Once they were all inside the castle and the queen shut the door, she addressed her son.
“Alexander, I’m sure Anna’s governess, Ms. Meyers, is looking for her. Why don’t you take Anna back to her studies?”
“I want to stay,” father and daughter said at the exact same time, with identical stubborn looks on their faces.
“Anna, I’m sure you don’t want Ms. Meyers to be worried about you, do you?” the queen asked. “Or to get behind in your schoolwork right before Christmas break?”
Anna thought about it for a second. “No, I don’t want that.”
“That’s my girl.” The queen gave Anna a nod of approval.
Anna glanced over at Kaylie. “Will she be staying with us, Grandmother?”
The prince jumped in. “No.”
The queen corrected him. “Yes, Anna, Miss Karlyle will be staying with us for a few days.”
When the prince gave his mother a disbelieving look, Kaylie watched as the queen met his stare without blinking. The prince ended up looking away first.
The queen gave Anna a loving look. “Alexander, please take Anna back to Ms. Meyers.”
The prince took Anna’s hand. “And then I’ll be back so we can talk.” As the prince and princess walked away, the princess looked over her shoulder at Kaylie.
Kaylie waved at her.
The princess gave her a disapproving look.
Kaylie couldn’t help but laugh as she watched them disappear around the corner.
“Wow, tough crowd.”
The queen gave her an apologetic look. “I’m very sorry about all that. They’re both very protective and serious by nature…”
Kaylie nodded. “I can see that. I think they’re suspicious of me.”
“They are that way with all strangers. Don’t take it personally,” the queen said. “Now you can see why I wanted you here. Please follow me.”
But Kaylie didn’t see or understand anything as she followed the queen down a long ornate corridor that was decorated with a half-dozen fragrant Christmas trees.
She was still trying to come to grips with the fact that she was inside a real castle with a real royal family. She knew no one was ever going to believe it. She didn’t even believe it. Her mind was whirling with a million questions as she followed the queen into a beautiful drawing-room.
The setting was grand but still modern. All the walls were wallpapered in a rich red tone that was accented with gleaming gold trim. Despite all the inspiring landscape paintings and unique pieces of art, the real showstopper was the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows. From the windows, you could see a picturesque lake that was nestled up against a snow-covered mountain range.
Kaylie couldn’t help herself. She took out her phone and walked up to the window and took a few pictures.
“Incredible,” she whispered, taking it all in.
“This is one of my favorite views of our lake,” the queen said as she joined her. “It’s Lake Charles, named after my great-great-grandfather, and that mountain range is called Glacier Ridge.”
Kaylie took another picture. “It really is magical.”
“Like a fairy tale,” the queen said, “especially at Christmas-time with all the snow.”
“And when it comes to Christmas you certainly have some beautiful decorations from what I’ve seen so far,” Kaylie said.
The queen looked pleased with the compliment. “Thank you. We have decorations that go back centuries. They all have a story.”
Kaylie nodded. “I can imagine. I look forward to learning more.”
“That is good to hear,” the queen said. “I wanted to talk to you about what you’ll be writing…”
They were interrupted when an attractive woman, Kaylie guessed her to be about the same age as she was, wearing a black chic dress with a pretty red silk scarf entered the room holding a silver serving tray. On the tray were two beautiful crystal mugs filled with hot chocolate. There was also a snowflake plate with some breakfast pastries. There were delectable-looking mini quiches, muffins, and croissants.
The queen gave the woman a grateful look. “Elsa, wonderful, thank you. You can set that down right on the coffee table.”
“Is there anything else I can get you?” Elsa asked.
“This will be all for now. Thank you, Elsa,” the queen answered.
As Elsa left the room, the queen motioned over by the impressive gray stone fireplace where Elsa had dropped off the tray. As Kaylie followed the queen over to a red velvet settee, she could imagine curling up next to the fire with a good book and thought she could happily live in this room forever. All the space and natural light was a huge contrast to the minuscule studio apartment she had in New York City. What she appreciated the most was, that while the room was undeniably luxurious, it was also still warm and inviting, making it the perfect cozy combination.
“Do you travel a lot?” the queen asked, taking a seat next to Kaylie in a regal red and gold wingback chair.
“Not as much as I’d like,” Kaylie said. “My job usually keeps me pretty busy in New York City.”
The queen nodded. “And you enjoy it?”
