Kate was refusing to look her in the eye.
“Did you leave your bed last night?” Avery asked.
“No, but you did,” Kate said with a wry smile.
Chapter 12
If You Can’t Stand the Heat
The girls in the bakery needed help.
With all of the preparations for the wedding under way, they made a formal plea at breakfast for anyone who was able to come. Avery decided she would do what she could, even if that meant just gathering staples for the girls who knew what they were doing. That was better than feeling useless.
She considered helping the cooks, preparing meals for the king, and using the scraps to make meals for the kids. But the king liked to eat steamed dumplings, mincemeat pies, or duck gizzards, and Avery preferred the smell of baked goods to anything that had recently been alive.
She was pleasantly surprised that the bakery girls welcomed her.
They seemed to have the cheerful memory of a gnat.
She was given a tour of the pantry and was led to a small door on the far wall of the kitchen. “It’s a dumbwaiter!” one of the girls announced, opening the door with a flourish.
Five pairs of eyes peered inside, their excitement palpable.
Talking enthusiastically over each other, the girls explained that this magical box was controlled by a thick rope on a pulley guided by rails so food could be delivered to all parts of the castle.
The girls were soon buzzing with activity, collecting bowls, spoons, and ingredients for their stations and chatting happily.
Avery distinctly heard the word election.
She had heard whispering at breakfast about a mysterious vote and wondered what it was all about. Everyone seemed pleased about it, but she would be as embarrassed admitting she knew nothing about it as she would be revealing her confusion about baking. She didn’t want to ruin this second chance with the girls in the kitchen. They were being so kind.
So she didn’t ask any questions.
“Do you need help?” one of the girls asked.
Avery should have admitted she needed as much help as a drowning cat, but with everyone in the room seeming to listen to how she would respond, she smiled and said, “No, thank you. I’m doing fine.”
Her strategy was simple. She would copy the girl next to her.
How hard can it be?
Her main goal was to avoid burning down the kitchen. She didn’t even need her food to be edible or pretty. She could sneak it into the waste sack before she left. She only wanted to feel accepted—to be part of a group like this one.
She wandered into the staples room, but even as she looked at the bags of sugar and baskets of apples, her mind traveled elsewhere and she couldn’t focus.
Maybe the election is a necessary step before going home.
There are easily two hundred apples in this room. Who needs two hundred apples?
What is Angelina doing right now? What secrets does she know about the king?
The girls bustling around the bakery table wouldn’t notice she was missing, and Kate wasn’t around to tell her she was wrong, so she slipped silently into the darkness of the pantry and knelt, cranking open the slat to peer through the vent.
As he had the first time she had seen him here, the king sat at his desk covered with thick books, stacks of parchment, and piles of private papers. He was talking to a man Avery didn’t recognize but assumed was an adviser. The man wore a scarlet robe and a tiny square hat.
“She’ll be the downfall of your kingdom,” the man said. “Every poor decision you’ve made in recent days goes back to that woman.”
“I have no choice,” the king replied between heavy, watery coughs. “I need an heir and she’ll provide one.”
“But, Your Grace, you have an heir.”
With these words, the king flew out of his seat and grabbed the robed man by the throat. “Never say those words aloud again, do you hear me?”
The man nodded, and the king loosened his grip.
He reached for a cloth and coughed into it and Avery saw the unmistakable spread of blood, but neither the king nor the robed man seemed alarmed.
Only when the king sat down did the man continue to speak.
“Forgive me, Your Grace, but if it’s about securing a dynasty, you have other options. We could begin a search. I know people from the village who might be able to find him. Or at least give you the peace of mind that he really is dead.”
Who’s dead? If there’s a chance the king’s heir is alive, the king wouldn’t need to marry Angelina, and maybe we could all go free.
“You know it’s more than that,” the king was saying when Avery listened again. “Angelina knows the truth. She won’t rest until she wears the crown. And I won’t fight her. We will be married and she will reign beside me.”
Bowing slightly, the man in the square hat excused himself from the room.
Moments later, the king followed.
Avery was just about to close the vent when a door on the opposite side of the king’s office creaked open and a child—presumably a scout—scurried inside. Moving silently, he went to the king’s desk, riffled through a pile of papers, and took only a few that interested him. He set a stack of letters on the chair and grabbed a book from the king’s shelf on his way out.
All of this in a matter of seconds.
No sooner had the door closed behind the scout than the opposite door opened and the king returned.
So close!
Avery heard commotion from the baking room and quickly cranked the vent closed.
When she returned with an armload of staples, the kitchen had suddenly cleared, leaving no sign of the girls she had been working with, not to mention the dozens of others who had been coming and going.
“Strange,” she mumbled, dumping her ingredients on the table with a thud and wondering if she had missed some obvious reason she was required to leave the room.
And then she heard it.
A voice she recognized right outside the door. Sharp and whiny.
