Chapter 35
In the ancient garden of Thorncrest, far from the crystal greenhouse on the coast at Roseland, the roses brought a message to Rosemarie.
Languidere’s attempt to seduce Evoldo came as no surprise, but the attempt to have Rosemarie removed as queen was too much to bear.
Even if Rosemarie was indeed a witch. Even if it was against the laws of Ev for a witch to be queen.
Rosemarie would never give up the throne or the responsibility to her people, not as her mother had done.
But her heart ached over her husband. Holding the child, his child, in her belly, she rocked over the secrets Evoldo kept. What interest did he have sending Languidere to spy on Alice? Why had Alice’s powers been bound? Who would bind a young witch’s gifts?
What did he know that she did not?
“Your Majesty,” Bernard said, approaching from his post outside the Thorncrest garden. Through the dense foliage of the entryway, he was hardly visible until he was standing within the fountain enclave.
“Yes, Bernard?”
“Word from the North has arrived. There was an attack on the Munchkin settlement at the eastern border. A bird was sent to the watchman, detailing an underground attack by gnomes.”
“Gnomes? Are they certain?” Rosemarie wished such a mistake could be made, but a gnome was not a creature anyone would mistake seeing or reporting.
“The description is fitting, and they came from below ground. A resistance was fought by a few non-Munchkin citizens, with the help of a copper soldier. It would appear Alice, Blinkem, and Tinkerton have survived.”
“It’s nothing short of miraculous.” Rosemarie felt a gentle sliver of hope return over the well-being of Tinkerton and the rest, though it was but a sliver, for what else lay in wait?
Return of the gnomes meant chaos was in fact upon them, and now she knew it wasn’t isolated to Ev, but stretched through all of Oz. “Any word from Tatty?”
“Nothing.”
Rosemarie sighed. “Fear grips me over what may have happened to her. I’m now more concerned about what might happen if they arrive at Palace North, and if it is potentially targeted again.
” Rosemarie had no choice. She had to get word out.
“You may leave me, and please go and prepare our carriage for us to return to Roseland.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said without question. She could no longer rely on messenger birds, or her roses. She needed to call upon magic.
“Bernard,” she said, before he had left the garden. “What you see here… it can never be spoken of.”
He nodded silently and left her.
Rosemarie stood, raising her arms into the air, opening her mind and heart, and waited until the air began to feel moist. “Sisters,” she said as mist poured from around the thick trunks of the rose forest. “I call to you, show yourselves.” The mist billowed around her and a rush of cold air washed over her.
From within the mist, forms began to take shape, floating toward her, waiting for her.
Clapping and shouting from the Munchkin folk, and intermittent hammering from two drunken jolly Munchkins who slugged ale as they assembled the well canopy, filled the square.
Munchkins, many of whom had apparently watched the entire ordeal with the gnomes, had poured from their homes in nightgowns and robes, rushing to the well, clamoring around Nimmie, Captain, and Tinkerton.
Young girls in nightgowns and cloth curlers made their way to Alice, before being carried off back to bed by grateful mothers.
It truly was a moment of triumph, but not for Alice.
The gnome had called her name. The gnomes had been after her.
Alice tried to politely excuse herself as she made her way through the jubilant townsfolk to the other side of the well.
A few munchkins gathered at the stone steps, peering down into the well.
In the stables, she saw Blinkem, standing in shadow, draped in a mule’s blanket.
He watched her without blinking as she retrieved his clothing and brought it to the barn.
“This will need a wash and to dry this evening,” she said of the foul stench on the fabric as she eyed him.
He nodded. He wasn’t going to give her even a word?
“You must tell me everything of what you know and who you are,” Alice said.
“Yes. Soon.” His worried eyes would not look anywhere but at hers. Nothing felt coincidental in any of this, and his silence told her that he knew more.
The driver who was also a white rabbit, and a prince, knew much more.
It was nearly morning when Languidere arrived back at Thorncrest from her late-night trip to Roseland.
Nan listened as the heavy mirrored doors of the princess’ bedroom banged shut.
The commotion that followed was like a tornado had been captured inside her chambers.
The bellowing roar of her cry was the wind, and the objects she smashed and threw were the debris sucked into the whirlwinds of her force.
Nan flinched at every smash and break. The evening maids rushed from the palace as the morning staff came in wide-eyed.
