A Grimm Curse: A Grimm Tales Novella (Volume 3) (13 page)

“You’ve got to knock them all down,” the barker said. “You’ve got three tries.”

Prince Wilhelm drew back and let the first ball fly. It arced toward the stacked bottles, knocking over the top one.
The
milk bottle
clattered to the ground. There was light clapping from behind them. Cynthia glanced back to find a crowd had gathered. She tilted her head
s
o the hat
was sure to
cover
ed
her face.

The prince grinned and wound up again. This time the ball struck the bottom of the stack of bottles, but the throw wasn’t hard enough and the ball bounced off, zooming into the crowd.

An, “Oooo,” rose from the
onlookers
. The prince frowned and threw the last ball. It struck the middle stack of bottles, both rattling after the other to the ground. Three milk bottles were left standing. The carney shrugged, “Tough luck.” And began collecting the bottles.

“It’s rigged,” the prince said in a quiet, dangerous voice to the man running the game.

“That so?” the carney replied, tossing one of the balls in his hand and narrowing his eyes at the prince.

“Can I try?” Cynthia slipped up to the counter and plucked the baseball out of the carney’s hand.

The prince’s smile bounced back as he glanced at her, but the look was patronizing.

“Be my guest.” He winked at the crowd behind Cynthia. They tittered. She shoved her purse into the prince’s hands
.
She kept
h
er
grip
on
the ball
,
firm but loose
as she waited
for the booth attendant to finish stacking the bottles.

Chapter
1
6

“I’m hardly royalty.
”

CYNTHIA’S FIRST BALL HIT IN the exact same place as Wilhelm’s, one bottle rolling away. She held out her hand for another. The carney tossed her the second ball. She wound up, rocketing the baseball at the base of the tower. The milk bottles scattered, all six rolling to the ground.

Grinning, she looked up at Wilhelm only to find a scowl on his face.

“Nice arm, doll,” the carney smirked at her. “What’ll it be?”

Cynthia looked over the collection of stuffed animals, porcelain figurines, and glass vases.

“That one.” A small ceramic frog that reminded her of Remi caught her eye.

“Not that.” Prince Wilhelm made a face. “What about the wolf?” He snagged a gray stuffed animal from the booth that was almost as big as Cynthia.

“Nope,” Cynthia took the frog that the barker had wrapped in newspaper and placed it in her purse. “I won, I get to pick.”

Remi would have laughed, or groaned in mock annoyance at her. The prince narrowed his eyes and tossed the
stuffed wolf
on the ground in front of the booth.

“Hey
—”
—“
the carney tried to protest, but Wilhelm had stalked away, hustling Cynthia toward the Ferris
w
heel.

Several people waited in line, their heads tilted back as they watched the ride rise up, around, and down. Cynthia headed to the back of the column, but the prince grabbed her by the elbow and walked her past the waiting people. As had become her habit she scanned their faces as she went by—no stepfamily.

“Where are we going?” Cynthia asked.

“No waiting for royalty,” he winked at her, his good
humor
restored. The man’s moods swung around more than a weather vane.

Cynthia dragged her feet, not wanting to force ahead, but not wanting to make a scene and risk the prince’s irritation.

“I’m hardly royalty,” she said.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re with me,” he said, sliding them in the front of the line. He signaled the ride attendant to slow the cars. Cynthia heard whispers of discontent behind her and she looked at the cherries on her skirt, letting her hat hide her face.

They climbed into a car, the attendant lowered a bar across their laps and they were spinning into the air. Cynthia clutched the prince’s arm as the world dropped from under her feet. Her caramel apple churned in her stomach, threatening to make a spectacular reentry. She took a steadying breath through her nose, and was able to enjoy the lighter-than-air feeling.

The ride paused at the pinnacle, just even with the top most turret of the castle. Cynthia enjoyed the view in a way she hadn’t while hiding in the pigeon coop several nights ago. It seemed the whole of Elorium was spread beneath them. The dark mass of the forest took up a good bit of the view, but lights were sprinkled through the landscape and the almost-full moon dangled close enough to touch.

“Breathtaking,” the prince said in her ear. Cynthia nodded in agreement and turned to find his dark eyes locked on her. An intense emotion bubbled on the surface that Cynthia couldn’t identify.

He hadn’t been talking about the view.

Prince Wilhelm slipped an arm around Cynthia’s shoulders and tucked her firmly into his side. She stiffened, unsure of how she felt about this. The prince either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it.

“You know I’ve got an important decision to make tonight,” the prince said. The Ferris wheel dipped and they blew past the ride operator. The butterflies in Cynthia’s stomach weren’t just from the ride.

“So who’s the lucky girl?” Cynthia joked, her stomach churning under
her
flippant words. “No, let me guess.” She tilted her head so she didn’t have to look into his
penetrating
eyes. They drew her in like a magnet and made her head fuzzy. “Princess Marcella is the obvious choice. She’s poised and dependable, you obviously get along well, and she’s been training her entire life to be queen.”

“The princess is a good choice,” the prince conceded, in a musing tone. “You’re certainly not the only one who thinks so. Unfortunately, she comes with a lot of strings attached, not the least of which is her brother the king.” Prince Wilhelm grasped the brim of her hat and lifted it until he could see her face. He met her eyes with a wolfish grin. “Besides, that’s not who I was thinking of.”

Cynthia knew that this had been a possibility since the moment he’d asked her
to
dance
last night
and she had accepted. She may not have wanted to admit it to herself, but in the back of her mind, she knew he had to choose a wife and he had paid more attention to her than anyone else. It had just seemed so far fetched in her head.

