A Magical Trio

by Alex Flinn

  I see her think about it, really think like she’s doing a crossword puzzle or a sudoku, not just trying to think of an answer to a guy who said he loves her. I tell myself it’s because she fainted, because she’s freaking out or sick.

  “Talia?” I try to meet her eyes, which have glazed over. Is she going to faint again?

  But she shakes herself awake. “Yes?”

  “Do you love me back?” Because maybe that’s the problem. Probably. Probably she thinks I’m a jerk compared to the princes she could’ve had.

  She looks off into the distance over my shoulder.

  She smiles. “Yes, Jack, I love you.”

  I feel myself grin, even though loving Talia was something I never thought I wanted. Now, though, it seems so perfect. Talia talks to me. Talia knows me. She doesn’t think I’m a stupid party boy. She even likes my kid sister.

  “I love you, too, Talia.”

  She laughs. “I know.”

  Chapter 26:

  Talia

  I love him. I love him and he loves me; at least he says he does. Is it enough for Malvolia?

  It must be. It is not like the world is absolutely crawling with eligible bachelors, dying to marry a three-hundred-sixteen-year-old princess. And besides, Jack is the one I want, the one I love.

  “I love you, too,” I say, and mean it.

  It will have to be enough, for in the moments before Jack revived me for the second time with his kiss, I saw what Malvolia meant when she said, “Come with me.”

  “Come with me, Princess.” Her voice was so soothing, lulling me like the ocean’s waves outside the castle in Euphrasia. I almost wanted to go. “Come with me.”

  And simultaneously, I felt my body falling and part of me—some other part, dare I say my soul?—floating ahead of it, into the center of the water lily, then through the water and down, down, until finally I was back in Euphrasia. Malvolia was with me, towering over me, a spindle in her hand.

  “Will you kill me?” I asked, not as if this was a terrible idea—for my body felt light and floating, as if I had taken opium—but merely as a point of fact.

  “No, Princess.” Her voice was the same, but I could see that her smile was false, as though her lips were trying to express one emotion while her eyes showed quite another. The eyes were true, and they were cruel. “Not yet.”

  That was when Jack kissed me, and I woke to his declaration of love. He was my savior once again.

  And yet, even as Jack declared his love for me, I thought I heard Malvolia’s voice in the distance, calling me back.

  Chapter 27:

  Jack

  Talia and I spend the next few hours walking around Fairchild, looking at the plants and kissing. It’s a cool place, and I get a lot of good ideas for my garden design, which I plan to show Talia. I tell her about it, and she says she’s really looking forward to seeing it.

  She doesn’t imagine she sees Malvolia again. I’m hoping that now that I’ve told her I love her, maybe she’ll get over this guilt trip she’s on about it not being true love’s kiss that woke her, and she’ll stop thinking that Malvolia’s going to take her back to Euphrasia.

  “It seemed so real,” she says. “She even brandished a spindle.”

  “It’s all over now.”

  “And then I was in her cottage.”

  “Her cottage?”

  “Yes, I told you about it before—a peasant’s cottage atop the highest hill in Euphrasia.”

  “No, Talia.” I stroke her hand. “You were right here the whole time, at Fairchild. I saw you. It was a dream.”

  “I hope so.”

  After Fairchild, we come home and kiss some more and discuss what to do about the huge problem of her not being able to stay here after a week. We decide to think about it tomorrow. Dad’s working late, and Mom’s shopping with Meryl. So we get some pizza, then watch television.

  It all falls apart when the eleven o’clock news comes on. The newscaster is saying something about a father searching for a missing daughter. She was last seen with an American youth.

  Talia gasps. “Father!”

  I look. It’s the king. He’s standing on a street corner. He wears a crown and his king clothes. He holds a painting of a beautiful blond girl.

  Talia.

  The headline onscreen says MISSING GIRL.

  Talia stares, horrified, at the screen. Then she moves closer, as if she has forgotten the difference between television and reality.

