“I just got the last bit, but I was fascinated to see you sending all those children home.”
Jack wasn’t sure what to say. She had beautiful eyes. They seemed to care about him.
“But, naturally those children are going to miss the beautiful dreams that I was giving them. It was quite selfish you know – stealing away all those happy dreams from those poor dears.”
Jack thought – yes, it was quite selfish of him! He hadn’t thought of it like that! He always messed things up. How could he have been so selfish? He should have asked each of them first if they wanted to be sent home.
“I’m sure your intentions were good – even if you sent all those children back to their unhappy lives. And now, I also have to find new servants to care for the rest of my children. There’s no one to feed them now.”
Jack now felt awful about what he did. What could he have been thinking? Wait! What did she mean by the rest? Were there more children held prisoner here?
She continued. “Of course, I’m curious as to exactly how you did it.”
Looking into her eyes, Jack wanted to please her. “I did it with a wish your majesty.”
“It must have been quite a big wish to send all those children home.”
“Oh it was!” Jack suddenly remembering Pinkie diving into his mouth and exploding inside of him. Pinkie. He remembered Pinkie. He remembered Finn. He remembered Jenny.
“And where did you ever find such a big wish?” Her purr was as impatient as a prehistoric feline.
Jack’s head cleared a little. He stayed silent and stared at her incredulously.
The Blue Queen was not bothered by his lack of an answer. “What should I call you? If you are going to be a guest in my home, you should really tell me your name.” she said sweetly.
Jack hesitated. “Fred?... your majesty.” Why did he say Fred? He remembered that his mother used to say, “Never give out your name to strangers.” And this lady did qualify as strange.
“Well, Fred? Walk with me, Fred. I’d love to show you my castle!” The Queen’s giant hand reached down and took his small hand and drew him along side of her.
Jack was a toddler next to her. He was barefoot and in diapers. He’d never so appreciated the concept of clothes before. Being naked and small made him feel helpless.
The Queen hadn’t seemed to notice his lack of apparel. It reminded him of those stupid dreams where you find yourself in your underwear and nobody notices. He couldn’t remember what those dreams were supposed to mean. Obviously irrelevant at the moment.
Out in the hall stood a frightened guard at full attention. It was about eight foot tall, wide, and not remotely human. There was something almost triceratops-like about the guard.
“Gornal, I’m rather disappointed with how you’ve failed in your duties here,” said the Blue Queen.
“Yer Maj’sty, Ah were inspectin’ ta edder Hall.” quavered the guard.
“Oh, that’s all right. I’m sure it won’t happen again,” smiled the Queen.
“Oh thankee yer Maj’sty fer yer un’erstandin’”
“Don’t mention it,” she smiled wickedly and sweetly whispered, “Die. Gornal. Die.”
Jack screamed out when the guard literally melted into a puddle of gray goo.
The giantess cheerfully called down the hallway. “Hello! cleanup in Corridor Five!”
A very big lizard-like creature rushed into view and curtsied. “Yes, yer Majesty.”
The Queen reflected a moment. “I’d like a baby horny-blit soufflé tomorrow night with the palace feast. I think we might have some young fresh ones in the dungeon.”
The Blue Queen pulled Jack along beside her and they continued their walk. Jack didn’t know what a baby horny-blit soufflé was. He had been feeling kind of hungry himself, but one glance at the puddle of goo made him forget his appetite.
“As I was saying, I do hope you have a lovely visit here. I do so want to make you happy,” slithered her echoing voice far above him. She sounded sincere. He had the peculiar sense that she desperately needed to be liked. Jack could feel the need rolling off of her in waves.
As they progressed, Jack began to hear the sound of hundreds of children crying and screaming.
The queen looked rather put out. “Looks like the rest of the children have woken up.”
They passed by an arch to a room like the one he’d been a prisoner in. Jack was shocked to see another wall of diapered children. They were awake. Screaming. A few minutes later, he saw a second and a third room of captive children manacled in rows on tall walls. Crying and screaming. The echoes rebounded down the vast stone corridors.
He’d not saved all the kids held prisoner in the castle! He’d only saved one room of kids.
The Blue Queen gave a big sigh. “Yes, without my beetle-men to put my little guests to sleep with nice dreams, they are quite unhappy – and hungry, till I find new servants. And it’s all your fault you know. All of that pain those children are experiencing... you were quite selfish you know – destroying their caregivers.”
He could still hear echoes of terrified children many corridors away. The beetle-men were gone. The children were awake.
At least, further blood-milking seemed to be halted for now.
The queen was still talking, “... so, you see I only take a little bit every day and I give them very nice dreams. It is a fabulous arrangement all around,” she smiled happily and looked at him for agreement.
Jack nodded.
* * * *
But now it was the next morning. At least it felt like that. He’d spent a chilly night in the cage, leaning against the bars. They left bumpy imprints in his shoulder. The bedroom suite was as big as the inside of a cathedral, as befitted a queen as tall as a house. She was twenty feet tall? Eighteen? Twenty-five? Jack had never been good with estimating heights. He thought that his cage was at least fifteen feet above the floor. If he got the door open, he didn’t have anything to make a rope with. Some of the skinny bones might work for picking the lock. Not that he’d ever picked a lock before. It looked easy in the movies. How hard could it be?
