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Chapter 1
Chapter One: The Dress with Pockets
Nora Bellamy found the gown in a church basement thrift sale between a box of cracked teapots and a spiritual memoir with a coffee stain in the shape of Nebraska. The dress was teal, with an outrageous skirt and—most importantly—pockets deep enough for two paperbacks and a granola bar. She bought it for five dollars and wore it to Riverton’s annual Jubilee because the library booth was next to the Funnel Cake Tent, and if she had to smell sugar all day, she deserved to look like a chandelier.
She slid bookmarks across the folding table, stamped summer reading cards, and watched acrobats twist in the air. A marching band hammered a beat down Main Street. Nora adjusted her paper crown—courtesy of the Kids’ Crafts tent—and felt both foolish and oddly buoyant.
“You!” A woman with a lanyard that screamed PRESS in three fonts rushed up. “Your Highness, you’re early!”
Nora blinked. “I’m who?”
“Princess Isolde of Valdemere,” the woman said, hands already guiding Nora away. “We’ve been tracking the convoy on the highway. Must be a decoy. Brilliant. Very you.”
Nora tried to protest, but the woman’s headphones crackled and a voice shouted, “Marina, we’ve got a hundred dignitaries sweating in the rotunda and three canapés left. Where’s the princess?”
Marina clamped a hand around Nora’s elbow like a mother cat. “Right here,” she said, and to Nora, “Smile and wave, dear.”
Nora, who had smiled and waved at preschool story time for a decade, did as she was told. She tucked a bookmark in her pocket and followed.
