“The princess is a good choice,” the prince conceded, in a musing tone. “You’re certainly not the only one who thinks so. Unfortunately, she comes with a lot of strings attached, not the least of which is her brother the king.” Prince Wilhelm grasped the brim of her hat and lifted it until he could see her face. He met her eyes with a wolfish grin. “Besides, that’s not who I was thinking of.”
Cynthia knew that this had been a possibility since the moment he’d asked her to dance last night and she had accepted. She may not have wanted to admit it to herself, but in the back of her mind, she knew he had to choose a wife and he had paid more attention to her than anyone else. It had just seemed so far fetched in her head.
And as the prince closed his eyes and leaned in, she still wasn’t sure how she felt about it. He could be charming and no one could deny he was handsome—but Cynthia had seen a current of harshness that had begun to surface under his glossy exterior.
She froze, his arm slid from her shoulders to her waist and his lips met hers for the briefest of moments—and then the lights went out. The colored bulbs strung along the Ferris wheel flick er ed and went dark, followed by every other electric light at the fair grounds. The ride ground to a halt and their seat continued to rock back and forth, stranded in midair.
The prince jerked back and looked over the side of their chair and swore.
The castle was dark , and the only source of light was the moon, still large and bright in the sky.
A commotion in the chair above them made Cynthia look up. She could just make out two shadowy forms tussling above her—children from the sound of it. A small boy’s screams and a girl’s frantic shushing. Their chair jerked back and forth and a small leg dangled over the side.
“Sit down, Rory, please!” the girl begged. But the boy must have been out of his mind with fright and was attempting to climb over the side.
“Your highness,” Cynthia said and pointed up. The prince squinted at the pair above them and back at Cynthia. He leaned over the side and shouted to the ride operators. “Get us down at once!”
“We’re working on it, mate!” a voice called back from the darkness below.
The ride did not move and the boy’s cries increased. The girl’s pleas grew desperate.
“Rory, you’ll fall!”
“Wilhelm,” Cynthia said again, her own voice anxious. Above them both of the boy’s legs dangled out of the chair.
“What do you expect me to do?” the prince asked, an angry frostiness to his words.
That small moment and it was as if the thin film of allure had been stripped completely away and the real prince was exposed.
“Nothing,” she said.
Cynthia kicked off her heels and plunked them down in the stunned prince’s lap along with her handbag. She sucked in as far as she could and wiggled out from under the restraining bar before Wilhelm had completely stammered out, “What are you doing?”
Taking a deep breath and keeping her eyes on where she was going and not the ground, Cynthia began to inch her way along the spoke to the axis of the wheel. The metal arm connecting their chair to the center had stopped at an almost perfect horizontal position. As long as she was careful, there wasn’t a real danger of her falling—unless the wheel started moving again.
Above her the boy’s sobs had turned into howls and the girl had reverted to screaming, “Help!” over and over again at the top of her lungs. The babble of concerned voices from the other passengers on the wheel reached Cynthia, but she ignored them and pushed on.
Several feet from the axis of the wheel, she stood slowly and climbed on the spoke above. Turning to face back out toward the chairs, she began the slow process again. This spoke had stopped a little higher than hers, and the going was all up hill. From her new position, she could also see the dim shapes of the children in the weak moonlight. The boy was dangling from the safety bar by his fingertips, with the girl leaning far out of the chair grasping his wrists. He wiggled in her grip, desperate now to get back on the ride.
“Hang on. Hang on!” Cynthia chanted as she moved as fast as she dared along the spoke to their chair. The girl caught sight of her. She had stopped screaming and Cynthia saw the fear and desperation beneath the tears that streaked her face. Cynthia clambered over the side of the chair and grabbed the back of the boy’s shirt. The lights on the Ferris wheel flickered and the chair jerked. The boy’s fingers slipped and the girl lost her grip.
