A Tangle of Gold

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  That’s exactly what he said. I thought it was the sickness.

  I’m in his room right now, at his computer. At the hospital I looked at his phone to find numbers for family or old friends or even old modelling contacts—we never completely believed he was ever a model, but that was his story. But the only numbers were us—the friends he’s met here. Now I’ve looked through his files and emails and everything in this room, and it’s the same. Nothing but Boise, Idaho and his life here.

  I don’t know how to contact his family. The only thing outside I have is you. Your letter to him, telling him to go to that corner, and giving your email address.

  I’m pissed at you. I blame you. If we hadn’t been there on that street, and passing that 7-Eleven, and getting the Slurpee, maybe it never would’ve happened.

  Anyhow, those were his dying words—I am Prince Chyba. So I’m doing what he asked and passing them on, and maybe you can let his family know what’s happened, so they can come and—I don’t know, get his stuff.

  I’m attaching the picture I took of him with the Slurpee. It’s raspberry. Those were his favorite.

  Sincerely,

  Gianni

  Madeleine sat back. There was noise in her head like birds shouting at dusk.

  Prince Chyba hadn’t been rescued. Prince Chyba was dead.

  It was true she didn’t know him, but somebody had lost a brother, someone had lost a son, a Kingdom had lost its prince.

  She stared at the email.

  After a moment she clicked on the attachment.

  A photograph appeared on the screen.

  She leaned forward. She looked at the face.

  The face looked back at her.

  Her mouth was open, she could hear a sound, long and thin, like a distant mechanical alarm, but the sound was growing and closing in on her, flooding the room, brutal and savage, high-pitched as a skyscraper, and still she didn’t know that she was screaming.

  1

  ‘You know, this is going to sound crazy and all, but I think there could be more?’

  In Bonfire, the Farms, it was hot.

  It was Friday morning.

  In the living room of the Baranski farmhouse, a fan turned languidly. The curtains were drawn, trying to keep things cool.

  There was silence. There was a dreamy awareness that someone had just spoken.

  Petra and Abel were sharing a single armchair, Petra half on Abel’s lap, leaning into him. They seemed to be melting together. Petra’s eyes were bloodshot. Abel had his unshaven, unkempt look.

  ‘Anyone want a cold drink?’ Petra started to stand, then let herself fall back. ‘Ah, help yourself if you do. You know where the kitchen is.’

  Nobody had slept the night before. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been as tired as this,’ somebody said. ‘You know what we need? Watermelon.’

  People were too tired and too hot to figure out who had just spoken, or what the heck they meant about watermelon.

  The King stood by the window, his hand at the curtain’s edge, watching. The others watched him. He looked back at them sometimes and his eyes seemed crowded. The King wore a black t-shirt and jeans. You could see the tattoo on his neck and the sweat forming under his arms.

  Gabe was on the couch. So was Jimmy.

  Princess Ko was there too. She was on the green corduroy armchair.

  She’d arrived the day before, petals and twigs caught in her hair from flying, dust in her eyes, her nose red. She’d introduced her fellow escapees: Sergio, her best friend and stableboy, pale and drained from flying against mood, and Samuel, feverish and trembling. Both boys were now sleeping in the basement at Gabe’s house.

  ‘On account of, I’ve heard watermelon will wake you up when you’re tired, and cool you down when you’re hot.’

  It was the Sheriff. That’s who was on about watermelon.

  Remotely, the warning bells sounded.

  ‘What’s that code supposed to be?’ Princess Ko demanded.

  ‘It’s just a preliminary warning,’ the Sheriff told her. ‘Something’s coming. They don’t know what it is yet. It’s a way away.’

  Ko sniffed. ‘That’s absurd.’

  There was another silence.

  ‘Did anybody hear what I just said?’ Jimmy wondered. ‘I said I think there could be more.’

  The heat had its fists on them. You could hear a cow in the distance. The cow seemed petulant. You could hear chickens. A lonely bird.

  The King rubbed his eyes with his fists. He tapped on the window glass.

  The telephone rang shrilly.

  Petra got up and answered it. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay. No. Yes. Great.’

