April Queen, May Fool

by Jon Jacks

But after a while, something began to go wrong.

  In some mirrors, the person admiringly staring back at her scowled, her disappointment in what she was seeing obvious; for, even before the uglifying scowl, there were clearly creases to be made out within the once flawless complexion.

  In other mirrors, dark shades had appeared beneath the eyes, the sparkle of the eyes themselves dulled, unhappy with the woman appearing before them.

  In still others, the hair was no longer so lustrous, the neck not quite so perfectly smooth, the skin of the shoulder blades a touched blemished with unsightly taints of a darker flesh.

  And the number of these rebellious mirrors was increasing with the passing of every day.

  *

  At first, the most displeasing of the mirrors were lightly veiled.

  Then the most unsatisfactory amongst them were covered, hidden behind thick drapes.

  Finally, the very worst of the mirrors were completely removed, with orders from the queen that they were to be complete shattered, the splinters that had witnessed her increasing haggardness to be pulped to little more than a silvery dust.

  But as more and more of the once omnipresent mirrors vanished from the halls and corridors of the palace, the rooms took on an undeniably all-pervading darkness, a dullness that brought with it a sense that all forms of light had entirely vanished from the queen’s life.

  With the passing of each mirror, the queen suffered the loss of a once familiar companion, one who had delighted her just with her presence, one whose happily beaming smile had brightened up her life.

  So why didn’t she simply take off this necklace that was causing her such heartache?

  Well, there is your clue!

  For this, of course, is a necklace that appears to draw on your hidden beauty, that raises it up from its previously hidden depths: and to achieve this, well, it has to be as much a part of you as your heart, hasn’t it?

  So ask yourself this: would you be capable of tearing out a shard of your own heart?

  *

  Just as the last two mirrors were about to be cracked in front of the vindictive queen, the Four Dark Elves appeared as if out of nowhere.

  ‘Do we detect dissatisfaction with one of most prized creations?’ one of them asked, his tone one of complete bewilderment.

  ‘Surely there couldn’t be a fault with it?’ another declared as if startled even by the mere thought that such a thing might be possible.

  ‘Oh, wait,’ a third said, with all the air of something suddenly dawning on him, ‘it couldn’t be anything to do with that rather unfortunate flaw, could it?’

  The queen glowered at them.

  Not that it was possible to make the elves feel in anyway ashamed.

  Not that it was easy to tell that the queen was glowering, as her face was now permanently crumpled into a hideous scowl.

  ‘Flaw?’ she rasped, unamused. ‘Do I look like I’m unaware of this flaw?’

  ‘Ah, but that’s only because you didn’t use it wisely!’ the fourth elf insisted with a wagging finger.

  ‘Wisely? How can you wisely wear a necklace you can’t remove?’

  The queen’s eyes narrowed with distaste; not that it was easy to tell.

  ‘Did you follow the instructions?’ the first elf asked.

  ‘There weren’t any instructions!’ the queen rasped exasperatedly.

  The four elves all tut-tutted.

  ‘Well now,’ one of them said, speaking as if he were lecturing someone over their incompetence, ‘perhaps if you’d made yourself aware of how the necklace works, you wouldn’t have been so desperate to wear it!’

  ‘I think I have worked it out,’ the queen stated confidently, giving rise to theatrically exaggerated expressions of surprise amongst the elves.

  ‘Well we were going to kindly explain…’

  ‘But if you know so much…’

  ‘Then please enlighten us with your superior knowledge!’

  ‘The hideous woman in the stone,’ the queen replied assuredly. ‘It’s not a reminder; it’s a prediction. I finally noticed the similarities in her and me; it is me! Me as I will eventually look, as I almost look even now!’

  The elves clapped rousingly,

  ‘Well done, well done, my queen!’

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ one of them asked with overly enhanced enthusiasm.

