Snow in Summer: Fairest of Them All: Fairest of Them All by Jane Yolen Read Free Book Online Page B

to hold on for both of us. But I did indeed hold on.
    PHOTOGRAPH
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    I n their wedding picture, Stepmama is in a white suit. She said a long white dress reminded her of a winding sheet, meaning grave clothes. Mama had worn her wedding dress in her coffin and the baby my old christening gown. Shivering at the thought, Papa had agreed.
    Not a hair out of place, Stepmama stares out at the camera. Her hands clasp each other in a way that shows off the simple gold wedding band she’d purchased herself. Her mouth is parted in a smile, but she doesn’t look particularly happy. She looks hungry, a mountain lion ready to pounce. That was about the time I heard Miss Caroline whisper, “She wants the earth and moon with two strands of bob wire around it,” and Miss Amelia adding, “And it whitewashed.” At that, Cousin Nancy turned around and held her finger to her lips, shushing the two of them. But that was after the picture had already been taken.
    Papa looks hungry, too, only not like an animal, but hungry the way a starving man looks hungry: hopelessly and helplessly. His head is turned away from the camera, and he’s gazing at Stepmama’s face. He’s wearing his only suit, and one side of the collar of his white shirt is curling over, as if trying to get away from him, as if ready to fly to somewhere happier.
    Off to the side stands Cousin Nancy, holding my hand and looking like she’s fearing I’m the one—not Papa’s shirt collar—trying to fly away. She’s in her navy churchgoing suit, which makes her look dowdy and sad.
    My pink dress with its heavy smocking, new bought by Stepmama for the wedding, shows up only as dirty white in the photograph. I’m glancing down at my new shoes because they’re scuffed and I know already I’ll have to answer to Stepmama for that later. She’s very particular about such things. She has told me that how a woman carries herself on every part of her person is magic. So, each scuff will mean a separate tongue-lashing. And another piece of hard work traded for betraying Stepmama’s generosity. Of course after each scolding, I will get hugs and cold kisses. In those days I would eagerly take the tongue-lashing just to have those.

•10•
    CHORES
    F or the longest time I didn’t begrudge doing chores for Stepmama. Hadn’t Cousin Nancy and I tackled the gardens during the time Papa was so buried in his grief? Hadn’t
     
     
    F we worked stooped over day after day? Children in those days worked hard both indoors and out. If I was doing different things for Stepmama, it was simply a part of the work we all did on the farm.
    Stepmama worked hard, too. In fact, she took infinite care with Papa, feeding him up, making him his “ po -tency drinks,” as she called them. And at first he seemed to thrive under her care.
    I watched as into the mortar she would put the leaves and seeds she’d brought with her, grinding them fine. All her concentration was on the work, and her tongue, like a little cat’s, every now and then slipped out between her thin lips and moistened them. When she was satisfied at last that the mixture was as fine as it could get, she poured it into a glass canning jar and mixed it with fresh apple juice.
    I reasoned, as an eleven-year-old does, that the drink wouldn’t hurt a grown-up. Only a child. It must be—I told myself—like strong coffee, which, Cousin Nancy said, “when made right could float an iron wedge.” But I thought it smelled and tasted more like the iron wedge itself. A rusted iron wedge.
    Or maybe, I thought, the po-tency drink is more like the moonshine the Morton cousins make and then drink until they act silly. But us kids are never allowed a bit of it.
    After a while, Stepmama let me do the grinding, though she measured out the amounts. That way I never touched them.
    Stepmama, I told myself, is just keeping me safe. That’s what real mothers do. Though of course since I was seven, I’d little