Wisdom's Kiss by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Oh, how I longed to soar through the sky! Past the stars, across the moon, over sleeping Montagne and its flag-adorned turrets. Even as I dreamt of this rapture, my wiser side spoke against it. Rumors of witchcraft now burned across the country. Sheep on Ancienne had gone astray; a shepherd boy had not been seen in weeks; spirits with cloven feet tracked ash across the ballroom floor. As far as the truth went, I had seen the ballroom myself and the prints (well should I know) were only mice. Sheep had been disappearing from the mountain since time immemorial; rational men in rational times agreed the creatures must be tumbling into an unmarked ravine. As for the shepherd boy, I had no insights beyond the knowledge that I was in no way responsible.
Yet tempers were raw, and the castle's populace, tense over the impending ball and doubtless sensing in some intangible way the threat from Drachensbett, promised violence against anyone suspected of sorcery. Better to dart about my cell like a beetle trapped in a jar, and to enter the pantries only when my howling belly could bear hunger no more.
Excerpted from pages 55–57 of Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company © 2008. Reprinted with permission.
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Princess Ben Excerpt: Ben's Misbehavior >
Trudy may believe that doughty Queen Ben has behaved perfectly all her life, but readers of Princess Ben know better. Here, Ben describes her experience as a newly crowned, fifteen-year-old princess-in-training.
Much of each day I passed in the company of Lady Beatrix, a tall and bony woman of unknowable age who never appeared without a wig and a thick spackling of powder, rouge, and lipstick, a mole painted somewhere between her cheekbone and chin depending on the formality of the occasion. As an educator, she was utterly lacking.
Her notion of history centered on genealogy, emphasizing Queen Sophia's superior bloodlines. Though she spoke several languages, her vocabulary consisted of fashion and dining terms and fawning, useless phrases. Because she insisted on teaching me three tongues at once, I eventually uttered such nonsense as "the draperies in this hall are lovely," but in a tangle of languages and grammar that not even she could unravel. Penmanship I found equally wretched, for I had far less interest in the appearance of my words than in their substance, a concept that held no meaning for my teacher....
Needlework—oh, hateful needlework! How many loathsome hours did I spend embroidering handkerchiefs with ridiculous flowers and illegible initials, only for Beatrix to reject them. "Someday," she would simper, "a prince himself will request your handkerchief as token. This would be shameful to present."
"I don't care about tokens!"I snapped. "I don't care about princes, either!" I found it effortless to talk back to her, but ultimately unsatisfying, as she ignored me utterly.
"Remember, Benevolence,"she would say, handing me another square of linen, "'Tis a needle, not a lance. Gentle stitches."
Dance and music were taught by stout little Monsieur Grosbouche, whose hands were as cold and damp as freshly caught fish. He, too, believed that the promise of well-born bachelors should inspire my greatest exertions. As he dragged me through each minuet, polonaise, and gavotte, puffing the beat with odferous breath, I entertained myself by stepping on the wide bows of his high-heeled dance slippers, then sweetly awaiting his stumble.
Excerpted from pages 55–57 of Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company © 2008. Reprinted with permission.
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Princess Ben Excerpt: Edwig >
When old Queen Ben states that she "far preferred ... Farina when it was ambitious and stupid!" she knows of what she speaks. Ben was first introduced to Wilhelmina's father, then still a lowly baron, at a ball intended to present the eligible young princess to society. The encounter did not go well.
The kings and queens, lords and ladies, princes and princesses, earls, dukes, knights, marquises, and other titles I scarcely knew hovered about to be presented, one by one. I could not recall their names if I tried.
That is not exactly true. I do recall Sophia herself introducing me to the Baron Edwig of Farina, for the hand he offered was, to my surprise, even clammier than that of Monsieur Grosbouche. The man's face was painted almost as thickly as Lady Beatrix's, and he clutched me as though I were a prize he would not quickly release.
"The baron,"the queen said, "has traveled five days to attend this fete. He is most interested in making your acquaintance."
"I had heard tales of your loveliness," Edwig simpered, "but none does it justice. Perhaps someday you will match the beautiful queen regent herself.'"
I glowered at the man, wondering if he had any notion of how ridiculous he sounded. "I trust you are enjoying your stay in our castle?"I asked at last.
