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“He’s just a little child—what are you afraid of?” says Necrus, reveling in my pain.
I can barely breathe. I collapse onto the ground, motionless. Once the little boy’s body is free of the tubes and chains, he opens his eyes, blue as sapphires, and looks straight at me. Necrus lifts him down from the operating table and sets him on the ground. The baby stretches out his chubby hands and reaches instinctively for me. I look at his tiny feet and my breath starts to come even faster. My one desire is for him not to move, for those feet not to start walking, please. But they do, they begin to move, and it feels to me like an executioner dragging his axe across the ground. I bring my hands behind me and push against the floor, trying to drag myself away, falling and sitting up again. My sweaty palms can’t move my limp body fast enough. The boy comes toward me. He’s only inches away. His feet, too small to support the weight of his stout little body, tap against the floor, beating out the drumroll that heralds my end. He rocks back and forth with each step and, sickeningly, stretches his hands out to me, reaching for my arms.
“Behold the heir!” Necrus announces, as if he were standing before a huge crowd. “How tenderly he seeks the warmth of our special guest. I knew I had to have this character, though I never imagined he was going to help me like this.”
I’ve reached the wall. There’s nowhere left to go. My companions are watching me, but they don’t understand my reaction at all. I shoot a pleading glance at Morgan, at Beatrice—why won’t they get this child away from me?
“It’s a charming tale, the one about this little fellow—a classic bedtime story,” remarks Necrus with amusement. I shake my head, terrified, unable to speak. “I’m sure you, like so many children, had it read to you every night. I’m sure you, like so many other children, treasure the memory of this MAGNIFICENT TEXT.” Necrus has raised his voice so much that we all have to cover our ears with our hands. “Though now that I think about it, perhaps you don’t remember it well, which would truly be a shame.”
With a snap of his fingers, Necrus activates his flat characters and orders them to take Beatrice to the golden throne. Beatrice looks at me in anguish. She’s begun to feel my pain. Silent tears spring from her eyes as the flat characters hold her down in the armchair.
“The sweetest and most heavenly voice of the Sphere will favor us with her beautiful reading,” Necrus says, taking a heavy book out of a box. “The Tale of the Heir,” he announces. “Let the show begin!”
Beatrice looks at me with pity, and refuses to begin reading. Necrus flings the book open on her lap. He turns the first few pages and then stabs his gloved finger over and over again at the start of the story.
“Begin! Read!” he orders, yanking on Beatrice’s hair to bring her head down to the book.
With a broken voice, Beatrice begins to read.
THE TALE OF THE HEIR
Once upon a time there was beautiful faraway kingdom whose land was known for its boundless fertility. From the palace windows one could see an explosion of color from the millions of flowers springing up from every corner of the land. The apple trees covering the distant hills bent double beneath the weight of their abundant fruit, and each spring the species multiplied, and filled the lands with life. Everything in that kingdom was torrential, from the rains to the vast clouds of butterflies that arrived at dawn with the first warmth of the day. The subjects of the great lord lived in contentment and joy, for they had a ruler known for his generosity and kind nature. They needed to work very little to pay the dues he assigned them, since they had only to toss a seed onto the land for it to bless them with its abundance. And so it was that for millions of miles around, there was no other place that flourished so magnificently.
But inside the castle was a point of darkness, a soul languishing beneath the great weight of its misfortune. The queen had spent five years sunk in a deep sorrow that kept her to her bed. Only with great effort did her subjects induce her to eat enough food to keep from dying. The queen’s sole wish was to disappear from this world as soon as she could. Every day a little girl knocked at her door, hoping to see the face of her queen, her mother, every day with the secret wish in her heart to hear just one tender word. And every day the little princess walked down the long, long corridor back to her bedchamber without having heard a single word from her mother. For since the very moment the royal midwife had told the queen that her baby was a girl, she had refused to set eyes on the child, and had detested her.
“A boy! It ought to have been a boy!”
The king’s consoling words did nothing, nor did the encouragement of the royal doctors, who assured her that soon the long-awaited heir would arrive. In that kingdom where everything was overflowing with fertility, the queen watched the days go by, and no new baby came.
Five years had passed. Five long years, during which the king cared for and indulged both the little princess and the queen with great affection. Years during which they tried every sort of remedy to make the queen’s womb grow again. Everyone in the kingdom knew that if no heir came, they would fall under the yoke of some neighboring lord when the king died.
At last the day came when the hurried footsteps of the court doctor could be heard as he ran happily to the king with good news. Fertility had visited the palace once again. The astrologers scrambled to make impossible calculations and decipher whether the longed-for heir was finally on the way. The news spread like wildfire: in a few months the laughter of a baby boy would ring out inside the palace walls.
The little princess watched, disconcerted, as gifts came and went, endless preparations were made, and the sumptuous bedroom that would welcome her little brother was filled with all manner of luxuries and toys. Cast off in a corner, she became a presence that no one noticed, not even the king.
