The Locket (14 page)

The hope in his eyes vanished. “I see.”

Feeling only slightly guilty for crushing his anticipation, she said, “Why were they so important anyway? Everyone here seems to know them, while I, their daughter, know close to nothing.”

Christian was about to apologize and make up an excuse for a need to leave when he saw that mixture of helplessness, fear, and hysteria come back into her eyes. Huffing out his breath, he began. “It all started about eighteen years ago when there was to be an attack on the kingdom, much like there is currently. However, back then, our battle was fought against the ogres who held a population within these lands of about fifty thousand. They were getting too greedy with the land they claimed, and with the amount of lives they took. Back then they did not kill, at least not humans. But after a while, they discovered the taste of human was far superior to that of deer or duck.

“Of course the general, your mother’s father at the time, would not stand for this. So he raised an army, but had a lack of weaponry because his most powerful weapons, he knew, were hidden across the Mysterious Forest. They were supposed to be kept hidden and away from those who held authority in the palace and were under suspicion of mutiny. Yet if the general himself crossed the forest to gather them and failed to do so, there would be no one capable of taking his place as the army’s leader.

“So my—the king—held a contest. Throughout the next two days, the king and the general observed those who signed up to endure the tasks given to them. Many men made an appearance at this event and many failed trying. But there was one person that stood above all the rest … your mother.”

Savannah’s mouth dropped. “My mother?” She examined Christian’s face for a moment, and then began chuckling. “Oh, you’re joking, right? This was all just a big set-up for a very humorous, and may I add, cruel joke.”

Christian furrowed his eyebrows. “Why would I joke about something like that?”

When she stopped laughing, Savannah stared at him in disbelief. “But … that can’t be true. My mother … she’s a very—was a very—fragile woman. She was feminine, gentile, and very, very real! Unlike this place, which is beginning to turn out more like a nightmare than a child’s dreamland. No, you’re wrong. My mother couldn’t possibly have done something like that.”

“Well, she did,” he said a bit irritably. “Though she was not the strongest, manliest, or most powerful, your mother held the most potential. She was determined, and she was the only person to complete all the tasks assigned to the contestants.”

As he spoke, Savannah noticed that the forest became dead silent, as if it too was listening to the story. There wasn’t even a breeze or a single rustle in the leaves. Because of it, she was able to keep warm and relax a little, maybe for the first time since she came here. “Not only did my—I mean the king—fear suspicious activity going on inside the palace walls, but he also feared an attack on the outside of them, another reason why he hid the most powerful weapons he had. At that time, they had placed one magic portal at one end of the forest and they kept the other hidden in a secret room in the castle. As misfortune would have it, the portal hidden in the palace would not work; no one knew why, because it was fine one day and the next it wasn’t. Still, there was only one problem left and that was to retrieve the weapons across the forest, and, as I said, your mother was the only one tough enough to make the trip.”

Shaking her head, she replied, “I still don’t see how my mother won the contest, but continue.”

“Thank you. Now, understand, whether or not she beat out all of the other contestants, no one in the kingdom believed that she would be able to reach the other side of the woods. That is, none except for her father. He had been training her for events like these ever since she was a young girl and always had the faith that she could do whatever she set her mind to. So with his consent, the town let her go, although doubting every minute she was gone that she would ever return.”

Every word that he spoke reminded Savannah of her father. His voice was calm and soothing, and the gentleness of his tone brought up memories of when her father told her stories before she went to bed. Mr. Morgan always exercised different expressions in his face as if to act the story out rather than plainly telling it. Now, as Christian sat there and spoke his words colorfully and passionately, she thought fondly of her father and her childhood. For once in her life, she was thinking about the good times spent and not what sorrow had come from his death.

