Sorry for taking a while to update but I had homecomings this weekend and that wasn't hectic and frustrating. I won't bore you guys with it so here you go, chapter 7.
Chapter 7
Evelyn's pov
"Ugh, do you have to?" Evelyn moaned to the stylist standing in front of her. The man was skinny and bald except for small tufts of black hair on the sides of his head. He had a tiny mustache and a thick French accent.
"Please, Madame. It would upset the queen and you don't want to be the first to go home now do you?" "No." Evelyn muttered. "Good." The man said as he patted Evelyn's cheek. He then proceeded to start cutting her brown hair. It went to her elbows and was dyed blue at the bottom, which the stylist insisted had to go. Evelyn just didn't see the big deal in it.
After twenty to thirty minutes, maybe it was even five, Evelyn was bad with measuring time increments without a clock, the stylist had finished. Evelyn shyly looked into the mirror with her big Hazel eyes. She definitely looked more girly.
"And now to finish it off," the stylist whipped out a different pair of scissors and started snipping above Evelyn's forehead. Soon Evelyn had elegant bangs just above her eyes and it made them appear even wider. 'Great' Evelyn thought, 'now the prince will have to remember me, if only because of the abnormality of my large eyes.'
Evelyn got out of the chair she was sitting in and went to go get scrubbed. Because Evelyn was a three who came from a rich home, she didn't need much attention in any other department; she was clean, groomed, and healthy.
Evelyn's maids greeted her after she was ready to put on a dress. Their three smiling faces said that they wanted to be Evelyn's friends. Annette, Heaven, and Skye were all overly eager to please Evelyn and were willing to help her in any way possible. All Evelyn needed was for them to go find her a dress that matched the shortest high heels. Evelyn hated high heels but knew that because of her short stature, there was no way to get out of wearing them.
Skye came back carrying a lime green silk dress and Annette had a pair of matching 1/2 inch heels. "Wow." Evelyn said dumbfounded. She caressed the fabric and let her fingers slowly trace patterns on the dress. "Who made this?" She asked not taking her eyes off the dress. "I did." Heaven said as she nervously twiddled her thumbs. "Do-do you like it?" She asked in a small voice. All Evelyn could do was nod and stare at the dress. She had no idea how someone could make this.
Heaven helped Evelyn into the dress. It had sleeves to just above her elbows and the dress poofed out at the bottom. It ended just below her knees where she wore the matching heels. Evelyn, being the tomboy she was, refused any jewelry and barely let the maids put a small amount of makeup on her face. Evelyn let Heaven put her hair into a beautiful side braid that draped across her left shoulder. Evelyn thought that so far Heaven was her favorite maid.
After Evelyn was finished at the salon, she went to go get her picture taken. All of the girls had gone and taken before picture to compare themselves to on a special exclusive episode of a gossip show. It was focusing on the selection for the next few months, and based off of the makeovers, they were going to guess who Alexander would pick. Evelyn thought it was stupid that they'd think that he'd pick his wife over her looks.
Evelyn posed for some shots and was thankful when the photographer told her that she had enough. Evelyn was more than grateful to give the spotlight to someone else. She knew that she wasn't the prettiest girl and she knew that no one on the gossip show would be favoring her or rooting for her to win.
Evelyn went and sat down on one of the many plush velvet couches set up over in the corner. She saw several other girls sitting and chatting and guessed that she was suppose to go over there when she was done with the makeover.
As Evelyn sat down all she could wish for was that she had her writing notebook with her. It was upstairs in the bag she'd brought to the palace, but she wanted it here more than anything so she could describe the emotions and state of mind she was in. Evelyn knew that words couldn't do justice to the butterflies in her stomach or the feeling in the atmosphere that was overall happy and made you feel cheerful in return. Many times before Evelyn had wondered if words had ever fully been able to describe emotions or feelings; they were just things that needed to be felt in order to understand and not written down or read aloud.
Evelyn loved to read, but experiencing was so much more thrilling and dangerous. It made her feel alive and gave her exhilaration. She hoped that even though she was now in the selection she could still do normal things like go hiking and exploring. Evelyn knew that climbing trees wasn't ladylike, but she was still going to do it if she found the perfect tree; no the selection wouldn't change Evelyn, she wouldn't let it.
"Hi," someone called as they gracefully slid down next to Evelyn. "Hey," Evelyn responded not knowing who the girl was. She was petite but looked strong and athletic in a way. She had pale skin that almost had a tan to it, but it just fell short of the category. She has small brown eyes and was wearing a pale pastel pink dress that went down to the floor.
