The Cinderella Theorem Read online

  I wasn’t afraid to enter the Wildwood–well, not exactly. The problem centered more on the degree of darkness. At home, streetlights shined in my window, and the switch on my computer power strip had a light in it, plus I had glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling. It wasn’t exactly the absolute absence of light.

  The Wildwood was.

  It was like staring into a black hole. There was nothing giving off light, nothing in the distance. The sun’s rays didn’t even penetrate the forest.

  “It’s a matter of will power,” Doug had said. “The Wildwood wants to keep you out. You’ll have to prove you want in that much more.”

  I didn’t understand. “What do you mean? Like the woods are alive?”

  Doug sighed. “Sort of. The darkness is one of the protections they have in place to keep people out.”

  “They who?”

  Doug raised his eyebrows. “Well, there are lots of really bad things in fairy tales and legends. You know, like monsters, hags, and wicked dwarves. They need somewhere to live. Plus, all those questing princes need somewhere to go on their quests.”

  “Huh.” I wanted to ask clarifying questions, but I was afraid more information might cause me abandon the quest altogether.

  “But the important thing is the darkness,” Doug went on. “It’s just an illusion. Once you’ve taken five steps into the Wildwood, you’ll find the lighting to be just like any other place.”

  I stood at the entrance of the Wildwood preparing to take the five steps, thinking about how when I asked Doug if he knew about the change in lighting from personal experience, he’d taken a long time before saying, “No.” He’d only read reports to that effect.

  I mentally went over the directions from Doug one more time, then took a deep breath and stepped into the Wildwood.

  “Interesting,” I said, five steps later, blinking in the sunlight. I took a step back into darkness, then another step forward into light. I felt like I was standing on the International Date Line or the Prime Meridian, or like I had one foot in Kansas and one in Oklahoma.

  I experimented a little with how far I could be in the dark and still have a foot in the light and vice versa. Then, I suddenly remembered why I was in the Wildwood in the first place. I took off down the path as fast as I could possibly go without missing the landmarks Doug had mentioned.

  At the twisted oak tree, I turned left, and at the row of stumps, I took the road to the right. Then, at the abandoned hut, I stopped. This was where I would find Levi.

  I remembered what Doug told me to say; I just didn’t want to say it. I looked around the clearing. Maybe Levi would be here anyway. Maybe I wouldn’t have to say it.

  “You have to do whatever you were told to do.” A low voice spoke.

  I jumped and looked all around. Where was the voice coming from? Disembodied voices are highly unmathematical.

  “The whole point of the quest is to follow the directions, you know.”

  “Where are you?” I asked, spinning around.

  “Down here.”

  I looked down and saw an old turtle wearing glasses.

  “Hello, Princess.”

  “Um...hello.” I knelt down in the grass next to the turtle. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “And I, you.” The turtle nodded. “Now, you should probably get on with your quest. You young people, always forgetting the important things. Always trying to get around the quest and do things your own way.”

  “Okay, but, um, if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t seem very evil.”

  “Evil?” The turtle looked at me.

  “I was told evil hags and monsters live in the Wildwood.”

  The turtle blinked. “They do. But they certainly aren’t the only things that live here.” He slammed his mouth shut.

  I stood up, and dusted off. “How did you know I didn’t want to follow my instructions?”

  The turtle rolled his eyes. “Because you had that young headstrong look about you. I’ve seen it on all those young whippersnappers who turned into slabs of stone or frogs for not following the directions.” The turtle made an annoyed sound as he continued ambling away from the clearing. “You just be sure to do what you’re supposed to!”

  After the turtle had gone, I looked around for anything else that looked like it might be capable of hearing and speech. I really didn’t want anyone to hear what I was about to say.

  I got on my knees and bowed my head. Contrition and submission were vital factors in this equation. Then I said, “I, Lily Elizabeth Sparrow, Princess of E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land, crave the presence of Levi, Dark Mesa of Uppish Senna. I have need of his abilities. I need him for what I cannot do.”

