by Katie M John
I felt the warmth of James’ leather gloved hand in mine, and wished that I could feel the comfort of his warm skin.
“Come, I think it’s this way,” he said leading me. Noting my hesitation he turned and cocked his eyebrow in question, “Are you okay? Is there something wrong?”
“No,” I lied. “It’s just, the last time I was here…”
“But Robert killed the Ghoul. You’re perfectly safe.”
The sound of wolves howling in the distance betrayed his lie of reassurance. He laughed and although he hadn’t meant to reveal his own nervousness, it did.
“Well, except maybe from them,” he said, clicking his gun. “We’d better hurry.”
CHAPTER 10
Our way through the woods was swift. I was keen to reach home before sunrise, although I doubt dad would have got much sleep. Knowing him, he would have been out searching the woods all night for me. I still hadn’t worked out exactly how I was going to explain my disappearance.
At last we reached a part of the woods that looked familiar to me, the track led us to the pond, iced over and shimmering in the weak dawn light. Some swans padded over the ice, and there was the jetty with its little pagoda on the end. My heart fluttered with relief that the world was becoming more familiar again.
“Is this the place?” James asked, seeing the change in my expression.
“Yes, yes, we’re close.”
As we rounded the lake and hit the rocky cliff, where the Ghoul had stolen me to, we both stopped up short. James tried too late to sweep me up in his arms and hide me from the sight of bloody carnage that was scattered on the dark blood stained ground. Even though I had only seen a glimpse of the mangled bodies of several men, the image refused to leave the back of my eyelids as I folded myself up in the warm safety of James’ chest.
“What happened?” I asked. “Are those… are those Robert’s men?” I asked, immediately on edge.
In our time together, Robbie had said nothing to me about the Ghoul killing any of his men when they rescued me.
“Surely he would have said something?”
“Who?”
“Robert. He didn’t say that his men had died for me.”
“Maybe he wanted to protect you from the truth. Maybe he was worried that you would take it too much to heart.”
“But nobody at the house said anything. Surely they were connected to somebody at Snow Wood Manor. Surely their hearts belonged to someone.”
Steeling myself, I removed myself from James and forced myself to look on them.
“Don’t,” James warned even though he knew it was already too late. “It looks like the wolves have already had a good go at them. It probably means they’re closer by than I’d like.”
As if his words drew them out, the sound of a low growl came from behind us. James grabbed hold of my arm, throwing him tight behind me, where we circled back to back looking for the source. Another growl, followed by the emergence of four wolves, one at each point of the compass. We we’re completely surrounded. James rose his gun, taking aim at the largest of the four growling, blood hungry beasts.
“Will a shot scare them away?” I asked, my teeth chattering with fear.
“It should do, but the wolves are getting bolder,” he replied.
The wolves took another synchronised step forward. They didn’t look like they were going to retreat without a fight. The tension in the air was tight and my heart beat was almost deafening in my ears. I was so close to home – too close to die savaged by wolves.
All at once, with the sound of the gun discharging, all hell broke loose and I felt the hot searing pain of teeth bite through the thick fur and the delicate tulle and into the soft flesh of my shoulder. I heard James roar like a beast behind me, as he wrestled with one of the remaining three. Then there was another gun shot and the sound of a wolf’s death squeal preluded the sudden lightness on my body as the wolf slumped to the ground. I span out into the space to see James still wrestling a wolf whose teeth gnashed at his face. There was blood everywhere and I could see the creature had already got a taste for James’ blood. Another crack and that wolf too dropped to the ground. I scanned the woods to see who are mystery saviour was.
James rolled and grabbed his gun, planting the next bullet into the last of the wolves. A figure came from behind the trees.
“Robbie,” I cried with a short-lived relief. His gun was still raised.
“Where are you taking her James?” he asked.
“She’s going home.”
“She is home. Don’t you understand that the survival of the kingdom relies on her being here.”
James shook his head. “No, Robert. The kingdom’s survival relies on me.”
“But May is the Spring. She’s magical. Can you not see how the spring flowers bloom on her dress as if through enchantment. All these years, we thought that we were all beholden to your moods, to your pleasures, your disappointments, your periods of melancholy, your endless grief – but not now that we have May. We can live forever in spring. Forever in hope.”
I shook my head, finally understanding what this was all about. “You’re mistaken, Robbie. I’m not magical. The flowers were just part of the enchantment you and Doctor Yaratias placed on the tiara,” I said, recovering the jewelled headpiece from the inside pocket of the cloak.
“I don’t love May,” James said. “How can I love a girl young enough to be my daughter and who I met only a night ago?”
“But the love potion.”
“Which I didn’t drink.”
