Into the Wild (20 page)

The trumpet player lifted her trumpet to her lips and played a flourish, and the lions, trolls, and bears began to dance again. Laughing, the lords and ladies swirled, and the trumpet player walked through them. “Knew if I played”—she trilled notes—“long enough”—more notes—“it would draw you.”

In a wave, a stream of rats flowed after the musician. In their wake came a flood of laughing, dancing children. The prince began to draw Princess backward, away from the odd procession.

“Did you find”—the trumpet girl played another set of notes, then finished the sentence—“your mom?” More notes. “Do you know how to stop the Wild?”

Princess frowned.

“I want”—more notes—“to go home.” Flourish of notes up the scale and down. She took a breath. “I’ve had enough adventure.”

Home? Mom? Adventure? Wild? Princess felt as if small fireworks were popping inside her head with each word. And with each pop came a flood of questions: who was the trumpet girl? How did she know Princess? What did she mean, adventure? What did she mean, “stop the Wild”? What was “the Wild”? What was home?

She opened her mouth to let the questions pour out, but the prince pulled her away. Quickly, the lords and ladies spun in dancing couples between them and the trumpet girl, as if attempting to deliberately part them. The river of rats and children clogged the open spaces. Princess wanted to cry: Wait! Who are you? But the prince was herding her too quickly back toward the ivory staircase.

A woman in red velvet descended the staircase.

“Mother!” the prince cried. “This is the Mysterious Princess from Unknown Lands. She is the one I love.”

Love? He loved her? It was as if the trumpet girl had released a dam. More questions tumbled into Princess’s swirling mind: How could he love her? He barely knew her. She barely knew him. She barely knew herself.

“Indeed,” said his mother, the queen. “Your brother said the same about the girl from the last midnight, and she was little more than a scullery maid with high-quality shoes, when all was said and done.” She fixed her gaze on Princess, and Princess felt like wilting. “Are you a true princess?”

Was she? She didn’t know. If she wasn’t a princess, what was she? This time, when Princess reached back for a memory, it felt as if she slammed into a wall inside her head.

The prince clasped Princess’s hand to his heart. “Surely she is a princess from some faraway land. Look at her grace, her beauty, her poise!”

“We shall see,” the queen said. “She shall be tested.”

 
 
Leaving the prince behind, the queen shepherded Princess down a tapestry-lined hall. Questions tumbled inside her: What test? Why? Who was this queen? Where was this castle? The queen pulled her faster and faster down the hall until the tapestries blurred into a mosaic of colors, and the glass slippers echoed and clinked like a dozen champagne flutes toasting.

Abruptly, the queen halted and flung open a door. The scent of roses flowed out like a wave, and Princess saw a blond woman in a pink ball gown sleeping peacefully on a canopied bed. Roses climbed up the posts and over the canopy. “Who is she?” Princess asked.

“Occupied,” the queen said. “Not your story. Come. We must find your story.” She took Princess by the wrist again and hurried down the hall. What did she mean? Princess wondered. Her story?

Again without warning, the queen halted. Sliding on her glass slippers, Princess narrowly avoided crashing into the queen. The queen threw open another door. Princess peeked inside. In front of a mountain of straw, a girl was crying. “Is she all right? Why is she crying?” Princess started to ask, but the queen slammed the door shut and pulled Princess onward. “There must be a role for you,” the queen muttered. “You must fit one of them.”

Princess didn’t know what she meant. Her feet ached in the hard shoes, and her skin itched from the feathers. Who were these people? What was she doing here? “Please, can’t we rest?” she asked, but the queen ignored her.

The queen tried a third door, where an older woman studied herself in a mirror and chanted:
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . .”
The next room had another bed, but this time, it housed a woman and a fat, green frog. “Who are they?” Princess asked.

“You should not be asking,” the queen said flatly. “The trumpeter will be punished for this.”

“But I . . .”

The queen opened another door. “Ah,” the queen said. “Here we are, and in you go.” She shooed Princess through the doorway.

Princess faced a wall of cloth. She craned her neck. Mattresses, she realized. It was a pile of mattresses. Lots of mattresses. Why were there so many? The stack peaked near the top of the vaulted ceiling, twenty feet overhead. A ladder leaned against it. Princess heard a bolt slide into a lock behind her. She heard the queen’s voice through the shut door: “Sleep well.”

