Once Upon A Story | Fits & Starts: From the Beginning
Chapter 2

A dusty, raggedly dressed girl with wildly curly hair silently wadded through the waist high water under the castle she’d escaped from a year ago. Her name was Alysian, and she was back to get her sisters and bring them with her. She wrinkled her turned up nose at the smell of the water she was trudging through. "Oh, well, these clothes haven’t been fresh in years," she thought to herself.

Looking up she saw what she was looking for up ahead, a circle of light, a drain hole with an elaborate, wrought-iron cover on it. Climbing up on a narrow ledge on the side of the tunnel she was in, she listened carefully to be sure the garden was empty.

Just as she went to move the cover aside, she heard voices. She leaned back into the shadows along the wall of the tunnel but stayed on the ledge, lest she make to much noise getting down. The voices came nearer; they were male and there were two of them. They stopped near-by Alysian’s hiding place.

"I’m telling you, big brother, the witch likes you."

"Tim, don’t call the Queen that, it’s rude. Besides, she might hear you."

"I’ll just call her the barracuda then, shall I? But I digress, we were talking about what you’re going to do about her."

Alysian smothered a snort of laughter. This.. Tim’s description of Queen Amethyst was amazingly accurate.

"I must discourage her," the other was saying, "Without offending her, or she might—"

"She might cast a curse on you," Tim said laughing hilariously at his own joke.

Then, Alysian heard more footsteps, which seemed to stop in the same place as the two men were.

"My lord." She heard a new voice say.

Tim’s voice sounded offended, "Clayton, what’s all this ‘my Lord’ junk Allen’s spouting off?!"

An amused husky voice answered, "We’ve come from the Queen; we received a severe dressing down for our ‘disregard for the proprieties’ in our address to you!"

The unknown brother and Tim burst into laughter, "Our charade goes well, then, my friends, the Queen has no idea who you are."

Alysian was now getting curious, but to her dismay the four men left, laughing and talking and leaving poor Alysian eager to hear more. "People," Alysian thought, "Just when they start an interesting conversation, they up and leave...humph!"

She listened to be sure no one else was there, then shoved aside the cover and dragged herself out of the tunnel. She looked around her, the Queen’s garden, almost impossibly, it seemed more gaudy then when she’d left. She shook her head in disgust.

She looked around and immediately saw her favorite rose bush. Favorite because of the secret passage into the castle that was under it. Even the Queen didn’t know of it. Slipping stealthily into the passageway, she ran the way to the castle and quickly came out the doorway inside. It was really just a movable stone in the staircase to the servants rooms, but she called it a doorway. She crawled out on the steps and pushed the stone back into place.

She went to the rooms for the servants and looked around. Immediately she found Lin and Josi’s room, she recognized the painstaking neatness of Josi’s touch. Wondering where Joy’s things were, she settled in to wait for her sisters.

Josephine, known as Josi, stepped into the giant kitchen of the castle smelling rather horsey. "Lin?.. Lin, we need more carrots for the horses.

"What? Carrots? Okay, just a minute." Rosalind, Lin to everyone, tossed her enviable, long, straight, dark blond hair out of her face and hurried to the bucket of discarded vegetables, dusting flour from her hands as she went. Tossing most of the carrots into a smaller bucket, she handed them to her not-so-identical twin sister with an admonishment. "Honestly, how can you go about in britches? You look like a boy!"

"Maybe, but I’d look really odd cleaning out a stall with a frilly dress on," Josi retorted. With a musical laugh, she tossed her silky, sun-streaked blond hair over her shoulder and ran back to the barn with the carrots.

As she approached the huge ridiculous looking white (repainted every year) barn, she heard a voice from inside. "Josi...Josi! Where are you? Get in here and bring those carrots, NOW!"

Josi grumbled "Josi do this, Josi do that! Honestly!" Aloud she called, "Coming, sir."

Slipping into the dark barn, she hurried assuredly down the cobblestone pathway, squinting as she passed the windows where shafts of bright, golden sunlight shone on the floor. Coming to the stall where Master Montgomery was tending to an injured horse, she set the bucket of carrots down and knelt over the horse to calm it while he bandaged its leg and cleaned up the scrapes.

"No! I don’t like this one," howled the Princess Lana, stomping her feet and slapping at her personal maid, Joy.

"Well that’s just to bad," Joy yelled back, "Because your mother says you have to wear it. And besides, I’m not helping you out of it, so there!"

Lana looked at Joy in surprise, then burst into mournful tears.

"Oh, no," Joy said, glaring spitefully at her, "That trick won’t work on me! I taught you that, so you can just stop crying right now."

