The Thirteenth Princess (10 page)

At last the dumbwaiter stopped with a
thump.
We had landed somewhere, on some hard surface. I wrapped my arms around myself to stop my shivering, and Breckin rubbed my shoulders hard. Then he reached for the bronze knob on the door, ready to open it.

“Wait!” I cried. He stopped and looked at me. I could think of no reason to stop him, though, and he turned back to the door and pushed it open.

I
could not believe what I saw. There was no water, not even a hint of the fact that we must be below the lake. Instead a path stretched forward before us, lit with a silvery light that might have been the moon, if we had not been beneath a lake. Trees lined the path, trees of silver. They cast shadows on the ground, clear enough to see each branch and leaf etched in light. A gentle breeze played among them, making the leaves knock together with a sound like the wind chimes that Cook liked to hang in her kitchen garden. I caught my breath in wonder, and Breckin took my hand and squeezed it.
I reached up with my free hand to feel a leaf, and it was cold and metallic. Quickly I pulled out the knife from my bundle and sliced off the leaf. It came away in my hand, and I held it up to see it better.

“It
is
silver,” Breckin said, awed. “Silver trees. Where
are
we?”

A movement caught my eye, and I saw one of my sisters in the distance, hurrying along the path. “Come!” I cried. “We can't lose them!” We began to run, but my sisters moved quickly too, and we could not catch up to them.

Before long the forest changed. Now the trees seemed to be golden, and the sound their leaves made rustling together was that of bells. We were running now, too fast to stop and pick a leaf, but I felt strange and frightened for a reason that I could not name, and I slowed enough to look behind me. What I saw made me cry out in terror. There was no path there at all, no gold or silver trees. The path seemed to be rolling up behind us, rolling as fast as we were running. Or was it faster? And what was behind it? I could smell water, and I imagined a great wall of water rushing toward us. Breckin pulled me forward, panting, “Faster! Faster!”

On we rushed, just ahead of the water and the disappearing path, and the trees changed to diamonds, so bright and many-faceted that I could hardly look at
them straight on. The sound their leaves made was of harps, and it was so beautiful that I wanted to stop and listen. I slowed again for a moment, but Breckin pulled me on. At last we came to the edge of the diamond forest, and there before us was a castle, with turrets flying flags that I could not make out. From the castle we could hear the sounds of music, and we raced to the drawbridge, which was down. Across it we flew, and it snapped up just behind us. We stopped, panting, waiting for the sound of the wall of water that had followed us crashing against the door, but heard nothing except the strains of lovely music wafting from within.

Wild-eyed, we looked at each other. “What…?” Breckin whispered, and I shook my head. I had no idea what had just happened. It made no sense to me.

We stood for a moment to catch our breath. Then we started toward the music. Torches lit the marble hallway we were in, and rich, intricate tapestries lined the walls. They were embroidered with animals I had only heard of in stories—unicorns with single ivory horns, and horses with huge satiny wings, and birdlike animals with lions' manes. The air smelled perfumed, with food and flowers both, and I inhaled deeply, smelling buttery pastry and roses, wine and cardamom and lilies.

The music drew us on to the ballroom, and we stopped at the entrance to stare. The room was enormous, brightly
lit with tapers and chandeliers holding long candles. Its marble floor gleamed between dancing couples, and at the far end, on a dais, an orchestra played. Twelve pairs stepped to each other, then back, whirled and spun with abandon. My sisters were the dancers, and each of them, from Aurelia to Anisa, was partnered with a princely-looking young man. The men were tall, handsome, and dressed in the richest of fabrics, and all their heads sported royal diadems. They knew all the steps perfectly, and their bows and turns were graceful in the extreme. My hands flew to my cheeks in shock as I watched my sisters clasp hands with these strangers, spin around, curtsy and twirl and clasp hands again.

“Oh my,” I said faintly.

“Step back, Zita!” Breckin warned me in a low voice. “We can't be seen.”

