Protagonist Bound

by Geanna Culbertson

  Who was he?

  And why did my subconscious consider him so important?

  It was all terribly perplexing and rather unsettling to say the least. For, although I had zero idea what he or his co-conspirator in my subconscious had been talking about, their exchange still gave me the shivers. Not in a fearful kind of way, but more like a form of anxiety. It was probably unwarranted mind you, but considering, well, everything, it definitely didn’t feel that way.

  With resolve, I elected to pick myself off the tower floor then and shake off the morose confliction. That had been more than enough time devoted to thinking about such illogical and unnerving things. And I flat out refused to acknowledge or accept them any further for the time being.

  I dusted off my dress and leggings and made my way over to the window to breathe in some fresh air.

  While my holding cell couldn’t have been any grimmer, the view from it was tranquil and full of the gingered, autumn warmth. The sun was starting to set and it cast the land in a blanket of orange. Shadows stretched from trees, the river reflected streaks of gold, and the sunflowers by the practice fields practically yawned as they bid adieu to the day and retreated within themselves—so much like I often felt like doing.

  I could see for miles from up in this tower, even all the way to Lord Channing’s. It was quite a distance away and was mostly blocked from view by the forest separating our schools, which spread out over several acres of large hills. Even so, I managed to make out the blue roofing on top of the main buildings. Beyond that, I also spotted traces of stables, an archery field, a regulation-sized Twenty-Three Skidd arena, and a large obstacle course.

  I craned my neck to try and see them better, but found it did me no good. As usual, knowledge of Lord Channing’s’ specifics were out of my reach.

  Since our monthly balls were always held at Lady Agnue’s, the boys had a much stronger familiarity with our campus than we did of theirs. In truth, the only times we got to go over there were in the spring when they had their Twenty-Three Skidd finals matches. However, even then our exposure to the campus was limited. Whenever one of those matches occurred and the In and Out Spell was lowered, we were taken via carriage to the back entrance of the campus that led to a parking area beside the arena. As such, we were not given the opportunity to see much of anything else.

  Staring at the shrouded school from up here made me wonder more than usual what a hero’s curriculum looked like in comparison to a princess’s. I bet they got to learn all kinds of cool, valiant things like mace fighting and crossbow making. Meanwhile I was stuck here, learning to sing and sew and be complacent with my lot in life.

  As I continued to look at the bits of the campus I could see, my thoughts drifted to the boys who lived there. Consequently, I wondered about Chance and how many things at that school he’d turned to gold in order to show off his powers to the other princes. I wondered where Jason was. Maybe in woodshop, or working on his fighting skills in one of the many combat arenas the school was supposed to have? And then . . . Then I wondered what Daniel was doing.

  So much for a moment of peace.

  Even in my tower’s isolation I felt strangely embarrassed by the way just thinking his name made me lose my calm. I couldn’t even utter it to myself without filling up with waves of anger over the way he caused me to feel so exposed.

  He just got under my skin more than anyone I’d ever met. So much of him was a mystery. Practically the only thing that wasn’t was the knowledge that he took an interest in irritating me, and happened to be unusually skilled at it too.

  It was true that most boys our age, except for Jason and Mark, had a tendency to annoy me a bit. They couldn’t seem to hold intelligent conversations for more than a few minutes, almost always had huge egos, and the majority tended to think of girls as weaker.

  But I digress. They’re just teenage boys after all. And I’ve been told that most of them become less obnoxious and far more tolerable as they grow older.

  Here’s hoping anyways.

  Daniel though, did not simply annoy me like normal guys did. I dreaded being around him like cats dreaded water. Every time we had a conversation he unavoidably said something that rattled my confidence and faith in myself in a way that few people could.

  It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I could get at him in the same way. But that was a difficult task considering I barely knew anything about him. The boy kept to himself. And no one I asked, not even Jason, could provide me with information that shed light on the enigma of who he was and why he didn’t care enough to let anyone see it.

