‘I’m off, have fun!’
I look up from the overlocker machine where I’m finishing the seams of the Finnish catsuit with spidery tentacles hanging from the sides. ‘What do you mean, off?’
It’s quarter past nine and Scarlett’s got her bag of hairdressing gear over her shoulder as she heads towards the door, and I realise what she means. ‘Scarlett, don’t you dare! You told Witt to come back today. You can’t leave me to deal with him!’
‘Of course I can.’ She gives me an evil grin. ‘Now you’ve got a chance to get to know him without a mask on. Jog his memory a little, but not too much, because our Cinderella needs to stay missing for as long as possible. I have work with Jackson. Hairdressing clients back to back all day. Byeeee!’
‘Scarlett!’ I rush out onto the shop floor after her, but she’s already halfway down the street towards Rapunzel’s hair salon, and I groan out loud. It’s hard enough to sew in the back room while listening out for customers to come in, but the added stress of Witt returning makes the day seem overwhelming.
I was intending to keep my distance and let Scarlett deal with him. I want to see him again, but it’s all got so messy and I don’t know what to do. I thought I could hide out the back and let Scarlett show him the website she’s set up, as pointless as it is. Who on earth does she expect is going to get in touch?
My stomach is in knots for the rest of the day, and I struggle to focus on anything except the sound of the bell tinkling whenever the door opens. And it does nothing for my nerves when it’s a surprisingly busy day.
The Cinderella dress in the window catches people’s attention. Customers come in to browse, but end up leaving quickly as there’s not a lot to browse. Ebony insists on minimalism so we don’t have many dresses on display because she thinks they make the shop look cluttered. We only have a small selection of dresses on mannequins and hung on rails. They can be tried on and then altered to be a perfect fit, as well as the option to order the custom bespoke dresses that are our speciality, even though orders have been fewer and farther between in recent months. Not many people these days are looking for custom-made dresses that cost hundreds of pounds, and Ebony insists on a minimum pricing strategy that outprices anyone on a normal salary. Special occasion dresses that are a once-in-a-lifetime purchase are one thing, but we have customers who want affordable dresses for regular occasions, especially at this time of year when the wedding season is nearly upon us and people want outfits they can wear more than once.
It’s the busiest day we’ve had for a long time, and I get the catsuit finished with a lot of stopping and starting, which is at least something off my never-ending don’t-want-to-do list, and through it all… he doesn’t come.
I’m on edge all day, half-dreading seeing him again, and half-excited, but as the clock ticks closer to closing time, there’s no sign of him, and endless possibilities flood my mind. What if he’s realised we’re using his story for publicity and wants no part of it? What if he somehow did realise it was me, and he’s so disappointed that he’s never coming back?
Despondency has settled over me like a cloud by the time I step outside and lock up for the night. That must be it. He must have realised the fairy-tale princess from Sunday night is a scruffy seamstress and was just too polite to say anyth—
‘Wait, wait, wait!’
I look up from turning the key in the lock to see Witt running down Ever After Street towards me, from the entrance on the main road, not from the direction of the castle.
He barrels to a halt, gasping for breath. ‘Sorry I’m late. I got caught up in what I was doing at the castle and lost track of time.’ He puts his hands on his knees and bends over, panting. ‘Please excuse me while I showcase how incredibly unfit I am. I took the long way round because I thought I’d get lost in the forest and never be seen again. And then I saw all the posters you and your sister have put up and stopped to stare at them in horror.’ His chest is still heaving when he stands upright. ‘Hello.’
I can’t help smiling. There’s a huge part of me that’s glad to see him. ‘Hello.’
He smiles at me too, and I feel it again, that connection. The ease is instant, just as it was at the ball the other night. ‘Yeah, um, Scarlett kind of took over on the poster front. I haven’t had a chance to get outside today; I haven’t seen them yet.’
‘Every shop, every noticeboard, every lamppost, everywhere you turn. You can’t get away from them. It’s awful.’
Scarlett designed the posters yesterday, but gave me only the quickest flash of them before running to the nearest print shop. It’s a picture of the dress, side by side with the photo of Witt she took in the shop yesterday, and an explanation below.
Did you attend the ball at the Ever After Street castle on Sunday night? Were you the mystery woman wearing this dress? Did you spend a magical evening dancing with this Prince Charming? Did you make a hasty exit as the clock struck midnight and lose a shoe on the way? If so, we want to hear from you.
