Once upon a time there lived a man and his wife. They resided in a relatively nice cottage behind the palace. He was a hardworking butler, and she was serving the royal family as a loyal governess and housekeeper. The two lived a humble life aided slightly by the king and queen. Being a governess to the two princes kept the butler's wife busy, so busy that she didn't worry about having children of her own. The butler devoted himself to his work and knew that one day they would have a family, but only when the time was right.
The time proved to be right when the younger of the two princes entered his third year, and the butler and his wife were blessed with a daughter. She had blonde hair and forest green eyes, and her parents named her Laurel. Laurel was still a baby when the second daughter was born, Rachel, who had blue eyes and blonde hair. Each child grew up slightly different from the other: Laurel in the likeness of her hardworking and loyal parents, and Rachel in the way of her charming environment. Laurel learned to do chores from her mother, and the butler taught Rachel how to dance and to behave like a lady. Laurel never worried about seeming like a lady. She knew that hard work was rewarded, and she watched her mother's actions keenly.
The butler's wife had gotten to a state of health where she could no longer work, so she had ten-year-old Laurel go in to watch the princes and the littler princesses as her own charges (even though the princes were older than her and they should have been old enough to watch themselves). Rachel would come into the nursery and play with the children, impressing them with her stories and games so that her sister could actually get some work done. Based on how much her own children spent with the royal ones, the butler's wife knew that one of her daughters would end up married to a prince, but she wasn't sure whether it would be the smart daughter or the nice daughter.
Years passed and the daughters of the butler grew more beautiful. The butler worked as hard as he could to provide a good life for his bedridden wife and his youngest daughter. Laurel made herself useful in the palace—tutoring the princesses, mending clothes, cooking, cleaning—doing all the things her mother used to do. Laurel bettered her diction and her look so that she could impress the royal family and prove herself a worthy member of society. She wanted to give off a nice appearance—an appearance the king and queen would, perhaps, keep around even after the children no longer needed a governess. She wasn't just a servant… she was determined to be so much more. Rachel frolicked through the gardens, flirting with the princes and galavanting with the princesses. She lived like she was in a story: nothing could go wrong so long as Laurel and the butler could be the strong members of the family. Even after the butler's wife died, Rachel continued to play and Laurel continued to strive for greatness.
The butler continued to work very hard to provide for his younger child knowing good and well that Laurel could take care of herself. Eventually, Laurel knew, she would have to support both her and Rachel.
Rachel lived in a world of absolute fantasy and never took any responsibility for her own actions. She pined after the younger prince, who was about four years older than she was, and made sure that she was always on her best behavior when the king was around. She was still whimsical and carefree, a wonderful shift from her responsible sister and her mother before her. While Rachel was off playing, Laurel took up everything that Rachel should have been doing—mending clothes, sweeping, and watching the princesses day and night. Part of Rachel's beauty was how carefree she was. Laurel seemed a little too knowing to be pretty to the princes, and she gave up trying to impress those two boys.
There was so much, Laurel realized, that she didn't know about the world. She had never left the palace and her parent's cottage behind it. What did the world have to offer? If it had anything to offer, there had to have been something for her. If she wasn't so afraid, she would go out and get it. But there was nothing wrong with the palace—they were profitable employers, and it ran in the family—and she saw no reason to leave her family behind.
One day Laurel was sitting by the fire in the palace kitchen mending one of Rachel's dresses, soot and flour mixed over Laurel's face. She had spent quite a bit of the day in the kitchen, working hard to prepare for the queen's upcoming ball to honor her birthday. The youngest princess came down the stairs and noted the flour on Laurel's cheeks. "Yes, honey, I've been baking." The child, with greedily grabbing hands, reached after the balls of cookie dough. "No no, those aren't baked yet. And they're not for you. They're for your mother." Laurel picked up the child and put her on her hip. The little girl was pouting as she looked down on the beautifully cream cookie dough. "I have to roll it out, see? Then we cut it…" Laurel set the child down on the counter in a small spot of flour, rolling the dough out with as much force as she could muster, then pressing a metal cookie cutter into the dough and pulling the shape out clean. The small child clapped wildly. "Do you want to cut one? Cut one out for mama?"
The younger prince, who Laurel saw more often than the older, came in and scoffed at the scene he just witnessed. "Don't you have work to be doing instead of playing 'house' with my little sister?" The little girl jumped off the counter in fear of her brother's report to their mother and father. They just looked at one another for a few seconds and his eyes narrowed, sending the little girl up the stairs without so much as another word. Laurel took a rag out of her apron pocket and tried to clean off some of the dirt on her face. As the little princess exited, her brother noted the flour on the back of her dress. "You'll have to clean that, too, now."
"She was helping me make cookies for your mother's birthday, sire." She said through gritted teeth, tucking the rag back into her apron pocket. She hated to call this boy that she babysat her superior, but he was seventeen now and she was almost fifteen years old, and he was also a prince. "Shortbreads, my mama always made them."
Peasant food, thought the prince grimly. But he didn't comment. "Where's your sister? You know, the pretty one." That stung Laurel a lot more than it should have. She knew that none of the princes found her beautiful, and compared to Rachel she was miserably plain. She spoke too much, and sometimes she honestly believed Rachel spoke too little. Laurel was very blunt, and tended to speak her mind or say nothing whatsoever, and there was no in between. She was thin enough, she thought, but she was not lithe like Rachel—she was shapely, and she filled out her dresses nicely. Her green eyes were not found to be beautiful by anyone, and she didn't know anyone else who had them. She was different, but different didn't mean beautiful or ugly. He realized what he had said but was to vain to take it back. She threw her braid over her shoulder and thought about where her sister could have been. "It doesn't matter where she is now. Mother wants her to come to the royal dinner tomorrow… she's to be my brothers guest. Make sure she wears something nice, and you stay out of sight." The prince left, and when he did she felt nothing but hurt.
Rachel was the one that the royal family always liked more. She didn't ask questions, she pleased their father, she always needed to depend on someone and she wasn't as miserably headstrong as Laurel was. On top of that, she was beautiful and everyone recognized that. Laurel continued to work on a beautiful dress for Rachel, an early birthday present. Now, she figured, if she was no help to any of her family and no help to her employers, it was to be a going away present. There had to be somewhere in the world where she could be helpful and not a hassle. She had to find a place in the world where they respected her knowledge and treated her in a way that she wished to be treated.
Laurel finished the cookies quickly. She made icing, flooded the cookies, splattered them with sugar, put them in a little basket (and set it high enough that the children wouldn't try to mess with them), and quickly finished mending her sister's dress. This was the final straw. She didn't have to worry about what happened to Rachel, she had a prince. Laurel didn't have to worry about impressing her mother or keeping her tradition alive, she was going to find a new tradition of her own. She had marketable skills! Someone was bound to want her for one reason or another. She may not have been the beautiful daughter, but she was clever and witty and skillful. There had to be a reward for that, even if that reward wasn't a prince!
With new determination, her sister's dress now hanging in the cottage and a note on her father's bedside table, Laurel headed into the woods.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, so this was the first installment of my first story for Into the Woods. I've been fascinated with the Baker's Wife since I first heard the music, and I've always wanted to write her back story. Please review and let me know what you think of it!