Royal Replicas

by Michael Pierce

  “I’ve never been to the palace either. It will be quite a privilege.”

  “Good. I won’t be the only dummy gawking at everything.”

  “I have no intention of gawking,” the Governess said with a smile.

  “How long will it take to get there?”

  “About five hours. So, there’s plenty of time to relax. Try not to get too anxious.”

  “No last-minute lessons?” I asked.

  “I won’t subject you to that—not today. This will be the perfect opportunity to sit back with a good book.”

  “If only I had one.”

  “Oh… I assumed… I’ll ask the attendant for one when she returns.”

  The train didn’t have a supply of books. They had a few used newspapers, but I decided to pass on those. The attendant suggested I go into town at the next stop—the 21st Ward—which had a bookshop not too far from the station.

  To pass the time, I lay down on one of the luxurious sofas. I could lie on my side, which was much more comfortable than sitting. My legs and backside ached terribly, and I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep; in the dark, though, I saw Master Ramsey coming for me again and again—switching me over and over. The more I cried, the more excited he seemed to get. It was a vicious cycle of pain and humiliation. Staring across the train car became much safer.

  The train pulled into the 21st Ward station about a half hour later. I decided it was in my best interest to venture out and find a book to help get me through the rest of the ride in relative peace.

  “I’m going into town to find the bookshop,” I told the Governess.

  “You don’t know where it is.”

  “I’ll ask the porter on my way out.”

  She glanced down at her watch. “You have less than twenty minutes before the train leaves.”

  “I’ll hurry,” I said, confident I’d make it back in time. I had to; I didn’t want to continue the ride stuck with only my thoughts, and needed something else to distract me.

  The porter gave me directions to the bookshop when I disembarked. He warned me the train would not wait for me, so I needed to be back in time. I assured him I would.

  A mass of people stood waiting to disembark and even more waiting to board. I pushed through the crowd, trying not to let the waiting people slow me down. In my haste, I bumped into another teenage girl.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get through,” I said.

  “That’s okay,” she answered as she turned to look at me straight on.

  She was about my size, and when I fully saw her face, I almost stumbled back in shock. She wasn’t someone I knew or had ever seen before—except in a mirror. Her hair was cut shorter and styled differently, and she wore darker makeup accentuating her look. But her natural features were exactly like mine. She looked as much an identical twin as I could ever have imagined.

  The girl gave me a strange look, as much so as the shocked expression I was probably giving her, but she didn’t say any more and continued on. She moved through the crowd with a shoulder bag slung over her arm, approaching the train. I waited and watched as she handed her bag to one of the porters and climbed aboard.

  I stood there, dumbfounded for at least another minute until I realized I was wasting my precious and dwindling time to purchase a book for the rest of the trip. And, with that, I took off running toward the town, trying to remember all the directions the porter had provided.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Y ou should have seen her,” I said to the Governess as the Inter-Ward Express left the 21st Ward. “She looked exactly like me.”

  “That’s so strange,” she said.

  “Does the Queen have more children she’d put into foster homes—like me?”

  “You’ll be able to ask her yourself in a few short hours.”

  I always had a hard time reading the Governess. She didn’t seem surprised by my discovery, but then again, she never looked surprised at anything at all.

  I’d gone through all the trouble of finding a book to read, scanned the used section and decided on a tattered, old paperback with a pretty cover. But now I couldn’t concentrate on reading. My mind kept going back to the strange girl and our brief interaction. She wouldn’t have been Princess Amelia, her health fully restored, and out and about like one of us commoners so she had to be another sibling.

  The Governess was on the matching sofa, reading The First Ward Tribune provided by the dining attendant. She periodically glanced up at me to see if I was reading, which I was not.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I wonder if she’s coming too,” I said. “What if I’m not the only long-lost daughter going to meet the Queen?”

  “You weren’t lost. The Queen knew where you were all that time.”

  “You know what I mean. Fine, then abandoned daughters all coming home at the same time. What does this mean? Who will be the true successor?”

  “As is customary, succession goes to the eldest full-blooded royal child.”

  “So, would I be considered full-blooded? The King’s been dead for years. Was he my father?”

  “I don’t know,” the Governess said with an exasperated sigh. “These are all questions for the Queen.”

  “I know. I just have a lot going through my head. It’s hard to wait, hard to read. This train has too many stops. This is like the longest day of my life.”

  I stood up and paced around the train car, partially due to my impatience, but also partially due to my aching backside. Master Ramsey had threatened to make it so sore that I could never sit comfortably again. I sure hoped that wasn’t the case. Hopefully, these wounds would heal like all the others.

  “Pacing doesn’t make the time pass by any faster,” the Governess said, folding the newspaper in her lap.

  “But it makes me feel better. I’ll stop burdening you with my anxiety,” I said, continuing my rounds.

  “That’s not what I’m saying. You may talk about your concerns. But there are only so many answers I can provide regarding your current situation. I have not been privileged with many details either.”

  “Yet you’re the one sent to accompany me.”

  “Yes. That’s not uncommon.”

  “You can go back to your paper. I’ll pace quietly,” I said and went to one of the windows to watch the landscape speed by.

