“A rescue effort?” said Georgie. “Certainly you’re not suggesting King William defy Mary Mary’s demands when she holds the queen’s life in her hands.”
“What she’s demanding is something we don’t have, so we’ve really got no choice, as I see it,” said Elspeth.
“I’ve been thinking that perhaps we could raise the money,” Georgie offered.
“Raise six million pence by Sunday? Just exactly what did you have in mind?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Georgie, suddenly very disinterested in making eye contact. “Haven’t really thought about it.”
“Tell her,” said Gene.
“Stay out of this,” snapped Georgie.
“A bake sale,” said Gene with a snicker. “That’s his great plan. To raise one million sixpence with a bake sale.”
“And a raffle,” Georgie snorted.
“How about a lemonade stand?” Gene taunted. “Have you thought of that?”
“Maybe. Anyway, I don’t see you coming up with better ideas.”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of ideas, you can count on that,” said Gene. “Still working out the details, that’s all.”
The bickering continued until it became nothing more than noise to Elspeth and the drone ceased only when they happened upon an old friend, standing just off the path.
“Hola, señorita,” said Manuel, a sprawling willow tree whose plentiful leaves had at one time provided cover for the encampment that Elspeth’s friends had been forced to call home. “Good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Manuel.” Elspeth gave the tree a hug, and Manuel responded by wrapping his branches around her.
“It gets pretty lonely out here since everybody left,” he said. “I wish you could come by more often.”
“So do I,” said Elspeth. “And I wish I could stay and chat. But in case you haven’t heard, the queen’s been kidnapped by Mary Mary and taken off to the Thick.”
If trees had knees, Manuel’s would surely have buckled at the news. “That is most terrible,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do—”
“Perhaps you could send a message across the forest and into the Thick,” said Georgie. “It would be helpful to know if any of the trees there have seen her.”
“I can try,” said Manuel. “But those trees in the Thick are not like those of us here. Like Mary Mary herself, they’re not to be trusted.”
With a promise to give his best regards to all in Banbury Cross, Elspeth bid Manuel good-bye, and she and the others continued down the path until they stepped out onto the dry plain of Torcano Alley, so called for the fact that it was a hot spot for torcanoes—a combination tornado/volcano that could appear at a moment’s notice and sweep across the land at an alarming speed, destroying all in its path.
The earth along this stretch was scarred with wide, magma-filled crevasses from which the torcano would arm itself by pulling up the molten rock with its powerful vortex. On her initial visit to New Winkieland, Elspeth had nearly been killed by a torcano, not once but twice.
It sure would be helpful, she thought, if she could enter New Winkieland somewhat closer to the castle, but instead she arrived each time in the middle of the forest, on the far side of Torcano Alley.
The three travelers stood for a moment, looking left, then right like children preparing to cross a busy street. It was an exercise in futility considering the miles-wide expanse of the plain and the speed with which a torcano can appear, completely independent of atmospheric conditions and regardless of whether you really hope that it won’t.
“Should be okay,” said Georgie, more to himself than to the others. “It’s nearing the end of the heavy season. All the same, we’d better make haste.”
Zigzagging around the wider cracks and skipping over the narrower, they made good time. Gene’s horrible singing served to distract them from the possibility of a worse fate.
In just over an hour they crossed the alley without the slightest hint of a torcano and now had only to scale the switchback trail of the red cliffs to be completely out of danger, at least as it pertained to lava-filled tornadoes.
Whereas a path through a forest grows more passable with repeated use, a switchback trail up a cliff made of dry, crumbly dirt becomes less so as wind, rain, the occasional torcano, and the drag of heavy, tired feet eat away at it bit by bit. The path had eroded and narrowed so much that Elspeth was thankful to have a walking stick, even one that had finally stopped singing and had suddenly begun rapping instead.
“My name is Gene. Yo. I’m long and lean. Yo. I’ve got heart, but I haven’t got a spleen. Whoa.”
