Chương 29: Souvenir of a Forgotten Place

I did it. I got the Journal, and I was heading to the Chateau to give it to Cinderella. But… oh, I had better get her the fruit tart on the way. I still needed Cinderella to like me when she writes about me in the journal, after all. I got to the Chateau with the fruit tart and the Journal. I wanted to immediately go find Cinderella—I had so many incredible things to talk to her about! —but I was abruptly assaulted by Mother and Sister in the main parlor first.

"Where were you, child?" Mother barked at me.

"You wouldn't know, but there is to be a ball!" Oh, not the stupid ball again!

"In honor of His Highness, the Prince!" squeaked Anastasia.

"So you must get ready!" Mother said self-importantly.

"This is an incredibly important opportunity to win the prince!" Not interested, thank you. Besides, I already kissed the damn prince just this morning! Then Anastasia leaned over closely to me, looking conspiratorial.

"Listen," she whispered, "in the invitation letter, it said that every eligible maiden is to attend. And Cinderella overheard it! So now the servant girl thinks she is to come! Would you believe that?! But Mother said she couldn't come unless she finishes all her chores! We must give her as many silly chores as possible!"

"None of that," I said dismissively.

"Cinderella won't come to the ball, I promise you that."

"What makes you so sure?" asked Mother.

"I'll talk to her. Trust me on this," I said simply. Mother looked at me strangely, but then nodded. I guess something in my voice rang with absolute confidence, and that was enough.

"Come to my room later," said Mother.

"I will have you dressed in your absolute finest so you can outshine the other girls."

"Of course, Mother," I said sweetly, and retreated down the hall before they could corner me further. I went to the scullery and found Cinderella scrubbing the dirty plates. She took the sponge and vigorously rubbed a stubborn crust of food from a platter... I remembered my own very short experience with such awful labor at the palace. It gave me a fresh perspective on the matter. I could now deeply appreciate the fact that, thank heavens, Cinderella was doing it and not me. It was truly repulsive work!

"Oh, Drizella, you are back!" Cinderella saw me and beamed. It was a genuine smile. I guess... she didn't despise me already? Oh, but I had barely talked to her this cycle, and I hadn't even given her the fruit tart yet!

"We are back!!" Suzy jumped out of my pocket.

"We got the magic journal! You won't believe it, Cinderelly! What we did! You—""Shh!" I pressed a finger to Suzy's mouth.

"Remember…" I hissed through my teeth. We had discussed beforehand not to tell Cinderella about the vile act of taking what wasn't ours. We'd even come up with a cover story.

"Oh, do tell me!" said Cinderella.

"Well, it was boring, really," I said.

"We just had to help an old woman organize her massive collection of porcelain thimbles, and she gave us the journal as payment."

"That is... well, quite a unique errand," Cinderella said, looking a bit skeptical.

"How is... er, Gus doing?" I asked to change the subject.

"Oh, he is better now!" Cinderella said.

"I'm sure he will pull through. He even managed to walk a little. He's resting in my room, and all the other mice are taking care of him. I think... he might actually like the attention."

"Good, good," I said.

"Oh, I'll go check on him!" squeaked Suzy, scurrying along.

"Oh, I nearly forgot!" Cinderella started excitedly.

"A letter from the palace has arrived! An invitation for a royal ball! And every..."

"... eligible maiden is to attend," I completed her statement.

"Yes... I know."

"Oh, of course you would know!" Cinderella said.

"You've repeated these days many times now! This is just... it's so strange to think about. So, in previous times... did I go to the ball? I was thinking, maybe if I could patch my mother's old dress, I..." I stepped closer to Cinderella, taking her hand in mine and pulling her gently to sit beside me at the wooden table. She obviously wanted to go so badly.

"Let me tell you... what happened before." I said to her. When I was finished, her eyes were welling with tears. It was to be expected.

"My mother's dress..." she said quietly.

"You tore it. How... how could you do such a thing?"

"The me from before the loop could," I told her, just as I had told her before.

"I hated myself. I thought of myself as dirt. And I hated you for your beauty. Back then, the thought of you going to the ball, the thought of people comparing us, was unbearable. But now I've changed a lot. You're still beautiful, and I'm... well, not. But I don't hate either of us anymore." Cinderella hugged me then. Just like before. Strong, and for a long time.

"So I can't go to the ball," she said in a small voice, "because of the other time loopers. It could... be dangerous..."

"Yes," I said.

"I know you want to go... probably more so now that I've told you about the prince."

