Ashes to Ashes

  Ashes to Ashes

  A. Lonergan

  Copyright © 2020 by A. Lonergan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by A. Lonergan

  To the girls that have been told they are “too much”. The girls that have been told they are too loud. Too bossy. Too bright.

  You are perfect. You are vibrant in a world full of dull society standards. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t have the nerve to do anything. This is for you.

  One

  Arabella

  No adventure.

  No fun.

  No anything.

  What was I supposed to do with myself?

  All I did was lessons and focus on my etiquette. I loathed etiquette. I hated studying and all I wanted was an out. I wished for it daily in the ballroom that had made all of the magic happen for my mother twenty years ago.

  Twenty long years ago.

  She obviously didn't remember sneaking out and attending a ball she wasn't permitted to go to. But here I was, being trapped just like she had been. Even though I knew very little about their love story, I knew I couldn't be kept away from my dreams the same way they had been. I unfolded my skirts from around my ankles and stood up. The ballroom was magical especially when the sun went down, but it had never done me any favors. I scrunched my nose in disgust as the sun shone through the massive floor to ceiling stained glass window across from me. As the sun continued its descent, the light from it caught in the chandelier and dispersed all over the white marble floors. It rained little rainbows all over the room as it continued to move. I lifted my skirts into my fist and marched from the wretched room. My heels clicked on the delicate tiles and I knew I was pushing my luck with my family if they found out, but I no longer cared. Gone were the days of caring about their thoughts now that they didn't care about mine.

  I laughed to myself. Had they ever cared about mine?

  As servants passed me in the hallways, they all bowed. The pristine hallways were furnished with tapestries down every wall to show my grandfather's conquests and my mother and father's love story. Though the story seemed very basic.

  I inwardly gagged. Love story? More like one night of fun. I smirked, the things I would do for one night of fun. Hadn't my parents learned anything? Anything at all from what they had gone through being trapped?

  A young servant boy lifted his eyes from the floor and smirked back at me. I abruptly stopped and turned to him. His expression fell as my eyebrow raised. "What is so funny?"

  "Nothing, Princess. You looked amused, is all." His hands trembled in front of him as he tried to calm my raging temper.

  I cocked my head. "I am never amused, I am never happy, and I am tired of all of you. You are dismissed!" I turned on my heel and marched toward my bedroom. Anywhere to get away from the watchful eyes that never left me. But I knew, even in the privacy of my bedroom, I wasn't safe either. My mother had eyes in the walls. Her little mice and birds were everywhere.

  Disgusting vermin.

  I kicked the door shut behind me, and my heel made a cracking noise. I groaned and inspected the damage there. Sure enough, my heel had snapped right off of my shoe. I ripped the cheap thing off of my foot and chucked it out of the window. The sparkles caught the light as it soared through the air. I narrowed my eyes.

  I heard someone shout, but it wasn't as angry as it had been the first time I had done it. I had managed to hit someone that time. But still, no reaction was raised from my mother or my father. They continued to sweet talk me and try to convince me to treat others the way I would like to be treated.

  I rolled my eyes for the millionth time. How was I supposed to treat anyone the way I wanted to be treated? I had never been treated the way I wanted to be treated in my entire life. I wanted freedom for Fairy Godmother's sake! That's all I had ever wanted. I wanted to be invisible and slip through the castle and never look back. I wanted a life like the lives lived in all the books hidden under my plush violet mattress. The books I had been forbidden to read, but I had gotten my hands on anyway. I threw myself onto the lumpy mattress and kicked the other shoe across the room and waited for the satisfying thud of it hitting the door. Except there was no thud. I opened my eyes and groaned again.

  The very last person I had ever wanted to see was watching me from the doorway. She raised her blonde, perfect eyebrows at me. "That could have been my face."

  "Well," I started. "It wasn't, so there's that."

  Cinderella was as graceful as she was beautiful as she glided into my bedroom. Did she even touch the ground? With that kind of grace, one could only imagine that she would float across the floor. It would also explain why there was marble in the ballroom. If you didn't touch the floor you didn't need to worry about ruining it with your shoes.

  "You almost hit the gardener a minute ago," my mother said. Her voice was just as beautiful and perfect as the rest of her.

  "The gardener should know better, by now, to not stand outside of my window, especially when I am angry." I sat up and crossed my arms over my chest for extra defiance.

