Part Nineteen

Devon was suddenly at his mother's side.  "What do you mean she knows?"

Agathea lifted her nose in the air like a dog who's caught a scent of something.  "I'm not sure," she replied her eyes narrowing in concentration.  "She knows... something."

"But what does she know?"

The girls stood beside each other in silence watching their newly discovered family discussed their mother...

Stepmother...

The current Queen.

"It's difficult to say," said the woman.  "I think at the moment she is merely suspicious."

"We must get the girls back," declared Devon.

"Wait," said Georgeanne.

"What?" said Blue.

"Yes," agreed Agathea.  "The girls must go back."

"But I thought you were supposed to explain things," pointed out Georgeanne.

"And teach us stuff," added Blue.

"Yes dears," said Agathea placing an arm around each of them, hugging them to her.  "But right now, we must appease the Queen."

"Why?" asked Blue.  "You made it sound like she was a bad person."

"She is," said Devon kneeling before the two princesses.

"Then why would we need to appease someone like that?" said Georgeanne.

"Because to do anything now might risk your safety," he said.

The girls looked at each other then back at their uncle.  "Our safety?" said Georgeanne.

"All in due time," assured their grandmother.  "We'll explain everything in due time.  Right now, we need to get you back."

"Back?" said Blue in a daze.  Where had they gone?

"We hadn't realized you'd been gone so long," she said.

"But when will we see you again?" asked Georgeanne.

"Soon," said Devon.  "I promise."  He took each of their hands in his and gave them an affectionate squeeze.  "Now, hold on."

"What?" said the girls.

He leaned in close and said, "And whatever you do... tell the Queen nothing."

*******

Marcella entered the library.  It was a popular place to find the princesses on any given day, but she looked around and saw neither one of them.

Since her earlier run-in with the Queen, she had felt uneasy.  As always she wanted to make Her Majesty happy, and even though she hadn't seemed to be upset with her, the woman couldn't ignore the uncomfortable knot in the pit of her stomach.

The girls must be found.

When she left the Queen, she decided that she would conduct a search all on her own.  She had already checked their rooms, the music hall, the kitchens.  She even dared a peek into the royal suites of the King and Queen, but found nothing.  No matter where she looked, the girls just weren't there.

The increasingly fretful woman had gone so far as to re-check every place her and the servants had searched before inspecting every nook and cranny - even hopelessly lifting up the rugs for any clue.

Next would be the gardens.

Marcella crossed the room to the large window and stared out at the grounds which were so vast and lush.  The gazebo, the topiaries, the flowers - all beautiful in the sunshine.  It would take most of the day to cover that landscape, and she probably wouldn't be done before nightfall.  With a heavy sigh, she turned to make her exit and found the Queen standing just inside the doorway.

Her breath caught in her throat.

"You're Majesty," she said with a curtsie.

"Marcella, my dear," said the Queen, her voice like silk.  But her eyes, thought Marcella.  "Any progress?"

"No, Your Majesty," she answered reluctantly.  "I have been going back over every inch of every room personally but have found nothing."

The Queen raised an eyebrow.  "Every room?" she asked with just a small hint of suspicion in her tone.

"Wherever I was able, Your Majesty," she replied trying the best to hide the nervousness.

Before the Queen could respond, they heard a noise in the room... like a book falling to the ground.  Her Royal Highness eyed her Lady-in-Waiting who looked just as confused.  They both followed the noise to a corner.  Behind a large sofa they found the two girls leaning against the wall - as well as each other - asleep with an array of books about them.  The Queen picked up a hefty hardbound volume from a nearby shelf and let it drop to the floor.

The loud Thud! the book made woke the girls from their slumber, causing them to jump in alarm, their movements in a daze.

"Blue," said the Queen, her voice serious and irritated.  "Georgeanne."  The girls looked up, blinking their eyes and rubbing at their faces.

"Mother?" said Georgeanne groggily.  Unable to stifle the yawn that was starting, she held the back of her hand to cover her mouth as she said, "What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" she asked.  "What are the two of you doing here?"  Finished yawning, Georgeanne dropped her hand in her lap.  That was when she noticed the spill of violet fabric beside her.  When their eyes met, Blue seemed just as confused as her sister.

