His Excellence The Honourable King Haroom
First Haroom of the Hypunjam Monarchy
Rightful Bearer of the Royal Crest, Heart of the Land
And Protector of the Kingdom of Punjam...
His study,
10:12 a.m.
The old box labelled with Punjam's popular company of mangoes dropped with a thwoomp! on Haroom's old, royal study desk. The dust flew up from the cardboard and went into Tooth's lungs.
She coughed but she smiled tiredly. Her father never bothered for rich storage when it came to random papers, and he always appreciated using the everyday things that made their kingdom for what it was worth.
Then again, how many cardboard boxes for homework scraps did she horde in her dorm from all the trips to the grocery store?
"Eh like father, like daughter," she pursed happily.
With a determined pull, the princess broke into the late King's boxes and started snooping around. She went through box after box, opening old folders and tossing aside old books on philosophy, commerce and Southeast Asian history, and kept going.
All the important royal tomes and family testaments were somewhere in the royal library for safe preservation but for the few things Haroom kept to himself, the Palace workers didn't dare to touch – out of respect, fear, maybe it was until they decided Princess Thia was ready to do something about them herself. One corner of Tooth's mouth quirked up - and it looked like today was it...well sort of, to an extent.
Tooth was only snooping around until she found those old language books she actually wanted.
"Come on, come on!" she murmured scrunched her eyebrows. "You put them here somewhere, Baba. I know you did."
She hefted two boxes in her arms and shoved them to the side, nearly grazing her arm with her old twin swords. Leaving them lying amongst her pileup was pretty much asking for it, but Tooth didn't have the heart yet to put them away.
Their tiny bead, encrusted sheaths and beautiful gold still shone bright as the day Haroom and the Royal Lord Protector gave them to her. She was still surprised by how heavy they were after all these years but with her Center awake now, Tooth wondered if maybe she could finally do more than the cut-throat jabbing she was actually (and secretly) skilled in.
The princess tossed her lovely children a kind smirk.
"We'll tell Jack about you later," she whispered before diving back into the books.
Mr. Sandy was delighted when she'd asked him the day before yesterday about going on another hunt; but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't screaming inside. And after 12 boxes and a hundred sheets scattered around her dad's floor...well, yeah, Tooth was usually messy at research time–
"Yes!"
She gasped and pushed away her long strands, falling out of her messy bun, in a haste and anticipation. Her father's old book on rudimentary Hindi was beaten and worn out.
"I knew you had one just to impress Mom!" she grinned and Tooth picked up another and balanced in one arm. "Or wait, make that two. No wait...three! Dang, you were REALLY trying to impress her."
Tooth laughed at herself. She could only imagine her father, shy but trying, to get someone like her mother to love him more and she couldn't wait to start practising the very same language that she was proud to be born to.
With a quick peek, Tooth opened one of the language books.
There was a quick, curly message meant for her dad.
(Hindi) Study hard, love! It's not as easy as you think!
But I'm here if you need me. –Mi.
"Don't worry mom," she hugged the books like they really were her. "I will."
Then she'd have another language under her belt and hopefully, she'd beat Jack in that speaking department. Then between the two of them, they could do a lot of damage if they traveled the world together again.
Together.
Tooth sighed and slumped with a smile on her face. Her integrity was still intact and despite being the utmost gentleman to her, Jack really was...something else under all that black. Electrifying her every–
"Ow!"
The language books slipped out of Tooth's jellied arms. One fell on her toe and the others bounced away. She rubbed her foot instantly.
"Okay, okay!" she huffed with a hot blush. "I get it. No more Jack! Only me, my gene, and..."
Tooth stopped and looked down at one of the Hindi books. It was open with an old sheet of paper folded in it. She frowned and reached down to take it, rolling the sheet in her fingers. It was yellowed with age and covered in blue pen markings.
Her heart skipped with anxiety.
Was it...another clone chart? Was it hers? Or Rashmi's with all her biometric notes on it?
'Really, you think the worst in everything,' Tooth scolded herself. 'It could just be a regular note thingy.'
But it didn't stop Tooth's fingers from twitching manically as she unfolded it gently. She pursed her lips – when it was finally opened, she realized it was a blueprint chart.
But it wasn't for anything normal...
Except the necklace around her neck.