The Princess looked at her for a minute, then screamed, "Oh, I hate you!" Lunging forward she grabbed at Joy’s hair, pulling as hard as she could, kicking and hitting the unsuspecting Joy with all her might. With a cry of surprise, Joy fell backwards on to the floor. Retaliating, she shoved her hand into Lana’s eye and pushed her on her back, slapping her as much as she could. The two girls were so busy fighting they didn’t hear Queen Amethyst coming down the hall to see what the racket in her daughter’s room was.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!" the Queen roared.

Both girls looked up guiltily from their decidedly unladylike positions, Joy sprawled on her back, Princess Lana sitting on Joy’s her chest, about to punch her.

The Queen hurried over and helped her daughter off the floor, glaring at Joy. "What have you done to my daughter?!"

"But, Your Highness..." Joy began.

"Silence!" the Queen yelled angrily, "I will hear nothing from you! You will not help my daughter any more. You are to go and scrub the floors until they shine, then wash the windows, if I see one streak on them you will do them all again, then polish all the silver, I want to see my reflection, and...

Josi and Lin trudged toward their beds, eager for sleep.

"Wait up!" Joy called as she dragged herself up the stairs. Josi and Lin turned to wait for her, then did a double-take.

"What on earth happened to you?" Lin asked in surprise, and rightly so, for their lovely, slightly silly younger sister was a sweaty, dirty mess.

Joy sniffled a bit, "That awful Princess Lana, she started hitting me so I hit her back and the Queen came in and blamed me and made me do all the work and I have to keep doing it and I hate her!"

Josi laughed softly and wrapped an arm around her sister, "Poor Joy, everyone’s out to get you, huh?"

Joy rubbed at her eyes and nodded. "The Queen says I’m to stay with you now, and I can’t have my things back, all I’m allowed to take is my work dress," she held up the black dress that was identical to the one she was wearing except cleaner.

They walked into the room they would now share and stopped, and stared in surprise, for there sat Alysian!

An expression of amusement on her face, she asked, "What’s wrong with Joy?"

"What’s wrong with Joy? Forget about Joy, what are you doing here?!" Josi asked in shock.

With a grin of delight, Alysian explained, "I’ve come to get you out of here. We’ll all go and live in the countryside together and the Queen will never find us and you’ll never have to work for her again!"

Staring at her, Lin said the first thing that came into her head, "You’re crazy Alysian!"

"So?" Alysian said blithely, "You’ll do it anyway, I’ve always convinced you to do it my way."

"How did you get in here?" Joy asked excitedly, "When are we leaving? Where are we going? Will there be men there?!"

"I sneaked in through the tunnels under this place, almost got caught by a couple of men, too."

"Ohh! Were they handsome? How old were they?" Joy asked, her eyes lighting up.

Alysian rolled her eyes, "It doesn’t matter, Joy, we won’t see them again. Why would we want to, anyway?"

"Because.." Joy began, but was interrupted by Josi, "Hold it! Let’s get back to that running away part. Exactly what do you mean about that, Lisy?

Alysian winced, "Well, I figure you don’t like it here any more than I did, so I thought if I came back we could all leave together and then we wouldn’t be separated! Come on, it’ll be fun. We can travel the countryside on horses!" she said to Josi, "See all the musical shows!" she exclaimed to Lin. "Can’t you just see it! We’d probably even meet some men," she said to Joy, but with such a grudging expression on her face that Josi had to laugh. Only Lisy would think having men around would ruin the fun; why, just watching them fight over beautiful 13 year old Joy was a show in itself!

"Humm... I have to admit," Josi commented, "It’s an intriguing thought, but could we get away with it?"

"I don’t know that yet," Alysian said, "I thought you could help me with that part, we can’t leave the way I came in , that’s almost too noisy with one person, but I figured, you and Lin are so smart, you’ll probably find a easier way out than the way I came in.

"Besides," She whispered, "I doubt Joy would go through those dirty old tunnels, anyway." Josi giggled.

"We can’t sneak out at night, there are always guards since you got out," Lin sat on a bed and tapped her finger on her chin, "Any window we could get to would be to high and there’d be guards under it, the garden walls are to high..."

"I have an-" Joy stared to say.

"Not now, Joy, we’re thinking."

"But-"

"Hush Joy!"

Josi said, "I don’t think there’s any way out."

"There’s got to be," Alysian insisted firmly.

"I have an idea." Joy said, then, almost yelling in her exasperation, "WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME!"

The others blinked in surprise.

