Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8

by Samantha M. Derr

  Some two hours later, she had gone through nearly the entire pile, having completely failed at finding anything even remotely interesting. There was a wide range of subjects, each more tedious than the last—politics, etiquette, history, economics, science, mathematics... Meg had been hoping for a good saucy adventure story, or at least some fairytales. Even one of those soppy romances that the other maids giggled over would have been all right.

  The thought of the other maids gave a little pang in her chest, but she refused to let herself start wallowing. They'd send word any day now. The boy was just being too careful, or Abbie was watching them too closely, or… something. She was sure of it.

  "Perhaps," she said to Betty, rather sourly, "you're secretly boring after all." It was a shame. She'd really been hoping for a nice treat, after this terrible past week. Oh well, she supposed even a boring book would keep her occupied. What was the least awful-sounding of her choices?

  No luck there. They were all equally boring. Meg closed her eyes, stuck out her hand, and picked up the first book she touched.

  "Genealogy," she read, looking it over doubtfully. "Sounds like a disease. I hope it isn't catching."

  As it turned out, Genealogy was fancy-speak for lots and lots of dead people. There were names and titles, years of birth and death, and occasionally a small paragraph about their life. Some of them had small sketches above their names, what looked like poor copies of stiff-necked formal portraits. The whole thing was unbelievably morbid.

  "My goodness, these weren't your relatives, were they?" she murmured, raising her eyebrows at one man in particular, whose mustache must surely have been exaggerated by the artist. "'Duke Ormonde, third cousin once removed from King Edelbert, served as a general during the War of the Ferns. Looks remarkably like a walrus.'"

  She stopped, went back, and re-read it. No, she hadn't imagined it. That last sentence was indeed written there, a bit scrunched in at the end, and in different handwriting. Meg flipped back to the beginning of the book—Betty had written her name in all of her books, and the slightly scratchy penmanship was the same.

  Meg sat and stared at the little comment. She wasn't certain what a walrus was, but it was such a ridiculous-sounding word that she was sure Betty had been joking. Reading further, her suspicion was confirmed—several pages in, there was another scrawled comment under the name of a Count: "Fond of horses, to the exclusion of all else, including regular baths."

  She laughed, as much in surprise as from the comment itself. It was a strange feeling, seeing this proof that Betty had indeed had a sense of humor. It was one thing to imagine how she'd been; it was another entirely to see evidence of it, to know that it was true.

  "Why, you're funny," she said with delight. "Even if you do have terrible taste in books. Did you deface all your reading material, you naughty girl?"

  With a little more eagerness this time, she grabbed another book off the stack and began to pore through it. The text itself still bored her, but she kept an eye out for Betty's handwriting, often scribbled in at the bottom of a paragraph or in the margins. If she hadn't done such a quick skim of the pages the first time, she would have noticed it straight away.

  This book, one of the etiquette ones, was practically covered in exasperated little notes. "One fork," Betty had written, "seems as though it ought to be as good as any other, but heaven above forbid that one use the same utensil for the meat as one does the salad. Perhaps an abundance of silverware is thought of as a sign of noble status? The more complex and mysterious the system, the more highly-regarded the individual, until one requires several hundred different spoons to take one's tea. Certainly, I find that royalty seems to be possessed of more forks than anyone else."

  Another chapter had the remark: "The author has gone on at length about the social implications of this curtsey, and the exact titles of nobility who are privileged to receive it, but has neglected to add the much more pressing information of how to perform it without cracking one's ankles most viciously." In another chapter, under a lengthy paragraph explaining that tight, pinch-toed shoes with high heels were the only correct footwear for dancing, she had simply written, in a shakier hand than usual, "Why?!"

  "You poor thing," Meg laughed, peeking down at her own boots. They were old, and worn, and crusted with so much mud and dirt that it had never scrubbed completely out of the leather, but they were comfortable and easy to run in. "To think we maids have something you don't! Maybe I shall leave you my boots when I finally get out of here, so if you ever wake up, you may descend the tower steps without hurting your delicate little feet."

