The Rules of Ever After (16 page)

Rupert grabbed Daniel’s finger and pushed it away from his face. “Don’t point, boy. It’s rude. And don’t insult my intelligence. Your bodies won’t be found in
my
kingdom. No. My dear brother will be in for quite the surprise when your headless bodies are found in Lower Lipponia, and he is the one accused of your murders.”

“Sir,” Gwendolyn pleaded as she stepped up to the door, “please have a heart. I had nothing to do with any of this. Isn’t there some­thing we can do to change your mind?”

“Why, aren’t you a pretty one.” Rupert reached between the bars and patted Gwen’s cheek. “Those sketcherazzi did you no justice. If I thought you had a penny to your name, marriage to you might have been a pleasurable alternative. But, alas, no. However, don’t you frown, my dear, I’m not a heartless man. Look behind you.”

Daniel and Gwen turned to look at the room behind them. In the center of the room, an enormous woven straw basket with hundreds of skeins of multicolored yarn spilling out of the top took up most of the floor space. Next to the basket sat a simple wooden spinning wheel and several piles of thatch and hay, along with bales of raw wool. In the dim light of the torches flickering on the tower walls, Daniel could see the floor was covered with feathers and bird droppings. Looking up, he saw that the tower was slowly crumbling, and half of the thatched roof was missing. The wooden rafters were filled with hundreds of birds that ruffled and cooed. Turning back to the king, Daniel mumbled, “I don’t understand.”

“This was my late wife’s spinning and sewing tower. She and I weren’t what you would call close, and she spent most of her days in here working on dresses for our little girl. She never cared for the austere lifestyle of Upper Lipponia. She had her ladies weave that absurdly large basket to hold all of her fabric and thread. I’m afraid, after she died, I let the roof fall into a state of disrepair. Then I remembered the old tale that a true princess could spin straw into gold, so I put Marina in here and set her to work. I thought she could kill two birds with one spin, so to speak. She would prove she is a true princess again by spinning the gold and, conveniently, provide me with the gold I needed to raise my army. It appears, Phillip, your test was correct, though. The idiot girl could spin nothing but yard upon yard of yarn.”

“Straw into gold?” Phillip said with a look of disgust. “That’s absurd.”

“Absurd or not, I suggest you and your little friends here get busy. I see from the
Kingdom Inquisitor
that you proved this girl is not a princess either, so I guess she’ll be no help. Since you two appear to still be royals, you may be able to pull it off. If you succeed, I will keep you alive until I have the gold I need. Otherwise, when you see the sunrise through that missing roof tomorrow morning, it will be your last.” King Rupert spun on his heel, letting the long tails of his overcoat flare out behind him. He grabbed the large oak door of the chamber and slammed it closed over the iron bars.

Daniel began beating on the wooden door and screaming at the top of his lungs, “Come back here! You cannot do this! Ow!” Daniel jerked his hand back and cradled it in the crook of his arm.

“Daniel! Let me see your hand,” Phillip said and took Daniel’s hand into his own. “Please, stop. You’ll hurt yourself. I need you able to fight if it comes down to that. James, do you think we can overpower them if they come back?”

“Sirs,” James said and dropped his head, “I’ve let you both down. I should’ve been more aware. I should’ve fought harder. I should’ve—”

“James,” Daniel interrupted, “can we overcome them?”

“Four of us? With no weapons?” James asked, shaking his head.

“Five of us and one weapon,” Gwen said as she pulled the jeweled dagger from a sheath under her skirts. “They didn’t find this!”

“A dagger? Against swords? No.”

“Phillip?” Peter called out, as he walked over and spun the spin­ning wheel with his finger. “Did he say Marina tried? The spinning, I mean.”

“Yes,” Phillip replied and glanced up from Daniel’s hand. “Why?”

“Um, where is she now?”

“Oh no. Do you think he—” Daniel gasped as he pulled his hand away from Phillip.

“I’m right here,” a voice lilted out from the shadows in the corner of the tower.

Daniel jerked his head in the direction of the voice and breathed a sigh of relief as Marina stepped out into the flickering torchlight. Her red curls frizzed out around her head, and her snug-fitting dress was covered with bits of straw and feathers. Around her neck, she wore a knitted scarf that stretched down to the floor and trailed several feet behind her. She held a ball of yarn in one hand and knitting needles in the other. She kept her head bowed demurely as she stepped over to stand beside the spinning wheel. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’m sure I look a sight. My father won’t let me have a mirror, so I have no idea what I look like. I miss my mirrors. Do I look bad? How is my hair?”