It’s a real-life Cinderella story! A real fairy tale happening on this fairy-tale street! Our handsome prince is desperately searching for his lost love! We need to find the woman who still has the other shoe. Did you see the woman wearing this dress? Do you know who she is? Come and talk to us in The Cinderella Shop or get in touch on – searchforprincesscharming.co.uk.
There are even tear-off strips with the website address on the bottom. I feel a bit guilty because he’s obviously not happy about it, but I’m trying to tell myself that this is business. We have to do what’s best for the shop. It doesn’t matter whether he approves or not. ‘I don’t know how you expect to find her if we don’t get the word out. Scarlett’s good at social media and stuff. She’s only trying to help.’
‘Yeah, I know, I just… I don’t like photos of myself. I don’t want to be on show to anyone. And I don’t think the missing girl did either. Seeing these makes me want the ground to swallow me whole. I spend my life hiding away in musty old buildings, so to suddenly see my face plastered in every shop window…’ He shudders. ‘I just wanted to bring in the shoe and ask if you could identify it. It wasn’t meant to be bigger than that.’
‘People on Ever After Street support each other and get behind a common cause. I’ve had a few people in today to see if we’ve found her yet and asking to be kept updated. People are invested already. I’m sure Cinderella herself will turn up before long.’
He looks much more casual today. He’s got on smart trousers, but a white T-shirt with an open checked shirt over it, the sleeves rolled up and buttoned at his elbows again. He really does have ridiculously long arms, because there doesn’t seem to be a shirt in existence with sleeves that are the right length, but it only adds to how endearing he is.
Witt wanders over to where the Cinderella dress is on display. We’ve dedicated one of our two windows to it, and it’s set up on a mannequin with the shoe displayed on a clear Perspex table that’s draped with fairy lights, and Scarlett has hand-chalked signs that say similar things to the posters. ‘You really made it?’
I nod when he looks at me.
‘It’s truly majestic.’ He glances at me again. ‘I know you think I only remember this thing about her, but I don’t. I was trying to describe the dress because I thought you might remember it more than whoever bought it.’
‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me.’
‘Maybe I want to.’
I quickly get off the subject. ‘So, this website Scarlett’s set up. Apparently there’s a contact form for any potential Cinderellas to send their stories to, and I’m sure she can grant you access so you can check it from your own phone.’ I get the key out of my pocket and go to unlock the door. ‘Come in, I’ll show you.’
He stops me. ‘No, no, you’ve finished for the day, and it’s my fault for being late. No one has a decent work/life balance as it is, and it would be unfair of me to impose when you’re on the way home. I’ll come back tomorrow.’
‘I’m sure you’re busy,’ I say, because even though I appreciate how polite and considerate he is, another day of watching the door and waiting for him to show up doesn’t sound appealing. Better to get it over with tonight.
‘I am, but if there’s any hope of finding her then it’s worth all the time in the world.’
Aww. That’s so sweet that I can feel my heart softening towards him. ‘Scarlett’s got her boyfriend to set up the website. She’s started a blog about it, and… you know what, you may as well come in.’
‘May I walk you home? I mean to save time. You could tell me on the way and I won’t have taken up any more of your evening.’
‘I don’t think it’s the best idea…’
‘No, of course not. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cross any lines.’ He stutters a response as though he’s done something terrible. ‘I wasn’t trying to be overbearing or anything, I just…’
‘It’s not that.’ I beckon for him to follow me and we walk the three steps round the corner of The Cinderella Shop and arrive at the side door to the flat. ‘Congratulations, you just walked me home.’
He looks up at the window on the second floor and then starts laughing as he realises what I mean. ‘You live here.’
‘It’s my aunt’s, but she lets me stay in exchange for always being on hand to open and close the shop and never being far away from the sewing machine to put in plenty of overtime.’
‘I’m disappointed. I was looking forward to a walk with you.’ As soon as the words are out, he looks as if he wishes he hadn’t added the last two. ‘Er, I mean, I’ve been stuck inside all day as well. It would’ve been nice to get out for a bit.’
‘You can still enjoy a walk. There are some lovely trails through the Full Moon Forest that go right around behind the castle and out to the river.’
He glances cautiously towards the trees at the end of Ever After Street and then back at me. ‘Would you do me the honour of accompanying me?’
