Princess of Glass (24 page)

242

Then Poppy padded off to find the Corley.

"Hello?" She called out with false bravado as she passed through half a dozen empty glass rooms. "He proposed ... I accepted ... I want to go now."

She turned a corner and found herself in the Corley's throne room. The old witch was crouched on her throne like a toad, eyes glittering, and her silent court gathered around, watching Poppy as she stumbled into the room.

"Well?" Poppy held out her arms, hoping that they didn't shake or her voice tremble. "Here I am. Prince Christian proposed. Can I go now? Um, to be with my prince?"

The Corley laughed.

"Do you think I am a fool?" she asked sweetly. "Christian was to propose to Lady Ella. But he didn't. He proposed to you, Princess
Poppy.
You should be sipping tea in the Seadown parlor while Ella dreams of her marriage. But instead you've ruined everything."

Poppy's blood froze in her veins.

"Like your dreams of getting your goddaughter back?" Poppy choked out. "Eleanora isn't Mary Bess, you know. Nothing can bring her back from the dead."

"Don't you say her name!" The Corley shook with rage, leaping from her throne and coming at Poppy with hands outstretched, her fingers like talons. "Don't ever say her name! She was mine! My goddaughter--my child! He stole her in the night, took her away to marry that spoiled prince!"

Poppy stepped back but the Corley didn't advance, just stood there in the middle of her throne room with her face

243

transfigured by madness and her hands clutching at something unseen.

"Now I have my Eleanora," she ranted. "I'll give her whatever she wants: gowns, jewels, a handsome husband, and she will never leave me!"

Poppy pulled the pistol out of her skirts and pointed it at the Corley. Her hands were shaking so badly, however, that she knew her shot would go wild. "Then let me go," she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

Poppy needed to get out, fast. Before the Corley decided to kill her for impersonating Eleanora. Or worse, wanted to keep her as a substitute goddaughter. She was so cold with terror that her cheeks felt frozen, and there was not a drop of moisture in her mouth. Even in the Palace Under Stone she had not felt this frightened, or in this much danger.

"You tried to trick me," the Corley said, her voice raw. "But I caught you." She wagged a gnarled finger at Poppy. "So now we're going to play a little game, to see which one of you he really loves. If he picks you, Eleanora will stay with me forever, and you can marry your handsome prince. And if he picks her ..." The Corley's mouth stretched into a too-wide smile. "Why then I will have a new goddaughter to dote on."

The Corley clapped her hands, and two servants entered the room. Sagging between them, clad only in a nightgown and with her feet clinking against the glass floor, was Eleanora.

"Time to freshen up!" The Corley clapped her hands and more servants appeared. "Your prince will be here soon!"

244

***

Rescuer

Cursing, Christian saw the golden carriage disappear into the ashes, which swirled away before the Thwaite horses could reach them. They drove through the sooty mark on the cobblestones twice, just to make certain, but nothing happened.

The coachman finally halted the horses, and Roger helped the ladies disembark. Christian jumped down from his seat and ran into Seadown House. In the kitchen there was a roaring fire, and the maid tending it shrieked as he grabbed up a kettle of water and threw it on the flames. He coughed as the steam rose up in his face, grabbing a poker to stir the ashes and make sure no lick of fire still burned.

"Your lordship, your ladyship," the scullery maid said tearfully when her master and mistress entered. "I was waiting up to make you tea, but then
he
tossed the kettle on the fire," she finished, pointing an indignant finger at Christian.

"It's all right, my girl," Lord Richard said kindly. "We needed some wet ash for... removing our masks. Glued on, you

245

know." He tapped the edge of his mask, which was quite noticeably tied on with a ribbon. "You run along to bed, and we'll take care of it ourselves."

The scullery maid clearly thought her master had gone mad, but was in no position to argue with him. So off to bed she went, with many fearful looks over her shoulder.

As soon as she was gone, Christian looked to the others to see if they were ready. Roger and Dickon drew their long knives, and Lord Richard nodded. Christian spoke the rhyme and waited, but nothing happened.

