The Empress Chronicles (11 page)

“Well,
do
you?” My father’s voice is growing impatient. Scared, even.

“Condoms?” I say. “Yeah. Sure.”

He wants to press for more, but at that moment Willow and a figure shrouded in a hoodie wander up to the Volvo.

“Okay,” Dad says, pulling the trunk button and unpacking himself from the car. “We need to pick this up later.”

Behind us the boy throws his bags into the open trunk. Willow is smiling as he does that, in the way of a proud mommy. Dad comes around behind the car and locks lips with her; his over-the-top grabbing and squeezing look like a poster of a soldier freshly back from World War II planting one on his
girl
. What has it been, five minutes apart? The hoodie-clad boy slams the trunk down. I wait in the car, gazing at the spectacle through the side mirror.

When he opens the car door and climbs in, the smell is clothes that had been stored in a cedar chest. The shoes he’s wearing, skater. And they make his feet look like the bumper boats at the Family Fun Center. Where’s the elite soccer equipment? I have to stop my own scrawny foot from touching the rims of his paws. He sits with his knees far apart in the backseat, next to me. I close my eyes for a moment and smell the cedar of his nearness.

“Hi,” I say.

“So, you’re the daughter, eh?” he asks, not looking at me.

The daughter?
I nod, feeling myself shrink.

“Terrific,” he says under his breath. “Let’s do the whole getting-to-know-you chat later, yeah? I need to catch up on the z’s.”

We drive quietly, our new team, each of us lost in our own thoughts, whatever they are. I resist plugging in, so my iPod wires hang over my shoulders like stray threads. This boy next to me is bigger and less hippie-esque than I thought he’d be. The smell of him, his half-closed eyes under dark, bushy brows, I can’t stay near it too much longer and continue to breathe like a normal person. I need my music, but if he saw my playlist of Mozart, I’d be right away advertising how nerdy I am.

Willow lurches her head around to us. “I know you haven’t been living at Willow Creek long, Liz, but why don’t you show Cory around when we get back?”

Dad is quiet, his one hand on top of his other hand on the steering wheel. The tension in the Volvo is thicker than morning fog. I can tell Dad isn’t really keen on this new development, and the whole sex and condom talk has stirred him up.

“Okay,” I say.

By the time we turn into the gravel driveway, Cory is full-on snoring. He doesn’t even wake up when Dad jerks to a stop, gets out, and slams the heavy door closed. I scramble out my own door, the stolen pages tucked in the ingestion log tight in my clutches, and wander over to sit in a big tire lashed to a branch of an enormous oak that stands just outside the back door of the farmhouse. Willow removes her brother’s luggage from the trunk and begins hauling it to the back porch.

My father’s forehead creases, and he booms, “Shouldn’t Cory be doing that?”

Willow shrugs, says, “He’s exhausted. I don’t think he slept all night last night.”

“And why would that be?”

“This is a pretty traumatic situation for him, Billy,” she says. “I wish you could chill out for a bit. Give him a chance.”

They walk inside, the two of them, no longer hand-in-hand. Cory is still in the car, sleeping away. I try to swing, but the problem with a tire swing is that you really need someone to push you, so instead, with my diary firmly squeezed between my thighs, I inch my feet around the circle of dirt under the tire and twist myself in a tight, round ball.

Jewellee and Becket, back when they were going out, I’d see them at the Couch Street playground outside of AHA! and once they were on a swing together, her sitting backwards on his lap. They looked like a lunar landing vehicle with their four legs splayed out. Some outer-space creepy-crawly thing. Their crotches were fused together, separated only by cheap denim, a couple of zippers. I wondered if Jewellee’s father ever asked her if she’d had sex. If she used condoms. He owns a BMW dealership in Beaverton, and just last week I heard Jewellee’s taunting voice molded into an advertisement for expensive Bavarian Motor Works sports cars. Her dad sells top-end cars; mine fixes beaters. Not that I really care.