Accompanying me. That prince-like charm again. No one has ever asked me to ‘accompany’ them before, and I wonder if we’ve accidentally taken a wrong turn and wandered into a Jane Austen novel. On the one hand, this is clearly a terrible idea, but on the other hand, his smile has set off butterflies in my stomach, and the thought of spending time with him is absolutely irresistible.
‘If it's not weird to walk in the woods with a strange man,’ he continues before I’ve answered. ‘Not that I am strange. Well, everyone's a little bit strange, aren't they? I just meant in terms of being a stranger and a man. A stranger man. A man stranger?’
I'm laughing so hard that I no longer care if he's a stranger. ‘I’d love to.’
His answering smile takes my breath away. It seems as though nothing has ever made him happier and I feel as I did at the ball – like we’re the only two people in the world. He holds his arm out and I hook my hand through the crook of his elbow just like I did the other night, and he glances down at it, and for just a second, I’m certain he knows, and I wait for the inevitable confrontation, but it doesn’t come.
I don’t know if I’m disappointed or relieved. Maybe both? I wanted him to have paid enough attention the other night to realise who I am, but at the same time, the plan of finding the missing Cinderella and any chance of bringing our shop back to life would have been over if he did, so it’s probably for the best.
Ever After Street is shaped like a wishbone; the narrow end is the entrance from the main road, and then it gradually widens until it splits in two, and in the middle is an area with flowerbeds, benches and picnic tables. The fork of the road to the left leads to a craft area for children and a carousel to ride, and then onwards to the Full Moon Forest and the castle, and the fork to the right leads to more fairy-tale-themed shops and meanders further towards Christmas Ever After, the section of the street where it’s Christmas all year round.
We wander towards the castle end of Ever After Street in gentle silence. There’s a noticeboard by the carousel, and he stops to frown at one of Scarlett’s flyers and the photo of himself. ‘When I was looking at the posters just now, I couldn’t help noticing all the anti-supermarket stuff that’s up too. Selling the castle is not a popular decision around here, I take it?’
‘No. Particularly not to a supermarket, who we’ve heard is the most likely buyer?’ I ask pointedly, hoping he might chime in with some insider information, but he stays frustratingly quiet, so I continue on. ‘There have been a lot of protests, there’s an anti-supermarket campaign on social media and every shop is running its own petition, which are collated on a weekly basis.’ I explain about the impact a supermarket would have on Ever After Street and he listens intently. ‘But we’re helpless, really. The castle belongs to whoever it belongs to and we can’t stop it being sold. I just wish it was to someone who would keep it as it is, not demolish it and turn it into a supermarket. The world doesn’t need more supermarkets – it does need more fairy-tale castles.’
‘At least supermarkets are useful. What good is a decrepit old castle to the world? Just another thing that some poor sod has got to keep pouring money into for maintenance. Better to knock it down and be done with it. Still, maybe you’ll get your wish – the ball was intended to attract more interest and higher offers. That’s how I was forced into letting it go ahead.’
‘That was you?’
‘I’m in charge of the castle on behalf of the owner while the sale goes through. I’m not one for parties and I hated the idea. I’m trying to empty the castle and I’ve had to work around teams of decorators bringing more stuff in, and cleaners, and they had to get the electrics checked after so long, then there were plumbers, and…’ He makes a noise of frustration. ‘It’s been a whirlwind. I was supposed to be in and out, but it’s put me so far behind. The estate agency thought it would be worthwhile, but it doesn’t seem to have earned my potential buyers any goodwill from the locals.’ He points to a picture on the noticeboard of a supermarket that someone’s printed out and painted a big red X over.
‘Ever After Street boycotted it en masse.’
‘Oh.’ He glances down at me. ‘Did they?’
I nod.
‘I’m intrigued by this place. I didn’t know Ever After Street existed until I arrived. It’s…’ He twists around to look behind us without letting my hand drop from his arm. ‘It’s really unusual. Children must love it.’
‘It’s magical. You should see the looks on kids’ faces when they come here. Getting their hair done at Rapunzel’s salon or wandering around the Mermaid’s Treasure Trove. Eating at the 1001 Nights restaurant. Getting ice creams at the Frozen ice cream parlour. The Colours of the Wind museum is really fantastic too. It’s full of fairy-tale artefacts that kids can actually play with. There’s a collection of dressing-up princess ballgowns they can put on, they can wear Cinderella’s glass slippers, rub Aladdin’s lamp, spin silk on Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheel, and…’ I stop myself, realising I’m rambling. ‘Sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to hear every detail.’
