by Lucas Flores
The guard stumbled backward and gasped when he saw Red. “You tricked me! You cursed me!” he shouted toward the hallway as he covered his face and vigorously rubbed his eyes.
The servant tried to ease the guard’s fears. “You aren’t cursed, she’s just a girl. There’s no such thing as the queen’s curse.”
Red didn’t know what the guard and servants were talking about. She sprinted around them and darted down the hallway. The blood on her hands was drying into a sticky residue. She couldn’t greet the queen with such dirty hands, so she stopped running through the West Wing long enough to rinse her hands in water that trickled from the ceiling. Where did this water come from? She looked up at the leak. She brushed the question aside; it was clean enough. She dried her hands with her cloak and ran out of the West Wing.
The people in the palace barely noticed Red as she ran across the large glowing foyers. She was small. Her tiny arms swung by her side and her legs shuffled back and forth. She popped in between people as she zipped around guards, servants, governors, and other guests.
She sprinted up the stairs and finally made it to the queen’s living quarters. She looked up at the large double doors in front of her and was momentarily distracted by the woodwork and intricate floral patterns. She traced lines on the door with her finger and followed the stem of a rose upward and around the petals.
“Rose,” Red softly whispered. Her mom used to read stories to her from a big book with a lot of pictures while she sat on her lap. The pages had a funny smell. It wasn’t bad – it just smelled different, like old wet leaves after it rained. Her mom would turn around and ask Red to help her read. She would point to a word and say, “Now it’s your turn, sweet pea.”
Red would look at the word and struggle to pronounce it, “Ro… ro…”
“Sound it out,” her mom patiently said. “Ro… ses.”
“Roses,” Red repeated excitedly.
“Yes! Roses, like you, my little bud.” Her mom would playfully grab and tickle her.
The sounds of Red’s laughter faded when one of the guards standing outside the queen’s bedroom nudged the girl. She woke up from her daydream and knocked on the door three times before entering.
Inside, the queen was out of bed and near the door. “Damn, girl! Where were you?”
Red stopped in her tracks. She peeked up at the queen through the head covering of her cloak. She was in trouble for being late. The queen slowly shuffled toward Red while she supported her back with one of her hands. “Answer me, girl.”
Petrified, Red stood, unable to move. The queen slowly lifted her hand, but stopped abruptly. A gush of fluids poured out from between her legs. The queen screamed and called out, “Guards!”
Two guards stormed in, holding their pointy spears. “What evil has befallen our queen?” the larger one called out with his chest puffed up. Their faces swung back and forth in every direction until they fixated on Red and knocked her down to the floor.
As she fell, the cloak’s hood sank away from her face and exposed her rosy cheeks and bright red hair.
The guards gasped and shielded their eyes. The smaller one placed his foot over Red’s chest so that she wouldn't move. Without looking down at the girl, they patted one another on the back.
“Congratulations, you’ve managed to tackle a six-year-old child,” the queen said. “Why must I be cursed to live with such incompetent fools?”
“Your majesty?” the larger one asked.
“My water has broken. Find the doctor and call the others.”
The guard holding Red down jumped back and released her. Both guards ran from the queen’s bedroom shouting, “Doctor!”
The queen’s ladies-in-waiting gathered in her bedroom. Some helped by filling bowls with water while others gathered clean towels. Most just stood and intently watched the doctor and the queen.
Red hid in the queen’s closet, out of sight and away from the commotion. She remained hidden and eventually fell asleep as night approached. Her dreams were infiltrated by echoes of the queen’s screams.
Exhausted from a night of restless sleep, Red awoke disoriented and unaware of her surroundings. She recalled the previous day’s events and crawled to the edge of the closet to see what was happening. A pile of wet and bloody towels were thrown on the floor near the queen’s bed. The doctor paced back and forth in front of the open window, where dawn’s first light was beginning to brighten the sky. Two women sat beside the queen, one on each side, and offered encouragement and assistance to her and the doctor. The crowd of women who mingled in and out of the queen’s bedroom the previous day had thinned out. Some of the women were slumped over asleep in chairs, their clothes wrinkled and unkempt. Others sat wide awake with freshly powdered faces.
