The Princess and the Page

by Christina Farley

  My body is hauled up to the surface, as if an unseen hand has grasped me and dragged me up. I inhale the air, drinking it in with huge gasping gulps. Then I swim through the semidarkness until I’m able to touch the ground with my feet. Splashing through the water, I emerge onto a stone-surfaced floor and collapse, not caring that half of my body is still lying in water.

  My body shakes so hard from the near-drowning experience that it takes some time to gain my bearings. Every muscle aches from being tossed about. Finally, I drag myself out of the water and slog to the shore.

  I almost died back there. And that brings back all the memories of me being pulled into the ocean’s undertow outside my grandma’s beach house. If it hadn’t been for the lifeguard who came out to save me, I’d have drowned.

  Back at the house that day, Grandma made me a cup of cocoa and a slice of spice bread.

  “There, now,” Grandma told me when I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. “You had yourself a little adventure, didn’t you?”

  “I wish I hadn’t. Reading and writing about adventures is far better. And safer.”

  “Perhaps.” Grandma pressed her lips together as if she was trying very hard not to say something. Then she shook her head once and patted my hand. “Sometimes it’s what we take away from our adventure that makes us stronger. Don’t be afraid of those tears of yours. They mold us and transform our endings into something meaningful.”

  Someone coughs not far away from me, the sound echoing off the stone walls and pulling me back into the present.

  “Chet?” I’m hoping it’s him and not some other horrible creature. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” he says, still hacking away. Through the dim light, I make out his outline as he staggers to his feet. “Man, I thought I was going to die. Maybe that was a little too close to living on the edge. Next time, let’s wear life vests.”

  “No kidding.”

  “But the sword, nicely written.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  We are in a cavern with stalactites jutting down like teeth. The pool we emerged from laps against a stone floor. How had we gotten inside this place? It must have an underwater passageway or maybe it was just magic. The near darkness suffocates me. The only reason I can see anything at all is because of the white dots on the far stone wall providing some illumination.

  “Those look familiar.” I slog my way to where the dots are scattered on the wall.

  “They are the same kind of dots that we saw in the tunnel outside of the kitchen,” Chet says.

  “Which means this place is somehow connected to the castle.”

  The line of glowing white dots along the edge of the cavern leads us to a staircase.

  “Should we follow the trail?” I say, peering into the dusty, cobwebbed tunnel. The horrible bugs from the last tunnel trip are still branded vividly into my brain.

  “It’s either stick around here until you die of hunger, or follow the trail.” Chet says. “I’ll go first and pave the way through the spiderwebs.”

  I don’t argue about that. The stairs twist up like a funnel, around and around, taking us higher and higher. The walls feel as if they want to swallow me, and I imagine every bug I’ve ever seen might at any second pop out of the gloom and land on my nose.

  Soon the tunnel breaks into a fork. We argue over which way to go.

  “Definitely right,” Chet guesses. “Left will take us to the same boring tunnel we were in before.”

  “But at least we know we’ll get back to the library,” I say because I’m sick of being in soaking-wet clothes.

  “What if this way takes us to the attic?” Now Chet has my attention and he knows it. “You said you wanted to see if there was a secret room in this place.”

  “Fine,” I mutter. “But there better not be any spiders.”

  As we scramble through the tunnel, new thoughts haunt me. “What do you think the sea serpent meant by ‘Things of the past must be made right’?” I wonder out loud.

  “That you’ve got to fix the problem. Not sure how helpful he was, nearly killing us only to tell us something that you already know.”

  The passageway twists and turns in the strangest ways. There are times it’s such a narrow squeeze that I’m not sure how any adult could have fit in this place. We pass another fork in the tunnel. To the left is a thin wooden door with an emblem of a tree on it. I’ve seen that before. This is the section I ran through with the princess!

  “Keep going up,” I say. “We’re getting closer to my bedroom.”

