I am trapped in a bramble bush and have been for the past hour! I am bruised. I am scratched. I am bleeding. I can see nothing on any side. I hear nothing but my thoughts.
And Jack is no closer to falling in love with me than before. If anything, it is worse. When I tried to touch his forehead—his forehead!—he pulled away. He must think me a very silly young girl.
I am a very silly young girl.
Father loathes me. Mother is disappointed. My suitors-to-be are dead.
And now I am stuck in a thicket with a boy from a country of which I have never heard, who is wearing a costume suspiciously resembling brightly colored undergarments.
And I have reason to believe that everyone else where we are going will be dressed thus.
A thorn nearly jabs me in the eye.
“Ouch!”
“I told you it was prickly. You have to go in the direction the branches grow.” Jack has been pushing ahead of me, doing a poor job of parting the branches so I can make my way through. The oaf obviously has no idea how a princess should be treated.
“This isn’t even as big as it was when we first came through it. It seems to have shrunk.”
“Yes. That was part of Flavia’s spell. She said that after the spell was broken, the kingdom would become visible to the world again. I daresay the hedge is shrinking.”
Jack does not answer this. I do not think he believes in fairies. Or spells. Or, certainly, that he is my destiny. Still, he has taken me with him. I should be patient, lest he leave me in the middle of all this. And he is to be my true love, no matter what he thinks.
“I apologize for complaining,” I say. “It—this hedge—is not what I am used to.”
“I think you should go back.”
I note that he does not say that we should go back, only me. He wishes to be rid of me, like everyone else.
“You know,” he continues, “it’s not going to be easy out there. It would be better if you went home.”
I sigh. “It will be difficult anywhere, but I prefer to go somewhere where no one knows me. I want to go somewhere princesses do not exist.”
“Yeah, sure you do,” he says.
“It is true.” At least, I think it is, although it will be hard to be a commoner. They have to do a great deal of work, and sometimes they smell bad. “I want to go someplace where everyone is not angry with me, then.”
He laughs. “I get that. People are always mad at me, too. They have this weird idea that I’m a slacker.” And then, suddenly, he stops pushing. “Hey!”
“What?”
Jack moves aside and draws my hand toward him. “We made it.”
I emerge from the brush. I can see his face because, even though it is still nighttime, there are lights in the distance, lights almost like daylight but twinkling like stars.
It is as he said. It is wondrous!
We have walked at least a mile since pushing through the hedge. Rather than bringing my jewels, I might have been better off stealing a sturdy pair of boots. But I dare not complain. Finally, we reach the edge of the wilderness, and Jack says, “We should find someplace to hide you until morning.”
“Hide? Why?”
“This may come as a shock to you, but in the twenty-first century, girls don’t dress like that. It’ll freak people out.”
I examine Jack’s attire and shudder to imagine what ladies must wear in his time. Brightly colored corsets, perhaps?
“I cannot wait here,” I say. “What if they see me?”
“If you hear someone coming, you could hide.”
With no other argument, I voice my greatest—my real—fear. “How do I know that you will not abandon me here?”
He shrugs. “You don’t. I was thinking about it, actually.”
“You were?” There is nothing I can do if he leaves. Nothing. Now that we have escaped, I cannot make him stay.
“Yeah, but I’m not going to. If I’d wanted, I could have left you in the bushes. Or back there, when you were walking so slowly because of your shoes. But I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know. I feel sort of sorry for you, I guess. Besides, this is the most adventure I’ve had since I got to Europe.”
“Truly?” Despite myself, I thrill at this flattery. I have spent little time in the company of boys. But what if it is merely a trick to get rid of me? He is being nice now, but I still remember that he called me a brat.
“I won’t leave. I feel sort of…responsible.” He thinks of something and reaches into his pocket. “Here. Take this.”
A present! I take the object from him.
“It’s a telephone,” Jack says. “You can talk to people on it.”
I recognize it from before. “But it did not work.”
“It will now. Watch.” He takes it from me once again and presses several numbers. He waits.
“Travis,” he says. “Her Royal Highness wishes to speak to you.” A pause. “What? Tell them I’m puking my brains out. I had some bad crème brûlée last night…. I just told you, I’m with Talia…we ran away after she got me out of the dungeon…dungeon…. It’s not like you did very much to help me when I was trapped in a dungeon…. Soon. Okay. Just…here. Talk to her. I’m showing her how to use the phone.” He hands me the object…the telephone.
