by Cameron Jace
“Carmilla,” Angel pointed at the water, having stopped rowing.
“What is it?”
“Look at the water. The tides.”
And finally I saw it. The tides were not water, but some kind of magical and transparent fabric. Like waves of an endless bluish dress. I had to rub my eyes to make sure it was true. I didn’t know what it was exactly. Could someone drown in it?
But the surrealism of the sea ended once we located the island where the tower was. It looked like a huge rock floating in the middle of the endless colorful ocean.
Angel argued that it looked like a small island with roots growing deep into the abyss. He told me about his mother telling him that islands in the Seven Seas were nothing more than tall trees rooted deep in the bottom of the ocean.
But upon closer inspection, the island turned out to be an enormous rock, miraculously floating upon the waves of an ocean made of magical cloth. Then even closer, the ocean returned to normal to where water and high tides surrounded the island. I could see its white sands now; all sides encircled with high palm trees. And as we got even closer and closer, we saw a floating sign rocking to the water’s waves. The sign said: Welcome to the Missing Mile.
Chapter 24
The Queen’s Diary
Angel stopped rowing as the boat hit the shore of the island. Not so far away, the tower’s base was visible. The rest of it was obscured by a towering tree circling around it and then disappearing into the high clouds. It was as if this tree was protecting it, but it was too soon to know. Too soon to imagine how high the Tower of Tales went.
“Come on, Angel,” I said, having stepped out of the boat.
Behind me, Angel had pulled the boat onto the sand, and was now staring at the glass coffin. “What about Loki?” he said.
“I doubt you can lift him up there,” I pointed at the immensely huge tower. “I think you should keep the coffin somewhere safe and leave the boy behind.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Angel said. “You have your sack with you.”
“It’s not like I succeeded in my mission,” I said, unable to understand Angel’s infatuation with the boy. “The sack is missing a plate, and I am not sure Lady Shallot will be alright with that.”
Angel sighed and pulled the coffin into a safe place underneath a few palm trees. The island wasn’t that big anyways, and it seemed vacant for all I knew then.
At some point we stood before the tower and turned around to face the water surrounding us. We could see every shore from where we stood. It seemed strange to have the Tower of Tales in such a small island. But what did we know about this strange world?
Angel also noticed that the palm trees didn’t produce dates, but there were plenty of apples on one side of the shore. No apple trees though.
“Look at these boxes,” I said. “That’s where the apples came from.”
“They’re blood apples,” Angel, the apple trader announced. “This isn’t good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone was here before us,” he titled his head up at the obscured tower. “The apples where on a ship.”
“Ahab’s ship was destroyed, so it can’t be it.”
“Yes, that’s true, but Ahab lived. However, I recognize this shipment from the signs on the boxes,” he pointed at the letters JLS. “John Long Silver.”
“Who is that?”
“Captain Ahab,” Angel said. “I heard some sailors call him that when we were on the ship.”
“He got on another ship?” I said. “That fast?”
“He must have landed on a nearby island,” Angel suggested. “I heard he was looking for a treasure.”
“I am confused, Angel. Are you saying Captain Ahab was here, near the Tower of Tales?”
Angel was still staring at it. “Yes, but I think he couldn’t climb up.”
“You’re saying this because no other ship was found on shore, right?”
“He gave up on the tower, and the apples, then left.”
Angel and I exchanged looks. Why did Ahab want to find the Tower of Tales?
Then a thought came to me. “Do you think this is also Night Von Sorrow’s plan?”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t kill us, Angel – which is unbelievable. Maybe he is tailing us, wanting us to find the tower and climb it.”
Angel’s eyes glittered, but not in a shiny way. It was a shiny kind of fear filling his eyes. “The island,” he tapped his forehead. “You said they wanted to send the coffin to an island.”
“You think it’s this one we’re on?” I began to share his fear. “They fooled us. Your family, as much as they disagree with the birth of the Chosen One, they wanted to find the Tower of Tales.”
Angel shrugged then paced forward and hugged me closer to him. He gazed all around, looking to see if someone was watching us. But neither of us could see anyone. “Maybe we’re just too exhausted and afraid, Carmilla,” Angel said. “Maybe we’re making this up in our head.”
I titled my head up to face his towering frame. “Or maybe they’re still watching. They want to find out if we can climb up the tower, for whatever reason we don’t know of.”
Then in the middle of our scary moment, we heard a woman humming a distant song.
Chapter 25
The Queen’s Diary
This wasn’t the mermaid’s tune. It was heavenly, soothing, and lovely. Her voice was so serene that Angel and I were immediately tempted to meet her, whoever she was. All our worries about Night Von Sorrow faded into oblivion. We tilted our heads back, staring at the tower where the woman’s voice came from.
The song she sang was beautiful; relaxing, as if composed in Heaven itself. A wordless tune, which I surprisingly couldn’t memorize no matter how hard I tried, like every other song I had heard on the Seven Seas — in later years the song became a poem called Lady Shallot by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It described a romanticized version of who she really was. But it’s too soon to talk about it now.
