“Lesser quality?” Princess Mariposa paused to hold up her skirts and admire the orangey-gold slippers on her feet.
Lindy glowered at me. I took another step.
“Pride, for example, my dear,” Cherice said, “often masquerades as goodness. If it’s conversation you desire, I should think that handsome, clever Prince…” Her voice faded. She put a finger to her chin and wrinkled her brow in thought. “Prince, er, Prince—”
“Baltazar,” Princess Mariposa supplied.
Cherice draped a lace shawl over the Princess’s ruffle-covered shoulders. “Oh, yes, Prince Baltazar. What did he have to say for himself?”
Lindy lunged for me, grabbed my elbow, and hustled me to the door. She shoved me through and shut the pressing room door firmly behind us.
“Next time, stop at the door and hand me the hankie. Understand?” Lindy glared at me for a minute. I nodded. “Finish that basket of towels,” she continued, pointing to a basket of bright white towels used by the Princess. “And then you can have the rest of the day off.”
The rest of the day off—I skipped off to do the pressing as Lindy slipped over to the cupboard and fished out her cloak. I hardly noticed as she left. I whipped through the towels, careful to focus on each one. I’d talked to the Princess! I couldn’t wait to tell Jane and Gillian…when they were finished working for the day. Which wouldn’t be for hours and hours. I sighed as I folded a towel.
I had the rest of the afternoon off—what to do with it? I could sneak out to the stables and see what Roger was up to. I wrinkled my nose. No boy would appreciate my grand conversation with the Princess. Why, she and I were practically best friends already. He was sure not to understand. Boys didn’t understand much beside shovels and horses.
The Cooks, the Gardeners, and the Guards would all be busy with their duties. None of them would have time to listen to me. I set the last crisply ironed, bright white, scorch-free towel on the stack and dampened the stove. I refilled my water bottle, smoothed down my apron, and went to see what Cherice was doing. Maybe she needed a little help sorting out ball gowns.
The wardrobe hall was dark, the candles blown out, and the massive books closed. Obviously Cherice had more interesting plans than talking to me. I twisted the handles on the closets—just to be sure that they were locked. I chewed my lower lip. A whole closet packed full of ball gowns—fabulously jeweled ball gowns—was just out of my reach. Why, if I could just get in there, I could daydream the day away.
The faintest cheep-cheep tickled my ears. That’s when it came to me: the canary needed company. I needed company. All those hundred dresses—they needed someone to give them a good trying-on. And I was just the girl to help them out.
I eased open the door to Queen Candace’s closet. Sunlight slid over my boots and painted my white pinafore gold. The canary perked up and sang. And the hundred dresses quivered with delight—as if they knew what they were waiting for. I shut the door behind me. No one had told me I couldn’t try on these dresses. But then again, no one had said I could either.
“Which one should I try on first?” I asked the canary. He bobbed on his little gold swing and whistled. “You’ll signal me?” I asked, grinning. The canary hopped up and down.
All right, then. The first hanger held a dark aqua satin gown with gold-trimmed sleeves and a skirt so full, you could run it up a mast and sail away. I spread the skirt with my hands, yards and yards of it, cool and thick and…The canary cocked his head as though waiting for me to move on. At the second hanger, the canary blinked at me as if to hurry me up. So I ran my hand along the tops of the hangers. At Eleven, the canary warbled merrily.
I frowned. With so many very beautiful dresses, Eleven wasn’t my first choice. It wasn’t ugly…exactly. It was sewn of tissue-thin silver cloth, edged with silver-gilt ribbons, and embroidered with silver-gilt flowers around the neckline. It was elegant but simple. No flashing rubies, no golden sashes, no…sparkle, just a soft silver glow. I slid my hand to hanger twelve and the canary shrieked.
I snatched my hand away.
“All right, don’t be testy,” I scolded the cheeky canary.
I went back to Eleven. At my touch, the gown poured off the hanger and into my hands. It felt impossibly light and soft, as though it were sewn from clouds. I held it up to my shoulders and it fell down, pooling around my feet. The gown had been made for a full-sized lady, not a slightly-tall-for-her-age eleven-year-old girl with dandelion fluff hair. I shrugged and undid the laces. I would just pretend to be full-sized, a queen like Candace. I stepped into the skirt and pulled the bodice up over my own clothes. I was the Queen of the Mist, stepping down from the clouds to grant little canaries their fondest wishes.
