The Restless Girls

by Jessie Burton

  True, Alberto didn’t crush Laurelia’s racing car to pieces, despite his threats. He had it renovated and sealed up inside the palace garage, where it started to gather dust, and a family of mice took up residence in the passenger seat.

  But just when the girls thought life couldn’t get any worse, it got worse.

  Three days after the curtain incident, King Alberto, flanked by his advisers, summoned his daughters to a room in the palace they’d never seen before.

  ‘You’ll be perfectly safe in here,’ he said.

  By now, the girls had barely enough energy to lift their heads and peer in, but when they did, they stared in horror at their new surroundings.

  It was a room with no windows.

  It contained twelve beds, in two facing rows of six. Off to the side was one small bathroom. On the far wall, hanging between the ends of the rows of beds, was a truly enormous portrait of Queen Laurelia in her motor-racing gear, as if to remind the girls what might happen if they ever tried to go faster than was appropriate.

  ‘Good lord,’ said Ariosta, staring up at the painting. The other girls could barely look at it.

  ‘You can’t do this to us,’ said Frida, turning to her father and the advisers, several of whom were looking puffed up and pleased with themselves. ‘We used to play in Lago Puera and the mountains beyond. We used to make chemistry experiments in the royal laboratory. We used to play music in our own little band! Now this is what you do to us?’

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ replied the king. His expression was horribly blank, which was worse than him being angry.

  ‘No,’ said Frida. ‘We were destined to survey the waters of the Kalian sea. Everyone told us that. You always said it yourself.’

  ‘I did. But in happier days.’

  ‘We deserve happier days again. Instead, you would put us in a cell, where we cannot even hear the waves? You would shrink our lives to this small room, and a frozen picture of our mother’s face –’

  ‘Frida, stop!’ said Alberto. ‘One of these days you will go too far.’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I fear I won’t go far enough.’ She took up Agnes’s hand, which had begun to tremble.

  ‘You can’t be serious about this, Father,’ said Polina, attempting reason, wishing to thaw the air of hostility.

  ‘I’m most serious,’ he replied. ‘One hour a day out in the palace grounds to stretch your legs.’

  Frida still hadn’t given up. She turned to the king’s advisers. ‘Gentlemen. Surely, for the good of Kalia, we should have our telescopes and typewriters back. Surely, instead of worrying about whether your princesses are going to explode, you should be concerning yourselves with your harvests, and your relations with the borderlands?’ There was a slight panic in her voice now, and it scared the other princesses. They huddled behind her, hugging one another tight.

  The advisers looked away, but Frida was right. (Frida was often right when it came to matters of state, although no one ever listened to her.) The kingdom of Kalia was falling apart, but Alberto was more obsessed with keeping his daughters locked safely away than doing his kingly duty.

  None of the advisers wanted to lose his job, so they said nothing. Frida turned up her chin in disgust. ‘Cowards,’ she said. One of them, at least – her father’s youngest adviser, a whippety-thin man called Clarence – looked shamefaced.

  ‘You’ve all gone mad,’ said Ariosta.

  ‘Not mad, just sensible,’ said the king. He brandished a heavy iron key at Frida. ‘Inside,’ he said. ‘Now. And please,’ he pleaded, ‘just go to sleep.’

  The advisers ushered them in, and each princess found a bed. They heard the key turn in the lock, a horrid grating sound that plunged their hearts into their feet.

  There was no natural light, no privacy, no place for them to hide away with their thoughts. All Agnes wanted to hear was Emelia’s little snores, to remind her that once they’d had a mother who loved a motor’s engine. But instead the room hummed with the nervous energy of twelve young minds, crawling up the walls with no way out.

  That day, the princesses learned that the line between mad and sensible is a very fine line indeed.

  ⋇

  It went on like this for weeks. The girls were kept in the room, allowed one hour a day for a walk, and their mother’s painted face greeted them on their return. The maids brought their meals to the door, and the girls ate on their beds. King Alberto had ordered that they should be given a plain diet of porridge and toast, morning and night, with the occasional satsuma, but the girls barely noticed what was passing their lips.