“There is only one door to the tower,” Angel mentioned after inspecting it.
“Can we open it?”
“No,” Angel said. “It’s a steel door.”
“What are you saying? We need to climb the outside of the tower?”
“The thing is that there is only one way to open the door,” Angel looked worried again. This time he pointed at my sack of six items. “It’s inside the sack.”
It took me a relatively long time to understand. The key to open the door to the tower was in the sack? “I don’t think I saw a key inside the sack, Angel.”
“I know. Because the door doesn’t open with a key.”
“Then what?”
“Look,” he pointed at three keyholes, side-by-side. They were placed where you’d expect to find a door handle. “The holes are for a key. An unusual one.”
“I see that,” I pulled the sack tighter, feeling protective of my promise. “And I told you, I have no key in the sack.”
“Actually you do, Carmilla,” Angel sighed. “Like I said, it’s an unusual key.”
“A key that fits into three keyholes at once?”
“Yes,” Angel said, reaching for the sack.
“Don’t you touch it,” I pulled away. “I have to bring it up to Lady Shallot.”
“It’s the only way we can climb the tower. Be reasonable, Carmilla. There must be a reason behind this.”
“A reason behind losing the items we’re supposed to deliver?”
“I don’t know,” Angel seemed to lose his patience. The pressures of our travels were exhausting and I was being stubborn, but I wasn’t raised to break promises.
“Look.” I turned my head where Angel was pointing. The sea surrounding the small island was raging in spiral tides, swirling all around us.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“I think it’s a sign,” he was now pointing at our boat getting crashed by the waves. “The sea is telling us we have no other
way but to use the key in your sack.”
The tides were hanging in the sky around us, splashing at us. It was all so surreal and against common sense again. But it was real.
“Don’t be stubborn, Carmilla,” Angel’s hair was fluttering against his face, the woman’s song fading into the thin air behind him.
“All right,” I let out a defeated sigh. “What item is the key?”
“The fork,” Angel said, already looking for it in the sack. “It fits the three keyholes exactly.”
Chapter 26
The Queen’s Diary
With the world raging into flying water all around us, Angel tucked the fork into the door. It fit like he said, and the door opened by itself, squeaking lightly. We stepped in, and I thought I could get the key back, but then Angel told me it was stuck.
“Try harder, Angel,” I demanded.
“If I do, the water will kill us,” he pulled the door closed behind us and we could hear the tides crashing against it from outside.
Angel held me tight and brushed my hair. “It’s alright,” he said. “Lady Shallot will understand.”
“How do you know that?” I nearly sobbed. “We’ve lost two of the items. I promised.”
“Not all promises are meant to be kept,” Angel argued. “This journey has taught us a lot.”
I didn’t comment. We both were staring at a spiral staircase, leading to an endless height where we could not see its end.
“It’s time to climb the tower,” Angel said. “And meet the woman who will help us find a home.”
“Do you see you how long it looks like?” I pointed at the staircase.
“Even if it takes years, Carmilla, we can do it. At least we know where we’re heading now.”
He was right. For the first time in our journey we had purpose, a clear place to reach. All we had to do was climb up. I wished everything in life was that easy.
Angel and I began climbing, but when he said it might take years he was only lightly exaggerating. Because the climb to the top of the Tower of Tales took us seven days.
Chapter 27
The Queen’s Diary
Looking back now, it seems impossible, even to my blurred memory. Was it really seven days or did it only feel like that? I can’t confirm any of it. I only know it was the strangest climb of my entire life.
Neither of us had really assumed it would take that long. The first hint was when we both got very hungry, realizing that almost a day had passed. Angel had plenty of apples with him, so we didn’t starve. He taught me how to take small bites so I could feed my hunger, but make the apple last longer. It wasn’t easy, but I did as he said.
It was also hard to remember what kept us motivated, but I’d say the woman humming the song was hypnotic; hallucinatory, but beautiful and enticing at the same time. Angel and I acted like children; following the wavy smell of a freshly baked cookie that had been baked inside a witch’s house. Lady Shallot’s melody on top of the world was our only guide, and our only hope to keep climbing.
Outside the thin windows of the tower, the enormous tree blocked the view of everything else. We couldn’t catch a glimpse the sea or what was happening in it.
“What do you think the tree is for?” I panted, climbing after Angel.
“I can’t tell,” he sounded just as exhausted. “Maybe to protect the tower.”
“Did you ever see a tree that high?”
“No, but I haven’t seen a tower this high either.”
“Can you see how high it is from where you stand?” I asked.
“All I see is an infinite spiral,” Angel said. “Not even the sign of the faintest light in the end.”
“Then how can we hear the humming?” I said. “She must be nearby.”
“I don’t think so. I feel like the humming is some sort of energy trapped within the walls, repeating itself forever.”
“That’s a strange assumption.”
“I don’t assume in this tower, Carmilla. I have a feeling everything here is felt, not reasoned.”
