3. Eliza

Three days had passed since we found the hut by the lake. My brothers were able to hunt some game and caught a few fish. My responsibility was to search for berries and edible roots. All in all, we ate well, not like we had at our father’s palace, but none of us went hungry. Best of all, our hideout spot was so concealed that the guards—who were still searching for us—rode right by us without spotting us.

The nights were cold and we slept huddled on the rotting floorboards with no blankets or pillows, but our combined body heat kept us comfortable.

“We need to figure something out for the winter,” George said, sounding older than the carefree boy of only a few days ago. “We need better clothes and blankets.”

“We’re not gonna be here for the winter,” Caspian asserted.

“Oh no? What are we going to do? Storm the castle?” Richard challenged.

“Exactly, we—” Whatever Caspian was going to say next was interrupted by a large black crow landing only a few paces from where we were standing.

“What?” George startled.

The crow started emitting black smoke, which swirled around it, growing and growing, until a form materialized. Constancia!

“You!” Caspian cried out and ran forward to attack our stepmother.

She languidly lifted her hand, palm out, and Caspian was flung backward as if he had run into an invisible wall.

“Caspian,” I cried and hastened to his side.

He looked at me stunned as he tried to get up on unsteady legs. I reached my hand out, but he waved me off.

“So, that’s where you’re hiding,” Constancia’s voice was melodic and sweet as always.

She clasped her hands behind her back and walked around us in a circle, tsking, “What am I to do with you naughty kids?”

“What do you want?” Richard countered, since Caspian was still trying to regain his senses.

“What I have always wanted: you out of the way,” Constancia singsonged. Her expression toward us was that of a schoolteacher chastising unruly pupils. “I could simply kill you, but that would make me… an evil stepmom?” She laughed at the last part.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I kneeled down by Caspian’s side, while our other brothers huddled around us. All the fight had left Richard, yet his defiant glare remained fixed on Constancia.

“No, I think I will have some fun with you.” She stopped and raised her palm again, mumbling something as black smoke poured from her hand toward us, encircling us. Fear choked me and my fingers dug into Caspian’s arm, while William cried out and held on to me for dear life.

“With shadows’ cloak and gloomy night, transform to birds, a fearsome sight. Ugly and dark, feathers in black, take form of a crow, never to turn back.”

My fear grew with each word she spoke, but the fear wasn’t for me, it was for my brothers. My beautiful brothers. I wanted to embrace them all one last time, to show them what they meant to me. It felt as if my heart expanded, as if my love for them warmed me from the inside out, growing from the center of my being like a white mantle that encompassed each one of them. I closed my eyes and focused only on my love for them. That was all that mattered.

“What?” Constancia shrieked, ripping me from my trance-like state.

Quacking sounds surrounded me. Where William had clung to me mere seconds ago, there were white feathers now. A long neck embraced me and fearful, oh-so-human eyes, stared up at me from the face of… a swan. A beautiful, white swan.

“Oh, William,” I sobbed.

More angry quacking broke out, as ten infuriated swans flapped their wings, long necks thrust forward, and rushed at Constancia. She cackled maniacally, black smoke rose, and she turned back into a crow before my brothers could reach her. Taking flight, even her cawing sounded like laughter, creating goosebumps all over my back.

A few of the swans tried to fly up and follow her, but two only made it a couple of feet into the air, before they landed back on their feet, even angrier than before.

I looked down at William snuggling into me, making the most pitiful sounds, and Caspian still on the ground, his eyes filled with defeat.

“Oh, my brothers,” I sobbed, “my beautiful brothers.”

At once they all turned, squawked, and hastened to my side. I spread my arms out and they sought shelter in my embrace. Long necks enfolded my arms, my legs, my torso. Beaks gently nudged me as eleven pairs of very human-like eyes stared back at me. That’s when I realized that I was still in my human form, untouched by Constancia’s curse. Well not entirely untouched, my former deep-black hair was now streaked with white. I didn’t understand why I had been spared, but sadness for my brothers overcame me and I sobbed hard for a long time, engulfed in the warmth of their feathery bodies. Tiny hearts hammered against me and reminded me of how fragile my brothers now were. It would be up to me to protect them.

“We can’t stay here.” I wiped my eyes and stared down at them, wondering if they could understand me.

One of the swans moved his beak up and down, his light blue eyes told me that he was Caspian. “You can understand me, Caspian. I know you can.”

He squawked in reply and moved his head up and down.

A loud cry from inside the trees sent another shiver down my spine.

“Help! Help! Oh, please help me!” a woman’s voice called out.

“Now what?” I muttered, but the urge to aid whoever was asking for help made me scramble to my feet and rush to where the voice called from.

“My cat, my cat, my poor Lucifer!”