  The next few hours were broken up with snacks, more tea, and an early dinner. The dining attendants checked on us constantly. Even though most of the time I didn’t require anything else, I didn’t mind the interruptions; any distraction was a good thing at that point.

  By the time the train pulled into the station for the 1st Ward, I had lost count and wasn’t expecting it to be the final stop. A pleasant voice over the loudspeaker welcomed us to Capital City in the 1st Ward. My heart skipped a beat when those words finally sank in.

  “We’re here? We’re actually here?”

  “You’ve managed to pace the whole rest of the trip,” the Governess said, finishing the tea she’d been sipping on for the past twenty minutes.

  “Not the whole time,” I said. “I did stop to eat dinner.”

  “Yes, and you seem to have forgotten everything I showed you about dining decorum.”

  “It was just us. There was no need to be overly formal.”

  “But it was a good opportunity to practice like I said. There are no more dress rehearsals. We’re finally here. This is the real thing.”

  Her final comment hit me harder than I wanted to admit. This was it; my life was about to change forever. A short ride away, I’d be meeting my mother—the Queen of Westeria—and my older sister, Amelia, the Princess of Westeria. And after my run-in from earlier in the day, there’d potentially be more estranged siblings. Then I was hit by the strange realization I was also a Princess of Westeria.

  All the dining attendants who’d served us throughout the trip came in and thanked us for our patronage, beginning to ready the car for the next guests. It w
as also our cue to leave.

  The porter helped us down the steps to the landing, where our luggage was already waiting for us. This station was much larger than the others; the main terminal was an artistic building of colored glass, and there were so many train lines loading and unloading never-ending streams of people.

  “If you’re looking for rentals, you can follow the signs going that way,” the porter said, pointing off to the right.

  “Thank you,” the Governess said.

  We took our rolling bags and ventured into the dense crowd. After a few steps, I noticed a man in a black suit and cap holding a sign with my name on it.

  Victoria Sandalwood. Was that still my name? Really? I didn’t even know anymore.

  The man holding the sign saw me and seemed to recognize me.

  “This way,” I told the Governess, then she saw the sign as well.

  As we approached, the man addressed me. “Good evening, Miss Victoria. My name is Edward. May I take your bag?”

  I nodded. Edward took the Governess’s bag after mine.

  “The car’s just over here,” he said, leading the way through the busy station. “I trust you had a pleasant journey from the 24th?”

  “Very much,” I said.

  “The accommodations were exemplary,” the Governess said. “The Queen did not have to go to so much trouble to—”

  “The Queen does not go to any trouble,” Edward said, flatly. “What she requests is done.” He strolled quickly like he was on a schedule that had to be kept, which may have been true.

  Once we reached the road, Edward led us to a black limousine with another man waiting. When the man saw us coming, he lifted the trunk and opened the rear door against the sidewalk, holding it wide.

  “Good evening, ladies,” he said, gesturing for us to enter. “Please. Help yourselves to any refreshments.”

  I climbed in first and lightly scooted across the bench seat. The leather was softer than that of the town car, which cushioned the pain. Inside, there was a flat screen TV, refrigerator, and an ice bucket with a chilled glass bottle. Two glasses were set on their sides and wrapped in cloth napkins on the same silver platter as the bucket. The Governess got in and the door was closed behind her.

  The second man’s face appeared on the other side of the lowered partition. “With current traffic, we should reach the palace in about forty-five minutes. Is there anything you need before we leave?”

  “Nothing. We’re anxious to get there,” the Governess said.

  “Very well. We’ll give you your privacy. There’s a button directly under the glass if you need anything,” he said. His face disappeared behind the rising partition.

  Neither of us indulged in any of the provided refreshments. I peered out of one of the tinted windows as we drove through Capital City, gazing upon the monstrous skyscrapers I’d previously only seen in textbooks and on the television, on the rare occasions I was allowed to watch it.

  The flat screen in the back of our limousine turned on and began showing sweeping sky views of the city. A narrator cited city facts and history as the camera panned from the downtown area and over the sprawling, densely populated communities surrounding it. In the distance, I could see the sparkling water of The Great Ocean that seemed to extend forever.

  The skyscrapers disappeared from the screen. The buildings below got smaller until they were more the sizes I was used to; they were only one- or two-story mixed-use buildings, but instead of being confined to a small town, they were everywhere. Soon, the storefronts were replaced by houses, as the camera continued onward. The upcoming foothills were peppered with houses the same as any flatland neighborhood I’d ever seen. Mansions with no yards to speak of hung precariously over cliff edges while other grand homes had been torn apart, lying with their innards exposed at the clifftops and the rest in ruins at the bottom of canyons.

  The camera passed over the mountains, leading to more towns and neighborhoods—all seeming to merge into one sublime metropolis. The aerial camera steadily dropped in altitude as it entered another neighborhood zone; the estates here were more spacious, with lush, green properties everywhere. A parade of palm trees lined the street the camera now followed, and our view dropped to the vantage point of a car driving down it. The vehicle came to an abrupt end at an iron gate with a large heart in its center; the heart parted as the gate opened and we drove up a neatly paved drive with perfectly manicured grass either side.

