by L. A. Zoe
“Are you all right?” SeeJai whispered.
When he cut in front of her to enter the row after his father, she shot him a POed look. But he couldn’t help it. He needed her on his right. He squeezed her left hand with his right. He wouldn’t dare do that with his left. It lay unmoving, draped across the armrest.
“Fine,” he said.
“You’re lying. You’re pale.”
“Just … enjoy the show.”
The theater was so hot, it made his face burn. Nobody else seemed bothered by it. Sybille even continued to wear her lightweight wrap. But older women always seemed either too cold or too hot.
He remembered the brief but ugly scene in the restaurant, with neither Father nor Sybille there.
Keara saddened him. Better than anyone, she knew Rhinegold didn’t want to follow in Father’s footsteps. That he didn’t want the ordinary—even the quite successful life—especially as a lawyer.
True, back then he didn’t expect his chance to leave the house would come so soon. He planned to go to college, not live on the streets.
But Sybille made it impossible for him to live at home. Although Father wanted him to stay in on-campus student housing, Rhinegold took the opportunity to totally separate.
It hurt Father, but what could the man expect when he placed his second wife over his only son?
He thought by then, after nearly two years, Keara would not be still unhappy. And he didn’t expect her to take and remain on Helena’s side, with Father and Sybille, against him.
She knew he didn’t love Helena. And wanted to avoid the orthodox career path Father wanted him to follow.
To distract his attention, Rhinegold glanced at the program book. The synopsis helped jog his memory of the story as told by Hans Christian Andersen.
It starts off with a powerful troll creating a magic mirror which magnifies everything ugly and evil in the reflection and minimizes everything beautiful and good.
It breaks into a zillion pieces. One winds up in the heart of the young boy Kay, another in his eye.
Therefore, he can no longer see the goodness and beauty of his friend Gerda. The Snow Queen takes him away to her palace far up north.
Determined to reclaim her friend, Gerda follows. Her own beauty and goodness motivates an old woman to keep Gerda for herself, but she escapes.
Eventually, she finds Kay, making him cry, washing the pieces of the evil mirror out of his heart and eye.
And so Kay and Gerda are reunited.
Surrounded by women smelling of perfume, body oils, and toilet waters, Rhinegold still smelled something sour, rotting. His wound—the dry, clotted black blood and the antibiotic lotion under the bandages.
The chandelier dimmed as the foot lights burst open, music played at full volume, and the maroon velvet curtains rose.
Rhinegold squeezed SeeJai’s hand. She returned his smile, then stared at the stage with the excited awe of a child.
Her first theater production. He grinned, delighted for her.
Rhinegold closed his eyes, but the bright lights, fast movements, and blaring sound kept pulling him back from focusing deep inside himself.
Scenes followed scenes as the troll with the mirror, the Snow Queen, and Kay and Gerda were introduced.
Rhinegold never cared much for ice skating. He could enjoy the action of a hockey game, but not this endless back and forth, around and around, of the people whirling and spinning to act out their happiness and love for each other.
He could admire the skill of accomplished figure skaters without wishing to watch them for more than a few seconds. Just as he could appreciate the talent and training of opera singers without wanting to listen to them.
Gradually, he slipped into a weird, halfway state of consciousness.
Halfway awake when the action on stage and the music pulled his attention.
Halfway asleep when the skaters simply did their round and round the stage routines.
Kay’s plight pulled him back and forth as well. With eyes suddenly seeing the world as a dark, ugly, and unhappy place. With a heart that could no longer remember or access his love for Gerda, but felt only pain and sadness …
Small wonder he hooked his sled to the Snow Queen’s sleigh, allowing her to pull him to her home of eternal snow and ice, where he wouldn’t feel anything.
To just exist, a barely beating heart in a frozen wasteland of cold emptiness.
In Andersen’s story, no Old Gods occupied the north, only the Snow Queen ruled it. Pale. Remorseless as a November overnight frost. Everlasting frigid void.
Sometimes he felt himself on stage as Kay, and SeeJai as Gerda, determined to defeat the winter and love him, to restore to him the red roses.
Other times, he realized he was just one man seated in the audience watching the show.
Other times, he realized Sybille was the Snow Queen. Her cold, heartless beauty pulled Father away from him. And Keara was her Snow Princess, Gerda/SeeJai’s pale, white-haired double. And SeeJai rescued Rhinegold from the Snow Queen’s ice palace, where Father still dwelled.
Sometimes SeeJai/Gerda became the one entrapped, frozen in place, her heart blinded by the piece of mirror representing her ambition, her desire to live like his family. To deny and escape her own impoverished childhood.
His arm burned, throbbing with pain at every beat of his heart. His head whirled around and around like the figure skating actors in the play.
Bright lights blinded him. The smoky mist from hidden carbon dioxide crystals fogged his brain. The huge white and silver ice mountains created by The Coliseum’s scenery department glittered.
The music pounded his thoughts, chords and notes enticing him to follow them into an Arctic white featureless landscape, with no landmark, not even a line where the horizon met the white, iced-over sky.
Where he could fall forever through a loveless vacuum.