"Yes, maybe," she said, offering a trembling smile.

"But all those magical things... I believe you, of course, but it's just really hard to imagine."

"Give me your foot," I said softly.

"I... what?" I reached down, caught her ankle, and drew her leg across the gap, settling her foot in my lap. My fingers hooked under the heel of her plain servant slipper, easing it off slowly, revealing her bare foot—small, pale, and delicate. My other hand reached inside my workbag, rummaging around until my fingers brushed against the smooth surface of the glass slipper. Carefully, I drew it out. Cinderella saw it and gasped, her eyes widening in disbelief.

"Is that..."

"The glass slipper is special," I said.

"Similar to the journal, these objects are not affected by the loop. I don't really know why." I cradled Cinderella's heel, guiding the cool glass over her toes one by one. It slipped on perfectly, molding to every curve, the heel cupping her skin as if it had been made only for her—because it had been.

"It... it's so..." Cinderella mumbled.

"Magical?" I offered.

"It's not much, I mean, compared to the ball and the prince and all. Just a souvenir of a forgotten place."

"It's perfect," Cinderella said, raising her foot to look at it with an admiring smile.

"Thank you." Her smile was radiant, and I liked seeing it. I had been afraid she would be sad because she couldn't go to the ball.

"Oh, and I brought something else," I said, bringing forth the paper bag.

"You liked it enough in previous cycles."

"A fruit tart!" she beamed.

"Like the ones I used to eat with my father!" She hugged me then, and I blushed.

"Thank you, Drizella. You are wonderful!" We ate the fruit tart together, and from time to time, Cinderella just smiled sillily to herself. I think she was truly happy. Good. At this point, I was an absolute master at making Cinderella happy.

"Now it's time I explain about the Journal..." I said. I reached back into my workbag, retrieving the creepy heavy, leather-bound book with the small bones, and the small glass bottle of special ink, placing them firmly on the wooden table.

"Oh, my. But it looks like…" Cinderella's face twisted in deep disturbance as she looked at the cover.

"Bones," I supplied.

"And let's not ponder too much about the dark stains. Yes, it's creepy, I know."

"So, tomorrow night," Cinderella started, "it all goes back, we'll all be in our beds... but what I write in the journal... it remains?" If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Yes," I said.

"As well as the journal itself and the ink. It's the same as the glass slipper. The time loopers call those stationary objects. When time jumps back to how it was two days before, they just stay exactly where they were placed."

"Oh... how weird," Cinderella murmured, looking at the Journal in wonder.

"But only the ink is a stationary object." I said.

"The glass bottle holding it is normal, meaning it will disappear tomorrow night."

"Oh, so..." Cinderella thought about it.

"I will need to pour it into a glass container of my own, and make sure to return it to the exact same spot at the end of each cycle."

"That's right!" I said. I was surprised she had deduced that herself. She was a sharp one, Cinderella.

"And also," I added, "don't leave these stationary objects on your bed at the end of the cycle."

"That would be dangerous!" she understood immediately.

"Sure, I'll be careful." Cinderella took off the glass slipper and looked at it closely in admiration.

"Ah, I think the glass slipper will become very handy," Cinderella said.

"How come?" I asked.

"I mean, you don't have the other one."

"Not for wearing," she smiled.

"But as proof, for myself! Even if I read my own handwriting, I might still be skeptical, as it's all so... well, weird. But a magical glass slipper just appearing in my room, fitting perfectly to my foot... and it will match the story in the Journal! It will also help catch my eye in the morning. With all my chores, I might just miss the journal otherwise."

"That's a great idea!" I said, smiling. I had harbored a small doubt that even with the journal, she might still not believe it. Suddenly, the door to the scullery opened, and my sister intruded.

"I thought I heard you in here," Anastasia said to me, looking around with a disgusted face.

"Oh, what are you doing in this filthy place? Mother is absolutely furious, she said you..."

"Quiet now," I said. I pulled out a heavy gold Louis coin and pressed it firmly into Anastasia's palm. She went pale, her eyes widening, her mouth hanging open.

"Tell Mother that I met Josephine and decided to go with her to the ball. I loaned a pretty dress from her, too. Say Cinderella is sick, deathly so, and make sure no one bother either of us."

"Yes, Drizella." She couldn't avert her gaze from the gold coin in her hand, slowly backing out of the scullery.

"Was that... really?" asked Cinderella.

"Gold?" I asked. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the rest of the gold coins and tossed them onto the table.

