The Cinderella Theorem Read online

  “It’s true. He always wanted me to go with him. He’d ask every time, but I’d always say no. After all, a princess just doesn’t run around the countryside like that. She’s supposed to stay at home and be proper and embroider something.” Fresh tears started; they ran down her face and fell on her dress. “I vanished him. I burnt his maps and made him miserable.” Ella started sobbing again, and the only words I could make out were “….fault…why…shoe.”

  Ella looked at me, waiting. She had apparently asked a question.

  Since “fault” plus “why” plus “shoe” do not in any way equal a question, I said, “I don’t know, Ella.” I walked over and hugged her. “I don’t know how we can fix it.” I adjusted our hug so I could look at her. “But I do know that we have to keep you from vanishing. Little girls all over the world look up to you. They dream of being you. What will their lives be like if you vanish?”

  Ella pushed away from me, sobbing harder. “That’s the worst of it.” She was crying, breathing, and talking all at once–not a coherent mixture. “I’m a horrible princess. I let my selfishness ruin my story. I let my husband vanish. I’m an awful role model. No one should want to be me.”

  “Ella,” I started moving towards her.

  She sobbed again and vanished.

  I stood there for an entire minute, counting and thinking. I came to two separate conclusions each with similar outcomes.

  1. I could not bring Ella back, so I shouldn’t stay.

  And 2. I didn’t know if people (possibly Daniel and the trenchies) would swoop down on the castle like police officers and CSIs to a crime scene. I could not imagine a situation in which it would be advantageous to be hanging around when they arrived, so I shouldn’t stay.

  I ran out of the castle, hopped on my bike (peddling at a velocity greater than usual) and jumped off at our castle. I grabbed my marble out of the bowl, headed for Arrivhall, and portaled to the safety of my bathroom. I immediately snatched up my toothbrush and started brushing. Then, when I was finished, I went to my room, closed my door, and lost myself in Algebra.

  I had finished thirty-four of the supplemental problems in the back of the textbook, when Mom knocked on my door. “Lil?” she asked. Her voice sounded tentative. “Can I come in?”

  I said nothing for a moment, finishing problem thirty-five. [x - (4 – x) = 20. Solve for x.][49] I wrote x = 12, and said, “Yeah, come in, Mom.”

  She looked tired. Mom’s hair is often a gauge of how hard she has worked. When she comes to a problem in her story, she’ll pull a strand of hair out of the clip and twist it. She says the twisting helps her solve the problem, but I haven’t found that to be a theory supported by mathematics. She does the same thing when she’s worried and today her hair was mostly out of the clip.

  “How—? What—?” She stopped and started again. “Calo—.” She shook her head and sat on my bed. “When—?” She cut off and sighed.

  “Just say it, Mom.” Incoherence is very unmathematical.

  She took a deep breath. “Alright, Lily. The thing is, Calo and everyone at HEA think you left work after Aven vanished.”

  I opened my mouth slightly. Was I seriously in trouble for leaving early?

  “Did you leave then?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Mom interrupted me. “Right after he vanished or later? And how much later?”

  I looked at my mother suspiciously. What were these questions about? “It was later,” I said slowly. “Maybe ten minutes later.”

  “So you weren’t there for the second vanishing?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t know?” Mom swallowed. “Alright Lily, this is going to be difficult. I have some bad news.” She started speaking faster. “I’ll just go ahead and say it: Ella vanished this afternoon, also. It—”

  “What?” I asked, this time confused about why my mother thought I didn’t already know this. Did no one know I had been at Ella’s? Shouldn’t one of the trenchies or a Happiologist have been responsible for monitoring her castle?

