Letters to Zell (9 page)

Filling Emptiness with Words

Princess Briar R. Rose

Somnolent Tower Castle

South Road, Grimmland

Beverly Wilshire Hotel

Los Angeles

Outside

Oh, Zell,

I’ve just had the most amazing evening. Can you believe I’m writing you from Outside? I hope the Pigeon Post here is reliable. They seem to do all right with Bianca’s magazines, but some of these birds look a bit suspect, if you ask me.

I suppose I should slow down and start from the beginning. It has been a whirlwind of a day.

An hour or two after we returned from Solace’s clock shop, CeCi and Bianca’s contagious excitement swept its way up the stairs, and we found ourselves standing in the tower. I didn’t have any objections to the portal being placed there; in truth I was overwhelmed with elation that their plans included me again.

“No one comes up here, right?” Bianca asked, turning in a circle.

Solace had given us a marking chalk to use on the floor, and I moved it between my clammy hands. I wanted to answer honestly, but I knew mentioning my tea with Maro would upset them and I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Besides, not a soul had been up before or since. “No.”

I marked a spot on the center of the floor with the chalk, and the three of us moved back against the curved walls. The air shimmered, and soon a grandfather clock, sculpted from jagged pieces of ebony hardwood and bloodred metal, materialized, twice as tall as we are and about a two or three arm spans wide. The numerals on the clock face are written in a strange hand, and instead of the regular tick tock, it makes a low hissing sound. I’m glad it’s up in the tower, out of earshot and eyesight—it is more than a bit creepy.

“Did Solace give you the bracelets?” I asked.

Bianca produced them from the pocket of her gown, a set of three twisting bands of the same bloodred metal. The face on each band was decorated with the same slim, silver numerals.

Bianca fumbled with the clasp as she tried to close it around my wrist. “CeCi, you do this. I don’t have any nails.”

While CeCi lectured Bianca about the filthy habit of nail biting, she took it upon herself to inspect my nails as well, while I stood, still mesmerized by the hideous clock in the middle of the room.

I didn’t study the clock long, however, because Bianca began to shake me, asking where the dog had gotten to and what I had done with my overnight bag. “We’ve got a schedule to keep,” she tutted, sounding not very Bianca-like.

Time being of the essence, or so we were informed, we stuck to Bianca’s itinerary once we arrived Outside: finance, lodging, sustenance, test, Disneyland, shopping.

First, we stopped at a bank. She’d read in one of her father’s journals that carrying around satchels of cash could be dangerous in certain circumstances. So we waited while Bianca exchanged her pile of cash for a thin rectangular card. Whenever the card stops working, one simply brings in another satchel of cash. Or so says the
teller
, evidently named so because they tell one things like “That bag looks vintage,” “Good thing you got here when you did, we close at six,” and “Sorry this is taking so long, but most people don’t really keep their cash in
wads
.”

After our errand we got to the best part, checking in to this magnificent hotel called the Beverly Wilshire. It’s like a castle yet like a lodge, all filled with Human royalty. Bianca handed the clerk the card from the bank. The clerk gave us three similar cards along with the bank card. These new cards weren’t money, though. Even better: They opened up our room.

The room itself is large and white and fluffy and has a balcony. The balcony is quite noisy because of the vehicles and the people and music and air machines known as
helicopters
—but it’s amazing nonetheless. And the sunset was full of colors I’ve never seen before.

Down in the lobby, we met a man whose title was
concierge
(Bianca called him Little Suit, which didn’t seem terribly polite, though he seemed to take it in stride), whose sole purpose was to answer our questions. He offered to walk Snoozer for me every few hours and gave us a menu especially for dogs. After he recommended a restaurant for dinner, I asked him to select an appropriate leash for Snoozer to wear. He offered to take Snoozer for the evening, instead, as the restaurant regrettably did not welcome dogs. (Here, pet nursemaids are called
dog sitters
, though I was assured no one would sit on Snoozer.)

The Beverly Wilshire is almost better than home. People wait on you hand and foot, but no one expects you to sign decrees or sit on thrones or hear grievances over chickens or suffer jugglers or listen to halfhearted performances on stringed instruments—though they do have some of those here and there on the lanes as you walk.

