Crisanta Knight: The Severance Game

CHAPTER 1 BEGINNINGS-2

The campus on the other side of the window was bathed in shades of dark blue, but occasional fireflies that resembled mischievous, moving stars added a warm twinkle to the landscape. It was unusually windy for a September night. I watched the trees sway in the forest that separated us from Lord Channing’s. They moved with purpose, I thought. And at the thought, I found myself feeling jealous. For I wished I could do the same.

My pensive ten-year-old wonderings were interrupted by a sudden impact against my right arm. I rotated around to find a boy in a khaki pantsuit that was slightly too big for him. He’d tripped on an untied shoelace and rammed into me.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, his cheeks turning red from embarrassment as he bent down to retie the misbehaving shoelace. He stood when he was done then glanced around and gave me a bashful grin as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I feel so stupid,” he said. “Balls are weird and I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t either,” I replied. “But then, I’m used to it.”

The boy smiled brighter. His blond hair was kind of messy, making me wonder if he’d just been playing outside, or if an older classmate had given him a noogie. He had a naturally pleasant, happy-go-lucky look on his face, but the color of his bright blue eyes was intense for anyone, let alone a kid.

“I’m Jason Sharp,” he said, extending his hand.

“Crisa,” I said, shaking it.

“What are you doing over here by yourself?” he asked.

“Just observing,” I said, nodding my head toward the little groups of girls and boys scattered around the corridor, each huddled together tightly like the protons and neutrons of a chemical element.

“Mind if I join you?” Jason asked. “I don’t feel like picking a flock yet.”

I gestured to the spot beside me, extending an invitation. Jason put his hands behind his head and stared out at the crowd. “Girls at balls are like bears in forests—only look them in the eye if you mean business,” he said.

I turned my head and raised my eyebrows in confusion. “What?”

“It’s the only piece of advice my brother gave me for tonight,” Jason explained. “He went to Lord Channing’s a while back.”

“Who’s your brother?” I asked.

“You’d know him as Jack from Jack & the Beanstalk.”

“You’re a Half-Legacy.”

He nodded. “What are you?”

I hesitated at the question. Maybe that was stupid. But pronouncing myself as a princess did not feel right as I was not sure what the title even really meant. Introducing myself as Cinderella’s daughter didn’t sit well with me either. It would’ve been a form of false advertising; I was nothing like my mother and anyone who spent more than three minutes with me knew it.

Furthermore, going with “Legacy” as my official brand seemed just as wrong. It implied that the greatest part of my identity was being an extension of someone else’s. And while I may not have been the kind of kid parents bragged about, I really believed my life had to amount to more than that.

“Crisa?”

I blinked. I guess I’d been staring off into space. Jason had his head tilted at me like a perplexed puppy, waiting for my response. “I said, what are you?” he repeated.

“Um, let’s go with undecided,” I replied. “Anyway, if you believe your brother then why are you talking to me, eye contact and all?”

“I haven’t met a lot of the other guys yet,” he admitted. “And, well, I guess you’re not as scary as the other girls.”

“Should I take that as a compliment?”

“I would.”

“Children, children!” Madame Lisbon called out, waiving a handkerchief at us with both excitement and aggression.

The lot of us cut off our conversations and instinctively took steps closer to the teacher out of good manners, not necessity of hearing. This woman could project.

Despite her booming voice, Madame Lisbon was not an intimidating person. At barely five feet in height, she was a lot closer to our eye level than, say, Lady Agnue who towered in at six foot two. She was also kind of thick and squishy-looking, reminding me of the many stuffed bears I had in my room back home. Frankly—from her rosy complexion to her soft and sparkly eyes—everything about her seemed non-threatening.

I supposed I was grateful for that. These ballroom lectures were the extent of our D.I.D. training this year. But once we began taking the subject in a classroom next year, I garnered it would be a lot easier to not pay attention if the teacher didn’t intimidate me.

“Welcome, my little protagonists,” Madame Lisbon gushed, “to your first ball at this fine institution. I am sure these monthly gatherings will become a favorite pastime of yours in the wonderful years to come. Now then,” she waved theatrically to a corridor on the right, “it is time to go in. Please proceed behind me in single-file order. The first forty minutes of the itinerary will be a lecture. Following that you may wander about the ballroom on your own. But please stay to the sides, do not inconvenience your older classmates, and do stay out of trouble.”

We moved into a line like Madame Lisbon had requested. Jason filed in behind me and leaned in for a whisper. “I think I can make two of those work.”

I smiled in the shadows of the pillar we crossed under. I liked this kid already.