Roger came forward and tried it, and so did Marianne, Lady Margaret, and Dickon.

"She's shut us out," Christian said. "And Poppy is trapped there."

"I'll fetch Eleanora," Roger said. "It might work for her." Roger came running back into the kitchen only a few minutes later, face white and sweat glistening on his forehead. "She's gone." They all gaped at him.

"Eleanora's gone, and there's soot all over the carpet in her bedroom."

"The Corley," Lady Margaret gasped.

"Now that she has them both, what will she do?" Marianne clung to her mother's waist, and Lady Margaret put an arm around her daughter.

Christian punched the rough stones of the fireplace, feeling a dark satisfaction as his knuckles sparked with pain and blood blossomed across the split skin.

246

"Let me try," Lord Richard said, his voice brittle.

"Sir, if you would," Christian said gratefully.

"I will not say it is my pleasure," Lord Richard said, with a ghost of his usual humor.

The elegant earl took out his handkerchief and spat into it. Then he laid the white square over the damp ashes in the hearth and knelt beside it.

"Corley, Mistress, Queen of Glass,

Open the doors that I may pass."

At once the broad hearth stretched itself up into an arching doorway. Lord Richard turned and raised one eyebrow at Christian.

"Your Highness?"

Christian didn't need to be asked twice. Short sword gripped tight, he strode through the ashes with his companions at his heels. The floor turned from sooty hearthstones to glass, and then the glass turned sticky, and they fell through a hole into nothing.

247

***

Double

The room filled with soot and cinders, startling Eleanora out of a doze. She had planned to stay awake all night, until Roger and Poppy and the others returned, but her feet were so heavy and she was so wrung out with emotion that she finally fell asleep.

And then
they
came, in the midst of the ashes, and snatched her out of bed. The Corley's servents were huge, but they burst from the fireplace as lightly as dancers, lifted her up, and returned to their mistress in the space of a heartbeat.

"Did you think that I wouldn't know?" The Corley tsk'd at her. "Did you think that that foreign princess could fool me?"

Eleanora felt weak. She couldn't walk, couldn't escape, couldn't think what to do next. They had had no real plan, only to replace Eleanora with Poppy and hope there was some chink in the Corley's glass armor. But there was none, and now Eleanora was in her godmother's palace and had no way of knowing if she would ever see Roger or the others again.

248

"I don't like it when my goddaughters disobey me," the Corley told her. "We shall have to see about your punishment."

"Godmother dear," Eleanora said in a timid voice. "I didn't mean to upset you. But my feet... I couldn't walk! Poppy was only trying to help." She bit her lip, not having to feign her uncertainty. "Could you ... will you let us go now?"

The Corley gave her a disdainful look. "You betrayed me, and now you must pay the price. I have half a mind to let my spell run its course and turn the rest of you to glass. You would make a lovely addition to the statues in the throne room, you disobedient little baggage."

Eleanora fainted.

When she recovered, she was still being held up by the two servants, her hard glass feet slipping against the floor. Poppy was there, chalky pale and clearly trying to put on a brave front. They were taken down the hall to the dressing room where Eleanora had dreamed of marrying Prince Christian and spending her life dancing in palaces.

Surrounded by mute servants, with the Corley looking on with an expression of malicious glee, Eleanora was dressed in a gown of peacock silk and plumes exactly like Poppy's. Her hair was done in the same elaborate coiffure, cosmetics applied, and then a mask. Poppy's hair was tidied, her lip rouge freshened, and her mask tightened in place as well.

"I am so sick of being dressed like someone else," Eleanora said as the two of them stared at their twin reflections in the mirror.

249

Poppy gave a startled laugh.

"Don't worry," she said. "When this is all over and we've won, I'm sure that Roger will buy you dozens of gowns, all unique."

"When we've won?" Eleanora reached over and took Poppy's hand.

"Yes," the princess said firmly. "Sometime around dawn, I'm guessing."