He tried to sort everything out, but his brain functioned like a tossed salad, with everything mixed together, and ever changing.
He remembered Princess Keara, and everything about her.
No matter her friendship with Helena. Keara was a creature of the light. A precious, beautiful soul sent to Earth to spread happiness. Glowing. Radiant.
So she had always been to him. So she was now. So she would remain.
But not for him. As the queen’s daughter, she remained the king’s.
In his heart, SeeJai supplanted Keara. And rightfully so, for SeeJai lived her own magic, her own unique loveliness. A dancing spirit sprite. A fairy princess, fey and delightful. Kind beyond words. Unaware of her inner strength. Of her power to rule his world.
He realized they did not meet by mere chance or simple coincidence. A fate written higher than the stars bound their lives together, from that cold stormy snowy night two months ago until the end of their lives on Planet Earth.
Such karma he must have earned in previous lives, to be worth such a treasure in this one.
The pattern.
One princess to awaken him. To get him thrown out of the palace so he could meet his True Love.
SeeJai shook his shoulder. “Rhinegold, wake up. It’s over.”
He shook his head, bewildered. The entire audience was standing, streaming into the aisles and out the exit, while Kay and Gerda still skated on stage to a standing ovation.
“Are you all right?” Father asked him.
Rhinegold smiled. Of course, he was all right. The injured arm still smarted, but it would heal.
The King and his stepmother Queen kicked out him so he could establish his own kingdom—where he ruled.
He left Princess Keara behind years ago. Helena wasn’t even an issue.
He loved SeeJai. He had to help and protect her. He had to defend his kingdom against all the other kings, including his own father.
He said, “I’m fine.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Riverside Park Long After Midnight
On the way home from The Snow Q
ueen, I had to sit in the middle of the backseat of Mr. Cunningham’s Acura because Keara grabbed the right side, and Rhinegold wouldn’t allow me on his left side. I didn’t know why not.
I bit my lip, and waited. By then I finally realized he acted weird all evening.
Right after the show, Mr. Cunningham and I stood together in a small lobby, waiting for Sybille and Keara to finish using the restrooms, while Rhinegold browsed the nearby walls covered with photographs from past shows.
Mr. Cunningham gave me a serious look, nodded toward his son, then gave me a conspiratorial look. “You still have my private cellphone number, don’t you?” he asked. “The one I gave you the first time you visited the house.”
“Of course,” I replied.
He nodded again toward Rhinegold. “He’s showing signs. Not bad ones, yet, but—please keep a close eye on him.”
“Sure,” I said. “He’s my protector.”
“If you need to, call me. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night.”
“But need to call you for what?”
He gave a shrug, pretended to be lighthearted. “If the time comes, you’ll understand. If it never happens, all the better.”
I started to ask him another question, but Keara came out at that moment. “Mother might really be lost in there. It’s bigger than Marie Antoinette’s boudoir.”
Mr. Cunningham checked his watch. “If she’s not out in five minutes, we’ll send in a St. Bernard dog with a casket of whiskey.”
“Honestly, Sanders,” Keara said, laughing.
For dessert we went to a nearby restaurant, and I had a Chocolate Mousse cheesecake. Rhinegold ate a big piece of cheesecake smothered with raspberry sauce and whipped cream. He ate with his right hand, keeping his left down near his waist. He didn’t even use it to wipe his mouth with a napkin.
On the way back, he said little. He held my hand, but looked out the window, a slight smile on his lips. I wanted to join in the banter between Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham and Keara, but I didn’t understand most of their references and, without Rhinegold participating, felt out of place. Excluded. Just a friend, not part of the family.
Once upstairs, back in our room, I expected him to throw off his clothes and fall into bed, hopefully throwing me in first.
He did take off his coat, then his suit coat, tie, shirt, black leather shoes, and pants.
He tried to keep his left arm behind him, and was tugging the top of his long woolen underwear over his head.
But the long sleeves didn’t yet cover his lower arm.
I grabbed it. At least ten strips of tape held a long, thick gauze pad from his wrist to nearly his elbow. Splotches of red and blackened blood soaked the fabric, along with globs of green and yellow slime. It smelled like a charnel pit. The surrounding skin glowered bright red.
His left hand also looked red. As well as puffy swollen.
I shrieked. “What happened to you!”
He shrugged. Infuriating man. “A guy on bath salts had a knife.”
I felt on the brink of hysteria, and grew worse the more he remained calm as I trembled. “You need a hospital. You need stitches. You need antibiotics.”
“I got them,” he said. “Take it easy.”
He began pulling on his long underwear. “Come on,” he said. “You’ll go with me, won’t you?”
His eyes glowed with some kind of inner fire. His voice trembled like a growling wolf. I couldn’t read his face. It didn’t look slack, as I’ve seen in mental patients on heavy meds. It didn’t look twisted and contorted like a schizophrenic having manic delusions.
But it sure didn’t look normal. Committed. Determined. Implacable. Sure of itself. Ready to raise a sword and smite anybody who got in his way.
“It’s cold out there, Rhinegold. Please. Come on, let’s go to bed. It’s late.”
“Not too late,” he said. “I’ve got to defend you.”