“The city or my job?” Kaylie asked, but then answered her own question. “I actually love both. The city is so full of life and always changing. You’re never bored. There’s always something to learn, something new to do and my job, now that I think about it, is the same. It’s always changing, too, because I never know what story I’ll be doing. Every day it’s like I’m starting over with a new challenge. I guess you could say it keeps me on my toes.”
The queen picked up a hot chocolate and handed it to Kaylie. “So, you like new experiences and trying new things?” the queen asked.
“I do,” Kaylie said, before taking a sip of her drink. Her eyes lit up. She took another sip, savoring the taste. “This chocolate is amazing. It’s so rich and bold and a little bit…spicy, I think, maybe?”
The queen looked impressed. “Yes, that’s because it has some chili peppers in it. I’m glad you like it. It’s from our chocolate shop in the village. Jean Pierre is an award-winning chocolatier carrying on his family’s chocolate-making tradition by always blending unique ingredients together. He creates a new hot chocolate every year for Christmas. We can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.”
“I can see why,” Kaylie said, still marveling at how delectable the hot chocolate was. “And these?” she asked, picking up and admiring a mini quiche before taking a bite.
“Those are all from Chef Jake,” the queen said proudly. “We are very lucky to have him. He’s always brilliant at putting together a menu for our Christmas tea, another tradition of ours.”
“They’re delicious,” Kaylie said, popping the rest of it into her mouth. When she put down her plate, she noticed a family picture on the table. It was in a classic silver frame. It looked like it had been taken in the same room they were in, right next to the stunning ten-foot Christmas tree that was in the corner. As Kaylie admired the real tree, she noticed it looked like it was decorated almost the same as the tree in the picture, with red glass hearts and garland made out of a collection of small glass gold beads.
In the picture standing next to the tree, dressed in formal festive wear, was the queen in a dazzling silver ball gown. Next to the queen was Princess Anna in a pretty pink Cinderella-style dress, Prince Alexander in a white tux and tails, and a pretty woman in a red sparkling ball gown that Kaylie guessed to be the prince’s wife. Blixen was also in the picture. He was wearing a red bow and sitting dutifully at the princess’s feet. They all looked like one big happy family.
“That is one of my favorite pictures,” the queen said, picking up the photograph that Kaylie had just been studying. “It was taken three years ago. It was the last Christmas we had with Sophia, Anna’s mother, my daughter-in-law.”
When Kaylie gave the queen a questioning look, the queen took a deep breath before continuing.
“We lost Sophia right after Christmas. She had a long battle with cancer. She lived each day to the fullest and had so much love for everyone. We all miss her very much, especially at Christmas, because this was her favorite time of year and she believed in creating magical memories and honoring traditions. She had me promise I would always make sure that Anna and my son continued to celebrate Christmas, the joy, the love, the laughter.” The queen’s voice trailed off. Her eyes looked sad. “But it has not been easy to keep that promise.”
Kaylie could feel the queen’s pain. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this must have been on all of you.”
“My son and Sophia had a great love,” the queen continued. “He wasn’t always like this, so serious and guarded, but after Sophia passed, he changed, and because of that, unfortunately, so did Anna. My granddaughter had to grow up very fast, and my son threw himself into his work. I think it helps him forget his pain and brings him comfort. I’m very proud of him. He’s so passionate about helping our people, just like his father was. My husband passed away when Alexander was in college and Alexander immediately stepped up to help fill that void. But now I worry about my son and granddaughter. There is more to life than just work.”
Kaylie listened, thinking about how Rachel had just said the same words to her back in New York.
“I want Anna and my son to have every happiness in life. They both deserve that,” the queen said. “When my husband passed away, the last thing that was on my mind was replacing him with anyone else. He was the love of my life, so I understand Alexander not wanting to replace Sophia, but Anna is so young, it’s hard to see her growing up without a mother.”
“But she has you,” Kaylie said. “She’s very lucky.”
The queen looked pleased. “Thank you for saying that. My granddaughter has my whole heart. Right now, she’s ten going on forty. It’s like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders and, in a way, she does. She will follow in her father’s footsteps and will run our nation someday, as queen, that is her legacy, but that is hopefully years away. While she can, I want her to grow up and experience the joy of being a child. I want her to laugh and play, have fun, and to be a free spirit.”
Kaylie’s eyebrows arched.
“You’re surprised?” the queen asked.
Kaylie answered honestly. “Yes. You always hear about royal families and all the pressure to be a certain way, all the formality, all the rules. I guess I don’t think of any member of a royal family having a free spirit and getting to do whatever they want, when they want.”
