Fair Peril Read online

“Aaaaaa!” the frog shrieked. “Savages on the march! Barbarians! Man the ramparts!”

  It was John Cougar with his little ditty about Jack and Diane. Good one. Buffy sang along. She sang, the radio blared, and the frog bellowed imprecations, until she pulled to a stop in front of her house.

  Her hovel, really; it barely deserved to be called a house. Her dumpy little hut, built out of lumber salvaged from a burned-down bra factory by an eccentric do-it-yourselfer who had eschewed the use of plumb bob and T square. A one-story cockeyed bungalow, with windows and door canted, siding slanted a different way, roofline out of agreement with any of the above, and the attached garage sliding downhill at the rate of several inches per year. Too bad; Buffy could not afford the rent on a place with right angles.

  “… piece of work is a prince,” the frog was babbling. “How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty …”

  Hoping the neighbors were not at home to notice anything strange, Buffy hurried him into the house and unceremoniously plopped him from her hat into her aquarium.

  “… of the world. The paragon of—blub!” Blessed silence for a moment. “Hey!” Adamus complained, resurfacing. “Land! I’m an amphibian, I need land!”

  “We’re gonna see how long you can tread water.” Buffy laid a hefty Reader’s Digest Wide World Atlas over the top of the aquarium to block escape.

  “Air! I’m an amphibian, I need air!”

  “We’re gonna see how long you can breathe through your skin.”

  “Filthy hedgehog! Three-tongued slattern! Harridan!”

  “Very good,” Buffy approved, exiting. The frog’s insults cheered her—they were so much more interesting than the ones she was accustomed to. Americans really needed to learn to swear with more flair. Perhaps she and the frog ought to give lessons. Buffy smiled as she surveyed the unkempt rectangle of real estate her landlord called a back yard. In her recycling bin she found a glass jar with a lid, and then she walked to the nearest miscelleny heap, spraddled her legs with more sturdiness than grace, bent, and started rooting. Clawing like a bear, turning over cinder blocks, she collected small red worms, sow bugs, and other creepy-crawlies. She harvested more of the same from a brick and a short length of mossy, rotting plank, then hefted those two items and headed back into the house.

  The frog was floating at his ease in the dechlorinated water of the aquarium, but began to kick and thrash pitifully when he saw her. “Monster! Grendel!”

  “Right.” She set down her finds on a sheet of newspaper, pulled a plastic margarine container out of the dish drainer, found her scrub bucket, and started dipping water from the aquarium.

  “What are you doing? Water! I’m an amphibian, I need water!”

  “Would you shut up and have some respect? These goldfish are being sacrificed for your sake.”

  The frog did not shut up. “Aristophanes was right. We will have yet more terrible things to endure, we frogs, we will have yet more terrible things to endure.”

  He went on from there, lamenting the fates of frogs, Thomas the Rhymer, Odysseus, and other noble captives. Buffy ignored his monologue, emptying the aquarium until about four inches of water remained, in which three goldfish, leftovers from her younger daughter’s elementary-school days, swam disconsolately. She pulled out plastic ferns, shoved some gravel to one end, and topped it with her brick and piece of planking, making a dampish platform where her frog could rest out of the water, all the while keeping an eye on him. If he tried to leap out of the aquarium, she was ready to intercept him. But he seemed dispirited. He made only a token attempt to climb the wall, then stood with his long, webbed hind feet braced against the gravel, his four-fingered hands winsomely pressed against the glass.

  “Here,” Buffy told him, “supper,” and she transferred three beetles and a red worm from her salsa jar to her frog’s glass palace.

  Adamus hunkered down in the farthest corner. “Aaaaaaugh! Grubs! Maggots!”

  “I imagine you prefer flying insects, but—”

  “Insects? You flea-pated crone, I have been living on insects for a thousand years! Bring me roast suckling pork, quickly!”

  “But if it doesn’t wiggle, you’re not supposed to be able to handle it.”

  “So wiggle it!”

  As Buffy tried to think of a suitable retort, somebody knocked. Buffy rolled her eyes, slammed the world atlas down on top of the aquarium, strode to the door, and yanked it open. There stood her youngest, just sixteen, as blond and exquisite and sullen and unsmiling as a Calvin Klein perfume ad.

  “Emily!” Buffy could not restrain the quick delight that always made her daughter scowl.

