The Alyssa Chronicle

by Michael Strelow

  But not Eugenie. Before she left to go back to the castle, she said, “Those people are not what they seem. I mean, I can feel the difference. Can’t you?” Well, I couldn’t. I saw what I saw, but there was probably a good explanation for all of it. We were too far away to see the water coming out; she was only giving a little to each plant, so the water lasted a long time; the evening light is always a little strange—everyday! Eugenie could see that I wasn’t ready to believe what she called “the difference.” I guess my face showed it pretty clearly.

  “Okay. You don’t see what I see,” Eugenie said.

  “I think since I was raised on a farm, I’m ready to explain real things even when they seem strange. We had a calf once with six legs. No weirdness. It just happens sometimes. There was a crow that came to live in the barn and it talked. It said ‘Alyssa,’ and ‘June.’ My name and a cow’s it called out every day for about three months, and then it was gone.”

  Eugenie rolled her eyes, waved at me and was off up the road back to the castle. I worked my way through the small woods and out into our field. I was feeling a little bad about not going along with Eugenie’s wonder at the power of the old woman. I could have been better about my friend’s excitement. It was later I found out how right she was.

  The big storms came every few years, so everyone on farms knew what to do. If the field was full of ripe wheat, you tried to get it cut as soon as possible. If the wheat wasn’t ripe, there was nothing to do but shrug your shoulders, pick your teeth and wait for the long stalks to get flattened. Lots of wheat would be lost after the storm flattened the field, but what could you do? My father always said you could pray. Or you could get mad at the sky or you could go do something else. That was where his shrug would come in as he set off to mend fences.

  The clouds would build in the west like great gray giants peeking over the horizon. And then another one would peek over the top of the first and then another and another until they built an immense pile of gray straight up. And the wind would stop. The birds would grow quiet. Then came something in the air like a thickness, like when my mother stirred flour and water into a soup to give it body. That was what she called it, “body.” A soup without body, she claimed, was water with vegetables in it. The air would grow body like my mother’s soup, a big gray thickening in the west. And the birds would not only go quiet but were suddenly nowhere to be seen. Where did they go? I bet Jake knew their secret hiding places.

  So one of these storms was cooking on the horizon by the time I got home, the first part, anyway, when the dark clouds build on each other. Eugenie knew these storms too, of course, but only from the castle where the reaction was shuttering windows and caring for nervous horses. Her first storm on the farm, she told me, had been with ripe wheat when every walking-and-talking soul went into the field to save as much wheat as possible before the flattening winds swept in like dragon breath. Children and old people, too. Even some who couldn’t walk well or couldn’t cut and haul, sharpened blades and brought water to the thirsty.

  Eugenie did love her dragons when she was telling me stories. Never a real one but all the kinds of dragons that were useful in telling about wild or dangerous things. She’d once described Arbuckle and Jake as particular kinds of dragons.

  I wasn’t so quick to use dragons, but this storm as the light faded, did have the sun behind it, and instead of all gray, it glowed at the edges orange with yellow brightness along the clouds. If I was going to bring in dragons, this would have been the storm to do it. It was like fire and water had come together in the final hour of the day and had then added lightning to make the whole brilliant sky-soup glow and rumble.

  There was nothing we could do. My father rushed us to the barn to feed the animals something extra special to take their minds off the lightning and thunder. Then we bolted the barn door, locked the window shutters, gathered tools and waited. My father and mother claimed these rare storms cleared not only the air but also the minds of people. I couldn’t see how and never would, but I had learned to keep my doubt to myself. And anyway, my parents always said this about clearing the air and minds, not like it was something they could actually prove, but more like something they had grown used to repeating and repeating because it made them feel better. Or safer. Or just to say it because they always had said it. I understood that and went along with it. I also learned that there were some old things that I’d say too without even thinking about them. “Long thread, lazy girl.” That had been my favorite. I’d say that without even knowing what it was about. Then I finally figured out it meant that if you were sewing some tear or patching something, it would hold better if you used a couple short threads because each one held together separately and the patch wouldn’t fall off if one thread broke.

  The storm came dragons and all, and I thought of Eugenie in the castle. But more important, I thought of all the wedding preparations sitting out on the summer lawns waiting to be assembled. And I thought of the flower gardens for miles around waiting for what Eugenie called the “looting,” armies of servants with baskets to pick every last blossom for the state event that Arbuckle’s wedding had become. Not only would the wheat be flattened, but every flower with a long stem would join the wheat stalks splatted like wet hair after a bath.

  When the rain finally came, it came with wind that jabbered through the trees and around the barn corners like a hundred voices talking at once. In our farmhouse, we could hear the voices, but we just couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  In the castle, the voices would have so many corners to blow around that voices would turn to whistles and stomping feet and moaning. The slate roof would clatter. The gargoyles would sputter as rain ran off the tiles and shot out their mouths. I could picture Eugenie already longing for her garden. If she had been on the farm she would be out staking up flowers in the wild wind. But there in the castle, certainly she would sit thinking her gardener’s thoughts and looking out her window at the wall of rain.

