let me introduce myself, to those who may not know me.
my name is cleo brown.
i was born with the soul of an empress, but whoever was assigning lives the day i was born missed a beat, or missed the boat, or missed something because i came into the world in a station very far removed from my proper one.
my mother was a chimneysweep. and she had eleven daughters, born each one year apart, in the month of the mouse, beginnng in the year of the toad. we all expected to be earn our livings, and be chimneysweeps too.
our names were isis, helen, genessisa, felicitrope, entropia, destiny. cleomene , (myself) , belmolocha, astarte, zentropia, and yezebel.
the first thing i can remember is my mother telling me, you are going to have to earn your keep.
that sounded reasonable enough at the time, because i was yet to learn that there were people who did not have to earn their keep - people like princesses, and queens, and empresses - and the favorites of princes, and kings, and emperors.
at first, we were all to follow in her footsteps and be trained o be chimneysweeps and fireplace polishers. an ancient and honorable profession, or so we were told.
and then, in the year of the shark, when i was eight years old, my youngest sister, yezebel, was four, and my oldest sister, isis, was fourteen, the emperor adam xvii, cursed be his name, issued his infamous proclamation that he would take as his bride not a vestal virgin chosen from the long line of vestals bred from time immemorial for that purpose, but would conduct a search through the entire empire for a perfect specimen of feminine grace and beauty.
mothers throughout the empire immediately began preparing and training their daughters , hoping to ensnare the monarch.
the more innocent and optimistic ones prepared all their daughters, however many they had.
the more calculating ones selected one daughter, and concentrated all their hopes and efforts on her.
my mother was one such. she took the measure of all.
isis was too tall, helen was too thin, genessissa’s ears were too big, felicitrope’s ears were too pointy, entropia’s chin was too pointy, destiny had a nose like a pig, my nose was too long and pointy, belmolocha had no sense of humor, astarte talked too much, and yezebel talked too loudly and had no respect for anything.
this left zentropia. she was to be the favored one. from that day on she never got a cinder on her dainty person, but was groomed by our mother for her one in a billion chance to be empress. the rest of us would have grumbled in any case, but that was far from the worst of it.
zenobia’s education had a price. things had to be purchased for it. that meant the rest of us wore even more raggedy rags than before, and that our rations were cut by two thirds, and all we were given to eat was gruel and potato skins. mother assured us that potato skins were packed with all the protein we could wish for.
unfair! unfair! my soul, which had been fired with the thought of becoming empress, pointy nose or no pointy nose, rebelled! and this rebellion in my soul, was, so far as i was concerned, proof in itself, of my fitness for a throne.
i resolved to run away to the capital, and persuaded the three younger rejects, belmolocha, astarte, and yezebel , to accompany me.
i convinced them that we could form a juggling and acrobatic act, and join the circus - where we would surely be seen by the emperor, who, on seeing us, would forget all about the foolish search through the kingdom and fasten on one of us.
we hastened to put our plan into action.
at this point cleo’s story was interrupted by the entrance into the drawing room of another member of the traveling party she had arrived at the castle with.
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