| |
THE sun does not shine. It has simply disappeared in all the days after the children fled the village of Fairendale, some of them captured by the king of the land, some of them disappearing into the Weeping Woods that surround the kingdom, others gone missing entirely. Or perhaps the sun cannot find a reason to shine, for there is no longer laughter filling the streets of the village. There is only rain falling, pooling, washing away the red that the king’s steward could not reach. The world has turned gray and cold.
Some of the people take to their beds, sick with grief over the loss of their children after King Willis decreed that every Fairendale child would be brought to his castle so he could find the magical one who might threaten his throne. The Roundup has stolen their children and their very lives, though these remaining villagers, in truth, go on living. There is a tragic difference, dear reader, between living as if one were dead and truly living.
This time, when Death moves through the streets, he does not glide in the same manner he does when there is fever and sickness and hunger, when he can steal his victims in one fell swoop. This is Heart Sickness, and it is a hold-on sort of dying, a slow dying, another every day, and so he waits. And waits. And waits.
Death does not like waiting.
But there is one who does not take to her bed. There is one who sits alone at her table where a daughter with green eyes used to sit. There is one who gazes out the window and watches the rain and ponders.
She ponders and ponders and ponders. She makes her plans.
And then, when the sky remains unchanged and she is sure the people will go on in their slow dying way, she moves.
For she was always a woman who moved.
***
THE king paces on his pedestal, lumbering and slow. He is a large man, one given to sweet rolls and sitting. The court fills with men, but they do not make as much sound as one might expect from so much armor clashing against itself. King Willis watches them, impressed by the silence of their movements, mesmerized by the silver catching light, blinking at him. He would never tell them they impress him, of course, for then they would demand more provisions, and he is not a generous man, not anymore. Perhaps he was once upon a time, but a kingdom demands much of its king. A king cannot always remain generous.
King Willis watches his king’s guard, and he swells with something akin to hope. This will be a good day. He is certain of it. These men will bring him news he wants to hear. News of found children.
King Willis nods at Sir Greyson, bidding him speak.
The king’s son, Prince Virgil, stands beside him. It is time he became a king, King Willis has taken to saying of late. For when the lost children are found, when the one lost who holds danger over the throne is found, it will be Prince Virgil who will decide what must be done with him.
One might agree that our prince is too young for this sort of responsibility. And it is true that Prince Virgil does not like thinking about what might happen, about what he might have to do. So when his father’s men come filing into the throne room, it is with different hopes that he watches them. Hopes that dare to say, Keep them hidden. Keep them safe.
“They are a sight,” King Willis says. He stands beside his son now, one hand on Prince Virgil’s shoulder. Prince Virgil tries not to notice his father’s foul breath of garlic and lamb.
King Willis, in truth, places his hand on his son’s shoulder not as a fatherly gesture but because his legs are buckling at the knees. He will need to sit down soon. He is out of breath, and his feet burn in their black boots. He hopes the men are nearly finished filing in. It is the king’s custom, you see, to stand when his captain brings in the guard, but he did not know there were so many. Hundreds, but thousands? Are there thousands in this room? He cannot tell. Next time he will request a private meeting with the captain.
Prince Virgil says nothing. He merely stares, for the king’s guard is quite a sight, even to a boy of twelve. They are clad in their sturdy metal breastplates and helmets that obscure their faces so they all look the same, but for their heights and muscular builds. Their swords, strapped across their waists, bump against their hips. They are a force.
“Think of it,” King Willis says. “Just think of it.” He laughs, a silent laugh that ripples all the way across the folds of his stomach so that Prince Virgil’s attention moves to the black belt that is no longer a real belt but is only a suggestion, with new holes poked all along its front end. It will not buckle soon. His father is growing larger by the day. The crisp white shirt beneath his father’s purple robe is nearly bursting its buttons off. Prince Virgil stares at one gone missing, right in the middle, where the whitest part of his father’s belly is peering through. Prince Virgil looks away, embarrassed for his father.
“Think of it,” the king says again.
Prince Virgil does not know exactly what it is King Willis would like him to think of.
The king answers his son’s silent question. “They are all yours.”
