Ella Enchanted - By Gail Carson Levine Page 0,44

for me to take them both, but I didn't understand. I only reached for one, and the other fell. In the moment before the crash, I mourned the loss of such a beautiful thing.

But there was no crash. The slipper didn't break. I picked it up and tapped on it. The sound was of a fingernail on glass.

"Try them on."

They fit exactly. I held my feet out for Char to see.

"Stand up."

"They'll crack for certain if I do." I could barely stay seated because of the command.

"Perhaps not."

I stood. I took a step. The slippers bent with me. I turned to Char in wonder.

Then I was aware again of the sounds of the orchestra far below. I took a gliding step. I twirled.

He bowed. "The young lady must not dance alone."

I had danced only at school with other pupils or our mistresses for partners.

He put his hand on my waist, and my heart began to pound, a rougher rhythm than the music. I held my skirt. Our free hands met. His felt warm and comforting and unsettling and bewildering -- all at once.

Then we were off, Char naming each dance: a gavotte, a slow sarabande, a courante, an allemande.

We danced as long as the orchestra played. Once, between dances, he asked if I wanted to return to the celebration. "Won't they be looking for you?"

"Perhaps." Hattie and Olive would wonder where I was. Father and Mum Olga wouldn't care. But I couldn't go back. Lucinda might still be there. "Do you want to?"

"No. I only came to see you." He added, "To be sure you arrived home safely."

"Quite safely. Sir Stephan guarded me well, and the giants took excellent care of me. Did you catch more ogres?"

"szah, suSS fyng mOOng psySSahbuSS." ("Yes, and they were delicious.") I laughed. His accent was atrocious.

He shrugged ruefully. "They laughed too and never listened to me. Bertram was the best; they obeyed him half the time."

The music started again, a stately pavane. We could still talk while performing the steps.

"A fairy gave my father and my new mother an unusual gift." I described it.

"What do you think of such a present?"

"I shouldn't like to be under a spell to love someone."

Thinking of Father's scheme to marry me off, I said, "Sometimes people are forced into wedlock. If they must marry, perhaps it's better if they must love."

He frowned. "Do you think so? I don't."

I spoke without considering. "It doesn't matter for you. You can marry anyone."

"And you cannot?"

I blushed, furious with myself for almost giving the curse away. "I suppose I can," I muttered. "We're both too young to marry, in any case."

"Are we?" He grinned. "I'm older than you are."

"I am then," I said defiantly. "And the fairy's gift was horrid. I would hate to have to love someone."

"I agree. Love shouldn't be dictated."

"Nothing should be dictated!" An idiotic remark to a future king, but I was thinking of Lucinda.

He answered seriously. "As little as possible."

When the orchestra finished, we sat together on the bench and watched the sky darken slowly.

Sometimes we talked, and sometimes we were silent. He told me more about hunting for ogres. Then he said he was leaving again in two days to spend a year in the court of Ayortha.

"A year!" I knew that the future rulers of Ayortha and Kyrria always spent long periods in each other's courts. The practice had preserved peace for two hundred years. But why now?

He smiled at my dismay. "Father says it's time. I'll write to you. You shall know all my doings. Will you write to me in return?"

"Yes, but I'll have no doings, or few. I shall invent, and you'll have to decide what is real."

The noise of horses and carnage wheels reached us from below, signifying the end of the celebration. I went to a window and looked down. Father and Mum Olga were saying farewell to their guests while Hattie and Olive stood by.

Lucinda was at Mum Olga's side.

"The fairy's still here," I said. "Standing at the bride's side."

Char joined me. "Perhaps she means to monitor the effects of her gift."

"Would she? Do you think so?"

"I don't know." He saw my face. "I can tell her to go. She would hardly like a prince for an enemy."

"Don't!" A prince would trouble Lucinda not a whit, and a squirrel prince would trouble her even less. "Let's just watch."

After several more guests departed, Lucinda kissed Father and Mum Olga on the forehead. Then she raised her arms and lifted her