The Secret of the Seven Princesses

For the first time in many years, silence filled the bedchamber of the seven princesses of Kyoria. The only sounds as they prepared for bed were those of whispering fabrics being pulled off or on. Thaleia adjusted her nightshirt, settling the soft grey material over her hips, before sitting on the edge of her bed to slide her feet out of her customary riding boots. Though most of her sisters preferred the soft satin of walking slippers, Thaleia found that leather shoes were more practical for the activities that she enjoyed—like horseback riding.

She rose from where she sat and went over to join her sisters, who were queuing up single-file at the washbasin. There would be no toothbrush duels that night, as each princess was allotted five minutes at the basin to brush, floss and wash before bed. Thaleia could not help but feel at a loss with the newly organized schedule—a first for all of them. Under the circumstances, however, she felt that the sacrifice was minimal compared to what they would gain if Callia's plan panned out.

Shelving her toothbrush after her turn, Thaleia returned to her bed and began to dismantle her hairstyle. No matter how tight her ponytail was to begin with, the sheer amount of activity and exercise that filled her day never failed to loosen the band holding her dark auburn hair together. She winced as she pulled the brush through the unruly strands, painfully forcing them straight. After several minutes of futile brushing, Thaleia finally admitted defeat and simply pulled her hair back once more into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck.

Settling back against the pillows, Thaleia glanced around the room to check the progress of her sisters. Many of them seemed very close to being finished as well, and only Eurielle still stood at the washbasin. Callia sat on the edge of her bed re-plaiting her hair. Petra was kneeling on the floor, pushing something further under her bed. Both Eralie and Cliodne were leaning against their pillows with the covers pulled up around them. Raia stood at the foot of her bed, looking uncertainly between the princesses. She opened her mouth, breaking the silence for the first time: "When should we—"

"Shhh!" six voices admonished her.

Thaleia glanced at the entrance before lowering her voice to a whisper, "Not here. Not yet. Wait."

As if on cue, Valeria's customary knock sounded on the door. Eurielle shrieked slightly before leaping into bed. The other princesses scrambled into place as well, pulling up the covers just as the door opened.

Thaleia held her breath as Valeria visited each of their beds, tucking them in and wishing them goodnight. She tuned out the housekeeper's babble by running over their plan in her mind. Within minutes, the door had closed and locked behind Valeria once again and the room was plunged into darkness. Still, no one moved. Thaleia took a deep breath and slowly counted to one hundred before silently sitting up in bed. A light flickered on at the other end of the room, casting an eerie glare on everyone's faces. Petra's features were particularly distorted from the glare of her lantern.

Thaleia leaned over and reached under her bed, pulling out a basket. The wicker container was filled with a jumble of items, everything from her spare hairbrush to one of her father's fencing swords (which Petra had happily filched at her request). Thaleia dug to the very bottom and pulled out her own lantern. In the work of a moment, another light had joined Petra's.

The princesses gathered in a circle around the rug which hid the trapdoor. All of them were carrying at least one basket filled with items that they felt were necessary to bring with them. Petra had no less than three bundles, one of which Thaleia knew was filled with torches to light the passageway leading to the secret chamber. Many of the items filling the packages were familiar, as they had been used countless nights as props for the bedtime stories.

With a quick motion, Cliodne kicked the rug beneath her foot, revealing the hardwood beneath. This time, only Raia shivered when the handle magically appeared. Despite the fact that they all knew what was underneath, no one seemed to want to open the door. After a moment, Thaleia finally gritted her teeth and dropped her basket to grab the cool metal. The wind emanating from the opening seemed to whisper in her ears, lifting her ponytail almost gently off her neck.

Petra moved to descend the staircase, but was stopped by a hushed hiss from Callia. "Wait! Where's Eurielle?"

Muffled snoring answered their question. Thaleia rolled her eyes, then waved her sisters along. "I'll wake her. You go ahead and place the torches. We'll meet you in the chamber."