“Though as vigorous and as brave as your mother was, she did not know her way through the forest. Luckily for her, she ran into what we called back then a forest peasant. Those were people who made their home the forest, mostly because they had no other place to live. Anyway, your mother ran into this peasant who was as surprised by her appearance in the woods as he was by her charm and beauty. He admired the strength that she held as well as her courage, and agreed to accompany her through the woods, since he knew where to go. When their mission was complete and they returned to the kingdom, the townspeople were more shocked to find that Gwen had fallen in love with the peasant (who, by the way, was your father) than that she had survived the journey. The two had plans to wed, but because it was a highly disputed issue whether or not to allow marriages between upper class and lower class level citizens, no one liked that they were together. Some disliked the idea too much and others were so afraid of change that mobs were started and Gwen and Terrance were chased out of town. But your mother was clever enough to escape from the rage of the kingdom into the gift that the king had given her the day that she had arrived back. The locket.”

Watching as he eyed her necklace, Savannah knew that she would never think about her mother in the same way again. She was so tough and influential then. Were the woman she remembered from her childhood and the woman she was hearing about now really the same person?

She brought up her necklace and analyzed it once again. It looked so simple and as normal as any other piece of jewelry. She knew better this time. It was not just any other scrap of metal. No, this time it was a key; a key that connected worlds and a portal that you could travel through to go from one of those worlds to the next. “You would never expect such an innocent, tiny object such as this to actually be some kind of magical traveling device, would you?”

“Not in a million years,” he agreed.

Tucking it back under her shirt, she stared up at Christian. “Why would the townspeople be afraid of change? What were they expecting would happen?”

“The citizens frowned upon the combining of people from different classes, yes, but they were mostly afraid of the upsurge of women’s rights. As you may have found already, the women in that kingdom do not have an extensive freedom and they had even less of one those years ago. Because Gwen had made the journey and came back alive, many feared that that would change the rights and ideas of women.”

“Oh, I see,” Savannah began with aggravation. “So the people did not want a change that could have been for the better because they were too stubborn, so they chased out the two people who had just saved their town, and subsequently their lives. Okay, continue.”

Christian gave her a bewildered look. His eyes grazed over her with displeasure once before he spoke. “You do not think that allowing the rights of women would have been a mistake?”

“Duh, of course not! Where I come from, women already have these rights. It’s not as if we’re a separate species!” Savannah paced around the log, curing her itch to move. “We feel, think, see, eat as men do and, just like men, some of us may have big dreams for the future, ones that will lead our town or kingdom into a new century. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the queen, although a woman, is a bit more perceptive and has a better instinct than the king, which explains why he takes advice from her.”

Christian, who had stared at her wide-eyed while she ranted, now shook his head and frowned. “Yes, but you do not know the women in my kingdom,” he replied bitterly. “They never have anything good to say, particularly about another person. And probably the most accomplished thing that they would do in a day is gossip. The majority of them will not even fetch a bucket of water if they can avoid it.”

“But not all of them, right?” she interrupted. “Surely some of them aren’t that stuck-up. What about the peasants? If they don’t have a place to eat or sleep, how are they supposed to get a drink of water or a scrap of food otherwise? They would have to lift a finger eventually.”

“You could be right,” he said matter-of-factly. “But I am much too busy to be conversing with the lower class or notice what they do all day.”

This time when Savannah burst out into laughter, it wasn’t stemming from madness or uneasiness, but rather actual humor. She laughed so hard her insides began to tighten in mild pain, and when she saw how angry he was getting from it, she laughed harder. “I demand to know what is so funny!”

Wiping a tear at the corner of her eye, she said, “You! You are so funny!” When he scowled at her she knew it was time to calm herself down. “Not only are you talking like a doofus, but you actually think you’re better than the rest of the town?”

As her laughter was tamed to a giggle, she saw his face turn bitter and heard his voice become frustrated and confused. He was most certainly taking this much more seriously than she thought he would. “So?”

“So?! You need to loosen up a little. Oh, come on! You actually think that your—what—the prince or something? Face it, that kingdom already has a prince. Not a very good one, but he’s there.”

The mere thought of Rupert being the only prince and one day becoming king made Christian shudder. For one thing, he hated his brother’s guts. Rupert was always self-centered and whiny and enjoyed getting him into trouble when they were kids. For another, he would make a horrible king. His skills were limited and he could not even take care of a pet for more than three days without complaining. And the way he treated the people of his kingdom was far less admirable! How he flirted and flaunted with the maidens always made Christian queasy, as well as the women he flirted with, and the way he made hurtful jokes about some behind their backs. Rupert should not be the next to inherit the throne. On the other hand, that was the reason why he left … because he was too afraid and too sick of the idea of ruling the kingdom himself. He wanted to be free, but he also did not want his brother to rule those poor people.

