by Alex Flinn
“I am sorry, my dear daughter.”
He is sorry. Would it be possible simply to feign ignorance of the whole situation? Pretend I have no idea what happened to the ships, no comprehension of what caused—I am certain—numerous additional changes to the kingdom?
But I remember Jack’s clothing and the strange flashing object he carried with him, Travis’s talk of buses. Certainly the world changed during our three-hundred-year hibernation, as surely as it changed during the three hundred years before that, and as soon as Father remarks the changes, he will understand their cause. If he does not, Lady Brooke will be certain to tell him.
“Father?” I touch his shoulder.
“Yes, my princess?”
“I believe…” I take his arm, sweet as I can, and guide him toward a chair. “I believe you should sit down.”
He does, and when he does, I begin to tell my story.
“I touched the spindle, and then at the next moment, a commoner named Jack was waking me up,” I conclude.
Father is silent.
“Father? Are you…is everything quite all right?”
“You say you touched a spindle, Talia? A spindle?”
“It was no fault of mine.”
“No fault of yours? It was every fault of yours.” He looks, suddenly, like God’s revenge against murder. “Have we taught you nothing? How many times have we told you—cautioned you—about spindles? It was the first word you learned, the last thing you heard before bed at night, the one lesson of any import: Do not touch spindles. And you forgot it—ignored it?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Sorry? Do you not understand that we are ruined?”
“Ruined?” Father is making quite a fuss. “Certainly it is inconvenient, but—”
“Inconvenient! Talia, do you not understand? Could you be so stupid?”
I feel tears springing to my eyes yet again. He has never spoken to me in this manner. “Father, your voice. Everyone will hear you.”
“What does it matter? If, as you say, we have all slept these three hundred years, we are ruined, destroyed—you, I, the entire kingdom. We have no kingdom. We have no trade. We have no allies to defend us. Mark my words, it will not be long before everyone realizes that my daughter is the stupidest girl on earth.”
“But…but…” I can hold back my tears no longer, and when I look at my father, I see something horrible. He is struggling to hold back his own. My father, the king, the most powerful man in all Euphrasia, is weeping, and it is my fault, all my fault.
“It was a mistake!”
“You cared for no one but yourself, Talia, and we are paying the price. It would have been better had you engaged in any other youthful indiscretion—running away, even eloping—rather than this one. This has affected everyone, and it is unforgivable.”
My father’s words strike like daggers. He would rather see me gone than have me do what I did. He hates me.
“I am sorry, Father.”
He looks at the floor. “Perhaps, Talia, you ought to go to your room.”
Yes. Perhaps I should go and never come out—which is probably what is planned for me, anyway. I nod and start for the door. Then I remember something I must tell him, although at this point, I would much rather not. Still, if Father despises me, I have nothing to lose. I have already ruined everything.
“Father?”
“What is it now, Talia?”
“The boy, the one who woke me from my sleep…I have invited him to stay at the castle and to have supper with us.”
Father stares at me. “Supper?”
“Yes. It seemed the proper thing to do.”
He makes an attempt to straighten his shoulders but fails. “Yes.” The word comes out as a sigh. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
And then, before I can say anything else, Father turns on his heel and leaves. I wait a minute to make sure he is gone before leaving the room myself.
I am passing through the guest chambers on the way to my own room when I hear a voice.
“Excuse me? Talia? Um, Your Highness.”
I stop. Jack! They must have placed him in this room.
I approach the door. “Yes?”
Indeed, it is him. This commoner, this boy I am supposed to marry, this nobody who has ruined everything.
And yet…he is wearing more appropriate clothing, in which he looks handsome, yet quite uncomfortable at the same time, as befits a member of the nobility. “Um, sorry to bother you, Princess.”
“No bother.” Although, in truth, I would much rather be alone with my grief. My face burns. Soon, everyone will know of my stupidity and humiliation, that I have ruined the kingdom, and soon I will be the most ruined of all.
“Your dad seemed upset.”
I nod, unable to speak. So he had heard.
“But what he said,” Mr. Jack O’Neill continues, “about the hundred years’ sleep?”
“Three hundred.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Three hundred! We have slept three hundred years, and we are ruined, and it is all my fault.” I try not to sob again. Were I a few years (or a few hundred years) younger, I could throw myself on the floor with impunity, but as it is, I simply stand there, gasping for breath.
Jack stands there, too, looking down. I wonder if he heard Father call me the stupidest girl on earth. Probably the whole castle did. Finally, he says, “Can I get you something, like a Kleenex?” I have no idea what a Kleenex is, but he reaches into his pocket and procures a bit of paper, sort of a paper handkerchief.
I take it and sniffle into it. I try not to snuff too loudly. However, I have been crying very hard. So finally, I have to give in and snort like one of the horses so that, in addition to being the stupidest girl in all Euphrasia—nay, the world—I might also be the most disgusting.
To his credit, Jack pretends not to notice, and his kindness sends forth the torrent of tears I have been trying to avoid.
When I finish, he says, “My dad can be kind of a jerk, too. But I didn’t think princesses had to deal with that.”
