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Rachel wiped some tears off her face as she went down the cold stone steps. She had tried to keep them from coming, but a few got out before she could stop them. The guards on patrol ignored her as she walked fast over the cobblestones, toward the garden.
Away from the torches hung on the walls outside the castle it was dark, but she knew her way. The grass was wet on her bare feet. At the third urn, she knelt down, looking to see that no one was watching, then reached under the flowers. She felt the cloth around the bread, and pulled it out. Untying the knots, she laid the four corners back, then reached in her pockets and put the meat, the three hard rolls, and the cheese on top of the bread and tied the corners of the cloth back up.
Just before she started running for the outer-wall gate, she remembered, and made a little gasp. She froze stiff, her eyes wide.
She had forgotten Sara! Her doll was still in her sleeping box! Princess Violet would find her doll, she would throw Sara in the fire! Rachel couldn’t leave her doll there; she was running away and not coming back. Sara would be afraid without her. Sara would get burned up.
She pushed the bundle with the bread back under the flowers, looked around, and ran for the castle. She had to slow down and walk when she got close, back into the torchlight. One of the guards at the door looked down at her.
“I just let you out,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “I know. But now I have to go back in for a few minutes.”
“Forget something?”
She nodded and managed to make herself say, “Yes.”
He shook his head and lifted the little window. “Open the door,” he said to the guard inside. She heard the heavy bolt open.
Once back inside, she looked down the hall. The big room with the black-and-white floor and the grand stairs was ahead, a few turns down some long halls and through a couple of big rooms. One of the big rooms was the dining room. That was the shortest way. But the Queen, or the Princess, might be there, or even Father Rahl. They might see her. She couldn’t let them see her. Princess Violet might take her up to her room and lock her in the sleeping box; it was late.
She turned and went through the little door on the right. That was the servants’ passageway. It was a lot longer, but no one important would be in the servant halls or on the servant stairs. None of the servants would stop her; they all knew she was the Princess’s playmate, and they didn’t want the Princess mad at them. She would have to go down through the place where the servants stayed, down under the big rooms and under the kitchen.
The stairs were all stone, worn smooth on the front edges. One window at the top was uncovered and it let in rain, and the steps always had water leaking from the stone walls, running down them. Some places it was just a little, some places more, and there was green slime on some of the steps. She always had to step careful to keep from stepping in the slime. Torches in iron brackets made the stone and the steps look red and yellow.
There were some people in the halls on the bottom floor, servants carrying linens and blankets, washwomen with buckets of water and mops, and men carrying bundles of firewood for the fireplaces upstairs. Some of the people stopped and whispered to each other. They seemed excited. She heard Giller’s name and it made her get a lump in her throat.
When she went past the servants’ quarters, all the oil lamps were burning, hung from the big beams of the low ceilings, and there were bunches of people gathered around, telling each other what they had seen. Rachel saw one of the men talking loud, with mostly women, but some men, too, standing around him. It was Mr. Sanders, the man who wore the fancy coat and greeted the fine ladies and gentlemen when they came to dinner, and announced their names when they came in.
“Heard it myself, from those two that stand watch over the dining room. You know who I’m talking about, the young one, Frank and the other, with the limp, Jenkins. Said the D’Haran guards told them personal that there’s going to be a search of the castle, top to bottom.”
“What’re they lookin’ for?” a woman asked.
“Don’t know. Least they didn’t tell Frank and Jenkins. But I wouldn’t want to be the one that had whatever they’re after. Those men from D’Hara could give you nightmares when you were wide awake.”
“Wish they’d find whatever it is under Violet’s bed,” somebody else said. “It’d do her up right to get a nightmare for a change, ‘stead of givin’ ’em.” Everyone laughed.