  Chet doesn’t ask how I know this. We keep shuffling along, when Chet slips and falls forward, and of course I fall after him. We tumble down the set of stairs, rolling over each other. I plop on top of him at the bottom. Chet grunts in pain.

  “Apparently, there are steps down as well that I forgot about,” I groan, trying to stand. My hand catches on something sharp. It feels gritty, like rusty iron. “I think I found something.”

  I yank down on the bar, and at first it moves only slightly. But when I shove all my weight into it, a grinding sound rumbles above my head, like ropes moving through a worn-out pulley. The wall slides open, flooding the two of us with light.

  “Smoke and fire!” Chet says. “How did you do that?”

  “I have no idea. But it’s the Joneses’ room!”

  I squeeze through the passageway’s new door and enter Old Mother Hubbard’s lair. Fortunately, they aren’t there. The floor creaks under my weight as I sneak through the room. The clock reads thirty minutes to twelve, which explains my growling stomach. The book of ghost stories lies open on the table by the bed. And Mrs. Jones’s binoculars hang on a nail by the door, obviously returned.

  “What are you doing?” Chet says, hanging back in the passageway. “This is their private room!”

  “Hush! I’m sleuthing, of course!”

  “And here you were saying how mad you were that I was spying on you.”

  “But they’re not my friends and you are.”

  “Does that mean we’re still friends?” Chet asks.

  My foot trips on something sticking out from under the bed. I fall, making a huge thumping sound. Chet shushes me while I look to see what tripped me. A long metal bar juts out beneath the bed. I pull it all the way out and examine it. It’s a simple tubelike pole. What would they need a metal pole for?

  A shrill laugh explodes in the hallway. A key scrapes in the door’s lock. My eyes widen.

  “They’re coming!” Chet whisper-yells to me. “Get back here!”

  The door handle turns. I dive back into the wall, my skirts tangled up in my legs, but I manage to slam up on the lever. As the passage wall closes shut, the bedroom door opens and Mrs. and Mr. Jones stride into the room, talking about the ball.

  “Did they see you?” Chet whispers.

  “I don’t know!” I press my ear to the wall, listening.

  “I don’t believe it!” Mrs. Jones says, but it’s a deeper and stronger voice than I remembered her voice being. Fortunately, the wall must be quite thin because I can hear every word.

  “That idiotic Teppernat woman isn’t canceling the ball. And how come Renee is quitting? Maybe we didn’t pay her enough. Our plan isn’t working.”

  I sit up straighter realizing why her voice sounds different. She’s speaking with an American accent, not British as she was before.

  “Stella,” a man’s voice, sounding very much like Mr. Jones, says. “You need to stop the panicking. Tonight is our night. We stick to the plan. All will go as it should.”

  “You need to go back and offer her more money. There are going to be loads of people and a camera crew there tonight. This is our opportunity.”

  “She’s a scullery maid. How was I to know?”

  Chet shifts beside me, kicking up dust. He sneezes. And then begins sniffing as if he’s going to sneeze again. I slap my hand over his mouth just before he does.

  “Did you hear something?” Mr. Jones says.


  “I’m sure it’s only those two troublesome girls next door,” Stella says. “Good heavens. That Keira is far too nosy for her own good.”

  “Naw! I wouldn’t worry too much about her. She’s just a kid.”

  “Of course. You’re right.” There’s a slight pause. Something slams. A drawer maybe? “I think I’ve got everything. Do you have the poison?”

  Another pause, and then Mr. Jones says, “Do you really think we should do this?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! We agreed. My vote is for the punch.”

  “What if I get thirsty?”

  “Stop acting like a baby. Oh, dear. Look at the time. Do you think the bank closes at noon?”

  “Let’s not risk waiting,“ Mr. Jones says. “Come on, I have the keys.”

  After some more shuffling and drawer slamming, the room falls back into silence. I wait for another minute.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I whisper. “Keep moving forward. I think my room is next!”

