beady eyes and a sharp beak. And horrible talons.”
Then the girls screamed.
Damselle hadn’t thought her description had been all that good. The four girls hopped to their feet. They pointed and ran and screeched “Call the knights!” as a giant spider scuttled up to the picnic…
Now Damselle sat on Sir Banton’s horse. She glowered at two ladies pointing shamelessly at her and could take it no more. “Leave me here,” she said. “I can walk the rest of the way.”
“Nonsense.” Banton flashed a grin at the women. “I shall escort you to your home.”
“No.” Damselle ground her teeth. “Thanks. I can take care of myself.”
Sir Banton brought his horse to a stop by a wiry hedge. He jumped down and then lifted her off the horse, watching her with an air of haughty superiority. Damselle avoided his eyes, staring instead at the sigil upon his breast, a sword upon a dragon. “I have known people like you before, ah… Damsel, is it?”
“Dam-selle. It rhymes with bell,” she said. “What do you mean, ‘people like me’?” She crossed her arms across her chest.
“Adventure-seekers. People who look for trouble and think they can best it.”
“Look for trouble?” She felt tempted to hit him, except people were still watching. She doubted it would hurt through his armor anyway.
The knight mounted his horse. “It is altogether unwise to continue searching for danger. Carrying a weapon does not make you a knight, whatever you may wish.” He looked at the small knife she’d retrieved. “There may come a day when a knight cannot save you. Then what will you do?”
“I…I don’t search for…I only…”
“Good day, Miss Damsel.” Sir Banton urged the horse to motion.
“My name is Dam-SELLE!” she yelled after him. Several more people turned to look at her.
Damselle watched the wary townsfolk a moment longer, then turned and plunged through the hedge, seething with anger. She strode off down a dirt path covered in fallen leaves and twigs that crunched under her slippered feet.
Too much. It had been too much for one day. She had been so close to having one normal moment in her otherwise horrible life when distress had struck again. Just when she thought she might have made some headway, she’d nearly been eaten. And rescued—again.
She never sought out danger, but still everyone pointed and whispered. She was a joke. Worse, she was bad luck. She would never have any friends. Who would want to be around the girl misfortune followed like a shadow? Her parents had tried to raise her as normally as possible, but keeping her safe had become more difficult each year. Damselle was an outsider in the town. When she went out, people gawked at her as if she had sprouted a horn upon her forehead, or avoided her as though her bad luck were contagious. The pointing and whispering did not stop her from going out, not any more than the inevitable danger, but she thought it might hurt more than all the fangs and talons in the world.
She pulled the knife from her belt and flung it toward a tree on the side of the path. It struck the bark with its handle and fell to the grass and she sniffed. Why shouldn’t she be prepared? She was tired of waiting around for someone to come find her. Tired of waiting for the next bad thing to happen. There had to be some reason why she was a target for trouble. If there was a reason, there was a way to find it.
And to stop it.
Damselle spotted a disused well and stalked toward it. It was wide—unnaturally so—and chipped at the edges. The handle once used to lift buckets of water was missing. She paused to lean against the lip, breathing hard. Her mind whirled with thoughts nearly as dark as the shaft before her. She needed to be rid of all the creatures. She needed to be rid of the knights. She would find a way.
She nodded once to herself. Narrowing her green eyes determinedly, she pressed her lips into a line. Then the stone beneath her hands gave way, and she fell into the well.
*
Damselle tumbled, screaming.
When she finally landed on something soft and velvety, she opened her eyes to a faint, golden light lingering in the air. “Oh no,” she groaned. “This is perfect.”
She wobbled to her feet on a purple cushion in what appeared to be a massive wooden bucket suspended from the top of the well. Damselle started to walk across the cushion and the bucket swayed. She took a breath, then stepped toward the edge until she could peer over the side.
