The Cinderella Theorem (16 page)

Colin
returned to his castle slowly. He wanted to savor the memories of Celdan, and
he wondered what he should tell his parents. His mother was a proud and haughty
woman. She wanted Colin to marry a princess, or, at the very least, a high born
lady. But Colin could only listen to his heart. He decided not to tell them
yet.

The
next evening, he returned to the candlemaker’s cottage. After another simple
supper, Colin and Celdan sat together under the window, and he asked her to be
his wife. Without hesitation, she said yes.

Colin
wished to be married right away, and since he knew his mother would never
agree, he made arrangements to return the next day and be married in the
village church.

After
the ceremony, Celdan packed her belongings and said goodbye to the cottage and
her father. The castle was not far away; she would see her father often, but it
was still sad to think of him alone in the cottage.

When
Colin introduced Celdan as his wife, the king was surprised, but pleased his
son had chosen a clever, industrious girl. The queen, however, was outraged,
but she hid her anger and laid plans to destroy Celdan later.

In
time, Celdan gave birth to her first child. The queen had offered to assist
Celdan during the delivery, and no one else was present in the birthing room.
After the baby, a boy, was born, Celdan slept deeply, tired and exhausted.
While she was sleeping, the queen took the child and hid him in her room.

Later,
Celdan awoke and asked to see her son, but since no one else had witnessed the
birth, the whole castle had believed what the queen told them: the child had
lived for but a few minutes, then died. The queen also said she had him buried
quickly, so as not to upset Celdan.

The
entire kingdom went into mourning. Celdan and Colin were very sad. The
candlemaker came to the castle daily to try to cheer his daughter.

The
queen had planned to kill the baby herself, but found that she couldn’t when
the time came; he looked too much like Colin. So she took the baby boy out to a
distant hillside and left him there to die. She returned the next week to see
what had happened. Bloody clothes and tiny entrails were strewn about. He was
dead, mauled by wild animals. No one suspected the queen, because she seemed
just as sad as the others.

But
one night, a magical fairy, who was both wise and good, sent a dream to Colin.
The dream revealed to him the truth of what had happened to his son. When he
awoke the next morning, Colin was disturbed by the dream, but he did not believe
it; he did not believe his mother could do such a thing. The fairy sent the
dream twice more, and on the third morning, Colin knew that the dream was true.

Colin
convinced his father and Celdan of the truth, and they confronted the evil
queen. She did not deny what she had done, and she told them angrily that she
was glad the child had died alone on the hill. While everyone was still shocked
and surprised, the queen fled from the castle and was never seen again.

Colin
and Celdan held another funeral on the hill for their baby, and in time, the
pain lessened and they began to heal. Eventually, they had more children, and
though they were occasionally sad about their first son, they still lived

HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

Typical.
The “happily ever after” stood out like it was the all important thing. Never
mind only Colin and Celdan have names, never mind the queen had some serious
issues regarding her son, and never mind the candlemaker let a total stranger
marry his daughter. They lived “happily ever after” so everything’s fine.

I
sighed. I wasn’t surprised these characters had dropped low enough to vanish.
After the early happiness on the daffodil-covered hill, things only got worse
and worse.

Next,
I read the vanishing reports. Celdan went first. She told Colin that she was
going to the hill where their son had died. The Ugly Duckling, who was flying
overhead, testified that he saw her vanish while she stood beside the grave.
The monitor printouts confirmed the times. Colin, the candlemaker, and the king
followed soon after. They were sad about Celdan, and with so much grief already
in their lives, it didn’t take long for them disappear. The queen, according to
her report, held out as long as she could. Her final despondency was fueled by
the thought of Colin in a dungeon.

I
didn’t get it. Everyone was either dead or vanished from this story. The
candlemaker vanished. His wife died before the story. Celdan vanished. Colin
vanished. The king vanished. The queen vanished. The baby was killed by wild
animals. Everyone was accounted for, so why was the file still in The Archive?

The
probability of the file being in The Archive for the entire time they had been
vanished was low. Kikika seemed too organized to let hundreds of years pass by
without going through the files. Besides, other Happiologists would have been
in and out of the drawer during that time. One orange sticker in a row of
yellow ones sticks out.

