One day when I was two, Mama and I were skipping through the gardens, enjoying the warm breezes of spring. I had learned to walk early, due to a combination of the fairies’ gifts of gracefulness and intelligence. It seemed obvious to me that I should get around much easier on two legs, rather than crawling on my hands and knees. Thus, by eight months I was as sturdy as a child twice my age. By a year, I could skip and twirl and run.
So there we were, just skipping along in our matching purple dresses, smelling the roses, when I reached out and grabbed one. “Look, Mama, a rose, the same as me!” (Oh, yes, I could speak clearly as well. I could also tap-dance, sing opera, and play a waltz on the piano, flute, and viola.)
“Rose!” Mama yelled in a panic. She held out a trembling hand. “Give me the flower, please.”
Somehow I had angered Mama. Unused to hearing anything other than praise for my actions, I quickly handed over the rose. As I did, I felt a slight sting on my thumb. I held my thumb up. I had never seen my own blood before. I had seen scraped knees on the children in town, and once Papa had been wounded when a hawk landed on his head during a hunt, but I had never seen blood this fresh and bright. The red droplet on my thumb both fascinated and scared me. “Look, Mama, I’m bleeding.”
The color drained from her face. She grabbed me and hugged me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. A moment later she pulled back and looked at me. “You’re still awake!” she exclaimed. “Oh, thank goodness!”
I was very confused. “I don’t understand,” I said. I may have been smart, but mostly my intelligence fell into the “book smart” category. Except for the walking and talking, most of my knowledge was of the sort that allowed me to distinguish the varieties of birds that lived on our land, or how many eggs you were left with if you started with ten, ate three, and then the chicken laid two more. The ways of grown-ups were something I could not grasp.
Mama bent down and took my hands in hers. “Oh, darling, don’t you know about the spindle? Don’t you remember the old fairy’s curse?”
I nodded. Of course I remembered. The story had been retold to me nearly every day by my nursemaid, Becca. Becca was getting on in years and I never had the heart to tell her I’d already heard the story. “But what has that to do with the rose?”
Mama kissed my thumb where the blood had now dried. Her warm breath felt nice.
“I feared the first drop of blood would take you away from me,” she said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
“But a thorn is not a spindle,” I pointed out. (These were the kinds of things my supersmartness allowed me to recognize.)
She nodded. “I know. But I am not sure how specific the fairy’s curse actually is. Perhaps any pointy object could do the same job as the spindle.”
I thought about this, then grinned. “But it didn’t. I’m not even remotely sleepy.”
Mama gave me another hug. “No, it did not,” she agreed. “But perhaps Lady Luck smiled upon us this time. I shall still feel better if we remove anything pointy from the castle.”
So Mama hid anything that might possibly be sharp enough to make me bleed, including hairpins, combs, toothpicks, and bales of hay. The cows and horses were forced to eat only oats. After a week, Papa threw down his spoon at supper and said, “I cannot eat roast duck with a spoon! I demand a fork!”
Mama pushed her unkempt hair out of her eyes and nodded wearily. She knew when a battle wasn’t worth fighting. Plus, she was tired of having spinach stuck in her teeth.
The pointy objects were allowed back, but now a twenty-four-hour watch had been placed upon my head. I was never without Becca or one of the other ladies-in-waiting. I didn’t mind. The extra protection made me feel loved and protected, but I couldn’t help wondering if I was still in danger. I did not want to live my whole life in fear. One morning when I was six and had a rare moment to myself in the garden, I accidentally-on-purpose scraped my finger along the bark of a tree until it bled a little bit. I figured if the curse kicked in, then at least it would be over with. But I did not fall asleep for a hundred years. All I did was ruin my favorite white gown when I wiped my finger on it. Mama grounded me for a fortnight, but I think she was relieved, too. I was still watched all the time, but we all breathed a little easier.
