Count On Me

by Abigail Graham

  “Commands?”

  “The prince commands.” She nods and starts to close the door.

  She stops abruptly. “There are clothes for you in the wardrobe. See that you are properly dressed.”

  The door slams and I hear a heavy bar slide into place, from the outside. I’m locked in here.

  Near the wardrobe I find a refrigerator that’s disguised as an antique side table, and some bottled water. I drink it fast, spilling water on my borrowed shirt. Then I open the wardrobe.

  No shorts, no pants, no t-shirts, no hoodies.

  Dresses.

  For a moment I feel like I’m staring at a cosplayer’s costume collection. The dresses have dagged sleeves, the kind with the huge cuffs that hang way down, like a stereotypical Disney princess. They’re arranged by color from lightest to darkest, cream at one end and black at the other.

  They’re not costumes, though. The material is silk and shimmering samite, and the darker ones are a little sheer despite their princess-y looks. I can’t wear this stupid crap.

  There are nightgowns, too, and…bloomers. They’re goddamn bloomers.

  It beats being naked, I guess.

  I grab something that looks appropriate for sleep and carry it with me on the hanger to the bathroom, where I carefully undress. My ankle is a little swollen, but it’s not broken or anything. I should be fine in a day or two.

  Sighing, I turn on the water. It’s blessedly hot, quickly filling the cabinet with steam. I walk inside and lean on the wall under the water.

  I quickly sink to the floor. An explosive sob rolls through my body. The reality of what I just went through hits me like a hammer square in the middle of my chest. When I look at the grit on my arms turning to a thin coating of mud as the water washes it loose, I can see the general’s sausagey fingers on my arms. I was so close to…

  Don’t go there, Penny. It didn’t happen. It could have but it didn’t.

  I don’t even realize I’m crying, it just happens. Oh God, how did I let this happen to myself? Where did they take that other woman? Where did they take Melissa? Why did they send her to a hospital and not me?

  I stare at the far wall, ignoring the hot spray stinging my eyes. I watched men die tonight. I kept my eyes closed in the pass, but the sounds. It was like someone ripping a side of beef apart, and when the general died… At least I didn’t have to see it.

  I giggle stupidly as a dumb thought bubbles into my head. His severed head looked so weird. It looked so little detached from his body. I close my eyes and try to banish the image of the stump from my mind.

  The guy who did that took me home. I’m locked up in his castle.

  “This is fucking crazy,” I whine.

  I shake harder, curled up in a ball on the shower floor.

  No, no, no. Penny, do not let yourself do this. You have to figure a way out of here.

  Oh, but I have a great record so far. All I managed to do back at that camp was let Melissa get groped and almost torn apart. If I was so smart and brave, I should have done something before I trusted that asshole to get us back to the camp in one piece.

  Don’t be too hard on yourself, Penny. How was I supposed to know he was a corrupt spy planning to sell us?

  I should have gotten a job teaching preschool and stayed home where I belong. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be here. I repeat it like a mantra.

  My eyes snap open. Oh God, my parents. When I don’t make my weekly phone call they’re going to lose it. I don’t know if Mom’s heart can take it. I have to let them know I’m alive, somehow.

  How the hell can I do that?

  By the time I finally calm down enough to get up, my fingers start to prune. Maybe the heat helped, but my ankle doesn’t feel so bad. Carefully I walk out of the shower and dry myself then slip into the sheer nightgown and thick, velvety robe.

  No, wait. It’s not velvety, it is velvet. Wow, this is nice.

  As I walk to the bed, I can’t help myself. I keep thinking this is some sort of fantasy. I’ve retreated into a fantasy world where a dark prince saves me to keep my mind from breaking. Meanwhile my body is back in the real world, with the general.

  This just can’t be real.

  I grunt on my turned ankle as I lift myself up onto the bed and roll into it. The blankets seem too thick for a summer night, but a cold draft flows through the room and I quickly find myself tucked up to my chin, sinking into the covers.

