A Grimm Curse: A Grimm Tales Novella (Volume 3) (14 page)

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.

“
It was
decided as the eldest daughter, Esha must be married first. She was given to the surviving brother—Dalaja’s promised husband. Neither girl was happy with the arrangement, but Dalaja stood by as the obedient daughter and loving sister as Esha was married to her betrothed.

“That night, as Dalaja wept bitter tears for the loss of both her sister and husband, her father tried to comfort her by explaining he had made new arrangements. When she came of age
in a year
, she was to be married to a very powerful, rich man of much renown in the region.