2 Chapter 2

Alexandra

When Alexandra was five she was sent to school. They pulled up in front of the Governor's Mansion, which was the biggest brick building she had ever seen. Her mom had told her that this school was a very special one.

"All royal children go to this school. It will make you into a proper princess."

Alexandra thought she was a princess because her mom and dad were King and Queen, but she knew better than to ask questions.

She loved school. She was at the top of the class in reading and writing. The stories that they read were about brave princes and beautiful princesses. What made it better was that these stories were the history of their lands.

The princess didn't like the classes on hunting and survival as much. But if they were going to survive their adventures as enchanted royalty the children would need these skills.

Alexandra was very happy, except for one thing - her lack of an enchantment. She learned that from the other children.

While Alexandra loved the learning, not all her classmates shared her enthusiasm. She soon discovered that royal blood did not automatically confer the ability to rule upon them. Indeed some with the most unimpeachable noble lines had the least ability. The daughter of the Queen of Sopo was the prime example.

Her name was Anaeth; she was beautiful and the center of all the princes' attention. Yet her idea of majestic command was to throw a tantrum. It was only the absolute rule forbidding the beheading of peasants or other destruction of school property that kept the population safe from her rages.

It was Anaeth who told that Alexandra was unenchanted. Alexandra had just turned nine, and there had been a party at the school for the children and their parents. Once all the adults had gone home the children gathered secretly in their common room, up past their bedtime discussing their enchantments. Anaeth, of course, began by telling about how she had been enchanted to prick her finger and sleep until wakened by her true love's kiss. She had the utter assurance of knowing her place in the world. So she was infuriated when Alexandra asked if having the whole kingdom sleep for a hundred years, just so she could find a husband, wasn't an inconvenience for everybody else.

"Nonsense!" whispered Anaeth fiercely. "It is supposed to be inconvenient. Besides, they are just commoners, what do they know?" She fixed Alexandra with her enraged gaze. "I suppose your enchantment is convenient for everybody. You will probably end up married to some stable boy." The others laughed, but Alexandra was saved from answering because the Prince of Poond made a face at Anaeth.

"Yech, you won't catch me kissing any girl."

"No, you are going to be turned into a toad, and some ugly princess will get warts from having to kiss you."

"A frog, a frog," squeaked the prince, turning remarkably bug eyed, "and she will not be ugly!"

"She will be if she has to kiss you to get a husband," Princess Anaeth snickered. "Perhaps Princess Alexandra will kiss you. That would certainly be convenient. Go ahead, kiss him." The others picked up the chant, "Kiss him! Kiss him! Kiss him!" The little prince jumped and ran away, but Alexandra clutched her fists and stood over the Princess Anaeth, ignoring the others.

"I won't kiss the little twit, not because you say so, or anybody else. I don't care a fig for what you say. I think you are a little monster, and when your prince comes he won't kiss you, he'll chop off your head." The Princess Anaeth gave a very unprincesslike squawk and turned red, then purple, then blue. The room was absolutely silent as the princes and princesses confidently waited the explosion to come. It didn't. Instead the beautiful little girl smiled, and looked positively angelic. She beckoned the others closer.

"I heard," said Princess Anaeth pleasantly, "that there is an impostor at the school. My mother told me one of the so-called princesses has no enchantment. I wonder who it would be. I, of course, am enchanted to sleep on my sixteenth birthday. Princess Avi is turning into a swan. Neje has a mother who will send her into the woods. Ariel will be carried away to a glass mountain." And so she went around the room naming each girl's fated curse or enchantment. As she spoke each of the girls shivered uncomfortably, as if they were the first to ever have their enchantment, and didn't know the end of their story. They felt, just for an instant, the malice behind the comfortable enchantments they had grown up with. Until Anaeth reached Alexandra, then her voice took on an edge. "It is a funny thing I have never heard Alexandra's enchantment. Tell me, what enchantment will bring your husband to your side?"

Alexandra felt a great gap open inside her. She didn't know anything about her enchantment; no one had ever told her or even talked to her about enchantments. She turned red with shame, and hid her face. Anaeth crowed with triumph.