  Added to my Daniel dilemma, no one else seemed to have a problem with him. According to my friends, to other people he was a perfectly nice guy and it was simply me that he enjoyed irking.

  Given that, it was needless to say that I really wished he wasn’t involved in our mission to find the Author. Like, really.

  But, alas, he was.

  As a result, I decided to suck in my pride and preference and—rather than go on complaining about the situation—from hereon out, commit myself to finding some way to put up with him. Or at the very least, finding a way to get past all his mysteriousness so I could bug him in retaliation. This would be quite the task though, considering his level of aloofness (like his obnoxiousness) was thicker than a triple-coated caramel apple.

  My stomach growled again.

  Dang, I gotta stop making all these food analogies; they’re killing me.

  I drifted away from the window and back toward my knapsack to see what else I could gnaw on for the remainder of my prison sentence.

  The Art of Going AWOL

  he next few days drifted by in a blur.

  SJ was busy working on our escape potion. Blue sharpened her assorted knives and sent messages via SJ’s bird friends to Jason and Daniel to coordinate our plans. And I rotted away in my ivory tower every day after school—practicing defense maneuvers with my spear, and eating non-perishable leftovers I’d saved from earlier meals.

  Eventually Saturday night came around and we were at last ready for our escape.

  Earlier in the week SJ had actually suggested that perhaps we should wait until the following Saturday to make our move because that was when our next monthly ball was scheduled for. Her logic being that on the night of the ball, the boys would’ve already been with us so a group escape would’ve theoretically been simpler.

  This was a decent point, but in the end the idea was vetoed because, first, with so many people around for the ball, school security was usually tighter. And second, I really did not want to suffer through one more week of tower time if avoiding it was a feasible option.

  SJ, Blue, and I were in our room making sure that we had everything we needed for the mission. Blue was taking inventory of the various weapons she was packing while SJ was filling a small sack with her portable potions. She had certainly been productive in the last week; that was for sure. She was putting dozens of the tiny glass spheres into the pouch hanging from the belt at her hip.

  I didn’t know what kind of potions were in those spheres, nor what SJ expected to use them for. When Blue had asked, she’d simply shrugged and said that they were contingencies she hoped we would not need.

  Part of me wanted to delve deeper into this response, but in the end I respected SJ’s genius enough to figure she knew what she was doing. And anyways, I was currently far more fascinated with the other product of her innovation that she’d gifted to us this morning. Around my wrist currently hung the latest fruit of SJ’s potion-based inventiveness. She called it: “Soap on a Rope-like Bracelet,” or an SRB for short.

  Of course, to give credit where credit was due, the enchanted accessory was actually born of both SJ and Blue’s brilliance.

  A couple of days ago, Blue came bursting into our room with a revelation. If we were going on this great journey, which would no doubt take weeks of travel, sweat, and unorthodox adventure, how exactly were we going to remain, you know, clean?


  It’s kind of a stupid detail, I know. But then again, think about it.

  Like Blue explained, it’s the sort of thing that is never really addressed in any of our ancestors’ fairytales. Which leads me to believe that the illustrations in those books I’ve grown up reading are totally bogus, since people can’t just go on these epically long quests—never showering or changing clothes—and still look fresh as daisies and decent enough to mingle in mixed company.

  I mean, it’s not like these protagonists carried with them trunks of clean clothes or could freshen up periodically at cozy bed & breakfasts when they were chasing bad guys, or being chased by bad guys. That’s just ridiculous.

  After Blue’s two-minute pitch on the subject, SJ had been completely sold. Our room’s resident princess was in no way about to go all grease and grunge for several weeks. Thus, the idea for the SRB was born.

  I had to say, I rather liked the premise. The thing looked like a simple rope bracelet. But SJ had laced it with a powerful potion of her own design that made the wearer of the bracelet unable to get dirty. Like, at all. You would stay fresh as newly washed laundry 24/7 no matter how much time passed.