Sleep? The queen was leaving her here? “Wait, please.” Princess tried the door handle. It didn’t budge. She knocked. “I don’t understand! You said there would be a test.”

Behind her, within the room, a voice said, “This
is
the test.”

She turned and saw only the mattresses. “Who said that?”

“I did,” the voice said.

She looked up. Poking its head over the top mattress was a cat. “Hello,” she said. “What do you mean, it’s the test?”

“The queen has placed a pea under the mattresses that a true princess would feel while she slept,” he said.

She didn’t think that sounded very likely. The ladder to the top was so long that it bowed in the middle. “A pea?”

“It’s an unusually large pea,” he said.

What did a pea have to do with being a princess? How could a vegetable confirm an identity?

The cat disappeared for a moment and then reappeared to climb, humanlike, down the ladder. He wore boots on his hind paws, and he had a tan-colored cloak tied around his neck in place of a collar. A stick poked out of one of his boots. She wondered if it was normal for a cat to talk and wear clothes. It felt odd and familiar at the same time, as if a memory should be there, but of course it wasn’t. He landed neatly on the ground and stood upright on his booted hind paws. “Why does a cat need boots?” she asked. “And why wear them only on your back feet?”

His whiskers twitched. “You’re too aware,” he said. “You shouldn’t be asking so many questions.”

“Why not?” What was wrong with being aware? She didn’t feel particularly aware. She felt as if she were swimming in murk. She tried again to push at her memories, and she hit the wall in her head. Her head throbbed.

“You must have found a reminder,” he said. “Something or someone must have sparked this.” He hesitated and then asked, “Do you know who I am?”

She frowned, thinking of the trumpet girl—that was when the questions had begun to flow. The trumpet girl had sparked this feeling of . . . She didn’t know how to name this feeling. Absently, Princess plucked at the feathers on her sleeve. The peacock feathers tickled her arms, and the shafts poked her skin. It itched. “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know.” She half felt as if she did know him, and she half felt as if she didn’t.

“Oh, this is not good,” he said. “Not good at all.”

She scratched her arms through the feathers and had a flash of memory: soft hands rubbing calamine lotion on her arms because she had followed a cat—this cat!—into a field of poison ivy. Excitement bubbled up. A memory! A real memory! “I
do
know you. Don’t I?”

The cat flinched as if she had hit him.

There
were
memories beyond that wall. Gritting her teeth, she tried to push. If she battered at it long enough, would there be a point where the wall broke?

“You must climb into bed,” the cat said. He sounded oddly desperate. “If you don’t and you fail the test, the queen will kill you.”

Her memories scattered.
“Kill
me?”

“It’s the rules,” he said.

“But . . .” she began as a dozen questions rushed into her head.

“Please, climb,” he begged.

He sounded so insistent that she obeyed without thinking. The ladder bent and swayed under her weight. At the top, she found a nightgown. How did it get here? Was it for her? She leaned over the edge to ask the cat. He was curled on the floor as if asleep. “Cat? Hello? Are you awake?”

He didn’t answer. She sat for a moment, alone with her questions, and then she squirmed out of the itchy feather dress and into the soft nightgown. She kicked the feather dress to the bottom of the bed and lay down.

She closed her eyes, but she didn’t think she’d fall asleep.

She had to find . . . what? The dream was gone. She blinked around her at the ornate ceiling. She was on the mattress stack, she remembered. She hadn’t felt any pea.

Guess I’m not a princess, she thought.

Now that she was fully awake, her breath tasted stale and she needed to pee. Girl climbed down the ladder.

Stepping over the sleeping cat, she found a door on the other side of the mattress stack. She hadn’t remembered it being there before she slept, but it led to a closet-sized bathroom with a marble sink and toilet. She rinsed her mouth. “Boots, have you seen my toothbrush?” She studied herself in the mirror.

The cat ran into the bathroom. “Julie?”

Her hair was matted on the left side. She tried to fluff it out. Obviously, she wasn’t a princess. Princesses didn’t have bad-hair days. “Sorry—what did you say?”

He sank down to four paws. “I didn’t think it would be so bad to see you like this,” he said. “I’m a cat; you’re a girl—why do I care?”

