Protagonist Bound

by Geanna Culbertson

  The earrings were tiny and silver, and consistently reminded me of her. “Pumpkin” being what she’d always called me.

  It was a cute pet name. Once, when I’d asked her why she’d selected it, she told me that it was because pumpkins, like so many things in life, could become more than people give them credit for. An idea she believed she’d learned from personal experience.

  I didn’t argue that this was a nice thought. However, it was also one that perplexed me. After all, the people in our land submissively lived by the oppressive mandate that they couldn’t be anything besides what the Author had chosen. Ideas like change were beaten out of us from the very beginning. Example: in preschool I once told a teacher that when I grew up I was going to be a swordsmith who made blades by day and fought crime by night. And she’d responded by making me sit in the corner in a tiny throne facing the wall for the rest of the day—no recess, no talking, and tiara on at all times.

  That was just one of the more mild forms of punishment I’d endured over the years for my resistance to the norm. Everywhere I’d gone in life the idea of a static existence had been banged into me. Our rulers had perfected a world of safe, stable, tried and true standards of conduct. Thus, they insisted that change was a concept we should never humor, much less believe in.

  Still . . .

  Despite all of this, and the backlash I’d gotten over the years, I held on to the hopeful idea proposed by mother’s nickname just as firmly as I did the notion that it might well be false. Both thoughts hung from my head on a daily basis, just like the very earrings that represented their duality. And I concurrently dreaded and looked forward to the day when one of the two sentiments would reveal itself as truth.

  Placing the earrings on my nightstand, I kicked off my slippers as I hopped into bed.

  “Well, here comes another exciting school year,” Blue said sarcastically from across the room. She proceeded to bury herself under her comforter like an animal burrowing into its den. A moment later, SJ turned out the last light illuminating our room.

  “Sleep well, all,” she added.

  As if, I thought in response to both their statements. With that, I closed my eyes and wished for some peace of mind that I knew would never come.

  The PITs (Princesses-In-Training)

  “She could be useful.”

  “Perhaps. But as it stands she poses too much of a threat for us to take that risk.”

  “So how do you want to play this then?”

  “Simple. I want her removed from the game entirely . . .”

  shot up in bed as the voices in my head faded back into the shadows.

  Thankfully awake, I rubbed my eyes vigorously, as if to drive away any residue of the vicious dreams I’d just woken from.

  Exhausted and tense, I leaned my head back against my headboard. Morning had arrived far too quickly and way too suddenly—the shock of it coming head on like a beam bursting through my subconscious.

  That had not been pleasant.

  It’d been a few weeks since my last nightmare and, truth be told, I’d sort of hoped the restful streak would continue. Deep down, though, I’d known that it wouldn’t. Over the summer I had periods without horrid dreams, but for whatever reason, they came almost every night when I returned to school.

  As I sat there and mentally buried the anxiety produced by the strange visions and voices in my head, I saw that SJ and Blue were still asleep. While Blue’s face was barely visible beneath a pile of tangled sheets, SJ lay perfectly tranquil—a true sleeping beauty with not a wrinkle on her pillowcase.

  The peacefulness did not last much longer. A moment later, the mockingbird SJ employed to wake us up each morning flew through our open balcony doors and landed on her nightstand. He proceeded to make a high-pitched sound that filled the entire room like an alarm.

  Blue groaned—displeased at the arrival of morning—but SJ’s eyes simply fluttered open. “Good morning, little friend,” she cooed as she stroked the bird on his head. “That will be all. Thank you.”

  The mockingbird chirped happily, then took off back through the open doorway into the morning sunshine. SJ rose out of bed and stretched. She seemed way too well rested and had a calm contentment plastered on her face . . . That is, until she glanced over at me.

  “Are you all right?”