Tooth's heart quickened.
She wouldn't have even recognized it, if someone hadn't colored in the feathers or gold chain. Did her father do it? Quickly reaching into her top, Tooth fished out the royal accessory and lifted it over her head. She stared at it for a while, watching it swing in the invisible breeze.
She frowned.
"What did you do, baba?" she mumbled.
Tooth dropped the necklace next to the sheet and started reading the prints piece for piece – it seemed like nothing special. Chains were chains, feathers were feathers, the clasp that held both together was still a...
Tooth squinted at the bottom of the page.
A blue arrow indicated something along the under-ridge of the clasp where the gold pattern imprinted.
"Wait what?" Tooth flipped the page. The blueprints on the back, showed a weird mechanism running inside the clasp and how to twist it. Outside it was also a tiny piece of gold wire meant to bend and twist at the right angle to...unlock it for something.
Tooth nearly dropped the sheet.
The necklace is a locket.
Tooth grabbed the chain and glared at tiny wire peeking out. "You mean this whole time...you little piece of gold, you were meant to be there?!"
She flicked it and frowned. "I thought the damn thing was faulty twisting but now..."
So Tooth huffed and followed the instructions and held it between her fingernails. A bead of sweat rolled down her temple. Her heart was racing. Who else knew this? This was too secretive to have been in the family for generations. Which meant her father's necklace was created just for him, right? And really...who made–
Click.
A second later, she pushed her thumbnail into the opening and carefully pried it open.
The click continued and Tooth exhaled shakily as her oldest and greatest treasure slowly started to alter before her eyes. She rolled in her lips and gave a determined huff, hesitating at first. After another shaky tug, the clasp fully opened...
What was inside, made Tooth nearly drop the necklace altogether.
All her breath left her in one exhale.
"It..."
Tooth covered her mouth, her heart racing... as Rashmi Hypunjam smiled up at her.
On one side of the locket, a small circular photo of the King's wife was placed. The queen was in the original GUARDIAN uniform, proud, strong, and hunched over something (probably a suitcase or a bed). She also had a cheeky grin on her face like Haroom had purposefully wanted to catch her in her moment of preparation. Her hair made it just below her shoulder, dark and wavy before she had to tie it up and her face was heart-shaped, just like her daughter's. And the rainbow-feathered necklace, that Tooth didn't go one day without, was around her neck comfortably and dangling in the photo like another smile.
Tooth pushed her hand away from her mouth into her hair, running it through the messy strands of it.
"I-It's her's..." she murmured shakily. "All this time it wasn't baba's... it was yours."
When Tooth dragged her eyes away from the first and only photo she'd ever seen of her mother, she looked into the second side of the locket. A holder was situated inside the locket, but it had somehow popped open with the locket's opening, and she discovered something clinking around without it in freedom. It was white. It was tiny.
Tooth knitted her eyebrows together in curiosity.
She stuck her two fingers into the locket to pull it out. Careful and attentive, she looked at it nervously. It wasn't a capsule, or a pill. It didn't even look man-made. It reminded her of bone...it...
And it was.
"...just a little surprise that made the day more perfect."
It was a piece of a tooth.
Tooth burst out laughing instantly. "Oh my god hahaha! ...Baba."
It was the missing piece of the chipped tooth in all her father's photos, the ones he never did with a closed smile. Her eyes grew wet. AS her laughs grew smaller and a little more shaky, Tooth gently put the chipped tooth back in its holder and stared at the two items altogether. Not a moment later, she closed the locket shut and hugged the necklace close to her chest, falling into a warm curl on the carpet.
She stayed that way with a smile.
Tears dripped down her cheeks.
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Day Unknown
2:46 p.m.
Jack's fists were clenched so tight, he almost couldn't breathe.
He said nothing over the weight of his anxiety battling with his grief, and he didn't want to say it...but his fingers were trembling.
He'd showered, actually bought nicest set of jeans and a basic top he could grab, and made sure he didn't look like he'd just crawled out of a ditch. And yet...his father's garage was looking back at him, still painted in the same chipped white he remembered, and the dry leaves still littered the lawn. Jack's eyes were wide. He suddenly felt like he couldn't take in oxygen.