  Oh God this bed, it’s bliss. It’s like it wants to swallow me.

  A sudden and intense awareness comes upon me.

  I am tired. I feel like I could sleep for a week.

  First I can’t lift my head, then I can’t keep my eyes open. I yawn, and that’s the last thing I remember as I drift into a dreamless sleep.

  Next I know, bright light pours in through the glass doors leading out to the balcony, and it’s morning. It’s freezing in here now, so much so that I don’t want to even push back the covers and sit up.

  I end up lying there until the door opens. No knock, somebody just lifts the bar and swings it out. It’s the same blonde-haired guard from last night, but she stops at the threshold and steps aside for a hunched old woman to walk in before slamming it shut again.

  “You get up now. You understand, yes?”

  I nod. “I understand you.”

  “Good understand. Get up, I help dress. Fix hair.”

  “What’s wrong with my hair?”

  “Not meet prince with bad hair. Sit in chair. Mirror.”

  I keep my hair cut to the shoulders, so there’s not much to work with when I sit down in front of the vanity. It feels strange just looking at myself in the mirror, like I’m looking at a stranger. I start to shake as I think about yesterday. It feels like it was a week ago already. I end up sitting there oddly soothed as the old woman drags a horsehair brush through my unruly locks.

  “Lovely hair. Prince will like hair.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  Inwardly I shrug. My hair is red so I have that going for me, but not much else. Guys like natural redheads. I think.

  My hair is so short that the braid she uses ends up making a little bun at the back of my head. The old woman stands next to the wardrobe expectantly, until it dawns on me that she’s waiting for me to undress.

  “Nothing not I have seen already,” she says, proud of her English.

  I shrug and slip out of the nightgown, and start to hang it on the hook before she snatches it away and does it herself, as if the idea of my using a closet offends her somehow.

  She looks me up and down, appraising.

  “Light skin. Light skin look good with dark. This one. Bring out eyes.”

  She chooses a deep hunter-green dress with almost-black, highlights on the bodice and floor-length skirt, and what I am pretty sure is actual cloth of gold on the sleeves. I’d have no idea how to put it on without the old woman. Dresses were never my thing. I haven’t worn one since the prom.

  She pokes my chest. “Too small. Prince like bigger. Men like big.”

  “That’s not his problem,” I snap.

  She looks at me and sighs, exasperated, then steps behind me, grabs two strings, and pulls. Hard. The dress tightens, squeezing the breath out of my lungs as it compresses my chest.

  The old woman looks me over.

  “Better. Not good. Better.”

  I scowl at her.

  “Follow.”

  Shrugging, I step into a pair of slippers and follow her out of the room. It’s not hot in the castle but not cold. I feel small as my thin slippers scuff the carpets and the sounds echo in the enormous corridors. Every now and then I pass a huge window that opens onto an overlook and the open air beyond, reminding me how far up in the air I am.

  The air itself is a little thin, and I’m puffing by the time we stop. The old woman gestures for me to stop and keeps walking. Two guards swing open a set of heavy oak doors, and I walk inside.

  I’m not sure what I
’m expecting. I guess I thought I’d be confronting the same giant plodding suit of armor as last night, but standing before me in an unadorned black uniform and white gloves, the prince is a tall, lean man with broad shoulders. His eyes lock on me and he smirks a little, and despite the voluminous dress, I feel a little exposed and start wringing my hands.

  I flinch when the doors boom shut behind me.

  “I am I supposed to curtsy or something?”

  “Yes,” he says in a deep voice, shocking me a little with the volume. “On account of your injury and your ignorance, I will excuse your lack of decorum. You should address me as my prince, as well. Do you need assistance?”

  “With what? Oh, walking. No, I’m fine.”

  I remember at the last second to add my prince.

  Then I don’t, fuck that. I’m an American, he’s not my prince.

  I try to walk gracefully to the table but end up limping. I almost expect him to offer me an arm but he just pulls out my chair instead. It’s a big chair, the top of the back reaching six feet in the air, the whole thing carved from mahogany.