  She came to my bedside and instinctively put her hand to my forehead to check my temperature.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  I swatted her hand away and forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

  It was sweet of her to worry, but when you suffered from nightmares as often as I did, you got used to the side effects. Honestly, it was a much more rare morning that I didn’t wake up looking all sweaty and disoriented from being tormented while I slept.

  Like it did on most days, resiliency quickly swept over me and I took a deep breath. There was no time for sulking. I needed to get ready for school.

  I made my way into the bathroom as SJ went outside to greet her bird companions.

  “Crisa!” she suddenly shouted from outside.

  “SJ,” I groaned, “I said I was fine.”

  “No, no, come out here! You simply must see this!”

  “Stop yelling,” Blue grumbled as she burrowed further beneath her blankets.

  I yawned and made my way out onto the balcony to see what SJ was fussing about.

  “Look,” she said, gesturing all around us.

  I blinked, adjusting to the light, and then realized what she was so taken aback by.

  The vines—the same vines that had been in their last throes of death yesterday afternoon—were alive again. More than alive, they were practically emanating life. Each one was strong, thick, and full of vitality. Their bright green coloration contrasted beautifully against the magnificent lavender blossoms that flourished from the practically glowing, golden stamen sprouting along them.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  “What do you suppose it was?” SJ wondered aloud as she marveled at the sight.

  “Magic,” I mumbled.

  “What was that?”

  “Uh, magic,” I stuttered, gathering my thoughts. “It was probably the In and Out Spell. All that magic coming down over the grounds probably affected them.”

  “Yes. You must be right.”

  I shrugged. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

  “Breeeakfaaast. Now . . .” someone growled from behind us.

  We spun around and saw Blue—half-asleep, hair tangled in a giant fluff ball—with one of her sheets wrapped around her like a cape.

  “Blue, look,” SJ said, showing our groggy friend the amazing plants.

  Blue glanced right, glanced left, then yawned. “Yeah. Great flowers. But you know what’d be better? Waffles.”

  Ten minutes later, Blue got her wish and was delighted as ever when we sat down to breakfast in the banquet hall and found ourselves surrounded by a grand morning feast, including waffles.

  Between the strange miracle of the flowers on our balcony and the homemade blueberry scones I was now stuffing my face with, I was in a pretty good mood too. Actually, we all seemed to be back in our element today. Blue continued the reenactments of her action-packed summer ventures using forks and knives as visual aids, I ate too many pastries, and SJ casually read a copy of the Century City Summit Review from last spring.

  The Summit was an epically important meeting that the ambassadors of the twenty-six kingdoms in our realm (not including Alderon) held biannually at the realm’s capital, Century City. These two meetings were the only times of year when all of Book’s ambassadors were in one place. Thus, the purpose of the Summit was to give updates on each of the kingdom’s activities, discuss issues, form solutions, and then sign a treaty that renewed Book’s overall laws and its peace.

  The Century City Summit Review was the only news periodical allowed in our realm, and studying it before our first day of classes was very responsible and conscientious of SJ.
For me, though, reading a newspaper from several months ago was definitely not my breakfast time cup of tea. Instead, I focused my attention on Blue’s colorful stories, the heavenly blueberry scones, and a cup of coffee.

  It was, in summation, a surprisingly lovely morning. Even more surprisingly, the rest of the day went just as uncharacteristically smoothly.

  First up in our schedule of classes was the total snoozer known as “D.I.D.” a.k.a. Damsels in Distress.

  Our teacher for D.I.D. classes had been the same every year. Her name was Madame Lisbon, and she was a short, robust woman with rosy cheeks and blue eyes. She scuttled about excitedly wherever she went as if every room was a party and she was its hostess. And she seized every opportunity to correct unladylike behavior. Which, unfortunately, tended to emanate from my general direction.

  D.I.D. was one of the mandatory classes that all students had to take (not just the princesses). While I wouldn’t have ever inflicted this kind of torture on anyone, I was secretly glad that Blue was trapped in there with me so that later on she and I could mock our lessons together in the ways that SJ always restrained herself from doing.

