The Prince trudged through camp, a tattered scarf knotted around his neck, a dark hat pulled down over his brow against the cold. The fingertips of his gloves had been cut off. He stared down at his hands, nails ragged and grimy. He’d needed his fingers free when he’d worked with the animals on the farm, but that was a distant memory. A post-banishment memory, but distant nonetheless.
He pulled a vial from his pocket. His fingertips were almost too frozen to open it. Pills jostled around inside, chattering dully, mocking him until he got it open and tapped one out into his gloved palm. Just one, to keep the pounding in his head at bay. He swallowed it dry. There was no water, or anything better, to be had.
The Prince couldn’t remember why he’d been banished all those years ago. He was the eldest son of the king, but he’d been driven out of the kingdom. After wandering the wastes at the edges of civilization, he’d found himself on a farm. It was a simple life, an honest life, tending the horses and goats. His skin grew dark in the sun and his hair light. The country air, permeated with the smells of hay and manure, had been refreshing compared to the stifling, soot-choked air of the castle.
Once he thought he saw his fairy godmother in the distance. For a moment, she had been standing in a grove of stunted trees while he worked a spotted mare, Twig, through her paces. When he looked again, his fairy godmother had disappeared without a trace.
Gone. The farm was gone, too. And the castle. All that remained were his vague memories of that other life and his magical self that had lived it. That missing self knew his fairy godmother. It had spoken with her, walked with her, dined with her. But when the Prince had been banished to wander the earth, his magical self had dissolved.
For a time, she had abandoned him, but she was back. He had seen her, watching from beyond the camp.
She hadn’t changed one bit. Her little ears poked out from mousy brown hair cut short around her face. She always wore blue and yellow. He didn’t dare approach her, and she never spoke to him.
He still had the talisman she had given him. He patted his pocket and felt its familiar weight. It contained all the maps of the land, but it required sacrifice and planning to keep the magic charged. He could delay that sacrifice of his time and comfort no longer. He needed to go among the others, into their space.
The sun was past its zenith. He switched his path through the camp, past the pair of tents belonging to Jojo and Kat, and the low fire that smoldered between them. If the fire got much larger, someone would make them put it out, but for now, it warmed the bread set near it to something more than a frozen rock.
At the edge of camp, the Prince climbed over the stile and crossed the field to the library where he could charge the talisman. He would need to be quiet, non-disruptive. The pill would help with that.
Chestnut trees lined the avenue: branches above bare of leaves, ground below vacant of fruit. No nut remained on the ground long when there were so many foragers in the area. Still, the Prince’s eyes surveyed the grass, searching until the great doors to the library loomed before him.
It was a public space, and as long as he didn’t start trouble, they had to let him in. It was a law of the land. Despite that, he kept his head down as he passed the librarians. Those with power never appreciated it when those without flaunted their rights. He went deep into the stacks. It wasn’t as large as the castle’s library, but it smelled the same: of old paper and leather and hidden wisdom waiting to be found. After acquiring a handful of books, he found a chair in one of the reading rooms and sank into its comfort, softer than he deserved. He connected the talisman to charging port next to the chair and began to read.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed or how many pages he’d turned when he found the answer. Printed on the page in front of him was the secret he’d been looking for, and he knew why his magic was gone. Love is magic, magic is in love. Everything inside him seemed to shrink until he was empty. It had been too long since he had known love.
Catherine, Queen of the North. Queen of the blizzard and the darkness, but also of warmth and fires and woodsmoke. She was comfort on a cold day, and turned his banishment into blessing. Until one spring her rosy cheeks dulled to a gray pallor and she was dead before summer. His fairy godmother had been there, after he buried Catherine. She had sent him to the farm. He could not recall the conversation, but he knew its truth.
He felt a tear run down his cheek. He brushed it away.
He looked back to the book. Love is magic. Magic is in love. The Prince closed the book with a resounding thud that drew glances from the library’s other patrons. A sob escaped his lips. He looked down. He felt their eyes on him, their concern. Not for him, but for their own peace.
