In the end I just write i’ll come back. cross my heart, before turning my phone off. Then I wallow my way out of Primrose’s ridiculous bed, steal a gown from her wardrobe, and slip out the door after her.
3
WHEN I WAS eleven, I used my Make-a-Wish Foundation wish to spend a night in the Disney castle and get the full princess experience. It was a total letdown. I think I waited too long: eleven is old enough to see the cracks in the plaster, to sense the pity behind the megawatt smiles of the staff. It was like trying to play with my Barbies a year after I’d outgrown them, perfectly remembering how it used to feel but unable to feel it again.
Primrose’s castle is about a thousand times better. The stone is smooth and cool beneath my tennis shoes and the torch brackets smell of oil and char. My dress isn’t polyester and plastic; it hangs heavy on my shoulders, literal pounds of burgundy velvet and gold thread. I try to walk like Primrose, a glide so delicate it suggests my feet touch the earth only by happenstance.
I pass a pair of women who I think might be actual chambermaids and they pause to stare, mouths slightly open. Maybe it’s my haircut or my shoes, or the fact that I couldn’t figure out the laces and strings in the back of the dress and left it gaping open like one of those terrible paper hospital gowns. Whatever. Surely they’re used to inbred nobility with eccentric habits of dress.
I wave cheerily at them and they fall into belated curtsies. “Which way to the throne room?”
One of the maids points wordlessly down the hall. I attempt a regal nod in return, which causes one of them to giggle and the other to elbow her.
The throne room looks exactly like you might expect a throne room to look: a long hall with vaulted ceilings and high windows. There are honest-to-God knights stationed along the walls, surrounding a small crowd of people who look like lost extras from the set of A Knight’s Tale, all puffed sleeves and sweeping trains. A ruby-red carpet splits the room, leading to a man and woman sitting on golden chairs.
Primrose looks nothing like her parents. I guess when twelve fairies bless you with hotness, you lose some of the family quirks. The Queen has ordinary brown hair, a too-long nose, and an expression of permanent weariness; the King is roundish and baldish and alcoholic-looking. Standing beside them, Primrose looks like one of those Renaissance angels descended among mortals, softly glowing. I touch my own chin—the tiny, too-sharp chin I got straight from Mom—and almost like it for the first time in my life.
Primrose’s eyes flick up at my movement. They widen very slightly. I give her a cheery shrug.
Before she can either banish me or die of embarrassment, the King taps his ringed knuckle against the arm of his throne. The court falls quiet. “It is my very great pleasure to announce that the curse laid upon our fair princess has failed! She is one-and-twenty years old, and yet untouched by that wicked promise!” His accent is vaguely English, the way medieval accents are in movies, and his voice booms exactly like a king’s should. When the clapping and hurrah-ing dies down, he continues, “And it is my even greater pleasure to announce my daughter’s betrothal!” I guess exclamation points are inheritable. “To none other than the good Prince Harold of Glennwald!”
It’s only then that I notice the person standing on the other side of the thrones: a twenty-something man wearing a tunic and an expression of criminal smugness. He’s handsome, in that generic, Captain America–ish way that does absolutely nothing for me, and I can tell from the briefest glance at Primrose that I’m not alone. She’s smiling, but there’s a falseness to it that reminds me of those Disneyland actresses when I was eleven.
That smile jars me, like a little shock of static or a missed step on the stairs. I know this story really, really well: after the curse is broken, Prince Charming marries the princess and they live happily ever after, the end. But this version has slid sideways somehow, like a listing ship. The curse isn’t quite broken, the prince isn’t quite charming, and that’s not a happily ever after I see swimming in the princess’s eyes.
The King has been speechifying for some time about his hopes for their blessed union and Prince Harold’s many virtues. “—a true son to us, who has tirelessly striven to end the curse for years now, even tracking the fairy to her lair, though she fled before his might.” I squint at Harold, all jawline and puffed pride; surely even an off-brand discount-store Maleficent could take him if she wanted to. “That their marriage may be delayed no longer, Princess Primrose and her betrothed will speak their vows in three days hence!”