Page 4 of The Dandelion Princess
He pauses briefly as Mama’s secretary, Caroline Tiele, supplies me with an updated agenda with notes written in the margins in her clear, precise penmanship. Only after she skirts past him, raising her arms and taking careful steps to avoid a collision, does he continue.
With half an ear on the rising price of fodder, I leaf through the other tabs.
“What’s this?” I blurt, derailing the gripping topic of large-scale food production. “What happened to my assignments?” I hold the folder open on a nearly empty page.
Mama folds her reading glasses with an irritated snap. “Do you think it is likely thatVrouwTiele forgot to include them?”
“Helena,” Père scolds.
I sweep a finger up and down the blank page. “This makes it look like I’m being held for ransom somewhere. Are you busy sourcing the funds to be delivered by a black ops team?”
“Nonsense,” Mama says, adding absentmindedly, “I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
I arrived at the family meeting, prepared to fight about wearing nylons and high heels to track and field exhibitions, or about how arriving to a morning kindergarten read-aloud in full glam terrifies the children, but I would have gone to both events, in the end, dressed in the only way my mother can imagine is appropriate.
Outside these walls, I’m still doing the princess thing. Can’t she trust me?
I consult the list. There’s a STEM event I could do in my sleep, a film festival appearance, and a few cocktail parties where I’m expected to be just a warm body.
What is Mama thinking? My stomach tightens with pain. My mother is running low on reliable princesses, but I’m like a misshapen carrot selected for those delivery crates meant to combat food-waste. Odd but edible. She can still use me.
“You will be otherwise engaged,” the queen says, whisking her glasses on again. “Alix van Heyden has accepted a proposal of marriage from Mr. Thomas Farrell of the United States of America.”
It’s impossible not to laugh when she speaks like that. I shove the pain into a tight little cubbyhole and let out a giggle.
“I know. Alix told me months ago.” I knew she was going to marry Tom when she asked me to conduct a little light reconnaissance on his old girlfriends, sending this request via an upside down video chat in the middle of her garden pilates.“Vede, the whole country probably knows by now. She put it on the Saint Sissela group chat.”
Clara snorts. Our all-girls private school was named for a nun, but it wasn’t exactly a bastion of maidenly discretion.
“Vrouwheidvan Heyden called me this morning and made a rare personal request,” Mama says. “She asked if I might spare you to be Alix’s maid of honor.”
My smile tightens. “I already said no.”
I hate living this way, desperate to escape this royal straitjacket, daily abusing the soft creature of my flesh by pouring her into suffocating shapewear, forcing her to hold her breath, her tongue, and her appetite. I live under my mother’s rule but, for once, I beat her to the punch.
“You will say yes,” Mama commands. “I’ve cleared your schedule as much as possible.”
My eyes narrow and I fall against the back of my seat. “You said what?”
“The van Heydens are nearly family,” Mama replies. “WhileVrouwheidvan Heyden is in Seong, she will be unable to support Alix as much as she’d like. Sparing you to be her bridal attendant is the least we can do.”
It sounds reasonable but unease feathers over my skin. ‘Reasonable’ is not in the vocabulary of Queen Helena of Sondmark. “You’re not going to be short-handed?”
Mama holds my gaze. “You could use the rest.”
“Icoulduse a rest,” I answer, my voice nothing like the clear, declarative tone drilled into us from infancy.
“Excellent,” Mama nods.
I sit in shock through the rest of the meeting and, as my siblings file out, I realize that the prison doors have been thrown open. I take a breath, trying to adjust to the idea of an entire spring dedicated to being young, healthy, and rich.
A moment later, I’m on my phone, rising from my chair, tapping out a search for sequined bachelorette party rompers.
“Oh,” Mama says, turning from the door. Caroline halts, too.Here it is,I think, my finger hovering over the ‘Buy Now’ button.The catch.
“There’s something the Saint Sissela group chat might not know… Marc van Heyden is coming home.”
She sweeps from the room, and I plop to the seat. My stupid heart is galloping like I haven’t aged oneflamenday in tenflamenyears.
