The Blue Bird

PROLOGUE

I was eight years old when my mother died. I remember the day so clearly.

It was fever that took her. She had been bed-ridden for weeks. It drove her crazy, being forced to stay still. She had always been partial to adventures in the forest, no matter what the season, and dancing in the garden, during rain, snow, or sunshine.

How strange it was to see my once lively, spirited mother gasping for breath in her final moments. She had taken my hand and looked at me with eyes so empty that I was convinced her soul had already ascended.

"Hana," she had said to me, "promise me that you won't let your sense of duty stop you from living a full and wonderful life."

She had put a trembling hand under my chin and raised my head so my eyes met hers.

"You were always such a serious child." She had smiled fondly. "I love you, my Hana."

With that she had started coughing violently, and I was quickly ushered from the room. A few hours later they announced that my mother, the queen, was dead.

My father was inconsolable. He locked himself in the throne room for days, refusing to take food or drink, or let anyone in, even me.

After three days our chief butler, Gustave, was so worried that he had words with a lumberjack about hacking the door down.

Enter, Dina Corrado, a widowed kitchen maid. She sat outside the door and started crying, really loudly, about her dead husband. My kind-hearted father was distracted from his own grief long enough to let her in and accept some bread and water.

They spent hours talking in that room and, when they emerged, they announced that they were to be married.

So Dina became queen and her daughter, Sibeta, became my step sister.

The day my father married Dina was the day my life got a whole lot more complicated.