Cindy and Ella (The Fairy Tale Twins)

Chapter 5: Cindy

It's not too often Merle is right. But this time she is. Our kingdom has been deluged with girls arriving from all the Younger Sons. Every inn-full. Every lodging house-full. Every spare room-full. It has become impossible to get a table at a restaurant, or get into shops without waiting in long lines. The streets are crammed with carriages, the walks with eager young women and their doting mothers. The chance to be queen of Percel is something every girl covets, the highest a woman can possibly rise in the Land of Seven Sons.

"Madness. Madness." Merle sits by a window in the sitting room, twisting her handkerchief in her hands. "He should have said only women of Percel." We can already hear droves of girls in the streets, gleefully heading out for another day of shopping.

Hear but not see. Merle has closed every drape in the house, shutting us into gloomy rooms, forcing us to rely on candles at breakfast, rather than morning light. It is shockingly depressing. She doesn't want anyone to "know we have space"-as if the girls are some sort of barbarian horde that will punch through our door with a battering ram.

And we DO have space! We have a spare bedroom we could be renting out right now! But Merle looked horrified when I brought this up, and Ella shushed me quickly. Sometimes I think she coddles Merle too much.

"This is a good thing." I wriggle my foot inside a small black boot. "These are customers! Our shop was packed yesterday, and we sold more books in one day than we sold last month. The entire month! We can start catching up on the rent, aren't you happy about that?"

Merle simply looks at me with her scared, blinky eyes. Of course, she's not happy. The only thing she can process is fear and bad news.

"Ready?" Jeremy stands by the front door, arms folded. Even his mood improved with the good sales yesterday. I've been working the front while he takes in deliveries and stocks the shelves, as Kellan suggested. At the very least, it keeps us civil to each other. I, for one, am loving the busy days and fast hours. Makes me feel productive and satisfied.

"Ella?" I call up the stairs from the entry hall. "We're leaving!"

I hear her voice-faintly-from our bedroom. "I'll be down."

"Ella will be down," I say to Merle, and Jeremy and I escape out the front door. I do feel bad, leaving Ella in a dark house all day. Her voice didn't sound too happy just now. But what can we do? Merle is not a rational creature.

On the walk, Jeremy gives a low whistle. "This is nuts."

I have to agree. This is like the winter holy days when all of Percel pours onto the streets to watch the parades. The paved walk has become a flowing current of girls, before us, behind us, beside us. Jeremy and I are just two more ants running with the colony. All headed to devour every crumb of the shopping district.

"We should have left earlier." I grab Jeremy's arm and walk faster, steering him through the crowd. I catch him eyeing the young women we pass, but not in a creepy way. More like curiosity.

"What does she think is wrong with them?" he says, more to himself than to me.

All right. One point for Jeremy. He's as baffled as I am about why Merle-and other Percelers-have such scorn for people from the Younger Sons. The girls we see look no different from girls of Percel, except for small things. Their clothing reflects the fashions of their realms and looks less costly. I'm not seeing much satin around me. They speak with the accents of their regions. Most of them wear their hair down-not up, like Percel women, who consider pinned-up hair the truest mark of refinement. And some of them do look downright poor, making me wonder how they managed to travel here. But I don't see any barbarians.