“I’m safe here, Rhinegold. I’m safe here with you, honey. Don’t go outside. Please. Come on, let’s go to bed.”
He didn’t listen. After the long underwear, he pulled on his heavy winter sweat pants. Two sweatshirts, then his regular winter parka.
Its lower left arm hung open, ripped. I tried not to think how badly he would have been cut if the knife hadn’t had to pierce through a heavy wool winter coat before reaching his flesh.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said. “Come on.”
“Come on, where? Rhinegold, it’s almost two in the morning.”
“The park.”
Of course. Riverside Park, where we first met. At two o’clock in the middle of the night, where else? Only, since we didn’t live in the condemned house any longer, we had to walk a mile or so more to reach it. That late, no more buses were running.
“You’re crazy, Rhinegold. It’s time to go to bed. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, pulling on his heavy duty snow boots. “I’ll still protect you. Stay here where it’s safe.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I have to fight Gorice and the warriors of Witchland,” he said as though I should understand. “They want to kill you so you can’t return to Elfland. Winter is coming. The Third Age is almost finished, and so we have to defeat Sauron.”
I moaned. All that came out of the weird books he read. “Rhinegold, don’t go.”
“I have to, SeeJai. Of course you can see that.”
As he turned toward the door, I felt his forehead. Burning up. “You’re in some kind of fever dream.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m a knight. I’m your king. My duty is to protect you.”
I didn’t want to go outside. The wind blew off the Mississippi River, bringing the cold of the frigid black waters and thick ice flows. Snow drifts as high as young trees. Ice layers thick as coffin tops.
No magic enemies, just the bitter, blood-chilling breath of winter, ice-coated bare tree branches scratching the black cloud-choked sky.
If Rhinegold wanted to go traipsing off to play in the park in the middle of the night, he had to go without me. I needed bed. A warm bed. A warm bed with a warm male body I just happened to need and love more than my life—preferably.
But if that man insisted on acting crazy, give me the warm bed by myself. Tomorrow morning I could check over his wound, and probably take him back to the hospital.
One of us had to use good common sense. One of us had to remain sane.
It didn’t look as though it’d be him, so that left me.
I couldn’t let him go off late at night, especially not with that arm.
“Hold on, goddamit,” I said. “Let me change my clothes.”
In my sweats, plus a heavy winter coat, ski mask, gloves, boots, and hood, I felt secure against the winter—until the wind blew. It sliced through the layers of cloth to pierce my heart.
But we walked to the park. I kept my left arm through the crook of his right. In the residential areas where sidewalks remained covered with winter weather, I had to depend on his strength.
I couldn’t understand it. I felt tired just from being up so long. He fought a vicious fight, got a wound that frightened me, treated it alone at the hospital, still took me to the Snow Queen ice show at the Coliseum, and yet continued to walk with manic energy.
Maybe that’s what it was. Lunacy as crank. Delusions as white crosses and black beauties. Brain-brewed meth.
By going with him, was I helping or harming?
I couldn’t be sure. But I knew I couldn’t physically stop him from doing anything he wanted. And I had to be there in case something went wrong.
He’d lost blood, maybe a lot.
He was acting weird, not wrapped tight. As though still watching Gerda travel to free Kay from the Snow Queen.
He proceeding quickly toward the park, almost marching double-time, just adjusting his stride for the snow and ice, and to accommodate as I struggled to han
g on.
“What happened to your arm?” I asked, gasping.
“Lenny the Wolf Man snorted bath salts last night,” Rhinegold said.
I waited for more details, but Rhinegold just kept trodding along. I could figure out most of the rest. He protected someone. And Lenny the Wolf Man, high on the craziest drug ever sold on the street, didn’t need a full moon.
“Did you get him?” I asked.
“The police took him,” Rhinegold said. “He’s probably in a mental hospital now. But he didn’t get a chance to hurt anyone.”
“Except you,” I said.
“He had a knife. But never mind. Who cares about that now?”
Only me. I care, I wanted to say, but didn’t. I care about that wound, but should I bother? Did he care about me, dragging me out into a below-zero night?
A few cars passed us, probably people going home from a bar. Fortunately, we didn’t see any police cars. Or any other pedestrians. Of course not. Who else would be crazy enough to go out this time of night? The crackhead muggers were home watching movies on TV. Staying warm. The homeless, like Georgie used to be, stayed holed up in whatever dark corners they burrowed into, drunk and asleep, or just conserving their body energy.
The quiet weighed me down. I wanted to hear traffic rolling by, engines screaming, truck brakes hissing, and bass assaulting my ear drums. Tonight, even dogs didn’t want to bark. Maybe their owners took them inside.
We passed block after block of dark houses. With the thick clouds covering the moon and stars, only the irregularly spaced street lamps kept total darkness at bay.
With the temperature so low, all snow and ice remaining on the residential streets solidified from slush to hard sludge still smelling of tires, exhaust fumes, motor oil, and antifreeze.
I kept trying to slow Rhinegold down with talk. “Why are you going to the park?”
“To defend my kingdom.”
“Why now?”
“You think the witches care it’s the middle of the night? I have to defend you.”
“Nobody’s attacking me now.”
