by Margs Murray
“We can be done tonight,” I told her.
Manon picked up another necklace and held it up. “Non, I am here for you. We can do this all night.”
“No, we can’t. Enzo will kill us if we’re too much longer. He’s been talking about dinner all day. There’s always tomorrow,” I said, and Manon gave an involuntary shudder. “Come on, it’s not that bad.”
“I do not mind. I felt… no, it’s nothing.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Oui, because Enzo would have told me if...” Her voice trailed off, and she shuddered once more.
“Told you what? Manon?” When she didn’t answer, I put my hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”
Manon shook her head and placed her hand on mine. “Pardon. I am feeling… no, Enzo would have told me, warned me.”
“Warned you what?” This was getting very frustrating.
Manon straightened her dress and patted her hair. “Nothing. I believe I am hungry. Let’s eat.”
Arm in arm, we headed towards the small dining room, but Doc stopped us. “Tonight, Enzo has summoned us to the great hall.”
If I hadn’t been holding Manon’s arm, she might’ve fallen to the floor. Her face went pale. “The great hall?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Doctor Tivoli, who is coming to dinner tonight?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have the foggiest.” He leaned over closer to her and added, “It’s not Bollard, that much I know.”
This relieved Manon, and some pink returned to her cheeks. “Thank you, Doctor.”
When we arrived, Enzo was the only person in the great hall. We took our seats and the staff served us immediately. By the time we reached dessert, a four-tier cake, uninterrupted, Manon’s lovely shoulder’s relaxed.
“Enzo, please tell us, why are we meeting in the great hall?” She asked before eating a sliver of chocolate cake.
“Big news needs a big room,” Enzo said, his voice echoing. Feigning disinterest, he nonchalantly cut into his slice of cake, but he couldn’t contain himself and the information bubbled out. “I can’t wait. I have the greatest news. After years of impasse, your presence has ended the standoff between the two most powerful countries in the world.”
Doc’s eyes widened. “You can’t possibly mean—Enzo!”
Enzo nodded, his face full of pride. “You have no idea. At first, he was reluctant, but when I told him he would meet with Helena Merric’s granddaughter, the King of France couldn’t get here fast enough.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Wait, King of France… you don’t mean...?”
“Lothaire Deluce, the one and only.” Enzo rolled his hand in the air and bowed from his seat.
“We had been getting the runaround. France hasn’t taken a call from one of the American royals in years, and they wouldn’t even give King Lothaire the message. I persisted. Still nothing. I told everyone I talked to about you, and one of them must have finally gotten word to the king. Once the king knew Helena Merric’s granddaughter was here, he personally called me. Me! I spoke to the King of France and made peace between our two countries. He’s making a special trip to Boston to see you.”
“America used to be best friends with France until Lothaire took over the throne,” Manon explained. “The King of France does not get along with the Merrics. He barely leaves his palace.”
I wasn’t sure meeting with me constituted as a peace treaty.
“That is true,” Enzo agreed. “He said he’d be here tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. Like, in the morning?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. I jumped up from my chair and hugged him. Enzo was quite pleased with himself. “I know, I know. Remember this feeling when deciding on a raise next year.”
“So he’s coming here tomorrow?” Doc asked.
“Well, to Boston. Waverly will have to meet him at a select restaurant.” Enzo rolled his eyes. “He wouldn’t come here. He’s defrosting slightly towards America but not so warm as to show up here for a meal.”
I sat back, nearly unable to catch my breath. “I can’t believe I’m going to meet the Prince of France.”
“No, le roi. The King of France. This is such an honor,” Manon said.
No wonder Enzo was so excited. Lothaire Deluce. The Prince. I’d seen the pictures. This man knew my grandma very well. If anyone knew what she had been like here in this world, it was this man.
“Tomorrow?” Doc said, and I turned to him. He wasn’t pleased. “How is this going to happen? She’s an unarmed, untrained Merric. I know some of the men from Barton were brought here, but that is not enough security. She would be in tremendous danger.”