"Who are you?" Evelyn asked trying not to be rude. Evelyn was just curious, and the girl would meet Evelyn sometime or another anyway. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I should have introduced myself, I'm Sabine Matsuyama." Evelyn could tell that the girl was Japanese from her small accent and from her last name.
"Evelyn Whittaker." She said adding a perky tone to her voice. She wanted Sabine to like her and Sabine seemed like a friendly girl. Soon the girls conversation ended as neither girls were good at small talk and really had nothing else to say. That sat in silence listening in on other girls conversations. Evelyn had better master mingling sometime soon if she wanted to make friends with the other girls.
After a while, Evelyn heard the majority of conversations from the group of eight or ten and realized that they were all twos or threes. Evelyn had thought she'd been fraternizing with the lower castes, now she was disappointed to find out that none of the girls she'd talked to so far were lower than fours.
Evelyn wasn't discriminating against the castes, but she'd always wondered what the lower castes were like. It fascinated her to see them at home or at work and she always stopped to talk with them when she rarely saw them, something had always intrigued her about them and she'd always wanted to know more about how they lived; after all, Evelyn was a writer and it was her job to write from all different perspectives and be honest and accurate.
After that, Evelyn asked every newcomer of the group what caste they were in. Finally a seven walked over to the group. Her name was Isabella Petran and she was a landscaper. The blond girl with new bangs talked with Evelyn for a good ten minutes telling her what life back in Clermont was like and what her daily activities were. Evelyn appreciated how patient and kind Isabella was towards her and Evelyn realized she'd made her first friend. What shocked Evelyn so much was that she was a lower caste who had come from a totally different walk of life.
Finally the girls conversation ended when a clip-clopping sound interrupted all thirty five of the seated girls. It was a short woman with very tall heels on who was elegantly tromping towards them as if she was in a hurry but didn't want to run. Her brown bob swayed as she walked and she was examining a clipboard with a furrowed brow. She stopped a few feet from the girls and looked up like she hadn't noticed them all sitting there.
"Oh!" Her shrill high pitched voice cut in. "We'd better hurry now girls, we've got to take a tour of the palace and send you all of to your rooms for the rest of the day to get settled in, now come along and stay in the group."
Evelyn rolled her eyes as she stood up. This woman was way too strict and demanding of them and it was only day one.
Christina's pov
So far, Christina's day had been horrible. First she'd gotten on a plane with five other girls who didn't know the concept of personal space or how to shut up. Then Christina had come to the palace and had gotten caught in the middle of drama central. Two girls, Christina had thought they were models, were fighting nonstop through the entire duration of her makeover. Christina might not have minded, she was a politician and she loved arguing, except for the fact that her makeover station was right in between the bickering girls. Christina finally thought her torture would be over when she was the first girl to sit down on the comfy couches in the corner that were away from all the noise that was giving her a headache. Then some other selected girl decided to chat it up in Christina's ear. All the poor girl really wanted was to be alone.
Christina was in the back of the pack of girls roaming through the halls of the palace. They were on a tour so nobody would get lost, imagine how embarrassing that would be. Christina imagined herself getting lost and being late to dinner. She'd have to walk in and explain what had happened in front of the King and Queen.
The women leading the herd told them her name was Jane Myers and that she would be the girls' tutor and protocol instructor. On Saturdays when the girls had free time, she'd be present in the women's room along with the Queen and Princess.
Jane seemed nice to Christina, but Christina wondered how nice she'd be if one of the selected broke her rules. Jane seemed like a mellowed out version of the queen, but that meant she was still strict and very harsh.
The only girl trudging behind Christina was a pale sickly looking girl. She hunched over and looked at her feet while walking. Her long straight black hair hung down and Christina could barely see her dark brown eyes. Thankfully, this girl wasn't talking so Christina didn't plan on it either.
Jane showed the group the dining room, ball room, obviously the women's room and it's multiple entrances, the doors that led outside to the gardens, and pretty much every other room on the vast floor. Then Jane escorted them all to the second floor where she showed them multiple parlors, a library for their use, many hallway lavatories, and finally their rooms. The thirty five guest rooms were sprawled all over the floor and some of them were even all the way on the other side from the vast majority of the clustering rooms.
Slowly, Jane would call off a name at a door number and make sure that the girl got in okay and was in the right spot. She'd then cross the name off the list and move on. Christina was somewhere around the middle of the group of girls to be called when she heard the name "Aspen Storm," being called. The silent girl behind Christina shyly made her way forward, trying not to cause attention to be drawn to her. The next room was Christina's.
