When Meg finished, the Queen once again thanked her for the scavenger hunt. “We felt more joy in those few hours than we have felt since the crown has been weighing down our head.”
Meg curtsied. “If it please the Queen, perhaps you would like to take some fresh air by way of the palace balconies. You could make a tour of the balconies, stopping to enjoy each one.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, that would be something new. Come, ladies, we shall make a journey without leaving the palace.”
Meg winked at me as I followed the group. What was she up to now?
At the fourth balcony, as we looked out across the jousting arena, Lady Clinton bent over the railing and pointed to the ground two stories below. “What, pray tell, is that?”
We all gathered at the railing. A number of white rocks had been placed on the brown, crushed stone walkway. “The rocks appear to have been laid out in the shape of an eye,” Elizabeth said. “How unusual.”
At the next balcony, Lady Mary pointed to the ground. “Now here is a heart made of the same white rocks,” she said.
Eye. Heart. I love. My hands and feet began to tingle.
At the next balcony, we all rushed the railing at the same time. “J!” Elizabeth cried. “Eye heart J. I love J. But who is J?”
I struggled to keep my expression neutral. Meg loved me. The thought brought tears to my eyes, and I looked away to hide them, only to come face-to-face with Meg herself.
She curtsied to the Queen. “If you will allow me, ma’am, J stands for James. He is a new earl come to court.”
Elizabeth tilted her head. “We have not met any James. Who is this man?”
Meg was clearly trying not to laugh. “He has not yet been presented to you, ma’am, but I have heard the others talk about him. He is the Earl…the Earl of Doonesbury.”
The others murmured at this news. My jaw was clamped as tightly as possible, and I pinched the back of my hand to hold off the laughter.
“Yes, and I am told he is quite handsome, tall and well-bodied, with eyes the color of amber.”
More murmuring now. “In fact,” Meg added, “I just saw him a few minutes ago. He was heading to the Great Hall and seemed the most masculine of men.”
That was all it took. The Queen led the way and the women followed. I hung back, met Meg’s eyes, then pulled us both behind the heavy drapes lining the door to the balcony. The kiss was long and hot and weakened my knees. Then we pulled apart.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered.
“If we don’t stop now, we won’t be able to.” Meg sweetly kissed the corner of my mouth. “What would Blanche and Harriet say to that?”
“I don’t care.”
We kissed again, then Meg stroked my sides, tapping her knuckle against my stomacher. “You must wear this all the time?”
We kissed again. “It’s kind of like the Elizabethan version of Spanx.”
“Ahh, the knickers that hold in all your flabby bits.” Then she pushed me deeper into the drapes and kissed me so hard my knees did finally collapse. She pushed against me to hold me up.
“Goddamn it, Meg. Maybe Blanche and Harriet wouldn’t mind.”
Groaning, she stepped back and let me go. “Another minute with you and I might abandon my ethics.”
Once outside the room, she headed left with a happy wave, then I turned right to join the search for James, Earl of Doonesbury.
* * *
After more days of catering to Elizabeth’s every whim, which included daily walks, requests for games and dancing, and under-the-cover discussions about either Dudley or Harry Potter, I was worn out. At least Elizabeth was back to her normal self, thanks to Meg.
Distracted by my thoughts of her, I didn’t notice the change in weather until Lady Mary pointed to the sky. Slate gray clouds rolled toward the palace like a team of out-of-control horses. Thunder cracked sharply in the distance. We picked up our skirts and began running toward the palace, Elizabeth laughing as fat raindrops plopped onto our heads and shoulders.
Once I was safely inside, my mind spun. Where would Meg be? I ran to the maids’ storage room, but she wasn’t there. “Gone to the cellars,” one woman called.
I’d never been there, so I ended up racing through three wings of the palace until I found someone who could point me to the stairs leading into the cellar. By now my heart pounded faster than was healthy. How much time did we have? Thunder boomed directly overhead, and hard rain drilled the gravel streets.
