by Lili Valente
I glance down at my plate, pushing a broccoli stalk out of the way to get to a mushroom. “Of course, I can allow that. I have allowed that. I don’t want the curse to be true, but too many things have happened. Like I said last night, her predictions have come true too many times to ignore.”
“Like what?” he presses, stabbing a piece of chicken with a determined poke of his fork that makes it clear he doesn’t intend to let this go.
Fine, if he wants to hear spooky stuff, I can oblige.
“She said that Sabrina would grow out of our allergy to strawberries and bananas, but I wouldn’t,” I say, earning another eye roll from Jeffrey. “What’s eye-roll worthy about that?” I demand. “How did she even know we were both allergic to those things in the first place?”
“She talked to someone at your doctor’s office or heard your nanny gossiping on the playground. Those are just two options off the top of my head.”
I pop another mushroom between my lips. “Fine. But that doesn’t explain how she knew I’d remain allergic and Sabrina wouldn’t. We’re twins. Identical twins. Being the same is kind of a thing with us.”
“But it isn’t,” he says in a softer voice. “The moment Sabrina sat down to dinner her first night at the castle, I suspected the truth. Yes, you resemble each other, but you’re not the same. She’s…”
“She’s what?” I press. “Say it. I’m well aware that Sabrina’s prettier and stronger and a little taller and able to talk to anyone without stuttering like a scratched record.”
“You don’t stutter with me,” he says, his eyes blazing into mine all over again. “Why not?”
“I just…don’t.” My heart thumps harder in my chest. “I told you, I feel safe with you.”
“But why? We barely knew each other before this past week.”
I take a measured breath but decide there’s no harm in telling him the truth. “That night after your parents’ party. You caught me in the library and were so lovely to the awkward kid your brother was engaged to marry. You…made an impression.”
“You weren’t awkward, you were interesting,” he murmurs. “You made an impression, too. That’s partly how I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That Sabrina wasn’t Andrew’s fiancée. And that I had to come looking for you.”
I arch a brow. “To prove you were right?”
“To ask how you liked Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”
A surprised grin explodes across my face, making me grateful I don’t currently have food in my mouth. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything about that night.”
I bite my lip. I remember everything about it, too, but I can’t tell him that. Or that I spent months after our interlude in the library imagining I was the lady of the house and he was the stable hand who loved rolling in the hay with me. He’d be horrified. I was still a child, or far too close to it for comfort.
But you’re not a child now…
I ignore the inner voice.
No, I’m not a child, but I’m coming to suspect that I’m trouble. At least for Jeffrey.
A man doesn’t try to save a woman he doesn’t care for, at least a little. And even a little caring is too much for him to remain a candidate for the Bone Him Before I Die Club.
I refuse to leave any more hurt behind when I go than I have to.
So, instead of revealing anything else, I stuff a bite of cauliflower in my mouth and change the subject. “There are other things, too. Things the woman said would happen. She said Sabrina would bring people from all around the world to our land and that Zan would be the first to leave home, even though she was the last one born. Both turned out to be true.”
“Again, lucky guesses, and not much of a stretch if she knew the three of you at all. Zan has always been headstrong. Even when she was a tiny thing. Remember that summer we spent together when we were kids, when she almost drowned Nick?”
My eyes go wide. “I was just thinking about that earlier. It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I thought she’d drowned, too.”
“But she was just holding him under.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe he went back in the water with her the next day. But he’s always been an idiot when it comes to the ladies.”
I harumph. “I think Zan is too blunt and competitive to be considered a lady.” I scoop up a bite of heavily sauced rice and slide it between my lips. “And I talk with my mouth full, so…”
“I’ve never seen you talk with your mouth full before tonight.”
“Are you repulsed?” I shove more veggies into the rice mix in my mouth. “Is it totally grossing you out?”
His mouth curves. “No. It’s cute, actually, the way you hide behind your hand every time.”
“I do not hide…” I trail off as I realize my fist is, in fact, hovering in front of my mouth. I force my hand into my lap and start to speak again, but the words refuse to come out until I’ve chewed and swallowed.
Apparently, my table manners run deep, even when I’m doing my best to defy my conditioning.
“Anything else?” Jeffrey asks, setting his fork beside his empty plate.
I blink. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Finish your food so quickly? You weren’t talking with your mouth full.”
He smiles. “Two brothers and a nanny who enjoyed watching us fight over who was going to get seconds at lunch.”
“What a sadist.” I shake my head. “Everyone should get seconds. I’m certainly going to, as soon as I force myself to eat the broccoli.”
“You don’t have to eat the broccoli.”
“Broccoli is good for you.” I sigh, stabbing a green floret.
“But if you’re going to die young, why worry about health?”
I pause, considering his words. “Excellent point. You’re right. I shouldn’t worry. Do you want my broccoli? Or should I throw it away?”
“I want every last bite of your broccoli,” he says in a husky voice that makes my belly burn for reasons having nothing to do with the heat level of the curry.
“You can’t make broccoli sexy,” I whisper. “Broccoli doesn’t work that way.”
