The Restless Girls Read online

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  That night, as they rowed across the lagoon, Frida draped her fingers in the dark water. She felt its cool quality, how its very touch cleansed her father’s anger and strengthened her resolve. They walked through the forest of silver, with Frida bringing up the rear. Making sure none of the others saw her, Frida quietly picked up a shining fallen leaf and slipped it into the pocket of her dressing gown. When they reached the forest of gold, Frida did the same again, scooping up a glowing twig, adding it to the silver leaf. And in the forest of diamonds, ensuring that she was the last to leave, she plucked one of the precious stones and dropped it in her pocket. It rested with the silver leaf and gold tree limb, cold and hard through the fabric of her gown.

  None of the other girls noticed a thing.

  That night in the tree palace, the lioness decided the time had come for Chessa to step up to the stage and take her moment.

  ‘Chessa,’ she announced, ‘you are our starriest singer, on this starriest night!’

  The other girls clapped and cheered, delighted that the lioness was finally going to hear their sister’s magical voice. Chessa, who had been waiting for this for weeks, bounded up, standing before the microphone as if it was the most comfortable place in the world.

  Even the shimmying bears in their sequin skirts – even the toucan waiters – stopped what they were doing to listen. A hush fell, and Chessa began to sing. Into the silence, her beautiful, entrancing voice rose up, spreading through the roots of the tree. It wove like invisible smoke into the ear, filling their hearts, bringing tears to eyes and smiles to whiskers.

  Oh, it was an evening none of them would ever forget. Chessa started with a song called ‘Laurelia, My Love’, a sad number which nevertheless had some strains of happiness to be heard in its major shifts, but her next number was a jumpy, jivey, madcap extravaganza with Michel the monkey on the saxophone that had everyone whooping out of their chairs on to the dance floor.

  Vita even taught the bears how to pirouette three times in a row without falling over. And every time Chessa thought her set was finished, trying to step away from the microphone in order to slug back a glass of elderflower fizz and reunite with her sisters, the leopard with his clarinet and the tabby cat on her trumpet would shout, ‘Come back and sing another!’ – and the ostrich threw her feathers at Chessa’s feet in adoration.

  The lioness, who had noticed Frida looking a little sad despite all this fun, sat down next to her.

  ‘Have you been thinking about what I said, Princess Frida?’ she asked in her low, warm voice. ‘Have you been thinking how to say goodbye?’

  ‘I never stop thinking about it,’ said Frida a little coldly. She felt the remnants she had taken from the three forests lodged inside the pocket of her dressing gown.

  ‘You’re angry with me,’ said the lioness.

  Frida didn’t dare admit it, but she could not help but speak a little of her mind. ‘But it’s so lovely down here, you see?’ she said. ‘My sisters are happy. Look at them dancing!’

  The lioness twisted her whiskers together and let them spring apart again. ‘Tree palace or no tree palace, you and your sisters have a capacity to be happy wherever you are, which is a very fortunate thing indeed.’

  ‘Our father –’ Frida began.

  ‘From what you’ve told me about your father,’ said the lioness, ‘he does not sound like a bad man. But he is a lost one. Parents can be tricky creatures.’ She smiled at Frida. ‘Or so I’ve heard.’

  ‘Here is the only place we can feel happy,’ said Frida, feeling stubborn.

  The lioness turned away from the chaos on the dance floor and placed a dinner-plate paw on Frida’s heart. ‘No, Frida, that’s not true,’ she said. ‘Look closer.’

  ‘He wants to know what we’re doing every night to make our shoes so worn out. He keeps summoning me, talking about the consequence. I’m scared what he’ll do if he finds out –’

  ‘Frida.’ The lioness pressed a little harder with her paw, and Frida felt suffused with such serene power, such warmth and contentment, such a sense of coming home.

  ‘I promise you, I understand,’ the lioness said. ‘But listen to me. Frida, trust yourself. You know exactly what you have to do.’

  ⋇

  The next morning, King Alberto summoned his eldest daughter yet again.

