Chapter one: Quinton                           ©Kim Calcagno 2008

 

The walls hummed quietly as the vehicle raced on with effortless speed. The driver turned back to check on his two passengers.  They were sitting separately, one on either side of the aisle. The younger man was curled up to one side of the seat, sound asleep, so he looked over to the older, awake gentleman . He was about 60 with silver hair that rested properly in shining rolling waves, and he was sitting with his head back and his eyes half closed looking for all the world to be dreamily content. With a satisfied nod to himself, the driver turned back to his work.  

 

* * * * * * * *   

 

The older gentleman was in fact trying to calm himself.  He was trying to force his mind into a realization, but he was unable to take it in all at once. How did it all end up here? He decided to start at the beginning. All of his memories lofted lazily through his mind, and he lingered fondly on each one. He saw his old toys.  He saw the nursery and his governess, Miss Nivens. He remembered the way she would sit, tight lipped and straight with her hands folded primly in her lap, as if she was overseeing a funeral. How he would carry on, sing and turn somersaults to see her stony face crumble into a smile!

 

He remembered traveling in the car to see the Queen. He could almost feel his father’s hands lifting him onto his shoulders so that he could see over the anxious crowd. His visions then turned to school and playing in the schoolyard with his mates. How silly he looked in those short pants!

 

He was nearly twelve years old when his sister Dale came along, followed a year later by Layla. He remembered coming in from carousing with his mates to sit alongside Miss Nivens as she read to the girls in the evenings even though he was far too old for the faerie stories and nursery rhymes.

 

The words “rich boy” wandered across his mind for a moment, but he blinked them away and settled back into his nostalgia. Once again he remembered the headmaster at school. Ah yes! Headmaster Simmons had always been a fond memory… and his O-levels … mmm! He had done well on them. He got into Oxford. He could feel the warm breezes as he ran across the fields playing rugby. He could see the faces of his many girlfriends and heard the music at the dance halls. His mates would lead him on great adventures and he would travel with them on school breaks and across Europe after school. He smiled at the memory.

 

Then he remembered that day.  He was 19.  It has seemed dubious at the time – his mother sitting across the table from him smiling.  They were sitting at the edge of the formal garden by the large, Victorian orangerie. She sipped her tea and looked at him as if she were about to present him with a winning lottery ticket. He shuddered.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

“You know,” she said, gingerly placing her teacup down, “I was thinking about that trip you said you’d like to take to America with your friends.”

 

“Yes,” he said, stirring his coffee, “Johnny Tucker has asked me along for the summer. He wants to learn to rock climb in California.”

 

“Do you think you’ll go?” she asked popping a tiny bite-sized muffin into her mouth and then gazed at him meaningfully over her napkin.

 

“Oh, I expect so. Why? Don’t you think I should?”

 

His mother chuckled slightly. “Such a good boy. Always trying to please.” He didn’t know what to think about that comment. “Tunny, dear,” she leaned forward. “I have to tell you a story. It may change your summer plans at the end.”

 

He hated being called Tunny and winced visibly, but he listened.

 

“Has anyone in the family ever told you about our geneaology?” she asked. No one had. He shook his head and took a sip from his cup. She put both her palms on the table. “Well, our family has had a very colorful and storied history. For generations we have been travelers, adventurers and artists.” His mother was somewhat of an artist herself, and though he appreciated how she taught him whimsy and to embrace his inner child, he still looked at her excited eyes and wondered if this was her way of trying out a new plot line for a novel on him.

 

“Oh, yes?” he asked with raised brows and a dubious tone. Her eyes narrowed momentarily but then she continued with unabated enthusiasm.

 

“Indeed. And we are long since descended from royalty. Long ago, we were kings and princes and nobles.” Her eyes sparkled as she spoke.

 

“Royalty?” he asked with a dramatic questioning gesture. She could see that he thought she was joking. She leaned forward.

 

“I am being serious, Quinton,” she said, a bit wounded.

 

“I’m sorry, mum,” he said, cowed. “I just would have thought that might be a bit…well, something we’d be told about growing up. Don’t you think that’s rather important? Something to take pride in, after all?”

 

“Yes, indeed,” She brightened.

 

“Well, then…,” he began.

“That’s the problem, you see.”