Not again! The kids had fled because Angelina was coming. The bell in the corner of the room must have sounded when she was deep in the pantry.
Everyone else had fled for the stairwell as they were instructed to do.
Avery flew across the room and slid behind the baking table, knees drawn up to her chest. Right above where she hid she saw the reason Angelina was likely on her way into the kitchen: a tall half-iced cake, decorated with hundreds of tiny sugar flowers.
And she knew it was only a matter of seconds until Angelina towered above her.
Once again, the beating of her heart was the loudest thing she heard.
Chapter 13
The Wrong Move
Here came that familiar clack-clack, clack-clack. This was becoming a habit.
“In ’ere you’ll see what we’ve prepared,” the old woman said.
There was nowhere for Avery to go. Judging from the sound of Angelina’s heels on the marble floor, the queen-to-be and the old woman stood between Avery and the door.
If they rounded the thick wooden worktable on which the cake sat, they would see her, and everything the kids had worked to protect would be destroyed.
Or she would be destroyed.
Or she would be sent to the Forbidden City everyone whispered about.
Bottom line: she wouldn’t see her family again.
Avery had one choice. It might not work, but it was better than doing nothing. On her hands and knees, she scurried quickly as the heels moved closer, and at the last instant she leapt into the dumbwaiter and closed the door.
It was a good thing, as the two women came around the table and stood right where she had been hiding.
“At least my cake is almost done,” Angelina whined. “Please tell me it will taste good, or I will cry right here.”
Avery suspected Angelina didn’t cry as often as she made other people cry.
“It is my sincerest ’ope, ma’am,” the ol
d woman said.
“Cut a piece and let me taste it!”
“Of course!”
Folded into a nearly impossible ball, Avery heard the clatter and eventually the verdict.
“Too dry.”
“Forgive me,” the old woman sputtered, fear in her tone. “You deserve better.”
The cake landed in the waste sack with a thud, hours of work coming to a tragic end.
“Must I think of everything?” Angelina droned. “This is why I have a staff. I have a country to run since the king isn’t capable of it, and I can’t be bothered with dresses and cakes that are unfit for a queen.”
“A second cake will be made immediately,” the old woman said.
“Yes, it must. And one more thing…”
The room grew suddenly quiet, and Avery strained to hear Angelina’s voice.
“I want you to go through the staff again, person by person. Leave no one out. Keep everyone you trust and those you don’t—”
Discard them, Avery thought.
“I’ve gone through the staff ’alf a dozen times—”
“Do it again!”
Angelina grunted, the sound of her heels moved in the opposite direction, and the door slammed.
Avery waited until she was sure neither of the women would return. She would wait one more minute before emerging from her cramped hiding place. Taking a deep breath, she rolled her head from side to side, relaxing the muscles that had grown tense during the wait.
And then the unthinkable happened. The dumbwaiter began to move.
Up it went, one jerking motion after another.
Avery didn’t know what to do. If she put her arms out to stop the motion, she could break them. If she found a way to lodge the moving cart, she could get stuck in the wall. She could jump, but if she did, she could plunge to a painful death several stories below. For all she knew, the dumbwaiter could be hundreds of feet off the cobblestone ground. No one would even know where to look for her body. If she did manage to climb out, where would she go? She considered calling out for whoever was pulling the ropes to stop. But what if it was an adult and not a kid?
Panic seized her, and she couldn’t breathe.
She was right back where she started—on the brink of ruining everything. She seemed to have a talent for it.
Avery closed her eyes and awaited her fate.
The dumbwaiter abruptly halted, and the door opened.
And the voice that greeted her was low and kind. Avery opened her eyes to see Tuck standing there—kind Tuck with the alarming green eyes—hand outstretched.
I have never been so happy to see you, she thought but didn’t dare say.
She accepted his hand more eagerly than she otherwise would have and crawled out.
They were adjacent to the kids’ dining room.
“How did you know I was in there?” Avery asked.
Tuck smiled. “We have scouts everywhere. As soon as you crawled in, half a dozen of them panicked and came to find me.”
Avery’s face grew warm. “It wasn’t the first time they notified you about me, was it?”
Tuck shook his head slowly. “Not even the first time today. You like to keep the scouts busy.” Then more quietly he added, “Be careful, Avery. Life in this castle is no fairy tale. I like your spirit, but you’ve got to use it for good. We are in a fight for our lives and for the lives of our family members.”
Avery saw the face of her little brother and knew Tuck was right.
She also wanted to prove to Tuck that she was using her energy for good.
“The king has an heir,” Avery blurted. “I heard him tell a man in his office this morning. I think it’s the secret everyone keeps whispering about. I’m sure it affects us, but I don’t know how.”
Avery expected Tuck to disagree with her, but he only smiled.
“The king’s heir is no secret. I’m told his first wife, Elizabeth, delivered a baby boy, making the king the happiest man on earth. But hours later both Elizabeth and her son died, and now no one is allowed to talk about it. The king forbids even his closest advisers from discussing it.”