  Before long we sat together again on our appointed garden bench. But wait. First you have to know that the old man and old woman’s garden, alone in the whole region, looked exactly the same after the storm as it had before. Not a petal had fallen, not a stem bent. Eugenie smiled when she saw it. I didn’t. It made no sense, and, as I said, I had a hard time with things that made no sense. Rain and wind had come to us all, but for some reason, or lack of reason, I think, had not fallen on this particular place as if some invisible dome had protected it. I know. I know. The way to explain it was magic. Magic old woman, witch or double witch! But I didn’t know what to think, but Eugenie didn’t want to talk about why. She just kept saying over and over that IT was going to happen and we had to be ready. IT indeed. What?

  “We might have to stand side by side and speak as one person,” Eugenie said. “The castle is completely crazy. They all think the wedding is going to bring everything together at once: the old ways, history of our people, the passing of the old ones and the rise of the new ones, some big change that will unite all of us under one banner and…” she paused and blew out through her pursed lips, “…and lots and lots of stuff I have no idea about. Some kind of joining and converging and something someone called ‘all the new and old gods combining to bless the State at the moment of Arbuckle’s wedding.’ Lots of hoping fors and expectings. And there was lots more stuff said by the old people at the castle that sounded to me after a time like boiling water or the noises the cows make when lots of gas comes out their back ends. Especially June.” And she laughed.

  But I couldn’t laugh with her, sitting in the shining garden that had enchanted its way out of the storm. The old man and old woman nowhere in sight but maybe everywhere. The great nodding heads of dahlias that didn’t grow old, of stalky delphiniums that didn’t need to be staked up. I felt like Arbuckle must have felt when everything had seemed out of whack (two girls, one face) but he hadn’t been able to say exactly what that was.

  Chapter Five

  T
he farm was running itself. Eugenie’s flower garden, like all the gardens in the area except one, was flattened by the storm. Representatives from the castle came around looking at the damage, writing things down, shaking their heads. They asked, politely I should add, if we could fix as much as possible, save what we could for the wedding. My father grunted his approval. “We’ll try,” was somewhere in the grunt. I decided that after my chores I would go to the castle, work a little disguise magic of my own and see if I could get in and help Eugenie. She must have a mess on her hands, I thought.

  So early afternoon I set out. I had used the fine clay from down at the creek to color my hair a lighter brown. I had dressed up in what I liked to think of as a sort of joke on the local customary dress that included tassels on my boots, small jingly bells around the cuffs of my blouse and a wide black belt. No one actually wore these all together but each one was somewhere in our little fashion landscape. The total effect, I thought, was something that the castle people might imagine if left on their own. I knew that the castle men and women paid very little attention to what the people working the farms wore. It was that old ladder: I’m up here; you’re down there. A pretty tiresome ladder since everything they ate and had—and were—came from the land, and we were the ones making the land give its bounty.

  In the castle, I always had to be careful bringing up this subject, but there was one place I could. I had a tutor who had learned very quickly that I wanted to be able to talk about and discuss things rather than just be told things. I had let him know early on that his job would last a lot longer if we could talk about ideas. And I included the sun and the moon and (for Eugenie) dirt and water. And, of course, how countries came to think about themselves, and how they told stories to help them remember who they were. And this way I brought up how the King and the Queen and each royal blood walking the hallways of the castle came from the land. That was one idea. And then I brought up lots of ideas that made him very uncomfortable. I had to admit I enjoyed it when he squirmed as I wondered aloud about the difference between my royal family’s blood and the stable boy’s: Could we see the difference? If we looked very closely? Better blood and worse blood? Was there better stuff in one than the other?

  I walked along my very familiar path toward the castle. Eugenie and I had nearly worn it out over time swapping places, switching lives. Very soon I jingled my way to the castle walls. I knew many ways in that did not involve guards. And also I knew that with the wedding coming, so many new people bustled about the castle that no one would bother about an extra girl with tassels on her boots. I used the garden door that Eugenie had recommended a long time ago, the door she had used to sneak out to work with the gardener when she was little.

  The door was small and wooden and made so you had to duck to get through without hitting your head. Eugenie thought they had made it that way as a kind of safety feature. No attacking soldiers could get through easily. The gardener would get used to it. But they didn’t suspect how much of a door to delight it had become for Eugenie. She told me that even the crack at the bottom, the way the light glittered there, made her feel shivery delicious all over. Because every day she was allowed to play in the garden was like some kind of special tasty dessert to her. So the door, the light, the pegs to hang her dirty clothes, these had all become part of the dessert feeling too.

  I waited to make sure no stray gardener or workman was near the door and crept in. Immediately the smell of the castle surrounded me. And I started to wonder first, what Eugenie would think of me showing up, and second, what I could do in a short time.

  The door creaked. Voices outside, the banging of tools. I eased down the hall and the head gardener came in out of the bright light. I knew he wouldn’t be able to see very much until his eyes got used to the dark. I scurried deeper into the castle and waited in the shadow of a lower hallway. Whomever I met would be the first test of my disguise. I kept my head down. My bells jingled. Not much of a chance to really sneak anywhere with my bells on. There was bundle of painted sticks—I had no idea what they were for—so I picked them up. Now I had an excuse to be wandering the halls. I would say I was taking the sticks to the…to the wedding garden. They were for the… I wouldn’t really have to explain what they were for, I guessed. I’d just say some one told me to take them to the garden and leave them there after they were finished. That should do it. Unfinished painted sticks. Nice ones, too. Taking them somewhere for someone. I was all set to go.

