“That isn’t very funny!” Corinna called up, but Alexander just smiled.
“I heard you wish to be a fish. So I gave you some water,” he said as though it were the most logical reasoning in the whole of Paesaggia. Alexander set his bucket to the side and leaned on the railing. “But you can’t blame me, Corinna. And you also can’t tell me you’re not enjoying being wet.”
Corinna opened her mouth, intent on telling Alexander just how little she was enjoying the water running down her back, when a small, almost inconsequential breeze blew through from the front door and sent a pleasant shiver down her spine. She closed her mouth and opened it again. With a small glare, she closed her mouth again and blew away the water dripping down from her hair and over her lips.
“Exactly,” Alexander spoke again. He tapped the railing three times with his claws and then motioned behind himself to his room. “Now get your lazy bottom up off the floor and get up here already. I haven’t got all day.”
Which was a lie. What did Alexander ever need to do that he couldn’t put off until the end of forever? Still, Corinna dragged herself to her feet while the prince pulled back into his room. Corinna slopped up the stairs, mentally apologizing to Veronica, who would be duty bound to mop all the water off the sleek stairs before someone slipped in a puddle and toppled to their doom.
Over the last two weeks, Corinna had found herself being called to Alexander’s chambers more times than she’d like. Alexander wanted help moving his couches around only to have them end up in the same place. Alexander wanted an old fashioned fire and seemed to believe only Corinna know how to make one. Alexander wanted to tell a story about his travels to the far off kingdoms when he was five years old and still stronger than their toughest knight.
Honestly, it made Corinna slightly upset with herself that she’d decided to try and humanize this narcissistic prude.
“Yes, Alexander?” Corinna asked as she swung around the door frame and into the room.
The prince was sitting on his couch, a pile of books on the floor beside him. Inwardly, Corinna dreaded the idea that perhaps Alexander wanted to regale her with the tales written inside, or read the entire stack to her, or worse… assign Corinna to read them herself by the next morning.
“Come sit down,” Alexander ordered, setting another book on the tallest stack. Corinna tentatively did as told, still worried what was about to occur. Once she was seated, Alexander continued. “You’re going to dry that couch when you get up, just so you know, but for now I have a question. How exactly am I supposed to empathize with people?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You said that to break my curse I had to empathize with people,” Alexander reminded, shaking his head in testy patience. “What does that mean… exactly?”
“You’re joking, right?” Corinna asked, leaning forward slightly and resting her elbows on her knees. Alexander grunted and let out a hushed growl.
“No. Do you have a problem?” he asked. Corinna sat back again and held her hands up in defense.
“Maybe a little,” she answered truthfully, albeit quietly. Alexander made a disgruntled snorting sound and crossed his arms.
His room was lit by the hanging chandelier and the fireplace in the corner. Only recently were the fires growing large enough to truly cast heat out into the rooms. The weather was getting chillier at night, and so the fires were needed more than they had been in the summer. Still, with the heat of the day being what it was, Corinna found herself sweltering in the glow of Alexander’s fire despite being completely wet. It made her wonder how Alexander stayed so calm under all that fur.
In the fire’s dancing glow, the prince almost looked spectral. Corinna cleared her throat uneasily.
“Empathizing with people is easy,” she said. “You have to see things from their point of view. How do they feel about what is going on? What kind of life are they living? Why are they acting a certain way? It just means you try to understand someone else’s feelings.”
“Like you?” Alexander asked. He dropped his crossed arms and leaned back on his couch.
“Yes. Sure. Like me.” Corinna nodded. “Go on. Empathize with me. How do you think I’m feeling?”
Alexander sat up straight and glanced over all of the books by his bulky feet. Corinna looked down too. Now that she was concentrating on them, she saw they all had creative artwork on the covers and specially scripted writing on them. With a little time, Corinna could even read most of the visible covers. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. They were all fiction pieces.
“Well right now you’re thinking I’m stupid and childish because I have twenty books on my bedroom floor about silly fairytales,” Alexander said.
“Not at all,” Corinna assured, returning her gaze to Alexander. “I wondering what you’re doing with them, but I never thought it made you childish or stupid. Nice try. And I didn’t ask you what I was thinking. I asked you what I was feeling.”
“About what?”
“About anything. Pick something that has happened recently and guess how I feel about it.”
Alexander frowned and his nose twitched a bit. Then he sniffed and slouched in his seat.
“You feel like this palace is one big empty space. You want to leave but you also want to stay, because…. Because you have friends here now. And you like Morgana. And you hate cleaning but you love gardening…. Although I can’t begin to imagine why,” the prince tried. Corinna groaned.