Cynthia almost pitched over the side as all the boy’s weight was suddenly transferred to her hands. Her hat tumbled off her head and disappeared in the dark. The little girl wrapped her arms around Cynthia’s waist, anchoring her, while the boy twisted by this shirt in her hands and screamed. The wheel was moving now, picking up speed as it whirled down to the loading platform. The boy was going to smash into it face first dangling out of the chair like he was. Cynthia began to swing him back and forth, her ribs digging painfully into the safety bar, her shoulders on fire. The ground came into view. Cynthia swung him out from her body with one last mighty heave and let go.
The boy sailed free of the spinning wheel, landing in the grass and rolling several yards. She watched him pick up his head and stagger to his feet before the ride slammed to a stop, almost tumbling her out after him. They were at the platform. The girl pushed past her out of the chair, running to the boy. The ride attendant held out a hand. It was a good thing he did. She was shaking so badly she couldn’t lift her foot the two inches necessary to climb out of the chair on her own.
“Almighty, Miss. Are you okay?” she jerked her head at him once in what she hoped he interpreted as ‘yes,’ and clutching the hand rail, stumbled down the steps onto blessed solid ground. The ride operator turned the wheel to the next chair to help the shaken passengers out. Cynthia searched the ride and found Wilhelm not far from the platform, still trapped in his chair. They had passed up the prince to get the children off and now he was stuck on the ride for the unloading process.
He stared at her bewildered, her heels still dangling from one hand, her purse from the other. He raised his eyebrows and held them out in a silent question. Cynthia shrugged and smiled, turning her back on him and walking into the crowd. She was finding Remi and getting out of here. She didn’t plan on ever being back at the castle or seeing the prince again.
The kids had vanished. Cynthia wove through the crowd that had formed around the Ferris wheel, barefoot again. The carnival seemed to be in an uproar. Some of the lights were on while the rest flickered sporadically. The merry-go-round was abandoned, and several of the barkers had deserted their posts along the midway, leaving the prizes unattended. People were hurrying away with stuffed animals under their arms and figurines stuffed in their pockets. Cynthia shook her head at their brazenness and hurried back to the fountain where she’d left Remi.
Chapter
1 7
“Unless you want the prince to catch you? ”
THIS SECTION OF THE GARDEN was almost deserted. The fire-eater was gone and a few stragglers headed to the craziness of the midway. Cynthia hurried over to the fountain where it continued to spit water back into the large basin at the bottom and peered in. No Remi. She circled the structure once, calling for him softly.
She almost tripped on Princess Marcella who was huddled on the ground at the far side of the fountain, nearly hidden by the high edge of the basin.
“My Lady!” she gasped, catching her balance. The princess turned her head away. The glimpse Cynthia caught of her face, it was damp and blotchy with swollen eyes. “My Lady?” Cynthia said again, reaching out a tentative hand. Marcella sighed and turned, rising from the ground and wiping her eyes one more time.
“I suppose you’re searching for that frog,” she said, venom and resignation heavy in her voice.
“I ummm…” Cynthia’s mind skipped around confused and indecisive. Had Remi approached the princess again?
A small green frog flopped over the edge of the basin of the fountain
and spit something out of his mouth that clattered and rolled on the ground.
“Remi!” Cynthia said, scooping him up, getting the front of her dress damp. He was breathing fast like he’d swum hard for a while.
The princess swooped down and retrieved the small object Remi had spit out, making a face at the slime it was covered with. She rinsed it in the fountain and slid a small, plain gold ring on to her finger with a look of relief.
“Come on,” Cynthia said to Remi. “The prince isn’t far behind me.”
Remi shook his head and took a deep breath. “I’m going with the princess.”
The princess’s face turned to stone and clutched the hand with the ring to her chest.
“No,” Cynthia shook her head. “I’m going to take you back to your parents. I’m going to leave my stepfamily…”
Remi’s long face was so sad and drawn the Cynthia stopped.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. This might be my only chance to break the spell.”
Cynthia took another look at Marcella’s stony face and whispered to Remi. “She doesn’t seem to want you to come.”