  Emily scowled. “I was on my way to the mall,” she stated, making sure her mother wouldn’t think she was visiting on purpose, “and my stupid car quit, so I was walking to get to a phone and I saw you’re home. Why aren’t you at work?”

  Buffy ducked that. “Why did your car quit?”

  “Like I know?” Emily’s bored, perfect eyes scanned her mother. “Mom, you’re a mess.” Emily wore a taupe silk ribbed top, a taupe-and-mauve long flowing skirt, Birkenstocks. Buffy wore mostly mud.

  “Oh. Yeah, I’ve got to get cleaned up.” Buffy stood back, gesturing to invite her daughter in. Progressing past Buffy’s furniture, most of which had come from garage sales, Emily showed remarkable maturity and restraint, barely curling her lip at all. Unfortunately, she headed straight to the aquarium.

  “How are my fishies? Ewwww!” She jumped back. “Ewwww, ick, what is that?”

  “It’s called a frog,” Buffy said mildly, washing her hands at the kitchen sink. She tried not to be judgmental, but she often wondered whence this daughter had come. She had been right there when Emily popped out, but still—was this her child? Could mother and daughter be so different? Buffy habitually yanked her straight graying hair into a horse tail and fastened it with the rubber band off the newspaper; Emily spent twenty minutes every morning primping her permed bangs. Buffy shaved her legs only when she had to go to the gynecologist; for Emily, running out of disposable razors was an emergency. Buffy ate bacon by the pound; Emily was a vegetarian. Buffy liked to stick a worm on a hook and catch a sunny; Emily marched for animal rights. Buffy killed spiders that came into the house; Emily emitted soprano screams at them.

  “Kiss me,” the frog said.

  Emily screamed, jumped back with even more vehemence than before, and shielded her mouth with her hands.

  “Please!” Adamus stood up, showing his pale underbelly, pressing his dainty hands to the glass again. “I entreat you, fair damsel, liberate a pitiful captive. I am an ensorcelled prince. Kiss me and break the spell.”

  Nice. She, Buffy, got the imperious treatment, whereas Emily got the soft soap.

  Her perfume-ad poise blown to hell, Emily stared wide-eyed. Buffy stood with dripping hands and watched her daughter, memorizing the moment, feeling her heart melt despite her annoyance; when the brittle shell of teen sophistication ruptured, Emily was so young, so wholehearted, so vulnerable.

  “Wha-wha-wha—” Emily stammered.

  “Just your generic talking frog,” Buffy drawled, drying her hands on the front of her sweatshirt.

  “Prithee, sweet princess Emily,” Adamus pleaded.

  Buffy said, “I am going to use him in my storytelling.”

  Instantly the brittle Emily was back, turning on her. “Great, Mom. Just wonderful.”

  The sarcasm was so familiar that Buffy merely blinked. “Now what did I do?” Lace-up shoes affronted this girl. The wrong brand of paper towels. Bic pens. Almost anything.

  “Oh, right. You don’t know?”

  “Am I supposed to know?” Meanwhile, the frog begged and babbled, a nuisance in the background, like somebody else’s baby in a restaurant. Buffy felt the beginnings of a headache. It was hard to keep edge out of her voice.

  Emily shrilled, “Well
, you would know if you’d think of anybody but yourself! That’s what I hate, Mom—you’re so selfish! You’ve turned into such a total user!”

  Buffy sighed and pressed her lips together. Apparently “use” had been the trigger word, the one she should have avoided. When Emily had gone into hysterics and insisted on staying with her father, “use” had been a frequent word in the non-discussion. Buffy hoped that the maturity and patience that she, the mother, had shown would someday make an impression on the girl. She had not attempted to hold on to Emily, had always loathed people who “used”—there it was again—who used children as weapons in a bitter divorce. Emily was entitled to love her father. Emily had always been Daddy’s little princess. Moreover, Emily was accustomed to a certain lifestyle. And Emily was the child; Emily’s needs came first. Buffy had put aside her own feelings and let the girl live with Daddy dear.

  Buffy found herself quivering with anger.

  But she kept her voice down. “Emily, I was the one who was used. For twenty years.”

  “Well, you’re sure making up for lost time.”

  “That’s right.” They had been through this before. Buffy rolled her eyes and dismissed it. “Let’s go see what we can do about your car.”

  “What about my fishies? They don’t have enough water. That’s what I mean—you get a talking frog and you don’t even care what happens to my fishies!”