  She hung up.

  ‘They’ve landed,’ she said. ‘They flew all night and they had to stop twice to refuel. Shelby’s gone to bed. She’s given Keira her car, so Keira’s on her way now with the Queen and Princess.’

  The warning bells sounded again.

  ‘It’s two different things,’ the Sheriff said, head tilted. ‘That’s a Jangling Violet. And . . . Ha. That’s a Mustard.’

  ‘How far away?’ Gabe asked.

  ‘A way still. The shutters will dim both, but not altogether, the way Colours are these days.’

  ‘We should put the shutters down now,’ Abel said.

  ‘But we’ll need to let them in when they get here.’

  ‘There’s still time. Leave them up. Those Colours are ten minutes away, at least.’

  There was another long pause. Princess Ko reached for a magazine from the stack on the coffee table. She fanned herself with it.

  The Sheriff spoke up. ‘When’s this summer going, Gabe?’

  Gabe was silent.

  ‘I’m not getting any sense,’ he said.

  The room was silent again.

  A distant engine sounded.

  The King pressed his head up against the glass.

  Princess Ko stood. She brushed down her clothes. She watched the curtained window.

  The engine drew closer. It was coming up the driveway.

  A car pulled up outside.

  The sounds of doors opening and slamming.

  Footsteps on the drive, and on the stairs, and on the porch.

  Nobody moved.

  Gabe looked around. He stood, walked to the front door and opened it.

  When he returned, Keira was with him.

  ‘Here they are,’ Keira said.

  A woman and girl entered. They both wore sunglasses.

  The King stepped towards them. Princess Ko made a small sound.

  The King’s arms opened. His mouth opened.

  He looked at Keira. ‘Who are these people?’ he said.

  ‘They’re in disguise,’ Keira said.

  ‘Who are these people?’ he repeated.

  ‘It’s the Princess and Queen! Take off your sunglasses,’ Keira urged the woman and girl.

  Princess Ko sat down again. ‘It’s not them,’ she said.

  The girl took off her sunglasses. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It’s not us. I knew I couldn’t get away with it. I mean, I am from Cello, and I did get taken to the World, and I did forget myself while I was there, but OMG, I’m pretty sure I never was a princess!’

  Jimmy cleared his throat. ‘I told you there were more,’ he said.

  1

  After a scream of such magnitude comes silence like thunder.

  The scream cuts like lightning, the silence is the sonic boom.

  Madeleine found that she was standing. The desk chair was lying on its side. The silence pulsated. Fragments of her scream drifted around her.

  Across the room her mother sat up in bed, staring. Horror flew back and forth between their eyes. Madeleine’s nose began to bleed.

  2

  In the Baranski farmhouse, the room kept perfect silence.

  Everyone but the King was staring at the woman who was not Queen and at the girl who was not Princess. These two glanced at one another and then, helpless and apologetic, back at the
room. The King crouched to the level of the windowsill and wrapped his arms around his head.

  A cacophony sprang up outside. It was like thousands of bottles being poured into a great, sliding pile. It was an entire grade school shaking tambourines. The King’s arms dropped from his head in shock, while everyone else took up his previous stance: arms around heads.

  ‘What is that?’ the King roared, furious, while the Sheriff shouted, ‘Someone get the shutters! It’s the Jangling Violet!’

  Both Abel and Petra tumble-fell-ran from their armchair. Security shutters slammed with their clang, clang, clang. The jangling dulled but carried on.

  The King scowled at the curtains, now darkened by shutters. He turned his scowl onto the non-queen and non-princess. ‘Why are you here?’ he shouted at them.

  They both flinched.

  ‘She brought us here.’ The girl pointed to Keira.

  Keira shrugged. This was true.

  ‘I was in the World,’ the woman quavered. ‘Someone took me to the World.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed the girl.

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ the woman complained. ‘I was told I was the Queen of Cello. I never believed it, I just wanted them to shut up about it.’

