The Fiery Aftermath

by L. R. Patton

  Cook bows before the king, agile for one as old as she, though, as said before, she does not look old to their eyes. She is good at hiding who she really is, for no one has ever had any cause to look.

  “I am your cook, sire,” she says. She looks up, knowing that the king will gaze on her in pleasure.

  And she is not disappointed. There is a gleam in the eyes of the king that cannot be mistaken for anything but delight. “Ah,” he says. “My cook.” He extends his hand. She comes closer, walking across the carpet with feet that make no noise.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “And what is this other way?” King Willis says. “Pray tell.”

  “There is someone new to the forest, sire,” Cook says.

  “Children?” says King Willis, for he remains ever hopeful. He wants this finished just as everyone else does. If they would only hand over the remaining children, it would all be done and over in a day or two, and no one would be the worse, would they? Except, perhaps, the boy who would be killed.

  “No,” Cook says. “Not children.”

  “Then who?” King Willis says. He does not even pause to wonder how this woman may know what is in the forest and what is not. Such a dangerous forest is not ever a good place to visit, but he does not consider this. He only considers what she may know.

  Queen Clarion looks at the woman with a curiosity that can hardly be contained. But she will save her questions for later.

  “A woman,” Cook says. “A woman who can help.”

  “Who is this woman?” King Willis says.

  “An Enchantress,” Cook says. “A very powerful one. So I have heard.”

  “And from whom did you hear this?” King Willis says.

  “From the animals of the forest,” Cook says. She looks at her feet, as if embarrassed. “I have always had a way with animals, sire.”

  “Are there animals in the forest?” King Willis says. He looks at his wife and back at the woman. “I thought it had burned.”

  “The animals do not stay gone long,” Cook says. “It is their home.”

  “I see,” King Willis says. “And where might I find this woman?”

  Cook looks back up at her king. “She lives in a corner of the forest. In a small cottage, surrounded by flowers and trees.” Of course it is surrounded by trees. It is, after all, a forest, which only has trees in the first place, but what Cook, who is not so eloquent at speaking, really means is that it is surrounded by trees that are still alive, while most of the trees in the forest remain dead. Though not for long.

  “Who will go?” King Willis says. He looks around, searching for his man Sir Greyson. But there is no one, you see. Sir Greyson lost all his men in the battle with the dragons, and King Willis, in a twist of irony, has sent the remaining man off to gather more men in order to protect the castle and its people, just a few moments too late, or perhaps too early, since Sir Greyson might have been able to appeal to the people, since he was one of them. Now King Willis has lost his son.

  No one answers the king, of course. They all stare at him with frightened eyes. But there are men still. There are old men and there are very young men, and King Willis finds a very young man, his manservant, in fact, standing nearly behind a chair, trying to remain perfectly invisible. “You,” he says.

  “Me?” says Garth. His eyes, piercing blue, look frightened and scared, because, dear reader, if you will remember, he is still quite young, not yet a man. His short brown hair is brushed across the right side of his face, almost obscuring those piercing blue eyes and his dark eyebrows. But not quite. In them one can see fear and apprehension, and, yes, quite a bit of pride at having been asked to do the king’s important work, so different from his daily tasks of bringing the king sweet rolls and helping him in and out of his throne and down the stairs of the platform.

  What those at the castle do not know is that Garth is the oldest of twelve children, some of them down in the dungeons beneath the dungeons and some of them still out missing. He does not want to leave his brothers and sisters caught in the dungeon, but perhaps he will be able to find the ones missing.

  “You will go,” King Willis says. “You will find the Enchantress.”

  “But the woods,” Garth says. “There are many dangers inside.”

  “The woods are burned,” King Willis says, waving his hands in dismissal. “There is nothing that will hurt you.” He turns to the boy and grins. “At least not if you hurry.”

