The Seven Drawers Read online

  The Seven Drawers

  A Tale of Snow White

  Kendra E. Ardnek

  Copyright © 2018 Kendra E. Roden

  All rights reserved.

  Also by Kendra E. Ardnek

  The Ankulen

  The Worth of a King

  The Bookania Quests:

  Sew, It’s a Quest

  Do You Take This Quest

  My Kingdom for a Quest

  The Bookania Short Stories

  The Prior Quest

  The Woodcutter Quince

  The Rizkaland Legends

  Water Princess, Fire Prince

  Lady Dragon, Tela Du

  A Twist of Adventure

  CinderEddy

  Poison Kiss

  Red as Snow

  Contents

  1: The Mirror

  2: The Box

  3: The Flute

  4: The Diamond

  5: The Comb

  6: The Apple

  7: The Key

  Dedication

  To whichever Rooglewood judge read my story and told me that that there was more to it and it needed to be longer.

  There totally was, and it totally did.

  Six Years Before…

  I am in bed, blankets heaped upon me even though it’s the middle of a hot summer day. I’ve been sick – or so the maids are whispering.

  I don’t feel sick. Just hot and sticky from all of these blankets.

  “How is she? Is she awake?”

  I turn my head towards my father’s voice and see him standing in my bedroom doorway. He looks tired. Old.

  “I’m awake,” I answer, but it’s a breathless whisper. I try to push the blankets off of me, but find that I don’t have the strength.

  His face lights up as he sees me, but it doesn’t melt the lines of concern or exhaustion. He walks over and sits down at my bedside, reaching over to brush my sticky curls out of my face. I wonder again when and how my father became old.

  We stare at each other for several minutes. I have questions, but no energy to ask them.

  “You’re nearly sixteen,” he finally observes. “Once you’ve fully recovered, we’ll begin the ceremonies to prepare you to be queen.”

  I blink. Not because I’m surprised or confused – I’ve always known that this day would come – but because a blink is the only answer that I can muster right now.

  “Also,” – and here he withdrew his hand – “I have someone for you to meet.”

  He retreats out of my bedroom and returns moments later with a young man, scarcely more than a boy. He’s skinny, brown hair a mess, and his grin is crooked.

  I’m suddenly embarrassed to be lying here, drenched in sweat, too weak to even speak.

  Father’s saying something about my protection and safety, but I don’t hear him, so absorbed I am in this stranger’s eyes. Except he’s not a stranger. I have never met him before in my life, and yet I know him. I can feel that our fates are twisted together. Only once before have I felt this with such certainty. When I met my best friend and soul sister.

  1

  The Mirror

  Life had felt wrong those last two months. Like I was trapped in a bad dream, but would wake up at any moment to find that my father had survived the accident – or that it hadn’t happened at all. Wake up and find that Jeremy hadn’t dumped me without so much as a word of explanation, or at least that it was all a misunderstanding. I would still be at college, working hard at my business degree … rather than suddenly disinherited and no money to finish my last two semesters.

  “Gwen, back to reality. There are tables waiting for you.”

  Rosa backed up her verbal jab with a physical jab of her pencil. Under such an attack, I had no choice but to return to my dreadful reality.

  No father.

  No boyfriend.

  No inheritance.

  No future outside waiting tables at Apple Pancakes, a cheap breakfast café that had way too few customers to still be in business. Not that I wasn’t grateful for the job – truly, I was. I just wished that I hadn’t needed it in the first place.

  And that I had one that actually had decent pay.

  “Gwen!”

  Rosa poked me again, harder this time.

  I winced. “Sorry. I just … had another dream last night. About Dad and Jeremy this time.”

  Rosa frowned. “Again? Gwen, you need to need to accept that they’re gone now. And they’re not coming back, no matter how much you wish they would. You have to accept that and live in reality.”

  I managed a smile, knowing that Rosa was just trying to be helpful in her way. She’d led a difficult life, and that was the mantra that had carried her through an abusive father, a sickly mother, poverty, and more failed relationships than I knew about. I had always admired her for her resilience … but, all the same, I wasn’t her. And she’d never had a perfect life snatched away from her and shattered on the ground in a million pieces. Broken pieces were all she’d ever had.

  “Tables. Waiting customers. Now, Gwen.”

  I finally shifted my attention to my tables. There was a party of five businessmen who were waiting for me. Perfect. I snatched up an armload of menus and headed over to introduce myself, hand them out, and collect their drink order. As I retreated to fulfill the order, another customer entered, and my heart started racing.

  Editha. The root of my every trouble.

  What was she doing here?

  I forced myself to focus on making the drinks for the businessmen: two coffees, a soda, a sweet tea, and an orange juice. With any luck, Editha would be assigned to one of Rosa’s tables. Not that I wished the woman on anyone – least of all my best friend – but there was too much personal history between us.

  Sure, I knew that the accident probably wasn’t her fault, but Father had still left her everything instead of me, and she had promptly kicked me out onto the streets. If Rosa hadn’t let me crash on her couch, and helped me get a job here at Apple Pancakes … I don’t know where I would have been.