  I couldn’t be sure where Eugenie was, but I knew some obvious places to look. With each set of stairs and new hallway, I climbed out of the lower castle into the royal section. Still, no one tried to stop me. And then.

  “Where are you going with those sticks?” asked an ancient maid. I knew her well. This was going to be a test.

  I kept my head down at first, trying to help my disguise. But I quickly realized the old woman fell for the clothes immediately. I was, for her, clearly from the country and needed her direction.

  “I was told to bring these up the main hall and then wait. Someone is supposed to come and tell me what to do with them.” I set down the stick bundle and leaned it against the stone wall.

  With each stairway going up, the castle smelled better and better. I had begun the practice of perfuming the walls below so the sweet lavender rose up the stairs and lightly scented the halls and wall hangings. Eugenie had sniffed when I mentioned it. She confessed to liking the slightly bitter smell of the castle as you went lower until near the door the walls smelled like nasturtiums—nose twisters, flowers that stink. I thought she liked it because when the smell was the strongest, she was about to go out into her beloved garden.

  I waited while the maid decided what to do with me. I trusted that all the unusual traffic of the past months had opened my way to go anywhere. The maid harrumphed, and even snorted a little, while she thought. Finally, she allowed that I should do as I was told and take my sticks wherever it was I supposed to go.

  “Yes, madam.” I made the country-mistake on purpose. Maids weren’t called madam. She rolled her eyes as she thought she ought to. And I confess I loved playing the part of myself, the farm girl, though I knew very well all the right castle moves too. Something about being one thing inside the other and fooling around with the world. Well, it just made me want to giggle.

  I picked up my sticks and carried them to the next gatekeeper. This younger maid I knew very well, so I changed my voice the best I could. Again, I put the sticks down, leaning them against wall, and made my case that someone told me to take them somewhere. And I was set free again. I almost did giggle that time.

  I worked my way to where I thought Eugenie was. This was the first time both of us had been in the castle at the same time. And there was only a certain amount of disguise possible if we somehow got caught standing side by side. On the farm all this was easier. Maybe because the barn and Jake and the fields were the perfect scene for the disguise to work. But here, I crept along carrying my silly sticks as a disguise. I supposed I could hold them up and peer through them as if I were looking out of a grove of very skinny trees. Again my inclination to giggle tickled up my nose, but I kept it down. The next hallway was dark but familiar.

  Here was where I had carried out my mouse experiments. Live mouse, dead mouse, all in the name of teaching the kingdom how bad the water had become. I smiled to myself remembering the smell of the sick castle, the dull eyes and groaning.

  My sticks had now become a clumsy burden, but I couldn’t get rid of them just yet. I might need them one final time. And, just then, Corrine came around the corner, and up went my sticks. She had known Eugenie all her life—nanny, social coordinator, and often substitute mother. Corrine stopped dead in her tracks.

  “You there. Where are you going with those? They belong in the garden.”

  I made my voice as scratchy and low as possible, like I was afraid to talk. “I was just—just looking for someone to approve…that is, to say if these were okay. Someone tol
d me to get approval from the castle…people…the, I think, people who…approve these. The colors.” I held the sticks up for inspection in the dark hallway, and Corrine insisted I bring them into the light. And then it happened. For a long, long moment she stared at me through the poles as if trying to make out the person on the other side. Was she looking at the poles or me? I could hardly breathe. Maybe this was it, the time when everything collapsed. But, you know what? She was looking at the poles! She was inspecting the paint on the poles, carefully going over the order of the colors. Colors and the order of colors were very important, I had learned. I hadn’t thought of it until just then: castle colors on top, then in order of ancient names each color descended from there down to the lowest pale green of a small, new part of the kingdom in the west. Corrine was running down the color code in her head, moving her lips as she seemed to read the order. The magic word I had said was, “colors.”

  “Fine. Fine,” she said, finally. “Those are correct. Take them to whoever sent you. I would like to clear up these, and these. Make those separations clearer. Do those over. The rest are fine.” And she babbled on about duty and correctness and the power of tradition. I began to breathe again, peeking through the sticks, trying to keep the sticks in the light and me out of it. “Go, go. And be quick.” She waved me away like sweeping a cobweb from a windowsill.

  I had got past her to find Eugenie. But now I had to go back the way I came toward darker and danker. Looking for a new way, I wondered if there was another disguise I could use, so I could get rid of the sticks. And then it came to me—the kitchen.

  I had spent enough time in the kitchen to bother the Queen. She said she didn’t want me consorting there. That’s how she put it: “consorting.” As if I would lose my whole princess business by hanging around with lesser creatures. But what I had been there for in the first place was for all the wonderful secrets those “creatures” knew. They knew not only the sauce secrets but the vegetable-into-flowers secrets and the way to make meats perfect and juicy. So many secrets, that was why I’d hung out there.