At Providence, there were lots of girls like Jewellee. Rich girls who cut. Ballerinas who puked. Smart girls who made themselves stupid to be popular. Jewellee, though, never landed in the psych ward. She straightened out somewhere between eighth and ninth grade, and freshman year, after I returned to school, she even came up to me at lunch and asked me if I wanted to sit with her and her friends. I declined.

I spin around, hugging the top of the tire between my upper arms and chest. One thing about being flat: nothing really gets in the way.

Inside the Volvo, there’s movement. The boy stirs.

The back door of the Volvo squeaks open and out he comes. He stretches and bends over and touches his bumper-boat toes. He twists his back one way, the other way, and then his eyes, peeking out from under that hoodie, go straight to my eyes. “Tire swing,” he says. “Sick.”

He clomps his big skater shoes over to the tree.

“What’s that?” he asks, pointing to my ingestion log.

I feel my cheeks flush. “Nothing. My, uh, homework.”

“It’s summer.” He lifts his lips enough to show off two major dimples.

I’m mortified. Already he thinks I’m a geek. “Yeah, well, you know. I’m making up some work.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” he says. “Where’d everyone go?”

I point to the shack.

“What’d you say your name was?”

“Liz,” I say. “Elizabeth, actually. I don’t think I said my name was anything, so don’t feel bad if you didn’t remember …”
Why am I such an idiot?

Cory thrusts a clenched hand at me in a fist-bump invitation, and it takes me a second to understand that he isn’t just showing me a Livestrong rubber bracelet or something. “So, Elizabeth. You just moved up here yourself, right?”

I nod. I can feel my bobby pins straining to hold in my frizzy tufts.

“Um, this homework? You reading some sort of book?”

I bring my food diary closer in, hold it tight. I’m not about to get into that with this Coriander boy. I say, “Not really.”

“You like eleven, twelve?”

I’m tongue-tied, and I feel the urge to hold out all ten fingers then close one hand, showing my age the way preschool kids do. “I just turned fifteen,” I manage. “On my last birthday. Which was June sixth.”

I can feel the heat of his eyes on my boobs. It’s a common response of disbelief: that chest, that skinny kid, that age. It doesn’t add up.

“Yeah,” he says, “that was my next guess.” He smiles big then, revealing unequal dimples. One is deeply grooved, like a scar, and the smaller one is round, like a corn kernel. On his chin there’s a tiny bit of whisker action. His eyes are dark, dark brown. He looks nothing like his sister. He leans in close. “So really, is this place like miles from everywhere?”

“Seven point five,” I say. “Miles. From the nearest store.”

Cory smiles bigger and pushes back his hood. “You’re some sort of genius, I heard. My sister said that—she said, ‘Bill’s daughter is off-the-charts smart.’ I’ll bet that book you’re reading is like something from a college course.”

If Willow is Ivory Girl, Cory is a teenaged Russell Crowe. Capital T Trouble.

“Do you want to see the goats?” I ask.

“Nah,” says Cory, and then he points at the main barn. “What’s in there?”

My heart starts beating in my throat. I feel the rubberiness of the tire under my legs. The cedar smell of him, those eyes. The dimples. “M-m-milk,” I stutter. “Hay. You know the hay that’s for horses? But it’s for the goats. Of course.”

If I got any more babyish, I’d be crawling on my hands and knees.

“Tell you what,” he says, “I’m gonna take a walk.”

I nod and start to slide out of the tire.

“No,” he says, “you stay here.” He whips out his cell. “I’ll give you my number. Text me if you see them come out.”

Ah. Of course. I played that role well, actually, lookout. It was one of my main jobs at Lincoln. There was only one problem up here in the bar-free zone. I point to his phone. “Might as well throw that away out here,” I say. “Pretty much worthless. Sorry.”

Cory’s face goes shock-white under his hoodie hood. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

He looks at me like I’ve just delivered news of a death.