  Furthermore, if any outside filth got on you—from mud to dragon vomit—after the fact all you had to do was wait a minute and you and your clothes would revert back to normal. You’d be clean as a whistle as if nothing had ever tainted you in the slightest.

  SJ had ended up making an SRB for each of us, the boys included.

  Thank goodness for that. Boy sweat smells considerably worse than girl sweat. That’s just a fact.

  As I continued to watch my dainty friend fill her sack with portable potions, I seriously considered suggesting that, should the whole “fairytale princess” thing not work out, she should think about going the small business ownership/ entrepreneurship route with her potions skills. The girl was absolutely brilliant.

  When SJ had stored the last of her tiny concoctions, she made sure the pouch was securely fastened to her belt, then slipped the slingshot Jason had made for her inside of her dress pocket. Once done, she gestured for us to follow. I slung my satchel over my shoulder and Blue slid her hunting knife into its holster.

  SJ led the two of us into the bathroom and proceeded to open the cabinet beneath our sink. Inside there was a small, iron cauldron filled with bubbling, green liquid. She pulled it out and lifted it onto the counter.

  “How did that not set off some sort of fire alarm?” Blue wondered aloud.

  SJ ignored the comment and placed the cauldron in the sink. She took out three cups from the cubby behind the mirror and filled each one with the lively concoction. I eyed the stuff and realized I wasn’t quite sure how it managed to keep bubbling without any kind of heat source.

  Hmm.

  Probably best not to think about it.

  We each held our respective cups, but hesitated before drinking. We knew this was it. Once we drank, there would be no turning back.

  “Well . . . cheers,” I said, trying to ease the tension. I chugged down the liquid. SJ and Blue followed my lead. And then we waited.

  The formula tasted like mint juleps with extra lime and a hint of rustiness. As it made its way down my throat, it felt like thick, acid-like honey coating my vocal chords. My gut immediately started to feel a disturbance—and not the kind of disturbance it felt after all-you-can-eat-oatmeal day in the banquet hall. This felt like I was eroding from the inside out.

  I clutched my stomach in agony while the potion started to take its effect. A vague green mist began to pour out of each of our mouths and encircle our forms. My skin cringed, the veins in my arms flickered silver, and I struggled to breathe as the walls of the room grew higher and higher around me.

  If you’ve never been turned into a frog, consider yourself lucky. I definitely wouldn’t recommend the experience.

  SJ, Blue, and I were now less than six inches tall, green as ryegrass, and covered in slime. It felt neither pleasant nor attractive. But it was an ingenious plan nonetheless.

  In theory, that is.

  As we’d learned in class earlier this semester, it was a potion encasing the Frog Prince’s water lily—not magic—that made whomever ate it turn into a frog. Consequently, once SJ had found the right recipe in her special potions book she’d realized that if we took a petal from the water lily in the Archives, she could reverse-engineer it to recreate the same enchantment in a lighter dosage. The result would be a much more temporary froggy transformation that could be broken without relying on the shenanigans of true love’s kiss.

  That exposition aside, you may still find yourself asking, “Well, why did we want to turn into frogs in the first place?”

  The answer? One word: loophole.

  Our school’s In and Out Spell was designed to keep people from passing through it, not animals. So, in our amphibious forms we would be able to cross Lady Agnue’s’ magical barrier with as much ease as the woodland creatures that inhabited the surrounding forest. At least, we hoped so.

  Everything on the grounds was quiet as the three of us journeyed toward the border of the In and Out Spell. Ever prudent, SJ had made us wait until midnight to enact the plan and get our green on so that, with the exception of the nighttime guards, the school would be deserted and our trek unimpeded.

  Since a 12:30 a.m. or 1:00 a.m. departure time would have worked just as well though, I suspected that she was also veering toward fairytale tradition in her decision to make midnight the designated hour of our departure.

