Letters to Zell

by Camille Griep

  She was still humming it as we went through the portal home. No one brought up the idea of going back out again, for which I was sincerely grateful. CeCi seemed as drained as I felt, and Bianca looked despondent, glancing back at the hissing portal.

  “Did you have a nice time today?” Bianca asked without looking at me.

  “Of course, and you?” I patted her arm.

  “I can’t even tell you.”

  CeCi rolled her eyes. “I had a good time, too. Thanks for asking!”

  “I loved every second of it,” Bianca said. She must have been thinking of Rachel, carried in that swell of desire that is so difficult to resist at the beginning of a courtship.

  Sometimes I wonder if Bianca knows anything about real love. She certainly doesn’t know anything about losing it, though I fear that lesson will be soon in coming.

  I made it so many years without allowing myself to think about Fred, about his good intentions. About how all he wanted was to be with me. But since last night, I can hardly think of anything else. I wonder what he would have thought about Disneyland, and Humans, even about Snoozer. I wonder if he regretted trying to save me, or rather regretted the eventual consequences. I hope he wasn’t lonely.

  I wonder what he thought whenever it started to rain, if storms reminded him of the tempest that came to Grimmland that day. Though I was asleep for much of it, I’m told kings were plucked from their spires and animals from their burrows. Time began to run like paint, and the sky began to bleed into the ground.

  I’m told Fred left willingly once he was satisfied that I would live. And so he and I were each given half a life, half a love. The more I know about Outside, the more I think our journeys were probably quite similar—both of us trying to make the best of the story that remained.

  I’m sending some posters of Los Angeles for Bea and Arthur. I’m sorry I couldn’t find any with unicorns included. Can you believe the clerk laughed at me when I asked? Maybe I’ll be more successful next time. After all, I was also told it never even rains in Southern California, and that was clearly false.

  Love,

  Rory

  From the Desk of Cecilia Cinder Charming

  Crystal Palace

  North Road, Grimmland

  Dear Zell,

  Of course, as soon as I arrived home, I wished myself anywhere else. I hadn’t been in my chambers for five minutes when Lucinda started in about my being gone all day. She wanted to know what kind of ruler left her post for an entire day without notice. The contractors for the nursery had been making too much noise. Darling and Sweetie needed new dresses for the wedding.

  “I’m on it, Lucinda.”

  She glared at me and then her face underwent a series of forced transformations. “You insist on pushing me away. I’ve told you I’m sorry a hundred times. It’s you who can’t let the past rest.” She feigned a little hiccup.

  “I’m not sure how many times we need to discuss this,” I said. “You treated me cruelly for my entire childhood. I keep you here to make sure Darling and Sweetie have some stability for their conditions.”

  Her voice turned sharp. “I pushed you to become your very best. How is it that you caught Edmund’s eye if not for my careful rigor?”

  “You can’t be serious.” I dropped my volume in case Darling and Sweetie were listening. “I caught Edmund’s eye on my own. Or, at worst, by way of Figgy’s meddling. Or maybe because he actually found me interesting. Or because I was his best worst option. Take your pick. None of it had anything to do with you.”

  “He fell in love with you because I raised you to be cooperative.” She began to pace the edge of the room, her own voice at full volume. “If you continue to cause a fracas with those two tacky princesses, the delinquent and the antique, you’ll jeopardize things for all of us.”

  “Keeping you here is a kindness. When will you take responsibility for yourself? Your own actions? Your own evil? Look at your children. Look at them!”

  “What? They’re fragile. Sensitive.” We both listened to the girls milling around at the end of the hall. “There’s nothing wrong with them.”

  I couldn’t believe that she was altering the narrative of our history so drastically. “You made them cut off parts of their feet because you wanted the kingdom so badly. And then—”

  “Enough,” she said. I found myself wishing I had turned them all out, like you and Bianca told me to before my wedding.

  I was thankfully saved from further confrontation when Edmund arrived home. As soon as she heard his footsteps, she turned on her heel and whisked down the corridor, muttering to herself.

  Ed looked windblown and ruddy from his ride. I keep expecting to take his beauty for granted and yet sometimes, like today, I look at him and all his purpose and his kindness and how it all unaccountably belongs to me and I almost lose my breath.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “Did I hear Lucinda?”

  “Just making some decisions about the nursery,” I said, baring my teeth in what I hoped was a passable smile.

  “Excellent.” He kissed my head, his blond stubble rasping my cheek. “I know it’s not what you want to be doing, but it will all work itself out. Trust me.”

  “What do you think? Yellow or green?” I asked, a drapery in each hand.

  “I don’t want to talk colors. I want to talk about your trip. How did Thing One and Thing Two like Wonderland?”

  “Oh, it was fine. Lots of tea, you know.”

  “Tea, eh? I figured you’d be out at the bars. William says Bianca has quite the nose for bourbon these days. Did you get some sun? You have some new freckles.” He tapped my nose.

  “It’s very sunny there. We played lots of chess with life-sized chess pieces.”

  He frowned. “Tea and chess? Are you sure you went with Bianca?”

