Crown of York

by Charlotte Byrd

  He changed her name to Eleanor on their wedding day. It is forbidden for me and everyone else to use the name Isla, but she will always be Isla to me.

  Spunky and feisty and a little dangerous, Isla once showed me how to practice kissing someone on my arm. She looks up at me one last time before she disappears around the corner.

  I realize that I don’t know that woman anymore. As a stepmother with seven children and one on the way, she is a stranger. It’s not because she’s a mother or the fact that she has so many kids. She’s a stranger because living at York for so many years, she has become a shell of the person she was once.

  I see her body.

  I see her face.

  But I no longer see her spirit. She used to have this enthusiasm for life, an excitement that she could never contain.

  But it’s gone now.

  Probably for good.

  I have not seen Isla in a long time and I wonder how long it will be before I see her again. She is no longer the Queen, just a Queen. The title of the Queen belongs to my father’s most recent wife. But she retains her seniority.

  Just like with everything else here, my father’s wives have rules which guide their behavior. Prior to marriage, they all wore short dresses, strapless bikinis, and high heels, but not now.

  Now, they are his property and no one is to see them as he sees them.

  They are no longer allowed to show any skin and have to wear clothes that cover them up from head to toe. They even have to wear a shawl over their hair.

  They are also mainly sequestered to another part of his house. While Abbott and I have free reign of the place, my father’s wives barely exist. Everything is brought to them in their chambers and they rarely venture outside.

  I wish there was something I could do to help them, but what? This place is bigger than all of us. The darkness that resides here will be the end of all of us one day.

  Despite my better judgement, I can’t help but head back to the main house. I want to get a glimpse of Everly, if only for a moment. I can’t explain anything about what I did or why I did it. I seduced her on someone’s orders. I did it to save her life. Or at least, prolong it temporarily.

  There are certain things in life, you just have to do.

  Even if they are futile.

  And stupid.

  And unlikely to result in a desirable outcome.

  There are things you just have to do, just because.

  When I get to the front door, I don’t bother knocking. Instead, I open the door and head upstairs. I know which room is hers. When I get to her door, I pause. A pang of fear rushes through me. What will I see on the other side?

  I knock lightly.

  “Who is it?”

  “Easton.”

  She doesn’t say anything for a moment and then the door opens.

  Everly is dressed in a long sleeping gown and a thin silk robe. Her eyes meet mine.

  “Come in,” she says coldly.

  “Everly…I wanted to talk to you,” I say. I need to apologize, but the words don’t come.

  “How can I help you?” she asks, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  There’s a darkness emanating from her, the kind that follows disappointment.

  “You have to understand,” I start to say.

  “Yes?”

  “You have to understand that I wanted to spend the night with you.”

  She nods.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I do,” she says, clenching her jaw.

  She doesn’t.

  Of course, she doesn’t.

  But what can I say?

  How can I explain this without actually explaining this?

  “Your father was kind enough to inform me about everything that is going on here,” she says after a moment.

  “He did?”

  “He said that you were ordered to do what you did.”

  I nod.

  “Well, he’s the King. So, I understand.”

  “So…what about now?”

  “Easton, I don’t know what you want from me,” she says after a moment. “I’m here to participate in a contest. A contest, I have the feeling that I have to win. Whatever happened between us was just part of the game, right?”

  “Right,” I mumble. What else is there to say?

  “Well, good. Thank you for coming. I’m sure that I will see you around.”

  She ushers me toward the door.

  “And you’re not…mad?”

  “Mad? No, of course not,” she says, closing the door in my face.

  So, why don’t I believe you? I ask under my breath and walk away.

  Frankly, I don’t know why I even bothered. How did I expect this meeting to go?

  At the bottom of the stairs, I see Mirabelle, my father’s trusted advisor and assistant. She has been with him for years.

  “Oh, hello sir, it’s very nice to see you,” she says loudly.

  I nod and try to make my way past her. But suddenly, her arm brushes against mine and I hear her clear her throat.

  “You need to stay away from her,” she whispers under her breath while covering her lips with her hand. “If you want to protect her, stay away from her.”

  Chapter 4 - Everly

  When there’s a knock on my door…

  The thing about captivity is that there’s this tendency to reach out and try to hang onto anyone who shows you a meager amount of kindness.

  Your decisions aren’t your own.

  Your life belongs to someone else.

  You are powerless.

  And then, when someone comes along and shows you that maybe you do have a friend, maybe you can trust someone, you tend to believe them.

  You tend to go out of your way to trust them.

  But why?

  I sit in my room at the desk and put these words onto paper.

  There’s something about writing that crystalizes my thoughts. It puts all the chaos that is swirling in my head into organized concrete ideas. It’s funny to say this, but I often don’t even know that I’m thinking about something until I begin to write. Then as the words start to flow out of me, they form an opinion and suddenly I come to an understanding of what it is I’m thinking.