“Hey. Just the messenger. I don’t want to be here any more than you.”

Papa came home from his hunting trip early, as there was unrest in the hills. “This Manifesto fever has the smithies all atwitter. They are taking the woods from anyone who smells like a duke or a count, so here I will stay,” he decreed.

Ah, but Papa confined to walls was troublesome, and the battle between him and Mummi had reached a pitch so high I couldn’t imagine that it was safer in Herzog than the hills. Papa was waxing his moustache and slathering himself with oakmoss oil, and to Mummi, this meant one thing: peasant ladies.

It was no secret to us children that Papa was popular with the ladies, and if one listened too much to the chatter of the servants, one might believe that all over Bavaria, into the Alps and across several borders there were children sporting Papa’s fine carriage, his large, expressive eyes, his small, agile frame. Down in the beer garden café the waitress’s girth began to push out her
dirndlgewand
. Mummi stormed about in the apartment upstairs, lamenting loudly, “Why did I settle? I could have been the queen of Prussia by now. I could have been the queen of Saxony. But no, those positions were stolen straight out from under me by my ambitious sisters. Why am I not sitting on the throne in Vienna like Sophie? I’ll tell you why—because I am dull, stupid and shortsighted.”

I hated these times. Mummi’s jealous rants. Papa’s sheepish, sneaking behavior. Hearing them quarrel caused all of us children to scatter to the far ends of the castle, but wherever we found ourselves, the sobs, the angry accusations could be heard echoing off the walls.

It did not help matters that it was, once again, ball season. The court seamstress was underfoot, measuring us all for new gowns, and Mummi, never at home in the most formal of attire, was anxious.

The tulle, the netting, the lace, the whalebones, the dreadful, dreadful crinolines and corsets. For a fortnight Nené and I were measured, tucked, pinned and snipped. There was a pedestal installed in one of the rooms, and we took turns, my sister and I, while the seamstress and her ladies, pins in the mouth, measure tape in the hand, fitted and refitted our gowns.

Duchess Helene had worn out two pairs of silk shoes during dance practice, and I believed it was because she insisted on wearing slippers too small for her large bunioned feet. My sister was trying so very hard to grow into a proper empress-to-be; she spent most of her waking days heeding Mummi’s advice, lest she end up married to a second-rate count, duke or baron. In fact, she now had her very own lady-in-waiting, and this attendant was also trying to teach her French during the long fitting sessions.

“Repeat,” the lady would say, walking in a circle around the pedestal.

“‘Comme le matin rit sur les roses en pleurs.
O. Les charmants petits amoureux qu’ont les fleurs.’”

Nené stumbled over the words, her lips having a hard time forming into the Parisian O shape.

Her lady scolded, “Terrible.” She said, “More lilt to the voice, Your Grace.”

If this were to be my fate, well, I would just as soon marry a lout. Or nobody at all.

I knew well that as soon as Nené was properly betrothed, my turn for the French and the slippers would come all too quickly. Archduke Karl had sent more letters, and I to him, and then the whole lot was intercepted by Baroness, and she crossed herself before slipping the collection of them into her bodice. “When your mother is feeling better, I will share these with her.”

At least I still had my little timepiece with Karl’s fading photograph inside, though it seemed odd to have a suitor I’d never really met.

Neither archduke would be attending the upcoming ball at the Residenz, and my sister was quite pleased, as she felt she needed much more practice on the ballroom floor before the eventual cotillion where the match, Mummi hoped, would at last be made.

Finally, after a fortnight of fuss, the night of the ball was at hand. Our retinue would attend in several coach loads. Mummi and Papa would arrive first. Then, Helene, myself, and Louis, our eldest brother and escort. Our ladies and governess would arrive in a third coach and shuffle in with the other attendants. As the time drew near, I could hear Mummi yelling for Papa, who had disappeared to his drinking room with several friends. We were all in the reception hall in a heap of hoops and ruffles waiting for him when he finally arrived, his cheeks red, his dress coat open to show a rumpling of his pleated shirt beneath. He held his kid gloves in one hand, pressed between thumb and finger, and Mummi scolded, “Duke Max, will you embarrass me once again?”

