Life in the kingdom improved dramatically after that. For one, we had an army of zombies guarding our castle walls. They were pretty creepy to look at, and it was hard to sleep at night with the constant moaning, but as long as we kept them fed, they didn’t complain too much.
On the subject of food, LDB and the Boujie Boys had been so quick to flee for their lives that they’d left behind all sorts of supplies (including food), which we’d happily helped ourselves to.
We had a huge celebration that night; everyone sang, danced, and ate so much food we puked. Princess Melanie and I even got to put on another impromptu show in the town square; everybody loved it, of course. Speaking of the Princess, now that the cat was out of the bag that the King’s daughter was a necromancer, King Cassian passed an official law forbidding any sort of witchist behavior towards Melanie or myself. Sure wish that ruling had been in effect when my throat had been about to be slit, but whatever, I’m not upset.
The next day, I attended a war council meeting, and the King announced that he wanted to make use of our new undead army. Thankfully, not to initiate a reign of terror across the four corners of the Earth, but to reclaim stolen territory and create a safe zone for his people to set up more farmland and housing. “These zombies are marvelous!” Cassian had exclaimed, practically humming with excitement. “With all these threats to our kingdom taken care of, I can finally get some decent sleep.”
“How much do you sleep each night?” I had asked, curious.
Cassian had given me a weird look, “You’re supposed to sleep every night?”
“Perhaps that is a conversation for another time,” interrupted Eye Patch Guy with a polite clearing of his throat. “Right now, we should focus on how we can start building our army. 4,000 undead soldiers is a lot, but not nearly enough manpower to secure our borders against all the neighboring kingdoms.”
“How about we just make all crime punishable by death?” Suggested Poofy Pants. When everyone stared at him, he turned slightly pink. “What?” He said with a defensive shrug, “More bodies means more zombies.”
The meeting finally ended, and I wasted no time rounding up Thomas and getting us back to work on my lemon charger. He’d been upset that we hadn’t gotten a chance to use the flamethrowers we’d worked so hard on, but hopefully, focusing on another project would cheer him up.
Thomas, Ellie, and I were in the Wizard Room in the process of wiring together our lemons. Ellie had wanted to be a part of the process, which I had initially been concerned about because I needed Thomas to focus on lemons, not girls. Thankfully, he was so engrossed in his job that he didn’t even have the mental energy to be awkward around her.
So it turns out that to create an electrical current out of a lemon, you need wires, copper, and zinc. I’m not sure how all the science nerd stuff works (Thomas explained it to me), but apparently, the two metals interact in a way that draws electricity out of the lemon and allows it to travel through the wire. Once I’d had the process explained to me it wasn’t that complicated, but there was no way I could’ve figured it out alone.
I stared down at the lemons, a crisscross of wires and chunks of metal surrounding my three lumpy champions. I was hopeful, but nervous, waiting for something else to go wrong or distract me. “Are lemons really magical?” asked Ellie, cautiously poking at one of the fruits. “A what’s even the point of the spell you’re creating?”
“It’s making power,” I replied, feeling all sorts of jittery. “And if this works, well, that’d be super awesome.”
“All done.” Said Thomas as he finished wiring the lemons and stood up. I exhaled nervously and grabbed onto the electrical wires at the end of our chain. If this worked as Thomas had explained, the lemons were now brimming with electrical goodness, and connecting the two wires would form a circuit that could power my laptop. Allegedly, at least.
I pulled out my Bluetooth speaker and set it in front of the lemons. If things went poorly and this lemon battery was a dud, I didn’t want to accidentally fry my only way home. It would be much more practical to test the battery on my dead speakers and see if there were any explosive flaws in our design before trying to charge my laptop.
I slowly brought the wires over to the charging port on my speaker and stuck the metal tips inside. I held my breath, not sure if metal shrapnel was about to explode in my face, and then suddenly, the charging light on my speaker began to glow a weak red.
“IT WORKED!” I screamed, leaping up and fist-bumping the sky. The lemons were charging my devices. I could fix my computer, I could contact Gerard, and I could go home. I could go home!
Thomas was almost as excited as me, hopping up and down and shouting that he was the greatest wizard ever. Ellie still wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but she politely applauded for the both of us, looking amused at our reactions.
“Now for the moment of truth,” I said as I knelt in front of the speaker, hands shaking, and pushed the power button. I held my breath, waiting for the telltale hum of my speaker powering on, but nothing happened. “Huh?” I asked, tapping the button again. The charging light was on, but the speaker wasn’t functioning.
“Is something wrong?” Asked Ellie, peeking over my shoulder.
Thomas rapidly flipped through Gerard’s textbook. “It says here that lemons produce anywhere between .5 and 1 volts of electricity,” he said, pointing to a page, “And that the more volts you have, the faster something charges.”
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I frowned. “So it’s not turning on because there isn’t enough power yet?”
Thomas shrugged. “Doesn’t say.”
Curious, I reached inside my backpack and pulled out my laptop. I turned it over, and scanning the bottom, I saw a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo written on it, none of which I understood: serial number, made in China, input 22 Volts.
“It says here my laptop uses 22 volts of what I guess is electricity,” I said, turning to Thomas and Ellie. “Is there any sort of text on the bottom of the speaker?”
Gingerly, Thomas picked up the speaker, careful not to remove the charging wires. “It says 5 V,” replied Thomas.”
“That means five volts, right?” Asked Ellie.
I frowned. My three mushy lemons were producing maybe a third of the power necessary to charge the speaker and about a fifteenth of what my laptop would need. Maybe the lemons were still charging my speaker, but just really slowly. Or maybe they were producing so little electricity the battery wouldn’t even charge. I honestly had no clue, but I decided it might be best to let the speaker sit for a while and see if anything happened.