“First of all, I do not hate cleaning. Secondly… I’d say Morgana and I are more like… partial acquaintances. And thirdly… Well this is a perfect way to practice empathy, actually,” Corinna decided. She lined herself up equal with Alexander and crossed her legs. “If you don’t understand someone, what is the best course of action?”
“How should I know?” Alexander growled. “If they wanted me to know the reasons behind something, they’d tell me.”
“No!” Corinna exclaimed and buried her face in her hands. “If you don’t know someone very well or you’re curious why they’re doing something, the easiest and best thing to do is to ask them about it.”
Here she stopped and waited for Alexander to react. In her mind, she expected Alexander to jump right into the flow of conversation, strike up some banter with an easy question. And yet the prince just sat there, staring. He looked conflicted, as though the problem before him was the hardest thing he had ever tried to understand. Corinna gave him a deadpan look and sighed.
“Here. I’ll start. Alexander, why do you feel like you have no hope of breaking your curse?” she asked. Alexander’s wolf-like ears flickered back and forth and then relaxed to a straight up and down position.
“Because,” he began slowly, as if he believed the question to be a trick of some sort. “I’ve been like this for seven years and no one has been able to help me yet?”
“Did you ever try helping yourself or did you just wait for everyone else to try?” Corinna asked, leaning back to get comfortable.
“Well that’s a stupid question. Of course I tried,” Alexander grunted, also leaning back.
“How?”
“How? I sent out search parties for the witch that did it, that’s how. And my father sent out searches for the best doctors in the kingdom,” Alexander said.
“Which means you were trying to get everyone else to do it for you. Must be nice to have that sort of power.” Corinna sighed and looked over into the fireplace.
“Are you empathizing or criticizing?” Alexander growled, his lips curling back off his teeth a bit.
“Both. I’m empathizing with the poor people you sent out to find a dangerous witch,” Corinna explained.
“Well, how about you try empathizing with me instead?!” Alexander growled, and Corinna couldn’t say she blamed him. Maybe she was being a bit harsh. This was no way to get her point across. If she simply showed irritation and insult to Alexander, then what right did she have to tell the prince to change from such actions?
C
orinna shrugged a bit. Alexander looked about to make a comment on the movement, but Corinna spoke first.
“I think…. By your attitude, you were born to privilege and power, and people always admired you. I think you’re unhappy living here in this house because not only are you ugly, but none of your friends or family live with you. You were put here with unfamiliar servants and a pat on the head and told to keep the peace. I think you feel horrible about yourself and your situation…. And I think you feel betrayed.” Corinna paused here.
She hadn’t thought it before, but as she tried to put words to how Alexander must be feeling, this betrayal aspect seemed to grow and intensify in her mind. Alexander looked uncomfortable, almost as if he regretted asking for Corinna’s insight, and so Corinna knew she was hitting a sore spot. Still, she didn’t back down. She had a bit more to say.
“You feel betrayed by your friends for not thinking of you the same as always simply because of your curse… but I think you feel betrayed most of all by your father. He couldn’t even stand the sight of you. He couldn’t bear such a curse on his family, on his pride, and so he sent you away to live in infamy… and not only that… he convinced an entire world that you had died… as if your death would be better than your curse,” she finished.
Corinna frowned deeply. She couldn’t imagine what that must be like, to have your father grow to hate the sight of you so much that he couldn’t stand to be in the same city as you. A father was the one a boy should be able to run to in times of need, not the one he ran from. But from what Morgana had said, from Gavin, from Isabelle; Alexander’s father had abandoned him and never looked back. What kind of father, what kind of king could do that?
“I’m sorry,” Corinna murmured, watching the lord’s every movement.
“Yeah, well what do you know about it anyway?” Alexander grunted. He stared intently over at the fire and vehemently refused to look at Corinna. That was okay. Corinna understood. She’d hit the proverbial nail on the head. That couldn’t have been easy to hear out loud.
Alexander let out a series of huffs, and then chanced a glance at Corinna. When he saw Corinna watching him, he huffed again and returned his gaze to the flames. Corinna smiled sadly and sat up. That conversation was obviously over. Perhaps she’d been a bit too direct with the inferences she’d gained from her understood knowledge of Alexander’s past.
Corinna cleared her throat again and shifted her position on the couch. She made waving motions with her hands as if asking Alexander to come closer, successfully catching the prince’s eye and attention.
“Alright, Alexander. Your turn. Ask me something about myself. Strike up a conversation. A real conversation.”
“Fine. What about you?” Alexander grunted. “Did you ever try to fix your situation? Did you ever try to get out of this or did you just show up and start complaining?”
