I didn’t know how long I would be at the Queen’s palace. Would Timothy find me in time, before I starved to death? I glanced at the table once more, eyeing the biscuits and the fruits. Maybe I could grab one of each and take a couple of bites. But wasn’t that what Persephone had said? If I remembered, she’d only eaten a small handful of pomegranate seeds, four of them, maybe?
I sighed, turned about face, and started to walk away with the guard instructed to take me to the gray room, but then I stopped and wheeled around. “Wait, Your Majesty, you promised to let me talk to my husband if I entertained you. Where is my reward for doing so?”
The queen’s cheekbones went rigid. She scowled angrily at me. I don’t think she was used to being talked back to. Not only had I denied tasting anything at her banquet table, but now I was demanding that she magic a communication, something it was obvious she didn’t want to do.
For a moment, her stern, gray eyes glowered. It made her look twice her age, gave her a faint resemblance to the wicked witch of the North. (Or was that the North one, the good witch? Whichever witch in Oz that was the mean one, for sure; that’s the one the queen resembled at the moment, although she wasn’t wearing the pointy, black hat and didn’t have green skin, but oh, well.)
“You impudent little girl. I said no such thing. I have no reason to . . .” the queen spouted, her saliva spitting out into the space between us, her rage was so strong.”
The favorite one of her guards bent closer and whispered in her ear. The queen instantly slapped his face and hissed at him, sending him backwards so abruptly that he almost fell on his rump, only youth and grace saving him from a fall.
She glanced at him, curved a sudden smile that looked more wicked than concerned for his condition, then heaved a great tea kettle of steamed indignation.
“All right,” the queen finally said with a pouty expression on her face, her lips pursed so vilely they looked as if they were made out of two elongated prunes that had been exposed to the sun’s heat. Of course her lips were a pale pink instead of a wrinkly black.
Then, she twisted her neck about, stretching it as if it were guilty of carrying too much tension, then did a couple of breast strokes in the air to exercise her very toned arms, and said, “Okay, you conniver, you. Tomorrow, you can play a love ballad with your Pooka. Tomorrow after you eat some breakfast.”