  As we struggle down the tunnel, all I can think about is poisoned punch and haunting ghosts. My stomach tightens.

  A few steps later we hit a dead end. Chet kicks at the stone in the bottom corner just like he did when we entered the library. The wall slides open and we stumble out into my bedroom.

  “How did you know this would lead to your bedroom?” Chet asks as he dusts himself off.

  “Because I’ve been in that passageway before. When the ghost grabbed my hand to escape something that was chasing us, she took me that way.”

  “That sounds so completely crazy, but I believe you. Do you think the Joneses are going to try to kill us?”

  “I don’t know. But one thing I do know is we should definitely not drink the punch tonight.”

  Fact: The youngest kid to climb Mount Everest

  was thirteen years old.

  “Do you still have the key?” I ask Chet.

  “Why? Are you going into the attic?”

  “No, I’m just going to carry it with me all day.” I toss my hands in the air. “Of course I’m going into the attic! You saw what I saw in the boat. There has to be a secret room up there. And I’m going to find it.”

  “Then I’m coming.”

  “No, you’re not. Because you would tell your dad and Monsieur everything and ruin my entire existence.”

  “I’m not going to tell them. I swear. Cross my heart. Hope-to-never-climb-Everest kind of swear.”

  I give him a hard stare. “Never-ever-climb-Everest?”

  “Never-ever if I tell.”

  “Fine. But if you do, I’ll write a story about you being scared of heights.”

  “I can live with that deal.”

  Back in front of the attic door again, Chet fishes the key from his pocket and slips it into the lock. We head up the creepy stairs, where I immediately run to the front room’s side wall.

  “There has to be another room behind this wall.” I slide my hand across it. “Do you think Monsieur knows about the secret room? Maybe he’s hiding something?”

  Chet looks skeptical. “Keira, it’s a wall. Besides, there aren’t any doors behind it. How would anyone get back there?”

  “Maybe there’s another secret passageway that we haven’t discovered yet,” I say as I inspect each crack. “Or maybe this is all just a crazy idea of mine and the place doesn’t exist.”

  Meanwhile, Chet puts his ear to the wall as he pounds on it. “It does sound different. Maybe there is something on the other side.”

  Footsteps clomp up the stairs. I search for a place to hide, but that’s kind of pointless since the room we are in is completely empty.

  “Don’t bother hiding,” Madame’s voice calls out from the stairwell. “I know you’re up here.” She enters, a scowl on her face. “What are you two doing? This is restricted territory.”

  I step toward Madame. “From the river, I could see a window in the castle tower. But as you can see, there is no entrance to that room in the castle. So where is it?”

  Her eyes take in my wet clothes and hair and then Chet’s. “You two look like drowned rats.” She presses her forefingers together in a triangle of sorts. Knowing my luck, she’s running through her curse list, deciding which ones to use on us. Don’t turn me into a spider! I think, but all Madame says is “It doesn’t exist.”

  “And you expect us to believe that?” I say.

  “The last window is purely ornamental. Behind the glass is brick.”

  “You’re lying,” I say.

  “Don’t believe me?” Madame laughs. “Then go to the library and study the architectural designs if you must. And I’ll be taking back that key you’re holding, young man.”

  Disgruntled, Chet passes over the key. After we are marched back to the second floor, she locks the door. Bummer.

  “So much for finding answers,” I mumble. “We only seem to get more questions.”

  Decorating Tip of the Day: You, too, can be a

  decorator! Always remember—less is MORE.

  I leave Chet to search for my mom. When I reach her room, she still isn’t back from her shopping trip. What is going on? I check the closet only to find her purse is still there. Mom never went shopping without her purse. And that meant she wasn’t really shopping. I recheck her note. This time a particular line sticks out.

  I’m being taken to a fantasy bookstore to buy stacks of wonderful novels before we leave.

