It had been but a moment before Ruby woke to the glare of lights somewhere near her face. Someone loomed over her, whispering, shaking her shoulder about. "Miss. Miss! Wake up, or you and I will be in deep trouble."

Ruby didn't recognise the voice, but how dare they wake her this early. She thought she'd locked the door last night. She took a lazy peek at the darkness still lingering about the room with one eye and snapped it shut immediately. Yup, way too early to be up.

When her shoulder received another gentle shake, she swatted the hand away. "Let me sleep."

"But, miss, I beg you. You must wake and let me dress you... it's the you-know-what-today."

A depression formed on the edge of the mattress about Ruby's elbow. Guess the person wasn't leaving.

Ruby moaned in annoyance. Probably another one of Robbie's pranks. He was getting great at voices; she had to admit. He almost sounded like a genuine woman. With more practice, he'd have her fooled.

"What's today, Robbie? And don't say Monday. I know it's Monday!" She grumbled into her pillow that oddly smelled like it needed a wash—in fact, several washes. When had mum said she was doing laundry this week?

"Please, Princess. We don't have time for this, whatever this is. Are you having your—? Never mind, even if you are, we must get you ready and presentable before the Queen is." The woman nudged her elbow this time, unable to reach the shoulder. "We both know how mad she gets if she is made to wait for you..."

Princess? Queen? The words rattled around in Ruby's drowsy brain. Why did they sound ominous?

Princess? Queen?... the room!

Ruby jolted up so fast she nearly hit the woman knelt beside her bed. A young woman with a mousy face, deep tan, and hair that haloed above her head as if statically charged. Her dark eyes most definitely looked brown. She couldn't have been any older than Ruby herself. Why was she up? Why was anybody up?

"Where am I?" Ruby asked, her voice dry and raspy. She could use a glass of water.

"You're in your room, of course." The woman—no, girl—passed her a brass glass that stung with cold to the touch. "Drink. It will help your throat."

Ruby held the chilled glass in her hand and stared at what little of the room she could see in the light of the small lantern sitting on the side table beside the bed. It wasn't strong, but she could make out the four-poster bed. It was still here. She was still here.

"Where am I?" Ruby mumbled again, panic forcing her throat to close, and a strangled whimper escaped. She was supposed to wake up in her own room. Her own room. This wasn't it. Why was she still here? Why wasn't she waking up?

An icy hand flew up to her forehead to check her temperature, and Ruby jolted back.

"Don't touch me!"

"I'm sorry, Princess. I am only trying to see if you are well." The woman looked worried and ashamed.

It made Ruby feel guilty.

"Are you well?" the girl asked, peering up, pleading.

Ruby gave her a small, hesitant smile. "I'm fine..." whatever your name is.

"Millie."

"Millie." Ruby swallowed the discomfort that came with saying the girl's name. It wasn't the name... it was the room. The dream. The silky smooth sheets... everything.

Millie quickly grabbed the cover from Ruby, expertly folded it away at the foot of the bed, and stood gawking at the young, troubled woman on the bed.

"You don't seem quite yourself today, miss." Millie grabbed the lantern from the table and brought it closer to Ruby, gently taking her face in the other hand. Turning it about this way and that.

"What are you checking for?" Ruby mumbled, pulling out of the girl's powerful grip.

"Checking if you are well. You look well, but you don't seem yourself."

Millie set the lantern aside and drew a curtain aside that Ruby hadn't noticed the previous night. Behind it sat a simple tub that looked like dark maple, lacquered. A bucket with towels and scrubs sat beside it.

"Quick, get in before I have to rush down to the kitchen and ask Marta to boil more water for your bath. She already yelled at me for stealing a bucket of scented hot water meant for the Queen—but by the time that old hag wakes, we both know how hot it is going to be."

All the while Millie fussed about splashing things into the water, Ruby sat in shock. There was a bathtub in the room! Who does that?

"You want me to take a bath in here? Why not the bathroom, Millie?"

"What is a bathroom, Princess? Is this one of those odd things you read about in your books? Is it from Freol? I've heard they have fancy things there."

Millie rushed over, pulling Ruby off the bed and trying to shed her clothing—until she saw what they were, of course.

She eyed the pink pyjama set Ruby was wearing. Tiny little daisies dispersed amidst unicorns.

Millie pulled the T-shirt this way and that. She touched the fabric of Ruby's pants as if afraid it'd burn her hand. "Why Ruby-Rose, what in the fairy's name are you wearing? And where in the Enchanted Forest did you get it?"

"How do you know my name?" Ruby panicked. Forget the pyjamas lady...

Millie, still eyeing the odd clothing, answered, "Why, I've been your chambermaid since we were wee lassies, miss. You jest much."

She looked up at Ruby then, staring oddly at the Princess before her. "What is the matter with you today? Shall I call the Royal Physician? Maybe it will give you a day off you-know-what."

"I don't need a physician or a doctor, Millie. Just answer the question, how do you know my name? I—" Ruby hesitated a moment. Should she or shouldn't she? She had to find out where she was and how she got there, and the only source of information seemed to be the girl who was about as wise as herself.

Ruby decided to ask anyway. What was the worst that could happen?

"I don't know how I got here, or why... but last night, I was in my room in my home—" she began.

Millie nodded patiently but her expression said 'obviously'. As far as she was concerned, nothing Ruby was saying was crazy. This was Ruby's room, and last night, she had indeed retired to it.

"But then I woke up and found myself here, in this room."

Millie nodded again, eyeing Ruby as if she'd lost half her mind. "It must have been a terrible dream, I'm sure, Princess. Now, please. Get in the tub or you must bathe in frigid water like the rest of us!"

