by D. C. Payson
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.
Copyright © 2020 by D. C. Payson
THE LOST PRINCESS OF AEVILEN by D. C. Payson
All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Month9Books, LLC.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-951710-27-9
ePub ISBN: 978-1-951710-28-6
Mobi ISBN: 978-1-951710-29-3
Published by Month9Books, Raleigh, NC 27609
Cover design by Danielle Doolittle
For Henry, John, and Helly
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Connect With Us
Other Month9Books Titles You Might Like
Julia held tightly to the armrest as her father yanked the steering wheel rightward and accelerated up the driveway. The car’s wheels spat dirt and gravel behind them, Richard paying no attention at all to the familiar “Children at Play” and “Caution: Animal Crossing” signs. He pulled into the circular drive in front of their house and slammed the brakes. The car came to a screeching halt.
Richard turned around to face Julia and her younger brother. “Julia, help me pack up the art and get it into the van. Nico, find your mother, and help her with whatever she needs. The fire department is closing off this area at noon, which gives us less than an hour and a half. No time to waste!”
He threw open the car door and rushed toward the house, yanking Nico along by the hand.
Julia followed behind in a daze. The Santa Ana winds had picked up, and the wildfire was spreading. Fast. “Uncontrollably,” the radio newscaster had said. It just didn’t seem possible that all of Malibu was at risk, not on such a beautiful morning.
Julia reached the threshold of the door and hesitated, looking for a moment up into the hills. She could see distant plumes of gray smoke.
Maybe the fire’s course will change. Maybe we’re overreacting.
“Julia, get in here,” Richard barked. “Help me with this painting!”
Julia snapped to and headed into the house. Her mother, Pamela, frantically sorted through drawers for things to save while Nico filled boxes with the family photo albums. Julia took hold of one side of the painting and helped her father move it from the wall, through the front door, and down the path to the family minivan. No sooner had they slid the canvas into place than Richard started hustling back to the house.
“Wait! Dad, are you sure we have to do this?” Julia asked.
Her father stopped and turned, his eyes bearing down on her. “Julia, if we don’t use the time we have now, lots of things we care about might be lost. We can hope that this is all for nothing, but let’s act as if everything we don’t save in the next hour is going to be gone forever, okay?”
Julia’s pulse quickened. She nodded. “Okay, Dad.”
They spent the next hour in a flurry of packing, grabbing, moving, and jostling. Her father and mother issued a continuous stream of orders as they tried to save their most beloved and valuable belongings. By the time the family finished, they had crammed artwork, heirlooms, and albums into every last inch of the minivan.
“Good job, everyone,” Richard said, reaching up and pulling the rear hatch closed. “Last thing: I’ve left boxes in your rooms. Go fill them with what you want to save, and we’ll load them into my car. The fire department will be here in ten minutes to evacuate the neighborhood, so keep that in mind. Remember, only what can fit in the box!”
Julia rushed back inside, across the living room strewn with detritus, and through the short, bare-walled hallway to her room. When she got there, she froze, staring blankly at the accumulated possessions of her seventeen years. She had lived with most of these things for so long they had faded from her day-to-day consciousness, little more than three-dimensional wallpaper. Yet now, faced with the impossible task of choosing once and forever between them, they all seemed precious, not wallpaper at all, but threads of emotion and memory that were part of the fabric of her life.
She glanced out her bedroom window. The smoke was nearer now. Thicker. Blacker. Julia took a few steps closer to the glass and squinted. She finally caught sight of the flickering flames of an actual fire at the top of the hill—a fire that was moving slowly and inexorably toward them.
“Five minutes, everyone!” Richard shouted.
Julia felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. She grabbed her camera and laptop and put them in the box. Next came her jewelry and favorite clothes, though she had only added a few sweaters and a pair of jeans by the time the box was out of room. She removed the sweaters and replaced them with her journals, then retrieved the first of three binders from the stamp collection she had inherited from her Aunt Sisa. It was a huge, thick volume representing decades of effort in careful acquisition, mounting, and annotation. There was no way that it was going to fit in the box. Julia tried to stuff it in, using her weight to press down harder.
A knot grew in her stomach, her father’s words echoing in her mind: Only what can fit!
“Get in there!” she commanded, pressing harder and harder until she heard a muffled crack. She relented and slouched back onto the floor.
Her eyes welled up as she looked at her favorite indie-band posters, her blanket, all the clothes now strewn across the floor, the stamp collection, tennis racquet, childhood doll house, stereo, TV, pictures, books, trophies, and shoes. They would all have to be left behind. It felt like a betrayal.
