by Cameron Jace
“Hold onto them,” Angel began climbing up again. “I believe we’ll use each one of them.”
Chapter 29
The Queen’s Diary
Each day, when the night draped its curtains upon us, we slept on the stairs, and continued our vertical quest when the morning sun kissed our eyelids awake. It was a thin kiss, barely given way from between the branches of the tree protecting the tower.
I know I said seven days, but now that I am recollecting memories I have to admit, I don’t know how many. What I remember clearly was the day we met a block in the stairs.
“What do you mean we can’t climb further?” I was behind, panting while I asked Angel.
“See for yourself,” he said. “There is a ceiling here.”
“So it was a trap like I said,” I sat down on the landing. “We were sent here to die.”
“It’s strange,” Angel said.
“It’s not strange. We were fooled.”
“I mean this is strange,” Angel pointed at the window next to us. “This window is much larger than all other windows.”
“So?” It was true, but I didn’t see the point. I must have been in a terrible mood. I was not helping at all at this point.
“I don’t know. I am just telling what I noticed,” he said. “Also the tree outside stops on this floor.”
“Of course it does, Angel. It’s the end of the tower.”
“Towers don’t end with a ceiling, Carmilla. A pointed turret or at least a room should be on top.”
I suddenly stood up. “So this is only an obstacle, not the end.”
“I love you when you’re optimistic like that,” he chuckled.
I chuckled back, realizing that there was irony in all this mess. “So how do we pass this obstacle? I can’t think of how.”
“I don’t think we have to think,” he pointed at a drawing on the wall. “It’s explained here.”
We both examined the drawing, which showed the way past the obstacle.
“The only way up is out,” he pointed at the window. “That’s why it’s a wide opening here.”
“We have to get out on top of the tree? But the tree doesn’t go further.”
“That’s where the beans are useful.”
“The beans in my sack?”
“The drawing shows a boy in green, running from a giant,” Angel squinted at the wall. “Then suddenly he plants something in the earth and a tree erupts. The boy climbs the tree and escapes the giant.”
“Are you sure they are beans?”
“I’m not even sure how to plant the beans on the top of the tree in our case, but we have to try.”
And so it was. Angel scattered a few beans on top of the tree, which grew higher and higher before our eyes. He stepped out on the edge of the window and I followed him. “Remind me to tell our Chosen Child how many adventures we have endured,” he said.
I blushed, realizing Angel and I hadn’t even made love at this point. But I was grateful for how easy we managed to handle things.
We climbed up the tree, trying not to look down, looking for the nearest window to lead us back into the tower, past the obstacle.
Reaching the desired window, we had to cut through a rope sealing it shut. Of course, and without words, I tucked my hand in the sack and brought up the knife.
Angel used it and then we jumped back into the tower. Inside, the stairs were still the same — and they still led high into nowhere.
“You know what?” Angel bemused. “I am feeling good.”
“Why?” I wondered.
“Because you only have two other items in the sack. It means we’re close to meet Lady Shallot.”
Chapter 30
The Queen’s Diary
And the climb continued.
This time I was looking forward to using the last two items: the piece of wood and the breadcrumbs.
“It’s been a long time and we haven’t needed to use any of the items, Angel.”
“I know,” he said. “I am now starting to wonder if we’re ever going to reach the top.”
But it was only hours before another obstacle was presented. It began with a question Angel asked me. “Carmella,” he said in his absent state again. “Do you remember where we’re going?”
I was too exhausted to answer, but I said. “What do you mean?”
“I realized I don’t…” he hesitated and stopped climbing. “I don’t know where we are going here.”
“What’s happened to you?” I said. “Of course you know. We’re…” And that was when I realized what was happening. Neither of us could remember.
“It’s like it’s on the tip of my tongue, a vague memory in the back of my head, but I can’t say it,” Angel said. “I can’t remember why we’re climbing this tower.”
Neither could I.
We sat on the stairs, panicking. It was an inexplicable feeling. Even now, I can hardly put into words. We were simply two voyagers on a journey that had gone on too long and we’d forgotten it and its purpose.
“Angel, I’m afraid.”
“How can you be afraid of something you don’t remember?”
“I’m afraid of the unknown,” I said. “I’m afraid of who I am. Who you are? How can we not remember why we’re climbing the tower?”
“Why do you assume we are climbing it? Maybe we were on our way down.”
“I think you may be right,” I sat on the stairs, all confused again. “And this sack. Do you know why I’m carrying it?”
“I don’t, but I’m thirsty.”
“That’s bad. I don’t think we have water with us. What are we going to do?”
“Look for water, of course,” he said. “The problem is where we should look for water. I mean do we climb up or descend this… where are we? Is this a tower?”
“I think so,” I said, then I was thankful for one thing. “At least we know we’re together on this journey, Angel.”
“You’re right, but it’s also strange. Why do we remember our names and our relationship and not remember why we’re here?”