“Where’s Gustaban?” the queen asked. She breathed heavily and clawed at the bed sheets.
The doctor returned to the queen’s bed and positioned himself between her outstretched legs. “He’s outside, waiting for you, My Queen. We’re almost done, you can do this,” he said.
Red stared at the queen’s contorted face as she screamed. She looked different, not as boney or scary as she usually appeared. She looked alive.
Almost twenty-four hours had passed since the queen first went into labor. In that time, it seemed as if she had called forth every last ounce of life she had to deliver the baby. Her face glistened and shined in the candlelit room.
Red thought back to the times her mom would walk her through the forest and teach her about life and death and show her examples of them. This wasn’t how animals did it; they weren’t as loud and didn’t take this long. And birds just sat there and laid eggs. Her mom once said, “You’ll see how humans have babies one day. It’s very different, it’s very special.”
She was right.
When the baby was finally delivered and took its first breath of air, the queen collapsed. “It’s a girl, Your Majesty,” the doctor said as he momentarily turned away from the queen and held the baby for everyone to see. “I think you’ll be very pleased with this one.”
While all gazes in the room were on the newborn girl, a small ball of shimmering yellow light came out of the queen’s body, rose straight upward, and disappeared as it passed through the ceiling. Red gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
The doctor handed the baby to one of the two aids and turned back to the queen who lay motionless. The other aid tried to revive her. She shook her, tapped her cheeks, and even threw water on her face but nothing worked.
The doctor leapt to the side of the bed. “Stand aside, ladies!” He extended his arms outward and clinched his hands together. With one strong and swift blow he struck the queen’s chest. Everyone gasped. The doctor slumped over the queen’s body. He slowly lifted himself off of her and got back to his feet.
The women intently stared at him.
He placed his hand on the queen’s arm and shook his head.
The women gasped again. Some sobbed. Others turned and embraced one another. Their queen was dead.
Red remained in the closet during the entire ordeal, but nearly screamed when something small and furry rubbed against the side of her leg. She looked down and to her surprise saw a purple cat with tiger-like stripes standing behind her. This cat was no ordinary feline. He had eyes as yellow and as full as the moon and a grin as large and bright as a clean sickle.
The cat gave her a big smile that showed off his long sharp teeth. He stood up on his hind legs like a person and gestured with his paw over his mouth for Red to stay quiet. He then looked out the closet doors.
“What are you doing?” Red whispered.
The cat turned and looked back at Red. “I thought I told you to sssshhh. I’m watching.” The cat stopped and got back on all four legs. “You’re too bothersome. I’ll just go watch from somewhere else,” he replied before running into a corner of the closet and disappearing. Red ran to the corner and looked around for him, but the cat was nowhere to be found. She peeked behind the
queen’s shoe rack and looked in one of her shoe boxes. She moved some large coats and one of the queen’s big floppy hats. Where did he go?
Screams erupted from the bedroom and drew Red back to the closet doorway.
The queen’s body flinched repeatedly. Her arms and legs jerked up and down so violently that her body was bouncing up and down on the bed.
Everyone in the room panicked and screamed.
“Relax,” the doctor replied. “Spasms are normal when someone has recently passed.”
“Normal?” said one of the aids. “Do you call this normal?”
“What kind of devilry is that, Doctor?” another woman shouted.
“Of course this is normal,” the doctor said with hesitation in his voice. “At least, I think it is.”
The aid carrying the queen’s baby ran out of the room just as General Bello ran in. Those who stood closest to the queen took a couple of steps back. The queen’s puppet-like body jerked up and down.
After a few minutes, she jolted up into a sitting position and snapped her arms out, toward the others in the room. Large blurs of wispy white vapors flew from the doctor, General Bello, and the women straight into the queen.