Enzo waved his hand like he was swatting an annoying fly. He sat back in his seat and took a large bite of cake before he said, “There is one little caveat. Your uncle was not planning on letting you leave L’Autre Bête, not until you’ve had training.” As he was saying this, we heard the chatter of rather rowdy people in the hallway.
Manon’s body tensed. “Enzo, what did you do?”
Doc sat up straight, his arms firmly placed on the table as though to brace himself for something terrible.
A woman shuffled through the doorway. Her head was down like she was watching her feet, careful not to stumble as she moved. Her blond hair cascaded down her shoulder and over her face like water rolling over rocks in a river. She made her way to the chair next to Manon. Manon trembled.
Enzo stood, and even though he cleared his throat, his voice cracked as he spoke. “May I present the Duchess Claudette Rebecca Overton Merric, Duchess of Georgia, Duchess of Alabama, Lady of Oklahoma… your cousin.”
Her head remained down. So, this was my cousin. This was Claudette.
The room was pin-drop silent.
Claudette raised her head. Her eyes landed directly on me. Mercury gray eyes. My eyes. I couldn’t help staring. They were all I saw. Claudette glared with such intensity I wanted to crawl under the table and stay there, but I couldn’t. Her eyes were all I focused on. If she was looking at me, I looked nowhere else. Luckily, she picked up a spoon from the table and puckered at her own reflection. “That’s what I thought.”
Suddenly, the room felt warmer. The heat was coming from Claudette. Her body was abnormally hot, like Grandma and Bollard’s. There was something more though. Something was off. My gut told me I should leave, but my butt had been cemented to my seat. I had to look at this cousin of mine. She wore red hot lipstick and a slinky black dress. She flipped her long locks off her bare shoulders.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked. I noticed a group of her friends waiting in the hallway, their heads all craning to see us.
“Claudette will need to accompany you tomorrow,” Enzo said, his voice cracking. “She will be the added protection you need.”
I blinked for a second, and when I opened my eyes, Claudette was glaring at Enzo and every muscle in her body was tensed. “You know how talented I am, don’t you, Enzo?” The people in the hallway laughed together.
Enzo stared at her in return. His face went pale, his eyes blank. Sweat trickled down his temples. His body was like a statue, like he had rigor mortis.
“Enzo, are you okay?” I reached my hand across the table to his. Enzo’s skin was hot and clammy, like he was running a high fever. Manon let out a little squeak. I turned to see her face contorted in pain, sweat dripping from her forehead. “Manon!”
Doc got up from his chair. “Claudette!”
“Relax, Tivoli.” Claudette closed her eyes and her body relaxed, and just like that, the strange heat dissipated. “I only wanted to see this cousin of mine and what a cousin she is.”
Manon folded forward and placed her head on the table. She let out a sigh of relief.
Enzo trembled as if he was struggling to fill his lungs. This felt familiar, like the night Bollard came to dinner. I was sure my cousin, like Bollard, had something to do with it.
“Are you all right?” I asked him.
Enzo’s eye
s teared up. He shook his head. “Okay, I’m okay.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” Claudette asked. She raised her hand in the air. “We need champagne. Cousins don’t meet cousins every day.”
One of the wait staff ran to the kitchen and back. He rushed over to pour me a glass. I stopped him. “Sorry, I’m seventeen.”
“You are funny.” Claudette and her crowd laughed. She polished off a glass, and the man filled it up. It went down the hatch even faster than the first. “Sorry, I’m seventeen,” she mocked.
This was followed by her friends crowing. “Seventeen, seventeen, seventeen. A riot.” As she laughed, the temperature in the room rose.
Enzo looked dizzy and even hotter than he had a moment before. His eyes had returned to Claudette. Manon put her arms over her head as if for protection.
“What are you doing to them?” I asked her. The room had the same air as when Bollard arrived at The Cracked Kettle and then the following night.
“Me? Nothing. Right, Tivoli?” She gazed at Doc from under her eyebrows.
He said nothing.
“I said, right, Tivoli?”
Doc said nothing.
“Enzo?”
