About a half-hour later, down an alley in the shadow of the castle, Daisy was woken from a dead sleep by a very official-sounding pounding on her front door. She stumbled to the door and found she had been correct in her appraisal, for there stood a small troop of official-looking soldiers, one of whom demanded in an official-sounding tone of voice that she come with him, pronto.

That’s how Daisy found herself, head spinning with all sorts of wild, horrible thoughts, stumbling through the midnight streets of the city on the way to the castle. She knew this was something bad because, as the Royal Interior Decorator, she had been escorted to the castle many a time but always in the light of day with one friendly escort, not in the middle of the night with two surly soldiers in front of her and two surly soldiers behind her, boxing her in as though expecting her to try to escape.

Was the Queen unhappy with the new flower arrangements in the main hall? There had been some trouble with one of the new chairs for the banquet table, but she had thought the squeaking had been repaired. And, seriously, could troubles with the decor really get her in as much trouble as she felt sure she must be in? She had not held her position at the castle for very long, so she didn’t know yet how things were handled when something went wrong, but this simply had to be excessive.

The guards were no help; they either hadn’t been informed of the reason she was being brought to the castle, or they knew and weren’t telling. All they said was that the Queen had said it was urgent.

Daisy’s anxiety increased when she was brought not through the main gates but down a path around the side of the massive building and past the stables to a small, unadorned, heavily guarded, back door. Then a short walk down a dark passage, and through another door, and then down, down, down an endless stone staircase worn with age and countless footsteps of the condemned -- the longer she walked the more convinced she became that there was only one place she could possibly be headed.

The dungeon.

And she was familiar enough with the rumors to know that people rarely left the dungeon.

What could she possibly have done to anger the Queen this much? What? Would she be given a chance to offer some sort of defense against whatever her crimes were supposed to have been? The Queen had seemed so kind and down-to-earth -- there had to have been some ghastly sort of misunderstanding. Daisy wished she had at least been able to bid her family farewell. She hoped someone would inform them where she was so they wouldn't have to wonder, but that was unlikely considering the air of mystery surrounding the dungeon. How long would it take for people to notice she was gone? Would anyone think to water her houseplants and feed her bird?

Legs shaking, on the verge of tears, she finally reached the bottom of the stairs and found herself standing in the high-ceilinged, huge main torture chamber. Appropriately gothic torches lit the perimeter, and a slimy drop of condensation plopped down from the ceiling and onto the bridge of her nose.

But -- aside from the torches and the gross condensation -- nothing about the place was as she would have expected.

The scene before her eyes was just confusing enough to jar her out of some of her despair and fear. There was an army of maids scouring the walls and floors, while a group of guards was standing in one corner around an evil-looking device scratching their heads. She overheard one of them mumbling, “Are we sure this thing can be disassembled?”

Another answered, “Well it sure wasn’t carried down all those stairs in its current state. There must be a way to get it apart -- oh wait, look, I think we need an Allen wrench right there--”

A few more guards were removing some chains from the walls and dropping them into an open crate labelled, “STORAGE. Chains -- Dungeon.”

And there didn't appear to be any prisoners anywhere.

Then, just when Daisy thought things couldn’t get weirder, the Queen herself bustled into sight, busily waving her arms about at this and that, dictating something to the woman trailing behind her who was scribbling frantically on a scroll of paper. The Queen saw Daisy and cried, “Ah! Perfect! You made excellent time!”

Daisy sank into a curtsy, and it was a good thing she’d recovered from much of her fear, otherwise her legs might not have permitted her to stand again when the Queen told her, “Yes, yes, up you get. We have work to do.”

By the time Daisy had stood again, the Queen was already on the move, so Daisy scampered after her, since she was obviously expected to be following.

“Of course you’re the professional here,” the Queen was saying, “But I was thinking lots of rugs. Really nice, thick rugs. Since this stone is just so cold. And tapestries. And paint. What do you think of paint?”

