The Princess and the Page Read online

  THURSDAY (JEUDI), JUNE 17TH

  Last night I hardly slept. My dreams were filled with ghosts and flying horses and snarling wolves.

  So when the door bursts open this morning, banging hard against the wall, I pick up both pillows, jump out of bed, and fling them at the intruders. But it’s only Bella and Chet standing in the doorway. Bella’s biting her nails, while Chet’s hair sticks up like a porcupine’s.

  “Hey!” Bella holds up her hands. “It’s just us. Your friends.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble, and then peek inside my suitcase to make sure my pen is still tucked. After Mom told me all that stuff about how those burglars were actually after the pen, I’m starting to think I need a better hiding place for it.

  “While you were sleeping the day away, Chet and I were wandering the castle.” Bella wrings her hands. “And, well. Maybe I’m starting to think you’re not so crazy after all. I found her.”

  “Who?”

  “Your ghost!” Bella cries. “Follow me.”

  The three of us dash down the corridor to the back of the castle. Bella and Chet race into the ballroom, but I falter at the landing. The ballroom, usually bright and cheerful with its walls lined with windows tucked inside arched alcoves, is cloaked in dark shadows that stretch across the cold marble floor.

  Outside, the wind gusts and sings a chilling tune. The long rectangular room lies barren except for an occasional cushioned bench stationed along the cream-colored walls. A heaviness pulls at me.

  “Keira!” Bella shouts from midway down the hall. “Come on!”

  I need to stop acting like such a wimp. So I toss my hair over my shoulder, lift my chin, and march down the ballroom steps and over to where Chet and Bella stand under a painting, staring. It’s the same painting whose eyes moved on my first day here at Chenonceau.

  “It’s the princess,” I whisper. “The one I keep seeing as a ghost in my fairy-tale realm.”

  “Fairy-tale realm or not,” Chet says, “this chick was a real person. Her name was Gabrielle d’Estrées.”

  Chet points to the gold plate under the princess’s portrait. It reads: Gabrielle d’Estrées, 1573–1599.

  “So now we know she really is real.” I gaze at the princess’s eyes, expecting them to move and stare back. But they stay true to their oils, unseeing.

  “There’s more. Just wait a second,” Bella says, her voice hushed. “She might do it again. Last time we were here, her mouth moved and she said something. I’m going to have nightmares until the day I die.”

  “She was speaking in French,” Chet says. “I think she said, ‘Help me.’”

  “She wants us to help her, I know.” How do I explain to a portrait that there isn’t any way to change my story? Even Mom said it wasn’t possible. “I wish there was something we could do, but it isn’t like the ghost is actually real or things can be changed. What happened, happened.”

  “Maybe.” Bella chews her bottom lip. “It’s just so tragic. We need to do something to help her!”

  “Speaking of tragedy,” I say, grimacing, “my mom thinks we need to leave.”

  “What?! But we can’t leave. It will ruin everything! The ball is tomorrow. All my design work is arriving, and I have to be here when it’s being showcased.”

  “Bummer.” Chet scuffs his sneaker over the marble floor. “This was amping up to be a fun summer holiday after all.”

  “But this ghost was once a real person, right?” Bella reminds me. “She needs our help.”

  I suck in a deep breath. Bella is right. I can’t just abandon Gabrielle. She’s depending on me. “It’s time to do some research. We need to find out more about this Gabrielle and what really happened to her. Maybe we can find some answers in the library.”

  “There you are!” Ms. Teppernat shrieks from the steps and then clamors down in her black high-heel boots. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you, and here you are! All ready to learn!”

  Cheryl scampers up behind Ms. Teppernat, followed by Chet’s dad and a lady wearing a black leotard and a black dance skirt with her brown hair twisted into a bun. She has a sharp fox-like nose and thin lips pressed together.

  “Learn?” I’m so confused that I don’t even know how to escape the Dragon.

  “The dances you’ll have to perform for the ball on Friday,” Ms. Teppernat says. She waves her hands so furiously that the bangles trailing up her arms clang like bells.