I explained my thought process to Thomas and Ellie. “So you just wanna let it sit here for a few hours and see if the electricity does anything?” Asked Thomas. I nodded; that seemed like the safest course of action.
Ellie stared quizzically at the weak red light glowing from the speaker. “I’m still confused,” she admitted, poking at the device. “You’re using lemons to create electricity so you can make power. That’s great, but why?”
I need it to go home. “It’s for a spell I’m working on,” I lied, “super complicated stuff. I don’t know how to explain it to a non-magic person.”
“If you say so,” said Ellie with an exaggerated yawn. “Well, if the two of you need me, I think I’m gonna take a beauty nap.”
Ellie got up to leave, she leaned over and whispered in my ear. “There’s actually a drinking contest down at The Ill Refute, and I gotta protect my title; you wanna come?”
I grimaced, remembering my last foray with alcohol, “Maybe I’ll watch,” I replied, my stomach already feeling queasy. “But I definitely won’t drink anything.”
“See you later, Thomas.” Said Ellie with a flirty wave. Thomas was busy flipping through Gerard’s textbook and didn’t even seem to hear. Ellie sighed, rejected yet again.
She exited the room and Thomas and I were left alone. I stared down at the lemon battery I’d worked so hard to put together, not quite believing we’d been able to create electricity in the Middle Ages. My excitement was slightly tempered by the question of how long this organic battery would last. How much juice (juice, lol) was in each of these lemons, and would it be enough to charge my laptop?
As far as I knew, there were no more lemons in the entire kingdom, so what would happen if my speaker sucked out all of the fruit’s electricity? I guess at this point, now that there was no siege, I could just wait six to eight months for more lemons to grow and then make another battery. That was far from ideal, but since we also had Princess Melanie’s zombie army to protect us, I guess it wasn’t exactly like I was in a rush. Still, with my luck, if I waited around too long, some other threat/inconvenience was bound to rear its ugly head and, well, threaten and inconvenience me.
“Have you ever made electricity with a potato?” Asked Thomas, face still buried in Gerard’s textbook.
“A potato?”
Thomas nodded. “It says here that potatoes can create electricity too, even more than lemons if you boil them in water.”
I perked up; that was fantastic news! I might’ve been out of lemons, but I knew I had at least four potatoes I’d coerced from Prison Mike. My mood almost immediately soured (soured, lol), as in the heat of last night’s celebration, I’d cooked all four of my remaining potatoes and eaten them during the celebration, oops.
“We got a ton of extra supplies and food from the Boujie Boys,” continued Thomas, seeming to read the expression on my face. “How about we ask the king if we can have any spare potatoes?”
“That’s a great idea, Thomas,” I said, a relieved smile breaking across my face. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m also gonna take a beauty nap and give my speaker a chance to charge.” Of course, I wasn’t going to bed. I wanted to see Ellie drink a bunch of grown men under the table, but Ellie had made me swear up and down that I wouldn’t tell Thomas about her double life because, in her own words, “It’s not effeminate enough.”
“Hey, before you go.” I stopped at the door, turning back to face Thomas; he’d stood up and was scouring through Gerard’s textbook. “I’ve been reading more of your spellbook, and I’m with Ellie, even if we make more electricity, I’m still not sure what the point of this spell is.”
“The point?”
Thomas looked up at me, frowning. “From what I’ve read, it seems like your laptops allow you to communicate with people over long distances and play games, which sounds pretty cool, but how will it help protect Praedones?”
I chewed my lip, conflicted. What was I supposed to say to Thomas? I was tempted to lie again as I had with Ellie, but this was different. I wouldn’t be where I was now without Thomas’s help, plus I hated lying to my friends. He, of all people, deserved the truth.
“Remember how I said I’m not from around here?” Thomas nodded. “Well, this laptop is how I’m going to be able to get back home.”
“Home?” Asked Thomas, his frown deepening, “But Praedones is your home now, isn’t it?”
“It was never going to be a long-term commitment,” I admitted. “I’m just passing through.”
“But we need you here,” implored Thomas, beginning to look genuinely upset, “You’ve saved the entire kingdom twice! You also rescued Princess Melanie from those assassins, not to mention you’re my teacher and my friend.”
Ouch, right in the feels. “I was never supposed to be here,” I replied vaguely, trying to placate Thomas without revealing I was from the future. “This place isn’t my home, plus I’m a hack magician anyway.”
“No, you’re not,” snapped Thomas, “I think your magic is great!” I don’t think he understood what I meant, but that was still sweet of him.
“Thank you, Thomas,” I said genuinely, “You and everyone else in this kingdom have been wonderful, and I care deeply for you all, but I need to get back home to my real family.”
Thomas staggered backward like I’d just smacked him in the face, I instantly regretted how I’d phrased that last sentence. We stood there in silence for a moment, and I suddenly realized that Thomas and I had both started to cry. Gosh, goodbyes sucked.
Thomas jerked a thumb back to the lemons. “Guess we better give those lemons time to work their magic.” Then, without another word, he walked past me and out of the room, leaving me alone with a charging Bluetooth speaker and my thoughts.
I sagged, feeling like the wind had just escaped my proverbial sails. I was so close to returning home, but what would I say to everyone once I left? Should I even say anything or disappear into the night, hoping I hadn’t screwed over the future with all my meddling.
I shook my head; I didn’t belong here; I was a stranger out of time and was never supposed to have met any of these people. I gave one final annoyed sigh and left the room; I needed a stiff drink. Or at least to watch someone else have a stiff drink.