by Anna Jarzab
I stared at him, my mouth agape. He had some nerve to bring up his performance as Grant to me. But he wasn’t wrong. He’d fooled me with his act. He’d fooled everyone.
“Fine.” I swallowed hard and approached the bed with caution. The king’s eyes were open, but he was just staring at the ceiling. His right hand grazed the air, but it only took me a few seconds to realize that it was repeating the same rhythm over and over again, his fingers moving in the exact same way every time, his wrist rising and falling in a precise pattern.
“He does that a lot,” Thomas said. “That hand thing. Ever since they moved him here he’s been doing it.”
“Why?”
“Not sure. The doctor said it’s nothing to worry about, just a compulsion. Like his brain’s stuck in a loop.” But the tone of Thomas’s voice said that it unsettled him as much as it did me.
I sat down in the chair the queen had recently vacated. “What do I do now?”
“Talk to him,” Thomas said.
“What do I call him?”
“Try ‘Dad.’ ”
“Hi, Dad,” I said hesitantly. The word sounded strange coming out of my mouth. I hadn’t called someone “Dad” in a very long time. The king showed no reaction. He didn’t even blink. I tried again. “Hi, Dad, it’s me—”
“Juli,” Thomas prompted. I nodded.
“It’s me, Juli. I heard you were asking for me. I’m sorry I was away for such a long time, I didn’t know … Well, I’m back now. Was there something you wanted to say to me?”
Still nothing from the king. I looked to Thomas for some advice, unsure of what I was doing wrong.
“Don’t be discouraged,” Thomas said. “He almost never says anything real. He murmurs a lot, nonsense mostly; sometimes he parrots what people around him are saying. But usually it’s just this. I know it’s weird, but try not to get too freaked out. He’s harmless.”
I watched the king, saying nothing for a while. The poor man. I didn’t know what sort of person he had been before he’d been shot, or how good of a king he’d managed to be to his people. But Thomas had said that he loved his daughter, and I believed that. It was hard to see a man with three children laid up in a hospital bed, tapping out meaningless patterns in the air. That wasn’t a way to live no matter who you were.
There was a book sitting on the nightstand. I held the volume up so that Thomas could see it. “The Odyssey? You have The Odyssey here?”
“We do,” he said. “It’s pre-LCE.”
“Right.” Still, it was odd, seeing the book there, as if it, too, was marooned in Aurora, just trying to get back home.
“Why don’t you read to him?”
I opened The Odyssey and found that someone—Juliana?—had already made significant progress. There was a bookmark on page 249, right at the beginning of Book Eleven: The Kingdom of the Dead. It seemed a little morbid, but it was nice to have something to actually do, so I began to read.
“ ‘Now down we came to the ship at the water’s edge,’ ” I began. “ ‘We hauled and launched her into the sunlit breakers first, stepped the mast in the black craft and set our sail and loaded the sheep aboard, the ram and ewe, then we ourselves embarked, streaming tears, our hearts weighed down with anguish …’ ”
“Juli!” the king shouted, the fingers of his left hand closing over my wrist. My muscles tightened as I tried to squirm away. I looked at Thomas in shock and saw it mirrored on his face.
“Touch and go,” the king muttered. He said the words with a mysterious sort of urgency, like they meant something. I called out for Thomas’s help, but he was already at my side, prying me out of the steel trap of the king’s fingers.
“Are you okay?” Thomas yanked me out of the chair and clutched me by the elbows. I shook my head. I wasn’t okay, I was nowhere near okay.
“Mirror, mirror,” the king said, still distraught. “Mirror, mirror.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Thomas said, tugging me toward the door.
“But what if he’s hurt?” I protested.
“I’ll call the nurse on our way out, come on.”
“Mirror, mirror!” the king shouted. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. What if he died and I was the cause? “One, one, two, three …”
“Come on, Sasha,” Thomas urged again. I froze. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken my real name out loud. I hoped no one had overheard him, but Thomas didn’t even seem to realize that he’d said it.
The king kept mumbling, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. Thomas slammed a large red button near the door with the heel of his hand, and in a nanosecond I could hear footsteps in the hall, the sound of voices. Two nurses in pressed white uniforms burst in, checking monitors and IVs before Thomas and I had even gotten out of the room.
As we hurried down the corridor, I heard the king cry out one more time, clear as a bell: “Touch and go!”
Fifteen
Eloise Dash angled herself toward the camera and gave the invisible audience on the other side a winning smile. “Good morning, Columbia!” she said. “And welcome to the Dash Report on CBN News, hosted by me, Eloise Dash. Today I bring you a highly anticipated interview with our very own Princess Juliana, who is back fresh from her early summer holiday just in time for her wedding to Prince Callum of Farnham, scheduled to take place in a week.”
She turned, and the lights swung around, practically blinding me. It was hot as hell in the room. With all the makeup I was wearing and the silk blouse, which I was pretty sure I was sweating through, I felt encased in plastic. I was still shaken up by the incident in the king’s room; Thomas had assured me it was nothing, and that it wasn’t proof—as I’d suspected—that the king knew I wasn’t his daughter, but it wasn’t as though either of us could really know for sure. I resisted the urge to tug at the collar of my shirt, which was covered with silver pyramid studs. How did Juliana manage to breathe wearing clothes like these, let alone speak?