The bucket hung several feet above black water that shimmered with a golden aura. Damselle could not have said what made the water glimmer, but it dazzled her eyes and lit up the bottom of the well. She tore her eyes away from the glow and looked up, attempting to see the top of the well. It was very high up.
Damselle gave an exasperated shriek and then sank down to the bottom of the barrel. “Distress. Always distress,” she sighed, aware she was talking to herself. “Why? That is all I want to know. I just wish I knew why bad things always happen to me.”
A bald, gnomish creature appeared with a sudden pop! above Damselle’s head, making her yelp. He was the size of a man’s hand, with thin, blue-veined wings. His wrinkly skin was the brown of a potato. He looked at her with large black eyes, held up a piece of parchment, and read in a squeaky voice:
“Say the word, we’ll tell you true.
We’ll do what you’ve asked us to.
What you most want we shall provide
if by these rules you do abide.
Of messenger you must not tell
once you leave this wishing well.
Of how we gave our little gift
you must not speak once bucket lifts.
Fall in again you’ll get no wish.
Just icy depths and hungry fish.”
Damselle gaped at the little flying thing. “Wish?” she said. “Then… I’m not a prisoner here or anything?”
The creature alighted on the bucket’s edge and said, “Prisoner? What would give you that idea?” He shifted the little plain tunic he wore.
“Long story,” she said, staring at the creature for a moment more. “What are you?”
“Ixby.”
“Bless you.”
“No, Miss. I’m an Ixby. A Well-Ixby, Giver of... ah, hang on.” From a hidden pocket in his little white tunic, he pulled a thin white card and read it aloud: “Granter of Wishes Requested Within the Well.” The Ixby stuffed the card back in his pocket. “Sorry. It’s—it’s my first day. I didn’t know I’d have to read a poem. I’m not very good at it yet.”
Damselle eyed him. “I’ve never read of Ixbies before. You’re not dark creatures, are you?”
The little creature looked surprised. “D-dark, Miss? Most certainly not, though we do tend to live in dark places; that is, places with little light. Not…evil. Is that what you mean? The population of Ixbies is not what it once was. Perhaps that is the reason you have not encountered us. But, we’d best be getting on with it, Miss.”
“Getting on with what?”
The Ixby cocked his head. “Getting on with granting your wish, Miss, of course. Your official file states an expressed wish to know ‘why bad things always happen to you’.”
Damselle sat up straight. “You can grant wishes?”
The Ixby folded the edges of his parchment anxiously. “I can grant one wish, Miss. The wish you made upon falling in the well, which was an expressed wish to know—”
“Yes, all right,” Damselle interrupted. “I know I said that, but I’d only just fallen in. I need to make a different wish.” This was how she could end it. She wouldn’t have to find any reason for the distress at all.
“A different wish?” The Ixby wrinkled his brow.
“I wish for the distress to end. For all of the monsters and evil, the chases and captures, the escapes and rescues to go away.” Damselle’s heart thudded against her chest. “That is what I wish for.”
“Ah,” said the creature. “Apologies, but you have already made your wish. It was the expressed wish t—”
“I know,” Damselle said. “But I need this distress to end.”
“I am sorry, Miss. You do still want the answer?”
Damselle stared at the cushion beneath her feet, heart beating fast. Did she really want to know? “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want it.”
The Ixby turned his back to her, balancing delicately on the bucket’s rim, and faced the stoney well walls. “If you’ll lean your head over and gaze into the water, you will have the answer to your question.”
Damselle peered over the edge and watched as the black water began to churn. It bubbled and hissed. The golden glow sank into the waves. The dark liquid became as still and smooth as glass, and a scene—distorted slightly by a sheen of mist—appeared upon the water’s surface.
“Listen close, Miss,” the Ixby said. “The answer comes but once.”
*
A cloaked and hooded figure strode down a hallway with purpose, as if there was something very important to be done and little time to do it in.
Two more people appeared—a woman with long red locks and a tall man with dark hair—and Damselle goggled. Her parents, younger by many years. They scurried to keep up with the stranger.
