Kiss in Time 4 page

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 about.

“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 intoxicat-ing, 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 81

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:

j 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 84

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 85

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.” 87

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 sighs 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?” 89

“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.

“Here.” I take it out. I’m glad this getup they put me in has pockets and that I thought to put the iPod in one of them. I wish I had something classical, maybe Gregorian chant. The closest I have is classic rock, some Beatles songs my sister likes. I find “Yesterday . ” “You put in these earbuds.”

“In my ears?”

“Sure. That way, you can listen to music without anyone else hearing it.”

The king looks like he still doesn’t get it, but he sticks the earbuds in. “Now what?”

“You push that. Here. I’ll do it for you.” I lean over and push it for him. Obviously, these people are button-challenged.

“Can he hear us?” Talia whispers. When I say no, she turns to the queen. “Mother, please make him stop being so cruel. This is not my fault.”

The queen shakes her head. “Oh, Talia.”

“Then you are against me, too? I hate this! I wish I could simply run away.” She turns to me. “How did you get here? To Euphrasia?”

“I already told you, I came through the hedge.”

“No. Before that. How did you get to Europe from . . .

Florida?”

King Louis takes out the earbuds. He sighs. “How I long for yesterday.”

Which is a line from the Beatles song.

“You mean to say, young man,” he continues, “that in your century, they have found a way to preserve this man’s singing and put it into a minuscule box, all so that one can listen to music without the bother of having it performed, without having to dress and gather and dance, that in your time—which, by unfortunate accident, is now my time as well—each man can live entirely in his own world?” I nod. “Cool, isn’t it?”

The king hands me back the iPod. The lord across from me looks like he might want to have a listen, but he doesn’t dare ask. “I should have been dead three hundred years ago,” the king continues. “I should have . . .” He glares at Talia again. “. . . and I would have, had you merely kept away from spindles as you were told.”

“By all the saints!” Talia cries.

“Talia,” her mother cautions. “Do not swear.”

“I will swear, Mother. I am done being obedient. Obedience has done me no good. Father may be peevish to me, but I will not stand to see him being so to our guest. We are very much in Jack’s debt. Had he not kissed me—”

“He what?!” the king roars.

Uh-oh. Did he not know that?

“K-kissed me. That is how I happened to awaken.

Surely you must—”

“You!” The king points a trembling finger toward me.

“You, a commoner, dared to take advantage of my daughter’s sleeping state to . . .”

“I didn’t know she was a princess, Your Highness . . .

Majesty . . . sir!” I push my chair aside. “I’m sorry. I should get going.” I take a few steps backward and stumble into a servant holding a tray of mushrooms. I’d better get out of here before they come up with the idea of—oh, I don’t know— stoning me to death.

“No! You will go nowhere. You have defiled my daughter.”

“I didn’t! It was a kiss. A little one.”

“Yes, you are right, Father,” Talia says. “He defiled me.”

“What?” I yell. “I didn’t . . . I barely touched you!” I want to scream at her, but I try to keep in control. Hurling insults would probably get me in more trouble than I’m in already. “Tell the truth, you . . . brat!” Oops. That slipped out.

She glares at me, then continues. “It is true. I am quite sullied. There is nothing for me to do but marry this young man and go to Florida with him immediately.”

“Marry you? Ma—”

“Impossible!” the king declares.

“Why not?” Talia says. “All the princes I might have married are long dead. You do not wish me in your presence.” The king nods at the guards behind me, and I feel hands on my arms. “This young man is an offender of the most contemptible kind, a rogue who would take advantage of a 92

young lady’s—a princess’s—sleeping state to . . . desecrate her. Death is too good for such an offender.” There it is. Death.

“But I didn’t . . . I wouldn’t touch her if you paid me!”

“He must be brought to the royal dungeon to await a suitable punishment.”

I plead with Talia, even though I can barely look at her, I’m so mad. “Can you say something to him? Please.” She shrugs. “I do not know what to say.”

“How about, ‘he didn’t sully me’? That would be a good start.”

“He will not listen to me. He thinks me a fool.” She begins to pout.

“You are a fool!” the king roars. “To think that we hoped and prayed and protected you, only to have you stupidly ruin the kingdom! I wish we had remained childless!” To the guards, he says, “Take him away!” And the next thing I know, three guys who look like they could work for the WWE are dragging me down a very long, dark flight of stairs.

