How to Rescue a Dead Princess

A bright light surrounded Sir William for a moment, then faded.

“You turned him to stone!” Randall gasped.

“Plated with pewter. He won't be going anywhere. Too bad he had such a ridiculous expression on his face— otherwise I might've been able to get a good price for the statue. Follow me.”

Randall followed her around the corner into an area filled with all manner of books and reagents for spells. There were also cobwebs to add a touch of atmosphere. Demon Baby walked by, holding a broom and a new sack, and looked jealously at Randall.

“In here,” said the witch, opening a door disguised as a door-shaped stack of books with a doorknob protruding from them. She let Randall enter first, then shut the door behind them, casting them into complete darkness.

“Be careful,” she said. “Watch out for the floor spikes. And cobras.”

“I'll just stay put.”

A soft light without a visible source began to glow at the other end of the room, illuminating the bed. A very lumpy bed that seemed to be adorned with various torture devices.

“Something's moving inside the pillows,” Randall noted.

“I like to keep the feathers as fresh as possible.”

She moved past him and sat down on the edge of the bed. She began to seductively massage her earlobes. “Come here,” she purred.

Randall sat down next to her. She gently placed her hand on his knee. “Ooooooh,” she said. “That's a nice, firm kneecap you've got there.”

“Thank you.”

“Randall, sweetie, why don't you tell me a little about yourself?”

“Well, I'm five-foot-six, twenty-two years old, brown hair, hazel eyes, and have my mother's chin.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Occasionally.”

“Have you ever loved so deeply that you just walked around all day with a retarded grin on your face? Have you ever loved to such a great extent that the mere sight of them made your internal organs completely rearrange themselves?”

“No,” Randall admitted. “My love was more of a ‘Hey, she's cute, too bad I annoy her,’ kind of deal.”

Grysh stared off into space for a moment, then wiped a tear from her eye. “Have you ever loved somebody, and then lost them forever?”

“There's going to be a revelation here, right?”

“His name was Romeoo. A stable boy, not too bright, poor posture. But I loved him the way the King of McNaughton used to love pomegranates.”

“I remember the King of McNaughton,” said Randall. “He was a few kingdoms away from us, but we kept hearing about his pomegranate obsession. Non-stop. Pomegranate, pomegranate, pomegranate. I mean, give it a rest, man!”

“Our love was as far-reaching as the ocean, and just as wet. But, our families hated each other, for they were God-fearing, simple folk, and we were a coven of witches offering frequent sacrifices to the Dark One.

“We wanted to run away together, but knew we'd be discovered—unless my family thought that I was dead. So I obtained a vial of liquid that put me into a death-like trance. The funeral was quite nice, I'm told. The food was delicious and plentiful, the eulogy grammatically correct. And so I was carried down into the morgue to await my betrothed. But, alas, he had not been told of my scheme.”

There was a long pause.

“This is a good time to ask ‘what happened then?'” said Grysh.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you'd get to it on your own.”

“I was hoping you'd increase the dramatic tension.”

“My mistake. So, what happened then?”

Grysh sniffled. “I can't bring myself to tell the story. But I shall show you.”

She gestured, and a white rectangular box materialized in mid-air. An image began to form upon it.

“Behold the tale of doomed love...”

Chapter 8

A Slightly Shorter Chapter than the Previous One

THE IMAGE on the block began to move:

Grysh, in her non-hideous form, lay on a pedestal, in a death-like state. Romeoo, filled with big heaping gobs of pathos, stood over her.

“How oft when men are at the point of death have they been merry, which their keepers call a lightning before death?” he asked. “O, how may I call this a lightning? O, Grysh, my wife ... my darling ... my love bunny ... my passion slave ... thou art not conquered. Beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks and in thy knees.”

He thought about the situation for a moment. “You know, it almost seems as if you're in a pseudo-death brought about by drinking a very difficult to obtain, highly illegal and relatively expensive drug given to you by a religious figure that leaves you in a death-like state lasting for, say, two and forty hours after which you'll awaken, a little hung-over but otherwise all right to rejoin me so we can run away and buy that farmland we wanted. But that's silly.”

He sighed with so much drama that Randall felt his eyes begin to moisten.

“Ah, dear Grysh, why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, and the lean abhorred monster keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour?”

Romeoo shrugged, then thought that over.

“What the hell does that mean?” he asked himself, taking out a copy of Cliff's Notes and looking it up. Satisfied with the answer, he pocketed the book and returned his attention to Grysh. “Oh, Snookums, here, here will I remain with worms that are thy chambermaids.”

He brushed them off her.

“Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! Navel, do whatever it is you do! And lips, O you, the doors of death, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death!”

He began to lean toward her, then paused about an inch from her lips. “Wait a second—that's sick, she's dead!”

He stood up straight. “Now, with this poison...” he said, grabbing a bottle of booze, “...I shall join thee in thy grave.”

He drank it and grimaced. “Ugh, the fluid that would bring us together for eternal love doth taste like crap. Thy drugs are quick. With this, I die.”

He waited a moment. Nothing happened. He tapped his stomach, then glanced around the tomb while he waited. Checked his fingernails for dirt. Sighed loudly. Then grimaced in great pain. After a second, the pain ceased.

“Gas,” he muttered. “Forget it, I'm in a hurry.”

He took out a meat cleaver. “O, happy meat cleaver. This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die!” He twirled it in the air several times like a professional chef, then stabbed himself. “Ooh—that's gonna leave a mark,” he winced.

Then he died. It was fairly graceful, as such deaths go, with only a minor bit of gurgling and choking distracting from the mood.

The image faded, but the block remained, casting a dim light upon Randall and Grysh.

“Bummer,” said Randall.

“Truly. I revived him, but his anger ran deep, and he left, never to be seen again. Well, not by me, at least.”

“Bummer number two.”

“That is what love means to me,” she said. “Loss. Sorrow. Misery. Oh, if only somebody were to find my dear Romeoo and return him to me!”

Four shadows darted across the wall.

“But,” Grysh sighed, “that's probably not going to happen.”