Once again, her imagination had gotten the better of her.
She did not miss what Tuck said next, a gleam in his eye—
“You’re here for a reason. Figure out what it is.”
Chapter 14
The Ballot Box
Avery was sleeping soundly when someone shook her.
At first she thought it was her father, waking her to start the morning chores.
Kate’s face slowly swam into focus. “Get up and come with me.”
Looking around, Avery saw she was the only one still in bed, and her friend was wearing a beautiful dress instead of a nightgown.
“How did I oversleep?”
“I’ll help you get dressed. Come on.” Kate tugged on Avery’s arm until Avery finally swung her legs over the side of the mattress and stood.
Her head pounded and her stomach clenched. “I think I’m sick.”
Kate laughed. “No, you’re not. It’s midnight. You’re just tired.” She held out a dress—black cotton velvet with panels of gold. “Put this on. It’ll look good with your hair.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but nobody is going to notice my hair. And why do you keep bringing me clothes? One of these dresses would have lasted me a lifetime at home.”
“Just put it on,” Kate said with a laugh. “Are you always this difficult?”
“Why are we getting dressed when we should be sleeping?”
“You’ll see.”
Kate helped Avery finish fastening the gown then pushed Avery into a chair and began combing her hair with a heavy, gold-plated hairbrush that made Avery wince with each stroke.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” Kate said as she worked.
“My mother disappeared two years ago.”
“Oh?”
“She kissed me one morning when I was playing with Henry in the woods and said she would see me soon. She reminded me not to lose my ruby flower necklace, and then she left and never came back.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate said. “I’m sure that was painful.”
“I’ve never known any pain like it until I lost Henry. He was my responsibility after my mother disappeared, and I failed him.”
Kate stopped brushing. “You haven’t lost Henry. I know you have questions, and we will find the answers together. I’m on your side, always.”
Avery turned and looked at Kate. “The other night I was almost asleep when I heard you say you would help me find them if I stayed here. What did you mean?”
Kate’s eyes darkened. “I will help you, but I’m sure you were only dreaming.”
Not a moment too soon, Kate was done and held up a mirror.
Avery laughed in shocked delight.
Her once-unruly nest had been brushed to a shine and was pulled back into a series of braids that met in a knot at the base of her neck. She looked years older and felt prettier than she thought possible.
“Who taught you to do this?” Avery asked, but Kate was already tugging her arm.
“We need to go! We’re late.”
Kate led Avery to a huge meeting hall where she could almost taste the excitement in the air. A group in the center of the room bobbed for apples. Others ate popcorn balls or tossed bags of beans at wooden pins, cheering when they knocked them all down. There was laughter and music instead of the normal hushed tones and sideways glances. Even the boys who fought every morning at the breakfast table appeared to be getting along.
Everyone wore festive clothes—several girls wore wreaths of green leaves and red berries in their hair. A table was laden with more treats than could possibly be eaten by everyone in the room. A heavy chandelier bore hundreds of candles that set the room ablaze in gold.
From this perspective, the kids’ side of the castle was a kingdom unto itself.
“What’s going on?” Avery called. “Won’t we be discovered?�
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“The king is throwing a large banquet downstairs to celebrate his new engagement. It will last all hours of the night. Scouts are on guard to be sure we are safe.”
Avery pulled Kate to a corner where she could hear herself over the din.
“So what are we celebrating?” she shouted.
“Tonight is the election!”
“What is the election? Will it help us get out of here?”
“You’ve got to stop trying to get out of here and start figuring out why you’re here in the first place.”
Kate nudged Avery in the direction of a boy in a corner distributing small pieces of parchment. He tapped a large wooden box and said in a rehearsed, if not overly enthusiastic voice, “Voting is a sacred privilege, ladies. Write the name of the person you feel is best suited to lead us and cast your vote into this box. Remember, your decision could alter our destiny.” He bowed dramatically.
Avery rolled her eyes.
She had thought the vote was important—something related to the king or even their freedom—but this was just a silly stunt the kids created to distract themselves. It was nothing more than voting for the leader of their little secret society.
Kate smiled. “Two ballots, please.”
It seemed a waste of time, but Avery wrote a name in large black letters and dropped it into the box. She intended to make a sarcastic remark, but Kate yanked her to a table of apple bars, warm from the oven.
“Rumor has it,” Kate said, “that you don’t know how to bake.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” Avery said with a smile.
The party continued long into the night before the music stopped and Ballot Box Boy called everyone together. Avery nicknamed him Boxy in her mind.
“Leadership is important,” Boxy began. “It is vital that someone rise up from among us and lead this group as our junior king. Our corner of the castle needs a leader that is better than any downstairs.”
The crowd erupted.
Avery was annoyed that the kids seemed to take the vote so seriously. This wasn’t a real election. It had no consequences. Junior kings were powerless.
The Glass Castle Page 5
