When Rose Wakes (17 page)

R
ose enters the room with her head bowed, eyes downcast in what she hopes will be perceived as appropriately demure and deferential behavior. In truth, she does not look up because she does not want her future husband to see the hatred in her eyes. She has never met him before, only glimpsed him twice, in the castle courtyard, when he came to parley with her father for her hand.

She smells of jasmine and lilac and vanilla and cinnamon, a potent perfume intended to make her seem more beautiful and angelic, to take the wild edge off of a girl used to wandering the Feywood with sprets and fairies. The scent makes her want to vomit, though as tight as she is laced into her dress, she doubts she could manage even that.

The windows are open in the vast meeting room in the castle. They look down upon the courtyard, where the enemy prince’s men await, armed and defiant. Horses snort and stamp their feet, betraying a yearning for action—for battle—that so many must share. The people of the village do not want
to die. They fear the murder of their loved ones and the loss of their homes. But the idea of surrender—and the serving girls tell Rose there is no doubt in the village that the marriage her father has planned for her is tantamount to surrender—troubles them all.

But no one is as sickened by it as Rose herself.

Except perhaps her father.

She glances up as she walks slowly and prettily across the room, but her gaze immediately finds the king. She refuses to acknowledge any of the others gathered in that room. In her father’s eyes she sees a pain that mirrors her own but is even more profound. The dream he has nurtured all of his life, of a life of satisfying work and peaceful contentment for his people, had been in his grasp… and then it had been stripped away from him. Now it is within reach once more, but the cost is too much for him to bear. More than once he has changed his mind and decided to return to war. When the enemy demanded that his son, Luc, be officially introduced to Rose so that he could see her, so that he could speak to her, and decide if he
wished
to wed her—as if she might not be an acceptable bride—Rose’s father wanted to betray the flag of truce and kill his enemy’s son, to ride out with his warriors and fight the enemy armies to the death.

But it would mean much more than his own death. So many innocents would die. Families. Children. And all he has dreamed of would end in bloodshed and tears.

Rose will not allow him to sacrifice all of that in order to save her from this sham of a marriage. And so they are here,
all of them, and she is to meet the enemy prince, this young man, Luc, and charm him. A great deal depends upon it, and upon her not allowing him to see the hatred in her eyes.

“There you are, darling Rose,” her father says, holding her gaze as she walks to him and takes his hand. And then he turns to the man beside him. “Luc,
le Comte de Roussillon,
may I present my daughter, Rose.”

Luc takes her hand from her father’s, just as he will on the day of their wedding, and she has no choice now. She must look at him. She turns her gaze from her father to the enemy prince—her future husband—and sees that he is a beautiful man, cold-eyed and exquisitely made.

She hates him all the more for it.

From somewhere nearby—perhaps outside in the courtyard or perhaps from the shadows beneath the tapestries on the walls—there comes insidious laughter. It seems familiar, and she shivers.

“Mademoiselle,” her future husband says, bending to kiss her hand.

Rose forces herself not to speak, for if she opens her mouth, she knows that she will scream.

•

From the moment Rose returned to school on Monday morning, things were different. People said hello to her by name in the hall. Not a
lot
of people; it wasn’t an avalanche of affection and acceptance. But the change in attitude toward her was significant enough for her to
notice almost immediately. One or two of the girls who gave her a wave on the way to a class or in the lunch line were faces she recognized from Chloe’s party, but only one or two.

They didn’t all use her name, however. Amiable greetings of “Hey, Coma Girl” met her arrival in the cafeteria and later in chemistry. Kylie smiled in approval. It was mostly the guys who seemed to have developed a fondness for the nickname, but all the venom had been sapped from it, and Rose embraced it even further. Some of the guys seemed intrigued by her now, and by the time Tuesday ended, she had counted half a dozen attempts to flirt with her. One guy even went out of his way to open doors for her whenever he saw her coming.

“This is because you stuck up for yourself,” Kylie’s friend Dom told her at lunch on Tuesday.

“Courtney tends to make people feel small,” Kylie added. “You turned the tables on her. It took guts, and there are a lot of people who wish they’d had the guts to do the same at one point or another.”