“Broccoli works the way I want it to work. My expectations of the broccoli are nearly as important as the objective qualities of the vegetable.”
My brows pinch together. “Pardon me?”
“I’ve been thinking… There’s a flaw in my theory about the nature of reality.”
I rake my broccoli onto his plate. “Oh yeah? Do tell.”
“The placebo effect. Believing that we’re taking medicine is arguably as important as the medicine itself. Double blind trials have proven we possess almost mystical powers of self-healing, so long as we unquestioningly believe that a sugar pill is the real thing.” He wolfs down a broccoli stalk, chewing and swallowing quickly before he adds, “I wouldn’t be surprised if curses work the same way.”
I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms. “So, you think my subconscious mind is making the things the woman who kidnapped me predicted come true?”
“Or your conscious mind, in the case of Andrew and Sabrina.”
I narrow my eyes. “How did you know that she told me that?”
“I can see the future, too.”
I intensify my glare.
“An educated guess,” he amends. “And some things you’ve said before. Which begs the question—what happens if the prediction doesn’t come true? What if my actions on behalf of my brother shift the course of what you perceive to be inalterable destiny?”
I press my lips together. “Then I’m going to be angry again. Of all the things the woman told me, that’s the one I most wanted to come true.”
“Because you loathe my brother?”
“No,” I huff.
“You don’t have to lie to me. In fact, I’d much prefer you didn’t.”
“I’m not lying,” I say, meeting his probing gaze. “Seriously. Th
e kidnapping happened well before I was old enough to understand what the engagement meant. So, I always knew I was never going to marry Andrew, and I hardly ever saw him. I honestly didn’t have strong feelings about him one way or another.” I shrug and admit, “I mean, yes, sometimes he made me nervous when we talked on the phone, especially near the end when he seemed so impatient all the time, but it was nothing that would make me actively dislike him. He seems like a good guy, especially for someone like Sabrina, who is also impatient, but in a nicer way.”
His lips quirk. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I won’t have to,” I say with more faith than I feel just now. “Because Sabrina and Andrew are going to end up together. It’s written in the stars or…wherever people who can tell the future read things like that.”
He pushes his chair back and stands. “Fine. Let’s go see about that, shall we?”
“No,” I shout, lunging after him as he strides toward the stairs. “Don’t call Andrew! You’re only going to make him angrier and ruin everything all over again.”
“If it’s already ruined, I can’t very well ruin it any more.”
“Yes, you can,” I huff, hot on his heels as he steps off the last stair and starts for the phone, still sitting on the table by the bookshelves. “I know how men are, especially royal men. The only thing worse than knowing they’ve made a mistake is knowing that other people know they’ve made a mistake.”
Jeffrey spins to face me. “So, now you’re saying it was a mistake for him to fall in love with your sister?”
I stop dead, my heart lurching into my throat. “You really think so? You think he’s in love with her? Because I think she’s in love with him. I really do. We’ve only texted about it, but—” I break off with a curse. “That reminds me, I need to charge my phone tonight. It’s dead, so I couldn’t check for messages while I was in town. I’m betting Sabrina has tried to call me, or at least text.”
“I bet she has.” He nods over his shoulder. “Why don’t you call her and find out what she has to say?”
My fingers curl into fists at my sides. My first instinct is to tell him no, but I can’t stop thinking about his question.
What will I do if this prophecy falls apart? If Jeffrey proves that fate isn’t as inalterable as I’ve come to believe?
Well, then…that would change everything, wouldn’t it?
My past, present, and future.
My life and death and all the moments in between. It would be a personal earthquake of such magnitude I’m not sure any part of me would still be the same afterward.
“Go ahead,” Jeffrey says softly. “I’ll be right here. It’s going to be okay.”
But will it?
I suppose there’s only one way to find out.
11
Jeffrey
Elizabeth picks up the phone with a shaking hand, and I hold my breath, though I’m not sure which way I want this to go.
Yes, I want Lizzy to be free of the delusion that’s had such a terrible impact on her life thus far. But I also sort of hope Andrew and Sabrina have found a way to work things out.
I don’t relish the fact that Sabrina lied to my brother, but I like the way she challenges him, matches him, complements him. She would be a good wife and an honorable queen, which is more than I can say for any of the other women Andrew’s dated. Until Sabrina, he definitely had a type, one that had more to do with the size of a woman’s breasts than the size of her heart.
But I haven’t seen him so much as look sideways at another woman since he flew out to fetch Elizabeth from Rinderland and returned with the wrong twin.
So, I’m not really surprised when only moments after getting her sister on the phone, Lizzy gushes, “Oh, how fabulous, Bree! I’m sorry I tricked you into going in my place, but this is why. I knew you two would be perfect for each other, but that neither of you would believe me until you saw it for yourselves. And now you have, and you’re in love, and I just…” Her breath rushes out. “I’m so happy for you both. This really is just…the best news.”
