by Alex Flinn
My parents still aren’t believing the magical princess stuff. “I know. I know it sounds crazy. But I’m not saying she took a commercial airline.”
“What are you saying, son?” my dad asks.
I feel completely stupid telling him what I’m thinking. It is stupid, thinking Malvolia took her through some portal to Euphrasia. It’s more than stupid—it’s crazy.
But so is a princess who sleeps for three hundred years only to be awakened by a doofus like me. Crazy things happen.
Just not to Dad.
Still, I have to try and make him understand.
“She said the witch was taking her to Euphrasia, yesterday when she fainted at Fairchild. I thought she was crazy. I told her so. But now she’s gone. She’s gone, and it’s my fault for not believing her.”
“Jack…” My mom rubs my shoulder. “We can look around the neighborhood. She can’t have gone far without a car. But if we don’t find her, I think you’ll have to accept that she ran away again.”
“She didn’t,” I say. “She wouldn’t run away, and she especially wouldn’t run away and leave this.” I gesture toward the spindle. “And all her jewelry, too.”
“Hey, here’s what I was looking for,” Meryl says from the computer. She points to a Wikipedia article she’s been reading.
“Not now, Meryl,” Dad says. He’s taken out one of Talia’s necklaces and is examining it.
“No, listen for once!” She reads, “‘Carlo Maratti drew ridicule at the end of his life for claiming to have been the art master to Princess Talia of Euphrasia, a nonexistent country. And then, one day, he lost his memory entirely.’ That was Talia’s art master.”
“I don’t understand,” Dad says. He holds up a sapphire to the light.
“So, Carlo Maratti died in 1713. Jack’s telling the truth, Dad. She’s really from the seventeenth century. She’s really a princess, too! If you’d talked to her, you’d know it’s true.”
Dad looks at the computer screen, then at the necklace. “Dana, maybe we should listen to the boy.”
“What?” I say.
“What?” my mom echoes.
“He seems pretty sure of himself, and besides, I wouldn’t mind seeing the place.”
“What place?” Mom asks.
“Euphrasia. It sounds fascinating.”
“So you actually believe me?” I forget for a second how upset I am about Talia. I’m glad my dad doesn’t know how Wikipedia works, that anyone can just add stuff, that Meryl could have put those sentences in the article.
“You believe what you’re saying, don’t you?” Dad asks me.
I nod. “Talia told me that Malvolia would take her to a cottage on the highest hill in Euphrasia.”
“But why can’t we simply call her parents and tell them to check there?” Mom asks.
I think of the empty air mattress, the pillow with the indentation of Talia’s head. The spindle.
“Because I may need to be there, to rescue her.”
Chapter 34:
Talia
“What do you want from me?” The words are a cry to the room, to no one, to Malvolia, whom I know is there somewhere, looming like a black bat.
But there is no answer.
Is she away? Would she take me here, all the way to Euphrasia, and simply leave me, free to come and go as I please? It is impossible. It is too simple.
And yet I hear no sign of Malvolia. Indeed, the room is perfectly silent, silent as only Euphrasian rooms are. American rooms always had noise, the blare of the television, or even at the dead of midnight, smaller sounds, like the tick of a clock, the buzz of a computer, or the constant whoosh of air-conditioning.
There is no air-conditioning in this cottage, Malvolia’s cottage, but it is cool nonetheless, for it is high up in the Euphrasian hills and is shaded by a chestnut tree. I breathe in the fresh air, Euphrasian air which has not been processed or filtered in any way. It smells like my childhood, and I sigh as I remember Mother and Father. After the sigh is true Euphrasian silence. Can the cottage be empty? Dare I chance walking about?
What have I to lose? And the cottage is small. Surely, if she were lurking, I would hear her. She would hear me.
I rise.
I am still dressed from last night, in a pair of blue sleep trousers and a T-shirt. My feet are bare, and I step lightly on the unpolished wooden floor. I tiptoe to the door, which has a window in it, and then stand by that window, gazing out. No one in sight, not even a shepherd boy with his flock. I will leave. I will go to my family.
I glance behind me. No one there. I open the door.
“Going somewhere, Princess?”
Chapter 35:
Jack
Even though I say it’s not necessary, Mom insists we drive around the neighborhood, looking for Talia. We even look at the nearest Trailways bus station and ask if they’ve seen her. “I didn’t even know there was a Trailways bus station,” I tell Mom. “What are the odds that Talia would find it?” But Mom says we should leave no stone unturned.
So when we’ve finally turned every stone (and haven’t found Talia), we head back home and go online to order a plane ticket.
“Get two,” Dad says.
“Two?”
“One for me, one for you.”
I heard Dad before when he said he wanted to see Euphrasia, but I didn’t think he was serious. The thought of ten plus hours on the plane with Dad doesn’t do it for me.
“Don’t you have work or something?” I ask him. He always has to work.
He shrugs. “I can move some things around.”
“But I can go by myself. I went by myself before.”
“The last time you went on a trip by yourself,” my dear little sister says, “you sneaked away from the tour group, went to a nonexistent country, and kidnapped the heir to the throne. So, understandably, Dad’s worried about what will happen if he sends you back.”