“Wait,” Damselle’s mother said. “I don’t understand.”
“Stop!” her father ordered.
Despite this, the cloaked stranger heeded neither of them. Before her father could finish his sentence, the stranger pushed open the nearest door and swept inside. Damselle’s parents ran to the doorway and practically stumbled into the room. Rose-colored curtains and rugs indicated its tenant—a baby girl. Inside, the stranger bent over a cradle, hood drawn, cloak billowing on a breeze that touched no one else.
Damselle’s mother tried again. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The stranger lingered for a moment more and then straightened and pulled back the hood to reveal dark hair and eyes that shone lavender in certain light. She seemed old, and at the same time ageless. Not beautiful, but certainly not ugly. “I am your daughter’s faery godmother,” she said, unfastening the dark cloak. “I have come to name her.”
In the bucket, Damselle gasped.
“Name her?” Damselle’s father said. His eyes darted between the faery godmother and the cradle. “We have heard nothing of this until now.”
Her mother added, “No one in our family has been named by a faery godmother for a long time.”
The faery spread her arms and smiled. “It is a lucky day. Your daughter shall become something special. Become a part of something special.” Before anyone could stop her, she swooped down upon the cradle and picked up a sleeping baby with red hair.
“Please, wait!” Damselle’s mother said.
“I will not wait any longer,” the faery said. She cradled baby-Damselle closer to her face. “Be silent and leave me to my work.”
The faery’s eyes flashed violet as she looked at the baby in her arms.
Damselle’s father reached for his child, but her mother stopped him. The faery godmother lifted the baby and gently pressed her lips to the girl’s forehead. She uttered something Damselle could not hear. The very space around them warped. It bent and twisted, and soft, ethereal whispers lingered in the air. The faery smiled at the baby, not as a mother would her child, but rather as a collector might a prize jewel. She put the baby back in her cradle. “It is done.”
Damselle’s parents wavered by the doorway, obviously unsure if this was an honor or a tragedy. “And?” her father asked. “What is her name?”
The faery fastened her cloak again and said, “Damselle.”
A tense silence filled the room as the faery pulled her hood on.
Her mother’s eyes were wide. “Damselle sounds like…like…”
“Damsel,” her father whispered.
“But why? She will live a life of distress because of this,” her mother said. “You have doomed her! You must change it.”
“It is done. There is no way to change it.” The faery paused. “Perhaps… No, it is done.” She pushed past them and swept from the room, cloak trailing behind her.
“Please,” Damselle’s mother said again as they moved through the house.
The godmother ignored the pleas as she arrived at the door. “I take my leave. Good-bye.”
“What is your name?” her mother asked. “What if she asks one day, when she is older?”
The faery considered this for a moment and nodded. “Alyas. You may tell her that her faery godmother is Alyas.”
The water in the well faded to shimmering black. The Ixby cleared his throat. Damselle continued to stare for a few moments before she slid to the bucket floor, thoughts racing through her head. “Stars! I never knew I had been named by a faery godmother. They never said…and why didn’t they mention…why didn’t they stop her? I can’t fix something like this! How am I to compete with a force as powerful as my name? Ixby, what am I supposed to do?”
The little creature looked uncomfortable at being asked his advice. “Ah, well, Miss.” His cheeks darkened and he shuffled through his notes. “I don’t know much about names. We Ixbies don’t have them.”
Damselle sighed. “I wish I didn’t have a name.”
“We can grant but one wish, Miss.”
“Yes, I got that. It was just an expression.” She tilted her head back and stared upwards. “How do people get out of this well? Is it supposed to lift me out now?”
“Er, well, Miss…Damselle,” the Ixby hesitated. “From what I hear, most people wish to get out of the bucket. They fall into the well and stew for a while and say something like, ‘I wish I could get out!’ That is their wish, once they fall into the well. They wish to get out. Though not many people fall down the well these days, sadly.”