  A tear rolled down Mom’s cheek. “I know it’s a shock, Lily.” She pulled me into a hug. “You two were close, huh?” Mom rubbed my back to comfort me. “HEA and the Agency are doing everything they can to get them back. Don’t worry.”

  ~~~

  It was all very well for my mother to tell me not to worry. She had no idea that particular motherly phrase wouldn’t work this time. She had no idea that I was deeply involved in this story. She had no idea that I was the cause of the vanishings. My interference led to Ella burning Aven’s maps, which, no doubt, led to his vanishing. And, I was witness to the fact that his vanishing led to Ella’s vanishing. I was a vanishing catalyst.

  So for all my mother’s motherly words, I was worried. I left a negative off an answer (and had to run back upstairs to replace it.) I went to bed without brushing my teeth (and then got back up to go brush them.) And no amount of counting squares put me to sleep (so I switched to fluffy illogical sheep at 312 squared). I was very worried.

  My father didn’t come home; Mom said he was in rescue meetings. She wanted me to go with her to the candlelight vigil for Aven and Ella, but I told her I didn’t feel like it. How could I go and light a candle for the people I had vanished? I was as bad as Levi. Tandem Tallis should be hiring me as a Dark Mesa; I was such a lousy Happiologist.

  I turned over in bed. Ella’s words repeated in my head, “I let my selfishness ruin my story. I let my husband vanish.” I was worse than that. I, a Happiologist, let my selfishness ruin their story. I let my friends vanish–all so I could prove they should be normal.

  I sat up and looked around for something to distract me. I grabbed the copy of Beauty and the Beast I’d been reviewing from my work bag. Maybe a fairy tale could distract me where math had failed. It worked; I fell asleep, dreaming about Beauty selflessly (not selfish like me) giving herself to the Beast so her father could be free.

  ~~~

  Mom was gone when I woke up, or maybe she never came home. That’s the thing about vigils. How do you know when you can leave? It seems kind of rude to leave before the person you’re vigil-ing for is found, but who can just stay there indefinitely?

  I went through the motions of getting ready for school, all the while thinking about Ella and Aven. Why did I have to get involved? Why didn’t I suggest she paint maps for him? Why had I ignored the warning signs? Why hadn’t I talked to Aven at the tea? Why? Why? Why? It seemed my questions were infinite.

  And like infinity, the questions didn’t stop at school. I felt like I was split in half. Half of me tried to be normal and pay attention. The other half was lost in questions and worry. I hated it, and I have never hated fractions before.

  “Lily, dear?! We’re waiting!” Mrs. Fox interrupted my thoughts.

  “For what?” I asked, coming out of my stupor.

  “Weren’t you listening?!” She asked, rhetorically. “I asked you to read the first page of this obscure fairy tale we’re studying today!”

  I looked down at the page. The title of the “obscure” tale was Cinderella. Already one of the most well-known fairy tales was obscure. Somehow, I pulled myself together and mumbled through the page, without paying attention to what I read. My thoughts were on the obscurity of my friend Ella. I had made her obscure.

  I hadn’t been checking my shoe updates regularly because there was nothing to see. Ella had vanished, and Calo was steadily increasing ever since he started his condescending problem solving. But during the passing period before Algebra, I had to clean my shoe out. It was too full and becoming painful to walk on. I slipped into the bathroom to empty my shoe/communication device.

  I pulled out the top sheet. Through the folds of the paper, I could see Doug had written something below the regular print out. Curious, I unfolded it. He had written Come Quick!! near the bottom and drawn a line to the top where he had circled:

