Midnight's Song by Keely Victoria

get on with it and tell her!” Grandmamma spoke up
loudly from the opposite end of the room.
    “Yes Mother, I’m getting there,” Wren
continued, her voice shaking. “We always thought that perhaps if we
were to refine you and present you to the public it would help us
to gain some sort of approval for our predicament. It has always
been our intention to present you to our circle, but now it has
already come to the attention of people in high places.”
    “Who?” I asked through my dumbfounded
stare.
    The room fell into a
momentary silence during which I would realize that this wasn’t any
ounce of good news or a choice which I would be able to decipher on
my own. The next few words from her mouth would make my heart drop,
as I would come to the cold realization that this choice was no
longer theirs or mine. It would turn me into nothing more than a puzzle piece,
a cleverly masked slave to their national struggle to keep their
freedom. As if I hadn’t already lost it all, if I didn’t comply I
would lose more than just my freedom. I would have to carry the burden of
knowing that I caused them to lose everything as
well.
    “Elissa…in order for our family to
maintain our well-being in this world, we will have to begin
preparing you for a royal presentation. This is not in our hands,
and it’s not a request. At the beginning of the winter, you will
have to be the one to carry all of the family’s future in your
hands. You’ve been summoned by the Magistrate.”

11 | Golden
Cage

    “Pull your hair back like this,” Wren
told me, yanking my loose curls behind my neck before I even had a
chance to speak.
    Tonight was a huge
night for the family. It wasn’t the night – but it was a momentous occasion
nonetheless. After three months of training, I had been deemed
ready to attend my first social function. This wasn’t by any means
my time to meet the Magistrate. There were still things that the
Devereaux family was unsure of, and it was fairly so. If I was
going to save this family by maintaining a proper, dignified and
even saintly façade; there couldn’t be one single glitch in my
behavior. That’s why tonight was only really just a
trial-run.
    Whether it had been originally
organized as an occasion for a gala by itself or a celebration of
my “triumph” I still don’t know. I think that they might have been
celebrating my obligation – I mean, invitation – to see the
Magistrate. Though, I didn’t quite feel like it was something worth
throwing a party over. Whatever kind of celebration it was, it
wasn’t for me. I didn’t even really feel like myself anymore. I was
a bird trapped in a golden cage, with no choice but to go and do as
I was instructed until I satisfied my jailers.
    My fingernails had
been trimmed and painted, and my face quite unenthusiastically
powdered. Wren stood beside me holding a myriad of hair ornaments
in her hands, clearly torn over which to use. Emily stood directly
behind me, holding the laces of my corset like the reins of a horse
and struggling to pull them back as if she were wrangling cattle.
It was unclear if she was struggling to pull on the strings to
girdle me in or laboring to cinch them tightly enough because there
was nothing there to girdle.
    “Emily, pull it back as tightly as you
can!” Wren ordered.
    The tighter the better, I suppose she
must have thought. As puny of a waist and frame as I had, my ribs
couldn’t help but disagree with this sentiment. Emily suddenly
jumped back and laced my corset as tightly as she could. I gasped.
Goodness, did I hate this feeling! Before I could say anything in
protest; Wren ordered me to raise my hands above my head and Emily
draped a blue dress over my shoulders.
    It was shimmering but simply put
together. There was no long train or balloon-esque bustle. The
skirt wasn’t even puffy enough to need or even have the ability to
contain a petticoat. The only intricate part of the entire outfit
was the sleeves, which were