Ever After Read Free Page A

was a gas lamp and
fireflies that were dancing over the inky water.
    The princess
tried to catch a firefly in her hands and leaned too far over the
edge, almost capsizing the boat. He saved her from falling over.
She smiled her thanks, but he was not pleased. He scolded her for
her foolishness, his eyes full of terror at the thought of what
could have happened.
    No one except
her parents had ever spoken to her so sternly. No one had ever
dared. She knew then looking into his angry face that she loved
him.
    He saw the love
shimmering in her eyes and answered it by giving her a long sweet
kiss. Her first ever kiss. He said he loved her too.
    After that the
princess changed. She no longer cared about breaking her promise to
her father. She no longer recalled her role as the princess of the
great snowcapped mountains. She even forgot about propriety with
duties to fulfil and decorum to maintain. All she wanted was to
spend her time with him. To feel his arms around her shoulders and
hear him speak about faraway lands, strange rituals and feasts, and
about a world that existed beyond her father’s lands.
    After months of
courtship the day finally came when he gently tilted her chin up
and told her he had to return home.
    The words
pierced her heart like sharp little darts.
    He kissed her
tears away. He told her that she was the most beautiful creature he
had ever seen. He couldn’t believe she had chosen him, a commoner,
to love. He leaned forward and grabbed her hands and held it near
his chest.
    The world stood
still … waiting ….
    "Will you marry
me?" he whispered feverishly. "I will do everything to keep you
happy."
    The princess's
throat was too full of happiness to speak, so she simply nodded in
reply.
    ***
    She rushed home
thrilled and bursting with news. She dashed to her father and told
him about the proposal. She skipped up her mother and repeated it
all. She told her maids, she told the cooks, and when she had
finished telling every single person in the palace about her
wedding plans, she told the walls, the furniture and even her
wardrobe hooks.
    She laughed and
sang and her voice rang with happiness around the palace walls.
    The king's
moustache wilted at the news and he immediately called a meeting
with his wise council and the young ministers. As for the queen,
the moment she heard her daughter out, sixteen wrinkles appeared on
her smooth, shiny skin. She grabbed her poodles and retreated into
her meditation room.
    When her
parents had finally consulted with wise men, astrological charts,
seers and middle class housewives with oodles of common sense, they
turned to their daughter.
    "No," the king
said.
    "Oh, never,"
the queen agreed.
    "The man," they
chanted together, "is a stranger."
    "Not wealthy,"
the king said.
    "Not royal,"
the queen added.
    "His blood is
of question," the king continued.
    "What if it is
yellow and not blue," the queen agreed.
    "His ancestors,
what of them?" the king demanded.
    "They could be
monkeys," the queen said, "or god forbid … giraffes."
    "His kind heart
is treasure enough," the princess cried. "He may not be royal, but
his love is true. He makes me wonderfully happy."
    The king
grunted in response. "The council says you must not do this. You
cannot break tradition. A princess must marry a prince and no
other. It will reflect badly upon the subjects and cause a
revolution. We must uphold the old system and continue as we are,
or one day I shall no longer be king."
    The queen
gasped in horror at this pronouncement.
    "Senile old
turtles," the princess growled, "what do they know?"
    "That is
exactly what the young ministers said, “the king continued, "but
they went on to add that without a prior memorandum of
understanding between the two parties and then a period of official
courting followed by a contract at least three hundred and four
feet long, how can you think of marrying him? They
disapproved."
    "But I love
him," the princess whispered.
    "A few months
of coochie coos with a