i can’t for the life of me remember the title or anything and parts of the book that i do remember can’t help me find it on the net. if you can help that’d be great. i apologize ahead of time because the details are rough but i do remember a good bit of the story. i think it’s a young adult book because i remember reading it in middle school.

it’s about a nameless orphan girl who lives in a hut and everyone just calls her waif. in the beginning she had a bought an apple and went home singing a rhyme that made her one apple become many.

later shes living alone and it’s winter i guess she brings an old lady out of the cold and she learns herbs and stuff from her and she names her (i thought) cerderwin because she has a birthmark on her chest that is like from the story of a sorceress who has an ugly/stupid/monster boy child and she tries to make him better by creating this magical potion to make him smarter and whatnot but it gets taken by her apprentice who turns himself into some kind of grain so he can hide in a mill so the sorceress turns herself into a bird and eats him. then later the sorceress has a beautiful girl child and she feels bad for her boy so she puts her girl in a basket with herbs that stained her chest and sent her down river. and apparently the sorceress’ name was cerderwin? and that’s why the old lady gave the waif that name.

okay. then the old lady leaves and the waif is walking along when lo and behold the prince falls sick off his horse and nobody knows what to do so she runs up and sticks some herb in his mouth and voila he’s better. boom. she becomes the royal healer person/nurse for his daughter.

um. then a plague hits and she kidnaps the princess and runs so she won’t get sick but the prince finds them and takes his daughter back home. when the waif returns to the castle, the princess has been replaced by a changeling because she knew she had the plague and was going to die so she had eaten the waif’s magic jelly bean?

um. then later the waif is to be burned at the stake for something and she calls a power rhyme to return the true princess. and then she accepts that she is cerderwin? and turns into a bird and flies away.

i know all that sounded horrible but if you know anything about it i’d love to hear it. thanks.