No one seemed to be paying attention to us, but I stepped back from the doorway and peered back in. I could see a long table laden with the most wonderful-looking food: piles of profiteroles and jewel-like candies, cakes and tarts decorated with sugar flowers, sugarplums and bowls of toffee, punchbowls filled with mulled wine. It made me dizzy just to look at it, and I realized all at once that I was starving. I began to move into the room and toward the table, almost as if in a trance. Breckin was after me in an instant.

“Stop!” he hissed. “Don't you know about enchanted food?”

“No,” I said crossly, awakened from my sudden hunger and rubbing my arm where he had pulled me. “How could I know about it? We were never taught about magic.”

“If you eat enchanted food, you become part of the enchantment, or so they say,” he told me. “Remember the chocolate?”

I nodded, tearing my eyes away from the bounty on the table. I looked toward my sisters on the dance floor. “Why don't they see us?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Breckin said. “Maybe it's part of the magic. Or maybe they are too intent on their partners. We must be careful when the song ends.”

But the song did not end, or it became a new song without stopping. On and on the dancers danced, and we watched as the hours passed, our mouths watering from the scents of the enchanted food.

At one point we moved onto the dance floor and began to dance. I could not say why we did it; it was as if we were pulled there. We concentrated very hard on becoming like princes and princesses, using the skill that Babette had taught us, and I could see in the mirrors that lined one wall that we were interchangeable with the other couples there. At first it was wonderful:
we twirled and spun on the slippery marble floor, and the music seemed to fill me with a great energy and happiness. I had never had a chance to use the dance steps that my sisters had taught me, and I had never danced in any other arms but theirs. It was wonderful. But soon I noticed that I was no longer dancing because I wanted to. Instead, somehow, I felt compelled to dance; I tried to stop but could not. Our whirling motion was taking us closer and closer to the other dancers, and my concentration was starting to wane. I feared that if we came too near, someone would surely notice us. Frantic, I raised my eyes to Breckin and found the same panic reflected in his face. With all our strength, we aimed ourselves back toward the entryway, and when we were through the doorway and out of sight of the ballroom we staggered to a stop, breathing raggedly.

“What was that?” I asked, bewildered. “I couldn't stop!”

“No,” panted Breckin, “and I'd bet they can't, either.” We looked again into the ballroom, and I saw my sisters whirling about, their dresses fanning out in a circle as they spun. Now I noticed their faces, and I felt a pang, for they looked sick with exhaustion, ready to drop. They were not enjoying their night of dancing; they were being forced to dance on, and on, and on, just as we had been. They did not stumble, nor even slow, but
I got the impression that they would have fallen flat if magic had not kept them upright.

“Oh, we must do something!” I whispered, horrified. “It will kill them!”

“What would you do?” Breckin asked me. “We daren't.”

I set my jaw stubbornly. “I'll just step out and shout. That will stop the music. Then they'll have to stop dancing.”

“You can't!” Breckin protested. “What if something terrible happened to them? We have no power here, no weapons—nothing! We must tell Babette and get her advice. We have no idea what to do here.”

I sank to the floor, my eyes filling with tears. Adena and Asmita were ill, perhaps dying, and the others would follow them soon if this kept up. How much longer could they dance? Breckin, distressed, patted my arm, but I only cried harder. He knelt beside me and held me, and I snuffled into his shoulder, shuddering with my sobs.

“We'll save them,” he whispered, stroking my hair. I relaxed into his arms, and my sobs died away. For a time we stayed there, the cold marble floor hard beneath us. Then I wiped my eyes and watched the dance again. The night seemed to be taking forever, and I could hardly believe the dancers could keep on. They danced gavottes,
in which the men and women met and twirled and separated again, and waltzes, in which pairs whirled up and down the floor held tightly together. They paraded through upheld arms in country dances, and kicked high in the saltarello. As my sisters twirled around their kneeling partners in a pavane, I looked at the princes to see whether they seemed tired. They were all so handsome, and all different—one with dark curls and flashing eyes, another with brown wavy hair and dimples. I looked hard at the prince dancing with Allegra, for there was something familiar about him. Could I have met him before? No, that wasn't it. He was very tall, with dark hair, and his teeth flashed white as he smiled, and I noticed that his hands, as he reached upward to clasp Allegra's hands, were exceeding long and graceful. Suddenly I remembered a Sunday evening I had spent with my sisters in which they had described the men they would like to meet and marry. It was just a game among girls, we lying on the beds, giggling and blushing in the dark. It did not seem so funny now. I recalled that Allegra's description was of a tall man, with long dark hair, the whitest teeth, and the hands of an artist.