  The boy bows down low, as if admitting his defeat, and then he says, “Yes, Your Highness.” Queen Clarion raises her eyebrows, for what she hears is “Yes, Your Wideness,” and she can see by the flash of merry light in the boy’s eyes, which wins over the fear for only a moment, that she was right in her hearing. She looks at King Willis. He does not seem to notice. In spite of the circumstances, she wants to laugh, though her son is missing, though she does not know what the village people will do to him, though she misses him terribly already and cannot bear to think what she will possibly do without him. It is true that in times of grief, people often feel the need to laugh. And yet Queen Clarion remains quiet. She stifles her urge with a gloved hand.

  “At the edge of the forest. Near the village,” Cook says.

  The boy hesitates, for just a moment, looking at Cook, who does not say another word. Her eyes are wide, though, and he knows what that means. There are still dangers in the forest, and she is warning him. He has seen her, sneaking off into the trees and then disappearing into thin air until only a bear remained, lumbering into the shadows. He knows her for what she is. He has never told her secret, and, truth be told, she does not know he knows, but he does not even have time to leverage that knowledge. He only has time to fly, which is what he does, right through the hallways and through the immaculate entryway of the palace and out the front doors. He runs as fast as he can toward the forest, for he will need to catch what little light there is left.

  Everyone knows that the most dangerous creatures in the Weeping Woods come out at night. He does not want to know what they are.

  AT precisely the very moment Garth is racing toward the forest, down the lawn of the castle and away from the village, the village people are standing beside the fountain’s secret entrance. Prince Virgil does not struggle in their arms. He stares at the ground.

  “What shall we do with him?” says Bertie, the village baker. “How will we hide him?”

  “The king will surely come to get us,” another man says. “He will surely have our heads for this treason.”

  “He has no men to follow us,” the woman called Cora says. “He will do nothing.” Her eyes flash at the people. “He took our sons and daughters, so we have taken his son.”

  “This was not part of the plan yet,” says Garron, the village gardener.

  “Plans change,” Cora says. “I saw an opportunity.” She smiles at the people. She is a very beautiful woman. Prince Virgil can see the resemblance now. The same green eyes. The same red hair. He wonders if she knows that Mercy is not in the dungeon.

  “Mercy is not among those who were found,” he says, for a mother should know a thing like this.

  Cora looks at Prince Virgil. She does not say anything. But he sees the grief shift in her eyes and turn toward hope, the irises growing brighter, like the grass covering the castle lawn. Why would this information give Cora hope? Is it, perhaps, that she knows her daughter would be safer outside the castle walls?

  “She escaped,” Cora says.

  “Many of them did,” Prince Virgil says, and then he remembers the dragons. “But we do not know if they lived.”

  Cora tilts her head and studies the boy. “What would make you say a thing like that?” she says. “Of course they lived. They have magic.”

  Prince Virgil swallows hard. He is afraid of this woman. He should not have spoken. “The dragons,” he says simply. He leaves it at that, for it is answer enough.

  “The dragons did not hurt the children,” Cora says. No one asks ho
w she could know this for certain. But her voice says it is fact, not merely opinion.

  “If they live, my father will continue searching,” Prince Virgil says, for he has seen the truth, the greed, the determination in his father’s eyes. Sometimes, you see, plans become obsessions, and King Willis has crossed the line. “He will search until he finds them.”

  “And what will he do then?” Cora says, but the people have begun to murmur around them, and it is very hard to hear her voice.

  “We should set up a search party,” Garron says. “We might find them before the king does.”

  Cora holds up her hand, and the people grow quiet. “Let the boy speak,” she says, and she turns her eyes upon Prince Virgil.

  “He searches for a magical boy,” Prince Virgil says. “If you could give him to us, perhaps this would all end.”

  “I do not believe it will end for quite some time,” Cora says. “There is no magical boy in Fairendale.”

  “There is,” Prince Virgil says. “A prophetess came. She told my father there was a boy born with magic.”

