Emmie and the Tudor Queen

by Natalie Murray

  I waited for my brimming tears to spill onto the sheets. His words were so hard to hear, but he was spot on. I’d been trying so hard to adjust to my new role in this place, but lately I was falling apart, and the Agnes Nightingale incident had been a particularly low point.

  “You have to understand that all this has been a massive change for me,” I said through a choked voice. “I know that you want me to be happy here, and I am—most of the time—but there’s a lot to get used to. Frankly, I find the idea of becoming the queen in this place beyond terrifying, and it’s not why I wanted to marry you. You have to give me time to adjust to it all. It’s not fair to be angry at me when things freak me out—like hanging girls who aren’t much older than me.”

  He slumped forward, looking so tired. “I wish not to beseech you, and I understand the burden of what you have lost, and of what you must now become accustomed. However, Emmie, I must know that I have your hand in marriage most resolutely, for any change of heart—once too late—could bring the Tudor name to ruin.”

  Tears dripped down my linen nightgown as I tried to unravel my knot of thoughts. While I’d given up my world to be with Nick, he’d also risked his kingdom to marry an unknown like me. I understood why he wanted total reassurance that I could handle it. This was the furthest thing from a normal relationship, and there was more than our hearts at stake.

  When I didn’t reply, Nick stood up, his eyes glittering with a film of tears he obviously didn’t want me to see. “I must take my leave. I am afraid there is no time to spare.” He grabbed his hat and gloves.

  A robin’s piercing cry through the window shook me to sense.

  “Nick, I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” I said, chasing after him. He paused near the doors. I quickly filled him in on what I’d discovered at Alice Grey’s home…how I believed that her missing mother was living in my time and utterly lost. I left out the fact that Susanna Grey was allegedly once a spy who conspired with Mary, Queen of Scots to destroy King Nick. The Jane Stuart I knew was old, frail, and demented. I could barely imagine her buying a carton of milk, let alone plotting a king’s demise. Instead, I reminded Nick that Susanna Grey had a family here and that we both knew what it was like to lose people.

  I didn’t tell him that a part of me hungered to get back to my home just to give my mind a break from all this.

  “What are you saying?” he said, his brows pinched.

  “I’m saying that I want to go home for a little bit.” Fear seeped into Nick’s expression as I continued. “While you head up to the north, I want to go back to my time and find Jane Stuart. If she really is Susanna Grey, I want to bring her back here to where she belongs. Nick, I will come back.”

  Our watery eyes locked together, the conversation silent but clear. We loved each other enough to get this far, but we’d become lost somewhere. We both needed time in our own corners to think, and we had to stop pretending this relationship was working. My chest felt gouged out and torn to pieces.

  Bridget Nightingale pushed through the doors holding a fire poker, gasping at the sight of the king. She struggled to lug one of the doors shut, apologizing over and over.

  “Leave it,” Nick said, and Bridget dropped the heavy iron handle, stumbling. Through the archway, I could hear the rest of my ladies frantically shuffling around.

  “My lady Pembroke,” Nick said loudly. “I heartily wish you a fine journey home to Worthing and look forward to your short return. Release your conscience from your burdens and look to the light of your kin, so desired and loved by you.” Alice was peering at us through the gap in the doors. “I pray you to be merry, and bid you farewell, my love most true,” Nick finished, his voice slipping.

  Another smooth bow, and then he left, blending into a group of waiting attendants so rapidly that my ladies didn’t bother scrambling for their dresses. Through the leaded window, I watched him stride across the courtyard without so much as a backward glance and wrestled away an urge to weep.

  “We are to travel to Sussex, my lady?” said Lucinda.

  “I do take pleasure in the seaside,” added Bridget. After her cousin’s execution, she brightened at talk of another getaway.

  I could barely speak. “Actually, I’m just going on my own.”

  “Oh?” said Alice.

  “It’s been arranged with the king,” I added, looking right through her face. Lying to Alice never failed to make me feel hideous. I ached to share the news with her that I may have found her mom, but I gave away nothing. “It’ll be a short trip and easier if I go by myself…the guards will keep me safe. You girls have a nice rest. Sleep in, read poems, have parties. But first, I need a bit more sleep.”

