American Queen

I mean, God can warn me all he wants, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen.

Part I

The Princess

1

Eighteen Years Ago

I was cursed by a wizard when I was seven years old.

It was at a charity gala, I think. Save for the wizard, it wouldn’t have stood out from any other event my grandfather took me to. Ball gowns and tuxedos, chandeliers glittering in opulent hotel ballrooms while string octets played in discreet corners. Ostensibly, these events raised money for the various foundations and causes championed by the rich and bored, but in reality, they were business meetings. Political allegiances for this candidate or that were sounded out; potential donors were identified and wooed. Business deals began here, and marriages in the upper reaches of society began here as well—because among the wealthy, what were marriages but lifelong business deals?

I understood some of this, even as a young girl, but it never troubled me. It was life—or at least Grandpa Leo’s life—and it didn’t occur to me to question it.

Besides, I enjoyed dressing up in the expensive flouncing dresses Grandpa Leo bought for me. I enjoyed having adults ask my opinion, I enjoyed seeing all the beautiful women and handsome men, and most of all, I enjoyed dancing with Grandpa Leo, who always let me stand on his shoes and who never forgot to spin me around and around so that I could pretend I was a princess in a fairy tale.

And late at night, when the big black car would pick us up and take us back to the Manhattan penthouse, he would let me chatter happily about everything I’d seen and heard, asking me questions about who had said what, about how they said it, if they had looked happy or sad or mad as they said it. He would ask me who looked tired, who looked distracted, who grumbled under their breath during the keynote speeches. It wasn’t until a few years later that I realized Grandpa relied on me as a kind of spy, a watcher of sorts, because people will behave around children in way they won’t around adults. They let their guard down, they mutter to their friends, certain that a child won’t notice or understand.

But I did notice. I was naturally observant, naturally curious, and naturally ready to read deeply into small comments or gestures. And at Grandpa Leo’s side, I spent years honing that natural weapon into something sharp and useful, something he used for The Party, but that I used for him because I wanted to help him, wanted him to be proud of me, and also because there was something addictive in it. Something addictive in watching people, in figuring them out, like reading a book and deciphering the big twist before the end.

But the night I met the wizard, all of that was still in the future. At that moment, I was giddy and wound up from spinning in circles and sneaking extra plates of dessert from the winking waitresses. I was still spinning when my grandfather beckoned me to join him near the doors of the ballroom. I skipped over, expecting another of his usual friends—the Beltway wheelers and dealers or the snappish, bored businessmen.

It was someone different. Something different. A tall man, only in his mid-twenties, but with crow-dark eyes and a thin mouth that reminded me of the illustrations of evil enchanters in my fairy tale books. Unlike the evil enchanters, he didn’t hunch over a cane or wear long, trailing robes. He was dressed in a crisp tuxedo, his face clean-shaven, his dark hair short and perfectly combed.

My grandfather beamed down at me as he introduced us. “Mr. Merlin Rhys, I’d like you to meet my granddaughter, Greer. Greer, this young man is moving here from England, and coming in as a consultant to The Party.”

The Party. Even at seven, The Party was a force in my life as strong as any other. A risk, I suppose, that came with having a former Vice President for a grandfather. Especially when that former Vice President had served in the White House with the late Penley Luther, the dead and revered demigod of The Party. It was President Luther who was referenced in all the speeches and op eds, it was Luther’s name that was invoked whenever a crisis happened. What would Luther do? What would Luther do?!

Mr. Merlin Rhys looked down at me, his black eyes unreadable in the golden glow of the ballroom. “This seems a bit dull for a girl your age,” he said, softly but also not softly. There was a challenge in his words, lodged somewhere in those neatly folded consonants and airy vowels, but I couldn’t puzzle it out, couldn’t sift it away from his words. I kept my eyes on his face as my grandfather spoke.

“She’s my date,” Grandpa Leo said affectionately, ruffling my hair. “My son and daughter-in-law are traveling out of the country for humanitarian work, so she’s staying with me for a few months. She’s so well-behaved. Isn’t that right, Greer?”

“Yes, Grandpa,” I chirped obediently, but when I caught the frown on Merlin’s face, something chilled in me, as if a cold fog had wrapped itself around me and only me, and was slowly leaching away my warmth.

I dropped my eyes to my shoes, shivering and trying not to show it. The glossy patent leather reflected the shimmers and glitters of the gilded ceiling, and I watched those shimmers as Merlin and my grandfather began discussing midterm election strategy, trying to reconcile what I felt with what I knew.

I felt fear, the kind of creeping, neck-prickling fear I had when I woke up at night to see my closet door open. But I knew that I was safe, that Grandpa Leo would keep me safe, that this stranger couldn’t hurt me in a room full of people. Except I wasn’t afraid of him hurting me or stealing me away, necessarily. No, it was the way his eyes had bored into mine, the way his disapproval of me had enveloped me so completely, that frightened me. I felt like he knew me, understood me, could see inside of me to all of the times I’d lied or cheated or fought on the playground. That he could see all the nights I’d been unable to sleep, my closet door open and me too afraid to get up and close it. All the mornings my father and I went walking in the woods behind our house, all the evenings my mother patiently taught me tai chi. All the fairy tale books I so adored, all of the treasures I’d gathered in the little treasure box stored under my bed, all of my secret childish dreams and fears—everything. This man could see it all.