Damselle stared at him and then burst out laughing. “I would be the one to ask why I fell in instead of how to get out.”
The Ixby looked around, big eyes shifting as he trembled nervously. Clearly, he had not been trained to deal with such things.
“Where must you go now?” Damselle asked. “Will you leave me here to die?”
“Actually, Miss,” the Ixby said. “We have to stay with our Wishers until they have left the well. Or died. This is very unfortunate. It is my first day on the job.”
Damselle stared up to the top of the well again. How far had she walked without watching her path? No one had seen her plummet into the well, and she had told Sir Banton she was going home. After all she had been through, dying at the bottom of a wishing well seemed almost laughable. She chewed her lip and watched the Ixby, who looked miserable now that he was stuck waiting in the well with Damselle. “Couldn’t you help me escape?”
“Oh, but we are not allowed, Miss,” the Ixby said. “If you did not wish to escape, I cannot help you to do so.” The tiny creature’s wings drooped. “I am sorry, though, Miss. I don’t want to stay down here, either. I didn’t want to work here in the first place. It is damp and cold and so very lonely.”
“Then why are you here?” Damselle asked.
“My mother, Spirits preserve her soul, thought I should work here. It is a reliable job. Very good, really, except you are stuck in the well and cannot see the trees. I love to see the trees, but Mother always said I should work here where it is quiet and safe.” He adjusted the collar on his tunic and stared at his feet.
“But you are only working here because someone else has told you to.” Damselle pulled her knees to her chest. “What do Ixbies usually do?”
“Ixbies most often grant wishes, from wells and trees and other places. A few go to other places, but wish-granting is what we do, Miss.”
“Do all Ixbies work where they are told?”
The Ixby hesitated. “It was what my mother wished. Well, not wished. Ixbies are not granted wishes of their own.”
Damselle wrinkled her brow. “You mean you must grant other peoples’ wishes all your life and never have one granted in return? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It is not so bad, Miss,” the Ixby said, still staring at the floor.
“Well, then,” Damselle said, “what do you want to do? If you had the choice?”
He looked up. “You really want to know?”
Damselle shrugged. “Sure.”
“I…I have always wanted to be a Wood-Ixby, the kind that dwells in Wishing-Trees. All of the other Ixbies said I was too small, and my mother said even if I was big enough, I’ve never lived deep in the woods, so I don’t know anything about the woods and I’d get eaten by a larger creature, but I’d love to be a Wood-Ixby because…”
Damselle twisted a ringlet of hair around her finger as she listened to him babble, her mind working faster and faster. “Ixby,” Damselle interrupted.
He paused. “Miss?”
“May I just call you Ixby?”
He nodded.
She took a breath. “When I got my answer from the well, you saw what I saw. I was given a wretched name as a baby. It’s ruined my life. For sixteen years I have done nothing but fight to stay alive, to stay safe.” She crawled across the bucket toward him. “Now I know we have something in common. You could have been—could still be—a Wood-Ixby. You gave up on that to work in this dreary well. For safety.”
The little creature’s eyes were wide, and he nodded ever-so-slightly.
“If there is a way to make my life better, I have to take it. I have to do something. You can, too, Ixby.” Another nod. “But I can’t die here in the bottom of this well. That means you have to help me because you know what it is like to want something so much. You want to be a Wood-Ixby. You need it, because it is your dream. And I want to find my faery godmother.”
Find my faery godmother? Damselle had not realized that was what she wanted until she’d spoken the words. The idea seemed absurd. There was no way to change her name. Hadn’t the faery godmother just said so? Still, it felt right. She couldn’t explain it, but tracking down Alyas seemed, at the least, a good start. Damselle was so deep in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed Ixby toss his notes to the bottom of the bucket and begin talking again.
“…Wood-Ixbies are very brave,” Ixby was saying. “And I, well, I’m not really…I mean, I’m… I don’t know if it’s a good idea, Miss Damselle, though I would love to travel and learn more of the world.”