“Paint?” Daisy asked through a whirl of confusion. Why did it seem that the Queen was planning on redecorating the dungeon?

“For the walls, dear,” Her Majesty said helpfully.

“But-- What? I don’t--”

The Queen looked at her for a long, baffled moment and then said, “Oh! Didn’t anyone tell you why you are here?”

“No, Your Highness,” Daisy answered nervously.

“Oh! Goodness! You poor dear! You must be rather confused.”

Try petrified, Daisy thought, but only said meekly, “Rather, Your Highness.”

“You’re here to turn this dungeon into a nursery for my baby!” she said with a glowing smile.

“I’m -- Oh!” Daisy finally understood and felt relief wash over her. She was not going to be imprisoned for a bad choice in decorating after all. “Oh!” she reiterated, this time in surprise -- the relief had made her legs go weak all over again. There being no seating, she staggered back a few paces and leaned against the cold, stone wall. Daisy took a few deep breaths. She would be alright!

Lillian watched her reaction curiously for a few moments, apparently not understanding what was up with her decorator, then a look of comprehension dawned on the Queen’s face. “Oh you thought you were going to be imprisoned! Ha ha! Silly me! I’ve been so distracted lately.”

Daisy gaped at her, then remembered just who it was she was staring at and instead looked at the ground, secretly fuming that she’d had to go through all that trauma just because the Queen was a flake. But Daisy was, as previously stated, the professional here, and she gathered she had a job (a very weird job) to do; she tucked away her emotions to deal with later, cleared her throat, stood up tall, and said, “So, I’m here to turn the dungeon into a -- nursery?” Odd. Royal folks did have the strangest notions. And she knew the Queen was born a commoner, so inbreeding (the usual reason the commoners used to explain away royal craziness) was not to blame.

The Queen then nodded and began to explain to Daisy all about the curse. But you already know about that so let’s go somewhere else for a while. Hmm, let me see here, what’s going on in the rest of the palace? Ah yes, here’s Conroy finding out that his wife has just set free every last prisoner from the dungeon:

“WHAT?” a red-faced Conroy exploded, flying out of his gigantic, ritzy throne and staring with bugged out eyes at one of his advisors whose name he was always forgetting -- they were all old and bald and crabby, and forever suggesting he do all sorts of boring stuff when he’d rather be hunting or playing croquet. (He was the King, for goodness sake! Of all people in the kingdom he should be the one who got to do whatever he wanted.)

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said the cowering advisor. “I heard a report that a hoard of emaciated and bedraggled men had descended on the city saying they had been released from the dungeon. Released by, er, the Queen,” he finished in a hesitant whisper. “I personally went down to the dungeon to confirm it, and it is –“ gulp, “true.”

Conroy spluttered and gestured wildly but no words came, so he just gave another roar of rage, then stormed down the steps of the royal dais. He had strode all the way down the vast, marble-pillared, gem-encrusted, gold-leafed throne room and reached the massive carved ebony double doors before the echoes of his yell had even died out. "Seriously, what in blazes is the woman thinking?!" he thundered.

His rage did not abate one iota as he stormed and stomped and cursed his way toward the dungeon, sending maids and guards and other palace folks diving for cover. But the further he got down the stone stairs, and the closer he got to an ugly confrontation with his lady love, the more his steps slowed and his face drained of anger. He didn’t like fighting with Lillian -- well, he’d never actually fought with her so he didn’t know for sure, but he was nearly 100% sure that he didn’t want to do it.

Let me, in my omniscient glory, let you know how a fight would have unfolded: She would have cried, he would have felt guilty, and they’d both just have ended up apologizing and nothing would have gotten accomplished except they’d both have been upset for a while. They were definitely one of those couples who should avoid screaming matches in favor of well-reasoned, respectful conversations, but unfortunately neither of them were really evolved enough to handle that either, so instead, in the future, they ended up bottling stuff up and exploding with some passive aggressive comments every now and then.