Cliodne nodded before following Petra down the stairs. The other sisters followed, their footsteps getting fainter. Leaving her basket on the floor beside the trapdoor, Thaleia crept over to Eurielle's bedside. She smiled at her sister's figure under the covers but reached out a hand to shake her shoulder. Eurielle murmured in her sleep but did not awake. Thaleia reached out her other hand and shook with both hands, but with no more success than before. Sighing in exasperation, she took Eurielle's bedcovers in both hands and ripped them off the bed, exposing her youngest sister to the cool night air.

Awaking at the sudden chill, Eurielle squealed and bolted upright, tumbling off the bed in her haste to get up. Thaleia replaced Eurielle's covers and offered a hand to help her up.

"Grab your stuff and let's go. The others have already gone ahead."

Eurielle yawned and nodded. She reached into a dresser drawer to pull out a bundle wrapped in a lace shawl. Thaleia picked up her basket with one arm, holding the lantern with the other. Within moments, the two princesses were hurrying along the newly lit passageway, straining their eyes and ears for any hint of the others. Not until they were almost to the doorway into the chamber did they hear anything. The sounds of their sisters' voices were muffled, indicating that they had already reached the vast room that was their intended destination.

Pulling open the door, Thaleia was once again blown away by the sheer magnificence of the chamber. Her sisters were already hard at work, each girl designated a different task to prepare. Petra was traveling between each of the smaller chambers, dropping off certain items from her sacks—spare brushes, sashes, snacks, jugs, etc. Eralie was going to the doorways, draping each door opening with the signature color of one of the princesses. Raia knelt on the platform with a paintbrush in one hand and black paint in the other. In seemingly random places, she would mark a large black "X" on the floor. Callia hovered near the edge of the platform with a yardstick, measuring the edge and making notations in her journal. Cliodne lurked at the back of the room with the pile of miscellaneous items that each sister had brought. Picking up each one in turn, she organized them into a series of five or six piles.

Joining in the bustle, Thaleia and Eurielle deposited their packs near Cliodne and began to empty them into the larger pile. Several of the items, however, were put aside to be placed into their respective 'dressing rooms'. As Petra had brought plenty of brushes for everyone, Thaleia let her extra be mixed in with the rest of the supplies, along with spare matches, lantern oil, scissors, and bed sheets. Not willing to let the precious sword out of her sight, she quickly buckled it around her waist using twine from the pile.

After weeding out the supplies in her basket, Thaleia quickly dropped it off near the doorway where Eralie had hung a grey satin sheet. She then began moving the purple armchairs from their positions. Originally placed rather haphazardly around the room, they were soon arranged in several short rows facing the platform where Raia and Callia were still working.

All of the princesses seemed to complete their tasks within seconds of each other, and were soon gathered in a circle in the middle of the chamber, looking around to admire their work. Cliodne checked the length of her candle; though the room was filled with light from the sconces and the chandelier, the flame remained lit to serve as a temporary timepiece.

"That took less than half an hour! Okay, everyone get ready and we'll meet in front of the stage in about five minutes!"

There was a flurry of fabric as everyone rushed into different doorways. Thaleia disappeared behind her grey sheet and stopped dead in her tracks at the difference that Eralie made in a matter of minutes. Whereas the room had been completely empty the night before, it was now transformed into a makeshift dressing room. Eralie had placed a simple folding chair in a corner. The chair faced a silver backed mirror leaning against the far wall. The mirror barely reached her waist, so that she had to bend down to check her reflection.

Two precious minutes gone, Thaleia quickly spun and grabbed the pair of pants that Eralie had placed over the chair. Obviously, her character would be male—again. With any luck, Callia would assign her a thrilling fight scene against Petra; she had nothing against Eurielle as an adversary, of course, but Petra was certainly more skilled with a sword. There were several nights she could remember where the villain of their story—Petra—had come very close to triumphing.