To the dungeon.

Chapter 3:

j Jack

My mom will be happy. I’m seeing something not many people get to see in Europe. An actual dungeon.

It’s not like I’d have pictured a dungeon. Maybe that’s because it’s so dark I can’t see my own froufrou tights, much less any beds of nails or cat-o’-nine-tails, or that thing where they stretch people. It just seems like a cold, damp, dark room, like my grandmother’s basement in New York.

And it’s quiet. I never really thought about quiet before, but at home, there’s always the stop-start of the air-conditioner, the buzz of the computer fan. But there’s nothing except silence here, and I have nothing to do but think about it. The walls are thick around me, and the ceiling is thick above me, like being dead. There is no one here but me.

And the rats.

The more I get tuned in to the silence, the more I realize there are noises after all. Little ones. Little ones like feet.

Scurrying feet.

I bet the rats are really hungry after sleeping for three hundred years.

Don’t think about this!

The guards didn’t take away my iPod, so I turn it on. It starts in at the same song the king was listening to.

I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Hoo-boy, did I. And I did something wrong. I kissed some stupid, spoiled brat princess who couldn’t even trouble herself to tell her father I didn’t “defile” her. And now I’m stuck here, rotting, maybe forever.

And why did I do it? Because she was hot-looking. You’d think I’d have learned from Amber.

I switch to another song. Rap. Loud. One of those songs about what some guy’s going to do to some other guy’s girlfriend. Good stuff.

Maybe they’ll let me out tomorrow.

Maybe they’ll decapitate me.

No. There are rules about how you have to treat prisoners. I read about that in school. Geneva Convention.

Except I’m not sure the Geneva Convention’s been invented yet here.

Also, that’s just for prisoners of war.

I am a prisoner of love.

I close my eyes and try to sleep. But I can’t, so I just close my eyes and try not to hear the rats in the darkness. It 95

sounds like a big one’s creeping up.

I feel red-hot liquid on my arm.

“Ouch!”

Are they torturing me? Boiling me in oil?

“Be quiet!” a voice whispers. It’s Talia.

“But that hurt.”

“It is but a candle. The wax dripped. Do not be such a baby.”

“I’m in a dungeon!”

Suddenly, she’s all, “Oh, you poor, poor dear . . . yes, I do apologize for that. Father is in a peevish mood.”

“You don’t say. How’d you get down here?”

“Everyone is asleep, except the guard. He let me pass.”

“But are you allowed down here?”

“I am a princess. I am allowed wherever I wish to go.”

“You’d better go,” I say. “I know how it is. You come in here, and then in a few minutes your lady-in-waiting or whatever notices you missing. You lie about what happened . . . and all of a sudden I don’t have a head.”

“Do you wish to escape?”

“That would be a yes.”

“Then you must speak to me. If not, I shall be forced to—”

“Don’t . . .”

“I will. I shall be forced to scream, and everyone will come running. I will tell them this knave has abused me grievously. The kiss will be nothing in comparison. I will be pitied, and perhaps it may affect my marriage prospects, 96

but they were slight in any case. You, however, shall be stoned at sunrise . . . but only if you do not let me stay and talk to you.”

A chill runs through me when she says “stoned at sunrise.” Do they actually do that? In any case, she’s clearly not going to stop them.

“You know, you’re not as sweet as I thought you were,” I say.

“I am sweet.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“I am. Sweet and compliant. Or I was, my first sixteen years, the most docile, malleable creature one might ever imagine. I would have made someone a fine wife. But then everything changed. Or rather, nothing did. I am grown up, and I am still being treated like a child, or an animal.

Do you know what it is to be treated as chattel?” I don’t even know what a chattel is. “Sorry. I was too caught up in the whole being-locked-in-a-dungeon thing.”

“To be treated like you have no choice in what you do in life?”

“My dad wants me to take over his business when I grow up. He’s a developer, like he builds communities where all the houses look alike. I hate it, but he won’t take no for an answer. I guess it’s irrelevant, though, if I’m going to die here.”

“You wish to leave, then?” When I don’t answer, she says, “Well?”

“That was a question? Of course I wish to leave.”

“Then I shall help you leave, but upon one condition.” I think I know what the condition is.

“You must take me with you.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it.

And we have a winner.

