Is He Prince Charming Read online

  And I shook my head because I did not know he ever would.

  ***

  Dmitriv sat in the corner of the ballroom, head in his hands. He must be in the process of thinking, because the expression on his face indicated it was rather hard work. Flocks of young ladies still gathered around him in a throng, but he did not even seem to notice their attentions.

  Every once and a while I would notice his gaze rest upon Vasilisa. She merely wandered about the room, accepting dances when she was asked and cheerfully standing by the sidelines if she was not. His brow would wrinkle up when he did so, as though he wanted to understand her contentment.

  And I noticed, when he was not looking her way, Vasilisa would glance at him in the midst of his admirers and frown.

  Finally he stood up. The young ladies on either side of him broke into excited chatter as if he would finally let one of them ask him to dance. But he walked right through the midst of them till he stood in front of Vasilisa, his eyes downcast.

  “Look,” I could just hear him saying, “Look, I thought it was all right to let girls break their hearts over me, because when they look at me they only see my money and my power, you know? Like I could use anyone who wanted to use me. But Anastasia tells me even if that’s what they want, they still can get hurt, you know? When I decided they deserved it, I decided I could do whatever I wanted. And now I think maybe both of you are right, I took it a bit too far...”

  She could not meet his eyes either.

  “I did not think about what it felt like from a prince’s point of view,” she replied, almost too soft for me to make out.

  They stood there, eyes on their feet. She continued, “I assumed you enjoyed breaking hearts without reason.” Her shoulders wriggled at the admission.

  “I should be offended.”

  “You should.”

  There was quiet laughter.

  “So maybe I should ask you to dance,” he told her.

  “If you wish to risk it.”

  His eyes lifted to hers. A spontaneous smile, the kind I hadn’t seen on his face since his boyhood, suddenly sprung into existence.

  Then the music began again and he offered her his arm, she lifted her eyes to meet his and smiled, and the two of them swept out onto the dance floor, into the midst of the swirling couples.

  I took a deep breath and turned away. I could not watch anymore. I did hope my brother knew what he was getting into.

  ***

  Eventually I meandered around the ballroom to join my father and the Grand Duke on the raised dais at the front of the hall. My father was chortling and clasping his hands in glee as I sat down. The Grand Duke nodded at me from beside him.

  “Would you look at that, Anastasia,” Father said. “What did I tell you about balls, eh? Why, I believe that is now the fifth time he has danced with her.”

  I glanced out to the dance floor, where Dmitriv still swirled around with Vasilisa.

  “Dancing five times with someone does not inevitably ensure the prince has fallen in love with her, Father.” I took a seat on the other side of him.

  “Ah, yes, but it is awfully close!” said my father.

  The Grand Duke merely pursed his lips.

  “My dear Father,” I said, “Any other time you would remark it is positively rude of Dmitriv to dance with the same girl more than twice.”

  He did not seem to even hear me. He just went on rubbing his hands.

  “She must be of fair fortune,” my father said, gleefully. “Why, look at the jewels on that gown!”

  I sighed, thinking how likely it was that those jewels had been put there by a fairy godmother, and how likely it was that the girl was not of fair fortune at all.

  “And if she is not?” I inquired.

  “If she has the ability to rope in that self-centred son of mine, I shall shower her in jewels myself,” he replied. “But look at those diamonds!”

  The whole hall was positively whispering in excitement the prince had actually danced five dances in a row with the same young lady.

  Vasilisa paused to apologize to a couple they had bumped into. I noticed the Grand Duke watching her sulkily.

  “Don’t you wish there were girls like that in real life?” said the Grand Duke.

  “I wasn’t aware this is not real life, my dear Gustav,” I said.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, his eyes following Vasilisa and my brother waltzing. “She is too good to be true.”

  I had not realized the Grand Duke was such a cynic.

  “On the contrary, my dear Gustav,” I replied. “I believe her character is completely true.”

