Eliana: Remembering Rumpelstiltskin (Kingdom of Fairytales Boxset Book 5)

by J. A. Armitage

  All around me was a hive of activity. I couldn’t call it chaos, because, thanks to my mother, everyone had a job to do. By the time the court physician appeared with his doctor’s bag, my father was already heading out on his horse to look for Rumpelstiltskin and taking the guards with him. Above us, the sky was filled with unicorns. Only a few lived in the staviary. These were the wild ones we’d saved, ironically, with Rumpelstiltskin’s help.

  I saw Zacharina and shouted up at her, not caring anymore if people thought I was crazy. “Rumpelstiltskin took Fae.”

  She nodded, and in my head, I heard the words, “We’ll find her.”

  As one, the unicorns bolted off into the sky.

  The palace courtyard was now empty, but lights blazed in every window of the palace itself as the staff were awakened by the commotion.

  All through everything, I cradled Jay’s head as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

  The court physician, a small, wispy, gray-haired man by the name of Smith pulled a vial out of his bag and injected the contents into Jay’s arm.

  “It will make him sleep,” he explained as he began to cut the length of Jay’s trousers to get a better look at his legs.

  “He’s broken both legs. I can see that. How badly, I don’t know. He’ll need to go to a hospital, that is certain.”

  “I’ve sent one of the guards to fetch the best medics in town,” my mother said

  “We’ll need a stretcher and a way to transport him. I have a stretcher in my office.”

  My mother looked stunned, and for a second, she lost her composure. “I sent all the horses out. There’s none left to pull the carriage.”

  “We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” the physician said. “Maybe one of your guards will come back. For now, I need the stretcher.”

  “Right!” Without bothering to ask one of the servants that had begun to gather in the courtyard, she ran back into the castle to bring the stretcher back herself.

  “Will he be okay?” I asked, tears streaming down my face. He was completely asleep, which was the only mercy in this night of horrors.

  “I’d not like to say too soon. This leg is fractured badly. The bone has ripped right through the skin. I’ve not looked at the other leg closely yet, but it’s bent at a funny angle. If he ever walks again, he’ll need months of physical therapy.”

  I measured my breaths, concentrating on each inhale and exhale. It was the only way not to have a complete meltdown. Doing that would only take the physician’s attention from Jay.

  My mother was quick to come back with the stretcher. She placed it on the floor next to Jay, but the physician had moved from stemming the blood flowing from Jay’s leg to feeling his wrist for his pulse. I looked up to the skies. The three of us moving Jay onto the stretcher would only hurt him more, I was sure of it. His legs were so mangled that I was afraid any movement would cause more injury. We’d have to wait for the town medics to arrive, but what then? We’d have to waste time hooking the horses up to the carriage. The only person that knew how to do that quickly was Jay.

  I closed my eyes and called to Zacharina with my mind, hoping she was still in range enough to hear me.

  “What is it, my child?”

  “Will you come back to the palace? I need to hook a horse up to a carriage, but the horse isn’t here yet. I need to get Jay to a hospital quickly. He’s in a bad way.”

  “I’ll fly him.”

  “No, I need you to pull a carriage. He’ll be on a stretcher. I know you don’t believe in unicorns working and hauling things for humans, but...”

  “Hush, of course I’ll pull the carriage. I’ll be back as quickly as my wings will fly me.”

  “Who were you talking to?” my mother asked, eyeing me curiously. “You were moving your lips.”

  There was no point in denying the truth now. I didn’t care if anyone thought I was crazy anymore. I felt more crazy now than I’d ever been.

  “I was speaking to Zacharina, the unicorn, with my mind,” I said flatly. “She’s coming back to pull the carriage to take Jay to the hospital.”

  My mother raised her eyebrows in surprise, but she didn’t question me. “Meet her at the staviary and get one of the servants to help you.”

  Leaving Jay almost broke my heart as much as losing Fae had, but getting him help was more important than staying by his side.