  They slept very badly. Frida said it felt as if they were getting older as their mother stayed young. And, of course, the painting’s expression did indeed stay the same, friendly but distant, Queen Laurelia’s mouth slightly open on a word they would never hear. ‘Oh, if only she would walk out of the frame and take us to the mountain!’ Frida cried, tossing the skin of yet another satsuma to the floor.

  It was such a sad sight, these wilting girls, that I can hardly bear to type it. But I’ve since learned that sadness comes and goes, and typewriters win out.

  You see, the king could control the paths his daughters trod; he could take away their pleasures and their views and lock them up. He could make sure that the princesses didn’t have anything in that room except their toothbrushes and tiaras, pyjamas and dressing gowns. But king or no king, there was one thing they possessed that he could never own: their imaginations.

  Have you ever tried getting into someone else’s imagination? It’s practically impossible. Our inability to do so has caused headache and heartache since time began. Even your own imagination can be a slippery thing – you can’t see it, you can’t hold it, but you can certainly feel it. It can fill your day with sunshine or with storm. It will conjure worlds from nowhere and make them real. It will open doors you didn’t even know existed; it will show you secrets that are yours alone. And the strange thing about imagination is that it can fly absolutely anywhere, even when your body stays in one place. I’ve seen it happen.

  Imagination was the greatest weapon those girls had.

  And one night, sitting up in their beds, telling stories as they always did, the princesses did indeed discover a secret.

  It was the most perfect, timely secret, like moonlight on a pillow in a windowless room. It changed their lives forever.

  And what was the secret?

  Oh, go on then. Seeing as it’s you.

  Three

  The Secret

  That night – that particular night when everything changed – it was Frida’s turn to tell a story. The others had climbed out of their own beds and were gathered on hers – quite a squeeze, as you might imagine. They always liked it when it was Frida’s turn because, as the eldest, she had the most memories of Queen Laurelia. But sometimes Frida told stories that were only half a memory, and the other half was made up – ‘because really,’ she would say, ‘who can tell the difference?’

  The lamps were lit as usual – twelve glowing orbs around the room. The princesses felt as if they were living in a jewel box, their hair and silk pyjamas golden in the light.

  Frida was just about to start her story, when she lifted her lamp towards the portrait of their mother. ‘Has someone moved the painting?’ she asked. ‘It’s crooked.’

  The other princesses looked over at the painting. It was true: Queen Laurelia was looking back at her daughters at a slight angle.

  ‘I haven’t touched it,’ said Flora.

  ‘She never said you did, dearest,’ said Delilah.

  ‘Maybe Vita knocked it by mistake,’ said Chessa. ‘You can’t swing a cat in here.’

  ‘Tell us a story, Frida. Please,’ said Lorna, sensing that everyone was a bit crotchety.

  But Frida had slipped off the bed and was standing close to her mother’s painting. ‘I’ll tell you a story in a minute,’ she said. ‘But don’t you think her eyes are inviting us in?’

  �
�Inviting us in where?’ asked Polina.

  Frida touched the edge of the frame in an attempt to straighten it, and her hand froze. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘What? What is it, Frida?’ whispered Agnes as her skin turned to goosebumps, her hairs on end.

  Frida turned to her sisters, her face pale. ‘Can you come and help me lift the painting off?’ she said. The sisters rushed over and did as they were asked, staggering with the weight of their mother’s portrait. All twelve of them shuffled between the beds with the frame, propping Queen Laurelia to one side.

  Frida held up her lamp to the wall. ‘By all the stars of Kalia,’ she breathed. ‘I wondered, but I hardly dared hope.’

  In the flickering light of her lamp, the others could see what Frida had thought was impossible, but which, in fact, was true.

  ‘Is that … a door?’ whispered Emelia.

  Emelia was quite right. It was a thin outline of a door, a panel embedded in the wall. Frida reached out. Her hand could touch it, feel it! It was real.

  ‘How did we never notice this before?’ she asked her sisters, but none of them could answer.