  “Er—” Chet stammers. “I’m late for—you know. So I’ll be seeing you guys around.”

  “Oh, but we were hoping you would help the girls out.” Cheryl dives sideways to block Chet’s path. “This way they will have someone else to dance with at the ball. And you’ll help give them a little practice.”

  “Not so fast, son,” Mr. Parker says, lifting his eyebrows meaningfully at Chet. “I think this will be a great opportunity for you.”

  Chet scowls, but when his dad clears his throat and crosses his arms, Chet says, “I guess I could carve out a few minutes. But it will cost you.”

  “Fine,” Ms. Teppernat says. “Since you already signed the waiver for the horseback riding, Cheryl will add this position. But for this event, we will need to make up a contract. He must follow the expected times and obligations, such as arrive at the ball on time and dance with each girl for exactly five minutes.”

  “I’m sure Chet can handle that,” Mr. Parker says.

  “Two minutes.” Chet gulps. “That’s my final offer.”

  While Ms. Teppernat, Cheryl, and Mr. Parker continue ironing out the logistics with Chet, Bella points to Ms. Teppernat’s back and sticks her fingers on top of her head like horns. It takes everything in me to suppress my giggles, but then I freeze when Ms. Teppernat spins to face me.

  Cringing, I half expect the Dragon to breathe fire, but Ms. Teppernat surprises me by grabbing my shoulders and staring me down.

  “Whatever happens on Friday night,” she says, “the most important thing is to smile and pretend everything is perfect. Do you understand?”

  “Why do I have to pretend everything is perfect?”

  “What if the ghost shows up?” Chet asks.

  “Ignore it.” Ms. Teppernat pats my cheeks as if ghosts showing up is completely normal. “If you ignore the ghost, it will ignore you. Are we clear on how this is going to play out?”

  Chet’s mouth hangs open. “You believe in the ghost, too?”

  “You think the ghost is coming to the ball?” Bella starts back up with her nail biting. If things continue to get worse, she’s not going to have any more nails to bite.

  “Ugh.” Ms. Teppernat presses her fingers against the temples of her forehead. “All these questions are such an annoyance. Can we focus on the task at hand?”

  “Yes, of course!” Cheryl nods vigorously. “Please let me introduce you to your dance instructor, Madame Simone.”

  The black-leotard lady glides over to us. She tilts her head to the side and dips into an elegant curtsy.

  “Bonjour,” she says in a lilting French accent. “Today you shall learn the waltz. We shall begin with Debussy’s ‘Clair de lune.’”

  Gracefully, she sets her music player on one of the benches and with her long finger pushes PLAY. The chords of the piano fill the room with its aching and haunting tune.

  Then she draws Chet and me to face each other, saying, “Hold hands like this.”

  She puts my left hand in Chet’s right, and then places my right hand on his shoulder.

  Chet jumps back. “Whoa. No one said I had to hold her hand.”

  Mr. Parker reminds Chet of his agreement, which personally I think is a little odd that his dad would be so adamant that he dance with me. Chet huffs and rolls his eyes, but ends up getting back into position. Mr. Parker nods before leaving.

  Normally, I would’ve laughed over Chet’s squeamishness, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is off. A shiver of wind rushes through the room as the instructor barks out “one, two, three, four” over t
he music. Satisfied that Madame Simone has everything under control, Ms. Teppernat and Cheryl leave the ballroom to meet with the caterer.

  Then the large grandfather clock in the main entry begins to chime. My muscles tense, and I’m hoping, begging for it to stop at nine, but nope. It keeps chiming until it reaches twelve strokes. Something nags me about the clock. Why does it ring twelve strokes at random times and never at midnight?

  I’m also finding it hard to concentrate when Madame Simone yells out numbers and cuts her hand through the air like a knife.

  “Man,” Chet whispers. “She sure takes her job seriously.”

  “Box step!” Madame Simone shouts. “Box step!”

  “This lady missed her calling,” Chet says as we shuffle about. “She should’ve signed up for the military.”

  “Um—” I begin.