  “Father,” she says. It’s a whimper.

  “Maybe it’s not that bad,” I say.

  But I know it is. They show the king again, looking tortured worse than when he ate the tough peacock. “How long has the girl been missing?” asks the reporter.

  “She is not a girl,” says the king. “She is a princess. The heir apparent to the Euphrasian throne.”

  “Ah, a princess. I see.” The reporter smirks. “From Euphrasia.”

  “They do not believe him,” Talia says. “They think him insane.”

  “And she has been missing several days, a week,” the king says.

  “Had you argued?” the reporter asks. “Could the princess have run away?”

  They’re flashing a 1-800 number over the king’s head, to call with tips.

  “Argued, yes,” says the king. “You could say that. But my Talia, she would never run away. She was sheltered, innocent in the ways of the world. She could not go out on her own. She would…she would…” He looks like he’s going to cry. “She was the light of my life! Of all our lives! No matter what. If she has been kidnapped, or worse, I do not know what I shall do.”

  “Do you suspect foul play, then?” the reporter asks.

  “I do not know,” says the king. “Perhaps. There was a boy….”

  I groan. “He thinks I kidnapped you.”

  The news goes to another story, a story about the sudden decline of a forest on the Belgian border, but Talia still stares at the television.

  “It’s okay, Talia. We’ll fix it all.”

  “Okay? It is most assuredly not okay. While I have been frolicking in America, my parents, who have lost everything, believe I am lost to them as well. I have frolicked, Jack! And drank and partied. And my parents are in such agony that my father—who has never seen a car or a bus, let alone a television camera—has somehow gotten out of Euphrasia and found this Belgian news station, all in the hope of finding me, his most beloved daughter. The light of his life.”

  “Yeah.” It does sound pretty bad when she puts it that way.

  “We must call.”

  “What?” I’m thinking of what they said about foul play. I didn’t kidnap Talia, but sometimes things get messed up. What if they think I did? “I don’t—”

  “We must call. My father is suffering.”

  “Wait!” She’s leaving. She’s going to get on a plane, and I’ll never see her again. “I understand. You’re right. You have to call.”

  “I am horribly selfish and thoughtless.” She tries to grab the phone from me.

  “No, you’re not.” I hold it away from her. “You’re nice. You’re going to call now that you know he wants you back. But couldn’t we just wait until morning?”

  “Morning?”

  “It’s the middle of the night. It’s later there. Everyone’s probably asleep. That news show wasn’t live. It couldn’t have been. And I’m just a little worried that they’ll think I kidnapped you.”

  “But you did not. I will tell them you did not.”

  “But they might not believe you. They might think you have…” I try to remember the name of it, this thing I heard about on television, where victims bond with their captors. “…Stockholm syndrome.”

  “Impossible. I have never even been to Sweden.”

  “Still, your dad threw me in a dungeon once. What’s to say he wouldn’t…misunderstand again? Couldn’t we just wait until tomorrow when my dad’s home?”

  It sounds crazy, but I’m thinking maybe Meryl was
right. My parents have bailed me out a bunch of times when I’ve screwed up. No, they haven’t been perfect. Sometimes they’ve been total jerks. But they’re the only parents I have, and I don’t want to go through this alone.

  “I promise,” I say, “I’m not trying to get you not to call them. I know it’s the right thing to do. It’s just…I want my dad here, too.”

  Talia nods. “All right. Tomorrow, then.”

  Chapter 28:

  Talia

  Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow I will speak to Father, perhaps even go back to Euphrasia. Will it be the same Euphrasia I have always known, or will it be irreversibly changed?

  It matters not. As soon as I saw Father’s dear face on that television, all thought of anything else evaporated, replaced by only one notion: I must find him. I must let him know I am all right.

  I settle down on the air mattress. Finally, it has just the right consistency, the correct amount of air, and now I am leaving. I remember that first night when I was visited by the Jell-O demons and Jack came in to comfort me.