“Hello, Your Highness,” Eloise Dash said. It took me a second to realize she was addressing me. Focus, I commanded myself. Focus, and breathe.
“Hello,” I said, trying to relax. I’d been interviewed exactly zero times in my life, so I figured that the only way to get through this was to stay calm and answer Eloise Dash as best I could. Gloria had made a valiant effort to brief me earlier while I changed clothes, and I’d been able to look over the agreed-upon list of questions in order to practice my responses, so I wasn’t going in blind, but I could understand why Juliana hardly ever gave interviews. I thought my heart was going to explode, it was beating so hard.
“Let me tell you what a pleasure it is to see you again.” Eloise smiled. Her teeth were tiny and bright under the scorching lamps; I was sitting close enough to her to tell that she’d coated them with petroleum jelly, like a Miss America contestant.
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again as well.” I sounded so stilted and formal. I couldn’t imagine anyone actually wanting to watch this thing.
“Wonderful. For our viewers, I’d just like to point out that we’re conducting this interview in the Yellow Parlor of the Castle, which is a treat since we’re rarely allowed outside the Citadel’s media suite. Thank you for inviting me here with you today.”
“You’re very welcome,” I said. Gloria was behind the camera, mouthing Loosen up. I took a deep, silent breath; the cameras and the lights were making me nervous and stiff. Thomas stood near the door, surveying the room with incredible alertness, despite all the noise and distractions and people crowding in and out. Having them both there made me feel a bit better. At least I knew that we shared a common goal: make this believable. And so far, it seemed, so good. I felt the tension in my shoulders release slightly, and I eased into a warm, genuine smile. Good job, Gloria mouthed from the back. Just like that.
“People are obviously curious about you, Juliana,” Eloise began. “You were known for years as a party girl—” She gave a short, mirthless l
augh. “But it seems as though you’ve settled down since getting engaged, reduced your social profile a bit. Why the sudden change?”
“Well, I guess I just came to understand that, now that I’m older, I have certain responsibilities,” I told her, the words tumbling out just as I’d rehearsed them with Gloria. “And I have to take them seriously. The state of things between Farnham and the Commonwealth have been tenuous for years, and I’m being given the chance, along with my new fiancé, to make a positive difference in the relationship between our countries.”
“And how are you feeling about the wedding? Do you have butterflies? Not cold feet, I hope!” Eloise grinned. I wanted to smack her. This woman was the most incredible phony.
“No cold feet!” I laughed, hoping it sounded at least a little bit believable. “Definitely butterflies, but people tell me that’s normal.”
“You haven’t met Prince Callum yet, correct?”
I shook my head. “He arrives tomorrow, and that will be the first time we’ve seen each other in person. But I know I’m going to love him.” In fact, I had no idea what to expect when I met Callum. I’d been trying not to give it a great deal of thought; there was more than enough to get used to at the moment without driving myself crazy over what came next, but in a short time, I was going to have to face that part of my task, and I was worried about it. I hoped it didn’t show on my face.
“I think I speak for most Columbians when I say that we were surprised when the Castle made the announcement that you had consented to an arranged marriage,” Eloise said. Her tone was light and airy, but she was trying to trap me into saying something scandalous, as Gloria had warned she might. “How did you feel when they first asked you if you wanted to be married to Prince Callum?”
Nobody had asked Juliana anything—she’d been told she was marrying Callum. But I couldn’t very well say that on national television, though everybody knew it was true.
“I have to admit, at first I was stunned,” I said, lowering my voice as if I was confiding something very personal to Eloise. “And uncertain. But I came to see that this was the best thing for all of us—for you, for me, for everyone in Farnham and the Commonwealth—and Prince Callum is a wonderful young man. I couldn’t have chosen a better husband for myself if I had tried, so there was no use fighting it.”
“But you’re so young!” Eloise pointed out. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait until you’re both older before getting married?”
“I suppose,” I said carefully, “that when you know you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” It was such a cliché, but it earned me a genuine smile from Eloise Dash and I knew I’d said the right thing.
“Isn’t that romantic?” Eloise asked her audience. She turned back to me with a glint in her eye. “Now, princess, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Libertas movement in the UCC. My sources tell me that Libertas is stepping up their efforts to cause chaos and disrupt your wedding. Do you have any comments on that?” The tenor of her voice had changed, from flippant to dead serious.
Gloria’s face contorted in fury; she leaned over to hiss in the producer’s ear. It had been part of the Castle’s agreement with CBN that the interview would contain no mention of Libertas; Eloise Dash had gone off script.
I froze. I had no idea how to respond diplomatically to that question, but I couldn’t simply tell them to turn the cameras off—the interview was being broadcast live. I thought back to the sorts of things I’d seen politicians say on television over the years, about terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad, trying to cobble together some sort of answer that would be both satisfactory and vague.
Finally, I said, “My most trusted advisers tell me that Libertas is nothing to fear. It pains me that there are people in this country who want to undermine the government and create panic and terror in the hearts of its citizens, but I can assure you that the wedding will go off without a hitch, and the treaty will make the UCC a more peaceful place than ever before.”