  I jumped up and ran around the palace, almost bumping into Williamson, who was still in his nightclothes.

  “I need help. I need to prepare a carriage. A unicorn will be here in a few minutes to pull it. Help me get everything ready.”

  It was a job I didn’t have much experience with, but between Williamson, Zacharina, and I, we managed to get the carriage out into the courtyard. Epiphany was too small to help, so she cantered alongside her mother.

  The medics showed up not much later, a whole swarm of them. The guard must have knocked on every door in town to bring so many. Between them, they got Jay onto the stretcher and into the carriage. Williamson jumped up to drive and a couple of the physicians hopped up into the back of the carriage with Jay.

  They held the door open, waiting for me to jump up. I hesitated. Even though Fae was gone, leaving the palace made it seem so final, like I was giving up on her.

  “I’ll be here,” my mother said, wrapping her arms around me. “I won’t leave until we’ve found her and brought her back.”

  I choked back the sobs and stepped up into the carriage.

  I barely noticed the time going by as we rushed down the track to town. Both physicians, Smith and one I didn’t know, were busy working on Jay, muttering to each other in hushed tones. I didn’t care what they were saying. I just wanted him in the hospital where he could get help.

  Pain churned inside me as I continued to wipe Jay’s brow, stroking his hair. I whispered words into his ear in the hopes he knew I was with him. But all I could think about was Fae. My breasts ached, full of milk as they were. It was way past her feeding time. Would Rumpelstiltskin know what to feed her? Did he know anything about babies at all? What if his intent wasn’t to look after her? The guy obviously didn’t mind maiming innocent creatures. I felt the bile rise in my throat as I thought about Epiphany caught in a trap laid by him. Thinking of all the sadistic, horrible things he could do to Fae wasn’t helping me stay calm, but it was all I could think of. Grotesque images floated in my mind. I leaned over and threw up on the carriage floor as we came to a stop outside the hospital.

  Williamson jumped down from the front of the carriage and spoke through a window in the back.

  “I’ll go and get someone to help.”

  The stench of vomit filled the back of the carriage, making me feel even more nauseated. In the darkness of the carriage, I could barely see Jay at all, so I held his hand, willing the blood to keep pumping through it, circulating around his body. It didn’t take a lot of light to see the patch of blood on his trousers growing. I’d moved past the stage of hoping he’d walk again and moved onto willing him to survive the night. The doctors didn’t say anything to me, but I could tell by their concerned whispers that this was more serious than I’d first thought. Within minutes, a group of four doctors or nurses, I couldn’t tell, ran out and began to pull Jay on his stretcher from the carriage. The two physicians that had traveled with us helped, leaving me alone in the carriage surrounded by the stink of my own stomach contents.

  In all my years, I’d never been ignored. As a princess, people talked to me first, making sure I was happy above all others. Now, in the dark as the team hoisted Jay onto a gurney, I’d never felt more alone. I was paralyzed with fear, scared to even get out of the carriage.

  “Come on. He’ll need you when he wakes up.” I looked up to see Williamson standing outside the carriage door with his hand out. I took it and felt the cool breeze and fresh air as I stepped down.

  I followed the team in through the hospital doors from the darkness of the night to the burning lights of the ho
spital reception.

  The team of people dashed down a corridor, and when I tried to follow, a woman held out her hand to stop me.

  “I’m afraid you can’t go down there, miss.”

  I looked at her through tearful eyes. A look of recognition dawned on her face, and she fell into a curtsy.

  “I’m most awfully sorry, Your Highness, I didn’t know...”

  She didn’t know. She couldn’t. My daughter was gone, and Jay might not survive the night.

  “It’s okay,” I said, even though it wasn’t, because what else could I say? What else was there to say?