Prince Virgil feels a jolt of something—fear? Pleasure? Thirst for this kind of power? He does not know that it is all three. That he could lead an army of men like this someday. That they would follow his every command.
That it might be stolen from him, when it is his, rightfully his.
Is it rightfully his without the gift of magic?
No.
Yes, of course it is.
The throne belongs to his family. His grandfather, the great King Sebastien, fought for it. He deserves to keep it. He will keep it.
But they are his friends. The children who live in the secret dungeon beneath the dungeon are his friends. The children who have gone missing are his friends. Surely a friendship is more valuable to our prince than a throne.
Alas, the hearts of men are not easy to understand.
The throne room grows quiet, dead still. The hall behind it ceases its shaking. The men have finally finished their entrance.
The king folds into his chair. It is the only way he can fit into it, this folding. He waits in the silence for one minute. Two. More. Prince Virgil shifts, but the soldiers remain perfectly, impressively still.
Finally, King Willis spreads his hands and says, in a booming voice that knocks against their armor: “Soldiers of the kingdom,” and the men salute, one great, thundering clap. Prince Virgil jumps. His father smiles.
“Think of it,” he says to his son. And this time Prince Virgil nods his head and smiles like his father.
“At ease,” the captain, a man named Sir Greyson, tells his men. The men fall back but stand ordered, tall, frozen.
“Soldiers of the kingdom,” King Willis says.
Only the captain moves. He removes his headpiece and bows to his king. King Willis waits until he rises again before continuing.
“For seven days you have traveled long and far and deep,” King Willis says. He does not move from his seat on the throne. In truth, our king cannot move. His feet cannot handle the weight of his body any longer. And so he sits.
One might think that a man who sits cannot command as much power as a man who stands. But one has never met King Willis. A man so large, sitting or standing, could command a world of power, if only for fear that one might be subjected to that great weight in some deathly way. For instance, one would not want to offend a king such as King Willis, for King Willis is a man known to lash out when anger climbs into his limbs. And though he is slow to strike a face or kick a thigh, it is much more likely that a man like King Willis would lose his balance and careen into a victim with a body large enough to flatten all the life from flesh.
King Willis, as of now, is sweating. But he is a man who loves his own voice, and though his feet find no relief in the sitting, though his back screams its ache, though his breath is short and hard, he will not lose any words in the speaking.
“You have been looking for thirty missing children,” he says.
Garth, the king’s page, raises a finger, clearing his throat. He is a tall boy with messy hair the color of Cook’s milk-less tea. He stands straight, rigid, so as to appear more than a boy, but one look at his face tells otherwise. Fortunately, the king has not looked at his face in all these days after, or Garth might find himself trapped in the dungeons beneath the dungeons, with all the other children, some of whom could be his brothers and sisters. They have disappeared, you see, and Garth just this morning was handed by the kingdom’s messenger another frantic letter from his mother. He has urged her to stop writing him at the castle, since he returns home every eve, but she is a mother who has lost eleven children. I am sure we could understand her grief. His mother wants to know where her children are. Garth wants to remain outside the dungeons. He does not have the gift of magic, but King Willis cares naught about gifts. He cares only for rounding up the children, all the children, for that is the only way he believes his kingdom will be safe from the one who would dare steal it.
The boy is terrified to interrupt, but he is more terrified of what might happen if the king were to miscount the missing children. The king glances at him for only a moment, hardly seeing him. Garth tries not to wither. The king has been known to run through pages like a book one might read, though he is a different kind of page. A Garth kind of page is a person employed to do whatever the king bids—run errands and open doors and help a king in and out of his golden chair, which is quite a large task. A page must also correct a king in his error, should he be brave enough. Garth, in truth, does much more than this. He also shines the king’s shoes and keeps his plate filled and helps the king dress, though the king is fast running out of clothes that fit. He fears that he will not be able to perform this task someday soon. And what will happen then? Garth needs this job at the castle, for his family is very, very poor, and they need the food his coin buys them. Filling the bellies of eight boys and four girls in one village house is more than his poor mother can do, though now his brothers and sisters have disappeared, so it has become easier, in a way, though Garth’s mother would not agree, for financial ease is never worth the life of a child. Garth does not know if his brothers and sisters sit in the dungeons or if they escaped from the king’s men. He does not know where the dungeons lie. But he will. He is already searching.
