Standing Up For Grace

by Kristine Grayson

  (This is how mortals—folks from the Greater World—end up in the Kingdoms. That’s how the evil Brothers Grimm discovered the Kingdoms in the first place.)

  There’s a portal not too far from the house. Imperia slips out the back door at seven a.m., before everyone else gets up. Ruthie doesn’t even show up on Saturday, which is too bad, because if she did, Imperia would ask her to drive to the better portal in Sherman Oaks. That portal is bigger, but Imperia doesn’t really need big on this day, because she’s not traveling with Grace or Daddy.

  It’s hot outside even though it’s early, and at most of the houses, the sprinklers have just ended their timed watering. Here, everything seems to run on technology, and everything has a time and a place. Even watering, because apparently, water is rationed, an idea that just plain scares her.

  A lot scares her about the Greater World. Kids at school say they’re not allowed to walk by themselves because they might be abducted. At first, Imperia thought they meant abducted by bad serial killer guys, like in the movies, but no, they actually mean by kidnappers, because their parents are so rich and so famous.

  Abductions don’t happen in the Kingdom, at least not for her or Grace, because if someone took them, that someone would be beheaded or worse. Grandfather has no problem with violence, and sometimes uses it to enforce his decrees. One unspoken decree is don’t mess with his family.

  Sometimes Imperia thinks that’s a much better way that Daddy’s insistence on talk, talk, talk.

  A couple of people are outside, working in their lawns, trimming flowers and digging in the dirt. One woman actually says hi to Imperia, and Imperia gives her a startled hi in return.

  She wants to run now, but she doesn’t. She makes herself walk to the little park that only covers half a block.

  According to the sign, the park was someone’s property, but that person donated it to the neighborhood so long as everyone takes care of it. There’s an iron gate around the lovely trees, and a code on the gate so that only people who live here can get in. Imperia memorized the code the first time they came here, and now she taps it into the gate’s keypad. She hears a click as the gate unlocks.

  She pushes it open and steps in.

  There are so many trees here that the place is actually cooler than the rest of the neighborhood. Flowers bloom everywhere. She has no idea what kind they are. There’s a little shrine over what should’ve been a little pond with a fountain, but another sign says that the pond is empty because of the water shortage.

  She steps behind the shrine to a gigantic palm tree that’s so big it looks fake. She runs her hand on the tree’s spiny bark and suddenly she’s inside the portal.

  She barely fits in it by herself. It smells of tree and a bit like fog. She knows how this works: she’s supposed to think about where she wants to go in the Kingdom, but in case she doesn’t have the think-power yet, she mutters, “Grandmama Lavinia’s, please.”

  Then she worries that the portal won’t know who Grandmama Lavinia is. At that moment, though, she stumbles forward into a familiar part of the Kingdom’s forest, overlooking Grandmama Lavinia’s house. The air is cool and filled with fog, and there’s no sun at all.

  Really, Grandmama Lavinia’s house is a manor, and it originally belonged to Mom’s dad. He inherited it from his dad. Mom’s mom died when she was a little girl, and it took Mom’s dad a long time to remarry. When he did, he remarried Grandmama Lavinia whom, the evil Brothers Grimm say, forced Mom to live like a slave, and sleep near the fireplace. That’s why she was called Cinderella.

  The truth is more complicated than that, and has to do with a big fight that Grandmama Lavinia and Mom had a few weeks before the ball where Mom met Daddy. Mom was living in the kitchen in protest when Mom’s fairy godmother showed up—and that’s where everything gets muddled.

  Imperia doesn’t really understand what happened, and neither does Dad. He just says that sometimes no one’s right, and the entire situation can be hurtful, and he says that’s what happened here.

  But he loves Grandmama Lavinia, and so does Imperia. Imperia trusts Grandmama Lavinia more than she trusts most people. And Grandmama Lavinia won’t report her to Grandfather, so she’s safe for the time being.

  The house is just around the corner, tucked up against the forest, at the end of a long road. Imperia smiles when she sees the square brown form, the stained glass windows on the second story, and the arch-shaped stone door. She loves this place more than any other place in the Kingdom.