  A greasy hand tipped my chin up. “Fair princess,” Levi cooed. “It takes such a strong person to admit they need help. What can I do for you?”

  After telling me the formula for getting Levi to appear, Doug made sure to tell me over and over to be servile with Levi. He had to believe he had the upper hand.

  “Please,” I whispered. “I need to see Lord Tallis. It is my only hope.” I looked up at Levi, suddenly afraid I’d laid it on too thick. Too much groveling might upset the delicate balance of the equation.

  “But, Lily, my dear, Lord Tallis is not known for his hospitality.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  Levi cocked his head and smiled. “Very well.” He removed a cloth from his pocket. It was damp with grease. “You’ll have to wear this.”

  Levi tied the blindfold on, and once again, I was mentally repeating, “Darkness is just the absence of light.” Levi’s greasy hand grabbed mine and he led me deeper into the forest.

  “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Levi remarked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’re having nice weather, aren’t we?” Levi went on. “I mean, I vastly prefer this weather to an ice storm. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes,” I said, hesitatingly. Weather seemed like an odd conversation topic for a kidnapper to have with his kidnappee.[54]

  “You know I knew your grandmother quite well.”

  “Oh? My mom’s mom or my dad’s mom?”

  “Your father’s, of course. It’s not likely I’d know your mom’s mom at all, is it?” Levi laughed.

  I laughed a little too. Not that I understood what was funny. I was busy not tripping and making servile conversation. It bothered me, however, that Levi seemed to know about the mystery of my mom’s parents.

  “But, back in the day, I was almost exclusively assigned to your grandmother. Very cheerful woman. I thought I’d never get her to vanish.”

  I stopped shuffling along. “You vanished my grandmother?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He grabbed my hand again and pulled me along.

  We continued in silence for a few moments, then Levi’s greasy hands removed the blindfold. “Here we are.”

  I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the sunlight. We stood next to a gnarled tree; its wood was very dark, almost black. But when I looked closer I saw that the tree was really split at the bottom and growing in six different sections around the original stump. (Six trees equaling one tree.) The space between the stumps was sufficient enough for a person to slip in between them and stand in the middle, which is what Levi directed me to do.

  “Now, dear Princess, we’re going to jump down the hole like in Alice in Wonderland.”

  “What?”

  Levi rolled his eyes. “Oh, I know, it’s not really a fairy tale, since she’s in a novel by that Dodgson fellow. You’d like him by the way, he was a mathematician, but fairy tale or not, though, it’s still a good reference to what we’re about to do.”

  “What? Do you mean Charles Lutwidge Dodgson?” Him, I knew. He wrote Symbolic Logic Parts I and II.

  Levi nodded. “Right. As Lewis Carroll, he wrote Alice in Wonderland about his little neighbor friend, Alice. But since Alice is his created character, she’s not a citizen of Smythe’s SFL. I heard she’s taken up
regular residence in Wonderland, but Baldric is such a gossip, you can’t believe everything he tells you.”

  “I don’t understand what any of that has to do with the tree.”

  “We’re going to jump in like the White Rabbit and Alice did.” Levi looked at me a little funny, sort of like Calo whenever I don’t know something about a citizen’s story. “Oh, you’re surprised I’ve read it. Trust me, Princess, we have an excellent library in Uppish Senna. (All the pages are laminated, of course.) And we have a brilliant section devoted to vanished tales. They can literally only be found in our library.” He flashed his greasy grin.

  I moved closer to the tree. “I’d be delighted to see it.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged.” He offered his hand and assisted me in slipping between the trees.

  I looked down at the cavernous hole, calculating its depth. I stopped myself from figuring out my rate of speed and velocity. If I jumped down this hole, I’d have to do it without math. With math, all I had was an equation equaling my death.

  “See you at the bottom,” I called to Levi as I jumped into the hole.

