“Oh.” Jasmine was quiet for a long while before she declared. “I know of a window where I can see the archery field – Jill showed it to me. I can watch you from there!”
“Sounds good to me,” Clara admitted. “So, as long as you don’t get into anyone’s way or be where I don’t want you to be, I won’t stop you. Archery is my first class, of course, so you can go as soon as I’m gone. But as soon as I’m done, I want you to run right back here, you understand.”
“Oh, thank you, Water Princess!”
And so, during her archery lesson, Clara allowed herself to be slightly more competent than usual. She actually hit the target today, though just barely and not with enough force to embed the arrow into it. Instead, it bounced off and fell to the ground.
Sir Rigel had finally relented and given her gloves the day before, so she didn’t complain about the cold. The lesson went smoothly, and pretty soon she was back inside, sipping her mug of spiced pomella cider – which she had since learned had nothing to do with apples, like cider did in her own world, but was instead made by boiling a sort of nut called the pomella. It was still delicious and warming, which was what was important.
“You’re improving,” Sir Rigel admitted, as she sipped her cider.
“You think?”
“In no time, we should have you a fully capable archeress,” he added. “Which will greatly increase your chances of winning when you’re fighting.”
Clara shuddered. “I would appreciate it if people would stop reminding me of that.”
“It’s your destiny.”
“I need to get to martial arts class. Sir Martin is annoyed when I’m late.” She set down her mug and marched out of the room.
Her lesson with Sir Martin went as well as ever, and he announced that tomorrow they would begin actual fighting moves. “I’ve never had anyone master their forms so quickly,” he admitted.
She shrugged. “I’ve always been a natural when it comes to acrobatics and the like,” she admitted.
She ate lunch with Li’Daughter Dina and Lady Roxanne, who informed her that the party would be on the actual day of her birthday, and she should discuss with her seamstress the making of a proper dress for the occasion. Apparently, they knew about Jill Anna. They seemed to approve, so Clara decided to not make an issue of it.
Another lesson with Sir Henre, which went as badly as usual, and then she was free until supper. So she returned to her room. Jasmine accosted her at the doorway.
“Oh, I never realized that archery was so hard, Water Princess!” she cried, throwing her arms around Clara’s waist.
“Truthfully, neither had I until they made me start learning,” Clara said with a shake of her head. She returned the hug, and then pushed the girl to arm’s length. “Why, I declare. You have dirt on the end of your nose.”
“Do I?” asked Jasmine, staring cross-eyed down her nose. “Well, it was a dirty window,” she admitted. She rubbed at it with her sleeve. “Is that better?”
Clara raised an eyebrow. “Not by much.”
“Oh.” The girl sighed deeply, then reached into her pocket and pulled something out, stared at it a moment, then rubbed at her nose again.
“Where’d you get that?” Clara asked, her eyes widening in surprise. “What is that?”
The girl gasped and looked up in surprise. “Oh! Don’t tell anyone I have it!” she pleaded.
“At the moment, I don’t plan to,” Clara said, softening her tone slightly. “I just want to know where you got it.”
Jasmine bit her lip. “Promise you won’t tell?”
Clara took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to get you in trouble,” she informed Jasmine, taking the device out of her hands. She slid it open to reveal a keyboard. “But this is technology from my world – or I think it might be my world. I think it’s a smartphone, but I’ve never seen one built quite like this.”
Jasmine took a deep breath. “Well … things do fall through the cracks between worlds from time to time – like you did,” she admitted. “And when people find those things, they bring them to the nearest castle and they get stored in a special room. We don’t know what to do with any of them, so it’s just as well.”
Clara nodded slowly. “Well that makes sense,” she admitted. “How did this smartphone come to be in your possession serving as a mirror?”
The girl breathed a huge sigh. “Well, I…”
“Let’s see, I think there are two plausible explanations here,” observed Clara, judging by the girl’s guilty demeanor. “Either you found it and have failed to ‘turn it in,’ or you snuck into that room and stole it.”