  Calo Miller Vanished

  ~~~

  Newton’s life wa
s changed by the realization that things fall toward the ground, Pythagoras’s life was changed by traveling to discover secrets of mathematics from all over the world, and my own life was changed when I decided to skip Algebra and go back to Smythe’s SFL.

  Once my mind was made up, I acted quickly. I threw the remaining updates away; I wouldn’t need them since everyone on the list had already vanished. I gathered my things, slipped out of the building without being noticed, and ran straight home.[50]

  As I ran I thought about two things.

  1. Why did Doug want me to “Come Quick”? What did he think I could do? I finally calculated that he must suspect I know something since I was receiving the updates on Calo.

  2. Why had Calo vanished? Yesterday, Calo was barely Less than Less than Happy. Admittedly, not great, but pretty good for what Calo had been recently. What had happened?

  3. I hoped Calo’s vanishing was not in any way related to my meddling.

  I ran in the door and was about to rush upstairs when I was stopped by all the post-it notes. Mom had left a trail of messages for me. I went from “Awful news” to “Calo Vanished” to “We’re staying” to “in the kingdom” to “Blaire will fix” to “some supper for you” to “Keep going to school” to “I’ll come home when I can” to “Love you Lily!” The trail ended in the kitchen. The “Love you Lily!” post-it was on a bag of pretzels.

  Mom’s distraction was off the charts today. Did she really think I was just going to stay home and keep going to school while all my friends and co-workers vanished away to languish with Levi and the Dark Mesas? I headed up the stairs to throw some clothes in a bag. I was staying in the kingdom, too. After all, I was the princess of that place and where else should I be when my people need me?

  Suddenly, I sighed. What was I planning? Rush into the HEA office and do what? Maybe I should just let Calo and his story be saved by Kara and the trenchies.

  I jumped. Another update arrived in my shoe. It poked uncomfortably. I dug it out and saw Doug had written something on it as well. Great. Who else could be vanished? I unfolded it and read,

  Hurry! Kara trapped in office. I have a plan.

  How in Fibonacci’s sequence did Kara get trapped? Wouldn’t her security force have secured the perimeter or something? I started back up the stairs. Mathematical or not, I was going to help Doug with his plan. The conclusion was simple: these fictional people need me. The equation for their fictional, magical world was unbalanced, and Doug needed my help to balance it, and if I, Lily Sparrow, am anything, I am an equation balancer.

  I was nearly to the top of the stairs when I heard my mother’s voice. She was in her study talking on the phone. But her post-its had indicated she would be in the kingdom indefinitely. I went back downstairs and peeked in the study.

  It was my mother’s voice, but it was not my mother. Blaire sat in my mother’s special writing chair, talking on the phone, imitating my mother’s voice.

  “No, David,” she was saying, “I won’t have the proofs ready by then…… Yes…. well, yes….. No, I’m going to have to cancel everything for this week and probably next.” Blaire waved me into the room.

  I assumed that she was talking to my mother’s agent, David. I sat in one of the other chairs and waited for Blaire to finish her conversation.

  “I know that, David, but it can’t be helped. I’ll call you again when I know more…. Goodbye.” Blaire hung up the phone and said, in her own voice, “Sorry about that, Princess. Your mother didn’t have time to make all of her calls before she portaled over, so I finished up for her.”

  “You sounded just like her.”

  Blaire nodded. “Of course, dwarves are good at more than singing ‘Hi, Ho’ and mining for jewels.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was beginning to get an idea of my own. “Blaire,” I started slowly, “do you think you could call my school for me? As my mother?”

  “Sure, what should I say?”

  “Say there’s a family emergency or whatever Mom’s excuse to David was.” I turned to leave.

  “Wait a minute, Princess.” Blaire hopped out of the chair. “What are you planning to do? Why aren’t you going to school?” She stopped. “Why aren’t you at school?”

  “Three people have vanished in two days. I have to do what I can to help.”

  “But—”

  I cut off Blaire’s protests. “I have to. I am the future Protector.”

  She looked at me and nodded. “Death of a close family friend it is.” She picked up the phone and I went back upstairs, deciding that vanishing sort of equals death.

  I went to the closet to get my Smythe’s SFL bag. My mind was already creating a list of things to pack. As I pulled the bag off the shelf (in my distracted state), a file folder crashed onto my head. It was Ella’s file. Her papers went everywhere. I hurriedly gathered them up and went to shove the file back into the bag. Then I noticed the bag was empty. There should have been another file there: the Candlemaker’s Daughter. I had been keeping it hidden there, so my mother wouldn’t find it, but it was gone. Did someone take it? Levi? Blaire? Or could it have vanished? Everyone seemed to be vanishing lately. But for the file to have vanished, the last person from The Candlemaker’s Daughter would have to vanish. And I still didn’t know who that was.

  “Oh!” I realized suddenly that I did know who it was.

  19

  The Origins of Evil Levi

  Calo. It had to be Calo. It made mathematical sense. He had been adopted into Puss-in-Boots, but since his adoption occurred before the written part of the story began, it didn’t matter. As far as the story was concerned, he was always the second son.

  The evidence of Celdan’s son’s death was circumstantial at best and completely illogical. The queen didn’t return to the hillside for a week. The miller (or his wife) could have found Calo and brought him home. The bloody clothes and entrails found a week later could have been from something else or put there as a decoy.

  I stopped myself. That’s an awful lot of work for a miller (or his wife) to do. Plus didn’t the miller’s journal indicate they found Calo on the doorstep? And how would they know to leave a death scene? It took sneaky spying to know what the queen intended when she dumped her grandson out there on the hill. And it required a fair amount of evilness also, to let Celdan and Colin think their baby was dead. The queen wasn’t an option; she herself believed animals had eaten him. Only one other person satisfied that equation of spying and evilness.

  Levi.

  I bet there were grease stains on those bloody clothes. And hadn’t Levi told me he was Celdan’s Dark Mesa? That he’s been working Celdan’s case for a very long time? Not only did he make everyone vanish, he created the depressing end to her fairy tale.

  I sighed. Great. Now Levi’s plan was completed. Tandem Tallis would be pleased to have a fully vanished story languishing in his dungeons. Of course, I was probably the only one who knew that Calo really belonged to Celdan’s story. Everyone else thought the story completely vanished hundreds of years ago.

  I sat on my bed to think. So many equations were balancing now. Calo was always Less than Happy, because his levels were affected by the fact his other story had vanished. No wonder he was grumpy all the time.

  But Levi’s timing bugged me. He could have pushed Calo over anytime. He obviously knew who Calo really was. Why not get him when he vanished the rest of the story? Why now?

