I'd Give Up The World For You

Juliet's face flamed. It may only be a dream but she still didn't want to be gawked at like an animal in a zoo. She needed to find a place to hide…but where?

She ended up ducking into the first alleyway she saw and snuck into a building through a partially opened door. It seemed she had stumbled into a dress shop of some sort. Exactly what she needed!

She grabbed the first dress she saw and put it on though she struggled a bit with the fastenings. Weren't things supposed to be easier to do in dreams? She hadn't expected it to be so cold outside either. No dream she ever had included any real physical sensations that she could remember.

Once Juliet was no longer pajama clad she ventured back out into the street and looked around curiously. Where was this place?

It looked like some sort of city rather than a town since there were a lot of buildings squished together even if the architecture was like nothing she had ever seen outside of a history book or online image search. After walking a bit further she discovered there was a castle in the distance. The only places she knew of that still had castles were in Europe but this didn't seem like Europe either. At least not modern Europe.

She decided to walk toward the castle to get a better look at it—she had never seen one in person even in a dream—and as she approached the gate she was suddenly seized by both arms and dragged inside. What was going on?!

"Hey, I think you have the wrong—" Juliet tried to explain but was cut off.

"Get back to work, you lazy girl," the woman on her left spat. "Who do you think you are slacking off on your first day? What took you so long to come back?"

"I wasn't—I didn't—"

Her protests fell on deaf ears. The women dragged her through the castle halls until they deposited her in a room full of teenage girls wearing the exact same gray dress she was. She was beginning to understand what happened. They thought she was supposed to be here because of the dress she had sort of stolen.

Juliet tried to explain herself again but the women were already off barking orders at other girls. She got a better look at the place and realized she was in the castle's laundry room. People were scrubbing things everywhere she looked.

"It's better not to say anything to them," a girl across the nearest tub from her advised.

She couldn't have been more than fifteen and had a baby face, freckles, and two thin blonde braids keeping her hair out of the way. Child labors laws clearly didn't apply in this dream.

"Why?" Juliet asked.

"Because they'll hit you with a switch then your hands will crack and bleed more than they already do from constantly washing things," the girl said seriously. "I'm Amaya. What's your name?"

"Juliet. I'm not supposed to be here though. There's been a mistake."

"Lucky mistake then! The kitchen girls and maids that have to deal with the royal family are so much worse off…though you didn't hear that from me. The king has gone a bit crazy with the crown prince gone and has killed nearly everyone who has tried to serve him as of late."

Juliet's eyes widened. What sort of king was that?! Where was she, anyway? She might have a big imagination but her dreams usually happened in real places.

Amaya spoke in a low voice and her eyes darted around to make sure no one else would overhear. Talking about the royal family in a disparaging way must be prohibited. She was especially wary of the older women walking around.

Juliet was twenty-six but could pass for twenty-one or twenty-two. She didn't look completely out of place in this room full of teenagers. Which was probably part of the reason why she had been brought here. If she looked too old even her dress wouldn't have let her blend in so easily.

When was she going to wake up from this dream? Nothing particularly exciting or interesting had been happening and it felt like she had been here for hours already.

To avoid being punished, even though it wasn't likely to actually hurt her, she figured she would go along with things for now and let Amaya show her how she was supposed to hand wash the sheets. It was dull, tedious work and she desperately hoped she would wake up soon.

===

Juliet was beginning to think this wasn't a dream. She had been here for weeks and everyone acted like it was perfectly normal to walk around the castle on eggshells collecting laundry that needed to be done.

She still had absolutely no idea where she was because she was afraid to ask. If they found out she wasn't the new laundry girl that had been hired she was going to end up out on the streets in the middle of winter with nothing to eat.

If she died in the dream would she wake up back at home? Or…was this real? Had she somehow been transported to medieval England?

Juliet lived in the servants' quarters with Amaya and the others. She hardly stepped foot out of the laundry room except to eat and sleep so when she had her first real day off and she and some of the other girls were allowed to leave the castle she was thrilled.

Amaya, Mitzi, and Elaine sent most of the earnings home to their families but they had a few extra bronze coins to spend and wanted to buy themselves something pretty to help liven their dull living spaces up a bit. That or getting themselves sweets at a nearby bakery. No matter what, they were determined to treat themselves today.

It was such a simple way to live. Even when Juliet was a poor college student she hadn't been quite this destitute!

"What do you want to get, Juliet?" Elaine asked cheerfully.

"I don't know."

She wasn't sure she wanted to get anything. If this truly wasn't a dream she needed to save every penny so she could get out of the laundry room and have a better life. Anything had to be better than scrubbing until her hands were raw under the strict, baleful eye of the laundry mistress and her assistant.

Juliet had no idea where she would go or what she would do afterward since she wasn't even sure where "here" was but she had to do something! She was an enterprising modern woman and refused to live under these sorts of conditions long-term.

"Ooh, flowers!" Mitzi sighed longingly. "Can we go take a look at them? Please?"

The group all turned to see a flower shop across the street and, with nothing better to do, they walked over. The shop smelled heavenly. They all leaned over to sniff various blossoms before a teenage girl with tan skin and a long black braid smiled at them.

"Hello! Can I help you find anything?"

"We're just looking," Amaya explained.

"I wish I could afford a bouquet here. They're all so beautiful!" Mitzi added wistfully.

The flower shop employee let out a small laugh. "I understand. Being around flowers is so relaxing, isn't it?"

They all nodded their agreement aside from Juliet, who didn't quite get the appeal. Though it was nice smelling something other than lye soap for once. She had always preferred chocolates to flowers.

A beautiful young woman covered in dirt emerged from the back room and called out to the employee in a subdued voice. "Nia, have you seen Miette? I wanted to know where the spare trowel was since the one I was using just broke."

"I think she's up in the office running some numbers."

The woman gave her a weak smile. "Thanks. I'll go look for her."

She trudged up the stairs giving off an aura of despair. Someone clearly wasn't relaxed simply by being around flowers despite working for a flower shop.

"…is she okay?" Elaine asked in concern.

"No. Her husband was sent off to war this morning. Miette said she could have the day off but she insisted she needed to keep busy. So here she is, poor thing. Still a newlywed too. They only got married in September," Nia replied with a helpless sigh.

Mitzi's eyes filled with tears and she clasped her hands together. "How tragic!"

"I wouldn't worry too much. He is a war hero, after all. But poor Veronica is taking the separation hard and it hasn't even been a full day yet."

Juliet frowned. Veronica…where had she seen that name lately? She knew she had read it somewhere but couldn't remember. It wasn't a terribly common name. The only other Veronicas she could think of were an author of a dystopian novel series and a comic book character.. She was sure neither of those were the right Veronica.