"Time loopers have a lot of money, so it's nothing, really."

"That..." Cinderella smiled, "can certainly be useful." I looked at Cinderella's gaze; she wasn't hypnotized by the small pile of gold at all. Yes, Cinderella was weird like that.

"You know," I said, "now that you have the Journal, you should think about what to write concerning... your daily life."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," I said, "now you obviously shouldn't be a servant and do the housework. I mean, look at all that gold! When the loop ends, we will probably be rich! And... well, you will marry the prince and such. So to keep doing servant's work..."

"Well, maybe," she smiled to herself.

"I can just say I'm sick... and, oh, but I don't mind doing the cooking. I'm used to it."

"I should just give you some gold at the start of a cycle," I said.

"You could just go out and have fun in town!"

"Well, maybe..." she said.

"I... need to think about it all." She lifted the Journal from the table, turning it around in her hands.

"Stationary object," she mused.

"How incredibly weird! To think that everything else moves back... the moon, the stars... I really can't wrap my head around it!"

"Juliette told me something strange about the stationary objects," I said, "Something about how they are fixed in place relative... to Earth? Said that if they were really stationary, they would end up in space? I really didn't get it."

"Oh, but of course!" Cinderella beamed.

"Our planet Earth is rotating and moving through space. So if Earth moves back to where it was at a new cycle, and the journal just stayed in its exact place regardless, it would just end up floating out in the ether of space."

"The Earth... is... moving?" I asked.

"But of course!" Cinderella smiled.

"Why do you think there is night and day if the Earth isn't rotating along its axis?" Why there is day and night... I... hadn't really thought about it.

"The... planet is round and the sun is in the center..." I said, and that practically summed up all the things I knew.

"So why..."

"Oh, I will gladly explain it to you!" she beamed widely. For some reason, me being dumb seemed to make her even happier than the fruit tart.

"I love astronomy," Cinderella said.

"My father used to bring home science books, and we would study them together. William Herschel, Newton, Laplace... such brilliant minds." She then walked over to close the curtains, plunging the scullery into darkness before lighting a single candle. Grabbing a round apple from a basket, she held it near the flame.

"Imagine this apple is the Earth, and the candle is the sun," she explained, slowly spinning the fruit.

"See how the light only hits one side at a time? That's day and night." She then tilted the apple slightly on an angle and moved it in a slow circle around the candle.

"And because the Earth is tilted as it circles the sun, sometimes the top half gets more light, causing summer, and sometimes the bottom half gets more, causing winter." I was wide-eyed. I... never knew these things. I probably never even thought about them! If I ever asked a complicated question as a child, Mother would just shush me. And if I pressed, she would get noticeably angry, scolding me that science was too taxing for a delicate lady's mind and I shouldn't burden my head with such unfeminine nonsense.

But I had more things I wanted to know. Things I was mostly embarrassed to ask, but Cinderella seemed to awfully enjoy explaining things to me.

"If the Earth is rotating around the sun..." I started, "what about... well, all the others? The moon, and the stars, and that... Jupiter."

"Alright," Cinderella smiled brightly, "let's take it step by step so it makes sense."

"First," Cinderella said, "the stars in the night sky are like our own sun. They are a lot bigger than the Earth, but very, very far away—even further than all the planets. That's why they look like little dots."

"Oh, so they are distant suns!" This made so much sense.

"Yes!" said Cinderella.

"And all the other planets, like Jupiter, orbit our sun! There are seven planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Uranus was discovered not that long ago, which was very exciting. So more planets could be discovered yet, if they just manage to build bigger telescopes!"

"Oh, I see!"

"And some of the planets have moons that rotate around them. We have one moon, and Jupiter, which is much larger, has more—four of them, I think."

"So the planets rotate around the sun," I said, "and the moons around the planets! Like... like a thing!"

"Yes!" Cinderella smiled.

"It's as if all the celestial objects are moving together in a grand, elegant cosmic dance."

"And what are they made of?" I demanded excitedly.

"The planets are like Earth," she explained.

"They have mountains, and oceans, and forests. But the sun is different. The sun has a cool, solid surface hidden beneath a glowing shell of clouds, and the people who live on the surface exist in perpetual daylight!"

"Wait!" I was awestruck again.

"There are people living on the sun? On all the other planets too?"

"Of course," Cinderella smiled.

"It wouldn't make much sense for God to create all those worlds and only put people on one of them!" That made so much sense! Author's Note: That was what early 19th-century educated people in Europe actually thought!