Conclusion:
someone had been holding on to the file for a while and had only recently put
it back.

I
realized this conclusion wasn’t entirely backed by evidence, but it made sense.
And yes, there were a few holes in my theory. For instance why didn’t the file
vanish like it was supposed to? And who in the kingdom would be evil enough to
want to prevent a whole story from being rescued? I considered Colin’s
psychotic mother, but that wasn’t probable. She’d already vanished, and not
being rescued would only hurt
her
as well. Morgan Le Faye was pretty
evil, or that Lady Potio with her death apples. But their evilness seemed to be
focused only on their own stories. (Morgan seemed exclusively the enemy of
Arthur, and as far as I knew, Lady Potio had only tried to poison her own step-daughter.)

I
sighed and turned on my desk lamp. Good lighting has not yet been proven to
help you work and think better, but I don’t think it can hurt.

I
stared at the manila file folder, astonished.

The
extra lamplight exposed something I hadn’t seen before around the edges of the
folder: Grease stains.

Not
Levi.
Again
. Will we never be free of that grease ball? I sighed and
began to examine the evidence. Levi clearly touched the file; his greasy hands
are forever betraying him.

But
when had he touched it? When I went downstairs for pretzels? At HEA, when I
left the file on my desk while I talked to Grimm? Or had he been the one who
put the file back into the Archive? If that was the case, how did he get in
there? He seems like the kind of person who would be banned from the HEA
office.
[42]

There
was no evidence Levi had touched anything inside the folder. Perhaps he wore
gloves? Perhaps he never opened it? (But that seemed unlikely. How could he
have the folder for all these years and never once open it? I only had it a few
hours, and I couldn’t help opening it.) Perhaps he…?

I
stopped myself from thinking any more about it. The greasy fingerprints would
have to wait until tomorrow; I was too tired. I shoved the folder in my
Smythe’s SFL bag and returned it to the top shelf of my closet.

I
brushed my teeth and went downstairs to say good night to my parents. They were
still dancing, but managed to stop briefly for hugs without losing too much of
their rhythm. The lyrics of the song followed me up the stairs:

Oh, we live in a magic land.

Protected by the Sparrow hand.

There are fictional and natural–

Citizens all are we! Yeah!

As I
closed my door, the rooster began crowing a verse about fairy godmothers. Those
animal singers would forever be a mystery to me.

I
didn’t sleep well. I dreamt of eye-pecking birds and baby entrails. Glenni
wielded a fork and chased me around the Archive shouting, “Eventually, they had
more children, and though they were occasionally sad about their first son,
they still lived HAPPILY EVER AFTER! HAPPILY EVER AFTER! HAPPILY EVER AFTER!”

I
woke at two AM, breathing hard and a little frightened of Glenni. I couldn’t
get the sound of her voice out of my head. “Eventually, they had more
children…eventually, they had more children…eventually, they had more
children.” I sat up. Colin and Celdan had more children! If those children
didn’t vanish when everyone else in the story did, that would explain why the
file hadn’t vanished.

I
jumped out of bed and turned on my desk lamp. Hurriedly, I looked through the
Candlemaker’s Daughter file again. There were no vanishing records for the
extra children. In fact, there was no record of the mystery children at all. It
was as if they never existed.

My
mouth had that gross middle-of-the-night feel to it, so I went to the bathroom
to brush my teeth. (Getting rid of gross feeling = joy; getting rid of gross
feeling + getting to brush my teeth = immense joy.) As I started on my bottom teeth,
I glanced into the mirror. My reflection had vanished, and Levi was staring back
at me through the mirror. I spewed all my toothpaste at the mirror.

“Not
very far along in our etiquette classes are we, Princess?” He was sitting in
Marie’s chair, twirling a pencil through his fingers. One leg was draped over
the arm of the chair. His leather pants glistened with grease.

I
continued staring at him, mouth open, chin covered in toothpaste dribble.

“Didn’t
you hear me? You ought to clean up.” He snapped his fingers. Automatically, I
began to wash my mouth and chin. My hand moved on its own, controlled by Levi’s
magic. I rinsed my toothbrush and dried myself with the hand towel, then wiped
the mirror clean.

