by Laura R Cole
*
Wren knocked on his parents’ door, feeling strange to be waiting to enter the home he’d lived so long in. After a moment, the door opened, and his mother beamed at him.
“You’ve come for a visit?” she asked hopefully.
Wren nodded, despite his ulterior motives. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. She opened the door wider and ushered him inside. The smell that assaulted his nostrils told him that he’d timed his visit just right. His mother bustled around, adding an extra plate to the table before dishing out the pancakes she’d made. He grabbed a jug of water and filled the glasses for her as his father came in from the other room.
“Wren!” His father greeted him with a handshake.
“Thanks for letting me join you for breakfast,” he said as they all sat.
His mother tsked him. “You’re always welcome to join us anytime.”
Wren drizzled his pancake with syrup, took a bite, and sighed happily. He tried, but making his own meals didn’t even come close to being as good as his mother’s. “I have to admit,” he said reluctantly, “that your cooking is much better than mine.”
The look on his mother’s face made up for the fact that she’d never let him forget it. They spent the first half of the meal in comfortable silence, simply enjoying the food and one another’s company. Despite himself, Wren found himself missing it. Just a tiny bit.
They chatted about mundane things, finishing the rest of the pancakes. Having stuffed himself, he sat back, satisfied. He looked at his mother, who was dabbing a napkin across her face, having also just finished her meal.
“Rhys told me that the rumors about Phoenix are getting worse,” he told her regretfully.
He felt rather guilty for not having passed along the information sooner, but with Phoenix’s refusal to let him court her, he hadn’t been overly eager to talk about her to his mother. She was always a bit too inquisitive, especially about girls.
“Just the ones about her lack of talent leaving the kingdom open to danger?” she asked, knowing right off what he was talking about.
“That one, yes. Also, her ability to know when things are going to happen. How she seems to know and remember even the smallest details about everyone’s life. I think these are all good things about her, but the way that people are talking about it makes it seem like it’s something to be feared. Instead of believing that Phoenix just genuinely cares about all of her subjects, they are concentrating on gossiping about how she comes up with this information. They’re saying that she’s somehow getting this information with her mind.”
“There was a time when hearing voices in your head was considered a sacred thing,” his mother murmured, and he gave her a strange look. She waved a hand at him to forget it and continue.
“People are saying that she’s reading minds. Like the King and Queen can do with one another to communicate, but without permission and without the other person knowing. They are claiming that she invades their minds to garner this information to impress.” He stopped and thought for a moment. “Does it really matter that a few people are talking about her? I mean, I understand that we don’t want anything bad said about any of the royals, and she certainly doesn’t deserve it, but really who cares what a handful of people say?”
His mother gave him a strange look. He knew that she was considering his sudden change in attitude towards Phoenix. Usually he was overly protective of the girl. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
“Rumors can be devastating,” his mother answered, thankfully skirting around the issue of his own sudden lack of concern. “A person’s reputation is very important, especially as the heir where most of the kingdom can only know you by reputation. And the timing is perfect, as far as the instigator is concerned. Anything Phoenix has done in the past will be forgotten in the wake of these rumors. It’s how people are; they will concentrate on the most recent behaviors. Or in this case, rumors. They are undermining her position.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded.
He stood and began to clear the dishes away. His father asked if he wanted to see the new plant he had cross-bred, and Wren seized the opportunity to be out of his mother’s company while the conversation about Phoenix was still fresh in her mind. Unfortunately, this meant that he was stuck staring at plants for the next half-hour, a passion that he did not share with his father. He liked the results of the man’s obsession – they had often enjoyed new drinks and spices made from his trials – but did not really care to hear about the process to discover them. Finally, his father finished showing off his latest creation, and Wren begged leave of them. Despite sitting through his father’s long-winded explanation, he did not completely dodge his mother’s questions about his lack of enthusiasm for Phoenix’s plight.
“What have you been up to lately?” his mother asked before he could scurry out the door.