The shoulders were too wide for me, the skirt dragged on the floor, and the sleeves hung over my hands. I saw myself reflected in the window; the soft silver glow of the gown lit my dandelion hair like candlelight. My face glowed. I pulled the sleeves back; my hands shone. The canary warbled his approval. And the dress sighed—really, I’m telling you, the dress let out a sigh of relief—and wiggled, jerked, and then—
The bodice hugged me. The sleeves slipped up to my wrists. The skirt rose to the top of my toes. In an instant, the dress was exactly my size. I blinked at my reflection. I was…a fairy standing on a rose petal, glistening like the dew, and radiant with fairy dust. I twirled. The skirt flew around my knees in a silver spiral. I could dance on the point of a pin, a tiny sprite. I dipped and swayed and spun—and spilled to a stop as I caught a glimpse of the doorway.
The Supreme Scrubstress stood there. Right smack-dab in the middle of the door to Queen Candace’s closet. I threw my hands to my cheeks and screamed.
At the same moment, the Supreme Scrubstress screamed. I screamed again and so did she. We stood staring at each other, red-faced with guilt, hands to our cheeks. I slowly lowered mine and she did hers.
“May I help you?” I asked, uncertain whether or not it would be a good idea to explain what I was doing dressed in Queen Candace’s gown.
“May I help you?” the Supreme Scrubstress mouthed at the same time.
“Um?” I said.
“Um,” she mimicked.
I scratched my forehead. She scratched hers. Ooh, she was mocking me! I planted my fist on my hip, ready to give her a piece of my mind. (I’d noticed she hadn’t brought along her gigantic wooden-handled sponge and therefore couldn’t swat me with it.) She planted her fist. I pointed a finger at her. She pointed one at me.
“I work for Lindy now,” I told her. “You’re not my boss anymore!”
She mouthed the same words back at me. My forehead wrinkled up. Why couldn’t I hear her? Was she whispering? I hadn’t lost my hearing, because I could hear myself just fine. So what was going on?
That’s when I remembered that I had closed the door when I came in.
The Supreme Scrubstress was standing in midair…floating in a mirror fixed to the back of the door. Which was impossible. I crept up to the mirror and touched the glass. The tips of our fingers met.
“You’re not really there,” I told her. “This is a trick.” I looked over my shoulder and saw my reflection in the window looking over my silver-gowned shoulder at me. I glanced back at the Supreme Scrubstress in the mirror. I slid the gown off and let it fall around my waist.
There I stood reflected in the mirror, a dandelion-fluff-haired girl in a silver-gray dress and a white apron with a wad of silver fabric around her middle. I pulled the dress back up and snap, the gown whipped around me, perfectly sized, and there in the mirror was the Supreme Scrubstress.
“Is this why you wanted me to try on this dress? So I could look like…Marci?” I asked the canary.
He developed a sudden interest in preening his feathers and wouldn’t meet my eye. I pulled the dress off and stepped out of it. It sighed again. Seriously. I held it firmly to show it who was boss and marched it back to its hanger.
“You’re a very nice dress, Eleven, and I’m sure
there is someone who would love to wear you and look like Marci, but that someone isn’t me.” I hung it up and gave a little pat, to show it there were no hard feelings on my part.
But I shuddered on the inside. Of all the people I might want to look like, the Supreme Scrubstress was not on my list. If I had to iron a stack of rags as high as the highest tower in the castle, I wouldn’t miss working for her. Not for a minute. Why, just seeing her in the doorway had nearly whacked me sideways.
I sidled toward the door, having had enough excitement for one day. The canary’s head popped up. I waved. “Bye,” I called as I whipped open the closet door and skirted through. I shut the door on the canary’s outburst of protest and leaned against it, feeling wrung out like a dishrag.
I wondered what Roger was up to in the nice, safe, quiet stable.
I skipped into the yard. Roger would be working, but most stable jobs allowed for some talking. If he was shoveling something nasty, I would hold my nose while I talked. I found Roger on a bench polishing the silverwork on a bridle.
