Chapter Fourteen #2
There. Perfect. I opened the book to a random page and prayed for a safe chapter.
“Got it. Koshka.”
He leapt into Duke’s arms. Then I grabbed Duke’s hand.
I quietly and quickly recited, “ Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus. ”
With a flick of my fingers, I opened my black umbrella and the three of us fell through a hole in the fabric of reality, turning ourselves into the dot on a lowercase “i” in the word “ Hic. ”
—
Down, down, we went, seemingly falling forever.
When we did finally land, it was slowly, like a balloon returning to earth. Our feet touched ground in a meadow of wildflowers. Duke stumbled to the side and caught hold of a tree trunk while I sank to my knees to catch my breath.
“Where…where are we?” Duke asked.
Panting, I glanced around, taking stock of our surroundings.
Snowy white wood anemones carpeted the edge of a wild forest.
And far in the distance, gleaming like a new and golden morning, stood a castle.
“You, a duke of the realm, don’t recognize that ?” I asked, pointing to the castle.
“No…” he breathed and stepped away from the tree. “Is that…?”
“Welcome to Camelot, Duke.”
There are no words for the moment a son of Britain sees Camelot for the first time.
So we said nothing, merely soaked in the sunlight.
And there is no sunlight like the sunlight of Arthurian England, though we all have seen it, of course.
Remember your best day in the sun as a child.
That’s the light. The sunlight that shines only in a perfect memory.
“Rainy…” Duke said. “How did we get here?”
“Someone had special ordered The Legends of King Arthur, ” I said. “Good place to hide for a few minutes, right?”
My black umbrella hovered overhead. I took it by the handle and moved it into the shadows cast by an oak tree. Merlin was afoot and he would definitely steal a magic umbrella if he ran across one. Who wouldn’t?
“How long do we stay here?” Duke asked.
“Long enough for the police officer to see nobody’s in the bookstore and leave.”
“Good.”
At that, Duke took off his suit jacket, then rolled up his sleeves.
Not that I was one to ever complain about seeing Duke’s perfect forearms, but I had to ask…
“Duke, what are you—”
He laid down on his back among the wildflowers.
“I’m in Arthur’s Britain, Rainy. Let me bask.”
“Oh, well, bask away.”
I sat down on the ground next to him and started pulling red clover, tying the stems together in a daisy chain. Meanwhile, Duke was making wildflower angels in the meadow.
“You’re going to get grass stains on your suit,” I said.
“Worth it.” He abruptly sat up. “Can we meet him?”
“Arthur? No. We’re not dressed right, and we’d probably accidentally change the story. Never meet your heroes, as Pops likes to remind me.”
“You did.” He winked at me.
“And you see how much trouble it got me into.” I poked him in the shoulder. Duke smiled, then turned his bright, dark eyes upon Camelot again. It was a fairy-tale castle, with white turrets and towers, shining high on a hill. A castle made not of wood and stone but of longing and dreams.
“I had a Welsh nurse as a boy,” Duke said, “who spoke of Arthur as if he were still alive. Edward was never her king. Arthur, he was her true and only king.”
“ Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus, ” I said, quoting the legendary writing on Arthur’s grave. “Arthur, the once and future king.”
“She made me believe he would come back to our world, our time,” Duke said. “I can almost believe her now.”
“I believe her,” I said.
Duke sat up and eyed me. “You do not.”
“Who was King Arthur?” I asked. “He was a story. The story of a man chosen by fate to attempt great and noble things for the good of others. And he did his best with a broken heart. A hero. A storybook hero. Sounds like someone I know.”
“Who?”
“You,” I said and placed the clover crown on his head.
He looked at me, eyes narrowed. “Don’t be ridiculous, darling.”
“King Arthur and his knights live on in you and every other hero out there trying to help us poor damsels in distress.”
Duke took my hand and kissed the back of it.
“Ground rules,” I said.
“Yes, of course.” He dropped my hand. “I am not King Arthur reincarnated. Although I am trying to do the best I can with a broken heart.”
“Is your heart broken now?”
“Not when I’m sitting by Rainy March in the shadow of Camelot.”
I smiled, trying not to remember how much I loved him. Easier said than done.
“They say my mother came here once when she was a young Book Witch. Saved Sir Galahad from a whole legion of Burners who were trying to stop him from finding the Holy Grail.”