  “Well, you know,” I said, scrambling to think. “She’s mercurial. How about you? I’m not even sure where you’re back from.”

  “Will and I were helping out with a little summit with the Supporters of Robin Hood. We’re working on developing a charity system that doesn’t involve carriage-jacking and arrows. Robin has good intentions, but questionable methods.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Good luck with that.”

  He looked back at the mess around us, then dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Let’s plan what we’ll actually do with the room.”

  “Greenhouse,” I said.

  “Observatory,” he said.

  “Secret passageway.”

  “Swimming pool.”

  “Sewing room.”

  Edmund laughed from deep within his chest. “I thought we agreed no working. Only leisure. No gardening. No sewing. No scrubbing.”

  “Okay.” I felt a little tug of disappointment. “Wine cellar?”

  “Now you’re talking!”

  I dropped onto a sheet-covered ottoman. “Edmund?”

  “Cecilia?”

  “Have you ever had a dream?”

  “Almost every night.” He stopped to look out the window.

  “No. Be serious. A real dream.”

  “Yes. Sure. When I was younger I had lots. And now, I guess I think I’m living my dreams.”

  “But what if you weren’t?”

  “I’d make a change. I’d find a way to go for it. Our lives are long, but, as the old owl says, our ends are uncertain.”

  “What if your dream was unpopular or unseemly?”

  “Well, lucky for me, I’m very seemly.” He chuckled for a moment and then looked at me. “What’s this all about, CeCi?”

  “Nothing. It’s just . . . I . . . nothing.”

  “Are you sure it’s nothing?” He moved closer.

  “Yes,” I said. I faked a sneeze to hide my tears.

  I wish I hadn’t lied. But I did. Aft
er he left, I blew my nose in the green curtain. So I guess the nursery will be yellow.

  Love,

  CeCi

  Important Fucking Correspondence from Snow B. White

  Onyx Manor

  West Road, Grimmland

  Z,

  How nice of you to write again! Here I was thinking you actually gave a damn, but instead it was because our intrepid investigator, Rory, has taken to gossiping. Perhaps she should apply for a job at the Tattler.

  I didn’t hide anything from you. I said Rachel was my friend because she is my friend. I suppose I should be flattered that you deemed me worth your petulant lecture, but here’s the rest of the story, Ms. In My Business, nothing happened. I was honest with her about my situation—that I’m engaged and that I’m from somewhere else—but that I want to know about what life is like in Hollywood or Los Angeles and California and the world.

  And I knew, even before I started, she wouldn’t laugh at me. Have you ever met anyone like that? Someone you knew wouldn’t expect or demand something from you?

  When she asked me to go with her for the night, I jumped at the chance.

  Picture it, Zell: It’s late that night in a beautiful hotel and a beautiful person offers me her hand and I take it and then we walk down Sunset Boulevard past the bars and cafés and restaurants and music shops. We step inside a few, flipping through stacks of music, ordering manhattans. She tells me all about her childhood growing up north of there, a place where it rained almost every day.

  She moved to L.A. (short for Los Angeles) to get away from the green and the moss and the wet, and she found this big, warm place where everyone was damaged but moving, impeded but going somewhere. People from, as she calls it, “all walks of life,” and from every place with every kind of wish. People who want to make things happen. People who love music, art, food, or just chasing a dream of having a simple life with a family and a dog.

  Rachel loves the city like it’s a living being. She says it’s constantly evolving. I see what she means. It’s more than a town with a bakery that adds ketchup. It’s a place that changes with its people—a city enriched by all it takes in. I’m not saying I don’t have feelings for Rachel, but I do want to learn what she knows.

  I assumed my father had regularly traveled Outside to learn about Humans’ control over our world. But now, I think he went because it is as beautiful and enigmatic out there as it is in here. I wish he were here to talk to. I wish I could find him. I could use his advice. Maybe just his empathy.

  But he isn’t here, is he?

  As soon as we get back to the Realm, I suggest to William that we have a drink (I turned the closet adjoining our suites into a whiskey bar last month). I decide to clue him in on a few things. Not everything, but a few things.

  “It’s nice to have you back, buddy,” he says, with a nudge of his shoulder.

  “It’s good to be here,” I say. “I think.”

  “I hear you, B. The call of the road, she’s a strong one.” He smiles into his glass, probably in a reverie over some past or future adventure.

  “Will, if you weren’t in line to become a king, what would you do?”

  “You know I love kinging, Bianca. Man, if I weren’t training to be kinging, I’d probably be plotting someone’s overthrow.”

  I put my hand on his arm to get him to look at me. “But seriously, do you want all this? The trimmings and trappings of royalty?”

  “Not all of it. I don’t like protests and tariffs and coups. But you know I love the negotiations, the planning, the big picture. This Robin Hood thing I just got back from? It was so rewarding to make progress. To try and find the common ground. Ed is the guy who thought up donation tollbooths for Sherwood Forest Road and how to make them convenient and attractive. I’m the guy who’s good at getting Maid Marion and Nottingham to listen to one another instead of screaming their heads off. I like making them see that they really want the same things. And then I also like the part when they break out the bourbon.”

  “That’s altruistic of you,” I tease.

