by Lucas Flores
“How do you suppose the both of us can do that?” Therese asked. “Who do you think we are? Look at us, we’re no heroes. We can’t just walk out of the palace. We’re slaves. And where would we take her?”
“I have a cottage hidden in the forest. Nothing big, but my husband and son should be there,” Marie replied. “We can look after her there, in the forest.”
Therese struggled to lift herself up and out of bed. “Oh, Marie. I can’t help. You know I’m in no shape.” She looked down and sighed. Lines of age and regret crossed her brow. “These old hands aren’t what they used to be. You and Josephine are a lot younger than me. Please, just leave this old hag to live what last moments she has in peace.”
The dim candlelight reflected off of Therese and highlighted the wrinkles that decorated her face. She wouldn’t be able to make it through the woods.
Marie sat on Therese’s bed and hugged her. “I know,” Marie whispered. “It’s just that I can’t imagine leaving you here.”
“I’ll be fine, my dear.” Therese wrapped her arms around Marie. “This old girl still has a few tricks up her sleeves. I can take care of myself in here.”
“I know you can,” Marie replied.
“Now then, I’ve never told you about this because I didn’t want you getting into trouble, but there may be a way out of the palace.” The pitch and excitement in Therese’s voice rose as she continued. “It’s through the old wing. There is a door that once led down to the old basement. Beneath that door is a shaft, and to my knowledge, it hasn’t been sealed.”
“I find it hard to believe that they would forget to seal an entrance in that part of the palace.”
“Well, it’s there,” Therese said as she grabbed Marie’s hand. “Just make sure you take Josephine. There is nothing for her here anymore.”
Marie gently kissed Therese’s hand and gave her one last hug.
“Now, you must be on your way,” Therese said. “I’m far too tired and want to get back to sleep. After all, a woman needs her beauty rest.”
Marie smiled. “All right. Sleep tight. I love you.”
Marie left the room and tiptoed into the darkness to find Josephine. Even though it was late and most of the servants were already asleep, she often shared late night conversations with the former princess.
As Marie rounded the corner, she was greeted by light pouring out from underneath Josephine’s door. She knocked lightly.
Josephine opened the door and rolled her eyes at Marie. “Ugh, of course it would be you. Before you open your dirty trap, the answer is no,” Josephine said. Then, under her breath, she added "no, no, no.”
Marie expected the icy welcome. Like herself, Josephine was all too familiar with the Blackhearts’ unwavering madness. Years after the king left to explore the open sea, the idea of him never returning resonated with the court. It was only a matter of time before the queen would be forced to give her crown to Josephine, the king’s sister and last remaining heir to the throne. The prominence and stature the Blackhearts’ enjoyed were threatened. That's when an army of giant, marching playing cards besieged the old court. In its absence, the queen secured her position and Blackheart finally possessed the opportunity to ensure that Josephine would never be crowned. With no one to challenge her, Blackheart locked the princess away in secret for three years.
Josephine lost herself in the dungeons of the palace’s tower and was forced to learn where her new place was under the queen’s and Blackheart’s rule. Forced into servitude, Josephine was always closely guarded and occasionally used as a pawn in controlled public appearances. No one outside the palace knew that she spent her days as a servant and prisoner.
“I don’t want to be involved with your crazy scheme, Marie. Now get your sorry ass and that damned child out of my room,” Josephine ordered.
“Fine,” Marie said. “Stay here in this cesspool. See if that helps any. You’re already too involved. This means more than the lives of two old servants slaving away until death comes to free them. This is the life of a child who has not yet been given a chance to live and experience the real beauty of this world, the chance to feel the sun’s warmth and to see the glimmer of stars in a diamond night sky. You might have forgotten who you are, Josephine, but I still know who I am and why I’m here. If I have to, I’ll do this by myself.”
Before leaving, Marie added, “What you need to realize is that we’re already dead. Take a look around if you have to. We’ve lost everything; we have nothing left to lose.”
Marie huffed as she hurried down the corridor. A lump formed in her throat. She did not want to leave one of her closest friends behind.
The days were dark indeed. Marie and everyone she knew lost something after the queen became sole ruler over all of Wonderland. She could still remember that fateful day when, out of nowhere, an army stormed the court. In a matter of minutes, the ruling body of the kingdom was overthrown. With Blackheart likely pulling the strings, there was no one to stop the queen from taking power for herself. She and her cousin constructed a new, more easily controlled, monarchy. They divided the kingdom into districts and appointed governors to rule over them.
Under the queen’s rule, Blackheart held public executions of prisoners which had never been done before. This excited the kingdom. The fear in the eyes of the prisoners and their cries for help ignited an ugly, sinister reaction in the people. The thirst and curiosity for death spread among the populace and stained their hearts like blood draining from a headless corpse onto dry wood. Without realizing it, the people exchanged their political voice for theatre which made it easy for Blackheart and the queen to keep their power.
