Free Letters to Zell by Camille Griep Page B

do?”
    “Briar Rose is not here seeking my help, is she? I would venture to guess that she doesn’t know that you’re here at all. Is that true?”
    “You aren’t being fair.” I sniffed. “We’re her friends. We can’t just let her suffer.” Both Bianca and Rory had kept my secret and done everything but take the test for me. Trying to help Rory seems to be the very least I can do.
    “Come back in five days. I’ll think on it til then.” She shooed us out into the branches. It seemed much windier than when we arrived.
    I glared at Bianca. “Fat lot of help you were.”
    “Like you were any better? She said she’d think about it. Stop being so bitchy.”
    So we came home empty-handed in every way. I don’t even feel up to sneaking down to the kitchens to bake. I can’t believe I’m so useless that I can’t even manage to buy a love potion from a Fairy.
    Love,
    CeCi

Important Fucking Correspondence from Snow B. White
    Onyx Manor
    West Road, Grimmland
    Z,
    Figgy is considering our request. Contrary to what CeCi thinks, all hope is not lost.
    I empathize with CeCi’s anger, but I can’t get it through her thick skull that she’s mad at Figgy for the wrong offense. She blames Figgy’s birds for Darling and Sweetie’s blindness. But CeCi is the one who saddled herself with their care instead of marrying them off to a couple of Edmund’s friends. (He has to have at least a couple who aren’t picky about feet.)
    She made the decision not to send her stepsisters away. And she kept Lucinda around for their sake. If she’s mad at Figgy for anything, it should be for maiming the twins instead of her father.
    I suppose none of you hit the jackpot in the parental division. Not even Rory. Can you imagine what her parents were like? Always doting on her, controlling her, championing her, planning her wedding? Even when they realized Henry was a blustering jerk, they smoothed things over with commentary like “Ahem, is there any more of that wine?” Then they wiped their hands of the entire mess, moved over to the south wing of the palace, and proceeded to order room service for the next five years.
    When I find my father, I’m going to tell him that I’m glad my memories of us together, as few as they are, are happy ones. I expect I’ll hear from him any day now. He’ll tell me where he’s been. I’ll talk to him about Outside and thank him for all the money and the journals he left for us to use. Without them, I’d never have been able to help CeCi.
    Speaking of, we’ve put off approaching Solace for long enough. We have to go Outside again next week so that CeCi can take the test to finalize her admission to the cooking school. And we still have to buy the rest of her supplies so she can start the week after. This will be a perfect excuse for another bachelorette party. This time, no soufflés. I want to go to a fancy hotel, to a fancy restaurant, to Disneyland!
    I wrote you a short poem:
    Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair
    And come Outside with three friends fair.
    So many fun things to see and do
    Alas, you must shovel the unicorn poo.
    (Did you see? I can rhyme! I amuse myself.)
    B

Princess Briar R. Rose
    Somnolent Tower Castle
    South Road, Grimmland
    Dearest Zell,
    When Maro arrived today, she suggested we have tea outdoors on the “pretty green grass.” But I told her that here in Grimmland, the weather is perfect and the sky blue and the clouds puffy and the hills purple and the butterflies yellow almost every single day. I may have intimated that she wouldn’t be invited to see my tower every single day. And that it was my luncheon. (I said that I was trying to be benevolent toward Maro, not that I have perfected such behavior.) She agreed and followed me up all the stairs, her jeweled hand riding on her heaving chest.
    Halfway up we met Henry, coming from his chambers. I introduced Maro and, curiously, she bowed instead of curtsied. At first I hoped Henry wasn’t looking at her