The Cinderella Theorem Read online

  “Run!” Calo grabbed my hand and took off to the right. We could hear Levi laughing behind us.

  As we ran, the updates we’d been ignoring began jabbing even more painfully into my foot. That really should have been factored into the equation when I agreed to turn my shoe into a magical mailbox.

  We passed door after door. Calo didn’t seem interested in any of them. I wasn’t interested either. My foot was in serious pain.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” I asked him, panting.

  “Not a clue.” Calo ran faster.

  Soon there weren’t any more doorways, but Calo kept running. I kept running and the updates kept hurting. Finally (and thankfully), my foot stopped hurting. Of course, I realized, five strides later, my shoe had come off.

  “Calo, I lost my shoe.”

  He didn’t acknowledge my words. He just kept running. Running with only one shoe is a seriously unbalanced equation. I had to stop. When I stopped, Calo jerked back because his momentum had kept him going. (We were still holding hands.)

  “Why did you stop?” he hissed.

  “Shh.” I put my hand on his mouth. “Listen!”

  Levi was laughing. “It’s a dead end, you know. I’ll just wait for you to come back when you’re ready.”

  Calo sighed. “What are the odds that we would pick the dead end?”

  “50%.”

  He looked at me and rolled his eyes.

  “There were two ways to go, so 50%. Although, if both passages lead to a dead end it would be 100%.”

  Calo sighed again.

  “You were asking a rhetorical question, weren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “I really don’t like rhetorical questions.”

  Calo leaned against a wall, trying to catch his breath. I stood there off balance because of my shoe. It’s very unsettling and unmathematical to be off balance. “I need my shoe,” I said to myself.

  “What?”

  “My shoe. I lost it while we were running. Now I’m off balance–like a scale with a badly placed fulcrum.”

  Calo rolled his eyes again. “I’ll go find it.”

  I used the time he was gone to count by eights. I was at one-hundred sixty-eight when he came back.

  “Give me your foot,” he said, knocking out several shoe updates. I leaned against the wall and stuck my foot out. “It fell off because it wasn’t tied, Lily. The next time we run for our lives, please have the courtesy to tie your shoes properly.” Calo slipped my sneaker on. Then he looked up at me. “Just like in Cinderella. That might work. It would just need one of us.”

  “Um, Calo.” He was still holding my foot, so I shook it a little to remind him.

  He released my foot slowly and stood up. “Look, Lily. I think I’ve found a way to get us home. I’m not sure it will work, but we have to try.”

  “Yeah, whatever, Calo. I’m willing to fit into any equation that will get us home.”

  “Good.” He nodded, smiling.

  “What do I need to do?”

  Calo took a deep breath, put his hand on my mouth and said, “Just listen. I’m in love with you.”

  My eyes widened beyond mathematical parameters. I tried to exclaim, but Calo’s hand was firm.

  “I fell in love with you by seeing your pictures in Arrivhall and reading the reports your mother submitted to the papers about what you were doing. I thought anyone with such a logical mindset would be the perfect worker at HEA, a terrific Protector.”

  What? What? WHAT?

  This was not at all equal to anything Calo had ever said about me. He had never complimented my logic before. Usually, he hated it.

  “Levi and Tallis included you in my cell of unhappiness because they knew seeing you work alone would make me sad. That I would want to be with you. That I would want to take care of you.” He swallowed. “I lied to you. I told you instructing you improves my mood, but really, you improve my mood. I love being around you and seeing our world through your eyes. I love watching your passion for our kingdom grow. I love you, Lily Elizabeth Sparrow.”

  Calo quickly removed his hand from my mouth and pressed his lips on mine, kissing me. A warm, cinnamony feeling overcame the shock. Suddenly, I felt happier than I’d ever been. I felt I would always be

  Happily Ever After

  Epilogue

  “What in the names of Pythagoras, Newton, and Descartes was that?” I shouted when Calo took his lips off my mouth.