“Julia, it’s time to go!” her father called from the hallway. Julia turned to see him standing by her bedroom door. Though he offered a reassuring smile, Julia noticed the seriousness etched onto his face. He stepped forward and picked up her box.
“We’ll be fine,” he said, gently squeezing her shoulder. “No matter what happens, we have each other. But we have to go now.”
Julia nodded. “Okay, Dad,” she said, wiping away a tear with her finger. She looked around her room one last time. “Please, God?” she said. She looked up blankly at the ceiling before following her father out the door.
“The scene down here, Maria, is a devastating one. Firefighters are still struggling with the out-of-control blaze. Families downwind are scrambling to pack up their most precious belongings before the fire reaches them. As you can see from these images taken just moments ago, there are already many families whose lives will never be the same, their homes consumed by the most destructive wildfire in a generati
on.”
Julia sat transfixed, watching the TV. She absorbed very little of the newsman’s melodrama. It didn’t matter; she already knew the truth. Her home in Malibu was gone. The things she left behind were also gone. Her old life had burned down with them.
Pamela sat down beside her on the sofa and kissed her on the head. “I think we should turn this off,” she said quietly. “It’s not doing anyone any good right now.”
Julia reached for the remote and clicked off the television. She wasn’t sure she liked the silence that now greeted her. At the very least, the noise and flashing images on the screen had anchored her to a still-turning world; now she was adrift in a sea of unhappy thoughts. She inhaled deeply and lay down against the threadbare pillows of her grandmother’s sofa.
Growing up, dinner at Ina’s house had always been reserved for special occasions. It meant dressing up, remembering your table manners, and talking about the sort of dull things that grandmothers like to talk about. Julia wasn’t sure what Ina dinners were going to be like now that they were moving in, but she dreaded having to repeat the whole stilted affair night after night after night.
Much to Julia’s surprise, her grandmother came down the stairs in a pair of blue jeans and a light, cotton blouse, an outfit far removed from the Christmas suits she recalled seeing her in as a kid. Even in jeans, Ina radiated formality. Her steps were evenly paced and deliberate, her posture impeccable, not a single strand of her snow-white hair out of place. As she came around the banister, she flashed a tight-lipped smile at her assembled family, something that might have seemed trite were not her blue eyes twinkling with kindness.
Moving to her spot at the head of the table, Ina gestured for the family to sit. The food smelled delicious. Though still feeling out of sorts, Julia appreciated the normalcy of a home-cooked meal.
Ina reached out her hands, and the family formed a chain around the table.
“We are blessed to be here together,” she said, her German-sounding accent tingeing the words. “May he who gave us form give us the strength to endure our challenges, the wisdom to cherish the blessings we still have, and the courage to embrace the future.”
“Thank you, Mom,” said Richard. “That was a lovely grace.”
Ina smiled. “I know how you’re feeling. It will be hard at first, I remember. But everything does seem to work out, doesn’t it? Look at you all. I have such a beautiful family.”
Richard nodded. “Yes, family matters most. So long as we’re together, safe, and in good health, I’m sure we’ll be okay.” He picked up his fork and fidgeted with it. “You know, maybe you should tell the kids about what you went through. It might help them see what they still have. Come to think of it, it could be good for all of us to hear your story.”
“Oh, Richie,” Ina replied. “That was a very long time ago.”
Richard looked back at her insistently. “Please?”
Ina reached for her water, but she could not avoid the fact that all eyes in the room were on her. She put the glass down and sighed. “Okay, Richie, okay. As you know, I had to run away from a war. It was a very terrible time in my country. Some men had come to power promising a better life for everyone, but they succeeded only in turning countryman against countryman, even brother against brother. It all happened so quickly that we didn’t realize that we had to run until it was too late. Really, it was a terrible time. I cannot tell you how frightening it is to face that sort of danger.”
“So what happened, Ina?” Julia asked.
“In the end, I was the only one to get away. They killed my father and brother, and they would have gotten me, too, had not a woman named Balyssa saved me. She helped me come here. Of course, those first few nights in California were very hard. You must remember, I was completely alone with nothing but the clothes on my back. I actually had to sleep on the beach until a minister from a church in the Palisades saw me and offered to help.”
“Did you speak any English before you came?” Julia asked.
“No,” said Ina. She chuckled, her eyes drifting off. “I spoke a rare language unique to the small valley where I grew up. It is quite a lot different from English, but back then I was pretty good at picking up new languages.”
Nico’s face brightened. “Did you make new friends?”
“Oh yes. But it took a little while. I had to learn a bit about California, which was so different from my home culture.”
“Don’t you ever miss your old country?” Julia asked.
“Yes, of course. Every now and again, I think of it and miss it very much. But I don’t know if it’s really any better, even after all this time. I don’t dare go back. I will always have my memories, just like you will always have your memories of Malibu.”