Once we’d entered the ballroom Madame Lisbon began her lecture. The topic was the importance of formal introductions when meeting someone new. I guess Jason and I had already failed at that, what with the ramming into each other and all.

I would have liked to have made a sassy comment about this to him, but upon entering the ballroom Madame Lisbon had separated us into two groups—boys on the left and girls on the right. As a result, I was on my own again (psychologically, anyway).

Squished in between the fine fabrics of other gowned princesses, I tried my best to focus on what the teacher was saying. I found this difficult, though. Past my tendency to mentally wander whenever boring subjects were being shoved down my throat, it was kind of hard to hear. The orchestra never stopped playing, and the conversations of the older protagonists in the room didn’t help either. There were so many of them, and they all looked so . . . romanticized.

That’s a word right?

Yeah, let’s go with that. Romanticized.

Watching them was just plain mesmerizing, making me feel like a June bug drawn to the light of a lantern. I wondered if I would be as graceful and glamorous when I got to be their age. Then I laughed to myself at the idea. Like even.

When our lecture had concluded I thought I might reunite with Jason only to discover that he and a few of the other boys were hitting it off now. I decided to leave him alone.

Mauvrey and most of the other girls had taken to the sidelines to observe the flowing wonder that was the formal dance circle in the center of the room. Boys in tailored suits and girls in glittering dresses that fitted them way better than ours did us moved with such elegance it was as if the music pulsed through their veins, a body-enveloping extension of their heartbeats.

I decided I would try to join my future classmates and stood next to the princess farthest away from Mauvrey. She had white-ish blonde hair and a navy dress with a matching choker.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Crisa.”

“My name is Princess Marie Sinclaire,” the girl responded formally, curtsying and then extending her hand. “How do you do?”

“Wow, you really took that lecture to heart, didn’t you?” I replied, shaking her hand.

A tantalizing smell wafted under my nose and I turned my head to where it was coming from. Across the ballroom I saw members of the school’s kitchen staff setting out a fresh round of fancy appetizers, among which I could definitely detect something wrapped in bacon.

While the dancing may have been an enjoyable spectacle to observe, and Marie seemed nice, the aroma won out. I bid goodbye to the princess and headed toward the food. On my journey to the snack table, however, I encountered two obstacles.

The first occurred about halfway there when I had to quickly sidestep to evade a couple in mid tango. In my haste I bumped into another one of my new peers. Alas, unlike Jason, I instantly disliked this boy.

“You should watch where you’re going,” the boy said condescendingly. “A small princess like you could get trampled if not careful.”

I glared at him. “Dude—”

“Chance.”

“Chance,” I continued. “We’re basically the same height.”

“Yes, but princesses are so much more fragile. You’re damsels. Besides, I am in the middle of a growth spurt.”

“I hope for your sake it’s a big one. You might look disproportionate if that big head of yours doesn’t get a matching set of shoulders.”

Chance eyed me like a boxer sizing up an opponent, but also like a dog meeting a raccoon for the first time—with careful consideration. I eyed him too. But my version of it was like a mongoose observing a proud snake—amused and insulted, for the snake had no idea what I was capable of.

I noted that for a ten-year-old, Chance had a lot of confidence. It practically radiated from him. And he was cute, I guess. (Again, for a ten-year-old.) But the boy had a smugness in his eyes that made me certain that if I’d ever run into him on a playground growing up, I would have surely shoved him in the mud.

“Pay no mind to her, Prince Chance.”

A surprisingly stealthy Mauvrey slipped next to us. Her arms crossed, she bumped Chance’s shoulder playfully. “She is hardly worth the attention of our kind.”

“You’re so right, Mauvrey,” I replied, unfazed. “Allow me to direct you to something of interest that’s more on your level.” I tore a few sparkly beads from the bodice of my dress and tossed them across the floor like marbles. “Go get the shiny, Mauvrey. Go on, go get it girl.”

Mauvrey narrowed her eyes at me but didn’t retort. She simply grabbed Chance by the arm and led him in the other direction. I was sure I would pay for my snarky comment in some way later. Maybe Mauvrey would plant peanut butter in my shoes or use her perfect vocal chords to persuade the mockingbirds outside our room to mock me. For now, though, she’d been foiled. And that was good enough for me. After all, I had bigger fish to fry, and by that I meant eating the fancy, bacon-wrapped fish sticks arranged in towers at the snack table.

Unfortunately, that was where I encountered the second obstacle between me and my quest for treats: my height. The fish stick towers, modeled to look like the skyscrapers of Century City, were on top of a two-foot-tall display stand at the back of the table close to the wall. Even on my tippy toes I couldn’t quite reach it.