The talisman was nearly charged. The next book on the stack had a worn cover, ancient and threadbare. He opened it, but the words inside were identical to the prior book. His breath shuddered in his lungs. He slammed the covers together.
The guard stationed on the far side of the library approached the reading room. The Prince yanked the talisman and its cord from the wall and stuffed them into his coat pocket, the one without the hole. In the stacks, he stumbled past the guard with a “Sorry” that went unacknowledged.
That evening, it rained. The Prince carried a large black bag over his shoulder. The sweet, almost nauseating smell emanating from it was evidence, along with the many patches, that this was far from the first time it had been used for this purpose. He walked along the highway. It was safer than the side roads, with people continually traveling it. No one would dare attack him in sight of witnesses. He didn’t know who followed him, only that someone did, and had been for some time. Weeks. Months. Years? Perhaps since his banishment.
Slung over his shoulder, the bag was full, but light. The bottles and cans within were all empty. Still, it weighed him down as he climbed up the embankment. There wasn’t the smallest hint of alcohol left in the bottles but the bitter stink. In desperate times, he’d poured a little water in, swirled it around, and drank, just to get that taste back on his tongue. It never worked.
He squeezed between a guard rail and a fence. Not far down the side road, the bright lights of the store glittered in the drizzle. Shadows moved around him, but the drone from the highway drowned out the other sounds. The distance between himself and his destination was dark, not a convenient location for him.
The drizzle swelled into a pounding rain. He had enough deposits for a twelve pack of PBR, and he’d be able to turn in those when they were empty. He hitched the bag up and stepped into the darkness between himself and his payday.
A branch snapped behind him. Gravel shifted, disturbed by something. He turned around but saw no one. He knew they were there, moving in the shadows, watching and waiting.
He quickened his pace. The cans made too much noise and he couldn’t hear his pursuers. He waited for their strike. The bag slapped his back and drove him onward. The bottle drop was as far as it had ever been. They would get him before he reached its safety. He ran.
The cans slammed together, thunder accompanying the rain, announcing his flight. Loud footfalls slapped the road. They were catching up. The tie on the bag snapped. The bag tore. Cans rattled and drained out onto the street, a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow. Ten dollars. PBR. His life was worth more than that. He dropped the half empty bag. Leaving the treasure behind for the next forager, the Prince turned and ran down another side road.
He raced down residential streets. His heartbeat pounded in his ears and his breath wheezed. He cut through a park and hid behind a tree, waiting. When he was certain he’d lost them, he headed back to camp. There was safety in numbers, and the others would be returning from wherever they spent the day.
Jojo had a job selling newspapers on the corner. Kat busked with her out-of-tune guitar and harmonica. Stinky Pete sat with his dog and his sign at the corner of Mission and Lake. As the Prince approached, he was surprised to see his fairy godmother talking to Jojo at the edge of camp.
“She’s not real!” the Prince yelled. His mouth was dry from running and made his voice froggy. “You think you can see her, but you can’t! She’s not real!” He hurried past them and dove into his tent. He couldn’t bear to see the hurt and betrayal in her eyes.
He wrapped a gray blanket around himself and huddled into the damp ground. Everything in this world was gray. He knew she had to be real, his fairy godmother. He remembered her from long before the banishment, during his misspent youth.
“If you’re real, then why is my life like this?” he wailed into the night. He cursed her. He cursed the gods. He pulled his memories of Catherine’s love in close. He screamed his pain until it boiled around him and drove the others away.
The Prince awoke, shivering. His teeth chattered until he thought they’d fall out. A hand, pale white and thin, lifted his tent flap. A skeleton coming in from outside. His cry was feeble in the night. Voices in a language he recognized but didn’t understand. Not a skeleton. A person. People.
His pursuers had found him. In their dark clothing, they blended into the shadows. He was too weak to struggle, and only shook and twitched as they pulled him from the tent. His fairy godmother was there, behind the men, looking over their shoulders.