  ~~~

  Macon Mind was waiting when I arrived. “Good morning, Princess.” He bowed. “I have been asked to give you this.” He handed me a note. “I have several pressing matters to attend to, so if you have no further need of me…” Macon dangled his sentence, waiting for me to dismiss him.

  “I’m good. Thanks, Macon.”

  Macon bowed again and started to walk away.

  “Wait a minute, Macon.” I called, hurrying after him. “I’ve thought of something.”

  “Of course, Princess. How may I serv
e you?”

  “Could you,” I stopped, hoping he would say yes. “Could you keep my being here a secret? I don’t want my parents to know.”

  An odd expression crossed Macon’s face. “Are you in danger, Princess? Is there not some other way I could assist you?”

  I considered telling him. I considered saying, “Yeah, Macon, I’m on a mission to save the people I vanished.” But instead, I said, “I just don’t want them to know I’m here. I have to take care of something.”

  “And they want you to stay in the other world?” Macon’s tone was even kinder than before.

  I nodded.

  “I will not openly lie to my king and queen, Princess, but,” he paused, “I will not volunteer the information, either.”

  “Thank you, Macon.”

  He bowed and left.

  I opened the note, which turned out to be another short and cryptic message from Doug.[51]

  Don’t come to the Observatory. I’ll meet you in your cubicle.

  I ran upstairs to put my bag down, then I ran back downstairs, hopped on my bike and headed for HEA. I didn’t leave my marble in the bowl for a very good reason; I didn’t want my parents to figure out I was here. I would just have to be extra-careful not to lose the marble. I certainly did not want to spend the rest of my life in Smythe’s SFL. I had brought Ella’s file with me, just in case I needed it. I planned to tell Doug everything, right down to my need to make Ella normal.

  But my plan failed from the beginning. As I pedaled toward HEA, I saw my parents get off their own bikes and enter the building. Not only that, but two guards were now guarding the entrance. Security must be heightened due to the vanishings.

  I needed to recalculate my equation. I’m technically skipping school and while I think I could legitimately argue why I need to be here, I don’t want to. It has been my experience that when parents are already under stress (from an illness, problem at work, or a vanishing rampage in their kingdom) that being disobedient (by missing curfew, failing to complete chores, or skipping school to save vanished friends) only increases their stress, which increases the potential punishment. Since my ability to help Doug all depended on my ability to (a) get to him and (b) not be sent to my room or home by my parents, I was stuck. I hopped off my bike and headed into the woods, far enough off the path so I wouldn’t be seen.