“I’ve retrieved something of value to her from the fountain. Her grandmother’s ring that would have been otherwise been lost forever . , ” Remi’s voice was raised. He was making sure Marcella heard every word. “In exchange, she’s agreed to let me sleep on her pillow and eat from her plate.”
“That’s what you asked for?” Cynthia asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Give me a chance,” Remi said in an undertone with a wink at her. “I’ll grow on her. Don’t forget how charming I can be.”
“I won’t do it,” Marcella said from across the fountain. Folding her arms with frosty denial.
“You will,” Remi said. “Or you can no longer call yourself a princess. Royalty are not allowed to go back on their word. We can always get your brother involved if we need to.”
Remi’s voice was fierce and uncompromising. Cynthia wondered where her ridiculous, loveable friend had gone. He sounded, well, he sounded like a prince.
“Cynthia!” Prince Wilhelm’s voice traveled through the fair grounds and was swallowed by the running water in the fountain.
“Drat!” Cynthia said.
“Go, on,” Remi said. Tilting his head toward the gate. “Unless you want the prince to catch you?” he said, a slight upward tilt of his lips.
“I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m playing hard to get,” Cynthia grumbled.
“You’ll probably find Todd waiting for you at his car,” Remi said.
Cynthia handed him to Marcella. The look on her face said she’d prefer Cynthia hand her dog poo. Tears sprang, unexpected in Cynthia’s eyes.
“Cynthia!” the prince called again.
She placed a quick kiss on top of Remi’s head and ran for the gates.
Todd was waiting, with an angry Christina in tow. He raised his eyebrows at her lack of shoes—again, lost hat and purse, but didn’t say anything. The ride back to the manor was long and uncomfortable. Todd pulled in front of her house and walked her to the door while Christina pouted in the back seat.
“What’s wrong with her?” Cynthia asked, tilt ing her head at his angry sister.
“She seems to think she’s in love with the king of Redstone Rock,” Todd said with an exasperated shake of his head. “I had to drag her away, practically throwing a tantrum like a toddler.” Todd shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the moon. “That’s what happens when princes start declaring they’ll marry anybody, no matter their status. People start getting ideas.”
“Portia and Coriander only wish,” Cynthia said with a tired smile.
“You all right?” Todd asked. Lifting a limp curl off her shoulder. “You always seem to come home from these things… in pieces.”
“But I’m in better shape than I was that first night,” Cynthia pointed out. “Thanks again for the ride.”
“Now I’ll have to come up with other excuses to come and see you, despite your stepmother.” Cynthia gave him a smile that she hoped didn’t look as sad as it felt. She wasn’t going to be around here much longer, although Remi had put a hiccup in her plans. She hugged Todd tight and disappeared in the front door. Wandering to the kitchen with her stomach complaining, she pushed open the door and let out a little gasp.
It took a while for her brain to register who was perched primly on the bar stool drumming her fingers on the counter, chin cupped in her hand. But once her feet caught on she hurled across the kitchen and tackled the dark haired girl in a smothering hug.
Rapunzel shrieked a s she tumbled off the stool and both girls ended up on the floor.
“How — what —when…” Cynthia tried to ask around the giggles and moans of pain as they straightened the stool and found another one for Cynthia.
“Ann is going to come knock our heads together,” Cynthia sniggered.
“She went to bed a while ago, but made sure I had eaten too much roast duck to move before leaving me here to wait for you,” Rapunzel said in her light, lilting voice that Cynthia had almost forgotten the sound of. She was older, having left girlhood far behind. But Cynthia could still see her friend under the smooth planes of cinnamon colored skin and her dark eyes.
“She left these for us.” Rapunzel slid a plate of cookies between them and a glass of milk.
“She always liked you better than me,” Cynthia said biting into a gingerbread man.
“That’s because I didn’t spend my earliest years snitching baklava out of her kitchen,” Rapunzel answered in her prim way with a sly smile. Cynthia smiled back. Rapunzel had stolen just as many sweets, she just didn’t get caught as often.