"Hey, Darling," Conroy said nonchalantly (though inside he was still slightly fuming) when he finally reached the dungeon and saw Lillian there talking to some lady who was not dressed in a maid or cook uniform -- what else could a female possibly be doing in the palace? “So, uh, what’s going on down here? I got a report that, uh, you let all the prisoners go? And, why are they cleaning?” He pointed around at all the maids, though they were not currently cleaning-- they were bowing.

Lillian had been studying a sketch that Daisy had been scribbling on a pad of paper, but when Daisy had realized that she was in the presence of the King, she had collapsed into a bow, taking the sketch pad down with her. Lillian gave Conroy a glowing smile and said, “Of course I let them go, darling! We need a place for-- Oh, but this is not how I would have chosen to tell you! I had been hoping to spring the news over a dinner of baby back ribs, baby carrots, and those darling little tiny corn cob things.”

Conroy looked confused.

“Dear,” she said, rushing up to him and clasping his hands in hers, “Dear darling love, we are going to have a child!”

Conroy stared at her for a moment, then broke into a huge, genuine grin. “Wow! No way!”

“Yes way!” she enthused. “A bundle of joy!”

There was much laughing, hugging, kissing, and spinning of the queen around the floor of the dungeon. There was, in fact, more happiness condensed into the span of five minutes than had ever occurred in the dungeon before in the entirety of its existence.

After a time, however, Conroy became subdued as he looked at his surroundings once more and realized why all this bustle in the dungeon was going on. Farland’s curse. His child was going to be stuck down here forever-- or until the dratted curse was broken. “The dungeon,” he murmured, “Yes, I suppose it does make sense. No sunlight at all.”

Lillian met his eyes and gave him a brave smile. “We’ll make the best of it, Dearest. I have the greatest decorator on the job, so the place will at least look a lot better. And we must stop thinking of this as a dungeon. We must stop that mindset. Right now.”

He nodded resolutely. Yes.

“Daisy is a simply splendid decorator--” she said with a gesture toward where Daisy had been, only to realize that she was prostrating herself before Conroy on the still muddy and bloody ground (as was everyone else in the room). Lillian hadn’t yet been married to Conroy for very long, and so hadn’t gotten used to one of those most annoying things about being royal: people were forever dropping to the floor at one’s feet, and one had to remember to tell them to rise.

Conroy was used to it, of course, though. “Ah yes,” he said. “That lady who’s not a maid or a cook.” He looked down at the top of Daisy’s head.

“Oh do get up,” Lillian said, still vaguely embarrassed by being groveled at. “Everyone,” she added to the rest of the room. Everyone popped up and got back to work. Bustle, bustle; flurry, flurry.

Daisy brushed off her dress (wishing she hadn’t worn one of her finest, because it was going to be impossible to clean) then walked over to the Royal Couple in response to Conroy’s beckoning finger. As she walked toward him, a man scurried quickly between them chasing a rat, his thickly-gloved hands extended before him. (As part of their refurbishing efforts, they were attempting to rid the dungeon of vermin.)

“You. Decorator.” Conroy spoke to Daisy.

“Your Highness?”

“This place is to be perfect for my child. Perfect. You shall have no budget to concern yourself with. Spend whatever you need, hire whomever you think will perform the job best. Understand?”

Daisy nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.”

He turned his back on her without another word, and said to his wife, “Darling, I’m sorry but I must go talk to my advisors. Urgently.” He didn’t add that the reason for this urgency was that he had a gigantic problem on his hands. There were now lots of violent criminals roaming the city. And lots of innocent people who had been imprisoned wrongly. He didn’t know which group he feared the most, but he did know that he had a situation on his hands. A situation so serious he actually felt the need to address it himself, instead of ignoring it or pushing it off on someone else.

He hurried back up the stairs.

Lillian watched him go, and sighed contentedly. “He will make a wonderful father,” she said. Then she looked at Daisy, waiting for a response.

“Oh... Yes, very, Your Highness,” Daisy responded. What the heck else was she supposed to say? She couldn’t speak her mind, that was for sure.

