by Aimee Carter
“If she wasn’t, she certainly is now.”
I froze. The whispers were coming from the other side of the curtains hanging from my bed, and they weren’t voices I recognized. The first was bright and bubbly; the second made it sound like whoever it belonged to wanted to be anywhere but here. I couldn’t blame her.
“What d’you think she’s like? Better than the last one, yeah?”
“Anyone’s better than the last one. Now shut up before you really do wake her up.”
I sat there for a long moment, trying to absorb what I was hearing. I’d locked the door the night before, I was sure of it, so how had they gotten in there? And what did they mean by “the last one”?
Before I could speak, my stomach growled. Loudly. The sort of epic loud that makes everyone in class turn around and giggle while you duck in your seat and try not to turn red. Whatever chance I had at eavesdropping was gone, thanks to my traitorous belly.
“She’s awake!” The curtains snapped open, and I shielded my eyes from the morning light. “Oh! She’s pretty!”
“And brunette. Haven’t had one of those in decades.”
“Thanks, I guess,” I mumbled, but with the sun shining in my eyes, I couldn’t see who I was talking to. “Who’re you?”
“Calliope!” This was the one who spoke in exclamation points, the one who’d called me pretty. I pried my eyelids open just enough to get a decent look at her. Smaller than me, with blond hair that hung past her waist and a round face that flushed pink with happiness. She looked so excited that I was afraid she’d topple over.
“Ella,” said the second girl dully. Still squinting, I got a good look at her and felt a stab of jealousy. Dark hair, tall, impossibly beautiful, and she looked bored to tears.
“And you’re Katherine,” said Calliope. “Sofia told us all about you, how you came here to help your friend and how you’re staying with us for six months and—”
“Calliope, stop it, you’re scaring her.”
I didn’t know if scaring was technically the right word, but it worked for now. As Calliope bounced up and down, getting closer to me with each move she made, I started to lean back. Her exuberance was intimidating.
“Oh.” Calliope took a step back, blushing again. “Sorry. Are you hungry?”
Deep breath, I thought. In and out, in and out, and maybe things would start to make sense.
“She needs to get dressed first,” said Ella, moving toward an armoire. “Katherine, what’s your favorite color?”
“Kate. Call me Kate,” I said through gritted teeth. It was too early in the morning for this. “And I don’t have one.”
“You don’t have a favorite color?” said Calliope disbelievingly as she moved to help Ella. I stood and stretched, unable to see what exactly they were doing. Both of them stood in front of the armoire, which looked as if it were chock-full of clothing.
“Not today,” I said, irritated. “I can dress myself, you know.”
Ella and Calliope wrestled something long and blue and soft from the crush of clothing. They both turned toward me, holding—
Oh, no.
“Unless you’ve some sort of inhuman ability to lace yourself up into a corset, dressing yourself isn’t an option,” said Ella, her eyes glinting. I didn’t know if it was out of amusement or malevolence. Quite possibly both.
They held up a blue dress that was so low-cut, not even Ava would’ve touched it. The sleeves were long and narrow, fanning out just toward the end, and there was lace. Lace.
My eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
“You don’t like it?” Calliope frowned and ran a hand over the soft fabric. “What about something yellow? You’d look nice in yellow.”
“I don’t wear dresses,” I said through a clenched jaw. “Ever.”
Ella snorted. “I don’t care, because you do now. I’m in charge of wardrobe, and unless you want to wear what you have on now until you stink so badly that no one comes near you, you’re wearing this.”
I stared at the blue monstrosity. “I’m not your doll. You can’t make me play dress-up.”
“Yes, I can,” said Ella. “And I will. I’ve got thousands of years of fashion to choose from, and I can make your life a nightmare if you try to fight it. Ever try to sit down in a hoop skirt?” She gave me a pointed look. “Behave, and I might consider giving you a day off every once in a while. But this is my choice, not yours. You gave yours up the moment you agreed to stay here.”
“Besides, everyone wears dresses here,” said Calliope brightly. “You can’t say you don’t like it until you give it a chance.”
Ella offered me the dress. “Your choice. Expensive, comfortable dresses you won’t notice in a day or two, or jeans that’ll stand up on their own in a week.”
Letting out a low growl in the back of my throat, I snatched it from her and stormed into the bathroom. She could make me wear it, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Lacing me up took nearly twenty minutes, and that was without a corset. That’s where I drew the line, and Ella wasn’t stupid enough to try to force me into that, too. The dress fit me well without me suffocating myself, and that was good enough. I didn’t need to have my chest forced up to my chin in the meantime.
Once they’d finished dressing me, Calliope sat me down and fussed with my mousy hair for a few minutes. She hummed as she worked, and any questions I tried to ask were either ignored or cut off by random bursts of song. Just as I started to wonder if it would ever end, she announced that I was done and breakfast was ready.
Breakfast. I was so ravenous that I didn’t even object as they forced my feet into a pair of heeled shoes. We would talk about those later, especially if I was expected to do stairs, but for now, as long as there was a promise of food, I’d put up with it.