‘On the contrary, the one thing I enjoy hearing about is what people love. Tell me more, please. I’m fascinated.’
I tell him about the shops as we pass them, from Marnie’s Tale As Old As Time bookshop to Sleeping Beauty’s Once Upon A Dream, which is dedicated to bedtime delights like luxury bedding, sleepover kits, blankets, and bath bombs.
At the edge of the forest, instead of taking the main path up the hill to the castle, I pull us to the left, along one of the fairy trails through the trees.
‘Full Moon Forest.’ He reaches up to touch the wooden sign that hangs between two trunks.
‘It used to be called the Blood Forest. It’s said that if you cut the trees, they bleed red because the viscount went mad and took his own life in the castle courtyard and there was so much blood that it ran down the hill and watered the ground.’
‘Pretty sure that didn’t happen.’
‘No, of course not, but you know what people are like. If they don't know what happened, they make up stories about it. For a long time, no one ever came into these woods. It was said to be haunted; children would dare each other to walk through on Halloween nights, and a few years ago, the people of Ever After Street decided to take it back and bring joy back into it. Rather than blood and gore, we went back to the Victorian-era rumours that fairies live in these woods and embraced that by allowing children to put fairy doors on trees, and we added giant wooden mushrooms, glowing solar flowers, and fairy lights hidden in the boughs.’
Witt looks around like he can’t take it all in as we walk beneath the canopy of branches.
‘There’s a craft stall by the carousel. Kids can buy their blank fairy doors, paint them, and then come through the woods to stick them on. Like leaving behind a little piece of each person who comes here. People make them in memory of children they’ve lost. There are certain trees where carving is allowed and people carve in the names of departed loved ones, as a way of asking the fairies to protect them on the other side.’
He seems genuinely moved when he looks down at me. ‘None of this will survive if the supermarket deal goes through, will it?’
I shake my head. ‘They need access roads for construction vehicles. They can’t come down Ever After Street itself, so the only option is to tear the forest out and build their own roads straight through it.’
‘That’s…’ He looks around, seeming lost for words. ‘That’s more unthinkable than I thought it would be.’
‘We’re a self-sufficient little retail park full of independent shops that mean the world to their owners. Supermarkets only care about the untapped potential for themselves, not about the impact on the rest of us.’
The paths are narrow and we have to squeeze together to get along some of them. Dappled evening sunlight is shining through the trees, providing the perfect mix of sun and shade as we wander along.
Sculptures of wooden butterflies and dragonflies are placed on trees, and he’s tall enough to reach out and touch everything, his eyes shining with delight at every new thing the forest unveils, as though he’s never seen anything like it before.
‘Are you really staying at the castle?’
He makes an affirmative noise as he stops to look at a fairy picnic area – a red and white wooden mushroom with a miniature tea set arranged on it, and smaller mushrooms in a circle around it, like a table and chairs.
‘You must be the light.’
‘The what?’
I laugh at my own awkwardness before clarifying. ‘I spend a lot of time looking out at the castle. For days now, there’s been a light on when it’s always been dark before. I thought it was just workers preparing for the ball. I didn’t realise someone was actually staying. That makes it seem really homely somehow. It’s nice to see after so many decades of it being empty. What’s it like to live there?’
‘Same as any old building. Draughty. Empty. Hollow. Damp from the roof leaking. In need of repair.’ His voice sounds flat, as though he really loathes the castle.
‘I didn’t realise estate agents did house clearances.’
‘It’s a service provided to high-value estates where the owner doesn’t want to be involved. They send someone to act in lieu and manage every aspect, especially if there are things of value in the building, or if there’s likely to be local resistance that could stop things running smoothly. I work with a lot of old estates, castles, and stately homes. I’m a historical buildings surveyor, but I also do things like tracing the history of old buildings and tracking down possible heirs, exhausting options before a property is sold, and putting old ghost stories to rest.’
‘Do you know anything about the history of the castle?’
He gives a laugh that’s tinged with something. Bitterness, maybe? ‘I think the history of this particular one is better left in the dark. People romanticise castles but most of them have unhappy histories. Buildings like this don’t end up abandoned unless something horrible happened inside them.’
I look up at him, but he remains poker faced. ‘No one can over-romanticise this castle. My parents actually met there, many moons ago.’
