Myth

by Terri Todosey

  His arm pulled me closer and I thought for a moment that I may get that kiss I had longed for back at Lily Palus. I was determined to keep my eyes open this time and was happy to be able to hide somewhat behind my mask. I didn’t want him to see my face flush, or to have this moment slip away as it had done before. The swirling room slowed and drawing me even closer, he tilted me back gracefully into a low back dip.

  The music stopped and I found myself back in the ballroom, surrounded by a crowd of dancers and a crescendo of applause.

  “So... this is your idea of less is more?” I panted.

  “More or less,” he smiled and quickly guided me off the dance floor and over to the food table.

  The music piped up again and the room came alive with masked dancers.

  “You must be famished,” he said holding up a ripe strawberry for me to take a bite. The sweet juices ran down my chin as I bit into the delicious treat. He noticed, and before the drip could fall on my dress, he wiped it upwards, back towards my lips where he took the remaining half of the strawberry and quickly popped it into his own mouth.

  “Pear?” he asked, having helped himself to an entire plate of fruit. I gasped at his cockiness and he smiled deliciously at his accomplishment, but this time I took the piece of pear from him and slipped it into my own mouth, quickly sticking my tongue out at him in rebuttal. His eyes widened at the sheer gall I’d had to do it and then suddenly he took my hand and whisked me out of the room. I lifted the hem of my dress with my free hand, but could barely keep up to him and his plate of fruit, as he rushed through the palace. He pulled me past the crowding cliques of people, through one archway and down a dark hall. He was steadfast in getting to wherever it was we were going.

  Was he angry? Maybe I’d gone too far? He did say that less was more.

  We whizzed by a waiter coming out from a doorway. The doors didn’t have a chance to swing shut before we entered the busy kitchen, passing the cooks and line-up of servers, all waiting for their trays to be filled with sweet morsels of food. The loud clangs of pots and pans echoed past me as we continued our steady pace through a back door and finally ducked into a dark stairwell. Henry swung me around and I found myself alone with him, sitting on the stairs and facing him. His green eyes glimmered as he leaned over me, the plate of fruit still in his hand.

  I noticed him glance towards my lips and I saw a red cherry delicately held between his fingers. He held it out towards me and I cautiously took a small bite. Instantly he was there, his lips against mine and we were kissing. My eyes closed and my heart leapt as his sweet-tasting lips pulled at me. When he pulled away it took a second for my eyes to open. My dizzy focus found his green eyes glowing at me and I smiled, my heart singing as my breath stretched to catch up.

  “Would you like another?” he whispered much too calmly with a smile still covering his face.

  “Please,” I whispered breathlessly. ‘It’s all I want,’ I thought, hardly believing that he’d kissed me. ‘HE KISSED ME!’ my inner voice screamed. I could barely contain myself as he held up the remaining piece of cherry between his red-stained fingers. Then, popping it into his own mouth his lips pressed into mine and the sweet red juices drizzled past my tongue as I pulled his lips into my own. He was delicious. I couldn’t get enough, and I pulled his body towards me. I was pressed between the stairs and Henry, trapped in his arms, although I needed no coaxing to stay.

  “I believe they’re in the back pantry,” came a voice just outside the door to the stairwell.

  I gasped, straightening the mask back over my face. Henry stood up and in one swift motion pulled me up towards him.

  “I do hope it’s....” The door swung open, “Oh! You scared me!” stammered a young waiter, followed by one of the cooks. Light poured in through the open door, bathing us in bewilderment. Henry looked at me with a smile, then awkwardly reached over to pat down some tousled hairs that had become tangled in my mask when we’d kissed.

  “Yes, well, sorry about that,” Henry said to the men. Then handing them the plate of fruit, he took my hand and quickly pulled me up the stairs. Focusing on the steps so not to trip over my dress, I was startled when I looked up and saw a massive figure of Ludo stitched into a tall, colourful tapestry. Her image filled the full length of the two-story wall and she glared at us, as we rushed by and disappeared into the dark hall above.

  —

  Upstairs was dark except for a sliver of light that radiated into the hall from under one of the room’s doors. We hid in the corner, behind the shadow of a tall sculpture and peered down the hall.

  I could hear voices coming from the room with the light, but couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.

  “You sh.... ..... .....still ....,” the voice mumbled.

  “I’ll be right back,” whispered Henry.

  “Wait!” I grabbed his arm.

  He put his finger to his mouth in gesture for me to be quiet.

  “Where are you going?” I whispered.

  “I am going to see if the Troth is in her study,” he replied. “Stay put until I get back.” Glancing at my lips, he smiled and crept silently down the hall until he slipped into the room across the hall.

  ‘How does he do that to me?’ I wondered, my hormones still spinning from his kiss. I imagined the way his sweet cherry lips curled up at one side when he smiled. ‘They were so... so kissable,’ I smiled in reverie.

  “...must be alert,” I heard the door click open and the voice suddenly got louder. “You are my eyes and my ears now Valen.”