Blackheart didn’t stop with the executions. She created a movement and preached about social purification, forcing her views and disgust of anything abnormal onto the kingdom and its inhabitants. Her venomous words turned innocent people into monsters, lepers, things to be feared and hated. She claimed they were an abomination and ate away at society. She even ordered the governors to outlaw bright colors and brand them as something that infects the mind with loose, leprous thoughts. It didn’t take long for the people to change how they dressed and kept their houses. Eventually, every house and commercial building was painted over. A once colorful, roaring, and bright kingdom became a dull, quiet, municipality of undistinguishable light blues, grays, and whites.
It wasn’t long before any walking and talking animal was barred from eating in common areas, entering parks, and going to school. Adults and even children became sources of fear for those ignorant enough to buy into Blackheart’s propaganda.
Although Blackheart called for a complete extermination of the lepers, comparing them to common cockroaches, the queen, against her cousin’s deepest protest, ordered an inquisition –the removal and relocation of all known lepers from the city. Many voluntarily relocated to the Caterpillars’ Forest, but a sizeable portion remained and refused to leave their homes and the lives they had established.
Over time, tension between lepers and humans grew, and in one night, while the city slept, the lepers who did not leave willingly were quietly removed and never heard from again. The entire city was engulfed in a thick haze of gloom and death. No known leper was spared and no bodies were ever found. All that remained were a few leper children whose parents had hidden or secured them with willing, non-leper families before the inquisition.
In the months that followed, Blackheart made examples of anyone caught hiding a leper child – sympathizers. The punishment was severe. Entire families suffered. The men and leper children were executed, the women were forced to work as laborers in the city or palace, and the non-leper children were sent to orphanages.
This is how Marie came to work in the palace. A group of informers set her house on fire when they suspected she was hiding a leper boy. Her family escaped and fled through a drainage tunnel hidden behind the house, but Marie was caught salvaging personal keepsakes from the fire.
By the end of the inquisitio
n, everyone painted their hair and cheeks to mirror porcelain dolls, like the queen. The kingdom and its inhabitants feigned superficial perfection.
Marie needed to get the child into the woods. The city was too dangerous and the palace, the inner workings of Blackheart’s web, was far worse. Carrying the baby, she slowly crept through the West Wing with nothing but the dimming lamp to guide her. Her heart pounded in her chest.
Alone, without her friends, Marie’s mind played tricks on her. Was she being watched? The gargoyles mounted on the walls cast menacing shadows that stared down at her.
A subtle noise resonated from the walls around her. It grew louder. She stopped. After a few seconds, she could distinguish the sound. Purring. Unable to move, she saw the head of one of the gargoyles turn into the big fat head of a cat. Startled, she dropped her lamp. What little oil remained spilled out, leaving her in total darkness.
Marie immediately reached for the wall to keep her stance. She blindly guided herself into a corner. Plagued by the loud purr, she kneeled and curled into a ball while cradling the baby.
“I failed you, my child,” Marie cried out. “I failed, I failed.” As if in response to Marie’s woeful admission, the baby began to coo and giggle.
The purring stopped.
“What’s all the fuss, little one?” Marie asked.
“What fuss?” a voice replied.
Marie screamed and kicked herself back toward the wall. “Who’s there?”
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry. I forget, humans can’t see in the dark. Here, let me light that for you.”
Like magic, light beamed down from the ceiling. Marie looked up and saw the gargoyle mounted on the wall and turned away to shield the baby. The cat’s head with its large uncanny grin smiled down at Marie.
“What .. . . what are you?” Marie asked.
“Oh, I’m here and there,” the cat replied before disappearing. “Or nowhere at all.”
Petrified and convinced that she had completely lost her mind, Marie crawled forward with the baby, but bumped into a wall. She tried crawling left, and then right, but walls were all around her.
The cat’s large yellow eyes appeared in front of Marie. His voice echoed from all around her. “Are you looking for something, dear? Let me lend you my eyes.”
Before Marie could respond, the cat’s eyes fell to the ground and rolled around like marbles. She gasped and tried to back away from the eyes.
The baby cooed softly. “What a cute baby you got there,” the cat said. “Is she yours?”
“What do you want with me?” Marie asked. “I have no time for games. I’m running late as it is.”
“You don’t appear to be running anywhere.”
Marie reached out and swung her free arm back and forth in an effort to strike the invisible voice. The ground beneath her shook. The ceiling, walls, and floor crumbled and dissolved into nothing. Tiny bright lights the size of needle points speckled the great emptiness that surrounded Marie.
“Now you’re neither here nor there,” the cat replied in a more serious tone. “Here nor there, and yet, you’re everywhere all the time.”
Marie struggled to remain very still and not think about her altered surroundings. She could not feel or see the floor beneath her. Yet, she wasn’t falling either. How?
“You’re here one second and gone the next,” the cat continued as the sound of a blade swooshed through the emptiness around Marie. “It all goes very quickly, yet seems to last forever. Doesn’t it?”
“Shut your mouth, you mindless jackass!” Marie shouted. “What do you want with me?”
“How egotistic of you, all of you. You are all the same,” the cat replied. “This has nothing to do with you.”
Oh dear, no, the cat must be after the baby. “What .. . . you can’t have her!” Marie shouted as she held the baby with both arms.
“Despite everything that you’ve been through and the loss of your family, you’re still willing to risk what little you have to save the life of this child?” the cat asked from all around her. “Why don’t you just give up?”