He pulls back to look at me in surprise. ‘Really?’
‘It’s why I love the castle so much. My mum was a dressmaker to the viscountess and my dad was an accountant to the viscount. He was leaving after a meeting and she was just arriving, and they ran headfirst into each other at the gate. She had her arms full of dresses, they both fell over, his briefcase split open and his papers flew everywhere. He trod on a hem in the tangle and tore the bottom of a dress she was taking to the viscountess, who luckily saw the funny side. Instead of leaving, my dad sat on the wall and waited until Mum came back out so he could apologise properly, and then he asked her out to dinner.’
Witt’s looking down at me in awe by the time I’ve finished. ‘I didn’t realise you had a personal connection to the castle.’
‘It meant a lot to my family. I’ve never known a world where it wasn’t watching over me from the hillside. I can’t imagine this place without it.’ I can’t help myself once I get started on talking about the castle, but I’m inadvertently doing exactly what he wanted. He wanted to hear more about it, and here I am, sharing a personal part of my family history with this stranger whose job is to make sure the castle sells.
‘Being here feels like being in a different world.’ He reaches out to trace a carving in the trunk of a tree, and then takes a couple of breaths, as though he’s building himself up to saying something. ‘Sadie, can I tell you something about me?’
I nod and my hand tightens on his arm automatically because tension has shot through him that makes it feel important.
‘I don’t usually tell people, but something about you makes me want to be open.’ He goes to carry on but can’t get the words out.
I hold his arm tighter. I’m way too close to this man. I feel too at ease with him. He must know I’m the girl from the other night or he’s going to think I’m the most overly familiar stranger he’s ever encountered.
‘I have a speech impediment. I stammer.’
‘Really?’ This clearly isn’t something he’s said very often and my heart is melting at how insecure he looks.
‘I’m fairly sure you can tell.’ He gives me a soft smile. ‘Generally I can control it if I speak slowly and focus on each word, but sometimes it gets the better of me, particularly if I’m nervous. I wanted to explain if I came across badly yesterday when I brought the shoe in. I was embarrassed and flustered and fighting to get words out and maybe I came on too strong or unnerved you in some way. It’s why I come across as harsh sometimes. Abrupt. Monosyllabic. I choose the shortest sentences possible and the words in my head are rarely the same ones that come out of my mouth.’
So much makes sense now. Even at the ball, the way he seemed to struggle to find the right words or abandoned sentences that didn’t seem like they were going to go the right way. I’ve noticed his stilted way of speaking and how he sometimes gives up on words and says something else instead. Words are my problem too is what he said at the ball the other night, but I never knew it hid something like this.
My fingers fiddle with the cuff of his shirt sleeve where it’s turned up around his elbow. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘I wanted you to know in case you wonder why I’m a bit weird sometimes.’
‘I don’t think you’re weird.’
He smiles an involuntary smile. ‘I don’t think you’re weird either.’
It makes me laugh out loud. ‘Oh, Witt, the compliment every girl dreams of. I don’t think anyone’s ever said anything so nice to me before.’
He laughs at my sarcasm, but a feeling of loveliness settles over me as we walk. Everything feels so lovely with him. The whole world is nicer than it was before, and I’m enjoying his company so much. I can’t think of any better way to spend an evening.
‘Bringing the shoe into the shop got out of hand yesterday. I’m not used to dealing with people. The stutter makes me avoid them as much as possible. I spend my life hiding away in old buildings because it’s easier than trying to speak to fellow humans. I was caught up in trying not to make a fool of myself, and you and your sister’s enthusiasm took me by surprise. I didn’t mean for this campaign to find Cinderella to take on such a life of its own.’
‘She’s actually my cousin.’ I didn’t correct him last time, but now it feels wrong not to. ‘My parents died when I was ten and my aunt took me in. I went to live with her and Scarlett.’
He’s listening so intently that he accidentally walks into a tree trunk and stops to look at me in surprise. ‘I lost my parents when I was ten too. Well, my father. My mother had passed a few years before that.’ He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘What a weird thing to have in common.’
I never expected that kind of connection with him. Losing both parents at an early age is a grief that not many people understand, and I can’t quite believe that this man who felt so special the other night would know the impact that it has too.
I manoeuvre us around the tree and we carry on walking. ‘Did you have to move in with family?’
‘Bundled up to Scotland to live with a grandma who I didn’t know existed until that point.’