  “You do know what I mean, Anastasia,” Gustav replied. “She is the real thing, I agree. It is more than a façade. I only think—she cannot remain long as she is.”

  I studied Vasilisa “Yes. I did think that way too.”

  “And now?”

  “Perhaps I find myself a shade less pessimistic.”

  He shrugged. And then stood up. “Care to dance?”

  “Perhaps later,” I stood up as well. Across the ballroom my brother had just paused to let Vasilisa refresh herself.

  ***

  I noticed my brother’s eyes following her like a lovelorn teenager as she went over to take some refreshment from the tables along the back of the room. I made my way down from the dais and went over to stand beside him.

  “So you’ve got her to fall for you,” I observed. “How utterly delightful. Now what do you propose to do—fulfil Father’s dearest plans and ask her to marry you?”

  My brother stared at me. “Marriage,” he said, with horror, as if he hadn’t thought about that side of things.

  “You weren’t going to lead that poor girl on for nothing, I suppose?” I said.

  The look on his face told me perhaps he was. That he had not quite thought through what thinking about other people more often might mean. “I—I didn’t think—”

  “Still as terrified of commitment as ever, I see,” I told him acidly.

  Until that moment, I had kept my resentment in check. Until that moment, I had not faced the anger I still held inside—I had pretended it was not there. It was easy to pretend I was full of sisterly exasperation at my brother, rather than face the fact his behaviour reminded me of someone who had once hurt me.

  He had to learn.

  “Dmitriv—” I said, “Dmitriv—”

  I had once stood, dumbfounded, at a ball very much like this one, while the King of Ziemia proposed to a princess who was not me. In my bedroom the night before, I had made up my mind to accept him because of the strategic alliance. But I had also fallen hard for him, and had thought he’d fallen hard for me.

  He hadn’t.

  And here my brother was, acting out the nonchalance towards female feelings that men so often displayed. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. Maybe Dmitriv didn’t understand. Maybe he’d truly never thought about the hurt. And I’d never tried to tell him.

  “Dmitriv,” I said again.

  But he was ignoring me, glancing about the hall for Vasilisa. Then he caught sight of her—across the hall, the Grand Duke was in the very act of asking her to dance again. Dmitriv dropped all conversation with me and made a beeline to where she stood by the dance floor.

  I swallowed. I couldn’t imagine what he could say to her now.

  Just as he reached her, the clock began to chime.

  She was shaking her head to the Grand Duke, but when she saw my brother she shook her head at him too.

  The clock seemed to be striking twelve already. I wondered how time could drag so.

  At that instant, it was as if a breeze had blown through the hall. Everyone’s gaze was arrested in the direction of the dance floor, where Vasilisa had dropped her arms from the Grand Duke’s hands. She was still shaking her head furiously at them both. Then suddenly she turned and ran.

  My brother reached for her, and realized he was grasping thin air.

  “Wait!” both he a
nd the Grand Duke cried.

  Vasilisa looked back, but it was the eyes of my brother she met. She hesitated for an almost imperceptible moment, then the clock chimed again, and again she ran.

  The whole hall was staring. She disappeared into the doorway, stumbling as she went, and there was a clatter as something hit the floor.

  “Somebody stop her!” my brother said, from where he was still standing in the middle of the dance floor. He looked rather white in the face. I supposed, from the perspective of most of the guests, it might look as though she had ran out on him. “Somebody please stop her!”

  But we all were mesmerized by the thing she had dropped, which still lay in the doorway, glittering like glass—glittering, glittering like a glass slipper—something about all this was beginning to sound a bit too familiar.

  My brother looked in bewilderment from the slipper to the doorway she’d disappeared through. “What—”

  Just then there was a crack that echoed throughout the hall.

  “OH, I GIVE UP!”

  Chapter 3: The Fifty-Third Time

  THE CROWD WAS murmuring and edging to the walls, because there was a large, furiously pink lady stomping her foot in the centre of the dance floor, and she had certainly not been there before.

