Abigail
The room is dark except for a small candle burning on the floor next to my mat. I have no memories. No thoughts. Just pain.
When I can’t find sleep again, I watch the light from the candle flicker and dance on the low ceiling above me. I count my breaths, focusing on the number and not the pain.
I’m there - alone - for hours, days, months. I’m not sure.
“You’re awake!”
Cora’s quiet excitement breaks me from my stupor.
“Shh,” I warn, opening my arm tentatively for her.
“He’s not here,” she says, climbing next to me on the mat.
I let out a small sigh of relief and then wince. Cora curls up next to me and puts a small hand on the side of my face. I wonder how terrible I look to her - black and blue and exhausted.
“Are you okay?” she asks, eyes shining with tears.
I nod, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
“I thought he might… he was so angry…” she trails off, her eyes scanning my body. I keep my eyes on her face.
“Shhh, I’m fine now,” I say, trying to keep my tone comforting.
We lay in silence for a while, watching the shadow of the flame together.
“Did you eat?” I finally ask.
She nods, “swiped some bread from down the street.”
“Cora!” I chastise, “I told you we can’t do that anymore.”
Cora looks down in shame. She hates begging. She has always been delicate, smaller than the other children on the streets. But if she gets caught stealing, she’ll face a far worse fate.
“Hey, don’t worry. I’ll be better soon, I promise,” I whisper, flattening her hair against her head.
“I saved half for you,” she says.
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small hunk of bread. I wondered once again how long I’d been out - how long she’d been living off of a small piece of stolen bread.
I split the piece in half.
“Thank you, Cora,” I tell her, eating my half and offering her the other.
“No, it’s for you,” she insists, shaking her head.
But I can see in her gaunt eyes the hunger.
“I’m not so hungry. I promise - I won’t even eat all this.”
She looks at me, unsure. I continue to hold it out for her with a smile. Finally, she reaches out and takes it. She brings the bread to her mouth and eats.
Relief floods through me. Cora is just a child. She needs bread more than I do. Besides, when I regain my strength, I’ll find a solid solution for us. I have to.
Quinn
“Fuck Mr. Valez!” I screamed before taking the handle of peach vodka straight to the face.
“Fuck Mrs. Lloyd,” Kylee yelled, reaching her hand for the bottle.
We were on our weekly stomp, birthday edition. The three of us roamed the dark sidewalks, fueled by alcohol and adolescence. My nose throbbed from the piercing, but Elaina had gotten the vodka to “help the pain and kill the germs” in her words. She’d even paid her cousin to get the fancy flavored stuff - peach was my personal favorite.
“Fuck the guy at the tattoo shop who carded me when I tried to get a butterfly tattoo on my ass!” Elaina yelled, taking a long swig afterwards.
We burst into laughter, doubling over in our buzzed state. I wrapped my arms around both of their necks and squeezed their heads to mine, feeling the love for my childhood friends so deeply I could cry.
“Get the FUCK off my street before I called the cops!” A man screamed at us from his window before slamming in shut. The response only made us giggle harder, and we sauntered away, arms still tangled around each other. We walked like that for a while, enjoying the silence and drink that warmed our veins and soothed our minds. It wasn’t until we were at the golden gates of The Kingdom that I realized Elaina had been the one leading us.
“Ugh, really Elaina?” I moaned as she smiled at me.
“Yes, Quinn, come on! This could be your chance to break the spell!” she sang, almost pleading.
“It’s such a stupid legend,” I said, looking towards Kylee to back me up.
“It’s tradition!” Elaina said, as though that made her more convincing, “Please Quinn, just try it!”
I looked at Kylee again who just shrugged as if to say why the hell not? Elaina looked at me with puppy-dog eyes.
“Ugh, fine,” I said in a huff, “But if I get herpes from kissing that statue, I will actually kill you.”
“You can’t get herpes from kissing a rock,” Kylee snorted.
“Whatever. Let’s do it,” I said, the alcohol giving me the confidence I needed for breaking and entering, “Do you have a plan?”
“Of course, silly!” Elaina said.