  She lets herself through the gate on the matching stone fence and takes a deep breath of the cool damp air. With luck, no one has seen her, and that means no one will report her to her grandfather.

  She goes around the side and lets herself in the kitchen door. Cook is already bustling, making bread and cakes for the morning meal. When Cook sees her, she raises her eyebrows.

  “N’one said you’d be coming here,” Cook says.

  “It’s a surprise.” Imperia knows Cook won’t tell on her because here, Imperia has Authority. “Is Grandmama here?”

  Her stomach clenches as she asks the question because she really didn’t think ahead. What if Grandmama is visiting friends? Or on some prolonged trip?

  “Upstairs,” Cook says. She isn’t showing the right amount of respect, but then she never has. The one thing that Imperia has gleaned from her mother’s childhood stories is that Grandmama Lavinia has never been able to train her staff properly.

  Imperia nods, then heads to the back staircase. She creeps up the side, like she used to do when she was really little and up too late. She reaches the top. Most of the doors are closed, including Grandmama’s bedroom door.

  Imperia knocks, then pushes the door open. She says, “It’s me, Grandmama,” just in case Grandmama thinks it’s one of the servants.

  “Imperia?” Grandmama sound surprised. “Just one moment.”

  There’s a flutter and a hint of perfume as Imperia steps inside. The bed curtains are stirring. With one bejeweled hand, Grandmama pushes the curtains back.

  Imperia frowns. She would swear, with the curtains moving like that, that Grandmama has just gotten out of bed. But Grandmama is still in bed, and the bed is messier than usual. Grandmama has grabbed her black silk dressing gown and tugs it on as she sits up. She’s tiny and blond, with slightly upturned eyes and an upturned nose. She almost looks younger than Mom.

  There’s rumors that Grandmama has mixed blood—part small fairy, part human. And while Imperia hasn’t cared about that, her other grandparents do. They think Grandmama Lavinia is a bad influence because of it.

  “What are you doing here, child?” Grandmama asks, smoothing her blond hair back with one hand. “Is there trouble?”

  Imperia’s eyes get wet but she blinks hard, bites her lower lip, and nods.

  “Oh, my.” Grandmama swings her thin legs over the bed and slips her feet into a pair of black feathery mules that she got in the Greater World recently, when she helped Daddy find the right house for the girls. “Did something else happen with your mother?”

  “No.” Imperia’s voice is small.

  “Is your father here?”

  “No,” Imperia says.

  “Grace?”

  “No,” Imperia says.

  Grandmama puts her hands on her hips. Her black silk dressing gown only comes to mid-thigh, and swings outward like a party dress. Her lips thin. “So your grandparents are here.”

  “No,” Imperia says.

  Grandmama straightens in surprise. Even with the heels on her mules, she’s barely as tall as Imperia now. “You’re here on your own?”

  Imperia nods.

  “From the Greater World?”

  Imperia nods again. There’s a lump in her throat. She missed Grandmama Lavinia more than she can say.

  “What went wrong? Did something happen to your father and Grace?” She sounds panicked now.

  “No,” Imperia says. “They’re fine. But Daddy’s really mad at me, and I ne
ed your help.”

  Grandmama’s eyes narrow. “You came here because your father is mad at you?”

  Imperia nods. “He wants me to figure out how to fix something I did. And I don’t know how.”

  “He wants you to figure this out on your own?” Grandmama asks.

  “Yes,” Imperia says.

  “And you thought you could ask me to fix it?”

  “No,” Imperia says. “I thought you could help me fix it.”

  “Yeah,” Grandmama says softly to herself. “That’s figuring it out on your own.”

  She glances over her thin shoulder at the dressing screen near the back of the room. Then she comes to Imperia, puts her arms around her, and hugs her.

  “Give me a minute, child,” she says, “and I’ll meet you for breakfast in the sun room.”

  Imperia glances at the screen too, but she doesn’t know why. Then she nods, sighs, and heads out of the room. She hears voices behind her, and hopes that she’s hearing servants.