“Give up!” the words repeated from all around Marie and pushed her back and forth like a rag doll.
“Leave her with me and go back to your room. I’ll take care of her,” the cat said. “I can make everything right again. You’ll have everything you ever wanted, even though it is nothing. You’ll even get to see your son grow up, but I dare say he won’t see you grow old.”
Marie remained silent, unwavering in her determination.
“Fine, suit yourself,” the cat said. “I was only trying to help.” The purring faded. The voice vanished.
Out of the vast emptiness around her, two large fiery eyes, one colored red and the other green, appeared in front of Marie.
She immediately recognized the eyes as the spirit from the Widow’s Curse. She’d always believed that the fabled tale had meaning, but never thought any of it could be real. It was only a story passed down from generation to generation.
The eyes fixed upon Marie and paralyzed her from head to toe. Shock and fear coursed through her like waves of electricity. Every muscle in her body constricted and her mouth seemed to be sewn shut.
A deeper, different voice pierced through the darkness. Wind and lightening blew across the space surrounding Marie.
Intimidating and overpowering like the eyes before her, the voice forcefully spoke a series of words:
Infant
hybrid, monster
hiding, struggling, surviving
mistreated, abused, innocent, broken
ruling, thriving, menacing
respected, feared
queen
“Carry and care for the infant until the time has come. She will shine brighter than any of these stars. I will return for her when your torch fades.”
The creature’s eyes blinked once, and then disappeared.
Marie slowly regained her mobility. The weight of the earth returned and a door appeared in front of her. Marie felt the surface of the stone floor return beneath her feet. She instinctively walked through the door and found herself back in the palace, just outside the entrance to the West Wing.
“Did that really happen?” she asked.
Marie glanced over her shoulder to confirm that she was walking away from the West Wing. Feelings of fear and confusion gave way to determination as she continued down the corridor. This hallway was wider, taller, and not nearly as dark. A series of undraped windows that stretched from floor to ceiling allowed moonlight to beam in.
The corners of Marie’s mouth twitched upward the further she walked, knowing that she would never again return to the dingy hallways of the West Wing. She hastened her pace and moved quickly, winding her way through the palace, from one large foyer to the next. Her only way out was through some secret entrance to the abandoned basement in the old wing.
Like every other room in the old wing, access to the basement was bricked up and sealed off, a clear sign of the queen’s strict fixation to forget the man who left her. Before leaving, the king called his trip a great voyage of exploration. However, according to Josephine, it was an adventure of self-indulgence that left the queen mad.
“That little hole in the ground is our way out of here, little one,” Marie whispered to the baby as they approached the old wing.
Though the air was stale and undisturbed in this part of the palace, it was filled with the sweet aroma of wood. Marie always preferred the warmth and scent of wood furniture. Her father used to carve toys from freshly cut wood and would always tell her, “Just because the tree is dead doesn’t mean the wood stops living.”
Covered in cobwebs, huge ornate paintings of the king and his family hung lifeless on the walls. A layer of undisturbed dust coated the silent tables and chairs.
Despite the queen’s detestation of the old wing, Marie felt comfortable walking through the hallway. She couldn’t help but remember the times she and her husband had spent there. The stately banque
ts, the dancing, and the private parties with the royal family filled Marie’s thoughts. She could see Josephine sitting by the window with her brother, joking and laughing while sipping on champagne.
“Marie! Marie!” Josephine’s ghost called out. “Come quickly!”
Candles sparked back to life. Strums of classical music and the aroma of sweet red roses filled the room. People from her past jumped out of the old paintings that hung on the walls. One by one the ghosts glided across the foyer. Joining hands, they waltzed down and softly landed on the forgotten floor. Marie’s frock was now her favorite emerald gown. She looked at her reflection in the window and saw that her blonde hair was beautifully done and crowned with a small floral headpiece.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Marie eagerly replied, giving in to the fantasy.
“What a beautiful child,” Josephine said. “And what beautiful little red lips and hair, like roses. Is she yours?”
“Yes, she’s my youngest,” Marie replied. “She is so precious, isn’t she?”
Marie’s husband, from outside on the balcony, called out to her.
“I would love to stay, Your Majesty, but my husband is calling me,” Marie said before excusing herself. She unlocked and opened the large glass doors and stepped outside. Her husband was standing off in the distance, beyond the balcony.
The apparition called out to her. “Marie, quit playing around. I’m over here. I want to show you something.”
“Okay, I’m on my way,” Marie replied as she walked toward the edge of the balcony, reaching out for her husband.
“Come on, Marie. Cross over the ledge.”
Staring directly into nothing two stories above ground, Marie leaned against the ledge and lifted one of her legs to climb over it.
Two hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her away from the ledge. The music, dancing, laughter, and ghostly glow in the hall disappeared.
“What’s wrong with you?” Josephine asked.
“Josephine? Where am I? Where is my husband? He was calling me. He wanted to show me something.” She hugged the baby closer.
“What are you talking about – no one is here.” Josephine wrapped her arm around Marie’s shoulder and guided her back inside the palace. “Let’s go, Marie.”