  He looked crazed. His hair was even more stuck out through the top of his crown, and he was waving a pair of Frida’s shoes on his hands. ‘Do these look like the shoes of a princess?’ he shouted.

  Frida had felt completely calm since her conversation with the lioness at the end of the previous evening. Her whispered words made circles in her head: Frida, trust yourself.

  ‘They look like the shoes of a woman with places to go,’ she said to her father.

  ‘Argh!’ King Alberto hurled the shoes across the room, where they struck the side of an adviser’s head with a leathery slap. ‘You have nowhere to go,’ her father cried. ‘And I made it so in order to protect you!’

  ‘You have let us rot inside this palace,’ she replied. ‘You’ve been so scared that we will die, as your queen has died, that you’ve tried to stop us living. You’re mad with grief and blind to your madness. It has been outrageous and unfair.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Then tell me your secret, and maybe I’ll give you some freedom.’

  She looked him in the eye. ‘I fear your idea of freedom is not the same as mine.’

  ‘Frida, as your king, I demand the secret.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Then, as your subject, I deny you.’

  ‘Then you give me no choice,’ her father roared.

  Frida knew that the consequence was coming.

  ‘Frida, I banish you!’

  She bowed her head. The air sang with a strange electricity. I banish you. Her father’s words washed over her, they drenched her skin with pain, but they did not unsteady her. She did not move, she did not speak. Banished: the word like a magic spell! Out of the corner of her eye, Frida could see the advisers, frozen in fear. From far off, she was certain she heard a lion’s cry.

  ‘Sire,’ said one of the advisers, stepping out of the shadows, clutching the hurled shoes. He cleared his throat. It was Clarence, the youngest of Alberto’s staff, a pair of shrewd eyes in that whippety-thin face. Despite his youth, Clarence looked exhausted, as if dealing with Alberto over the past weeks had done him in.

  ‘Princess Frida is – um, a great asset to Kalia, Your Majesty. Are you quite sure that this is a – er, a sensible thing to do?’

  ‘Be quiet!’ screamed Alberto. ‘Only weaklings change their minds! Frida, did you hear me? You’re banished!’

  Still Frida did not speak. The king stopped, catching his breath. ‘And hear this too,’ he went on, clambering out of his throne and pacing up and down. ‘Whosoever can solve the riddle of your sisters’ shoes shall inherit my kingdom, and choose any remaining girl for a wife.’

  ‘Sire!’ cried Clarence.

  But King Alberto was past listening to counsel. He pointed to the circle of gold resting on his hair. ‘And I shall place this crown on their head myself.’

  Again, Frida said nothing, her eyes fixed on the balls of dust around her father’s throne. The king’s own eyes widened as he circled round her. ‘Oh, you’ve nothing to say now, Frida? Thought not – it’s a miracle – Frida has nothing to say! This is my royal decree,’ he spat. ‘And once done, it cannot be undone. Didn’t you say I was the law?’

  At this, Frida looked up. She could feel the chill of the silver forest running through her veins and how the heat of the gold forest was turning the inside of her head to flames. She looked at her father, and her eyes flashed as hard as a pair of diamonds. Clarence shrank from her, and King Alberto looked frightened.

  ‘See how he would give away a daughter so thoughtlessly?’ she said. Her voice was strong and clear. ‘Never mind the kingdom. Of course it’s not sensible, Clarence. But when has my father ever don
e anything sensible?’ She drew herself up. ‘Father, you can banish me, but to marry one of my sisters to a man she does not love – that is beyond cruelty.’

  ‘My word is final!’ said King Alberto.

  Frida looked at him with a thoughtful expression she had borrowed from the lioness. ‘I see that you will never change the way you treat your daughters. It pains me. Perhaps you will live to regret it. But even after this, for as long as you call me daughter, I will never tell you the secret of our shoes.’

  Alberto climbed back up into his throne and thumped his fist on the arm. ‘Then I shall never call you daughter again!’

  Frida took her shoes from Clarence’s thin and trembling hands. ‘Then so it shall be,’ she said, and walked from the throne room without another word.

