22. Turning Spindles
22
Turning Spindles
ALMA
Freja slips into her chair at the long conference table as though she hasn’t shaken the very core of the monarchy. She’s wearing a vintage wrap dress and a satisfied look on her face. Even her skin has a faint tan. Freja regrets nothing.
I kiss her cheek as I pass, and she squeezes the hand I rest on her shoulder. Noah is early, as he always is.
“Welcome home,” he tells her. “You look well.”
Caroline takes Freja’s heavy coat, bearing it off to a cloakroom, and I watch Noah’s hand cup the back of his neck. His eyes slide away from our sister, idly following the secretary as she departs. Freja has unsettled us all.
When Caroline returns, she lays agendas at each place, reaching around us as she goes. Noah frowns as Caroline leans over his shoulder, straightening the packet with a snap, and allowing for her quick retreat.
Okay? I ask.
It’s nothing. His eyes scan my face. You?
I nod. Nothing.
He slides a small tin of hard candy across the table, and I catch it. Wild berry. My favorite.
It was just the two of us before the twins showed up and demanded the lion’s share of attention. By nature, we’re both workhorses, putting our heads down and getting on with our public roles. Of course, his definition of that has stretched to include nosy magazine profiles titled “Crown Princess Roulette” next to thumbnail-sized photos of an entire page of models he’s taken out in the last year.
My brother knows how discrete I’ve been. He knows this flurry of speculation and gossip about my wedding is my worst nightmare. He knows that when I nod and pretend like it’s nothing, it’s something.
With a smile, I pop a small candy into my mouth. Thanks.
Clara appears, swinging her leather portfolio. She hugs Freja from the back, kissing her face over and over. Smiling, Freja peels her off. When our youngest sister slips into her chair, I pass her the keys to Max’s cottage. “Thank you. I really needed that.”
“Anytime.”
“Why is there a flotation fob on the keys to a house?” I ask.
“You never know when you’ll fall in the water.” She looks impossibly innocent.
Père and Ella arrive at the same time, and Père’s effusive greeting—pulling Freja into his arms, calling her donnina , and kissing her cheeks—provides cover for Ella’s pointed silence. I absorb these details and feel the strange sensation of wanting to share them with someone.
My cheeks flush with the specificity of the feeling. I want to share them with Jacob. I grip a pen by both ends, rolling it in my fingers, trying to erase the thought. Jacob isn’t family.
Even my family doesn’t get my whole self. Noah gets the piece of me that speaks honestly about my mother. My younger sisters get the piece that comforts and cajoles them into accepting the limits of our lives. Père receives the slice of Alma who can enjoy the present moment. Mama takes the piece who considers the future.
Any given thought can be shopped around to half a dozen people, but I don’t want to shop with Jacob. I want to give him the keys to my mind palace and have him poke around wherever he likes, slipping records out of their sleeves, digging through the leftovers in the kitchen, stretching out on the sofa and pulling me against him—
The pen clatters from my fingertips.
Mama enters, and I scramble to my feet.
“Good morning.” She glances down the table, and we take our seats again. “I’m pleased to see everyone gathered for this news. I met with Prime Minister Torbald yesterday,” she begins. “He informs me that following the state visit next month, a bill will be introduced in Parliament to strip Freja from the succession.”
She drops this information and Ella leaps from her chair. “That slug-faced vailys. He can’t—”
Mama silences and seats her with a raised hand. “He can, and he will.”
“It’s only a number,” Freja says, but her lips are pale. “It’s not like I would be run out of the family. It’s just that you won’t be able to give me throw pillows and hats with the number 4 printed on them. I could pass them on to Clara.”
“Don’t,” Clara snaps. Our littlest sister is the only one whose position in the line of succession would move up. Her eyes shine with unshed tears, and I bet she’s biting the inside of her cheek—a habit she’s trying to break.
Noah tents his fingers on a notebook. “The prime minister is flexing his muscles because we represent a threat to his power. If he wins, this move could easily lead to more substantial acts of aggression.” He glances at Freja. “Does your position matter to you?”
Her smile wobbles. “I spent months trading on my title to get citizens of Sondmark into The National Museum last year. Being Her Royal Highness Princess Freja has some definite perks.”
“Freja, do take this seriously,” I say, wondering how she can look so calm about the prospect of her entire identity being ripped away.
