The girls knew they were princesses.  They lived in a castle.  Their mother called it a “lodge,” but the girls knew better.  It was a castle deep in the forest.  It had a room for feasting, and a hall for entertaining and dancing.  Upstairs it had guest suites for six nobles and their ladies.  Surrounding the castle was miles of forest, and their own private lake.

Having watched Disney’s Beauty and the Beast dozens of times, the girls knew all the clocks in the castle watched them – and smiled.  The candelabra on the dining room table reached out their arms to hold candles just for the girls.  And the huge tea kettle now held coffee, but the girls knew it was the tea kettle that took charge of the kitchen when the people went to bed.  As for the antler chandeliers, well, one day the spell would break and beautiful deer would descend from the tall ceilings and walk majestically back out into the forest.

There was no beast.  Their father had growled and sobbed and roared when their mother had been killed.  They had heard him standing behind their grandmother’s house and howl into the winter winds racing across the Russian Steppes.  But his hands had never been claws.  His hands had been soft and gentle as he held his girls.  His chest had been warm as he pulled them to him.  His shoulders had been the perfect height as he knelt for them to cry against him.

A year had passed and another winter had approached when he drove the hours to Moscow and parked beside Gorky Park.  Their new mother had raced to them and knelt on the lawn to hug them.  Unbelievably tall.  And beautiful.  Obviously a queen.  A captive.  She had sat with the girls while they sailed their toy boats in the park.  She had sat close to their father.  She held his hand.

Their new mother liked to give hugs, and she held the girls’ hands as she walked them to their school.  And she was always waiting when the school day was over.  She made pretty dresses for the girls.  Pretty, but warm.  And she made long skirts for herself.  She cooked with their grandmother, she sat with the girls while they watched TV, she sat close to their father, the two keeping each other warm through the long Russian winter.

A year passed and the captive queen was rescued.  Grandmother stayed behind, but the queen insisted that their father and the girls go with her to America.  The ride back to Moscow had been long, the flight to America endless.  But then, when the girls had slept and waken and slept again, they arrived at the castle in the forest.  It was huge.  A stone fireplace rose two stories over the great hall.  Glass walls showed off the endless forest and the huge lake.  The kitchen was bigger than their Russian home.  A double staircase rose up to the second floor guest rooms.  The girls spent two days running through the castle, always finding yet another room.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

It was October.  The month for magic.  The girls went to their new American school and made new friends.  They learned about Halloween and Trick or Treat and costumes.  The queen made them the only costumes they would ever want – princess gowns of satin.  Gowns flowing behind them as they walked into school.  Gowns that they gathered around them as they sat at their desks.  Gowns they raised – gently and daintily - as they climbed onto the school bus.  Gowns that all mothers admired as their queen drove them through the streets of Wausaukee, and they held out sacks that filled with candy.  October.  The magic month.  Their first month in America.

Now, a year had passed.  Another October approached.  Time for new gowns.  The princesses had grown, and they had worn out the old gowns in many places.  Hems had split when the girls had tripped while running.  Skirts had caught drips of this and that while sitting at the banquet table.  The queen had started on their year’s gowns.  But it was going slowly.  The queen entertained noble ladies each weekend.  She took the ladies out in her small bus, out to fish or hunt or search for wild flowers.  Out to draw or paint or sculpt ice.  Out.  Out into her endless forest.  The queen must be a hostess.  The queen must teach and entertain.

So the girls waited.  The noble ladies left Sunday evening.  Monday the queen would wash sheets and clean guest rooms.  Monday the queen would be waiting when the princesses got off the school bus.  She would wait with hugs and sandwiches and two cookies.  And then she would bring them into her bedroom.  The queen’s room on the first floor, near the back of the castle.  The king had helped build a second room attached to the queen’s room.  A room for the girls, with big windows, a huge closet, and their own bathroom.  After all, they were princesses.

Back they would go to measure, and pin patterns, and cut satin.  Deep red for Annika, golden yellow for Valentina.  New gowns for the princesses, just in time for the magic month of October.

But this Monday not all the noble ladies had left.  One stayed behind.