  ⋇

  Frida’s sisters were enjoying their hour in the palace grounds, still unaware of her predicament. She took a pouch of Kalian coins from the royal mint, and packed the meagre contents of her drawers into a suitcase as quickly as she could. She added the silver leaf, glittering with light, the gold branch that glowed like the sun, and the single diamond, hard and cold in her palm, plucked from her last visit to the underground world.

  When her sisters came back, they found a pale-faced Frida sitting on the edge of her bed, in a plain brown dress and the sort of coat that no one would ever suppose belonged to a princess.

  ‘Where on earth did you find that coat?’ asked Delilah.

  ‘And why do you have a suitcase?’ asked Mariella.

  ‘It’s Father, isn’t it?’ Agnes said.

  ‘It’s always Father,’ said Ariosta.

  Frida smiled sadly. ‘He’s realised that there’s another reason why our shoes are wearing out so quickly, and he wants to know what it is, of course. He wants to know about Saleem and the lioness, and the toucan waiters. He wants to know it all. But I won’t tell him any of it. So here’s the thing, my loves. He’s banished me.’

  A cry came up from the others, a sound of rage and sadness.

  ‘Banished?’ said Bellina, falling to the floor, wrapping her arms round Frida’s knees. ‘No, no, you can’t leave us, you can’t.’

  ‘You’ll be perfectly fine without me,’ said Frida.

  ‘We won’t,’ said Polina.

  ‘Where will you go?’ said Lorna.

  ‘How are you going to survive?’ asked Flora.

  ‘I was born to do more than survive. And so were you.’ Frida rummaged in her coat pocket and pulled out a key. ‘And guess what I’ve got.’

  ‘No. It can’t be,’ said Vita. ‘You naughty thing!’

  ‘The key to Mother’s motor car.’ Frida grinned. ‘If Father thinks I’m walking out of here, or riding a horse, he’s in for a surprise.’

  ‘I think you’re lucky,’ said Emelia. ‘You get to leave. You get true freedom, whilst the rest of us stay here.’

  The others were quiet at this, and Frida looked sombre. She thought about the terrible decree her father was going to make, how he would give one of his daughters away, and his kingdom too, to whichever man – it didn’t even matter who he was! – as long as he was first to uncover the secret. Emelia was right in that respect, Frida thought. By being banished from Kalia, a random marriage against her will was one fate she was definitely going to avoid. King Alberto was indeed a law unto himself; look at the way he treated even clever Clarence. Her sisters were going to have to be strong.

  Frida stood up. ‘I’m lucky in some ways, Emmy,’ she said. ‘But you’ll still have the tree palace. It will be there for as long as you need it. More importantly, you still have each other. And anyway, I’ve a suspicion that freedom is a bit of a slippery fish.’ She placed her hand on each of their hearts, one after the other, just as the lioness had done to her. ‘I swear to you, as I love each and every one of you, I will come back.’

  She scooped her suitcase off the bed. ‘I don’t know where I’m going, but I promise that I will work out how to free us all. In the meantime, you must never stop going down to the tree palace. Do you promise? You have to keep going, otherwise … well, otherwise it might just disappear.’

  ‘Disappear? How?’ asked Chessa.

  ‘If a tree palace doesn’t have its necessary guests, it might get forgotten. If you want to keep something alive, you have to turn up.’

  ‘We will,’ said Agnes. ‘We promise.’

  ‘There are going to be difficult times ahead,’ said Frida. ‘So cry if you feel like crying. Never hold in tears, it’s pointless. Then dry your eyes, look around you, think – think a bit more – then act. It’s time to stand on your own twenty-two feet, my loves, whether your shoes have holes in them or not. And if you can cross lagoons and heal foxes and find tree palaces, then you’re halfway there already.’

  She hugged each of her sisters tightly. ‘Will you tell the lioness that I understand now, and that I said goodbye?’

  Before the princesses could ask Frida what she meant, she had gripped her suitcase handle and walked out of the bedroom with her head held high. She took a left, then a right towards the staircase that led to the palace garages.

