by Kristen Day
I did my best not to think about Michael, but the harder I tried to push him away the harder it was not to think about him, particularly our moment in the tree. Every time that memory came to mind I would discover myself slightly smiling while biting my bottom lip.
It agitated me that I was incapable of controlling my own facial expressions. James had always teased me for having the worst poker face he'd ever seen, but I always thought I'd be better at it when James wasn't there cracking jokes to get me to crack.
Finally, nearly two hours after I'd been locked in the room, I heard a key in the lock. I turned around, planted my feet in the carpet and crossed my arms tightly over my chest.
Daman entered, followed closely by an attractive black-haired woman. She looked similar to Bridgette, but gave off an even more dainty air.
"Alice," Daman said. He opened his arms in a welcoming gesture, but I didn't even bother to blink at him. He put his arms down and motioned to the woman behind him, "Let me introduce you to Queen Alice. She prefers to go by Lisie though."
"Why haven't you renamed her?" I asked suddenly.
The corner of Daman's mouth perked up in a sort of half smile, "I suppose I just like the name Alice."
Daman came closer and started circling me, the queen watched with a blank stare. She wasn't there, not physically, she was completely in her own world, almost as catatonic as Maria had been.
I was suddenly glad that Kinga was now gone, she would not have wanted to see her adoptive mother in this state and under the control of Daman.
"What is this Daman?" I asked, "Why am I here?"
"It's Alecsander, actually," Daman said, "You know why you're here, Stephano told you. You would have failed of course, I knew where you were as soon as you left wherever it is my dear Rose was keeping you."
"Your dear Rose is dead," I said bluntly. Daman blinked hard and his mouth thinned for only a fraction of a second, but it was so imperceptible I was almost convinced I'd imagined it.
"What a shame. I told Stephano to send a message, not to kill her."
"Stephano did not kill her. He attempted to turn her into a thing like you. I killed her when she asked me to," I tried to look Daman straight in the eye and not move a muscle as I spoke the lie. I didn't want to implicate Michael. I'd rather have Daman take his anger out on me than hurt anyone else I cared about.
"I don't think you killed her," Daman said.
"You don't?" I asked. I was unable to hide the surprise in my voice.
"If anything it was my brother. They were always so close, he was the only one she would have asked to do such a thing," Daman sounded jealous. As he circled in front of me I noticed his right hand was clenched.
"Michael went back to tell the others what happened to Kinga. He left before I killed Kinga, he thought he could get there and back again with help before anything happened to her. He was wrong," I replied.
Daman's voice came from my close to my right ear next, it caused the hairs on the back of my neck to rise, pumped my adrenaline, and made me want to turn around to face him, but I held my ground, "My brother is still outside my palace walls, Stephano saw him when he captured you, now are you going to stop lying to me or am I going to have to make you?"
The door to the room opened again and Leigh was forced in. She didn't look in the least bit scared; in fact she looked downright loathsome. She glared so fiendishly at Daman I waited for him to flinch away from my ear.
"Let me go," Leigh demanded.
"Why would I do that?" Daman asked, "You're the only thing keeping Alice here, if I let you go how will I find a wife on such short notice?"
"Alice will never marry you!" Leigh shouted. She looked angrier than I'd ever seen her. Her tiny fists were clenched so tightly she had to be cutting into her palms, her face was beginning to turn red, and her eyes were squinted so narrowly the only color I could see was the black of her pupils.
Daman left my side and approached Leigh. For the first time since Daman had entered the room, I flinched. Every muscle in my body tensed for attack, I knew if Daman laid a single finger on Leigh I would rip his throat out with my teeth. Luckily for him, all he did was whisper in her ear.
Leigh still looked angry, but she also looked thoughtful as she listened to what Daman was saying, then an entirely new emotion stole over her face. Unadulterated fear, "Don't you dare," Leigh said menacingly.
Daman moved away from Leigh and looked her straight in the eye. He crouched down to her level and turned to give me a wicked smile before continuing his quiet conversation with Leigh.
"Fine," Leigh said after a few moments, "I'll do it, but not for you."
"Fantastic," Daman said, he stood and faced me, "I believe I've just found you a flower girl. And, if I'm not mistaken, your friend Maria will readily agree to be your maid of honor."
"I don't want her to be a part of this; I don't want either of them to be a part of this. I'll do whatever you want, just let them go,” I tried. It was a vain attempt, I knew Daman would just laugh it away, but I thought I might as well try it.
I was right, Daman got a good hearty chuckle out of my threat, "Two days," Daman said. He winked at me, patted Leigh on the shoulder and started to leave with the queen.
"Why do you need a wife?" I asked suddenly.
Daman didn't turn around, "Two is more powerful than one."
"So why do you need me? Why did you need Kinga? Why don't you just marry your lapdog queen?" I was desperate for information.
"Dummy wives don't work," Daman said. He must have realized how vague his explanation sounded because he continued with more information, "When Rose left me I thought that I would still get the power from her, but she has to be a willing advocate."
"Then what about Kinga's mother?" I asked.
Daman finally turned around, "Willing, conscious advocate. She did not handle the loss of her husband and daughter well. She was too fragile, she is simply a puppet now, but you will not be."
