The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Faerie Tale Collection) Read Free

definitely new from the night before. Colleen, the lady’s maid, applied ointment to their feet every morning, and each time, she tsked at the foolishness of the girls, scolding them gently for lying to their father and treating him in such a way.
    Dread began to fill her heart. They were not lying, nor attempting to hide anything from their father. What was happening? Though she tried to remain calm and treat this occurrence as if it were nothing, it was fearsome. Dearly so. Something had been happening every night for the past two months, something they could not explain, and it was time it stopped.
    She was grateful her father was finally listening and trusting their word that there was a mystery here. And they were not actually sneaking about, but sleeping when it occurred. It took several hours over many days of Abigail, Beatrice, and herself coaxing him to believe them before he finally caved in and agreed to see if he could call in help. This was the only reason he was having the proclamation announced to the surrounding lands—he could not bear to see his daughters’ fear, if indeed something was really going on.
    Not only was it costing him quite a bit of the palace funds to supply them with shoes every day, but their feet were becoming more unsightly and grotesque each morning. Already great calluses had begun to form upon them all. But if, her sisters pointed out, they were aware of the experience of dancing and just whom—or what—they were dancing with, and where, such feet would be worth having. However, since there was no recollection of any kind, it simply was not fair!
    Casey wiggled her red feet before rolling her stockings back up her legs and putting her walking boots on. Her hands shook slightly as she walked over and placed the worn slippers into the bin. In about thirty minutes, the cobbler would be there to fit them all with new shoes. And then tonight, she would fall asleep all over again, and find herself with sore feet and ruined slippers in the morning. No matter how hard she tried, she could not stay awake to find out what happened; none of them were able to. It was as if they were cursed to dance or something.
    Yet, who would do such a thing to them? And why?

CHAPTER THREE
    “YOU FOOL BOY! ARE you mad?” Mr. Smoot, the head gardener, asked Aleck after supper that evening. He had pulled Aleck back and pinned him against the wall when Aleck was on his way up to his room above the stables. The gardener’s large hand clutched a fistful of Aleck’s shirt. “You will get us all dismissed with your actions, and yet you continue to smile in your smug way.”
    There was no doubt in Aleck’s mind of what he was speaking. It was obvious he still remembered the exchange with Princess Cascadia that morning. “She approached me. What would you have me do, ignore her?”
    “You should not have been walking with her upon your arm like that, as you well know! What would the king say?”
    Aleck had no desire to find out. “She was distraught and asking for my help.”
    “Sounds to me like she needs to be asking for aid from her own kind and leaving my workers alone!”
    “Leave off the lad, Smoot. Or I will turn you in for disorderly conduct,” said the stable manager, Hallen, as he rounded the corner.
    “M—me?” sputtered Mr. Smoot, releasing Aleck’s shirt. “You would turn me in when clearly this boy’s flirtations could be the ruin of us all?”
    Hallen shrugged. “What does it signify if the girl is sweet on him? We have all seen the way she looks at him. There is nothing any of us can do about it if she continues to pursue him like this. It is the way of the world. The lad can no more ignore her than you could, lest he be removed from his station.” Hallen looked Aleck over from head to toe. “A fine specimen of a man he is, and all. Why, any young lady would turn sweet on the lad.”
    Aleck nodded his head as a thank-you gesture, but wanted to be anywhere than where he was right