The Lost Queen Read online

  The interview with Mr. Cox wasn’t so bad; she got the expected lecture on responsible behavior and thinking before acting, but it was tempered by the fact that everyone seemed happy to believe that her apparent brainstorm had been due to the trauma of the accident.

  With a final comment that she should report any after-effects—headaches and suchlike—she was let out of the principal’s office and, after seeing her father off, she steeled herself to endure the curiosity of her classmates.

  It wasn’t as bad as she had feared, and as soon as it became clear that she had nothing to say about the lost three days beyond what she had already told Jade and the others, people soon got bored and left her alone.

  At morning break she managed to slip away and see Edric. He was waiting for her around the dogleg bend of a staircase that led down to disused storerooms.

  He had a similar tale to tell: His interview with the principal had focused on the dangers of overconfidence, especially when his mistakes could lead others into potential danger—a very obvious reference to the boat crash. He was also officially warned to watch his step so far as “Anita” was concerned; the principal told him that Mr. and Mrs. Palmer had forbidden her to have anything to do with him outside school, and asked him to respect their wishes and not make things more difficult than they already were.

  As had happened with Tania, questions from his classmates had quickly dried up when he made it clear that there were no secrets to tell.

  Tania drew back her sleeve and showed him the ribbon bracelet with the black amber stone on it.

  “Snap!” he said, smiling as he pulled up his sleeve and revealed his own stone, threaded on a slender strip of black cord.

  “Do you think I’ll be permanently sensitive to metal?” she asked. “Or might it wear off now that I’m back?”

  “I don’t know,” Edric said, taking her hand. “But I wouldn’t risk it, if I were you. Not unless you like pain.”

  “No, you’re probably right.” She squeezed his hand and rested her head on his shoulder. It was good to have him close again, even if only for a few stolen minutes.

  “Your parents not wanting us to see each other is going to be tricky,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Tell me about it.” Tania sighed. “You wouldn’t think I was a Faerie Princess, would you? They said that if I behave, they’ll think about it again in a month or so.”

  “I’d hoped we could start the search for Queen Titania sooner than that,” Edric said.

  “So did I, but I don’t see how we can,” Tania said. “They’re going to be watching me like hawks for a while. I’m not going to be able to sneak off without them noticing, and I don’t want to have to start telling lies about where I’m going and what I’m doing.”

  “Of course not,” Edric said, lifting his hand to stroke her hair. “It must be really difficult for you. But the trail will go cold if we leave it too long. The only clue we have so far is that your Soul Book was sent from Richmond. I don’t think a package of that size could have been put into a postbox, so I’m hoping it had to be mailed from a post office.”

  Tania nodded, closing her eyes, enjoying the sensation of his hand gently stroking her hair. “Good thinking,” she murmured.

  “I went into the computer room this morning and got on to the Internet,” Edric continued. “There are only two post offices in Richmond: one north of the Thames, and the other south.”

  “That narrows it down.”

  “Exactly. I thought that if we could go there as soon as possible, there’s a chance of someone remembering the Queen—after all, she’s pretty striking to look at, isn’t she?”

  Tania lifted her head and looked at him. “She looks exactly the same as me,” she said. “Just older, I suppose.”

  Edric nodded. “And look at you, with your incredible hair and that face and those stunning eyes. No one who saw you would forget you in a hurry.”

  Tania stifled a self-conscious giggle. “I don’t know if I’m that special to look at.”

  “Yes you are,” Edric said. “And I’m not just saying that because of how I feel about you. You’re amazing looking!”

  “But Titania has been here for five hundred years,” Tania said. “I know Faeries live forever, but surely she’d look a bit…well, old. You know, gray-haired and wrinkly and so on.”

  Edric smiled and took both her hands. “You don’t get it yet, do you? We don’t get old—not the way mortals do. There’s no reason why the Queen shouldn’t still look exactly the same as she did when she first came here.” A distant gaze came into his eyes. “I remember the last time I saw her,” he said. “At the Feast of the White Hart—a week before you vanished and everything went wrong.” He held Tania’s face between his hands. “She was almost as beautiful as you,” he said. “Not quite—but almost.”

  A wave of emotion swept over Tania and she rested her forehead against his. “Oh, Edric,” she said. “What am I going to do without you for a whole month?”

  “You won’t be without me,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be right here, and even if we can’t see each other as much as we’d like we can speak on the phone and text and so on. It won’t be so bad. Besides, I’m used to being patient—we all had to learn patience in Faerie over the last five hundred years.”

  She sighed. “I wonder what I’ve been doing over the last five hundred years? It’s very weird, knowing I’ve been alive for all that time but not having any clue who I was or what I did.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “How I died. Or even how often I died.”

  “You don’t need to think about that now,” Edric said. “Let’s think about the future—about finding Titania.”

  Tania snapped out of her dark thoughts. “Okay,” she said. “So, we hope someone in a Richmond post office will remember her, but even if they do, where does that get us, precisely?”