“Stop them,” he pleaded.
She looked at him with tears in her eyes. Dressed in blue and yellow, she stood out in the night. Everyone else was blurry, but he saw her with crystal clarity.
“You’re supposed to stop them! Don’t let them take me!”
She did nothing.
***
The Prince woke up in a bed. The room was dark and felt small. Stagnant. Stale. He shook, but not nearly as bad as before. He found the lights by feel and confirmed his suspicions. The tiny room contained a bed and a nightstand. Two doors and a chair. His fairy godmother had been there.
Clean clothes were folded neatly on the chair, the talisman on top. Pants in his size, a shirt, a sweater. A plastic package of underwear, another of socks. New shoes tucked under the chair and a jacket hung from the peg on the back of the door. He dressed in his new clothes while he contemplated that door. In his experience, some doors opened. Others didn’t. This one did.
The corridor was gray and long and terminated at a desk. The woman seated at that desk stopped him and sent him back to the room. A moment passed, or an hour; he didn’t know since there was no clock. A different woman came in and talked to him. He was polite and gentlemanly. Deferential. She gave him papers to sign and he gave her his signature. It was an easy trade. On his way out the door, someone gave him a folder with a cross on it. More papers inside, filled with lists of names and numbers.
The Prince entered the sunlit street. Disoriented, he walked for several minutes before he remembered the talisman and its maps. He took it out and got his bearings. The camp was closer than he thought. He disposed of the folder on the way. He didn’t need those numbers.
“She said you’d be back,” Jojo said. The unofficial sentry, he’d been sitting under the tree but rose and walked out to meet the Prince. “None of us touched your stuff,” he said. “It’s all right there. She said you’d be back. She gave me this, too.” Jojo pulled at the thick sweater he wore over a flannel shirt and tattered jeans. “Your stuff is all right where you left it.” He followed the Prince to his tent. “No one touched it.”
“Thank you, Jojo.” There wasn’t much in the tent that the Prince needed. He had the talisman in one pocket of his new jacket, his pills in the other. There were more in the vial than before. “Jojo, when I’m gone, I want you to have my things. Except my pillow. Give my pillow to Kat. I won’t need it.”
“Okay, okay,” Jojo said. “Everyone’s going to be so glad you’re back.”
The Prince nodded and crawled into his tent. Everything was dry. When had the rains ceased? All his stuff was still there, even the half dozen empty bottles someone could have turned in for sixty cents. He dumped out his backpack and sorted through it, determined to travel light.
***
Her phone dinged the alert. He was on the move again, but this time she was prepared. His pattern was emerging. The hospital stay would sober him up, and then he’d be on a quest for somewhere new.
She took an empty duffel from the closet. She rolled up the quilt her grandmother had sewn and squeezed it into the bag. A small plastic box of old photographs went in on top. The shoebox hadn’t taken well to travel, so she’d upgraded. She grabbed her go-bag, pre-packed with toiletries, a couple of changes of clothing, cash, and extra cables.
Once he settled somewhere new, she’d come back for the rest of her things. Or, she’d sell them like she’d done before. A digital nomad, she could work from anywhere. She packed up her laptop, checked the map on her phone, and made a call.
“He’s on the move again,” she said. “I left him some new clothes, but he discharged himself this morning. It looks like he’s heading south.”
She listened for a moment to the voice on the other end of the line.
“I know,” she said. “I keep an eye on him so you can sleep at night. I’ll let you know where he lands. Love you, Mom. Bye.”
Originally from the Midwest, Annie Tupek took a vacation to Alaska and forgot to go home. After spending nearly fifteen years in the frozen tundra, she moved south. She now resides in Oregon where she fuels her speculative fiction with chocolate and tea, knits Victorian lace shawls, and hoards an excessive collection of tarot decks. Her story “Entanglement” was shortlisted for the 2020 Quantum Shorts Flash Fiction Contest. Twitter: @annietupek Instagram: annietupek
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