Ten
Beneath the clear blue sky, across the rolling hills
of green, horsemen raced up the cobblestone path. Marla stepped into the
shadow of a tree, fearful of hooligans.
Her parents had warned her. Strange men were
predatory. None were ever to be trusted. She had only to look into Mort
Braggs' dark eyes to guess the terrible crimes of which he was capable.
But Marla sighed in despair when she saw that the men
on horseback were not men at all. This was not that kind of reality.
This was the old fantasy of her childhood brought to life. It had
different rules entirely.
The riders who were not men wore silver armor that
gleamed in the sun. They had pewter faces like pawns of a chessboard.
They passed to either side of her, turned, and awaited her command. The
horses were white porcelain, like the cat she had left behind in the
jungle.
Marla started walking back down the cobblestone path
knowing that nothing bad could happen to her now. Her honor guard
followed as they always did when her parents were gone, her slaves and her
jailers.
In time, a gold and silver carriage approached from
the castle and stopped at her side. She climbed inside with resignation
and sat on red velvet. The carriage then turned around and hurried back
with clattering wheels.
Polished green hills passed beneath a glass sky of
blue. Toy soldiers escorted her to a palace of silver and gold. It all
had its own droll reality. She had spent her entire life in such
surroundings, waiting for people to take her places, waiting for people to
tell her what to do, and how to behave. It was a painless existence, less
challenging than Armstrong High, and less threatening.
Peasants dressed in medieval attire crowded the
cobblestone path. These were her subjects. Like the knights, they had
pewter faces, mercifully obedient knick-knacks to dress up her kingdom.
Just ahead, the drawbridge to the castle was coming down. Among the faces
crowded to either side, three were of the wrong color.
"Stop! Stop the carriage!"
The carriage rattled to a stop. Marla opened her
door and looked down at three pink faces in the crowds. She frowned
suspiciously. "Rick Kaiser, is that really you?"
Mort Braggs stood next to him, grinning at her with
his sick, repulsive need. Becky Marple stood in the background, staring
at her with her strange eyes.
"Don't go in there," Rick Kaiser said, his voice an
unconvincing monotone. "You don't know what you're getting yourself
into."
Rick was always warning and correcting her at every
turn. It wasn't Rick's place to play nursemaid. She had had enough
nannies and nursemaids.
Marla threw her door open wider. "Get in."
Rick remained his ever infuriating, do-nothing self.
"I said get in! This is my kingdom and you will do
as I say!"
Rick pretended not to hear. Or, more likely, he was
just a pretend Rick Kaiser, far too stupid to think for himself. Either
way, she could take no more of his defiance. Only Mort had the courage to
look her in the eye.
"Guards!"
Several of the horse-mounted knights approached. The
hooves of the horses clattered loudly on the cobblestone. A cold breeze
blew in from the hills, stirring Marla's hair.
Her heart beat wildly as she gathered the courage to
issue orders to her staff. Despite her every sense telling her that this
was as real as real could be, a part of her understood otherwise. This
was the reality of dreams. Objects represented genuine fears and feelings
and desires, but they were not real in themselves.
She pointed to Rick Kaiser. "Take him to the
dungeon. Whip him."
She pointed to Mortimer Braggs. "Cast that man out
of my kingdom. Imprison him in the jungle. I may choose to visit, so see
that no harm befalls him."
Mort gave her an evil smile.
Marla refused to look at Becky Marple. "Take the
girl to the dungeon," she ordered her guards. "Torture her without mercy,
and then tear her to pieces."
Marla slammed her carriage door closed. The carriage
rattled the rest of the way up the cobblestone path, rumbled over the
wooden drawbridge, and entered the courtyard of the castle.
The carriage circled the inner court and stopped.
Through an arched entrance, Marla saw a throne room the size of an airport
terminal. It had a black marble floor like the living room at home.
Towering white marble pillars to either side of her throne on its terraced
dais reminded her of the front steps to her parent's mansion.
Doors boomed closed behind her. Marla sighed in
growing despair. If she pretended to do what was expected of her, maybe
she could sneak away at night. She could return to the jungle where Mort
was being held captive. There, she would explore for herself the evil her
parents deplored so greatly. She would get to know Mort Braggs a little
better. And herself.
Rick Kaiser had nothing more to offer.
She walked alone to the throne. She turned and sat
facing thousands of silent worshippers. She had nothing more to do to
fulfill her destiny. If her parents had expected more of her, they had
failed to communicate it to her.
She sat and stared out over paradise.
And felt it grow distant and cold.
As if…
She looked down at her hand. Crystal materializing
from the air covered her fingers. She snatched her hand back with a gasp
and watched it fall and shatter to the floor like thin sheets of ice.
For the longest time, she sat rigid, clenching the
metal arms of her throne and afraid to look down again. But she could
feel the paralysis creeping up her body. When she looked down again,
crystal plating covered her legs and clothing. Slowly, it spread upward
toward her face. She tried to stand and shake it loose, but she had
waited too long.
Tears came to her eyes. "No, please. Let me go back
to school. Let me go back to the jungle!"
She peeled plates of the cold glass away with her
bare hands, from her legs, her blouse, and her hair. It spread faster
than she could free herself until even her trembling lips grew cold with
its touch.
Like the cat and her pewter subjects, she too became
a gleaming statue, a piece of decorative knick-knack sitting on the black
marble mantel of a fireplace. Her castle was mere pewter as well, she
remembered, about two feet high and plated in gold and silver. The
rolling hills were nothing more than the estate grounds visible through
the front windows, including her father's private golf course.
Her mother passed in front of the fireplace, the
mantel, and the castle. "Princess! We're leaving now! Be polite to the
servants while we're gone! We'll be back early fall!" She blew a
careless kiss into the silence of the room and left without looking back.
Marla watched a little girl fly down the stairs,
screaming, "Mommy! Daddy! Don't leave me!"
But the couple were already gone, and the blue-eyed,
blond-haired child stood sobbing at the base of the circular stairs
beneath a sparkling chandelier. A servant who may as well have had a face
of pewter took her silently by the hand and led her back up the stairs.
He locked her in her room. Marla remembered that
terrible day. Her nanny and tutors would not arrive for another three
days. Upstairs, young Marla van Kirk would be putting her face to the
glass barrier of a towering window and looking out over a cold and
lifeless paradise.
