Page 19 of Enchanted in Time
“Father!” The stranger crouched down beside the man, who was struggling to breathe and whose pale complexion had taken on a bluish tinge. He grasped his hand. “Try to relax and stay calm, Father. Try to stay calm and breathe.”
Father? Was the stranger...
“Fetch the king’s physician!” an elderly gentleman shouted, whereupon two pages broke away from the bystanders and rushed out of the hall. Frozen with fear, the rest of the crowd continued to watch the two men.
Hadn’t anyone thought to call 911?
“Who has a cell phone?” Hannah screamed, forgetting that she had one in her bag. “Someone call 911 right now! They need to pick him up with the air ambulance!”
The guests did not respond to Hannah’s screams. Instead, they stared at the dying man on the floor and looked at each other in shock.
“Where is the doctor?” the elderly gentleman yelled at two other servants, who immediately rushed off.
The prince remained strangely calm, his gaze fixed on his father as he kneeled silently by his side. The king was wheezingand trying to speak, but he couldn’t get enough air. “Now... it is... too... late! I... am... so... so sorry... my son...” he gasped.
“I forgive you, Father. Just breathe and stay calm.”
“Call 911!” Hannah screamed, but the crowd still didn’t respond. The guests and the servants still stood against the wall, frozen in place, the women clinging to the men. Meanwhile, the look in the king’s eyes was already changing, as if he were seeing another world. A moment later, his eyes went blank. His head fell limply to the side. The king was dead.
“The king is dead!” someone cried in horror, and the women screamed and wept. A narrow side door burst open, and a gray-haired man rushed in. Dropping his leather bag on the floor, he crouched down next to the king and felt his pulse. A moment later, he shook his head and barely raised his eyes as he mumbled to the prince, “I’m sorry.”
Hannah watched the scene but could not understand what was going on. Was this part of the movie? Were all these people extras? And the king and the... prince... actors? Where was the camera for the close-ups? Why hadn’t anyone yelled “cut”? Hannah looked around the crowd, but no one was stepping forward to resolve it all and to finally put an end to the horror.
A strange thought made its way into her mind. Was all of this actually happening? Had the host of this event just died? But that would have meant that the man before her, the unknown prince who was crouched on the floor beside the dead man, had just lost his father.
Hannah knelt down beside him. She refrained from uttering hollow phrases and condolences. She brought the dead man’s legs together, and placed the hand that the prince wasn’t holding onto the king’s chest. Then she gently stroked the king’s eyelids to close them and draped the red mantle neatly around him like a blanket. “Rest in peace.”
The prince looked up and stared at her in disbelief. He then turned his gaze once more to his father’s motionless body. His look was profoundly sad, though not at all surprised or shocked. Had he expected his father to die? Was that why, just now on the balcony, he had said “It’s time”? But how could someone foresee a death and not spend every last second by the side of the one they were about to lose?
A strong gust whooshed into the room, extinguishing all the candles at once. All voices fell silent, and an eerie stillness pervaded the large ballroom. The prince stiffened but did not look up. Outside, a storm was raging by, blowing open the windows and doors and sending red rose petals flying through the hall. A whirlwind swept in over the balcony and was barreling toward them. In the reddish light of the setting sun, it resembled a dark tornado. The guests screamed and clung to the walls.
Startled, Hannah leapt up and was about to flee when she noticed the unknown prince still crouching beside his father. She rushed over and grabbed his arm. “Come! Quick!”
But he did not rise. “You know, as I do, what’s coming now, and I surrender to my fate—as always.”
“No! Don’t you see what’s approaching?” Hannah shouted over the roar of the violent wind. The rest of the guests raced to get out of the way, some screaming as they fled for the doors, while Hannah remained and tugged even harder at the prince’s arm.
“It’s too late,” he murmured in resignation, and he freed himself from her grip with a single yank that sent her staggering backwards.
As the storm approached, the curly locks from Hannah’s updo came undone and were whipping around her face. Moments before the whirlwind reached the prince and his dead father, it dissolved and turned into the misty silhouette of ahuman form. Was it a woman? Or a man? Something was swirling about it like a wide cape or long hair.
The apparition raised its right hand and pointed at the prince. “The time has come. The curse must be fulfilled.”
There was a satisfaction in its voice, as if the being had been waiting for this day alone. A beam of light shot from its fingertips straight toward the prince’s chest.
”No!” Hannah screamed, then tried to throw herself between them. But it was too late. The beam hit the prince directly in the chest. She pulled him over to the wall and shielded him, but the misty apparition was already lowering its hand. Loud, hideous laughter echoed throughout the ballroom as the being turned around, transformed into a whirlwind, and roared off—back out onto the balcony and over the balustrade. Then, as though nothing had happened, all of a sudden the wind died down, and a dreadful silence filled the hall once more.
Hannah was staring in the direction the apparition had gone in, her mouth agape, until she finally pulled herself together and turned back to the prince, who was curled up on the floor and twitching. “What did it just do? Who or what was that thing?” She laughed uneasily. “Is this all part of the movie?”
She turned to look at the remaining guests, who were hugging the walls, petrified. But as she gazed into their terrified faces, one thing was clear to Hannah: this was not a movie!
A red-haired lady loosened herself from the wall and was clinging to an elderly gentleman with a gray mustache, who, pale and horrified, was staring at the dead king and the prince. The rest of the people came closer and stood around Hannah and the prince. With their hands to their mouths, they watched him with a mixture of shock and fascination. Not one of them uttered a word.
Hannah looked down at the prince, who was lying on the floor, his blond hair sticking out wildly as if he had been struck by lightning. He lay curled up on his side, silent and motionless.
She gently shook his shoulder. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
He didn’t move or make a sound, as though he hadn’t heard her. Was he dead? She held his hand. It was warm. She placed her hand on his chest and could feel a strong heartbeat. She saw no entry wound. Maybe she had only imagined the lightning bolt, and the prince wasn’t hurt at all.