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me, we have rules we must follow to keep up appearances because our people expect that and look forward to it as something they can count on,” the queen said. “But we’re a very small sovereign state here in Tolvania, and we’re a modern royal family. My father, King George, was very progressive, even in his time. He always believed that as a royal family it was our duty, for the best of our people, to find the balance between tradition and progress. Yet, I worry that perhaps we’ve become too modern…”
“What do you mean?” Kaylie asked.
“I run our home with a very small staff,” the queen said.
Kaylie looked surprised. “But this is a very big castle.”
“It is, and I have help when I need it for housekeeping and things like that, but I don’t have a staff of maids, butlers and doormen and ten people in the kitchen. I like to keep things simple, for a lot of reasons. For example, I can open my own door when someone knocks, if I’m the one closest to it.”
“Unless your granddaughter gets there first,” Kaylie said with a smile.
The queen chuckled. “Yes, although she knows she’s not supposed to do that. I’m sure she saw you on the security camera. We have a lot of security cameras, but still, one can never be too careful, especially with a child.”
Kaylie nodded. “I agree.”
“I told her someone from New York City was coming and she has been very curious,” the queen said and then glanced around the room. “While I believe in tradition, I also believe in updating when necessary, to keep up with the times, and that’s what I just did recently when we completely renovated the castle, including all twenty bedrooms. All of the upgrades and changes were needed, to be sure to preserve the castle for future generations and for comfort. We created a gourmet kitchen with the leadership of Chef Jake. He also helped us update and expand our wine cellar so we could host special wine dinners, and we added a state-of-the-art sound system throughout the castle and updated the ballroom for our dances and concerts we host.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Kaylie said.
“It is, or should I say, it was,” the queen said with a sigh. “Unfortunately, we haven’t hosted any events since we lost Sophia. It didn’t seem right the first year, and then the years just slipped by so fast, and now here we are. And it’s not just the events here at the castle that we’re missing.”
The queen walked over to the Christmas tree and carefully took down one of the red heart glass ornaments and held it up to the light. “We also used to host special events during holidays for the village. There were so many Christmas events and traditions everyone loved, and they have been very missed, but now this year we are bringing them back for the first time since we lost Sophia. I think it’s so important that Anna experiences these Christmas traditions that are part of her heritage and who she is, traditions that her mother loved so much,” the queen said as she put the heart ornament back on the tree, making sure it was illuminated by the white twinkle lights. “And that’s why you’re here, Miss Karlyle.”
“Please call me Kaylie,” Kaylie said with a smile. “And yes, I understand this story is to be about your family’s Christmas traditions.”
“In part,” the queen said with a smile.
There was something about the queen’s smile that made Kaylie nervous. “In part? There’s more?”
“Yes,” the queen said, giving Kaylie her full attention. “My family needs you.”
Kaylie’s eyes grew huge. “Me? How?”
The queen looked into her eyes. “We need you to take our royal Christmas traditions and create a Christmas fairy tale for the princess that I can give her on Christmas at our special family Christmas dinner.”
When Kaylie’s jaw dropped to the floor, the queen didn’t miss a beat.
“By using all our traditions and customs to create this fairy tale, we’ll have a story we can continue to hand down for generations. A fairy tale that’s full of heart and a happily ever after. It’s just what my granddaughter needs, and I’d like you to write it.”
Kaylie, in shock, stared back at the queen. “You’re not serious…”
“I’m very serious,” the queen said.
When Kaylie saw that she really was serious, she started to panic. She stood up and started pacing as she tried to process what the queen was saying. “You want me to use your traditions and write a fairy tale?”
“Yes,” the queen said, excited. “A Christmas fairy tale.”
Kaylie laughed a nervous laugh. “But I’m a journalist, not an author. I write stories for the news. I’ve never written a children’s story in my life.”
Kaylie knew she was talking faster and faster, but she couldn’t help herself. She had to make the queen understand that a huge mistake had happened. She wasn’t the writer they were looking for. They needed an author. She felt terrible about it, but she couldn’t pretend to be someone she wasn’t.
“Yes, I know all about your journalism career,” the queen said. “Bob told me all about it.”
“Bob? You know my boss, Bob?” Kaylie asked. She was getting more confused by the second.
“Yes, and he assured me you would be the perfect person for the job,” the queen said with a confident smile.
Kaylie stopped pacing. “Then Bob’s nuts, and trust me, I love Bob, but he is way off base this time. I don’t know what he was thinking.” She got out her phone. “We should call him right now and straighten this out.” She checked her phone and frowned. “I can’t get a signal.”
