“Were you planning on trying to go to the ball?”
“No. I’m not invited. They won’t let me in.”
“Why do you have a gown in your closet?”
“It’s nothing. It was a gift from someone at work, and of course I took it because why wouldn’t you take a gift that pretty?”
“It’s too much of a coincidence,” she said.
She grabbed Birdie’s arm and started to drag her up the stairs. Birdie wrapped her arm around her stomach protectively, concern for her precarious position on the stairs and her baby the only thing keeping her from fighting her stepmother, even though the other woman was much taller than she was.
She found herself shoved into the room. “This is why I wanted you here. I don’t trust you. The look on your face every time the king is mentioned…” Suddenly, her eyes went down to Birdie’s stomach.
“You little slut.”
“I… Nothing to do with—”
She snapped the mask in half and threw it at Birdie. “I’ll deal with you later. We have to go.”
She swept out of the room, and Birdie heard the lock click. Panic overtook her.
She was trapped.
Locked in the room. And there was nothing she could do. She wasn’t going to be able to go to the ball. Her mask was broken. She fought the urge to lie on the ground and curl into a ball, to sob like a motherless child. Because that’s what she was. She had never given in to that particular despair. She’d never felt so lost, so alone. She’d always been overcome by the drive to keep going. To keep hoping.
But not now.
Now she felt like she was lost. Utterly and totally lost.
Then she looked to the side and saw her phone.
She wasn’t alone.
She might be alone in this room but she wasn’t alone in the world, and she wouldn’t give up. Not now. Maybe she didn’t have enchanted mice or fairy godmothers, but she had Elizabeth.
She had hope after all.
She was sobbing, great gasping breaths. Her stepmother would know it was her when she arrived at the palace. She wouldknow. But she had to try. She had to.
With shaking hands she called Elizabeth. “Elizabeth,” she said. “My stepmother locked me in my room. She found out she… I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll send you help.”
“My mask is ruined…”
“Don’t worry,” Elizabeth reiterated. “I’m sending someone to help you.”
She didn’t know who that would be, or what was going to happen. But with as much faith as she could muster she got dressed, unpinned her hair and let it loose. And when she heard the lock being rattled outside the door, she stood. Two of the palace drivers appeared in the room.
“Elizabeth said you were in trouble.” The first to speak was Adam, a man she’d known at the palace for years. In his fifties, and handsome, with salt-and-pepper hair. There was a kindness about him that had always made Birdie feel fond of him, but this was beyond anything she’d expected from anyone ever.
“I… Thank you.”
“Not to worry,” the other one said, younger and boyish, new enough she didn’t know his name. He handed her a delicate mesh mask. “She also said that you need to get to the ball.”
“I do,” she said.
“She has these for you also,” Adam said. He held up a pair of shoes, delicate and glimmering, translucent. “She said you needed shoes that were suitable to the dress.”