  The people murmur again, looking at one another. They have never seen a boy with magic. They have only seen the village girls, out in the streets, using magic to make flowers bloom and shoes dance and toys fly.

  “I saw a boy do magic,” Prince Virgil says.

  The two men who hold him release him now. “No,” one of them says. “You must have been mistaken.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” Prince Virgil says. “I saw the boy make a wooden puppet fly.”

  Prince Virgil is free now. No one lays a hand on him. Why would our prince not run from this mob? Why does he remain where he is, answering their questions as if he has nothing in the world better to do. Well, our prince, you see, hopes to sway the people. He hopes they, too, will search for the missing boy so that all of this might be finished. He only wants it to be finished.

  “Who is this boy?” Cora says.

  “A boy called Theo,” Prince Virgil says.

  “No,” Bertie says. “Theo does not have magic. Arthur would never keep that from us.”

  “When did you see this magic?” Cora says.

  “The day before my father attacked,” Prince Virgil says. “I saw him pull a puppet from the sky and then send it flying again.”

  The people look at each other, erupting into talk.

  “Silence!” Cora says. Her voice is sharp and loud. She holds up a hand once more. Her eyes narrow at Prince Virgil. “So you are the reason your father attacked.”

  “No,” Prince Virgil says. “The boy is the reason he attacked.”

  But it is too late. The people have heard Cora’s words.

  “My son died,” says a woman with a thousand wrinkles around her mud-colored eyes. Her white hair is pulled back at the nape of her neck. “My son died because of you.”

  Prince Virgil can say nothing, for, in a way, he does feel like it was all his fault. If he were not born without magic, he would not be here at all.

  “Leave us,” Cora says. The people stare at her for a moment, as if daring to defy her orders. She does not falter in her stance, her eyes meeting theirs with a fire they cannot match. Prince Virgil is impressed when they do precisely what she has said. Their backs turn, and they move toward their houses as one collective unit. “I will figure out a way out of this,” Cora calls to their retreating backs. “We will find our children.”

  She does not say what else is in her mind to say—that they must trust her implicitly to save the children. It will be a circuitous route, to be sure, but she needs their trust to do what has been given her to do.

  Prince Virgil looks on this woman who is much more than she seems. He admires her authority. He admires her courage. Perhaps this is why her eyes showed hope when he told her Mercy was not in the castle dungeons. Perhaps Mercy has this same authority, this same courage. He does not know the girl well enough to say, with all certainty, whether she does or does not. But he would like to know. His heart clenches. How he misses his friends. This village. There are so many memories in this village.

  And in the space between Cora watching the people return to their homes and when she turns back to Prince Virgil, the boy thinks of his father, what happened only moments ago. He thinks of the throne, of its sparkling jewels, of its promise that does not seem so wonderful now that he is out in the village, back in this place that held the ones he loved. Perhaps it is better that he is here. Perhaps his captivity will free him, in all the ways that matter most.

  Prince Virgil studies Cora. Cora studies him. And she is just beginning to open her mouth again when someone shouts, “There is a figure on the king’s road,” and Cora shoves the prince to the ground, his face flat against the hill beside the fountain. He is quite surprised to feel the ground falling away from him and his body falling down. And before he can even make sense of what is happening, Prince Virgil finds himself in a secret room, dark and chilly. Cora lights candles, and Prince Virgil looks on the tables and chairs, and a bed in the corner. His mouth, of its own volition, drops open. Has this been in the village all along? How?

  Shadows flicker in all the corners, pulling their silhouettes long and tall. It is a small room, but the candles make it comfortable. There are no windows, and he sees no door. There will be no way out.

  And it is true, dear reader, that there is no way out for a prince, for the room only opens to those who have been given permission to come and go. It is an enchanted room, you see, placed here long ago, before the days of the Good King Brendon, even, when the people had yet to understand dragons and only knew that the lands of Fairendale met the lands of Morad, where it was known that dragons lived. This room was a hideout from the dragons, though it was never used for that purpose. It was not used, in fact, until the days of King Sebastien, when the people found a need to meet in secret.

