She looks at her mother. “Mama, I don’t want to be like them.” Her bottom lip trembles as she chokes back a sob. A palace guard laughs uproariously as her mother scoops her up and carries her away.
I slip through an opening and move from the booth toward the center of the square where a fountain, a life-size replica of Cinderella’s carriage, stands. Made entirely of glass, it shimmers in the fading sun. Water spouts up around it, and in the bottom of the pool are hundreds of coins. It’s tradition to make a wish, much like Cinderella did so many years ago, and toss a coin, preferably silver, into the fountain. I remember tossing coins in when I was younger, but I haven’t done that in years.
“Sophia!”
Liv bounds toward me; her long brown hair is pulled up into a bun on top of her head, and her rosy cheeks look like candied apples on her tawny skin. She looks me over.
“What happened to you?”
I look down at my dress, which I hadn’t bothered to change. “You don’t want to know.”
“Where are you off to?” she asks.
“I’m looking for—” I hesitate. It’s too dangerous to talk in public about what happened out there in the woods. “I’m going to my fitting.”
Liv’s face twists up in a look of disbelief. “You were supposed to do that weeks ago. The ball is two days away.”
“I know,” I say. “I’ve been avoiding it.” There’s an opening and I move to leave, but Liv loops her arm under mine.
She shakes her head. “You are so stubborn. Your mother must be pulling her hair out.” She laughs and holds up something wrapped in a shiny silver cloth. “You’ll never believe what I won at one of the booths.” She unwraps the object.
It’s a stick.
I look at Liv and then back to the stick. She is beaming, and I am thoroughly confused.
“Are you feeling okay?” I put my hand on her head to see if she’s running a fever.
She laughs and playfully bats my hand away. “I’m fine. But look. It’s a wand. A replica of the very same one the fairy godmother used.”
I glance at the stick again. “I feel like you got taken advantage of.”
She frowns. “It’s a real replica. The man said it came from a tree in the White Wood.”
“No one goes into the White Wood.” Erin steps out from behind Liv, and my heart almost stops. It takes everything in me not to grab her and pull her close to me.
“Close your mouth before a bug flies in,” says Liv, looking around nervously.
“You’re safe,” I say, relieved.
Erin nods. “And you’re a mess.”
I wish I’d taken the time to clean up a little better before I left my house.
“Still lovely, of course,” she says quickly. “I don’t think you can help that.”
I glance at her. “Maybe Liv can use her wand to help me clean up.”
Liv points the stick at me and gives it a flick. She frowns. “I always hoped that one day I’d develop some magical powers. I guess today is not that day.”
I pat her arm. “No one has seen that kind of magic since Cinderella’s time. I doubt it even exists anymore.”
A hush falls over them, and they exchange worried glances.
“Of course it exists,” Erin says in a whisper. “You know the story as well as anyone. If we are diligent, if we know the passages, if we honor our fathers, we might be granted the things Cinderella was.”
“And if we do all those things and nothing happens—no fairy godmother appears, no dress, no shoes, no carriage—then what? Do we still believe it?”
“Don’t question the story, Sophia.” Liv steps closer to me. “Not in public. Not anywhere.”
“Why?” I ask.
“You know why,” Erin says in a low tone. “You must put your faith in the story. You must take it for what it is.”
“And what is it?” I ask.
“The truth,” Erin says curtly.
I don’t want to argue with her.
“She’s right,” Liv says. “The gourds in the royal garden are grown at the very spot where the remnants of her carriage were gathered up. And I’ve heard that when her tomb was still open to the public that the slippers were actually inside.”
“Another rumor,” I say. I remember hushed conversations between my grandmother and her friends about the tomb. No one has seen it in person in generations. Just more stories to trick young girls into obedience. Liv and Erin both look like they’ve had about enough of me.
“Well I’m still hoping to earn the favor of a fairy godmother,” says Liv.
Liv’s plan seems risky. My mother hopes for the same thing but has arranged for my dress on the off chance I don’t find a magical old lady in my garden the night of the ball. If anyone shows up with anything less than a gown fit for Cinderella herself, they’ll risk their safety, and I don’t think the king cares if it comes from a fairy, a dress shop, or someplace else. What matters is that we look like a fairy godmother blessed us with her magic.
“Do your parents have a plan in case that doesn’t work?” I ask. I don’t want Liv to be in danger because they waited too long to get her what she needed. This will be Liv’s second trip to the ball. A third is permitted, but it would break Liv’s spirit and send her family to ruin.
“Do you ever get tired of trying to get yourself arrested?” Erin asks. “Talking like that is going to get you locked up.”
“Okay,” says Liv, stepping between us and shaking her head. “Here.” She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a handful of coins. “They’re not silver, but they’ll have to do. Let’s make wishes in the fountain like we used to.” She takes my arm and leads me to the fountain.
Erin comes up beside me, her shoulder brushing against mine. I think I hear her sigh, and she gives a little shake of her head. Behind us, music continues to play, and people laugh and chatter away. Palace guards roam the square, their royal blue uniforms neatly pressed, their swords glinting in the lamplight. Liv hands Erin and me a coin each.