  Dear Jack…

  Will I ever see him again?

  In my time, if someone journeyed from Euphrasia to America, one might never return. But now, there are airplanes, cellular telephones, even something called email. Surely, I will be able to see Jack again. After all, we love each other.

  For the first time since waking from my long sleep, I am able to rest.

  The Jell-O demons do not return. Instead, when I open my eyes, it is morning and Malvolia stands before me.

  “You got away,” she says.

  “I was rescued,” I reply, “by my true love’s kiss.”

  “Rescued? You cannot be rescued.”

  She grabs my hand, and I see a spindle in her other.

  “No!” I scream it, but nothing comes out. Still, my throat hurts as if I have screamed. It feels flaming and raw. The old woman’s claws dig into my hand.

  “No!” I manage to say. “I must go back to Father.” It is probably best that Malvolia does not know this, for it is not a sentiment destined to win her over. Still, I struggle. The room is dark, and I can see little. The old woman pulls at me, and although I try to rise and struggle against her, I am unable to find purchase on the tight air mattress. I fall backward. My arm feels as though the veins are being stripped from it, and I hit my head upon something, a chair.

  Then everything goes from black to blacker.

  Chapter 29:

  Jack

  “Jack!” Meryl’s banging on my door. I look at the digital clock, and the number burns my eyes. Seven o’clock. In the morning? Seven AM shouldn’t even exist, especially in summer.

  “Go away!” I yell.

  “It’s important! Mom wants you downstairs.”

  “And I’ll be there in an hour or three.”

  “It’s about Talia!”

  Talia. I’d forgotten about Talia and the news, but now it all floods back—the euphoria of loving her, the agony that she’s leaving, that I’ll lose her.

  “Jack!”

  “Give me a second, okay?”

  When I get downstairs, Mom and Dad are both there. Both.

  “Where’s Talia?” Mom holds up a newspaper. It’s open to an article called “Leads Sought in Case of Missing Belgian Girl.”

  “It’s Talia,” Meryl says. “She’s a runaway.”

  “Did you know, Jack?” Mom asks.

  “No. I mean, yes, sort of. I mean, not exactly.”

  “What, exactly, Jack?” Dad asks. “Did you help this girl run away from her family? You didn’t…kidnap her?”

  “It wasn’t that way,” I say.

  “What way was it?” Dad asks. “This sort of thing could ruin your whole life, keep you out of coll—”

  “Must we make everything about college, Evan?” Mom says. “The girl clearly wasn’t kidnapped. Did she look kidnapped to you? She was having a great time.”

  I give her a grateful look, and she says, “Why don’t you just tell us what happened, Jack?”

  I nod. They’ll find out, anyway. “But you have to sit down, and you have to believe me.”

  Dad grumbles that he’s not sure he can believe me about anything now, but Mom gestures for him to sit. I pour out the whole story of Talia and me, and how we met, and how we escaped. At the end of it, he says, “That’s impossible.”

  “I wouldn’t believe me, either, not if I hadn’t been there and seen it with my own eyes. But it’s true. There was a castle and a king and a queen, and Travis wanted to try on the crowns, and there was this princess. It was Talia.”

  “It’s not that we don’t trust you, Jack,” Mom says. “It’s just that it seems so—”

  “Look!” I hold up the newspaper. “This picture they put of her. It’s not a photo. They didn’t have photos then. It’s an oil painting. And look what she’s wearing.”

  I point. In the portrait, Talia’s wearing a crown.

  “Hey,” Meryl says. “Here’s the story again.”

  Channel six is running last night’s interview, but the reporter’s saying, “The man, mad with grief, claims that he comes from another world, another time.”

  And there’s Talia’s dad. He has no crown on, but other than that, he looks pretty much like the Burger King again—especially in his robe. It’s that red and gold curtain material they wear only in pictures of royalty.