We ate dinner at a sumptuous restaurant called Mirabelle. Don’t tell DJ, but the wine was much better than at the Swinging Vine, and the food was as amazing as any palace banquet I’ve ever tasted—dainty course upon dainty course of sparkling green flavors and savory brown sauces. I’d grow as big as a bear if I lived near such a place. No wonder CeCi wants to learn how to make food like that.

The restaurant was quiet, but the street beyond the door was alive with light and sound. We walked a bit because it was warm out and the simple gowns we’d brought were the perfect weight. When we’d had enough walking, we ducked into a bar for a nightcap.

CeCi had consumed a great deal of wine by then, bringing out her loving, gregarious side. She chatted away with some ladies at the next table about what they’d eaten that day and their all-time favorite restaurants.

Bianca tired of all of this once the conversation moved past ketchup. She perched on a stool next to me, tugging on my sleeve, telling me to
just look
at everything—the people, the clothes, the lights, the automobiles. As I looked, an unwelcome and unexpected panic rose up my throat. I stole a glance at my clock bracelet, but we had arrived only a few hours before. I don’t know why I couldn’t simply enjoy myself. Worry comes so naturally.

CeCi bounced back over to our table. “Come on, Rory. Wake up,” she said. “Let’s have some fun.”

“Would you mind terribly,” I asked, “if we went back to the hotel to do so?”

When we got back to the lobby, CeCi ran on ahead to order room service (her new favorite thing) while Bianca and I waited for the concierge to collect Snoozer from the dog sitter’s office. I must have dozed off for a few minutes, because when I woke up Bianca was deep in conversation with a woman we’d passed on our way in.

She was dark—skin almost the color of night, with close-cropped hair and a strong face, bare of makeup.

Bianca looked down at Snoozer, then at me. “Good nap?” she asked. “Rory, this is Rachel.”

“Lovely to meet you,” I said, feeling as if I’d accidentally interrupted. “I assume you’ve met my dog?”

“I most certainly did. He’s quite the charmer.” Snoozer grunted and Rachel broke into a grin. It was hard to believe, but she was even more dazzling when she smiled.

Bianca stood and touched my shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Aren’t you coming back to the room?”

“Rachel said she’d show me around. Besides, I’m not that tired,” she said.

“I’ll have her back before you know it,” Rachel said, smiling again. It was hard not to stand there and grin back like a simpleton.

“Sweet dreams,” Bianca said.

I meant to lecture Bianca about strangers and getting lost but then found myself falling silent. The way she and Rachel looked at one another was like something from a book. I’ve only been looked at like that once, a very long time ago—the night I met Fred. I watched them make their way out to the street, chatting about something I couldn’t hear or probably even imagine, like the colors of the stars or the pulse of the city beneath us or the many ways a heart feels love.

Sitting there, watching the people glide through the lobby, I let myself think—for just a few moments—about Fred, about what his life might have been here. Did he find his own Rachel? Did he become a poet like he’d always planned? Was he happy? Did he miss me? Would he have left me a clue? It was senseless to dwell on such things. What’s done is done.

CeCi looked a bit concerned when I returned without Bianca, but she had ordered champagne and strawberries and proceeded to jump on the bed with Snoozer. I don’t know how late they stayed up because I fell asleep soon after. But it was a good night. I’m happy for Bianca. I’m excited for CeCi, too. I hope she didn’t drink all the champagne, though. This morning she has to take her test.

Love,

Rory

F
rom the Desk of Cecilia Cinder Charming

Crystal Palace

North Road, Grimmland

Beverly Wilshire Hotel

Los Angeles

Outside

Dear Zell,

When Bianca finally got back to the hotel this morning, my first impulse was to kill her, then bring her body home. Instead, I had to concentrate on getting everyone out the door so I could take my test on time.

We were still fighting when we got to the lobby where Rachel was waiting to walk with us.

“Please don’t ever do that again,” I hissed at Bianca.

“Oh, lighten up. Nothing happened,” she said.