*****
We each took turns downing the rest of the vodka before shimmying up the tree. Elaina went first, which was unlike her. She was usually the least adventurous of the three of us, but the idea of love and fairytales and princes must have really excited her. She got high enough in the maple tree that she was able to inch across the long branches and finally over the golden fence.
Kylee quickly followed, a rebellious twinkle in her eyes. When it was my turn, I reached for the lowest branch of the tree, and then stumbled back. My head spun a bit and I knew I’d overdone it with the vodka.
“You alright?” Kylee asked, landing on the other side of the fence?
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“Peachy,” I said, laughing at my own pun.
I tried again, reaching for the first branch and hoisting myself up, higher and higher until I could work my way over the tall golden rungs of the fence. I shimmied to the end of the branch and hung down. My friends cleared the way and I released the tree, landing softly on the grass. The world spun again.
“Whoa there,” Elaina laughed, grabbing my shoulder and steadying me.
“You good?” Kylee asked.
“Great,” I said determinedly, “let’s go kiss a prince.”
We walked through the shadows of the towering mansions, avoiding the street lights and passing cars. It was past 11, so most of the windows in the houses were dark. The silence was eerie and every leaf we crunched seemed to echo through the streets. It felt wrong to be on this side of the gates. We were intruders of the east side - low-class tumors who didn’t belong. The grass was too green here, and our own sneakers too worn.
Silently, we approached the biggest and most ornate house in the community. It stood three stories high with a driveway that circled from the street, to the front steps, and back to the street. Large marble pillars stood proudly on the front porch, guarding the arched wooden double doors that were taller than my house alone. There were no cars in the driveway, but they most likely were stored in the four-car garage at the side of the mansion. The manicured lawn was cartoonish - the shrubs shaved into perfect circles and each blade of glass seemingly cut to be the same length as the one next to it.
The house of Mr. and Mrs. Ellroy.
We may not have had much insight into the lives of the East Siders, but everyone knew the Ellroys. The richest family in The Kingdom also happened to own the very historical artifact we were there to see.
Kylee let out a low whistle as she stared up at the beautiful monstrosity that was their house. Elaina grabbed both of our hands and pulled us around the house into the backyard. I knew I was tainting the perfect lawn with my dirt crusted Vans.
Behind the rather modern looking house stood perhaps one of the oldest pieces of architecture on either side of Fairview. The tomb was made out of deep gray stone, crumbling and covered in a light layer of deep green moss.
“In there!” Elaina whisper-yelled.
I cringed, afraid any noise might wake the owners and set off an alarm. I let out a sigh of relief when the windows stayed dark and the night stayed quiet. Maybe rich people were a little too trusting of their property. If I owned anything of value, I would guard the shit out of it.
Elaina entered the tomb first and quickly activated the flashlight in her phone. Kylee and I followed suit. The air instantly turned colder as we stepped through the stone arches and into a dank and musty tunnel.
“Shit, this is really creeping me out,” Kylee whispered, barely audible.
“Don’t be a baby,” Elaina hissed, but a glimpse of her face told me she was just as unsure in this moment as Kylee and I.
The stone hall took us farther into the tomb, and when I was sure we were out of sight and earshot of the mansion, I said, “Damn Elaina, where were these balls when we snuck into your neighbor’s pool last summer?”
Kylee burst into laughter that echoed off the walls. Elaina and I joined in, the alcohol making us momentarily forget that we were moving deeper and deeper into an ancient tomb. Only for a moment. The silence returned quickly, broken only by our shaky breathing.
“There he is!” Elaina said excitedly, rushing ahead. Kylee and I looked at each other and then quickly followed her, not wanting to be one person short in this creepy space. When we caught up to her, Elaina was standing over the supposedly slumbering statue.
“He’s beautiful,” Elaina whispered, pretending to run her fingers through his solid stone hair.
“He’s a rock,” Kylee said.
“He wasn’t always a rock though, Kylee,” Elaina retorted.
“Oh shut up. If you keep believing these stupid small-town myths, you’re going to end up just like the rest of the old bats who never leave this place,” Kylee said, “Er… no offense to your boyfriend’s mom, Quinn.”