'Great,' she thought to herself. 'At least I know I won't be having noisy neighbors.'
Jane motioned for Christina to enter the room. Christina carefully opened the double doors leading to the spacious room. What really impressed Christina were the fans that were churning above the lights. They produced such a breeze and it caused Christina's room to be a cool temperature.
Jane and the others continued on and Christina closed the door behind her as to not let the cool air out. Christina's room was painted a light sky blue with white trim around the room. It looked elegant, but not like home. Christina knew she'd be aloud to remodel and the first thing she was doing was having her maids paint the walls to a light perry wrinkle with black trim.
Christina ran up to the king size bed that was hers for the time being. It had at least ten pillows just for decoration and Christina knew there would be three or four more under the sheets waiting for her.
She kicked her shoes off and threw the excess decorative pillows on the floor. She then burrowed under the blankets and fluffed a pillow to her liking. Most girls would be too excited to sleep or too nervous to just lay around in their rooms all day, but Christina was not one of those girls.
Christina sighed as she relaxed into the bed and was out not too long after that for what would be her best and dreamless sleep at the palace she'd ever experience.
Alexander's pov
Alex wandered around the third floor of the palace. This was a restricted area, not just for the selected, but for all staff personnel unless they were an on duty guard to the third floor or a trusted private maid to the royal family. That meant that Alex knew nobody would be coming to bother him.
He walked from endless hallways to others making giant loops around the third floor as he pondered what to do. He really wanted to go meet the selected, not all of them at once like he was supposed to be tomorrow, but one of two of them individually. Alex didn't believe for one second that he was supposed to mingle and get a feel for every girl in the two or three minute time slot they'd have tomorrow. Alex knew it was against the rules, but maybe if he just stumbled upon one...
Alex hurriedly flew down the stairs. He was going to think and walk on the first floor now. If he happened to see one of the selected he'd talk to them, otherwise it wasn't meant to be for him to meet any of them until the next day.
Alex strolled down the hallway with confidence. He held both hands behind his back and constantly looked out the passing Windows to the gardens. He saw a few bright dresses zip by and heard an occasional giggle out of an open window, but that was it for meeting a selected.
Alex huffed in defeat and whipped around so that he could go back upstairs and catch up on some of the work he'd be missing due to the selection. When Alex turned around he heard a small scream. Papers flew everywhere and a girl landed on the ground.
"I'm so sorry!" Alex shouted almost too loudly. "Ugh, it's fine, it's fine!" The girl insisted in a fuse tone. Alex thought that she was annoyed with him but he figured she'd get over it since he apologized about it.
Alex smirked to himself because even though it was a total accident, he'd found one of the selected. He knew she was new because she walked a little crookedly in her shoes, she had a slight slouch, and the tone of voice she'd used with Alex was something no one in the palace would dare to use with him, except maybe for Justin and his father.
The girl finished picking her papers up, with the help of Alex, and she brushed back her short golden hair from her face. She glanced up at Alex for a second before standing and her dirt eyes did a double take. She stood with some effort in her heels and dropped into a casual curtesy. She wasn't trying to be rude, but she'd never done or practiced a curtesy before.
Alex chuckled and waved her off. "It's okay, that stuff's more for my mother, I don't care about being royalty," the girls eyes widened and she tried to walk past Alexander. She was very nervous and knew that meeting him was against the rules. She was cautious and scared and just wanted to get back to women's room as fast as she could.
"Hey," Alex called out after her, "don't go." The girl with shimmering hair kept walking almost oblivious to Alex's cries. All she could think about was what would happen if Jane or Queen Genevieve found out that she'd broken protocol. She was sure she'd be made an eight or even worse, killed.
Alex easily jogged up to her slow walking pace in her golden high heels. "Stop." He said as he stood in front of her. Her eyes showed a look of shyness and darted around like a spooked deer. "I'm terribly sorry to have run into you miss," he said in a honey voice. He'd never flirted or had a girlfriend before so he didn't know if he sounded charming or not.
"It's okay," the girls meek voice ran out. "It was an accident and I wasn't paying attention either. I was looking out at the gardens they're very pretty." The pale girl was blushing and Alex realized what he should do.
"Would you care for a stroll around them?" He asked as his heart hammered in his chest. He was so scared that she would decline his offer and tell the other selected about it to humiliate him.