  The center of the ballroom shimmers like a heat wave over a lake. One by one, the flickering waves morph into forms. People! Soon ghosts pack the entire ballroom, swirling about in voluminous ball gowns and glittering gems.

  “Non!” Madame Simone frowns at Chet and me, jerking my mind back to our little dance group. “This is not the box step. This is not dancing.”

  “You’re right.” Chet lets go of me and crosses his arms. “This is so stupid. I don’t know what a box step is.”

  “You must make box with your feet,” Madame Simone says. She backs up and nearly bumps into two ghosts drinking from fluted glasses, laughing soundlessly. “Like so.”

  “How can you possibly focus when they are in the room?” I say.

  “Who’s in the room?” Bella says.

  “The ghosts!”

  This causes Madame Simone, Bella, and Chet to turn around and face the center of the ballroom.

  Madame Simone gasps.

  Bella shrieks.

  And Chet says, “Jumping crickets! It’s a room full of ghosts!”

  Madame Simone begins screaming hysterically and rattles off something in French as she races to collect her music player. The cord rips out of the wall as Madame Simone dashes out of the ballroom, still screaming.

  The moment she unplugs the music, the ghosts vanish.

  “What happened?” Bella says, clutching me. “Where did all of those ghosts go?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I say with a nervous laugh. “But look at the bright side—now we don’t have to have dancing class.”

  Chet grins. “I’m beginning to like these ghosts.”

  “Come on,” I say. “We need to go to the library and get some answers before anyone finds us and puts us to work.”

  * * *

  “Nothing here about a ghost,” Chet says, after reading through the section on Gabrielle d’Estrées in the Historical Annals of Chenonceau.

  The three of us huddle around the table in the library, where Chet has the book laid out for us to see.

  “That’s good, though,” I say. “It means the fairy tale I wrote isn’t actually real. It’s just a fairy tale.”

  “Wait.” Chet’s eyes grow larger as he reads on. “There’s more. It’s just hard to translate.”

  Then he takes a piece of paper and writes down some notes. Finally, he looks up and says, “So from what I can tell, over four hundred years ago, there was a duchess named Gabrielle d’Estrées.”

  “The girl in the painting!” Bella says.

  “Yeah. And she was in love with a prince who became the king of France. His name was”—Chet checks his notes—“Henry IV. There was a problem. The duchess had a stepsister. And she hated Gabrielle. Well, this is more like speculation than history.”

  “Oh, I love gossip!” Bella perches on the edge of her chair.

  “There’s a stepsister in this story?” A hollow emptiness guts my stomach.

  “Yep. But no one realized how jealous her stepsister was. Not even Gabrielle.” Chet holds his hands up like he’s really getting into the story. “Now, Gabrielle told her stepsister her deepest secret. The king had offered his hand in marriage.”

  Bella sighs. “How romantic.”

  “They decided to announce their engagement at a huge party to celebrate.”

  “Was it here?” I ask, not really wanting the answer.

  Chet scans through the Annals and nods.

  “By ‘party,’ do you mean a ball?” Bella says.

  “Right,” Chet says. “Ball. So the ball was here at Chenonceau where Henry and Gabrielle planned to announce their engagement to all of France.”

  “Why do I have a feeling something went wrong,” Bella says.

  “Yep, you’re right. Before the ball finished—”

  “The duchess died,” I interrupt. “The stepsister convinced the king to marry another, specifically herself. But the king, heartbroken, married someone else who he really didn’t love.”

  Chet studies me and then his notes. “Um, yeah. It was Marie de Médicis that he married. Not a happy marriage. And he did wear black after Gabrielle died. He was the first monarch to do that.”

  “So no one was happy and therefore there was no happily ever after,” I finish in a breathless whisper.

  Bella gawks at me. “This is exactly how your story goes, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.” I shuffle to the window and gaze into the lingering mist. My stomach won’t stop churning. “We have to do something, guys. I can’t just stand here knowing I was the cause of so many people’s unhappiness.”

  “Maybe this isn’t your fault,” Bella says. “What if you heard this story somewhere and you unintentionally wrote it. Like it was in your subconscious.”