“Yes, what is it?” the king says, clearly annoyed at the interruption. He is hungry again, and ready for this meeting to reach its end. His feet, though he is no longer standing on them, ache in a great pulsing clench. He will have to request a more comfortable pair of shoes. His are too unbearable, pinching at the toes and cutting into his heels.
“Thirty-one children, sire,” Garth says. He does not stutter as he does on occasion, when fear grabs the words and keeps them lodged in his throat. He is surprised at his clarity. His eyebrows raise of their own accord.
The king waves his hand, as if dismissing his page. “Yes, very well,” the king says. He takes a deep breath. Now he must begin again, for this is what a king such as ours does when his eminent speech has met interruption. “Soldiers of the kingdom,” he says. The commander bows and rises again. “For seven days you have traveled long and far and deep.”
The men remain perfectly still. It is impressive to see, reader. Can you imagine it? Thousands of steel-clad men, with no eyes to see, for their headpieces obscure much of their vision (one might ask why soldiers would wear a headpiece like this one. Well, would you want your head exposed in battle?), all standing perfectly still. The sun reaches through one of the windows and catches the breast plate of one of the men. It locks eyes with Prince Virgil. He squints. Garth stares at the ray that appears to hold all the shapes in the world.
“You have been looking for...” A pause, a sideways look at Garth, who straightens and colors. “Thirty-one children. Tell me, what news do you bring us?”
If we were to turn our attention to the commander of the king’s guard, we would know nothing of what he thinks or feels or what news he brings by studying his face. Sir Greyson has not flinched. He has not buckled. He has not moved at all. It would be difficult work to read the news that our good Captain Greyson brings his king. This is, of course, the very question Sir Greyson has dreaded the entire ride in this morning. He risks his life in his answer, as we shall soon see.
Sir Greyson clears his throat. “With respect, Your Highness,” he says. He bows again. The king, however, is impatient.
“Yes, yes,” King Willis says. His eyes gleam, as if waiting for good news, although a smarter man might deduce that no children brought in with the entire king’s army means that no children have, in fact, been found. But King Willis is not a man for much thinking.
Prince Virgil has noticed. Even now, he looks from his father to the captain. Even now he wonders what might happen to this good man he has known all his life.
“We have been as far as the lands of Guardia in the north and to the very banks of the Violet Sea in the south. We have walked as close to the lands of Morad as we dared, and we have searched the wastelands of Ashvale in the west.” He clears his throat again. “We have found nothing.”
“You have found nothing?” the king bellows. “The children have all disappeared? Impossible!” The king struggles from his throne. Prince Virgil stares straight ahead, trying to ignore the page who rushes to his father’s side, struggling, too, to pull the king from his chair.
No one else breathes. No one else moves. It is anyone’s guess what will happen next. Prince Virgil hopes Sir Greyson will not suffer. His father could deem him incompetent. He could send him to the dungeons, or the dungeons beneath the dungeons. He could sentence him to death.
The same fears swirl and falter in Sir Greyson’s mind, too. He has done what he could, but would the king believe it was enough? Would he throw something? Would he demand heads? Would he dismiss, or reassign, or toss them all, every last one of them, into the dungeons? Surely not. Surely he understands what this search has cost Sir Greyson’s men, seven days and seven nights without rest and proper food and the presence of their families. Surely he will let them return home, at least for a time.
“They are hiding,” King Willis says. When Garth finally pulls him from his chair, the king paces the stage before his guard. His steps thunder, shaking the pedestal that was built for him years ago. It trembles against the marble floor. King Willis is a man who prefers looking down on his people. Arthur, the village’s most skilled furniture maker, was the man who crafted the pedestal. It is ornate, as is everything that Arthur has made, with swirls and flourishes and the kingdom crest, the head of a ferocious looking bear. Prince Virgil thought it magnificent and had told Arthur so on one visit to the village. King Willis hardly noticed it.
Sir Greyson’s head hangs low now. “We have searched everywhere,” he says.
“And you have questioned all the other kingdom people?” King Willis says.
“Yes, sire,” Sir Greyson says. Even his voice is weary. His face has lines it never wore before this seven-day journey began.