He did have one wish and he wanted to be optimistic, but given the size of the wish he hid in his diaper, it did not give him a great deal of confidence that it would take him very far.
Jack drifted to sleep again.
When Jack awoke he saw that the Blue Queen was sitting almost below him – in front of the tall, oval vanity mirror. She looked entirely different from the previous evening. She reminded him of a stone statue weathered by time and wind. Eroded. Then she looked up at him and something shifted. She was brilliantly blue and young. The exotic beautiful monster he’d first seen.
“Oh, Fred, you are awake! I need your opinion. Is my blush symmetrical? It almost feels like I might have too much on the right side - and I do hate to be asymmetrical.”
Bewildered, Jack hazarded,“Well, it’s a little hard to tell from here, but perhaps too much on the right side?”
The Blue Queen looked at herself in the mirror again and tilted her head this way and that. “You might be right.” She picked up a puffball and dusted her left cheek.
As she turned back to face him, he was horrified to see that the little puffball which she’d placed in the tray with others like it – was squirming. They were alive?
“Is this better?” She turned her head in the mirror this way and that with pursed lips to admire her beautiful cheekbones.
“Oh, yes. Much better.” Jack responded quickly with as much smile as he could give her.
She gazed back at him archly for a moment and said conspiratorially, “So Fred, I noticed that you were glowing when you made that wish yesterday. And I find that – interesting. Interesting because it means that you didn’t have a wish, but that maybe you... were the wish. Now, why would that be?”
Jac
k shrugged. He wasn’t sure what to say.
She continued her train of thought, “If you were glowing it suggests that perhaps you ate a wish. Not just any wish, but a very big wish?”
Jack said nothing.
“Or then again, maybe you ate many small wishes?”
Jack continued his silence.
“It’d never occurred to me to eat wishes myself, silly as it might sound. One hates to experiment on one’s self, and it is dangerous to experiment with others who might be – irresponsible with their wishes.”
She poked a finger inside his cage with a painted purple claw as if to tickle him. “But you seem to have come out healthy and sound. Aren’t you?”
“Yes! I’m fine!” Jack exclaimed – pushing himself against the back bars.
She smiled and pulled her claw back.
“I’m a little cold though,” he whispered.
“You are looking a little bluer than you did yesterday, but it’s really rather attractive on you,” she giggled. “You match my room and I do so love for things to match.”
“If I get sick, you might discover a variety of other colors in this cage,” Jack hinted.
“But, I won’t keep you here that long, darling. I’ll have you bled white by then. I’m starting to think it would be kinder to bleed children all at once. I’m going to have to reflect on this.”
“Are you like a vampire or something?”
“A what, darling?”
“Do you drink blood?”
“What a horrific thought. Of course I don’t. The blood is for my worms. The ones who turn into my wishes.”
Jack panicked, “But, that’s murder! What about the happy dreams you say you love to give them?” He tried a new angle. “You must care a little bit?”
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you to say. Of course, I love them,” she purred.
“But -”
“I love them the same way that you love your bacon.”
“But, that’s not the same at all.”
“Oh, but we all eat something. What types of things do you eat? I’ve read all about your human world in the minds of the children that have visited me. What about the dreams of the pigs or carrots?”
Jack was startled. “Carrots have dreams?”
“Well of course they do, darling.”
“But...” Jack muttered. “Children are different from carrots.”
“Of course you’d say that. You’re not a carrot. I’m not judging you. Cycle of life and all that... and all of you children believe in a heaven of some sort, so I’m just sending you there quicker! To me you’re all just – carrots.” She smiled innocently.
Jack didn’t know what to say to that. He had a sudden fear of her reaching in and pulling off a leg, like he’d grab a grape off a bunch. But, that was evidently not her plan. She started humming to herself and waltzed over to her open wardrobe and thumbed through her dresses.
Jack began to wonder about the extent of her magic. “Did you say you read minds?”
“Of course I do, darling. You are wondering if I am going to eat you.”
Jack started, then thought again. He focused his thoughts on... hmmm... he couldn’t help it. He thought about Finn. Naked. He couldn’t help it. It just popped into his brain.
The Blue Queen saw his expression. “But darling... don’t look so startled. I won’t eat you today.”
OMG. She’s totally faking it. She can’t read minds. She’s had lots of kidnapped kids to interview. To study.
Jack tried again. “But, why would a powerful queen like you need more magic? You must be more magical than anyone else in the world!”
She looked at him quickly and he feared he’d laid it on too thick.
She cocked her head to one side and looked at him. “I am very good with name magic. If I know someone’s name, they will do all sorts of things for me. Suck your toe, Fred. Suck your toe.”
Jack was really glad she didn’t know his name. Then he suddenly realized he needed to keep up the pretense and stuck his dirty toe in his mouth. He didn’t want to think of the germs he might be ingesting.
She stared at him a moment before she turned back to her closet.
“Mmm.” Jack wondered how long he’d have to suck his toe.
