Act 8: Coming Clean Rue was still awake. Her eyes wide open, she listened to the faint song of the cuckoo clock coming from the living room and sighed. Two o’clock. In a little more than six hours, she would be meeting her birth parents for the first time in almost eighteen years. Was it any wonder she was too wired to sleep? Quietly, as not to wake Mytho, who was dead to the world, Rue slid out from underneath the quilt they shared and reached for the robe Uncle Henry had loaned her for the night. According to him, it, as well as the nightgown she wore, had originally belonged to her mother, long forgotten in some boxes her parents had left behind in the attic when they moved. They were both a bit loose on Rue’s petite frame, but she had loved the idea of sleeping in something her mother had once owned. Silly though the sentiment was, wearing her mother’s clothes, it was almost as if she could remember being cradled in her mother’s arms when she was a baby. After pulling the robe over her nightgown and making certain that Mytho had not woken up, Rue tiptoed out of the guest room, stifling a shriek of surprise when she accidentally ran into a large, shadowy figure coming out the bedroom across the hall at the exact same time. “Eva! I mean, Gisela, pardon me,” the shadow’s voice whispered, the light of his candle flickering to reveal Uncle Henry’s face. “I wasn’t expecting you to be awake.” “I couldn’t sleep,” Rue admitted, her voice equally soft. “I thought I might warm up a glass of milk. I mean, if you don‘t mind.” “Mind? Of course not.” He motioned for Rue to follow him to the kitchen. “A glass of warm milk sounds delicious. I think I’ll join you.” When they made it to the kitchen, Uncle Henry grabbed the milk out of the refrigerator, while Rue, at his insistence, took a seat at the small kitchen table. “I hope I didn’t wake you, Uncle Henry,” Rue said, watching her uncle heat the milk up on the stove. “No, not at all. It seems I have a touch of insomnia as well.” Once the milk was the right temperature, he pulled out two mugs, setting one in front of Rue, and began to pour. “I just can’t believe you have returned after all these years. I suppose I’m afraid if I fall asleep, I’ll wake up in the morning to discover it was all a dream.” “I hope it’s not. If it is, then I don’t ever want to wake up.” “Make that the both of us.” Sighing, Uncle Henry took a seat in the chair across from Rue. “You know, Gisela, you haven’t told me much about yourself. I’m afraid I hogged all the conversation at dinner earlier tonight, telling you all about Karl, Eva, Josef, and Anneliese. I know that you and Seigfried -- I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to call him by that strange nickname of his -- are married, and you are both drama students at the Academy…” Rue had been about to take a sip of her milk, but coughed instead at the reminder of Fakir’s lie. “Are you okay, Gisela?” her uncle asked. “Is the milk too hot for you?” Shaking her head, Rue set down her mug. “It’s fine, Uncle Henry,” she said, her gaze glued to the table. “It’s just… I have a confession to make to you.” “A confession?” Her heart beating wildly against her ribcage, Rue drew in a deep breath to calm herself. She had no idea how Uncle Henry would take the news that they had not been one-hundred percent truthful to him about who she really was, but she’d thought about it while she tried to fall asleep and felt it was best to tell him the whole truth before they went to her parents’ house. Of course, she had planned to wait until morning, so that she and Mytho could tell him together, but Rue supposed now was as good as time as any, since the subject had been broached. “The truth is, Mytho and I aren’t really drama students from the Academy,” she finally admitted, feeling as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. “Mytho, Fakir, and I did attend the Academy at one time, but we were ballet students. Ahiru is the only one who is still a student, and she's in the ballet program, too.” “I don’t understand. Why did that young man claim you were all from the drama department then?” “It was a cover story. Fakir thought it was best to make it seem as if our meeting was coincidental, when the truth is, we came here specifically to meet your brother.” “I see…” Though Rue still refused to lift her eyes from the scratch she was so intently concentrating on, she imagined Uncle Henry was now staring at her with suspicion. “So you are like all the others, those girls who only pretended to be Gisela because of our family‘s wealth?” Rue shook her head. “It was never my