“Much
better,” he said. “Now, we can have a nice little chat, just you and I.” He
cocked his head and looked at me. “But I daresay you’d be more comfortable
sitting.” Another snap and a stool appeared behind me. The padded seat was
covered in black leather; the legs were made of dark, dark wood, and the whole
thing looked greasy. I grabbed a towel and threw it over the seat.

“How
resourceful. I assume you, like the other disgustingly happy Smythians, dislike
grease?”

I
gave him a shaky smile. “That’s a fair assessment of the situation.”

Levi
flashed a greasy grin. “So, Princess,” he began in his slippery voice, “I
wondered if you might have some questions for me–some questions related to say
The
Candlemaker’s Daughter
, perhaps?”

“How
did you—” I began, but stopped myself.

“How
did I know you had the file?” He asked, smirking. “My dear Lily, I have been
working Celdan’s case for a very long time; I know the file well, and I make it
my business to know who has it.”

I
ignored his arrogance. “What exactly do you do when you ‘work’ a case?”

He
shrugged. “Different things for different people. Lots of observations and
reconnaissance in the beginning.” He began examining his fingernails. “Mostly,
I just cause trouble until I find a way to make the person genuinely unhappy.”

“Did
you find a way to make Celdan unhappy?”

He
smiled. “I didn’t find it. It found me. Besides, any junior ranked Dark Mesa
could have found out what would push her over into Sadly Ever After. She was a
mess.” He shook his head. “I did her a favor by getting it over with.”

I
shuddered, disgusted at the callous way he talked about ruining a person's
life. “Dark Mesa?”

“Like
a Happiologist, but working for my Lord Tallis at SEA.”
[43]

“So,
a Dark Mesa is an
un
happiologist? And SEA is like HEA, but you make
people sad?”

“Something
like that. But SEA is different from your nasty little HEA; we only exist to
make
your
citizens sad; we don’t care at all about our own.”

Logical.
Uppish Senna was just as organized at unhappiness as Smythe’s SFL was at
happiness. “Does Tandem Tallis get out like the Dark Mesas and make people
unhappy?”

Levi
made a scoffing noise. “He’s the counterpart of your dear father. He was, of
course, once a Dark Mesa himself, but now he coordinates the efforts of the
rest of us. He doesn’t have the time to be flitting around coaxing people into
unhappiness.”

Grease
ball. “So, you’re the Dark Mesa assigned to me?”

“Well,”
Levi ran a greasy hand over his greasy hair. “I
am
the top Dark Mesa
and, probably, the only one qualified to vanish you, excepting my Lord Tallis,
of course.”

“Well,
qualified or not, you’re wasting your time. I can’t vanish yet, since I haven’t
reached Happily Ever After.” Levi flinched a little at the words “Happily Ever
After.” “Besides, you’ve only annoyed me. Feathers and flowers aren’t exactly
depressing.” That was true. I wasn’t saddened by the Levi letters; just annoyed
and disturbed.

Levi
smiled. “Delightful as your criticisms are, especially since you know
nothing
of how saddening works, I suggest we move on; I doubt you brought me here to
talk about dead birds and dead flowers. We still have the matter of Celdan to
finish discussing.”

“I
didn’t bring you here,” I protested.

The
scoffing noise again. “Lily, Lily, Lily. Your ignorant innocence is
refreshing.” He flashed a smile full of pity. “I’ll let you ask three
questions, but after that, I simply must go. I’ve got dry cleaning to pick up.
You can’t clean pants like these at home.” He pointed to the greasy leather on
his legs.

I
organized my thoughts quickly; I certainly didn’t want to keep Levi from his
precious
dry cleaning. “Alright,” I nodded. “Question one: How did you get the File? Question
two: What happened to Celdan and Colin’s other children? Question three: Why
didn’t the file vanish?”

Levi
smirked and raised his eyebrows. “Excellent questions. Answer one: I stole the
file from The Archive. Answer two: Colin and Celdan had three more sons. They
all died in infancy. Answer three: Files only vanish when every character has
either vanished or died; therefore,” he paused, looking meaningfully at me,
“someone from the story is still in your nauseatingly happy land.” He stood up
to leave.

