Kingdom of Villains and Vengeance

by Laura Greenwood et al.

  “Good idea. Caspian, will you be my teammate?” Celia asked him, to which he of course said yes, which forced me to team up with Malachi. Celia and Caspian played red and yellow, while Malachi and I were stuck with blue and black.

  “So, once one person had run the first hoop, we all move on to the second hoop,” Celia further explained. She was in her element today, playing her favorite game and being able to boss everyone around. “Be careful not to hit someone else’s ball, because if you hit the hoop with someone else’s ball, the point goes to that other person.”

  The princes tried their best to appear interest in the game, but I could tell that Malachi couldn’t care less about croquet. Caspian could hide his disinterest much better than his brother could.

  “You’re hitting the ball too hard,” I commented when it was Malachi’s third turn. “Try a bit softer. Looser.” I showed him how to do it, by standing next to him and mimicking the gesture of hitting the ball with the flamingo. “If you’re hitting it too hard, the flamingo will not appreciate it.”

  “I don’t understand why you play this with flamingos anyway,” he muttered below his breath. “Why not just use sticks?”

  I shrugged. “Rules of the game. Now, pay attention to me.” I didn’t want to lose this game—at least not by a lot, because if we did, Celia would torment us about it for the next few days. She was the world’s sourest loser, but she was also the most annoying victor.

  “Take a deep breath,” I told him, “lift up the flamingo, and then released your breath while you swing.”

  I hit the ball, and it reached the end of the hoop.

  “On to hoop two!” Celia said, not bothered that we had made a head-start, seemingly confident that she and Caspian would beat Malachi and I anyway.

  While Celia and Caspian went toward the second hoop, Malachi didn’t move. He had stared at me intently while I had showed him how to hit the ball correctly, but now, even though I had finished my move, he was still looking at me.

  “What is it?” I asked eventually.

  “Nothing.” He shook his head, as if he had just woken up from a dream. “Take a breath, swing, release breath. Got it.” He turned away from me and followed after Celia and Caspian.

  Had he just been lost in thought, or was there another reason why he had stared at me like that? And why did it make me feel slightly uncomfortable… but in a good way? In a way that made me want to blush and giggle?

  The next time Malachi hit the ball, he followed my advice, and he hit it much softer—this time almost too soft. Caspian was no natural-born talent at playing croquet either, but the princes put in a good effort.

  Towards the end of the game, Malachi and I were at the losing end, but not by much. Still, Celia was delighted she was winning, tiptoeing around the croquet field, looking as smug as a cat that had killed a mouse. While for the majority of the game, she had been rather pleasant, her nasty side was rearing its ugly head again.

  “If we win, then you must sing a song,” she said to me in a sing-song voice. “And Prince Malachi can play an instrument to assist you.”

  I creased my brows. “You know I don’t like singing. Why don’t you sing us something? You have a voice fairer than any nightingale’s.”

  “I wanted to sing something, yesterday,” Celia said sharply. “But you made a scene, acted all upset, and then I couldn’t.”

  Payback. So that was what this was.

  All the sympathies I’d had toward her at breakfast retreated to the back of my mind again. Why was she so cruel? Why could she dart so easily from being nice and caring to being a monster intent on hurting me?

  “So, these are the rules. If we win, you will sing us a song. And I will choose the song.”

  I swallowed hard, trying to keep my calm.

  “Celia, if Regina doesn’t like to sing, you shouldn’t force her…” Caspian said, trying to keep his tone diplomatically. But I recognized the tone in Celia’s voice. This was not the tone of the soon-to-be-Queen, this was the tone of the petulant child that was still upset for not getting its way.

  “I’ll offer you one better,” I said to her, because if there was one thing the spoiled brat could not resist, it was a challenge. “Best out of two. I will sing, but only if you defeat me at croquet, and if you beat me to the center of the labyrinth.”

  The color drained from Celia’s cheeks. She glanced over her shoulder, towards the labyrinth.