‘That must’ve been tough.’ There I go squeezing his arm again. I’m trying to tell myself to untangle our arms and walk side by side, keep a bit of distance between us, but I can’t do it, not when he’s talking about something so personal.
‘My grandma was elderly and crotchety and didn’t want a kid around. She hadn’t had contact with my family for over thirty years and made it crystal clear that I was only there because there was no one else. Every day I’d get in from school and she’d be asleep in her chair and I’d have to poke her to make sure she was still alive. She lived in this tiny little crofter’s cottage with doorways that are about four foot high.’ His hand comes up to mid-chest to indicate how far he had to duck. ‘She acted like it was still the 1900s. She’d get me new shoes and couldn’t comprehend that within a few months, I’d have grown out of them. Same with clothes. I mean, you can see how tall I am, I grew fast at that age.’ He moves his hands apart to indicate going upwards. ‘Every item of clothing fitted me for a very short window of time before it was too short or too tight. You can imagine how well that helped me fit in.’
‘It was bad?’
‘In the middle of a Scottish school, I was a tall English kid with a posh English accent, bad clothes, and a new and uncontrollable stammer. I stood out like a bullfinch in the snow. My grandma would mend things time and time again rather than buy new, long after the lifetime of which anything could reasonably be mended. She didn’t have a TV so I could never join in with those conversations, no music or any kind of player, we were lucky to have electricity, and even that was considered a “new fandangled thing not to be trusted”.’ He puts on an elderly voice that makes me laugh. ‘It’s not that I wasn’t grateful, because I don’t know where I’d have ended up without her, but it was like going back in time.’
‘It sounds grim.’
‘I guess it gave me my appreciation for old buildings and the history of places; maybe I’d never have got into my line of work without living in literal history. Bright side and all that.’
My fingertips can’t stop themselves from running over the inside of his forearm.
‘She died when I was sixteen. I still live in the same cottage now. How about you?’
‘I was lucky compared to you. I didn’t have to go far. My aunt lived about thirty miles away from where we lived. It was outside the catchment area for my school, so I had to switch schools. Aunt Ebony went for the sympathy card so every teacher in every lesson introduced me as, “This is Sadie, she’s just lost both her parents in a tragic car accident, so be nice to her, won’t you?”’
He screws his face up. ‘I can imagine how well that went down.’
‘They used to shout “Miss Hannigan!” at me, or sing “It’s the Hard Knock Life” or “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie whenever they saw me.’
‘Ouch. Kids can be so cruel.’ He winces in sympathy and draws his elbow in until the back of my hand rests against his ribs. ‘Sorry, that isn’t something I’d usually share with someone I barely know, but you caught me off guard. I didn’t expect to have something like that in common.’
‘Maybe we were meant to meet.’
‘Maybe we were.’ He catches my eyes again with so much intensity, the urge to reach up and stroke his jaw again, to rest my thumb in the dip of his chin is almost impossible to ignore.
I should tell him. Just blurt it out. It isn’t fair to carry on pretending we’ve never met before. But what if Scarlett’s right? People are already asking about the missing Cinderella. There have been website hits. Retweets. If the story grows, more people will be asking, and more people will be talking about The Cinderella Shop. I love that shop more than anything. If this is the only way to give it a fighting chance, I can’t let a little twinge of guilt change that.
The almondy scent of Hawthorne blossom is heavy in the air as we carry on walking, past little fairy paths between patches of bluebells, giant wooden sunflowers, and a tree stump with models of Thumbelina and Prince Cornelius dancing on a pumpkin.
‘The other night, when I met the mystery Cinderella… I thought we’d get more time. I thought by the end of the night, we’d take our masks off and introduce ourselves. If I’d known it was going to end like that, I’d have been more forward. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to find her – I don’t want her to think that it didn’t matter to me.’
‘I thought you only wanted her for her whimsical storytelling ability.’ I don’t mean to sound quite so spiky, but I was so sure he felt something on Sunday night, and hearing that yesterday morning put my hackles right up and made me question everything I thought I’d felt at that ball.
‘Yeah. Um…’ He shakes his head. ‘Another example of words coming out in a way I don’t intend them to. I do, but it wasn’t meant to sound as callous as that. She made me feel something about the castle, and if she can get to my cold, lifeless heart, then potential buyers would lap it up.’