“I am not even certain I am a princess any longer. Can I still be a princess if Euphrasia is no longer a country? It is all my fault! I am so stupid!”
“You’re not stupid. You messed up. I mess up all the time.”
Messed up? I move away from him, wondering if my face is blotchy, if I am hideous now, in addition to being stupid and disgusting. But I catch a bit of my reflection in the mirror attached to the wall. No, Violet’s gift has held true. I am still beautiful. Perfect, in every way save one.
He continues. “From what I’m getting, you had a curse placed upon you—that before your sixteenth birthday, you would prick your finger on a spindle. Right?”
I nod. “Right.”
“My dad, he’s a businessman, and he’s always looking at the wording of things. So that’s how it was phrased? ‘Before her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle…’ not ‘the princess might prick her finger’ or ‘if she is not careful, she will’?”
I nod. “But I was supposed to take care. Mother and Father always said—”
He holds up his hand. “Meaning no disrespect to them, either. I guess they were trying to protect you, but I don’t think you could have kept from getting pricked with the spindle if it was part of the curse. It had to happen.”
“But…” I stop. I rather like the way this young man is thinking. In fact, he is quite handsome for a peasant. “Do you really think so?”
“I do.” There is conviction in his eyes. “This witch put that curse on you, and that was that—you were going to touch it. Maybe she even enchanted you to make you touch the spindle. It was your destiny.”
“Destiny.” I like the sound of it, particularly because it means that this whole fiasco is not my fault.
“Yeah, destiny, like how it was Anakin Skywalker’s destiny to be Darth Vader.”
I have not the slightest idea what he is talking a
bout. “But that does not change the fact that Father believes me a fool and thinks it is all my fault that our country is ruined.” I remember what Father said earlier, about how he would rather I had run away and eloped. I gaze at Mr. Jack O’Neill. He is tall, and his brown eyes are quite intoxicating, and in that moment, I see my escape. “Do you think perhaps…?”
I cannot ask it.
But he says, “What, Your Highness?”
His eyes are kind as well.
“Talia. Call me Talia, for I am about to ask you to…take me with you.”
“What?” He backs away three steps, as if he has been pushed. When he recovers himself, his voice is a whisper, and he glances at the door. “I can’t.”
“Why not? If it is because I am a princess and you are a commoner, this matters not. I am an outcast now. Father despises me. They all…” I gesture toward the window, indicating the ground below, the land, the people. “They all shall hate me soon enough. Their crops are dead. Their food has rotted. They should be long dead and rotted themselves, but because of me, they are alive still, only the whole world has changed around them.”
“But I’m only seventeen. I can’t be responsible for a princess. I can barely get my homework done.”
“Whyever not? Seventeen is a grown man. Surely, you must be learning a trade—like blacksmithing or making shoes.”
“Sort of. I go to school. That’s what everyone does now.”
Now. Everything is different now. But I must change it. I was destined to prick my finger upon a spindle, and I did. But there was another part of the curse. I was to be wakened by true love’s first kiss. That kiss was Jack’s. Therefore, he must be my true love, even though he seems rather lazy and unpleasant, and I wonder how he could have gotten through the wood to the kingdom. He does not seem to appreciate the great opportunity he has been given, marriage to one gifted by the fairies with beauty and grace and musical talent and intelligence. I must make him realize it. I must make him my true love, if I am going to fulfill my destiny.
“Well,” I say, “in any case, you must join us for supper.”
“Okay,” he says. “Supper’s okay. Marriage—not so much.”
I pretend to agree, but I know that I must make him fall in love with me, whether he wants to or not.
Chapter 2:
Jack
I’m wearing something halfway between pants and tights, a red jacket, a ruffly shirt, and boots, all too small. At least they don’t wear kilts in this country.
I crack the door (which is ten feet tall) open and look into the hallway.
A guard rushes toward me. “May I help you, sir?”
“Um, is there any food around here?”
The guy looks down. “I shall check, sir.”
He doesn’t move.
I close the door, my stomach growling like an ATV pulling through mud. It’s been four hours since I kissed the princess. I know that from checking my cell phone, which is now useful only as a clock. I turn it off again to save the battery. It’s not like there’s any place to recharge it.
Of course, Travis took the sandwiches with him when he ditched me to go to the hotel. Bet he doesn’t come back. I kept the beer, but it’s probably not a good idea to drink it on an empty stomach. I wonder if this is just a really fancy dungeon.
I go to the window for about the tenth time. There’s no chance of escaping out the door. The hallway is crowded with people waiting to do my bidding. But no one wants to help me escape (and, really, where could I go in these pants?). The window’s not much better. It’s at least four stories up and made of this thick glass like in churches. No, my best bet is to have dinner, then sneak out when they all go back to sleep.
Of course, after three hundred years, they’re probably pretty well rested.
I should have stayed with the tour group. Sure, the museums were boring, but at least the people were from this century.
Someone knocks at the door.
“Come in!”
They knock again. The door’s so thick they can’t even hear through it. I walk across the room and open it. “What?”
