In Another Life (10 page)

*

In Azriel time didn’t seem to exist in the same linear pattern which Marie was accustomed to. When she awoke in the princess’ chambers within the castle she struggled to remember how long she’d been there. Had it been a day, a week? Surely not a month. She couldn’t tell. She’d definitely be there for a considerable amount of time, more than just a day. Yet she struggled to remember when exactly she’d arrived and how much regulated time had passed since that moment.

Since her appearance in the throne room Azriel had started to grow right before her eyes. Each time she glanced out of the windows the golden spires of nearby buildings had shot up a couple of feet. The once empty vista beyond Azriel’s limits had even started to show signs of growth as small homes were beginning to be built and the saplings of what would once be great trees appeared.

“Azriel is growing, isn’t it?” Marie asked Orion over breakfast. He had become her constant companion, an unauthorized guide. Each time she woke, he was patiently waiting just beyond her chambers.

“You’ve noticed,” Orion smiled warmly. “It’s all thanks to you.”

The food in Azriel was not completely dissimilar to the food Marie enjoyed back home. They ate porridge and pancakes for breakfast, rice and vegetables for lunch and a rich soup for dinner. Everything tasted amazingly fresh. But there was no meat. Meat wasn’t even mentioned, it was as if it didn’t exist as a consumable in Azriel. When Marie asked Orion if he enjoyed eating chicken he looked perplexed as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

“You’re here a lot, with me,” Marie noted carefully as she dipped her mother of pearl spoon in to her porridge which had been flavoured with fresh blackberries. The taste of the oats against the sharp tang of the fruit was utterly delightful and she savoured each bite.

“Is that a problem?” Orion instantly stiffened and looked wounded by her words.

“No, no of course not. I like having you around. I just wonder,” Marie drew circles in her porridge.

“Don’t your family miss you?” Marie watched the blank expression upon Orion’s face with interest after she’d delivered the question.

“No,” Orion replied simply. “There is no greater honour than to assist the princess. They are very proud of me.”

“Oh,” Marie smiled. “That’s nice then.”

“Did you miss your family?” Orion turned the question back on her.

“Sorry?” the past tense threw Marie off. Surely he should wonder if she currently missed her family?

“When you were away,” Orion clarified. “Did you miss your family back here in Azriel? Did you even know what had befallen them?”

Marie shook her head. No matter how many times she said she’d never before heard of Azriel, everyone seemed inclined to not believe her, as if one day she’d turn around and declare that suddenly she remembered everything. She remained as clueless as she’d been when she first arrived in the mystical land.

“You still don’t remember anything, do you?” Orion looked disappointed.

“No,” Marie shrugged. “Nothing.”

“But you must be feeling something.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because Azriel is flourishing once more.” Orion’s eyes twinkled with delight and pride.

“You said the town would flourish once I was back.”

“It’s more than that,” Orion leaned forward as he spoke, holding Marie in his golden gaze.

“Your soul is tied to Azriel. As your soul strengthens, so does the town. You’re starting to believe that you belong here.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Marie moved her hand to dismiss the comment away as though it were a fly agitating her.

“Is it?”

Marie pondered Orion’s words for a moment. Ever since she had sat upon the throne something within her had changed, she couldn’t argue with that. She no longer felt like an alien within Azriel. A part of her felt like it belonged and it revelled in playing princess. But that was all she was doing, playing. She wasn’t their princess. She belonged somewhere else, didn’t she?

“I’m not a princess.” Marie concluded though her voice lacked conviction.

“Well, you certainly seem like one.”

*

A few hours later and Marie’s royal impersonation was put to the test when she was set to walk through the streets of Azriel whilst adoring citizens tossed basketfuls of rose petals in to the air which would cascade down upon her in a floral waterfall.

She was no longer wearing a multi-coloured dress. Instead she was dressed in a golden gown which swirled at her feet. Upon her feet she wore gold sandals and atop her head was placed a golden crown, made of the same golden branch design as the grand throne. Regarding her reflection in the mirror Marie had to admit that she looked like a princess. Her dark hair gleamed against the gold. Even her skin seemed to radiate as though some of the golden sparkle of the garment had been absorbed in to her very being.