  Since it was just the first morning of the semester, today Madame Lisbon actually decided to mix things up a bit from her usual didactic presentations. Instead of lecturing us on the basics of ladylike fainting, the whole class practiced fainting exercises for the duration of the period. This proved to be a sincerely nice change of pace, as my friends and I had a great deal of fun falling dramatically backward onto air mattresses for the better part of an hour.

  Potions class came next.

  We were a touch late getting there due to hallway traffic, but we managed to take our seats just as our instructor, Madame Alexanders, was distributing the last of the Potions: Level Six textbooks.

  “Now remember, ladies,” Madame Alexanders lectured, “potions are not a substitute for magic. They are a great deal like knock-offs—they are more of a gamble, not as strong, and do not last very long. But potions can still be quite powerful on their own and are extremely effective when combined with magic.”

  Madame Alexanders strode to the front of the room and picked up a piece of chalk. She wrote a paraphrased version of her statement on the blackboard, which the other students busily wrote down.

  Instead of taking notes, I used the moment to admire all of the glittering lab equipment and miscellaneous substances displayed across the room.

  The potions lab was one of the most colorful, fascinating places on campus. Walls were lined with shelves upon shelves of jarred ingredients—pickled this, freeze-dried that, bat fangs, white chocolate chips, rosemary sprigs, scorpion spit—basically a whole mess of weird stuff that was as diverse as it was grossly intriguing.

  Large crystal vats fashioned in the form of punch dispensers were spaced out along the back wall of the room, ready to dole out any number of fragrant liquid ingredients. Small cauldrons, mortar dishes, and wooden cutting planks filled the translucent cabinets behind Madame Alexander’s desk at the front of the class where the grand, floor-to-ceiling windows resided. And our own lab desks were always stocked with glass beakers, vials, and personal Bunsen burners of the highest variety.

  The tools of today’s experiment were lined up in front of us. One flask was filled with chunks of raw meat, another with cinnamon, another with dead moths, and the list went on randomly from there. Additionally, there were also vials filled with beautifully colored liquids that looked pretty enough to drink. Of course, there was a fairly good chance that half of them were toxic, so I didn’t test the theory.

  When our teacher finished writing she spun back around to face us and continued buoyantly pacing the room. “Ladies, who can give me a famous example of an extremely powerful combination of a potion with magic?”

  Various hands went up across the class in response, but not SJ’s.

  “The water lily that turned Prince Egot into a frog,” said Bonnie Rathers, a common protagonist from Harzana.

  “Very good,” Madame Alexanders responded. “But, bear in mind, class, that the majority of the enchantment in this case originates from the potion. It was the potion poured over the blossom that made the prince turn into a frog. The magic the witch used was only to preserve the blossom and keep it from ever wilting. Now then, can someone give me another example of magic combined with a potion?”

  “The apple that poisoned Snow White,” Mauvrey said smugly, shooting SJ a snide look from across the room.

  I gave her a death glare on behalf of my unresponsive friend.

  “Correct, Miss Weatherall.” Madame Alexanders nodded without noticing our tiff. “Though here we find a case opposite that of the Frog Prince’s water lily. Snow White’s apple was magically poisoned via the powers found at the Valley of Edible Enchantments. And it was a potion that enticed the princess to eat it, not the other way around. On that note, who can tell me the most famous and powerful combination of magic with a potion ever recorded in Book’s history?”

  None of the students raised their hands. After slight pause, SJ at last resigned to raising hers.

  I had to give her props for showing restraint for as long as she had. Although my dear friend did actually know it all when it came to potions, ever the polite one, she never assumed the role of a know-it-all. Until that instant, today, like all days, she had been kind enough to repress her urge to answer every question so as to give the other girls in our class a chance to impress the professor too.