  “I can’t believe it!” Calo smiled and hugged me. “It worked!”

  “Calo!” I started to yell again, but became aware of the cheering all around us. We were not in the dungeon passageways anymore. We were in a place full of inexplicable sunlight. I could see Ella, Aven, Celdan, Colin and all the others we had rescued in the crowd. Miranda and Doug were there along with my parents.

  “What happened?” I looked over to Calo.

  He gave me a big smile. “We did it!”

  ~~~

  After that, I didn’t have a moment alone with Calo for a week. There were five full days of celebrating and the telling (and retelling) of the whole story.

  My mom hugged and cried all over me. My father walked about proudly, reminding everyone his daughter had saved the story of Cinderella. If I was with him, I pointed out I had vanished it in the first place. But if Ella was near she would deny that and proclaim I was a true friend, I just didn’t know it at the time and she was sorry she let things with Aven get so bad. She and Aven spent the nights dancing and the days chatting, laughing, and planning in a secluded corner.

  Colin and Celdan never let Calo out of their sight, calling him Redmond all the while. Calo’s (evil, sadistic) grandmother tried to stay for the celebrations, but she got so fed up the first evening that she left in a huff. Miranda assured me that she wasn’t in danger of vanishing. The evil queen was happy to have Celdan around to torment again.

  After the celebrations, when Grimm returned from being a statue and Ella’s stepsisters truly accepted that Aven was still in love with Ella, things returned to normal. Or at least what equated normal for Smythe’s SFL.

  A special delegation was sent to Uppish Senna to get my marble back. When they returned, they said Tallis thought the whole thing was a joke and he never meant to keep me in the dungeon for more than a few hours. He happily returned my marble, which had to be degreased. Horrible little man and his greasy sycophant.

  My parents worried about the fact that I was now living Happily Ever After. My monitor worked and Miranda was assigned as my Happiologist. I had to go to a special training to learn how to cope with my emotions now.[60] Mom told me no one had wanted me living Happily Ever After as a teenager.

  “The ups and downs of the teenage years are a dangerous time if you’re capable of vanishing, which you are now,” she said one night, as we sat in the living room on Marshall Road. “You’ll have to really guard against letting yourself get down over little things. Like fights with friends or a boy who doesn’t like you.”

  “Mom. That’s completely irrational.”

  But my mind kept replaying everything that happened in those last moments in the passageway. Did Calo really love me? Or was he just trying to create a Happily Ever After for us?

  That’s what he said in his official report. He testified my shoe reminded him of Ella losing her glass (or gold) slipper. He stated that all the stuff about love was just to make sure we were creating the conditions of a Happily Ever After. As proof, he pointed out there were no reports about me from my mother. But there were numerous reports from Calo, indicating that he disliked my logic and rational mindset. He further stated he’d only kissed me so we’d vanish back.

  But was that true? Calo didn’t have to make himself Happily Ever After. He just had to get happy. And by the crazy logic of fairy tales, could I live Happily Ever After if my “prince” didn’t really love me? Because I had become Happily Ever After. I was this way because of what he said. Could Calo lie to the magic? Could the magic kno
w he was lying and still work?

  I felt deep in my mathematical core that it couldn’t work that way. He couldn’t lie to the magic. In the fairy tales I’d studied, good was rewarded and bad was punished. For crying out loud, Cinderella’s birds flew down and sang a song to the prince just to prevent him from marrying the wrong girl. If the fairy tale universe would go out of its way to make sure the right person got their Happily Ever After, I don’t think they would just hand them out based on what a person said.

  I had to conclude Calo had some feelings for me. And the last part of his speech (“You improve my mood. I love being around you and seeing our world through your eyes. I love watching your passion for our kingdom grow. I love you, Lily Elizabeth Sparrow.”) had seemed sincere.