Daniel watched as Phillip ran over and scooped the girl up into his arms and spun her around. “Marina, you’re a beautiful sight in my eyes. I was worried your father had—I don’t even want to think about that! Why didn’t you let me know you were in here?”

“I was scared for you to see me.”

“You were scared? Marina! I’m the reason you’re in here! If anyone should’ve been scared, it’s me. This is all my fault. I’m surprised you didn’t come after me the minute I was thrown in here and try to stab me with those needles!”

“My dress doesn’t fit right,” Marina said with a blush, ignoring Phillip’s words and fidgeting with the collar of her dress. “I didn’t want you to see it.”

“What?” Phillip leaned back and eyed the girl up and down. Her dress was a bit tight around her waist and arms. “Why would I care about that?”

“Phillip,” Marina said as her bottom lip trembled, “it’s been awful in here.” As a tear rolled down her cheek, she stared up at the birds in the rafters. “I tried spinning the straw into gold but that didn’t work, and there was nothing else to do. So I knitted. A lot.” She lifted the yarn and needles in her hand and Phillip could see the yarn was still connected to the end of the scarf around her neck. “But I’m not very good and that made me sad. Plus, looking at all my mother’s sewing supplies made me miss her. And that made me sad. I miss my lovely dresses and my hair brushes and my pretty little mirror. And that made me sad. So I ate. A lot. And now my dress doesn’t fit right. And that makes me sad. And that makes me want to eat!” The girl flopped onto the pile of straw beside the spinning wheel and bawled.

Phillip looked over to Daniel and Gwen, and Daniel could see the panic dancing in his eyes. Daniel just shrugged, and Gwen rolled her eyes.

“Sweetheart,” Phillip cooed, as he knelt down beside the girl and stroked her hair, “that’s not important to me. Actually, if you hadn’t mentioned it, I never would’ve noticed. Okay? We can get you out of here and back to your pretty dresses, okay? But I need you to stop crying and help me first, okay?”

Marina sniffled and dropped her head onto Phillip’s chest. Rub­bing her face across his shoulder, she wiped her running nose on his sleeve. “How can I help you? I was raised to be pretty, not helpful. I don’t know what to do.”

“Think,” Phillip encouraged the girl. “Is there maybe another way out of this tower besides that door?”

“No. Father made the room with only one door, which could be guarded when my mother was in here sewing. That way my uncle in the south couldn’t send someone to hurt her. Oh, if only I were really a princess, I’d spin this straw into gold and maybe he’d let us all go. Gwen, do you think you can try?”

“Don’t look at me,” Gwen said. “I’m no more princess than you are. I failed his test, too. If I were a princess, I’d just ask all these birds to help me.”

“You’d talk to the birds?” Peter scoffed. “How could birds help us?”

“They could carry a note to someone,” Gwen said with a shrug.

“Spinning straw into gold. Feeling peas under mattresses. Talk­ing to birds. This is all ridiculous.” Daniel walked over to Phillip and Marina and kicked the spinning wheel onto its side. “You’re a princess because your father is a king. Philip’s test has nothing to do with it! Nobody ever expects a prince to go through all of this nonsense. All these silly rules are what got us all thrown in here!”

The two girls stared at Daniel with sour looks on their faces, while James and Peter shuffled from foot to foot by the door.

Phillip walked over to Daniel. “While I appreciate this little lecture on the hypocrisy of our society, it isn’t really helping right now. Could you calm down so we can think, please?”

“And none of this chatter is helping either!” Daniel shouted at Phillip, irritation making his face turn red. “We need a plan. A rational plan.” Dropping his voice to a whisper, he added, “And you should just tell them both why they failed the test.”

“Not the time,” Philip hissed through clenched teeth.

“I liked my bird idea,” Gwen said with a sniff. “See that little bluebird on the bottom rafter over there? I’d just stick my finger out like this,” she said as she held her arm out in front of her. “I’d say ‘Mr. Bluebird, come sit on my finger.’”

The bird turned its head toward the girl, unfurled its wings and swooped down from the rafter to land on her extended finger. It sat there chirping and flitting its head back and forth as if awaiting further instruction.

“How did you do that?” Peter rushed to Gwen’s side. “Marina, you try.”