  “Princess, you must kiss me!” The frog had progressed from vehemence to frenzy, ricocheting around the aquarium.

  “For God’s sake, take your own damn fishies!” How did moms always get stuck caring for the livestock anyway? Temper showing now, Buffy snatched Ziploc bags from a drawer and sloshed them full of aquarium water from the scrub bucket still sitting in the middle of the floor. “Go ahead, get them out before he eats them.”

  “Princess, Princess, Princess!” The frog bobbed and surged, standing straight up at Emily’s approach. With fish dipper in hand, Emily stared at him, her young eyes like midnight-blue velvet, and suddenly Buffy felt uneasy.

  “Here, I’ll do it.” She took the fish dipper out of her daughter’s hand. The frog slumped in a corner, silent, as she scooped the goldfish out of their too-small pond.

  “What does he mean, he’s an ensorcelled prince?” Emily asked from behind Buffy’s large mud-caked backside.

  Thank modern education, the girl had probably never heard the fairy tale. Funny thing, in the Grimm version the princess never kisses the frog, just gets pissed off and flings him against the wall, and that makes him turn into “a prince with kind and beautiful eyes.” Kinky. An interesting way of pussyfooting around the older versions, which were kinkier. In some of them the princess slept with the frog for three weeks before he turned into a prince.

  “Nothing,” Buffy told her daughter. “It doesn’t mean anything. He’s like a parrot. It’s just something he says.”

  Two

  Buffy was able to spot at once the trouble with Emily’s car, a brand-new metallic-mauve Probe Daddy had bought her. “You have to put gas in it, honey,” she said as gently as she could.

  “Oh. Well, how should I know? Don’t be sarcastic.”

  Emily’s resentment was not strong enough to make her handle the emergency herself, however. Emily hated the smell of gasoline on her hands or, perish forbid, her clothing. Buffy was the one who borrowed a can at the corner Kwik-Mart, bought gas, sloshed it into Emily’s tank so that Emily could drive to the pumps, paid for a fill-up, then stood on the sidewalk and waved the girl safely on her way to the mall. Roaring off, Emily did not wave back.

  Emily lived for the mall. Emily would have lived at the mall if the place had stayed open at night. The mall was her fairy tale, her consumer fantasy, her now and her future, her all. The mall was her place to meet her friends. The mall was her friend. And, since the split, it was her family—the mall, Buffy thought with a sigh, was Emily’s mother; obviously she liked it a lot more than she did the real one.

  Buffy sighed again, walked into the Kwik-Mart one more time to buy herself a consolation bag of Fritos, then munched them as she slogged home.

  Hey, not all was dreary. At least she had her talking frog.

  “Hey, frog.”

  From his brick, in the shadow of the world atlas, he ogled her sullenly, without replying. Apparently Prince Adamus d’Aurca did not appreciate her casual greeting.

  “Let’s get you more comfortable.” Buffy thumped down to the basement, where she found some heavy wire mesh left over from the landlord’s idea of fencing; she appropriated a section, took it up, and laid it over the aquarium in lieu of the atlas. There, now her baby had air. She crimped the corners to hold the mesh in place, then hustled (with portions of her bobbing) to the back yard and brought four bricks to weight the corners and keep baby safe in his playpen. Next, she positioned her Gro-Lite over the aquarium to keep baby warm, sacrificing houseplants as willingly as she had proposed to sacrifice goldfish. The beetles were crawling out of the aquarium and the red worm had drowned in the water; she removed it. “Supper’s coming in a little bit,” she cooed. Satisfied with herself and her mothering skills, Buffy had a shower and changed her clothes (finally), put her jeans in the washing machine, nuked herself a fried chicken dinner in the microwave, cut tender white meat off the wing, lifted the aquarium’s new mesh roof, took the shard of fowl between her fingers, and offered it to her frog, wiggling it.

  He bit her.

  He lunged like a cornered mouse and bit her hand. It was like being attacked by a Cub stapler with gums. The two pathetic teeth in his upper jaw accomplished only two tiny drops of blood on her knuckle—a mouse would have done more damage. Yet the bite chilled her to her navel, and infuriated her. She snatched her hand, and the food, away. “You can just damn well starve!” she yelled.

  “Gladly, O adipose slattern.”

  Letting her chicken dinner sit, Buffy stomped to the freezer for brownie-chunk ice cream.

