The Girls from Downstairs

Fourteen: the Ancients

New Chapter! Yay!

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 “Whose house is this?” Esmerelda asked, panting.  I couldn’t help but smirk as she doubled over, fighting to catch her breath.  Her hands rested against her knees, making me laugh harder.

“Problems, Miss Esmerelda?” I asked.

She looked up at me, took a deep breath, and straightened up.  Her breathing became much better, unfortunately.  “No.  No problems here.  I haven’t walked nine miles in a long time, is all.”

I smirked.  “Okay, whatever you say.”  I turned back towards the castle before us.  “This is home of Snow white, one of the first Great Ones, as well as one of the first Ancients.”

“Is there a difference?”

Jinx scoffed.  “Um, yeah!  Ancients are ones that our lives follow along the same pattern of.  Great Ones are simply the same story living on and on forever.”

“Ooh, like Peter Pan?!?” she squealed.

Jinx and I rolled our eyes.  “Yes, like him.”

“Immature pest if you ask me,” I muttered.

“Can we meet him?” she asked.

I shrugged.  “Maybe later.  Go into that booth-looking thing over there and change.  We can’t walk in looking like this.”

“So you’ve already taken care to mention,” she said.  The pest took her things out of the bag then handed it to me and walked away.  I sighed.

“Jinx, what are we going to do with her?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe visiting Peter wouldn’t be too bad of a thing.  Maybe the mermaids could take her away and deal with her how they want.”

“She already knows not to get too close to the water without their invitation, lest they be a siren.”

“Oh.”  My pixie friend sighed.  “I don‘t understand why you won’t give her a chance.  For all you know she could be your first human friend that’s female.”

I scoffed again.  “Yeah, cuz that’ll happen.”

“You never know...!”

I pushed aside the curtain, only to pause at Esmerelda in front of me.  She looked beautiful; I’ll admit it.  Then again, anything my mother made was going to make the person who wore it look gorgeous.

“Ready?”

“Sure,” she nodded.  Her hands twisted in front of her.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

She gulped.  “It’s just... well, I grew up with these stories and now I’m about to meet the characters for real.  It’s insane!”

I smirked again. (something she made me do often.  Is this why Adrian always did it?  Because I made him feel superior... hm...)

“Pretend like they’re normal people; they prefer to be looked upon as such, rather than having people stare at her like she’s some delicate thing that will break if the wrong this is said or someone touches her.”

She nodded.  “Okay.  Will do!”

 A real piece of advice?” Jinx whispered in my ear.  I waved her away.

 “Hush.  Even I know when to quit.  She is representing Felix and I don’t want Snow to think he’s got bad taste in women and somehow ruin this whole thing for us all by getting rid of her completely.  Without the girl, we’ll lose the prince’s completely.  Even I don’t want that.”