And as the prince closed his eyes and leaned in, she still wasn’t sure how she felt about it. He could be charming and no one could deny he was handsome—but Cynthia had seen a current of harshness that had begun to surface under his glossy exterior.

She froze, his arm slid from her shoulders to her waist and his lips met hers for the briefest of moments—and then the lights went out. The colored bulbs strung along the Ferris wheel flick
er
ed and went dark, followed by every other electric light at the fair grounds. The ride ground to a halt and their seat continued to rock back and forth, stranded in midair. 

The prince jerked back and looked over the side of their chair and swore.

The castle was dark
,
and
the only source of light
was
the moon, still large and bright in the sky.

A commotion in the chair above them made Cynthia look up. She could just make out two shadowy forms tussling above her—children from the sound of it. A small boy’s screams and a girl’s frantic shushing. Their chair jerked back and forth and a small leg dangled over the side.

“Sit down, Rory, please!” the girl begged. But the boy must have been out of his mind with fright and was attempting to climb over the side. 

“Your highness,” Cynthia said and pointed up. The prince squinted at the pair above them and back at Cynthia. He leaned over the side and shouted to the ride operators. “Get us down at once!”

“We’re working on it, mate!” a voice called back from the darkness below.

The ride did not move and the boy’s cries increased. The girl’s pleas grew desperate.

“Rory, you’ll fall!”

“Wilhelm,” Cynthia said again, her own voice anxious. Above them both of the boy’s legs dangled out of the chair.

“What do you expect me to do?” the prince asked, an angry frostiness to his words.

That small moment and it was as if the thin film of allure had been stripped completely away and the real prince was exposed.

“Nothing,” she said.

Cynthia kicked off her heels and plunked them down in the stunned prince’s lap along with her handbag. She sucked in as far as she could and wiggled out from under the restraining bar before Wilhelm had completely stammered out, “What are you doing?”

Taking a deep breath and keeping her eyes on where she was going and not the ground, Cynthia began to inch her way along the spoke to the axis of the wheel. The metal arm connecting their chair to the center had stopped at an almost perfect horizontal position. As long as she was careful, there wasn’t a real danger of her falling—unless the wheel started moving again.

Above her the boy’s sobs had turned into howls and the girl had reverted to screaming, “Help!” over and over again at the top of her lungs. The babble of concerned voices from the other passengers on the wheel reached Cynthia, but she ignored them and pushed on.

Several feet from the axis of the wheel, she stood slowly and climbed on the spoke above. Turning to face back out toward the chairs, she began the slow process again. This spoke had stopped a little higher than hers, and the going was all up hill. From her new position, she could also see the dim shapes of the children in the weak moonlight. The boy was dangling from the safety bar by his fingertips, with the girl leaning far out of the chair grasping his wrists. He wiggled in her grip, desperate now to get back on the ride.

“Hang on. Hang on!” Cynthia chanted as she moved as fast as she dared along the spoke to their chair. The girl caught sight of her. She had stopped screaming and Cynthia saw the fear and desperation beneath the tears that streaked her face. Cynthia clambered over the side of the chair and grabbed the back of the boy’s shirt. The lights on the Ferris wheel flickered and the chair jerked. The boy’s fingers slipped and the girl lost her grip.

Cynthia almost pitched over the side as all the boy’s weight was suddenly transferred to her hands. Her hat tumbled off her head and disappeared in the dark. The little girl wrapped her arms around Cynthia’s waist, anchoring her, while the boy twisted by this shirt in her hands and screamed. The wheel was moving now, picking up speed as it whirled down to the loading platform. The boy was going to smash into it face first dangling out of the chair like he was. Cynthia began to swing him back and forth, her ribs digging painfully into the safety bar, her shoulders on fire. The ground came into view. Cynthia swung him out from her body with one last mighty heave and let go.

The boy sailed free of the spinning wheel, landing in the grass and rolling several yards. She watched him pick up his head and stagger to his feet before the ride slammed to a stop, almost tumbling her out after him. They were at the platform. The girl pushed past her out of the chair, running to the boy. The ride attendant held out a hand. It was a good thing he did. She was shaking so badly she couldn’t lift her foot the two inches necessary to climb out of the chair on her own.

“Almighty, Miss. Are you okay?” she jerked her head at him once in what she hoped he interpreted as ‘yes,’ and clutching the hand rail, stumbled down the steps onto blessed solid ground. The ride operator turned the wheel to the next chair to help the shaken passengers out. Cynthia searched the ride and found Wilhelm not far from the platform, still trapped in his chair. They had passed up the prince to get the children off and now he was stuck on the ride for the unloading process.

He stared at her bewildered, her heels still dangling from one hand, her purse from the other. He raised his eyebrows and held them out in a silent question. Cynthia shrugged and smiled, turning her back on him and walking into the crowd. She was finding Remi and getting out of here. She didn’t plan on ever being back at the castle or seeing the prince again.

The kids had vanished. Cynthia wove through the crowd that had formed around the Ferris wheel, barefoot again. The carnival seemed to be in an uproar. Some of the lights were on while the rest flickered sporadically. The merry-go-round was abandoned, and several of the barkers had
deserted
their posts along the midway, leaving the prizes unattended. People were hurrying away with stuffed animals under their arms and figurines stuffed in their pockets. Cynthia shook her head at their brazenness and hurried back to the fountain where she’d left Remi.