“And just how do you know that there is only one prince?” he countered. “There could be more than one, couldn’t there be?”

“Yes, but don’t you think that the town would have a problem with you running all over, calling yourself the prince? I know that the king and queen would definitely have a problem with it.”

At this point, Christian had no idea what to think. She had gotten everything all wrong. Not only was there more than one prince, but he was the other prince. He couldn’t blame her, however. Looking down at himself, he didn’t appear much like one, with his formal dinner shirt ripped, his breeches covered in mud, and his face and hair full of soot. He looked and felt like a peasant. Despicable. “Let us get off this topic,” he suggested.

“Good idea,” she agreed. Then, out of the blue, she began giggling to herself again.

“Now what are you laughing at?”

Savannah covered her mouth with the back of her hand as if it were rude to show laughter. “Nothing. It’s just that every time I would ask my mother how she and my father met, she would always tell me these stories of how their parents tried pushing them together, like an arranged marriage. I guess, in reality, it was the exact opposite.” Sitting down again, she noted to herself how he slid further down the log. He seemed uncomfortable near her and almost as if he were in a daze by how he did not have much focus. There was something wrong, something that he was afraid of or not telling her.

She was going to find out. “So, what’s your story?”

He jumped a little from the broken silence. “Excuse me?”

“Why are you here? Where did you come from? That kind of thing.”

“Oh. Umm, well … I, uh …” Christian quickly searched the trees and grounds for something that he could use as an alibi. He did not think this through enough to have an excuse prepared. As if by magic, there, lying on the fallen leaves and resting dirt, he spied a rusted piece of metal. It was nothing new or fancy, just a lonely scrap of silver. “I am a silversmith,” he said proudly.

“A silversmith?” she confirmed.

“Yes. I am a silversmith, and I ran away from home.”

“Why?”

Did this girl ever shut up or stop asking questions? Trying to stall before he could think of more to his story, he pretended to cough. After a couple of coughs and sniffles, he could see that she was not falling for it by the way she stared at him skeptically. “I ran away because I … uhh … did not like the food.”

“You didn’t like the food?” She raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Great, now she was onto him. He would have to make up a genuinely good excuse now for her to believe him. Since he could not think of one much better, he used his only other defense from her and turned his face away. As he did this, Savannah decided not to press him any further because he obviously did not want to talk about his past. Again she considered that he was hiding something and now she had a general idea of what. It was just what it was specifically that she wanted to figure out.

To keep her mind from wandering to what she clearly was not going to find out tonight, she gazed up at the starry night sky. She used to search for pictures or patterns that the stars made when there was no other way for her to fall asleep. It was something that her mom and she would do together.

Following her in changing the topic, Christian did as she did and watched the glow of the stars and planets. “The sky is beautiful tonight.”

She nodded. “Especially without any electricity to overpower their light.”

“Electricity?”

Forgetting that she was in a different world, she mumbled a response. “Oh, it’s something that you probably won’t see for a while. In fact, you won’t see it at all … no one in your world may invent it for another couple of hundred years, if at all.”

Christian sat up and crossed his legs in front of him. “Explain it to me,” he demanded. Obviously, he was used to ordering people around, though Savannah wondered when and why he would if he were only a simple silversmith.

She was not used to having someone commanding things of her. Flashing him a cautious glance, she started. “Where to begin?” Cupping her chin in her hand, she thought and then began to tell him all about the wonders of modern conveniences. After only a few retreats due to Christian’s lack of comprehension, Savannah was able to get through a general description of her world. “You see, with a simple switch, we can turn the light on and off, and when it is on, the light can stay for long periods of time. Compared to your world, it is like being able to control the light or fire on a candle without doing much more than flipping a switch.”

Speechless, he made many attempts to start a sentence. Words escaped him in his excitement. Eventually he came up with, “I must explain this to my father! Control fire? What a discovery! You must come with me and tell this to him!”