  ‘It seemed total quatsch,’ the girl admitted. ‘But I was, like, what the fichtenstein, get a geschenk horse, don’t look at its mouth, or whatever that thing goes. Total horse stink breath is what they mean. You just ride it. Kein Angst though, es gibst so nicht, and that. Where’s the nearest train or whatever and I’ll auf wiedersehen y’all.’

  ‘What is she talking about?’ the King demanded. ‘And you!’ He rounded on Keira. ‘Why did you bring me these strange people?’

  Keira didn’t even have a shrug to offer. That’s how confused she was.

  ‘Now, don’t go shouting at Keira,’ the Sheriff scolded.

  Outside, the clamour rose a notch.

  Abel studied the shutters. ‘They’re not working,’ he said.

  ‘Colours have changed,’ Petra said. ‘They’re stronger.’

  Princess Ko climbed onto her knees on her seat and spoke over the chair back.

  ‘How old are you?’ she said to the non-princess.

  ‘Fourteen, I think.’

  ‘And you?’

  The woman looked startled. ‘I don’t know. Maybe forty-nine? Or forty-eight?’

  ‘You’re both from Cello?’

  They nodded.

  ‘And you’ve been living in Berlin, right? And you were in Taipei?’

  Again, they nodded.

  ‘Well, that explains it.’ Princess Ko sat again, her back to everybody. ‘The Locator Spell we used. We told it to find Cellians of those ages in those places. So it did.’

  3

  Madeleine stood with her head tipped forward. Blood dripped from her nose to the floorboards.

  A man leaves a party, she thought, and puts on the wrong hat.

  The blood hit the floor and formed a perfect circle, which instantly reshaped and spread. The best kind of circles are the ones that are sort of squashed. Jack had said that once. The more squashed and oval a circle, the more eccentric it is.

  ‘Madeleine?’

  The hat is a circle. It encircles the head. It encircles the dreamer.

  A snake describes a circle around a dreamer. He stands rooted to the ground like a tree.

  She was a tree. She let the tree tip forward so its knees hit the hard floor. She watched the blood more closely.

  The circle means forever. The circle is a trap. The circle binds a spell. Mandala is Sanskrit meaning circle. The circle formed by the serpent that eats its own tail: the Ouroboros.

  The blood fell.

  The Ouroboros is the prima material of the alchemical process.

  The melting furnace must be completely round, otherwise the stars will not contribute.

  Splat, circle, break, splat, circle, break.

  To make the elixir take blood (life) and venom (death).

  ‘Madeleine,’ her mother said again.

  A man leaves a party. He puts on the wrong hat. A man leaves a party. He puts on the wrong hat.

  4

  Everyone was talking at once. The Jangling Violet was forgotten for brief periods, the way you forget overexcited children or animals prancing around your legs at a party then notice again with intense exasperation.

  ‘I knew there were more Cellians in the World,’ Jimmy was saying. ‘I was reading missing persons reports and I thought, hang on . . .’

  ‘Send these two back to the World,’ the King demanded darkly.

  ‘They seem nice enough,’ Gabe said.

  Petra begged, ‘Make the noise stop.’

  ‘See,’ Abel said. ‘Told you the shutters weren’t working.’

  ‘The noise’ll go when it’s good and ready,’ the Sheriff declared.

  ‘That’s not helpful!’ Petra yelled at both of them.

  ‘Are you okay, Keira?’ Gabe asked.

  Keira leaned up against the wall, despondent.

  ‘It was all for nothing,’ she explained.

  ‘I’m not nothing,’ the non-princess exclaimed. ‘ICH bin nicht nichts. Ha ha. Is that even a sentence? MIR ist es nicht nichts!’

  Distractedly, Keira chewed her fingernails.

  Jimmy raised his voice over the racket. ‘Whenever there’s crossover between Cello and the World, it’s a displacement of reality. Just a tiny one, so nobody much notices. Anyhow, I’m looking through these reports last night, just as a puzzle for myself, really—mostly people who’d been living on the edges, street kids, drug addicts, say, and local law hadn’t much followed up. I started seeing little references. Pictures switching place, tea leaves up and leaving their tea cup, and I knew—what is that smell?’

  ‘That’ll be the Mustard Green!’ The Sheriff sounded cheerful. Every other face clutched itself into a wince.