My brothers were close behind me, their wings waving and their little feet hitting the ground in adorable slaps. I felt like I was flying down to the lake’s shore where the trees were thickest.

At the sight of a black-clad witch with green skin and a hawk’s nose—complete with wart—I stopped dead in my tracks. Oh no, a witch, not again, raced through my mind. Instinct demanded I turn and run in the opposite direction, but then I saw what the witch was pointing at: a black cat, clinging to a log, in the middle of the lake.

The witch was jumping up and down on the shore, frenzied and panicked. “Help! Help!”

Two of my brothers tentatively put their feet into the water. They were swans, they could swim, but having seen how hard they tried to fly, I didn’t want to watch them drown if they hadn’t gotten their bodies under control yet.

“Hold on, I’ll go,” I called to the two brave ones shaking their little feet in the water.

Hastily I took my shoes and dress off, plunging into the thankfully mild water in my slip.Swimming had always been one of my favorite things to do, one of the few I excelled at, and in a few strong strokes I reached the log with the cat on it.

“Here, little kitty, I’m not gonna hurt you,” I promised, cooing to the frightened cat. “Just hold on, little one, I’ll get you back to your mistress.”

I grabbed the log with one hand and with the use of the other and my feet, I propelled us back to the shore.

Just before we reached shallower water and I could stand, the cat jumped on my back, claws out. “Ouch!” I cried.

He used my back like a springboard and catapulted himself toward land and his mistress, scratching my back and shoulder bloody.

“Hey,” I called out, but the sight of the cat clinging to the witch and her holding him tight was enough to make me forget my own misery.

“Lucifer, you silly cat, you need to learn to stay away from water,” the witch admonished her pet in a loving voice, making my eyes water.

I stepped out of the lake and watched her turn and move back into the trees. My brothers squawked and surrounded me, as if trying to dry me with their bodies.

“Here now, all is well,” I said, falling to my knees and bathing in the feathers lightly touching me all over, drying me.

Suddenly the witch stood in front of us, her wrinkled face was all puckered up, with Lucifer perched on her shoulder. She regarded me through shrewd, green eyes. “You’re not gonna holler after me to demand a thank-you?”

Puzzled, I frowned. “Why would I do that? Seeing you and your cat united said more than words.”

Something kind washed over her severe features. “Ah child, you truly are a blessed one with the gentlest heart I have ever met.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Here I am, obviously a witch, and here you are, with your cursed brothers and you’re not bargaining with me to turn them back into their real form as a reward for saving Lucifer. That’s a kind heart.”

“Could you?” Hope flared through me.

“No.” She shook her head. “Constancia is too powerful. But you can, sweet one.”

“How?” My heartbeat picked up a notch.

“You already altered her curse, remember?”

I didn’t understand, until some of Constancia’s words came back to me, with shadows’ cloak and gloomy night, transform to birds, a fearsome sight. Ugly and dark, feathers in black, take form of a crow, never to turn back. Ugly and dark, feathers in black, form of a crow.

“They aren’t crows,” I said astonished, before pulling some of my once raven-black hair forward and looking at the white strands in it. The white was the exact hue of my brothers’ feathers.

“You did that,” the witch said. “You kept the curse from yourself and you altered it.”

“How?”

“It’s your heart. You have the sweetest heart I have ever met. You’re kind and good and that stopped her evil spell, at least some.”

I lowered my head as fat tears gathered in my eyes. “They’re still birds though. Swans, crows, what’s the difference?” I sounded bitter even to my own ears.

“Don’t give up now, child.” Green fingers appeared in front of my vision, gently taking my chin and pushing it up so I could see into her deep eyes. “Let me tell you a secret. A swan’s curse can be lifted by weaving stinging nettles into a mantle.”

One more time hope flared through me. “Truly?”

“Truly. But be aware, child, you have to take a vow of silence for six years. You cannot utter, write, or communicate a word about you or the curse by any means, understand?”

Numbly I moved my head to show her I did. “You have six years to make the mantles. Once they’re done, you have to place them over your brothers under the full moon and the curse will be broken.”

“I can do that,” I said confidently. I could.

“I know you can and you will. One more thing, the stinging nettles have to be collected at a graveyard and you have to do all of it by yourself. Nobody can help you. If even one nettle is picked up by someone else, it won’t work.”

“I will,” I promised, staring at my brothers gathered around me, staring back at me through soulful eyes. “I swear I will break that curse.”

“How—” I broke my question off, because the witch and her cat were gone. There wasn’t a trace of them, as if they had evaporated into thin air.

If my hair hadn’t still been wet, I would have thought I had dreamed all this, but then a voice carried through the wind, “You have to go to the Outside, that’s the only place to find the graveyards.”