He sighed. He would have to tell her something or she would get back onto the Phoenix subject. “I’ve been trying to find a unicorn,” he told her flatly. He expected her to tell him that looking for a magical creature was a nice distraction but he should be working on something more important.
“I remember something about that…” she said instead, surprising him.
“What?” he asked her excitedly.
She hesitated, a slightly confused look on her face, and turned to stare him straight in the eye. She abruptly changed the subject, “Why are you suddenly so cavalier about Phoenix’s problems? A few weeks ago you would have been foaming at the mouth at the idea of people speaking badly about her. Today you seem like you think she deserves it.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, then widened them in horror. “You haven’t begun to believe the stories have you?”
Wren debated the outcome of using this excuse. On one hand, it would distract his mother away from the real reason for his changed opinion, but on the other, it would just create even more problems for him. And no matter how disappointed, hurt, or whatever these emotions roiling through him were at Phoenix’s rejection, he didn’t really want his mother to think that he believed such horrible things about her.
“No,” he said finally.
The pause was long enough that his mother had apparently decided that his hesitation was caused by indecision on whether or not to believe the rumors. She cut off the rest of what he was going to say. “You listen to me, Wren. There is not a malicious bone in that girl’s body. I know the two of you haven’t been able to spend much time together lately, but she is still the pure little girl you worshipped as a child.”
“I didn’t-” Wren started to protest, but she once again ran him over.
“I will be very disappointed in you if you let what other people are saying about her override everything you know to be true of her character.”
His mother gave him a stern look before whisking herself away, apparently unable to stand being in his presence a second longer without saying something she’d regret.
Wren sighed. He said good-bye to his father, who simply shook his head at his mother’s departure, and headed to the Gateroom. Once back through the gate, he headed towards the stables. The now-familiar stable-boy smiled at his entrance.
“The usual horse, sir?”
“Please,” Wren agreed.
When the horse was brought out, he swung a leg over. Riding was getting easier every time he went out. The horse seemed to know the way to go, and he hardly had to guide it towards the woods he’d spent so much time in of late. When the woods became too thick for the horse, he dismounted and proceeded on foot.
He stepped out into the clearing where he had first stumbled upon the woman, whose name, he realized, he didn’t know. He glanced around the quiet pool. Birds chattered happily in the branches, flitting this way and that, but it was the only movement in the woods. She mentioned that she came to the pool frequently, enjoying the solitude, and he hoped that he might run i
nto her again. Wren stood there for a long moment, wondering if he had imagined the gorgeous woman, and staring out into the forest.
Finally, he sighed and turned to leave. His footsteps crunched on the dried leaves.
“Leaving already?” a tinkling voice asked behind him.
He whirled around and his face broke out into a smile as he spied the woman on the far edge of the pool, winding in and out of the saplings towards him.
“I was hoping to see you again,” he admitted. “I’m glad you came.”
“As am I,” the woman smiled and came to stand next to him. She took his elbow and led him over to a fallen log. She sat gracefully and he followed suit. “You seem troubled,” she stated.
Wren sighed. “I just had an unpleasant conversation with my mother. She thinks that I believe rumors about an old friend which I don’t.”
“Why don’t you just tell her that?”
“Because then I would have to tell her the real reason for the rift in our friendship.”
She seemed to sense his reluctance to reveal that reason and didn’t press further. Instead, she asked, “What are the rumors?”
“They are about the princess,” Wren began and the woman rose her eyebrows.
“You call the princess an old friend?”
He shrugged. “We were playmates as children. I have not seen much of her recently.” He hoped his admission might put out any thoughts the woman might have of his romantic interest in Phoenix. “Anyway, someone has been spreading lies that her special abilities are a work of evil.”
“Special abilities?”
“She seems to know just what a person needs to hear, or remember the smallest detail about a person’s life to mention or ask about, and just the best course of action in many situations. It was a trait that has been well-celebrated in the past.”
“But not anymore?” the woman guessed.