“How is it you have come home so quickly?” King Willis says, as if he has only just now noticed that seven days was not nearly enough to travel the realm of seven kingdoms.
Sir Greyson gestures to the men behind him. “I sent out parties,” he says. “The searching was urgent. We wished to find them before they reached the Violet Sea.”
“As if children would travel the Violet Sea,” King Willis says.
“We thought it worth pursuing,” Sir Greyson says.
“And these men,” King Willis says, as if “these men” are not in the very room where all gather. “They are trustworthy?”
Sir Greyson looks around at his men. He cannot tell who is who, for they all wear the same armor, none more decorative than another, but he knows them all by name. This is what makes Sir Greyson a great leader. He knows the names of his men. He knows their families. He knows their habits and which ones prefer falling asleep after a hand of cards and who prefers to eat their supper and retire early. He knows which ones have wives and how many children they have and what sorts of stories they enjoy telling the most. He is a commander who cares. And they are men he can trust.
“Yes, sire,” he says. “I trust my men implicitly.”
King Willis blows out a breath. He looks at the king’s guard standing before him. He looks at Sir Greyson.
“No one has seen them, Your Majesty,” Sir Greyson says.
“No one has seen them,” King Willis says. He adds a laugh to the end of it, though it is not a laugh that carries merriment. “They are being given asylum.”
Asylum, dear reader, is protection offered to one on the run.
“Perhaps,” Sir Greyson says. “Perhaps they are. We questioned everyone in each kingdom.”
“As far as Guardia,” King Willis says. “Do you believe the children of Fairendale could have traveled so far as all that in so little time?”
“With help, perhaps,” Sir Greyson says.
“And who, I ask, might help children such as these?” King Willis says, though it is, perhaps, quite a silly question. Many people would help children in danger.
Sir Greyson does not answer such a silly question. He merely waits for the king to speak again. He is thinking, this moment, of the itch crawling around his beard. He longs to scratch it, but he is a disciplined man, and he has disciplined men to lead. What would his men think of their captain if they were expected to remain perfectly still in the presence of their king when he, their leader, took even a moment to scratch a persistent itch? That would not be authority. It would not be integrity. It would not be honor.
A leader who demands something of his men must be ready to sacrifice the same. This is precisely why Sir Greyson has never married, truth be told. When one says the vows to become a king’s guard, there is a clause that says a man must be ready to forsake his family for the good of the kingdom. Sir Greyson does not know if he could do what some of his men have done. He does not know if he could round up children who were his. And, aside from all that, no one in the village seemed the least bit interested in the captain of the guard. There had been a woman once, but it was so long ago Sir Greyson could hardly remember what it was like being loved. He saw her every now and again, breezing about the village, her fiery hair gripping the wind as it had the day they had parted. He has not seen her since the roundup, the day her daughter disappeared.
“You,” King Willis says. Sir Greyson flinches, as if woken from a sleep. He is exhausted from his travels, you see. That is the reason his attention wanders. “Must search them all again.”
Sir Greyson does not say anything for a breath. Two. Three. Fifteen. And then he says, “If I may,” which, in the kingdom of Fairendale, is like a code of sorts. Code for “I would like to speak candidly, please.”
“Very well,” King Willis says.
“I fear that some will question the peace between our kingdoms if we travel to our neighbors again,” Sir Greyson says. “A second questioning could very well tell them we do not trust them.”
King Willis waves his hand, dismissing this observation of Sir Greyson’s, as if it is merely a small concern, though Sir Greyson knows better. The relations between the kingdoms and Fairendale have been tenuous since King Sebastien took all their men and killed them in a battle that benefited only him. The women and children left in the other kingdoms, at the time, could do nothing against King Sebastien’s magic. The Great Battle is a story every child in Fairendale is told, and one cannot always know whether a story is true. But what if it is? What if the kingdoms, which bear men once more, should attack Fairendale tomorrow because of King Sebastien’s cruelty all those years ago? King Willis does not have magic, and Prince Virgil is only a boy without magic. No one knows that, of course. Sir Greyson is not, in fact, supposed to know it.
They do not want war, do they?