“Hey, Talia.”
I shriek and drop it. It bounces once, then falls to the ground. Jack grabs it.
“What’s the matter?” Jack says.
“Your telephone! Your friend Travis is inside it.”
Jack shakes his head. “Geez.”
“Is it…witchcraft? I expected him to sound far away, but he is inside it!”
Jack speaks into the telephone. “You still there, Trav? She’s freaking out.” He looks at me. “He’s not in the phone.”
“He is.”
“Nah.” Into the phone, he says, “Tell her where you are, Trav.” He hands it to me.
“I’m back at the hotel, trying to sleep for once. I gave your guys the slip last night. They couldn’t get through the hedge with that horse-drawn carriage. And then, when I tried to tell the police to come back and get Jack, they didn’t believe me about Euphrasia.”
“They knew nothing about Euphrasia,” I say. I look at Jack, and he shrugs, then takes the phone from me.
“Cover for me, Trav, huh? I’m leaving her with the phone. Don’t let anyone call me. Okay?” A pause. “A few hours…. Hey, can you call it once, so I can show her how it works?”
He hands it back to me.
An instant later, the phone begins to jump about in my hand, and another man’s voice—not Travis’s—begins to shout from it. He sounds so angry.
“Do it to me! Do it to me!”
I cannot help it. The phone leaps from my hand, and I begin to scream. “Who is that? What is he saying?”
Jack catches it. He speaks into it. “Trav, you there? Yeah, she’s a little freaked around technology. Call back in a sec and I’ll put it on vibrate…yeah, I know.”
I have the distinct impression these young men are making jokes at my expense.
“You need to lighten up,” Jack says.
“Lighten? Nothing is heavy.”
“It’s an expression. It means chill…don’t take everything so seriously.” Jack does something to the phone, then hands it back to me. “Okay. It’s gonna move around. When it does, don’t throw it. Just open it up, say hello, and don’t throw it. Okay?”
I nod.
“What are you not going to do?”
“Throw it.” I smile. He thinks me a simpleton. Perhaps I am.
The blessed thing commences vibrating and, once again, I am seized with the urge to toss it aloft. I restrain myself. “What now?”
“Open it.”
I do.
“Now hold it to your ear and say ‘yo.’”
I hold it to my ear. “Yo?”
“’Sup, Talia? Will you tell Jack he owes me big-time?”
This I repeat to Jack, although I have no idea what it means. He shrugs and checks his watch. “We should go. Say good-bye to Travis.”
“Good-bye.”
“Now, close it up.”
Jack finds me a place in some trees. He buries my jewels under some leaves, in case of robbers. It must be very dangerous in Jack’s time, if a young princess cannot go out safely in her gown and jewels. He leaves the telephone. “Don’t answer if anyone else calls.”
“How shall I know?”
Jack begins to explain some new, difficult concept that, apparently, even a buffoon like Travis has mastered in Jack’s time. My eyes glaze over, as they do when Lady Brooke reads to me from the Reverend Phelps’s Sermons for Young Ladies. Jack must see it, for he says, “Forget it. No one’s going to call, anyway.”
And then he leaves.
With no book or other form of entertainment, I while the time away by listening to the calls of birds. When I was little, Father taught me to pick out the tune of a sparrow, the morning song of a lark. I miss Father and Mother. Still, as I watch the sun journey higher up on the horizon, I appreciate that, for only the second time in my entire life, I am alone, blessedly alone, with no one to tell me what to do or what to wear, no one to have to be polite to. Nothing.
But I do not wish to be alone, not entirely. Now that I am finally alone, it feels…lonely.
Soon, the lark’s song ceases. Hyperion continues his journey across the sky, and I become aware of other sounds, not merely birds, but a cacophony of something like metal clanking together. It is like nothing I have ever heard in Euphrasia. Suddenly, I realize I am afraid to know what it is.
Never have I been afraid before. I miss home. I even miss Lady Brooke.
I could return.
The castle is waking, noticing that I am not there. Soon, they will send out search parties. There will be panic, accusations made, rewards offered for the safe return of their much-beloved princess. It is like something in a book.
And if I creep back through the bushes and am found, scraped and battered after many hours’ absence, Father may be too relieved to be angry. All will be forgiven.