“Make a wish,” says Liv. She closes her eyes and tosses in her coin.
I look at Erin. “I wish you’d leave Lille with me. Right now. Leave Mersailles, leave all this behind, and run away with me.” I toss my coin into the water.
Liv gasps. Erin’s eyes flutter open, her brow furrowed, her mouth turned down. “And I wish you’d just accept the way things are.” She tosses her coin into the fountain. “I wish I could decide that nothing else matters, but I’m not like you, Sophia.”
“I’m not asking you to be like me,” I say.
Erin’s eyes mist over, and her bottom lip trembles. “Yes, you are. Not everyone can be so brave.”
My chest feels like it’s going to cave in. I step away, and Erin rushes off, disappearing into the crowd. I don’t feel brave. I feel angry, worried, and doubtful that anything will ever change. I prepare to run after her, but Liv catches me by the arm and pulls me back.
“You have to let it go, Sophia,” Liv says. “It cannot be.”
She leads me away from the fountain, and I push away the urge to cry, to scream out. We move around a large circle of blackened grass. Liv looks down at it.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Something happened here a few nights ago. Rumor is that someone created an explosion, tried to destroy the fountain. They failed.” Liv turns to me, worry plastered on her face. “Don’t you see? There is no resisting. We can’t go against the book or the king.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to accept that this is all there is for me.
Liv glances around and then leans close. “A group of children found a body in the woods by Gray Lake.”
“Another one?” I ask. “How many is that?”
“Six since the leaves have started to turn. A girl, just like the others.”
I try to tally up how many young women have turned up dead in Lille in the years since I’ve been old enough to understand such things. The dead number in the dozens, but the missing are mor
e than I can count.
“Go to your fitting, Sophia,” Liv says, squeezing my hand. “Maybe someone at the ball will take you away from all this.”
There is a ring in her voice. Maybe Liv wants to be taken away. I can’t blame her, but that’s not for me. I don’t want to be saved by some knight in shining armor. I’d like to be the one in the armor, and I’d like to be the one doing the saving.
I make my way to the seamstress’s shop in a daze and arrive a full two hours late. Peering through the window, I see my mother chatting away with the other women in the shop. They laugh and smile, but her mouth is drawn tight as she rests her chin on tented fingers. I hate that I’ve made her worry. I take a deep breath and open the door.
My mother stands and exhales, letting the air hiss out between her teeth, a look of relief on her face. “Where have you been?” Her gaze wanders over me. “And what have you been doing?”
“I was—”
She puts her hand up. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” She glances past me, out to the street. “Did you walk here alone?”
“No,” I lie. “Liv and Erin walked with me to the end of the street.”
“Oh, good. I’m sure you’ve heard about the incident at Gray Lake.”
I nod. She shakes her head and then forces a quick smile and instructs the seamstress and her helpers to get to work.
The pieces of my dress are sewn into place to ensure a perfect fit. My mother fusses over the color of the piping along the hem of the gown. Apparently, it’s supposed to be rose gold, not regular gold, so it has to be taken off and reattached. I think the entire ensemble would look very nice at the bottom of a wastebasket, maybe doused with lamp oil and set on fire. No one asked me what color I’d like it to be or how I’d like it to fit.
My mother wrings her hands together and paces the floor in front of me. She is worried sick about every little detail, as if my life depends on these things. I try to silence the voice inside me that tells me it very well might.
“It’s gorgeous, Sophia,” my mother says as she looks me over.
I nod. I can’t think of anything to say. I still can’t believe this day has actually arrived. I’d hoped to be far from Lille at this point, maybe far from Mersailles altogether, with Erin by my side, leaving the king and his rules behind us. Instead I am here, preparing to give in to this terrible inevitability.
The seamstress helps me out of the dress so she can pack it up and send it home with us. A plum-purple bruise colors the side of her neck; it has started to turn green around the edges.
“What happened to your neck?” I whisper, though I know the likely source of her pain. So many women in Lille carry around similar burdens.
The seamstress looks at me quizzically and quickly adjusts her collar. “Don’t you worry about that. It’ll be gone in a week. Like it never even happened.”
“Sophia,” my mother interrupts. “Why don’t you go out and get some air? But stay on the path where I can see you.” I stare down at the seamstress, whose smile does little to mask her pain.
I gather up my skirts and walk out to the footpath leading up to the shop. The sun fades as the lamplighters begin their nightly rounds. Even in the encroaching darkness, the watchtowers loom in the shadows. Stone sentries, their lookout windows facing inward.
A mural of the king mars the side of a building across the street. He’s pictured on a horse at the head of an army of soldiers, his arm outstretched, holding a sword. I bet he’s never led an army anywhere except across the squares of a chessboard.