Papa ignored the remark and instead kissed my hand and Nené’s and even the wrist of Nené’s lady. To Baroness, he bowed, and to Mummi’s lady, he grunted.

Baroness Wilhelmine then cleared her throat, and Papa said, “And you, Ludovica, are enchanting tonight.”

My governess, that quarrelsome baroness, clucked. “Well done, Duke.” Evidently, being our governess was not enough for the woman’s enduring bossiness, but she felt compelled to scold Papa as well.

As we stood there in our finery, I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, and a bone in my petticoat began to pierce my back muscle.

Papa must have read my face; he winked at me and mumbled over his shoulder, “Shall we get this done with?” He jerked his head back in that funny way he did and shoved his arm under Mummi’s, escorting her outside to the waiting carriage.

The Residenz was lit up like Christmas when we arrived. Fall winds had blown brown leaves into swirling heaps outside the palace gate, and the horses crunched through them, the clop of their hooves quickly overtaken by the orchestra inside.

When the coach pulled up, Louis scrambled out from between us to take his proper place as escort, helping us descend the carriage. We were a stiff and starchy sight, Nené and I, not used to moving with such abundant hoops in our skirts. Dried and preserved roses had been woven into our curls, and it was easy to imagine them being crushed by a sudden, thoughtless gesture.

Louis escorted us to the ladies’ dressing room, where attendants took our cloaks and offered combs and hot towels and atomizers of scent. Really, what I wanted to do was sit on a stool and loosen my boots, which had a ridiculous number of laces and ribbons crisscrossing about them. The whalebone in my corset was now so bent in, I felt it might surely puncture my lungs. I sucked in my stomach, bit my lip. Why did it always seem that I alone was experiencing grave discomfort? All the other girls and ladies were amicably chatting. Powdering. Dabbing.

Even Nené. My sister was eager to get on the dance floor, and Louis had promised to fetch her shortly so she wouldn’t miss a dance.

The dressing room buzzed with voices. Ladies embracing and appraising one another when they believed they were being discreet. They whispered into one another’s ears about color, cut, bosom size and whose hair had thinned and whose had grayed. As I was still considered a child, I was more or less invisible. Which was how I liked it.

While my sister sat amidst her contemporaries and the maids bustled about with mirrors and pins and handkerchiefs, I sat in my corner, still wincing in pain, but then I remembered why. My journal. I’d secured it between two layers of petticoat, lashed with a piece of red silk ribbon. I picked up a large fan which, held in front of me, was big enough to conceal my hand worming its way under my hoop to the middle of my garments, where my own words pressed heavily against my ribs. Thank goodness for the circus gymnastics Papa had taught because,
et voilà
, with just a bit of contortion, there it was, in hand. But now I had yet another problem. No pen.

I drew my gaze around the dressing room, and ah-ha! There on a nearby table lay ink and pen for the purpose of writing in a guest book—the musings that my uncle always wished the ladies would scribe but, alas, never did. I was itching to draw, to write; so much was spilling up from me: the music, the perfume, the chatter.

The fountain pen lay next to the guest book, and all of its ink had spread away from its tip. I dabbed and dabbed on my page, hoping to spring the clotted ink free, but nothing came. I set my gloves beside me on the table, grabbed the pen and shook it, and no sooner did I do this when a shrill cry—like a rabbit being killed by a hound—cracked my ear. I jerked my head up, and lo, dots of black everywhere. A spray of black ink flew outward from where I sat. I watched in horror as it landed upon Lady Hershmeiner. On Countess Festicue. All over Baroness Martingale. The pink silk of my gloves now resembled the underbelly of a sow, and all eyes on the room, every last eye, was now on me.

