by Nikki Gaspar
The flowers were indeed a sight to behold. Each flower was the size of a man’s palm and had crimson petals, with gold specks in the center.
“Don’t touch it, Princess!” Major Krisham startled all of us when he stopped Sofia, whose hand was an inch from the flower.
“Sorry I startled you, but we don’t know what these plants are. They can be dangerous.”
“We should take some samples of these plants and have someone check if they’re dangerous,” Vincent suggested.
Major Krisham went to his vehicle and came back holding a pair of gloves, a pair of scissors, and some plastic bags.
“Hold these bags,” he told Vincent, who took it from him.
Major Krisham wore the gloves then carefully cut some samples of the plants and placed each of them into separate plastic bags.
We looked around for a few more minutes before deciding that we managed to get a sample of everything.
“Let’s go, before they notice in the palace that we are not watching the movies,” I said.
***
Our journey back to the palace was quiet. We stayed in the monster vehicle this time and bid Vincent goodbye when we reached his car at the foot of the hill. Major Krisham placed the bags of plant samples at the back of his monster vehicle, only a foot away from my sneakers, and my eyes stayed glued to them. Those plants were most likely dangerous, or illegal, or both because why would the king prefer to hike alone when a vehicle is capable of reaching that place, if not because he doesn’t want the guards to see what is in there.
When we reached the palace, Major Krisham gathered the guards and invented an emergency meeting so that we could walk back to the theatre room without being seen.
“I’m thankful for Mr. Leacon’s exercise lessons now,” I panted, closing the theatre door shut.
We looked at the movie that was still playing, then at our dirty clothes and shoes, and then burst out laughing.
“I think we need to take a shower before anyone sees us. We smell so bad that no one will believe that we are just watching movies even if we are locked in here,” Sofia said, wrinkling her nose.
***
The following afternoon, we met again in the cottage to think of where we can bring the plants that we found on the hill.
“Do you think he will notice that some leaves and flowers were cut from his plants?” I voiced my worry.
“The plants have some older cuts, so maybe he takes some for himself,” Vincent said. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t memorize where he made the cuts.”
Major Krisham brought the bags with plant and flower cuttings and set them in front of us, like staring at them could bring out some knowledge hidden in our brains.
“Where the hell did you get those?” A shout in the doorway startled us.
“Mr. Taz! You scared us. What are you shouting for?” I said, clutching my chest.
“I am shouting because of those plants!”
A lightbulb went on in my head. “You’re a botanist, Mr. Taz!”
“I know, I already told you that.”
“Do you know these plants, then?” I asked.
“Of course, I know them.” He snapped.
He walked closer towards the plants placed on the floor and shook his head. “These flowers are called Kloz-Assalire Flowers, ingesting a small amount will cause very high blood pressure. And when you ingest a whole flower? You have an hour before you die.”
He opened the plastic bags containing the leaves and peeked at each of them. “And these leaves, they are different kinds of Banafesti plants. The fruits have bean-like seeds inside, called Banafesti Beans—the fastest poison in the world,” Mr.Taz finished with a shudder.
My dad and Ysabel and Sofia’s mom both died because of a stroke, and Uncle Ant had a plant that could cause it. I almost died because of poisoning, and he also had a plant that was the fastest poison in the world.
“I think we just found some evidence,” I whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mrs. Luminaire was horrified when she was informed of what the plants we brought inside the cottage were. And brought out a frying pan threatening to hit our heads with it when she found out how we got ahold of them.
“I absolutely forbid you from going out for adventures again! I don’t care that you are a Princess, I will lock you in a tower if I have to!” she said, waving the frying pan over her head.
I guess I have another one to hide from if ever we needed to sneak out again.
Mr. Taz confiscated the plants; he said that he was the professional, and we were all not qualified to handle such dangerous evidence samples. We were actually relieved that he volunteered because we didn’t have any idea what to do with them anyway.
“I have bad news,” Sofia said during our meeting one afternoon. “I heard from Grandma that they would start Mari’s trial next week.”
“We need to find more evidence before then. Otherwise, Mari will be convicted,” I said.
“Yeah, but how? We don’t have any developments yet. Dad’s office is just full of boring stuff.”
Ysabel managed to sneak inside Uncle Ant’s office yesterday but failed to find any clues.
We were running out of ideas on how to proceed with the investigation. We have read our list of information about the case over and over, but no new idea was coming into light.
“Is that a phone ringing?” Vincent asked.
Distant music was playing, and I recognized it as the classical song that mom loves. I rarely use my phone since I arrived in Bellanmuse, so I forgot to take it with me. Stumbling a few times, I managed to get it before the call ended, but it was an unknown number.
I swiped answer on the screen while walking back to the living room where the others were still staring at our list. “Hello?”
“Is this Princess Clarissa?” The woman’s voice sounded nervous.
“Yes, ma’am. May I know who this is?”
“My name is Ally. I am Mari’s mother.”