  ‘Valen?’ I thought. ‘Wasn’t that the name of Henry’s assistant? The faery who was ill today?’ I quietly tucked my bulky dress underneath me so I could lean over and peek around the corner without being seen.

  The hall had brightened significantly with the door now open. A male faery stood in the open palm of a woman’s hand just outside the doorway. The door itself prevented me from seeing the woman, but I easily recognized the voice of Ludo.

  “I will do what I can to find out more about this girl you speak of,” said Valen.

  “And speak nothing of this to Alfred!” snapped Ludo.

  “Of course not,’ he replied. ‘Nor the Maker who will have a list of errands on my return, I’m sure.”

  “Yes, well...” Ludo seemed to search for the right words. “...don’t expect the Maker to return anytime soon.”

  “Oh?”

  Ludo obviously hadn’t told Valen about the events back at Lily Palus.

  “Well,” she said smugly. “You can’t expect him to stick around now that he’s being revealed as a fraud.”

  “I find it hard to believe he fooled us all,” said Valen.

  “Well, fools you all were then for believing him!” she snapped. “And you better start believing it if you expect to head up my subjects.”

  “Yes your highness,” said Valen reverently.

  “Oh don’t look so glum,” she sighed. “You will be my first fruit, a new beginning to a glorious new world.”

  Ludo stepped out into the hall wearing a bright red, royal-looking dress.

  “I will take you to my study where I will blot out your old name and write a new one for you. A name even I will be pleased with.”

  ‘Not the study!’ I thought.

  She crossed the hall and took hold of the door knob to her study. I had to act quickly or Henry would be caught! Resisting the temptation to panic, I looked around for something I could use to distract her. I had to stop her from entering that room. But how?

  Unable to think of another option, I took off my shoe and in a lame attempt to draw her away from the study, I threw it towards the stair rail, where I hoped it would make a lot of noise. To my horror, I overshot the iron rail and missed it completely. The shoe bounced off the wall and smashed into a lit oil lamp hanging near the tapestry. The lamp shattered on impact and
burst into flames that quickly began to consume the large stitched image of Ludo.

  Ludo turned towards the stairs, shouting, “What is going on over there?” She hurried directly towards me and the stair hall behind me.

  Still fighting panic, I slunk back into the shadow of the large statue just as she whisked past me, Valen still in her hand. I took advantage of her exit and crept down the hallway awkwardly with one shoe on and one shoe off until I reached her study door. The door that Henry had entered.

  “Get someone to PUT IT OUT!!!” I heard her screaming behind me. Looking back down the hall, I saw that her tapestry was now completely engulfed in flames.

  Swallowing, I twisted open the door and rushed inside.

  “Henry!” I whispered.

  The room was dimly lit from the outside lights that seeped in through the one small window on the far side of the room. I crept in towards it.

  “Henry!” I whispered again, but there was no response. Where had he gone?

  Ludo’s desk was cluttered with maps and papers that were filled with words and arrows that led to other words that were scratched out and then again to another word written beside it. It was a collage of indistinguishable sentences. The word honesty was crossed through with an arrow that led to the word deceive that was underlined by another arrow that led to the bold word POWER. None of it made sense.

  My eyes then glanced at a word so heavily blotted out that the paper itself had been worn through from the black ink. I picked up the worn piece of paper and held it up to the dim light of the window, but was unable to decipher what word had been so violently removed.

  The door-knob rattled behind me. I spun around to see the door click open and the bright light from the hall flooded the room and the paper I still held. I gasped as I saw the word Henry silhouetted through the dark hatches of ink, and there beyond the page in the doorway was Henry himself.

  “You don’t take orders very well do you?” He slipped in and shut the door behind him and I sighed with relief.

  “She was going to come in and find you,” I stammered shaking the paper at him. “I had to do something!”

  “So you decided a campfire might be nice?”

  “I just meant to distract her and it kind of got out of hand... but it worked didn’t it?” I smiled contritely, and then realizing he had come in from the hall I asked, “How did you get out there?”

  “Hmm, yes. While you were busy with your so-called distraction, I had already found an exit.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the window, which I could now see was still open a crack. “I was already on my way back up the stairs to get you when a shoe flew clear past me, nearly hitting me on the head.”

  “Oh no,” I squirmed, realizing that my plan had not been as great as I had intended.

  “Yes well, I would have carried on, if it hadn’t hit that oil lamp and burst into flames, causing everyone to race in my direction,” he said while shimmying up the large window frame and wedging a book under it to keep it open.

  “Oh?” I scrunched my face up, wishing I could fade into the wallpaper behind me, that was NOW ON

  “FIRE!” I squealed as he scooped my now impractical dress and I up and sat me on the window ledge, with my feet dangling outside.

  “Out you go!” he said. “You’ll find the garden trellis against the wall an easy climb down.”

  I fumbled around in the dark with my legs tangled in about twenty pounds of fabric trying to find something to stand on as I hung from my waist out the window. Kicking off my remaining shoe, my bare foot finally found the rickety wooden trellis to the left of the window and I scrambled onto it hoping it would support the weight of both my dress and I. The spent rose vines still lingering on the frame from summer were filled with thorns, which pricked at my feet and snagged my dress, holding me hostage in the first foot of my escape.

