“‘Ere you go, Monsieur Richard.” Marti said, serving him a plate with a sandwich and chips on it. She put her hands together in front of her apron and waited for him to start eating while her own plate sat unattended. They were in a small and plain dining room just adjacent to the kitchen, where a cadre of hired cooks prepared dinner for the evening. It was a small room, and plain, meant for staff to eat separately from the Mademoiselle.

“Thank you, Marti. These look great,”

Marti smiled, “Je vous en prie.” And then she took a seat at the high table across from Monsieur Richard. It wasn’t hard to get in the seat, but it was harder, on account of the chair being taller. That was how she was coping with the situation, because she certainly didn’t like to think she had lost almost six inches in height earlier in the day. She began into her own sandwich.

“So where did you get your accent?” Monsieur Richard asked.

“New Jersey,” Marti said quickly, which was true. But Monsieur laughed deeply.

“Well, I like it.”

“Mersi,” she said, blushing and looking at her sandwich. They ate and chatted like that for several minutes He was more curious about her, but had a way to make Marti laugh, and he had a particular way that he looked at her that made the maid’s heart beat a little faster. Marti couldn’t say she didn’t like it.

Then, as they finished, an old, tall man in a perfectly tailored black suit and white gloves stepped into the room. He had an air about him, a sense of detachment and aloofness, and he carried a shining platter with tea set and desert on it.

“There you are,” he said dryly to Marti, “the Lady of the House is calling for you.”

“I am eating, monsieur,” Marti said. It was not as though she did not feel a sense of duty to visit her mademoiselle, but she wanted to do it on her terms in her way, and serving her tea did not fit that.

The butler quirked his eyebrow, “Allow me to be more clear. The Lady of the House wishes you to attend to her now.”

“You should go, Marti. I don’t want you getting into trouble.” Monsieur Richard said before Marti could snarkily respond to the butler.

She grimaced and jumped off her chair, walking over to the butler. He handed Marti the silver tray and followed her into the hallway, closing the door behind them. “You turned out to be quite the perfect maid,” he said. “but don’t you ever disobey me, or I will see to it you never see that snowglobe again.”

Marti stood there a moment, her mouth hanging open, not believing what she had just heard. Did the butler just threaten her? She had no doubt he could hide the one thing she knew of that could return her to her true self.

She nodded to him. “Oui.”

The butler cocked his eyebrow, “Oui, what?”

“Oui, monsieur,” Marti said, silently raging.

“With a little curtsey,” He said, and Marti listened to him, thinking about the snowglobe and how badly she needed it.

“Oui, monsieur,” she said with a gentle curtsey that didn’t even shake the teacups on the tray. The butler smiled devilishly.

“As I said, the perfect maid.” Scared to push him any further, Marti turned and started to walk toward the mademoiselle’s suite. But before she had taken a step, the butler slapped her ass. She yelped, but kept control of the tea set. She kept walking, kept her face forward, her cheeks burning red.

“Run along, little girl.” The butler said, his English accent echoing in her mind, and Marti did as she was told.

She knew the way to the mademoiselle’s suite, just the same way she knew the way to the kitchenette, or the small ballroom, or any other room in the house. She didn’t want to. She wanted this knowledge to be gone and to be back in her real, male body. And once that was done she wanted to deck the butler.

Marti arrived at the mademoiselle’s suite and took a breath at the large white double doors. She had been wanting to come here since the snowglobe had changed her, but now that she was here, felt an incredible wave of anxiety. What if the mademoiselle simply did not allow her to change back? She could do that. It was her snowglobe, as far as Marti knew. She could be stuck in this body, with this accent, with this knowledge that was not hers.

In that case, the phrase “take this feather duster and shove it” came to mind.

“Be positive,” Marti said to herself. Then she opened the door and stepped inside. This room was relatively cozy with nice, thick carpeting and shelves on two walls, plenty of seating and a gorgeous view of the rear gardens. The mademoiselle was a tall, graceful woman wearing a red christmas dress, her blonde hair curled like the sea. She sat in her perfect white couch properly while reading a book and never even looked up to Marti.

The maid knew enough about serving to not speak before being spoken to, and she needed the mademoiselle on her side, so she came to the center of the room and set out the tea on the table there. Marti then waited behind the mademoiselle patiently, her hands folded in front of her.

The room was silent, but for the ticking clock nearby, and just before Marti’s impatience overwhelmed her maidly sense of propriety, the mademoiselle closed her book.

“Is the dining hall prepared, Marti?” She asked, looking up to her maid.

“Oui, mademoiselle.”

The sound of Marti’s voice brought a deep, rolling laughter from the lady of the house. “Oh, forgive me, Marti. The snowglobe will often provide me a maid, but never an actual french maid. How delightful.”

Marti fidgeted in her tights, still uncomfortable at being treated like a joke, at her life being played with like a toy. “Mademoiselle, I demand you turn me back into a man.”