"Have you been here this entire time?" asked Marcella.  The girls hadn't noticed her until she had spoken.

"Obviously," said the Queen before the girls could answer.  Turning her attention back to them, she said, "Do you realize everyone has been looking for you both all day?  You've made poor Marcella sick with worry."  They didn't know what to say.  "Now I don't mind you're love for literature, but I wish you wouldn't hide in the stacks like this and cause such a panic."

Not knowing what else to say, the girls simply looked up at the Queen and said, "Sorry, Mother."

"Well then," she said, "I must be off.  There are still preparations to oversee.  In the meantime the least you two can do is clean up the mess you've made.  I think it's the least you could do for the amount of worry you've caused."

"Yes, Mother," said the girls.

"Very well."  She turned to the woman and said, "Come along, Marcella.  You can come help keep everyone in line."  The Lady-in-Waiting shot one final bewildered glance at the girls before hurrying off after the Queen.

Once alone, the girls gawked at each other in silence too confused and afraid to say anything aloud.  Instead, after a few moments, they stood up and without a single word began tending to the books on the floor, returning them to their rightful places on the shelves.

Part Eighteen

Blue stared at the man Devon.  She looked at him for a long time, analyzing his face - his eyes, his mouth, the curve of his cheekbones and jawline.  By reflex she wanted to say no, to not believe these people - the woman from the hidden lab, the man from the balcony with no exit.

"B?" said Georgeanne.  Blue turned to look at her sister and felt a smile behind her lips, but then saw the woman beside her and the smile was stuck in limbo.  "B?" she said again.  Instead of answering, she rose up and walked away from the three of them.  Standing at the opposite side of the gazebo, she looked out at the garden and all of its blooms.  Her mind was racing, and she didn't know how to answer her sister.

"Are you all right?" asked Devon from somewhere behind her.

Defensively she snapped, "No.  I'm not all right."  She turned to face him where he stood at the gazebo's center.  "How can you ask me that?  After everything that's happened?  That we've heard?"  They stared at each other for a moment before she added, a little more calmly, "No, uncle," she said with a little sarcasm to it, "I am not all right."

Georgeanne rose from her seat and walked to her sister, trying to block her view of Devon.  "I know it's a lot to take in," she said, Blue's eyes falling to her sister's.  "I admit, I'm having a little difficulty myself understanding everything, but-."  She paused, searching for the words, but there really were none that fit.  Instead, she smiled that sweet smile Blue had grown up with and said, "Don't you feel it, B?  Just sift through all the crazy and strange, the anger and confusion, and there's something there underneath all of it that just seems to feel right."

She closed her eyes and let her sister's words settle in her mind.  With each breath, the anger dissipated, and that feeling rose up.  Georgeanne was right.  Blue wanted to trust in that feeling.  She just wanted to understand it.  She wanted to understand it all.  "It's just so much," she said looking into her sister's eyes.  Georgeanne reached out and smoothed her cheek with her thumb.  It was then that Blue realized she was crying.

"I know," she said, a few tears falling from her own eyes.  Blue wiped her sister's tears away.  With a sniffle, she added, "Having been lied to all this time.  We have a right to be angry."

"It's not just that," said Blue.  She stepped beside her sister and looked at their two companions.  "There's this new world we've been a part of but know nothing about."

"We'll teach you, dear," said Aggie.  "Both of you."

"Teach us what?" asked Georgeanne.  "I mean, everything that's happened lately... like..."

"Rooms that aren't really there," said Blue.

"Dreams that aren't really dreams," added Georgeanne.

"People that don't seem to have aged a day," Blue pointed out, eying Aggie and Devon.

The older woman quietly chortled.

"The book!" said Georgeanne.  "The book that has my writing in it."

"Okay," said Devon, his hands out, palms down, in a surrendering gesture.  "We realize it's all a bit much and that you have questions."  He held a finger up at Blue who was just about to say something sarcastic but remained silent.  "Obviously this is going to take some time."

"Something we don't have a lot of," said Aggie.  Devon and the girls looked at the woman worriedly.

"What's wrong?"