Rose didn’t know how much of that was true and how much of it was just fascination with the girl who had a freak-out at Chloe’s birthday. Either way, she wasn’t about to complain about the sudden turn of fate and her new acceptance.

Of course, there were exceptions. Other than Jared’s football buddies, it seemed like the school’s elite were now her enemies. She heard their quiet mocking and saw
their sneers. When Courtney passed her in the corridor she pretended Rose was invisible, but that suited Rose perfectly. Unfortunately, Courtney rarely went anywhere without a troupe of worshippers, and those sycophants—her boyfriend Eric and the girls who always trailed along with her like baby ducks—seemed to think riding Rose was the best way to make their queen happy.

The one time Courtney spoke to her in the early part of the week was right after homeroom on Tuesday morning. When the bell rang and everyone picked up their books and made for the door, Courtney cut her off, with a wary glance to make sure Mr. McIlveen wasn’t watching.

“Nobody humiliates me,” the girl said in a low voice, blue eyes narrowed with hate.

Rose felt sick. She fought the urge to avert her eyes.

“You seem to do an excellent job of it all on your own,” Rose said.

Seeing the moment unfolding, half a dozen of their classmates had moved nearer and they were close enough to hear the exchange.

“Give it up, Courtney,” a gray-eyed guy named Nathaniel said. “She’s obviously not afraid of you.”

“Face it,” said a girl, sidling up to Nathaniel and rolling her eyes. “In a battle of wits, you’re unarmed.”

Snickers followed Courtney out into the hall. Nathaniel fell into step with Rose as she left her homeroom.

“Watch out for her,” the gray-eyed boy said.

Rose thanked him, not knowing what else to say. It
seemed like he wanted to talk more, maybe to walk her to class, but she hurried away. As much as she appreciated the new, strange attention she seemed to be getting from guys, the only one she wanted walking her to class was Jared. Every time she saw him, she wanted to kiss him. He wanted to travel the world, and though she was only beginning to get to know him, she wanted to take that journey with him. Her lips still remembered his kiss all too well and her body vividly recalled the way his hands had held her and caressed her back.

The intensity that had developed between them on Saturday night had not abated at all. If anything, being in school together only stoked that flame. Rose felt as though they shared some huge secret, this electric thing between them, and sometimes the smiles they exchanged would turn into soft, shy laughter as they marveled at how strong these new feelings were. They held hands under the table in the cafeteria and after math class on Monday afternoon, Jared guided her into the shadows beneath the second floor stairs in the west wing and kissed her for a few precious seconds that left her breathless.

Rose had been awake for almost two months, but somehow she felt that the events of the weekend had been her real awakening. Her fear and paranoia weren’t completely gone, but with Kylie’s help she felt like she was managing them better. Her dreams, too.

Sunday and Monday mornings she had woken with only vague notions regarding what she might have
dreamt about, and what little she recalled seemed fairly innocuous. The two nights that followed brought more strange nocturnal visions, but they seemed to have been robbed of the fear that had infused them before. The dreams were changing. In some of them she found herself a young girl, still the princess of her nightmares but in a more pleasant time, wandering her father’s castle or exploring the ever-changing paths of the Feywood with the sprite, Rielle. Every morning on her way to school she would talk to Kylie on her cell and give her a dream report. Tuesday at lunch, Kylie suggested she start writing them down, that they were almost like stories already and that she could make use of them, turn them into some kind of fantasy novel. Rose shrugged the suggestion off, but it stayed with her, and now she was considering starting a dream diary.

Rose felt like she had found the calm at the center of her emotional storm. Jared and Kylie were each partially responsible for that, but she had to admit to herself that she had contributed to that new peace and stability as well. Yes, she still found herself looking over her shoulder in public in case the pale woman should reappear and shivering whenever she spotted a crow perched on a ledge or branch, but as the days passed and “Coma Girl” became part of the fabric of St. Bridget’s, she felt more confident.

At home, that confidence helped her manage her relationship with her aunts. She had begun to pay more
attention, to understand what she ought to say—or not say—to avoid getting them into a panic over nothing.