"Would that I were, Your Highness. But I am afraid my sleep last night was quite troubled. This morning I identified the source of my bruises"—here he reached into a pocket of his waistcoat—"as a pea that had been tucked beneath my mattress "With a sad smile, he displayed the offending object.
I uttered the first thought that entered my head: "Well, aren't you frightfully rude."
Excerpted from pages 55–57 of Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company © 2008. Reprinted with permission.
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Princess Ben Excerpt: Elemental Spells >
Nonna Ben first discovered the Elemental Spells as a sullen and lonely teenager, the same night she stumbled upon the secret Wizard Room. As her memoir Princess Ben relates, mastery of the Elemental Spells was fitful at best, and Ben's intentions were often less than admirable.
If I had not yet come to the conclusion that this tome was a force of magic, the title words-difficult to discern, for the room though illuminated
by the moon had not light for scholarship—left no doubt. "The Elemental Spells," they proclaimed, in a flowing, archaic script I would discover soon enough was not the easiest to decipher. A dense paragraph followed, too challenging to read in the weak light, and then a series of precise illustrations and captions, with arrows highlighting specific elements, much as a cookery book might demonstrate the proper way to trim a roast, or an engineering manual the ideal configuration of a gristmill...
...Beneath [each] drawing was a series of words in a tongue I did not recognize; it looked wild, foreign, and unpronounceable. Helpfully, a second line of text sounded the words out syllable by syllable....
Across the two pages, I could see now, every chain of pictures ended with cupped hands, and each set of hands held a different substance. One clutched a lump resembling soil, another water with rippling surface. The third pair held what could only have been fire, sans a single indication of discomfort. The last hands I puzzled over, for they appeared to harbor a puff of mist, much like the clouds forever swirling about the base of our waterfall. These pictures meant something, I knew, but what?
Suddenly, as I scanned the pages' title, it struck me. The elemental spells these were, and such they produced: the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air.
What good such spells would accomplish I had not a clue. The ability to make dirt, or air, seemed rather a waste of magic. Fire, however, particularly aflame one could hold without danger-that was a different situation altogether.
Excerpted from pages 55–57 of Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounte
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Princess Ben Excerpt: Doppelschläferin
Doppelschläferin > >
I invented this word (see the Wisdom's Kiss glossary) while reworking Sleeping Beauty for my fairy tale Princess Ben; in creating a magical spell that allows someone to split in two, I retitled and feminized it as "double sleeper," thus finally putting to use two miserable years of college German. But since pretty much no one can pronounce German, let alone understand it, this name ended up as yet another Catherine Murdock linguistic dud. Plus it's impossible to type. German is notorious for huge, unwieldy words: in only our second week of college, we were memorizing "speed limit": Geschwindigkeitbegrenzung. "Doppelschläferin" is nothing compared with that.
In this excerpt, Ben discovers the Doppelschläferin in a book of magical spells. Note that this description does not feature the use of a cat as a body double; I hadn't figured out that part yet.
The illustrations made no sense. A girl under pursuit drops to the ground and perishes, for a ghost steps from her body. Her pursuers gather about the corpse as the ghost slips away unnoticed. Later the ghost reappears and steps, as one would descend a staircase, into the corpse, which then returns to life. Inserted between these larger images were diagrams of hand gestures and phonetic phrasing of spells.
A body returned to life was black magic; that much I knew. Perhaps the presence in this wizard room was not so benevolent after all. Even the heavy Gothic script of the title unnerved me. Wondering what path of villainy I might even now be treading, I sounded the name out, struggling with the foreign pronunciation: "Die Doppelschläferin."Beneath this, I could espy, smaller but in the same heavy text, "The Sleeping Double."...
...[Ah!] The girl in the wizard room's spell had avoided her pursuers by splitting herself in twain, the sleeping portion serving as distraction while the more active half went about her business. I had not pursuers per se, but I suffered myriad prying and suspicious opponents. I had escaped the queen's wrath once; I might not be so fortunate again. I, too, required a sleeping double to remain in the cell while I occupied myself without distraction above. I determined to spend all night, if need be, mastering the Doppelschläferin.