Ella is merely outraged, her emotions simple and smooth. “Perks? You call the privileges and requirements of our life perks ?” Mama raises a hand, but Ella raises her voice, too far gone to stop. “We serve the people of Sondmark. That’s the deal our stupid, short-sighted ancestors made when they took the crown. The people need us to anchor this country so some blowhard whipping up popular sentiment doesn’t push us into the ocean.”
She begins slapping the table, pounding out a rhythm, her words a freight train. “We wear the clothes and the tiaras and contract loveless marriages and barely eat the food because we’re here to serve. The perks don’t matter. The duty does. Otherwise, this is all a racket.”
The room echoes with her explosive fury. Have any of us escaped without shrapnel wounds? Not me. Mama contracted one of those loveless marriages. I have too.
“That’s enough,” Mama commands, lifting her voice. Ella flops into her seat, and Mama pins her with a look. “Comport yourself. Now,” she pivots, “my office will work to mitigate the consequences of this hasty marriage…”
For the remainder of the meeting, family peace is a group project. We fill one another’s gaps, we answer when we’re spoken to. Even Ella accepts her list of engagements with none of her usual protests, likely a silent message to her twin. See? I’m being royal.
As soon as Mama concludes the meeting, Ella darts away, and Freja watches her go with a sigh, her mouth set. When Caroline returns the coat, Freja digs into her bag. “You’re invited to our house party,” she says, passing around envelopes.
I slip my finger under the wax seal, drawing the card from the envelope.
“Freja—” I gasp.
“Oskar did them,” she beams. In a pair of exquisite miniature portraits, the newlyweds face one another in separate gilded frames. But what might have been a stiff, formal arrangement is made endearing by his arm reaching out of his frame to hand her a cookie.
“It says, “Plus one.” Clara holds up her card. She looks around the room. “We’re not invited all together…we’re invited as separate people. Like, I am a person, and I can bring whomever I want to?”
Mama’s displeasure electrifies the air.
“Yes.” Freja’s answer is blithe. We say she never notices undercurrents, but maybe it’s more accurate to say she doesn’t care about them. “We can’t fit very many people into our flat, so it will be some of Oskar’s aunties and uncles, my immediate family, and their special guests.” She smiles at Clara as she adds this last bit.
“Let me RSVP right now. I’m bringing Max.”
Mama clears her throat—as though Max is an unfortunately situated piece of chicken she can’t dislodge. “Is it safe?” she asks, running her fingers over the uneven surface of Freja’s scrolling calligraphy and Oskar’s hand-painted art. “We won’t fall through the floor?”
“We’ll weigh the guests at the door,” Freja replies.
Mama gives a cool smile. “Your father and I are honored to be your guests.”
Freja nods. “Excellent. Oh, Mama. His Majesty King Giles extends his warmth and greetings.”
“When did you see Uncle Giles?” I breathe.
“On our honeymoon. Mama suggested a visit since we were so close.”
“Pavieau?” Père shouts. “You sent our daughter to Pavieau?”
Our father grips Freja’s hand, but we are all in a similar state of shock. The only place we ever meet Père’s family is in Switzerland, carefully away from the spotlight.
The cords of Mama’s neck tighten. “It was merely a suggestion.” She swallows and strides off, Caroline in her wake.
Awkward silence grips the room, and then Père stalks toward Mama’s office.
Clara watches him go. It’s a topic too serious to gossip lightly about, and when she returns to the subject of the party, we follow. “You aren’t going to bring a Chanel model, Noah. You can’t.”
He bops her on the head with his invitation. “Who said I was?”
She slips out of his reach and gathers her things. “You should bring Caroline. She’s practically family.”
In a blink, he goes from teasing big brother to our future king. “I will not bring Vrouw Tiele. She has her own life beyond being at our mother’s beck and call.”
Karl has been practically vibrating in her presence these last weeks—like a Venus flytrap waiting for the soft brush of an insect’s wing—and I stifle a laugh. “That’s for sure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps. He shakes his head. “Forget it.”
My family disperses and I tap out a message on my phone.
Where are you?
In seconds, Jacob sends me a picture of a pile of sawdust. That’s all. Just the picture. There are 93,000 square meters of palace. Is he breaking one of them?
I grab a coat and find a footman. Palace staff are trained to fade into the background, no more remarkable than an 18th century vase, until needed, and this one starts when I fetch up next to him.