As she waited for a response, my ears picked up a hum like a television turned to the blue screen, faint but there.
“I suffer from fits sometimes.” Enzo’s words clipped short, and he shivered in his seat. He was lying. “I have for years. How silly. Claudette has nothing to do with it.”
“It’s fine. I’ve seen enough.” Claudette nodded. “See you around, cousin.” And as fast as she had arrived, she left.
Doc shook his head. “Come, Enzo. I should check you out.”
“I am fine, Doctor. I really am.” His head swayed, and he added, “Cakes. Let‘s talk about the cakes.”
Doc waved his hand to Rudolf, and when he came over, Doc whispered in his ear. Rudolf nodded.
Manon stood, her eyes rolled back, and she swayed on her feet. Rudolf caught her before she hit the ground. “I must attend to her as well.”
One guard pulled Enzo from his seat.
“What did she do to them, Doc?” I asked.
Two other guards helped Enzo to his feet. While Doc examined his eyes, he replied, “Nothing. They need water, some medicine. They’ll be as good as new by the morning.”
“What happened to them? Did Claudette do this?” It had been such a pleasant evening before she showed up. It had to be her.
“Exhaustion. I’m sorry, but I must get them into bed,” Doc said, and he signaled to the guards that it was time to move the patients.
“No, my uncle did the same thing,” I said, and this time I demanded an explanation, so I added, “I will go find my cousin.”
Doc came over and whispered in my ear, “Your friends are sick. Please, go to bed. This can only get worse for them.”
“How?” I asked, but my senses returned to me. This was not the time or the place. Both Enzo and Manon were ill. I nodded, and they left.
Back in my room, my thoughts flooded with images. Manon’s face contorted in pain. The sweat pouring off Enzo and his words failing him.
This was more than Enzo being afraid or sick. Enzo couldn’t speak. Like Dad at our dinner with Uncle Bollard. Dad had wanted to say no, but my uncle wouldn’t let him. Well, I had just witnessed the same thing at dinner. I didn’t understand how she did it. Was it the look she gave Enzo or something else? Could my family hurt people by looking at them? I recalled the marble carver. She had mentioned the eyes. Could my family control people with their eyes? Rationally, I understood humans couldn’t do that, and yet Claudette and Bollard had some power beyond the average person.
People believed I had power too. How many times had I been called an untrained Merric? Well, if what I saw was an example of my family’s powers, I wasn’t interested. Dad, Manon, Enzo. If Bollard wanted me trained in hurting people, he had another thing coming.
This was far more complicated than I had thought. Grandma. I began to understand why she’d come home. She’d never be able to stand people like Claudette or Bollard. Her book was right next to me, and I leafed through the pages. All the pictures showed her as a happy woman with many adoring people around her.
I got up and went to the bookshelf. This time I grabbed an encyclopedia on a woman name Beatrix Wently Priscilla Lynn Merric. All her pictures were happy; the public had loved her. If I read another volume, I doubted it would be different. What had Dad taught in class? Those who win history, own history. The Merrics owned history, so this book wouldn’t tell any darker truths.
But what were those darker truths? Could my family control people? Could they hypnotize others? Cause pain, sweating? Or was the sweating a side effect of something else? Could someone else’s hot temperature cause others to sweat?
It reminded me of Grandma’s high temperature, and yet sitting next to Grandma it never radiated off her. Perhaps Claudette or Bollard had the Tennabris, but worse. No wonder Doc had put me in the freezer. If that was the normal Merric temperature, they were lucky they didn’t fry all their internal organs. They didn’t appear sicker than Grandma, but what did I know? Perhaps the disease affected people differently. Like some people had higher temperatures, others had worse delusions. Diseases weren’t like blueprints.
This was also scary because if the disease was this different between these relatives and Grandma, chances are that my or my mother’s symptoms for the illness might be completely different.
I had so many questions about the disease and about the Merrics. No one working for them would tell me anything unfavorable. In fact, only one person in the entire place had told me the truth about the Merrics, and the marble sculptor had been absent since my first morning.
