Read Atone: A Fairytale (Fairytale Trilogy) Online
Authors: Jessica Grey
Atone: A Fairytale (Fairytale Trilogy) (30 page)
I took a deep breath and tried again.
“Wickham? George Wickham?” I asked. My companion, clearly discomfited by my strange behavior, nodded vigorously. My brain, which had been feeling sluggish—maybe a byproduct of the strange rushing sounds that had been echoing inside my cranium—began to fit pieces together. “And...you’re Mrs. Younge?”
She nodded again. “Miss Darcy, are you feeling quite well?”
Miss Darcy. Georgiana Darcy. Mr. Darcy’s little sister. Which meant one of two things. I was dreaming or I was crazy. I closed my eyes briefly and ordered myself to wake up. Nothing happened. I peeled my eyelids open again to find Miss Darcy’s paid companion, Mrs. Younge, still watching me.
Well, that still left crazy as an option.
“I feel, um, a little bit disoriented,” I said truthfully. I was finally able to will myself to stand up. I was tiny! My eye line was completely different; it made everything look strange. I usually stood at 5’9, but I’d bet good money that I was now at least seven to eight inches shorter than that. I probably hadn’t been this short since I was ten years old. I took a few steps, Mrs. Younge watching me the entire time. I would have said she looked concerned, but I had a poor opinion of her to start with. I knew she was complicit in trying to foist Wickham on poor, unsuspecting Georgiana, so I trusted her about as much as I’d trust a viper.
I glanced around the room. There wasn’t a mirror, which was too bad because I was dying to find out what Georgiana Darcy looked like. I think that was the moment when it occurred to me that I might actually be in Pride and Prejudice. My brain had somehow accepted that I was a different person—a character that I was familiar enough with to be curious about.
Likely I was a total nut case and had already been committed to a mental institution by concerned friends and family. My choice of hallucination seemed to be the pages of Pride and Prejudice, though why my poor, addled brain would pick Georgiana, I honestly had no idea.
I walked over to the window and looked out. We were on the first floor, and the sitting room window overlooked a cobblestone street, lined on either side with stately looking homes.
“We are in Ramsgate,” I said out loud. I was mentally orienting myself in the novel’s storyline. The seaside town of Ramsgate is where Georgiana Darcy had been seduced by Mr. Wickham into agreeing to elope with him. We were discussing Wickham, but Mrs. Younge hadn’t acted as if he had already proposed to Georgiana—to me—I corrected myself.
“Yes, of course. Do you think you might need to retire? Mayhap if you lay down for a few moments. Mr. Wickham did promise to call today. We do not want him to see you in such a confused state.”
“Don’t we? I mean, do we not?” I tried to imitate Mrs. Younge’s speaking pattern as I turned my head to look back at her. “And my brother, Mr. Darcy, we do not expect him?”
Mrs. Younge actually started at that and I smiled to myself. Snake, I thought. It’d ruin all your plans if Darcy showed up right now. Although he manages to ruin them for you soon enough. I wondered how long it would be until he did show up, wrecking Wickham’s and Mrs. Younge’s nefarious plans and swooping me off to London. Would it be possible to stay crazy that long? Being crazy might be worth it if I got to see Mr. Darcy in the flesh. Although, I’d be his sister, which was kind of awkward and lame, but at least I’d get to see him.
I must be an incredibly sick cookie to be hoping to remain in a complete state of mental breakdown in order to see a hot fictional guy. I’m obviously not in a healthy place.
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Views from the Tower
a short story collection of re-imagined fairy tales
After spending her whole life isolated in a tower, Rapunzel’s salvation is finally at hand, but she may have merely traded one form of captivity for another…
Special Agent Alice Harrison of the Office of Narrative Order should know better than anyone not to follow a suspicious (and suspiciously good-looking) man in a white rabbit suit down a hole…
Miss Lucinda Beacham is bored. The endless balls and dances she must endure as a debutante hold no enjoyment for her—that is until she finds a frog sitting on the edge of a fountain, a frog who just so happens to know her name…
Being a fairy godmother isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you’re a junior in high school and your next assignment is your former crush…
Views from the Tower is a collection of short stories that offers new perspectives on some of your favorite fairy tales, including a trio of different takes on Rapunzel. Each story offers a unique foray into the exciting world of fantasy, as well as a golden opportunity to see some well-known legends in a whole new light.
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Table of Contents
