Angus’ funeral took place a month ago today. Autumn is setting in, the cold chill in the air, the leaves now bronzed red, orange and yellow by the summer sun and beginning to carpet the ground. Everything seems to be dying.
I suppose that might be a bit melodramatic, but I can’t stand it! Every day Angus’ corpse haunts me. Every night, the crowned skeleton lunges at me. It’s driving me mad. I’ve been working long shifts at the blacksmith’s, hammering away long into the night. Anything to keep away from her. Working keeps me sane - I can lose myself in the rhythms of the process, sounds mad, doesn’t it! I think the townsfolk think I’m mad. Everyone tries to chat to me, but it sounds patronising and forced, even from my own mother!
There was a knock at my door and I was disturbed from my diary. I bade entry, and Jennifer, a friend of mine that I had grown up with, opened the door. “Hi Maj,” she greeted. I could pick out the tone that gave Jennifer away as being uneasy to be with me. I suspected my mother had forced her into this situation.
“Hi. How are you?”
“I’m fine thanks,” Jennifer replied, politely but automatically. “Everyone’s worried about you, you know,” Jennifer then blurted out.
“They shouldn’t worry. I’m fine.”
“Nobody blames you.”
“Ok.”
“So stop blaming yourself.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
Jennifer leaned against the window sill. I could tell she was staring at me, but my gaze was fixated upon the floor. I hesitated. I wasn’t sure if Jennifer would understand. It was going to be complicated. “I didn’t just find Angus down there,” I began, teasing her into it.
“That’s a start. What did you find then?”
“A woman.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She gave me her crown and that was what made her die. Like her life was part of the crown.”
Jennifer started to leave. “Stop playing games.”
“I’m not,” I protested, but not whiningly.
“Then what are you saying?” she demanded.
“That, well… It was sort of, like, magic.” I hated the words I was saying. They sounded ridiculous.
“Grow up, Maj! We’re not kids anymore!”
“I’m not making this up! I have the crown, and I have the book that she had too!”
“Show me.”
I reached under my bed and pulled them out and placed them in front of me on my bed. The setting sun that shone through the window caught on the crown and sent beams of light around my room. I shuffled back. Jen stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at the objects I had produced. “Ok.” She took a long pause, and I felt it best not to interrupt.
After a minute or so, she commenced. “So what does the book say?”
“I haven’t read it. I haven’t even opened it,” I admitted. I was too scared to open it for fear of what universal secrets may be revealed to me. “Do you want to?”
She hesitated. “Not sure.” A pause. “What do you think it’s about?”
I shrugged. “It could be a book of magic,” I suggested.
“Or a religious text,” Jen proposed.
“Or a history of Kingdom Faithful.”
“Or it could be a cook book.”
Another pause.
“Go on, open it,” I said, pushing the book in her direction.
Jen inhaled and picked up the book. Slowly, she opened the front cover. It was a tense moment. And then suddenly she scoffed. “Idiot,” she muttered to me. She showed me the inside of the book and I saw carved into the pages a pocket, inside of which was a hipflask. “So you saw a drunk down there?” Jen laughed.
“No! I know what I saw!”
“Maybe you had some of this, and thought you saw what you claim to have seen.”
“Jen, please.”
“Right, I’m off. You’ve successfully wasted my time.” She picked up her woollen scarf from the end of my bed and wrapped it around her neck. “And I’m taking these away from you. It’s for your own good. It means you can put this whole business behind you, ok?” I didn’t have a say in the matter, because whilst she was speaking, she was scooping the book and the crown into her arms.
“Don’t wear it,” I advised. “The woman told me that wearing the crown could destroy you.” I could see myself from Jen’s point of view - ridiculous, crazed and paranoid. She didn’t even say goodbye, she just marched out the door.
__________
Rosa was about six years old, a sweet child. She had platinum blonde hair that was plaited every morning by her mother, and the biggest of blue eyes. She was the girl that all the other mothers hated because she was prettier than their own children, but always say how adorable she is in public. To some she was an adorable princess, to others she was sickly sweet, and to most she was both.
She was also Jen’s younger sister. They shared a small room above their parent’s grocer’s shop. Jen resented this, as Rosa was constantly mimicking her fashion sense, her delivery of speech, the general things that older sisters begrudge their siblings for. And one of the things that Rosa had a habit of doing was going through Jen’s belongings and trying them for herself. You can see where this is going.
It was two days after Jen had taken the crown and the book from Maj, and she had shoved them straight into a drawer, with no desire to deal with them. They would have to wait until one of those big clear-out days. And so, ever so predictably, Rosa stumbled across them in the drawer. I say ‘them’, she didn’t notice the book, just the shiny, pretty crown. Out of the drawer it came. Rosa looked at it carefully, grinning at its beauty. And then she placed it on her head. Now she would be that pretty princess.
“Hello there,” a voice said. Rosa jumped and turned around. Standing behind her was a woman. She was tall and beautiful, with deadly pale skin and wonderful brown eyes. Her hair was strawberry blonde and tumbled about her shoulders. “It’s very nice to meet you, Rosa.” Her voice was sugared. The little girl stared.
“Who are you?” she eventually asked. “Are you a princess because you’re very beautiful?”
The woman laughed. “I’m not a princess, just a normal person. Do you want to play?” Rosa nodded enthusiastically. “Me too. Take my hand,” the woman said, stretching out her hand. Rosa took it and they walked hand-in-hand out of the room and out of the grocer’s into the main street of Bridgeside.
Rosa looked up at her new hero. “Can you make me look as beautiful as you?”
“Maybe when you’re older.”
Rosa smiled, excited for when she would be that old.
“Rosa!” A voice rang across the street. The little girl turned around. So did the woman. Jen was running towards them. “You’ve been going through my stuff again! Why did you take the crown?”
“Because it was pretty.”
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“To play.”
“Mum said not to leave the house. What made you think you could?”
“I held her hand.”
Jen, angry, snatched the crown from her younger sister’s head. Rosa collapsed in a crumpled heap on the dusty road. Jen looked in anger and annoyance at first. “Get up, Rosa. Rosa?” And then the irritation shifted to fear. She knelt beside her sister. “Rosa!” But Rosa’s spirit had departed from this world.
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