  5

  17th May

  At some point, the night had given way to day. At the hospital, the medics had rushed Jay into the operating room, and I had been shown to a private room for grieving families. The nurse assured me it was only because they didn’t want the general public staring at me, but it felt appropriate. I was grieving. The loss of my daughter, the possible loss of Jay. No one would give me an idea of if he’d survive the surgery. All I could do was watch the sun come up through the window and sip on weak coffee that was brought to me every half hour or so.

  The tears I’d cried so freely before had dried up. The pain was as acute as before, but the tears wouldn’t come. Pressure built in my head, which I was only able to alleviate with the steady flow of coffee.

  The manager of the hospital came to ask if I needed anything. I could tell she didn’t quite know what to say to me. I wondered if she’d been told about Fae or if she thought I was only sad over Jay.

  “Do you know if he’s all right yet?”

  She shook her head sadly. “Not yet. They are doing everything they can. We’ll know more when he’s out of surgery. I promise, he’s got the best of the best looking after him.”

  Her words were meant to be a comfort, but they didn’t pierce the wall of pain that surrounded me. “They are doing everything they can” meant nothing.

  I paced the room for hours until the door opened, and a familiar face greeted me. It was Williamson. He’d gone home and changed and was now in a fresh uniform. Avery stood behind him.

  “Any news?” I asked, but I already knew the answer was no. It was written on their faces. Before they even spoke, I fell into Williamson’s arms and began to weep. The hours of pent-up emotion came pouring out of me in the form of tears.

  Williamson and Avery had been my shadows for a long time. They’d gone everywhere I had, watching over me. I’d never thought of them as friends, but now as Williamson held me tight as I drenched his jacket and Avery rubbed my back, I was glad they were there with me.

  I didn’t notice when the door opened, but when Williamson pulled back, I saw that the hospital manager had once again entered the room. This time she had a smile on her face, and she beckoned me to follow her out of the room.

  We walked down a corridor decorated with bright paintings. I hadn’t noticed when I’d come in, but the hospital was an old stone building with beautiful moldings and a polished stone floor. We stopped at a door with the number 11 on a brass plate screwed to it.

  “His doctor is in here with him. I’ll make sure you aren’t disturbed.”

  Jay was still asleep, both his legs splinted and bandaged. Next to him, his doctor was writing something in a chart.

  The man walked around the bed to greet me. Instead of the usual bow, he held out his hand.

  “I’m Dr. Coveney. I’m the surgeon who operated on your friend. He’s a strong one. His left leg will be in a splint for at least three months, the right considerably longer. We’ll have to take it month by month to see how he does.”

  “Will he walk again?”

  “I don’t want to give you false hope. There was a lot of damage, especially to his right leg. I believe he will regain movement, but how much, I wouldn’t like to say right now. We’ve placed the bones back together. It was a nasty break, but the bone was in clean pieces rather than shattered completely. He’ll need a lot of work to get any movement back. It’s going to be a long journey, and there is a chance he might never walk again.”

  My insides hurt with all the pain. It was too much. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

  The doctor nodded his head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, but I promise he’ll receive the best care. He’s been given something for the pain. He’ll be a little woozy when he wakes up.”

  The surgeon left as Jay began to murmur. I ran to his side and stroked his head as his eyes fluttered open.

  “Fae?”

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. Saying she was still missing would only make it more real, and I didn’t want it to be more real than it already was.

  I felt his body stiffen. His legs must have hurt with the movement, but his face showed no pain, only anger.

  “I’m sorry, Lia. I’ll find him. I’ll find him and kill him with my own bare hands.”

  “Shh, you’re not well. My father has half the kingdom out looking for Fae and for Rumpel… him. There’s nothing more you can do right now. You need to rest.”

  He clenched his fists. “Rest? How can I rest knowing Fae is with that… that… creature. I don’t even know what he is. He’s not human.”

  “You have to rest because I need you. I need you, Jay.”

  My body trembled, but I held the tears back. He didn’t need me to dissolve into a soggy mess on his hospital bed.