As the months passed her hair tangled into knots, and her dress, which before had brushed against the elegant rugs, barely covered her knees. The little princess had grown, but no one had realized it. She fed herself on fruit from the garden, where she spent hours perched in a tree.
One night, lying on the branch of the willow tree that was her nursemaid now, she heard the queen’s voice speaking to an evil spirit.
“The time is near,” said the spirit. “Do not forget your promise, or the boy will die soon after birth.”
“I carry my promise carved into my heart,” answered the queen.
“I want the girl.”
“I will fulfill the pact.”
It was a kind of spirit that feeds on the blood of children. The queen was to leave the window of the little princess’s bedroom open, so that the spirit could come in.
From that moment the little princess not only lived alone, she lived in terror, unable to close her eyes at night, imagining that the spirit might come at any moment to take her away.
And the heir was finally born. The festivities at the palace were the most lavish in centuries. Everyone in the kingdom was invited to a magnificent banquet, and they danced and drank until dawn to celebrate the arrival of the much-desired child. The little princess’s eyes glimmered like two mirrors from behind the thicket where she watched without being seen or searched for. No one had missed her.
The next day, when everyone in the palace was still fast asleep in the mess left after the party, the bare feet of the little princess scurried on tiptoe down the long corridors. Her shoes had been lying at the bottom of the pond for weeks, since they had grown too small for her, and hurt her feet.
Her dirty, berry-stained hand slowly opened the door to the heir’s bedchamber. The little princess, her breath coming quickly, peeked into the silver cradle. There she found a baby with rosy cheeks and pale blond curls.
“Camelia!” thundered the voice of the nursemaid. She had orders to find the girl, wash her, and make her presentable, for that very night they were to dine together as a big, happy family.
After a long chase the girl was caught and plunged into a bath brimming with bubbles. Three maids had the task of combing out her tangled hair and scrubbing the crust of dirt from her feet. At the end the little princess was gleaming, dressed in the most beautiful gown she could ever have dreamed of. She went, trembling, to the official dining room, where her empty seat awaited her.
After dinner, she put off the moment when she would have to go to bed by asking her father the king thousands of questions, which he answered fondly, having remembered the existence of his dear little princess, and treating her with the gentleness he always used to. The girl asked for one more story and then another, and then yet another, until the royal storyteller was ordered to bed. The inescapable hour had arrived.
The little princess trembled so fiercely that her bedcovers rose up like waves in the sea. The nursemaids went away. All the candles were put out, and the noise in the passageway grew quieter and quieter until it was silent, but nothing happened. The same scene repeated itself again and again, over an unbearable series of nights that only magnified the fear in the little princess’s heart. The little heir learned to crawl, and he scurried up and down the halls of the palace, keeping all the servants on edge.
It was the whistling of the wind one night that told the little princess the time had come. It had been autumn for some time in the kingdom, and still the window to her room remained wide open. With her heart in her throat, she ventured down the dark corridor. Slowly she opened the door to her brother’s room. The heir was sleeping peacefully, his golden curls sparkling in the moonlight. The little princess slid her slender arms beneath the blankets to pick up the little boy, who went on sleeping soundly as she moved him.
Rosy, plump, and blond.
The little princess struggled under her brother’s weight as she carried him down the hall. She went into her room, chilled by the deathly cold coming in through the window. Like a little baby bird, the heir laid his rosy, plump, blond head on the princess’s soft pillow.
When day came, a heartbreaking shriek split the calm sky of the kingdom in two. It took four people to pull the queen away from the silver cradle. They had to carry her out, her feet dragging on the floor, prisoner to a madness that would never leave her again. Her petrified eyes were fixed on the cradle, watching with terror as the little princess slept on, undisturbed.
By the time the story is over I’m lying on the floor, trembling uncontrollably, my face soaked with tears. Memories that I kept hidden deep down inside myself come surging back. I had buried them so deeply I’d forgotten they existed. Now the images of the nanny reading me the book attack like a horde of evil spirits. She read the story while the newborn twins were sleeping in the next room over. I was supposed to behave, because I was already eight. I was supposed to keep quiet, very quiet, no matter how much the terrifying Tale of the Heir frightened me. The twins, the family’s most precious possession, were not to be disturbed. I loved them with all my heart, I loved them from the moment I set eyes on their tiny little selves when they came home... rosy and plump. I became an invisible, inaudible presence. I thought that if my house had had a garden I would have moved there, just like the little princess did. The images of The Tale of the Heir came to me every night just as I was falling asleep. I had completely forgotten how many times my eyes sprang open in the early morning hours, trying to pierce the darkness of my room, to see if the window was open or not. I wondered over and over if there was really any place for me in life. I looked at the twins in their cribs with an unbearable ache in my heart, convinced that the time would come when I had to choose between their lives and my own. More than once the burden of that choice spilled over into tears and I wept as the grown-ups laughed: “it’s just a book.”