Aggie looked about her as if following a lightning bug only she could see.  Her wandering eyes stopped chasing whatever they were after, as if they had caught the invisible prey.  "She knows," said the woman, her tone serious.

"Who?" asked Georgeanne.

The woman's eyes fell on the girls, and neither liked what they saw in them.  Even more so when Aggie replied, "The Queen."

Part Seventeen

The Queen was making her rounds, making sure preparations for the upcoming party were under way. So far everything was progressing nicely - some items on her checklist on schedule, some ahead of – which pleased her (and all was well in the land when Her Majesty was in good spirits).

On her way to the kitchen, her small entourage of assistants in tow following closely behind her, she was met in the hallway by one of her ladies-in-waiting. As they neared one another, the Queen noticed the woman's countenance and demeanor.

I did not please her.

Reaching the entrance to the kitchens, the two ladies stood facing each other, eyes locked on the others'. The small group huddled behind the Queen patiently waited for orders and were rewarded a second later when they watched her casually extend her arms towards the door and flick her hand apathetically at it. Familiar with this gesture of privacy, they bowed to her and disappeared behind the door and into the kitchens.

“Naesa,” the Queen said calmly. “What causes you to look so troubled, my dear?”

The woman held her hands together as her Queen did though her white-knuckled twisted grip did little to lift the Queen's spirits. Finally, her voice coming in a somber yet tense tone, she said, “I cannot find her, Milady.”

Remaining calm, the Queen offered the idea of, “Perhaps she is at her lessons.”

“Her lessons ended hours ago,” replied the woman nervously.

Feeling a vein in her left temple twitch, she asked, “Have you checked her room?”

“Yes, Milady.”

“Well then. Perhaps she's running amok with her sister,” she suggested, the last word coming through a tightly clenched jaw. The woman's silence did not go unnoticed. “Nasea?”

The woman let her gaze fall (a sign of weakness the Queen hated though relished in when she bore witness to it from her cowering, cowardly subjects). In almost a whisper, the woman said, “I cannot find either of the princesses, Milady.” Immediately Nasea raised her head and began defensively babbling. “I have searched everywhere! Inside. Outside. Top to bottom. I've asked everyone. I've double and triple checked. No one knows where they are. It's like they just disappeared.”

The Queen eyed the woman who was too exasperated to notice.  Turning her face to one of sweetness, she placed a hand on the woman's shoulder which caught her attention.  Frantic eyes looked into the Queen's.  "Everything is fine," she told Nasea and the woman slowly began to calm.  "The princesses are just playing.  There's no need to worry."  The tension drained out of Nasea's body, and she smiled up at the Queen.  "Now I must return to my preparations."

"Do you need any help, Milady?" asked the woman, eager to please.

"No, dear.  I'm fine.  But thank you.  If I need any extra assistance, I shall let you know."  The woman curtsied and with a smile disappeared around the corner.

Alone in the hall, the smile falling from her face, her thoughts turned toward the missing children.  Before she could think too long on it, a crash erupted nearby.  "Can't leave them alone for a second, can I?" she muttered to herself.  She plastered her queenly smile on her face before proceeding into the kitchens.

Part Sixteen

Blue looked from the woman to her sister and then to their hands. Confused by all the information, she took her hand back and held it to her chest. The woman laughed – the same laugh Blue remembered from before.

“B,” said Georgeanne, her hand still on the table.

“You remember her?” she asked, and her sister nodded. “How do you know her?”

“They’re not solid memories… like fencing with you or doing silly needlepoint with the other ladies.” Her head tilted as if trying to hear something – perhaps a distant memory. “I’ve seen her once or twice… when I was younger,” she said. “During some of your lessons, Nanny Deanna would occasionally take me to the kitchens for a snack. Deanna was fond of one of the cooks… Lionel. While she was off flirting with him, I would be left alone with Aggie.”

Did she feed you any boiled frog legs or raven eyeballs? wondered Blue thinking back on all the potions and such in Agathea’s room. The woman looked at Blue then – almost as if she could read her thoughts – and feeling strange, the princess turned her attention back to her sister and said, “I never saw her when I went to the kitchens. Marcella took me several times, but most of the time I went by myself.” Georgeanne shrugged, and they both turned to Agathea.

