Page 2 of The Queen's Box

Willow had told herself, as she’d gotten ready for her parents’ party, that she’d selected her outfit because she liked it. And she did! Her peasant blouse was embroidered with tiny blue flowers, and the collar was finished with twin lengths of soft blue cord, each tassel tied off with a knot. The blouse went perfectly with her bohemian skirt, and her strappy leather sandals—the ones her father called her “Jesus sandals”—tied the look together.

But now, with her back pressed to the wall of her parents’ grand dining room, she felt ridiculous. She was nineteen, not nine, and pairing a tasseled blouse with a jingle-bell skirt didn’t make her feel like a free spirit. It just made her feel like an idiot.

None of the party guests had said anything rude, of course. None of the guests had mentioned Willow’s attire at all. The well-mannered men smiled with their perfect teeth, sipping bourbon and swapping stories about court cases and golf handicaps, while their wives widened their eyes at Willow before smiling awkwardly and glancing away. Still, Willow knew she was being silently evaluated and just as silently dismissed. Or pitied. Or both.

Her mother hadn’t been silent, and whatever sympathy she’d felt for Willow after “that business with Mr. Chapman” had dried up months ago.

“Oh, Willow,” she’d lamented when Willow had descended the stairs, each step a tinkling affront to her mother’s impeccable taste. “This party is important to your father. You know it is.”

Willow had felt the familiar weight of unvoiced resentment drape over her. She was here, wasn’t she? And she wasn’t wearing a gorilla suit, for heaven’s sake. Her long blonde hair was twisted into a bun, no flyaways, and she’d spritzed herself with Chanel Cristalle in hopes of masking the lingering scent of patchouli that clung to her skirt. Shouldn’t that be enough? Shouldn’tshebe enough, just as she was?

Her mother’s sigh had put that question to rest. She’d swirled her hand to encompass the whole of Willow’s ensemble and said, “Then why are you doing... whatever this is?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Willow had replied, working to keep her voice level. “You told me to wear a skirt. I’m wearing a skirt.”

“Yes, but...” She’d eyed the layers of colorful gauze. “It could be cute for a picnic, I suppose.” Her gaze had traveled upward.“But that top! It does nothing for your figure, and you have such adarlingfigure. There’s still a few minutes before our guests arrive. Won’t you run back upstairs and change into one of your Laura Ashleys?”

Willow had grimaced. “Mother? The last time I wore a Laura Ashley dress was at my high school graduation.Undermy robe.”

“And you looked lovely at all the after-parties.”

“That was then. This is now.”

“Well, yes. And yet here you are, aren’t you?”

Willow had clenched her jaw, realizing too late that she’d walked into that one like a goatherd—no, a goat—into a lion’s den.

Tonight was May seventh, 1988. A year ago, almost to the day, Willow had graduated from Braxton Academy. And what did she have to show for it? She’d put in one semester at Emory before dropping out. She’d gotten a job at Peaches, a record store in the neighborhood shopping center, but her boss kept cutting her hours. So here she was, still living with her parents in their enormous house on Habersham Road, still disappointing them day after day after day.

“Where’s your drive?” her father had demanded just that morning. “Your purpose, your motivation?”

“You do need to figure things out, sweetheart,” her mother had chimed in. “You can’t be a wastrel forever.”

Awastrel. Willow would have laughed if not for the fear that letting any emotion out would let all the emotions out, and then... well, yeah. Historically, letting her emotions out hadn’t ended well. She had no desire to walk down that road again.

The only thing holding Willow together these days was Serrin, who came to her in her dreams. It was because of Serrin that she knew of other worlds. Of one world, in particular—a world that was most definitely not Atlanta nor the known world of humans at all.

Serrin’s world—that was where Willow longed to be. Serrin would save her from her sugared world of falsehoods and stolen innocence. But when? How?

It was complicated, loving a boy with pointed ears.

Willow slumped against the wall and watched Ash work the room like the pro she was. At sixteen, Ash was already fluent in the language of power and influence. She knew exactly how to let her parents’ friends know that she was the sister who mattered, the sister who excelled, the sister who would earn their parents’ pride forever and ever, amen.

She was welcome to it. Willow had eaten enough bacon-wrapped dates to last her a lifetime.

That said, Willow couldn’t stand here like a loser all night. She scanned the room for someone she could anchor herself to. Not her mother, who had claimed a migraine and made her disappearance forty-five minutes into the festivities. Juniper, perhaps? At eleven, Juniper was the youngest of the Braselton girls. She adored Willow’s tales of faeries and dragons and worlds where magic still held sway. Once upon a time, Ash had, too. Once upon a time, Willow would make up story after story for the three sisters to act out.

“You’ll be the prince, and you’ll be the princess, and I’ll be the dragon!” Willow would say.

Sometimes Juniper wanted to be the dragon. Sometimes Willow let her.

But right now, Juniper was occupied by her role as party helper, passing around hors d’oeuvres on a silver tray.

Everyone knew their role in this mortal court. Everyone fit. Everyone but Willow.

She thought longingly of the go bag hidden in the farthest reaches of her closet, a backpack packed with a flashlight, two changes of clothes, and one thousand dollars in cash, stockpiled over the course of many months from her meager earnings atPeaches and the allowance her father doled out each week. One thousand wasn’t much, but it was enough to disappear. Or at least get her out of Atlanta.

Would she ever work up the nerve to leave?

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