  ‘You got any disinfectant spray?’ Gabe cupped his hands over his nose. ‘Scented candles maybe?’

  ‘We all need to take it easy.’ Abel went to the sideboard and opened a cupboard. He turned back to the room as he did. ‘This is just a setback.’

  ‘A Mustard Green is not so much a setback,’ the Sheriff began, looking philosophical.

  ‘Not the Colour, I’m talking about the fact we’ve got the wrong people. So we start again. Find the real Queen and Princess.’

  ‘How exactly do we do that?’ Princess Ko demanded, scrambling back onto her knees and glaring over the chair top.

  ‘Easy.’ Abel shrugged. ‘We get in touch with Madeleine again. I want to check on her and Holly anyway. I think—’

  ‘Well, of course you want to check on Madeleine and Holly,’ Petra burst out. She marched to the sideboard and slammed the door Abel had opened. His hand jumped away just in time. ‘They’re not kept in here any more, they haven’t been in years.’ She reached to a higher cabinet, drawing out a handful of candles.

  ‘Not sure scented candles will do much against this stink,’ the Sheriff said.

  Petra slammed the candles into holders. ‘You know, he was very close to that Holly while he was in the World? He felt drawn to Holly and Madeleine the moment he first saw them in a café? So he helped them find a flat right upstairs from him?’ Her voice grew into a hoarse roar. ‘And I don’t know where Elliot is! I never hear a word about Elliot any more! How do I even know that he’s okay?!’

  ‘He’s okay,’ Keira said. Uncertainty crossed her face.

  ‘What?’ pounced Petra. ‘What’s that look?’

  ‘What about my son?’ the King bellowed. ‘Where’s Chyba? I don’t know if he’s okay either! Not to mention my wife or my daughter.’

  He threw another contemptuous look at the wrong wife and wrong daughter. They slunk back, ashamed.

  ‘It was weird about Prince Chyba,’ Keira said. ‘I was opening the crack, but it kept closing. Who knows if Chyba was there anyway, but it was like someone was working against me on the other side.’

  ‘I
t probably wasn’t even the real Chyba!’ the King sneered. ‘That spell of yours probably found some Cellian street kid of the same age!’

  Princess Ko reared up again. ‘How were we to know there were other Cellians in the World besides the Royal Family?!’

  ‘I guess Abel was in the World at that time,’ the Sheriff mused.

  ‘We didn’t know that! And it worked for you!’ Ko flung her arm towards the King. ‘You must have been the only Cellian of your age in Montreal! And Prince Tippett was the only one in Avoca Beach, Australia! We got you two back!’

  ‘How did you know what city they were in?’ Jimmy asked.

  Keira spoke up. ‘I made a program,’ she said, ‘linking up Cello and the World. We told it the places they’d disappeared from here and it found the matching cities in the World. Then the Locator Spell gave us addresses in those cities.’

  ‘You probably made a mistake with the program,’ the King muttered.

  Keira raised her eyebrows.

  ‘She doesn’t make technology mistakes,’ Gabe spoke up. He flinched. ‘Sorry. Got a strong sense of smell. This is doing me in.’

  The King glowered. ‘Well, somebody made a mistake!’

  ‘You know, that could be so?’ the Sheriff mused, and both Keira and Ko glared at him. He raised his hands, apologetic. ‘Seems to me, you ask a Locator Spell to find a Cellian of a specific age in a specific city, it would give you all the Cellians of that age. Not just choose a random one.’ He tipped his head to the woman and girl, now pressed together, like people in a crowded lift. ‘So why didn’t it give you these two as well as the real Queen and Princess? Assuming you put in the right cities.’

  ‘We did it right!’ Princess Ko cried. ‘We put in exactly where they disappeared!’

  Keira nodded and began to recite. ‘The King was at the Sandringham Convention Centre. The Queen was in a second level office in the Finance Department. Chyba was at the Cast Iron Restaurant in McCabe Town, Nature Strip. Jupiter was in the penthouse suite of the Harrington Hotel. And Prince Tippett was home in the White Palace.’