“You should get a cell phone,” said Rachel. “It’s cool you don’t have one, but still.”

I was irritated that she was with us, even though she was doing us a favor by helping us navigate and making Bianca an all-around more tolerable being. She was so polite and understanding. I didn’t want to feel understood. I wanted to burst out of my skin.

“The test you’re taking,” Rachel said, unleashing a smile that felt like sunshine on a meadow, “is a simple one. It’s a test a lot of places use to make sure you have basic reasoning skills. It’s nothing to worry about.”

She squeezed my arm. I tried to imagine Rachel in the Realm. She would have made a great queen. At the very least, she’d be at the top of everyone’s invite list. Kind, calm, self-assured. What I wouldn’t give to have her unwavering confidence. What I wouldn’t give to feel like the rug wasn’t about to be pulled out from under me.

When we got to the door of the testing center, all three wished me luck and told me they’d be waiting. And then it was just me and my so-called reasoning skills.

Darling, Sweetie, and I had that strange tutor from Neverland for a while—a pedantic young woman, Wendy something or other—but I don’t remember her being particularly fond of me. Darling was so bright in math and Sweetie excellent in grammar. I preferred stories and daydreaming and getting back to the kitchen where things made sense.

I guess Cordon Bleu deserves to know if I’m smart enough to not cut my arm off, but through the entire test I was worried about failing, because it seems certain I’ll screw this all up at some point in this process. On the plus side, if I fail before I begin, I’ll never have to tell Edmund.

Bianca says thinking like that means I’m getting in my own way. She’s probably right, though I’ll never tell her. Grimm, wouldn’t she be insufferable then.

Would you like to see how you would have done on some of the questions?

1. Assume the first two statements are true. Is the final statement: (1) true, (2) false, or (3) not certain?

Cats play with yarn. Grandmother knits with yarn. Grandmother has a cat.

The answer is not certain. But why would “not certain” even be an answer on a test in the first place? I could tell them lots of other things I’m uncertain about while I’m at it. I’m uncertain whether Rory gives Snoozer too many treats. I’m uncertain whether we shouldn’t use Snoozer’s leash on Bianca instead. I’m uncertain as to why you abandoned us for unicorns. I’m uncertain if I can be a chef. I’m uncertain that Edmund will forgive me if I do become one. See? I could go on and on. I am certain, however, that I don’t wish to answer any more of these certainty questions.

2. Buttons are sold for 37 cents apiece. What will it cost to buy 5 buttons?

Thank Grimm Bianca prattled on ad nauseum about paper money when we were talking to the bank teller. I don’t plan to buy any buttons while I’m becoming a chef. Maybe button mushrooms
 . . .
(Come on, you laughed, right?) If I do, I’ll be sure to have $1.85 on my person. Or Bianca’s cash card.

3. A train travels 500 feet in 10 seconds. At this same speed, how many feet will it travel in 60 seconds?

It will travel 3,000 feet. This is just multiplication. Multiplication will be useful as soon as I get to cater an event. When I finally tell everyone I’m a real chef, the whole kingdom will hire me, and I’ll charge three times the going rate for soufflés.

4. Three women open a bakery and agree to divide the profits equally. Woman A invests $10,000, Woman B invests $5,000, and Woman C invests $2,000. If the profits are $15,000, how much less does Woman A receive than if the profits were divided proportionally to her investment?

Woman A is an idiot if she puts down twice or five times as much as her friends and agrees to share the profits equally. I was tempted to refuse to answer this question on the grounds that women aren’t actually that stupid.

Regardless, the result is I passed the test. I’m in the program. And now comes the hard part: Being here. Going through with it. Now the only person standing between me and my dream is me. (That, and my tendency to forget the ratios for a basic roux.)

Oh Grimm, what have I set in motion?

I’m posting this as we leave for Disneyland. The concierge called for a car as soon as we returned from the test center. He’s watching Snoozer again while we go. It will be a short trip so that we’re back in time, but we’ll soak in as much as we can, and don’t worry, we’ll tell you all about it.