  I turn to Dad. “Do many of the guys you hang with dress like this? I’m telling you, he’s a king. When Talia and I saw the report last night—”

  “Last night?” Mom says. “You saw the report last night?”

  “Uh-oh,” Meryl says.

  “You knew about this last night, and you did nothing?” Dad demands. “Jack, I knew you were irresponsible, but—”

  “I’m not being irresponsible, not this time. Talia wanted to call her dad, and I agreed she should. But I was scared, too. I was worried they’d think what you thought, that I kidnapped her or something. So I wanted to wait until you were here and ask you what to do.”

  “You wanted what?”

  “I guess it sounds lame now, not doing something right away, but you hear all the time about teenagers getting interrogated by the police without their parents there and even confessing to stuff they didn’t do just because the police think they’re guilty, and I don’t know, I just thought maybe you’d know the right thing to do. You usually do. So I told Talia we should wait.”

  “You thought that I could help you? Well, that’s…something.” Dad looks surprised, and for the first time since I got up this morning, maybe the first time in a year, that line he gets between his eyebrows when he talks to me disappears. He looks at the television where, once again, King Louis is crying. The line returns. “But now, I believe we must call and reunite this man with his daughter.”

  Mom nods. “Why don’t you go get Talia?”

  I start toward the study. I’m surprised Talia isn’t already awake, considering she’s been up and eating pancakes hours before me every day. But maybe, like me, she’s trying to put off calling her dad for as long as possible. Maybe she doesn’t want to leave.

  I knock on the door of the study. “Talia?”

  No answer. I knock louder. “Talia? Wake up, sleepyhead!”

  Nothing. “Talia?”

  I try the door. Locked. Why locked? She wouldn’t lock it. I’m not even sure she knows how to use the lock. I beat on the door, screaming, “Talia! Talia! Talia!”

  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!

  She fainted yesterday. What if it happened again? Or she choked? Passed out?

  “Talia!”

  Finally, Mom shows up with a hairpin. We pick the lock, and I open the door.

  The room is empty.

  Chapter 30:

  Talia

  I am in blackness. It is not like sleep but like being inside a coffin, away from everyone, everything, closed in with no light anywhere.

  Was this what it was like when I slumbered before? Do I sl
umber again?

  No. I am certain there were no dreams in my three hundred years’ sleep. But were there visitors? Did the fairies check on me or did Malvolia herself? Did they see me?

  In the still, black nothingness, I return to sleep.

  Chapter 31:

  Jack

  “She must have left,” Mom says. “She was probably anxious to talk to her father, and she locked the door to keep you from finding out she had left.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, and she’d tell me if she did.” But I wonder if that’s true. Talia was hot to call her dad, and I stopped her because I was afraid. But maybe she wanted to call so bad she sneaked out and found a pay phone. After all, she’s already run away once.

  I hear my cell phone ringing in my room. Thinking it’s Talia, I bolt out the door.

  “Talia?”

  “Dude, you’re in a big mess.”

  Travis! Travis, calling from Europe.

  “Where are you? Do you know anything about Talia?”

  “I know King Kong and his goons tracked me down with the tour, and they’re trying to torture me for information. I keep telling them I don’t know anything. They finally let me use my phone, so I’m calling you. You’ve got to make her call home.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “She didn’t go with you?”

  “No. Are you with her parents?”

  “I’m with her dad in Brussels. It’s been a super barrel of laughs, let me tell you.”

  “Sorry. She hasn’t called there? It’s been all over the television stations here.”

  “Here, too. They all think she’s with you, but they don’t know who you are. They keep calling you ‘the American youth.’”

  My sister Meryl comes in. She’s carrying something in her hand, two somethings. The first is Talia’s jewelry box. Her jewelry box! She’d never leave without that, so she must be coming back.

  I can’t see what the other object is, on top of the box. I walk closer.

  “Jack? Jack, are you there?”