  “No. This royal mess of a story is mine and it’s all my fault. Somehow I’m going to fix it. I have to make things right.”

  “So basically you think that Gabrielle d’Estrées was murdered? Maybe even by Marie de Médicis?” Chet says. “And their ghosts still haunt this castle today?”

  “That pretty much sums it up.” Shaking my head, I sag into one of the wingback chairs.

  “Hey, something else is interesting here.” Chet pulls out another book and starts thumbing through it. “This is the history of everyone who ever owned this castle.”

  “My mom would love that book,” I say.

  “According to this book, Monsieur Monteque has only owned this place for about four months.”

  “That’s not long ago,” I say. “It was after I won the contest.”

  We talk some more, but come up with no solutions. I sag against the back of my chair.

  “If we can fix all of this,” Bella says, “do you think your mom will let us stay for the ball?”

  “I don’t know if I can leave until I fix this mess. I can’t live with myself knowing I was the cause and still am the cause of people disappearing. Maybe even being murdered.”

  “There’s gotta be a way to solve this,” Chet says.

  “Maybe.” I sit straighter, a new idea forming in my mind. “There’s something we need to check out. Something Pegasus showed me.”

  Decision-Making Advice: If you think it’s a bad idea,

  then most likely it is.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Bella won’t stop biting her nails.

  “No,” I say. “But I don’t have a better one, either.”

  The three of us stare at the attic door, hesitating. This was the door I tried to open when the wolf cornered me in my fairy tale. Either it’s just a typical attic or it conceals a magical book like the one I saw when I flew on Pegasus.

  “Madame did say it was off-limits.” Chet hands me the key. “So my vote is to definitely check it out.”

  “I don’t know, guys,” Bella says. “What if the Wicked Witch of the West catches us?”

  “It’s going to be completely safe,” I say, trying to calm her. “But how about this. You stay here and watch the door. If anyone tries to come up, flick the light twice.”

  I slide the key into the keyhole. It fits perfectly. The lock snaps, and with little resistance, I’m able to turn the knob. The
door creaks as it opens, letting out a burst of stale air. The three of us peer up into the darkness. A small hallway covered in a thick layer of dust leads to a stairwell.

  My pulse quickens as I step inside and trail my hand across the wall, searching for a light switch. My hand slides over one and I switch it on. Two sconce lights flicker to life, their bulbs dusty and yellowed, reminding me of jack-o’-lanterns.

  “Good luck!” Bella squeaks as we head up the stairs. “Please don’t die.”

  “If the Wicked Witch walks by,” Chet warns, “just close the door. We don’t want her finding out that we’re up here.”

  This stairwell is identical to the two others below with two flights and a landing between them. Except this stairwell is wooden, unlike the others lined with carpet. The papered walls are deteriorated and holes are scratched into them, probably by mice.

  As I climb the stairs, I paw the air in front of me to make sure my path is cobweb-free. Strips of fallen wallpaper are in heaps on the stairs, and dust billows around me. At the landing’s crest, I hesitate. Would the ghost be standing there when I turn the corner? Goose bumps course up my arms.

  “You all right?” Chet asks.

  “Yeah. Fine.” But my quivering voice betrays me.

  I round the corner to find the upper flight of stairs, lit by a third sconce. No ghost here; only a large cobweb blocks my path.

  At the top is an entrance into another hall, this one smaller than the ones below. A large window faces out the front of the castle, allowing only a weak wedge of light inside due to dust and grime. Two doors open up into rooms on either side of the hall. I take the first one, while Chet checks out the other. The room is empty except for a fireplace and window. I move to the corner where the light had shown out of the turret that should’ve been attached to this room, but it’s just a wall.

  I sigh. There is no secret room. No book. No glittery golden light. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. But more likely, the room exists only in my fairy-tale realm. I rub my head. Everything is so confusing.

  “Keira!” Chet calls from the other room. “Come here!”

  Running, I cross the hall to join Chet. He holds up a pair of shoes for me.