  She finished the etiquette book, and moved on to mathematics. Betty had apparently been very bored by the subject, for she'd written in the margins little half-finished stories, about a creature named X that got lost very easily and could never be found, or a pie that made anyone who ate it act irrationally. Meg didn't quite understand what the stories meant, but they made her laugh, as did discovering that Betty had drawn little figures in hats and mustaches on all of the graph illustrations.

  The next book described all kind and number of beasts from everywhere in the world. Meg had just found a drawing of a walrus—and decided that Betty had been right, it did look awfully like the Duke Ormonde—when the knocker on the door sounded, and she looked up to sunlight streaming in through the window. She'd read all through the night and 'til breakfast.

  There was still no real answer from tray-boy. Meg had tried asking his name, but although the promise of biscuits seemed to have warmed him up, he still didn't seem to want to talk to her any more than he had to. She should have been annoyed, but somehow she was… well, not happy, but at least a little less impatient than she might have been, going yet another day on her own.

  It felt less like she was on her own, now that she had Betty's words to keep her company.

  "How about that," she told Betty, over her porridge. "I'm almost looking forward to spending an entire day with nothing to do but read! And I never would have imagined I'd read anything on mathematics or etiquette, let alone spend all night at it. What have you done to me, you silly thing?"

  After that, though, she proceeded more carefully. She wasn't sure how much longer she'd be up here, so she shouldn't go tearing through the books as fast as possible. She read more slowly, trying to savor every word, to make it last as long as she could.

  Sometimes it was easier than others. Political Strategy in Time of War, for instance, was a constant struggle to slog through, and Betty's comments weren't much help. Meg had hoped for more jokes, but instead the little notes in the margins seemed half-hearted, and at times even despondent.

  "All these treaties and agreements and whatnot," read one. "I despair of ever understanding it all. The queen herself arranged a peace contract between our kingdom and a nation with which we've been warring for centuries. The king met with barbarian leaders to put an end to their skirmishes in the south. But the thought of confronting such obstacles makes my heart shrink with fear—I cannot even negotiate my own gowns, when my dressmakers have their own ideas of what is proper attire for a princess. What sort of ruler would I be, when I struggle to say no to even an excess of frills?"

  Meg looked over at Betty, frowning. "Well, I imagine a barbarian would agree with you about the frills," she said, but the joke fell flat. Poor Betty. Even Meg herself, who never backed down from a fight—even, she thought grimly, when it ended up with her locked away in a tower—would have balked at being in charge of negotiating peace with countries and barbarians and... whatever else rulers had to do. She'd probably lose her temper and start an even worse war on her very first day.

  "Shy little thing, were you?" she continued, flipping through the pages in search of more notes. "Or at least to your dressmakers. You certainly spoke your mind in your books. Not so much of a mouse, eh? I think, and I am very often right, that you might have been a better ruler than you expected."

  She'd meant to sound encouraging, although who she w
as trying to encourage, she wasn't sure. Instead it came out thoughtful, and almost... wistfully. "You might have been," she said again, a little sadly. "You could've had your parents' kingdom and a queen's crown on your dainty little head, not to mention a royal suitor. But now..."

  Meg looked around the tiny room, at the cold drabness of it, even if it were all still annoyingly clean. As if Betty were no more than some trinket, an heirloom too valuable to throw away but too inconvenient to pay any mind to. They might as well have locked her away in a cupboard rather than a tower!

  She closed the book, sitting back with a huff. "Well, no use thinking of might-have-beens and could-have-hads. You're a sensible lass, or at least you write like one, and you're cleverer than you give yourself credit for. I think you would have been a decent queen, if a very frilly one." She paused, worrying at her lower lip in thought. "But, you know... I think you might not have been a very happy one."