“Do you think we’ve been here for long?” I asked.
“I can’t say.”
“Do you remember where we were?”
“Everything until you sold your soul to Fate.”
“Me too,” I sighed. “And then it’s all gone. What are we going to do?”
“I will not do anything before I quench my thirst. Why isn’t there any water nearby?” he said. “And what’s that faint sound of a woman singing?”
“I think its source is upstairs. Do you think we should follow the voice?”
And so we spend half a day, stranded in the middle of the tower, trying to remember.
Then just before sunset, the memories came back to me. I told Angel about our purpose to climb the tower. Angel didn’t remember himself, but trusted me. Then he presented another problem as we started to climb up again. “What if you forget again, Carmilla?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You should remind me of the things I told you.”
“What if we both forgot?”
I tried to think of a solution. We both did, until Angel pulled out the breadcrumbs he’d collected earlier from the stairs. “Why do I have these many breadcrumbs in my pockets?”
I told him about him collecting them earlier. “I have breadcrumbs in my sack too.”
“If everything is like you told me, that everything in the sack is meant to help us, then the breadcrumbs should as well,” he said.
“What do you suggest?” I said. “Spreading the breadcrumbs across the stairs will neither help us know our way back.”
“I think the breadcrumbs are not meant to be spread across the stairs. Not the way you think,” he said. “I think we should use them in another way.”
“I’m listening.”
“I think we should use them to write our purpose on the stairs,” he explained. “Every few hundred steps we should write the purpose: Climb up. Lady Shallot.”
>
“I agree,” I said.
So the breadcrumbs were used to help us remember our purpose on this long journey.
And indeed, we both forget again and again along the days. We forgot our purpose, and used the scrambled words on the stairs to remind us. This left us for one last item to use. And it didn’t take long to find out what for.
It was only a couple of days and we reached the top of the tower.
Chapter 31
The Queen’s Diary
Like Angel had assumed before, there was a room at the top of the tower.
Both of us could barely stand from exhaustion, but it was worth every last bit of energy left to look at the room. Which was empty.
Only a window looked out onto the world around us. We saw the vast borderless Seven Seas, stretching out for infinity, with no ships sailing in any direction. The sun splayed its hot rays all over the world, and I wondered how the seas looked without a moon at night.
Below us, the tall tree was visible. The beans had only made it grow this tall, but it didn’t reach the top of the tower. Angel wondered why no clouds were visible in any direction. I did too, but this world was nothing like the one we had left. I believed it had its own rules.
“So this is it?” I turned and faced the empty room.
“All we have in here is that crippled chair,” Angel pointed at it in the middle of the room. “This can’t be it.”
“I think the chair is some sort of a clue,” I lamented. “This can’t be it.”
“I don’t know, Carmilla,” Angel said. “I think we have to break through the wall. Can you hear the woman singing?”
He was right. The woman’s voice came from behind the wall. There seemed to be another room behind it, where we would meet Lady Shallot. But I didn’t see the point of trying to break such a fortress wall.
So I rummaged through the sack and pulled out the last item. The long piece of wood. “This is how we will cross over to the other room,” I said.
“I know,” Angel said. “But how? What is the use of this useless piece of wood?”
“Maybe we have to knock with it on the wall?”
Angel watched me do it. Nothing happened. Then I called out for Lady Shallot. But again, nothing happened.
“I don’t think she will respond,” Angel said. “This was all planned. Like a set of puzzles left for a child to solve. Unless we use the wood properly, we will never meet Lady Shallot.”
I tapped the piece of wood on my palms, thinking. “Why do you think we were given the clues in the sack?” I wondered.
“I don’t know. I wonder why you’re asking now.”
“Because Cerené could have just told us how to use every item in our journey.”
“It makes sense to me,” Angel was running his hand on the chair, trying to figure out if it was part of the last clue. “My guess is we were supposed to take this journey and solve the puzzles ourselves. You had to sell your soul to sorrow, and I had to grow dependent on your blood.”
“Are you saying it was all planned?”
“Part of a divine plan by the universe,” Angel sounded skeptical again, still examining the chair.
“I thought you changed your skeptical views since you saw the Moongirl with your own eyes.”
“I did, but trust me, I’ve seen so much darkness in my life. So much that miracles aren’t so miraculous to me,” he stopped and faced me. “The only miraculous thing to me would be when you and I have our own home.”
“And daughter,” I winked, feeling flirty all of a sudden.
Angel chuckled, then blinked in one of the rarer moments when he felt at ease. Then came this gaze I will never forget. This one pure gaze when I knew he loved me. No half personalities anymore. He was neither the vampire king’s son, nor the good-hearted man I loved. He was just natural. He was himself. And then I heard him say. “I think it’s a really good time to make this daughter now.”
I literally hit my back against the window.
But Angel was in the mood and slowly, he came near me. I could smell the scent of his body with every step he took closer to me.