It was surreal to take it all in. Marie twirled numerous times before the mirror, loving how her dress caught the light. Once she’d stopped spinning she paused to admire the crown upon her head. Oddly it fit her perfectly as though it had been specially made for her. Usually, whenever she tried hats on they would fall down over her ears as her head was quite small. But the crown didn’t slide down and block her view, it stayed perfectly in place.

The crown was quite heavy and Marie struggled to keep her head up whilst wearing it.

“You’ll get used to the weight,” Orion commented from his position sat on her bed.

“It’s pretty heavy,” Marie muttered dubiously, raising her hands to gently finger the intricate detail along the crown.

“The crone and the throne, they are made to look like the beanstalks, why is that?” Marie wondered, not expecting Orion to be able to provide the answer.

“The beanstalks represent ascension,” he crossed the room and came to stand behind her in the mirror, his breath fluttering against the bare skin of her neck as he spoke.

“And royalty also represent ascension. Royal blood allows for Azriel to grow up and be the greatest city it can be.”

Their eyes met in their reflection and Marie felt her heart begin to race. Orion’s expression was intense but unreadable as he looked at her. He was so close that Marie could smell the mint upon his breath, the scent of fire wood which clung slightly to his suit. Her breath caught in her chest when he placed his hands upon her hips.

Orion was impossibly handsome yet he didn’t carry himself with any sort of arrogance, not even a quiet confidence. If anything, Marie often found him to seem quite shy. But now he looked bold and self-assured. His eyes remained locked on hers.

Marie knew that there was some reason why she shouldn’t feel so attracted to him. Some reason why she couldn’t just turn around and give herself to him but she’d forgotten what that reason was. She sensed that she’d made a promise long ago, a promise that belonged to a different place, a different time.

“You look beautiful,” Orion broke the tense silence, his voice smooth and soft as it whispered upon her neck.

“I,” Marie couldn’t look away from his golden eyes which bore in to her image. She felt like she was being drawn in to them, drowning in their intensity. Orion’s grip on her hips tightened and she was about to turn and face him directly when the doors to her chambers were flung open and Leo strode confidently in to the room.

“Princess, your public awaits!” he declared dramatically.

“Yes, of course,” Marie nervously ran her hands down her dress, trying to forget what she had just felt with Orion. She needed to focus.

“You look magnificent,” Leo announced when he’d taken a second to behold Marie in all her golden glory. Then he bowed before her, lowering himself gracefully so that he was bent down and all she could see was his long back.

“Please, you don’t need to bow,” Marie instructed, feeling self-conscious. She glanced briefly at Orion who had gone over to the window and was staring out at the world beyond.

“Of course, your majesty,” Leo straightened back up and smiled courteously at her. Marie opened her mouth to object to being called your majesty but then stopped. The label didn’t seem quite right yet she couldn’t muster a reasonable reason to insist he stop addressing her as such.

“Shall we go?” shaking off her confusion Marie picked up her gown and prepared to leave. Upon leaving her chambers a prim smile fixed itself in place on her face. It was a mask which instantly felt familiar though she couldn’t remember having ever worn it before.

*

Azriel was a town in celebration. Banners declaring the joyous news of their princess’s return hung from every available fixture and uplifting melodies filled the air. Everyone was ecstatic and they lined the streets all the way down the great hill and out towards the vast beanstalks wearing their finest attire.

Marie was flanked by guardians, all wearing golden suits apart from Orion who today wore a pale yellow suit. Earlier, when Marie had asked what mood that colour reflected he’d coyly told her that it referred to new beginnings and then promptly changed the subject.