  Meg didn't know very much about what kings and queens and noble folk did, but she'd had this little glimpse into what Betty's life had been like, and... well, it hadn't sounded like she'd been enjoying it much. Oh, she didn't have to sweep the corners and scrub the floors and scrape the day-old stew out of the pots, but Meg almost thought she might have preferred that. Being a fine lady sounded like enough of a chore all on its own. Worse, a boring chore. A "fine lady's entertainment", as described by Betty's books, appeared to consist mainly of sitting around and doing lots of embroidery. Occasionally, if they were lucky, they might be allowed to drink tea. There had been an entire chapter on how a proper lady took her tea.

  Betty had not been much for either tea or needlework, to Meg's amusement. "I do not see the point in tea," her writing had said, "when, traditionally, there is so much pomp and ceremony surrounding the taking of it that I would not be allowed more than a sip or two. A lady must not be seen to drink too much, after all. Taking sustenance is among those basic human actions that are considered undignified and unfeminine, to be done only in secret and with greatest shame. How I have not yet died of thirst, I am entirely unsure.

  "I can say, however, that I do see the point to embroidery—and feel it too, often and viciously. My fingers are so sore and full of holes that any skill I may have had for such work has vanished completely."

  Meg had chuckled at that. "Good thing I'm here to mend any darns you might put in your lovely dress," she'd told her, even daring to reach out and run her finger along the hem of Betty's silky white dress. It was the nicest thing she'd ever felt, so smooth and light that she had thought the fabric might float away from her hands.

  Now she looked at Betty again, noting that the dress did indeed have an inordinate amount of frills, and drummed her fingers on the book in her lap. "I see that you're not the kind of princess who likes tea or sewing, nor the kind who likes ruling over kingdoms. What sort of things do tickle your fancy, then? Aside from writing all over your books, of course."

  Betty lay there, immobile as always, as Meg studied her face. She had a pert little mouth, made for smiling, although it looked like it would pout just as easily. Her expression in sleep was soft and neutral, but—ah! There was the barest hint of a smile, one corner of her mouth tilted slightly higher than the other.

  Meg was sure she was just imagining it. She'd been up here for just over two weeks now, and she was surprised she hadn't started seeing things sooner. Still, she liked the idea of it—it made Betty seem less corpse-like.

  "Hmm." She tapped her chin, looking thoughtfully at Betty. "I think you must have laughed a lot. I can tell these things, you know. It's a gift. I can also see that you might not have liked talking back, to your dressmakers anyway—perhaps I could have learned a thing or two from you—but I believe you were also kind. You don't have the words of an unkind person." Meg giggled to herself. "Listen to me! You'd think I actually knew you."

  And yet... she felt like she did know her, or was starting to. Not the sleeping princess, not the beauty under a legendary spell, but Betty. Betty, who made up funny stories, and was bad at embroidery, and worried about whether or not she could rule a kingdom. Betty, who must have been afraid of what was going to happen to her, knowing that she only had twenty-one years before she would be cursed into sleep; sleep that would turn to death if her true love never came for her.

  Now there was a thought. Meg propped her chin up with a fist. "I wonder how you felt about this silly spell business," she mused. "I know I certainly wouldn't be happy about it. You didn't even do anything to deserve it, poor thing. At least I'm up here because of something I did, even if it wasn't fair."

  Betty said nothing, as always, although Meg imagined that the hint of a smile had smoothed itself away again. Perhaps she shouldn't have reminded the poor girl that they were both stuck up here, with no company but each other's.

  "Clearly I've been up here too long," she muttered. Was her silly head filled with dust? Still, she half-wished that Betty would sit up and answer her, say one of her clever little things to Meg's face and laugh at one of her jokes. It would be nice to hear her laugh.

  It would be nice to know she'd caused it.

  Huh! More likely she'd only scold Meg for her impertinence in speaking so to a noble lady—a princess, no less! It wasn't as though she'd be laying here and listening to a servant prattle on if she had a choice. If she'd been awake, Meg would've been tossed out of the palace on her ear for so much as daring to speak to someone so far above her station.