“I sat in my family’s living room and thought about what my uncle had done. I got angry and I got shocked… and then I realized I had to come. Whether I liked it or not, I had to show up here. If I didn’t come, everyone I knew, everyone I loved would die – including my plants. If I went away, everyone and everything would continue to grow and live on. When I got here, I tried to figure out a way to leave… but I realized Morgana would pick a new person to take my place, and I can’t force this on anyone else. So yes. I did try to fix my situation,” Corinna said and fixed Alexander with a pointed stare. Alexander’s ear flitted backwards ever so slightly.
“And you see?” he asked. “Nothing came of it. You’re still here.”
“I’m still here, and I’m still trying,” Corinna grunted. “I’m trying to help you fix your problem so then maybe everyone can get out of this place happy.”
Alexander didn’t reply to that one. His ears went flat against his head, but he didn’t seem to be angry or upset. He just seemed put out. He huffed and turned his gaze to the fireplace again. Corinna looked around at the room. It looked much nicer when it wasn’t destroyed. A maple desk, oak side tables, and ivory lamps. It was the richest room in the palace beyond the artifacts room.
“Why do you care if everyone is happy?” Alexander asked, voice low and curious. Corinna glanced over at the prince but Alexander was still staring at the fire.
“Because if I lived my life without caring about others, I wouldn’t be happy. And actually, I might end up like you are now,” the boyish girl answered. “I enjoy helping others and seeing the smiles I get in return. I’m not entirely selfless, if that’s what you’re thinking. I do get recognition and praise for being so nice… but I do genuinely take pleasure in helping others to be happy.”
“Well that will be one thing we never have in common,” Alexander murmured. “I’ve never been good at making anyone happy, and it’s not particularly something I plan to make a goal out of.”
“Well you’ll have to make it in your plans if you want to be human again anytime soon. Becoming a better person doesn’t just mean understanding others. It also means you stray toward being nice every once in awhile. I know that must be hard for you to imagine, but we’ll get there,” Corinna teased.
Alexander looked curiously over at Corinna.
“We?” he asked. Corinna nodded.
“Yep. Or did you think you could pull this off without me?”
Alexander smiled, a sort of charming thing despite his looks, and Corinna’s clever grin stuck to her face in shock of it. “Never,” the prince said.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
‘Corinna.’
The raven haired young woman raised her head up from between the pages of her newest read and looked around. An urgent whisper seemed to echo off the walls of her brightly lit room. There was nowhere for anyone to hide, not even a witch, so where had the words come from?
She marked her page and set the book to the side. Hesitantly, she walked to her sitting room door and peeked out into the hall.
“Hello?” she asked.
‘Corinna.’
The hushed call reverberated from the lower hall. Corinna bit her lower lip and looked back into her room, back to the couch with her book. If she was a smart girl, she’d ignore the magic whispering voice and go back to reading like a normal person. Heaven knew, Corinna had gotten into plenty of trouble with magic already. One witch trapped her here under penalty of death. One witch claimed she wanted to help her. Either way, she was still here and nothing had truly improved except perhaps her relationship with Alexander. Still, did she want to bet her life on an eerie whisper?
It called again, and she grit her teeth.
“Fine,” she murmured. “Fine, I’m coming.”
She took a step out of the door and then there came the overwhelming knowledge that she should probably leave her lights on. Why, she didn’t know, but something toldher to make sure her windows stayed lit. Perhaps it was the whispers that told her so. Either way, she leaned her head back further into the room.
“I’m coming right back. Please keep the lights on,” she said to the empty room. In response, the candles flamed just a little bit brighter. “Thank you.”
Morgana’s magic responded to requests, just like when she’d wanted that fire on her first night. She’d almost forgotten. Nodding to herself, Corinna slipped from her room and left her door open just a crack so it wouldn’t make any noise by closing. Then she stepped to the staircase and slowly began her descent.
She had no idea what she was walking toward, whether it be good or bad. Still, she went. She supposed she’d been born with this sense of stupidity. The moonlight on the newly washed stairs seemed to wiggle and skip over every natural curve, making the stairs seem a little off balance. Corinna held onto the railing to keep herself steady and to remind herself that the stairs weren’t actually moving.
When her feet hit the ground floor, she stopped and looked around. She saw no one, though it was dark down here and someone could easily be lying in wait in one of the many shadows. What happened to her myst
erious whisperer? She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, listening for any slight sound of a voice.
‘Our garden is in danger.’ The whisperer had become whisperers, and they drew her attention back toward the outside door.
The garden was in danger? Who’s garden? Corinna stepped easily over to the door where the rose garden waited. Wait, a voice in her head warned. Wait for what? She glanced toward the nearest window and tried to see what the danger was. She saw no firelight nor angry beast. What was causing the garden to be in danger?
The Rose Chateau Page 16