“Then why her? Why after all the thousands of women who have been sent to enchant you, did May change your heart.”
“Because May’s grief held a mirror to my own, and when I looked at her, I truly saw how grief was a living death and that we all deserve to live whilst we’re alive.”
“I don’t understand,” Robert said, his gun wavering with doubt.
“I had my wife killed because she had turned evil – she had come under dark and terrible influences and she was no longer the woman I had fallen in love with. She did some truly awful things, things that I’ve never told anyone except for May. Talking to May helped me accept that yes, I had stolen the life one person but I had protected the lives of thousands by doing so. I’m still not sure I feel at peace with that decision, but I can live with it – truly live with it.”
“Then if you don’t want May, she is free?” Robert asked, turning to look at me. “She can stay with me, and we can build a life together.”
James eyes widened as he looked at me. The chips had all been thrown in the air and they hadn’t landed how either of us had expected.
“What do you mean?” I asked, shivering and afraid.
“I love you, May, and I know you will love me, too.”
James scoffed out a cynical laugh. “You barely know her Robert. You can’t just demand someone love you back. May does not belong here. She needs to go home, to her loved ones.”
Suddenly I found myself looking down the barrel of a shotgun. “She is home,” Robert said blankly. “James, I don’t want to have to hurt you, but if you get in my way over this, I am going to shoot you.”
“No!” I protested. “Robbie, please, don’t do this. I’m sorry that everything has been so insanely confusing. I’m sorry I kissed you back and gave you the wrong message. I don’t know what came over me; it was something about finding myself here, and being nearly killed, and everything being such a weirdly beautiful fantasy, but I don’t love you – I can’t love you, and I need to go home,” I began to cry. “I really need to go home. I love someone at home.”
“James, get in the carriage and go home.”
“I can’t do that, and you know that.”
“Please, James. Your kingdom needs you.”
My hand flew to my mouth and I uttered a moan of despair when I saw James raise his shotgun and aim it at Robert.
“You’re right, Robert, my kingdom needs me, and May needs to go home. I�
��m not seeing a lot of need for you if it comes down to it.”
I could tell that Robbie knew if he moved the gun towards James then James would shoot. We were all caught in an impossible situation.
“I’m going to count to three Robert, and if you don’t put the gun down, then I am going to shoot her,” James said tracking the gun onto me.
“What?” I asked, my eyes falling on James and the gun. “I’m sorry, May, but you’re dead either way, Robert has made that choice for you. If I shoot him, before my bullet hits, he will shoot you to take him with you. He’s always been a selfish brat.”
My eyes turned back to Robert whose gun was now clearly as unstable as his mind. He hadn’t expected James to pull such a move.
“And if he turns his gun on me, then he knows I’ll have no other option than to shoot you before he kills me, out of justice.”
All at once in a fury of shadows and movement, Robbie’s gun dropped to the floor and I found myself swept up by a shadowy mass of wickedness that had no defined edges or features but was an entity I had met with before, Robbie was the Ghoul. I found myself thrown back onto the floor with force and then the entity left me and flew towards James, who was stood awestruck by Robert’s transformation.
James’ roared out in pain as the Ghoul began to tear at his flesh and bite at his limbs. I picked myself up and took the only weapon I had to hand, striking the ghoul over and over with the sharp edges of the diamonds, sharp enough to cut glass but nothing when stabbed into shadows.
It was hopeless and I knew that it was a matter of seconds before James was killed and then the kingdom would never see spring. All at once, a voice came through the air, a voice I would recognise in any world.
“It’s the tiara. Hold the tiara up and wish him into it,” my mother instructed.
The idea was ridiculous but I didn’t have a wealth of other options. Holding the tiara high, I took a deep breath and called out, “I wish for the Ghoul to enter the enchanted diamond.” It was all I could do to stop myself from corpsing. The urge to laugh soon faded when I saw the magical effects of the diamond as it pulled the shadowy form of the Ghoul into it, sucking it in like some mystical hoover.
Calm fell over the scene. James sat up and spread his knees, hanging his head as he gathered his strength and assessed the damage. He had been fortunate that the heavy fabrics of his suit, the cape and the fur had helped protect him a little. Without them, he could have easily been a mess of body parts like those other poor souls who had perished under the Ghoul’s temper.
I fell to the ground, exhausted and slightly delirious. And to add to all the other insanity, I had heard the voice of my dead mother.
“You did,” she said.
I opened my eyes to see the faintest trace of her, which could just have easily been dismissed as a wisp of mist by anyone who didn’t know her.
“We didn’t get to say goodbye,” I cried, my face twisting into an ugly mess. What I had spent months denying to myself was that on the morning of her accident, we had fought – over something so silly I couldn’t even remember what it was, and then she hadn’t come home. She had never come home. All these months I had tried to forgive myself and I couldn’t, and so I had taken to blaming dad instead.