Love,

CeCi

I
mportant Fucking Correspondence from Snow B. White

Onyx Manor

West Road, Grimmland

Beverly Wilshire Hotel

Los Angeles

Outside

Z,

This is the vacation of my dreams. Who needs sleep? Rory gets enough for all of us. My new friend Rachel and I had an amazing sunrise breakfast at a diner several blocks from the hotel. I would have given anything to stay there all morning, but I had to get back for CeCi’s exam. We walked with her to the test center a few blocks away. It took all of a half hour for her to pass. Extraordinarily anticlimactic.

Little Suit offers to take Snoozer off our hands so that we can go to this Disneyland place. When I tell him about our plans to shop afterward, he shakes his head. “Leave a list with me,” he says. “I’ll have your packages here when you return. The traffic will be too bad if you need to swing by here and still make the Magic Castle by five.”

I’m seriously starting to think Human ingenuity is more than a match for magic. CeCi tells me to stop “peppering” him with questions. I tell her to quit it with the food idioms because we get it already: she’s Hot-Shit Chef now.

When the car arrives, it takes forever to get to Disneyland—apparently the “traffic” Little Suit referred to. It’s like a million Mr. Toads are on the road going to the same place. The number of automobiles in all different shapes and sizes is almost unimaginable. And then there are motorized bicycles driven by what can only be the criminally insane, darting in and out of spaces, trusting bigger motorists won’t run them over.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I love it here. It’s so exciting and new and dangerous. I wish I had days and days to explore. All the smells and sights and all the movement and all the life, Zell. It’s so different from home.

Turns out we can’t just walk right into the theme park. There’s a little booth where we buy tickets with the cash card, and those tickets allow us inside. I suppose the reason why they don’t let everyone in at once is because it’s wall-to-wall people. Imagine, children everywhere—holding hands, holding toys, holding balloons, wearing mouse ears and short pants. (Rory was understandably delighted, but you should have seen CeCi’s face. She was terrified, dripping ice cream cones coming at her from every direction.)

When we get through the gates, Rory sees a bunch of horse-drawn buggies and heaves this big sigh as if she’s been searching for them for hours. CeCi, however, insists on walking even though it’s warm, so that we don’t miss anything. We walk past buildings and more carriages and a locomotive of some sort and statues and people in animal suits and ladies dressed like they just came from the Realm. Rory whines that we should have worn our gowns. CeCi interrupts with a tirade about the heat and the impropriety blah blah blah. I tell both of them to shut up.

We’re barely paying attention when we come to the end of the walkway and look up. There it is: Rory’s castle in miniature. The color is off and they took some liberties with the style, but it certainly isn’t mine or yours or CeCi’s.

Rory’s eyes get big. She takes the wrist of a guy in a prince’s costume. “Who’s in charge here?” She shakes his hand as much as she’s able without his participation.

“Is there a problem, miss?” he asks, trying to step back from her.

“I’d like to know who built this,” she says. “There are some unfortunate inaccuracies that I’d like to
 . . .
”

“I’m sorry, miss. I’m not sure how to help you.”

CeCi steps in front of Rory, ineffectually fanning herself with her flimsy ticket. “It’s the heat. We’re going to find her some water. Is it always this hot? Do you know where we can get some water?”

“CeCi, just look!” Rory says, apoplectic. “They made me a
blond
!”

She’s pointing and the fake prince is pointing, and I step in, scrambling for an explanation that won’t get us booted from the park. “I’m sorry, sir. Our friend is, well, she’s manic.” (I read in
Cosmo
that manic is when people get uncontrollably excitable about things.)

“Oh, I see,” he says with a gracious smile.

“I am
not
a maniac! It’s all wrong. Wrong, Bianca! Let me go!”

CeCi and I remove Rory’s hand from the poor man’s arm. “No one said you were a
maniac
, love,” I say, attempting to smile sweetly at the now quite perplexed fake prince. “So stop acting like one. This is an
homage
, if you will. Let’s just go and see what’s inside.”

“Come on, Rory.” CeCi flaps her ticket again. “At least it will be cooler in there.”

“Sorry about this,” I whisper to the prince.

