Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [24]
She clawed it away, frantic …
… and found herself sitting up in her bed in the Seadowns’ manor.
Her heart was racing and her nightgown was plastered to her back with sweat, but she couldn’t relax until she was certain that it had only been a dream. A nightmare, more like. She shoved aside the bedclothes and stumbled to the window, fumbling with the curtains to peer out the window.
There was the moon. She wasn’t underground in that dark realm. She sagged against the windowsill, and her breath came out in sobs.
Poppy had nightmares quite frequently, but she had never shared them with anyone. She knew her family would find it alarming that tough, devil-may-care Poppy would still be haunted by the Midnight Balls. Only two of her sisters had confessed to having nightmares about it: Pansy, who had been the most traumatized by their curse, and Orchid, who had been prone to night terrors anyway.
But this had not been like any other nightmare. Everything was so real: the feel of the gown, the floor under her feet, the music. Was it only because she was in a strange house, far from her family? Or was there something … wrong?
Putting on her dressing gown, Poppy went downstairs to make a cup of tea. She had just put her foot on the top stair when she heard a noise from farther down the corridor.
“Hello?” She was embarrassed to hear that her voice shook. “Who’s there?”
There was a scuffling noise, and the sweat that still dampened the back of Poppy’s nightgown froze. Stepping away from the stairs, she held her long nightgown away from her feet with one hand and carefully made a fist with the other, as Galen and Heinrich had taught her. She didn’t want to break any fingers when she punched the intruder.
“I said, ‘Hello?’” She was pleased that her voice was firmer now.
There was a faint cough, and then someone stepped into the light of one of the candles.
It was Ellen, and she was covered in black soot. Poppy stared at her in astonishment. Had she tried to sweep out one of the chimneys herself?
“What in heaven’s name have you been doing?” Poppy only remembered to whisper at the last moment. They were just a few yards from the Seadowns’ bedchamber.
“Nothing,” Ellen said, but a mysterious smile crept onto her black-smeared face.
Poppy had had enough. First the nightmare, now Ellen wandering around in the night, shedding cinders on the carpets and acting as though she had some wonderful secret. The princess dragged Ellen down the hall into her room.
“Whatever do you think you’re doing?” Poppy found it hard to berate the girl in a whisper, but she made do. “The Seadowns take you in, give you a job when no one else would, offer you gowns to attend the royal balls, and you—you—” She threw her hands in the air and then tried again. “You still break everything you touch, scorch the ironing—and why was there sand in my pillowcase last night? Is it really that hard to be a maid?” She stared at Ellen by the light of the candles she had lit in her room to chase away the shadows of the nightmare.
Ellen gazed down at the filthy toes of her shoes, peeping out from her sooty hem. When she at last looked at Poppy, instead of being ashamed or even sulky, her face was blazing with rage. Poppy took a step back in shock.
“Yes!” Ellen spat the word at Poppy. “Yes, it is that hard to be a maid, as you would know if you had ever lifted your little finger to do one simple thing for yourself, Your Highness!’ She sneered as she said the other girl’s title. “Do you know how to make up a featherbed? To iron lace? To serve milady’s tea just so?” Ellen was panting with the force of her emotions.
“N-no,” Poppy stammered, still taken aback. “Well, I do know how to serve tea without breaking the—,” she began, but Ellen interrupted her.
“And do you know what’s it like to feel a tray of heirloom china leap from your hands and crash to the floor? To feel the iron suddenly go red hot even though it’s not