A Grimm Curse: A Grimm Tales Novella (Volume 3) (6 page)

Coriander had not been seen since the day of Cynthia’s ‘audition.’ She had stayed in her room and it was as if the staff
were
waiting on a ghost. No noise came from
behind
her
door. T
rays of food that were left
in the corridor
would reappear
there,
empty—as if by magic.

Lady Wellington let her be, except for her dress fittings. Mr. Shearing, the tailor—a thin man who was more nose and hair than anything else—was escorted in by Lady Wellington twice a day. She was determined Coriander still attend the feast, and she needed new dresses for all three days, including a costume for the masked ball on the second night.

The first day of the feast arrived. The opening of the festivities was to be Portia playing for the royal family, with one of the more talented servants accompanying her. Of course Coriander would have loved to play, dear thing, but had a touch of arthritis in her fingers just now.

And that’s just how Lady Wellington presented the situation to anyone that could have possibly been interested, and a few that weren’t. Cynthia even heard her going on about it to the milkman.

The music they had slaved over was set aside until the family was ready. The feast didn’t start until seven
that night
, but Cynthia was woken an hour earlier than usual. The hot water had stopped working and the wom
e
n’s baths would have to be heated over the fireplaces and on the kitchen stove. Baths, breakfast, hair, manicures, pedicures, lunch, facial wraps
,
then a light tea before the hour long process of applying makeup. “Because there will be no eating after your faces have been done!” Lady Wellington said, taking away first a cream puff from Portia, then a small wedge of cheese she had snuck out of the kitchen.

Mr. Shearing arrived to help the ladies into their gowns and do any last minute adjustments. Cynthia was standing in for one of his assistants who had taken ill that morning. She was stuck holding his basket of notions as the tailor wrestled Portia into her dress.

“Pins!” he demanded, snapping his fingers at her. Cynthia scrambled to obey. “Scissors
.
Not that pair! The embroidery ones!” The tailor finally sat back on his heels and scowled at Cynthia’s stepsister half zipped into an immaculate satin dress. The deep purple color brought out the shine in her eyes and her creamy complexion. She was remarkably pretty in that dress, Cynthia thought. Too bad it had to be made out of enough fabric that could have made curtains for the entire house.

“It’s no good. I’ll have to make some adjustments. It won’t fit,” Mr. Shearing said.

“What do you mean it doesn’t fit!” Lady Wellington swept into the room and descended on the tailor. “It was perfect at her final fitting last week. I saw it myself.”

“It would seem she’s not the exact same size she was last week,” the tailor said. Cynthia could tell it wasn’t in his nature to be delicate, but he had at least made an attempt. Lady Wellington pursed her lips
together
and examined Portia like a flower arrangement that needed tweaking. Cynthia felt a
twinge
pang
of sympathy. She’d endured that scrutiny more than once. Portia had a strange look on her face that Cynthia couldn’t interpret.

“We’ll just pull her corset tighter then,” Lady Wellington fluttered a hand in the direction of her large daughter, as if it were a magic wand that could fix the problem.

“We tried that.” Portia’s voice was low and dull. “I can’t lift my arms if it’s tighter. If I can’t lift my arms I can’t play.”

“Oh.” Lady Wellington lowered her arm and drummed her fingers on her thigh for a moment. “Can you make the adjustments in time?” she asked the tailor.

“Do I have a choice?” he mumbled, collecting his things and throwing them at Cynthia to pack in his basket.

Cynthia helped her stepsister out of the dress, a tense silence in the room. She left her sitting in her slip and slid out the door.

“Where is my measuring tape?” the tailor snapped at her as she handed over the dress. She murmured an apology and hurried back upstairs to fetch it from Portia’s room. She knocked lightly on the door before pushing it open. Portia hadn’t heard her and didn’t turn around from where she sat slumped on her bed, crying quietly. Cynthia snagged the tape from the floor and tiptoed out the room.