“It’s the snowstorm,” the queen said. “It happens. Please sit back down. Let’s discuss this.”
Kaylie sat down and rubbed her throbbing temples. “Okay, let me start over. I’ll just cut to the chase. I’m a news reporter, an investigative reporter, and honestly, even doing a feature story about your Christmas traditions was going to be a stretch for me, and that was before I found out you were a royal family…” Kaylie laughed. It was a high-pitched nervous laugh.
The queen patiently waited for Kaylie to continue.
Kaylie took a deep breath. “Bob never told me you were royal. I get it, you wanted your privacy. That totally makes sense. I don’t blame you, but I don’t have any experience covering royal families. It’s not what I do, unless you’re involved in some kind of scam.” Kaylie abruptly stopped talking and stared at the queen. “You aren’t, are you? Involved in a scam?”
“No, we are not,” the queen said patiently. “But to your point about you not reporting on a royal family, a family is a family,” the queen said with conviction. “Royal or not, we’re people. We’re mothers and fathers and grandmothers, we have blood and bones just like anyone else.”
“Except your blood is blue,” Kaylie said quickly. “I mean, not literally, of course, but you have royal blood so that changes everything.”
“Does it?” the queen asked. “How? We live and love and laugh the same.”
Kaylie jumped up and held out her arms, looking around. “You live in a castle. That is not normal. None of this is normal…”
The queen, unfazed, continued to smile back at Kaylie.
Kaylie could see she needed to take a different approach. She took a deep breath and walked over to the queen and tried again. “Okay, let me put it another way. Royal or not, as a journalist I deal in facts, not fiction…”
“And the facts would be our real-life Christmas traditions,” the queen said with a growing confidence that was making Kaylie even more nervous.
She rushed on. “But I wouldn’t even know how to begin turning real-life facts, your Christmas traditions, into a fairy tale. That’s just not in my skill set…”
The queen locked eyes with her. “But you’re a storyteller, right?”
Kaylie opened her mouth, tried to find the words, couldn’t, so snapped it back shut.
“You tell stories for a living,” the queen continued. “You research and you use that research to tell a story, and that’s all I’m asking you to do, to use our Christmas traditions to tell a story for my granddaughter.”
“But you want a Christmas fairy tale,” Kaylie said, making it sound like the queen was asking her to lasso the moon, because as far as Kaylie was concerned, she was.
“Yes,” the queen said. “I want a fairy tale.”
“And that’s the problem,” Kaylie said. “I didn’t read fairy tales growing up. Nope. I was more of a realistic kid. I liked to read mysteries and stories about real places and real people. Fantasy and superheroes and all that stuff wasn’t my thing. I’ve never even read Harry Potter.”
When the Harry Potter reference didn’t bother the queen, Kaylie started to panic even more. She was frantically searching her brain, trying to find another way to help the queen understand. Her eyes lit up. She knew just what to say. Confident, she put her hands on her hips and locked eyes with the queen.
“At Halloween, I never wanted to be a queen or princess, or anything royal. I’ve never even worn a crown or tiara.” Kaylie said. She was sure that should do the trick.
“We can fix that,” the queen said, amused. “You can borrow one of my tiaras if you like.”
“No,” Kaylie said, exasperated. “That’s the point. I would not like that. Nothing about being royal is something I would like.” Kaylie snapped her mouth, embarrassed to have blurted out what she was thinking out loud. “I’m really sorry,” she said and meant it. “I don’t mean to insult you, and your family, but I don’t know how else to say it. You have the wrong girl. This isn’t something I can do. It’s not a good fit for me. I can’t do it.”
Kaylie collapsed on the settee, exhausted, and stress-ate two more quiches.
The queen, undeterred, smiled back at her. “Bob thought you could, and I have faith in you, too.”
“But I don’t have faith in me,” Kaylie said. “Not for this. I don’t want to mess this up. This is obviously very important to your family. So, trust me, you need a real author who does this kind of thing, and I need to go back to New York City.”
The queen got up and walked to the window and motioned for Kaylie to join her. When Kaylie stood next to the queen, she followed the queen’s gaze outside but all she saw was a blur of white whirling snow.
“No one is going anywhere today,” the queen said. “Not with this storm.”
“Oh, no…” Kaylie’s heart sank. She stepped closer to the window and touched the freezing glass, feeling trapped. She was trapped inside a castle, only this wasn’t a fairy tale, Kaylie thought, it was a nightmare.