The heir, the real one, has reached me. His round blue eyes watch me as his rosy, plump hands reach through the few inches of air separating us. When I feel his fingers on me I stop thinking. I stop breathing. Everything stops, finally.
Beatrice looks up from the book and sees me. A wave of anger takes over, and she lets out a roar like a wild animal and throws herself at the heir.
“Beatrice, stop! He’s only a child!” shouts Morgan.
Beatrice doesn’t hear. She’s lost in an uncontrollable rage, completely out of her role. She yanks the child away from me roughly. He cries out in fear, and his wails pierce everyone’s eardrums. The flat characters, which had been standing still, become agitated and start slamming into each other and the walls. I open my eyes and watch it all happen through a sort of haze. Ambrosio covers his ears and goes over to the boy, picks him up, and carries him out of the room. Beatrice’s eyes are bloodshot. She looks at Necrus and her nostrils flare.
“Stop, my lovely lady—consider your actions,” says Sherlock.
She gallops right at Necrus like a bull and slams her head into his stomach. The impact is so violent that the little man goes flying and crashes into a wall.
Morgan comes over to me, her intense green eyes gazing at me with a tenderness that makes me feel at home. I’m incredibly weak, but Morgan’s face comforts me, and takes away my fear.
“It can’t end like this,” she whispers to me. “You have to get up, Eurydice—do you hear me? You have to get up.” I feel involuntary tears rolling from the corners of my eyes, but I know they have nothing to do with my feelings. They’re just a bodily reaction. “Get up!” Morgan yells. She has one of her hands beneath my head. She looks up, and I hear her reciting spells, loudly and quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Sherlock’s voice sounds like it’s miles away.
“This damned place,” says Morgan, “it’s a blank page, my role has no power here.”
Morgan is crying. I feel her tears falling on me. As they land gently on my face, I’m filled with joy. I know the reason her magic isn’t working has nothing do with the blank space; she used magic earlier with Ambrosio. I lift my hand to dry her face.
“You don’t cry,” I say, struggling so that she can hear my words. “You shouldn’t cry.” This is not the moment to mention permanent death to her.
I feel Beatrice’s soft hands wrapped around my own. My friends are beside me. I close my eyes and see everything I’ve lived through with them, and I feel the warmth in my chest that Axel woke in me so many times. Yes, these friends made of paper accepted me completely from the very beginning. Different, changing, with all my subtleties. Look, Axel—your definition of love. Sherlock, Beatrice, Morgan—they knew how to see my essence. I feel calm, and lucky not to have died without knowing theirs. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay in the Sphere forever.
“Chain them all up!” Necrus shouts orders as he tries to get his breath back.
The freed Sphereans have recovered and gathered around me. They watch the scene in disbelief. The flat characters finally begin to move, but their attack is complete chaos, and they start chaining one another up instead.
“Useless!”
My companions help me up so I can lean against the wall. From there I can watch the erratic movements of the army of cardboard characters. With a flurry of slaps, the flat creatures that haven’t been chained up turn on their creator. They’re like a swarm of bees devouring a corpse. Necrus moans and kicks under the pile of his characters. I can’t tell which arms and legs belong to the characters and which to Necrus. His robot falls and smashes against the ground with a thunderous crash. Neither the Sphereans nor I can look away from the horrible sight. Suddenly the flat creatures begin to collapse, falling backwards like planks, with a sound that echoes against the laboratory walls. Then they go completely still.
“Are they dead?” asks Beatrice in a small voice. She’s recovered her role.
“I’m afraid so,” answers Sherlock.
They go on falling, one after another, until all the pieces of the mound covering their creator have tumbled down. In the center of that desolate vision of dead characters is Necrus, without his helmet, struggling to breathe.
“Morgan, can you do anything?” I ask urgently. “We can’t let him die.” Morgan looks at me blankly. “Cure him, you can cure him,” I insist.
Romeo embraces Juliet, who buries her head in his chest so she doesn’t have to look at Necrus, misshapen and in agony. I feel stronger. Morgan and I go over to where Necrus is writhing on the ground, and the fairy closes her eyes and concentrates.
“His state is similar to the one you enter into at times,” she says.
“He’s asleep?” I ask.
“Yes, though a little differently from the way you do it. I think he’s kept himself in that state the whole time. His helmet did it.”
“That’s how he was able to live in the Sphere,” remarks Sherlock.
“He’s suffering! Don’t you see? Do something.”
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do. He’s coming out of his artificial state. I suppose he was suffocating because he refused to wake up.”
Now my strength is coming back in waves. I’m waking up to life again. I pick up the helmet and stick the tubes back in as best I can, and then ask for Morgan’s help to put it carefully back on Necrus. He’s paralyzed, so stiff that we all fear the worst. I press some buttons on the robot, but Necrus remains still. Ambrosio throws himself to the ground and begins to weep wildly over the body of his master.