"You don't believe me?" Ruby soured at the girl. Why wouldn't she believe her?

"It's not that, Princess... it's just, the story you said sounds fabulous, where light appears with a flick of this thing you call a swish, but—"

"Fine." Ruby rushed to grab the book off the wide windowsill where she'd left it the night before, trying to read it in the poor light. She clamoured back to Millie and handed the book over. "How do you explain this?"

Millie eyed the thick volume in her grasp for a moment, as one might look at a platter in the kitchen to make sure it's clean before serving anything on it for the royals. "I don't understand, Princess. Did you not like the book? I can ask the monastery to send over new ones when the snow passes open up."

That's when poor Ruby-Rose started pacing back and forth. "You're not listening to me. Look at the date on the book, the publication date. Look at the clothes I'm wearing, look at my—" She remembered her phone then and grabbed it quickly from below the pillow she'd been using. She thrust the device in front of Millie. "We call this a phone. I can call someone on it and talk to them, even if they are thousands of miles away from me."

Millie looked up from the phone, and the book to Ruby, lost. "I'm sorry, Princess, I cannot read, nor do I know what that is in your hand—but I do know I must get you ready—before she barrels through your door. I do not wish to see you get another hiding, nor do I wish to see you cleaning the stable today."

"Argh!" Ruby screamed in frustration, then she calmed down, grabbed the book off Millie and opened it to the publication date. "What year is it wherever this is?"

"You mean, your kingdom, The Enchanted Forest, milady?" A smile crept across Millie's face. "I dare say you must have hit your head on the bedpost last night..."

Almost, thought Ruby, but she ignored the remark. "What year is it, Millie?"

"It's 1478, Princess."

Ruby held the page open under Millie, pointing towards the date on the copy of the book she held. "See this here? This is the date they printed this book. And it's not around 1478."

Millie shook her head, looking confused as anything. "I cannot read, milady."

That can be remedied! Ruby swallowed the anger rising inside her. She pointed at the year again. "They printed this book in 2010. That's at least 500 years from now, Millie. Do you understand what that means?"

Millie gasped then, her hand flying to cover her mouth. The poor girl even took a step or two away from the girl with the book.

"Are you a witch, milady?"

Ruby let out a snort and threw the book on the bed. "No such thing exists, Millie. Witches are only in books and stories."

"You said you came here with that book and that—" Millie eyed the phone in Ruby's hand, not that she knew what it was, of course—"and that thing, last night?"

"That's what I'm saying, Millie." Ruby breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. They were getting somewhere. "And why do you keep calling me Princess and milady?" she asked, amused for once. Ruby thought she was as far away from Princess and lady material as they got.

"Why, that's because you're the Princess, Lady Ruby-Ro—" It was Millie's turn to muse. Millie took a step forward, approaching Ruby with awe. "If you're not her, how is it you look exactly like her?"

"Her who?"

"Lady Ruby-Rose White, the Princess. By the Enchanted Forest, you look like you could be her twin. And if you're here? Where is she?"

"Get out! My name is Ruby-Rose too, Millie. But I'm Ruby-Rose Black, and I'm from the town of Stirling, on... on Earth?... I guess." Ruby couldn't help but feel oddly removed from her body as she came to say this.

Ruby's heart was pulsing rapidly now. This was definitely no dream. If she was in place of this Princess White, then could it be that the princess was where Ruby was meant to be... in her home, in her bed, right about now, possibly screaming with fear at one of Robbie's early morning pranks?

"If you're here, Miss Black..." Millie was gawking, looking several shades paler. "Does this mean the real Princess is...?"

Ruby swallowed in fear, nodding her head slowly. "That she is where I'm supposed to be? Possibly... although how any of this is possible, I'm not even sure."

"No wonder you didn't know my name..." Millie was muttering. The hot water in the bath she'd lovingly prepared all forgotten.

"So what now, Millie? What do we do?" Ruby desperately waited to hear something that would give her a way to go home. A trigger word, something that'd wake her, though that thought was slowly dying. With each moment in that room, with Millie, Ruby realised none of this was a dream. The girl before her was as real as one could be.

Ruby pinched her arm as hard as she could just in case, wincing at the pain.

"I don't know, milady. But the Queen expects Princess Ruby-Rose—White—summoned before her for the weekly mirror ritual in all but an hour. Without the Princess here, I'm afraid..." Millie choked on her own words.

"What? What are you afraid of?"

Millie met Ruby's gaze with tear-brimmed ones. "It's off-with-the-head, milady... tomorrow morning if she's in a sour disposition, which is often as sure as daylight."

Ruby's jaw fell to the floor. "You're serious? She's gonna chop your head off?"

Millie, who was gripping her chest in fear, nodded.

To hell with that! Think, Ruby. Think.

Ruby paced the floor. There was no way she was going to let some snotty Queen chop anybody's head off, especially not a sweet thing like Millie's. No way. She had to think of something to save the day. And she had just the thing.

"I have an idea, but you gotta promise you'll do exactly as I say." She spun around to the terrified young woman, grabbing her hands in her own. A move that might have been foreign and unexpected, but Millie didn't pull away, merely hesitated, and shied. "Promise?"

"I promise, milady. I'll do whatever you say, but you mustn't trouble yourself—"

"Nonsense." Ruby shook her head, a mischievous smile playing on her lips. "Let's turn me into this Princess of yours."

Millie gasped in delight. "Are you sure?"

"I am damn sure, milady." Ruby smiled widely, mimicking the girl's word.

Word count:  2267                          Total WC: 3927

[A/N: Any thoughts on how this fairy tale adaptation is coming along? I have no idea how I'm going with it right now. Send help! 😅]