“Stop sucking your toe, Fred. Stop sucking your toe.” She laughed over her shoulder.
Jack hastily pulled his toe out. It was a lucky thing that he was flexible.
She thoughtfully fondled a sparkley turquoise dress. “There is so much good I want to do in the world. Perhaps by upping the bleeding schedule, I can create more good sooner!”
“What type of good things do you want to do?” Jack asked from his cage.
“That’s a silly question.” She smiled. “Good is good, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, I simply want a world where everything makes me happy.”
“What if what makes you happy, makes other people unhappy?”
She laughed. “Then those people are selfish, don’t you think?”
As she danced off to her bedchamber with the sparkley gown, her tail knocked over a tall rack of feather boas which billowed in the air.
Jack’s hand shot out and grabbed a giant indigo boa that floated just within his reach. The rack itself landed softly on a giant over-stuffed chair.
* * * *
The Blue Queen was humming a perky tune when she left her chambers. She didn’t say goodbye to the little pest in its cage. The boy annoyed her. She’d have him bled when she returned. First she had to work out the issue with the missing servants. And deal with Mordette.
So, she never noticed the boa that Jack had pulled into the cage. It was so bulky there’d have been no way to hide it. He wrapped its surprising warmth around him and started picking the lock with a shard of bone.
It was not nearly as easy as the mystery novels made it sound. But he had a lot of time and no distractions - and many shards of bones to experiment with.
When the lock snapped open, no one could have been more surprised than himself.
It was a long drop to the floor. Longer than the length of the boa. But the vanity table top was not too far away. Jack could see a sort of route once he got there - if he jumped down via the plush stool in front of the vanity.
He pushed the rusty cage door open and tied off the end of the boa to a bar of the cage. Giant feather boas are not very easy to tie knots with, but once accomplished he felt like Tarzan as he climbed down inside the fluffy mass of feathers. He tried not to breathe in the feathery wisps around him.
When Jack reached the height of the tabletop, he began swinging back and forth to span the four foot distance to the edge. At full swing, he let go of the boa and landed with a thump on the table top.
The puffballs in their tray were squeaking, and bouncing up and down, and trying to get his attention. They were cute little critters. They would probably be about a foot tall if untied. Now that he was closer, he could see that they were gagged and hogtied. Their eyes pleaded as they hopped up and down.
Of course, Jack couldn’t leave them. He pulled out the knife-like shard of bone that he’d tucked carefully into a hole he’d made in the side of his diaper, and began cutting through the cords binding their hands and feet. He could see that they were children.
“Shhhh!” Jack whispered. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Thankee mister!” gasped the first one to get the gag out of its mouth.
“Do you have names?” Jack asked while cutting the last one’s bonds.
The three seemed identical at first, but up close he saw slight differences.
“Ah’m Bilbe!” said the first one while rubbing his wrists and ankles.
“Ah’m Dilbe,” whispered the second one who seemed a bit shy around Jack. She was a girl
. He wasn’t exactly sure how he knew. Her face was a bit narrower than Bilbe’s.
“Lilbe,” sighed the third one - who was smaller than the other two. Jack was unsure as to the gender. “The beetle-lady didn’t come ta feed us this mornin’. We be crazy hungry.”
Jack winced when he thought that he might be responsible for the total genocide of the beetle people. “Well, I’m pretty hungry, too. Are you ready to get out of here?”
The children nodded vigorously and looked nervously about them.
There was nearly a four foot drop down to the upholstered stool. But the cushion looked thick. Jack didn’t see anything resembling rope on the table top, and it might be too scary for these kids to jump. But then, to get down to the stone floor would be the bigger problem.
Lilbe gave a tug to the side of his diaper to get his attention. He grabbed the diaper quickly as the only thing holding the diaper up was a snuggly affixed baby blue diaper pin.
“Mister,” Lilbe pointed towards the back of the tabletop. “The beetle-lady’s tunnel ‘twould be easier.”
Bilbe and Dilbe pushed at a wooden panel beside the mirror. It opened to a small tunnel into the wall.
“But, the beetle-lady might be in there!” worried Dilbe.
Jack squirmed. “The beetle-folk won’t be a problem just now.”
Bilbe smiled. “Excellent.”
The dark hole was about two feet high and two feet wide. It was going to be a tight fit.
Jack hesitated. “Will it be big enough for me all the way through?”
Bilbe ran into the tunnel and in a moment came back. “Ye’ll fit, I s’pect!”
The fluffballs ran into the tunnel.
Jack got down on his knees and looked into the blackness.
“Crap. I hate small spaces.” He gave a sigh and squirmed into the darkness on his stomach. He had to wiggle snake-like and not lose his diaper along the way.
The kids ran far ahead of him.
It was a long dark tunnel.
Chapter 23
The Island
of Jack
The beetle-men (and beetle-women) did not disintegrate like Jack thought. Jack had just ardently wished for all of them to be gone, and as magic is not inherently unkind, and Jack at heart was also not unkind, the beetle-folk simply disappeared from the castle and remarkably reappeared on a small unpopulated isle south of the Bog Islands.
Olly, Olly, Oxen Frey Page 12