When it came to preparations for the impromptu wedding, Maria—the maid of the Snowflower Palace—really shined.
“Leave it to me,” she said, patting her chest. True to her word, she performed far and beyond expectations.
The preparations began with invitations that were sent to every single person in the village, then the reservation of the village’s one and only chapel, discussions with Cecily about the decorations and how the ceremony should be run, and finally onto the little cakes that would be gifted to all guests.
Not only that, Maria knew best how to put people to use. On each invitation was a small request to each villager to see if they could help with the preparations.
Some of the requests were as follows:
“I’d like you to help with the baking. If you have any suitable recipes you could share, please do.”
“Could you go out with the children to pick some flowers from the flower field? We wish to make a lovely bouquet for the bride.”
“I heard that you are skilled at making rose corsages. Would you lend your talents to the wedding?”
And on they went.
The reason Maria was able to make such personalized requests was because she had already gotten a bearing on each person’s personality and what they were capable of during the preparations for the assembly hall party.
Cecily took her hat off to the incredible Maria, but even the bride-to-be couldn’t rest on her laurels. After all, everything needed to be done in under two days. Cecily worked hard to help decorate the chapel as well as to prepare the couple’s wedding dress and tuxedo.
As the night before the big day approached, Cecily was prepared to stay up late again helping out, but Maria curtly told her, “You can prepare for tomorrow by going to bed and getting some decent rest.”
On the day of the wedding, Cecily woke early. She took a long soak in a flower-petal-filled bath, applied perfumed oil to her hair, and busied herself scrubbing her body clean.
By the time she was in the back room of the chapel putting on the wedding dress, she was exhausted, but it was a comforting exhaustion that enveloped her whole body.
“You’ve done so much, Maria. Thank you for everything.”
Cecily had envisioned a far more hastily put-together wedding, but thanks to Maria, it looked to be a small but wonderful affair.
“Not at all. There are few opportunities for a maid to get to organize a wedding, so this was a fulfilling and enjoyable experience.”
True to her word, Maria was beaming at Cecily.
Maria’s final job was to apply Cecily’s makeup and do her hair, now that she had finished changing. Maria was well accustomed to caring for Charlotte day in and day out, so there were no worries here.
“Lower your head, please, Lady Cecily.”
“Right!”
As she sat in front of a dresser, Cecily did as Maria asked.
Charlotte was in the small room too, and had come a little earlier.
“Ahh, when I think of the day that you will fly the nest like this, Lady Charlotte, I feel so overcome with emotion,” Maria said.
“Whoa... Maria, are you crying?” Charlotte said with surprise.
“Yes, I am just filled with concern about whether that day will actually come or not...”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“I meant what I said.”
As the time of the ceremony drew close, Charlotte left. She was probably on tenterhooks right now.
Just as Cecily had thought things were quiet once again, her parents came bustling in.
“Oh, darling, you’re incredibly dashing today!”
“Greta, you’re cute, beautiful, and wonderful, all at once!”
Greta and Sewell came in with their arms around one another, exchanging little pecks on the lips every now and then. They weren’t ashamed to show their love for one another in front of other people.
Cecily looked at them in the mirror with a vexed look in her eyes.
“This is my wedding, so why are you two showing off how in love you are?”
The comment was said with exasperation, but Cecily was also relieved because she finally felt like she had come home. Yes—this was just what they were like.
Sewell had been showering his daughter with love, buoyed by joy at her homecoming, but it was his wife to whom he showed the most affection. He loved his wife more than anything in the world. They hadn’t been apart for all that long, but they only had eyes for each other.
They had been like this even when Cecily was a little girl. A rush of nostalgia passed over her as she saw them again now. She had really grown since she was a young girl who dreamed of a prince atop a white horse. To think that she would finally have found love for herself... She felt her cheeks redden.
“Mom, do you remember what you said to me back then? You said, ‘Cecily! You can’t have both love and marriage at once!’”
The words her mother had spoken that day had sent a dagger through the heart of the young Cecily, who had believed in the true love of her fairy tales.
Sewell stopped his flirtatious behavior and froze up. It seemed as if this was the first he was hearing of this.
“Huh? Greta, did you really say such a thing to dear Cecily?”
“Hmm, I may have done.”
Greta showed no signs of remorse. She didn’t know just how shocking those words had been to her daughter. Cecily, who’d grown up watching parents who seemed to get along very well, had asked back then, “Daddy loves you, doesn’t he?”
However, Greta hadn’t relented, and had coldly replied: “That’s because I made him drink a love potion!”
“Because you said that to me back then, I suffered a lot growing up, you know?”
Cecily had discovered she was a witch, and had felt an almost unhealthily intense hatred towards love potions. She’d spent every day hating wicked witches, who were the enemies in her stories.
Perhaps finally starting to feel some remorse, Greta put a hand to her mouth.
“Oh dear, I only intended to tease you a little. I was, well...a little tipsy that day, shall we say.”
Cecily wasn’t about to just let this statement go.
“What? You were drunk?”
“Yes, I had a little too much to drink. I actually meant to say this...” Greta had a far-off look in her eye as she continued. “Cecily, you can’t have both love and marriage at once. That’s what I thought before—but it’s not true at all!”
Cecily was shocked into silence. And then—
“That means the complete opposite of what you said!” she yelled.
“I just paraphrased the end a little.”
“‘A little’?! You left it out completely!”
Cecily wanted to clasp her head in absolute despair, but Maria quipped, “You need to stay still,” so she remained as she was.
As Maria applied color to Cecily’s lips, all Cecily could do was listen to her parents talk.
“When I was younger, it is true that I didn’t believe in intangible things like love. That was until the day I made my darling drink that love potion, and everything changed.”
“Ahh, that takes me back. I almost forgot that happened!”
Forgetting his troubled daughter, Sewell dwelled on fond recollections of the past.
“Back then I remember you saying, ‘I’m going to steal you away from that rival of mine! Open wide—time for a love potion!’ as you made me drink it. Ahh, you were charming in how forthright you were. You were so cute! Well, you’re still beautiful now, of course!”
What?
This was news to Cecily. If she hadn’t been having her lips done, her jaw would have been on the ground.
Mom stole him away from a rival? So, another woman?
“Cecily, don’t get the wrong idea. And you, darling—enough about the past!”