  I returned with the drinks for my businessmen, and they tried to flirt with me. Such attention usually meant more tips for me, as I had already discovered, so I didn’t discourage it, even if I didn’t have the heart to respond. They were ready, so I took their order, and then headed back to the kitchen to submit it.

  On the way, I was relieved to see Editha seated in Rosa’s section, Rosa already waiting on her. Indeed, she was actually treating her civilly, which was more than I could have managed. I honestly considered nominated her for some reward or another.

  Editha’s eyes met mine, and a shiver shuddered down my spine. The woman had given me chills from the first time Dad introduced her to me. It was still beyond me what he’d seen in her.

  Rosa had accused me of jealousy when I’d confessed my misgivings to her, but I knew that wasn’t the problem. Yes, I had always been my father’s world, ever since my mother’s death when I was a baby, but I knew that I was moving on in my life. I wanted him to be happy. If Editha had made him happy, I would have welcomed her with open arms.

  But she hadn’t made him happy.

  Rosa noticed me, and her eyes narrowed in a glare. Quickly, I moved on. There were five businessmen who were waiting eagerly for their food, and I knew that the kitchen wasn’t going to be in any hurry to deliver.

  Customers who felt that they’d not received their food in a fair amount of time tended to leave less of a tip. And I needed every cent I could get. Truly, if I ever came back into money, I was never going to give a shoddy tip ever again.

  Waitresses put up with a lot, the poor souls.

  I was reluctant to return to the dining room, to face Editha again, so I was still standing there, hovering in the do
orway as Rosa arrived to deliver her own order to the kitchen. She frowned as she saw me, but said nothing until she’d punched in the order.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  I just shrugged. “What is she doing here?”

  Rosa just rolled her eyes. “Eating brunch. She has a right to eat anywhere she likes, and consider this getting back a little of your inheritance. The money she spends on her food will filter into your paycheck.”

  I shrugged again. “I’d prefer to not have to look at her.”

  She shook her head again and hurried back to attend to another customer who’d just been seated in her section.

  Somehow, I managed to make it through Editha’s visit, though I’m still not sure how. She seemed to linger far longer than any customer had a right to, and she didn’t even eat very much – from what I could tell, anyway, and I certainly wasn’t spying on her.

  Okay, maybe I was, a little. I didn’t like the woman.

  I was so glad when she finally stood to take her ticket to the front, though Rosa had given it to her a full fifteen minutes before. Unfortunately, I had misjudged her motive, because she cornered me first.

  Well, cornering isn’t quite the right word for what she did, because politeness kept me from running like the scared animal I was, but she stalked towards me on her four-inch stilettoes, without falling and breaking her neck on them like I secretly hoped that she would.

  I wasn’t short, by any means, and I drew myself to my full height now, but she towered over me in those heels. I don’t know why women wear those for every day. Even for special occasions, I prefer my shoes to be a bit more conservative.

  “It’s good to see you working hard, Gwen,” she said, her voice dripping with fake enthusiasm. “I told you that you could make it just fine in life without your father’s money.”

  I leveled my chin as I glared at the woman. “As far as I can tell, you weren’t in any particular need of it, either.” I pushed back the strand of black hair that escaped my ponytail hours ago, though certainly not because I was intimidated by how not a strand of her platinum blonde hair was out of place.

  By how there was no soul behind her ice-blue eyes.

  Her lip twisted. “I know how to care for it.”

  “I bet you do,” I scoff. Editha was a business mogul in her own right, with her fingers in multiple ventures. “But Kingdoms has been in my family for generations, and I’ve been groomed to take over since I was three years old.”

  “You apparently didn’t measure up.” Editha shakes her head at me. “Working here has been a good life lesson for you. Truly, I was skeptical when I heard that Hunson had hired you, but you performed beautifully today. I saw little of the spoiled rich girl.”

  I bit my tongue and take a deep breath to keep myself from making a snarky response to match hers, but then I frowned. “What does it matter to you if I work here? Do you really feel that you must have your nose in everyone’s business?”

  “Oh, I really must,” she answered, her lip twisting. “But, more accurately, I like to have an egg in every basket. I also take careful note of everyone inside my employ.”

  My eyes widened as I realized that I worked for Editha – yet another way that she controlled my life – but I refused to let her know that it bothered me and quickly folded my arms over my chest.

  “You own this place?” I scoffed. “Now that really sets my mind at ease about you running my father’s company.”

  Her lips pursed. She knew that I was making a jab at how Apple Pancakes was failing financially. When a full minute passed before she answered, I continued.

  “You have yourself spread too thin. I’ve been working here for nearly a month and this is the first time that I’ve seen you. What I have seen? A kitchen that doesn’t care, waitresses that are frustrated to distraction, and almost no customers. If you can’t invest your time in a business, then it’s a bad idea to invest your money.”

  “Are you trying to tell me how to manage my own business?” Editha finally asked, tilting her head to the side as she stared at me.