“Hey, Roger,” I said, smoothing my crisp white apron.
Roger ducked his head, rubbing harder with his cloth. A nasty grease stain darkened the crown of his green cap; his freckles vanished in the shadow cast by the brim. “I figured you’d forget us living up there where the servants sit all day so that their clothes ain’t mussed.”
“I wish.” I snorted. “We never sit down.”
“Regular tyrant that Mariposa, I hear,” Roger said.
“She is not!” I punched him in the shoulder. Hard. “You take that back.”
He pulled off his cap and ran a hand through his sandy hair. He looked me up and down, from my new gray boots to the wisps of dandelion-fluff hair working free of my silver-gray ribbon.
“I take it back,” he said, then laid his cap aside and went back to work. “Gillian’s lost without your stories. Her Supreme Scrubself has been making everyone’s life a misery.”
“Oh.” I sank onto the bench next to him. I’d missed everyone, but it hadn’t occurred to me that they’d miss me too. Well, except for Jane, and she had to miss me. I was almost her real daughter.
“I didn’t ask for it,” I said.
“No, but you didn’t beg to stay.”
“Would you beg to stay in the under-cellar?”
“Nope.”
“Well then…” I picked up his cap and studied the stain, which reminded me of an ostrich wearing a hair bow.
“Like it up there?”
“The Princess is very kind. But my boss, Lindy, has the temper of a Laundress who’s dropped her soap in the sawdust.” I chuckled, picturing Lindy scrubbing clothes. “I bet those Laundresses can get that stain out of your cap.”
“Said it would cost me; not their regular job to clean caps.”
“Oh. How much?”
“Enough. I ain’t got it either way.”
I frowned. I didn’t have any pocket money myself. Princess’s Girls worked for room and board. So did Stable Boys. You had to get promoted up another step from where we were to get pay. The Head Steward called it starting at the bottom. He wasn’t kidding.
“You make new friends?” Roger asked in a too-casual tone.
I squinted at him. If Gillian missed me, did that mean that he did too? He polished away without looking up.
“Francesca, the Head Girl, hates me. She dumps sand in my bed every night so that she can make me sweep it up every morning,” I admitted. “The other girls follow her lead.”
“Figures.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why should it figure?”
“You got her sister’s job is why it figures.” Roger gave the silver a last buff and held it up to the sunlight. “Perfect.”
“Sister’s job?” I said, confused. “I got the last Under-presser’s job because she—she…”
“Got sacked by the Princess,” Roger said. “Didn’t you know? Faustine is Francesca’s sister. Their mother is the Head Housekeeper and she has big ambitions for those two. Thought they’d run the castle one day. You ruined that.”
I folded my arms across my chest and sat back against the stable wall. I didn’t know Mrs. Pepperwhistle, the Head Housekeeper. I’d seen her, of course, but she ruled the Upper-servants. Our paths hadn’t crossed in the under-cellar. “Huh. That makes sense. Not that it’s fair. It’s stupid. I didn’t ask for Faustine’s job.”
“Well, you got it.”
For a moment, I was tempted to tell Roger about the mice, the canary, and Eleven. But then he stood up and ruined everything.
“It’s your fault you got it,” he said.
I jumped up and hurled his cap at him. He caught it with one hand. “What do you mean my fault?” I demanded, planting a fist on my hip.
“If it weren’t for your daydreaming, the Supreme Scrubstress would have sent those two to the Head Steward to get someone. And then you’d still be an Under-scrubber. And things would be the way they was supposed to.” He parked his cap on his head and walked away.
I opened my mouth to yell at him, but nothing came out.
Stars sparkled in the pur- ple night sky. The Under-servants dotted the lower garden, sitting on benches and on patches of velvety grass enjoying the evening breeze. Light glowed in the castle windows, lending a soft luster to the gardens. I snuggled deeper into the cleft between the lion’s bronze paws where I sat curled up next to Jane.
The lions guarded the garden’s entrance, sending long shadows down the marble stairs and across the lawn. Sitting at their paws was almost like perching on the Princess’s throne. It made my chest swell to have that top spot.