“Shut up,” I say.
“That’s not it,” Dad says.
“What is it then?”
Dad thinks a minute. “I want to see this Euphrasia. Besides, if it’s really like you say, with witches and curses and kidnappings, it could be dangerous. If this Malvolia has really been plotting against Talia for three hundred years, she’s not going to give up easily.
Wow. He actually listened and believed me.
“Okay. Then I guess we should get going.”
And that’s how I end up spending the next twenty-four hours alone with my dad, flying to Brussels and then driving to Euphrasia.
Chapter 36:
Talia
Caught! I feel Malvolia’s icy fingers upon my bare arm.
“Going somewhere?” she says.
“Merely home. I thank you kindly for bringing me this far.”
“I am afraid not.” With her claw, she draws me around, then into the room.
“What interesting…attire,” she says, her black eyes scanning my pajamas. “You cannot go home like this. It is hardly what one would expect of a princess.”
“Are you going to torture me? Chain me to the wall?” Then I realize I may merely be giving her ideas which she had not yet considered. So I am quiet.
“Nay, Princess. You have done me no harm.”
“Then you will allow me to leave?”
She shakes her head. “It is upon your father I seek revenge. You are merely a pawn.”
I, who have studied the game of chess, know that it is no good thing to be a pawn. Pawns are eliminated quickly while kings and queens stay to fight the battle.
“So you plan to…kill me? But surely this is not necessary. My father adores me, and he will pay whatever you wish for my safe return.”
“Whatever I wish?” Malvolia looks into space, considering. “What I wish is to see your father miserable and heartbroken, as he has made me.”
She leads me to a table set up for sewing. Cuts of fabric lie all around, and I realize they are meant to be parts of a dress, a dress the exact shade
of my eyes. The gown is unfinished, panels unsewn, buttons lying beside it on the table.
“We will create a beautiful dress for you, Princess. That is what is important to you, nay? To have the most beautiful dress? Now you shall sew it yourself. And then I will deliver it to your father, wrapped around your dead body.”
“My dead body!”
“Revenge is not a pretty thing, Princess.”
She means not only to kill me, but first to use me to sew my own shroud. I look into the old woman’s black eyes, and I see something I have never seen before: hatred. This is what Father and Mother sheltered me from, protected me from.
I realize, too late, that Father and Mother were right. They were right, and I shall never be able to tell them. I shall never see nor speak to them again.
Out the window are the verdant Euphrasian hills. I shall never go home.
No. This is impossible! It is impossible that I should live three hundred years only to die in this manner. Perhaps it was my destiny for my life to end like this, but must I accept this fate?
“Was it not enough to make me sleep three hundred years?” I ask. “Can you not consider yourself avenged and let me go?”
“Come now, Princess.” Malvolia’s voice is like the rocks under carriage wheels. “It is time to sew your lovely dress.”
Why should I sew? I want to ask her. Why should I, a princess destined to become queen, sew a gown for myself only so I can be killed?
But then I look at the dress. It is pieces, only pieces, which would take days, maybe a week, for even a skilled seamstress to sew. I have never sewn anything in my life, and if my skill at painting is any indication, my hands are lacking in dexterity. It will take a long time—long enough for someone to rescue me?
Jack. I dare not hope that Jack…and yet, I told him the exact location of Malvolia’s cottage. Of course, he thought me daft at the time, but now perhaps he will remember. Perhaps he will come here in time to rescue me before Malvolia…
“Time to sew,” the witch repeats.
“I do not know how to sew,” I say, sweet as pie to this old lady who would murder me. “You will need to teach me.”
“I fully intend to.”
“But please…” I remember the story of Scheherazade in Arabian Nights (which Lady Brooke tried to prevent my reading), who put off her death night after night by dawdling at her storytelling until her captor changed his mind. “Might I have breakfast first? I will sew better on a full stomach.”
The old woman’s eyes appraise me, attempting to catch a lie. But finally she says, “You do look thin, Your Highness. I will fix you breakfast. You may set the table.”
I glance out the window again. There is no one in the distance, no chance of rescue.
No chance but Jack.
Chapter 37:
Jack
After we book the plane tickets, I call Travis and ask him to tell Talia’s dad to look on the highest hill in Euphrasia, where Talia and Lady Brooke used to go for picnics. He says he’ll tell them.
“But…” I say.
“What?”
“Be careful, okay, when you go there. Talia was really scared of this Malvolia chick. She could be dangerous.”
“What’s she going to have—an assault weapon?”
“Worse,” I say. “She’s got magical powers.”
In all the activity, I try not to think about the fact that Talia’s gone, that I might never see her again, that she might even be dead, and that if I’d just listened to her in the first place, I might have been able to prevent it.
But I have lots of time to think about that on the airplane. I wonder how many times in my life I would have been able to prevent something, change something, do something different, if only I’d listened to someone. I don’t know, but when this is over, I’m going to try and listen a lot more.