No wonder she was nervous. She probably heard about Mari’s upcoming trial. “If you are calling for Mari, please do not worry, I know that she is innocent. I will do whatever I can to make sure she is released from prison.”
The others stiffened and turned their probing eyes on me when they heard my end of the conversation.
“It’s not just about Mari,” Ally continued. “I need to give you something. I don’t know if Mari told you, but I was a friend of your mother and was her personal maid. I have a letter made by her before she left the palace sixteen years ago.”
I gasped and gripped a chair’s back as my legs threatened to give way. “Did she tell you to give it to me?”
“No, Princess. She said that I needed to give the letter to the queen mother. I was tempted to read it, and when I did, I got scared. For sixteen years, I never had the courage to give it to the queen mother,” her voice cracked. “When you almost died, I realized that the moment has come. I need to do the right thing. But I think Princess Emma would prefer that you have it instead.”
I arranged for Ally to meet Vincent outside the palace—in Rosy’s shop, pretending to have some breakfast. In that way, no one will know that Ally had been in contact with us.
The craving to have my hands on the letter that my mom wrote made the night seem endless.
***
When Vincent arrived for class, he looked meaningfully at me, letting me know that he got the letter. I cannot wait until the afternoon, so right after class, I tugged him towards the cottage.
“Where is it?” I made grabbing motions with my hands as soon as we closed the cottage door.
As if unaware of how anxious I was, he took his time in extracting the letter from his bag. I tapped my foot impatiently on the floor and was a second away from throttling him when he finally handed it to me.
Dear Queen Isabella,
I am sorry that I left, and I am sorry for taking Clarissa away from you. Please understand that I am a mother and my priority
is my daughter’s safety.
I know that the information I will give you is hard to believe, but I do not have time to collect more evidence. What you need to know is that Alfred did not die because he was sick. His high blood pressure was caused by a food supplement given to him, which he took daily, believing that it will help in his fatigue. He always had headaches whenever he took it, but refused to go to the doctor because he still believed that the food supplement would help. I regret that I did not notice the connection immediately, by the time I realized what caused his symptoms, it was already too late. I kept some samples, but I do not have time to have it checked.
The person who gave Alfred the food supplement was his brother, Prince Anthony. I do not know if you noticed, but he was always jealous of his older brother. I did not think that he was capable of doing Alfred harm, but I guess I was wrong. And if his motive was getting the crown in the future, then that means Clarissa is also on his way.
I trust that you, together with the royal court, will investigate this fairly. Even if the accused is another royal.
Love, Emma.
Sofia upended the envelope, but there were no food supplement samples inside. “Do you think she brought the samples along when you left?”
“I don’t think so, she intended for grandma to investigate, so she probably left them somewhere in the palace.”
“It’s probably hidden in your room,” Ysabel suggested, “it was their old bedroom after all.”
Vincent went home to continue getting information from his dad, and then the three of us went to my room in the palace.
***
We were just starting to rummage the room when Jazaael showed up and shepherded us towards the dining area—the fact that we have a new development made us so excited that we totally forgot about lunch. It took a lot of self-control to stop myself from stuffing my face with food just to get it over with, and I guess it was still obvious that we were in a hurry because Uncle Ant noticed.
“Why are you girls eating so fast? You should slow down or you will choke,” he said.
Ysabel looked like she wanted to choke the king, so I saved her from possible imprisonment. “We just wanted to get back to our homework, Uncle Ant.”
“I should commend your teachers. It’s a great idea to give you as much homework as possible. You should be glad because that will help you not just in understanding your lessons, but in having good work ethics as well.”
We were learning good work ethics all right, just not with homework, but with being investigators.
After lunch, we bid Uncle Ant and grandma goodbye and went back to my bedroom, where we spent the whole afternoon, leaving no stone unturned. But we did not find any food supplements.
Chapter Thirty
Finally accepting defeat, we lay on my bed and tried to think of more hiding places.
“Your mom was great in hiding, Claire. First, she hid you from the family for sixteen years. If you did not come back, I doubt that we will ever meet. And now this evidence? I don’t want to spend sixteen years looking for it,” Sofia said gloomily.
“Maybe we should ask grandma where your mom likes to hang out in the palace. We can look there next,” Ysabel suggested.
Sofia and I agreed because we ran out of ideas and didn’t feel like searching the entire palace—which would take years if we did try.
***
“Grandma, I just wonder what my mom does during her free time when she was here in the palace?” I asked while we were having dinner.
“Your mom likes to read. She spent most of her time in the library.”
“That’s true. If anyone needed to find her, just go to the library, and there she was, sitting in one of the sofas beside the windows, reading books,” Uncle Ant said.
I smiled at him, but in my mind, I was wondering how he felt while reminiscing about my mom; knowing that he killed her husband and tried to kill her daughter.
“Oh! But after she found out that she was pregnant, she spent months decorating your bedroom,” Grandma remembered. “That’s why we never used that room again—as a remembrance for the two of you. The maids clean it sometimes, but everything is the same.”
“Really? Which room is it?”