"We never see them or talk to them," Cinderella continued, "but most scientists agree they exist. Astronomers claim to have already seen cities on the moon. If we build better telescopes, we could see even more!"

"What are they like!?" I asked, wide-eyed.

"The people from other planets? Do they look... well, like us?"

"Almost," she explained.

"Most scholars agree that the people on hotter planets closer to the sun, like Mercury and Venus, are more primitive than us, while the people on planets farther from the sun, like Jupiter and Saturn, are enlightened philosophers who have already mastered sciences."

"This is so interesting!" I said.

"I wonder if we'll ever meet them."

"Oh, we will," said Cinderella confidently.

"Think about your pistol. With enough engineering, we could build a massive cannon that fires hollow iron spheres. People could get inside the sphere and be launched all the way to the moon!"

"Oh, but... that sounds terribly painful to be inside," I noted.

"They will have lots and lots of pillows!" Cinderella said brightly. We continued talking about... science things. And it was so interesting, and genuinely fun. After that, Cinderella insisted I tell her about every moment from every previous cycle she had spent with the prince. She begged for every little detail, claiming she needed it for her journal. So I did. I had seen her charm His Majesty on three different occasions, capturing his heart in a matter of minutes each time.

I told her everything, and she just sat there, smiling with a silly, dreamy expression. Overall, we sat and talked for hours. I loved talking to her, and so I didn't notice the time flying by until it started to get dark outside. I really needed to get going—I still had to meet with Juliette today. I bid Cinderella farewell, pulled out the small bell Juliette had given me, rang it, and headed off to the Widow Claire's house. Shortly after I arrived, Juliette entered. She was alone this time.

"What took you so long to ring?" she smiled at me. I smiled back.

"I want to be a time looper." Yeah, I had thought about that. Not much, admittedly, but I didn't think it required much thinking. This was something I liked, something I was apparently good at, and something that would get me far in life.

"Yes, I gathered that much," she smiled, joining me on the sofa.

"But you will need to do better than last time."

"What do you mean?" Juliette reached into her leather satchel, retrieving a tightly rolled sheet of thick parchment, and unfurled it before me. When I saw it, I was in shock. It was a wanted poster! And the picture drawn on it was a girl... who maybe looked a little too similar to me...

"That's you!" Juliette scolded.

"It doesn't perfectly capture your... er, essence, but people who know you may recognize you."

"Only a thousand-franc reward?!" I said, deeply insulted. I crossed my arms.

"What I stole was easily ten times that!"

"Drizella," Juliette gave me a serious look, "the fact that they checked the vault at all means you did a sloppy job, and you did something that made them suspect you." I tried to remember what I could have done to arouse suspicion. There was my refusal to clean the dishes for Chef Gustav... and the part where I snatched the feather duster from the maid... oh, and the part where I held the prince at gunpoint, chloroformed him, tied him up, and stuffed him in the service room.

Yes, that last one may have aroused some suspicion.

"Now you better disappear somewhere for the rest of the cycle," Juliette sighed.

"It won't do you any good to end up in jail. You can sleep here if you like. No one will bother you here."

"Oh... thank you." I hadn't really thought about going to jail, but I didn't fancy the idea at all.

"But that's not all," she said.

"Time loopers will see the wanted poster, and they may recognize you later. It's a small risk, but overall, the poster doesn't do you any favors. But this is a rookie mistake, I guess. We can overlook it."

"Ah, good," I said, getting back to the topic.

"So about those 1, 000 gold coins... what do I need to do?"

"The 1, 000 gold coins are not for a single job," Juliette said.

"It's to hire your services for the remainder of the time loop. This will probably include five or six different jobs."

"Oh... I see," I said. That was alright, too. After all, 1, 000 gold coins was a sum that would set me up for life.

"But how do I know that after the loop ends, you will..."

"Honor our end of the deal?" Juliette smiled.

"That's the thing with the time-looper business: you need to trust us. Or let me rephrase that. You need to gamble that we are trustworthy, or not make the deal. That is your choice."

"Well, I'm not sure..." I didn't like it. I wasn't a very trusting person, after all.

"Alright," Juliette sighed, seeing my expression.

"I guess we could give you a small, stationary object after each mission as a deposit. You can ask Victor how much they're worth. He is not a liar like me."

"That would be fine" I said.

"So... what do I need to do?" I asked. Juliette smiled widely, leaned in close, pulled her arm around me, and whispered slowly in my ear, "Can you kill?"