If the Magic Fits Page 4

  I looked around for a place to hide it. The stack of unused laundry baskets? A Laundress might see it. And raise a ruckus. Behind the big stove where Lindy heated her irons? It might catch fire. The cupboard where she kept her cloak? First place she’d find it. No, I needed to hide it somewhere Lindy never went. I inched closer to the door to the wardrobe hall with its seven closets. I could hide the towel somewhere in there. Cherice might see it, but she was too kind to tell on me.

  To get there, I had to make it past the doorway into the dressing room, where I could hear Cherice helping Princess Mariposa dress. Up till now, I’d only caught glimpses of the Princess gliding past doors, wearing gorgeous clothes. Pale violet. Turquoise. Rose-petal pink. The rings on her fingers flashed as she went. I had strict orders from Lindy to stay put in the pressing room, so Princess Mariposa had never seen me. Just like Francesca predicted. My daydream about our becoming best friends had yet to materialize.

  The door was open a crack, so I decided to take a peek. I took in the green carpet and the white and gold trimming the lavender walls, the birdcage stand in the corner. The canary chirped in the cage next to the lavender curtains.

  Princess Mariposa stood turning back and forth before a mirror, a cloud of raspberry silk drifting with her. Crystals dripping off the skirt cast prisms on the walls. Cherice stood nearby with a pair of raspberry-colored gloves in her hand. I squinted and wedged myself more tightly to the crack, ears wide open.

  “Does this seem a little…intense for morning?” Princess Mariposa asked.

  “It’s perfect for a luncheon, my dear. You look tempting enough to bake in a pie,” Cherice said.

  “Wonderful. I will be mistaken for dessert and poked with a fork,” Princess Mariposa said tartly, and ruffled the crystals at her neckline. “Will there be anyone new today?”

  Cherice dangled the gloves in the Princess’s direction. “I had not thought to tell you this, my dear, not wanting to alarm you—”

  I held my breath, anxious for what might alarm this beautiful raspberry-gowned lady.

  “Go on,” Princess Mariposa said. “Alarm me.” She reached for the gloves and began to slide one on her satiny white hand.

  A tinkling laugh came from Cherice. “My dear, you are a wit. A young man dressed in worn clothes did come to the gates last night. He claims to be a prince, impoverished, obviously, but still—a prince.”

  I exhaled with a sigh. A prince, that was all. Not an evil wizard or a fire-breathing dragon or an ogre with a club the size of—

  “An impoverished prince?” Princess Mariposa’s eyes sparkled. “How romantic.”

  “Naturally, he was not invited to today’s luncheon,” Cherice added. “Not with so many fine suitors in attendance.”

  No indeed, I thought, some penniless prince had no business bothering my beautiful Princess. Seriously, how would he drape her in diamonds and lavish her with…whatever luxury princesses ought to be lavished with? I wrinkled my forehead trying to imagine what luxury Princess Mariposa could be missing out on.

  “Send for him!” Princess Mariposa exclaimed.

  At that, the canary began to sing with gusto. Deep down, I knew that now was the moment for me to be on my way, but I was glued to that crack.

  “Hush,” Princess Mariposa admonished the canary, and turned to Cherice. “Instruct the Steward to seat this new prince next to me.”

  “M-my dear,” Cherice sputtered, “that very handsome and clever Prince Baltazar was promised that he would sit next to you today.”

  “Well, I suppose I have two sides, don’t I?” Princess Mariposa snapped. “Put that poor prince on my right and Prince Baltazar on my left.”

  The canary went wild, flapping frantically at the thin gold bars of his cage, singing out louder than before.

  “What has gotten into him?” Princess Mariposa said, clapping her hands—one covered in a raspberry glove and one bare—over her ears.

  “I don’t know,” Cherice replied as the canary grew still louder and more frantic. “I’ve never seen it behave this way.”

  “Take him away!” Princess Mariposa called over the bird’s cries.

  Cherice hurried over to the stand, lifted the cage off its hook, turned around—and saw me peeking in the door. She marched toward me. I backed away, thrusting the towel behind my back. She barged through the door and shoved the cage at me.

  “Do something with this now or I’ll tell Lindy that you’ve been spying!”