“Remi,” Cynthia whispered after the tape had been delivered and she was out from under Lady Wellington’s eagle eye for a minute or two. “Am I a cruel person?”

The tip of his frog nose poked out of her pocket and his eyes looked puzzled from the shadows of his hiding place.

“No. Why do you ask?”

Cynthia just shook her head and gave him a sad smile. Sometimes she forgot that her stepfamily might actually have feeling
s
under their unpleasant demeanors. Just because they treated her like she didn’t have any didn’t mean she had to
do
the same. Cynthia snuck Coriander’s makeup kit out of her bathroom and knocked on Portia’s door again. Making sure this time her stepsister heard her, and she waited a minute before going in.

“What do you want?” Under Portia’s scowl, her eyes were red and puffy and she had smeared her eye makeup badly.

“I’m hear to touch up your makeup,” Cynthia said. “I think it got smudged pulling your dress off.”

Portia watched her warily but allowed her to wipe off the ruined eyeliner and mascara and reapply it along with a new coat of eye shadow.

“There.” Cynthia packed away Coriander’s bag, hoping she could slip everything back before she noticed it was missing.

“Did mother send you to do that?” Portia asked as Cynthia slipped out the door.

Cynthia caught her eye. “No,” she said, shutting the door and hurrying away from the room.

Chapter
8

“
I expect you to sit at that piano and play like Mozart himself.
”

CYNTHIA HAD EXACTLY THIRTEEN MINUTES to get her dress on. She ran down the basement stairs to her room. She didn’t bother with a bath since she, thankfully, hadn’t mucked the pigs’ pen in days. She stripped off her work dress and was struggling into the brown nightmare before she remembered Remi in the pocket. He was thrashing under the lump of her gray dress and calling her name. She freed him and tried to pin up her hair. The task was almost impossible with no mirror. She had swiped a handful of Coriander’s bobby pins, which stuck out of her mouth. Both hands were up in her hair as she kept asking Remi in a mumble, “What about now?”

“The left side is a little lumpy,” he said.

She finally called it good with two minutes to go. She plopped the hat on her head, slid on her new shoes—the first pair she’d had in five years. They pinched her feet. Th
e
dress didn’t have pockets, so Remi hopped in her small music folder and they were up the stairs, out the door, and up next to the driver of the open topped carriage just as he was laying the whip to the white mares.

Cynthia rocked back in the lofted seat, completely out of breath.

“Really, Cynthia!” Lady Wellington
hissed
frowned
, flicking her skirts
angrily
and reaching for her. “Your hat is crooked. And sit up straight.”

Lady Wellington tugged her hat straight. Cynthia made sure the veil covered her face. She’d caught a glimpse of Coriander and Portia as she’d vaulted into the carriage.

“Did you even attempt to make yourself presentable?” Coriander’s bitter voice drifted over Cynthia’s shoulder.

She turned and glanced at her stepsister before facing forward without acknowledging her.

Coriander’s hair was still bright red—Cynthia had spent several days doing everything imaginable to it to try and dye it back. It just refused to change color. Perhaps the curse had somehow caused the dye to be permanent. Other than the hair, she looked, normal—well as normal as she got. The gloves and high-necked dress seemed to be doing the job of hiding any hairy deformity. Although it seemed to Cynthia it would have been easier just to be nice to someone and get changed back.

Portia looked nervous, and her fingers kept twitching in an odd way as she hummed softly to herself. Cynthia realized she was practicing her fingering.

Cynthia enjoyed the view from the driver’s seat and the fact she didn’t have to walk as the carriage rolled along. They paused as they passed the turn to the Levinson farm, waiting for their Model T convertible to pull out onto the road ahead of them, also enroute to the palace.

“Ridiculous, modern contraption,” Lady Wellington sniffed. Todd Levinson was driving, hair slicked back, wearing a rented tux. Next to him in tailored trousers and a long fitted overcoat that almost acted like a dress sat Christina. Todd gave her a lazy grin and raised eyebrow as if to say, “Very nice.” Christina gave her a smile that was not meant to be friendly. Cynthia stared off into the pines on the side of the road, pretending not to notice them.