“I’m so glad that you feel that way,” Eloise said, but she sounded disappointed. “I find great comfort in your words, as do all Columbians, I’m sure. Thank you so much for joining us today, Your Highness. I wish you and Prince Callum a long and happy marriage together.”
“Thank you,” I responded.
“Cut!” the director cried.
“What the hell was that?” Gloria shouted. Eloise ignored her, busying herself with removing the microphone fastened to the lapel of her fuchsia blazer. “I explicitly told you no questions about Libertas.”
Eloise shrugged. “The people have a right to know how the Citadel is dealing with the Libertas crisis. If you wanted a puff piece, perhaps you should have gone with another reporter. I’m a serious journalist.”
“Well, you’re on seriously thin ice with me right now, Ms. Dash,” Gloria said. “You want answers about Libertas, you contact the General’s office. Do you understand?”
I stood as Thomas approached. My gaze met his as he crossed the room, and even though I knew this turn of events had angered him, the only place it showed was in his eyes, which burned bright green as he helped me remove my own microphone and steered me toward the door. He placed his hand firmly on my elbow, and for the first time I didn’t shake him off. My knees felt weak, and my head was crowded with the voices rising all around me.
“She’s not a child anymore!” Eloise protested. “She’ll be of age in a few weeks, and soon she’ll be running the whole damn country. She’s got to learn to answer the tough questions!”
“That’s not your call to make,” Gloria said. “Get out of here, all of you. That was completely inappropriate. Don’t be surprised if we give the next interview to your competitor.”
It was quieter out in the hall. I was shaking, though I couldn’t tell if it was from fear or exhilaration. Nerve-racking as that experience had been, it had also been kind of fun, too, once I got into it. It had felt freeing to pretend to be somebody else for a while.
“I can’t believe she put you on the spot like that,” Thomas said. He was madder than Gloria, even, but it was the sort of rage that boiled under a calm surface. “Asking you about Libertas. As if you’re in any position to comment on national security!”
“Did I do okay?” I asked.
“You? You were brilliant,” Thomas said, his eyes widening at my self-doubt. I looked away, embarrassed by his obvious admiration, but I was happy he’d said so. Thomas didn’t seem to hold much stock in my ego; he would’ve told me if I’d failed to perform to expectation, and his approval was a pretty big relief. “That was a great answer. You did an amazing job in there.”
“Only because Gloria coached me.”
“No, believe me, you’re a natural.”
I gave him a tight smile. “I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, I thought.
“Well, it convinced Eloise Dash, and, hopefully, the entire country, so in this case, it’s a good thing,” Thomas said. He glanced down the hall, in the direction of approaching footsteps. “Let’s go back to your room. Gloria will want to regroup, and we don’t want to piss her off even more by being late.”
“Got to stick to the schedule,” I joked. Thomas laughed.
“You’re catching on fast,” he said.
Sixteen
A few hours later, Juliana’s bedroom was the center of an enormous swell of wedding-related activity, because today was Juliana’s last dress fitting. The queen was on her way, as was the seamstress with the dress, Rochelle was waiting with her ever-present trunk of beauty paraphernalia, and Gloria was standing off to one side, speaking in a low voice to someone on her mobie—which was, Thomas had explained, their slang for a cell phone. Gloria was managing the fallout from the interview incident, and I cringed on behalf of whoever was on the other end of the line.
With nothing in particular to do, I drifted
around the walk-in closet, looking for something new to wear. I didn’t get the obsession with changing clothes every hour, but it was something Juliana did, so I had to do it, too. Her style was definitely different from mine; when left to my own devices, I pretty much lived in jeans and T-shirts, but the only jeans I found in Juliana’s closet still had the tags on them—tags that, even though I didn’t know the exact value of a dollar in the Commonwealth, gave me the impression that they cost. Juliana favored dresses, but her supply of them seemed infinite and I couldn’t decide which to wear.
Gloria poked her head in. “That one,” she said, pointing to a green silk wrap dress. I nodded and quickly changed into it.
The door slid open and the queen entered, followed by a yappy little dog, and a small, stooped woman the queen didn’t bother to introduce. The queen didn’t greet me; she didn’t even look at me, or seem to register that I was there.
“Myra,” the queen said. “Bring in the dress.”
“Hello, Your Majesty,” I said, bowing my head to the queen as Gloria had taught me.
“Leave off with that, Juliana,” the queen said, rolling her eyes. “I can’t stand it when you’re false to me in private.”
“But I’m not—” It was difficult, knowing what to say to the queen. On the one hand, I was aware how acrimonious Juliana’s relationship with her stepmother was, so if I wanted to be convincing, I ought to have snapped back, stuck up for myself. But Gloria had warned me that I needed to act like Juliana’s time at St. Lawrence had brought her to her senses. I needed to play the part of a penitent princess, one who had accepted her fate with grace and dignity, one that wouldn’t fight back—someone Juliana had never actually been. And yet, if I was too good, the queen would become suspicious. It was a total minefield, and if I wasn’t careful, I was liable to get blown up on the spot.