“True love never has to say goodbye, May.”
“But I miss you.”
“I’ve never left you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Who are you talking to?” James asked, looking curiously in my direction.
“My mother.”
James nodded and got to his feet before limping towards me and holding out a hand to help me up.
“You’ll catch pneumonia sitting on the floor like that. Come on, it’s time to get you home.”
“But I should help you back, you’re injured.”
“I’m well enough. I’ve had worse in battle,” he said, not letting go of my hand as we trudged through the snowy ferns towards the Three Sisters.
The snow had melted from the tops of them, and a small patch of verdant green grass had appeared on one side.
“Can you remember what you did?” he asked.
“Not really, but I’ve got an idea. I was searching for Tom in the trees and so spun around.”
“There’s a children’s rhyme about these stones. Have you heard it?”
I shook my head and he closed his eyes tightly, searching back in the files of his memory.
“Let me think how it goes. It’s something like this…
Three pretty sisters all in a line,
A turn west for health.
A turn east for love.
A turn south for wealth.
A turn north for all time.”
It doesn’t seem likely that a child’s nursery rhyme is an ancient invocation of world slipping magic, but then again, a diamond tiara didn’t look like much of an enchanted object.
James repeated the silly rhyme slowly enough for me to follow its instructions. I closed my eyes, waiting to open them in my old world and finding my heart crushed when I opened them to see James standing there with an equal look of disappointment.
“It didn’t work,” I said, my lip quivering.
“Hang on,” he said, finding sudden inspiration. “The tiara. What did you say it’s enchantment was?”
“To grant wishes,” I said, gasping with hope and taking it from him.
I placed it on my head and we went through the rhyme again, this time, my wishing with all of my heart that I would open my eyes to find home.
With my eyes still closed I heard Tom calling, “May! Where are you May!” on the wind.
I opened my eyes to find soft virgin snow and King James nowhere in sight. I was home.
“I’m over here, by The sisters,” I shouted back.
Within seconds, Tom emerged from the woods, giggling. He was still wearing the cream hat I had given him earlier. Seeing me, still dressed in a white cotton dress and dark green hunting cloak, he froze.
“Erm, what just happened?”
“Oh, this… it’s just something I changed into.”
“When? You’re crazy, you know that, don’t you?”
“Is my dad here?”
“Your dad? Why would he be here?”
“Haven’t you been out searching for me?”
Tom looked at me like I was a complete lunatic. “You’ve been missing all of ten minutes. I didn’t think we needed to get the search party out quite yet.”
Before I had a chance to react, Tom’s hands were either side of my face and his lips were pressing against mine in the sweetest kiss I had ever tasted.
“You are one totally crazy, weird, beautiful chick,” he said against my lips before kissing me again.
When he pulled away, I saw the blush on his cheeks and thought how I was the luckiest girl in the world to be falling in love with my very best friend.
“Come on then, let’s get on with the instapic shoot you so clearly want me to do.”
“You’ll have to take them on your phone,” I said sadly. “I dropped my camera in the lake.”
Tom’s brows knitted together and I could see he was having difficulty processing the information I’d just given him.
“When? Just now?”
“It’s sad but it was on its last legs anyhow and dad’s got it on insurance. I’d just done an upload so there’s nothing to be sad about.”
“And your other clothes.”
“Yeah, they went in to. All in the same bag.”
Thankfully, Tom was not blessed with the best observational skills and if I told him I was carrying a rucksack, he would just go along with it.
“You know all those compliments I just gave you?”
I grinned.
“I forgot to add, clumsy, to that list.”
CHAPTER 11
We walked back through the woods hand in hand towards home. The photoshoot came out just like a scene from a fairytale; the diamond tiara glinting in
the winter sun, casting out a rain of rainbows over the snow.
I carried it back in my spare hand, wary that inside that tiara was the soul of Lord Robert Rime, man and a Ghoul. I wondered if that now made the object not so much enchanted but cursed. Although I was forever grateful for the wish it had granted in bringing me home, I didn’t want it in my life.
As we passed the perfect low slung branch, I hung the tiara on it without Tom even noticing. Maybe if someone else picked it up, their wishes would bring them a better fortune.
“So I’ve been thinking,” Tom said, turning to flash me a cheeky, dimpled smile. “You know this party? Do you want to go as my official date?”
“What about the football boys? Won’t they be pissed you shook them off for a girl.”
He blocked my step and took my hands in his before leaning in and planting soft butterfly kisses on my lip before kissing me long and slow.
“Not just a girl, but my girl,” he said.
“I can live with that.”
THE END.
