The Ones Who Live Inbetween

12

When I awaken I see that I am once more in a mirrored room. For the first time I see myself as I truly am. The girl in the mirror is me. I know this with absolute certainty. My hair is black like my father's yet thick and curly like my mother. I have the clear cut features and high brow of royalty yet none of its cruelty. I am older than I was when last I saw my reflection. Ten years or more so. Though I know without a doubt that she is me, the girl in the mirror is a stranger. She looks too perfect and too alive. If I remember nothing else, I remember my death. It was about a week after -the killings- Gods, please. I can't think with you here. A week, yes, a week is how long it had been. I hadn't been able to sleep since then despite Mallory's calming presence and would wake screaming into the night. The king hurt the little girl... Me. I was the little girl. The king hurt me more than ever. My brother had to be moved to a different room because of it all. I knew he was suffering too because he was silent. He wasn't ever silent before then. That little boy. Sssssh. You mustn't tell him. The Queen leaves a trail of knives behind her. Don't let him walk behind her on the beach. I couldn't bear to be near him for fear of what the Queen might do. For one reason or another, she decided we would spend the weekend at the beach. Getting there was a full day's ride so we didn't arrive until well into the night.

As the carriage trundled on through the darkness I remember looking out my window. On a night as clear as cut glass we passed a river. The river stretched out before us, following the path of the road to the sea and I was sure that within that river were thousands of individual stars. It was a calming sight, probably caused by the reflection of the moon on the churning waves but it was one that made me feel more at ease than I had since... then. I remember thinking that river was the road to the afterlife. In the end it seemed I was right, though not in the way that I had originally thought.

When we finally arrived I was exhausted. I hadn't slept in days and the trip had been challenging, yet still I could not bring myself to be in the same room as my brother. More than anything else, I wanted to keep him safe. And you failed. I can never forgive you because you failed in that, your only task. You don't know that. Maybe my absence has made things better for him. You know it hasn't. You left him there with them. You left him with a monster. A monster and its lackey. A man no more fit to be king than an ant would be. Skudra the cowardly, they called him. There was a well next to a beautiful old peach tree. It was summer so the tree was full of round glowing fruits. Away. Away. That was what I wanted so I climbed up the tree and lay down in the crook of a branch. Peaches framed the night sky in a wreath of gold and for just a moment, as the breeze swept the scent of salt up to me I felt okay. And it was in that moment when everything finally broke down. The branches felt strong and comforting like the arms of Mallory, the slave without a voice. I didn't realise she was searching for me. I didn't realise the King knew I was missing. All it took was brief moment and the branch beneath me had been broken. And so I fell. Tumbling, tumbling, down into the well below. I heard a garbled scream and caught a glimpse of auburn hair, like a flag in the night, and an outstretched hand. Skudra the cowardly who married the lady of the unicorns, Lady Inorog. And what a queen she made. The unicorn queen. The monster queen. Oh the things Skudra did for her. Please, please just leave me in peace. I don't want to hear you. I'm tired of hearing you. I would like to say that drowning was quick, that it was painless, but it wasn't. I died then, I'm sure of it. I died all because I was too afraid to stay with my little brother. And consequently left him to die. Or to live on with her. Her and him. The ant and the unicorn. A fate worse than death.

Look. Look there in the corner. What do you see? An egg. No, it is the world. Indeed. The world which is so fragile. Look more closely. Go on, touch it. I stretch out a hand and lightly touch the shell of the world. A deafening crack rings out through the room. Images flash through my mind. Images which show me the thing I hoped never to remember again. Look how easily you broke it. You broke the world. You broke your world. The world entrusted to your care.

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