This Enchanting New World

Chapter 16

"I thought Auradon was the land of opportunity, where you could be whatever you want to be. But instead, the exact opposite is happening to me," I pondered aloud in disappointment.

Calahan looked at me with a weary shake of his head, his ice-blue eyes seeming to melt.

"You can't be anything more than what you are," he whispered, hopeless resignation in his grating voice.

I slung an arm around him, wearing a rueful grin and a sharp glint in my eyes, which were like smoky quartz in shadow.

"But what if I can?," I drawled with a wink, arching my dark eyebrows like my mother.

He went red as hellfire, quickly squirming out of my tattooed arm, even as he blushed from his forehead to his chin.

I snatched my poncho back with a start and trudged out the door.

Next on my schedule, printed in gold leaf and regal calligraphy, was lunch.

I let out a deep sigh of equal sadness, relief, and wonderment.

Lunch in Auradon.

No more baskets of spiders, buckets of pond scum, slime, and rot at Ursula's Fish and Chips!

No more mealy apples, crusty barley oatmeal, and black-like-your-soul coffee filled with raw toads at the Slop Shop!

There might even be sugar, which, as a VK, was beyond my wildest dreams.

I raced into the dining hall with a sudden burst of energy and motivation.

Suddenly I stopped in my tracks.

Laid out in perfect arrangements on perfectly smooth satin tablecloths, seeming, at least to a girl from the Isle, to stretch on into infinity, as far as the eye could see, were creme brulee, fluffy and buttery pastries, petit fours, and strawberry souffles, accented by crystal glasses of sparkling water and silver trays and spoons.

I gave a gasp of delight, jumping up and down in thrill and elation.

Now this was what I had imagined life in Auradon would be like!

I eagerly grabbed huge piles of everything in the spread and set them on a tray, taking the time to pick up a glass of the sparkling water and examine it. (Was it actually real crystal?!)

"Clarissa!," I heard a familiar voice call. 

I craned my neck over the buffet line, searching for my old friend amidst the clumps of people all throughout the cafeteria.

Finally my shaded amber eyes rested on a table in the farthest corner of the room, next to a marble-edged window, where Dizzy and Daughter Gothel were sharing hairstyling and hair dyeing tips. I took a seat, setting my full-to-the-brim tray on the table.

"Isn't this AMAZING? Oh my GOD!," Dizzy let out a squeal of excitement, and Goth joined in, leaping for joy.

"Any other day," Goth said, doing a patronizing but impeccable impression of me, "and you would have claimed that taking enough food to stuff your face 'wasn't befitting of a future queen.'"

Dizzy giggled.

I immediately wanted to crawl into a hole, or worse, to put a spell on them right there. How could they laugh, even if they did know what I knew?

I tilted my chin up so I wouldn't have to meet their eyes and so they wouldn't see how mine were misting like a plume of smoke.

"Because I'm not the future queen!," I finally snapped, letting out something between a gasp for air and the cry of a wounded animal.

Tortured vindictiveness dripped out of my voice in waves. 

Dizzy and Goth stopped in their tracks.

I felt as if the polished, perfect floor was crumbling underneath me.

I felt as if a crack were appearing in the stone walls around me, and when it came into view, a thousand others appeared. And the foundation I'd so carefully built over time was beginning to fall.

And when your foundation begins to fall, everything else all comes crashing down.