  The chair slides in behind me as I sit. He looms over my shoulder, and I catch a whiff of a musky cologne with a hint of berries. He touches my bare shoulder lightly and I flinch, looking up at him. He offers me a hint of a smile and a lingering look. I squirm beneath my elaborate dress, tingling at the idea of him undressing me with his eyes.

  He’s already seen it all, I realize. I was almost naked the first time he saw me. I shrink into the chair.

  After I sit he walks to the far end of the enormous table and sits down. He draws the white gloves off his hands as a pair of servants enter carrying trays covered in silver domes. The servant who delivers mine lifts the lid off before I get the chance to touch it, while a third man pours water into a heavy pewter chalice.

  I stare down at my plate and feel my stomach rumble. On the plate are two deviled eggs, but the whites are purple, like they’ve been pickled. Along with that is a steaming sausage on a bed of fried onions, some kind of hard black bread, and three small fish, grilled whole. On a separate plate, cut in half, is a pomegranate.

  The Prince is eating the same thing.

  “Um, do I have to wait for you or something?”

  “I know you’re hungry.”

  One of his servants gives him an iPad.

  A fucking iPad. He twirls his fork in his left hand while he peruses whatever he’s looking at on the tablet.

  Are you serious?

  “Um,” I say.

  “Eat, Persephone.”

  “My name is Penny.”

  “Eat.”

  I stare at the pomegranate and swallow, hard.

  “Are you trying to tell me something? With the fruit.”

  He quirks an eyebrow. “Tell you something?”

  “I know the story.”

  He looks up. “Story?”

  “Of Persephone. In Greek mythology, Persephone is the queen of Hell. Hades, the brother of Zeus, ruled in the Underworld.”

  “Correct, but the Greek Underworld is not Hell only. A common misconception. Tartarus is Hell, but the Underworld also contained Elysium, a realm of beauty and solace. Do you know the rest of the story?”

  He’s not a year older than I am, but I feel like I’m staring down a professor, testing me with questions he already knows the answers to. For some reason my bare shoulders make me feel naked. Possibly because his eyes rake over my skin. It’s a shivery feeling, and oddly pleasant. I shift in my seat.

  “Yes. Hades was a melancholy god, and kept himself from the affairs of the mortal world. He wasn’t lusty like his brothers Zeus and Poseidon. He didn’t abduct nymphs or father heroes on mortal women, like Hercules and Perseus. He remained in his kingdom, judging the dead.”

  “Some say Minos, father of the Minotaur, judged the dead.”

  “Yes, there’s different versions. Anyway, Hades saw Persephone and was smitten with her, so he kidnapped her away and took her back to Hell, but Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and the harvest.”

  “Go on,” he says.

  I poke the pomegranate with my fork.

  “Demeter’s wrath was terrible, and she made the whole of nature die. People began to starve and they begged Zeus to intervene, but he couldn’t, because by ancient agreement he had no power in Hades’ realm.”

  The prince nods. “Do you know how it ends?”

  “Sometimes with a treaty, but sometimes with a trick. Some say another god interceded and convinced Hades to let Persephone spend half the year with her mother and half in Hell with him. During the time of year when Persephone stayed with Demeter, the world bloomed and spring and summer came. Then when Persephone went to join Hades in Hell for six months, Demeter’s sorrow brought fall and winter, and then her return gave the world spring again.”

  “What about the pomegranate?”

  “In some versions of the story, Persephone is tricked. Hades promises her that she can go home, but there was a law in hell that anyone who ate the food there would have to stay. Even Hades himself could not break that law. Persephone knew about it, but she became so hungry while Zeus and Hades argued that she ate a single seed from a pomegranate, like this one,” I lift it in my hand, “so she was bound by the law of Hell to remain there with Hades forever. But Zeus convinced Hades to let her return for part of the year, or else Demeter would starve the world and there would be no one to worship the gods.”