"So confident, Your Highness," the Corley said. "You might make an excellent goddaughter as well. Perhaps I shall keep you both, no matter the outcome of my little contest."

"Contest?" The back of Eleanora's neck prickled.

"A little exercise, really, to see if our handsome yet spoiled prince can recognize his true love."

She snapped her fingers, and a servant brought a tray with two goblets. She gave one to each girl, and Eleanora exchanged an uneasy look with Poppy.

"What is it?" They asked at the same time.

"Just drink!" The Corley's voice was hard.

Poppy shrugged and raised her glass to Eleanora.

Eleanora tried to return the salute, but her hand was shaking and she nearly spilled her drink. She gulped it down quickly, praying that it wasn't poison, although that would hardly serve the Corley's purposes.

"Much better," the Corley beamed.

Poppy opened her mouth to reply, and frowned as her lips moved but no sound came out.

250

***

The Game

Christian didn't know where he was. In fact, for what seemed to be a very long time, he didn't know
who
he was. He was lying on a cold, slick surface, and his wrists itched. When he scratched at the rough woolen bands around his wrists he remembered that his name was Christian, and that he was a prince.

Sitting up, he also remembered that he was looking for someone. A princess. She was to be his bride and he had lost her somewhere here in this strange cold place. Where was she?

"Hello?"

He looked around. He was in a room made of green glass. It was round, and even the floor curved, rather like being in a bubble. There was an archway leading out of the bubble, and as he stepped toward it, something fell from his pocket and landed on the floor with a chime.

Looking down, Christian found a woman's high-heeled dancing slipper, made of exquisitely blown glass in blue and green and gold. He picked it up, and a brief flash of memory

251

told him that it belonged to his love, who had lost it entering her golden carriage. He was bringing it to her now, and he held it tightly to keep from dropping it again. "Hello?"

He carried the slipper out of the green room, into a red room, then an orange. Was there nothing more here but a long silent chain of round glass rooms? He saw no other signs of life, heard no sounds but that of his footsteps and his breath.

Gazing around a pale rose room, he thought he saw something glimmering through one of the walls. Stepping closer, he could just make out a figure through the glass. Not his own reflection, but what appeared to be a woman. She knocked on the glass, frantic, as though trying to reach him.

"Step back, step back," he shouted to her. His heart racing--it was his bride-to-be, he knew it--Christian raised his foot and began to kick the wall. He wished he were wearing boots and riding breeches instead of oddly shaped velvet slippers and cumbersome robes, but he couldn't remember why he was dressed this way, either.

At last the wall splintered, and he helped the young woman step through. She was clad in billowing trousers and a tight, low-cut bodice, and he made a note to ask her to dress more modestly once they were wed.

"Is it you?" He studied her face, now feeling doubtful. She did have dark hair, and the fuzzy image in his mind of his bride was also dark haired. He held up the slipper. "Is this yours? Are you her?"

They both looked at her feet. They were bare, and the

252

reflected glow of the pink floor made them look pearly and perfect.

Christian knelt and offered her the slipper. She slid her foot into it and stepped down. Her dark brows were knit with concentration.

"It might be mine," she said, and took a step.

The shoe slipped off her foot and she stumbled, catching herself on the slick, curving wall.

"I don't think so," Christian said. "I shall keep looking."

"May I join you?" Her lower lip trembled. "I think I'm looking for someone, too, and I don't want to be alone."

"Of course." Christian picked up the slipper, took her arm with his free hand, and together they walked out of the pink room into a blue one.

Through the wall of this room they spied a number of other people, and Christian and the men on the other side managed to break a large hole in the wall so that the three strangers could cross through. They were a stately older couple and a young man with a bare chest. Christian tried the slipper on the lady, even though she seemed too old to be his bride. Her narrow foot was too long for the slipper, so they all shrugged and moved forward.

The young man took the arm of the girl in the billowing trousers, and she smiled shyly up at him in a way that made Christian jealous. The girl said her name was Marianne, and she seemed relatively certain that this Dickon was the person she was looking for, but in this strange glass world there was no way to be completely sure.