The rain gutters he used to clean every spring by hand were clogged and rusted from neglect. And the roof looked like it had been patched recently – a job he had meant to do before he... The smell of the earth after the rain hit his nose.
The driveway was empty.
His tear ducts, after years of self-control and hardened restraint, quickly started to sting. His teeth clenched painfully.
Was this how it was meant to be? When he finally returned to the one place that always mattered, was he supposed to feel this way? Because he was terrified and nauseated, almost ready to tear out of his own skin. He wasn't happy. Not at all.
His hotel rooms in the months prior to this moment were filled with his dark mumblings of should he or shouldn't he. The nervousness wound him so tight he broke skin on his knuckles and he nearly went another time without her.
Until the plane ticket was already paid for and he was taking his seat in the economy class cabin.
The entire flight home he'd psyched himself into what he was going to say, what he felt, since leaving the warmth and affection of the Hypunjam palace; and on the drive back onto highway 1-89, he'd memorized everything he wanted to see, every word and apology he was going to say. Tooth and the other GUARDIANs made him believe he was carrying that piece of hope they'd grown inside him, enough to take him all the way. And it had, hadn't it? He was standing in Burgess again, wasn't he?
Still...
Jack swallowed the dry lump in his throat, and was almost scared to hear the fragile shake of his breath leave his lungs.
His frown deepened with creeping depression as his eyes continued to stay hungry, and his feet continued to glue themselves to the ground; because for all the familiar windows, the brick and white walls, and the empty veranda, the sign 'Overland' still written on their mailbox, they did nothing to warm his core.
'Go on...Go ON!'
But whatever motivation and heart Jack had that initially wanted to run up those stairs, knock on the door, or break in (he had a feeling the secret key they always kept was still hiding in the groundhog hole behind the old tool shed), all of it had completely evaporated.
Break in, was his first thought. In true spy nature, he was more than tempted to break into his own home. An easy, earlier sweep confirmed to him that no one was home. The house was lived in, but whoever lived there had just stepped up, judging by the fresh foot pattern leading away from the driveway.
They were too small to be an adult's.
But breaking in was the plan. Sneak in and look around – take in the curtains he still recognized, the rooms still functioning the same way he remembered, the spaces he crossed and the floors he once walked. Jack swallowed his courage again, eyes wandering around his old home, bits of memories flooding his mind.
His breathing grew ragged and his chest was tightening. The memories of her filled him up like water...
"It's okay, it's okay... just down look down."
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Emma hummed and took the package of sliced bread out of her recyclable bag. She smiled tiredly.
She realized that she ate a lot of bread for a fourteen-year-old.
As a piece of her brown hair fell out of her side ponytail, she pushed it away with the back of her hand.
A knock came at the door.
Emma blinked and looked at the time.
Jack...I'm scared.
No one was supposed to come over today. She huffed as she switched on the radio. Maybe Jamie left something some from the day before.
One of the soft songs from her favorite station in Philly started to play.
I know!
I know...
With a quick look through the side curtain for any vehicles (and a side glance at where the kitchen knives and old crowbar was), she headed downstairs for the front door.
The crime rate in Burgess was zero since forever, but she still had to be sure.
"Coming!"
Jack's lips started to shake. So did his fingers.
But you're gonna be alright.
Five years, eleven months...and four days... That's how long it'd been.
You're not gonna fall in.
"...h-h'a–"
And after a heavy swallow, Jack's eyes grew wide with terror.
Would I trick you?
Yes, you always play tricks!
Heh, I know but...
Jack swallowed a hard lump in his throat. The smell of their house was constricting his lungs. He wanted violence. He could anticipate violence.
He blinked hard with an open frown. "I shouldn't have...I shouldn't have–"
But not this time, Em.
Jack's throat felt like he was being asphyxiated.
I promise, I promise...
He started to choke.
You're gonna be fine.
And the tear he kept fighting down finally dripped down his face.
"You have to believe in me. O'k now. O-One..."
He clenched his fist as he heard the footfalls of someone within the home grow louder.
"T'...t-two..."
The sound of the deadbolt unlocking, sounding like thunder in his heart.
And as the door creaked with the slow, cautious pull away, Emma's brother exhaled gently through his teeth.
"Two... and..."
...
...
...
Three.
The End.
Chapter's soundtrack: "Petrichor" – Koven