  ‘Just as when a well runs dry, and you endanger yourself if you continue to drink the filth you’re dragging up,’ the queen snapped bitterly, ‘there’s only so much inherent beauty to draw on.’

  ‘Oh, but we tend to see it more as a form of loan,’ an elf corrected her, as if hurt by her accusation, ‘in which you’re simply borrowing from your future self!’

  ‘Brilliant, really, if you think about it,’ another enthused.

  ‘Where else is your inherent beauty supposed to come from?’ said a third.

  ‘Your younger self gets to enjoy all that concentrated beauty when she needs it most!’

  ‘Rather than it all just been wastefully scattered throughout your declining years!’

  ‘Like many transactions, you’re simply putting off paying for it all until later.’

  ‘Everybody’s happy!’

  ‘Do I look happy?’ the queen snarled.

  ‘No,’ came the honest reply, ‘but it is hard to tell when you are happy.’

  ‘Of course, the downside of any loan is that there comes a point when you’ve completely spent the loan,’ an elf said, with a second one adding, ‘And now you’re in an even worse state than before, because your payments are now due!’

  ‘I should have been warned!’ the queen wailed.

  ‘Warned?’ The elf put on an expression of mock astonishment. ‘But what of the ruby?’

  ‘You’ve said you recognise that it was yourself portrayed in there all along!’

  ‘So, really, you just blissfully ignored the warning!’

  ‘Which, I hope you agree, is a fault that can hardly be attributed to us.’

  ‘Enough!’ The queen raised a hand to bring to a halt the line the conversation had taken. ‘So, what do I do about it now? I’m not a complete fool: I do realise you’re here for some reason other than to celebrate my looks!’

  ‘Well, we do so hate to have a dissatisfied customer–’

  ‘I said enough! Would I be right in assuming you’re here because you’ve had everything out of me; and now you’d like your creation back so that you can make use of it again?’

  The four elves exchanged embarrassed grins.

  ‘Well, you could, naturally, persuade someone more desperate than yourself to, shall we say, take it off your hands–’

  ‘Anyone must be more desperate to wear it than I am! Which means there’s another clause I need to be aware of, isn’t there?’

  The elves once again self-consciously glanced each other’s way.

  ‘Of course,’ one said, ‘it is just about the only thing now keeping you alive…’

  ‘Making sure you pay for everything you, er, withdrew earlier,’ another said, finishing the sentence for him.

  ‘So why didn’t you tell me all this sooner!’ the queen snapped.

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t have appreciated that at all…’

  ‘You see,’ another elf said, taking up his companion’s point, ‘as soon as you remove the necklace; well, you’ve already drained so much of yourself away…’

  ‘And so it will all obviously rapidly catch up with you!’

  ‘You can’t just bring a loan arrangement to an abrupt end without penalties…’

  ‘Although if you do continue with your, er, withdrawals, then, well, as we’ve sort of already explained…’

  ‘At some point, you simply find you’ve run out of beauty to draw on.’

  ‘Then…maybe I should simply take this necklace to the grave with me,’ the queen resolutely announced, carefully ensuring that the elves weren’t aware of her narrowed eyes closely observing their re
action, ‘to ensure it’s never used again to plague some other young innocent!’

  Even though they tried to hide it, the four elves were obviously startled by the queen’s declaration to take their creation away from them forever.

  ‘Now, er, our master…’

  ‘He, er, said we could – if needs be – come up with some kind of deal…’

  ‘It’s yours,’ the queen declared imperiously, ‘to use again as unforgivably as you wish: but only if you promise me that I can know once again what it’s like to be beautiful!’

  *

  The deal was made.

  And the elves naturally kept to the letter of the agreement.

  The necklace was passed on to some other poor, unsuspecting girl, one who marvelled at how it so enhanced her beauty.

  And, just as she had requested, the queen knew once again what it was like to revel in such incredible beauty.

  For she was allowed into the girl’s dreams.

  Allowed to see what it was like to be so entrancingly gorgeous once more.