“Something’s just now occurred to me,” grunted Georgie as he struggled to keep up with his much younger traveling companion. “Those brief few moments when he was unconscious were among the happiest of my life.”
“Some people have no appreciation for the arts,” Gene retorted.
“Not true,” said Georgie. “For instance, I love wood carving.”
“That’s not helpful, Georgie,” Elspeth called back. Although to Georgie’s way of thinking it had been immensely helpful in that it had put a sudden end to the rapping. A pouting stick was a quiet stick.
Elspeth reached the top of the cliff and straightened up. Looking in the direction of the castle, she was glad to be greeted by a most pleasing sight. It was Fergus. With his full wingspan on display, the great horned owl made an impressive stamp upon a cloudless sky.
With a whoosh of displaced air, he glided down toward an old oak tree named Beatrice. Upon final approach, the bird wobbled and swayed and very nearly missed the branch of his intended landing altogether, barely catching it with the talons of his left foot, his downward momentum taking him to an inverted position where he hung beneath the limb like a large, feathered bat.
“Sorry, Beatrice old girl,” said the owl.
“No bark off my limbs,” the tree responded.
“Fergus,” Elspeth sputtered. “How did you . . . ? I mean, they said . . .”
“Said I would never fly again,” Fergus finished as he dropped from the branch and fluttered to the ground at Elspeth’s feet. “I guess I showed them a thing or two.”
In a selfless attempt to rescue Elspeth from King Krool’s dungeon, Fergus had suffered devastating injuries to his left wing by way of a guard’s lance—wounds that had left him earthbound and declared unfit for flight.
“Of course,” Fergus continued, “I can only turn to the left, which requires a lot of extra circling in the event that I need to turn right. And my landings are still a bit on the rough side.”
“Yes, I noticed that,” said Elspeth. “Would you like a ride back to the castle?”
“Thank you,” said Fergus, and he fluttered up and landed clumsily on Elspeth’s right shoulder. From that position, Elspeth could not see his face and the sudden serious look upon it.
“On behalf of the king, thank you for coming,” he said. “As you know, the situation is quite dire, and we’re grateful for your pledge to help.”
“Of course I had to come,” said Elspeth. “And don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”
“I have every confidence in you.”
Georgie trudged to the landing and immediately bent forward, resting his hands upon his knees.
“Welcome back, Georgie,” Fergus offered. “How did you find the journey?”
“Wet,” said Georgie. “And annoying.” He punctuated this by casting a glance in Gene’s direction.
“I heard that,” said Gene.
“Please,” Elspeth implored. “We still have a long walk to the castle. And if you could just stop griping at each other, it would give Fergus and I a chance to talk.”
“Fergus and me,” said Fergus, quickly reminding Elspeth that the owl could be both warmly endearing and incredibly tiresome when it came to matters of grammar. “You simply take the other person out of the sentence and . . .”
“Yes, yes,” said Elspeth. “I know how it w
orks. I just misspoke, that’s all.”
“Excuse me,” said Gene. “If you two could quit griping at each other it would give Georgie and me a chance to talk.”
“Oh, quiet,” said Elspeth. “Now come on, let’s go.” She stomped ahead so abruptly that Fergus almost teetered from his perch.
“King William offers his sincerest apologies that he was not able to meet you in person,” said the owl. “But since the queen’s abduction he barely has the strength to get out of bed in the morning.”
“I can imagine how worried he is,” said Elspeth. “Truth is, I’m worried too. This Mary Mary sounds like a terrible person.”
“You’ve no idea,” said Fergus. “In addition to being quite the embodiment of evil, she has command of all the beasts of the Thick. They do her bidding out of fear.”
“You mean the Great Spiny Gleekin is afraid of her?”
“And only her. Beyond that, it has no natural enemy. Then again, neither does she.”
Mary Mary, spiteful, scary
How do you bring such woe?
With awful smells and wicked spells
And hideous creatures in tow.