And I shall spend the remainder of my days under the constant supervision reserved for little children and the feeble-minded.
No. I can never go back, only forward. I must go to Florida, to my destiny.
I stare at the horizon once again, and my vision blurs. I have been up all night, rescuing Jack, fighting the brambles. Perhaps it would not be a terrible idea to close my eyes a spell….
I am awakened by vibrations. At first, I jump, believing someone has found me. Then I remember. The telephone. Do not throw it. I pick it up, open it. I see a word. Amber. Amber? What is Amber? A jewel? I press the button.
“Hello?”
“Who is this?” a female voice demands.
It is surely not Jack. What am I to do?
“Hello?” the voice repeats.
I recover myself. “Yes?”
“Who is this?”
“Talia,” I say, leaving out the princess part.
“Where’s Jack?”
“I do not know, exactly. He went to purchase clothing for me, you see, and—”
“He went to buy you clothes?”
“Yes.”
“What time is it there?”
Has this angry young lady called Jack’s telephone strictly to ascertain the time? “Have you no clock?”
“Listen.” The voice is extremely loud, and I am forced to hold the telephone away from my ear. “I don’t know who you are, or why you have Jack’s phone, but he is my boyfriend, and—”
Boyfriend? What is a boyfriend? Perhaps it is something like a beau. “Is he engaged to you, then?” I hope not.
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Oh, what a relief. He is my true love, and you do not sound very nice.”
“What? Listen, you…”
And then, strangely enough, she calls me a female dog.
She continues talking. She is vile and coarse. And then I realize that Jack told me not to speak with anyone else, and here I am, speaking.
“I beg your pardon, what did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t. It’s Amber.”
“Amber, I cannot go on being insulted by you. Jack may be trying to call.”
“Why would he do that?”
“We have run away together. I must go.”
I close the phone as Jack taught me.
A moment later, it begins to vibrate again. This time, however, I see the name Amber and know not to answer it. I am quite proud of myself for having learned this.
It is close to noon now. I cannot go back to sleep, and the sun is blazing. Why do we wear so many clothes?
Jack has not called.
Perhaps he has abandoned me to be eaten by wolves or whatever is making that noise.
Perhaps I should leave.
Perhaps I should go into the city and find a bus—whatever that may be—and sell my jewels myself and live on my own.
Perhaps I—
“Hey.”
It is him.
“Oh, thank goodness! I thought you had left me to die!”
“I wouldn’t do that.” He hands me a small sack of some sort, made of a smooth blue material. It has writing on it which I do not understand. GAP.
“What is this?”
“Your clothes.”
“They fit in there?”
It is more horrible than I imagined.
Jack laughs. “Girls don’t wear ball gowns anymore, Princess—not even to balls.”
I open the sack. The horror continues. Men’s trousers, a green piece of fabric, and two objects which might be some sort of tools. How am I to make Jack fall in love with me when I shall be dressed in such ugly clothing?
“I will be disguised as a man, then?” I ask, holding up the trousers. Jack glances at my bosom and shakes his head.
“They’re women’s clothes. Try them on. You’ll look hot.”
“With so little fabric, I shall more likely be cold.” But I hate to hurt his feelings, so I say, “Very well. Where is my dressing room?”
He gestures toward the trees. “I’ll turn around.”
“See that you do.”
It is very difficult to dress without a lady’s maid. There are so many buttons to unbutton, stays to unlace, and of course I cannot ask Jack for assistance. When I am finally done, I am quite winded. I put on the little shirt (at least it is green), then the trousers. Finally, I add the tools, which are apparently meant as shoes.
I stand a moment, allowing the breeze to touch my naked arms. I would be quite comfortable, were I not worried that Jack has dressed me up as a hedge whore.
“Are you quite certain this is all?” I ask.
“Can I see?”
I sigh. “I suppose.”
He turns. “Wow, you look great. Most girls would wear a—ah—bra with that, but they didn’t have them at the Gap.”
“What is a bra?”
“It’s for your…ah…” He blushes red and gestures toward his chest. “Um…”
“Never mind. I understand.” I remember my manners. I need to be nice to this boy, so he might fall in love with me. “I…I thank you for the clothes.”
He nods. “We should get going.” He starts to walk, not looking at me again.