As I grew, the rest of my hair came in and the carrot color faded from my skin. I was growing more handsome by the day. This worried my father, but Mother never seemed to notice. I was an easy child, never requiring much. Mother once said I could entertain myself for hours with two bricks and a bucket of molasses. Fortunately Mother did not mind a messy child, since more likely than not I had dirt in my hair and molasses on my chin by the time I went to bed.
It was hard to keep help at the castle, because the staff would quite often disappear under mysterious circumstances. Word got around. Since my chamberlains and nursemaids were always quitting (or worse), I was left to Mother’s care much of the time. She kept me by her side when she went into town to bring alms to the poor. The townsfolk oohed and aahed at me and tickled me under the chin. Mother seemed pleased. She even sat me on her lap and combed out the tangles in my hair when they got so bad I couldn’t see.
But on a certain fourth Thursday, everything changed. I had recently turned seven. I was supposed to spend the day with Percival, a boy I did not much care for due to his being kind of sneaky and always wanting to steal sweets from the pantry. But his father was one of Father’s barons, and I often got stuck playing with him. At the last minute his mother came down with a cold and I was disinvited. Father thought I was a safe distance away, so he went hunting for stag with his friends.
Unguarded, I wandered out into the garden. Since the gardener wasn’t allowed to plant any pretty flowers, most of the garden was used for herbs and vegetables. But I had discovered a single flower bed, deep into the garden, where roses still grew. The path there was narrow, and I don’t think anyone but me ever visited. Once far enough away from Mother’s ears, I began to hum a little tune. I swore I heard a voice humming along with me, but whenever I looked around, no one was there. On my way to my secret rosebush, I stopped at the swing that had hung from the old oak tree for generations. I climbed up on it and imagined my father and grandfather swinging from the same spot when they were boys. Below me was a small, cracked fountain with a marble mermaid on the top. Father said water used to come out of her mouth. Mother said the gurgling sounded too much like music, so it had been drained long ago.
The mermaid looked sad, and I did not want to ruin my good mood, so I moved on. When I reached the rosebush, I bent down and rubbed the petals between my fingers. I smiled when I saw the stain they left behind. Even though I spent much of my time alone, I was not unhappy. I played with the petals for a few more minutes, then realized that since no one was watching me, I might as well try to find the old building I had heard whisperings of. Supposedly the mysterious building was so overgrown with ivy and leaves as to be virtually indistinguishable from the forest around it. No one knew exactly where it was. The servants heard from their grandparents, who had heard from their parents, that the building was haunted and that no good would come to anyone who went near it. But I had a mother who was part ogre; I was not scared of a ghost.
“Don’t move,” a voice growled from behind me. I froze in my tracks, one foot already in the forest, one still on the lawn. I had never heard a voice like that. Had a strange man wandered onto the grounds? Where were the castle guards? Surely we still had some guards.
I slowly turned around, and let out a sigh of relief when I saw Mother standing there. I smiled and reached out to her. But she did not embrace me. I could see her shaking as she spoke.
“Run into the woods. NOW!”
Her eyes, usually a light brown, were now as black as my nightmares. I ran. I ran farther into the woods than I’d ever run, not paying the slightest attention to where I was going. Squirrels darted out of my way. Startled birds filled the air. Eventually I realized no one was behind me. Mother
had controlled her ogre urges to keep me safe. I leaned against a tree, panting hard. The tree suddenly gave way, and I fell backward and landed in a thick brush. What I thought was a tree had actually been a huge overgrowth of vines and leaves. I tried to stand, but my feet were stuck.
I wrenched my feet free and took a closer look at my surroundings. A stone wall was barely visible through layers of vines and entwined branches. I had found it! The mysterious building! I scratched away at the thick growth, but it held firm. I pushed harder, but it did not budge. The hunting bugle rang through the forest and I jumped back, almost falling again. Father would be very worried if he knew what had happened today. I needed to get back to my bedchambers before running into either parent.
The very top of the castle tower was visible from where I stood, so I knew which way to head. Luckily Mother was still out hunting, so I made it safely to my room and pushed the dresser in front of the door. At suppertime, one of the maids came to fetch me and escorted me down the back stairway, to the private dining room, which is where Father and I always ate on the second and fourth Thursdays.