  It was a cruel move, and I knew it, but Celia had been cruel toward me too. Although, when she focused back on me and I saw the harrowed look on her features, I hated myself for doing this to her.

  “Celia—” I was about to say that we shouldn’t go through with it, but the desperate look in her eyes had morphed into for steel resolve. She could be as stubborn as a mule when she wanted to, a trait she had no doubt inherited from her father.

  “You’ve got yourself a deal, cousin,” she said, with a smile as sly as that of the Cheshire Cat. Then, she positioned herself in front of the ball, took a deep breath, and swung the flamingo flat against the ball, scoring the last hoop.

  When she looked back up at me, there was nothing but venom in her eyes. “Looks like our team won the first round. On to the labyrinth.”

  She tossed her flamingo to the side, and strode toward the green monstrosity in the middle of the royal gardens, half-way down the slope towards the lake below.

  “What is this labyrinth?” Prince Caspian asked from next to me. I hadn’t even realized he had matched his steps with mine. “Why does it seem to scare Celia that much?”

  “It used to be just a maze,” I explained. “But then something wicked crawled in it, and now, half the time it’s still just a maze, and half the time it’s something a bit worse. Don’t worry about it, though,” I added when I saw the shocked expression on his features, “no one has died in it yet.”

  But the first time the labyrinth transformed into the maze-that-was-not-quite-a-maze had been during the annual birthday celebrations of the Queen. Celia’s mother had entered the labyrinth along with several of her ladies-in-waiting. Two of them walked out fine, but one of them said she saw something hideous lurking in the heart of the labyrinth. As for Celia’s mother… She never spoke again after that. She changed into a puppet on a string, a silent doll sitting and watching, but never uttering another word.

  It was cruel of me to challenge Celia to go in there. But I thought she would say no, that she would call off our challenge, and then I wouldn’t have to sing. Maybe because of the princes’ being here, she felt forced to accept… Which meant that once we exited the labyrinth, and if she won, her punishment for me would be a lot more wicked than forcing me to sing a stupid song.

  “Keep up!” Celia shouted from below us. She was already near one of the entrances to the maze.

  “The intention is that we each enter the maze from a different side,” I explained to Caspian and Malachi. “And that we make our way to the center of the maze as soon as possible. At the center is a fountain, so you should be able to recognize it quite easily. From the center, it’s very easy to get back out the maze, but we should wait until everyone has arrived at the center.”

  “Doesn’t sound too hard,” Malachi said as he inspecting the bushes making up the outer walls of the maze. “What could be hiding in it?”

  “All kinds of creatures, mostly harmless and with the sole purpose of distracting you,” Celia replied. “Bread-and-butterflies. I saw a mock turtle too once. But nothing to be scared about.”

  Caspian breathed out in relief. “All right, so are we working in teams again, or alone?”

  “We each start alone from one corner of the labyrinth, but you only win if your team is the first to arrive in the center,” Celia said. “So, it’s important that you do not just find the center, but that you also find your teammate.”

  We each ventured to one of the entrances of the labyrinth. There were a great many more entrances, and they all seemed to switch positions every time I st
umbled across the maze. As my mother had once explained to me, the hedges were living organisms that could grow and regrow and move as they please.

  “Ready, set, go!” Celia shouted, and the four of us raced inside the labyrinth.

  I bumped into hedges, nearly slipped around the first corner when the road took a sharp U-turn. Now I was in the labyrinth, this was my chance to spend some time with Caspian, pull him closer toward me. Of course, that meant I had to find him first.

  He had started to my right, so logic dictated if I kept venturing right I would run into him sooner or later. Although, I had to admit, mazes weren’t the most logical of things, especially not in Wonderland.

  The longer I traveled through the labyrinth, the more oppressive the green walls on each side were, closing in on me. Maybe going in here hadn’t been such a marvelous idea after all. I had only said it so Celia would stop tormenting me… What if that what had scared the Queen to the point of not-speaking was here, in this maze, with us?