  I dropped the towel and took the cage. Cherice slammed the door shut in my face. The canary stopped his outburst so quickly that my ears were still ringing as I stood there with the birdcage handle twisting in my sweaty grip. The canary cocked his yellow head and regarded me with bright black eyes as if to say, What’s that towel doing on the floor?

  Lindy came in at that moment, swirling out of her cloak, and dancing it into the cupboard. While her head was safely tucked into the cupboard, I scooped up the towel and stuffed it between me and the cage. The canary blinked at it curiously, dipping his head and opening his beak. I shushed him with a finger before my lips.

  “What have you there?” Lindy asked, emerging from the cupboard and tying on her apron.

  “Um,” I said.

  “Is that Princess Mariposa’s bird?” Lindy asked, the threat of a frown hovering on her lips.

  “Yes. Cherice told me she wants her canary taken away,” I said.

  “No, she doesn’t. She’s had a canary in her dressing room since—forever, it’s always been there. Her mother had it.”

  “The same one?” I said, wondering how long canaries lived.

  Lindy propped a hand on her hip. “Now, how should I know? I have a pack of work to do and so do you.” She wrinkled her nose. “Do you smell something burning?”

  “Nope.” I inched a step closer to the door to the wardrobe hall.

  She walked over and rooted through my drying towels. “Huh. Well, find a spot close by for that bird. Knowing the Princess, as soon as you get rid of it she’ll want it back.”

  I slipped another step closer to my escape. “I—I—I’ll just put it in a closet for now.”

  “Hmm…,” Lindy said, sniffing at the air around my ironing board.

  I darted into the wardrobe hall. I jiggled the handle on door number one. Locked. Probably all the closets were locked. Cherice had the keys. I couldn’t very well go into the Princess’s dressing room and interrupt to ask for the keys. I thought a minute. Door seven, Cherice had said, was never locked. I twisted the knob on number seven and the door opened. The canary chirruped in the cage.

  “Do you like this one?” I asked.

  He chirruped again.

  “I do too,” I said. I spied a table tucked in the corner near the window and walked over to it. The table teetered on spindly legs. The inlaid top looked like it would scratch easily. “Just a minute,” I told the canary, and set the cage down on the carpet. I whisked the scorched towel over the tabletop, picked the cage up, and set it down.

  “Two birds with one stone,” I said. Then I blushed at the canary’s quizzical stare. “Not like that. I would never kill a bird. No, I just meant that the towel will protect the table, and you with your pretty cage will protect me from anyone finding my towel.”

  The canary flicked his tail as he took this in. He seemed to decide that everything was all right because he trilled a couple of notes and cocked his head at the window. I looked straight into the beautiful glass canary. I wondered if Queen Candace had had a canary of her own as well. I leaned against the window ledge. My fingers bumped against a crank.

  “Would you like some air? It’s a little warm in here.”

  Cheep-cheep.

  Turning the crank opened a side panel and let in the fresh summer breeze. I peered out. The head of a stone gryphon appeared beneath me, one of the gryphons that perched on the battlements overlooking the Princess’s gardens below. I patted the gryphon and turned back to the birdcage. The canary smoothed his ruffled feat
hers, stretched his neck, and sang. Silvery notes filled the room.

  And then something truly magical happened. The dresses stirred as if they’d been asleep and were just now waking up. As the canary sang, ghostly arms lifted the dresses’ sleeves, and their skirts swirled. The hair on the back of my neck prickled; goose bumps rose on my arms. The dresses danced on their silver hangers as if beckoning me to join them. My toes twitched. My heart skipped along with the notes of the canary’s song. I rubbed my eyes. Dresses do not dance. They hang quietly until someone wears them.

  I looked again. The dresses shivered expectantly, a jewel glittering here, a lace flounce waving there. The canary cocked his little yellow head and blinked at me with eyes like black diamonds. What on earth did he want? Expectation weighed in the air around me. The terrible sensation that I ought to do something pinned me to the floor. Do what? The canary had air and food and water, and the dresses had…hangers. What else was there?

  “Darling!” Lindy’s call pierced the silent wanting of the closet and snapped me out of the moment.

  “I’ll be back,” I promised the canary, and bolted out the door.