I go to do a gasp of indignation, but he interrupts it with a noise of frustration at himself and takes a few slow breaths. ‘Sorry, this is where I fail at making myself understood. What I mean is that she made me see a good side of the castle, and it’s been a long time since I saw the good side of anything… I’d like to know what else she can tell me about it.’
Guilt twinges again. I can see how much he’s struggling to make his words sound right, and I can definitely see how his clipped sentences come off as harsher than he means them to. At the ball, he was sharp at first, but he became more at ease as we spent time together, and now he seems like that quiet, peaceful gentleman again.
‘Would you want to be found?’ He blurts the words out too fast and I watch the way he takes a couple of breaths and focuses himself. ‘If you’d run away from a guy like me at a ball?’
It’s probably the most loaded question anyone’s ever asked me. I don’t know if it’s pointed, if he suspects and he’s trying to wheedle an admission out of me, or if he’s totally earnest and doesn’t know who else to ask.
‘I think it would be complicated.’ I try to sound as neutral as possible because I don’t want him to think he did anything wrong that night, and even though it would be nice to think I’m not so unmemorable after all, having to call off the search for Cinderella would be a death knell for our shop. ‘Maybe there are other factors at play. There might be other things going on in her life that don’t make it as simple as it sounds. The world can’t revolve around a guy she’s just met.’
‘Yeah, I understand that.’ He nudges his arm against mine. ‘And it’s not all about me, right?’
‘I didn’t mean to be quite so unkind when I said that yesterday, but in the nicest way possible, yes. Whatever the reason she ran away, it must have been important to her.’
I keep looking up and appreciating his face. A wide nose and cheekbones that were hidden by his mask the other night. Blue eyes that are enlarged by his glasses, and the dip in his chin that’s disguised by a five o’clock shadow tonight. He’s exactly like I thought he was. Kind, gentle, endearing, unsure on the surface but with an underlying strength of character and a sense of fun behind his twinkly eyes.
We’ve meandered around the path through the woods and ended up coming out at a different entrance to where we went in, and Witt looks behind him in surprise. ‘That place really is like a maze.’
‘You just need to have spent as much time there as I have. I used to go there to feel closer to my parents. The Cinderella Shop was their life’s work, they loved Ever After Street so much.’
‘This place is really important to you, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve never wanted to work anywhere else. My parents believed everyone deserves a fairy tale in real life, and they were so proud of being a part of making that happen. My mum made herself a dress for her first date with my dad because she knew it was special. She sewed all her hopes into it, and they fell in love that night. That’s where the “you’ll find love wearing one of our dresses” thing comes from. She believed that wearing beautiful clothes that were made to fit gave people confidence and made them feel good, and if you’re feeling good, you’re more likely to be open to whatever possibilities the universe throws your way. It was Ebony who turned it into a literal guarantee – a silly gimmick.’
‘Look at the dresses you make though. You make magic happen too.’
‘Doesn’t feel like it sometimes,’ I mutter, and then stop myself before I say any more.
We’ve reached the door to my flat, and I’m already wishing I’d taken us on a longer route just to extend our time together, even though we’ve been out for over an hour.
‘Thank you for making sure I didn’t get lost. You wouldn’t want to do it again sometime, would you? I’d love to hear more about things around here, and you’re the tour guide of my dreams.’
‘I’d love to.’ It makes me laugh. And blush, a little bit.
He holds his hand out and as soon as I touch him, his fingers fold around mine and he lifts my hand to his mouth until he can press a kiss to the back of it, and then tips an imaginary hat in my direction.
He might not be a literal prince, but he definitely was in some previous lifetime. Modern-day men just don’t act like this.
I can’t help the disappointment as his fingers let mine go. There’s something about him that makes everything feel right with the world when my hand is in his.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening. I don’t know anyone around here so it’s nice to have a… friend?’ He says it questioningly, as though he’s double-checking it’s all right to call me that.
I nod, and that’s it, really, isn’t it? We’re friends, nothing more. I am so far removed from the woman he met on Sunday night that he can’t even comprehend we might be the same person, and I’m both annoyed and fully aware of how disappointed he’ll be if he finds out. I don’t want him to find out. He doesn’t even live here. He’s going back to the opposite end of the country within a matter of weeks. The rejection when he finds out isn’t worth it. It’s better for him to leave with the memory of one wonderful night and for me to keep the memory of meeting a real-life Prince Charming at a real-life castle, and not to mess it all up with boring very unmagical reality.