Fyre

Page 69

“Um . . . Mum, Dad,” Jenna said again, not knowing where to start.
“Yes, love?” Sarah said anxiously.
“My mother. The Queen. She has something she would like to say to you and Dad.”
“Oh, dear . . .” This was a moment that Sarah had been dreading—the moment the past came back to haunt them.
“It’s nothing bad, Mum,” Jenna said hurriedly. “Really.”
Sarah was not convinced.
Queen Cerys looked upset—she could not believe what Sarah Heap had done to her beautiful sitting room. Was this how her daughter had lived too? She was silent for a moment as she tried to compose herself. Sarah and Silas waited nervously.
“My husband and I . . .” the ghost began, and then turned and beckoned someone in from the corridor. “Come in,” she said, a little impatiently, Sarah thought. Milo squeezed in through the door and tried to hold it open with the fluffy pink rabbit doorstop, with little success. With some difficulty, he found a place to stand, wedged between two stacks of dog-eared romance novels, which were liberally splattered with duck poo. The ghost started again. “My husband and I wish to thank you both, Sarah and Silas Heap, for looking after our daughter.”
Sarah glanced at Silas. She didn’t like Jenna being described as someone else’s daughter. Silas raised his eyebrows in response. Neither did he.
The ghost continued. “We are both deeply grateful for the love and care you have given her. And we are well aware of the hardships that have befallen you as a result of your guardianship . . .”
Sarah flashed a look of dismay at Silas. They were not Jenna’s guardians—they were her parents.
“. . . of our daughter. We trust those difficulties are at an end and that you will now be able to resume your simple, yet happy life.” Silas let out a spluttering sound. Sarah looked like a goldfish that had been thrown out of its bowl.
Silas spoke for them both. “Your Majesty, Jenna has brought us nothing but good. And we have always considered Jenna to be our daughter. We always will consider Jenna to be our daughter. Nothing is at an end.”
“Things end, Silas Heap,” said Cerys. “Things begin. It is the way of the Castle. The way of the world.”
Sarah was becoming increasingly agitated. “What do you mean?” she burst out.
“I mean that today things begin.”
“What things?” demanded Silas.
“That is not for you to know, Silas Heap.”
Silas thought differently. “If it affects our daughter, it most certainly is for us to know.”
The Heaps were not quite what Cerys had expected. She had assumed that they would curtsy and bow respectfully, gratefully hand over her daughter, and she would see no more of them. Cerys felt quite rattled: when she had been Queen no one would have dreamed of speaking to her like that—especially Sarah and Silas Heap. Stranded at the doorway by the sheer amount of junk she would have to Pass Through in order to go any farther into the room, Queen Cerys raised her voice and spoke very slowly.
“It is time for our daughter to go on her Journey,” she said.
“What journey?” Sarah demanded. “Where?” Memories of a similar visit by Marcia Overstrand to take Jenna away from their room in the Ramblings some four years in the past had come flooding back. “You can’t just come here and take Jenna away. I won’t allow it; I won’t.”
“It is not for you to allow or disallow, Sarah Heap,” Queen Cerys informed her.
Milo watched in dismay; he had become very fond of the Heaps and did not like to see them upset. He had forgotten quite how bossy Cerys was. Time had thrown a rosy hue over his life with her—now he remembered why he had gone away on so many voyages. Milo was back to his role of fifteen years ago: smoothing the waters. He threaded his way across the room to the upset Heaps.
“Silas, Sarah,” he said. “Please don’t worry. All Princesses go on a Journey with the ghost of their mothers before they become Queen. They go back to where their family came from, I believe.”
This did not make Sarah feel any better. “Where on earth is that?” she asked. “And how does Jenna get there? How long will she be away?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Milo. He shrugged just like Jenna, thought Sarah. “It’s Queen stuff,” he said with a rueful smile. “They do a lot of that, you’ll find.”
Jenna pushed past a stack of washing and hugged Sarah. “Mum, it’s okay. Milo’s right; it is Queen stuff. And that’s what I have to do. You know I do.”