  Surprisingly, it was not dark in the hole. I tried to determine the light source based on the refraction and reflection of light in the cavern, but I couldn’t pin it down. Also, I seemed to be defying the laws of physics. The speed of my descent was not increasing, nor was it slowing down. It was just the same as it was when I stepped off the tree.

  “Having a good time?” Levi floated next to me. He was enjoying his fall/float from the comfort of a reclining arm chair. He laughed at my surprise, and added, “I didn’t say it was exactly like Alice in Wonderland.”

  I didn’t answer because I was suddenly aware of a new problem.

  We were coming up on enough furniture to stock a small store.

  Beds, bookshelves, lamps, desks, even a piano, slowly ascended. I wriggled to the left to avoid a burgundy ottoman. Then, I squirmed to the right to miss a flower-patterned love seat.

  Levi laughed. “You’d better land in a chair. It will do the piloting for you.” He pointed. “Look! That leather recliner. Aim for it.”

  I managed to direct my floating so I would be in the path of the chair. “How is it mathematically possible for the furniture to be rising?”

  “Everything is not about math, Princess.” Levi swiveled his chair so I could see him. “Now, put your body in a sitting position and—”

  WHAM! I slammed into the leather chair with a grunt.

  “Yes, exactly.” Levi nodded. “It’s Smart Furniture. All you have to do is assume the proper position above the piece and you’ll find yourself in it. And once we get to the bottom, the chairs will float up again.”

  “Clever.”

  I spent the rest of the ride reviewing Doug’s plan in my mind. Levi spent the free fall examining his finger nails and occasionally muttering things like, “I’ve got to get a manicure appointment,” or “I must remember to pick up my dry cleaning.”

  I didn’t really want to have a conversation with him; I needed the time to make sure the plan was firm in my mind, but still…if he had struck up a conversation with me, I would have asked him some questions about turning traitor and becoming a Dark Mesa. Had he really been a better Happiologist than Calo?

  Eventually, after I’d had time to review the plan four and a half times, our chairs landed. Levi nonchalantly exited his chair and offered his hand. I knocked it aside and got up of my own volition.

  Levi raised his eyebrows. “Independent, like your father.”

  “You mistake me, Levi.” I smiled at him. “I just don’t want to touch your greasy hand.”

  Our chairs started slowly rising back up the tree. Levi made a sweeping gesture with his hand, bowed a little and said, “If you’ll just follow me, Your Highness.”

  I nodded regally and followed him through the rocky passage, noting mentally that all of a sudden I seemed to be the embodiment of all things regal. My posture was better, my speech took on a more formal, royal quality, and there was that random regal nod. I can mathematically prove I am not in the habit of nodding like a courtier in my normal life. In fact, in my normal life, I am not in the habit of using the word “courtier” or the phrase “not in the habit.” Was Smythian magic finally affecting me the way it makes Mom less distracted when she’s in the kingdom?

  We stepped out of a cave, and Levi led me to a carriage. It was completely black, the driver was dressed in all black, and the horses were also colored with a touch of ebony. Touch of ebony?! I was turning into my mother! I quickly made a comparison of the two blacks and determined the black of the carriage was darker than the black of the horses. At least I can still do math. I started reciting squares to steady my nerves. (Steady my nerves!)

  My malaise (!) was so distracting that I absently took Levi’s offered hand as he helped me into the carriage. Its greasiness brought me crashing back to reality. “Am I turning into a fairy tale?”

  Levi looked at me curiously, knocked twice on the ceiling to tell the driver to start, and asked, “What do you mean?”

  I sighed, exasperated, “I don’t know. My vocabulary is changing, my posture is straighter, and I’m acting rather regally.” My hand shot to my mouth. “You see!? Rather regally! I don’t talk like that!”

  Levi stroked his chin. “You must have activated the quest clause.”

  “What quest clause?”

  “Clause 981 of the Smythian Code of Laws: If a citizen endeavors to complete a quest, but is lacking in some way, whatever he or she lacks will be magically endowed upon him or her.”