  The royal mechanic, who’d heard about the banishment and assumed she was there under her father’s orders, opened the garage door for her. Frida revved her mother’s engine so loudly that the mice that had been happily nesting in the passenger seat, for several generations by now, squeaked in terror, jumped out en masse and dived inside an empty petrol can.

  Her sisters, who, as you will recall, had no window in their room, couldn’t even watch her go.

  Frida drove along the coastal road out of Lago Puera, the salt wind billowing her loose hair, the sun on her back, both palaces diminishing with every revolution of Laurelia’s wheels. Who knew that standing up to her father would give her the freedom she’d so desired? That part had been easy in the end, but it didn’t make it any easier to leave.

  The truth was, Frida’s feelings were complicated.

  Look at this sunshine – this should have been a glorious moment, something she’d longed for, for years! But how could she be happy knowing her sisters were at the mercy of their father’s ridiculous decree?

  Frida sighed, set her eyes on the road and knew that she would never dance in the tree palace again. The lioness had known this day would come well before Frida had. But the tree palace had not completely disappeared. It was inside Frida now, a paw print pressure, a hot coal memory stoking her fire. And her sisters would still go dancing. They must; it was all they had. They would think of something to protect their secret, and so would she.

  A few more turns of the wheels, and the motor car dipped over the brow of a hill.

  Frida honked her horn at the last of the Kalian seagulls,

  and with that, the eldest princess crossed the city border,

  and was gone.

  Six

  Delilah and the Dormidon

  Meanwhile, back at the palace, King Alberto printed his ridiculous decree one thousand times. It looked like this:

  ROYAL DECREE

  ATTENTION, SUBJECTS:

  BE THE MAN WHO SOLVES THE SECRET OF THE SHOES!

  INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF KALIA AND MARRY A PRINCESS

  (I’VE GOT ELEVEN: YOU CAN CHOOSE)

  Interested candidates: please register at the main palace door by Tuesday morning

  By order of HRH King Alberto of the Kingly Kingdom of Kalia

  Signed: Alberto Rex

  One thousand decrees were glued fast to shop windows and café doors, and further afield, on farmers’ gates. The kingdom and its princesses were up for grabs, and King Alberto wanted everyone to know. Some of the decrees came unstuck, and I like to think of them being blown by the sea winds far beyond the city, along the coast road, up over the hills and on to the mountain passes. I also like to think that one found its way into Frida’s hands. One can only imagine her feelings on seeing her father’s stupidity, proved in print.

  By Tuesday, a long line of applicants appeared ou
tside the palace door. Men of all ages and abilities came to try their luck in solving the mystery of the princesses’ shoes. They arrived from every corner of the kingdom, far beyond the city of Lago Puera, from the borderlands, from the mountains, from the sand dune towns. Some women came too, but to their intense annoyance, the palace guards told them to leave.

  The men formed an orderly queue, flexing their muscles at each other and boasting about which girl they’d pick out of the remaining eleven. They set up tents, and market traders came to sell them lunch, and street entertainers came to take their money. None of these men had much idea what was actually going to be asked of them once they were inside the palace walls. They just knew it was something about shoes, so it was going to be easy.

  Clarence, the whippety-thin adviser, slipped behind one of the black drapes over the throne room window and watched the circus gather. He thought King Alberto had lost his mind. Princess Frida had been right – what sort of method was this to find the future king of Kalia? Alberto had ordered that a camp bed be set up outside the girls’ room for a man to sleep on. Rightly anticipating a high level of interest, he’d decreed that each man would be allowed one night only to solve the mystery.

  Clarence put his face in his hands and hoped for a miracle.

  The eleven remaining sisters, who had been allowed into the throne room as these events unfolded, watched miserably from another window. Bellina threw a walnut and snickered as it bounced off a man’s head.

  ‘I don’t care if these men are princes or paupers; I don’t want any of them,’ said Ariosta.

  ‘This is awful,’ said Lorna. ‘I feel sick. I miss Frida so much.’

  ‘Frida said she’d come back and save us, and I believe her,’ said Agnes.