Her memories still eluded her, but for the first time she felt as though she was truly forging a new life, which made it easier for her to confront the idea that her memory loss might be permanent, that this might be her life from now on. Once, the thought had caused her horrible anguish, but now, somehow, it seemed to her there were far worse fates. If this truly was her life, now, she had begun to think that might not be so terrible.

Yet in spite of the way her life seemed to be coming together, when the last bell rang on Wednesday afternoon Rose found herself just as nervous and off balance as she had been the week before, perhaps more so. Kylie and Dom had spoken to the music teacher, Mrs. Welch, about letting her join the chorus even though rehearsals had begun weeks earlier. Mrs. Welch had agreed and though Rose had been uncertain from the beginning about her level of interest in chorus, Kylie and Dom had persuaded her. She had sung just a little snippet of a song she’d learned from listening to the radio, just for Kylie—who had hounded her relentlessly until she had given in—but that had been very different from this. Kylie had told her she had a great voice, but she was Rose’s friend. She had to say that. Now Rose was supposed to sing in front of the chorus teacher, maybe in front of the whole chorus.

Despite Rose’s nervousness, she found herself swept
along by the tidal rush of Kylie’s enthusiasm as the three of them—Rose between Kylie and Dom—hurried along the basement corridor toward the music room.

“You look like you’re about to puke,” Dom said, glancing at her with concern.

“I’ll try not to splatter you,” Rose replied.

Kylie laughed, but Dom put a little more space between himself and Rose just in case she wasn’t kidding. It had been a joke, but Rose did feel a little queasy. If she had ever sung in front of people before, it was yet another experience lost in the fog of her missing memory. She took deep breaths as they reached the music room and joined the other choir members trickling in.

“Mrs. Welch!” Kylie said. “Rose DuBois is here!”

She seemed proud of herself, like a cat that’d just dropped a dead mouse at its master’s feet. Dom nudged Rose toward the teacher, who smiled in greeting.

“Hello, Rose. Glad you could make it,” Mrs. Welch said.

“Me, too,” Rose lied. “I just hope I don’t disappoint you.”

Mrs. Welch apparently sensed something in her voice, because she cocked her head slightly and took a closer look at Rose.

“I’m sure you won’t. But if you’re not comfortable—”

“She’s totally comfortable,” Kylie assured the teacher, shooting Rose a look that was half smirk and half admonition. “Rose loves music.”

“I do,” Rose agreed, still focused on Mrs. Welch. “But that doesn’t
mean I can sing. If I’m not any good, please tell me. I don’t want to…”

Mrs. Welch frowned. “Don’t want to what?”

Rose glanced around the room. At one end were locked cabinets and at the other a baby grand piano. There were chairs stacked against a wall along with music stands, but otherwise the floor was clear. Rose shifted awkwardly. Dom and Kylie had hung back but were close enough to hear whatever she said, but the rest of the chorus had gathered in front of the cabinets in a somewhat orderly cluster, prepared to be called into formation at any moment.

“I’m the coma girl, Mrs. Welch,” Rose said, her voice low. “I appreciate that Sister Anna and my teachers are making an effort to keep me involved. But I don’t want any special treatment because people feel sorry for me.”

“Good,” the teacher said. “You won’t get it here. If you can’t sing, I’ll tell you.”

Rose blinked. Though she’d asked Mrs. Welch to be frank, the bluntness still surprised her. She reappraised the woman, took in her copper-dyed hair and her stylish clothes and the long, delicate hands of a musician. She was serious about her work, and Rose liked that.

“Thank you.”

Mrs. Welch smiled. “Don’t thank me yet.”

Then she turned to the rest of the chorus and clapped her hands. “All right, my friends, let’s get to work.”

Kylie and Dom steered Rose over to the group, who organized themselves into four rows. There were about forty students in chorus. Dom was one of only five guys, male voices placed apart from each other in the larger group of females, apparently to integrate the sound. Rose expected Mrs. Welch to place her somewhere specific, but then realized that the woman hadn’t yet heard her sing. For now, she could remain with her friends, which eased her mind a little.