"Why me then?" I finally asked. It was the question that had been gnawing at me since I first escaped the hallway and I wasn't going to miss my opportunity to find out.
"It was supposed to be Maria," Daman said. Blood rushed in my ears and I felt lightheaded, but I waited for Daman to carry on, "It was easy enough to convince her to commit suicide. She was already contemplating it, all it took was a little nudge from her dearly departed mother and she was mine. Unfortunately, she went mad before I was able to find her, but fortune had it that her best friend followed quickly in her footsteps."
"Then why Maria?" I asked. I was dreading the answer, but I had to know.
"She reminded me of a girl I once knew," Daman said quietly.
Something tugged at the back of my mind, it wasn't my own memory, or at least it hadn't been. It felt like I was remembering watching it on a television screen.
It was Daman's fake death that he had shown me before making me fall in love with him. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what the girl he saved had looked like. All at once, I remembered. She looked a lot like Maria, apart from the hair and clothing, it was impossible not to draw parallels.
Daman had been in love with that girl, that's why he had chosen Maria.
Daman seemed to realize that I was remembering what he had shown me and suddenly it was like a door had closed on the memory. I couldn't even remember what I had been thinking about, but I knew whatever I had done wasn't something that Daman liked. I had caught him in a vulnerable spot and he knew it. Without another word Daman swept from the room with the queen right behind him.
The demon standing behind Leigh left too. It was now just the two of us in the room with nothing to do but talk and plan our next move.
Chapter Forty-four
"You can't marry Daman!" Leigh shouted after a few minutes of silence. I hadn't dared talk to her first, she looked ready to explode and I was right.
"I don't really have a choice, Leigh," I said, "No matter what I do people are going to get hurt. At le
ast if I marry him I can have some control over what he does."
"But you don't love him!" Leigh protested. I was astonished that she was using that argument, I had thought she would echo Michael in saying we could come up with another plan. However, as usual, her explanation was completely innocent and full of common sense that everyone around her didn't seem to see.
"No, I don't love him. But sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the people you do love," I replied.
"Like Michael?" Leigh asked, "You love him don't you? I know you do, I knew it would happen! You love him don't you? I know he loves you!"
"I don't think I love Michael, and he doesn't love me, there's no time for that right now."
"There's always time for it! You just don't see what I see," Leigh said. She looked less angry now and more frustrated. I half expected her to scream and stomp her feet or give me a long lecture.
"I don't even know why I'm arguing about this. I'm marrying Daman, it's already in motion, maybe we'll get lucky and he'll die early," I almost laughed at my own optimism, but I was afraid it would just aggravate Leigh even further. Instead, I turned around to look through a window that offered a view of the forest I'd spent the last few days walking through.
"But Daman didn't remind you how to smile," Leigh said quietly. Her words barely reached my ears, but the force behind them was so impactful I felt weak at the knees. I faced Leigh and looked her square in the eyes.
"What do you mean?" I asked slowly.
"When you came here you wouldn't smile at all, then you met Michael and you started smiling, at least when you didn't hate him," Leigh said.
"I never hated him," I said defensively, "He just annoyed me."
"Either way, he reminded you how to smile, and you reminded him too. You made him smile so fast I thought he was faking it, but it was real! You make each other smile, you're in love!" Leigh finished with a flourish. She looked triumphant and stared at me, daring me to challenge her logic, I couldn't resist.
I was trying my hardest to get around what she was telling me because it would only make it harder to go through with the decision I'd already made.
"Just because we make each other smile doesn't mean we're in love," I said. But as my teeth grazed my bottom lip while saying the 'v' in love, I remembered the kiss in the tree.
"Yes it does," Leigh said matter-of-factly. She said it with such conviction I was inclined to believe her. I'd never known such a tiny person who could be so persuasive with so few words.
"I guess we'll never know," I said. I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt to show that I was nonchalant about everything that was happening, but Leigh saw right through my ruse.
"You're never going to be happy again!" Leigh shouted.
"That's okay," I said quickly. I blinked furiously to keep myself from crying, "As long as no one else has to get hurt, it's okay."
"No, it's not," Leigh said, "Because no matter what you do Daman is going to keep hurting people. It's what he does! He has a reason to hurt people here, it makes him more powerful!"
I sat down heavily on the floor and started toying with the carpet fibers, "Why is death so hard? No one in their right mind would commit suicide to get here if they knew what it was like. I thought death was supposed to be a break from the world, it was supposed to be your reward for suffering through everything."
Leigh sat down across from me and waited until I looked her in the eye to answer my question, "Because there's something even better waiting after this."
"How do you know?" I asked, "Maybe this is just never ending. What if we just keep dying and going to new places only to find out we have to die again to move on and it never stops?"
"Then at least you get to meet lots of new people. And if there are other places like this, they can't all be this bad," Leigh stated confidently.
"Why are you so happy? Don't you ever just want to give up?" I questioned Leigh.
Leigh looked at me with a puzzled look for a few seconds before replying, "No."