“Angel?” I titled my head.
“Carmella?” He smirked, in a lovely way actually.
“You’re not thinking to…”
“To try to have my lovely Chosen One daughter on the highest tower in the world?” he said. “Oh, yeah. I do.”
Then I shivered to his touch. It was nothing much. Just him touching my face. But then came the eyes. His stare was so strong I couldn’t breathe.
It wasn’t like I didn’t love him with my all heart. And it wasn’t like I didn’t think we could get intimate for the first on the highest tower in the world. I was really going to give in to that.
If I hadn’t just figured out what the piece of wood was for.
Chapter 32
The Queen’s Diary
“Really?” Angel watched me slide under his arm.
I stepped closer to the chair in the middle. The crippled chair.
On my knees I raised the piece of wood to show it to him. “Look closer, what do you see?”
“A piece of wood that you seem to love more than me,” he sighed.
“No. Look closer. Really.”
Angel squinted. “Wait a minute!”
“See?” I pointed at the chair.
“This isn’t a piece of wood,” Angel knelt next to me. “It’s a chair’s leg.”
“This chair’s missing leg,” I said.
Angel took the piece of wood and found a way to stick it to the chair. We both stood up and stared at it. “Well, that was a nice touch,” he ruffled his hair. “But now what?”
Again, he was right. We just completed the chair. Nothing else happened.
“Since it’s a chair,” I stepped back toward it and sat. “Then I had better sit.”
“The Countess on her throne,” Angel joked, referring to the title that had been bestowed upon me when I was born for breaking the curse on the land.
“A throne on top of the world—”
It wasn’t long before I felt my weight on the chair. Something ticked underneath me. Then I heard a squeaking sound.
And there it was. The wall to Lady Shallot’s room parting sideways.
As it did, neither Angel nor I uttered a word. Angel had tuned into his hypnotized mode again. This time he left me and walked into the room, as if something was calling for him inside.
Slowly, I followed Angel into the room where the melodies came from. There was a lady inside. The woman who had been singing and guiding us for the last — probably seven — days in the Tower of Tales.
Lady Shallot herself.
Chapter 33
The Queen’s Diary
Lady Shallot stood with her back to us, facing a huge mirror. Her long black hair reached below her back. It was oiled and smelled of sesame, I believe. She didn’t turn around to face us, nor did she welcome us. She was busy with the mirror in front of her.
Well, it seemed like a mirror in the beginning. Angel and I could see our faint reflection in it. But the closer we got to it, tiptoeing in silence, we noticed the mirror was also a window.
A window to a world different from ours.
For a moment I wonder how many worlds there was. I mean we’d escaped the normal world I grew up in when we had left Murano Island. The Seven Seas by itself was another world. Then we followed the Moon’s Path where we entered a third world. And now Lady Shallot’s mirrors peeked over to a fourth world. I wondered if life was nothing but worlds within worlds, where everyone watched everyone else.
Angel and I respected the woman’s privacy and didn’t call for her. We only advanced closer, listening to her hum the unmemorable song. We weren’t even sure if she had seen us. What we definitely noticed was that Lady Shallot was staring at this new world from a higher point, as if she were a god.
Then even closer, the one world through the mirror seemed to be many worlds. Most of them were unfamiliar worlds I had neve
r visited, but one of them I recognized. Our own.
Angel and I exchanged looks. It was too much on the mind to see our world from where we stood. How was it possible to look at oneself as if we were staring behind ourselves?
I focused on the mirror instead.
The mirror was framed in gold. With curvy lines and indecipherable calligraphy. The one thing that stood out was the shape of apples on the corners. There was also one word in our language, framed atop of the mirror. The word was: Aleph.
I looked back at Angel for an explanation. He had told me he had been an avid reader, all those years his father had locked him in the castle. Angel said he had obtained great knowledge from his travels.
“The Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points,” Angel whispered, not wanting to disturb the woman. “Anyone who looks through it, can see everything in the world from all angles simultaneously, without confusion.”
“What?” I frowned. “What does that even mean?”
“Believe me, I'm just as confused as you are. I’ve read a lot of books, yet understand and comprehend very little about this subject,” Angel said. “But I think it means the Aleph is the ultimate truth when the world is seen from all angles at once, which sounds impossible to me.”
“Does that mean this mirror the lady is staring at is an Aleph?” I wondered.
Angel only shrugged his shoulders.
But it made sense. We were here to find a new world of our own. A safer world, away from the Sorrows and the Karnsteins. Lady Shallot seemed to have access looking into all these worlds. She had access to the Aleph.
My curiosity piqued and I focused on the silent lady looking into the mirror of the world. I watched her slide the tips of her fingers over the mirror and roll the images with her hand.
She was rolling the world with her hands.
The mirror was simply a living world map. But most amazing of all, everything looked so real. It was as if I was standing in these specific locations, as opposed to viewing them through a window.