“Mrs. Owl, can you come here for a second?” Marina called up to a large owl. The owl hooted twice before dropping down to the edge of the large basket in one long dive. It sat staring at the girl, its large yellow eyes unblinking.

“Did you two just talk to birds?” James said with a wide-eyed stare. “You just talked to birds! That is amazing!”

“While this is fascinating,” Daniel interrupted the excited chat­ter, “unless those birds can fight a king and his guards, it doesn’t help us much. I need you all to concentrate or King Rupert is going to behead us in the morning.”

“Daniel,” Phillip said, placing his hand on Daniel’s forearm, “they just talked to birds.”

“I am aware of that, Phillip, but unless that bluebird can pick me up and fly me out of here then I don’t see what—”

“Wait!” Phillip interrupted him with an excited cry. “Oh, Daniel! That’s brilliant.”

“What?” Daniel shouted.

“Quick, everyone,” Phillip ordered the assembled group, “Help me dump all the yarn out of this big basket.” He began throwing the skeins of yarn onto the floor. “Once it is empty, we need to tie pieces of this yarn all around the edges of the basket. Then we can all climb inside and Gwen and Marina can ask the birds to grab the yarn in their beaks and just fly us out of here.”

“Phillip,” Daniel asked, “are you suggesting that we have these birds carry us out of here? Besides the fact that we will probably drop to our death in the process, this is the most ridiculous thing I have heard.”

“Really?” Phillip replied, turning to Daniel and placing his hands on his hips. “You just watched two young women talk to birds. A man outside that door wants to behead us because his daughter can’t spin straw into gold. My father is in some kind of frozen state because I wouldn’t marry a girl my apparently magical stepmother had locked in a tower for eighteen years. You haven’t slept in two years because of a fairy curse! Yes, suggesting that birds can carry us out of this tower is clearly the most ridiculous thing in this situation!”

“Well,” Daniel mumbled, “I just think that—”

“Are you going to stand there or are you going to help?” Phillip said and stamped his foot. He flung a few more balls of yarn onto the floor. “It just seems to me that in a situation this ridiculous, the most ridiculous answer might be the right one.”

Daniel skulked over to the basket and reached in to pull out a handful of yarn. Quickly, the group emptied the basket and began tying lengths of yarn all around its edges. Once the entire perimeter of the basket was covered in strands, James and Peter helped the two young women into the basket. The four men climbed in and they all sat down.

“Oh, birds!” Gwen sang out. “Please be dears and come lift us out of here! Just grab these little strings and away we go!”

Suddenly the tower filled with the sound of hundreds of flutter­ing wings. Caws and whistles echoed off the stone walls of the tower, as the birds descended and began grabbing the strands.

“Now fly!” Marina called out to the birds.

Slowly the basket began to shift and shake as the birds strained against the weight of the basket’s passengers. As the birds began to flap their wings in unison, Daniel could feel the basket lift slightly.

“This is never going to work!’ Daniel shouted to Phillip over the deafening fluttering of the bird’s wings.

“You just have to believe!” Phillip shouted back. Daniel watched Phillip’s smile grow larger and his posture grow taller as the bas­ket shimmied beneath them. “Come on, Daniel, surrender to the ridiculous!”

The basket suddenly jerked hard beneath their backsides and jolted straight up into the air. As the basket rose higher and higher toward the open roof of the tower, Daniel peeked over the edge, to see the floor falling rapidly away. The door was flung open and King Rupert came running into the room, staring in disbelief at the sight of the birds lifting the basket. As he yelled commands at his guards that Daniel couldn’t hear over the noise of the birds, the king shook his fist at the sky. Daniel dropped back into the basket and held his breath, as the remnants of the collapsing roof of the tower brushed the sides of the basket. The birds shifted direction and began to fly away from the tower.

Daniel turned to face Phillip. “It’s working, Phillip! It is really working!” He pulled the other prince into a long, tight embrace. He could feel Phillip hold his breath and then sink into the warmth of the hug. Daniel pulled back to look into Phillip’s blue eyes.

“What?” Phillip said, a look of fear mixed with excitement flash­ing across his face.

“Oh, nothing,” Daniel said with a slight grin, “I’m just surren­dering to the ridiculous.” As the basket soared into the dark night sky, Daniel pulled Phillip back into his arms, leaned back against the side of the basket and stared at the fluttering birds overhead. As he looked at the twinkling stars far above the flock of birds, Daniel smiled to himself and sighed, “Ridiculous.”