The entire town seemed to be going to the feast. Farmers in their Sunday best, shopkeepers in the latest trends and fashions, a few of the lesser royals, counts and ladies. A traffic jam formed on the road leading through the wide gates and winding around the extensive grounds and gardens attached to the Hapsburg castle. Portia kneaded her hands into her massive thighs, wrinkling the satin of her dress. “We’re going to be late.”

“
It will
be fine, muffin,” Lady Wellington said, capturing one of Portia’s worrying hands between her own. “Driver,” she snapped, “if we’re not there on time, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

Hank, who had been working on the Wellington estate since before Cynthia was born, rolled his eyes so that only she could see. She stifled a small giggle and remembered how he used to let her hold the reins and pretend to drive when she was small. But he only said, “Of course
,
my lady,” and began weaving the bulky carriage through the throng. Horns honked and motorist cursed as they bullied their way to the front of the line, often driving in the ditch and leaving wheel marks on the immaculate lawns.

Pulling up to the wide-open steps of the front of the palace, the carriage rocked to a stop. Footmen hurried to help the wom
e
n out while Cynthia struggled to climb down from the high driver’s seat with her music folder,
and
Portia’s violin case
,
and
her
music stand.

“Here,” Hank said
,
lifting her bodily to the ground with all her paraphernalia. Cynthia tilted her head up to see past the brim of her hat and gave him a grateful smile. He winked at her and clicked to the horses, disappearing down the drive.

“You okay, Remi?” Cynthia whispered into her music folder.

A slender webbed foot emerged from the case and one padded
toe
pointed in a thumbs up that made her smile. Cynthia hurried after the women
who were
already ascending the long staircase in the dwindling afternoon light.

Lanterns suspended from the balconies overhead began to glow and brighten as the sun sank.
They
lent a magical feel to an already imposing structure.
The
crowds swell
ed over
the castle grounds, still trying to gain access to the one entrance. The same small lights dotted the castle gardens in
gentle
pinks and blues, creating pools of colored lights. The whole thing looked like something out of her book of fairy tales.

“Will you keep up?” Lady Wellington was beside her, Cynthia’s upper arm in
her
vice-like grip.
Her stepmother
dragged Cynthia up the last few steps, Portia’s violin case banging her knee. “You will be on your best behavior. I expect you to sit at that piano, play like Mozart himself,
and then
be so quiet I’ll think you’ve become part of a tapestry. None of your usual nonsense.”

Cynthia nodded once, stumbling slightly as
her arm was
released
so
Lady Wellington
could
adjust her peacock color
ed
dress, complete with tail and plume.

Their group swept into the ballroom. Cynthia got
the
impression of immense ceilings and a wash of bright white marble. She had a
sudden
sense of d
é
e
j
á
a
vu as she remembered being presented to the
k
ing and
q
ueen at the age of six. It was customary for the royalty to meet any new advisor’s family. The same rush of butterflies that threatened to overwhelm her back then were present now. Lord Smithson rushed at them from across the room. The usually stoic older man beamed with excitement.

“Good, good. This way then, everything’s in order.” He bustled them to a small circular dais raised in the middle of the ballroom. A white grand piano sat poised at the edge of the stage. Cynthia had never seen an instrument like it. She set up Portia’s music stand and placed her case in easy reach on the floor. She circled the piano slowly, like taking the measure of an animal she wasn’t sure was friendly or not. Lowering herself onto the bench she played a gentle cord. The strings inside the piano hummed in response, the tone rich and perfect.

Cynthia smiled and her nerves subside
d
. To play on such an instrument… well she’d never tell Remi, but she might be glad she came after all. Clamping her music folder to her chest, she glanced into it and saw Remi’s face, squashed but grinning, just happy to be there. What was she going to do with him while she was playing?

She whispered, “You’ll have to hide in the folds of my skirt.”