intention to deceive you,” she said, forcing herself to look her uncle in the eyes. As she had suspected, Uncle Henry had lost a bit of his warmth. “I just didn’t know how to tell you the truth.” “And what is this truth?” he asked. “That I *am* Gisela Hoffmann, your long-lost niece.” Uncle Henry looked dubious. “And why should I believe you? You‘ve already admitted you‘ve lied to me before. Why should I believe you now?” At a loss for an answer, Rue sighed. He had every right to be suspicious of her claim, but she had no solid proof that she truly was Gisela. If only Fakir hadn’t burned the book… “Look, miss, I’m not an unkind man,” Uncle Henry said after a long pause. “I find it admirable that you have confessed to your lies, especially before I had the chance to introduce you to Karl and Eva. If I had given them false hope that Gisela had returned…” His words drifted off. “I don’t think you are a bad girl at heart, but if you are not Gisela, then please tell me so I may put my niece‘s memory to rest, as I should have done many years ago. Who are you, really?” “The name I go by now is Princess Rue von Hohenheim,” Rue admitted in a soft voice, “but before that, I was known as Princess Kraehe, the princess of crows.” She held up a hand, sensing that Uncle Henry was about to interrupt. “The story I am about to tell you is going to sound strange, but it *is* the truth,” she continued, her confidence growing stronger. “I don’t ask that you believe me right away, but at least try to keep an open mind.” Uncle Henry nodded, and Rue told him everything. She told him about Drosselmeyer, about how the sadistic author had the power to “spin stories” and bring them to life, even from beyond the grave. She told him about the unfinished novel "The Prince and the Raven," and how the Prince of the story had managed to escape from the world of the book into the world of reality. She told him how the Prince had shattered his own heart in order to seal the Raven away, and how Princess Tutu and a loyal Knight, who also had the ability to “spin stories,” had helped the Prince to regain his heart and saved the town from the unsealed Raven. And, finally, Rue told him about how she had learned the truth about who she really was: she was not the Raven’s daughter, as he had led her to believe, but the kidnapped baby of human parents, parents she longed to reunite with after so many years. To his credit, Uncle Henry did not interrupt her once. He listened attentively to Rue’s entire story, only arching his left eyebrow at some of the more incredulous parts. When she finished her tale, he remained silent for a long moment before finally speaking. “I must say, that’s quite a story, young lady,” he said after taking a drink of his now-cold milk. “Quite a story!” Though she had expected as much, Rue sighed. “You don’t believe me.” To her surprise, however, Uncle Henry shook his head. “I didn’t say that. It’s true that it certainly is a far-fetched story, but that was what everybody used to say about your -- I mean, Gisela’s -- parents’ claim that she had been kidnapped by a flock of crows. Even I had a hard time believing them at first, though Karl and Eva were so insistent about what happened, I had to at least consider the possibility it was the truth.” “So…you do believe me?” Rue hesitantly asked. “Let’s just say that I’m open to the possibility that what you said really happened.” Standing up, Uncle Henry took both their half- drunken cups of milk to the sink to rinse them out. “Look -- Rue, was it? -- it’s getting late. Go back to bed and try to get some sleep. We’ll sort this matter out in the morning when we arrive at my brother’s house.” “We’re still going?” “Karl and Eva will know whether or not you are truly their daughter,” he explained. “Every girl who has ever claimed to be Gisela has undergone a simple test to confirm her identity.” “What kind of test?” He shook his head. “Even if I knew the specifics, I couldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t be fair, would it?” “I suppose not,” she admitted and bit her bottom lip. *A test? What kind of test could it be?* Turning around after he had finished rinsing out the mugs, Uncle Henry smiled at her for the first time since she told him her story. “Don’t worry, Rue,” he said. “If your story is the truth and you really are Gisela, you have nothing to worry about. Now, goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.” She nodded. “Goodnight, Uncle Henry.” DISCLAIMER: "Princess Tutu" doesn't belong to me. AUTHOR'S NOTE: Any comments or criticisms can be sent to me at ElysionDream@aol.com.