Spellbound: COMPLETE

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ariadne

The rest of the week passed by uneventfully, aside from the daily dancing in Estevan's kingdom and the outing to the theater that Prince Wilson had promised to take me too. 

The building was exactly as I had remembered. When I used to go and see plays with my mother, we would always sit in the queen's section and watch the beautiful women sing. I did not tell the prince that that was also the reason why I hadn't gone back. My father did not want to do anything that reminded him of her. But for me, it was surprisingly a great comfort and brought back wonderful memories of my mother.

"Where could you possibly have gone to wear out your slippers in just a few days?" Harriet exclaimed. 

12 heads all looked down, even Khione and Leto followed suit, finding their feet more interesting than answering Harriet's probing question. 

She can't take away our dancing again! "Nowhere," I answered. "Just our normal routine."

"You can't expect me to believe that all of you wore out your shoes within a week from your normal routine. Those slippers normally last months!" Her voice was getting louder. "They are to be worn only around your room, and yet there is clearly dirt covered on them!"

Charities opened her mouth to say something, but then she closed her mouth again. 

"Well, are you going to tell me?" Harriet's hands were on her hips and she did not look happy. "Or shall I come up with some punishment for the lot of you?"

"We can't tell you," Fortuna said matter-of-factly.

"Why not?" 

"It's a secret," Iris whispered and giggled. 

"There are to be no more secrets!" Harriet yelled. "I am trying to help you and keep this place running while your father is gone. The least you could do was stop this... these secrets!" 

"I'm sorry, Harriet. We do appreciate you but we cannot tell you," Bell said. 

Our housekeeper threw her arms up in the air. "Fine! If that's how you want it to be! I will come up with a punishment suitable enough for this terrible behavior!"

The door slammed and we all stood, looking at each other. 

It was going to be a long day. 

Harriet was having me study all sorts of different subjects pertaining to our kingdom on top of the punishment she was still debating on. And when I was not doing that, I was learning and practicing with a loom, because I "should have learned how to do that ages ago." I knew how to knit and sew well enough but I had never attempted the loom. It had always looked so big and daunting. 

I sighed and followed our housekeeper over to the huge loom that stood across from me in the sewing room.

I sat down at the little bench and only half-listened to the instructions that Harriet was giving me; which was pretty good considering all the things running through my head.

"Put this slider between these rows of strings-"

Being with Prince Wilson was amazing at the vineyard and the theatre.

"Push this bar up, fix the loose strings-"

And how did I lose my way through the maze last night? I am usually good with mazes and getting where I need to-

"Then you start over, but make sure you have enough string to make it across the loom-"

And what did Peter think of me? Our lives seemed to be going in completely opposite directions.