The Quest for the Holy Grail is a foundational story. Any book with a noble hero trying to find a magical object owes a debt of gratitude to the Holy Grail myth.
“How did she do it?” Duke asked.
“Supposedly she put herself between Galahad and the Burners and dared them to kill her to get to him. They would’ve happily slaughtered a fictional character, but killing a real girl?
Well, they backed down and Galahad was saved.
” I looked around as if I could spot my mother, young as me, maybe younger, peeking at us from behind one of the trees. “Can you imagine anyone that brave?”
“Of course.” He took off the crown of clover and dropped it on my head. “You.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“You stood between me and that ghastly Burner X, did you not? You practically dared him to kill you to get to me. You’re more like your mother than you know.”
“Thank you. I don’t know if I believe you.”
“You should never doubt me. Ever.” He smiled.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said. Then suddenly, I sat up. “Wait. Where’s Koshka?”
“There,” Duke pointed. “Hunting.”
In a thick patch of clover, I spotted Koshka, stalking a tiny field mouse.
“Koshka,” I scolded. “No eating the characters. Even the minor ones.”
He started to trot over to me, then stopped, turned around, arched his back, and puffed up like a Halloween cat.
“Koshka?”
“Oh, dear,” Duke said. “I’m afraid we have company.”
He pointed to a rider in the distance astride a black horse.
“That’s…not in the story,” I said. “Duke, hide.”
“Why?”
“It’s a Burner and you’re not supposed to be out of your books. Hide now.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone with—”
“So help me, LeVar Burton, if you do not hide in the woods right now, I’m locking you into the Eighth Circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno and throwing away the key.”
Duke blanched. “I won’t hide…I will, however, conceal myself, and then leap out if you need me.”
The ground shook as the horse’s hooves beat on it, then its rider reined his mount to a halt in front of me. The rider wore a closed helmet, but when he lifted the visor, I recognized him at once.
X.
“Are you going to say ‘We meet again,’ or should I?” I asked him. My heart raced wildly, but I pretended I wasn’t bothered by his sudden appearance.
He only smirked. “You should smile more,” he said. “You’d look much prettier.”
I bared my teeth at him and growled.
“I’m trying to do you a favor, March,” he said.
“A favor? Attacking Arthurian legends is a favor?”
“Oh, I’m not here for King Arthur. I like this book, actually,” he said, glancing around and nodding his approval. “Classic. Traditional. When men were men and women were—”
“Witches? Queens who had affairs with their husbands’ best friends?”
“Ladies,” he said. “Who dressed properly.”
He eyed my outfit, my leggings, boots, and sweater.
“That’s what you get out of the King Arthur stories? Fashion?” I asked.
“And good manners.”
“Right, good manners. Violence, adultery, and incest. I’m starting to think you don’t actually read the books you claim to love or hate. No, you wave them like flags in a war no one’s fighting but you.”
This was all bluster on my part, but I wanted to make X angry enough at me that he didn’t even glance into the dark woods to see Duke hiding, I mean, concealing himself in the shadows.
“If you’re going to be like that, I’ll go,” he said.
“Oh no. Anything but that.”
“I’ll go…before giving you the advice I came to give you.”
“You came here to give me advice? How did you even know I was here?”
“You’re being watched,” he said. “I don’t know who’s watching or why, but someone is keeping a very close eye on you. Probably because they know what a troublemaker you are.”
“I’m flattered to be so notorious.” I waved my hand at him. “Come on, what’s this ‘advice’ of yours? Let’s get it over with.”
I was pretty sure I knew what he would say.
Quit your job. Join the Burners. Eat my words and die. That sort of thing.
“You’re trying to find the March Hare,” he said.
Shocked, I said nothing.
“If you do, you won’t like what you find.”
I snorted a laugh, more bluster. “About hares?”
“About your mother.”
My stomach sank into the fabled earth of Camelot.
“My mother?”
“Take it from me, March. Your mother wasn’t the saint you think she was.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? My mother was a legend. Dr. Fanshawe said so herself, and she never gives out compliments.”
“Find out at your own peril,” X said. “But if I were you…I’d drop the whole thing.”
“Good thing you’re not me.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, then with a jerk of the reins, he turned and rode away.