I found the stairs and descended, ducking my head to avoid the low ceiling beams. The bricked walls and dirt floor reeked of mold and damp.
Meg was in a far corner helping another woman with a crate of bottles. “Meg—I mean Harriet, I need you to come with me.”
The other woman glared at me. “She be helping me now. You can have her when I’m finished.”
“The Queen has sent for you to read to her, Harriet. She hates to be kept waiting.” The sounds of the storm didn’t reach the cellar, so Meg didn’t know.
With a mumbled apology to the woman, Meg followed me up the stairs. We were halfway down the hallway when the thunder rolled through again. “Holy shit!” she snapped. “This is our chance!”
We ran out the door and into the nearest flower garden. The rain beat against our faces and blew off my headpiece. “Fire truck, this hurts,” I yelled. We stood huddled together against the bruising rain.
“Why does rain have to be so cold?” Meg shouted against the thunder. Her teeth chattered, but she was grinning. “We’re going home, Jamie.”
“Don’t forget. No matter where you are, get yourself to Dr. Rajamani immediately and demand the serum. That’s the only thing that will stop us from coming back during the next storm.” Soaked now, my entire body trembled from cold and excitement.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s meet at his office.”
“Deal!” I shouted over the thunder.
The sky crackled like a downed power line, and I flew through the air. But instead of riding lightning, I slammed against the ground in the middle of a flowerbed. The rain pelting my face forced me to sit up. Aching, I climbed to my feet. “Meg!” She lay crumpled in the path ten feet away.
I tripped over my sodden skirt, fell to my knees, and ended up crawling. Just as I reached her, she sat up and rubbed her forehead.
“Are you okay?”
She frowned, then winced at the driving rain. She looked down at her skirts and examined her hands. “Thank you, Lord Almighty, for your forgiveness.”
“Meg, look at me. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Lady Blanche, I am Harriet. And God has seen fit to answer my prayers and return me to the world.”
My heart soared and plummeted at the same time, which I’d never thought possible. I was thrilled that Meg had made it back into her own body, and horrified that I hadn’t.
* * *
Meg left me on October 10. That was when I stopped notching my table leg calendar. The only way to survive was to shut down emotionally. I waited a week for another storm. Then two weeks, then three. When I asked one of the male servants about the weather, he said that October was always the rainiest month. And it did rain. And it even stormed twice. But I was still here. A tiny part of me wanted to believe that Meg had gotten the serum from Dr. Raj, but then I stopped thinking about Meg as a real person. Believing that time travel was possible was just part of my mental illness.
After four weeks, the truth had settled into my soul like pneumonia. Chris and Dr. Kroll were right. This was all in my head. I’d created Meg/Harriet and Ray so I would have some allies in my private fantasy. I’d created the entire Elizabethan experience from what I’d read or movies I’d seen.
I’d created Kat Ashley, and Lady Mary, and Jacob, to remind me of my friends Ashley and Mary, and my brother Jake. I’d even created little Vincent.
I wasn’t actually in the body of Queen Elizabeth I’s lady-in-waiting. I was in my own body, my own time, locked somewhere deep i
nside my own brain while “Blanche,” my alter ego, ran the show. Clearly, she’d managed to talk Dr. Kroll into the electroconvulsive therapy. She won.
I had done all this to punish myself for not being the woman Chris wanted. I had dissociative personality disorder, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Fuck.
Chapter Thirty-four
Just as in that first week in my 1560 fantasy, I stopped getting out of bed. That first week was because I kept expecting the nightmare to disappear. Now it was because I knew it never would.
Lady Mary told the Queen I was ill, then harassed me ten times a day to get up, since it was clear I wasn’t sick. Vincent spent most of the day on my bed, only running off to visit the kitchen for food and outside to relieve himself. Not even when he nudged me repeatedly with a wet nose did I rise.