“We do not trust the other kingdoms,” King Willis says. “Interrogate them again.”
Sir Greyson clears his throat, as if about to speak again, but King Willis turns an eye his way. His look is dark and challenging. Sir Greyson straightens his back.
Will he be able to do this for the king, knowing what might happen?
Of course he will. Sir Greyson is a man of duty, after all. He will do as his king commands.
“As you wish, sire,” Sir Greyson says.
“Question every man, woman and child you find in all the kingdoms of the realm,” King Willis says. “Search their houses and their woods and their wastelands. The children could be hiding anywhere. They must be found.”
“We shall begin with home,” Sir Greyson says. His men need and deserve a break. And they had not yet questioned the people of Fairendale, for the people’s wounds were too raw when the soldiers rode away on horseback. They had lost their children. They had lost friends as well. He does not hold any illusions that the people will be more helpful now than they were then. But at least his men will have tried. At least they will be home.
“The farthest lands,” King Willis says. “You shall start with the farthest lands.”
“We have not searched our own lands as thoroughly as we searched the distant ones,” Sir Greyson says. “The best place to hide is here.”
He does not know if this is what the children have done, of course, but he does know that his men will not be traveling for seven days and seven nights without rest yet again. There will be a mutiny, at best.
King Willis stares at Sir Greyson for a time. And then he smiles, a small, delighted smile. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, you are correct. You will search every inch of Fairendale and the Weeping Woods. That is where they shall be found. I am sure of it.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Sir Greyson says. His head dips in a half-bow.
“They shall be found!” King Willis roars.
The guard, then, erupts, as is expected when a king gives what sounds like a battle cry, as this one does. Sir Greyson nods to the man on the end, and they begin their filing out in neat, clean lines. Sir Greyson stands tall until the last man has left the hall. Then he bows to his king, his face to the scarlet rug that travels the length of the room.
“That is all,” King Willis says. Sir Greyson marches out.
When he is gone, King Willis shifts in his golden chair, attempting to find a position more comfortable than the one he assumed when his guard stood before him. Flesh squeezes out at every chance it gets. Prince Virgil keeps his eyes on his father’s face.
“I had almost forgotten you were here,” King Willis says. Prince Virgil tries not to feel hurt at these words.
Garth holds a glass of water for King Willis. The king snatches it from the boy and drinks a long gulp and then hands the half-empty cup back to Garth.
“Some sweet rolls for the prince and me,” the king says. Garth scurries out to do his bidding, not wanting, perhaps, to stay a minute longer in the room that smells like sweaty men who have not bathed in a week. Prince Virgil would like to go, too, but he cannot. His father has just ordered sweet rolls for him, which means the king would like his son to stay.
As it so happens, Prince Virgil loves sweet rolls. He is never one to pass up an opportunity to eat one or several. Sweet rolls, in the kingdom of Fairendale, are much like what I believe you call donuts in your kingdom. They are fried morsels of bread resembling a target with the bulls-eye cut out, covered in a sugary frosting that dissolves in one’s mouth. Prince Virgil, I suspect, likes them as much as any child today likes a donut on occasion. Not all the time, of course. Sweet rolls are known to steal teeth.
So Prince Virgil waits, and while he waits, the king talks. He talks long, with waving arms and wiggling eyebrows, but after a time, Prince Virgil merely ceases to listen, hearing, instead, a drone such as what a bee might make if right beside one’s ear.
“Well, son?” the king says, at long last.
Prince Virgil has just been wondering how long it takes for Cook to make sweet rolls. He has not heard what his father asked him. He stares at his father, trying to work his way back to the words at the beginning. His father said the children could be hiding in other kingdoms, but it was far more likely that they were hiding in the woods. That was the last clear thing Prince Virgil heard. And so he says, “Yes, father,” somewhat woodenly.
“I will send out a decree then,” King Willis says. “The prince has approved.”
Prince Virgil feels a lurch in his stomach. What exactly is it he has approved? The death of the village children? He does not remember his father mentioning a decree. It must have been buried in all the words that buzzed about in his ears and then flew right back out.
“A decree,” Prince Virgil says, hoping that his father will repeat himself, as he so often does.
