Page 17 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
I saw an absence of color, so that I might see exactly what was. I saw a gift of haze that could grant me the absolute truth of myself and all matters. I saw the essence of my power in the tower here.
I saw the making of me in fifty mothers. “You are just a king and not meant to understand such a place.”
Whatever he responded with was surely unimportant, and so I did not wait to hear it. I gathered my tunic tighter to my body, then stepped into the hellebore grave. King Change was dragged through behind me.
Soon enough—too simply and impossibly and magnificently for all I had experienced in the haze—I was back in a world of monsters and kings.
Of brides and queens
Of skull and shackle.
I inhaled my queendom, and did not shoo away the vibration in my heart as my queendom purred and wiggled in greeting. “I have missed you too.”
A yelling King Change was ejected from the grave.Goodness.Undone, more and more.
He landed heavily in the middle of the courtyard, not far from where Life was drinking water from his trough.
Of course, the king’s yelling could only draw the attention of pawns, who served to protect my queendom. And yelling could only startle princesses into action because they were champions of my queendom. Yelling would, of course, gather the attention of simple monsters, too, who existed to observe my queendom in a way I never could nor would.
Monsters arrived in ones or twos and threes, whether to lurk in the growing shadows of the courtyard or to lean over the balustrades to look down upon it. They gasped, they shouted, and they burst into tears.
Joy.
How grateful I was to sense their joy, though fear or animosity would not have stopped me.
I relaxed my grip on the tunic to give Princess Bring more scratching space.
“Dear monsters,” I called. “Your queen has returned. Who do you serve?”
Oddly enough, while I had often struggled to adjust the magnitude of the power in my voice to a level that other monsters could tolerate, I no longer had to consciously do so. I knew without thought how muchmeI should let free. So I let out that amount of my power. Just enough to fill each and every one of their senses without obliterating their minds.
Simple monsters knelt immediately. Two knees, and no less, though in some instances a blob and haunch must suffice. Pawns knelt soon after, and princesses a whisper afterthem. Princess Change was the last to kneel, and she did not do so by choice, but because my power was undeniable, as was my fate. She had managed to stand in the way of a broken queen, but she could not stand in the way of a complete one.
Her eyes fixed on her king, who was growling terribly and rising to his feet. In this world of color and monsters, he felt braver. But a king would never forget the haze.
“Come, King Change,” I thought on the air, and some of the present monsters shuddered as my words swirled around them like a breeze.
I walked to the stairs, and when King Change followed in my wake, the loudest gasp of all arose from his princess of ruin.Subserviencein a king determined to destroy monsters and the world?
They mistook subservience for agreement. King Change did not need to share my views in order to recognize my power.
Mother pushed a large glass bowl up through cobblestones, and I eased Baby Bring inside, sand and all.
“Take her for now,” I murmured, and Mother drew our little princess down into the safety of her keeping.
I walked up the stairs, tuning out all that my ears and eyes and skin and nose wished to tell me.
Obsession must be tidied up. I had left three kings shackled and stitched to the copper panels of my conservatory. Pawns had returned the panels from King See’s gothic palace. For upon returning from the grave, I had heard the snicker of King Take and the interested hum of King Raise. I had heard the heavy sigh of King Bring, who must be filled with regret and guilt.
Though I had shut off my senses to focus on the matter at hand, I could not shut off my heart. And so, I knew thathewas up there, too, standing in place but unshackled. Our hearts beat in tandem—mine in truth, and his in betrayal and usurpation. Which answered a tiny question formed in the haze about whether ancients would grant me mercy and sever my heartbeatfrom his. They may have seen fit to return Adalina to life in death, but that would be all.
King See was in my conservatory, ready to be shackled. He must have sensed the immensity of my power and hastily decided to surrender and submit without challenge and battle. He was a rat in flood waters, hoping to survive until he might claw his way to safety.
But I was glad he had not run. I did not wish to hunt him right now.
I glided into the conservatory in my queenly version of a walk. “King Change, kindly return to your place.”
King Take’s eyes bugged as my order was obeyed.
