Into the Wild (19 page)

Someone wanted to eat her heart? “Please,” she said, “let me run away.”

“Run away, then, you poor child,” he said. “The wild beasts will soon catch you.”

Her legs started moving, almost on their own. Leaves snagged her hair, and she stumbled as her shoes snagged on roots and rocks. Branches curled like claws over her head. Knots and holes leered like faces. She heard beasts roaring, and she kept running and running . . .

Exhausted, she stumbled over a root and sprawled onto the pine-needle-covered ground. Above her, wind moved the trees, and branches seemed to reach for her. Unable to help herself, she started to cry.

“Why are you crying, Girl?” a kind voice said. “Do you wish to go to the ball?” An oak tree made a popping sound. Bark swung open like a door, and light poured out of the trunk. Surprise stopped her tears.

Briefly, she wondered what she was surprised at: the sudden voice or the fact that the tree had a door—but the thought felt unimportant and Girl let it drift away.

Getting to her feet, she stepped cautiously toward the tree and peered inside. Through the opening, she saw a marble hall lined with pillars. She drew back, again feeling surprise. This time, she was sure she was surprised at the tree: it was larger inside than outside. But it was hard to hold on to the feeling of surprise. She supposed this must be how trees were.

Coming around one of the pillars, a woman in a bathing suit and sunglasses waved at her. “Ah, there you are!” The woman bounced toward her, her toes barely touching the floor. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Girl frowned. After two surprises, she now had practice in pinpointing the emotion’s source: she was surprised at “expecting you.” “How could you be expecting me?” she asked. “I didn’t plan to come here. I just ran.”

For an instant, the woman faltered, and her smile slipped from her face. Then the smile was back beaming so quickly that Girl thought she must have imagined it. “You can’t go to the ball looking like this.” The woman tsked. She took Girl’s hand and pulled her inside the tree. Butterfly wings fluttered on the woman’s back between the straps of the bathing suit. Girl twisted to feel her own back. She was wingless.

The fairy godmother waved her free hand, and a wand popped into the air in front of her. She plucked the wand out of the air and pointed it at a marble pillar. A picture of a golden ball gown appeared on the marble. It sashayed across the face of the pillar. The fairy lifted her sunglasses. “Mmm, no,” she said. She pointed at the next pillar, and a silver dress shimmered and curtsied. On the third, a ball gown studded in rhinestone stars spun in a slow circle. On the fourth, a dress composed entirely of feathers descended from the top. Its skirt poofed until its hem touched the base of the pillar. “Yes,” the fairy said to the feather dress. “You will do.” She waved her wand at the pillar.

Girl felt wind spiral up from her feet. It circled up her legs, up her torso. She lifted her arms in the air, and the wind cycloned over her head, pulling her hair up into a twist, and then it was gone. When she looked down, she was wearing the feather dress.

The fairy clasped her hands. “Perfect as a princess!”

Girl stared at herself. From her neck to her waist, the dress was an intricate pattern of tiny green and gold feathers, each as brilliant as a jewel. From her waist to the floor, she wore sweeping plumes of black, white, and navy. Peacock feathers draped down her arms. “How did you . . . How am I . . .” She touched the feathers, awed. Each one shimmered.

“Don’t ask questions,” the fairy said. She tapped the marble floor with her wand. A mirror with a crown of leaves sprouted in front of Girl.
“Oh, wondrous beauty that I see,”
the mirror said.
“The fairest of the land stands before me.”

Girl gawked in the mirror. Amazing. She was . . . I’m beautiful, she thought. I look like a . . . like a . . . the phrase “fairy-tale princess” popped into her mind. Yes, that was it. In wonder, she touched her hair, which had been swept into a tumble of curls. The feathers flowed around her as she moved. “Wow,” she said out loud.

Taking her arm, the fairy propelled her across the hall toward a blank marble wall. Girl resisted, wanting to look in the mirror longer. At the tap of the wand, a door opened in the marble. “Now, remember: it all changes back at midnight.”

“What . . .” Girl began as the fairy godmother guided her through the door. “Down you go,” the fairy said, “and have a lovely time!”

She shut the door, and Girl was alone in darkness. “Come back, please,” she said. She knocked on the door.

What ball? Where was she supposed to go? The questions made her head spin and throb.

Candles flickered to life around her. As the light grew, she saw that she was pounding on a solid wall. The door was gone. She was bewildered. Her head began to pound harder. None of this made sense!

Did it matter that it didn’t make sense? she asked herself. She couldn’t answer that. With an inward shrug, she gave up on her questions.

Instantly, her head felt better. It was much more pleasant not to question.

She looked around her. Behind her, a staircase descended into shadows.
Down you go,
the fairy had said. Lifting the skirt of her feather dress, Girl started down the stairs. Her shoes clinked with each step. Stopping, she raised her skirt higher to peer over the feathers at her feet. She was wearing glass shoes instead of bright yellow sandals. They must have changed with the clothes. She twisted her feet, admiring them. They sparkled with the amber light of the candle flames.

At the end of the staircase, she found herself in a forest of silver. Wide-eyed, she looked around her. The trees shimmered—the leaves and bark were solid sterling. Gone was the daylight of the huntsman’s forest. A fat, silver moon hung low in the leaves and bathed her and this forest in a pale light. It was beautiful. She’d never seen anything so beautiful. Had she? She reached for a memory, but it felt like trying to catch air. She abandoned the effort.

She started walking down a smooth, white path. Silence wrapped around her. Even her steps were muffled. Soon, the silver woods gave way to trees of gold, then to trees all of diamond. She followed the path to the shore of a blue-black lake. The fat moon hovered over the horizon. Staring at the water, she felt déjà vu, as if she’d once looked across water like this, but no memory came, so she ignored the feeling. In a swath of moonlight, a flower-decked rowboat drifted toward the shore.

