The Red Queen's Daughter: Book One

Chapter 3

I wake up to a knock on my door and the screech of my name. Could mother have a higher voice?

I hear a shudder in my closet. Oh no. If I don't let mother in, I'll get a good slap in the face, but if I let her in, the subjects are dead. Literally. I'm gonna go with the first one. But I have been working out a plan to get the subjects out of here. And me. My bedroom window is high off the ground, I mean HIGH off the ground. I'm in the highest room in the entire castle. Im about 1,000 feet off the ground. Yeah, it's a REALLY big castle.

I let my mother bang on the door and splinter her fingers until I get all the subjects out.

"I need you to be very, very quiet. I have to figure out how to get 200 scarves, since most of the scarves I've seen in my closet are 5 feet long, and we are 1000 feet off the ground, so, yeah, I don't know how that will work out..." I tell them. They nod. Geez, they nod at everything. They probably have practice at having to agree with my mother constantly.

I take all of the scarves out of my closet. I have 10 scarves. That leaves 190 to go. This is a pathetic amount compared to 200. "Do you guys have any scarves? It'll help with your escape." I ask them. A woman hands over 2, a man 1, and another woman 1. 14 scarves. Still pathetic.

I realize I haven't wrapped up my ankle, it really hurts. I sit on my bed and wrap up my right ankle in a lavender wrap. I dyed it myself a while ago...

I tell the subjects to get in the closet again. I silently open my door. No Red Queen. I slip down the stairs and a hallway. I knock on the door that holds all of the Red Maids. A small woman comes to the door, a smile spreads on her face, she must've been told that I was nice. Nice enough to save some subjects. She invites me in, I gladly step in. I'm allowed to walk around the castle, but I can't let mother see me.

"Welcome Nicole," she says. Apparently my name got out, too. The maids are getting ready to go out and clean the rooms of the other subjects of the Red Court. I take a seat. My royal blue dress takes a seat on the floor. My dresses never match anything in this castle.

"I need to get the subjects out of here, I can't let my mother know I'm keeping them in my room, and they need to stay safe, I have plans to get as many scarves as I can, tie them up, and climb out my window." I say. OK, it sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud. The maids notice it because all 12 of them are laughing. My face floods with the color red, my most hated color. I can feel it on my face. "Nicole, you do not have to go to extremes, honey! Listen, I'm going to be going out and planting white roses today for the subjects to paint, and since I'm going to be taking out giant bags of soil, I can sneak the subjects behind them. Now send them down here, and we'll take care of it." one says. I hope I can trust them, because I agree.

After I've lead down the subjects, I look out my window, searching for the subjects and the Maids. I soon see 1, 3, then all them. They're safe. But I forgot one thing, I want to paint the roses.

***

I grab one of my paint brushes from my art kit. And I steal a can of blue and violet paint from the paint room. It's from when the White Queen, my aunt, still lived here. When her sister and her still got along. From when my mother was... Nice. My mother was blue. And my aunt was purple.

I want to show my mother that she should bring her past back to life, and she should be kind again. I look for any Red Maids. Nope, I don't see any. I hurry to where the Maids have planted new white flowers. They look so beautiful. I smell the flowers. They don't smell of paint, but they smell pure. I don't want to paint these, but they've inspired me. I'm going to visit the White Castle.