  The prince nods.

  “Yes. That is the story. There is no magic in the fruit, Persephone. It’s just breakfast.”

  I eye it. “I think I’ll skip it anyway.”

  The rest of it is good. I was expecting beet-pickled eggs but these taste completely different, kind of tart, and the yolk filling is rich and spicy, so much that I have to take a drink of water after I eat them. The sausage is delicious.

  “It’s wild boar,” the prince says, watching me eat. “There is more if you like.”

  I set my fork down.

  “My friend Melissa. What have you done with her?”

  “As I said, she was taken to the hospital.”

  “She wasn’t hurt. Why did you send her to the hospital and bring me here?”

  “A little twist of your ankle will heal itself. Your friend…Melissa? Her body was not hurt but her mind is unwell. She will be treated kindly. You have my word.”

  “What about the other woman, Danielle?”

  He gives me a grim frown. “What is the expression you use? It is touch and go. The bullets missed her heart but shredded her lung and one hit her spine. She may not walk again.”

  I feel a cold ball form in my stomach.

  “Melissa needs to go home.”

  “That is not possible now.”

  “She needs to see her family.”

  “She will not leave. It is not safe. Nor will you.”

  “Can I call my parents? Please? I need them to know I’m alive.”

  “No.”

  I grip the fork hard and slam the blunt end down on the table.

  “You can’t just keep me here like this. Who do you think you are?”

  “I am the crown prince,” he says, shrugging. He looks at me like that’s adequate explanation.

  “I don’t care if you’re king shit of fuck mountain, you can’t just hold me prisoner like this. I’m an American citizen. I have rights.”

  “I can if I wish. Or I can throw you in the dungeon.”

  I stare at him.

  “Seriously? Like an actual dungeon?”

  He blinks a few times. “Yes. What do you propose that I call it?”

  “Um, jail? I don’t know. You’re not going to throw me in a dungeon.”

  “You presume to tell me what I can and cannot do?”

  I swallow, hard.

  “Yeah, I do. You can abuse your own people all you want but I’m an American. Once they know I’m here they’ll send the Marines to get me or something. That’s why
you’re so afraid somebody will find out about us.”

  He stands.

  “You have a strange idea of gratitude, Persephone. I saved your life and in return, you berate me at my own table after eating my bread and salt?”

  I flinch back, blinking.

  “I, um… Okay, look, I know it’s bad manners, but I know who you are. I’ve been an aid worker in Solkovia for six months. I heard stories about your regime, my prince. I know what you do to your people.”

  “What is that?”

  “Oppress them. You throw people in prison for speaking out against you, you censor the media, you enforce curfews. Everything in the country belongs to you, nobody has any rights or any chance to live life their own way… and, Jesus Christ, you kill people. You killed people last night. I saw what you did to those men in the pass.”

  “Did you? Did you know what they were going to do to you? When I found you naked and covered in blood?”

  “That doesn’t mean you can just kill them.”

  He looks at me hard. “Why not? They broke the law.”

  “They have rights. To a trial and stuff.”

  “I gave them a trial. I heard the evidence. Was it not conclusive? Do you doubt the man I beheaded threatened you with…” He stops, as if he doesn’t want to say it.

  “Well, no, but he has a right to a jury of his peers.”

  The prince laughs. “Should I have set the other murderers up and let them decide whether he should have lived or died? The CIA man is still alive. Should I release him? He is American, a government man. Perhaps I should entrust you to him. He can take you home safely. I am sure he would be happy to hear about your rights.”

  My teeth click shut.

  “Let me tell you what I think. I think you are a silly little girl. You think because you are American you own the world by birthright and go where you please, meddling as you like in affairs that you do not understand. You have never set foot in my country and yet you presume to speak to me of it as if you have lived here all your life. You think because you were born in some great country you can tell me about mine, about my land that my family has ruled for five hundred years.”

  “You can’t own land like that.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I mean you can own land, but you can’t own a whole country.”