  Yet as she herself was still so hideous, it only added to her anguish.

  So within the darkness of her palace, she weeps, almost endlessly.

  Some, the realists amongst us, call her the Hag Queen.

  More kindly souls, the romantics, have named her the Queen of Tears.

  Her tears are the only things that still sparkle in her life.

  They well up in her eyes, to fall like so many bright, miniature moons.

  They splatter across the floor, like the brightest of streams.

  Then they strangely solidify, transubstantiated into a red gold, glittering brighter than any freshly spilled blood.

  And within the very midst of it all, our miserable queen still fails to see them as a reminder that she still has the very deepest well of all to draw upon for solace: for deep within every woman, if she were only to realise it, there lies the true spirit of self, one too long abandoned in preference for nothing but the fleeting and false.

  *

  Chapter 32

  Crystine stared at the hideous woman captured within the thickly bloody glow of the ruby.

  ‘This is me!’ she said fearfully to the fool. ‘Me unless I’m prepared to foist this necklace on some other poor unfortunate girl!’

  Her tale told, the Queen of The Fall had left the two of them on their own to discuss their next course of action.

  ‘No, no; you don’t have to!’ the fool declared excitedly, grasping her by both hands in in his eagerness to allay her fears. ‘My love – I mean, The April Queen – she got rid of it, didn’t she!’

  ‘So all I have to do, right, is hope the KingFisher decides to steal it from me? But it was his bloody elves who gave it to me in the first place! And I still can’t work out why he took it from the queen anyway – I mean, why didn't he just let it continue to draw on her beauty, if that's the way it's supposed to work?’

  ‘He didn’t steal it!’

  The fool was now almost dancing for joy, his eyes glittering.

  ‘Then…who did?’ Crystine backed off a little from the fool, eyeing him warily. ‘Not you?’

  ‘No!’ the fool assured her, his shocked expression displaying a hint of being affronted. ‘Of course not! I’m not sure I could’ve done, even I’d wanted to! It felt more like I was in a dream, remember; not actually there! Besides, we’d both tried working together to remove the necklace, and hadn’t got anywhere!’

  ‘So what did happen that night? The night you first saw her without the necklace? Didn’t you say it just there one minute; and then gone the next?’

  ‘Yes, yes; and that’s all true! But…but I also saw…well, that sort of minute in-between – when I actually saw what happened to it!’

  ‘Go on,’ Crystine urged sternly, a little peeved that he hadn’t told her this before.

  ‘Please forgive me,’ the fool said, noting the hardening of her attitude, ‘it all just sounds so crazy: I thought it just had to – well, that it couldn’t possibly all have happened like I thought it had!’

  ‘Just tell me, can’t you?’

  ‘Right, right: it was the necklace – it all just sort of dissolved. As if it had been one of the queen’s own creations gone wrong, all the pearls and jewels transforming back into nothing but pieces of half-eaten apple! Only here there really were pieces of gold, all in little balls; not something like the queen would have used, such as yellowed stems, or corn stalks!’

  ‘An apple? Wasn’t the Queen of The Fall eating an apple when she went to see the elves?’

  ‘Wait, wait: there’s more! The spheres of gold? They were tears! And they ran back up into my lov– into the April Queen’s eyes!’

  *

  ‘The Queen of The Fall; when she was eating the apple, in the cave of the Four Dark Elves – she was crying too.’

  ‘So…?’ The fool frowned, puzzled by Crystine’s excited statement.

  ‘So if the necklace was made of golden tears, of pieces of apple: then, somehow, she made the necklace – not the elves!’

  ‘But the elves made her pay for it!’

  ‘Well, they would, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Wait, though; you must be wrong! As we’ve just heard in the tale, as we’ve seen for ourselves, it was the Hag Que– the Queen of Tears who weeps tears of gold!’