  I offered them a brave smile and backed away, heaving my bedchamber doors closed. I unlocked my jewelry coffer and slid the blue-diamond ring onto my thumb, sickened by how things had ended with Nick. He’d made it clear that I had his blessing to go back home, but I hadn’t had a chance to ask him how he felt about it. At the same time, he was heading off to a war zone in the era of swords and cannons.

  The image of Agnes Nightingale attacked my vision, her limp body, her dead, bloodshot eyes.

  My chest sank. Nick didn’t just sanction my trip home so I could potentially help Alice’s mom. He wanted me to have another think about where I wanted to be. His heartfelt proposal had happened so fast that only now was he giving me time to decide once and for all if I really wanted all this. If I loved him enough—Tudor king and all—for it to be worth it.

  I bid you farewell, my love most true.

  Was this the end?

  The chilling thought chased me back into bed. I wrapped the covers around me like animal fur. My eyes fell closed, burning for more sleep, but my chest was a raging cyclone. When Alice checked on me a short while later, I pretended to be asleep. She felt my forehead before stoking the fire back to life. A minute later, I heard all the girls departing for chapel.

  A vision struck me of Nick’s infectious smile and the boyish flush of love that softened his eyes whenever he kissed me. The thought of never seeing him again sent me deeper into the bed until the blanket was right over my head. I shut my eyes inside the cave. I couldn’t bear the confusion anymore, the heartache.

  Sleep blew in with ease, but I’d forgotten how frustrating the enchanted ring had become—I woke up still in my Hampton Court bedchamber. I tossed and turned, kicked the covers off, pulled them back on, and sat up for a drink of water. I rolled onto my side, meeting a majestic portrait of Nick hanging on the wall. It speared my heart, and I flopped over to face the other way.

  When the restlessness passed, I snoozed a little more before a raspy, man’s snore penetrated the silence. I rolled over, instinctively searching for Nick’s dark auburn curls, but the middle-aged body beside mine had silvery hair, pockmarked skin, and a tiny nose with a curved tip.

  I kicked my way out of the polyester comforter, stifling a scream.

  12

  I had to be dreaming, hallucinating—anything. My dad lay beside me in my bed in twenty-first-century Hatfield, a man I hadn’t set eyes on in the better part of a year. I thanked the stars that I was on top of the covers and he was beneath them.

  I pivoted off the bed as Dad rolled over, blinking at me through eyes still hooded with sleep. He looked older then I remembered and thicker in the jaw.

  “Emmeline?” he said, his mouth a stunned hole. He elbowed his way upright. “Carol!”

  “Mom!” I added, rubbing my eyes again like he might disappear. Through all of my traveling back and forth through time, I’d come to know when something bizarre was really happening and when it was a dream. This was legit.

  Feet thundered up the stairs, and Mom appeared in her bathrobe, her wiry blonde hair flying in all directions. Ruby scampered over to me, her wagging tail a whir of silver.

  “You’re back,” Mom said to me. “Did you…” She breathed at Dad. “How did you…”

  He slid his bare feet onto the frayed carpet
, revealing loose cotton shorts, an old university T-shirt, and a round belly. “I’m confused. You said that Emmeline was missing again.”

  “She was, I…” Mom couldn’t speak right, and I felt responsible.

  “I wasn’t missing,” I clarified in my Tudor nightdress. Dad gawked at me, but mostly at my face. “I told you that I was in Tudor England,” I said to Mom. “Even though you’ll never believe me, it’s where I was, and I’m not going to lie about it anymore.”

  Dad scratched his upper back, the side of his nose, and his forearms. It wasn’t bed bugs; he’d just never been comfortable in our family. What was Mom thinking when she invited him to stay over?

  “Where is your special friend Nick?” she asked me in an apprehensive voice.

  “He’s back in his time,” I replied like that was normal. “The Catholics are planning a rebellion, so he traveled to the north to deal with it. I thought I’d pop home in the meantime.”