The girl hung her head. “Yes, Water Princess.”
“But you know, that doesn’t really matter,” said Clara, crouching down to get on the girl’s eye level. “Because you’re going to show me that room.”
Jasmine’s eyes widened. “But no one’s allowed in there!”
“Mostly because they don’t know what to do with the things, from what I understand,” said Clara, standing up again. “I come from another world myself, as you pointed out, so I’ll probably know what a good deal of the stuff does. Besides,” she added, with a mischievous grin, “this title of ‘Water Princess’ has to count for something. So far, all it’s gotten me is a bunch of lessons for skills I didn’t really want to learn.”
Jasmine was silent for a long, thoughtful moment, and then she grabbed Clara’s hand and pulled her out of the room. “Let’s go! Oh, there are so many interesting things in that room. You’re going to love it, Water Princess.”
Clara allowed the girl to drag her down the hallways until they reached a door with a guard in front of it. Then Jasmine pulled her into another hallway and stopped.
“It’s that door,” she declared, with almost comical solemnity.
“All right,” said Clara, “now what?”
“Well, you go up to him and tell him that as the Water Princess, you want to go into that room,” Jasmine explained. “Tell him that you think that there’s something in there that will help you defeat the Lady Dragon.”
Clara nodded. “That makes sense. They’ll let me do anything if they think it’ll help me fight that Dragon – within reason of course.”
And so Clara did as Jasmine instructed. The guard seemed hesitant, but she reminded him that she, too had come from another world, and was likely to recognize at least some of the stuff in the room, and so he let her and Jasmine in.
As Jasmine had said, there were all sorts of things in this room. Some of it was arranged neatly on shelves. Most of it was deposited in a huge pile. Clara could already see that she would find at least a few useful items here.
Absentmindedly, she brushed her fingers over a wooden box and gasped as it started growing. She withdrew her hand and it instantly reverted to its former size. Taking a deep breath, she turned to Jasmine. “All right, rule one. Don’t touch anything you aren’t absolutely certain what it is. Rule two. That means you aren’t to touch anything.”
The girl turned around, her face falling. “But, Water Princess!” she protested.
“No buts,” said Clara. “I don’t want you to accidentally set off a bomb or something and blow up the whole place. That would be counter-productive.”
“A bomb?” Jasmine repeated.
“It explodes. So…” Clara made Jasmine sit down in front of the door. “Don’t you dare touch anything.”
Jasmine heaved a huge sigh and wrapped her arms around her knees.
That taken care of, Clara turned to the shelves first. On them were all sorts of sparkly, valuable-looking items, most of which Clara had no idea what they were. There was quite a bit of strange jewelry. There was also a plastic container full of tiny colored jars. She drew them off the shelf and a smile spread across her face as she realized what they were.
“Look what I found,” she announced, walking over to Jasmine and showing her the contents.
The girl stared, wrinkling her nose. “What are they
?” she asked. “They’re pretty, but…”
“Fingernail polish, m’dear,” Clara announced, setting them next to Jasmine.
“You mean … like what you had on your toenails?” Jasmine asked.
“Mm-hm,” Clara confirmed. “No, don’t touch them, they’re glass and could make a mess if you drop them. We’ll have to have a girl’s night in the near future. Do you think Jill Anna would like to participate? I suppose we could invite Dina…”
“It sounds like fun, Water Princess.”
“Fun, yes,” Clara admitted, “though I’m not sure it’ll be of any help when it comes to fighting with that Dragon. Don’t touch, let me go see what else there is.”
Clara scampered back over to the shelves, to see if there was anything else there that she recognized. Ah, here was a bejeweled pistol – a dueling pistol. Interesting. Evidently, it had belonged to someone important.
Taking it off of the shelf, she looked to see if it was loaded. There was one shot. “This could be useful,” she said, sliding it into her belt. She wasn’t about to trust the thing to Jasmine.
