They Made Me the Knight, But I Became My Own Princess novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Princess Card
At her 22nd birthday dinner, Molly's twin draws the princess card and claims her fiancé, and back home Molly finds every princess card in the family deck is marked.
On our 22nd birthday, my twin sister turned over the princess card.
I turned over mine.
Knight. Same as every year since we were five.
Mom clapped. Dad laughed and raised his glass.
"The cards never lie. Sadie was made to be spoiled."
The waiter pretended not to hear. He'd been refilling our water all night in the hotel's private dining room.
The rules of our family game were simple.
The princess gets one wish.
The knight has to grant it.
Sadie propped her chin on her hand and looked across the table at me.
Not at my face.
At the small velvet box sitting by my plate.
It had come by courier last Tuesday, with a note in an old man's shaky handwriting.
For Molly, from Arthur Keaton. Your grandfather would be proud.
Inside was a square sapphire that had belonged to the Keatons' grandmother.
I'd been turning the box over in my fingers all through dinner.
Sadie smiled.
"Molly, I want your engagement."
The room went quiet.
Even the waiter stopped pouring.
Grandpa Walter set up that marriage four years ago, a month before he died.
He'd held my hand in the hospital and said, "Arthur's boy is a good one. I want you looked after."
It was the only thing he'd picked out just for me.
My fingers closed around the box.
Mom's hand came down on my shoulder and pressed.
"Don't make that face. She's asking for a fiancé, not a kidney."
Dad reached across me and took the box out of my hand.
He slid it down the tablecloth to Sadie.
"The knight gives the princess what she wants. That's how it's always worked. Let's not ruin a nice birthday."
Sadie opened the box and let out a little gasp.
She pushed the ring onto her finger.
It was a size too small. She shoved it past the knuckle anyway.
Then she wiggled her fingers at me.
"You're not upset, are you? You never even met him."
I thought about my trophy from the state science fair, sitting on her shelf.
I thought about my blue dress, the one I saved a summer for, which she wore to her prom.
I thought about my old bedroom with the big window, which had been hers since we were twelve.
Every time, Mom said Sadie needed it more.
Every time, all I had to do was move out of the way.
The knight card was still in my hand.
I'd folded it so hard the word was cracked down the middle.
I put it in my pocket.
Something in me went very still.
I was done moving out of the way.
We drove home in Dad's car.
Sadie sat pressed against Mom in the back seat, holding her hand up to the window.
Streetlights slid across the sapphire, one after another.
"It's so pretty. Molly, say you're not mad at me."
I looked down at my own hand.
It was empty.
"I'm not mad."
Mom patted my knee.
"See? I told you. Molly's the sensible one. She always gives her sister what she wants."
Dad found my eyes in the rearview mirror.
"Mitch Keaton works eighteen hours a day. He needs someone bright and fun to drag him out of the office. That's Sadie. You'd bore each other to death."
He changed lanes.
"I'll find you somebody next week. The police commissioner's son is divorced, one kid, but he's a decent man. Good for a quiet girl."
I watched my reflection in the dark glass.
"Okay."
Sadie leaned across and hooked her arm through mine.
"You're the best. I'm taking Mitch to his suit fitting tomorrow. Come with me? You can tell me what color."
I slid my arm out.
"I have my design review at school tomorrow. I can't."
Her smile dropped. Her eyes filled up so fast it was like she'd flipped a switch.
Mom's voice went sharp.
"She asked you to be part of it. What's wrong with you? It's one engagement. Is a man you've never seen worth more than your own family?"
"I have a review. It's been on the calendar for a month."
Dad hit the brakes hard enough that my seatbelt caught.
"Enough. Your sister is the princess. You're the knight. The knight looks after the princess. That's all this is."
Nobody said anything else.
Twenty-two years of that sentence.
When we got home, the living room lights were already on.
The coffee table was buried.
Bridal magazines. Fabric swatches in three shades of ivory. A printed seating chart with KEATON-GRANGER across the top.
Sadie's name was typed into the bride's line.
The print date in the corner was last Thursday.
Five days before the cards were drawn.
I stood there with my coat still on.
Mom swept past me and started stacking the magazines, humming.
"Oh, don't look at the mess. Go on up."
The birthday deck lay beside the swatches, where she'd dropped it.
Mom always dealt.
Every year.
I picked it up and fanned the cards under the lamp.
Four princess cards. Four knights.
Each princess card had a tiny nick in its top right corner.
The same nick, in the same place, on every one.
You'd feel it with your thumb if you knew to look.
It had never been luck.
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