Still feeling lost, I followed them out of the room, wishing I understood more about what was going on. Was this how every morning was going to go, or would I eventually be allowed to dress myself? Were they supposed to be my friends, like Calliope seemed to want to be, or were they supposed to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn’t escape?
They weren’t my most pressing questions, but those answers, I suspected, were ones only Henry could give me. In the meantime, there was still one response Calliope and Ella owed me.
“Calliope?” I said as she and Ella led me through the maze of rooms and corridors. Supposedly there was a breakfast room in the massive manor, but I wasn’t so sure I believed them. It felt like we’d been wandering for hours. “What did you mean when you asked if I were better than the last one?”
She gave me a blank look. “The last one?”
“When you guys thought I was sleeping—you mentioned me being better than the last one. What last one?”
Calliope thought for a moment before realization dawned on her. “Oh! The last one. The last girl, I mean. The last one Henry had here.”
There was another girl? “How long ago was that?”
Calliope exchanged a look with Ella, who remained silent. “Twenty years, maybe?”
So apparently Henry had been a toddler last time. Unless he was telling the truth about ruling the dead, but I wasn’t quite ready to accept that. “Why do I need to be here then? Why isn’t she here anymore?”
“Because she d—”
Ella slapped her hand over Calliope’s mouth so hard that the sound reverberated through the room. “Because she isn’t,” said Ella sharply. “It isn’t our job to explain this to you, Katherine. If you want to know why you’re here, ask Henry. And you…” She glared at Calliope.
“Oh,” I said softly as another thought occurred to me. “He—he said everyone here was dead. Is that true? Are you two…?”
Neither Ella nor Calliope seemed surprised by my question. Instead Ella pulled her hand away, letting Calliope answer.
“Everyone’s dead here, yes,” she said, rubbing her cheek and giving Ella a dirty look. “Or like Henry, never alive in the first place.�
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“When were you…uh, born?”
Calliope sniffed. “A lady doesn’t reveal her age.”
Ella snorted, and Calliope glared at her.
“Ella is so old, she doesn’t even know what year she was born,” said Calliope, as if that was something to be ashamed of. I shook my head, speechless, not knowing if I was really supposed to believe all of this or not.
Ella said nothing. Instead she pushed open another door, finally revealing a long room with a table so large it could’ve easily seated thirty. My head was spinning from Calliope’s story, and it took me a moment to realize the room was already filled with people.
“Your court,” said Ella drily. “Servants, tutors, anyone you’ll ever have contact with. They all wanted to meet you.”
I stopped dead in the doorway, feeling the blood drain from my face. There were dozens of pairs of eyes staring at me, and suddenly I was painfully self-conscious.
“Are they going to stay here while I eat?” I whispered. I couldn’t think of a better way of making sure I didn’t eat a thing.
“I can send them away, if you’d like,” said Calliope, and I nodded. She skipped forward and, with two claps of her hands, most of them began to file out. A few who handled the food remained, along with two men standing off to the side, each accessorized with formidable weapons. The tall blond was so still he might as well have been a statue, and the brunette fidgeted, as if standing still and being silent was something he wasn’t very good at. He couldn’t have been older than twenty.
“You will always be guarded,” said Ella, and I looked at her, startled. She must have seen me staring. She moved forward with the grace of a deer and gestured to a place at the foot of the table. “Your seat.”
I followed her, trying hard not to trip on the hem of my long dress, and sat down. Now there were only about a dozen people in the room, but they were still all looking at me.
“Your breakfast, Your Highness,” said a man, stepping forward to set a covered plate in front of me. Ella lifted the cover, not giving me the chance to do so myself. She looked as bored as she had in my room.
“Um, thanks,” I said, bewildered. Your Highness? I picked up a fork, prepared to spear a piece of fruit and eat it, but a pale hand snatched my wrist before I could do it.
I looked up, surprised to see Calliope standing over me, her blue eyes wide. “I taste first,” she insisted. “It’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Shocked, I blurted, “You test my food?”
“When you decide to eat, yes,” she said timidly. “I tested your dinner last night, too. But you don’t have to eat while you’re here, you know. Eventually you’ll forget what it feels like. If you want to though, I have to—”
“No,” I said, pushing my chair back so loudly it squealed against the marble floor. The stress of the day before and the confusion of that morning came crashing down on me, shattering every last bit of self-control I had. “No, this isn’t going to happen. It’s ridiculous—food tasters? Armed guards? Your Highness? Why? What am I supposed to be doing here?”
Everyone seemed stunned by my outburst, and it was several moments before anyone spoke. When they did, it was Ella. “You agreed to stay here for six months out of the year, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, frustrated. They didn’t understand. “But I didn’t agree to food tasters or—or any of this.”
“You did,” she said calmly. “It’s part of the deal.”
“Why?”
No one answered me. I clenched my skirt so tightly that I thought it would rip. “Let me see Henry,” I said. “I want to talk to him.”
The silence was deafening, and something inside of me snapped.
“Let me talk to him!”
“I’m here.”