“But Ina, wasn’t the war over a long time ago?” Julia pressed. “Why didn’t you go home after it ended?”
Ina was silent. She looked down at the table and repeated quietly, “No. I don’t want to go back.”
“Grandma, how could you not … ”
“Stop it, Julia. Stop it!” Ina snapped. “Don’t ask me again! My family is here now, and that’s good enough for me!”
There was an awkward silence. Ina looked down at her plate and started cutting her meat with short, rapid strokes, a tight scowl on her face.
“Sorry, Grandma,” Julia said sheepishly. She poked at the salad on her plate, unable to understand why Ina wouldn’t want the one thing that she herself wanted more than anything else in the world: her old life back.
The smell. The very first thing that Julia sensed as she awoke the next day was the smell. It wasn’t the salt of the ocean that used to waft in through her open bedroom window; rather, Julia smelled the particular and peculiar scent of old, the minor rot that comes with long stretches of time passed without wear. It was the smell of Ina’s house, not of the bungalow in the Malibu hills.
She opened her eyes and rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling as a quartz clock on her nightstand loudly ticked off the seconds of her new life. She shot a glance at the box at the base of the bed, the one that contained all her remaining belongings. Julia expected—almost wanted—to cry, to buckle under the great weight of all that she had lost. But she didn’t; she was blank. Numb.
Slinking out of bed and into the shower, Julia cranked the water to hot and leaned against the wall. She didn’t care for the greenish, sixties-era tile in front of her, so she closed her eyes and dreamed of the ocean view she used to have at home.
Back in her room, Julia put on her jeans and a clean t-shirt from the small stack of clothes that had survived the fire. Glancing at her reflection on the back of the door, she teased her shoulder length crop of sandy-blond hair. Julia tried to give it enough volume to hide the widow’s peak she had inherited from her father and grandmother. She reached for her makeup bag but changed her mind after she saw the heaviness around her eyes in the mirror. It wasn’t a day for makeup.
Julia turned her attention to the box, sifting through the things inside: journals, jewelry box, laptop. Camera. Her camera had always helped her through difficult times in the past. The act of shooting photos was calming for her, and the lens helped to her to see—not just capture images, but to engage with what was in front of her. She picked the camera up and pointed it toward the door, then she clicked the shutter. The camera beeped, and soon an under lit, grayish-brown scene appeared on the small previewing monitor on the back. Julia let out a grim chuckle. The image wasn’t beautiful, but the darkness and unresolved shadows matched the way she felt.
It’s a certain kind of therapy, I guess.
Camera in hand, Julia headed out of her room and down the stairs. She found her mother, brother, and grandmother sitting around the breakfast table.
“Good morning, Julia,” Pamela called from the head of the table. “We have cereal, fruit, and a few pieces of bacon left. If you’d like, I’d be happy to make you some eggs.”
Julia took a seat be
side her brother and put the camera down on the table. She heard a loud slurp and looked over to see Nico grinning at her, spoon still halfway in his mouth.
“Lucky Charms!” he said, his eyes alight. “Grandma got them for me!”
“They’re not good for you, you know,” Julia said.
Nico smiled widely, showing the big gap between his front teeth. “They’re great for me.”
“No, all that sugar will rot those teeth of yours.”
“I see you have your camera,” Pamela interrupted. “You know, just up the road is a beautiful park full of old, live oaks. I think you’ll enjoy shooting them. It could be a great way to get to know Brentwood.”
Julia munched on a piece of bacon, lost in thought.
“Did you hear me, love?” Pamela asked.
“ … Yeah, Mom,” said Julia, looking up. “That sounds good, but I, uh … ”
Pamela cocked her head, her eyebrows arched. “Yes?”
“I thought I might go back to the house in Malibu and take some pictures there.”
Pamela sighed. “Julia, sweetheart, the house is gone. I don’t even know if it’s safe for you to be up there, and I’m sorry, but I can’t give you the car today. We have way too much to do to get settled in here.”
“But, Mom—”
“I can take her,” Ina said. “I feel terrible for what happened last night. I had no right to speak to you like I did. Of all people, I should know better than to minimize the pain of someone who has lost a home. If your photographs will help give you closure, I would very much like to be a part of that.”
“We’re going to go see our burned down house?” said Nico. “Woah.”
“No, Nicholas, not you this time,” said Ina. “Just Julia.”
“Aww,” he said, dropping his spoon in his bowl. “That’s not fair.”
“I don’t know how I feel about this idea,” Pamela said. “It’s probably dangerous up there.” She saw the dejection on Julia’s face. “But, if you promise it’s just pictures … ”