by Mia Archer
I glanced out at the Royal Palace again. Yeah, the fake might be impressive, but it was no substitute for the real thing.
I turned the television off. Obviously there was nothing useful for me there. I looked over to the door. I knew what was waiting for me on the other side, but I figured I had to try. I took a moment to give myself a once over in the bathroom mirror, the first thing I’d done on getting to the hotel was take a nice long shower and change into a new set of clothes that weren’t wrinkled from the long flight over, and opened the door.
To my surprise Felix wasn’t waiting out there. Instead I was greeted by a pretty girl who looked to be only a few years older than me. She was striking with curly dark hair running down her shoulders, and when she turned to smile at me I went weak in the knees and melted.
Now here was a girl I wouldn’t mind getting in more trouble over, though something told me if Felix hired her there wasn’t a chance she’d be interested in popping into the princess’s room for a quick snog. The problems I had to deal with in life.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Okay. Not exactly the most delicate way to ask a question. I figured it was a valid question, though. I don’t think I’d ever seen this girl before, and I was familiar with just about everyone in the palace security detail at this point. Some of my wilder exploits over the years made sure of that.
I was immediately suspicious whenever there was someone new on the detail.
The girl smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Renata. I was added to your security detail just before you came over here. I grew up in the states so they figured I might be useful.”
I looked down curiously for a moment and then realized she expected me to shake her hand. Then again she was an American. In my experience they seemed to paradoxically be more obsessed with royals while at the same time not having the first idea of how to act around royalty.
Still, that was refreshing. I reached out and took her hand. Gave it a shake. Ignored the shiver that threatened at her touch.
“Nice to meet you, Renata,” I said. “So if I want to go out for a walk or something do you have to come with me?”
“Why would I?”
I paused, again sensing a trap. Something weird was definitely going on here, and I figured I should proceed with caution. What was this Renata woman’s game?
“Usually when Felix is running the show he makes sure there’s someone with me at all times,” I said.
Another dazzling smile. “Don’t for a moment think he isn’t taking care of business. He was called away for meetings with park security, but I understand he gave your description and picture to every worker and resort security guard working here for the duration of your stay.”
I fought back the urge to curse. Didn’t want to make a bad impression on the pretty young security lady who seemed to be on my side. Sort of. Maybe. I was still a little wary of anyone working security who was this nice to me.
“So that means…”
“It means you’re free to walk around the resort, but the moment you try to leave security will stop you,” she said, still with that smile.
“Right. I guess that makes sense. Good thing I wasn’t planning on sneaking out or anything!”
Renata fixed me with a look that told me exactly what she thought of that. Okay then. She was new, but obviously she’d been briefed on my predilection for causing trouble. That could make things more difficult if she was going to be my personal bodyguard for the duration of this trip, but nothing was impossible when it came to evading Felix and his security goons.
“So I’m going to go take a walk now,” I said.
I stepped out and double checked that I had my wristband that would allow me to get into the room and into the park. The things were damned convenient. Renata arched an eyebrow, but she didn’t make a move from her spot beside my door as I backed my way down the hall. I expected her to follow me or reach down to talk into her radio at any moment, but she just kept up with that smile and that arched eyebrow that told me she knew I was up to something.
I breathed a small sigh of relief as I stepped onto the elevator and headed down to the first floor. That first step of getting the hell away from Felix and his goons had gone much better than I thought. Though I didn’t doubt for a moment that Renata was probably on a radio letting everyone and their mother know I was out of my room. Damn it.
I stepped off and there was another obvious security guard in the lobby. He nodded politely, but once more he didn’t follow me. Only when I stepped out of the hotel there was another obvious security type standing there in sunglasses with a telltale radio embedded in his ear. He also nodded politely. A reminder that I was being watched.
Damn it. Maybe that Renata girl really didn’t need to follow me. What was the point when Felix posted his people everywhere in the damn resort?
“You are going to figure out a way out of this Amelia,” I muttered to myself. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull it off. I looked around for something, anything, and my eyes fell on a gift shop. I snorted. They seemed to be everywhere. If Royal Realms was good at one thing, it was separating people from their money and making them feel great about it.
And in that moment it was as though the heavens opened up and a shaft of light shot down on me as an angelic choir sang about how I’d found my salvation. Okay, not really. There were no shafts of light in this part of the world. There was just the sun shining down merrily giving melanoma to anyone stupid enough to not wear sunscreen.
Still, there might as well be angelic choirs singing from on high, because that gift shop was going to be my salvation. I was hit by a cool blast of air as I stepped inside and an older woman at the counter smiled at me. There was food and all sorts of overpriced travel-sized supplies that someone might forget while packing for a big trip on one side of the gift shop, but on the other side was the jackpot.
The wall was lined with Royal Realms merchandise rubber stamped with their various mascots. T-shirts, commemorative mugs and refrigerator magnets, and most importantly hats and sunglasses. I grabbed one of each and headed up to the counter where the lady smiled. I waited for a flicker of recognition, but there was nothing.