  “It gives us an idea of where in Richmond to start searching,” Edric said. “If we assume she’d go to the post office nearest to where she lives or works then we can start asking around in local shops and offices. But if we wait too long before starting the search there’ll be less chance of someone remembering her, and then we’ll have twice as much work to do.”

  “Yes, I see that,” Tania said. “Tell you what—I’ll do my best to get away on Saturday. If I can convince my parents there’s a rehearsal without having to tell too many lies, we can meet up and go over there for a few hours.”

  The bell sounded for the end of morning break.

  “See you at rehearsal this afternoon,” he said.

  She nodded. As she started up the stairs, his voice spoke softly behind her.

  “Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow…”

  She turned and smiled at him. “That’s Juliet’s line,” she said.

  “I know. I couldn’t resist it.”

  “You know what you are, don’t you?” she said as she climbed the stairs.

  “Edric Chanticleer, a courtier of the Royal Palace of Faerie, once servant of the traitor Gabriel Drake, now loyal to the Royal Family of Oberon before all others?”

  “No, you’re just a crazy romantic fool.”

  The after-school rehearsal in the assembly hall went well.

  Tania sat with the play script on her lap, reminding herself of her lines between watching the stage as Mrs. Wiseman guided Edric and another boy through the tricky actions of one of the big sword fights.

  “The important thing is to make it look real,” Mrs. Wiseman said, brandishing Romeo’s sword. “But without anyone getting their eye poked out! Okay, Evan, you take over now, and remember what I told you about posture and balance.”

  “I’ll try,” Edric said, taking the sword.

  He practiced a few fencing stances, thrusting the plastic-tipped rapier out at arm’s length, then made a swiveling motion of his wrist that sent the blade spinning in a circle. The boy playing Tybalt stared at the whipping blade, his own sword trailing on the fl
oor.

  “Oh! Very good, Evan!” Mrs. Wiseman said. “You’ve had lessons, haven’t you?”

  Edric gave an apologetic grin. “A while ago. Just a few.”

  Tania smiled. A few? Like five hundred years’ worth. Learning how to use a sword was a perfectly normal part of Faerie education for both boys and girls.

  His eyes met Tania’s and he winked.

  An hour or so later their rehearsal time was up and everyone got ready to leave.

  “Next rehearsal is on Monday after school,” Mrs. Wiseman called. “That gives you all weekend to polish up those lines. I expect the lot of you to be word perfect when I see you next.”

  There was no time for Tania and Edric to be alone, and after a brief and frustratingly public good-bye, Edric slipped out of a side entrance to avoid Tania’s father, who was parked out front waiting for her.

  “How did it go?” her father asked. “Any problems?”

  “None at all,” Tania said as her father started the car.

  He didn’t ask about Edric as they drove home, and she didn’t offer any comment, either. Best to let sleeping dogs lie, she thought.

  “Everyone involved with the play is going on a field trip to the Globe Theatre next week,” she told him.

  “Oh, yes?” he said. “That’s the place on the Thames, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. It’s supposed to be an exact replica of the theatre that stood there in Elizabethan times, when Shakespeare’s plays were first being performed. Mrs. Wiseman thinks it’ll inspire us to perform better if we have a look at the real thing.”

  “Sounds like fun,” her father said. “And speaking of fun, your mum telephoned the owners of that cottage in Tintagel that we went to last summer. We’ve booked it from Monday week for a fortnight. What do you think?”

  “Sounds great,” Tania said, carefully hiding her dismay at this suggestion; a family holiday was going to be yet another barrier between her and the search for Titania.

  “So Mrs. Wiseman wasn’t annoyed with you for going awol, then?” her father asked.

  “No, she just made a few pointed remarks about working with prima donnas and then got on with the rehearsal.”

  “I suppose you’ll need to do some extra sessions to catch up, though?”

  “I expect so.”

  “Does she want you to go in tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow was Saturday, the day she and Edric hoped to slip away to Richmond.

  Tania looked apologetically at her father. He had given her the perfect opportunity to avoid a direct lie. “There is some stuff that needs doing,” she said. “Would you mind driving me over here about ten o’clock in the morning?”

  “No problem,” he said. “And when you’re done, just give me a call and I’ll come and pick you up again.”

  “There’s no need. I can find my own way home.”

  “I don’t think so,” her father said firmly. “I’ll pick you up from the school, okay?”

  Tania nodded.

  “By the way,” her father said, changing the subject in a very obvious way. “What happened to that book? You know, that nice old leather-bound book that we took into the hospital for your birthday, the one sent by your mysterious benefactor.”

  Tania knew exactly where the book was. It had been put back in its proper place in the Great Library in the Faerie palace—standing on a shelf between the Soul Books of her sister Rathina and of her uncle, the Earl Marshal Cornelius.

  “Don’t worry,” Tania said, gazing out of the car window. “I put it somewhere safe.”

  IV

  It took Tania and Edric an hour on the Underground to get from Camden to Richmond. They came up to ground level in a crowded main street with wide pavements lined with black railings.

  It was a relief for Tania to be out of the claustrophobic swelter of the tube train, but even out on the streets, the Saturday crowds hemmed her in as she walked hand in hand with Edric toward the first of the post offices that he had found on the Internet.