  Dmitriv jumped back in surprise. The sparkling blue wand in her hand had nearly singed off his ear.

  This was going entirely too far. “You are not,” I said to her, “a fairy godmother.”

  “I most certainly am not!” the lady said. “I quit! I resign! I’m done with the lot of you!”

  A murmuring swept through the halls again. Besides having the prince dance most of the evening with a mysterious young beauty, this was the most intriguing thing to happen all night.

  “Fifty-three times I’ve gone through this!” said the fairy godmother. “Fifty-three times! You’d think someone would eventually get it right!”

  I elbowed through the crowd towards the doorway. A fairy godmother in hysterics? Just the last thing we needed. It was high time someone dragged back our Cinderella.

  ***

  “Must the prince always be a clod who can never find anyone good enough to marry?” the fairy godmother was raging when I returned to the hall. “Must he always be feather-brained enough to let her get away before midnight? Must I always spend the next day fooling around with blasted glass slippers?”

  I grasped Vasilisa firmly by the hand. Fortunately the Cinderella story called for her coach to turn back into a pumpkin, or I should never have caught up with her. Would she flee again if I let go of her hand? Her perfect fairytale story had fallen to pieces, and I wasn’t sure she knew how to face the reality. But this was her fairy godmother.

  Vasilisa’s lovely ball dress had reverted back to rags, but that hardly mattered now as everyone’s attention was fixed on the rampaging grandma in the middle of our hall.

  Dmitriv was cowering rather comically beside her, as her magic wand was continually spitting sparks in his direction, though the fairy godmother hardly seemed to notice he was there.

  “I am sick of rescuing kingdoms,” she was saying. “Sick, I tell you! Every time I settle down for a nice, relaxing breather, someone comes up with another kingdom of self-centred princes who won’t settle down and have an heir. Would you princes grow up already? You’re driving your poor fathers insane!”

  She took a deep breath. “And then I have to come in, and dredge the whole kingdom for a girl good-hearted enough to put up with you, yet still sensible enough to raise decent future kings, and then I have to organize this whole kit and kaboodle just to make you fall in love with her! Glass slippers! Royal balls! The spell breaks at midnight!

  Besides me, Vasilisa sucked in a breath. Yes, she’d found out the downside of being a sensible, good-hearted girl. People try to use you, even your own fairy godmother.

  “And always,” she went on, “you princes drop the ball, and freak out about commitment, and let the girl run away. Then you decide you actually can’t live without her, and I have to help you scour the whole kingdom for this blasted girl again—without you knowing you’ve been coerced into the whole thing by a magic fairy godmother—all the while keeping the blasted spell from disappearing the blasted glass slipper at midnight with the gown and all the rest of it—and hopefully forcing the slipper not to fit any girl but your chosen ‘Cinderella’!”

  She was gasping for breath by the time she was done this. I was glad to see my brother starting to look penitent as he dodged another shower of sparks from the magic wand.

  “From now on,” declared the fairy godmother, “I’m going to get a good long rest for myself, and all your kingdoms can go to the dogs!”

  My heart sunk. There’d been a chance. There’d been a chance for our kingdom, and my brother, and none of us had known about it. And we’d lost it.

  “All of you,” said the fairy godmother, “should start thinking about yourselves too. Because I sure won’t be around to help.”

  “Oh no,” said Vasilisa, moving suddenly from my side. The whole hall turned to stare at her. And they all whispered, because they could hardly fail to notice she was the same young lady who’d ran out on the prince earlier, except now she was dressed in rags.

  “Vasilisa!” said the prince, his whole face lighting up. He straightened from his crouch. At his full height he almost looked like the prince he was.

  “Oh, the good-hearted yet sensible girl shows up! Can I let you know your prince is scared of commitment, and hasn’t come within a hundred miles of responsibility since the day he was born? Think of yourself for once. This boy is a lost cause.”