Damselle was sure she had nearly talked Ixby into getting her out. She grinned and got to her knees just as he said, “No, I really cannot travel alone.” He smiled sadly and hung his head. “It is much too dangerous.”
“You could come with me.” The words left her mouth before she had time to think.
“W-with you, Miss?” Ixby eyed her curiously.
You cobble-head, Damselle. A stuttering, anxious creature from the bottom of a wishing well was the last thing she needed following her around, but there was really only one thing to do now. She forced a weak, lop-sided grin. “Like you said, it’s dangerous to travel alone. Together, though, we can look out for each other.” Damselle was unsure how such a small creature would be of much help, but she said nothing.
“You will search for your faery godmother and I will learn more of the world?”
Damselle nodded.
“Then I may become a Wood-Ixby.” He stared at the water. Then, he gave Damselle a wide-eyed smile. “Oh, I’ll be in such trouble. But… all right. We cannot start our journeys if you are trapped here. Hold tight to the bucket, Miss. It will move quite fast.”
Move fast it did.
Damselle flew up the wishing well, hair whipping around her. The bucket slowed and hit the lip of the well, and Damselle scrambled out, worried it would plummet back down the shaft.
“Ixby?” she said. She looked around and found the little creature on the well’s edge, clutching his chest. “A mistake. Mother would never have approved.”
“Maybe not,” Damselle said, “but if you get a job with the Wood-Ixbies, what would she say then?”
This seemed to boost Ixby’s spirits, for he flapped his wings and hovered up to her eye level. “Ah, Miss, what will you do? I couldn’t help but overhear that your name may be unchangeable.”
Damselle frowned. “That may be so, but I’m not giving up yet. I have a lot of questions for my parents.”
Damselle smoothed her dress and they started for town. Earlier that morning she had been scared, weak, and useless. She still was, but in the last hour she had already traveled very far.
Two more people appeared—a woman with long red locks and a tall man with dark hair—and Damselle goggled. Her parents, younger by many years. They scurried to keep up with the stranger.
“Wait,” Damselle’s mother said. “I don’t understand.”
“Stop!” her father ordered.
Despite this, the cloaked stranger heeded neither of them. Before her father could finish his sentence, the stranger pushed open the nearest door and swept inside. Damselle’s parents ran to the doorway and practically stumbled into the room. Rose-colored curtains and rugs indicated its tenant—a baby girl. Inside, the stranger bent over a cradle, hood drawn, cloak billowing on a breeze that touched no one else.
Damselle’s mother tried again. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The stranger lingered for a moment more and then straightened and pulled back the hood to reveal dark hair and eyes that shone lavender in certain light. She seemed old, and at the same time ageless. Not beautiful, but certainly not ugly. “I am your daughter’s faery godmother,” she said, unfastening the dark cloak. “I have come to name her.”
In the bucket, Damselle gasped.
“Name her?” Damselle’s father said. His eyes darted between the faery godmother and the cradle. “We have heard nothing of this until now.”
Her mother added, “No one in our family has been named by a faery godmother for a long time.”
The faery spread her arms and smiled. “It is a lucky day. Your daughter shall become something special. Become a part of something special.” Before anyone could stop her, she swooped down upon the cradle and picked up a sleeping baby with red hair.
“Please, wait!” Damselle’s mother said.
“I will not wait any longer,” the faery said. She cradled baby-Damselle closer to her face. “Be silent and leave me to my work.”
The faery’s eyes flashed violet as she looked at the baby in her arms.
Damselle’s father reached for his child, but her mother stopped him. The faery godmother lifted the baby and gently pressed her lips to the girl’s forehead. She uttered something Damselle could not hear. The very space around them warped. It bent and twisted, and soft, ethereal whispers lingered in the air. The faery smiled at the baby, not as a mother would her child, but rather as a collector might a prize jewel. She put the baby back in her cradle. “It is done.”