As Marie passed by revellers they threw up handfuls of petals which fluttered down on to the returned royal like nature’s confetti. Petals of every colour filled the air and danced in the breeze as if moving in time to the music. Marie smiled and clapped her hands together gleefully as the world around her became a blur of floral fusion. It was a beautiful sight to behold. With each step she took more flower petals were added to the medley basking the space around her in an intoxicating scent.

In her joy she made sure to remember to wave and address the throngs around her, certain that the people seemed greater in numbers than they had when they’d visited the throne room.

“Thank you!” she called graciously to them.

“Thank you so much!”

With Azriel’s crown upon her head there was no mistaking that she was their princess. Marie began to dance in time with the music, spinning and stretching out her hands to let the petals swirl around her. The people loved it and cheered as some even entered the street and began to dance alongside her. The air was full of laughter, clapping and the scent of exotic, heavenly flowers. Marie had no doubt that it was the greatest moment of her life. She had never felt more alive, more accepted and more loved.

“It’s wonderful isn’t it?” Orion caught her hand and twirled her around. 

“It’s amazing!” Marie giggled girlishly, looking in to his eyes.

“You’re a natural!” Orion complimented. “The people love you!”

Marie laughed and continued to let the music carry her down the streets, she was almost at the beanstalks. Beyond them lay the emerald field where she had originally arrived in Azriel. When she saw the trees there was a twinge within her but the music had clouded her thoughts before she had a chance to pursue the sensation further. She danced and she twirled and laughed as around her Azriel glimmered and grew.

“You were born to be here,” Orion called to her over the music, his eyes sparkling with admiration.

“I said that you were always a princess, do you believe me now, Marie?”

Marie ceased dancing and looked directly at Orion, her head tilting to the right.

“Who is Marie?” she asked simply before shrugging and returning to the dance. 

Six hours and thirty nine minutes had passed since stimulants had been drip fed in to Marie’s system and still she slept. Exhausted, Sebastian sat beside her, clutching her lifeless hand in his own. Her skin was cold and clear, as if she were made of marble.

He couldn’t, wouldn’t leave her side. At any moment she might wake up. At any moment she might return to him.

“It takes time,” Angela Crenshaw whispered as she came over to check Marie’s vitals for the third time that hour.

“But she’ll wake up?” Sebastian queried hopefully. He already knew that there were no finite answers but he just couldn’t help searching for them. He needed something to cling on to, some hopeful statistic to anchor him during his darker moments.

“I-” Angela looked away from him, focusing on the thermometer she was placing in Marie’s ear.

“You don’t know,” Sebastian sighed, answering for her. “No one does.”

“Exactly,” Angela nodded sadly.

“But the stimulants usually work though?” Sebastian couldn’t stop himself from trying to find answers like that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow when deep down he knew rainbows were just fragments of light and nothing mystical.

“I don’t know,” Angela said apologetically. “I’m pretty new, I don’t have all that much experience.”

She saw the disappointment in Sebastian’s eyes, almost hidden by the exhaustion which cast dark circles around them.

“You need to rest,” she urged. “It could still take hours yet.”

“Or she may not wake up at all,” Sebastian felt his final shred of hope fluttering away in the breeze as he accidentally let it slip from his grip. It carried off in to the air conditioning vent, leaving him alone with only doubt to sour his thoughts.

“You can’t think like that,” Angela gave him a pitiful glance and then looked at Marie who lay frozen between them. An unknowing participant in their discussion.

“She’s beautiful,” she complimented. And she was. Angela wasn’t just being kind, she could see beneath the oxygen mask, the web of lines and the swelling which had started to subside that Marie was beautiful. She had the petite frame most women envied and long, dark lustrous hair.

“You should see her when she’s awake,” Sebastian smiled fondly. “She’s always so animated. When she tells you a story she gets so involved in it, her eyes light up and she starts throwing her hands around. She holds your attention as though nothing else exists but her.”

Sebastian gazed at Marie but looked past her current state, remembering his fiancée as she usually was; alive and exuberant.