 

“What is?” he said, strained. “I don’t understand how you expect me to believe…”

 

“We can’t tell anyone about it. Don’t you see?” she said pouring more tea as if this was a perfectly normal conversation. “Family musn’t even know until they are old enough…what with the dangers of revealing it and the risk of cheeky children getting swelled heads and lording it over the other children.”

 

“I don’t understand…and I’m old enough, now, then am I?” he said a bit sarcastically.

 

“Yes,” she said in an annoyed tone. “but I’m not sure I should tell you now. I don’t think you are ready. This is quite serious. We cannot let anyone know our legacy.”

 

“So, then, am I a prince? A duke?” he grinned, mocking a ‘royals’ wave to the adoring masses.

 

“You are an ass!” She had had enough. He was taken aback. His mother never spoke to anyone that way. “Honestly, I am trying to tell you something very important, and you are making a mockery of it all.”

 

“Mum, how is it supposed to sound to me? I’m supposed to believe that we are some aristocratic…some SECRET aristocratic clan? I mean, I know we must have come into money at some point,” He indicated their surroundings, “But…”

 

“You will find our family line is not to be traced from English roots,” she suddenly smiled almost deviously. “In fact, we have not been able to recover some of the lost knowledge -- the knowledge of an ancient kingdom obliterated in a great tragedy.”

 

“Mum, you sound like the narrator of some documentary on medieval times. What do you mean we are not English? Are we from France? Germany?” He really didn’t know where she was going with this.

 

“Not even close,” she said taking another sip of tea. “There are few written accounts of this kingdom, but what is certain - what remains for us today, is a grand estate.”  She paused.  

 

He remembered the proud smile that had come over her face. She continued.

 

“Not this estate, mind you,” she clarified. “The estate and its titles have been passed down in the family for as long as anyone can remember. By tradition, the head of the family lives there, and that person represents the King or Queen in the eyes of the people.”

 

He remembered how he had felt… doubtful but curious.  If he hadn’t known his mother to be supremely intelligent and ‘with it,’ he would have thought she had gone completely crazy. She had recalled still more.  She had lived on this secret estate for a while with her sister when she was young, just married.  She explained that the people who lived  in the village nearby the estate had no recollection of the ancient kingdom, but somehow they all treated those at the estate with great respect - almost reverence.  He could recall her voice.

 

“Now,” she said, tapping the table. “Your Uncle Cedric lives there now.”  

 

The menacing vision of Uncle Cedric loomed before him. He was a big man- very big.  He had a red face, booming voice, a hearty laugh and the habit of slapping you on the back. Somehow you couldn’t say ‘no’ to him. The vision lingered and he shuddered.  

 

He remembered after that fateful conversation trying to learn about this “kingdom”.  No one could help, or perhaps they wouldn’t. He would ask his mother where it was, and she would hesitate and say, “It’s far away, my boy…far beyond your reach.  Someday my boy.  Some day...” He would ask his uncles and aunts, and they would search their murky memories, but they never seemed to say anything that gave him a clue.  Vague recollections of “Oh yes, the manor house,” or “Ah, the family secret.” were all he ever got. He wished he had not been so sarcastic and jocular about it all to his mother. Perhaps they wouldn’t have kept it from him for so long…and perhaps he would have had a much bigger adventure than his trip to California that summer.

 

One day, however, it came.  Finally he was going to know the secret.  His mother may have thought he wasn’t ready, but Uncle Cedric had invited him to come and spend the summer at the manor.  He had been working as a banker for several years.  He must have been 25 years old by then. Yes, that sounded right. He could almost feel that anticipation once again, like a rite of passage. This initiation into the family ‘inner sanctum,’ however, had not seen him packed off in a car or an airplane, but in a spaceship!

 

The word jolted him. “Incredible!” he thought to himself even now.  He stopped himself to make sure he hadn’t actually said it out loud. That summer, all those years ago, was it real? It had been the best time of his life – the parties, the good friends, beautiful sweet Synda!  He had never been to such a beautiful and lovely place! But had it actually happened!?

 

His own voice had echoed so fiercely through his head that it yanked him out of his daydream.  He looked about himself.  He felt himself loosening his grip on the armrests.  He sighed, but his sigh had an uneasy sense about it.

 

Yes, he thought to himself.  It had happened. He looked at his fellow traveler. He was snoring-fast asleep. And the driver?  He was humming quietly to himself.  