  The door was made of the same material as the wall, and there was no handle. Frida pushed the panel, and under her touch it swung back easily. The other girls joined her and stood around the threshold. All they could see was pitch black, as if they were standing on the edge of a deep pit. Cold air hit their cheeks and knocked the breath out of them. In the silence, from somewhere deep and far away, Agnes thought she could hear music, the sweet jazzy waft of a clarinet. A strange smell she’d never tasted before rose up: heady, heavy, a little smoky, like a raspberry dipped in black amber. A tinkling of bells, the lap of a wave. It was most unsettling.

  And most exciting.

  For a moment, no one said anything. It felt as if they were teetering between an old life and a new.

  ‘Where does this lead?’ asked Mariella.

  ‘Good question. Who knows? But I’m going to find out,’ replied Frida.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Vita.

  ‘Me too,’ said Ariosta.

  ‘We’ll all go,’ said Frida. ‘No one should be left behind.’

  ‘But it could be dangerous,’ Bellina cried, leaping to Frida’s side and hanging on her sleeve. ‘It might be a trap.’

  ‘A trap?’ said Frida, laughing. ‘I think we’ve been trapped long enough, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want something bad to happen. What would Father say –?’

  ‘He’s not going to say anything, my sweet, because we’re not going to tell him,’ said Frida. ‘And, Bellina, think. What could be worse than being holed up here for another night?’

  Bellina bit her lip.

  ‘Darling Bell,’ said Lorna. ‘What Frida’s saying is true. And if I have to spend one more evening in this tiny room with nothing to do except count sheep and polish my tiara, I might go mad.’

  ‘I’m surprised I’m not mad already,’ said Emelia. ‘We have to go.’

  ‘Well said, both of you,’ said Frida. ‘This door is exactly what we need. Hurry!’ she went on, shooing her sisters. ‘Dressing gowns and shoes. Fetch your lamps. Voices down. Father’s guards may be on the other side of the walls, wherever it is we’re going.’

  The princesses found their lamps, put on their shoes and followed their eldest sister to the edge of the strange door.

  Frida held her lamp over the threshold, and the light opened up the darkness like a dancer cast from orange flame, jumping and jutting, finding its way. The others waited with bated breath for her to tell them what she could see.

  ‘A staircase!’ she whispered. ‘Oh, it goes down and down and down! I can’t imagine how many steps there are. It’s so dark.’

  Nevertheless, one by one, the princesses began to follow her down,

  and down,

  and down,

  and down,

  their lamps held high,

  their soles echoing

  and echoing

  on the stone steps.

  The staircase did not appear to have been used for years. Cobwebs clung to their faces and stuck to their hair. There was a new smell of mould and damp, and the air was still horribly cold.

  ‘Do you think Mother went down this staircase?’ asked Mariella. ‘Did she ever mention one to you, Frida?’

  Frida was silent for a moment. ‘Do you know, Mari, I think she might have. But only when I was tiny.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Polina whispered over Frida’s shoulder. ‘We’re going underground. What if there are spiders?’

  ‘The stars will be waiting for you when we come back, Pol. And as for spiders, they’ll be more frightened of you. Keep walking,’ Frida whispered back. ‘I’m sure this is something important.’

  After about fifteen minutes, the girls, made dizzy from the continual spiralling downwards and the fluff of cobweb in their eyes, finally reached a flat level. They held up their lamps again. They could see nothing beyond them but darkness. All they could hear was their own blood beating in their bodies, and their breath on the cool air.

  ‘That was five hundred and three steps,’ whispered Mariella. ‘I counted.’

  ‘I think we’re deep beneath the palace,’ said Flora. She held her lamp higher. ‘And look – there’s the mouth of the sea!’

  But it was not the mouth of the sea. Beyond was a lagoon – a wide, deep, dark underground pool – lit around its edges and in the crannies of its rocks by tiny lights that blinked from the darkness like stars.

  When Polina looked at it, she wondered why she’d ever been worried. It felt as if they’d travelled upwards into a firmament of celestial wonder, not deep beneath the surface of their father’s land. It was a breathtaking vision.