There were a few books that she considered taking – one a brightly colored, abridged version of The War of the Worlds – but she left them for now. It was likely she would come back, and she could look at them then. Books weren’t going to help her defeat the Dragon unless they were detailed instruction manuals, and she doubted that any of them were.
There was also a nutcracker – the wooden soldier type. She didn’t even bother with him. She didn’t need any mouse kings to appear, especially since she apparently already had a Fire Prince to worry about.
Not recognizing anything else on the shelves, she turned to the pile. It would be a lot more complicated to avoid touching anything she didn’t recognize here. Her eyes landed on what looked like a Monopoly game. She bent over and pulled it out – and that was exactly what it was – still shiny with its protective plastic wrapping.
“Here, we can play this on our girl’s night,” she said, depositing it next to Jasmine. “My friends and I love this one. You can touch it – just don’t open it.”
Jasmine frowned and picked up the box. “Mon-opp-oh-lee,” she sounded out. “What is it?”
“A game where you try to be the richest kid on the block,” Clara explained. “Now, excuse me while I go see if there’s anything else that I can use for the fighting business, because this game certainly won’t be any help.”
The girl was still busy reading the box, her brow knit in confusion, probably because she wasn’t used to the spelling, so Clara returned to the pile to see what else she could find.
The pile turned up all sorts of treasures, such as rock climbing equipment, several rolls of multi-colored duct tape, a Swiss army knife, and a stop sign. What she deemed safe she deposited with Jasmine to keep an eye on and amuse herself with. She tucked the knife into her belt with the pistol.
“I have no idea what I’m going to do with a stop sign,” she admitted to Jasmine as she set it next to her. “But who knows, I might succeed in stopping the Lady Dragon by merely putting it in her path.”
“Really?” the girl asked, her eyes widening.
Clara shrugged. “Then again, probably not, but you never know when a stop sign will come in handy.”
She found a few articles of clothing as well, like a fencing mask, a bullet-proof vest, and a few pairs of blue jeans that were much too long for her. She could have Jill Anna fix that, however, so she put them under Jasmine’s guard as well.
There were a good number of electronic devices, more cell phones, MP3 players, cameras, even a laptop computer, but of course, they would all have dead batteries, so she just left them there. There wasn’t any hope of her finding anything to charge them with here in Klarand. They might have a form of electricity in the castles, but there weren’t any electrical outlets.
She also found a broken compass that had no idea where north was, which she also left behind.
“It’s funny what some worlds consider valuable and what they consider junk,” she commented, as she came across a wad of hundred-dollar bills. “I’d be rich if I had this back home.”
She ignored it, too.
“These are junk,” she observed, finding a pair of red stiletto heels. She tossed them over her shoulder carelessly. “Oh look, here’s something you can play with right now, Jasmine.” She picked up one of those cheap handheld games where you try to blow rings onto hooks in a watery frame. She explained to Jasmine the basics of how to play with it, and let the girl amuse herself from there.
She found several tubes of deodorant and a nearly-complete collection of make-up. These she also kept. She figured they might come in handy at some point.
There was a box of gel pens that hopefully still worked, as well as a few spiral notebooks. These she also deposited in Jasmine’s care. “How’s it going?” she asked, referring to the game. The girl’s look of concentration was answer enough. Clara shrugged and turned back to the pile to see if there was anything else she could find.
“Oh look, a bugle,” she observed, coming across an instrument. After a moment’s hesitation, she put it to her lips and blew as hard as she could. All she managed to make was a pathetic – though quite loud – “BLAH!”
“Harder to play than it looks,” she admitted, lowering the instrument and giving it a long look.
“What was that?” cried Jasmine, looking up wide-eyed from her game.
Clara sheepishly held up the instrument. “A bugle,” she explained. “It’s an instrument from my world. It’s supposedly simple to play it, but I obviously haven’t gotten the knack for it yet.” She put it to her lips and blew again, this time the “BLAH” that came out was a tiny bit less pathetic. “I was thinking that, if I could get the hang of it, I could use it to summon the troops or something like that,” she explained.
