Desperate For a Way Out
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My initial resistance must have caught him off guard.
To convince me to sacrifice my heart, the Sorcerer promised to cast a spell that would endure the test of time. I would grow more beautiful as the years passed.
At the time, I thought that a frivolous temptation. Youth never considers the brutal reality of old age, and vanity is not an indulgence available to the ugly.
I only gave in because the Sorcerer wouldn’t.
Now, I am grateful and relieved I took all he offered.
The winter, and sometimes the autumn, of life has often been described a woman’s hell.
That is usually the outcome for the women of my sisterhood, especially those who don’t leave the life to marry well.
Perhaps that humiliation may be mine when I am close to death, but thankfully, I have not suffered any loss of status or income, even though I am in my sixtieth year.
Again, I get ahead of myself.
To go back to that moment when I was offered the chance to change the dreariness of my fate, it may surprise you to know, my dear Shepherd, that I took a few days to think about it. To be made over into the image of beauty and grace was a dream I never had the audacity to imagine for myself.
Yet I couldn’t fathom how this could actually come to be.
First, how could I possibly lure the Patron’s Daughter to the Sorcerer of the Caverns? We absolutely loathed each other.
Second, how could the odious Sorcerer possibly seduce such a vain and arrogant creature as the Patron’s Daughter, given how ugly and ancient that he was?
“You need not concern yourself with that,” the Sorcerer actually laughed when I asked him. “I, too, have my methods of transformation.”
Since we are here now, we both know I accepted.
Really, how could I simply resist the reward?
I would never be ugly again.
I need not have worried about finding the possibility to influence her.
I started running into the Patron’s Daughter on my solitary walks through the Ancient Grove not long after meeting the Sorcerer.
The first time I ran into her, she was in tears.
She glared at me, of course.
But I was too stunned by the spectacle of her showing any sign of pain to take offense.
Apparently, the rejection of the Noble Son made her had gotten to her, and that made her vulnerable. That had never happened to her.
At first, I wondered if she now understood how her suitors felt in how she treated them.
But I would later find out that she didn’t give that any thought.
The abandonment left her dejected, but it also made her petulant.
Again, I get ahead of myself.
After that first unpleasant meeting, I ignored her and kept going on my way.
The next day, the Patron’s Daughter rode past us working in the fields, her demeanor as haughty as ever. But on this afternoon, she looked me in the eye and gave a slight nod as she passed.
That she had never done before.
The forbidden Ancient Grove must have been a favorite place for tearful girls suffering romantic disappointment.
Every time I went for a walk amongst the massive trees, the Patron’s Daughter was also there.
I wondered if the Sorcerer cast some kind of spell to make these frequent meetings happen.
It hardly mattered if he did.
After a couple of weeks of running into each other every time I went for my evening walk, the Patron’s Daughter finally spoke to me.
It was the first time I had ever heard her sound somewhere near pleasant.
“Do you come here every day?” she asked. “I imagine you would be too exhausted.”
“I do and I am exhausted,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
To my surprise, she almost apologized.
“I beg your pardon. I did not mean any offense.”
I accepted her self-correction with a nod and a thank you.
After that, we started to chat lightly whenever we ran into each other.
That was rather awful for me.
From what I’ve already told you about my former life as Addie, darling Shepherd, would it surprise you to know I was not particularly liked?
Anger, resentment, and envy were the strongest traits of my personality.
Who loves the bitter?
I was consumed with bitterness long before I turned eighteen.
Looking back, I don’t like who I was at that time.
Now, it shames me to admit I was every bit as petulant as the Patron’s Daughter, and that was without being spoiled. I thought myself above my company, the other peasants who worked as hard as I did under miserable conditions.
Yet I was the one who complained incessantly.
It was impossible to be held in esteem or respect with such a ridiculous attitude. Even my parents thought me a fool. For an indentured peasant born to a life of servitude to want more than I could ever have, instead of making do with the life that was offered me, seemed to everybody a state of lunacy.
And looking back, they were right. It really was.
But one thing I had never been was a hypocrite.
The reason the people around me knew of my envy, bitterness, and angry desire for more was because I let it show.
So to act in such a way to encourage the trust of the one girl I had hated and envied my entire life to get what I wanted made me feel vile.
To make my point, the only baths I knew during those years were the ones I could muster at the edge of the river, scrubbing myself with the scraps of meager soap that were left after doing the wash.
Most of the time, my personal stench made me nauseous.
Yet my pretense of friendship with a girl I couldn’t stand made me feel so much dirtier in a way that a lifelong deprivation of baths never could.
But I had a choice. Between the promise of beauty and the freedom of an unknown future, and a meager integrity that would keep me in a life of misery, what would you have chosen? Really?
I chose beauty and freedom.
I was truly desperate.
Please remember that, Shepherd, in case you feel tempted to judge me as my story unfolds.