  “I love the math and the bartering and intrigue. And of course I love the travel and the parties.”

  “Intrigue, eh?” I push an unbidden, unwelcome image of that silly Maro out of my head. “What about the domestic stuff?”

  “I guess I never thought about it. I’m glad to share all of this with you, B. We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

  “Yes,” I say. “We do.” I choose my next words carefully. “But we’re not epic lovers for the ages, are we?”

  “No.” He laughs. “I guess we aren’t.”

  “We’re epic pals instead, right?” I laugh, but my cheeks are hurting from forcing them into a grin. He’s a handsome man and his dark hair has fallen into his eyes. I know he’s beautiful, too. I almost wish I were attracted to him in that way. “Do you, you know, miss that? Isn’t that something you want? Someday?”

  “Truthfully, Bianca, I’d rather be with someone I trust. This life I’m living doesn’t leave time for romantic drama. I had a bunch of those relationships when I was younger and I hated the guessing games and the posturing. I don’t have to do that with you.”

  “Yeah,” I say. I take a long, burning, preparatory sip. “But isn’t that denying some part of yourself?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Maybe you didn’t know what you were getting into when you helped me. That single decision came with a lot more than you bargained for. Gallantly saving the pretty face—”

  “I didn’t try to rescue you because you were beautiful. I tried to rescue you because you were in trouble. I would have done it for anyone.”

  “Thanks a lot, jackass.”

  “You know what I mean. And you don’t need other people to tell you what you look like. People trip over themselves in the street staring at you. Don’t tell me you’re having a crisis of self-esteem.”

  “I’m just asking if you’ll regret not having, you know, True Love or whatever.”

  “Has Rory been lecturing you again?”

  This time I laugh in earnest. “I’ve just been thinking. What if she’s right? What if we’re making a hash out of things for no reason?”

  “I don’t know if everyone wants what Rory wants,” he says.

  “I don’t know if Rory wants what Rory wants,” I say.

  “I want a partner. I want that partner to be you.” He looks at me hard, and for a second I feel like he can see straight through me. “What about you? Does it bother you? I do love you, B. It’s just different.”

  “Of course. I know that.” I pause for a second. For all the shit I give CeCi about being truthful with Edmund, I find myself in an uncomfortably similar position. “Enough of this. I want to tell you everything I found out about the theme park. It’s this place, right, where these idiot Humans have built a mouse kingdom, and inside . . .”

  I don’t tell him about Rachel or about CeCi’s classes. Maybe these are lies of omission. But I’ll probably never see Rachel again and he’ll find out about CeCi when everyone else does and he’ll laugh that I pulled one over on him.

  He wants what I want. A compromise. A partnership. Days spent laughing. Romance is for other people. I lucked out. My prince is my friend. It’s the best I could have hoped for, the best I’ll ever do.

  And on that note, I have a stepmother to execute and a wedding to plan.

  Nighty night,

  B

  Princess Briar R. Rose

  Somnolent Tower Castle

  South Road, Grimmland

  Dearest Zell,

  Ever since we returned from our Disneyland trip, something Bianca said has been bothering me. I almost shared it with Maro during our standing tea date yesterday (on the “pretty green grass,” of course), but something stopped me.

  Shortly after we arrived
home, I pressed Bianca about her intentions with Rachel. She told me that she didn’t know what she felt.

  “If your affections are so arbitrary,” I asked her, “then why don’t you turn them on William instead?”

  She said, “And how’s that strategy working out for you, Rory?”

  Of course I was upset. Bianca knows how hard I’ve worked on my relationship with Henry. But between her excursions and Henry’s hunts, he and I haven’t had any time together. What kind of wife does that make me, putting him second over my friendship with Bianca? Even worse, I’m turning into a hypocrite for judging Maro so harshly about her travels.

  I wanted to make things right when I heard Henry’s party ride in late last night. I sent a note this morning, asking him to my room this evening to share some stories and maybe even some unscheduled relations. Oh, Zell, I had such high hopes.

  He arrived in full dress. I asked him about the hunting party and he was only too happy to tell me all about the poor jackalopes and snipe they chased and caught and butchered and roasted under a full moon. He told me he had a new favorite hunting dog, and I was excited to tell him I procured a dog, as well. I finally had the chance to introduce him to Snoozer, and Henry laughed with his whole body, saying Snoozer would never be fit to be a hunting dog. I told him that Snoozer wasn’t meant to be a hunting dog and then he said that a dog wasn’t worth having if it wasn’t a hunting dog. In fact he said something quite a lot worse than that, but sometimes people can be mean without intention, so I tried to let it go.

  I asked him if he wanted to hear about my trip and first he asked if I’d been gone, because he hadn’t noticed, and then he said he would like to hear about it but he needed to be somewhere else. I asked him to stay with me and keep me company instead. And he told me if I needed “a good toss” that he’d be happy to accommodate me, but that he wasn’t going to waste a perfectly fine evening indoors. I asked him if he wanted me to accompany him and he told me to stay where I was comfortable. “Sleeping Beauty with her Sleeping Dog.” Then he had another good belly laugh.