  “The Sleeping Capsule spell,” SJ stated confidently when Madame Alexanders called on her. “A team of Fairy Godmothers created a complex sleeping potion to put the land of Tunderly to sleep when its princess, known today as Sleeping Beauty, fell victim to the bewitched spindle of a spinning wheel. The concoction not only kept Tunderly’s inhabitants asleep, but it also made time temporarily stand still so that when everyone awakened, it was as if nothing had happened. The Godmothers, meanwhile, used their combined magical powers to amplify this potion’s reach so that it would be projected indefinitely around the entire kingdom versus expiring after a few short hours.”

  I gave Mauvrey an additional snarky look that said, “Eat that, princess,” while the rest of my classmates scribbled in their journals.

  “Excellent, Miss Kaplan,” Madame Alexanders gushed. “Class, take note. As mentioned, many enchantments like the Sleeping Capsule spell would have still been possible without the use of magic; they just would not have been anywhere near as powerful or permanent. Potions this complex, however, require skill, time, and knowledge that few are ever able to possess . . .”

  From there, Madame Alexanders’s lesson continued for about another half an hour. Most of the info was pretty dry, and I would have been lying if I’d said I paid attention to all of it. Conversely, I was more than happy to participate in the hands-on lab exercise that followed.

  The assignment our professor had given us was to create a potion that changed the tones of our voices. Blue and I ended up concocting ones that made it sound like we had inhaled a very potent form of helium. We thought this was funny until SJ made one that caused her to sound like a middle-aged man and we almost died laughing.

  When our voices had tragically returned to normal, and our class had thankfully concluded, the three of us were halfway out the exit when Madame Alexanders asked if SJ would stay behind for a moment to speak with her privately. Our friend nodded respectfully and headed back inside, closing the door behind her. Blue and I waited outside the room. When she emerged a few minutes later, the smile on her face was so big it caused a glare.

  SJ was holding an extremely worn, compact book with a leather cover and weathered edges. She told us that it was a book of the most famous and complex potions ever brewed, like the ones we had been talking about at the beginning of class. Madame Alexanders was one of the few people authorized to check it out from the restricted section of our school’s library. And she had done so this morning so that she could lend it to SJ, her best and most pr
omising student.

  “She said she wants to encourage my love of potions. I still cannot believe she gave it to me,” SJ whispered. “No one outside of the faculty is supposed to have access to restricted books; it is against the rules.”

  “You want to turn yourself in and give the book back?” Blue asked.

  “Are you mad?” SJ hugged the book protectively as if it was the most precious thing she’d ever held, then carefully hid it inside her bag.

  Blue and I smirked and then the three of us proceeded to part ways. Blue was off to Creative Rope Use 101 with some of her common protagonist friends while SJ and I were to attend Singing with Nature class along with the other princesses from our year.

  Personally, I thought a class where you learned 101 ways to use a rope would’ve been way more interesting. Then again, my naturally out-of-tune vocal cords colored my opinions on the subject a bit.

  Even Singing with Nature class was unusually enjoyable today, though. SJ’s perfect voice attracted the attention of the cutest woodland creatures, and I was content to pet them as we listened to her and the other princesses sing the loveliest of songs in the soft afternoon sunlight.

  The day ticked on with ease from there. After Singing with Nature class, my friends and I had lunch, which consisted of a variety of cheesy pastas and accompanying meat sauces, all of which were finger-licking good. (Not that I would’ve ever licked my fingers, mind you, as Madame Lisbon surely would’ve sensed a disturbance in the princess universe and then tracked me down to punish me in person.)

  After lunch I had my math and finance course for the semester—Balls on a Budget: How to Maximize Your Happily Ever After without Bankrupting Your Kingdom’s Economy. I assumed later in the semester this class would involve a lot of spreadsheets and graph paper, the likes of which would probably suck out my soul. But today there was only a short lecture, and some brief brainstorming about the pros and cons of floral versus candle-based centerpieces for semi-formal summer night galas.