  She heads down the front steps to the sun room, which is really the let’s-hope-there’s-sun room. The sun doesn’t come out a lot here, and when it does, it doesn’t always reach this room.

  Still the room is nice, and Grandmama Lavinia uses it as her dining area. There’s a sideboard on the interior wall. The other walls are all glass, and Grandmama has flowering plants all around. An oak table dominates the middle of the room, and is already set up, with jams and cakes and plates in the middle.

  Usually one of the servants actually sets the table. Maybe, because Imperia has hurried everyone along, the servants didn’t have time for a real setup.

  Grandmama sweeps into the room not five minutes later. Grandmama is the only person Imperia knows who can sweep. It’s almost as if she can fly, which lends credence to that fairy blood rumor. (Imperia has never asked her about that. Imperia doesn’t ask Grandmama much about her own life because, Imperia feels, if she asks too much she might suddenly be between Mom and Grandmama, and she doesn’t want to be there.)

  Grandmama takes a slice of cake and a pile of fresh fruit. Imperia already has three different slices of cake. Daddy doesn’t allow sweets for breakfast so this is a real treat.

  “All right,” Grandmama says. “Tell me what this emergency is.”

  Imperia almost denies that it’s an emergency, but then she realizes that it is. She has to deal with it and she has to deal with it before Monday.

  So she tells Grandmama what happened, from the mean things that Skylar said about Grace, to Grace crying all the time, to the now-infamous punch, to the possible lawsuit, to what Daddy said.

  Grandmama listens. Grandmama is a spectacular listener. She doesn’t say anything, but she frowns in the right places and nods when she’s supposed to and just pays attention. Imperia likes that.

  When Imperia finishes, Grandmama doesn’t say anything judgmental at all. Instead, she says, “What do you think I can do? I don’t know any of these people or how the Greater World works.”

  “I was wondering if you can help Skylar’s nose heal right. Or if you can help me find someone who will.” Imperia holds out her hand and shows off the bruises. “This is what Greater World medicine looks like.”

  “No wonder they think she’ll be disfigured,” Grandmama says, and in her voice, Imperia hears shock. Then Grandmama frowns. “Do you want to bring this Skylar here?”

  “No!” The very idea startles Imperia. “I just thought maybe you know some spell or can give me some potion or something that will help her face heal.”

  “You want to recite a spell?” Grandmama says.

  Imperia can tell just from her expression that reciting a spell is a no-go. “Or maybe you know somebody who can come with me and do the proper healing or something.”

  “Bring someone magical to the Greater World to help a mortal?” Grandmama says. “You know that violates all kinds of rules.”

  Imperia bites her lip. “Or a potion….?”

  “Imperia,” Grandmama says, “I thought you understood how dangerous magic is in the wrong hands.”

  “It’d be in my hands,” Imperia says.

  “And you would give it to someone nonmagical, who might share it with her little friends who might share it with their friends, and suddenly something that should have stayed in the Kingdom is all over the Greater World.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Imperia,” Grandmama says. “And no magic.”

  Imperia lets out a small sound. Grandmama broke rules all the time. Imperia was hoping Grandmama would break this rule for her.

  “So what am I supposed to do?” Imperia asks.

  Grandmama leans back in her chair and studies Imperia. Imperia hates it when Grandmama looks at her like that. It’s always uncomfortable. It’s like Grandmama can see to the tips of her very soul.

  “Have you wondered why you punched Skylar?”

  “She deserved it,” Imperia says.

  Grandmama nods, not like she agrees, but in a kind of dismissive way, like that’s not the right answer. “You could have slapped her. You could have pushed her. Instead, you hit her so hard that you broke her nose. Have you wondered why?”

  Imperia frowns. She hadn’t thought of pushing Skylar until now. Come to think of it, the punch is not like her. No wonder Daddy looked shocked when he found out.

  “She was being mean to Grace,” Imperia says.

  “By saying mean things,” Grandmama says like that’s not a big deal.