  Specifically, the part about Mom buying stacks of novels. She never, ever reads novels and especially wouldn’t go to a fantasy bookstore. It is one hundred percent, no question, absolutely forbidden in our house, plus she detests anything of the sort. Now that I know about my family’s ability as Word Weavers, I understand her reactions a little better. But still. She wouldn’t go out and buy novels. Which means:

  1. Mom is trying to send me a message.

  2. Something horrible happened to her.

  The only person who would want any harm done to my mom is Monsieur.

  * * *

  After changing into dry clothes, I scour every inch of the castle, looking for a hint of Mom or Monsieur. Hours later, I come up with nothing, so I head to the ballroom, where Bella is knee-deep in gold material. Surrounding her are leafless potted plants strung with white lights, and boxes of small clear teardrop bulbs.

  The room is packed with workers, hanging long swaths of tulle from one end of the ballroom’s ceiling and then dipping once again to the other end.

  “How’s it going?” I plop onto the floor next to Bella. “This place looks more like a construction zone than a party zone.”

  “Great now that the cleaners have left after sweeping up all of the glass. The only bad part is the windows aren’t quite as pretty as they once were.”

  “At least no one was hurt,” I say with relief. “Have you seen my mom today? I can’t find her anywhere.”

  “Didn’t you say she went shopping?” Bella pins a portion of the material to one of the long tables to create a table skirt.

  “Yeah, but she didn’t bring her purse, and she always takes that with her when she shops.” I fidget with Mom’s note and then finally hand it over to Bella. “Read her note and tell me if I’m crazy to think she’s disappeared.”

  Bella reads through it and shakes her head. “She says she’s going shopping. Maybe she put her money in her pocket. You know how criminals prey on tourists. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think you’re a little paranoid. But then, after this week, I’m wondering if we’re all a little paranoid.”

  “There’s something in the note that’s nagging me. Mom said she was going shopping for fantasy novels. You know how my mom hates all things fictional, right? Do you think it was a clue?”

  “Maybe.” Bella stands and brushes golden dust off her hands. “Or maybe she’s just out having fun shopping in France, which sounds way more likely. So what do you think about this table? It’s the first one I finished.”

  Shimmering golden material covers the circu
lar table with one of the leafless trees resting on top. White lights weave through its branches, and tiny clear teardrop globes hang from its boughs. Electronic tea candles are scattered around the tree.

  “We’ll light the candles just before the ball begins,” Bella explains. “The decor is to be chic with a romantic flair. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s completely magical. Now I see why you didn’t want to leave. I’m so impressed you designed all of this.”

  Bella beams.

  “But it looks like you still have a lot of work to do,” I say. “Let me help you out.”

  We work together for the next hour, but as I’m stringing the lights on one of the trees, the words from the sea serpent bounce back and forth in my mind.

  “‘Things of the past must be made right,’” I whisper, trying to make sense of it.

  “What did you say?” Bella says.

  “Made right,” I repeat again. “That’s it!”

  “What’s it?”

  “What if it’s a play on words? Like he meant right as in w-r-i-t-e. What if I rewrite the story? Rewrite it to be obnoxiously happy. You know, write it right. The ghost would be appeased, Gabrielle and all those who have been vanished would be saved, and Monsieur would leave my mom and me alone because it would prove we weren’t who he thinks we are. Then I could have my life back. Problem solved.”

  “Okaaay,” Bella says. “I have no idea what you are talking about, but it sounds like an impressive plan.”

  “I have to go do something.” I jump up and hurry out of the ballroom.

  “Where you going?” Bella shouts after me.

  But I don’t stop. As I rush up to my room, I make mental notes of how my new story should be written. I will become a writer again.

  But this time as a true Word Weaver.

  * * *

  I don’t waste a second. After shutting and locking the door, I dig out my magical pen from its latest hiding place under the mattress. Then I sit down at the desk overlooking the river and pull out some of the loose-leaf paper inside the desk. I’m going to write a new version of my fairy tale.