Outside my room, Claudette and her friends cackled and carried on.
Torn between wanting very much to cancel the dinner and needing to meet my grandma’s prince, I pictured both Lothaire and Grandpa. Lothaire was lanky, dark hair, brown eyes. He looked nothing like Grandpa. Leo had been the opposite. Short, blue eyes. Grandma had truly loved my grandpa—she was utterly lost without him—but there was something about Lothaire that had stuck with Grandma even after she became sick. I just knew her prince was the key to finding the necklace and ultimately finding the cure for Grandma. I needed to go. Canceling wasn’t an option. I was going to meet Grandma’s prince. I needed to talk to him about Grandma.
Chapter 17
A Walk in the Park
My stylists put me in a boring black dress. They didn’t bother to do my makeup or hair, which was confusing. More times than not I didn’t even look like me when they finished and that was to sit around the palace, but not today. Today they put me in sunglasses and a large hat.
Wilbur, Hincho, and Naugle came to collect me at my door. I had successfully avoided them since their arrival but there was no getting around it today. Mr. Hincho tried to make small talk but not too much. The three didn’t press too hard; they knew me better than that. They knew I needed time, and I did, but overhearing Rudolf the night before had softened me. Any way you looked at it, they were in a hard situation. Telling me they were secret bodyguards working for my royal family from a different Earth wasn’t going to go over well.
Rudolf, along with twenty other guards, waited for us in the garden. Claudette was a no show, which didn’t upset me at all. She must have been sleeping off her fun from last night.
Our group walked to the end of the garden and into a glass elevator. As the elevator rose, the rocks changed from larger to smaller and then mixed with steel girders, posts, and concrete. When it stopped, we exited into another lobby with enormous glass doors.
A long ray of sunshine lighted the floor. Real, honest sunlight. I ran toward it. I hadn’t even realized how much I had missed it until the rays touched my skin. The sun warmed my arms and face.
“You ready?” Mr. Wilbur asked.
Outside those doors was a whole different world. A different Earth with a different
history, different customs, different everything.
“Hey, kiddo, are you okay?” Mr. Hincho stepped to my side.
I nodded but didn’t move forward.
Mr. Naugle joined me.
“It’s a different world out there,” I explained. “I haven’t even been to a city before and now…”
“I know how you feel, but you’ll be fine. Come on, if you can ace your math SATs, you’ve got this,” Mr. Hincho said.
“You sang with Ms. Sasha on the stage,” Mr. Wilbur added, “and nearly stole the show.”
Mr. Naugle shrugged. “I’ve got nothing, but we’re here and you’ll be fine.”
I smiled. I had missed these three.
After one more breath, I opened the doors.
A warm breeze tickled my cheeks and legs. A car drove by, wheels on pavement. What a disappointment; I thought cars flew here. When I mentioned this, Hincho laughed. “Yeah, works well in the movies but sucks in reality. Imagine a collision at two hundred feet!”
Wilbur leaned his head in. “Your history-loving father would dislike how close this monocratic country is to your own. This one is better. A major improvement.”
“Dad would hate it here.” Especially that the country was being run by Bollard and his family.
Mr. Hincho agreed but added, “I think he’d enjoy watching you as a princess living the royal life.”
He was wrong. There was a reason my dad was an American History teacher. Dad believed in choices and elections. In freedom and enterprise. Here, royals made money from taxes and based on the state of the unused palace, the tax business was making bank.
We walked down the sidewalk.
This being my first city, I didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t too far from what I’d seen on TV or in the movies. The buildings were a mixture of old and new. Men wore suits and women wore dresses that reminded me of something you’d see in the 1940s or 50s. I smiled at the people passing me by, which Rudolf hated. He’d stop periodically to pull my hat down, muttering something like can’t vet the world.
In fact, if I didn’t know better, I might not have guessed this was a different world; that was, until we neared the restaurant. As we walked along the city sidewalk trees, I saw one of our major differences. Gnawing on the birch leaves was a koala. Koalas are found in Australia, and they sure don’t eat birch.