  And the kiss. Well, it was a very nice kiss. Not that I had anything to compare it too, but, I mean, it did have some pretty amazing consequences.

  Besides, I had other stuff to worry about. I had missed six days of school, including the day I’d ditched, so I was behind on my homework. Mrs. Fox excitedly(!) let me have an extension on my paper. That was rather beneficial since I needed to change my whole assumption. I rewrote it and concluded that fairy tales are important to study because the characters end up happy and if you are happy, you are normal. My friend Ella became a princess on her own terms, not a “normal” thing to do, but it made her happy and being happy is the missing variable in the equation of what is normal.

  Of course, I didn’t put the part about Ella in.

  Mrs. Fox loved the conclusion. She thought it was a unique perspective on the human psyche and human emotions! I accepted the A and brought it home to show my parents.

  [61]

  All the equations in my life were adding up again. If I could only get the Calo equation to balance, everything would be perfect. I decided not to talk to anyone about the Calo problem. I would solve that on my own…or maybe I’d let him help.

  Copy of a letter intercepted by agents at the Agency:

  My Lord Tallis –

  May you be unhappy forever! Your Lordship will be delighted to know that all is exactly on schedule. As–according to my plan–Lily became more and more involved in the mystery of The Candlemaker’s Daughter, she found success and satisfaction which lead so easily to happiness. I am now, my Lord Tallis, able to report that Dear Princess Lily has reached Happily Ever After. She is ripe for vanishing.

  Your willing and humble servant,

  Levi

  Read on for a sneak peak of Lily’s next adventure, Calculating Christmas.

  “What exactly does ‘dress warmly’ mean?” I muttered to myself as I stood before my closet. Sweater warm? Jacket warm? Mittens and scarf warm?

  Should I have checked a weather report for today? Does Smythe’s SFL even have weather reports? Or weather, other than the changeable Fisher King weather? So far it had always seemed the same to me (a nice 70 degrees or so), but I knew some fairy tales had seasons and storms.

  I filed the issue away in my “Things to ask Calo” mental file, and smiled. I would get to ask him some things today. I was finally going to see him!

  Then I checked myself, a little embarrassed at how giddy I’d become. “Rational and logical,” I said. “Rational and logical.”

  Rationally and logically, I chose to wear a pair of jeans, a sweater combined with a thermal undershirt, and my sneakers. A perfectly warm outfit.

  I redid my ponytail, grabbed my marble off the dresser and portaled over to the kingdom. Beryl handed me a baggie of pretzels as I hopped on my bike. I’d become quite adept at eating pretzels and riding my bike at the same time. One of the many non-mathematical skills I’d acquired since becoming (or rather finding out I was) the princess of E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land.

  But in this equation, being a princess does not equal wearing fluffy dresses, practicing dancing, and marrying a prince. It does equal working at HEA after school, having a father who is alive instead of dead, and dealing with fairy tale people in a myriad of situations. So it’s sort of a modern princess thing. Although, I have worn a fluffy dress or two, danced in magic shoes, and am currently living Happily Ever After as a direct result of kissing a (handsome) prince. (Yes, Calo does = handsome.)

  “Rational and logical,” I muttered again and focused on getting to work on time.

  Calo was standing beside my desk when I got to our cubicle. His dark curls were tousled across his forehead. Tousled? Tousled? I turned the word over in my mind. Ever since I had enacted the quest clause a few weeks ago, some residual vocabulary cropped up. Grimm said it would fade over time.

  I smiled at Calo, trying to be rational and logical, of course.

  He did not return my smile. In fact, he looked annoyed.

  “I thought I told you to dress warmly.” He walked past me and out of the cubicle. “Come on. We don’t have all day.”

  Grimm frowned at me as we entered his office. “I thought you were going to tell Lily to dress warmly.”

  Calo huffed as he sat down. “I did.”