I searched my mind for the descriptions the others had given that night. Aurelia had wanted a military man, I remembered her saying with a laugh, “so he can keep the kingdom safe while I rule.” Her dance partner wore
boots, a sash, military ribbons, and medals. Althea had longed for a poet, with long red curls and dreamy eyes, and that was who she danced with. I looked from one sister's partner to the next and realized it was true: each sister danced with the man of her secret longings.

I couldn't bear to watch any longer. I covered my eyes with my hands and tried to rest, but the music was relentless, its beauty now a torment rather than a pleasure. I tried to cover my ears instead, but the music seeped through. My head pounded. Long hours seemed to pass this way. Then I heard a noise over the music.

“Was that—”

“That sounded like—,” Breckin and I said together. It sounded again, and this time I could tell it was a rooster's call. Day was coming.

At once the orchestra ceased to play, and we stood and moved to look into the ballroom. As we watched, wide-eyed, the couples separated, and the princes bowed in unison. My sisters curtsied, their grace belying their exhaustion. As one, the princes turned and walked to a doorway I hadn't noticed, behind the orchestra's dais. In a moment they were gone. The musicians followed them. The torches extinguished themselves. The tables of food wavered in the dim near-daylight coming in through the tall French windows, and then they too disappeared.

My sisters stood for a minute, heads bowed, but then they picked up their skirts and began hurrying to the entryway. Galvanized, Breckin and I turned and ran down the hall, fearful that they would notice us. As we reached the inner door, it opened, and the drawbridge lowered itself. We dashed across and hid behind a jeweled tree as the princesses hurried across and onto the path.

“We must get back before they do!” I whispered. “If I'm not in bed when they arrive…”

We couldn't stay on the path in front of them; they would surely see us. So we began to run beside the path, darting among the trees. We discovered, though, that the meager light that illuminated the path did not extend to the forest. Even a step off the path plunged us into utter darkness. I stumbled into a tree, feeling the touch of the diamond leaves like little knives on my face.

“Babette's light!” Breckin hissed, and I reached into my pocket and brought it out. I thought
light
at it, concentrating, and it began to glow with just enough light to guide us. We ran fast, and soon passed my sisters, for they were moving less quickly now than they had on the way there, their tattered shoes and tired legs slowing them. I wondered whether the path was rolling up behind them, and the water coming on behind the
path, but I could not spare the time to worry. Through the diamond trees, and then through the gold, and finally through the silver we sped. We broke out of the trees then and back onto the path, and I jammed the light-stick back in my pocket. There in front of us was the dumbwaiter, its door ajar and waiting. We tumbled in and began to work the ropes frantically. Up and up we rose as we grunted and groaned with the effort. As we passed the kitchen, Breckin tumbled out, and I kept going alone, up through the sleeping palace until I reached the bedchamber closet. I sprang out, then began lowering the dumbwaiter as fast as I could. It went down and down, much farther than it should have, and at last I felt it thump to a stop far below. A moment later, I could see the ropes begin to work again, and I knew that two of my sisters were coming up. I stripped off my clothes, ran to Asmita's bed, and tossed them underneath. Then I pulled on my nightdress and jumped into bed, pulling up the bedclothes and trying hard to calm my breathing.

I watched through half-closed eyes as they returned. First Anisa and Asmita, then Allegra and Akila, Alima and Amina, Asenka and Adena, Althea and Ariadne, and last of all, Alanna and Aurelia, all as pale as death, with great dark circles under their eyes, hair tangled, and hands trembling. They pulled off their shoes,
dresses, and jewels and threw them in the closet, helped one another on with their nightclothes, and collapsed into bed. A minute later, there was no sound in the room at all except for the ragged breathing of twelve girls asleep.