The best news…
It certainly isn’t for Lizzy, but when she turns to me, the ancient phone pressed to her ear, she’s beaming. “Yes, I’m fine, and Jeffrey’s fine.” She pauses, nodding before she assures her sister, “Yes, I promise. We’re good. And I promise I’ll explain everything as soon as I have the chance, but I can’t really talk right now, darling. Goodbye, I love you!”
Before I can stop her—or ask for my brother to come to the phone—she drops the receiver into the cradle, sending a clanging sound through the room.
“Why did you hang up? I need to speak with Andrew.” I start around her, but she darts to the right and holds out her arms, blocking my path.
“No, if you talk to Andrew, or if I keep talking to Sabrina, then we’re both going to end up going home.”
I pause and take a step back. “As opposed to…”
“As opposed to staying here and hiding from our parents for a few more days while I get tons of work done. I mean, you said your mother would be mad that you didn’t show up to the engagement ceremony, right?”
“I doubt she’ll mind now that she knows the truth.”
“Exactly,” Lizzy says, making me blink, but she pushes on before I can untangle her logic. “So, you need to lay low for a little while, I need to lay low for a little while, and I’ve already paid for the cabin for the full two weeks. Seems like a no brainer that we should stay and…lay low together.”
“Why do you need to lay low?” I ask. “No offense to your family, but I didn’t get the feeling your mother cared which of her daughters married my brother, so long as one of you ended up being his queen.”
“I’m not offended at all. You’re correct, and I fully anticipate that Sabrina and Andrew will end up married, eventually.” She rolls her eyes. “But until they make their engagement official, my mother is going to be…dramatic about this. And probably dramatic in my direction, since I tricked Sabrina into going in my place. I don’t have time for drama—I need to finish my collection and get the comps sent into the head of the design department before the deadline. I’ve already lost too many workdays to sickness. I can’t afford to lose any more to whatever Mother decides to do. The last time she was angry with Zan, she got a tattoo on her backside.”
I balk, certain I must have misheard her. “Excuse me?”
“A tattoo. Of Zan’s baby footprint from her birth certificate. On her left butt cheek. She had the artist come to the castle and do it since she doesn’t like to leave the house unless there’s some sort of national emergency.” She shudders. “I couldn’t eat dinner for weeks. Every time I sat down at the kitchen table, I kept remembering Mother lying on it naked, flopping and wailing while that poor man tried to finish the tattoo, and I’d lose my appetite.”
“Why a tattoo?”
“Because Zan was dead to her for refusing to come home for a full week at Christmas,” Lizzy says, matter-of-factly. “And Mother read somewhere that tattoos were one of the ways indigenous people honored their dead. Sabrina pointed out to her that she’s not an indigenous person, but Mother insisted everyone is indigenous to somewhere. She recorded the entire nightmare so she could send a copy of the video to everyone in Zan’s office in Zurich.”
My eyes bulge. “All because she wasn’t coming home for the holidays?”
“Because she was coming home for three days instead of a full week.” She nods in confirmation as my eyes grow even wider. “See? Can you even imagine what she’ll do to punish me for ruining her entire reason for being? She’s been daydreaming about this wedding for two decades. She already has a dress to wear and she hasn’t been out of her pajamas since I was eighteen.”
Beginning to think mental illness runs in the family, I say as diplomatically as possible, “Has she considered getting help? Professional help?”
“She’s not mad, she’s an eccentric narcissist, and there’s not much a psychiatrist can do wi
th those. Not unless they want to stop being a narcissist, which most don’t, and my mother is no exception.” She threads her slim fingers together and clasps her hands to her chest, resting them at the bottom of the V of her silky blue pajama top. “So, you see…I need to stay for a little longer. You don’t have to stay with me, of course. But if you decide to go, would you keep my location just between us? At least until Monday afternoon? Pretty please?”
“I have a better idea,” I say, a plan forming even as I’m suggesting it. “Why don’t we take a little trip?”
“A trip?” she echoes.
“A road trip—to see what we can find out about the woman who took you.”
Her mouth tightens. “No, way. No.”
“Now, hear me out,” I begin.
“No.” She shakes her head so vehemently that her hair flies around her shoulders. “I won’t. I can’t. I’m too busy, and—”
“Too busy to save your own life? What if you’re trapped in a placebo scenario, Elizabeth? What if you’re making these things happen somehow? What if finding this woman and realizing she was a sick person who played a cruel trick on a little girl—”
“She believed it,” Lizzy insists, but her stubborn little chin dips closer to her chest. “She believed every word, I could tell. She wasn’t trying to hurt me. She was trying to warn me, prepare me for the inevitable, she said.”
I frown. “Tell me everything she said. Everything you remember.”
She takes a deep breath and pushes her empty plate away, apparently no longer in the mood for seconds. “She took me to this shed in a part of the forest I’d never been to before.”
“A shed? Were there tools inside it?”
“No, it was…” Her eyes narrow. “There were animal skins hanging from the ceiling and…a fireplace. I remember that felt strange. To be in this small space, but there was still somewhere to make a fire.”
“So, it could have been her home.”
“It had a dirt floor, but…maybe.” She frowns. “I never thought of that before. There was a chair and a small table. No bed, but…”