It was difficult to hold back a yawn at this meeting. It was pointless, really. A monthly check-up on the status of everything. Katherine shouldn't have been there, she had no purpose. Her father always dragged her there.

Katherine glanced at her father. He was nearing his late 50's. He had a snowy white beard and moustache that matched his balding head. He had beady eyes, rosy cheeks and a pot belly. Katherine always thought he could have been a medieval kind, with his proud, arrogant ego. Or a model Santa Claus, minus the jolly attitude.

Clinging to his thick arm was Katherine's step-mother, Mary. She was superficial, vain and certainly denied of any maternal instincts. She wore everything and anything that was expensive. Beautiful jewelry, posh clothing, pricey accessories. Mary was would always be primping her platinum blond hair, or plucking stray hairs from her eyebrows above her brown eyes. She was overweight and oblivious to it.

Mary was a completely different woman than Katherine's real mother. Faith was slender and frail with long, straight dark brown hair. She had tender chocolate eyes that were never harsh. Katherine remembered her mother's voice. It was light and sweet, not even a choir of angels could compare.

Katherine was exactly like her mother. Same physical traits, same attitudes. They both were pranksters, they loved laughing and they loved adventure.

But the beloved Queen of England died suddenly in her sleep. She was replaced almost immediately with a hag named Mary.

"Do you agree, Katherine?" her father's baritone voice boomed.

"Yes, Father, I do."