But tonight, I couldn’t get Roger’s words out of my mind. And things would be the way they was supposed to. Was I supposed to be an Under-scrubber stuck in the dark old under-cellar? Why couldn’t I be an Upper-servant and live in the sunshine and be almost-friends with the Princess? I might daydream and tell stories, but I did my work.
I glanced at Jane. She wore a pinched expression, one that narrowed her blue eyes and wrinkled her pink cheeks. But she didn’t look cross like the Supreme Scrubstress. Jane looked like a lady squinting at the world around her, uncertain what was what. She found a paper once that someone had spilled water on so that the colors ran together. She told me that was the way the world looked to her. I’d studied the blurry paper, but she kissed me and told me not to worry over it. As long as she could see sunlight, she was fine.
Jane sighed. And all the ladies around us sighed too, except Gillian, who coughed.
“How many closets?” she asked, reminding me where I’d left off describing the upper regions. “Six?”
“Seven, actually,” a voice said.
I jumped in my seat. The Supreme Scrubstress lurked in the lion’s shadow on the other side of Gillian. I hadn’t heard her sit down, but I’d know that voice anywhere.
“Seven?” Gillian said, as if seven were a million.
I swallowed. “Yes, six for the Princess’s clothes; there’s a seventh, for old stuff.”
The Supreme Scrubstress’s eyes glinted in the dimness. I had the creepy feeling she knew I’d been in Queen Candace’s closet. I wriggled, suddenly uncomfortable on the marble step.
“My grandmother served Queen Paloma, Mariposa’s mother, as Wardrobe Mistress,” the Supreme Scrubstress said.
This was news. I tried to picture the Supreme Scrubstress as a little girl…and failed.
“I spent hours watching her care for the Queen’s clothes.”
She spoke as if she knew things, things I’d like to know. The image of her in the mirror rose in my thoughts. Why did the canary want me to try on that dress?
“Did Queen Paloma have a canary?” I blurted out.
“Yes. A cute fellow; he’d belonged to Queen Candace,” the Supreme Scrubstress replied.
“The closets?” Gillian said, tugging on my sleeve.
“Queen Candace?” I asked, sure I’d heard wrong.
“I remember that,” J
ane interrupted. “When I was a girl, the Head Cook said it was a magic canary that was passed from one Queen to the next.”
The Cooks, Pickers, and other Under-servants snorted with laughter. I didn’t laugh. I rubbed my nose, thinking hard. There was something odd about that bird.
“That’s nothing,” the Supreme Scrubstress said, and waved her hand. “My grandmother told me how the castle was built. She was a child, ten or eleven then, and remembered it clearly.”
“Oh, not the dragons,” groaned a nearly bald Picker named Agnes.
“Dragons?” Gillian and I echoed, perking up.
“The castle was built by dragons,” the Supreme Scrubstress said, poking her finger at Agnes.
“I haven’t heard that story,” I said.
“Me neither!” Gillian exclaimed.
“Oh, go on, tell it,” a Cook said.
The Supreme Scrubstress smoothed her apron over her plump knees. “When Richard was King, a pair of dragons settled in the mountains above the castle. They snatched sheep and burned down cottages. They stole anything gold or silver. People were afraid—always keeping one eye on the horizon and one on the task at hand. Crops suffered from neglect. And herds dwindled. The people cried out to King Richard for help.”
“Did he rescue them?” Gillian asked, twisting her apron.
The Supreme Scrubstress glared at her. “Don’t interrupt. As I was saying, now Richard was a great king, a learned man, who traveled far and wide. He had just returned from some of his travels when he learned of the dragons. At once, he sent his best Archers to the castle towers to shoot down the dragons.”
“Not his worst,” Agnes murmured.
A chuckle ran through the group.
“I’d have marched out to fight them,” a Footman boasted.
“King Richard realized that fighting fire-breathing dragons from the ground would result in a great loss of men,” the Supreme Scrubstress snapped, quelling them with a glance. “Where was I? Oh, yes, but dragons fly very high and very fast, and the Archers couldn’t bring them down. Instead, the arrows infuriated the dragons, and they set the castle aflame, burning it to the ground.”
If the Magic Fits Page 5