My uncle grabs my arm, pulling me into his side as we start to move down the long hallway from the cell we’d been sitting in all night. “Keep your mouth shut and do as your told,” he grits out at me for the twentieth time now.
I also don’t think he wants anyone else to know I’m a girl either for some reason. I only went along with it at first out of habit, like I do when my uncle has people over. Most people thought I was a boy when they kept around. Only a few of his friend really knew. Then once I got tossed into the cell with more men, I decided it was best to keep the act going. I also didn’t want to feel the wrath of my uncle. He’s only struck me a few times, but it isn’t something I want to feel again, less so after already taking one backhand to the face already today.
I don’t respond, just keep walking next to him with my head down. A lock of my hair falls forward. I quickly tuck it back with shaking hands. The hold he has on my arm tightens. “Okay,” I whisper, jerking my arm from his grasp. I know he can’t reprimand me here in front of the guards. At least I don’t think he will. He releases my arm, and I try to step away from him, only to bump into another guard.
“Watch it, boy,” he grunts, giving me a small push away from him. I stumble again, but this time I find my footing. All the guards are wearing all black with weapons strapped to their hips. I thought my uncle was a normal-sized man, but these men make him look small. I’m even smaller. It’s easy to see why they think I’m only a small boy with the hood over my head.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my breathing and come up with a plan, but I don’t see one. It’s not like I could outrun anyone. I was lucky to have made it as far as it did to begin with. My plan had been stupid, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice.
Maybe I can find reason with the king. All I know about him are the things my uncle and his friends said about him. I don’t know much else. Heck, I didn’t even know that I’d ventured onto his protected land. I don’t know what the rules and laws are when it comes to these kinds of things. I’ve been so isolated since I moved here to be with my uncle, thousands of miles away from the only home I’ve ever known out on a small farm.
The things they said about him weren’t great. He’s cruel and unfair, they said. If my uncle thinks him cruel and unfair it couldn’t be good. My uncle is also cruel and unfair. If he doesn’t see those traits in himself but recognizes them in someone else’s, theirs must be tenfold.
I glance up to see two huge concrete doors swing open. Bright light spills into the gray, cold hallway. I have to close my eyes for a moment for them to adjust to the light. Stepping out into the bright sunny day seems wrong. It feels like it should be rainy or storming, not bright and sunny with the sound of birds chirping in the distance.
“In.” The guard motions us towards a white van parked a few yards away. I follow my uncle in and sit down next to him. I don’t look back up until the van starts to move. I wonder where they are taking us. I overheard one of them saying the king wanted to see us. That seems a little extreme for trespassing, but maybe as it’s his land, the punishment will be more severe.
I don’t see a jail cell being any worse than being at my uncle’s at this point. I try to look on the bright side so the worry that is settling in my stomach doesn’t take over. At least then when I did my time I could go free. Maybe make my way back to the small town I grew up in. And not because I long for that place, but because it’s all I knew before I came here. There I knew some kind of happiness. All that died with my grandmother.
I watch the lush green hill pass for miles on end. I keep my bound hands locked together. My breath catches as a giant stone castle come into view. It sits imposingly on the hill and looks like it’s been plucked right out of a fairy tale. It reminds me of one in a story my grandma used to read to me as a young girl.