The shoes are even worse than my old slippers. They slap against my foot with each step and pinch my toes. I am still carrying my jewelry box and now my old clothes, too, as Jack did not wish anyone to find them abandoned. But soon we reach a clearing.
“Princess Talia, welcome to the world.”
“The world” proves to be a rather loud and very foul-smelling conveyance called a bus. We are in what was known as the Spanish Netherlands in my time, but Jack tells me it is now called Belgium. There are many people on the bus—peasants, no doubt, on their way to market. They are all dressed as I am or worse. No waistcoats! No dresses! Not a single corset! I see four women whose bosoms are revealed to a degree more suited to the ballroom than to daylight.
Although my own attire is modest by comparison, everyone stares at me.
“Why are they looking at me?” I whisper to Jack.
“Duh. Because you’re so beautiful,” he whispers back.
At least he noticed that I am beautiful.
There are no seats available on the bus, and no gentleman (and I use the term loosely) offers to surrender his. One man does, however, pat his lap and say, “Sit with me, angel.”
I look at Jack to ascertain if this is now an established custom. I am relieved when he shakes his head and says, “No, thanks. We’ll just stand.”
Once started, the bus is faster than the fastest carriage, wilder than the wildest horse. I resist the urge to shriek, but it is difficult. I try to see the streets and houses and people, but it all goes by much faster than I can take it in. There is writing everywhere. Most of the peasantry in Euphrasia cannot even write their names. Can all the people in Jack’s time read?
I ask Jack.
“Sure,” he says.
“But how can they all be taught? And why would they all need to read, if they are just going to be field workers and such?”
“Well, that’s why you have to learn to read—so you won’t get stuck being a field worker.”
“But what if they wish to be field workers?”
“Why would anyone want backbreaking labor and low pay?”
“But the peasants in Euphrasia always seemed so merry.”
“Did you spend much time with the peasants, then?”
“No, but I saw them at festivals and such.” I stop. Of course they were happy at festivals. For then, they were not working in the fields. Why would they wish to be field workers? I was led to believe that the workers in Euphrasia were happy, but in all probability, the field workers in Euphrasia were born to be field workers and sentenced to their lot in life, just as I was born to be a princess and sentenced to mine.
Put into this perspective, being a princess does not seem bad at all.
“Amazing,” I say to Jack. I look around the bus with new respect. It is quite impressive to think that each and every one of the peasants here can read.
The bus makes many stops and people get on and off. Finally, it is our turn to get out in a gray sort of place, gray streets, gray buildings, gray people.
“Where is the grass?” I ask Jack.
“Someplace else,” he says, laughing. He nudges the sack that says GAP, into which he has placed my jewel case. “What’s the smallest thing you have in there?”
“None of my jewels are small.”
“A ring, maybe?”
I start to take out the box, but Jack stops me. “Not here.” He rushes me behind a pillar and blocks me from sight as I extract the smallest bauble, a tanzanite ring given to me for my twelfth birthday.
“That’s the smallest? The stone’s as big as my eyeball.”
A slight exaggeration. I am no more thrilled to part with it than Jack is to have to sell it. Still, I hand it to him, and he leads me into a store with all manner of things—guns, jewelry (nothing near as lovely as my ring), and other objects I cannot identify, although I do see something which resembles Jack’s music maker.
Jack approaches the shopkeeper, a hairy and rather frightening sort of person, and holds up my ring. “We need to sell this. Her mother’s, um, sick and needs medicine.”
The bear-turned-man stares at us rather strangely, then asks, “Parlez-vous Français?” Jack does not respond. Ah! He thinks he is so smart, but the fool speaks no French!
“Oui. Je parle Français,” I say. I turn to Jack. “Tell me what I am to say.”
“Okay, but don’t agree to his first offer.”
I nod, then turn to the man and say in French, “We need to sell this.”
“Fifty Euros,” he says before I can even get out the part about my mother needing medication. This I add.
“I don’t care if you need it to buy drugs,” the man snarls. “Fifty.”
I repeat this to Jack. “Are you kidding?” he says. “This is worth thousands.”
The man must understand because he tells me, “I can’t sell fancy stuff like that. This isn’t an antique store.”
I am about to tell him that my ring is no antique. Then, I realize it is. Indeed, I am an antique.
“Ask him if he can do any better,” Jack says.