  Agnes ran to the lagoon’s edge.

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ said Flora, for she had read many stories of tempting and beautiful sights that would only lead a princess to her doom.

  ‘I’m not going to touch it,’ said Agnes. ‘I’m just trying to work out how we’re going to cross it.’

  The others joined her, and stared at the water. It was as deep as a dream from which you might never wake. They shivered; for all its beauty, they felt that perhaps they shouldn’t hang around. And then came the noise of the music again, that sweet melodious sound of a single clarinet, from somewhere across the lagoon, and it felt to the girls as if it was calling them to join it.

  ‘Maybe we should swim across?’ said Ariosta, beginning to roll up her pyjama legs. ‘It’s been ages since I had a dip.’

  ‘I – Ari – really?’ said Bellina.

  ‘Let her,’ said Frida. ‘Ariosta’s the best swimmer out of all of us, and sometimes a dolphin just has to swim.’

  ‘But what if there’s something in the water?’ whispered Flora.

  ‘There’s always something in the water,’ said Ariosta, grinning, and she sat by the side of the lagoon and plunged in one leg and then the other. The girls held their breath, but nothing bad happened to their sister. Ariosta splashed her legs around, the drops illuminated by the twinkling lights. ‘Oooh! It’s freezing!’ she said, which made them laugh for the first time since their mother died.

  Emboldened by her intrepid sister, Bellina dipped her hand into the water. ‘It feels like Mother’s shirts,’ she said. ‘So satiny!’

  ‘Don’t drink it,’ warned Lorna. ‘It’s bad enough that one of us is swimming in it.’

  ‘I don’t want to drink it, I just want to swim in it. I’ll be back,’ said Ariosta.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Lorn,’ said Frida. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Oh, Ari,’ said Delilah proudly. ‘You really are a fantastic fish.’ They waited in silence, holding their lamps up as high as they could to illuminate Ariosta’s swim. The minutes ticked.

  ‘I’ve found something!’ Ariosta called, and her sisters breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘What is it?’ Polina shouted back. ‘Ari, be careful!’

&
nbsp; ‘Hold on – it’s so dark,’ Ariosta replied. And then – ‘Oh! I’ve found … some boats!’

  The sisters cheered and clapped as Ariosta swam back and forth six times, bringing six boats to their side of the lagoon, six boats that turned out to fit two princesses apiece. When Ariosta was finished and had pulled herself out of the water, her sisters hugged her so tightly, and covered her with so many of their dressing gowns until her teeth stopped chattering, that she looked happier than she had in over a year.

  Two by two, the girls lowered themselves into the bobbing vessels and set off across the water. Chessa splashed her oars into the dark, her eyes on the bank ahead. She hummed a quiet tune, gently testing the acoustics of the rocks above.

  The others, who loved to hear her sing, and who had missed it terribly since King Alberto had stopped their music lessons, kept their own oars as quiet as they could, hoping they might hear again the glorious sound of their childhood.

  They were in luck. After what had felt to them a lifetime, Chessa took a deep breath, closed her eyes, opened her mouth and began to sing:

  ‘The girls rowed on a dark lagoon

  In the cave’s imaginary night.

  They didn’t know why

  But still in the sky –

  There burned a beautiful light!’

  Chessa’s voice reverberated across the water and round the rocks in a magical echo. ‘Oh, Chess,’ Frida called from the boat she was sharing with Agnes. ‘You always pop my heart like a champagne cork.’ The others laughed at the truth of Frida’s words, for Chessa’s singing did fizz their blood like the finest bubbles. Then far off came the clarinet again, as if it was replying to the power of Chessa’s voice, waiting impatiently for her to give it more music.

  ‘Mother used to sing that to me at bath time,’ said Chessa after she stopped, now dipping her fingers in the lagoon.

  ‘Well, Mother was right,’ said Flora. ‘Look!’

  The girls turned towards the bank. It was as if the words of Chessa’s song had conjured the sight before them. Where minutes before all had been darkness, now, through a crack in the rock beyond, narrow enough for one princess at a time, there was indeed a light.