  “And making Grace cry,” Imperia says.

  “But she’s not the only person who has been mean to Grace lately, is she?” Grandmama says.

  “Someone else has?” Imperia asks, feeling a surge of anger. “And nobody told me?”

  “You know very well who has been mean to Grace,” Grandmama says.

  Imperia studies her, wishing she has the same ability to look inside Grandmama’s soul. “No, I don’t know.”

  “Oh, but you do, honey,” Grandmama says. “Someone has been very mean to Grace, someone you can’t hit.”

  Imperia crosses her arms. She’s about to disagree when she hears Daddy’s voice. Kids tend to learn that kind of stuff at home.

  “Mommy,” Imperia breathes. And then she mentally kicks herself. She vowed never to call that woman Mommy again.

  Grandmama nods once, and this time, the nod is agreement. “Yes,” Grandmama says. “Your mother has been very mean to Grace, and to you. Leaving you like that.”

  “I can handle it,” Imperia says. “But it made Grace cry.”

  “And your friend Skylar made Grace cry,” Grandmama says.

  “She’s not my friend,” Imperia says.

  “No, she’s not,” Grandmama says. “She sounds quite mean. But she didn’t deserve a broken nose, did she?”

  Imperia’s cheeks heat. “I said that. I told you that. And I can’t take it back.”

  And she can’t just magically transfer that broken nose to Mom either. She wishes she could. Then Mom would be permanently disfigured and she wouldn’t look like Imperia any more.

  “That’s right,” Grandmama says. “You can’t take it back. And you can’t use magic to change it, not in the Greater World.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?” Imperia says.

  Grandmama looks at her. “Have you ever thought about what you and your little friend Skylar have in common?”

  “She’s not my friend,” Imperia says again.

  Grandmama smiles just a little. “Imagine what your mother would say if one day you showed up with a broken nose.”

  “My mom wouldn’t care,” Imperia says.

  Grandmama winces. “Maybe not now, but what would she have said when you lived in the palace?”

  “She would have been mad,” Imperia says. “She wouldn’t have let me out in public for weeks.”

  “Because…?”

  “Because it would make her look bad,” Imperia says.

  “You told me that all along the problem is how Skylar would
look. Not that her face hurts. Not that she has lost some status with her friends. How she looks. Even the family attorney is involved. Who called that attorney, do you think?”

  Imperia closes her eyes. “I’m not like Skylar,” she says.

  “Maybe not,” Grandmama says, and Imperia doesn’t like that maybe. “But you understand her, don’t you?”

  Imperia opens her eyes. Grandmama is giving her that look.

  “I don’t want to understand her,” Imperia says.

  “You might not want to,” Grandmama says, “but you do.”

  “What do I do with that?” Imperia asks.

  Grandmama smiles. “Have a little compassion,” she says.

  NINE

  Grandmama won’t tell her anything else. They have a nice breakfast and then she sends Imperia back to the Greater World.

  Imperia spends the whole weekend thinking about what Grandmama said and still can’t come up with anything to do. She managed to get back home without Daddy knowing she went to the Kingdom, and she doesn’t think she can manage another trip to maybe get a healer on her own.

  Even if she does bring a healer back, she doesn’t know how she could smuggle the healer to school. Nor does she think buying a potion is an option, not after what Grandmama says about the way loose magic could travel.

  So Imperia doesn’t have a plan at all when she goes to school on Monday. She even thought of staying out of school, making up some excuse or something. But, she figured, the more she lied to Daddy, the worse off she was going to be. Especially if he figured out that she had gone to the Kingdom during the weekend.

  She kinda hopes she can go through the day without seeing Skylar, but of course, that doesn’t happen. The first person she sees after Grace heads off with her little friends is Skylar, walking with her posse.

  Skylar wears her uniform like a fashion statement. It’s crisply ironed, and looks brand new. She’s coated her shoes with some kind of glitter polish that makes them look like they’re not the regulation shoe. Her purse is expensive, her phone is top of the line, and she has the latest tablet, one that hasn’t even been officially released yet.