“Begging your pardon, sir.” It’s some servant guy in an outfit that is—I need to mention—way less froufrou than what they gave me to wear. “His Majesty apologizes for the delay in getting supper. There have been…difficulties.”
My stomach growls loudly.
I’m scared to find out what these people eat. My mom’s a real freak about germs and salmonella, and this doesn’t seem like the type of place that has sanitary cooking facilities or even a decent oven. Didn’t people used to die at, like, age thirty-five in the 1700s, or even younger? And didn’t they have plagues with rats and stuff?
If I have to die, I hope I don’t die in tights.
What we’re having for dinner is meat. Lots of meat and mushrooms and strawberries.
Talia’s parents are there. Her father—the king—is a skinny guy with red hair, and he actually looks sort of like the Burger King, only the Burger King looks a lot friendlier and happy about burgers and stuff.
“I apologize for the fare,” he’s telling the group. Besides Talia and me, there’s Pudding Face, the queen (an older version of Talia), and a bunch of other people introduced as lords and ladies. There are also two women Talia says are fairies, but I must have heard her wrong. “But, you see, all our crops died when my daughter put us to sleep for three hundred years, and the food we had has long since spoiled.”
Talia looks away, but I can see her hands are trembling.
She looks great, though, especially in that dress she’s wearing, a green one you can see down. She’s stopped crying. She sits beside me and keeps staring at me with those eyes of hers.
“I am sorry, Father,” she says. When the king doesn’t answer, I see her glance toward the door.
I decide to change the subject. “So where’d you get the mushrooms…um, Your Highness?”
“Your Majesty,” Talia whispers.
One of the fairy women turns to the other, and when she does, I see that there are wings sprouting from her back. She whispers, “Him? He’s her destiny?”
“Shush,” whispers the other.
“That is quite all right, Talia,” the king says. “I am certain this young man is unused to dining with royalty in…Florida, is it?”
I nod.
“A Spanish colony, if I recall, and rather a wasteland. Has it changed much in three hundred years?”
“Um, a little.”
“The hunters found the mushrooms in the forest,” the king continues.
“Are they okay to eat?” I ask. It’s probably a rude question, and actually a hallucinogenic mushroom could hit the spot right about now.
The king shrugs. “Does it truly matter at this point?” Talia flinches when he says that. The king takes a large forkful of the mushrooms, chews, and swallows them. We all watch. He doesn’t fall over or barf or anything.
“They are acceptable,” he says finally.
I don’t ask what the meat is, but Talia says, “Is not the peacock excellent?”
“A bit tough after it has been drowsing three hundred years.” The king glares at Talia. “But it will have to do.”
Hoo-boy. And I thought my parents were rough. This guy’s acting kind of like a spoiled brat. But then, that’s how his daughter is, too.
Again, I try to change the subject.
“This is peacock?”
“Certainly,” the queen says.
“Wow.” I’ve tried it now, and it’s sort of gamy and tough, like duck in a really bad Chinese restaurant. I move it around on my plate.
“Do you not have peacocks where you are from?” Talia seems even more eager to change the subject than I am.
“We have peacocks. We don’t eat them, though.”
“What do you eat, then?” Talia asks.
I think about it. “Lots of stuff. People in America are from all over the place, so we eat pizza from Italy…”
Talia sig
hs loudly. “I have never been to Italy.”
“…hamburgers…”
“I have not been to Germany, either.”
“…French fries…”
“I have not been to France.”
“…tacos from Mexico…”
“I do not even know where that is. Would it not be grand, Jack, to go off and see the world?” She gazes at me, smiling.
“Talia…” The king seems to be having some trouble with the chewy peacock and the chewier mushrooms. Still, he opens his mouth to speak to her. “That will be enough.”
“Enough of what? All my life, you have made me stay in this castle, doing nothing, all for the fear of spindles.”
“Obviously, we did not do enough for fear of spindles. Perhaps we should have locked you in a cage.”
“Louis…” The queen’s voice is whispery.
“It is the truth.”
“No, it is not!” Talia bursts out. “There was nothing you or I could have done to prevent it. The curse said, ‘shall prick her finger.’ It was preordained—my destiny. You would have been better off had you pricked my finger yourself, making certain a prince was on hand to kiss me. This is all your fault! Your fault!”
Wow, it’s weird hearing her quoting me, like I’m a lawyer or something.
Nah. I’d never be a lawyer.
“If that is the case,” the king says, “you would have been awakened by your true love. Where is he, then?”
Talia points to me. “Here! Jack. He loves me. He has to love me.”
There is silence. The lords and ladies stop in midchew. The king is obviously not used to being yelled at. From the fairies, I hear a small voice say, “He could not be her true love. But how could my spell have gone so wrong?” With a small sigh, she turns into a small, birdlike creature and flies off. The other follows.
“Hey,” I say to King Louis, “you want to listen to my iPod?”
The king looks shocked. “What—or who—is an iPod?”
“It’s something from the twenty-first century. You can listen to music on it. Do you like music?”
“I adore music,” Talia says.
The king sighs. “I used to—three hundred years ago.” He glares at Talia once again.