  That night I fell into bed like a stone and slept until a thump jarred me awake. I lay still and listened intently, wondering what had woken me. The only sound I heard was the breath of sleeping girls whispering in the darkness. I rolled over on my side. Then a swooshing tickled my ears so softly that I wondered if it was real or just the sound of my own pulse. I listened harder, but all was quiet. All manner of critters lurked in the under-cellar, but no rat or beetle or spider would dare show its face in the upper-attic— I had to have imagined I’d heard something. Yawning, I burrowed back into sleep.

  I woke again to a little bump under my bed as dawn glowed behind the white curtains over my head. The breaking light pushed through the thin cloth and lit the floor below. The clean floor. The polished, bare, sand-free floor. I sat straight up, rubbing my eyes with my fists. I looked again at the floorboards beside my bed. They had been swept as clean as—as if the Supreme Scrubstress had been at them with an army of Scrubbers. Last night, I’d shaken the sand out of my sheets and onto that floor just like every other night.

  Someone had swept the floor.

  But who?

  I slid out of bed and tiptoed to the waste bucket to check for the sand. And found it empty. Empty. If someone had swept up the sand, where was it now? I stood scratching my head as Francesca bounced up and rallied the room. Girls poured out of their beds and began getting ready for the day. Francesca waltzed over to exclaim about the mess beside my bed and—stopped short.

  I strolled to the cupboard and pulled out my clothes. As if nothing had happened. Francesca blinked. Her mouth popped open and closed like a fish. One of the girls giggled. She glared at that girl, and the giggle turned into a cough.

  “Hurry up, girls,” Francesca said in a voice that did not welcome discussion.

  I took my time, taking forever to pull on my socks and lace my boots. I lingered until every other girl had filed out of the room. I had to know if that bump I’d heard was real. So breakfast roll in hand, I knelt and peered under the bed skirt. The only thing under the bed was the box stamped ARTICHOKES. I reached in, snagged the box, and slid it out. Holding my breath, I inched the lid aside.

  Pale sand drifted across the bottom of the box like a miniature desert. Tucked in a corner, cozy and quiet, was a little family of plump white mice. Five in all. The largest twitched his whiskers and winked at me.

  “Did you sweep the floor?” I asked, realizing how dumb it was to be talking to a mouse: a little furry creature who couldn’t possibly talk back. But the mouse nodded solemnly.

  I rocked back on my heels. I pinched myself hard on the arm just to be sure I was awake.

  The mouse rolled onto his hind legs. Then with one paw over his furry chest, he bowed.

  I rubbed my eyes with my fists, half expecting the mouse to be gone when I looked again. But he was still there, waiting, front paws clasped, tail at the ready.

  “Why?” I asked. The mouse flicked his long pink tail at the sleeping mice beside him. “For your family?” Again, the mouse nodded.

  Feeling a little dizzy and a little crazy, I broke a piece off my roll for the mouse. My mouse. I laid the bread in the box. “Thank you,” I whispered, and slid the lid back in place and pushed the box back under the bed.

  I walked through the upper-attic, running my fingers along the walls, reassuring myself that the castle was solid. Real. I pinched myself again. I was solid and real and awake. Had I really met a sand-sweeping mouse? I thought I had. I stopped and stuck my head out of a window for a breath of fresh air. All the green and gold of the mountainside lay below. The vivid blue sky hung above. The wind whispered. One of the stone gryphons waited impassively. It was real. And solid, I thought as I patted its head.

  And there hadn’t been any sand on the floor, much to Francesca’s dismay. I grinned. That was real for sure.

  When I reached the pressing room, Lindy was gone. So I went to feed and water the canary. Holding my breath, I opened the closet door. The hundred dresses trembled on their hangers as if they were anxious to see me. What could they want from me, the Under-presser? Tickling with a hot iron? They didn’t look to me as if they needed any pressing. They looked as bright and fine as the day they’d been hung up. Whenever that was.

  The canary cheeped merrily as I slid out his little dishes to fill them. Behind me, the dresses held their collective breath. Nonsense. They didn’t have any breath to hold. Cloth. Thread. Buttons. Laces. Nothing more. I marched past the dresses with my chin up, pretending I didn’t even know they were there—and went back to work.