“Definitely not by boyfriend,” I muttered, frowning. But Kylee was right about Jamie’s mom - she was a town believer.
“Kylee, just because you’re already a contemptuous cunt at 17 doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be,” Elaina sniffed. I could smell an argument brewing.
“Alright, alright Elaina,” I said, ending the fight before it could start, “I’ll kiss the royal majesty. Shots first though.”
I smiled deviously at them before pulling 3 airplane bottles of rum out of my pocket. I tossed one to Kylee and one to Elaina.
“You goddamn alcoholic,” Kylee laughed, shaking her head. Nevertheless, she untwisted her bottle cap.
I did the same, and held my small bottle over the statue’s chest. Kylee and Elaina met me in the middle for a toast.
“To the fucking prince! May he reawaken after 300 years and rescue me from this shithole of a town!” I said.
“And to you, Quinn!” Kylee quickly added, “Happy Birthday!”
“To Quinn and the Prince,” Elaina agreed, tapping each of our bottles before chugging her’s in one gulp.
Kylee and I followed suit and then threw the empty, plastic bottles over our shoulders. We weren’t usually ones for littering, but our shared contempt for those who owned this tomb combined with the large amount of alcohol consumed outweighed our best judgment
“Ugh, gross - I hate dark rum,” Eliana complained, choking.
“Same,” I coughed, “It was all I could find in the beast’s liquor cabinet.”
“Alright, can you kiss this thing already? I’m freezing my ass off,” Kylee said, shoving her hands in her pockets.
I shot her a devious smile before leaning into the statue. I stared at its stone face for a moment, taking in the elegant details. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly smiling. He really looked like a prince from the cartoons I’d grown up watching on VHS. Whatever artist made this statue must have been incredibly talented. It would have sold for millions if it had been left in the hands of the west side.
Unfortunately for us, the statue had been a family heirloom to the Ellroy family for hundreds of years. And for as long as it’s been around, female peasants from the west side like us have been sneaking into this tomb on our 18th birthdays and kissing it. I have no idea how this tradition started, but girl after girl has snuck in here hoping to break the spell and bring the prince back to life.
For some girls like Elaina, kissing the prince was a right of passage into adulthood. It was something to look forward to, a tiny glimmer of hope in their bleak lives. Perhaps magic was real. Perhaps true love existed, and there really was someone out there that could break a witch’s curse and bring him back to life. But to me - whose outlook was probably more similar to Kylee’s than Elaina’s at this moment - it was all a bunch of BS.
Elaina and Kylee fell silent as I slowly touched my mouth to the prince’s stone cold lips. They were rough and hard, not like any human lips and definitely not something I wanted to be touching for an extended period of time. I quickly pulled away, wiping whatever dirt might have been on it with the back of my hand. I looked down at him again for a moment, and then back up at Elaina and Kylee who watched him expectantly.
“Really, Kylee? You, too?” I asked.
“What? A girl can dream can’t she?” Kylee said defensively.
“Well,” I said, touching his stone chest, “He’s still as rocky and dead as twelve seconds ago. Let’s get out of here, I’m tired.”
I turned to go, but Elaina stayed in place, eyes still boring down on the statue. Kylee rolled her eyes and stomped towards the exit. I threw my arm around Elaina, gently pulling her away from it.
“Don’t worry, maybe it’s meant to be you! Your birthday’s only a few months away. We’ll try again then,” I said, “Besides, you’re much more fit for a prince than I am.”
Elaina shook her head and looked up at me, “Thanks for humoring me.”
“It was fun! Thanks for the birthday adventure.”
I kissed her on the cheek and pulled her ahead, meeting up with Kylee and grabbing her hand as well. We once again burst into giggles as we ran out of the tomb and to the safety of the west side.
*****
My phone vibrated just as I climbed into bed that night. The text from Jamie read You still down for your birthday present?
I sighed and rolled on my side. A night with Jamie didn’t sound as enticing as usual. Plus, the alcohol was coaxing me into sleep. With one eye open, squinting at the brightness of my screen, I texted back It’s past midnight, birthday over. I’ll see you at school tm.