  I took a deep breath, telling myself to calm down, when I heard a branch squeak from behind me.

  I turned on my heel, facing the empty corridor. No one.

  “Hello?” I tried hesitantly, hoping that if it was one of the others who had caught up with me, they would reveal their presence.

  No answer.

  You must’ve imagined it. A trick of your mind. Wonderland plays tricks on everyone all the time.

  But a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach told me, as I traveled deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, that this wasn’t just one of Wonderland’s nifty little tricks.

  It was too quiet in here. Unnaturally quiet. No birds were chirping in the air, no butterfly wings gliding on the wind, no leaves rustling. For a reason I couldn’t pinpoint, the words of the Cheshire Cat from last night popped up in my mind. “I think you’re playing the wrong game. Chess, while you should be playing cards.”

  What if there was something going on here that I simply didn’t see? I had the feeling that something was already transpiring in the background, a plan that had been put into motion, but I was too blind to be able to connect the dots, the ‘what is what’s’ and the ‘who is who’s’.

  Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks, swallowing hard. Something was behind me. My shadow was no longer my own. Prolongated, towering over me, my shadow now seemed to resemble that of a tall, thin man wearing a bowler hat.

  Was it…

  The Babayuk? That creature of nightmares, the children-snatcher who liked to eat little kids for breakfast, lunch and supper?

  Curiosity demanded me to turn around and look at what was behind me. Maybe it was just a trick of light. Maybe Celia was taunting me again, and none of this was real.

  Or maybe the creature from the children’s rhymes was the very thing that had made the Queen lose her mind.

  We’re all mad here, my father’s voice echoed through my mind.

  My legs refused to cooperate, frozen to the floor. The blood had frozen in my veins, and I had become a statue of ice.

  The Babayuk, or whatever it was, turned to the side—it was as flat as a playing card. And that bowler hat, was it a hat or part of its head…

  As I studied the shadow in more detail, still refusing to move, a gust of wind hit me in the spine.

  “You…” The wind whispered.

  The sound hit me straight in the back, and it was like a magic word that broke a spell. I was free again, my legs racing forward before my mind could catch up, turning corners and half-running, half-stumbling through the maze as fast as my legs could carry me.

  Every fiber of my being was on fire, every instinct I possessed told me to get out of there as soon as humanly possible. I didn’t even look where I was going anymore, all logic having left me.

  I turned another corner, my skirts rustling over the floor, and in a flash, someone stood in front of me. I tried to slow down, but my speed was too high, and I would’ve crashed into the person coming from the opposite end if he hadn’t grabbed me in his arms, and spun me to the side, slowing down the momentum.

  “What is going on? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Caspian was still holding on to my arms, glancing from me to the direction I had ran from, as if he half-expected an enemy army would pop up from behind the corner.

  “I…” What exactly was going on? I had seen a shadow that spooked me, but nothing else had happened. The shadow hadn’t touched me or threatened me, it had just been downright terrifying for almost no reason at all.

  “I…” I struggled to find the right words. Now I was no longer alone, surrounded only by greenery and no longer cloaked by the silence of the maze, it seemed ridiculous how I had gotten so horrified so fast. “I thought I saw something, that I heard something.” I didn’t want to lie to Caspian because he seemed genuinely concerned, but on the other hand I didn’t want to tell him I had freaked out about a shadow either.

  Caspian’s eyes narrowed and he let go of me, drawing his sword while turning toward the exit I had just come from.

  As he stood there, ready to attack, a sickening thought crept up on me. How much did we know about these foreign princes? What if they were dangerous? My uncle had left my cousin and I al alone with them, and for all we knew they could be as mad as a hatter, turning on us the moment we let our guards down. Malachi could’ve been the shadow stalking me, even if his shape didn’t match the shadow’s shape at all. Wasn’t it convenient that Caspian found me so fast?