I know I should keep my mouth shut, but I say, “Yeah, about that. I know I’m supposed to be your true love and marry you and all, but I’m only seventeen. It might be perfectly normal to get married at seventeen in your time—your old time. But no one gets married that young now.”

She laughs. “Marry? I do not wish to marry you!” She laughs so hard I’m worried stuff will start flying out of her nose.

She doesn’t need to laugh that much. “You don’t?”

“Hardly. Let us not forget that you were the one who kissed me.”

“Oh, I get it. It’s because I’m not a prince.” She sighs. “It does not signify. I do not wish to marry you, and you do not wish to marry me, but I do wish you to take me with you when you go.”

“Look, Princess . . . Your Majesty . . .”

“Talia will do.”

“Talia will not do. Don’t get me wrong. You’re beautiful, and there’re a lot of guys who’d love to take you wherever they’re going.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Those others are all dead. Every suitable consort is dead and has been for nearly three hundred years.”

“But your father will never let you go away with me, especially if we’re not married.”

“No, of course he will not.”

“Okay, so we understand each other.” I try to shake off her hand, which is difficult with her grasping mine. “Anyway, it was nice meeting you. Good luck with the princess thing. Now, if you can just get your father to let me out of here—”

“No!” She’s still holding my hand. “I am not asking to marry you, nor am I going to ask my father’s permission to let you go or to leave with you. I wish to sneak out, under cover of darkness, and leave Euphrasia. I wish to go with you, not as man and wife, but merely as friends, travel companions, the sort of happy-go-lucky chums about whom rollicking old ballads of the road are written.” She grips my hand even harder. “You owe it to me.”

“I owe you? How do you figure?”

“You woke me up. You ruined everything. Had you not come along with your intrusive lips, someone else would have woken me, someone who loved me and could have saved me and Euphrasia. A prince. Or perhaps we would have slept forever.”

“And that would be a good thing?”

“It seems preferable to waking and having everyone know that I am the ruin of my kingdom, to having my father 99

despise me. Jack, you desire to escape. I wish to run away. I thought we might help each other. And if you don’t . . .” Her voice trails off.

“And if I don’t?”

“Well, then, I shall run away on my own, venturing out into the cold, cruel world full of buses and telephones and other matters of which I know nothing. I have no map and no money, save a large quantity of priceless jewels.” Did she say jewels?

“Without you,” she continues, “I might be robbed or . . . worse.”

“And me . . . ?”

I feel her shoulders go up. “I suppose you shall rot here . . . although once Father finds out I am missing, he may have you riding the three-legged mare.”

“What?”

“The gallows. He shall order you hanged.” She had to say the H word.

And that is how I end up running off with Princess Talia.

Chapter 4:

j Talia

Helping Jack escape is simple work. At first, I think to trick the guard by saying I saw a mouse and asking him to come nab it, so Jack can escape, or perhaps bribe him with one of the many necklaces in my jewel case. But when I see who the guard is, I know what to do.

One advantage of being forever in my parents’ custody is that I have been privy to many secrets of the castle, secrets discussed in my presence, simply because I was always there. From this, I know such tidbits as which upstairs maid is joining giblets with which footman, which coachman was arrested for beating his wife with too thick a stick, and which groom stands accused of bilk-ing an ale draper.

I also know that the guard at the dungeon door is a drunkard.

I suspect that the bag upon which Jack kept so close a hold earlier may contain ale.

“What is in your bag?” I ask when he finally agrees to accept my help.

“N-nothing.”

“This is no time to be secretive. You are imprisoned, and I suspect that you have the item, more precious than jewels, that may buy your freedom. Give me the ale.” He tells me where to find the bag, and I find what is needed—six bottles full. When the guard grasps what the contents are, he fairly weeps with joy, and I know it will be short work. I need only wait until he has consumed the beverage, and then, when drunkenness causes his jowls to droop onto his ample chest, I steal the key to secure Jack’s freedom.

“Took you long enough!” Jack says when we issue forth from the castle door.

“Shhh!” I whisper. “And hurry.”

“Easy for you to say,” he whispers back. “You’re not carrying anything.”

It is true. I took the trouble to secure Jack’s other pos-sessions and those, along with my clothing and jewel case, present a heavy burden. But I am certainly not going to carry anything. He is the man, and I am the princess. “Go as slowly as you wish, but I am told that ale-induced sleep is not of long duration. If the guard wakes—”

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 508