There is a knock on my door.

A voice that sounds like dowager Maggie’s asks, ”May I come in?”

”Why yes, of course."

The knob turns and the little blue eyed dowager pokes her head in and gives me a look of surprise. "Did you realize your door was locked?"

"No, I wasn't aware." I eye my book. As much as I love the Dowager, I hope this visit is short. I really want to get back to reading.

"I unlocked it for you."

"Oh, thank you."

"Twice."

"Well, that's just odd," I say. "Once should be more than enough."

"You'd think."

She's still here. Does she want something? "Is something amiss?"

"I unlocked your door for the second time almost 45 minutes ago."

"Thank you."

"Cyndi, why aren't you at the ball?"

"I'm reading."

"Don't you want to go to the ball?"

I hold out my arms and gesture at my comfort and ease in this room. "I have everything I want for the evening right here. I am perfectly happy to spend the evening reading a good book."

"Ah, I see you are reading Cinderella."

"Yes. Not my choice. King Co--I mean, the king, handed it to me today."

"Indeed. How interesting." The dowager makes her way over to my bedside and sits in the lounge chair next to my vanity table.

Somehow I don't mind her intrusion, she is so sweet and old and harmless.

"It's a love story," she says.

"Hardly that. It's a fairy tale. Nothing is earned or real. The adventure happens to Cinderella, who does next to nothing at all."

"Oooh. A skeptic. Don't you believe in love?"

"Of course I do. I think that love is a most hazardous undertaking. I prefer to explore love in books."

Dowager Maggie rubs her hands together and I see that her fingers are bent and gnarled with age. I wonder if they hurt her or whether they still function as fingers. She looks up and I quickly turn my eyes away.

"I agree. Love is most dangerous and powerful. You hold someone's life in your hands. Perhaps it will involve the future of more than one person."

"Right. Too rich for my blood. I'm happy enough to read about it."

"Even when it involves your own family?" She gives me a sidelong look with those bland blue eyes.

"What do you mean? I have nothing to do with the love lives of anyone else? I helped my sisters dress for the ball, I think that is quite enough."

"Well, I didn't want to have to tell you this, but," Dowager Maggie pauses to make sure I am listening. She lowers her voice to a whisper. "The Prince has challenged the King to a duel in the morning. Something about the honor of his young Dora."

I shoot up in a flash. That would be just like him. I can just see the King looking down his nose, not literally of course, at Dora's getup, which hovers over any man's height. He must have said something condescending and Dora took offense. I take a deep breath and squint one eye and wrench my mouth to the side. "Alright. I need to go to the ball." There's a wedding to be had. Those "men" must stop this nonsense before someone gets killed!

With that, the old woman reaches up behind her neck and her claw-like fingers fiddle with a fastener back there. The gold chain is so fine it falls into the channel of her wrinkled neck.

"May I help you with that?"

"No thank you." She stands up and stretches her hands towards me.

"Turn around."

I do as I am told.

She slides the chain around my neck and fastens it. My hand flies up to feel what is on the chain. It is warm from her body and smooth. I get off the bed and walk over to the mirror. It is a small gold heart shaped locket.

"I don't deserve this." I can't believe she would give me such an intimate gift. I am speechless.

"It belongs to a young girl on her search to find true love. It brought me great luck and I know it will do the same for you."

I reach out and give the little old woman a hug and she pats my back and says, "Don't squeeze too hard. Between my brittle bones and faint heart, I don't know which will get the best of me first."

I draw back quickly and she laughs at me. "I'm only half joking. Everyone assumes the elderly are used up and about to blow away. I still have enough spark to set things in motion."

Now it's my turn to laugh. Her face is crinkled like a ball of tissue paper but her blue blue eyes shine bright as sapphires in a face the color of the pale blue heavens.

"There's only one problem," I tell her.

She raises her eyebrows. "And what might that be?"

"I have nothing to wear."

She looks me up and down, taking in my sweats, short waisted tee shirt and messy bun. "Well, certainly you can't go dressed like that."

Then she turns and punches a button on the remote control and the whole long side of my wall retreats. I swear, I had no idea that it was anything but a wall. She presses another button and the interior first half of the closet shifts and spins 180 degrees. "Ah, there are the gowns of my youth."

My jaw drops. There are gowns in every hue and material, everything gleams as though bejeweled with gems or pearls or crystals.

She turns to me and says, "Well, what are you waiting for? Get out of those rags."

She watches me for a moment and then says, "There's nothing there I haven't seen before. Hurry up, you don't have all night." She turns and selects a light blue sheath that is as thin as gossamer and glitters like a ribbon of aquamarine. "This one. It matches the skin tone of the Delta Ohr and it will set off your lovely caramel skin. Imagine, all those years ago, I selected a dress to match my eyes. The trouble, of course, was that my eyes matched my skin and my skin matched my dress. It was as though I had picked a dress suited only to make me disappear. No matter. I caught the eye of the King anyway." Her voice turns musical at the thought of that evening long ago.

She holds the dress and I step inside and she zips up the back. It fits like a second skin. The fabric is out of this world. I have twin veils that trail from the top of my shoulders and float down to the hem of my dress. It is a gown suitable for a goddess or a queen.

She looks me up and down and then her eyes don't move. "You'll need shoes."

"I'm afraid you won't find any that fit me. I'm a size 11."

"Oh." She selects a pair of mules but after the sight of my heels trailing barefoot off the ends and only my toes and instep inside, she nods in agreement.

"Just wear your tennis shoes. The dress is floor length. Now fly." She gives me a shove and a smile.

"Oh, and remember, you must return by the stroke of midnight."

"Why?"

"Because that's what Cinderella would do."

"Well, I'll be back long before midnight. All I'm doing is stoping those fools from killing one another."

Maggie just smiles.