Damselle’s parents wavered by the doorway, obviously unsure if this was an honor or a tragedy. “And?” her father asked. “What is her name?”
The faery fastened her cloak again and said, “Damselle.”
A tense silence filled the room as the faery pulled her hood on.
Her mother’s eyes were wide. “Damselle sounds like…like…”
“Damsel,” her father whispered.
“But why? She will live a life of distress because of this,” her mother said. “You have doomed her! You must change it.”
“It is done. There is no way to change it.” The faery paused. “Perhaps… No, it is done.” She pushed past them and swept from the room, cloak trailing behind her.
“Please,” Damselle’s mother said again as they moved through the house.
The godmother ignored the pleas as she arrived at the door. “I take my leave. Good-bye.”
“What is your name?” her mother asked. “What if she asks one day, when she is older?”
The faery considered this for a moment and nodded. “Alyas. You may tell her that her faery godmother is Alyas.”
The water in the well faded to shimmering black. The Ixby cleared his throat. Damselle continued to stare for a few moments before she slid to the bucket floor, thoughts racing through her head. “Stars! I never knew I had been named by a faery godmother. They never said…and why didn’t they mention…why didn’t they stop her? I can’t fix something like this! How am I to compete with a force as powerful as my name? Ixby, what am I supposed to do?”
The little creature looked uncomfortable at being asked his advice. “Ah, well, Miss.” His cheeks darkened and he shuffled through his notes. “I don’t know much about names. We Ixbies don’t have them.”
Damselle sighed. “I wish I didn’t have a name.”
“We can grant but one wish, Miss.”
“Yes, I got that. It was just an expression.” She tilted her head back and stared upwards. “How do people get out of this well? Is it supposed to lift me out now?”
“Er, well, Miss…Damselle,” the Ixby hesitated. “From what I hear, most people wish to get out of the bucket. They fall into the well and stew for a while and say something like, ‘I wish I could get out!’ That is their wish, once they fall into the well. They wish to get out. Though not many people fall down the well these days, sadly.”
Damselle stared at him and then burst out laughing. “I would be the one to ask why I fell in instead of how to get out.”
The Ixby looked around, big eyes shifting as he trembled nervously. Clearly, he had not been trained to deal with such things.
“Where must you go now?” Damselle asked. “Will you leave me here to die?”
“Actually, Miss,” the Ixby said. “We have to stay with our Wishers until they have left the well. Or died. This is very unfortunate. It is my first day on the job.”
Damselle stared up to the top of the well again. How far had she walked without watching her path? No one had seen her plummet into the well, and she had told Sir Banton she was going home. After all she had been through, dying at the bottom of a wishing well seemed almost laughable. She chewed her lip and watched the Ixby, who looked miserable now that he was stuck waiting in the well with Damselle. “Couldn’t you help me escape?”
“Oh, but we are not allowed, Miss,” the Ixby said. “If you did not wish to escape, I cannot help you to do so.” The tiny creature’s wings drooped. “I am sorry, though, Miss. I don’t want to stay down here, either. I didn’t want to work here in the first place. It is damp and cold and so very lonely.”
“Then why are you here?” Damselle asked.
“My mother, Spirits preserve her soul, thought I should work here. It is a reliable job. Very good, really, except you are stuck in the well and cannot see the trees. I love to see the trees, but Mother always said I should work here where it is quiet and safe.” He adjusted the collar on his tunic and stared at his feet.
“But you are only working here because someone else has told you to.” Damselle pulled her knees to her chest. “What do Ixbies usually do?”
“Ixbies most often grant wishes, from wells and trees and other places. A few go to other places, but wish-granting is what we do, Miss.”
“Do all Ixbies work where they are told?”
The Ixby hesitated. “It was what my mother wished. Well, not wished. Ixbies are not granted wishes of their own.”
Damselle wrinkled her brow. “You mean you must grant other peoples’ wishes all your life and never have one granted in return? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It is not so bad, Miss,” the Ixby said, still staring at the floor.