Huh. What if that Renata girl had been lying about Felix giving my description to everyone who worked here? Or did this lady recognize me, and she didn’t want to make things weird by gushing and asking for a selfie or something? Would a lady this old even know what a selfie was, let alone ask for one?
Too many questions. It gave me something to think about, though.
“Is this all you need dear?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “This is good.”
“Will you be paying cash or card?”
Damn. I didn’t think about that. I was hardly ever in direct contact with money. Usually Felix or someone else took care of all that sort of stuff. It’s not like I didn’t know what money was or how to use it, it’s just that I was so separated from the parts where it changed hands that I didn’t have a card of my own or carry cash.
I tapped my fingers against the counter and my eyes fell on my band. The one attached to the room. I was hit with another bit of inspiration. Of course! I held up my wrist.
“Can I charge it to my room?”
“Of course you can dear!”
I couldn’t believe that actually worked. I was a genius!
I stepped out of the gift shop a moment later but didn’t put on the sunglasses or the hat. I saw a security guy standing over by the pool not looking at me so hard that it was pretty damn obvious what he was doing. The old surveillance out of the corner of his eyes routine. Well I wasn’t going to give away my disguise, not yet.
I just needed someplace to hop into said disguise. I looked around and my eyes fell on something I saw when I first walked in. All these resorts were themed with the theme elements getting more elaborate the more expensive the resort got. It appeared that the theme for this place was to have a massive hedge maze set up right in t
he middle of the place for people to enjoy.
Knowing Felix he probably had some of his lackeys in there as well, but I figured the twists and turns of a maze would make a very convenient location for me to lose them long enough to get into my disguise and maybe make my escape. Who knows, if all the employees who supposedly got my description were as on the ball as the lady in the gift shop then this might quite literally be a walk in the park to take a walk to the park.
I could hope.
I set off at a brisk pace for the hedge maze. At the entrance were two topiary guards cut out of the hedges. They were straight out of the classic animated movie Knight’s Princess about a prince in disguise who wooed the aforementioned princess while saving her bacon from an evil dragon. Completely ridiculous, and I completely and utterly ate it up when I was a little girl. I still felt a nostalgic twinge looking at those guards carved out of a hedge.
That was the sort of power Royal Realms held over people, no matter what their age.
I stepped into the hedge maze and took a deep breath. The walls rose bright and green all around me with the bright blue sky overhead. It was a perfect moment, made all the more perfect because for one blessed moment there were no security people following my every step.
Again I thought back to the lucky people on that bus. They had no idea how good they had it, living a life where they weren’t constantly under scrutiny. Or, I guess with the rise of computers and social media, they were at least living a life where the scrutiny they were under was welcome.
Not so in my case.
I looked down at the hat and sunglasses in my hand. Both were branded with princesses all over them. Not that I should have expected anything less while I was here at Royal Realms.
“I guess I can’t escape the princess lifestyle no matter how hard I try,” I muttered to myself.
I didn’t put on the hat and sunglasses, though. Not yet. I was still all alone, and I figured I’d wait until I actually saw somebody who was worth hiding from before I went to the trouble of messing up my hair. Was it vain? Maybe, and if anything that was probably what was going to get me caught.
Oh well.
I was surprised there weren’t more people here in the hedge maze having fun. I expected to hear the scream of little kids running around and having a good time. The sounds of parents calling after those kids and telling them not to get too far ahead, because you never knew when there might be a scary boogeyman lurking just around the corner, even here at Royal Realms. I rolled my eyes. As though something like that would ever happen here of all places.
But no, the entire place was eerily silent. It was as though I was all alone in the middle of a dark green forest. It reminded me of a time when I’d gone out into the woods on the palace grounds all on my own. Nothing but me and the sunlight filtering down through the leaves. Well, there was a hell of a lot more sunlight around here, but otherwise the effect was the same.
“You’re a long way from the palace around here, Amelia,” I muttered to myself. “And if you hang around here for much longer you’re going to get yourself caught.”
I stopped and looked around. I’d wandered aimlessly. I had a twig in my hand that I must have reached out and grabbed from one of the hedges. And I had absolutely no fucking idea where the hell I was.
Damn it. When I ducked into the hedge maze to get lost I didn’t actually plan on getting lost! I was never going to get out of here now. By the time I figured out where the hell I was Felix would have security people posted at every exit. Why had I allowed myself to get lost in thought like that?
Stupid! Idiot! I had a taste of freedom and I threw it all away!
I forced myself to calm down. To take a couple of deep breaths. I could still get out of this. I’d just walk forward and keep turning right. I thought that was how you were supposed to get out of mazes. Or was it that I was supposed to turn left? Wasn’t there supposed to be a trick? I couldn’t remember.