Slipping on the pants, Thaleia glanced down at herself. She had a feeling that Petra had filched the pants from a stable boy, as they carried a strong scent of manure. They were also at least two sizes too big. Holding them up with one hand, she rummaged into her basket for the twine that she had used to attach her sword. She unrolled a long piece of twine, tearing it off with her teeth. Tying it around her waist, she critically surveyed the outcome. Combined with her rather plain nightshirt, she supposed she could have easily passed for a farmhand.

Thaleia glanced around the room for her shoes, nearly overlooking the corner in which they were haphazardly thrown. She shoved her bare feet into the rather rough leather and stood. Her feet immediately began sliding around. Rolling her eyes, Thaleia took the edge of her nightshirt and tore two long strips off of the end. She shoved the cloth into the toes of her shoes to fill the extra space.

Ignoring the mirror against the wall, she grabbed a hand mirror from her basket and surveyed her reflection. Below the neck, she certainly looked more like a boy than a girl, but above the neck was a different story. Thaleia rubbed her hands against the wall and then her face, feeling a thin line of dirt smudge her cheeks. That would have to do for now. There was nothing that she could really do about her hair, which was untamable no matter what she did.

Brushing aside the fabric hanging over the doorway, Thaleia returned to the chamber. She quickly noted that she was neither the first one out, nor the last. Raia, Cliodne and Callia apparently had not needed to change their appearance beyond an extra accessory or two. Petra, of course, was a master at changing quickly. Thaleia was pleased to see her dressed in the guise of a pirate, with shiny black boots and an eye patch.

Within moments, the other two had joined them. With pants and shirt, Eurielle was dressed almost exactly like Thaleia. Eralie had donned a simple day dress in place of her nightgown, and was holding a fancy-looking piece of fabric over one arm. She lightly tossed it to Thaleia, who had to stretch to the right to catch it.

"Here," Eralie explained, "I forgot to leave this in your room. It's the other half of your costume."

Thaleia held up the piece and immediately recognized it as her father's favorite vest. There were still slight stains on the shoulders from one of their many dinner-time food fights. She quickly slipped it on over her nightshirt and then wiped the dirt off of her face using the back of her hand. Obviously, she would not be playing a servant, but nobility of some kind. After all, only the upper-class wore vests at all, let alone such an elaborately-ugly one as the vest she had donned.

All of the sisters turned to Callia for explanations as to their allotted costumes. For the first time, the princesses would not be improvising a story, but acting out one that had already been written—the one that had appeared in the paper earlier that day. Thaleia felt rather excited to actually wear a full costume to get in character, though she was also slightly nervous that the entire fate of her fictional character was in the hands of someone else.

Callia wordlessly handed each of them a piece of paper. Upon first glance, Thaleia saw that they were cutouts from the newspaper story, with a few written additions along the sides in Callia's handwriting. Skimming through hers, Thaleia quickly jumped up on the stage to take her place at the 'X' furthest from the front, as was indicated. As soon as everyone had taken their places, Callia stepped forward to address them all.

"Okay, you all have your roles and the basic idea of my storyline; the dialogue and blocking is completely up to you—"

"Blocking?" Eurielle interrupted, bewildered.

Cliodne explained the term. "How you move around the stage."

"Just make sure you don't get too near the edge," Raia chimed in, "I'm still looking for the perfect material to make a curtain for us. If you see anything around the castle that is a rather heavy fabric, preferably a dark color in velvet, let me know. Or better yet, let Petra know!" Petra grinned, her hazel eyes twinkling.

Thaleia looked at Callia again. "Aren't you going to act? You know the story better than any of us—"

"Which is why I'll be narrating. And observing. Watching you guys will be a great way for me to watch for holes in the plot or the characters. Even though it was published and everything, I still think it's missing something."

All of the princesses nodded in understanding. And under the glow of the sconces and the flickering of scenic gemstones, the story began.

A/N: As always, reviews are much appreciated and highly valued. Everyone needs validation every now and then, and we're no different. We love your input and constructive criticism, and need to know if it's worth it to continue posting? So just press that little button in the left-hand corner there…yes, that's it, go ahead and press it. Thank you!