Cynthia had never seriously considered what distance and time could do to their friendship. Seeing Rapunzel again had seemed so far-fetched. As doubtful as the prince wanting to marry her, she realized wryly. It was comforting that despite the years, they fell comfortably into their old patterns without a hitch.
“How are you here?” Cynthia asked, drinking in her friend like a man dying of thirst.
“You remember my ‘handsome prince’?” Rapunzel asked , all the happiness and laughter sucked out of her voice.
Cynthia nodded.
“Fortunately he’s as clever as he is kind. I may despise him , but he was my ticket out of that tower. Nowhere did it say I had to stay with him after I left . One excuse to ‘relieve myself’ and I was gone.”
Not quite sure what to say, Cynthia appropriat ed Rapunzel’s glass of milk and dunk ed a cookie in it.
Her friend stared out of the kitchen window at the dark night. Her shoulder length black hair created a barrier between them. It looked like she had cut it herself.
“What about you?” Rapunzel turned away from the window and dismissed a six-year imprisonment and near-forced marriage to a brute. “Ann said you were at some kind of feast at the castle?” She furrowed her brow in a delicate way, bunching her heavy eyebrows. “From what you’ve written me of this stepfamily of yours, that doesn’t sound like them.”
Cynthia studied her face and saw a lot of pain buried under her concerned features. She let it go for now, but there was still a lot to discuss.
So Cynthia filled her in on the last few weeks of her life. About finding Remi, the disastrous feasts, ending with Todd dropping her off at the door.
“You seem to really miss him,” Rapunzel said.
“Who?” Cynthia asked, confused for a second.
“Your enchanted prince.”
Cynthia realized as she said it how true it was. It was wonderful to see Rapunzel, but she didn’t fill the hole that Remi’s abrupt departure had left.
Rapunzel only knew as much as Cynthia would put in her letters about her living situation. So when she put the empty cookie plate in the sink and finally led her down to her basement room, Rapunzel took in the small dark space in silence while Cynthia built a fire. They sat side by side in front of the blaze before Rapunzel spoke.
“You didn�
�t say it was this bad.”
Cynthia rested her chin on her knees and lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me,” Rapunzel said, anger in her voice. She paused and seemed to be collecting herself. Deciding how to broach a topic. “Cindy, have you been having dreams?”
Rapunzel’s last letter resurfaced in her mind.
“Why?” Cynthia asked carefully.
“ I have. V ivid things that would leave me confused and shaking when I wake . Always about the same people.”
“Esha,” Cynthia whispered. Remembering the name in one of Rapunzel’s last letter s .
Rapunzel nodded. “Perhaps the best way to explain is with a story.”
Cynthia had loved Rapunzel’s stories when they were kids. She had a knack for spinning characters into impossible situations and making everything turn out happily ever after. Cynthia had a suspicion this wasn’t going to be one of those stories.
“This story is about two sisters. Esha and Dalaja . T hey grew up in a place known as India. These sisters were very close, only born a year apart. They were like twins, always together.
“In India, marriages were often arranged, even when girls were very young. So it was for Esha and Dalaja. A match was made through the village elders for t wo brothers. The elder son would marry Esha, the younger, Dalaja. The sisters were pleased with the match. The brothers were young and kind and the sisters could continue to see much of each other as wives of brothers.”
Rapunzel continued to stare at the fire unblinking, as if in a trance. Her story had taken on a life of its own and demanded to be told to its conclusion.
“A week before Esha’s wedding, tragedy struck. The older brother was caught in the open desert in a sandstorm. He was found and brought back to his tent, but the sand had scoured his body inside and out. He did not last the night. Esha wept bitterly for her marriage that would never be. Dalaja did her best to comfort her sister. Their father was sad for his daughter’s loss, but the fact remained that there was to be a wedding in six days.
A Grimm Curse: A Grimm Tales Novella (Volume 3) Page 12