The Door in the Hedge Read Online Free PDF Page A

undeniably blue, that color, but a blue that no one had ever seen elsewhere.
    Linadel ran forward with a cry of pleasure and plucked one of the flowers before her stunned mother could stop her: and she ran back at once when Alora failed to follow her and held the flower up and said, “Isn’t it lovely, Mother? May we take some home?”
    Alora, looking down, saw with a terrible pang that deep ethereal blue reflected in her own daughter’s eyes. But she said only, very quietly, “No, my dear, these are wildflowers, and they do not like to sit in houses; we will leave them here.” She took the small blue thing Linadel held and laid it in the grass near its fellows, and they turned away from that meadow and walked elsewhere.
    Alora dreamed of that meadow, and the blue in Linadel’s wide grey eyes, for years after that; but she never remembered the dream when she awoke—only a vague feeling of fear, and of things forbidden; and she did not recall the incident that had begun the dreams.
    What she did still recall was her sister’s face; and sometimes the young Linadel reminded her of what Ellian had been at the same age. Linadel’s coloring was similar to her aunt’s, but there the resemblance ended, beyond a chance fleeting expression such as young princesses everywhere may occasionally be caught at. The thing that Alora noticed more and more as the years passed was how much more solemn Linadel was than she and Ellian had been; but Linadel had no sister to help bear the oppressive weight of royalty.
    By the time Linadel’s seventeenth birthday was the next occasion on the state calendar, she had practiced princessing so successfully that her royal robes never got under her feet any more, nor did her arms tremble; and her mother suddenly realized: “She is preparing to be a queen alone.” She thought of Gilvan and how little her life would have been without him, and her heart failed her. And then a new juggler’s trick would make the Princess laugh, or a new ballad make her look as young and lovely as she really was—if less like a queen-to-be—and Alora would think, “She’s only a girl. It’s not fair that she should have to understand so much so soon.” And Linadel’s smile, and sidelong look to her parents to join the fun, would remind Alora of Ellian again.
    The poor Queen’s thoughts went round and round, and Linadel’s birthday came nearer and nearer; and the possible husbands had petered out to what looked to be the final end. Then one night Alora dreamed of Linadel and the blue flower, and she remembered her dream when she woke up: and she also remembered what she had dreamed after: Linadel had grown up in a few graceful moments as her mother watched, still holding a fresh blue flower, till she was almost seventeen; but then she laughed and opened her arms to embrace Alora, and the Queen realized that it was not Linadel standing before her, but Ellian. She woke sobbing, to find herself in Gilvan’s arms, and he smoothed her hair and said, “It’s only a dream” till she fell asleep again; but she would not tell him what her dream had shown her. When he asked her, the next morning, she did not meet his eyes as she answered that she could not remember.
    Alora was correct in thinking that her daughter was anticipating being a queen without a king to argue official questions and complain of the humorlessness of ministers with. The Princess found being a princess a heavy task, since—as her parents had long recognized—she couldn’t help taking her royal responsibilities seriously. She was the only one there was. She had often thought, wistfully, that it would be a very nice thing to have brothers and sisters—as all her cousins did—since being eldest, and heir apparent, couldn’t be nearly as bad as being the only one at all. Two years before, when the question of Antin was being discussed, she