Father was there when I arrived. “Did you have a nice time at Percival’s?” he asked, polishing off his second mug of mead.
Unsure what to say but hesitant to lie, I merely coughed.
“Good,” he said, seemingly satisfied. “I think you need to spend more time with boys your age.”
I nodded. When you’re a prince who will someday be their ruler, the other boys aren’t very anxious to be your pal. And since the staff knew better than to bring their kids to the castle, I didn’t have any real friends.
That night at five past midnight, I heard my door open. I knew it was Mother. She came to check on me every second and fourth Thursday at this time. Usually I didn’t even fully wake up, but tonight was different. I quickly sat up in bed. She sat down next to me. I stiffened for a second. When I saw her hurt expression, I felt bad and moved closer.
“I won’t always be able to control it like today,” she said sadly, not meeting my eyes. “That was too close a call.”
I nodded.
“Let us not speak of it anymore,” she said, fluffing my pillow. “I expect never to see you on those days again.”
“I promise,” I said. She kissed me on the forehead, which is something she had only done a handful of times in my memory. It might have been worth the day’s scare.
For a few days Mother avoided me. She claimed she was too busy to take me into town with her or to play a game. Perhaps she believed it was easier on both of us this way. I knew she was embarrassed, but I wished she wouldn’t be. We can’t help our own natures.
Even though things settled back into their routine, my relationship with her was never the same. With Father off doing kingly stuff most of the time, and the servants never staying long enough for me to get to know any of them, I was truly on my own now. I was still only seven years old.
You Are Cordially Invited to the Castle
Princess Rose Turns Eight!
All Your Slumber Needs Shall Be Accommodated
Seven o’clock in the eve until ten o’clock in the morn
R.S.V.P. to Queen Melinda
I was so very excited. My first slumber party! Another year had come and gone, and I hadn’t managed to become impaled on a spindle. Hurrah!
This year my guests included four girls from the most important families in the kingdom — Meggin, Clarissa, Tabitha, and Bethany — and a girl from town named Sara whom I had befriended the past year when I’d gone with Mama to drop off some clothes. Papa had kept his promise and always made certain the townsfolk had enough to wear. He imported the clothes from all over, and then Mama herself (and her staff of twenty) delivered them. Sara had been the one to open the door of their small farmhouse when Mama knocked. Sara was so surprised to see the queen that she fell over backward and knocked over a bowl of cabbage soup that her younger sister was about to set down on the table. Sara had strands of green cabbage dripping from her hair, which was the color of strawberries. I laughed and helped her up from the ground.
The next time we went to deliver clothes, Sara taught me how to milk a cow. Before I could touch it, Mama first had to make sure there were no pointy parts on the animal. Old habits die hard. Sara said she could hear the town crier now: Hear ye, hear ye, our beloved Princess Rose has been brought down by a common farm cow! More information when she wakes up! Sara and I laughed till tears ran down our cheeks. Mama didn’t think it was very amusing.
Promptly at seven o’clock, the girls began to arrive with their overnight bags. Their parents or servants dropped them off. Some stayed to chat with my parents, who assured them that we would be supervised at all times. Of course we would — when was I ever not supervised? Sure, there were some hidden passageways in the castle that I had yet to explore, and there might be a cute page or two that we could spy on, and perhaps I knew where the cook hid the sweets in the back corner of the pantry behind the milled wheat, but none of that was on our agenda. Our agenda had only one item on it.
Makeovers!
The last to arrive was Sara. She and her mother did not have a carriage, so they walked up to the castle. Sara didn’t have a father. She never spoke of what happened to him. The porter had the guest list, so he did not give them any trouble crossing the moat. Sara and her mother lingered inside the gate, clearly a bit overwhelmed by the majesty of our home. I had worried a bit that Sara might stand out, but fortunately since all of the girls lived close enough that they had to get their clothes from my father, everyone was dressed in similar summer shifts. Mine had an extra bit of embroidery along the bottom.
