Shimmer

He was delusional.

Insane.

Living in some made-up fantasy world that existed only in his head—a world where princes dressed in rags and lived in shacks. Fully convinced he was some kind of royalty, when in fact, from what I could see, he was anything but. And apparently I’d been just dumb enough, just desperate enough for him to almost succeed in convincing me too.

I started to bolt, eager to get myself the heck out of there, when he turned, held his hands cupped before him, and offered me some kind of tea he’d just brewed.

I rose up on my tiptoes and peered at the dark, steaming liquid in the small yellow cup—saw the way the small bits of leaf clung to each other and collected around the edges. My eyes narrowing in suspicion as every warning I’d ever heard about the dangers of taking candy from strangers, especially completely wacko, psycho strangers, came back to haunt me. (Never mind the fact that my being dead ensured I could no longer be harmed in that way.)

“Take it.” He thrust it upon me as he reached for a cup of his own. Lowering himself onto the blue patterned cushion in one quick, fluid move, he patted the orange one with the large starburst design just beside it. “Now sit,” he commanded.

I knew better.

Knew I should take that opportunity to get myself the heck out of there. Take advantage of my proximity to the entry and just hit it while I could.

But instead, for some inexplicable reason, I found myself sitting right down beside him. Obediently crossing my legs as I held the warm cup in my hands.

He blew on the liquid, probably more out of habit and ritual than actual necessity, gazing out at those turquoise waters for what seemed like a very long time. Gazing at the sea for so long I was starting to get more than a little bit antsy. Starting to get more than a little annoyed with the whole situation. Sure that there was no way some dumb Mad Hatter–style tea party could do anything toward helping me free my friends. If anything, it was the exact opposite—it was all amounting to a big waste of time.

And I was just about to express those feelings when he looked at me and said, “Drink.” Probably figuring since I’d already gone along with his earlier commands, I’d just blindly go along with that too.

But I was done being bossed around. Done being treated like one of his royal subjects, and I was just about to start making a few demands of my own when he turned, looked me right in the eye, and said it again.

“Drink.”

I tried to break his gaze, but couldn’t.

Tried to get to my feet and get myself out of there, but I couldn’t do that either.

It was as though his eyes were holding me captive, paralyzed, in the strangest of ways. And the more I tried to fight it, the more I realized just how useless it was.

The word came at me again:

Drink.

His stare deepening as he plucked a loose thread from his robe and dropped it right into my cup.

And even though the sight of it disgusted me, even though I made my disgust known by shouting out “Ew!”—even though not one single part of me actually consented to the act—my hands somehow magically lifted, rose from my lap to my mouth, where I tilted the cup, brought it to my parted lips, and allowed the liquid to seep out.

Drink.

The word swirling, repeating, clouding my head, my vision, my will—until the cup fell from my fingers, drained of its contents, and my body collapsed to the ground.

10

I was surrounded by mist. Thick, white, shimmering mist. My eyes squinting, straining, striving to see my way past it, vaguely aware of some place I needed to be just on the other side of it.

Some important destination he urged me to reach.

I pushed forward, my hands sweeping before me, trying to clear the space by batting away all the haze. My first few attempts yielded no success whatsoever; in fact, if anything, they just seemed to make the fog grow thicker, but then, little by little, it began to fade away until I found myself standing before a simple, but still rather impressive, castle, like a fortress with a sturdy stone wall all around it.

“Is this it? Is this what you wanted me to see?” I glanced over my shoulder at Prince Kanta, seeing him nod in reply.

And there was something about the way he observed it, something about the way his eyes creased, the way his throat bobbed just a little—something about the way he held himself so silent and still—that told me that to him anyway, this was more than some random old palace we’d just stumbled upon.

His face wore an expression I knew all too well.

It was the same expression I sometimes wore when I snuck into the Viewing Room back in the Here & Now, where I hunkered down in one of those curtained off cubicles, sat on one of those hard metal stools, punched in my desired location, and watched the daily goings-on of my sister and friends back home on the earth plane.

It was the look of resolved longing.

The kind of look you get when you realize that the one thing you loved most in the world can never be yours.

“So, you really were a prince.” I looked at him with a renewed sense of awe along with a good dose of guilt. Feeling terrible for still having not learned my lesson about judging by appearances and choosing to doubt him based purely on his clothes and the hut he chose to live in. But still, it’s not like I could really be blamed for the verdict when all the evidence so clearly pointed against him.

“I was indeed.” He nodded, turning his back to the scene. “I was indeed.”

He waved at me then, started to lead us away, but after working so hard to get there, I wasn’t quite ready to ditch it so soon.

“That’s it?” My brow quirked as I tilted my head and threw my hands up by my sides. “You seriously went to all the trouble of drugging me with your special tea, only so you could give me a quick peek at some old castle then try to convince me to leave? Because excuse me for saying so, but it seems like the least you could do after putting me through all of that is to give me a tour, show me around a bit. At least get me past the big gate, I mean— sheesh!”

I started to shake my head, started to roll my eyes, not quite completing the loop before he said, “There is plenty more to see, trust me on that.” His large dark eyes bore down on mine. “But there is nothing more to see here. This place no longer exists. It’s been gone for many centuries now. You must understand, Riley, that everything on the earth plane is impermanent. Every. Thing. The only thing you can ever count on in the physical world is change. Change is the only constant there is.”

He raised his hand high and pointed to something just past my shoulder. And I turned to find the sky that just a moment ago had been hazy but clear, turned thick with smoke, while the place where the palace once stood was reduced to a pile of rubble and dust, as the ground just beneath ran red with blood.

“We were invaded,” he told me, his voice steady and sure. And when I looked at him again, I noticed that the tattered old rags had returned, replacing the elegant tunic he’d manifested earlier. “As a result, I ended up here.”

“On the island?” I scrunched up my nose, surprised to find myself suddenly returned to the beach once again. Only it was different. Different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

He nodded, wordlessly pointing toward a very large house on a hill. A big, looming plantation-style home—like the kind you see in movies or in textbooks—which while not near as big as the palace he’d just shown me, still held a fair amount of square footage from what I could tell.

I glanced between Prince Kanta and the house, knowing it was supposed to mean something, symbolize