I didn’t comment, but said, “We could die here.”
“Why do you say that?”
“What if the tower is never-ending?”
“Now that’s an unreasonable assumption.”
“Maybe your father wanted us to climb up here to die in an endless tower?”
“Calm down,” Angel said. “You’re just tired. We’re here because Cerené and Amalie told us. We trust them. Whatever reason my father had not to kill us, we will find out later.”
“I have to sit down,” I stopped and parked myself on the stairs. “I know I sound childish, but I am really tired.”
“We could sleep on the stairs,” Angel stopped. “It’s night time already. We’ve been climbing since yesterday. We’ve passed a night and a day already in this tower.”
Angel stepped back, sitting on the stair behind me and let me sleep in his arms. It didn’t feel safe by any means, but it felt good. With all that had happened, I loved to believe he wasn’t keeping more secrets from me. I loved to believe we could find a home and have our child in it. Live happily ever after, away from this terrible world.
“Angel,” I said, sinking into sleep. “I think I will be thirsty when I wake up.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any water in here,” he rubbed my hair, and the last words I heard him say before falling into sleep were, “We’ll have to count on the juice from the apples for water. Happy dreams, Carmilla.”
Chapter 28
The Queen’s Diary
We spent the second day fighting thirst.
We had eaten all the apples Angel had brought along, and our survival rate seemed slimmer. The staircase was safe. There was nothing scary or dangerous about it, but we were like fools, starving all the way to a promised heaven, which may not have existed.
Angel and I didn’t speak. It was safer to save every breath. But my mind was reeling. I didn’t know if I was overthinking or if I wasn’t thinking at all. I was so tired, unable to reason why I was still climbing.
Later at night, we even noticed breadcrumbs and beans, scattered all over a part of the stairs. Angel began collecting them in his pocket. I didn’t ask why, but the breadcrumbs and the beans were at least food.
“Why all the breadcrumbs and the beans?” I asked Angel. “It’s not like we’d lose our way on this narrow spiral staircase.”
“People lose their way all the time,” Angel told me. “Even when traveling paths located on one-way roads.”
I didn’t know what Angel meant. He’d been cryptic and dreamy since we started climbing.
“This isn’t a one-way road, Angel,” I said. “We could still climb back down. I don’t hear a raging sea outside anymore.”
“We’ve promised ourselves a home, Carmilla,” he said, almost absently. “And we’ll get one. Everyone deserves a home, even us.”
With each step higher, I realized we were going to faint out of thirst at some point.
“We need to do something about water, Angel.”
He didn’t respond and kept climbing.
“This is serious. We have to find water. Answer me.”
But Angel didn’t.
“Angel!” I yelled, wasting a lot of strength. “Answer me.”
Angel turned around. “Are you thirsty, Carmilla?”
“Yes,” I replied, wondering what was the point of asking the obvious?
“And do you want to drink?”
It was me who didn’t answer this time. Was he losing his mind?
“I know a way for you to quench your thirst,” he said. “But will you do it?”
“What are you talking about? Of course. I want to drink something. Is there water nearby?”
“There is water right in the palm of your hand,” Angel said, sounding skeptical again.
“In the palm of my hand?” I squinted, wondering which one of us had lost it at this point.
Angel didn’t respond, wanting me to understand.
And it was then when I realized that I wasn’t going to keep my promise at all.
“The sack?” I said.
“There is a cup inside,” Angel explained. “An urn to be precise. It’s filled with a liquid. Could be water, although it looks like milk. I am not sure, but I think we’re meant to use it.”
I rummaged through the sack and pulled out the urn he was talking about. It had a cover. A transparent one like I had never seen. And inside there was a liquid that looked like milk.
“How do you know all this about the sack?”
“I rummaged through it, piece by piece, while you slept in the boat.”
I pulled the cover back and took a sip. Just a sip. And my thirst was quenched. “Holy wonders of the world,” I said. “I only took a sip, and I don’t feel thirsty anymore.”
Angel smiled. So feebly. So ironically. Lost in a haze of the magic of the sack and heaviness of the moment we were living.
“You don’t want to drink?” I offered.
“I will, but I can hold back a few more steps up,” he said. “Now I have to assume the sip will not quench your thirst forever. For a half a day or so, maybe. Don’t spill that milk in the urn, Carmilla. Or we’ll die.”
I watched him turn back, almost hypnotically, and step up.
“Angel,” I summoned him. “We’re never going to bring the sack to Lady Shallot, will we?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, hands tightening on the rail.
“But what does this mean?” I said. “Why would the universe not help me keep my promise?”
“I don’t think it’s about a promise anymore,” Angel said. “I think Cerené gave you the sack for a totally different reason.”
“What reason?” And then I realized how stupid my question was. I uttered the words, “Cerené and the Moongirl gave us a sack to save our lives.”
“Precisely to help us survive the Tower of Tales,” Angel said. “What do you have left inside?”
“A knife,” I looked. “A piece of wood, breadcrumbs, and beans.”