  I fought the urge to burst into raucous laughter. If I wasn’t careful, Mom or Dad could have me locked up. They both stood and gaped at me.

  “Do you still have your key?” Mom said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You know that’s not how I got here.” I sank into the edge of the creaky bed and yawned. I never slept well during a trip through time. “What are you doing here?” I asked Dad in a small voice.

  “I told him you’d disappeared again, so he came over,” Mom cut in. “We called Paul and Livvy in England to see if they’d heard from you, given this whole British obsession.”

  Paul was Dad’s cousin from Clacton-on-Sea. We’d stayed with him and his wife Olivia back when we lived in England, which felt like a thousand years ago.

  “I’d had a bit too much wine to drive,” Dad added quickly, his cheeks tinting pink. We both knew that Mom’s stalker tendencies didn’t need to be encouraged. Instead of escaping home to his girlfriend, though, Dad asked Mom if she could leave us alone for a few minutes. “I’d like to have a talk with Emmeline.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll finish making tea,” she said, a decades-old infatuation still visible in her eyes.

  Ugh, Mom.

  When she left, Dad flopped into my squeaky desk chair. “I bet you didn’t expect to see me in your bed.”

  “I don’t really expect to see you period.”

  He slumped lower into the chair and crossed his arms. “Your mother has been worried about you. For her to even call and ask for my help, I knew it had to be serious.”

  I decided to ignore that one. “Did you expect time travel to Tudor England?” I replied lightly, hugging my knees. I was just so over faking everything.

  Dad puffed. “It’s because of me, isn’t it? We don’t see each other enough, so you’ve concocted an absurd history story because you know I admire history.” He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes twinkled like he’d guessed the stumper in Jeopardy.

  The laughter finally arrived, straight from my mouth to Dad’s face. “Are you even serious?” I said. “You think I’d go through all this because of you? Just to entice you the eleven miles it’d take for you to visit me once in a freaking while?”

  His whole body stiffened. “How could I visit you at this house? Do you know your mother once sent Nina threatening letters?”

  “Oh please, do you think I give a toss what your teenage girlfriend thinks?”

  “Do not speak to me like that!” Flecks of green blazed through his amber-colored eyes, reminding me of Nick when he was fired up.

  More stairs thundered before Mom burst in again. “Is everything alright?” she said.

  Dad stood up, snatching his jeans and shirt from the back of the chair. “It seems that Emmeline is back and healthy, which is the most important thing, but I need not sit around and listen to abuse.”

  “Abuse?” I countered.

  My lips pressed together as if it might stop the pressure of my welling tears. This was so classic Dad…to make it all about him. I felt bad about insulting his girlfriend—who was in her twenties and definitely not a teenager—but he needed to take some responsibility.

  “Marty,” Mom pleaded as he marched to the bathroom and shut the door.

  She shot me a fed-up look like this was all my fault, which was ridiculous. Dad throwing a hissy fit over something selfish...Mom acting like she had any power to soothe him—it was all too familiar. I’d seen the same thing a hundred times before Dad left us.

  “Why did you even call him?” I said, striding past her to the stairs. I needed water and something to eat that wasn’t a roasted animal drenched in rich sauces.

  “I called him because you’ve been acting like a complete lunatic,” she replied, following me downstairs to the kitchen. “All this nonsense about time travel disappearing tricks…sneaking away while I wasn’t looking and pretending you’re some magical fairy.”

  There were two mugs on the counter and an open packet of chocolate cookies. Dad could only drink tea with something sweet in his hand, even if it was early in the morning. I couldn’t help but think my ‘lunacy’ was the excuse Mom had been waiting for to draw him back into her life. She’d even stocked the cupboards with actual food.

  She flicked the lever on the electric kettle and watched me pour myself a bowl of cinnamon crunch. I’d forgotten the euphoric taste of sugary cereal. Yet, while it filled the hole in my stomach, it didn’t touch the one in my heart. Had Nick arrived in the north yet? Was he in danger? Was he already missing me, too?

  “Your college sent a letter,” Mom said flatly, reaching to dig out an envelope from a pile of bills. The ‘UAL, Central Saint Martins’ logo was stamped in the corner.

