Selina Rose leads a normal life as a princess: attending balls, tending to her garden, and going to school. But soon enough things start to fall apart.
Nothing makes sense in this princess's castle: the walls seem to hear secrets, the library seems...
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This was the first time this 18-year-old boy from the wrong side of town had truly felt dread.
"What do you mean?" Jim almost lunged at Alyssa. She put her hands up defensively and quickly uttered, "Your family is fine, I think."
Jim's eyes were furrowed with fear, and he continued with his voice ascending, "I think?"
"Well, a lot of families are being evacuated off the island, as far as I'm aware." Alyssa evened out her tone to calm down Jim. She slowly lowered her arms. Jim took a breath and repeated calmly.
"Do we know where?"
"Different places. Jim, we can't be certain where your fa-"
"They will be fine." Jim had his hands on his hips, looking down at the carpet. He seemed to be convincing himself.
"They will be," Selina added.
A beat.
"I found something," Alyssa whispered.
"What do you mean?" Selina inquired.
Alyssa looked around the room, deep in thought, almost trying to make words appear in front of her. The rain continued to batter against the windows. She wondered if a strong gust of wind was all that was needed to make the windows crack.
"I found what I was looking for in the book." Alyssa's eyes drifted back to Jim's from the window.
"Well, go on," Jim flailing his arms around desperately.
"Follow me, and do not fuss."
Alyssa made her way to her canopy bed and crawled under. The enormous blankets and sheets that draped from her mattress now nearly covered all of Alyssa's body except her brown slippers. Alyssa shuffled around, objects banging against the bottom of the bed frame.
Soon, her body started to emerge again. The bedsheets pulled back, and Alyssa appeared with company: A book. The same book, Alyssa had been rummaging through the day before.
She took the thick book and threw it on her bed. The trio huddled together as Alyssa started to carefully slip through the pages. Various notes had been placed on different sections of the book meticulously.
Alyssa finally stopped flipping as she landed on the page she desired: a mess of paragraphs. She turned the book towards Selina and Jim intently. She watched their eyes sink into the words of the book, their eyes darting from left to right. Selina's eyes moved faster than Jim's.
A bolt of lightning.
"Most of the other books from the library have been taken to the Attics. The safest place for a book to stay dry." Alyssa stated, looking at her window, drenched in rainwater. She looked around her room, where she could see chests, books, and clothing missing. They were all swiftly taken away from her room while she was out, trying to get a word in with her mother. Alyssa, of course, was unsuccessful. The staff had left a handwritten note on her nightstand reading:
Your Royal Highness Alyssa,
We have taken precautionary measures to ensure that your most prized valuables and belongings are stored for safekeeping for the time being. We have marked off your belongings on the back of this page. If you find this undutiful, please reach out to one of the staff members, and we will ensure we get your belongings back as soon as we can.
Thank you for understanding,
Staff
Her desk lay empty, besides the note that remained untouched.
"So, essentially..." Selina's voice trailed off as she underlined words on the page with her index finger, grasping their knowledge.
Jim looked up at Alyssa's headboard, his eyebrows scrunched, and his eyes far away in thought. Alyssa looked back and forth between the pair and finished Selina's sentence.
"So essentially," Alyssa sarcastically mocked Selina's tone of thoughts, "this storm could be the start of a bigger one. Or in a more disastrous change of fate, this could be the big storm."
Jim's eyes were now stabilized with Alyssa's, and he simply muttered with his arms crossed, "What does this all mean? I mean-" Jim looked towards Selina and started laughing.
Selina's focus was broken as she looked up, puzzled by Jim's sudden fit of giggling.
"What is so hilarious, Jim?" Selina said as a matter of fact.
She saw his eyes light up in a way she hadn't seen in a long time. The same light that lingered in his eyes the day he saved her in the forest's storm.
"Why does a stupid storm mean anything? I-" Jim looked between the siblings, now grinning ear to ear. He sporadically planted his face into his arms, trying to soothe himself. He continued talking, his voice muffled.
"It is just a storm, this too shall pass." He looked up at Alyssa. "Have we never heard of any rain?"
"Jim-" Alyssa tried, but Jim had flipped a switch.
"No, Alyssa, if I may," he moved his arms in front of him sarcastically, pushing them away.
"You may," said Alyssa cautiously and slowly.
"Great," stated Jim, with a piercing tone. He jolted up and stood by the bed. He started pacing. He had almost a manic look to him.
"I want you two to explain to me why any of this matters, why this storm is such an issue, and why on Earth is this a big deal to any of us? For all we know, this will clear up in a matter of hours. So what?"
"Jim, I thought the book made it pretty cl-" Alyssa spoke. Selina seemed to be zoned out in the book after flipping to the next page, not reading but disassociating. Aware of the gut punch Jim was about to feel.
"No, Alyssa, it is not! All the book states is that Haven's geography can sometimes turn out to be harsher than expected. Smaller storms over several months can turn into a monstrous one. We haven't had any storms in the past year, yes, we have had rain, but there is no 'great storm' upon us!"
Selina read out loud from the new page: "On the off chance that a storm is great in severity due to wind gusts and rain, it states some metrics here."
Selina dragged her index finger further along the page, skipping past numbers on gust winds and rainfall severity. Alyssa had her fingers pressed against her eyebrows in defeat. She continued.
"These numbers show the large scale at which the rainwater could affect the entire ecosystem of the island. While many severe problems and damages may arise from them (as stated in paragraph 17), nothing quite compares to the damage of 2/3 of the island being submerged underwater."