“Well dear,” the queen said, “I must go as well. You take a look around and report back to me with your ideas.” Then Lillian and her maid were off.

Daisy looked around and squinched her mouth up in distaste. Even empty of all its horrible apparatuses and its prisoners, the dungeon was horrible. So cold and dark and cavernous. And perhaps it was only because she knew it had been full of suffering for generations, but the very air seemed to her to be heavy with an oppressive something.

She could have no way of knowing that this oppressive something was a trio of ghosts who were at that moment gathered around her, discussing all that had just unfolded.

“No way will she be able to turn this place into a nursery,” grumbled a tall, bald ghost wearing a pair of scraggly shorts held up with a rope around his bony hips. All three ghosts were pretty darn scrawny, but this bald one was the most so. If he weren’t a ghost and thus already deceased, I would be very concerned for him. Maybe invite him over for a pot pie and some cake.

“Oh Curtis, who knows...” said the short one in a guard uniform. “The real question is: Why are we still here when all the other ghosts disappeared with all the dungeon stuff?” There had been twenty-three ghosts in the dungeon before the cleaning crew had descended that morning, but now only these three remained. Twenty two had been prisoners, and one (the short ghost who had just spoken) had been a guard who had been a victim of a failed prison break about a hundred years prior.

The third ghost watched Daisy as she hugged herself uncomfortably and muttered under her breath, “I bet this place is haunted.”

“Perceptive, this one,” the third ghost, Dexter, said, nodding his head toward her. He had been in his mid-twenties when he died and hadn’t been too long in the dungeon before he met his demise, so he wasn’t as skeletal as his friend Curtis. He had a nasty cut running down the left side of his face from his forehead to his chin.

Daisy began to walk, and they all followed, curious because this woman was going to transform their home into a place fit for an infant. The notion was quite jarring. As she moseyed around, taking notes and getting inspired thinking about color swatches, flower arrangements, and cribs, they moseyed along with her, peeking at her notes and testing her receptivity by speaking ideas into her ear and seeing whether she seemed to notice.

“Hang a swing from the ceiling,” Dexter spoke clearly into her ear, and was pleased to see seconds later when Daisy wrote down in her notebook: hang swing from ceiling.

They saw that she had heard him and “OoOooo!” the ghosts all said excitedly in unison, making Daisy shiver and look around nervously.

Over the days, weeks, and months that followed, the trio of ghosts watched the transformation of their home with great interest, supplying ideas to Daisy whenever they could, and generally trying to make the most of the situation.

Then one morning, Curtis was watching with interest as some day laborers (two of whom were former prisoners) laid some intricate ceramic tiles down on the floor of the future bathroom, when the prison guard ghost (Montague) came in and said, “Hi -- what’s going on?”

“...” Curtis said. Dexter and Curtis didn’t often talk to Montague. Though Montague had not been a guard at the same time as Dexter or Curtis had been prisoners, a guard was a guard was a guard to them, and they saw no reason to be friendly. Which made things pretty lonely for Montague -- the only other souls in this world who could see him would barely even speak to him. Even before the other ghosts had disappeared from the dungeon it had been the same; since Montague had been the only guard ghost, the others had all taken a savage delight in making things as unpleasant for him as they could. And though Montague understood, on a purely rational level, why they acted that way, understanding didn’t make things any easier as the years marched on endlessly.

Suddenly, there was a great ruckus from the main room. The ghosts floated out to join the workers and Daisy where they were gathered watching a doctor bustling around barking to a group of nurses orders like, “ Boil some water!” and “Get some clean cloths!” and other such labor-and-childbirth phrases. The nurses sprang into action.

“Oh,” Curtis said. “Ick.”

“Shoot. She’s having the baby down here?” Montague asked.

The ghosts got a little freaked out at this point, since they had no desire to witness childbirth but were stuck in the dungeon; you see, being ghosts, their spirits could not stray from the scene of their demise. So, to their discomfort, they could not escape the birth of Princess Julianna.