This was the first of the destructive tantrums the morning maids had experienced, as they usually happened in the evening, but the carriage ride from Roseland had prolonged the apparent state Languidere had left the coastal palace in.
Quietly, they listened, and without a word they held each other’s gazes, waiting for the inevitable bell to ring on the wall beside them.
Who would be the first to enter the aftermath of the princess’ wrath?
Nan knew the girls were safe. The princess would look to her for comfort, and would have her lie in the crystal bed beside her to tell her of her beauty.
At least, Nan hoped this would be the request, for, if not comfort, Languidere would look for a more vulnerable target of flesh and blood.
When intimate touch did not soothe the princess, the destruction of a physical body always calmed her.
The peacock, countless animals, and Nan herself bore the proof: Still at the back of Nan’s skull, a tender patch of scalp was exposed where the Princess had ripped at her hair.
The sound of smashing had quieted, and the bell finally rang, beckoning Nan to Languidere’s chambers.
Nan climbed the polished curving stairwell of marble.
Her eyes focused on the rose glass sconce on the pillar at the top of the landing.
The rose glass petals had become an image that attached itself to her pain.
She imagined the burning light behind the fragile petals as her own light.
In the evenings, it flickered and dimmed until she herself snuffed it out.
She stopped at the sconce and snuffed out the kindred flame.
Nan took a moment to breathe before pressing down on both door handles. They were lovely handles of twisted gold with delicate porcelain rose finials. Behind the pretty roses, the monster waited.
The doors glided as the fire burning inside blew heat over Nan. The room was worse than Nan expected. The mirrors of many of the wardrobes smashed. Endless jagged shards piercing furniture and sticking from the goose down throws. Pillows chopped maniacally.
The princess, in emerald stones and silk, stood with her back to the door. In her hand, the cleaver was smeared with blood. In her rage, she must have recklessly cut herself. Nan closed her eyes as tears came. “Mother, watch over me,” Nan said softly.
The princess stood like a carved statue. “Your Majesty.” Nan spoke through the hard lump in her throat.
“Nan,” Languidere said, her voice breaking. “See how she still smiles? She is not angry with me. She still loves me so very much.”
Nan saw blood beginning to spread across the polished floor, reaching the silk of Languidere’s gown. The emerald fabric pulled the blood up through its threads, as a rose drinks water from soil.
Nan stepped closer, fear somehow drawing her like a moth to the flame. The princess turned her head slowly over her shoulder. “Nan, do come see how she smiles.” Nan took another step, and terror ripped through her.
On the floor, the beautiful orange, black, and white fur of the Bengal tiger, the princess’ Hungry Tiger, was soaked in blood.
Nan should have run, but the princess whispered, and the sweet beckoning of her voice had the command of a serpent’s hypnotic eyes drawing a mouse to its end.
“Please, Nan.” Languidere smiled as tears traced through the speckles of blood on her cheeks.
“Tell me that she smiles at me.” The princess dropped the cleaver, and it smashed into the marble with a terrifying clang that caused Nan to scream.
The princess turned abruptly, her eyebrows contorted with confused sympathy over wide, unblinking blue eyes.
“No, Nan! You are not in any danger! Don’t be frightened!
” The princess held out bloody hands for Nan to take as a sister would.
Nan took them, and the feeling of the wet warmth of Hungry Tiger’s blood sent a chill over her.
Into Languidere’s darkness Nan was drawn as she turned her, wrapping her arms around Nan like a shawl.
Nan forced herself to look down at the massacre.
There atop fractured shards of mirror, Nan saw the most horrifying thing she’d ever beheld.
The tiger’s severed head rocked back and forth as its tongue lapped the blood gushing from its body.
The Hungry Tiger, even in decapitation, lived.
Nan had heard such terrors of animals that drank the same well waters as their owners in Oz territory. Never had she seen it.
“Tell me, Nan,” Languidere whispered.
Nan struggled to speak, watching the poor animal desperately attempt to tend to its irreparable wounds. “She does. She does still smile at you.”
“Yes. It is true then. Love conquers death.” The princess rested her head sweetly on Nan’s shoulder. Nan forced herself not to recoil. Languidere kissed her cheek tenderly. “Do you remember the dream you had, the one from when we were girls?” she whispered.