“Oh,” said Jasmine, nodding as though she understood what Clara was talking about. She hesitated a moment, then scrambled to her feet, tossing the game to the side. “Can I try, Water Princess?”
Clara gave the girl a narrow look and then handed her the instrument. “You can try,” she told her.
Jasmine took a deep breath and then she blew into the instrument – and actually managed to produce a mostly-decent noise.
“Interested in a position as the head bugler in my army?” Clara asked as Jasmine lowered the instrument. “You seem to have some talent there.”
Jasmine shrugged. “My dad has a horn a bit like it, except it isn’t all curly like this one,” she explained. “It’s really tall, almost as tall as he is,” she stood on tip-toe and held up a hand to demonstrate. “He lets me blow it sometimes when I see him.”
“Oh,” said Clara, nodding. She frowned a bit at the “when I see him” part. It just wasn’t right for kids to be so separated from their parents. No wonder the girl was so hungry for attention and acceptance. “Mind if I try it again?” she asked.
“Sure,” said Jasmine, handing the bugle back to Clara. “It’s lots harder than it looks, though.”
“I think I already figured that out,” Clara said, putting it to her lips again. This time, she managed to shove out a sound similar to a dying cow. Taking a deep breath, she lowered it again, gave the instrument a look, and then handed it back to Jasmine. “I never was one for music anyway,” she admitted.
Jasmine grinned and put the bugle to her lips once more. Once again, the sound she produced was above and beyond what Clara had been making.
“Know what?” said Clara, “I’m just going to let you amuse yourself with that, while I see if there happens to be anything else in the pile I need for fighting the Dragon.”
Jasmine giggled and forced some more notes out of the instrument.
Most of the rest of stuff that was at the top of the pile was stuff Clara didn’t recognize. She wondered where all of it had come from and what kind of people had owned the things. What sort of worlds did they live in? Did they have crazy dragon ladies they
needed to fight?
Jasmine’s playing suddenly stopped mid-note, but she didn’t think anything of it until she heard a “Water Princess?” from the doorway. She spun around to see Lord Erik and a few other people she knew to be important but didn’t have a name for off the top of her head.
“Uh … hello?” she said. She glanced about the room. “I heard about this room and decided to see if I could find anything from my own home that I could use to fight the Dragon,” she explained.
“Did you find anything?” Lord Erik asked.
“Well…” she drew out the word as she glanced at her collection. “I found a nice stop sign that I can put up in her path. And … that bugle that Jasmine is playing – I think that might scare her away.”
“I see,” said Lord Erik. “Well, as we have no other use for the things in this room, if you know what to do with anything in here, I suppose you can make claim of it. And if you think you can use any of the items against the Lady Dragon, we would be more than grateful if you succeed. Does the stop sign have magical properties?”
Clara frowned slightly. “Actually,” she admitted, “it’s scary how many cars ignore them back home. Still … it’d be worth a shot, I suppose. You really don’t mind if I take this stuff?”
“The reason we put these things here is so that those who don’t know what to do with them don’t … trigger an adverse reaction from them,” Lord Erik explained. “If you know how to use them, I see no problem in letting you have them.”
“And … can I come back and look for more things? I barely scratched the surface on this pile.”
“I see no point in forbidding you,” he answered. “However, it is nearly supper time, so you and your maid may want to go prepare yourselves. Will you require any assistance in taking your things to your room?”
Clara glanced at her pile. “Yeah, send a young man our way, and we’ll be good.”
“Very well, Water Princess.”
Chapter 7
“I’ve never been to a girl’s night before.”
Clara glanced over at her bed, where Jasmine was perched at its edge. “You’ll have fun, I promise. I told Dina to bring her own maid, who I think is about your age, so the two of you should have lots of fun together.”
Water Princess, Fire Prince Page 6