Hard as I try, I cannot set aside thoughts of what it will be like to be chosen. In two days’ time, I could be given to a man I know nothing about, who knows nothing about me. My own wants and needs will be silenced in favor of what he thinks is best. What if he thinks nothing of putting a bruise on my neck? And if I’m not chosen, what then? And Erin. My dear Erin. What will become of us? I shiver as a knot grows in my throat. My mother comes out into the street and throws a shawl around my bare shoulders.
“You don’t want to catch a chill so close to the ball, Sophia.” She looks around cautiously, lowering her voice. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but—”
“Yes, I know. This is just how it is.” I grit my teeth, stifling the urge to scream for the thousandth time. I look at her, and for a split second she lets the mask slip, and I see the pain in her face. She seems older in the pale light of the evening sky. Her gaze moves over my face and down to my dress for an instant before she looks away.
“Does it suddenly seem real to you?” I ask.
She presses her mouth into a hard line. “Yes.”
“I’ve wished that this day would never come,” I say.
“So have I,” she says quietly. “But here we are, and we must make the best of it.”
My mother returns to the shop, but I linger for a moment before joining her as the seamstress and her helpers finish packing my dress. I look up at the starry sky. Things will be different now and forever. There will be no going back once the ball has taken place. I feel a sadness, almost grief-like in its depth, threatening to consume me. I pull my shawl tighter and hurry inside.
4
Mr. Langley, a friend of my father’s, has a son who’s agreed to drive our carriage for us while my father is working. He meets us at the road and helps us load up the dress. He locks eyes with me and smiles as I climb into the carriage. I look away from him. I’m not in the mood to pretend to be flattered.
My mother climbs in behind me, and the carriage moves jerkily down the road. Heavy curtains cover the windows, but the chilly night air still makes its way inside. I tighten my cloak around my shoulders and pull the hood down, covering most of my face, but this isn’t a clear enough signal to my mother that I don’t want to talk.
“He’s quite a handsome young man, isn’t he?” she asks.
I watch my mother as she eyes me carefully. “Who?”
“Mr. Langley’s son. Of course, if he were to find you agreeable, he would have to make an official petition for you at the ball. I’m sure he won’t be the only one interested.”
I shake my head. “Is there ever a time when you’re not thinking up ways to marry me off to the first half-decent man you can find?”
“Half-decent might be the best we can hope for.” She looks down into her lap, pressing her lips together.
I pull open the curtain and look out the window, more to keep my eyes from rolling back into my skull than to take in the view. I’m not angry at her specifically. Her way is the way of most people in Lille. Always looking for an opportunity to make the dark seem brighter. She’s good at it, but I’m not. I can’t help but see the ball for what it really is.
A trap.
We ride through Lille’s twisting streets. In the distance, the palace’s massive turrets stick up over the sloping landscape. It is extravagant, gaudy, a reminder to the rest of us that no matter how hard we try, we will never be completely worthy of that kind of wealth, that privilege.
Just outside the palace grounds is the gated section of Eastern Lille, where the highest-ranking members of the aristocracy live. Close enough to the king to make themselves feel special but far enough away so they didn’t get the impression they were equal to him. The people there hoarded their wealth, improving their own lives while the rest of the city fell into decay.
As our carriage pulls into the western part of the city, the identical houses along the cobbled alleys lean on one another as if they might collapse in on themselves without the added support. The evening hours bring with them a particularly confusing mixture of smells. Scents of freshly baked bread and boiled meat waft through, but they are tinged with the distinct smell of excrement, human and animal alike.
No lamps light my street other than the ones people keep in their windows. We roll to a stop, and my mother climbs out. I stand on the carriage step for a moment, hoping to put some distance between us. She isn’t going to let me go to bed without having a talk.
She reaches the front step and looks back at me, a sorrowful expression drawn across her face. Mr. Langley’s son places the dress box on the doorstep, then clears his throat. I glance over at him, and he flashes another wide smile. I’m about to tell him that he looks ridiculous and is clearly making a fool of himself when my mother calls to me.
“Sophia, come inside.”
She knows me too well.
She pushes the door open as the bells toll, signaling curfew for Lille’s women and children. Her foot keeps time with the thunderous gongs. At the final stroke of eight, we are meant to be inside, behind our locked doors. Sometimes I stand on the front stoop as the last bell tolls, just to see what might happen. On those occasions, my mother darts around the house in a fit, wishing I would sit down and stop trying to get myself arrested like some damned fool. When I was little my mother told me that if I wasn’t inside at the toll of the final bell that the ghosts of Cinderella’s evil stepsisters would swoop in and take me away. Now that I’m older, I understand that it’s not vengeful spirits I need to be afraid of. The king and his men pose the biggest threat.
I step out and make my way to the door, avoiding my mother’s stare and squeezing past her as she closes and locks it behind me. I head for the stairs.
“Sit,” she says as she pulls a chair out from our dining room table. She walks to the other side and sits down.
I want to go upstairs and fall into bed, but we’ll have to have this little talk first. I join her at the table and stare across at her.
Cinderella Is Dead Page 2