Remi nodded. She placed the folder on the bench next to her long enough for him to crawl out. She subtly arranged her skirts so Remi was in a small tent made by the extra fabric drape. She turned her mind to the task at hand, propping her folder on the music rack and warming up. On the other side of the piano, Portia was doing the same while Lady Wellington spoke with Lord Smithson just off the dais. Coriander stood close to her mother, unusually quiet and subdued, but Cynthia guessed slowly turning into a hairy creature would do that to a person.

As Cynthia ran her scales, the crowd they had passed on the road was filing into the room. They began to drift toward the small stage, sensing something was about to begin. As Cynthia glanced at the growing throng, Coriander’s face caught her attention. She was still next to her mother, unobtrusive, but the look in her eyes as she caught Cynthia’s sent a jolt of panic down her spine.

She was up to something.

Cynthia cursed herself for not anticipating this. She’d let down her guard knowing Coriander had been depressed and reticent since the hair-dying incident. Of course her stepsister would be furious she was playing in her place. She wouldn’t care that it hadn’t been Cynthia’s fault or her idea. Coriander would have gone to any length to
e
nsure this concert would end in disaster.

Sweat collected in the lines of Cynthia’s palms. She flipped open her music folder. Instead of Shubert’s
Fantasie
that she had carefully placed in it this morning, there was a single sheet of music—
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
. A handwritten note in the corner read:
This should be about your speed
.

A block of ice formed in Cynthia’s stomach and her fingertips began to tingle.

From high above them, as if from a loudspeaker, a voice rang in the lofted space, “Their majesties Queen Gisela and King Ferdinand, crown prince Wilhelm and Princess Snowdrop.”

Ridiculous name
, Cynthia thought, despite her anxiety. The crowd was parting and the royal family was parading straight for her. Cynthia moved to stand and curtsy as well, but didn’t get very far. The back of her skirt didn’t seem to want to leave the bench. She craned her neck around to see if she could see the problem and lightly touch
ed
the piano bench with her hand. It came away tacky.

The tingling in her fingertips traveled through her hands and crawled her up arms. She felt light headed and dark spots
crowded
the edges of her vision. She forced air into her lungs and tried to steady herself. She
would not
pass out. She would get through this then hide pig manure in Coriander’s mattress. She’d write
Enchantment
magazine with an anonymous exclusive of her stepsister’s curse and hairy transformation. She’d take a knife to Coriander’s Ferragamo heels…

Her anger gave Cynthia something to focus on and her head cleared. The tall, elegant figures of the royal family in their opulent attire and aloof expressions were only yards from her. The rest
of the
crowded ballroom dipped their heads and bowed while Cynthia sat there. Portia, in the middle of a deep curtsy gave her a puzzled look. She tried to stand again, only to hear stiches popping at the waist of her dress. She had no idea what Coriander had put on that bench or how she had got it there—she wouldn’t put it past her to bribe someone in the palace—but she was stuck fast. 

“Cynthia?” Remi whispered.

Cynthia turned to stone on the bench and stared at her lap, her face burning with shame, wishing she could turn invisible and hoping no one would pay her any mind.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the royal family pause at the edge of the platform and turn to the crowd. Cynthia thought she saw one raised eyebrow from the queen in her direction, but no one else seemed to notice. That is until her stepmother straightened from her own curtsy. Lady Wellington saw Cynthia sitting like a lump on the piano bench and her face turned the color of a boiled turnip.

The king raised his hands and beamed at the gathering. He was a short, jovial man. He was the queen’s second husband, Wilhelm’s stepfather. Queen Gisela remarried after her husband’s death to form an alliance with a neighboring kingdom. She retained her status as ruler—and Wilhelm’s of crown prince. King Ferdinand had brought his five-year-old daughter Snowdrop with him, now a girl only a few years younger than Cynthia.

Cynthia’s father had often spoken highly of King Ferdinand. She had always thought the friendly, personable king had never fit in well with the distant queen and her son.