“Happens all the time,” he says, graciously. “No worries.”

CeCi and I forge ahead, with Rory straggling after. We enter a new Realm, of sorts. One where everything we’d heard about the way Humans had interpreted our stories is correct: It’s a complete farce. They see us as inaccurately as we see them.

Ludicrous caricatures of Rory sing and prance around with three Human Fairy Godmothers. A mural depicts her asleep in a big, comfy bed. There’s an insinuation that Malice
turned into a dragon
while fighting a very valiant and handsome version of Henry. It’s the story exactly as I imagine Henry himself would tell it, had he an ounce of creativity. I might even—on a very good day and with enough bourbon—root for this paragon of princehood, someone who resembles the Fred Rory had all those years ago instead of Henry the Horrible.

CeCi and I are laughing so hard that tears are falling, arguing whether Rory would have indeed selected pink or blue for her pre-sleep birthday party gown, when we emerge from the faux castle to find Rory herself looking uncharacteristically smug.

“Let’s see how you like it,” she says, grabbing my elbow. She hauls me a short distance to a line that snakes into a building entitled “Snow White’s Scary Adventures.” My own caricature wears a prim blue bow and a long dress and sings all of the time (what
is
it with all the damned singing, anyway?). We marveled at their interpretation of Valborg as a bent, warty little witch as a disguise of the handsome, statuesque stunner she used to be. I seriously hope the dwarves never get up here to see their namesakes, whose idiosyncrasies are grossly misrepresented. At least at the end of the ride, they’re shown vanquishing Valborg with a strategically placed boulder. Everyone cheers at that part. I’ll have to put it on the list of execution suggestions.

We decide that we’ll continue on, to see if we can see anything else interesting from home. We find women dressed up as Rory and me, and they look almost identical to the pictures inside the attractions. CeCi watches her theme park doppelganger with her fists clenched. We’re just leaving when a girl next to us sighs and says, “I just love Cinderella. She’s so beautiful. I want her to be my best friend.” Before we can stop her, CeCi kneels down and says, “Then you should call her by her real name.” Rory and I each grab an arm before she can say anything else.

It’s at this point that we stumble into a room and find you! You didn’t think you’d get left out, did you? Instead of the solid and ardent Jason, there’s a stubbly-chinned adolescent by your side. There are no twins yet and your hair is still enchanted. The little girls who visit can get improbably long braids like yours used to be and sit and chat with you. A lot of little girls. And boys, too. And parents. I feel I should point out that in this room there are no unicorns. Not a single. Rainbow-spewing. Glitter-shitting. One.

You totally should have been here.

They’ve got tributes to Toad Hollow and Wonderland. They’ve got Neverland and a whole ride dedicated to Hook. This place is awesomely terrible. It’s like the Humans didn’t feel like fact-checking the stories they dreamed up in the first place and said,
Fuck it, this is close enough
.

For once and for all, Zell, Figgy is wrong. Humans have built a shrine to Fairy Tales. If anything, they’re dreaming more, not less. It’s wonderfully freeing, isn’t it? Our Realm will never stop expanding. It makes anything possible. Like our lives are wide open for our own dreams.

From what I see, Humans are just like us but with different
kinds
of magic. There are good people like Rachel and bad people like the taxi driver who tried to overcharge us and rich people who live at the Beverly Wilshire and poor buskers on the streets. They all have dreams and desolations, just like we do. How many of them are breaking free from their own expectations?

Here, mirrors aren’t magical. Apples are health food. Clocks just tell time, and shoes are made of leather. Hair is for decoration instead of a climbing apparatus, and I didn’t see a single spinning wheel anywhere. There’s no risk of destroying the city around you just because you don’t want to get married.

Here, you have a fucking choice. Try that on for size.

Love (So what. I forgive you a little today),

B

PS. You should have seen Rory when this guy offers her a hot dog. She thinks it’s made of real dog until we explain it to her. The look on her face. I’ll never laugh that hard again.

PPS. It’s so nice to be able to write to you from Outside, even if I have to write this in a taxi. Granted, the pigeons out here are no Cliff, but they’ll do for now.