Rachel went on, through the big storeroom with all the columns. Barrels were on one side, all piled up in rows on top of one another; boxes and crates and sacks were stacked up on the other side. The room smelled damp and musty, and she could always hear mice scratching about. She went down the middle, past the lamps hung on the side of columns, to the heavy door at the other end. The iron strap hinges creaked when she strained and pulled on the iron ring and opened the door. Rust from the ring got on her hands, so she wiped them on the stone. Another big door to the right led to the dungeon. She went up the stairway. It was dark, with only one torch at the top, and she could hear water go plink, plink, plink and echo. Through the door at the top that stood open a crack, she went down the stone block halls like the wind that was always in them. She was too scared to cry. She wanted Sara to be safe, with her, and away from here.
On the top floor, at last, she peeked her head around the door, looking up and down the hall that ran past Princess Violet’s room. The hall was empty. Tiptoeing across the carpet with the pictures of the boats on it, she reached the entry way set back from the hall. She snuck into it, checking the hall again. Carefully, she opened the door a sliver. The room was dark. She slipped in and shut the door tight.
There was a fire in the fireplace, but no lamps were lit. She sneaked across the floor, feeling the fur rug on her bare feet. She got down on her hands and knees and crept into her sleeping box, and pulled the blanket back with one hand. She gasped. Sara wasn’t there. She felt just as if a cold wind had blown across her skin.
“Looking for something?” It was Princess Violet’s voice.
For a minute, she couldn’t move. She started to breathe hard, but she kept the tears from coming. She couldn’t let Princess Violet see her cry. She backed out of the box and saw there was a black form standing in front of the fire. It was the Princess. She took a step forward, away from the fireplace, toward Rachel. Her hands were behind her back. Rachel couldn’t see what she had.
“I was just coming up to get in my box. To go to sleep.”
“Is that so.” Rachel could see better in the dark now, could see the smile on Princess Violet’s face. “You wouldn’t happen to be looking for this, would you?”
She slowly pulled her hands out from behind her back. She had Sara. Rachel’s eyes went wide and she suddenly felt like she had to go potty.
“Princess Violet, please…”she whined. Her hands reached out, pleading.
“Come here, and we’ll talk about it.”
Rachel stepped slowly to the Princess, stopping in front of her, twisting her finger in the hem of her dress. The Princess suddenly slapped her, harder than she
had ever slapped her before. It was so hard that it made Rachel give out a little scream as she was knocked a step backward. She put her left hand over the stinging pain. Tears welled up in her eyes. She jammed her fist into her pocket, determined that she would not cry this time.
The Princess stepped to her and hit her across the other cheek with the back of her hand. Her knuckles hurt more than the first slap. Rachel gritted her teeth and clutched her fist around something in her pocket to keep from letting the tears come.
Princess Violet stepped back to the fireplace. “What did I tell you I would do if you ever had a doll?”
“Princess Violet, please don’t….” She was shaking because her face hurt so much, and because she was so scared. “Please, let me keep her? She’s no harm to you.”
The Princess laughed her awful laugh. “No. I’m going to throw it in the fire, just like I told you I would. To teach you a lesson. What’s her name?”
“She doesn’t have a name.”
“Well, no matter, she’ll burn just as well.”
She turned around to the fire. Rachel’s fist was still clutched around the thing in her pocket. It was the magic fire stick Giller had given her. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at it.
“Don’t you dare throw my doll in the fire or you’ll be sorry!”
The Princess spun around. “What did you say? How dare you talk to me in that tone of voice. You’re just a nobody. I’m a Princess.”
Rachel touched the magic fire stick to the doily on a small round marble table next to her. “Light for me,” she whispered.
The doily burst into flames. The Princess’s face looked surprised. Rachel touched the fire stick to a book on a short marble table. She looked quickly to the Princess’s eyes to make sure she was watching, then whispered again, and with a roar it, too, burst into flames. Princess Violet’s eyes were wide. Rachel picked up the book by a corner and threw it in the fireplace while the Princess watched her. Rachel spun around, took a step, and put the fire stick against the Princess.