“Mary,” I said one morning as she was about to return to the Queen. “We aren’t friends, thanks to you ratting me out about being with child, but when the Queen becomes ill in a few years, I will care for her instead of you. Since none of this is real, why should I let you become disfigured by smallpox even if it’s just in my head?”
She made a sad sound in her throat, shaking her head. “Perhaps you have a fever.”
I sighed. “No, I’ve just let Blanche take control of my life.”
I slept nearly all the time and refused most food. What was the point of eating in a fantasy? For three months, I’d believed 1560 was real. Now I knew it wasn’t. Perhaps I could starve myself, die, then wake up in my own body again. I tried not to think of the life growing inside me…no, the life I imagined was growing inside me. My middle had widened considerably, and while I lay there quietly, I could sometimes feel a funny flutter inside. I no longer battled nausea, so that was nice. While I had no idea how the various stages of pregnancy progressed, I was doing a fine job of making it up. And because there was no water, I drank mug after mug of ale, which can give one a nice buzz on an empty stomach. Probably not too good for the baby, but that was made up as well.
And what was the point of all that Dudley drama? Me trying to keep Robert Dudley alive, me causing Amy Dudley’s death. That bullshit was all something I’d read somewhere. Why fight to keep history accurate when history hadn’t even been involved? I was a pathetic weakling trapped in my own mind because I lacked the strength to face the real world. I had let Chris’s comments so freak me out that I retreated into my mind and created Blanche. Pretty sick.
I tried to imagine what was going on with the body I no longer controlled. Did Blanche have Bradley and Mouse arrested? Was Blanche still charming Chris? Had the bitch finished writing her riveting novel?
Hope was a funny thing. I knew it could come and go, advance and retreat, but I didn’t know others could rob you of it. Chris took my love and perverted it, forcing me to create Blanche as a desperate measure to keep Chris. Bradley had said life was one long battle not to lose yourself. Well, I had lost. Blanche was in charge now. She had access to my cell phone. One text from Dr. Rajamani and Blanche would be knocking at his door to receive the serum. In fact, she’d likely done that weeks ago.
I laughed so suddenly Vincent jumped to his feet and barked at me, scowling in alarm. What was I still doing thinking that the serum and time travel were real? I hadn’t been transported back in time to 1560 by riding the lightning—God, what a stupid explanation. And no thunderstorm could transport me back into my own body.
I was already there.
* * *
After a week in bed, boredom got me up, washed, dressed, and back in Elizabeth’s entourage. Of course I punished myself for this by “scheduling” the marriage to Winston for the following Saturday.
That day dawned bright and clear. Tubs were brought in and filled with hot water. The Queen and Kat Ashley bathed first, then I as the bride was able to go next so the water was still lukewarm. I sank down into the tub and moaned with pleasure. Someone behind me began washing my hair, so I dropped my head back and relaxed. Pain shot through me when I realized it wasn’t Meg. It couldn’t be. I’d created her to fill a need.
Once out of the bath, a servant brought me a note. I carefully unfolded the thick, coarse paper and ignored the poor spelling:
Dear Blanche,
Do not do this. You have not been yourself for weeks. Where is the Blanche who fights back, who refuses to compromise, who always puts herself first? Are you so desperate about being poor again that you will marry this stuffed fish? You have another choice.
With respect, Jacob
Huh. Nice. This “note” from Jacob was clearly my twisted mind trying to give me a way out. But by now I was four and a half months pregnant and visible. I needed to do something for the baby.
Yet while I let the others fuss over me, dressing me in a cream gown shot through with gold thread and making the necessary adjustments, I already knew I couldn’t do it. So once my bridal cap had been fastened onto my head, I found Elizabeth, curtsied, and asked if we could have a moment alone. She waved the others away.
“My dear, the spark has totally gone out of you. Mary tells us you eat less than a bird.”
I lowered myself carefully onto a stool, feeling lightheaded, grateful for Jacob’s note. “Ma’am, I realize that you cannot have an unmarried woman with child in your court. The scandal would be too great. But please, I beg of you, don’t force me to marry Lord Winston. We are ill suited. He is not kind and he brings out the worst in me.”
