The Prince's Cage

Lady Frankie keeps my cage a lot colder than Lady Penny did. It was bigger, too. This cage is cold, and drab. Lady Penny always kept my cage with the brightest sheets and cages. It was a whole four inches high, a huge canopy way above my head. She talked softer too me, too. Except when she laughed, she laughed so big I had to hold my ears so that they wouldn’t fall off. Everything she did was big. She walked big, and she talked big (except when she was talking to me), and she dressed big, and she was always bright and happy about everything. And she was always willing to talk all the time about everything, like about that huge crush she had on that one prince, a real big prince, not one of the doll Princes like me. And she always kept the window sheets spread wide open during the morning, so that the early light was the first thing I saw during the morning.

The new cage is a lot smaller. If I stand on my tippy toes and stretch my arms I can definitely put my palms on the bars above. It’s a lot colder, too. And the new sheets are all boring purples and browns, when Lady Frankie even remembers to put them in. I don’t even get to stay on the nightstand anymore, my cage sits at the foot of Lady Frankie’s bed. It’s huge, huge even for the big people. I couldn’t walk across it without running out of breath. It was a huge massive field wide open in front of me, but made of deep purple heavy sheets. Back when I was under Lady Penny’s thumb, I managed to get away long enough to compare myself to the heaviest bed sheets. It went up to my waist, but Lady Frankie’s were so thick, even one of them was thicker than I was!

I think Lady Frankie doesn’t like living here. I don’t see why she would keep living here if she doesn’t like living here, but she definitely does not like living here. During the hot season she insists on walking around in her heavy, fancy coat over her heavy, fancy dress, layered in wool and cotton. Lady Penny’s dresses were always thin, and wavy, and they always flailed and flopped about in the wind. I know, because I was her personal tailor. My work was so good, I was appointed the official Royal Little Stitch, which is a real job I think.

One day, before one of the balls that Penny liked so much, one of her big servants found her crying in the grand stairwell. They tell me that Penny asked for me, specifically, her own Prince, to help her. She had a tear in her dress, and I was asked to fix it. I remember being alone in my cage in her bedroom, sitting and thinking about nothing much like all good Princes are supposed to do when not needed by their Princess, when a huge light came from way across the vastness of Lady Penny’s room. It was really bright, I almost couldn’t see, when suddenly someone in the door came heading straight towards me like a not very small earthquake. I was really scared at the time, because I thought I had done something wrong. I was a good Prince, I almost never got punished, but I was still afraid of doing something bad in front of Lady Penny. Instead, it was one of Lady Penny’s servants, up in front of my cage.  It was weird looking at Lady Penny’s other servants. In front of her other doll servants, I felt good, because I was more special than them, being Lady Penny’s personal toy and all. Lady Penny always told me that I should feel more special than her big servants as well, because her favorite nurses couldn’t get as close to her as I did. Lady Penny let me search through her hair to find an earring lost in her twisting, lazy caramel forest. Lady Penny let me crawl over her back to sew together a tiny hole on the back of her new shiny swan dress. Lady Penny kept me on the dresser in the morning, and let me stay as she changed clothing, even when she didn’t have any clothing because she didn’t feel like putting any on.

Lady Frankie doesn’t change when I’m in the room. She keeps my cage under the bed, next to the shiny sky blue heels way bigger than even my old cage, where it’s obscured by the fat purple blankets on her bed. And when she’s done changing, she sometimes forgets to pull me out, so I stay there, thinking about not much in particular, and also Lady Penny. And when she does pull me out, she doesn’t look straight at me, as if she’s thinking about something else.

Lady Penny always said I was delicate. It was my favorite compliment. Whenever I did a good flip, or said something she liked and found cute or clever, she giggled and called me a delicate little doll. And she’d poke or prod at my thin, frail arms, and I’d shiver. And she’d run her finger against my silk jacket and pants, shimmering in her light. And she’d bring her head to me, and not care that I could smell her breath, or feel the heat in every word as her mouth opened wide enough to hold two royal Princes. And she’d grab me those nights, and pull me into her bright sheets with her, and just leave me there in her arms, near her heat, and her chest, and things would be good for a little bit because I could almost pretend that I was a part of Lady Penny, like a little forgotten mole on her left arm, or a hair stub on her stomach.

Lady Frankie never brings me into bed with her. She never does much of anything with me. She glares, mostly, scowling, or off with her other princess friends that were never as good as Lady Penny’s friends. She likes to read sometimes at night. She tries to hide it from me, because she always puts a heavy cloth over the cage before leaving on the lights for the night, but one night I managed to peer under and could catch a glimpse of her deep into reading.

Lady Frankie doesn’t laugh big, she doesn’t like to run, she rarely goes to parties, she doesn’t do much of anything. When she does bring me out of the cage, it’s for a quick flip to show off to a friend, and then nothing. I never even get to talk, it’s just back into the cage. I don’t understand why Lady Frankie kept me. She doesn’t like me, she never uses me, why couldn’t I have gone with Lady Penny and her servants? Why was I to stay at the castle with Lady Frankie?

I’ve never known anything outside of the castle. I don’t think I need to, it’s big enough for me. Even a single room is about a day’s travel. One time I caught a good glimpse outside one of the windows into the open fields, and I couldn’t quite get a grasp on them. Endless fields, and plains, forever. How could anyone ever manage that? When Lady Penny was younger, and I was younger, I would get lost in some of the wings of the castle. On one particularly bad day, I remember getting lost for two entire days in the library. I had to hide under a bookshelf for an entire night to keep away from a stray beast of a cat, at home with the other dust bunnies and forgotten things. Lady Penny spent a week cleaning my silk clothing after that, her cream hands almost turned red from that.

Some nights I wonder about Lady Frankie. Some nights she comes in without a scowl. She isn’t angry, or bitter, or at least she isn’t trying to look like it. She just looks tired, and lost, and scared, like I did when I was lost in the library. I hate those nights the most. It’s on those nights that I would run away if I could, because I would rather that than stay there and listen to Lady Frankie quietly cry to herself. I want to run up to her and tuck her into bed and tell her how pretty and special she is like how Lady Penny used to when I wasn’t doing a good job at being a happy Prince, but Frankie was big, and I was small, and that was that. So those nights I stay awake, hearing an ocean of Frankie wash up the sides of my bed and slowly fill the cage until I drown in the gallons and gallons of her tears.

Some mornings I think about running. I don’t know where, I don’t know many places. To the many unopened, unexplored rooms of the castle, to find a way to survive among the rats and scraps? To the unknowable endless fields of green, and whatever that means? I’m not meant for any of that. I’m a Prince, a doll for the Princess of the castle. And in the morning I look at Princess Frankie, and I think very hard about Princess Frankie.

Maybe I am not the best Prince for her. I’ve seen other Princes that are quieter and easier. Lady Penny was loud, so I tried to be as loud as I could be. Maybe a calmer Prince could help Princess Frankie more. But Lady Frankie had me, and I had her. And some nights I stay awake listening to the wash of her waves crash against the shore, and I think about how I am to quell a roaring hurricane. But maybe Lady Frankie is not a hurricane. Maybe she is just another torn dress to climb and fix. Maybe I can fix her.