He bows, “May I help you, Your Royal Highness?”
“ Hej. ” I pull out my phone and tilt the screen. “Do you possibly know where this is?”
He cranes his neck. “That looks like the restoration workshop, ma’am.”
His directions are simple, but the afternoon is cold. Snow flurries swirl across my path, and I keep my head bent against the low clouds and dark skies. When I arrive at my destination, I find Jacob in the shop, bent over a whirring machine, guiding a metal tool down a length of spinning wood. Tiny flecks of sawdust fly back over his wrist, catching on his skin and hair, and a grimy radio picks up a BBC broadcast, the show hosted by an earnest, lisping historian discussing the Suez Canal.
I don’t know much about tools, but I’ve been on enough factory floors—wearing protective hair nets and unnaturally clean overalls—to know this is not the time for a surprise. I perch on a stool and wait until the machine comes to a rest. He reaches for a caliper, taking a measurement, but when his hands drop to his hips, I ask, “How did you get here?”
He’s wearing a quilted flannel coat that has seen better days over a t-shirt and jeans. He looks like a professional woodworker, but I also see a crown prince. The outlines of each blur together in the warm light.
Jacob turns down the radio. “You found me.”
I think I’ll always find him.
He leans back against his bench and crosses his ankles. “A carpenter returns to his natural habitat.” This comes with one of his grins.
Vorburg is lucky to have him for the rest of his life.
“What are you making?” I ask.
He turns, his arms braced along the workbench, and gives me a nod, inviting me to inspect. I crowd into him, almost touching. Not quite.
“Do you know what this is?” he asks, turning his head nearly into mine. We take a breath. His gaze shifts.
“Some kind of lathe?”
He nods. “Can you tell what I’m turning?”
The palace has a number of projects going at any one time, and I attempt to place the small piece of wood in the context of a massive royal residence. It looks like a decorative matchstick.
I run a light finger over the wood, feeling the ridges. “Wait.” I twist my head, getting a vertical orientation, inadvertently bumping him aside with my hip. My eyes close for a brief second while I mark time, waiting for the sensation to roll through me and recede.
There are thermal springs in Sondmark, places where groundwater comes into contact with magma-heated rock. Pools that steam all winter long and keep the snow at bay are natural wonders in these cold northern latitudes. Touching him is like finding one of those after a frigid, wind-scoured hike.
“Are these spindles?” Under the precisely turned piece of wood lies a graveyard of splintered attempts.
Despite the blazing light, it’s so cold I can see our breath. I hold mine, trying not to give myself away. I feel a jumble of words—Sondish and English and French and German and Spanish and Pavian and Seongan—wrestle in my brain. “Oh. These are the spindles from the staircase in the dollhouse.”
So many failed attempts.
“Alma—”
Vede . His gaze roves across my face and I stumble backward, red-faced and awkward. I perch on a stool. Maybe I can breathe if he stays exactly where he is. Maybe I can pretend that this is a friendly gesture.
“It’s nice of you to think of replacing them.” Nice. It isn’t nice. Nice is a bottle of wine and a scented candle for your hostess. This is time and thought and talent. I’ve never received a gift like this.
“I’ll have to show it to my mother. She’ll appreciate it.” She won’t. Mama has probably forgotten we ever owned a dollhouse. “Maybe she’ll even set it up in one of the public rooms for display.” With every word, I create distance between me and the dollhouse, dismissing the years I loved it. Waving aside all the times I crouched in front of it, unable to bring myself to unwrap the pieces because I believed the brokenness would only travel in one direction. To more brokenness. Never to repair.
His hand closes on the spindle, and he nods.
“We just had a family meeting,” I say, reaching for some way to erase the solemn, guarded look on his face.
“Oh?”
It’s on my tongue to tell him everything, but he sorts his tools, sweeping away the mess. I have to remember myself.
“Freja’s having a house party. I can bring anyone I want.”
“Pietor?”
I wasn’t thinking of Pietor. I never think of Pietor.
“He has business in Himmelstein.” It might be true. “I thought this would be a good opportunity to take your clothes for a test drive.”
He holds his paint-daubed flannel coat open. “These?”
“The new ones. You have to learn how to move in them, in public.”
“Oh. An assignment.” He shoves a hand into his pocket. “Sure.”