Angela glanced at the clock on the far wall. She still had observations to take on a dozen or so patients but she sensed how despondent Sebastian was becoming and she pitied him. Marie was the first patient she’d had to deal with in a coma and she wanted her to wake up as much as Marie’s loved ones did.

“How did you guys meet?” Angela could spare five minutes, she’d forsake some of her lunch break. She wanted to envision Marie as a living, breathing person, not this body which lay like an empty vessel on the bed.

“Well,” Sebastian’s face instantly broke out in to a wide smile and he sat back in his plastic chair, enjoying the memory which had suddenly surfaced.

“It was on a flight. I was running late for boarding and just powering through the gate.  Guess when people are in a hurry everyone is kind of self-involved.”

“True,” Angela nodded. She loved hearing about how couples met, it was like being privy to a real life fairy tale. She was still searching for her own happy ending which meant she had to live vicariously through other couples, always imaging how she’d meet her own soul mate.

“So there I was, rushing about in my suit like I thought I was something special and bam, I smack straight in to this girl. At least I assumed it was a girl, I didn’t even look at her, I just carried on.”

“But it was Marie?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian’s smile extended. Looking back, that day had seemed like any other but now he saw that it was actually the day he finally started living. Marie broke him out of his structured life; showed him that not everything revolved around money. She woke him up.

Sebastian always felt that his encounter with Marie was like the start of the movie
Fight Club,
when the lead character burns down his own apartment after meeting an enigmatic stranger who shows him how meaningless his life had been. Marie opened his eyes. And now he was sat wishing she’d open hers.

“So what happened?” Angela prompted, pulling Sebastian back from his thoughts.

“I kept heading towards my gate. Running down the long corridors. Then suddenly someone grabs me by the shoulder and turns me around.”

“Was it Marie?”

“It was,” Sebastian nodded, grinning. “She stopped me dead in the middle of the walk way and said, ‘how dare you! You almost knocked me over and then had the audacity to walk away without so much as an apology!’ She was mad.”

“She sounds it!”

“I just couldn’t get over the shock of this angered woman, her face as red as her air hostess uniform, chasing after me and then calling me up on my conduct. People don’t usually talk to me like that.” He didn’t want to explain to this relative stranger that being a millionaire meant that people generally afforded him considerable courtesies, one being that if he pushed past them they wouldn’t challenge him over it. But not Marie, Marie didn’t care who he was.

“She continued to give me a verbal bashing and then concluded with, ‘thanks for ruining my day by confirming that chivalry is dead. You dick.’”

“And then she just walked off?” Angela asked, her eyes wide.

“She tried to,” Sebastian admitted. “But I couldn’t just let her walk away. As mad as I was for being shouted at in the middle of an airport, I knew I couldn’t let this beautiful woman carry on with her life hating me. I had to make it up to her; I had to show her that chivalry wasn’t dead. And that’s what I’ve been doing since the day we met.”

“What a lovely story,” Angela gushed, wishing she could meet a guy. Usually she dated guys she met online and she missed that instant attraction you felt when you first laid eyes on someone, there was something magical about that.

“Yeah,” Sebastian looked up at Marie. He’d half hoped that perhaps on hearing their story she’d wake up and correct him on some of the finer details, or insist on giving her interpretations of events. But instead her eyes remained firmly sealed closed.

“She’ll wake up soon,” Angela said reassuringly. “I’ve got to go finish my observations, will you be okay?”

Sebastian nodded though he wasn’t sure he would be okay. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

*

Eight hours and sixteen minutes since the stimulants entered Marie’s system Carol and Bill Schneider returned to their daughter’s bedside. They were both wearing clean clothes but neither appeared rested.

“Hey, Sebastian,” Carol placed a caring hand upon his shoulder as she sat down beside him. Bill stood awkwardly at the entrance of the ICU, reluctant to come in.

“Bill,” Carol hissed his name. “Come and sit in here.”

Bill Schneider shook his head.

“It supposed to be two to a bed,” he explained. He’d always been a stickler for rules. Following rules meant respecting authority. Bill enjoyed being a team player, he didn’t like to make unnecessary trouble.