As the boat came closer, she saw it was empty. Slowing, it stopped in front of her. It stayed there, as if waiting. Was it waiting for her? Girl looked to either side of her, but she saw no one. She looked back at the boat, patient in the water. Wondering if she should be worried, she stepped into the boat.

The boat rocked underneath her as she sat at its helm. Leaning forward, she searched for oars. A wave tilted her toward the water, and she looked up. Without oars or sails, the boat was moving unerringly down the path of moonlight. She heard the sound of a trumpet.

Ahead of her, rising over the horizon beneath the moon, she saw an island castle, lit with candles along the battlements. Laughter and trumpet music floated across the water. In the distance, slow waterfalls seeped down mountainsides. “Tears of unhappy lovers,” a voice said behind her.

She turned quickly, and at the back of the boat, she saw the silhouette of a gondolier. With a black stick, he propelled the boat through the moonlight. She couldn’t see his face. “Who are you?” she asked.

But he only hummed to himself, jarring with the trumpet solo from the castle. Girl shivered. It disturbed her that he hadn’t answered. He had to have a name. Didn’t he? Looking across the moonlight, she saw another boat. Two rounded people sat facing each other. Who were they? Did they have names? As they drew closer, she saw they weren’t people at all. An owl strummed a guitar. A cat with a parasol sat opposite him. Behind the gondola, the shore disappeared in darkness.

She felt a bump as the gondolier pulled the boat into a candlelit dock. He gestured to the castle. Pale marble, the castle matched the moon’s glow. Spires stretched into the night sky. Roses and ivy wound halfway up their sides. A servant, face blank and shadowed like the gondolier’s, stood on the dock. He held his hand out to her. How elegant, she thought. Smiling, she took his hand and let him help her out of the boat. She followed him down the dock to shore. When she reached the foot of the castle, she looked back over her shoulder, but the flowered boat and its gondolier were gone. The owl and the pussycat drifted over the waves.

The servant led her through an archway (WHITE CLIFFS RESTAURANT, she read on the arch) into an ornate hall. She craned her neck at tapestries on the walls, but they were so high and dimly lit that she saw only swirled colors and an occasional human or animal face caught in an almost-scream.

The hall opened onto a balcony. Bowing, the servant left her there, and she walked forward. She was at the top of a spiral staircase that led down into a vast ballroom. Chandeliers with a thousand candles glittered from the ceiling. Mirrors, three stories high, decorated the walls between ivory pillars.

Below was the ball.

A single trumpet played. Laughing, lords and ladies and bears and lions and trolls swirled in a dance as colorful as a kaleidoscope. Silver and gold gowns sparkled in the candlelight, reflected countless times in the mirrors.

“My lady,” a footman said, “I must announce you. What is your name?”

She opened her mouth to speak, and no name came out. Her name . . . She pressed her hands to her forehead and tried to think. Who was she? What was her name? “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t remember.”

She remembered the huntsman. She remembered the knife at her throat. But what came before the huntsman? Something had to have come before the huntsman. She had to have been
somewhere
before she was there. She hadn’t been born there in the woods with the huntsman and the knife. Had she? Of course not. She felt panic bubble up in her throat. The farthest back she could remember was the huntsman—the huntsman who called her “princess.” She clutched the footman’s arm. “Princess,” she said.

The footman bellowed, “The mysterious princess from unknown lands!” She felt a surge of relief. She knew who she was now. For some reason that she couldn’t name, it had bothered her immensely not to know. Now everything was all right. She was Princess.

The lords and ladies halted their dance. In unison, their faces turned toward Princess. Oddly, the trumpet kept playing, and the bears and lions and wild boars kept dancing.

The lords and ladies began to whisper:
“Beautiful.” “Exquisite.” “Who is she?” “Princess.”
The words rose up to the balcony, and she felt herself start to smile. Instinctively, as if the whispers were a command, she laid her hand on the stair railing. The ivory stairs curved down to an inlaid marble floor. Slowly, just like a princess, she descended the grand spiral staircase. The lords and ladies watched her. Someone sighed adoringly. She straightened her posture. All those eyes, all on her! She felt as if she were floating.

At the bottom of the stairs, the lords and ladies pressed toward her. One tentatively reached out and touched her feather dress. “Ooh,” the lady said, and the circle tightened. Shoulder to shoulder, they stared at her. Princess started to feel uneasy. It was nice and flattering, but now they were a little close . . . A lion began to growl as the trumpet soloist faltered.

Red Sea-like, the lords and ladies parted. A sandy-haired boy wearing a crown and ballet tights strode between them. In front of Princess, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Would you do me the honor of granting me this dance?”

Before she could answer, the prince took her hand. He led her to the center of the floor, and the lords and ladies parted into a wide arc. The trumpet music resumed, and lions pranced around them. She thought she saw a unicorn.

“You dance like an angel,” he said, and took a sweeping step to the left. Her dress caught around her ankles, and she wobbled on the glass slippers. Feathers stabbed into her waist as she stumbled. He held her upright and swept her across the dance floor. All the other dancers clapped in odd unison.

The prince whispered in her ear, “You are the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.” His breath was warm on her cheek. She felt herself flush. A prince thought she was beautiful. Of course he did. She had seen herself: she was the beautiful princess.

Chapter Twenty-three

The Princess Test

The trumpet stopped suddenly.

Mid-step, the prince stumbled. Princess looked around, confused, as spinning dancers slowed like a dying music box. Around her, the lions and bears snarled and growled. She wondered if she should be alarmed.

“I found you!”
a voice rang out across the ballroom. Princess saw the trumpet player—a girl—wave. She seemed to be waving at Princess. Or perhaps at the prince. The prince put his arm protectively around Princess.