  Frankly, I didn’t care one way or the other. The only thing that mattered right now was that the three of us were hopping to freedom.

  Victory getaway music anyone?

  No?

  Well, all right then, creaking staircases and cricket chirps it is I suppose.

  After hopping as stealthily as we could down six flights of stairs, several hallways, and across the practice fields, we were exhausted.

  Would it have been easier to walk out of the school in human form and then take the potion when we got down here? For sure. However, would it have been possible? Definitely not.

  Sneaking out of Lady Agnue’s when you were barely the size of a sandwich was way easier than the alternative option ever would have been. That logic notwithstanding, I was super wiped out from the slog.

  Seriously, that was a lot of hopping.

  When we finally reached the riverbank at the edge of the grounds, I shot my tongue out in exasperation to communicate this sentiment. My amphibious friends mirrored the gesture and then waddled over to that stupid, stone gnome that marked the boundary of our school’s campus. Frog SJ and Frog Blue began to blink their big, goopy eyes at me expectantly.

  They were nervous about crossing.

  It was natural to hesitate. As I mentioned, this whole frog loophole thing with the In and Out Spell was just a theory. We were human on the inside and really didn’t know for certain that we could fool the In and Out Spell with our reptilian transformations.

  I remembered then just how painful it had been to receive that small shock from the enchanted force field last month when my finger had barely grazed it. If we did not dupe the spell, our entire bodies would soon be violently, mercilessly fried by the magical wall of energy in the same way.

  In other words, that old saying, “Here goes nothing,” really didn’t apply here.

  I gulped down some extra slime, and my nerves, and decided to just do it. In the next instant, with a big boost from my hind legs, I leaped forward.

  Thankfully, I was not zapped. I landed in the river with a splash and turned around to see a little lavender hole fade and fizzle out behind me—revealing the section of force field I’d just jumped through.

  Phew! Okay, this is good. This is very good.

  If only getting across the In and Out Spell surrounding the Indexlands was this easy. Too bad that one, specifically, is like a billion times stronger and designed to prevent life of any kind from getting through—human or animal.r />
  Seeing that I remained un-barbequed, my friends followed me and were equally relieved to remain electrocution-free.

  A few hundred more hops later, the three of us finally made it to Lord Channing’s’ border. Jason and Daniel were waiting on the other side of a fence beneath a large apple tree—biding their time until our arrival. Frog SJ, Blue, and I wiggled through the fence and came into their line of sight. Even at this height and in the dark I could tell that when Daniel saw us bounding over he had to try really hard to conceal his bemusement.

  “Aw, does someone want a kiss?” he said mockingly as he let a short laugh escape his lips.

  I wanted to tell him to shut it or go jump in the river, but my amphibian vocal cords limited me to the trite comeback of “Ribbit!” Which (let’s face it) was not my best zinger.

  My froggy nerves tightened in anticipation of what inevitably came next.

  Ugh, this is going to be so embarrassing.

  Remember when I said that SJ’s reverse engineering had cured the potion of being permanent or reliant on true love’s kiss to break it? Well, the one thing she had not been able to modify was the necessity of a kiss of some sort to end the enchantment.

  Now do you see where I’m going with this? No?

  Let me spell it out for you: thy name is total mortification.

  Jason proceeded to pick up Blue and give her the necessary peck on the head. Once he had, he quickly set her back down. A few seconds later, a flash of silver light enveloped our friend and returned her to human form.

  “Whoo, that’s better,” Blue said happily as she stretched and checked to make sure her hunting knife, cloak, and everything else that had been on her at the time of the transformation had rematerialized with her. “Thanks, Jas.”

  Next, Daniel carefully lifted SJ off the ground and did the same. After she, too, had shimmered back into herself again, it was my turn. I silently hoped Jason would at least be the one to perform the mercy kiss, but he and Blue had already started to walk off into the forest, SJ not far behind them. I appeared to be stuck with Daniel as my not so charming, not so princely partner for the task.