“Yes,” King Willis says. “Yes, I think it will work. A decree to the other kingdoms.” King Willis stares off in the distance. Prince Virgil watches his father’s mouth moving, but no sound comes out for a moment. Then King Willis says, “Something like, if any child has entered your kingdom in the last two weeks—perhaps a month, to be safe—you must send them back to Fairendale. They are fugitives, not innocents.” The king’s dark eyes lose their marble look. He turns to his son. “Meanwhile, our men can search closer to home.”
Prince Willis does not ask how his father could command other kingdoms to do any of what he bids them, for he does not want to know, in truth. A stinging relief clots in his eyes. At least he has not unknowingly killed someone. At least the children are still safe. At least his friends...
Where are the sweet rolls? When can he leave this smelly room? He would like to sit on his balcony, in the open air, away from his father, please. “It is a good idea, Father,” he says, as if his agreement might pass the time faster.
“You show good judgement, my son,” King Willis says, though Prince Willis is unsure how he shows good judgement by merely agreeing with his father. King Willis, you see, believes that good judgement means agreeing with those in charge. And because he is the one in charge, that, of course, means agreeing with his plans. We know that agreeing with another is not always the mark of good judgment. Good judgment is more than agreement. But that is not a lesson easily taught, especially not for one such as King Willis.
Prince Virgil nods his head, wishing those sweet rolls would come, and Garth walks in, carrying a plate heaped with them, two more empty plates tucked beneath his arm.
“Two for the boy,” King Willis says.
Prince Virgil is slightly disappointed. There must be at least a dozen on the tray. Why can he not have more?
“We must not rot your teeth,” King Willis says. He takes a great, massive bite of one that does not resemble a target with the hole cut out, for this one has cherry filling in its middle. The filling drips down his chin, but he does not seem to notice. Garth wipes it away, and King Willis finishes six sweet rolls before Prince Virgil has finished his two. When he is done, when there has been no other talking for several minutes, Prince Virgil takes leave of his father.
“Good-bye, father,” he says.
King Willis does not seem to hear him. “Sweet rolls anytime you want,” he is murmuring between mouthfuls. “What a lovely life.”
What a lovely life indeed.
Prince Virgil turns to leave, the sweet taste of the treat turning sour in his mouth.
***
THE message comes through a knock on the door, each home’s door meticulously tapped in the same precisely precise way. Come tonight. To the fountain. The passageway beneath the land.
They used to use candles. Back when Prince Wendell was set to inherit the throne, they lit candles to communicate with a man they hoped would become a good king who would reign forever. It was always the same message. Come tonight. To the fountain. The passageway beneath the land.
Prince Wendell would watch from his window, where he could see all the houses of the village, for it was never the same house that carried the message. That, after all, would appear suspicious. It happened at different times as well, if, perhaps, the prince was late getting to his window or was watching early one day. The villagers would watch from their windows, too, for the answer that came in light and darkness and the spaces between.
And then there came a night when the answer never flickered. One home after another sent out its message, but Prince Wendell never made it to his window. He was gone. Banished. Forever lost. The people of the village met in their regular meeting place, but their prince never came.
The next day, they learned that King Sebastien had banished his kind son for the very favor they were asking him the night before. Helping the people. Providing new blankets. Giving them an extra loaf of bread of two.
And so they had stopped using candles, for they had been discovered. The little girl, Clarion, had told of their call. But she had not told of their place.
The villagers are resourceful and imaginative and wise in a way the kingdom did not anticipate. They found another way, thanks to Arthur. Though the night guards know about the candlelight, they do not know about the knocks. The village people have not used the knocks in many years, but she knows, now, that it is time.
They will recognize her knock, of course. And because the village has grown dark in these days after the roundup of its children, no one will see her moving to every door. And because the night will yet grow darker still, no one will see the villagers steal away to the hiding place they have managed to keep secret all these years.
Tonight, the message is delivered in three long taps, a breath, five quick taps, another breath, two taps, breath, five taps, breath, one tap more.
They know what it means, the ones who are listening.
And this, dear reader, is what lifts some of them from their beds. It is what slides past the grief and begins to bloom into something akin to hope.
It is what sends Death away from their doorways for another time or another place or another day.
Miraculous taps.