Chapter
4
On the day the queen went missing and on every day since, King William had ordered the flag on the castle’s East Tower to be flown at half-staff, though on this particularly still afternoon it did little flying and, instead, hung from the flagpole shapeless and slack, words that could easily be used to describe the king himself lately.
“Oh, what’s taking them so long?” he wailed as he shuffled about his sleeping chambers, still in his pajamas, his chin prickly with a four-day growth of stubble. The skin of his bald head was chafed from running his hands back and forth across it simply because he knew not what else to do.
Near to the king stood two mice, one brown and one gray, watching him with looks of great concern. As the king’s personal attendants, Earl Grey and James Brown had seen, up close, his steady and continual descent into despair. They had seen it up close because, being extremely visually impaired, that’s the only way they could see anything.
“What do you think?” James Brown whispered to Earl Grey as Winkie continued his lamentations. “He doesn’t look well. Blurrier than usual. Should we call Dr. Foster?”
Winkie fell face-first onto his bed and groaned into his pillow.
“He’s already been seen by the doctor,” said Earl Grey. “He’s given His Highness more pills than Old MacDonald’s got pigs. He says there’s really nothing more he can do.”
“I have another idea,” said James Brown. “Pardon me, Your Majesty.”
Winkie lifted his face from the pillow and turned his head slowly in James Brown’s direction. “What is it?”
“It occurs to me that His Highness is quite distraught. Perhaps a little levity is in order. After all, laughter is the best medicine. Should I summon the court jester?”
“Oh, that’s a marvelous idea,” said Winkie. He rolled over and sat up quickly. If he had been closer to the mice, they would have seen the unsteady look in his eye. “The love of my life has been kidnapped by an evil witch who has threatened to turn her into a muskrat unless I come up with a million sixpence by Sunday. Let’s see, what could possibly cheer me up? Oh, I know. How about a clown juggling bowling pins while riding a unicycle? Yes, that’s just the ticket.”
James Brown gently cleared his throat. “To the best of my knowledge the jester’s unicycle is in the shop,” he said. “But I hear he has some new pratfalls that are said to be the absolute height of buffoonery.”
“I believe His Majesty was being sarcastic,” whispered Earl Grey.
“Of course I was being sarcastic!” said Winkie in a voice quite large for a man the size of a table lamp. He climbed off the bed and walked to the window, looking out across the village and beyond to the forest in the distance. “There’s only one thing that’s going to cheer me up, and that’s the safe return of the queen.”
Just then a third mouse, plump and stark white, scurried into the room. “Good news from the sentries, Your Highness,” said Barry White. “Lady Elspeth approaches the village.”
With another look out the window, Winkie was able to confirm this. There was Elspeth, just passing beyond the wall to the city. Immediately the king began moving with a sense of urgency and a level of energy not seen in days. “Quickly,” he said, his demeanor approaching manic. “Get me my shirt. And my pants. And those other things.” He snapped his fingers several times, urging his brain to come up with the right word. “You know, the ones you wear on your feet.”
“Socks?”
“Yes, socks. Come on now. I can’t be expected to receive our honored guest without proper footwear.”
The three visually impaired mice rushed to gather the king’s pants, shirt, and those things you wear on your feet. They worked frantically to try and make him presentable in the time it would take for Elspeth to walk from the edge of the village, across the drawbridge, and into the castle’s throne room.
Though he practically threw on his clothes, Winkie determined there was no time for a shave, so he simply splashed his face with water from a ceramic basin and dried it on the curtains. “There,” he said. “How do I look?”
“As though you have your pants on inside out,” said Earl Grey.
“And upside down,” added James Brown.
“Argh,” snarled Winkie, quickly peeling them off and angrily stuffing his legs back into the properly oriented pants. “There. Now how do I look?”
“Like a million sixpence,” said Earl Grey.
