Cinderella Is Dead(25)

I walk along the cramped hall, looking back, half expecting palace guards to come barreling in at any moment. When I come to the end of the hall, a door juts out from the exterior wall.

This has to be a way out.

As I turn the handle, I hear a faint sound. So faint that I almost lose it in the distant melody of the band’s waltz. I stop to listen. The sound comes again. It could only have been emanating from the door directly opposite me. I press my ear against the wooden slats. A faint, flickering light comes from the crack near the floor. Someone sobs quietly behind the locked and bolted door.

“Hello?” I call out.

The sobbing stops, and I hear a rustling noise. I press my ear harder against the door. “Hello?” I call again. There’s a small shift at the door, as if someone is leaning against it from the inside.

“Hello?” a voice says just above a whisper. “Is someone there?”

I look down the corridor, afraid of losing my opportunity to escape. “Yes. I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

What an odd question coming from someone behind a locked door.

“There is a ball,” I say. The crying resumes. “Who are you? Why are you locked up?”

“Run away. Don’t ever come back. Save yourself.”

“Where has she gone?” A man’s voice cuts through the darkness and echoes down the corridor, and a shriek escapes my throat.

I bolt out the door in the exterior wall, across the manicured grounds, until I find cover in the wooded tree line. Crouching low, I peer out to see lamps moving around like fireflies in the distance. I want to find Luke, Liv, and Erin, but I can’t go back. If the king’s men apprehend me, they will execute me. I turn and run straight into the woods.

Stumbling over the thick underbrush and exposed tree roots, I’m sure I’m heading away from the palace because the trees become thicker and the darkness more complete. But I have no idea if I’m on a course to the main road or just walking in a circle. The canopy blots out what little moonlight is still visible in the night sky.

The voice from behind the door sticks in my mind. I’m ashamed for leaving whoever she was there, but I need to focus on escaping.

I push forward for what feels like hours. The cold is biting, and the sting of it on my arms and on my stocking feet leaves me numb. I haven’t come across a road or trail or any of the fencing that runs along the outer edge of the palace grounds. The estate is vast, and I fear that I may be too lost to find my way out. What have I gotten myself into?

My teeth chatter together, and I shake uncontrollably. Struggling to see in the dark, I notice that the trees are beginning to thin. I hope it’s the forest’s edge, but it is only a clearing. On the other side are more trees and more darkness.

I step into the open space where a large rectangular structure stands. As tall as my own house and nearly as wide, the structure shimmers in the slivers of silver moonlight. Charcoal-gray veins run through the white marble walls. As my eyes adjust, I realize that it is a mausoleum, and the name carved in flowing script on its edifice is as familiar to me as my own.





12





Ivy creeps up the entire fa?ade, covering the structure in a tangle of tendrils. The surrounding grass stands as tall as my knees, and all of it is dead and brown. The tomb looms in the dark, and as I stand before it, in the dead of night, breaking the king’s rules for the umpteenth time, I feel like I’m seeing something not meant for anyone to see. This place isn’t supposed to exist.

I wade through the brush and come to three wide marble steps leading up to the doors of the mausoleum. Bushels of faded, crumbling flowers clutter the stairs. Small toys and hundreds of folded pieces of paper in varying stages of decay litter the monument. Some of them are only yellowed a bit at the edges, while others are nothing more than little piles of dust. I pick one up that looks sturdy enough to handle. Unfolding it, I read the words scribbled inside.



Picking up one note after the other, I read as many as I can find that are still legible.



They are all essentially the same. Pleas for help or good fortune, for luck, or for protection. The last one sounds like someone was trying to plan an escape. Clearly whoever it was meant for never got it, because it is rotting here in the shadow of Cinderella’s tomb.

They were more than trinkets, as my mother’s helpers had said. They were petitions, prayers. Looking up at the tomb, I wonder if Cinderella has heard their cries. Or if she even cares at all. More likely, she is laughing at how miserably we’ve failed to live up to her expectations.

I climb the stairs to the pair of double doors guarding the entrance. Etched into the stained glass of the door panels is a depiction of Cinderella’s carriage drawn by four white horses.

A flicker of light shines through the glass doors, and I freeze. A white-blue flash illuminates the inner sanctum of the mausoleum and lingers a moment before dying out again. I try to see through the colored glass, but only a faint glow toward the rear of the chamber remains.

I should be running home. I need to get away from here before the guards find me and drag me back to the palace.

A branch breaks in the distance. Someone is out there. Taking my chances with the flickering light, I push the doors open and go inside, closing them behind me. I don’t hear anything, but I stay still, holding my breath.