Part of Your World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,82
happened? So he can go back to searching?"
Oops. Of course she had to let Eric know what had happened. She was so consumed with her own failure she had entirely forgotten the prince—who had a whole kmgdom restmg on the fate of Ursula. TJioughtless, Ariel.
"Oh, yes.. .But I don't know how to let him know. I can't get near the castle." "I can," Jona volunteered.
"That's right, you can! Hmm..." She took off the leather strap she had been wearing on her wrist, the one with the little golden bail that once held the nautilus. Then she tossed it into the air and touched her comb, using the power of the trident to summon and affix something to the end.
"Here." She threw the necklace to Jona. "Give this to him. He'll understand. And now...I have to return to Atlantica and face everyone."
"You won't do it alone," Flounder promised, patting her with a fm.
He paced the castle anxiously, waiting for—something. Some kind of word. Everything, the last few years of his tortured life, could be resolved in the next few hours if she succeeded! And if not... ... Well, if not, we '11 deal with it.
He was so deep in his thoughts he slammed, head-on, mto Carlotta.
"Egads! Sorry!" Eric extricated himself from the folds of cloth and aprons and clothes she was carrying.
"It's all right," Carlotta said, patting herself down as best she could with one hand and fixing her little hat. "I was just coming to do the princess's linens." "You? Isn't that one of the younger maids' jobs? Maria, or Lalia, or one of those younger girls?"
"Well"—Carlotta bit her lip—"it takes a special touch to, er, tuck m the edges properly and.. .poke around a bit, you know...." Eric gave her a severe look. "Carlotta, is the entire downstairs staff m league together on something?"
"No," she answered primly, refolding a pillowcase expertly over her arm. "That's why I'm the one fussing about the prmcess's room, and not someone as can't be trusted."
The prince sighed. "I don't know whether to be relieved or annoyed that you're involved. I suppose I'll tell you as straight as I can: Grimsby will get into serious trouble if he's caught helpmg out, erz foreign powers. So far I've heard nothing about you."
Carlotta growled and put her hands on her hips, pushing her chest into the prince's. "Why, that low-down, dim-...so-and-so\ She threatened Mr. Grimsby? How much more can she get away with? Prince Eric, it's not my place, but Tirulia is a modern country. We will not be subject to the policies and habits of such arcane despots! You must reveal her to the public as the beast she isT
"Er..." He looked side to side desperately for an escape. She had him pressed practically against the wall.
"And also that she is a murderer, " Carlotta whispered, raising her eyebrows suggestively.
"Carlotta, hush, you're talking about Princess Vanessa. That's treason. And besides, she couldn't have done it. Her powers don't work—uh, I mean, the Ibrian just seemed to have died"'
"She's a clever little sea princess," the maid said. "Do you think she might not be working on ways around her...limitations? That she hasn't found some? Perhaps, Your Highness, you haven't been following her latest hobbies." She gestured with her chin out the window. "Although many noble ladies do garden, I suppose—there's nothing unusual in that. And now, I really must make the lady's bed before the lady threatens me with something or other." And with that she flounced off.
Eric looked out the window she had indicated, at the neat rows of flowers before the willow grove. Everything looked normal, if a little dull smce his grandmother had grown too frail to keep taking a personal hand in h seaside garden.
Then, squinting, he saw a patch that looked different from the rest. Freshly turned, and irregularly planted.
He leapt downstairs as fast as he could and ran outside.
The fact that there was an entirely new, if tinv, garden on castle grounds that Eric hadn't heard anything about was... disheartening. It was just one more detail that cemented Eric's flailing, ignorant, and useless place m own castle. His grandmother would have known about it immediately. Would have been told the moment the gardeners started spendmg their time on anything besides her heirloom roses and exotic perennials.
The plants growing m this new patch were not roses—though they did more or less fall into the category' of exotic perennial. Eric studied the leaves and little identifying tags.