“It’s the corner bedroom, beside the one you are using now.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure, dear, just ask Jazaael to open the door for you.”
Ysabel, Sofia, and I looked at each other knowingly. This bedroom sounded like a good hiding place.
***
“Good evening, Jazaael!”
Jazaael startled when three loud voices greeted him at the same time.
“What are you up to, ladies?” he asked with a quizzical expression.
“Grandma said that I can ask you to open my old bedroom. I just wanted to see how my mom decorated it.”
“Of course, I will open it for you,” he patted my hand.
A baby magazine came to my mind when Jazaael opened the door. The walls were painted light pink, which matched with the furniture, such as a small bed with a white frame and pink lace canopy, a cabinet, side tables, a wooden crib with pink blankets, and a rocking chair beside the window. Black paint filled with silver and gold star-shaped stickers decorated the ceiling.
“This looks pretty,” I said.
“Princess Emma did the decorations herself, while Prince Alfred did the furniture. They started making this room as soon as they found out that they were pregnant. They were so happy,” Jazaael reminisced. He stopped the moisture that formed in his eyes from flowing by tilting his head up and blinking rapidly.
I touched the rocking chair, amazed that my dad—a real-life prince—made it himself. He could afford to buy any furniture he wanted, but he made the effort to make these for me.
“Your mom and dad often sit in that rocking chair while holding you, letting you see the birds, clouds, and stars,” Jazaael said, “and those stars in the ceiling, your dad placed them after you were born and they saw your birthmark.”
“This bedroom looks like a shrine,” observed Ysabel.
“After Prince Alfred died and Princess Emma and Princess Clarissa disappeared, we do not have the heart to touch any of these things. This is our only remembrance.” Jazaael excused himself when his eyes teared up again and left us in the bedroom. His loud sniff echoed in the empty corridor.
Ysabel locked the door, looked around, and shook her head. “We need to make sure to put everything back in their proper places while we search, or Grandma will spank us.”
I started on the side tables while Sofia rummaged the clothes cabinet, and Ysabel looked under the blankets in the crib. After hours of searching, we were still empty-handed.
“I was so sure that this bedroom was the one.” Sofia sighed.
All of us were convinced that this bedroom was mom’s hiding spot, but we were mistaken. I took the small star-shaped pillow on the bed. It’s obviously a gift from grandma because it had a pin that says I Love Grandma. I hugged it and was about to lie on the bed when I noticed that there was something hard inside.
“Girls!” I hissed.
Ysabel and Sofia whipped their heads, and I passed them the pillow so they could feel the hard thing in the middle.
I removed the I Love Grandma pin and saw that it was covering a small tear on the pillow. Squeezed among the soft, cotton filling was a small bottle labeled Food Supplement.
“Oh my God! We found it!” Sofia said, her eyes almost popping out of her head.
I placed the bottle back inside the pillow, replaced the pin, and hid the pillow inside my dress. It gave me a lumpy pregnant look.
“Cross your arms so you can cover the bulk,” Ysabel said.
***
We left the room and went straight to the cottage. The lights were off. My neighbors were probably sleeping, but we still knocked. Mr. Taz needed to see the bottle immediately.
“Why are you girls here so late?” Mr. Taz yawned.
We stayed
silent, just went inside and closed the cottage door.
“You need to see this, Mr. Taz,” I said, removing the pin and then handed him the bottle.
Mr. Taz carefully opened it and smelled the contents. Not satisfied, he fished a capsule, opened it, and examined its contents. His eyes turned wide in terror. “These are dried Kloz-Assalire Flowers!” he said.
He replaced the bottle in the pillow and said he would hide it together with the plants.
“What do you think, Mr. Taz? Should we tell grandma now?” I asked.
“I don’t think the evidences are enough to convict, Claire. You cannot prove that all of these evidences are definitely his. You have your mom’s letter, but she cannot testify now. How can we prove that he gave these capsules to your dad?”
***
Long after Ysabel and Sofia were back in the palace, I stayed awake in my bedroom in the cottage. I couldn’t believe how much evidences we already have. Although they were not yet enough, I was confident that we would find more and finally make things right. We could give justice to my dad and Ysabel and Sofia’s mom’s death, Mari would clear her name, and I could live a peaceful life.
Learning all of this about Uncle Ant made me shudder. How could a person do everything he did, especially to his own family?
I jumped when my phone rang. I reached out to the bedside table and saw Vincent’s name.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Did I wake you?”
“No, I can’t sleep.”
“Did you find the food supplement samples?”
“It wasn’t in my bedroom, but we found it somewhere else.”
Vincent gasped. “Really? Where?”
I told him everything from after he left the palace, up until we showed the bottle to Mr. Taz.
“And Mr. Taz confirmed that it contained Kloz-Assalire Flowers?”
“He did. The flowers were dried and placed inside the capsules.”
Vincent let out a huge breath. “This is getting creepy, to tell you the truth.”
“I know. That’s why I can’t sleep tonight.”
“Don’t worry. This will be over soon. Just keep vigilant, okay?”