“Well, then,” Damselle said, “what do you want to do? If you had the choice?”
He looked up. “You really want to know?”
Damselle shrugged. “Sure.”
“I…I have always wanted to be a Wood-Ixby, the kind that dwells in Wishing-Trees. All of the other Ixbies said I was too small, and my mother said even if I was big enough, I’ve never lived deep in the woods, so I don’t know anything about the woods and I’d get eaten by a larger creature, but I’d love to be a Wood-Ixby because…”
Damselle twisted a ringlet of hair around her finger as she listened to him babble, her mind working faster and faster. “Ixby,” Damselle interrupted.
He paused. “Miss?”
“May I just call you Ixby?”
He nodded.
She took a breath. “When I got my answer from the well, you saw what I saw. I was given a wretched name as a baby. It’s ruined my life. For sixteen years I have done nothing but fight to stay alive, to stay safe.” She crawled across the bucket toward him. “Now I know we have something in common. You could have been—could still be—a Wood-Ixby. You gave up on that to work in this dreary well. For safety.”
The little creature’s eyes were wide, and he nodded ever-so-slightly.
“If there is a way to make my life better, I have to take it. I have to do something. You can, too, Ixby.” Another nod. “But I can’t die here in the bottom of this well. That means you have to help me because you know what it is like to want something so much. You want to be a Wood-Ixby. You need it, because it is your dream. And I want to find my faery godmother.”
Find my faery godmother? Damselle had not realized that was what she wanted until she’d spoken the words. The idea seemed absurd. There was no way to change her name. Hadn’t the faery godmother just said so? Still, it felt right. She couldn’t explain it, but tracking down Alyas seemed, at the least, a good start. Damselle was so deep in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed Ixby toss his notes to the bottom of the bucket and begin talking again.
“…Wood-Ixbies are very brave,” Ixby was saying. “And I, well, I’m not really…I mean, I’m… I don’t know if it’s a good idea, Miss Damselle, though I would love to travel and learn more of the world.”
Damselle was sure she had nearly talked Ixby into getting her out. She grinned and got to her knees just as he said, “No, I really cannot travel alone.” He smiled sadly and hung his head. “It is much too dangerous.”
“You could come with me.” The words left her mouth before she had time to think.
“W-with you, Miss?” Ixby eyed her curiously.
You cobble-head, Damselle. A stuttering, anxious creature from the bottom of a wishing well was the last thing she needed following her around, but there was really only one thing to do now. She forced a weak, lop-sided grin. “Like you said, it’s dangerous to travel alone. Together, though, we can look out for each other.” Damselle was unsure how such a small creature would be of much help, but she said nothing.
“You will search for your faery godmother and I will learn more of the world?”
Damselle nodded.
“Then I may become a Wood-Ixby.” He stared at the water. Then, he gave Damselle a wide-eyed smile. “Oh, I’ll be in such trouble. But… all right. We cannot start our journeys if you are trapped here. Hold tight to the bucket, Miss. It will move quite fast.”
Move fast it did.
Damselle flew up the wishing well, hair whipping around her. The bucket slowed and hit the lip of the well, and Damselle scrambled out, worried it would plummet back down the shaft.
“Ixby?” she said. She looked around and found the little creature on the well’s edge, clutching his chest. “A mistake. Mother would never have approved.”
“Maybe not,” Damselle said, “but if you get a job with the Wood-Ixbies, what would she say then?”
This seemed to boost Ixby’s spirits, for he flapped his wings and hovered up to her eye level. “Ah, Miss, what will you do? I couldn’t help but overhear that your name may be unchangeable.”
Damselle frowned. “That may be so, but I’m not giving up yet. I have a lot of questions for my parents.”
Damselle smoothed her dress and they started for town. Earlier that morning she had been scared, weak, and useless. She still was, but in the last hour she had already traveled very far.
