Araceli Arbon
February 28, 2016 5:34 AM
Story time (tag Owen) by Araceli Arbon
At what point had she started to rebel? Because that was definitely what she was doing now. Had it been the situation with Makenzie? That had started out as an accident. And talking her through it had seemed like a logical, safe way to deal with the problem. But she had also told her things. She had told her how to find Araceli at their Christmas party. That had been unnecessary. That had been rebellious, she supposed. It was amazing how quickly and seamlessly it had slid from one to the other, and without her meaning to, without her consciously deciding to go against what her father would have wanted. And now it had spurred her on to this. She liked to tell herself that it was because it was right - because he had a right to know - and pushed down the voice that said it was something more selfish than that. That it was jealousy, or at least a close relation of that feeling. It was easy to tell herself that her motivation wasn’t selfish because when she thought of what she wanted from this, she really didn’t want to ruin things between Duncan and her sister. The thought of Araceli losing out on a good betrothal and having to be their family’s dependent filled her with so much horror that she nearly changed her mind whenever she thought of it. She supposed she wanted Duncan to know, and to forgive them, as Makenzie had done. And she wanted…. she didn’t know what from them both. She wanted not to fade from their lives without recognition that she had ever existed or been a part of them, even though that was what she was supposed to do, even though she couldn’t picture what any kind of alternative would look like, she wanted it just the same.At breakfast one morning, she slipped into a seat next to Owen Brockert. It had been difficult to catch him on his own, as he was practically joined at the hip to Jemima Wolseithcrafte, but this morning she managed it.
“Good morning,” she greeted. “I was wondering if I might ask your assistance with something? It’s a secret though,” she added, lest they were interrupted and she had to suddenly stop speaking, “A surprise, for Duncan’s birthday.” Having gained Owen’s promise that he would keep this to himself, she proceeded to explain.
“I heard you’re good at writing stories. There was a story I remember from when I was little… I don’t know whether it’s from a book or something my mother invented, but I can never find it anywhere. I can remember the plot but I’m not good at telling it like a real story. I wondered, if I told it to you, could you write it out properly? I thought I’d give it to Duncan for his birthday. It’s a princess story but it’s also got lots of ghosts and adventure in it, so I thought he might like it.” It had been pretty hard to find a reason why she wanted to give a practically grown wizard a Princess story for his birthday, but she hoped that ghosts were a decent enough justification. Plus the romantic notion that if it mattered to her, it should matter to him too. Sometimes, it was pretty convenient that most people seemed to think witches her supposed age were all blethering sentimental idiots, and to confuse this with them having the emotionally complexity of five year olds.
“There’s a princess, and she’s very pretty but a dark witch has put a curse on her, so that when she leaves the castle, she takes on the appearance of a ghost. At parties, no one can dance with her, they barely even talk to her, and they won’t believe she’s real. So she doesn’t go out, she just stays home. Her sister wants to help her, so she disguises herself as the younger sister and goes to parties for her. And she meets a Prince, and gets him to fall in love with her. When he shows up at their castle to ask for the Princess' hand, the older sister opens the door, but he doesn't recognise her. And then he sees the younger sister and they marry and the older sister doesn’t say anything because she loves them both so much she doesn't want to make either one unhappy, although she feels bad about it that he doesn’t know the truth. Plus if the little sister can find her true love, it means the curse is broken, so it’s the right thing to do.”
She tried to keep her voice steady as she told the story. She was mentally filing this as ‘casual conversation with Owen Brockert’ to try to keep her father from probing it. It was difficult but she had had a lot of practise over the years of feeling one thing and portraying a totally different emotion on the surface. The story was screamingly obvious to anyone who knew the truth, and she knew she was taking a big risk in telling it. Not only could she not imagine what her father would do if he found out, but she knew it opened her family up to a certain degree of risk. If anyone else ever suspected… If anyone ever went digging for dirt or looking for proof of what they had done, she had just created it for them, and was willingly handing it over to one of the most powerful families in the country. She thought she might have gone totally mad. She would rather have just told Duncan the story, but her father always extracted every memory relating to him for Araceli to memorise.
“Remember though, it’s a secret. And I think it would be fun if it just… showed up on his birthday. No name even. Just a surprise.” If the real Araceli later denied knowing about the story, at least this way there would be a reason.
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Araceli Arbon
Story time (tag Owen)
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