I do, and he says, “Two hundred. That’s it.”
I give him my sweetest look, the one that almost always persuaded Father to do my bidding, and I say, “Please, sir. If you could make it four hundred Euros for my poor, dear mother.” And when I think of Mother, Mother whom I may never see again, whom I have disappointed, my eyes begin to tear up. “You know you are getting a bargain.”
“Three fifty,” the man growls. “Now, if you were for sale, for that I would pay a thousand.”
Are all women for sale now? In my current attire, I can certainly see how one might think I was such a woman. But I say, “I will take three hundred seventy-five Euros, monsieur.”
The man opens a cash box under the counter, hands me a wad of money, which he does not bother to count, then whisks away my precious ring before I have time to bid it good-bye. I note that he is chuckling, pleased with his bargain. I bite my lip and resist the urge to sob.
“Hey, you weren’t a total disaster in there,” Jack says, counting out the money as we leave.
I understand this is a compliment, and I manage a smile, accepting it.
Our next stop is a door with peeling green paint. Jack knocks upon it, and a man who might be the twin brother of the last man answers.
“What do you want?” he asks in French.
I look at Jack.
“Jolie sent us,” he says in English.
The man nods and allows us to pass.
“You have money?” he says in English.
“How much for a passport?” he asks. “For her?”
The man gives a price, which is almost all we have, then says, “Let’s see it.”
“I am quite sorry, sir, but we only have one hundred fifty,” I tell him.
He nods. “If you were to only have two hundred fifty, I might be able to do it. Can you find that?”
I rather enjoyed bargaining with the last gentleman. It made me feel like Father negotiating treaties, so I say, “I can find two hundred.”
“Very well,” the man says.
I look at Jack. He nods and hands him the money, taking care not to show all we have.
The man takes it with dirty hands. “What is your name?”
“My name? My name is Her Royal Highness, Princess Talia Aurora Augusta Ludwiga Wilhelmina Agnes Marie Rose of Euphrasia.”
“It’s Talia…” Jack interrupts. “Talia…um…”
I grasp his meaning. “Brooke. Talia Brooke.”
“Is that your final decision?” the man growls.
“Of course,” I say. “It is my name. The other name was in jest.” I laugh. “Ha, ha!”
“Stand here.” He pushes me toward a paper board hanging from the wall. When I stand before it, he takes out a small, square object, rather resembling Jack’s telephone.
“What is…?”
A bright light flashes. “Good! Wait here.” He disappears into another room.
I stand quite still, attempting to touch nothing in the dark, cramped, dirty room.
“Ludwiga?” Jack asks.
“Father was sad at not having a male heir, so he attempted to name me after several great Euphrasian kings—Augustus, Ludwig, and Wilhem, alphabetically so no one would be offended. The other names—Agnes, Marie, and Rose—were Euphrasian queens.”
“How about Aurora?”
“She was my grandmother on my mother’s side, and she was named for the goddess of the dawn.” I glance around, spying a millipede making its way across the wall, dangerously close to nesting in my hair. I move closer to Jack. “Why are we here?”
“Getting a passport.” At my blank look, he adds, “Travel documents. So you can get around, travel. I got this guy’s name from a girl I met through a guy I met at the Gap.”
Travel! The idea is wonderful and terrible at the same time, to be aboard a boat to a strange new place with this strange, messy-haired young man I met only yesterday. I shiver slightly.
“So I will go with you?” I ask Jack.
“With me? Look, I’m helping you out, getting you set up. But after that, you’re on your own.”
“On my own? But how can I…what will I do?”
“Sell some more jewels. I don’t know.”
I cannot do that. How will I know where to go, how to sell them? How will I obtain food or even know what to wear? Even in Euphrasia, I handled no money. I do not even know how Jack paid for the bus. And if I am on my own, I can never make Jack fall in love with me.
“Will you help me a bit, just with getting money and a ticket for the ship and such?” After he helps me with that, I will talk him into the next thing. And then the next. Surely, when he sees how much I need him, he will let me stay with him. Mother always said that men like to feel needed. I gaze up into his eyes, letting my lower lip quiver just a bit. It is not difficult.
He sighs. “I guess I can help you a little.”
Now that I have achieved my goal, I clap my hands to show that I am keeping my chin up. “Thank you! It is my fondest wish to travel!”