Cinderella Is Dead(30)

“Decisions, decisions,” says a voice.

I stagger back, tripping over my own feet and falling hard onto my side. From the embankment on the opposite side of the road emerges a familiar face.

Constance.

“You scared the hell out of me!” I scream, stumbling to my feet and trying to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” she says, smiling.

“How did you know I’d come?”

“I didn’t. But I hoped you would.” Her red hair, which she wears in a long braid down her back, looks like twisted flames in the orange haze of the setting sun. Walking closer, I see a constellation of freckles across the bridge of her nose and planes of her cheeks that I hadn’t noticed before. Her smile quickly fades as she looks me over. “Are you all right?”

I fumble with my words while recounting the horror of that morning’s events. I can barely bring myself to speak Liv’s name aloud.

Constance sighs, and her shoulders slump down. “I’m so sorry. Truly I am.” She walks over to me and slips her arm around my waist, propping me up as my legs threaten to give way.

“The way she looked,” I say, wiping away the tears. “Something was wrong.”

Constance’s body stiffens. “The way she looked?”

I struggle to find the words to describe what I saw. “Her hair was white, like snow, where it had been brown before. All her color drained away, and her skin was wrinkled and gray.”

“Come with me,” she says.

I look around. The road is empty. No houses, no buildings. The watchtowers loom in the distance, and beyond them, the great expanse of forest known as the White Wood. “Come with you where?”

“Are you always so suspicious?” she asks.

“Are you always so vague and mysterious?” I ask in return.

“I try to be,” she says, smiling gently. I allow her to lead me toward the head of the path that is completely overrun. We make our way through the trees and underbrush, before we come to a towering wrought-iron gate. Its ten-foot bars are festooned with vines and bougainvillea, whose incandescent pink blooms are shriveled and falling to pieces in the late-autumn air.

We go through the gate and up a long twisting drive lined with ancient overgrown oak trees, each of their branches draped with curtains of moss, their knotty trunks as wide across as the broad side of a carriage. The setting sun illuminates the hazy outlines of the velvety red and orange petals of the poppies that grow wild and abundant, their black seedy centers dotting the landscape like a million pinpricks.

“Shouldn’t they be dead by now?” I ask, looking out over the flowers that color the otherwise brown and dying landscape.

Constance gazes at the poppies. “I hadn’t really thought of that, but I think you’re right.”

We round a bend, and a large house comes into view. One wing has collapsed, and vines have overtaken almost all the rest of the visible sides. Boarded windows line the lower floor while the ones above are open to the elements. The paint, which might have been white at one point, is cracked and peeled, and the front door is half off its hinges.

“Do you know what this place is?” Constance asks.

“Should I?” I glance up at the house. We are miles from town, and unlike the eastern border, which is the most fortified because beyond it are the Forbidden Lands, the far western side of Lille is largely abandoned. It’s not butting up against a great expanse of territory that leads straight to the place where the potential new kings of Lille are born and raised.

“Cinderella lived here with her family. This is where it all began.”

I look at the house again. It’s identical to the illustrations in my copy of Cinderella’s story. “I thought it was on the other side of the Gray Lake in the south of Lille? And didn’t it burn down in a fire?”

Constance shakes her head. “Lies. It’s always been here. It’s not much to look at anymore, I’m afraid,” she says, a ring of sadness in her voice.

She helps me up the front steps, and we go inside. As we stand in the entryway, I care less about how it looks and more about whether it’s even fit to stand. There’s a large hole directly over the foyer. Leaves and debris litter the cracked marble floor, and a wide staircase with broken and missing steps leads up to the second level. The banister has fallen off and lies in pieces on the floor.

Constance sees me eyeing the stairs. “Don’t worry. We don’t have to go up there.”

I follow Constance into a room just off the main hallway, my legs still knocking together. It is a small parlor with a fire already burning in the hearth. Some tattered furniture is scattered about, but it’s dry and warm, and a pile of neatly folded blankets sits in the corner. It looks like Constance has made camp here for several nights.

She gives me a large basket with a tall handle. I flip open the lid and almost faint from pure excitement. Inside are grapes, a small wheel of cheese, a loaf of bread, and a small carafe of milk closed with a cork stopper.

“Take as much as you’d like.”

A half loaf of bread disappears before I stop myself. “Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“No. Finish it off.”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I keep eating, and the heaviness that comes with a full stomach settles over me.