  Prince Virgil is interrupted in his thoughts by the voice of Mercy’s mother. “Tell me what you know,” she says.

  So he does. He tells her about the children in the dungeons beneath the dungeons, about all the ones who are missing, about the tiny shoe one of the king’s men found, about how his father ordered the king’s men to find the children, and they were all burned up in the fire of dragons.

  “They were all burned?” Cora says, and the look on her face tells a story of sorrow. Perhaps the man she saw in the village was not the man she loved so long ago.

  “Yes,” Prince Virgil says.

  “Not a man survived?” Cora says.

  “There was one,” Prince Virgil says. “The captain.”

  “Yes,” Cora says, and her breath comes out in a whoosh, as if she were holding it in anticipation. “The captain.” She raises her eyes to Prince Virgil. “And where is the captain now?”

  “My father sent him on a journey to gather more men,” Prince Virgil says.

  “More men for what?” Cora says.

  “For the attack of the dragons,” Prince Virgil says.

  “The dragons will not attack,” Cora says. “They are peaceable enough.”

  “But my father’s men crossed into their land,” Prince Virgil says.

  And perhaps Cora senses that this boy is frightened of what may happen if the dragons should attack, for she touches the boy’s arm, and her eyes grow soft. “Your father’s men are all gone,” Cora says. “And while that is very, very sad, the dragons will not harm those who have not crossed.”

  “The children crossed,” Prince Virgil says, for there is more in his heart to cause great worry.

  “So they did,” Cora says. Her eyes grow glassy, far away. Prince Virgil cannot read what is in her eyes now, for the shadows are too large and long. Cora pulls herself back into the room.

  “Do you know the children in the dungeons beneath the dungeons?” Cora says.

  “No,” Prince Virgil says. “I only know that Mercy is not there.”

  “Did you know my daughter?” Cora says.

  “Yes,” Prince Virgil says. “I k
new her well.”

  “She is a remarkable girl,” Cora says, and her eyes, this time, overflow. It is the first time she has shown her weakness in all these days. To see it makes Prince Virgil feel all the better, for she is demonstrating her humanity, dear reader. It is not our strength, you see, that makes us most human. It is our weakness. And we are all weak in the places where we love. But love is how we know we are alive. It is how we survive. It is our greatest strength.

  Cora glances at the wall behind Prince Virgil. She does not look at him when she says, “I must keep you here.”

  “I understand,” Prince Virgil says, for she has won him over with her humanity. He has seen something in her face, something that reminds him of his mother’s kindness. Though one might argue that Cora and her storied past do not tell of kindness so much as ruthlessness, it is clear to Prince Virgil that kindness is the pen that wrote it all. And we, too, shall see that soon enough.

  Cora looks at Prince Virgil for a moment, two, three. He tries his best to meet her gaze, but those green eyes feel as if they might peel away all his layers and see all the way inside his heart, and so he turns his back to her. And then Cora says, “You are a good one,” so he must, he must, oh, he must look back, for perhaps she has seen something that he has not known existed. “I can see,” she says, as if she hears the very question that escapes from his heart. “You did not think so for a time. But we are going to keep you good.”

  And then he feels a great wrenching in his body, as if someone is flattening him beneath the heaviest weight he has ever carried. It is nothing like the weight of the mind but is physical and demanding and frightening. Perhaps he screams. Perhaps he does not. He only remembers looking into the eyes of this woman called Cora and hearing a fluttering sound and knowing nothing more.

  GARTH searches the forest as long as he dares. But he finds nothing. There is nothing in the forest but burned trees and the smell of death. He looks everywhere, all along the boundary between the village and the forest, and, in a burst of fear, rushes inside, to the surprise of the village people who watch him. He does not go deep, of course, for Cook said he would find a house just inside. And, truth be told, he is frightened of what the forest holds.