“But,
wait,” I argued, “that doesn’t explain it. Everyone is dead or vanished
already!”

Levi
held up a finger. “I did say only three questions. Until next time, dear
Princess. You can keep the stool,” he bowed and disappeared.

“Wait!”
I yelled pointlessly, but only my reflection stared back at me. I sighed, “That
sycophant.”

I
sat on the edge of the tub and thought of about seven possibilities to explain
why the file hadn’t vanished, and none of them were remotely mathematical.

I
dragged the stool to my bedroom and tried to sleep.

~~~

The
morning found me staring, once again, at my face in the mirror as I brushed my
teeth. I left a note for Mom (who was doing an early news show interview about
her latest book), telling her that I would be home late from work. I wanted to
stop by Ella’s; it was time to implement phase one of the Cinderella Theorem.
That girl needs to get out of the house and get a job.

School
flew by in a whirl of exclamations, notebook paper, half-truths to Corrie, and
beautifully balanced equations. And I had a whole page of Algebra for homework.
I almost hated to leave it, but Calo would probably be thrilled to write me up
for being tardy. He was working on a Happiness plan for Okera (Sleeping Beauty)
when I arrived, and was not in the mood to hear any of my suggestions.

“The
soothing sounds CD from the Sandman worked last time, Lily. It’s not as if...”

“But
that doesn’t tell you why she can’t sleep. If you knew
that
, then you
could be treating the
actual
problem instead of just...”

Calo
kept thumbing through his files, ignoring me. “I could try a sleeping pill,
maybe.”

“A
sleeping pill? Calo, that’s crazy!” I tried to move into his line of vision.
“She’s probably stressed or worried about something or maybe her insomnia is
caused by some other magical variable, but you can’t just—”

He
held his hand up to stop me. “Kara told me Okera’s visits from Baldric have
been increasing, so that’s probably the reason for her insomnia. But it is
vital that we—”

“Who’s
Baldric?”

“Her
Dark Mesa. But that’s not the point. If we don’t get her sleeping again, she’s
only Beauty, and we’ve already got one of those.”

I
stared dumbly at him.

“From
Beauty and the Beast,” he added.

“Oh
yeah. Right.” I responded, faking understanding.

Calo
sighed and closed his eyes. “Perhaps, Lily, while I’m taking my nap, you could
review some
more
of the stories. You seem to have forgotten a few.”

“While
you’re taking a
nap
?” I asked indignantly. “What about all this running
around trying to get Okera to fall asleep?”

Calo
closed his eyes again and breathed deeply. “Since I want to help her with her
sleeping, it’s got to be a
night
visit, doesn’t it?”

“Oh
yeah. Right.” Calo: 2. Lily: 0.

Calo
shook his head. “I’ll be in the nap room.”

~~~

I
was working my way through
Beauty and the Beast
when Lane came in.

“Package
for you, Princess.” He left the box on my desk.

For
a moment, I was torn. Was I more interested in the package or in the ending of
the story? I shook my head. What was I thinking? Was I actually interested in
this story? Reluctantly, I began to examine the data.

(1)
The story, apart from the magic, had made sense.

(2)
I really admired the daughter (Beauty) for taking her dad’s punishment and
sacrificing herself so he could be free. It was almost mathematical; the
illegal rose picking happened (x), so then someone staying (y) must happen.
Beauty just put herself in for y. (If x occurs, then y must also occur.)

(3)
I also liked that the Beast and Beauty actually spent time together and fell in
love. It wasn’t love because of a kiss or magic shoes or frogs turning into
princes. They actually got to know each other and
then
fell in love.

The
data indicated that I was clearly interested in the story, but I decided I
would open the package first. It’s one thing to be interested in a fairy tale
and quite another to let it control what I’m doing. I opened the box and read
the included note.

Princess
Lily,

My
map table told me you don’t have your own map of our exciting country. How
unfortunate! I’ve enclosed a miniature map table for your own use. It is a copy
of my own.

Best
Wishes,

Aven

Prince
Charming and Chief Cartographer