Everyone immediately collapsed to the ground. With the exception of the queen’s upright body, silence and stillness filled the room.
Then, the small ball of yellow light that Red had seen earlier reappeared high above the queen’s bed and slowly descended.
A menacing grin spread across the queen’s skeletal face as she opened her soulless eyes and looked straight into the glowing mass. She lifted her arms and reached up toward it.
Red thought she heard something. She closed her eyes, tilted her head, and heard, “Nooooo.” Faint and distant, it sounded like the queen. When she opened her eyes again, the yellow light dimmed and disappeared back into the queen’s body.
The queen then collapsed down onto the bed and lay peacefully still.
* * *
The queen opened her eyes and sat up. She squinted and shielded her face from the bright sunshine that poured in through the window. As she tried to recollect what happened, she looked down and cringed. Her legs and gown were covered in blood and waste and yet, she didn’t feel any discomfort. Why? Where was her baby?
She glanced around the room but could see no one. Everything was blurry and out of focus. “How long was I out?” she asked. She slid herself to the edge of the bed and planted her feet onto the ground.
Bodies littered the floor of her bedroom. One by one, they came into focus. The doctor. One of her aids. Their once smooth and pristinely soft skin was now ruptured with holes and lacerations. Patches of their skin, hair, and clothing were charred and dried as if burned instantaneously.
She knelt down at General Bello’s corpse. She wanted to weep, but couldn’t. “How can this be?” she questioned aloud. “What happened to all of them? The window is open.”
She had desperately reasoned to herself, long ago, that conceiving a second child might make things right again. The sight of the people dead on the floor seeded hopelessness where the queen’s heart once beat.
“This was supposed to be different,” she said. “Why are they all dead?” She thought she had done everything right.
Now, having given birth a second time, the queen stood alone in her room and knew that her life would never return to normal.
Just at that moment, a soft “thump” came from the queen’s closet. She stepped over a few dead bodies near her bed and walked across the room. She pushed open the closet doors and saw Red crouched down in one of the corners.
“What are you doing here?” the queen asked.
Red trembled beneath one of the queen’s big floppy hats. She jumped to her feet and shuffled back against the wall.
“Have you been here the whole time?” the queen asked.
Red nodded.
“What happened here?” the queen continued. Though she was frail and thin, her tall frame nearly filled the doorway of the closet.
Red shivered. Her eyes teared up, she bit her lip and looked down.
“I am talking to you! What did you see?” The queen entered the closet. She swung her hand across Red’s face and knocked her to the ground. “Speak to me!” she screamed as she grabbed a clothes hanger from the rack and swatted Red across the side of her body. Red cringed.
The queen dropped the hanger and picked Red up off the floor by her arm. She dragged her out of the closet and across the room. When they got near the dead bodies, Red squirmed and screamed.
“Oh, you like that, don’t you, dearie,” the queen mocked, pointing to one of the bodies. “The next time I find you in my room I’ll be sure to throw one of these on your bed for you to cuddle with at night!” She opened the door to her bedroom and threw Red outside into the hallway. “Take her back to the West Wing,” she said to the guard on duty before slamming her door.
When she turned around, she saw the cat sitting on her bed pawing at the covers. “You,” the queen said. “What are you doing here?” It had been years since the queen last dealt with the cat.
“It seems ‘the barren queen’ is not so barren after all,” the cat said. “How many children do you have now? Two?”
The queen paused. “I don’t have time for your games, cat. Leave before I have you skinned and turned into a purse.”
“But you have everything you ever wanted,” the cat said.
A long gold-framed mirror appeared in front of the queen. She saw her reflection and quickly turned away. “Stop! I said leave!”
The cat purred. “You have your crown, your daughters, the love and admiration of the kingdom you so desperately desired.”
“This was all your doing, wasn’t it? You did this to me.” She grabbed a brush off a nearby table and struck the mirror. The glass shattered into thousands of shimmering pieces that faded into the air. The queen shielded her face with her hands. “Go back to the forest where you belong.”