  Jay finally took his eyes from the ceiling where he’d fixed them on some spot and turned them to me. “I’ll bring her back. Once I’m healed, I’ll go and look for her, and I won’t stop until I find her.” He took my hand in his. “I promise you, Lia. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll bring her back safely to you.”

  My already broken heart shredded even further. “You can’t. The doctors think you’ll need months of recovery time.”

  He looked down at his legs, seeming to notice them for the first time since waking up. Both were covered by a sheet, but the shape of them made it clear they were heavily bandaged and splinted.

  His voice cracked. “What exactly did the doctor say? Will my recovery time be sooner if I work hard at rehabilitation?”

  I lowered my voice, trying to keep it as gentle as possible, as though a quiet voice could soften the blow I was about to give him.

  “The doctor told me that it will be a long road, and there is a chance...”

  “He told you that I’ll never walk again, right?”

  I shook my head. “He said there was a chance of that, but he also said that he expected you to regain some movement. I know you. You never let anything stop you when you put your mind to something. You’re the guy who gave me a date in a warehouse full of straw just so we could be alone, remember?”

  “This isn’t a date, and I’m assuming this is no warehouse,” he replied.

  “No, but to give up hope is to give up everything, and I refuse to do that. I’m not giving up on Fae, and I won’t give up on you.”

  The anger dropped from his face, but it was replaced by something much worse. He looked helpless and hopeless.

  “I promised myself that I’d always protect you, and when Fae came along, I promised myself I’d protect her too. The last thing Luka said to me before he died was to look after you. I’ve failed on every level.”

  “You haven’t failed me. You did everything you could.” I squeezed his hand. “You have a decision to make right now. You can either succumb to self-pity, or you can take a deep breath and help me fight this. I don’t know how, but if I know anything about you, you’ll come up with something. I love you, Jay. It took me a long time to see it, but when it finally hit me, it punched me with such a force. You and I are in this together.” I stood up. “I’m going to get you a drink. When I come back, I want no more self-pity, because if there is something I do know, it’s that self-pity never solved any problem.”

  Out in the corridor, I practically bumped into the hospital manager, who seemed to be in deep conversation with Williamson an
d Avery. I was pleased to see they both had a cup of coffee in their hands.

  “Please, can I have some water or juice for Jay?” I asked the manager.

  “Of course. I spoke to the doctor. The best physiotherapists are being brought in by the hospital. I’ve also spoken to some friends in a clinic in Enchantia and they said they’re available to come over and try some magical remedies for your friend. Of course, we don’t usually practice magic here as a rule, but for the royal family, we’ll make an exception. I’m led to believe that although magic doesn’t work perfectly for all normal ailments and scrapes, it certainly can help when it’s used along with proper medicine.”

  She left to fetch some juice. It was clear that Jay was only getting this treatment because of who I was. I wondered what would have happened if he was just some regular person off the street. Still, that wasn’t my concern, and I had too much to worry about without wondering if everyone else in the hospital was getting weak coffee and promises of magical help.

  “Let’s look at this logically,” Jay said as I nudged the door to his room open with my hip to get in with a jug of juice and two cups.

  I noticed he’d managed to sit himself up a little by propping pillows behind his back. He looked a lot more animated than he had just moments before. The pain of losing Fae still gripped me, but his strength fortified my resolve to keep fighting.

  “What do we know about Rumple?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, pouring him a cup of the juice and passing it to him. “He’s a thief, he’s magic, he’s wicked, he’s strange.” I sat down in the chair next to the bed. “He likes to make unfair bargains.”

  “Exactly!” Jay said pointing his index finger at me. “Every person who has ever met him has made a bargain with him, and all of them have lost something huge for the price of something small. Your mother is a perfect example. She needed help because her father was being abusive. Rumple could have done anything to her father. He’s magic, he could have made him disappear if he wanted, but, instead he spun gold for her, and in exchange, he asked for her firstborn. You were collateral damage. I guess he took Fae because your mother never gave birth.”