Part of Your World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,23

themselves, the men and women with the money.. .and though he was a true Bretlandian butler who rarely let his feelings show, Ariel watched him trying not to disapprove of it all with his clear and tired eyes. He moved like a shepherd of comb jellies, trying to urge them through a foreign school of quick-swimming minnows, neither affected nor scared by them, only vaguely concerned.

Ariel found herself holding the skirts of her dress tightly, almost like a timid girl.

She wished she could go to him. In his own way, Grimsby had been extraordinarily kind to her m her short time on land. Gently guiding when she did the wrong thing, leading silently by example rather than chastising

She wanted to grab him, to pull him aside and find out what was wrong. Why did he seem upset? What had changed? Did it have to do with all the activity m the castle?

But.. .even if she did manage to get him alone.. .they couldn't talk.

She couldn't talk.

And she highly doubted he could understand a sign language based on an ancient and, to him, foreign language.

She watched Grimsby go, his exit immediately camouflaged by skirts and jackets, scurrying and bustlmg, and felt something tighten within her. They could have meant something to each other, had things worked out differently.

She took a deep breath, willing the knot in her heart to go away.

The Queen of the Sea had a mission. She had come to find her father. Anything else she would deal with later, if at all. For now, she had to figure out where her father was being kept.

Think logically, she reminded herself. The gulls had told her that they'd seen Ursula getting dressed, primping, while talking with Triton. With a feeling of nausea she faced the obvious: as Vanessa, the sea witch was married to Eric. The two would either be sharing the same room or adjoining apartments in the royal tower. Ariel knew where that was.

She straightened up, held her linens out, and marched forward, trying to set her face mto the blank stare of a maid. It was easier than it would have been the first time she had come on land, when she had no cause to do anything aside from stare around with wide eyes, drinking in the strange world and its gomgs-on. She had never even considered trying to blend in before; there was no strange or different in the world of the mer. It never occurred to her that people would notice or not like her if she stuck out and acted odd.

She brushed aside this slow-moving slipper shell of a thought to another corner of her mind, and wondered if there was a possibility of catching another glimpse of Eric.

The stairs were a little tricky—"up" was a strange movement for her still-new legs and feet—and she made it as far as the first hallway before she was discovered.

"Hey, you! Who are you? You're not supposed to be upstairs!"

It wasn't one of the now-multitudinous soldiers; it was a rather pretty but shark-eyed maid. Ariel didn't react; she just stood there, unsure what to do. She couldn't even make up an excuse for bemg there—or at least make it be understood.

The maid grabbed a passing guard. He didn't seem to have any interest in either one of them and tried to continue his rounds, but the maid sort of shook him at Ariel. "Hey! She's not supposed to be up here. She could be a spy!" The guard grunted in displeasure but started toward Ariel. The Queen of the Sea dropped her laundry and ran.

Ariel wondered vaguely how her new legs would react to this new situation.

Just fine, apparently.

She ducked between footmen, dodged through couples, threw herself around corners. There was a second stairway she remembered, toward the back of the residency tower, which the chambermaids used. The one she probably should have chosen to begin with. She put a hand out to the sandstone wall to stead}- herself as she began her first descent with new legs. The firmness and familiarity of the rock gave her courage. She urged her feet down the steps like ceremonial dolphins pulling her golden chariot in a circuit race.

"Halt!" came a voice from behind her—along with the sound of polished boots striking stone.

Ariel panicked and practically fell onto the landing. She wasted a moment trying to decide whether to continue down another narrow flight to the sub-basement where the wine cellars were, along with another exit to the outside.