“It would draw too much attention for me to come to both of you,” explained the woman swallowing a bite of sandwich. “Devon and I split the two of you up. I watched over Georgie here,” she said patting the young woman’s hand, “while Devon watched over you.”

“But I don’t have any memories of him like Georgeanne has of you,” said Blue.

At that moment Devon leaned toward her in his chair and said, “Do you remember how you loved the gardens when you were young?”

Blue thought back to her childhood and recalled playing in the gardens with Georgeanne. Sometimes she’d sneak away from lessons or her ladies-in-waiting and run off to be by herself. She’d go to the gardens and look at the flowers in full bloom with their gorgeous colors and fragrances. Her favorite things in the garden however were the topiaries. Some of them were in the shape of animals like horses or sheep. Most of them were interesting shapes – artistic achievements made by the gardener.

Her eyes turned to the man to her left.

“You were the gardener,” she said, and he simply nodded. “I remember you. I ran away from Marcella who was trying to get me to practice the piano. I had run out to the garden and saw you working.” Her eyes squinting as she recalled details. “You were making a giant fish. I remember it looked like it was jumping right out of the water, it was so lifelike.” Coming back to the present, she realized something was off. “But how could that have been you? You looked then just as you are now?”

Georgeanne looked at Agathea then and stared at her face. Before her stood the woman from her childhood memories of snacks in the kitchen while her nanny tried to make a love connection, but compared to Devon she looked to have aged. Staring more intently at the woman’s face, she noticed a smudge on her cheek and without realizing it, reached out to wipe it off. As she did so, she smudge only got bigger. She tried a few more times, but it never went away. Georgeanne took her hand back and stared at her fingers, rubbing the creamy consistency between them. She looked back up at Agathea and said, “Makeup?” The woman said nothing. Georgeanne rose from the table, her kerchief in hand, and began wiping at the woman’s face. When she was done, her cloth soiled, no longer its brilliant white. The woman’s face, on the other hand… it looked like years had been erased away. “Aggie?”

Blue stared up at her sister who was just as surprised as she was seeing that the woman was not as old as she had claimed to be. She stood, moving to her left side and reached out to touch her hair. The woman now looked vastly younger than she had before though she still appeared older than Devon although Blue wasn’t sure by how much. “When I saw you,” she started to say.

The woman took her hand as it ran through her ragged hair. “It’s a glamour, my dear.”

“Pardon?” said Blue.

“You’re seeing what I want you to see.” The woman ran her fingers through her hair and all the grey disappeared leaving only beautiful soft brown waves.

“Then why the makeup?” asked Georgeanne.

“I was never good with features,” said Agathea. “Hair’s easy – just pick a color, and you’re done. The face – ahhh, that’s different. You have eyes, nose, mouth, teeth… then there’s the issue of the skin itself.”

“Don’t bore the girls, Aggie,” said Devon.

“No,” said Blue.

“This is fascinating,” added Georgeanne.

Devon smiled and waved his hand toward the woman who returned his smile with one of her own and a nod of her head.

“What else can you do?” asked Georgeanne.

“We can do all sorts of things?” she answered.

Blue’s face turned to confusion when she asked, “We who?”

“We us,” said Agathea waving her hand about the table. The girls stared at her for a moment, then looked at each other before turning their heads toward Devon. He merely smiled at them.

“Us?” asked Georgeanne repeating the same gesture Agathea had.

“Yes,” replied the woman.

“All of us?” asked Blue doing the same gesture as the other two.

“Yes,” Agathea repeated. “It runs in the family.” The princesses turned back toward the man, the only one of the four who had remained seated all this time.

“Family?” Georgeanne mumbled.

“Ladies,” said Agathea, “I would like you to meet Devon - my son and your uncle.”

Part Fifteen

The moment they left the gazebo, Blue was overcome with a strange feeling – like she knew what was coming. They followed Devon further into the garden, between topiaries and flowers. The path seemed random, but after several minutes they appeared at another gazebo.

“What?” said Blue, her arm around her sister. “I don’t understand. Did we just go in a circle?”