“Why should I? I’d much rather stay here.” He stretched his legs and walked around on top of the queen’s bed in a slow and purposeful stride, avoiding the dirty sheets.
Annoyed, the queen lunged toward the bed. “Why are you here?”
The cat’s eyes grew larger and his ears pointed up, but he managed to disappear a split second before the queen could wrap her hands around him. “I got you now, you stupid cat.” She tore a pillow apart instead of the cat. Feathers scattered across the bed.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” The cat’s voice echoed like ringing clocks around the queen’s ears. “How unbecoming of you, Your Majesty.”
“Quit hiding, you little ferret. Show yourself!” In response, a stream of ferrets burrowed their way out from under the covers. The queen jumped up, practically dancing on her bed to avoid the creatures. “Guards! Guards help!” She screamed and shouted for help while the swarm of ferrets scurried around on her bed.
“No one can hear you.” The cat chuckled.
The ferrets jumped and danced around the queen. Some even urinated and rubbed their fur all over the soft sheets and pillows.
The queen begged the cat to get rid of the ferrets, but the animal just laughed. “I would much rather have you familiarize yourself with these ferrets. After all, I am a cat, not a rodent.”
“Why are you here? I’m tired of your ridiculous and illogical games,” the queen said as she kicked the ferrets off her bed.
As each one hit the ground, it puffed into a small purple cloud of smoke and disappeared.
“To put it simply, I’m here to remind you that the clock is ticking,” the cat said. “You don’t want to be late for your daughter’s coronation. Until then, you’re not going anywhere.”
CHAPTER 8
On the night of the princess’ arrival party, Blackheart stood outside the palace and greeted the city’s aristocrats as they appeared dressed in their best suits and gowns. The palace glimmered against the night sky, like a fiery ruby. The roofs were lined with bright beaming lan
terns and the white walls were bathed in red lights.
One by one, the invited guests were dropped off at the main entrance. Their coaches quickly disappeared right after, leaving the front of the palace neat and uncluttered. Soft fanfare music played as the guests entered the marble foyer where they checked in and were escorted to the ballroom. Chatter and laughter echoed throughout, sounds Blackheart hadn’t heard in years.
Upon entering the ballroom, Blackheart immediately caught sight of the planner, the one responsible for almost every detail of the event. He beamed and stood perfectly still with his back arched, hands clasped behind him as he supervised from a distance.
The planner was a very self-absorbed man who had a taste for fine and extravagant clothing. He always wore large and ornate jewelry and flared his hands around when he spoke and walked. Blackheart loathed him, but grudgingly admired his craft. The ceilings were draped with bright linens, flower arrangements adorned the walls and corners of the foyer and ballroom, and every table was crowned with colorful blown-glass centerpieces. Careful thought went into every detail and everything was perfect.
However, there was one detail that made Blackheart cringe. “What is this thing you’re wearing?” she asked as she stared up and down at the simple-looking robe that flowed down to his feet.
A large smile stretched across the planner’s face. His eyes danced. “Why thank you for noticing, Your Grace. It’s a peignoir. It’s made out of the rarest, most precious, caterpillar’s silk in the world. It took me months to save and buy this most precious and expensive fabric so that I could make a one-of-a-kind look for this very special occasion.” He half twirled to show Blackheart the backside.
The delicate fabric ran around the back of his neck and down his chest. There was barely enough robe to cover his meaty breasts. The entire look was held together by the collective unconscious will of the people at the party and a very unfortunate dress belt that ran across the planner’s belly. His fingernails and toenails were manicured and polished, his cheeks and nose were powdered, and his lips were over-glossed.
“I know this look is racy, but I wanted to stand out. I chose this peignoir to stand out from the rest of the conformed, wound-up automatons. I wanted people to know that I was the man responsible for creating the beautiful space around them and that I was no ordinary day-to-day person.”