  So, why is it that I was so eager to give my heart to Easton?

  He had helped me a few times, but he had also betrayed me. The truth is that I don’t really know anything about him.

  He told me some story about a woman he loved and showed his vulnerabilities.

  But what did that mean anyway?

  Maybe that was a lie, just like everything else here? Everything about York is just one big deceit.

  I have to be stronger from now on. I have to play the game, just like they are playing a game, that is if I want to win. And to play the game right, I have to have the element of surprise on my side.

  There’s a knock on my door.

  When I open it, I see him.

  Easton.

  His head is hanging low. His eyes are refusing to meet mine. He knows that I know.

  He is here to apologize, make amends.

  Or maybe this is just another move in the game?

  I take a deep breath and put on a metaphorical mask. I will not let him see my true feelings. I will keep him out.

  We exchange words for a few minutes. I keep my head high and my chin pointed toward the ceiling. Nothing he says will make the proud expression on my face wane or change in any way.

  “And you’re not…mad?” Easton asks. I stare at him.

  Mad is beyond what I am right now.

  My whole body is tingling from rage. It’s building deep inside my core and spreading to the extremities. But again, I don’t show one bit of this. Not a single molecule of my rage escapes from within me.

  “Mad? No, of course not,” I say and shut the door in his face.

  As soon as I’m alone in the room, tears start to stream down my face. Each one is hot, fueled by the fire coming from the pit of my sto
mach.

  How could he ask me that?

  How could he toy with me like that?

  Why didn’t he apologize?

  Why did he even come here if he wasn’t going to say he’s sorry?

  No, no, no.

  Get a hold of yourself, Everly.

  You are better than this.

  Stronger than this.

  Easton is an illusion.

  You don’t know the first thing about him. Or this place. It is very possible that he is more cruel and cunning than Abbott.

  What if he is only playing the part of a nice guy?

  What if that’s part of his act?

  No, from now on, I will trust no one but myself. I will rely on no one but myself.

  I will assume that everyone here has an agenda, including me.

  What’s my agenda?

  To survive.

  By any means possible.

  I put down the pen. Yes, that’s right. Of course, that’s right. I have to survive.

  I mean, what’s the alternative? Death?

  That option will be there no matter what.

  And I'm sure that it will come soon enough.

  But for now, I have to fight.

  The thing about life is that it’s all about perspective, isn’t it? I have seen the worst of York down in the dungeons. Now, imprisonment up here doesn’t seem that bad.

  My body may still not be entirely my own, but there are no chains, or groups of men, or the screams.

  Everything here is civilized.

  A civilized kind of captivity, if you will.

  Given what I’ve been through, I can make it here.

  I don’t know if I can make it all the way, but I have to give it my best shot.

  I look at four pieces of paper which I filled up with my lackluster handwriting - ugly small loops, lazy half-finished words - basically, scribbles. I’ve always wanted to have that beautiful handwriting you see in nineteenth century letters. Each loop of the pen painstakingly loved and adored.

  But for that, I would need to have time and patience. And when the words are gushing out of me, I have neither.

  Suddenly, something occurs to me.

  These pieces of paper are the only things that I own in this whole place.

  I don’t own any of the clothes or the shoes or the makeup.

  Frankly, I don’t even own my body. But these pieces of paper are mine.

  The words that I have written on them have transformed this generic notepad with the House of York stamp at the top into something precious; my story.

  I press the paper to my chest and cherish the moment.

  It’s too bad I can’t hold onto them.

  No one can see what I have written and there’s only one way to keep my thoughts safe. Ripping the pages up and tossing them away in the trash is not enough.

  I fold each piece in half and then in half again. I then rip it along the creases.

  The paper is thin and it rips fast.

  I put pieces of it in my mouth and swallow, chasing them down with gulps of water.

  Now, my thoughts are safe.

  Part 2

  Chapter 5 - Everly

  When I’m surprised…

  We have dinner downstairs, family style. A chef is brought in to cook the food and waiters are there to serve it. We sit at one long table with a white tablecloth draped over it. Elegant and expertly designed centerpieces grace the middle, equal distances from each other.

  I don’t know much about flowers, but they look like lilies to me. Each stalk is wrapped in baby’s breath. Waiters are making their way around with bottles of wine and champagne. I find my name plate, or rather, number plate, and sit down. My friend Paige waves at me from across the table and I nod back.

  I’m glad she isn’t sitting right next to me. I find it difficult to meet new people when I already have someone to talk to. And I need to make an effort to get to know the others.

  “Hi, I’m Olivia,” the girl next to me whispers.

  “I’m Everly,” I whisper back. “Aren’t we supposed to go by numbers?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t really like that much.”

  “Me neither.”