“Bill, its fine,” Carol urged, gesturing at him to join her. Bill remained resolute in his decision not to enter.

“They won’t mind,” Carol added.

Bill shook his head. He wanted them to mind. He wanted them to be held to the rules about visitors with military dedication. If the nurses upheld the rule, it meant that Marie was still regarded as a normal patient. Once they turned the other way, encouraged everyone to crowd around her bedside it meant that Marie wasn’t just a normal patient anymore, she was a terminal one and Bill refused to let that happen. His adhering to the two people by the bed rule was his own way of making sure Marie remained a normal patient, capable of recovery.

“I’ll go,” Sebastian offered, releasing Marie’s alabaster hand and getting up and stretching his legs. “I need to get something to eat anyway.”

“Have you not eaten since we left?” Carol asked, concerned.

“I’ve not been all that hungry,” Sebastian stated sadly. Carol pursed her lips and frowned. Her maternal instincts wanted to feed the boy up but the emptiness in her own heart understood his inability to eat. She’d struggled to consume just one measly piece of toast when she was back home. Eating somehow felt like cheating on Marie. Marie couldn’t eat, so why should they?

“Has she moved at all?” Carol asked as she carefully placed her hand upon Marie’s arm. Sebastian shook his head sorrowfully and frowned.

“Is it normal to take this long?” Carol asked no one in particular. “We googled it at home and couldn’t find an answer.”

Sebastian shuddered as he realised that there was no answer. There was no end. In a world of quick fixes and instant information, Marie was locked in a place where no one could reach her. Lost to her own mind and injuries, she was beyond medical intervention, beyond the current reach of technology. It was a terrifying thought.

As Sebastian left the ICU Bill Schneider reluctantly rubbed anti-bacterial gel over his hands and went to join his wife’s vigil at Marie’s bedside. He placed a large hand upon his wife’s leg, wanting to comfort her but not knowing how. He was a dinosaur compared to modern men, a relic of a time when emotions weren’t meant to be expressed and women were resigned to the kitchen.

*

Thirteen hours and six minutes had now passed since Marie had been given stimulants. Carol leaned against her husband’s broad chest, her eyes closed and her breathing shallow as sleep had finally caught up to her. But Bill couldn’t sleep. He watched his daughter intently, wishing that she’d turn and look at him. He’d sell his soul to see her smile.

The machines circling Marie beeped at the same monotonous rate, assuring Bill that she was at least still breathing, still clinging on to life. The atmosphere in the ICU had become subdued. Everyone knew that she should have woken up already but no one was ready to address the very real possibility that she never would.

Bill loathed the beeping. At home he heard it; in the car he heard it. It had somehow crept in to his subconscious and become the unofficial soundtrack to his life. Each digital sound grated against his skin.

Sebastian was sleeping in the visitor’s lounge. Outside the world was dark and most people were resting. But not Bill. He wondered if he’d ever be able to sleep again. Each time he tried to close his eyes the beeping intensified, reminding him of the current plight of his precious daughter. How could he possibly sleep when Marie might be dying?

A salty tear slid down his weather beaten skin. He rubbed it away with rough hands, calloused by years of manual labour.

“Come back sweetheart,” he urged his daughter, his voice so soft it was barely audible.

“Come back to Daddy.”

He’d not been Daddy for almost a decade but now she seemed so fragile and yet so pure, just as she had when he’d first held her in his arms. He’d vowed to always protect her and now here he was, watching her slip away. How could he have let her down so terribly? How could he have let this fate befall his only child?

A rasping sound struggled to be heard over the drone of the machines. Straining his ears, Bill listened for it again. He heard it, unmistakeable this time. Tentatively he moved Carol, not wanting to wake her, and leaned forward. There on the bed, Marie was looking back at him, her eyes wide as she frantically tried to speak but the tube down her throat prevented any sounds she was trying to make.

“Marie!” he screamed her name as loud as he could, no longer caring about his resting wife.