When I was eight years old, I hacked off my hair with a knife. I thought it would form a smooth cap around my head and I would look fierce and intimidating. That would be better than beautiful.
Instead, without any weight to hold it down, my hair was “free to do its worst.” (Rosalin again. On the subject of my hair, she was practically a poet.) My parents wouldn’t let me leave the castle until the ball of frizz around my head had grown long enough to be tied back. By the time it did, I felt like I wanted to tear every strand out by its roots.
And now I was going to be trapped within these walls for a lot longer than that.
Or maybe a lot less. Depending on how much food and water we had.
The thought of food made my stomach rumble, which strengthened my decision to go to the kitchen. I smoothed the front of my dress and pushed my hair back from my face. I knew that if I looked in the mirror again, I would see doubt written all over my tear-streaked face.
So I didn’t look. I lifted my chin and headed out the door.
The kitchen was deserted.
The oven was unlit, and baskets were stacked neatly on the shelves. Pots hung clean and shiny from the ceiling near the walls. On the table sat a tower of cake, white and pink and silver layers, with an elaborate design of flowers coiling around its side.
Rosalin’s sixteenth-birthday cake. Frozen in time, just like everything else in the castle.
There had been some fuss over this cake. The pastry chef had refused to make it on the day of Rosalin’s party, as my mother had ordered. He had insisted on making it early, and then it had been so big there was nowhere to keep it, and the cook had insisted that it was in her way “and blocks my view and is going to topple over at any second!” There had been a fight between them, which had resulted in the cook “accidentally” mixing cumin into the cinnamon right before the chef baked five dozen trays of cinnamon cookies.
My mother had said it was a bad idea to have a celebration in the first place. Everyone knew that the fairy curse was supposed to take effect on Rosalin’s sixteenth birthday. “It would be best,” my mother had said, “for us to pass the day in quiet watchfulness.”
My father had disagreed.
“There is not a single spinning wheel in our kingdom. Rosalin is safe. We are celebrating not just our daughter’s birthday, but our triumph over the curse.”
His voice, deep and rumbly, was clear in my mind. It was one of the few clear things. My memories felt murky, like I was seeing them from underwater. And no wonder: a hundred years had passed since the chef had fought with the cook and my father made his boast. I hadn’t grown or changed for one second of those hundred years. The cake looked as fresh and moist as if it had been baked yesterday. But my mind somehow sensed that everything I remembered was ancient news. That around us, outside this castle, everything had changed.
All because of Rosalin and her stupid curse. My life had always revolved around her. And the curse wasn’t over: we were still trapped; we still had to be afraid. All because of her spell. She’d gone and pricked her finger on a spinning wheel, despite knowing her entire life that she shouldn’t go anywhere near a spinning wheel, and now everything was ruined and she didn’t even care.
Ignore my sister. Easy for Rosalin to say, when she knew that everyone would. That she would still be the center of everything, the one everyone tried to protect, even though our entire situation was her fault to begin with.
I crossed the empty kitchen to the cake. Sugar crunched under my feet. The cake smelled like buttercream with a tinge of lemon. The frosting coiled in delicate spirals, with roses so realistic that there were fake drops of sugared dew on their petals. It really was a masterpiece.
A pointless masterpiece. We had nothing to celebrate.
I plucked a rose off the side of the cake and bit into it. It was thin and brittle, with a sugary crunch. I swallowed it whole, then plunged my hand into the side of the middle tier, through the elegant whirls of frosting, and came out with a fistful of moist yellow cake. I stuffed it into my mouth and reached for another.
The first chunk was delicious, an explosion of richness in my mouth. It was even slightly warm, like it had recently come out of the oven. The second chunk tasted salty. That was when I realized I was crying.
I reached for another handful of cake, but instead of eating it, I threw it across the room. It splattered against a clay jug and slid slowly to the floor.
“Whoa,” someone said.
I spun around.
A boy I had never seen before stood in the kitchen doorway. His eyes were wide and his face was dirty. His brown hair was slightly shaggy. His face, his hair, and his clothes were liberally dusted with flour. He must have been one of the kitchen boys.
I felt a blush creep up my face and shook the remnants of cake off my hand. Crumbs scattered on the floor, but the frosting stuck to my fingers.
“Sorry,” the boy said. His mouth was curved up on one side, like he was trying not to laugh. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
I was almost happy that he was making fun of me. Anger felt better than embarrassment. “You’re not interrupting me. I’m done.”
“Really?” he said. “Aren’t you going to topple the cake?”
I had been about to do that, though I hadn’t realized it until he said it. I responded in my