***
THERE are some who do not feel as hopeful as those villagers, however, for they have not heard the taps, and even if they had, they would not know what the stirrings mean.
The children down deep in the bowels of the castle, have grown tired of the darkness. Children are not known to like darkness anyway, but it is always made better when a loving mother or father is near. Though there is a prophet or two or five for every child in this dungeon, though the prophets’ arms wrap around the children and keep them warm as their blankets once did, there is not a single mother or father here. And this is what dampens the children’s eyes tonight.
They are afraid, dear reader. They are afraid of the infinite blackness. They are afraid that they will never again see light. They are afraid that they will never again see their parents.
They are trapped in a place that could easily be forgotten. They do not know how many days it has been. They do not know one hour from another. Sometimes they wake and there is a bit of bread waiting for them. Sometimes they can hear the footsteps that belong to the one tasked with delivering them their water for the day. Sometimes, when the door far, far above them opens, they have the faintest glimpse of the light they miss almost as much as they miss their parents. Or perhaps it is only their imagination.
The prophetess, truth be told, has never liked the dark, either, but she is fully grown. So it is her voice that cuts through their silent weeping. “It will not be forever, children,” she says.
But she knows, of course, that children cannot always sense the passage of time as those with more years can. She knows that it has been eight days since they were locked in a dark dungeon, but she knows that to children, eight days can feel like a whole lifetime.
“But what if it is?” a voice cries out. It is young. Perhaps seven? Younger? Aleen cannot tell. Such a shame that this young child has come to live in a place so dark and damp. If there were light in this dungeon, the children would see Aleen’s wild black plaits bouncing as she shakes her head. Such a shame.
“We know it will not be,” another voice says. A man. Confident. Gentle. Aleen thinks, perhaps, she has heard this voice before, but without the light, without the face, she cannot know for sure. It has been more than one hundred years, after all, since she was that girl.
“Remember,” the man says. “We can See.”
“You can see in the dark?” another voice asks. A child, older. Perhaps eleven.
“No, child,” the man’s voice says. “We can See the future.”
“Who are you?” Aleen says. “I believe the children would like to know your name, sir.”
The man shifts. She hears him moving toward her. She is sure he has a child draped around him, for every prophet here does.
“I am called Yerin,” he says.
“That is a funny name,” another child says. Aleen smiles, but of course no one sees.
“Yes. It is,” Yerin says.
“Tell us what you See, Yerin,” Aleen says. She asks, because she cannot See right now. There is only black for her, and that has made her believe that she will be in this dungeon longer than the others, perhaps. Or that there is something dangerous she must do. Or that she will die. Prophets See black when Death draws near.
There was a time, before she came to this castle, when she could See a whole year into the future, where most prophets See only a few months at most, but her Seeing vanished when they took the book the Old Man gave her. It was a diary of sorts, some three thousand pages. She did not think much of it back when the man who walked her down these stairs had taken it gently from her hands. She would not have been able to read it in this dungeon’s dark, after all.
But now, because the pictures have fallen from her mind’s eye, she suspects that the book holds some mysterious connection to her power. She lost her power when she lost the book. If she could get it back, somehow.
If she could get it back.
How might she get it back?
Her eyes have grown dark. Aleen has grown off-center. And so it is that she searches in this one called Yerin.
“I See us out in the yard of the castle,” Yerin says. “The sun is so bright our eyes cannot stand it. I See us eating hot bread with butter and sweet rolls and great platters of grapes and roast lamb and boiled greens.”
The children have grown quiet in the telling. Aleen supposes most of them are asleep. It is better for them to sleep, in a place this dark, though they will wake to nothing better than this.
Yerin’s voice grows softer, as if he has noticed, too, the change in the children’s breathing, and then the change in the other prophets’ breathing. “I See us returning to our homes and hugging the people we love most and reading our storybooks and sleeping in our own blanketed beds,” he says.
Aleen does not know how much of this he has really Seen and how much he has said for the sake of the children. But she is overcome by such a longing for her books and her bed that she must close her eyes.
She falls into a long, deep sleep, the kind of sleep that does not take notice of a freezing floor and the absence of a blanket or the shifting sounds bodies make or a light breaking through dark.