  ‘Yes, but I’m sure there has to be a link, a connection betwee–’

  She stopped talking, a bright glint having caught her eye in the otherwise grey dullness of the room.

  She stepped towards the table, towards the seat where the queen had been seated.

  She picked up the minute, sparkling orb that lay caught between the pages of the book the queen had been reading when they had first entered.

  It was in the shape of a tear.

  A golden tear.

  *

  Chapter 33

  ‘But...’

  The fool grimaced, racking his brain as he tried to fit everything together, to work things out.

  ‘She was crying, yes; but does that mean she’s the Queen of Tears?’’

  ‘If not now, she will be soon; replacing the Hag Queen. They’re linked, caught in a circle of repetition. Which means the April Queen–’

  ‘Has already fallen!’ the fool finished for her resentfully.

  He instantly brightened, excitedly taking Crystine’s hands in his once more.

  ‘But then the princess becomes the April Queen...’

  Crystine gave an embarrassed laugh.

  ‘Yeah, whom the KingFisher makes sure can’t have a king: just great, right?’

  ‘Oh I’m not scared of the KingFisher anymore, I can–’

  Crystine politely shrugged her hands out of his.

  ‘This all explains so much, don’t you see?’ the fool said, trying to take her hands again, only for Crystine to turn away as if deep in thought and oblivious to his actions.

  ‘No, no; it doesn’t explain why they, why the queens, don’t see these links for themselves!’

  It was indeed something that was puzzling her.

  But she’d also deliberately misinterpreted the fool’s comment. She feared it was far too full of enthusiasm to be a simply innocent statement regarding the questions revolving around the queens and their ultimately shared identities.

  She was hoping to distract him. She wanted to at least give herself long enough to try and work out what was going on between him and her.

  It seemed to her – although she hoped she was mistaken – that he was regarding her differently, his eyes wide, glittering. He was close to her too, too close.

  She was confused: this wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?

  Him and her.

  Her and him.

  She just didn’t feel that way about him – did she?

  What was wrong with her?

  A friend; that’s all he was to her – and that at the very most!

  She just couldn’t feel any other way about him!


  ‘Don’t you feel how this was meant to happen?’ the fool asked, drawing even closer, this time slipping his arms about her.

  ‘No, no; this isn’t right,’ Crystine protested, even though she didn’t step away from him this time, anxious that such a hard rejection might upset him too much. ‘I’m not the one you love…’

  ‘But you are, don’t you see?’ the fool insisted gently, holding her even more tightly in his arms, holding her eyes with his. ‘You’re the one I always really loved: you’re the one who’s everything I’d been fooled into thinking the April Queen was!’

  Crystine didn’t have the energy to object anymore.

  She relaxed, let herself rest against him.

  She was exhausted.

  She’d been plunged into the weirdest world imaginable, where reason itself didn’t make any sense.

  Why should it be her who had to try and make sense of it all?

  Was it even possible to make sense of everything that had happened to her?

  It would all just be so much easier to let this happen.

  To accept someone who loved her – where could be the harm in that?

  To let him take on part of the burden.

  To let all her cares vanish.

  How blissful would that be?

  Someone else could sort everything out.

  She felt a sense of relief wash over her, like someone who’s no longer struggling against the flow, but just letting themselves go with it.

  Letting someone else take responsibility for their wellbeing.

  She just wanted to rest, to go to sleep.

  To drift off into a pleasant world of dreams in his arms.

  She flowed once again through all those innumerable reflected images of herself, moving swiftly from one to another, experiencing one again that strange sensation that she and they were all nothing more than cards, cards being expertly shuffled, manipulated; some coming higher up the deck, others relegated, palmed to the bottom of the pack to be left there and deliberately forgotten.

  And amongst the pack, just to confuse matters further, someone had slipped in a Knave of Devils.

  *

  She should have been angry with him for not mentioning the way he felt about her earlier.

  But then, he had said it before, hadn’t he?

  He’d said it…