  I sighed at the sight of my workstation—another day with the never-emptying basket of old rags—and fed the stove under my irons. Cherice popped in and tossed a handkerchief on my ironing board.

  “Quick, press this and bring it in,” she said, and raced back to the dressing room.

  I stared at the crumpled bit of silk. I smoothed it out, tracing the pattern of embroidered butterflies along the edge, fingering the elegant M in the corner. Lindy would hang me out with the stone gryphons if I scorched this.

  Bring it in, Cherice had said. Press this and bring it in. I swallowed—here was my chance to take a handkerchief I’d pressed straight to the Princess. I licked my forefinger and gingerly tested one of my irons. The metal sizzled as the moisture touched it. I snatched my hand back. I picked up the water bottle and sprinkled the handkerchief. With gritted teeth, I glided the iron over the surface of the fabric. The wrinkles melted like snow. I folded the square and pressed it into a rectangle. I folded it again and pressed it into a little lilac square with an M in the corner. Perfect.

  I set the iron down. I cradled the warm handkerchief in my palm like a baby chick and walked to the dressing room door. Inside, Princess Mariposa stood before the mirror, turning this way and that in orange silk. Lindy knelt at her feet, struggling with tiers of ruffles. The Princess’s gown was ruffled at every turn—from a deep ruffle at the neckline to ruffles where the sleeves ended at her elbows to the waterfall of ruffles down the skirt. The flounces were made of a thinner fabric than the skirt so that they shimmered and danced with every movement. Like sunbeams, I thought. The dress was very beautiful, but Princess Mariposa was even more beautiful. She smiled at me and I felt my cheeks grow warm.

  “Please, Your Highness,” Lindy said, puffing with effort. “Stand still, just for a moment.”

  “It was the most fun I’ve had all summer!” the Princess exclaimed.

  “Dancing with Baron Raskolnikov?” Cherice asked, juggling gloves, a parasol, a lace shawl, and a pair of silk slippers.

  “No,” the Princess said, giggling, “getting that impoverished prince to talk.”

  “I can’t see the fun in that,” Lindy groused, tugging on an uncooperative layer of petticoat. “Men who won’t talk don’t sound too interesting.”

  “How rude of him,”
Cherice said, clicking her tongue.

  “Oh,” Princess Mariposa replied, “he was ever so polite. He talked, just not about himself.”

  “What did he talk about, then?” Cherice asked.

  Princess Mariposa sighed, her pretty black lashes fluttering like moths. “Prince Sterling—that’s his name—talked about the stars, the seas, the wonders of the world.”

  “Humph,” Lindy muttered. “There, that should do it.” She spotted me and signaled for the handkerchief.

  I clutched the warm handkerchief, reluctant to let it go. Lindy motioned again, mouthing, Hurry up.

  “Much better,” Princess Mariposa said, smoothing her ruffled waist. “But where is my hank—There it is!” She reached out to me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lindy turn a dull purple. Ignoring her, I stepped up, agog at the trembling ruffles, and handed Princess Mariposa her handkerchief. She took it in a waft of rose-scented air. I inhaled. Princesses smelled heavenly.

  “It’s still warm,” Princess Mariposa cooed, and placed the handkerchief against her cheek. “It reminds me of when I was little and Nurse would put a warm pillowcase on my pillow on cold nights.”

  “That sounds nice,” I said, forgetting that I was merely an Under-presser.

  “Very nice,” Princess Mariposa said, her sea-blue eyes alight. “And you are?”

  “Darling Dimple,” I said. And then I curtsied. Just like a fine lady.

  The Princess beamed. And I was sure she meant to say something more, but Cherice interrupted her with a pair of slippers. Lindy shooed me toward the door. I took the smallest step backward.

  “Your impoverished Prince Sterling sounds like a dreamer. Not the sort who could manage a kingdom,” Cherice said.

  The Princess laughed. “Wasn’t it you who said that I should look for some good in these suitors?”

  I took another baby step toward the door.

  A flash of irritation crossed the Wardrobe Mistress’s face, followed by a bright smile. “Indeed, my dear. It was me.” She knelt down to help the Princess into her slippers. “And you should look for the good. Just be careful the good you see is goodness and not some lesser quality.”