  I shrug. “Well, it’s the least I can do since you’ve taken control of mine. Besides, I’m only two semesters short of my business degree. I’m not clueless.”

  She tilted her head to the side as she regarded me, and I managed to not crumple under her scrutiny.

  “Very well,” she finally admitted, in a tone that turned my blood cold. “Perhaps you’re right. And, perhaps, I should give you a means to prove yourself.” She reached into her handbag and produced a card, which she handed to me. “Meet me tomorrow afternoon at my lawyer’s. I am going to make a gift of this place to you.”

  And, while I stood there, my mouth hanging open like an idiot, she breezed past me, out of the café.

  She was setting me up for failure, I knew this without a doubt. Apple Pancakes was failing, and it wasn’t going to be easy to bring it back from the precipice. Now she would make a scapegoat of me and have yet one more way to break my spirit.

  It was win-win for her, all around.

  I couldn’t afford to take her offer – but I neither could I afford to not. If I turned this down, I’d look ungrateful and proud. If I could somehow turn the place around … well, it’d be a start.

  I just wished that I could talk to my lawyer. Or, rather, my father’s lawyer. Unfortunately, Williams had gone silent after my father’s death, and I couldn’t know if he’d want to talk to me or not.

  Well, I wanted to talk to him. Tomorrow was my day off, and I knew that I’d have time enough to visit Williams’ office before I turned up at the meeting that Editha had arranged.

  I slipped the card into my shirt pocket and, suddenly, the room pulsed around me, fading in and out. I fought down a whimper, grabbing a railing that ran beside me. I couldn’t be having another episode. Not right now.

  For a moment, I almost gave in. In hindsight, I wish I had, but my determination to cling to sanity was too strong. By the time Rosa sought me out and asked me if anything was wrong, nothing was.

  Beyond the usual, but she already knew my sob story, after all.

  I didn’t tell her the conversation with my stepmother – or Editha’s offer. It was too soon, and I was still processing the implications.

  There were only a handful more customers throughout the duration of my shift, and I wasted no time in retreating from the store to my car – my car that was fully paid for and in my name. While I could have sold it, giving me the money I needed to survive and saving on gas, it was good to have something that Editha had been unable to touch. Besides, it was built for economy, not luxury – frugality despite privilege was a lesson that my father had always sought to impress on me.

  I returned to my apartment – my home of less than a week. It’d been a miracle – shockingly low rent and fully furnished. I was so glad to not have to crash on Rosa’s couch anymore. She’d been happy to have me, but I’ve never liked to depend on anyone.

  Tossing my purse and wad of one-dollar bills onto the table, I withdrew Editha’s card from my pocket again. What was her game? Could I possibly hope to beat her at it? Did I even have a choice?

  The wad of one-dollar bills said I didn’t have one. My tips from working as a waitress at Apple Pancakes was never going to be enough for me to live on, even if I kept my expenses as low as I could.

  Honestly, how did Rosa do it?

  Throwing down the card, I stalked into my bedroom to change out of my uniform.

  That plan, however, went out of my head when I found an unfamiliar piece of furniture standing at the foot of my bed. A narrow wooden chest of drawers, nearly as tall as I was and beautifully carved.

  Had my landlord off-loaded it on me? Why?

  There was a wax-sealed envelope lying on the top. Wax! I snatched it off, noted that it bore no name or address, and tore it open, hoping that it would provide some sort of answer.

  However, the letter it contained, handwritten in strong calligraphy, only contained more con
fusion.

  Start at the bottom and have courage, my love. Reclaim what is yours, and do not give up hope. You can overcome. All will make sense in time.

  I liked the sound of “reclaiming what was mine,” but, truly, what was mine? Father had left everything to Editha legally. I’d asked Williams. There was nothing he could do about it.

  My love? My heart went immediately to Jeremy. It was his penchant for random romantic gestures that had kept me in love through all of the six years that we’d been together – but was even this in line with him?

  Besides, he’d dumped me. It was easier for me to believe that I could regain Kingdoms from Editha than it was to believe that Jeremy would come back. That was something I dared not let myself hope.

  And he didn’t even know where I lived.

  Still, the instructions said to “start at the bottom,” and I could only assume that this meant the bottom drawer. There were seven drawers – which struck me as a very odd number in more ways than one – all very flat. Seriously, who needed that many drawers in one piece of furniture?

  I slid that bottom drawer open, and found it empty, and not even as deep as I’d expected it to be – for it was filled with red velvet like a jewelry case. There was an indentation shaped to cradle a key, but no key.

  Frowning, I shut the drawer and opened the next. This one was also lined with red velvet – and it actually cradled its treasure. A hand mirror - and a nice one, too, with its handle and frame made of shiny black metal, and I suspected that the mirror itself was made of actual silver, instead of aluminum. Handy if I ever had to identify a vampire – but that was unlikely, so I dismissed the thought almost immediately.

  But not before I wondered if Editha was one. She’d make a great vampire.

  The mirror’s surface swirled as I stared at it, but I didn’t notice this at first, so absorbed was I in my thoughts. When I did notice, I thought it my imagination.