 

When he returned home that autumn, he took tea with his mother again in the garden. The weather was cooler and she sat with a light blanket on her lap. His mother’s eyes sparkled at him again. This time she laughed out loud at him.

 

“You thought I was mad all those years ago suggesting we were descended from royalty.” She was going to have a well-deserved ‘I told you so.’

 

“Yes,” said Quinton leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets. “Little did I know.”

 

“So how was that off-world shuttle ride then?” she smirked.

 

“It was lovely, mother,” he sighed, trying to take it with dignity.

 

“Royal and alien, did I mention that?” she said lightly. He hadn’t thought of it that way and must have looked suddenly alarmed, because his mother quickly added, “Don’t worry, we’re all human.”

 

“You know, mum...,” he said, rubbing his eyes and forehead, “There is one thing I don’t understand.”

 

“What’s that, love?”

 

“If our family, our ancestors come from another planet…,” he couldn’t believe he was seriously having this conversation. “why are we here and not there?”

 

“Well,” she said, her grin disappearing, “it is a sad thing, actually. Many, many years ago there was a terrible tragedy on our home planet and our family decided it was necessary to leave.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“There was a huge electromagnetic storm. The world lost everything.”

 

That was all she ever said about it.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

He was going to have to grasp it now; now or never. Uncle Cedric passed away four days ago.  He winced, but could accept it.  He had inherited the manor estate as the oldest living member of the family.  He stared straight ahead.  He was leaving England, and he could accept that. He was leaving the family, his sisters-- a slight tremor of sadness there.  He looked out of the window into the darkness.  He was leaving the Earth. The bottom nearly fell out of his mind. No!  He felt as if he was crazy.  But another look out of the window confirmed it. Yes, it’s dark out there.  He thought.  Yes, I see the stars, but they aren’t “up there”.  They are just… out there… all around me.

 

He would just have to admit to himself that he was traveling in a spaceship, an off-world shuttle that was taking him to a new place. It was taking him to his new home! Betelgeuse 5 was an odd name for a planet.  Well, he thought with all the reason he could muster, it is an odd planet… so advanced and yet choosing to stay so primitive.  He tried to relax again, and took a deep breath.  As he drifted off to sleep the line “bequeathed to my nephew, Quinton Von Abernathy III” floated by. He ignored it.

 

* * * * * * * * * *  

 

 

As the sunset splashed the land and sky with a shower of pastel colors, a lone man stood by a gate.  He stood looking up the tree-lined lane with all the bravery of a child on his first day of school.  He could see the huge mansion before him.  He trembled.  He looked around.  All he could see was land; fields, trees, mountains in the distance and more.  Everywhere he looked, the land stretched out before him.  It was so like Earth in so many ways. Was this all his now?  What would he do?  He was only one man!  He sighed resolutely and trudged down the lane to the house.

 

He stood before the great door.  Above that was a sign painted in gold letters. “Goodwynde Manor” it read. He boggled at it for a moment, and then he threw the heavy door open and entered.  It was the kind of place that seemed to call out for someone… people, lots of people.  He hated to disappoint it.  His shoes made such a clatter in the echo of the empty house, that he almost took them off for fear of disturbing someone.

 

It was so big! He never remembered it to be like this. He remembered the parties and the people that were here when he was young.  Cedric had always loved to socialize.

 

He wandered through all of the rooms. There were so many! The homey living room led into the sumptuous library and to the towering, white kitchen. He stood before the wide hardwood staircase with its ornately carved banister. Finally he entered the great hall. Sometimes it was used as a ballroom for parties or galas, but most of the time it was occupied by a great long banquet table as it was now.  This was as he remembered.  He sat down at the end of the table and looked around the room at the many many portraits that decked the walls. They were all of the people who had lived there, and some of them were even from the Old Kingdom.  The oldest must be hundreds of years old. He looked at the far end of the room where the faded ancient paintings of the old King and Queen were hung on the dark, heavily patina-ed wooden panels. Between them was a space.  Quinton had always felt that something was missing, that something should fill that space. He sat thoughtfully.  Outside the evening was settling in.

 

“A new king for an old kingdom,” the house seemed to whisper to him.

 

“Yes,” he said out loud. “But what to do?  What to do?”

 

He reached into his pocket and gently removed his wallet. From a bundle of bent and yellowed photos, he extracted two, newer photos. After a moment, he sighed and reached for some paper and a pen…