  It had already been opened, and I fished out the letter, my tummy clenching. It was an approval to defer my first year in the Bachelor of Arts in Jewellery Design course. All the letter needed was my signature and it’d be a done deal.

  “A deferral?” I said with confusion, scanning the note for more information.

  Mom poured steaming water into her chipped mug. “I spoke to them a few weeks ago about the health challenges you’ve been facing and convinced them to arrange a deferral for one year. If you sign the form, I can send it back to them.”

  I stared at her and then again at the letter. A tight coil in my chest that I hadn’t even realized was there snapped free. Studying jewelry design at Central Saint Martins had been my dream before Nick Tudor popped onto the scene and derailed me with his invitation to become a sixteenth-century queen.

  “You’re welcome,” Mom said as I grabbed a pen and signed the form. I couldn’t see myself ending up at Central Saint Martins now, but a deferral felt less depressing than being kicked out altogether.

  I thanked her, and we sat in silence for a while. “Have you heard from Mia?” I eventually asked. Mia Fairbanks had been my best friend in Hatfield, but now she lived on campus at MIT in Cambridge.

  “Heard from her?” Mom said, brows lifting. “I must have called her twenty times in the last few months. She’s always been polite, but I don’t think she’s happy with you. Like me, she thought the worst until you came home a few weeks ago. I told her you’d run off with your boyfriend, Nick.”

  My eyes bulged. “Did you tell her about the Tudor stuff?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t think I’d get the words out without laughing. Or crying.”

  A door opened upstairs, and Mom pressed the boil button on the kettle again before spooning sugar into Dad’s mug. I scooped up Ruby for a cuddle and rubbed my cheek against her wriggly fur. It’d be so easy to just stay here for the weekend—to watch television and cuddle Ruby and eat a whole packet of tortilla chips.

  But that wasn’t why I was here. “Mom, can I borrow your phone?” I said.

  “Sure.” She sprang up to grab it, obviously glad for my interest in something un-historical.

  I took the phone upstairs to my bedroom, passing Dad on the stairs.

  “I was just coming down to see you,” he said in a tight voice. I could tell he
felt guilty about storming out.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” I replied, offering him a slight, peacemaking smile before slipping into my bedroom and shutting the door.

  The last I’d heard about the old hoarder Jane Stuart was that she’d been taken to a Boston hospital for psychiatric evaluation. There was more than one hospital in Boston that handled that stuff, but I’d start with the biggest: Massachusetts General Hospital. Nerves tickled my stomach as I dialed the number.

  The lady on the phone from the psychiatry unit was rude but helpful. Her fingernails clicked the keyboard as she looked up the name Jane Stuart. There were two in the system, but the last Jane Stuart had been admitted in June and then transferred to the Cedar Lake Rest Home. She hung up before she could tell me anything else, like how likely it was that Jane would still be at Cedar Lake. Still, I was lucky that this was turning out to be pretty straightforward.

  The Cedar Lake Rest Home was in Newton in suburban Boston, but when I called them, they refused to give me information about any residents unless I was a family member.

  Jane Stuart’s family is in the sixteenth century dancing the freaking volta! I wanted to shout. Perhaps I’d have more luck if I showed up in person.

  Using Mom’s travel app, I worked out that I needed to get a bus from Amherst to Boston, and then another bus to Newton. I changed into the same jeans and sweatshirt that I wore last time I was here with Nick, suppressing the twinge of pain that memory drew. Despite all the drama, I wished he was here with me.

  After pocketing my phone and a charger, I sneaked two sleeping pills out of Mom’s canister, slipping them into my pocket with the eighty dollars I still had in my wallet. My pockets felt bloated, but I had everything I needed.

  “I think I’m just going to go see Mia in Boston,” I lied as I hopped back downstairs. “It’ll be easier if I explain things to her in person.” I had no plans to turn up on feisty Mia’s doorstep yet after my months-long disappearance, but it was the perfect excuse to head into Boston. I didn’t want Dad or Mom knowing about the Jane Stuart stuff.