  The prince approached the corner and peered around to the other end. Seconds later, he re-appeared and put his blade back into his belt. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

  I took a deep breath, determined to push down the bound of paranoia I had felt seconds ago. Mazes were prone to do that to people, to mess with your mind, something particularly dangerous in a place already as mad as Wonderland.

  “You seem shaken, though,” Caspian noted while he stared at me. “Did it hurt you in any way?”

  “No, no.” I shook my head, rubbing my arms around myself. He was right, though, I was completely shaken up. I felt as if all the warmth had been drained from my body, and all that was left was a core of ice. “I’m fine, just scared.” It felt ridiculous to say it now, and a blush crept up my cheeks. I was making a fool out of myself and starting to sound like a drama queen like Celia.

  “Okay, either way we’re sticking together,” Caspian decided while he took my arm and gently dragged me along.

  “We shouldn’t be working together,” I protested, even though this fit in well with my plan. The more time he got to spend with me, the more he might realize I was infinitely better for him than Celia. But I at least needed to pretend I hadn’t actually planned or hoped to run into him and finish the rest of this game by his side. “Won’t that be cheating?”

  The crown prince frowned. “I don’t care about winning or losing some stupid game if it could put someone in danger. I’m not leaving you alone, Regina.” This time, he said my name on a pressing, forceful tone, but I still liked the sound of it, when coming from his lips. He still had his hand around my arm protectively, a true prince charming ready to save his princess.

  Who, in this scenario, was me, of course.

  As we meandered through the labyrinth, I felt the pressure lifting from my chest, and felt myself relaxing. Whatever it was that had chased me, it was gone now, be it because of Caspian’s presence or sheer luck, I had no idea.

  “I hope the others are fine,” Caspian mused out loud.

  Crap. Celia.

  I hadn’t thought about her since I saw that sickening shadow, but what if she had seen the same? What if it had hurt her?

  God, I felt guilty. Guilty for suggesting we enter this death-maze in the first place, guilty for not thinking about her sooner, considering she could be in danger too. “We have to find them,” I said, breaking free from Caspian’s grip and taking the lead, driven forward by the unseen force called worry.

  “Wait! What if it’s not safe?” Cas
pian was right on my heels. “Let me go first. At least I have a weapon.”

  I briefly glanced at his drawn sword and realized he was right. “Very well then, but hurry up.” I moved aside to let him place, falling in line right behind him.

  “What did it look like, this shadow you saw?” Caspian asked as we progressed toward the center. “Could you make out any features?”

  I bit my lip, contemplating how I could tell him I had been too scared to turn around. “I didn’t see much of it,” I ended up saying. “Just that it was very thin on the side. Too thin to be a person, more like slip-of-paper thin.”

  Caspian frowned. “That’s strange.”

  I shrugged. “Hardly the strangest thing in Wonderland.”

  Suddenly, the prince stopped dead in his tracks, and lifted up a finger, indicating for me to be quiet. I followed his lead, staying completely still.

  Voices.

  “Celia?” I mouthed at Caspian. No, the voice sounded different, lower. A male voice?

  Caspian shook his head. He pushed me closer toward the hedges surrounding us, until my entire back was lined up against the green wall.

  He held out his hand, gesturing I should take it. I frowned, not quite sure what he wanted me to do, while straining to better make out what the voice was saying.

  Voices. Plural. And they were approaching us.

  Caspian gestured for me to take his hand again, and this time, I obliged. The moment our hands touched, he whispered something I couldn’t make out, and then the green bushes behind me suddenly moved forward. Or, rather, we moved back, vanishing into the greenery.

  A second later, the color green surrounded us from all sides. We had been swallowed by the hedge, disappearing from sight.

  Caspian was still holding my hand. I realized how warm his hand enveloping mine was, how safe I felt with him here, even if there was a threat waiting for us on the other side of this hedge.

  I focused to try and make out the voices. Something was passing us by—I counted at least three different tones of voice.

  “They must’ve gone this way.” This new voice was loud and clear, as if the speaker was standing only inches away from me.