Much to Alexander's surprise, the girl blushed and beamed and looped her arm through Alex's. He led her over to the nearest door to the gardens and motioned for her on-duty personal guard to stay behind.
"So," Alex said daring to talk to her. "I assume you know my name, may I have the pleasure of knowing yours?" Alex had been too busy working to bother looking at the envelope containing the thirty five selected. All of the girls were strangers to him. "My name is Eilidh Faulk." "Elih Faulk?" Alex asked not sure he'd heard her right. "It's pronounce ay-lee, but you were close, I've been called much worse." Eilidh smirked as they walked through the perfumed garden.
Eilidh wore a bright orange sun dress that ended below her knees. It had gold embroideries on it and was paired with golden heels and a golden necklace. The look really made her brown eyes pop and her blond hair mellow out.
"So what caste were you before you were selected?" Alex asked thinking that was a safe topic. "Oh, I was a four." Eilidh said with nod. "I worked on my parents farm. I really didn't get much choice in what career I had, but I liked the farm well enough."
Alex snickered as Eilidh plucked one of the few stray weeds to be found in the garden. When Alex was little, Adam used to make him scavenger hunts and one of the things on it was to find a weed in the gardens, it was always the hardest thing to find on the list since the gardeners were so tidy.
"And what will you do now as a three?" Alex asked with curiosity. "Oh, I don't know," Eilidh shrugged. "I haven't had much time to think about that, and besides," she cast a sideways look at Alex and gave a tiny smile. "What makes you think I won't be a one after this selection?"
Alex stopped dead in his tracks and for once was at a loss for words. He was genuinely touched that someone wanted to be his wife. He knew that it was a selection, but he figured most girls would enter for money or the crown. Alex felt a warm feeling in his stomach and he smiled to himself.
"What's wrong?" Eilidh asked since they stopped on the stone path. "Oh, it's nothing." Alexander responded shaking the warm feeling out of his stomach. He hadn't met any of the other girls yet, and besides Eilidh could be lying.
"So tell me about yourself," Alex said changing the subject in his mind. "Well, my immediate family includes sixteen people." Alex willed his jaw not to drop. "Sixteen people?! I can barely live with the seven in my family and we live in a huge palace where we can be away from each other." Eilidh looked at Alex with a puzzled look before realizing that Alex had accidentally left Adam in his family count. Eilidh didn't say anything because that meant that he wasn't thinking about Adams death.
"Even when I try and hide in the palace, Justin can always find me and annoy me. When we used to play hide and seek he'd always win and he'd always volunteer to be the seeker. He doesn't cheat, he's just very good at thinking from other people's perspectives."
"My seven year old niece Rosemary sounds just like him. She's only seven, but she's the smartest of us all, including me. She's a genius and is definitely going places."
"Hm," Alex pondered thinking aloud. "What?" Eilidh questioned with curiosity. "Oh," Alexander spoke, "I was just thinking about how Rosemary is seven and Max is six. She'll be able to enter into his selection when she's older."
"What?!" Eilidh gasped. "Did you just ship my niece and your nephew?!" Eilidh sounded outraged but when she thought about the two together it melted her heart. "Yes," Alex replied. "I think they'd be lovely together." Eilidh laughed and shared her favorite memory of Rosemary.
The two walked around the gardens weaving in and out of different paths for more than two hours. Their conversations never died and the two never missed a beat. Alex wasn't clumsy or stuttered with his words like he thought he might. And on top of that, Alexander actually enjoyed himself.
Alex walked Eilidh back to the women's room so that she could have a few minutes to herself before having to go get changed for dinner. Alex wouldn't be dining with the selected, but he wished he could see Eilidh's smile throughout the night.
"Um, Eilidh," Alex said embarrassed. "Yes," she asked now not afraid to answer or talk to Alex. "Would you mind not mentioning this to any of the other selected? It really wasn't supposed to happen and it might looks unfair to them."
"Of course," Eilidh nodded. Alex kissed her hand before she went back into the women's room. He jogged up the stairs, eager to get back to his room. When he was finally alone, he opened the big envelope that held all of the selected girls forms paper clipped together.
Alex searched through each file until he found a familiar beaming face. He slowly unhooked Eilidh's form from the rest and put the others back on top of his desk for later. Alex skimmed through her file until he had her name, province, caste, and interests memorized. It wasn't too hard since he'd already talked to the girl for two hours.
When he was done with Eilidh's file he moved on to the next one. "Only thirty four more to memorize." He told himself.
So tell me what's you thought of this chapter. Always review even if you hated the chapter. Thanks, -Jess