  But no, Meg thought, with a conviction that surprised herself. Any other stuffy noble lady might be angry, but the girl who wrote in these books would laugh. Betty would laugh.

  There was a strange feeling in Meg's chest, the stirrings of something new and sweet and warm. It stayed there, settled just above her heart, bright as sunshine in the cold damp darkness of the tower room.

  *~*~*

  Even distracted as she was by the books, Meg was still brimming with impatience to hear something—anything—from the other maids. Had the boy actually tried to send them a message, or had he been as reluctant to talk to them as he was to her? She'd almost decided to try sneaking downstairs after all, just for a few minutes… but one evening, she opened the door when the knocker sounded, and there was the boy with the tray—and a piece of paper.

  He didn't say anything as he held it out (what else was new?), but Meg caught sight of familiar loopy handwriting on the paper, and nearly dropped the book she'd been reading before he knocked. She took the tray and the note with trembling hands, and barely remembered to thank him before rushing back into the room.

  It was from the other kitchen girls, although Jenny had written it. Her penmanship was the best out of all them. Meg's eyes flew over the first paragraph, but she made herself stop when they grew suspiciously blurry. It'd only been a few days since she'd been sent up here, but it still felt like forever since she'd seen the other girls.

  "They say hello, and that they miss me," she told Betty, feeling like it was only fair that she got to hear about Meg's life as well. "And that they'd try to sneak up, but Abbie's still angry, and she's been watching the door like a hawk. Good thing I didn't go down after all, I suppose. They'll see about sending up some books or something to keep me busy in the meantime… now that'll be strange, reading a book that doesn't have your scribbling all over it."

  It was a short letter, but it felt more precious than any of the jewel-encrusted dresses from the first trunk. Meg folded it carefully, and put it in the pocket of her dress to reread later.

  "They would like you," she said later, as she thumbed through another one of Betty's books, trying to decide which one she wanted to start on tonight. "Maybe when I get out, I'll smuggle some of your books down for them to see, so I won't be the only one who knows there was a real person under all those frills."

  As she said it, she felt an inexplicable little curl of disappointment at the thought of the other girls reading Betty's notes. She rather liked being not just the one who'd discovered them, but the only p
erson who got to see Betty like this, to see everything she was laid out on the pages before her.

  Meg frowned. "Now I'm just being selfish," she chided herself. "You're not the type of girl who'd like being kept a secret, are you? You wouldn't have wanted to be treated like a…well, like a princess; someone we all ooh and ahh over from a distance and never really think about as a person. Is that a silly thing to say? But it certainly didn't seem to make you very happy."

  Maybe it was silly, but it seemed true to her. Although the notes were usually cheerful, now that she knew to look for it, Meg could see hints of Betty's sadness here and there. "I am reminded," said one, "of when I made the acquaintance of a little dog, outside a hallway where I had taken refuge from my sewing-mistress. It came running up to me, all brown and white fur and wet nose and drooling mouth—it was only a young dog, I believe it must have been too small yet to be trained to stay away from grand folk such as myself.

  I have never seen a dog so close before. The only animal that is considered princessly enough to be in my presence is a horse, for the purpose of gentle rides throughout the royal meadows. Though horses, at least the ones in the king's stables, are not very friendly companions. I think I far prefer the dog."

  "Never seen a dog before!" Meg clucked her tongue in disapproval. She'd grown up with two dogs in her house, not to mention all the ones that belonged to the shepherds and farmers in her little village. "Imagine that. I'm sure you would have been much less lonely, if you'd had a little dog of your own to be friends with."

  It didn't occur to her until afterwards what she'd said. When had she decided that Betty was lonely? But she felt it in what Betty wrote, in every stroke of ink on the time-worn pages, in every word from the young woman who wrote in her books because, Meg was realizing, she had no one else to talk to. It made Meg's heart ache, and not, she feared, only from sympathy.