  She looked up at the pristine white ceiling and sighed. One of her curls escaped its bounds and bounced against her porcelain neck. "You're always angry."

  "Huh, then he should really know better by now." I pinched my lips together.

  "He's only doing his job, Arabella. You know this." My mother pulled the chair out of its place at my vanity and perched on it like a dove. The most beautiful dove the world had ever seen.

  "He can find another job, no one is making him stay here." This was the closest I had gotten to defying my mother in person. I did a lot of passive-aggressive things and tortured the servants, but I had never openly, to her face, defied her rule.

  She didn't even raise her voice at me. Did she not have an angry bone in her body? Where did I get my anger from then? It couldn't be Father. He never seemed to be angry either. "Arabella, what do you want from me?"

  Maybe I should have openly defied her sooner. "Uhh," Wh
ere did I start? I had a lot of complaints. "I want more freedom."

  I squeezed my eyes shut as if that simple request would make her explode right there. My breathing picked up in anticipation and my heart was sure to beat right from my chest, but I waited. The waiting seemed to go on for an eternity before she chuckled.

  "I don't see why that can't be arranged."

  I exhaled hard. There was no way it had been that easy.

  "I didn't realize that was what was keeping our relationship so strained. You can visit the garden and other places in the castle when you please. No one is keeping you inside the castle walls. You are more than welcome to explore our home. I thought you knew this." I opened my eyes and scowled. Not what was I was looking for. She gave me a small smile, an oblivious smile. An oblivious attitude toward the torment I was experiencing. Was she really that dense?

  I shook my head. "No, I want out. I want to go out of the castle walls. I want to go to the market. I want to taste the foods. I want to be free."

  Her perfect alabaster skin started to turn. It went from being the perfect color to being stained like someone had dumped a goblet of wine over her head. As for her eyebrows, I had never seen them crease in the middle before. But here they were. Creased. I wondered how she would freak out when she made it back to her wing of the castle. Did she have a special routine she would dive into to prevent wrinkles from setting in?

  "I don't understand." Her words were slow and deliberate.

  I let out a laugh much against my mother's comfort. "Of course you don't! You have enjoyed being trapped within these walls for two decades. Since when have you wanted an escape from your perfect life? Since when have you needed an out? Never, because all you wanted was an in! And you got it!"

  She blinked at me a few times, and her skin lost the pink sheen. "That can't be done. You are a princess, Arabella Charming. Freedom doesn't come for the likes of you. The world is a dangerous place, I would know. You wouldn't like the world once you found yourself in it."

  "How could you possibly know what danger looks like? You're perfect! How could you possibly know what I would and wouldn't like? I have grown up being bounced around from nanny to nanny! Then when I became too old for a nanny, I was bounced to my poor handmaidens!"

  My mother stood from her perch, smoothed the wrinkles from her lilac gown, and regarded me with pity in her eyes. "You have no idea what I went through because we have never told you the horrors that villagers can invoke. I escaped for a reason. Don't you ever forget that. As for your nannies, you could have made their lives easier. They did everything you could have possibly asked for. You are the reason you bounced around them. They couldn't stand how much you hate the world around you. You will be dining in your bedroom tonight. I will have Beatrice and Daphne bring your food up."

  I grinned, though it was very much forced. My lip twitched to find a snarl, but I kept it under control. If she knew just how defiant I was she would have me under lock and key. I needed time to formulate a plan to escape.

  As if she read my thoughts, she turned at the door. "People aren't always as they seem. I went to a great deal to escape my family to be here with our new family."

  What had happened to the old family? The gears in my mind started turning. Of course there was a story, and if I could find it, then I could find some kind of freedom.

  Two

  Arabella

  I looked down at the leather pack in my hands. There was no way I could actually runaway, was there? I slumped against the wall. I didn't have much time if I was going to make a run for it. I had been studying the guard's control tower for years, waiting for the day I would gain enough courage to leave this wretched prison. I had watched the walls with more interest than anyone else. It did no use though, there would be no way for me to escape. I couldn't possibly climb over the wall.

  A thought popped into my head. A grin spread across my face as I remembered when Beatrice had been caught with a boy. She hadn't brought my dinner that night so I had gone looking for her. I noticed the foot under the bed just before it was concealed by a pillow. Now as I thought back on it I felt somewhat guilty. Guilty that I had blackmailed her on how her beau had gotten into the castle. She had spilled all of her secrets and supplied me with as many books as I wanted. Somehow after all of that, we had become friends. Though I still didn't trust her. I had a feeling she knew what I was up to.