Devon turned around and faced the girls. “Of course not,” he said. “You should know better than that,” he said looking at Blue, and she was brought to her memories of finding Agathea’s room on accident and the door disappearing. She turned and looked behind her, and he said, “It’s all a matter of perspective.”

Looking back at him, she said, “But I don’t know how I found you the first time.”

“Well,” he smiled, “I hope this time you took notes.”

He waved them to the gazebo where they saw Agathea helping herself to a tray of food and drink. She looked at Devon – then the girls. Spying Georgeanne whose gaze was at nothing in particular before her, she said to him, “What’d you do to that one?”

“I didn’t do anything to her,” he answered. With her plate, she stepped closer to the girls. Blue still didn’t like her very much. The woman unsettled her, but she wasn’t going to leave Georgeanne alone to her… demeanor.

“Liar,” she said, staring at the girl. Then she turned and looked at him, her eyes narrowing to slits. “You told her something, didn’t you?” Devon said nothing. “Dammit boy! Their minds are fragile.”

“I bed your pardon!” declared Blue at the comment.

“Quiet you,” said Agathea. “Don’t act like you were all tea and roses when you stumbled into my room. And that was just by accident.” Blue said nothing. “A-ha!” said the woman waving a sandwich in the air before taking a bite.

“Must you always act like this?” asked Devon.

“Like what?” the woman asked, her mouth full of food. She didn’t bother waiting for an answer since something else had caught her attention. Her nose crinkled and she sniffed the air until her attention was brought back to Georgeanne and the journal she was clutching in her hands. “My word,” she said. “Is that-?”

“Yes,” answered Devon.

The awe and amazement stayed on her face for a moment longer before her face contorted back to its usual self and she grumbled, “How’d she get it?”

“We found it,” declared Blue.

When Agathea turned her attention to her, she slowly added, “Actually, Georgeanne found it.”

The woman stepped closer to the catatonic princess which worried Blue. Then the woman stopped and looked at the princess. She stood there just looking at her as if she were going to awake from a dream and was trying to remember every detail. Finally she said in the sweetest tone Blue had ever heard her use, “Georgie?”

To follow her eyes, the princess appeared to be staring at the woman’s apron. After a couple of minutes, Georgeanne’s eyes blinked and widened slightly as if seeing what was before her for the first time. Her gaze rose up until she met the woman’s eyes. It took a moment for the princess to find her voice, but her lips finally parted, and she said, her voice low, “Aggie?” The woman smiled. Blue’s eyes became as big as saucers. Agathea handed off her plate to Blue who took it blindly as the woman took Georgeanne’s hands and led her to the gazebo. Blue stood there alone, her mouth open, her mind reeling.

“They know each other,” said Devon stepping beside her.

“I gathered that,” she replied, “but how?”

“That’s not my story to tell,” he said, and she felt like throwing the plate of food at him.

“Oh,” she said, “and I suppose she’ll just tell me the story.”

“Maybe if you ask nicely dear,” said the woman. She and Georgeanne sat at table in the gazebo. Devon placed a hand on the small of Blue’s back and guided her forward. Once under the cover of the gazebo, they all sat at the table – the sisters opposite each other with Devon and Agathea taking the remaining seats. “Thanks poppet,” said Agathea taking her plate back. Ignoring the woman for a moment, she looked at her sister who was looking up at the woman as if trying to solve a riddle.

“Who is this woman, G?” she asked.

“This woman,” said Georgeanne. “She’s... she’s…”

“G?” asked Blue reaching across the table for her sister’s hand. The woman placed her hand on top of both of the princess’s hands causing Blue to look up at the woman.

“I knew your mother,” said Agathea.

“How?” asked Blue.

“Why,” answered the woman as if the answer were obvious, “I raised her dear.”

Blue looked at Georgeanne who said nothing and then back at the woman saying, “You were her nanny?”

“Dear, no,” said the woman. “I was her mother.”

“Mother?” said Blue coughing the word out. “But that would make you…” Words failed her. She couldn’t help but remember the first she’d met the lady - her odd behavior, her attitude, her rudeness.

“I’m your Grandmother, dear,” said Agathea patting the girls’ hands.