The other girls began whispering when Sara arrived, which I did not think was very kind. So I looped my arm in hers and brought her over to the group. I made the introductions, and then we all hurried up the winding stone staircase to my bedroom suite. Six ladies-in-waiting hurried after us.
Bethany stopped halfway up the stairs and whispered, “Rose, why are they following us?”
“What do you mean?”
She gestured behind us at the ladies-in-waiting. “I thought we were going to your room to do makeovers.”
“We are.”
She sighed. “In private.”
I had grown so accustomed to being watched over that it didn’t bother me anymore. Most of the time I simply forgot anyone else was in the room. I looked around at the other girls, and they were all nodding. Even Sara.
“They won’t bother us, I promise. It’s not as if they’re spying on us.”
The girls looked skeptical but continued following me upstairs. When we got into my suite, the ladies-in-waiting gathered in the sitting room. We all jumped up onto my four-poster bed.
“Wow,” Sara said, her eyes large as she looked around the room. “Is all of this yours? This whole bed and everything?”
I nodded, recalling that she had to share a bed with her sister. To change the subject, I said, “Let’s see what everyone brought!”
With a collective squeal, the girls emptied the contents of their bags onto the bed—jars of makeup and brushes and tubes of lip paint, baubles of all colors and shapes, feathered caps, pots of glitter, wigs, and butterfly pins for our hair. Clarissa even brought a corset she had “borrowed” from her older sister. Someone banged the knocker on my door and we jumped. I had requested Papa send up a page with six full-length mirrors, and could I help it if the cute page was the only one working tonight? When he came in the room, the girls giggled some more. Sara blushed deeply when he bowed to her and said, “How do you do, madam?”
“He likes you!” Bethany shrieked.
The ladies-in-waiting came hurrying in from the next room. “We heard a scream,” Becca said, an edge of panic to her voice. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, Becca,” I assured her. “We’re only having fun.”
Becca didn’t look amused. She glanced hard at the mess on the bed, then led the ladies back into the sitting room.
Tabitha reached for a pot of blusher and said, “It would drive me batty if I always had people looking over my shoulder.”
“Me, too,” the others said. I was surprised. Having so many people looking after my best interests just made me feel that much more loved.
“Shall we go to the mirrors?” Sara suggested. I was grateful to her for taking the focus off me.
I placed one of my feather pillows in front of each mirror. Then we each carried over an armful of supplies.
For the next half-hour, we proceeded to make ourselves over. I became a blond. Sara became a brunette. Bethany painted her lips bright crimson. Meggin helped Tabitha lace up the corset. Tabitha had to wrap her arms around a bedpost to keep from falling over. It made her look deformed! We all got a good laugh and then Meggin unlaced it for her. Another knock came. This time it was my parents.
“Don’t mind us,” they said, taking seats on the cushioned bench across from us. “We’ll just watch. Why, we would hardly recognize you girls, all outfitted up like that.”
The girls smiled politely, but it wasn’t the same with Mama and Papa there. Clarissa fastened a butterfly pin in her hair, but when it fell out she didn’t bother to fix it. After a few minutes she said, “I am quite tired, Your Highnesses. Perhaps you could show us to our rooms?”
I opened my mouth to point out that the eve was still young, but all the other girls except for Sara jumped up so quickly to join her that I fell silent.
“Certainly,” Mama said, not picking up on the girls’ displeasure with the situation. One by one they gathered up their belongings and filed out. They each mouthed the word sorry as they left. I wasn’t sure if they were apologizing for cutting the party short, or whether they were saying they felt sorry for me. I didn’t know which was worse. I pulled off my blond wig and let it dangle in my hand. I wanted to run and hide. Last year while helping Papa take inventory of the wine cellar I had discovered the perfect nook in the corner. On the rare moments I was alone, I hid there with a book, a candle, and some of Cook’s special plum cakes.