  Hunkered at the table, she attempted to soothe herself by applying the cold stuff internally. But the frog had broken his sullen silence to yammer incessantly. “I am a PRINCE give me a QUINCE when I have fears that I may cease to be were there but room enough and time the small rain down can rain fowles in the frith and fisshes in the floode Adam lay ybounden, bounden in a bond, lully, lullay, lullay, let me out you snaggletoothed hag!”

  Buffy reached for a bag of Hershey’s Kisses. “Shut up.”

  “Overstuffed knackingwench!”

  “Shut up.”

  “I will not. I am a prince of the royal blood of Aurca. I—”

  Buffy reared to her feet. “ONCE UPON A TIME,” she roared, “THERE WAS A LOUD PRINCESS. SHE COULD HOWL LOUDER THAN WOLVES PLUS WIND PLUS THUNDER, SHE COULD BOOM LOUDER THAN A BITTERN, SHE COULD CRY DOWN GEESE FROM THE SKY. BUT HER MOTHER TOLD HER—” Buffy’s voice grew whisper-quiet as the frog squatted, watching her pop-eyed. “Her mother told her that if she did not speak softly, no prince would ever marry her. So she spoke softly and smiled sweetly and a prince married her. And her mother was happy. But the prince’s mother was a witch.” Buffy grimaced, thinking of her own former mother-in-law. She was making up the story as she went along, but it curled her toes and she knew it was good. “One day the princess had a baby, a little girl like a pink rose. And as she lay in her lacy white bed with her new daughter, the witch said to her, ‘Give me the baby,’ and the princess said loudly, ‘NO,’ because she did not want the witch to touch her little girl. Then, because the princess had spoken loudly, the witch pronounced a curse …”

  Buffy paused to breathe deeply and think of the curse. The frog waited for her to go on.

  “The witch cursed the loud princess that when she spoke and wished to be heard, only the birds of the air would hear her.

  “And so it came to be. Her child grew, and when the loud princess said, ‘I am your mother,’ wrens flew to her shoulders, but the little girl could not hear her. When the loud princess said, ‘I love you,’ swans came and lay
at her feet, but the little girl could not hear her. The little girl said, ‘Who is this woman?’ and her grandmother the witch told her, ‘That is your stepmother.’ And the little girl knew that stepmothers were supposed to be wicked and deceitful. So she took a hunk of bread and a lump of cheese and an apple in a silk kerchief and set off to find her true mother.

  “She walked herself hungry, out of that kingdom and into the next, and nary a mother did she find. When she sat down in a grassy meadow to eat, the meadowlarks came and tried to peck at her bread and cheese, but she drove them away. Then she lay down where she was to sleep. But suddenly every bird in the meadow flew up and away. The little girl did not know what had disturbed them.

  “‘MY CHILD! WHERE IS MY LITTLE GIRL?’”

  Buffy felt a lump of pesky emotion take form in her throat, but kept going.

  “The loud princess was crying so loudly that every bird in the world took fright, but no one in the castle could hear her. She searched the castle from towers to dungeons, shouting all the while, and no one answered her. She cried to her mother-in-law, ‘WHERE IS MY CHILD?’ but the witch did not hear. She cried to her husband the prince, ‘WHERE IS MY LITTLE GIRL?’ but he did not hear or care. She cried out so loudly that the stones of the castle cracked, and as she ran out the gate and shouted for her little girl, every stone of the castle crashed down behind her. And then surely the witch and the prince could not hear her, for they were dead.”

  Pure, sheer wish-fulfillment fantasy, Buffy thought. But it was a good story. She could feel it curling her guts. She went on.

  “‘WHERE IS MY LITTLE GIRL?’” the loud princess cried, and a hawk flew down from the sky and said, ‘I will show you.’

  “Far away, the little girl could not sleep, and got up and walked and walked, out of that kingdom and into the next, and nary a mother did she find. She walked herself hungry, and sat down in a woods to eat, and the wood thrushes flew down and tried to peck at her bread and cheese, but she drove them away. Then—” Buffy meant to stick to the formula she had set up, because things were always supposed to happen in threes, but screw it. A person could be blabbering all day. “Then she walked until all she had left to eat was her apple. She came to a lake, and when the waterbirds tried to peck at her apple, she started to cry. ‘Oh, take it,’ she said, and she gave it to a swan. ‘All I want is my mother.’