She tipped her head back, glaring down her nose at me. “Then what would you suggest? We know your purse is light, in great part thanks to your late father. If you do not remain in court, where would you go?”
I blew out my breath. “There is an old cottage at the edge of the park in which the gardeners store tools. What if I were to take up residence there until the child comes?”
“Live alone in a run-down shack?”
I nodded. “Yes, please. You won’t even know I’m there. No one will. And I could work to pay for it. I could clean or do laundry.”
“Do not be ridiculous. You shall not work.”
Elizabeth chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “We do understand the pressures of being expected to marry someone you do not like. Our councilors have been at us to do this very thing since the day we were crowned.” She leaned forward and rested a hand on my shoulder. “If you really cannot manage to marry Winston, then you may have the cottage until the birth of your child. After that you will find a wet nurse to take the child and return to us at court.”
I nodded, pleased that I’d managed to steer the fantasy in the direction I preferred. “And, ma’am, I intend to stay away from court to avoid causing you any embarrassment. You should not be seen with an unmarried woman in my condition.”
She frowned, then sighed long and loudly. “So it will be.”
I never heard how Winston took the news, and frankly, I didn’t care, since none of this was real.
* * *
Vincent and I passed the winter quietly. I would sit in my chair by the fire and read while he would snore and snuffle and chase mice in his sleep. Some days the only sounds I heard were my own voice and the clicking of Vincent’s nails on the stone floor. Every few days a servant would bring a plate of cold food and another jug of wine. I had no problem drinking while “pregnant” because the fetus wasn’t real. I kept the fire burning and was only cold in the mornings when the fire had died out. Soon my clothes, hair, and skin smelled like campfire. Even Vincent’s ears smelled of smoke when I nuzzled him.
Jacob kept me supplied with firewood but he didn’t say much. I thanked him for his note, but he didn’t reply. For weeks, he glared at me as if I were a total stranger. Perhaps his crush had been crushed by my growing pregnancy.
The long winter months were, not surprisingly, free from thunderstorms. I no longer needed them to switch places with Blanche; I would live in this fantasy, and she could have my life.
One morning, I remembered something funny. Queen Mary, Eli
zabeth’s sister, had been desperate to give birth to an heir once she married France’s King Philip. Eventually, she announced that she was with child and would give birth in May of 1555. When the announced date arrived, the country celebrated to hear of the birth…except that there had been no birth. It was just a rumor. Mary remained secluded through May, then June, then July, insisting the baby would come soon. Finally, by August it was clear to even Mary that the pregnancy hadn’t been real. That was likely why I’d created my own false pregnancy. Instead of a child swelling my belly, it was probably just gas.
By mid-December, I could tell I’d gained at least ten pounds. I was exhausted all the time. By January, I carried a basketball under my loose dresses. My skin itched, my legs cramped constantly, and I found it hard to breathe. I managed to visit the pond a few times, gasping at the shock of cold as I sank into the water. But after a while I decided that staying clean didn’t matter and stopped going. Besides, it was lonely there without Meg.
I slept well. But now and then, when a howling wind rattled my windows and reached cold fingers through the slender cracks in my walls, I would lie awake and try to conjure up Meg again. This was my fantasy, damn it, and I wanted her back.
The very next day came a knock on my door that I knew would be food. When I opened the door, there stood Meg, bundled up in a heavy coat and hat! My heart leapt into my throat until I realized—No, not Meg. Harriet.
She entered and put the bowl and jug on the table. “Do you require anything else, m’lady?”
The voice was the same. The body was the same. But the spirit, the soul, the spark of who Meg was, had disappeared. Despite that, I frantically searched for a topic that would keep her with me longer.
“Harriet, you have been to a different place, haven’t you?”
Her eyes skittered around the room. “Different place, m’lady?”
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