  An immense white estate with a semi-circle of pillars accenting its front façade sat visible in the distance. I recognized the estate from books and television; it was the Queen’s palace—Château le Hart. The narrator spoke of the palace’s history as the camera drew closer to the front door, which soon magically opened, thus marking the beginning of a grand interior tour.

  I was captivated by the images on-screen and had lost all interest in the world passing by outside the windows. For a few minutes, I didn’t even feel my injuries, but as soon as I made the realization, the aching returned.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” the Governess said, her attention also on the screen and the current tour of the Queen’s palace, with the narrator describing every room the camera entered.

  “It’s unbelievable,” I said. “All of this is.”

  “Believe it,” she said.

  CHAPTER 17

  I soon recognized the street leading to the palace from earlier in the video; the long lines of palm trees were still there. Every few minutes, we passed another gated driveway to a private estate. There was no shortage of money there and each one of these estates rivaled the Ramseys’ back home.

  Back home. What was home now? I didn’t want to think of the Ramseys’ estate as my home but had no other to associate with.

  We couldn’t see straight ahead, so I didn’t set eyes on the broken heart of the Queen’s gate until we passed it. There was a uniformed guard stationed just inside, who nodded as we entered with a rifle held low across his body, the barrel pointing downward. I looked out of the opposite window and saw another guard stationed on that side as well.

  At the roundabout, the limousine stopped, and after a few seconds, our door opened. Edward stepped back so we could exit. The other man who’d been in the front seat gathered our luggage and walked toward the front door.

  “We can…” the Governess started.

  “Your bags will be brought to your rooms,” Edward said.

  Two female servants in bright and beautiful dresses waited by the front door. One was blonde, and the other brunette, both maybe mid-twenties with exquisite postures and graceful mannerisms.

  “Welcome to Château le Hart,” the brunette said as a greeting to both of us, then turned her attention specifically to me. “My name is Indira. I will escort you to your room.”

  The other woman introduced herself as Gertrude and guided the Governess inside.

  The foyer was an exquisite two-story room with wood flooring and walls decorated with royal portraits and mirrors. In the center of the room was an elegantly crafted wooden table, upon which sat a marble head of King Samwell Hart I. He was the first of the royal Harts line, lineage I’d memorized for my lessons with the Governess. But I wouldn’t have recognized the statue without it being mentioned in the video during our ride to the palace.

  Indira did not start me off with a tour of the palace, though I supposed that was what the video was for. We ascended one of the two curved staircases to the second level, leading to a long hallway of closed doors. The Governess had been led through the foyer and into another room on the first level.

  When we reached an open bedroom door on the left, Indira invited me to enter first. This was a major improvement from my meager accommodations in the cellar. This room was about the size of Johanna’s and Mina’s rooms combined, with a large four-poster canopy bed, a flat-screen, wall-mounted television, several sofas and chairs, a bench window seat, a cozy office nook, a walk-in closet probably the size of my old room, and a private washroom of my
very own. Multiple large windows made the room light and airy, and this was accentuated by the yellow color scheme. Indira even presented it as such.

  “The Yellow Room is yours,” she said.

  “It’s really something,” I said. I noticed my luggage positioned by the closet door.

  “If there’s anything you desire, dial zero on the phone on the nightstand. Are you hungry?”

  “We had an early dinner on the train, but it’s been a few hours now.”

  “Then I will have some food brought up to you. Do you have any special requests? Any specific dietary requirements?”

  I’d never been asked that before. “I don’t think so,” I said meekly.

  “Then I will bring up a portion of what the chef has been preparing this evening,” Indira said. She circled the room, peering into the closet and washroom before making her way back to the door. “Have a good evening, Miss Victoria.” She curtsied and closed the door when she left.

  I had been about to ask her what I should do now, but was tired from the long day of traveling and didn’t feel like chasing after her. There’d be plenty of time to explore, and since the Queen hadn’t greeted us on our arrival, she was probably attending to some business and unavailable at the moment anyway.

  I paced around the room and took it all in. It was mine. This was all mine now. I peeked into the washroom and saw a long sink, vanity unit, shower, and large tub similar to Lady Ramsey’s. I ventured into the walk-in closet, so long it was practically a hallway, and literally turned a corner. And the most amazing thing was that it wasn’t empty, but filled with dresses, coats, shoes and accessories. And I bet every one of them would fit me perfectly. I ran a hand along the luxurious clothing as I passed, confirming they were real.

  I peered out of one of the windows at a view of the front yard, with the driveway and gate included. The property was enclosed by a tall brick wall extending past what I could see from my window. If the Ramseys’ estate was any indication, the Queen’s land stretched a long way.

  I removed my boots and dropped them haphazardly on the floor before climbing up on the bed, then lying down on what could’ve been a cloud. My backside almost didn’t hurt at all as I lay sprawled out in the middle of the heavenly softness. I closed my eyes, but the pain from the night before still returned in crushing detail. When I reopened my eyelids, I almost expected to be back in the cellar again with him. But I wasn’t. I was still lying in my new room—the Yellow Room—surrounded by more luxury than I’d ever thought possible for myself.