I had committed the gravest of all sins: soiling the ball gowns of eligible ladies before the first dance. Were the dungeon in the Residenz functional, I surely would have been carried off in shackles. My entire body went stiff with fear. What had I done? I’d all but ruined the ball, and it had yet to start? Oh, woe!

Foul black ink was speckled about like the plague, and maids raced hither and yon for smelling salts, washing alcohol, fans to revive those who had fainted from it all. Had I not been the cousin of the sitting king, I would have been stomped to death right then and there, I imagined.

In the panic that ensued I fled to a corner, behind a screen, where I peeled off my ink-stained gloves and stomped upon them.
Oh, why? Why was I always ruining things?

I began to tear my hair out of its carefully waxed configuration. I threw my journal on the ground, and it skittered away, beyond the screen and back into the ladies’ dressing room.

Fitting penance
, I thought. I would simply do without my indulgences if attending to them caused so much grief.

But my punishment was not to bear out. Instead, shortly thereafter, a shrouded woman appeared at my side, the journal held out toward me. “Did you drop this, Your Grace?” she asked, bowing.

I took my journal but kept my eyes trained on the ground.

“Your gloves,” said the woman.

“Another misstep,” I said. “To be sure.”

“Come. I think I can help you.”

She disappeared around the screen. I gathered my ruined gloves and followed her shape, where she led me to a door—the servants’ entrance, no doubt. “Follow me,” she said.

We slipped through the servants’ door, and behind it a cauldron sat, hoisted over a small kitchen fire. Steaming water clouded up from the pot. “There,” she pointed. “Place your blackened gloves in that kettle, lest you be forever marked as the perpetrator of such a crime. I have some fresh gloves for you.”

I did as told, embarrassed by this woman’s kindness but leery as well. Who was she, this enchantress, this faerie?

She bade me with a crook-finger. “Come, we must take leave of this area of the room.”

The room to which she referred was clearly set up for scullery. A small tallow candle gave off the faintest of light, and rough shelves lined the walls. The faerie opened a dark wooden box and pulled out the whitest gloves I’d ever seen. They fairly glowed in the black chamber. I pulled them on, and they instantly warmed my fingers.

Jars of provisions: pigs’ feet, ox tail, pickled eggs, boiled tongue, gooseberry mash loomed in front of my line of vision as the attendant pulled me back, farther, farther.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To safety.” She was a strong figure, yet not very tall. Her head was covered in a lace shawl, but some dark hair poked out and framed her face, which she tried to keep turned away as she continued to lead me to the far edge of the room. Her voice was not very common—and was tinged with a strange accent. English? French? Italian? I could not tell exactly.

“They will be looking for me,” I said.

“Worry not,” she said, “for they are far more concerned with their own business than with yours.”

She walked me around a corner, and we ducked under a strange rock bridge that led to a small courtyard where the stone of the castle walls rose high on all sides. The space was paved with shiny slate; a little iron table held a profusion of candles. I looked around me, and on nearly every surface—more candles. Enormous ones, with flames half again as high. I blinked. It seemed as if this tiny rock garden were ablaze, creating a scene like those of the frescoes at the Herzog.

From my dazed mouth came, “Where are we?”

“Why, Elisabeth, you are in heaven.”

It did feel rather otherworldly, but heaven? “Have I died at long last for my myriad deeds? And how am I not in hell?”

The faerie laughed then and threw off her lace veil. She swirled around, and she was much, much more youthful than I’d guessed. Her cape flew in a dervish about her; she flung her arms above her head and struck a pose, her face craned at the moon if there had been one.

In her presence, I forgot that my shoes hurt and my corset jabbed and my crinolines felt like a nest of bugs against my skin. I was outside of all of that, of the discomfort, and I said, “If I am dead, this is a lovely condition.”

The faerie then whirled up beside me, her lips against my ear, and said, “Elisabeth in Bavaria, you must not bend to their wishes. You are far too young to pour yourself into the frame of an old cow.”