  It turned out to be a busy main branch with a steady stream of customers coming and going through the double swing doors.

  “There must be about fifty people waiting,” Tania said gloomily, peering through the doors. “We’ll be here all day.”

  “Don’t join the queue,” Edric suggested, holding open one of the doors for her. “Go straight up to a counter and ask to speak to the manager.”

  “If you say so.” Tania slid between the racks of greetings cards and stationery and made her way up to the first counter. A woman was being served.

  Tania fixed a friendly smile on her face. “Excuse me,” she said to the customer. “Could I interrupt for a moment?” The woman gave her a blank look. Tania turned her smile on the clerk behind the glass partition. “Would it be possible to speak with the manager, please?”

  “Just a moment.” The man slid off his chair and went into a back room. Tania gave the woman at the counter an apologetic look. “Sorry about this,” she said.

  The clerk came back. He pointed to a closed door at the far end. “She’ll meet you there,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Tania said.

  She circled the long queue and came to a security door that could be opened only by pressing out a code number on a keypad.

  “Fingers crossed,” Edric said, joining her.

  “I’ve got everything crossed,” Tania replied.

  After about a minute the door opened and a small, plump Asian woman looked out at them with a questioning smile. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” Tania said. “I know this is going to sound weird, but I think my mother was here a few days ago. She posted a parcel: a large book. It was going to an address in Camden.”

  The manager looked puzzled. “Yes?”

  “The thing is,” Tania continued, “my mum looks just like me—red hair and green eyes—so I was kind of hoping that one of your staff might remember serving her.”

  The manager gave her an incredulous look. “Do you have any idea how many customers pass through these doors every week?”

  “Quite a few, I should imagine,” Tania said with a weak laugh.

  “Hundreds,” the woman said. “And you want us to remember one in particular? I don’t think so. Why don’t you just ask your mother about the parcel if there’s a problem?”

  “I would,” Tania said hesitantly, “but Mum’s gone…gone away…and…and the parcel never arrived and I’m worried that it might have got lost in the post.”

  The manager rolled her eyes. “You want a lost parcels form,” she said, pointing to a rack of forms. “Fill it in and hand it over at the counter. We’ll do what we can.” With a brief nod of her head the woman stepped back through the door and closed it with a sharp click.

  In silence they made their way back onto the street.

  “It was a bit of a long shot, I suppose,” Edric said. “And there’s still the other branch.” He pulled an A–Z map out of his pocket. “It’s in St. Margaret’s Road, on the other side of the river.”

  “I need something to drink first,” Tania said, pointing across the street to a sandwich bar. “Let’s try in there.”

  The bar had a long narrow interior decorated in bright blue and white tiles. Along one side was a glass-topped counter lined with cakes and filled baguettes, and on the other side were rows of wooden tables. Most of the tables were already occupied, but Tania managed to find an empty one near the back while Edric joined the line.

  A minute or two later Edric slid into the chair opposite her, placing a tray on the table. He handed her a tall cup topped with brown foam.

  “We can’t take too long,” he said as she stirred her coffee. “Post offices only stay open till one o’clock on Saturdays, and it’s already gone twelve.”

  As she drank, Tania became aware that a young woman dressed in a black-and-white waitress uniform was staring at her from the end of the counter.

  Tania met her gaze. The waitress smiled and walked over to their
table.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I have to ask—has your mother ever been in here?”

  “My mother?”

  “There was a woman in here a week or so ago and she had exactly the same hair color as you—that really fabulous glowing red.” She looked more closely at Tania. “In fact, you look exactly like her! She was very well dressed in a designer business suit and with really classy salon makeup. That’s her, isn’t it?”

  Tania’s heart was pounding with sudden exhilaration. “Yes,” she said. “I think it probably is.”

  “I knew it!” said the waitress. “I never forget a face.”

  “Did you catch her name?” Edric asked, and Tania could hear the excitement welling up in his voice.

  “Her name?” the waitress echoed, sounding confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “How did she pay?” Tania prompted. “Did she use a card?”

  The waitress frowned. “Cash, I think. I remember her sitting at that table over there. She had a briefcase with her and a large brown envelope—you know, one of those big padded ones. She was writing the address on it.” She smiled again. “Sorry, I’d better go and earn my keep. I love your hair, though. I’m totally envious!”

  Tania and Edric sat staring at each other.

  “It was her,” Tania said. “She was in here last week—with the book.” She put her hand to her chest. “Edric, she was here! We’ve found her. Now all we have to do is ask around the neighborhood, in shops and restaurants—everywhere. Someone must know who she is and where she lives.”

  She broke off as her cell phone chimed. She scooped it out of her bag. “Uh-oh. It’s home,” she said, looking at the lit-up screen. She pressed a button. “Hello?”

  “Hello, dear.” Her mother’s voice. “Your dad and I are going out to do a bit of shopping soon, and as we’ll be near the school, we thought we might as well stop off there on the way back. How much longer do you think you’re going to be?”

  “I’m not sure—a little while yet.”