  “I understood all of that,” I whispered. “It was full of jargon and was clearly not written in the best possible way, and yet, I got it.”

  “Precisely,” Levi nodded. “You are embarking on a quest–futile, though it is–to save someone, aren’t you?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “So the magic of your disgustingly happy Salt Land has enacted the quest clause. This is the sort of thing that is sure to be made into a legendary tale–not of victory, of course. It will be a lament for the lost princess. But, the main character can’t run around with sloppy, unprincessly posture, saying things such as, ‘It was like SO totally awesome, you know?’” Levi imitated what Corrie referred to as “people who waste oxygen in the tomes of history.”

  “I have never spoken like that.”

  Levi laughed, “But neither do you sound as you should.”

  I rolled my eyes. “How do you come to know so much about Smythian law?” I regretted my question as soon as I asked it. I already knew the answer. Levi knew about the law because he had once been a citizen, a Happiologist.

  He made an impatient noise, and turned to look out the window. For a brief moment, as he turned, I saw not Levi, the villain, but Levi, the victim.

  “You cannot be as ignorant as you pretend, Your Highness,” he said quietly. “Even the most cursory inquiry into my background would have revealed my history.”

  Inexplicably and unmathematically, I felt sorry for him. Although I was sure it was mostly the result of the quest clause, I did think it would be unprincessly not to express concern for even the vilest creature. “Is there no way to take back your treason?” I asked. “Could you not undo it in some way?”

  Levi turned to look at me. He began laughing. “You assume I want to take it back.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then your assumption is in error, Your Highness, and you do your mathematical background a disservice by pretending emotions you do not feel.”

  “I—”

  He held up his hand to stop my protest. “You would do better to formulate an equation for the length of time it will take my Lord Tallis to bend you to his will. For whatever plan you have concocted will fail. And you, Princess, will be little more than another prisoner in his dungeon.”

  I looked out the window and ignored Levi for the rest of the journey. The greasy scumbag had tried my last sympathetic princess nerve. I hoped he was
unhappy and haunted by his treason.

  ~~~

  “Stand over there,” Levi motioned to a dark area near the door of Tallis’ throne room. “When I call for you, you can come forward, and,” he smiled as if his mouth held laughter behind it, “have your audience. And remember don’t say anything to Lord Tallis until he speaks first.”

  I nodded. Levi was a greasy, annoying, traitorous sycophant, but I had to play his game if I was going to get into the dungeon. And getting into the dungeon equaled freeing my friends, which also equaled saving Cinderella’s story so little girls everywhere could hope for a missing gold slipper.

  I mentally replayed the last part of the equation. Gold slipper. I reviewed Cinderella’s story. “I think that’s right,” I whispered. “I think she really did lose a gold slipper, even though everyone thinks she lost a glass one.” Apparently the quest clause made up for my lack of fairy tale knowledge.

  I shook the shoes from my head and my eyes followed Levi as he walked down the strip of black carpet toward the dais and throne.[55] By the torchlight, I could see his greasy footprints sinking into the carpet. He bowed and generally sycophanted himself.

  “May unhappiness smile on you forever, my Lord Tallis.”

  A tiny figure on the throne stirred. He was only inches taller than Peridiom, Lubcker, and the rainbow crew. It seemed strange that such a short person could be so evil–the sender of dead lilies and sparrows.

  “Tell me, Levi, for what purpose have you disrupted my leisure? I was reading The Raven when I was called.”

  “I think, Your Lordship,” (I could hear the arrogant smirk in Levi’s voice.) “you will find my news far more pleasing than Poe.”

  “Enough with the riddling; Get on with it, Levi.”

  The tiny man’s voice was deeper than I had supposed. Two or three times deeper.

  Levi bowed again and began, “Someone from E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land craves an audience with you.”

  Tallis leaned toward Levi; his eyes full of interest. “Who?”