  While we dig into our salads, I find out that Olivia is a fellow Pennsylvanian. She grew up in Pittsburgh, in a wealthy enclave called Fox Chapel, where the Heinz family still has a home. She graduated from the best private school in the area and even boarded there the last two years of high school when her parents took off on an extended world cruise.

  “Did you mind doing that?” I ask her.

  “No, not at all. It was actually kind of cool. The boarders had the run of the place after school and it felt a lot like living in a dorm.”

  After graduating, Olivia went to Brown in Rhode Island and majored in English. She did her senior thesis on Elizabethan playwrights - “Not Shakespeare!” - as she pointed out.

  “You really don’t need to clarify,” I say with a smile on my face. “I actually took a free online course called Not Shakespeare from Oxford last summer.”

  “Really?” She sits up in her seat. I nod.

  “You know, not that many people know about anyone else from that time.”

  “Most people barely know about Shakespeare,” I laugh.

  For some reason, I’m unable to contain my arrogance in the presence of someone who shares my obscure interest.

  “Spenser’s Faerie Queen is one of my favorites,” I add.

  “I’m partial to Christopher Marlow’s work,” she adds and we both crack up laughing.

  I want to ask Olivia about how she ended up here, but I sense that the timing for this question isn’t quite right. I wouldn’t be able to tell her the truth about my story anyway.

  When Olivia gets up to use the restroom, I turn to the girl on the other side of me.

  Unlike Olivia, with her thick chocolate hair, Savannah has a much spunkier shoulder-length hairstyle. Her hair is the color of caramel and a perfect complement to her blue-green eyes.

  Savannah is taller than Olivia and me, with wide, toned shoulders and a long neck. She has full lips, which glisten in the light.

  “Where are you from?” I ask after I go over some sketches from my bio.

  “Boston. Well, Nantucket, but really Boston.”

  I laugh.

  “We spend summer on Nantucket, so all of my best memories are from there. Doesn’t that count as a place where you’re from?”

  I shrug. “I don’t really know. We spend a week on the Gulf Coast each summer, but I wouldn’t say I’m from Florida.”

  Her face tenses up and forms a little crease in between her eyebrows.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to offend you. I was just joking,” I say quickly. “I think I’ve had a few too many of these.”

  I raise my glass of white wine.

  “No worries. at all.” Savannah waves her hand at me. “Well, just for the record, my family has a house in Nantucket and we spend three months there every summer. Most of my friends are from there.”

  “Then it counts!”

  As we talk, I learn that Savannah’s father lost most of the family’s money a few years ago after a start-up that he had invested in heavily went under, and they had to declare bankruptcy. The house in Nantucket is no more. Along with the main house in Boston. Her parents divorced soon after, and her mom moved down to Miami to live with her own mother. She doesn’t know where her father is, but she suspects that he had to disappear if he wanted to keep a cent of his money.

  “So, you haven’t heard from him?” I ask. She shakes her head proudly.

  “Not once.”

  “And you think he’s still…okay?” I ask.

  I don’t want to use the word, dead, because it seems too morbid. Though this is, of course, a real possibility.

  “Occasionally, I get strange things in the mail. Little gifts from various places around the world. Like trinkets. A bracelet from Malta. A gold ring from Bhutan. Things like that. No ret
urn address. No message inside.”

  “So, that’s how you know it’s from him?”

  She nods.

  I want to ask her more, but it doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t want to talk about it so I drop it. When Olivia returns to the table, dessert is served. Tall, intricate chocolate cakes with little chocolate swirls on top. Each one is carried by individual servers and carefully placed in front of us.

  Thanking my server for mine, I glance at the one next to him. Our eyes meet and he quickly darts away.

  Wait a second.

  He looks just like him.

  No, that can’t be him.

  The man places the plate in front of Savannah and walks away without acknowledging me.

  “Jamie?” I whisper.

  Chapter 6 - Everly

  When I can’t believe my eyes…

  The server leaves so quickly I barely have a chance for another look, but I’m certain that it’s him. Jamie.

  What’s his last name again?

  I search my mind, but nothing comes up. I can’t remember.

  What I do remember is every outline of his face and the melodic texture of his voice.

  What I do remember is how sorry I felt that he was worrying about me after I had disappeared.

  What I do remember is he’s a liar and an asshole who is responsible for me ending up here.

  But why?

  Why did he do it?

  And what is he doing here now, working as a server?

  Who are you, Jamie?

  I know enough about this place to know that that’s probably not his real name.

  “I’ll be right back.” I gracefully excuse myself and make my way around the table.

  “You better come back quickly!” Paige yells after me. “Otherwise, I’m pretty sure that I’ll finish off your dessert along with mine.”

  Glancing back at her, I laugh. She’s not kidding. Her falling tower of chocolate is nearly gone and she has her eye on mine.

  The long black gown that I’m dressed in is uncomfortable. It’s binding my legs together and it’s so tight around my waist that it’s creating the illusion of a perfect hour-glass figure.