The sound of his voice, low and smooth, startled me. Whirling around, I managed to lose my balance, barely catching myself on the chair. Henry stood in front of me, much closer than I’d expected. His young and flawless face was blank, and my heart skipped a beat. When I managed to regain my voice, it came out as more of a squeak, but I didn’t care. I wanted answers.
“Why?” I said. “Why am I here? I’m not your princess, and I didn’t sign up for any of this, so why is it happening?”
Henry offered me his hand, and I hesitated, but finally took it. His skin felt surprisingly warm against mine. I don’t know what I’d been expecting—ice, maybe. Not heat. Not any evidence of life.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured, and I did. A moment later, I felt a cool breeze against my cheek, and my eyes flew open. We were outside, in the middle of an elaborate and well-tended garden, with quiet fountains scattered throughout the flowers and hedges. A stone path led up from where we stood to the back of the manor, which loomed in the distance, an easy half a mile away. Cerberus, the large dog from the forest, trotted up to greet Henry, and he gave him a good scratch behind the ears.
My stomach dropped to my knees, and any color that was left drained from my cheeks. “How did you—”
“In time,” he said. Numbly I sat down on the edge of the fountain. “You said yesterday that you did not want to do this, and I do not blame you. Now that the deal has been made, however, it cannot be undone. You showed courage the night you saved your friend’s life, and I ask that you find it within yourself once more.”
I took a deep breath, trying to find an ounce of that so-called courage he was convinced I had. All I could find was fear. “Back in Eden, you said—you said if I read the myth of Persephone, I’d understand what you wanted,” I said in a shaking voice. “My friend James told me she was the Queen of the Underworld, and I read it in a book when I was—” I shook my head. It wasn’t important. “Is that true?”
He nodded. “She was my wife.”
“Was? She existed?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice softer. “She died many years ago.”
“How?”
Henry’s expression was blank. “She fell in love with a mortal, and after he died, she chose to join him. I did not stop her.”
There were so many parts of that statement that I didn’t understand that I wasn’t sure where to begin. “But she’s a myth. It isn’t possible she really existed.”
“Maybe,” he said, his gaze distant. “But if it is happening, who’s to say what’s possible and what isn’t?”
“Logic,” I said. “The laws of nature. Rationality. Some things just aren’t possible.”
“Then tell me, Kate—how did we get outside?”
I looked around again, half expecting it to fade away like some elaborate illusion. “You knocked me out and brought me out here?” I offered weakly.
“Or perhaps there was a trap door that you did not see.” He reached out to take my hand, and I stiffened. Sighing, he brushed his fingers against mine and then pulled away. “There is always a rational explanation, but sometimes things may seem irrational or impossible if you don’t know all the rules.”
“So what?” I said. “You’re telling me that a Greek god just happened to build a manor in the middle of the woods in a country halfway across the world?”
“When you have eons to live, the world becomes a much smaller place,” he said. “I have homes in many countries, including Greece, but I favor the solitude here. It is peaceful, and I enjoy the seasons and the long winter.”
I sat very still, not knowing what to say to that.
“Could you try to believe me?” said Henry. “Just for now. Even if it means pushing aside everything you’ve learned, would you please do me the favor of trying to accept what I am telling you, no matter how improbable it might seem?”
Pressing my lips together, I looked down at my hands. “Is that what you do? Play make-believe?”
“No.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “But you may, if you’d like. If it will make it easier on you.”
This wasn’t going to go away. Even if it was all one big trick, if everything was planned out from the beginning to make me look like a foo
l or whatever his endgame was, then all I could do was wait for the punch line.
But the image of Ava lying in a pool of her own blood with her skull bashed in floated into my mind, as did the feeling of the cool breeze across my cheek when only moments before, we’d been in the heart of the manor. And my mother, alive and well in Central Park—whatever was going on, sooner or later I’d have to face the fact that it wasn’t anything I’d ever experienced before.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s pretend this is really Paradise and everyone’s dead, and Ella and Calliope are a million years old, and you’re really who you say you are—”
“I do not claim to be anyone except for me,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
I made a face. “Fine, then let’s pretend this is all real, that magic is possible and the tooth fairy exists. And somewhere down the line I didn’t hit my head and you aren’t certifiably insane. What does your wife dying have to do with me?”
Henry was silent for a long moment. “As I said, she chose to die rather than to stay with me. I was her husband, but she simply loved him more.”
Judging by his pained expression, there was nothing simple about it, but I didn’t press him. “You know you look way too young to have been married, right?” I said in a sorry attempt to lighten the mood. “How old are you anyway?”
The corners of his lips twitched again. “Older than I look.” After a moment he added, “She may have loved me, but it was never her choice. It was my last gift to her, letting her go.”
There was a note of sadness in his voice that I understood all too well. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I am. I just—I still don’t understand why I’m here.”
“I have been ruling on my own for nearly a thousand years, but a century ago, I agreed to only a hundred more before my brothers and sisters take my realm from me. I cannot handle it on my own, not anymore. There are simply too many for me to do it alone. I have been searching for a partner ever since, and you are the last one, Kate. This spring, the final decision will be made. If you are accepted, you will rule with me as my queen for six months of the year. If you do not, you will return to your old life with no memory of this time.”