  “It would be good if you could speed your decent a little,” said Henry impatiently.

  “I’m snagged on the thorns,” I grinned back through my teeth.

  “Perhaps I should have just tossed you down and let the dress break your fall?”

  “I can’t believe you just said that!” I scolded, still trying to free myself from the clutches of the rose thorns.

  “Well would you believe me if I told you that my trousers are on fire?”

  Seeing the flames licking the ceiling behind him, I closed my eyes and let go of the trellis. The thorns ripped clear through my dress on my way down, but I was on the ground in seconds and seemed to be uninjured.

  “You have the book?” I whispered.

  “Indeed!” he snatched the book that he had used to prop open the window. “I had it the first time down!” he tucked it into his vest and hopped down beside me.

  “You drop something?” he said picking up the shoe I had kicked off, but before I could take it from him, he grabbed hold of my hand and hurried me to the carriage that had been conveniently parked at this side of the house. “This way,” he said.

  Opening the carriage door for me, I decided to sidestep his sarcastic manners and instead hopped up onto the driver’s bench. He looked at me, still holding the door in what I figured to be sheer surprise. I detected a subtle smirk on his face as he shut the door, tossed my shoe in through the window of the carriage and hopped up beside me.

  “HAAA!” he shouted out and the horses bolted towards the road.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ludo’s Fate

  I must have been tired because I don’t remember much of the ride back into town, but I woke to the sound of the wooden wheels clattering against the cobblestone once again. I stirred to find my head resting on Henry’s shoulder and one of his arms curled around me, keeping me warm against the cool night air.

  I looked up and his face turned to greet me with that infectious grin of his. I smiled in response and stretched out and sat up. He pulled me in close, keeping his arm wrapped snugly around me and I was content there beside him. If there was a right and a wrong, this was right.

  The town was silent and dark now, except for a single fading lantern that shone alone on the side of the road. The others had already expired, as had the people, now tucked away in their beds. It was an exceptional contrast to the chaos we had left behind at the castle.

  “Do you think Ludo will know who started the fire?” I asked.

  “Your shoe will be something she’ll consider if she sees it, but her castle isn’t the only thing we’ve ignited tonight. Whether she believes the Troth was destroyed in the fire or thinks it was taken, her rage will fuel a search for the one who started the whole mess. She’ll stop at nothing to find the perpetrator and she’ll destroy anything and anyone that gets in her way.”

  “What will she do if she finds out it was me?”

  “I’d hate to think of what her anger is capable of conjuring, but that is why we must hide you in a place she’ll never find.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Your home,” he said. “The Lockhart you came from.”

  It was an odd, sinking feeling, knowing that home was the place I had most wanted to find since my arrival here, and yet now I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to go there. My mind wrestled with the thought of leaving Henry. Had I truly been put under his spell to want to stay so badly, or did he really want to get me safely home?

  “And what about you and Alfred?” I asked. “Where will you hide?”

  “Do not worry about us,” he smiled.

  “Perhaps you could return with me?” My mind hoped for another way.

  “Sadly, no,” he sighed. “My time in your world has seen its day and I can no longer live there. It is unfortunate, for there is a desire in me that would love to see how that world has changed.”

  He gave the reins a tug and the horses turned in towards the back lane leading to his carriage house. I thought of how dif
ferent my world would seem to him. The cars, the planes, the internet. It seemed an ugly exchange for the beauty I had found here with him.

  “You may not like all the changes,” I sighed. “But if you stay here, what are you going to do if Ludo comes looking for you, or me, or both?”

  “You need not worry,” he said, and lifting his arm out from around me, he took the reins with both hands. “I have a safe place of my own and Alfred has a few great ideas yet,” he smiled. But it was difficult to return the smile, knowing that our short time together was coming to an end.

  He pulled back on the reins, and the horses came to a halt just outside the carriage house. I watched as he hopped down and pulled the outer latch up, opening the large double doors. Taking hold of the bridle, he guided the horses and carriage inside. After securing the horses in place, he came around to where I was and reached up towards me. He paused and looked at me, saying, “Don’t be sad. Now that we have the Troth, we should have no problem returning you and your friends back home.” Little did he know, it was not the longing for home that made me sad; it was the thought of being anywhere without him.

  “However,” he continued with his crooked little grin, “we still have a fair bit to do before you leave.”

  “Oh?” I replied with a small smile.

  He took my hand and I stood and stepped down to the side step, but the ragged edge of my dress snagged on the seat and I tripped. Stumbling forward, I fell off the carriage and into his arms, which seemed waiting to catch me. I had tripped and fallen exactly as he had predicted.

  “You knew this would happen,” I said.

  “Maybe it is not so much about changing what will happen, and more about making good from what happens.” He stood there for a moment without letting go of me.

  “Do you know everything before it happens?” I asked quietly.

  “I know enough,” he smiled and let my feet touch the ground.

  “So you would know...” I paused, looking up at him.