“No. Lately, someone has been spreading the poisonous rumor that it stems from her ability to read people’s minds.”
The woman’s eyes grew wide, giving her a doe-like appearance. “Can she?”
“I don’t think so. She used to have these imaginary friends when she was little that talked to her all the time, and she said that as she got older they stopped using words and started just being feelings. Her mother always said that she was just extremely intuitive.”
He pondered this a moment, the memories of the long-forgotten imaginary friends speaking to her bubbling up from his subconscious. Was it possible she read people’s minds without knowing it herself? Could it be that these “friends” speaking with her were really other people’s thoughts floating into her head? He shook his head clear of the unsettling thoughts. He mother was right; Phoenix had a pure heart. She wasn’t capable of such indecency.
“She avoided several assassination attempts from remnants of the Order simply by suddenly and inexplicably changing her plans for the day. When she was only three, she threw an extremely out-of-character tantrum which caused her to miss a play…where half-way through the first scene an arrow flew out of the woodwork and straight into the seat she was supposed to be occupying. It was found to have been rigged beforehand to go off, and had she been sitting there at the time…”
“Oh my,” the woman commented. “And these imaginary friends told her the strange things she knew?” She looked thoughtful.
Wren felt a twinge of guilt for having betrayed Phoenix’s secret to the woman. He tried to take it back, “I don’t think they told her things like that,” he backtracked. “I just happened to remember that detail right then.
“I see,” the woman said, clearly picking up on his sudden unwillingness to share more details about Phoenix with her. She changed the subject for him. “Have you had any unicorn sightings recently?”
Wren grasped at the change enthusiastically. “No, but I haven’t been able to search as much as I’d like.” Mostly because I’ve been waiting in this clearing hoping to see you again.
“Pity,” she remarked. “I have been keeping an eye out myself, but I haven’t yet had the pleasure of spotting one.” She wore a sly smile.
“You do believe me, don’t you?” he asked, getting the unnerving feeling that she was keeping something from him.
“Absolutely,” she agreed, bobbing her head up and down and causing her voluminous curls to bounce prettily around.
He relaxed. “I realized,” he began awkwardly after a few moments, “that I don’t even know your name.”
“Nor I yours,” the woman said, but did not offer the information.
“I am Wren, son of Lady Katrina and Lord Aaron,” Wren supplied.
The woman was silent for a moment. “You may call me Lise,” she finally said, holding out her delicate hand.
Wren shook it gently, relishing the feel of her soft skin against his. “It is a pleasure to meet you, My Lady.”
She smiled brightly.
“Isn’t it odd, Lise, for a lady to be out in the woods all by herself? I should think that your mother would be beside herself with worry.”
Lise laughed. “Is your mother beside herself with worry? Are you saying that because I am a woman I should have a complete entourage every moment of the day?”
Wren cleared his throat. “It is common practice, I believe, for young ladies to be chaperoned so that nothing untoward happens to them.”
“Well,” Lise replied cheekily, “I am not in the business of practicing common things. Besides, what’s going to hurt me out here?” She gave him a comically dramatic look, “Are you going to hurt me?”
“No,” he answered, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other things out here that are dangerous. Bandits, wolves, bears, you could even just slip and fall and you wouldn’t be able to call for help!” he explained in exasperation.
“And all of those things could just as easily happen to you,” she pointed out, much to his frustration.
“But you’re a girl!” he blurted out.
“So good of you to notice,” Lise retorted scathingly. When Wren looked over at her, he was thankful to see that despite her harsh words, a smile played on her lips. She dropped her eyes from his. “You remind me of someone.” Her tone grew sad and she was silent for a long moment.
Wren opened his mouth to ask her about it, but thought better of it. He didn’t really want to hear about other men she knew. They sat quietly for a long time, just enjoying the beauty of nature. When she looked back up at him, a tear glistened in the corner of her eye.
“I have to go,” she told him, abruptly standing. She picked up her skirt and quickly walked off.