Damn it. What I really needed was for David Bowie to appear out of nowhere and lead me out of the fucking maze, but that wasn’t happening anymore. Which was a pity. He was a nice guy on the few occasions we’d met, though he never wore that costume as much as the little girl inside me wanted him to.
No, my mind was wandering. I needed to think. I needed to figure out a way out of here.
I moved forward again. I did a right turn. And I found myself staring at a massive hedge that had been trimmed in the shape of Princess Reima and her Prince Charming from the movie this whole maze was based on.
I stopped. I gasped.
Though that gasp had nothing to do with the massive hedge sculpture, no matter how incredible it was. No, that gasp was all for the girl standing in front of the figures staring up with a wistful look on her face.
Her beautiful face. She had to be one of the most gorgeous girls I’d ever seen, and she was all alone in the middle of the maze. What in the world was a girl that gorgeous doing all alone out here? I figured she’d be out here with a boyfriend or something.
The thought that she might be out here with a girlfriend never crossed my mind. I wasn’t that lucky. The universe hadn’t been working in my favor enough lately for something like that to happen.
Something else surprising was happening here. I was at a loss for words. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem going up and introducing myself to someone new, though to be fair that was usually at the palace where I had the upper hand considering I was going to own the whole place someday.
Now, though, I was tongue-tied. I actually considered slipping away and never saying a word to her. That’s how uncomfortable this strange new feeling was. Then she turned, saw me, and smiled.
I melted.
I wasn’t going to be going away. For one thing it would look pretty weird if I disappeared right after she turned and smiled at me like that. It certainly wouldn’t be very polite. For another, I was under her spell. It felt like the scene portrayed in that hedge.
I was powerless as I took a step forward, a goofy smile on my face.
Felix and his guards were forgotten for the moment. I’d found something far more interesting. I’d looked at other girls before with interest. I’d snuck glances at girls in their fancy dresses at balls, but that smile from her was like a bolt of lightning from the heavens come down to strike me with the still slightly uncomfortable truth of my sexuality.
I just hoped she had an intellect to match that smile, because otherwise I was going to feel like a pretty big doofus giving up my chance of escape for a pretty smile. There was only one way to find out, though, and so I put one foot in front of another with that goofy smile still plastered on my face despite my best efforts to get it under control.
7: Dani
So this is what it looked like where the other half lived. Damn. I’d been impressed when I stepped off the train and someone was waiting there to help me. Talk about service, and they had no way of knowing whether I was even staying at this resort.
Then again why would someone bother getting off the train there if they weren’t staying at the resort? What I’m getting at is the loading and unloading was nothing like the cattle car feeling that I got back at the budget resort the band was staying at. And that was just the start.
I’d wandered through the hotel lobby. It was a massive open air thing that went up at least ten stories. It looked like there were balconies that people could use to walk out and look down on the open area where there was a lounge for people to sit around and even a string band of some sort playing songs from various movies made by the Royal Company.
Talk about impressive. I’d been so curious about how much I’d have to put down to stay at a place like this that I’d looked up the going rate on my phone. It looked like more money for a single night than my parents would make in a few weeks.
The place was ritzy. Way beyond anything at the humble budget lodge I’d been so impressed with when we arrived.
I stepped out of the hotel proper and back into the Sout
hern heat. I didn’t know how people could stand to live in this all year long. It was difficult to imagine a world where there weren’t seasons and leaves falling off trees and snow falling in the winter and blanketing the landscape in silence.
There was no silence to be found out here, let me tell you. People shouted at a large pool off in the distance. There was a fence running around the thing and as I watched a couple of guys who looked to be about my age walked up and held up their hotel keycards. The fence beeped and a light turned green and the gate swung open on its own.
Well then. It seemed that getting to this resort was easy enough, but there were certain amenities that required proof of temporary residence. Not that I planned on spending my time over here splashing around in the pool. A pool that big was bound to have kids in it, and that meant there was probably something warm and yellow floating around in the pool.
I shivered. No thanks. Not for me at all. I did a quick turn around and took everything in. The sky was blue overhead with a few wispy clouds off in the distance. The only real cloud cover was from airplane contrails that zigzagged through the sky. Another major difference from home where we most certainly didn’t live in the middle of a massive tourist destination.
I finished my turn and my eyes came to rest on something interesting. It was a massive wall of green, and most importantly it didn’t look like there was a gate or anything keeping me away from the massive wall of green. Curious, I moved closer and found myself staring up at a version of Princess Reina carved out of greenery. Damn. Even the plants around here were done up with the Royal Realms treatment.
I peered past the sculpture and saw a sign. “Welcome to the Hedge Maze. Taken from the beloved Royal Company classic Reina’s Love, we hope you enjoy this loving recreation!”
Well then. They’d actually recreated the hedge maze from the movie? Granted this movie had never been my favorite, a little too much simpering and waiting on the handsome prince to come to the rescue on Reina’s part for my liking, but I was intrigued enough to take a look at least. I figured I’d have a story that no one else from the band would, at the very least.