“What’s so bad?” she asked. Her hair? She wished the fairy godmother hadn’t coiled her hair. It might have looked exotic at the ball, but not anymore. She had serious un-princesslike bed head. Whoever she was, she was definitely not a princess.

“You remembered my name,” he said.

Hands in her hair, she froze. Yes, she had remembered: Boots. His name was Puss-in-Boots. She had reached for the name, and there it was. She hadn’t even realized she’d done it. “I know you,” she said. “How do I know you? How do you know me?” He retreated out of the bathroom, and she followed him. “You said a name. What was the name? Who am I?”

The bolt slid on the bedroom door, and she heard the queen’s voice singsong: “Oh, love-ly prin-cess?” Girl knelt down on the floor in front of Boots and begged, “Quickly, please. Tell me! Tell me who I am!”

“If I do, I’ll lose her!” Boots said.

“Who?” she whispered back.

“The love of my life!” he said. “It was the bargain . . .”

The queen came around the mattresses. “Ah, there you are! How did you sleep?”

Girl straightened. “I wasn’t able to sleep, Your Majesty,” she found herself saying. “There was an awful lump in the bed.” Why had she said that? She hadn’t meant to say that. It wasn’t even true.

The queen clapped. “Marvelous! You are a true princess! You must come now. We will celebrate with a feast.”

She was so close to breaking through! She searched for an excuse to stay: “But I’m not dressed.” It was true: she was barefoot and in the nightgown.

“Pshaw, you would be radiant in a scullery maid’s dress.” Putting her arm around her, the queen guided her toward the door. Girl looked back over her shoulder. To her relief, the cat trotted behind her.

The queen hurried her through the ornate halls into a vast dining room. Girl had a quick glimpse: six chandeliers lit the cathedral-shaped hall. Tapestries and mosaics filled the marble walls. At one end, Girl saw a two-story grandfather clock.

“Sit, sit,” the queen said. Obeying, Girl climbed onto a throne at one end of a banquet table. Her toes barely touched the floor. She wondered how it could be dinnertime. Shouldn’t it be morning? Had she slept through the day? Or had she only slept an hour or two and it was still night? Neither choice felt right. It had felt like morning when she woke. She tried to see around the pyramid of melon slices in front of her. The prince sat at the other end behind sculptures made of bread and pastry. “Here is the true princess!” he shouted. “She has passed the test! She is worthy to be my wife!”

Girl stared. “Wife?”

Smoke billowed from the center of the table. Spilling fruit platters, a boy solidified in the midst of the smoke. He swished midnight blue robes as he strode across the table toward Girl. “No, I forbid it!”

“Where did he come from?” Girl hissed to the cat. “Who is he? Do I know him?” But the cat was no longer in sight. “Boots? Where are you, Boots?” The magician grabbed Girl’s wrist and hauled her to her feet. “Ow, hey!” she said.

“She is
my
beloved,” the magician said. “I will have her!”

The prince climbed onto the table. “I challenge you to a contest for her love! For I am an enchanter, and I have magic at my disposal!”

Girl tried to twist out of the magician’s grip. “Let go.”

“Very well, prince,” the magician said, releasing her. Girl fell back into the throne. “What are your terms?” he said.

Rubbing her sore wrist, Girl stood up. “Wait a minute here. Don’t I have a say?” She was not marrying anybody. She barely knew the prince. She barely knew herself. And who was the kid in the wizard hat? The hat had a tag dangling in the boy’s face.

The prince puffed out his chest. “We shall have a magical duel. Whoever creates the thing that pleases the princess most shall have her for his bride.”

Magical duel? With her as the prize? She didn’t want to be a prize. She didn’t want this pimple-faced magician as her husband. She wasn’t even sure she wanted the cute prince. What she wanted was her name. She headed for the door. “Boots? Boots!”

The prince pushed his royal sleeves to his royal elbows and said, “I shall begin, since I was first to claim her hand.” He waved his arms in the air. “I summon the birds of the sky!”

As Girl reached the door, it slammed open in front of her. Birds flooded into the hall. Covering her head, she ran back to the banquet table as dozens of parrots dive-bombed her shoulders. She stooped under the table.