  Dmitriv winced. Now Vasilisa knew exactly what his intentions had been.

  “I am thinking of myself,” said Vasilisa, “of myself and all the people of kingdoms like mine, who need your help once in a while. You can’t just give up.”

  “You dare tell me,” said the fairy godmother, bristling to her full height, though that barely reached Vasilisa’s nose, “that I don’t deserve better than this?”

  “You don’t deserve anything,” Vasilisa said. “No one deserves the right to give up on the people around them, just on a whim. You were right before, people should stop being so selfish!”

  She glanced around the hall as large numbers of us shifted around uncomfortably. She added quietly, “Instead of more people looking out for themselves, we need more people looking out for each other.”

  The fairy godmother cackled. “Oh, listen to yourself, dear! Such goodness! You just wait and see how you turn out when you find that nobody will do the same for you—”

  “I did find out.” Vasilisa’s eyes glowed. “You know where you found me!” Her hands went to her hips. “And I’m still hanging in here!”

  My brother had a thunderstruck look, as if he’d never realized before what a gem Vasilisa really was. Though how he could have missed that was beyond me.

  A long sigh rippled through the hall. People couldn’t help but beam at the girl who was standing up to five-foot-two of bristling fairy godmother. Dmitriv dashed up and grasped her arm.

  “By the way,” Vasilisa said, “I’ve got your other glass slipper.”

  I do suppose that was the only thing that stopped the fairy godmother from turning her into a toad right there. The fairy godmother glanced at it, then sort of sank into herself as if she’d deflated.

  “I suppose you’re right, dearie,” she said to Vasilisa. “You, of all people—that after everything you’d still care what happens to anyone!” She sighed. “And here I’ve given up on everyone. And yet, I do get so tired doing good.”

  “I wish there was some way I could help,” Vasilisa said.

  “You already have,” the fairy godmother said. She chuckled. “A change is as good as a rest, they say, don’t they? Well, having the Cinderella tell me off has certainly been a change for me.”

  Then she glanced to where Dmitriv still held Vasilisa’s hand.

  “I suppose all my work here h
as been for naught, then,” said the fairy godmother, looking at Vasilisa. “He’s not exactly—”

  “He’s not exactly Prince Charming?” said Vasilisa. Then she added with a knowing smile, “But who exactly is?”

  The fairy godmother laughed, and she was still laughing as her wand swallowed her up in a pool of light, and she disappeared from the middle of the ballroom floor.

  The ballroom was silent.

  “Oh, Vasilisa!” my brother burst out. “Will you marry me?”

  Vasilisa looked at him.

  “Of course not,” she said.

  ***

  My brother stopped me as I was about to go upstairs after an unbelievable day.

  “Anastasia, I don’t know what to do.”

  I sighed, not in the mood to listen to another of my brother’s lovelorn speeches. “I’m sure I don’t know either.”

  He reached for the stair-rail nearest him, drooping all over it. “I suppose I know what you mean now, sister,” he said. “I didn’t think it mattered if I only cared about myself. The kingdom could go to pieces, for all I cared about it.”

  I stared at him. He wasn’t talking about Vasilisa this time.

  “But I don’t even know this fairy godmother, and when she said we weren’t worth her time—” He shook his head. “I was mad at her. And I hadn’t even known she’d been doing anything to help us. That she’d been doing all this because of me. And I was still mad she’d given up.”

  “Because we did matter.”

  His eyes met mine with an earnestness that surprised me. “You always did matter, Anastasia. But all the sycophants, and flattering officials, and hangers-on—”

  I reached over and pulled him into a hug.

  “I’m still not sure I care about them,” he added, muffled. “But I can care about the kingdom, maybe. Maybe I can do better at that.”

  “You can.”

  I hadn’t thought he could ever change. But my fault had been that until today I had not tried to ask him to change either.

  He pulled away. “But Vasilisa.”

  I sighed. “What about her?”

  “She knows what I’m like now.”