  “I dressed warmly!” My voice was louder than I’d intended it to be. “This is warm.” I pulled at my sweater. “I’m wearing a sweater and a thermal undershirt, plus jeans, and sensible shoes.” I plopped down in my chair. “This is warmer than what would normally be worn in October.”

  Calo rolled his eyes. “Where we’re going we need to be dressed much warmer than an extra shirt.”

  “It’s not just an extra shirt!”

  “Alright, you two.” Grimm calmly held his hand up. “I’m sure there’s something for Lily to wear in Wardrobe or maybe even in lost and found.”

  “Or maybe she could just summon her fairy godmother and wish herself a parka and snow boots.”

  I rolled my eyes. Leave it to me to get the one Non-Charming Prince Charming in the fairy tale world. And was there something wrong with using your fairy godmother? (I did feel a little weird for thinking that. After all, I had only used my fairy godmother twice and both times, it felt a little unethical, but still who was Prince Calo to judge me?)

  “Enough,” Grimm said firmly. “I want to explain this assignment to you both. I hope you understand that it is vitally important this case be handled with extreme delicacy and caution. This is a very unique situation that we are faced with and if we fail, there will be dire consequences for not only E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land, but for the real world as well.”

  “For the real world as well?”

  Grimm nodded. “Carole Claus needs some space from her family.”

  Calo raised his eyebrows and then returned to his professional attitude of listening.

  “Who’s Carole Claus?” I asked.

  “Santa Claus’ daughter,” Grimm sipped his coffee.

  “Have we found her a suitable foster home?” Calo took a small notepad out of his pocket and a pen off of Grimm’s desk.

  Grimm nodded. “Yes, the—”

  “Wait,” I interrupted, leaning forward. “Santa Claus exists and he has a daughter?”

  “And two sons.” Grimm smiled kindly.

  “Okay. If she’s unhappy, why aren’t we just cheering her up? Why are we moving her out? And does Santa Claus even count as a fairy tale?”

  “He’s a legend. And I didn’t say she was unhappy, Lily. I said she needed space from her family.”

  Calo made a coughing noise.

  “Oh.” I felt my face getting warm with embarrassment. You would think I would eventually learn to wait until all of the illogical fairy tale stuff had been explained before I started asking questions. “Why don’t you finish your brief?”

  Grimm chuckled and went on. “As I was saying, the Sparrow family has offered to welcome Carole into their home.”

  “Oh, that’ll be great,” Calo said sincerely as I processed that last piece of data.

  “What Sparrow family? My Sparrow family?”

  “Lily,” Calo hissed, wanting me to be quiet.

  “Yes,” Grimm nodded. “Your Sparrow fa
mily.”

  “She’s going to live in our house or in our castle?” I ignored Calo’s look and kept interrupting.

  “Carole will be living on Marshall Road in your house, Lily. She will enroll in Franklin High School and hopefully be able to get the normal teenage experience she’s looking for.”

  “What’s the cover story going to be?” Calo’s notepad was filling up.

  I looked back and forth between them. How could they calmly be discussing a total stranger moving into my house? And going to my school?

  I hope you enjoyed reading The Cinderella Theorem as much as I enjoyed writing it! Please let me know what you thought of the book; I love to hear from fans. You can contact me through my website: kristeeravan.com.

  The best publicity a book can get is from people like you who have read and loved the book. Here are some ways to help promote The Cinderella Theorem:

  Review the book—on Amazon.com, on Goodreads.com, or on your blog if you have one. If you do a review on Amazon, copy it to Goodreads as well. Also, Goodreads has an option where you can simply rate the book without writing a review.

  Like “The Lily Sparrow Chronicles” page on Facebook and invite your friends to like it as well.

  Visit kristeeravan.com to sign up for my newsletter, participate in discussions about the book, submit fan art, and stay informed about what’s happening with Calculating Christmas.

  Thanks again,

  Kristee Ravan

  * * *

  [1] Whenever you see a + sign, read it as “plus.”

  = as “equal.”

  ≠ as “does not equal.”

  It’s pretty basic. I like math, so I tend to talk in equations. My mother is forever reminding me that not everyone finds the principle of ratios as fascinating as me, so I’ll provide explanations of the mathematical elements whenever necessary.