My jaw dropped in surprise, "Never? You've never once wanted to give up? What about when your dad left? What about when your mom died? What about when that girl killed you? What about what happened to you in the hallway? Didn't you give up then?"
My words were cold and harsh, had they been said to me I would have broken down crying, but Leigh took them in stride and answered each patiently.
"I've never wanted to give up because I know someone has to show everybody else that it's not impossible. My dad left because he gave up, so I kept going to show him how to get back. When my mom died I knew I would see her again so I didn't give up because I wanted her to be proud of me when I found her, I think she was, she just didn't know how to tell me because of what she'd gone through. The girl who killed me needed love more than I did, I was sure if I let her keep hugging me she would remember how to smile and remember what love was like. I don't know if she did or not though, I hope I meet her one day so I can find out."
"As for the hallway," Leigh continued, "I knew it wasn't real, it was just all new. It was hard, but I knew I had to prove it was possible, so I did it and I wrote it all down as soon as I got here. I just made a decision never to forget how to smile. I practiced every day and it worked, that's why I tried to teach Michael, but he was really stubborn until you came along, then he remembered because he's in love. You remembered faster, even before I had a chance to try to help you, which means it was all Michael, which means you love him too."
It was no use arguing with Leigh anymore, she had a retaliation for everything I said, so I let it drop.
"I'm glad you're going to be my flower girl," I finally said to Leigh after a few minutes of silence, "I would have asked you even if Daman didn't choose you."
Leigh jumped forward and hugged me tightly, "Please don't do it, I don't want to be your flower girl unless you're marrying Michael!"
I pulled Leigh away and stared into her eyes, "Do it for me, okay? I promise, if I ever marry Michael you can be my flower girl there too, but I need your help to get through this. Can you do that for me?"
Leigh blinked a few tears away and nodded her head.
"Thank you," I pulled Leigh back in for another tight hug.
The door opened and Leigh and I jumped apart. A stooped old woman entered followed by half a dozen demons bearing yards of white fabric, sewing machines, and spools of white thread.
"I'm Kaia, you must be Alice," the old woman extended her hand for me to shake. I did so, but hesitantly.
Kaia put a hand to the side of her mouth and whispered to me covertly, "I'm not one of them, I'm just here to make your dress so our lovely king doesn't hurt my family."
I nodded my head and got to my feet, "Make me a dress then."
Kaia smiled and motioned for the demons to put the materials on a cart they had brought in and leave.
"King Alecsander said not to leave," the tallest of the demons said. His eyes were so light blue they almost appeared completely white.
"You may tell King Alecsander that if he doesn't trust me alone with his soon to be wife then he can make her a dress himself," Kaia returned with a pleasant smile.
"We'll be right outside," the blue-eyed demon said.
Once all the demons had exited the room Kaia turned back to me, "Let's get to work then."
Without so much as a pause, Kaia stood up straight, stretched her back and began to change her appearance right in front of me. First came the fake padding around her middle, followed by the shapeless blue dress; under which she was wearing jeans like mine and a loose blue sweater.
Her body looked familiar, but it wasn't until she took off the wig and some kind of gooey makeup on her face that I finally recognized her.
"Scarlett?" Leigh and I said at once.
"How did you get in here?" I asked.
"It wasn't hard for Bridgette and me to charm our way past a few guards. We found the palace seamstress and convinced her to loan us some of her clothes. None of these
demons really take much notice of how a person looks. All it took for me to look somewhat like the little old lady was a little makeup magic Bridgette knew. Bridge literally had less than two seconds to hide when those fiends came to bring me to you."
I didn’t even question where Bridgette had gotten the makeup. I just assumed it spewed from her fingers like Spiderman’s web.
"So what's the new plan?" I asked Scarlett. She was now looking through the fabric in earnest.
"I'll fill you in while we make your dress," Scarlett said simply.
Chapter Forty-five
Turns out Scarlett really knew her way around a sewing machine, and her mouth. I’d never heard her string so many words together at once, especially not while also doing something else. She was an enigma that had me completely puzzled. But I didn’t have time to solve her because I was too busy trying to process and retain what she was telling me.
“The boys are going to have a really hard time getting in here,” Scarlett started while taking my measurements, “They’re pretty roughed up, not to mention they’re not going to be able to flirt their way past any of these creeps.”
Leigh was sitting cross-legged on the floor waiting for Scarlett to ask her to fetch tools from the cart of supplies.
“However, from the information Bridge and I were able to glean on our way in here; the wedding is going to be a pretty big deal. It has to be from what we could tell. Which means it’s going to have to be in an open place where a lot of people can attend, most likely the courtyard. I saw it through a window when I was coming up here, it’s completely gorgeous, you should see it, there’s a fou—“
I snapped my fingers in Scarlett’s face as she stabbed me with a pin, “Focus!”
“Right,” Scarlett said. I looked down to see that she had already constructed most of what looked like a skirt.
“How are you doing that so quickly?” I asked.
“I was a seamstress before I died,” Scarlett said. That still didn't explain the superhuman speed, “Anyway; a lot of the plan is still the same. You’re going to have to get inside Daman’s head and take him out there and you’re going to have to do it during the wedding, probably just before you say ‘I do’.”
