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However, that someone looking after her should maybe have twelve degrees that taught them how to do that adequately, and thus should not be my mom behind bars in a fucking dungeon somewhere in this Disney Movie from Hell.
I looked out the window at the countryside rolling past, hating it was so gorgeous.
But it was.
The colors were ridiculously vibrant. The flora and fauna plentiful. The air even seemed like it had glitter floating through it, and it smelled amazing. Fresh and clean. Wherever we were right then, you could smell the grass or the flowers. But when you got near a river, you could smell the water (yeah, the water, I wasn’t kidding, and it smelled fantastic).
My favorite? When you rode through a village and you got a whiff of bread baking or meat roasting.
I was Belle drifting through town (though, also going through countryside, and not doing this dancing and reading a book, but bipping and bopping in a carriage).
Except my “dad” was Gaston grown up and a hundred times more of a villain than he was in the movie.
Years ago, Mom and I had sat at her kitchen table, as we were wont to do, drinking wine, as we were also wont to do, bent over laughing so hard (again, as was our wont) after she said she should have forgone the whole dad thing and just gotten some guy’s sperm and a turkey baster.
We then went on to make up all sorts of ways we would respect and honor said turkey baster, with shrines and offerings, giving it a birthday and presenting it with a cake (the baster, we decided, liked angel food, which, obvs, was an excuse for us to make angel food cake).
Sadly, I was not conceived with a turkey baster.
Suffice it to say, Dad had broken Mom’s heart (repeatedly).
Mine (repeatedly).
And the last time he did that was three weeks ago when he sold us to his doppelganger from a parallel universe, me to stand in the stead of his daughter and act as brood mare to some dukeling, and Mom to be imprisoned so I’d do what I was told.
Oh yeah, right.
I forgot a part of my plan.
Once we got home, find my father, kick him in the gonads and spit in his face.
Only that man could discover there was a parallel universe (I mean, really?). Trust me, I could go the rest of my life not knowing this place existed and never, ever coming here. I didn’t care how many flowers there were and how cute it was to see a plethora of cotton-tail bunnies scampering through the trees. And it was cute, believe me.
Not only did Dad discover it, but he found some way to get himself something from it (in this instance, if what had been scattered on his coffee table along with beer cans and overflowing ashtrays was the telltale sign, it was a bag of emeralds).
Hanging me and Mom out to dry in the process.
“You know the consequences if you should do anything foolish,” Dad’s voice came from not-Dad-but-still-Dad’s stupid mouth.
I looked to him to see he was staring out the opposite window.
I looked out that window.
Oh boy.
That must be Pinkwick House, the country seat of the House of Dalton. One of, apparently, a bunch of properties these rich, royal dudes owned.
The big one?
Dalwin Castle, which was supposedly amazing and perched on a cliff.
But that might be for later, say, should I and my fiancé decide to be married there.
For now, things of note about Pinkwick House.
One, it was pink. A mellow, precious, perfect pink that was ludicrously appealing.
Two, it was large. It was not a house. Unless you referred to Downton Abbey as a house, which you did not. Because it was a huge-ass abbey turned into a house where rich people lived.
Three, it was so perfect, the air liked it better than other places in this world, because the air glittered a ton more there.
Four, there was a creek up the hill at the side of it that broke off into four tributary streams that rushed in front of and behind the house, the water twinkling diamond-like in the bright sun, making the picture-perfect scene even more perfect.
Five, there were flowers freaking everywhere. Profuse pink and white wisteria graced the arch above the front door and fell from the eaves of the house. Lush green ivy snaked up the walls. Huge urns filled with purple and blue blooms dotted all over the place.
Six, there were fountains flowing into baths on either side of the front door. The front area was an elegantly curved drive, the lawn around it manicured. But beyond that to the sides, and you could even see to the back, was a riot of meandering gardens you could get lost in for days.
Even the quaint stone outbuildings crawling with ivy and wisteria looked out of a fairy tale.