Like a million sixpence (or six million pence) is the way Elspeth felt each and every time she arrived at Banbury Cross. To be both hailed as a hero and greeted as a friend was the best anyone could ever hope for, she thought. Villagers rushed from their cottages bearing gifts and warm wishes, and soon Elspeth found herself being ushered down the cobblestones and toward the castle like a sailboat pushed along by a breeze of pure joy and enthusiasm. And though she had just arrived, the thought of having to leave again was already weighing heavily upon her. How could she go back to the Deadlands? With so much love and so much life, how could she? Why would she?
Because it was expected of her, that’s why. And to remain here would break Delores’s and Sheldon’s hearts. All parents claim they only want their children to be happy, but few would grant them that happiness at the expense of losing them to a stronger loyalty, or to a world so removed from their own.
Elspeth pushed the thoughts from her head and returned to basking in the adulation of the growing throng while Georgie fell farther behind, cut off by the surging masses. Fergus grew increasingly uncomfortable, and his grip on Elspeth’s shoulder was soon tight enough to cause discomfort.
“Easy now,” he directed the crowd. “No pushing. Give us some room here.”
Many of those who showed up to welcome Elspeth she had never met in person, while others she considered close friends and some, of course, were family.
Jack and Jill stood, side by side and hand in hand, near the castle gate. Though Elspeth could catch only brief glimpses of them among all the waving arms, she could see they were smiling as if they hadn’t stopped since the last time she’d seen them. Jill’s smile was tight-lipped but warm and soft, and Jack’s, like Elspeth’s, was wide, gap-toothed, and unabashed.
If it were possible to run to them she would have, but there were too many well-wishers with too many feet to trip over. In addition, autograph seekers shoved pencils and paper into her hands while others thrust babies toward her face so she would kiss them for good luck.
“Please,” pleaded Fergus, who was not terribly fond of babies. “Keep that thing to yourself. And refrain from pushing. Make way, I implore you.”
“You’re being too polite,” shouted Gene. “Let me show you how it’s done. Hey! Listen up, losers! Big-time celebrities here. VIPs coming through. Audience with the king. Back off.”
Gene’s less than pol
ite methods proved no more effective, and soon Fergus, feeling claustrophobic and in danger of suffering another wing injury, took to the air. When Elspeth finally reached Jack and Jill she hugged each in turn the way she had tried to hug her parents back home, but that always felt forced and unnatural. Not because she didn’t love her adoptive parents. They were wonderful people who had provided her with food, shelter, and the only kind of love they themselves had ever known. It was a brand of love that was cautious and dosed out in carefully measured amounts.
On the other hand, her love for Jack and Jill and theirs for her was, like Jack’s smile, unbridled and seemingly limitless, with nothing to get in the way of it. Unlike Delores, Jill seemed to pay little attention to her physical appearance. She wore no makeup, her hair was short and sometimes combed, and her clothing was as rumpled as Delores’s was neatly pressed and perfectly matched.
And while Sheldon spent much of his life in the pursuit of money and locked in the doldrums of not having enough of it, Jack was every bit as poor yet seemed to be entirely unbothered by the fact. He worked as a garbage collector and had no career ambitions other than earning a decent living. His wife worked as a nurse, and, standing next to each other, they smelled vaguely of rubbing alcohol and trash.
“You’re getting to be quite the celebrity around here,” said Jack.
Elspeth rolled her eyes. “If I have to kiss one more baby, I think I’m going to scream.”
Jill smiled and held Elspeth at arm’s length in order to a have a full look at her daughter. “You’ve cut your hair,” she said. “And you seem so much taller.”
“It’s only been three weeks,” said Elspeth.
“Three weeks in your world,” Jack reminded her.
It was true that time in the Deadlands did seem to move much more slowly than it did in New Winkieland. Though Elspeth’s first visit here lasted several weeks, upon her return home she discovered she’d only been gone for ten minutes. It was as close as one could get to immortality, cramming weeks of living into mere minutes.
“I’m only sorry it took the queen being kidnapped to bring you back to us once more,” said Jill.
Long Live the Queen Page 3