  I looked down at myself and frowned. I was hardly ready to run away. All I kept were heels and running across the grass in heels wasn't exactly ideal. Barefoot it would have to be which I didn't mind, I was pretty fast without the stupid contraptions holding me back. I had cut my dress short around my knees, then wrapped a plain cloak around my shoulders to hide the disgrace of my dress.

  "Yes, of course! Thank you so much for standing guard, but you are released from your duties for the night." Prince Charming's voice boomed through my bedroom doors.

  Uh, oh.

  I threw the cloak and pack under the bed, and myself under the cloud of blankets piled high on my fourposter bed. I tucked the top blanket under my chin and blinked my eyes a few times as the door opened.

  "Hello, Princess," he whispered as the door creaked open. I hadn't fooled with the lights, knowing I would be gone soon. It did nothing but give me a disadvantage now. My father's voice sounded cheery, but his face told all of his secrets. "Are you sleeping? I'm sorry if I woke you."

  I rolled over and tried to keep my dress as covered as possible. It was one of my plainest gowns and the bottom was sheared off. I was supposed to be sleeping too. I turned the little switch for my lamp and gave my father a sheepish smile. "I was just dozing off."

  "I know you and your mother haven't exactly seen eye to eye as of late and maybe I need to cut in to fix all of this." Leave it to my father to feel like he's responsible for all of our problems. It was a group effort that he somehow managed to blame himself for. It was what my grandfather did best, too. "Your mother only wants what's best for you."

  I had heard that line a million times. Fairy Godmother help me. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my face from the expression starting to take root there. "Yes, I know."

  "You don't know what she went through at the hands of her family."

  I cut him off. "So I keep hearing. But when am I going to learn what really happened?"

  "When you're ready to learn of heartbreak."

  I scowled. How was I supposed to learn of heartbreak if I wasn't allowed to do anything? They thought they were teaching me the correct way.

  "What are you really here for?" I asked after a few moments when it was evident he wasn't going anywhere. His brow creased with sadness.

  "In a few week's time, you will need to marry," my father started. I knew exactly what this was about. "You can't ascend the throne without a husband and the time has come to start looking. Do you have any criteria you would like to be met when we get the other kingdoms involved?"

  I shook my head. This was a joke, right? How could I have any kind of checklist when I had no idea if I even wanted to rule? "I don't have any. Choose the best dressed and the most handsome. That should do."

  Father perked up like what I had said was a good thing. It was anything but. He smiled his dazzling smile and turned to leave. Right, because everyone wanted their daughters to be superficial. "I am overjoyed that you are proactive with your future."

  "More proactive than you think." I muttered, but he was already gone.

  * * *

  Beatrice, one of my handmaidens, brushed my hair out for me. The long blonde locks fell well beyond my butt and past the cushion on the chair I was seated on.

  I had chickened out.

  I was a royal chicken. I had stood on the window ledge and looked at the ground a few feet below me, just to take a step back and fall to my bottom. A knock at the door had sounded a few seconds later and all I could do was throw the pack under the bed, and mutter a "one second!" Beatrice was waiting with hot cocoa and cookies. She looke
d delighted like I would spill all the details of the prince I most certainly wasn't dreaming about.

  Her little brown brows had furrowed in the middle as she took at my attire, the dress I had hidden from my father. She would never betray me, even if she was suspicious over my outerwear. Her eyes narrowed.

  "Are you going somewhere, Miss?" she asked as she set her silver tray on the corner of the bed. The movement caused the hot cocoa to splash over the mug's rim and soak the cookies. She muttered a curse.

  I shook my head. "Not likely. Though, I have thought of it."

  Beatrice gave me a wistful look. "Are you hoping to meet someone?"

  I supposed it wouldn't hurt to give her a little something. Something to keep her giggling and quiet with my parents. I bit my lip nervously. "There has been this boy."

  She blinked her big blue eyes at me. "Tell me everything!"

  So, I had lied. I had lied like I had never lied before, and oddly, it felt wonderful. Wonderful to give her an inside scoop on my life that wasn't exactly my life. It was the life I wished I could live. The life of naughtiness and romance. But romance was not for princesses like me. Duty was for girls like me. It was nice to dream for a second.