I spend about three hours sitting in the plane seat (one good thing about going with Dad—he sprung for first class), listening to my iPod and contemplating life. That’s a lot of contemplating for me, but I can’t sleep. I’m too worried about Talia. I wish I could use my phone and call Travis. I wonder if it really would interfere with the plane’s signal. Still, it would suck if the plane crashed, and if Travis is back in Euphrasia, his phone won’t work, anyway.
Dad’s been sitting doing work, paying zero attention to me, which is what I’m used to, anyway. So I take out my garden design and start working on that. But even then I can’t concentrate, because when I try to decide what kind of flowers would grow around the trees in front of the castle, that gets me thinking about Euphrasia and that hill. Where is it? And is Talia really there?
Dad taps my shoulder. “What’s that you’re working on?”
“Huh?” Instinctively, I cover the design with the sleeve of my hoodie.
“That.” He points. “What is it?”
“Oh.” I try to look casual. “Homework. Math.” This is the best way to get rid of parents, I’ve found. They don’t want to get stuck helping with math.
“In the summer?”
Stupid.
“I’m trying to get ahead.” He should like that.
He nods. “It doesn’t look like math. It looked like a design of some sort.”
“Geometry. They make us do maps and plans.”
I took geometry in ninth grade, but I doubt Dad will remember that.
“I thought you took geometry in ninth grade.”
Nabbed. “Yeah, but next year I’m taking trig, and that’s got a lot of geometry in it, so you have to remember—”
“You took trig last year,” Dad says. “Never mind.” He goes back to his work.
I try to go back to mine, but now I feel bad about Talia and sort of bad about blowing Dad off. I just figured he’d think it was stupid. In fact, I know he will. He already said gardening was stupid. But, on the other hand, I do complain a lot about Dad blowing me off. And he did seem happy when I’d said I was waiting for his advice. And I am surprised that he knows so much about what classes I’ve taken.
I start to turn the paper toward him, to show him, then change my mind. I can’t take the chance of him saying it’s stupid. He’s finally starting to believe me about stuff, to treat me like I’m not just some dumb slacker. But if I start talking about gardening again, I could ruin it all.
I keep working on it until they turn off the lights. I could turn on my overhead light, but I decide I should at least try to sleep so I’ll be rested for tomorrow.
I wonder what Talia’s doing right now.
Chapter 38:
Talia
The old lady fixes me breakfast. I wonder, at first, if I should eat it, but then I realize that if she wished to kill me now, she need not poison me. Indeed, she might easily have killed me already.
After breakfast, I dawdle about, clearing the dishes, looking out the window at the chestnut tree. Would that I could climb it, be free once more. Malvolia reproaches me. “I should have known not to expect much work from you.”
Considering that she intends to kill me, this seems only reasonable. But I finish the dishes, and then Malvolia begins the chore of teaching me to sew.
Breakfast was a silent meal, but afterward, as we are sitting together at the table, it occurs to me that I should use the diplomacy skills that were the work of years. After all, perhaps if I talk to her, she will begin to like me, rather than see me merely as a spoiled extension of my hated father. Then she may be less likely to kill me. At least, it is worth a try.
“You sew extremely well,” I say as she shows me how to fit the pieces together.
“I am not sewing, Princess. You are.”
“No, but I meant the dresses you made for me that day. Perhaps you do not remember it, for it was three hundred years ago, but they were the loveliest I had ever seen. Were they made with magic?”
She shakes her head. “Nay. Magic can sew a dress, but it cannot design one. To make a beautiful gown, one needs skill, not merely arts.” There is an unmist
akable hint of pride in her voice.
“Well, you certainly have skill.” I have managed to thread the needle and am now attempting to make a knot in the thread. “I have none.”
“I was a seamstress by trade, before your father destroyed me.”
“My father?”
“Oh, drat!” The old woman looks past me to the window. “How have they found me?”
I turn, looking for what she is talking about. At first, I see nothing. Then, far off in the distance, I spy a man on horseback, then another. I recognize the shape of the larger one. It is Pleasant, one of the castle guards, the drunkard who watched Jack that night in the dungeon. They ride toward the cottage. I am saved! I am saved!
“They are coming for me!” I cry.
“Silence!”
And then, when I try to cry out again, I find that I cannot. My mouth will make no sound.
“And sit still.” As soon as she says it, I cannot move. “Much better. I do not know how they have found me. My location has been secret since before your birth. But they shall not thwart me.”
I know how they found out. Jack! Jack believed me, and he remembered—the highest hill in Euphrasia. Jack has contacted my father somehow. They are coming for me.
But they will not find me, for the old woman is now, with surprising strength for one over five hundred years old, dragging my stiff body across the room. She kicks aside a rag rug, and I see a trapdoor under it. She opens the door, and proceeds to pull me down the cellar stairs. The staircase is long and steep, and I fear there may be rats at the end of it. I suppose I should be happy that Malvolia at least drags me by the arms, lest my head bump against each step. But this is small comfort when rescue is so close.
Finally, we reach the bottom of the stairs. It is pitch-black, and Malvolia drags me to the corner, throwing a blanket atop my unmoving form.