Excerpted from pages 55–57 of Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company © 2008. Reprinted with permission.
More on pets as witches' doubles in Wisdom's Kiss and in other fairy tales
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Princess Ben Excerpt: Ancienne >
The magical mountain of Ancienne has its own innate cognizance, and can manipulate fate and circumstance for the protection of Montagne. While the mountain is rather peripheral in Wisdom's Kiss, (although not completely >) it plays a central role in the earlier fairy tale Princess Ben, and the residents of Montagne recognized it as integral to their history.
The country of Montagne consists of a single rich valley contained on three sides by snow-topped mountains. The fourth side, conversely, drops precipitously into a cliff accessible only by switchbacks long ago carved into its flank. Swift streams lace the valley floor, weaving into the Great River, which plunges over this cliff in a most wondrous, ever-changing waterfall. Strategically placed aside this cascade at the valley's sole point of entry is the ancient stronghold of Chateau de Montagne. Its massive stone walls rise sheer from the cliff itself, while its valley side protects the bustling community of Market Town quite as a mother hen nurtures her chicks.
Looming over valley, castle, and town is Montagne, the kingdom's namesake, its symbol, and in many respects its soul, so well demonstrated by the word montagne itself. Not "the mountain"or "the grand mountain"or "our mountain,"but simply "mountain,"as though no other hill or alp or Everest had any conceivable significance. Indeed, since time past knowing valley people have spoken of this cloud-banked pinnacle as a living creature with powers beyond human intelligence. "Ancienne,"they call her. Old One. "She's brooding today, Ancienne is," men will say, watching storm clouds gather around the peak. Soon enough, a brutal wind will sweep down Montagne's slopes, sending shepherds hurrying to their flocks, and housewives to their laying hens.
According to Montagne legend, the mountain has forever been the abode of giants. Long ago a traveling pair of sorcerers, husband and wife, scaled the cliff into the valley, and the woman cured the giants' chilblains with ointments and the gift of fire. In gratitude, the giants built Chateau de Montagne out of the living rock of Ancienne, and from that castle the couple founded the kingdom of Montagne, using their magic to shield the country and its people from harm.
Excerpted from pages 55–57 of Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company © 2008. Reprinted with permission.
The Solstice Terrace >
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Princess Ben Excerpt: The Wizard Tower > >
"Just be careful," Dizzy warns Trudy and Tips about the Wizard Tower, "it's not human." Like the mountain Ancienne, the Wizard Tower has its own intelligence and mysteries. Below is Ben's description of her first encounter with the wizard room, from her memoir Princess Ben.
Mounting the last steps, I could now make out a tiny chamber, as neatly designed as a cut gem, tucked beneath the conical roof of the tower. Strong moonlight poured through four diminutive dormer windows, as though the round panes of glass had magnified the faint beams tenfold. Just as a lighthouse via mirrors and lenses transforms the flame of a single candle into a powerful beam, so, too, apparently, did these windows work with moonlight: a lighthouse turned in upon itself.
In this enchanted light I perceived a space such as I had never known. Odd cabinets with peculiar locks lined the walls. A cobwebbed mirror hung above a workbench blanketed in a jumble of unidentifiable objects. A lectern displaying an open book, an unlit candelabra to one side, stood in the room's center. Every item — I cannot emphasize this strongly enough —was shrouded in dust more than a finger width deep, accented by bird droppings powdery with age; bird nests crumbled in the turret's peak. Mice had left an otherworldly maze of trails on the floor, which was so thick with dust that it felt as soft as carpet.
Excerpted from pages 55–57 of Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company © 2008. Reprinted with permission.
Chateau de Montagne's Solstice Terrace
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Also by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
http://www.hmhbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=1061789Princess Ben
http://www.hmhbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=514845Dairy Queen
http://www.hmhbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=598466The Off Season
http://www.hmhbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=1021903Front and Center
Catherine Murdock grew up on a small farm in Connecticut, where she wisely avoided all sports involving hand-eye coordination. She now lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband, two brilliant unicycling children, several cats, and a one-acre yard that she is slowly transforming into a wee but flourishing ecosystem.
To learn more about the author and her work, visit her www.catherinemurdock.com>website
Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Wisdom's Kiss