"Thank you." Joy settled herself primly on the bed across from Lin. "Now, I happen to know of a ball that’s coming up soon. If we can sneak in, we could probably slip out and no one would be suspicious, and even if we’re caught, we’ll still have gone to a ball!"

"Humm," Alysian mulled it over, "It’s a good idea, but how could we get in? In these clothes we’re sure to be noticed, our things aren’t exactly high fashion."

"I’ve thought of that. Here’s where Lin’s part comes in."

"My part?"

"Yes, your friend, the other princess, she’ll help us. She can get us some dresses and masks, since it’s a costume ball."

Alysian asked, "Why would the Queen get ball dresses for a princess she keeps hidden away all the time?"

"Because, she’ll do just about anything to keep her quiet," Joy said logically.

"I don’t know if I could ask her to do that," Lin broke in worriedly, "I mean, asking her to do all that for us and then leaving her all alone, to the mercy of the Queen just doesn’t seem right."

"You have to, otherwise the plan is useless," Joy insisted.

"She’s right," Alysian said, "If you don’t ask we won’t be able to do this, much as I hate the thought of leaving anyone to the Queen’s mercy, it’s our only choice. Anyway, there’s always the chance she won’t do it."

"Oh she’ll do it," Lin replied, "That’s why I hate to ask her; we’re great friends, she’ll want to do it, but she’ll be lonely."

"She’s my friend too, Lin," Josi turned from the window, the setting sun making a golden halo on her hair, "I don’t like to impose on her this way either, but we can’t go on living like this, Mariana’s said so herself."

"I suppose... I still don’t like it though!"

"Come on," Joy said excitedly, "Let’s go see her now!"

Lin wrapped her arms around Mariana, careful not to wrinkle the exquisite silk and satin dress she wore. "Thank you so much, I’ll never be able to repay you, but if you ever need anything, just find us and we’ll do it."

"Just take care of yourself," Mariana responded, "Now let me see all of you... oh you’re all so beautiful. But you must hurry, oh, Alysian, don’t forget your mask!" she handed Alysian the rather hot mask she’d removed and hurried them out of the room. "Good luck, I’ll miss you!"

"Good bye!", "Thank you!" the girls whispered, as they hurried down the hall.

With Joy leading, they tip-toed down the hall, trying to silence the rustling of their skirts. Suddenly Joy stopped, Alysian bumped into her. "What’d you stop for?"

"I heard something... there it is again... someone’s coming!!"

The girls hurried through the door next to them, Josi, Lin, and Joy taking hiding places behind furniture, Alysian, behind the door, leaving it slightly ajar, so she could peek through the crack. The voices came nearer and nearer, and as they did, Alysian realized something, these voices were familiar! Where...? The garden! of course! These were the men who were hiding something from the Queen!

"The Queen’s advances on you seem unpleasant," one voice said.

"You speak the truth," a slightly agonized sounding voice replied.

The voice of the young man Alysian recognized as Tim’s spoke up, "I wouldn’t be surprised to see the witch start drooling!"

Two rather aggravated voices could be heard at once, "Tim!", "If you’ve nothing useful to add to the conversation, please keep your mouth shut!"

"Allen’s comment wasn’t useful," Tim answered defensively.

Alysian was shaking from suppressed laughter by this time, her face turning an odd shade of red.

The voices got quieter as the footsteps of the men could be heard moving down the hall.

"I think it’s safe now," Alysian whispered, still chuckling.

"Lisy, did you hear that man?!" Joy giggled, "He called her a witch!!"

Alysian grinned, "He’s called her a barracuda too! Those were the men who almost saw me when I came through the tunnel. He was making all sorts of jokes about her!"

"Come on," Josi warned quietly, "We’ve got to get out of here before we get caught."

"Don’t worry so much, Josi," Joy drawled, "We’ve our masks on, no one could possibly recognize us. I intend to thoroughly enjoy this evening!" With that, she tossed her golden head and swept down the hall.

Dryly, Alysian said, "Somehow I think she plans to do more than find a side door."

The three girls hurried to catch up to their sister. As they neared the door, they carefully patted their hair and twitched their skirts into place, all but Alysian, who couldn’t care less. Suddenly, Joy stopped.

"What’s the matter?" Lin asked.

"Nothing’s the matter."

"Then why’d you stop?"

"I have to get into character," Joy responded regally.

Alysian snorted and Josi smothered a laugh while Joy primped, then took a deep breath and sashayed into the ballroom. Josi could no longer contain her laughter when, as soon as Joy entered, she was surrounded by young men asking her to dance.