The Imagination Machine

Chapter 13

Although Lucretia insisted that they didn't have to, the guards escorted Courtney and Rudy through the halls and out of the castle. Ahead of them, the drawbridge was being lowered and their carriage was being prepared.

After what had just happened, the warm sun and soft grass somehow didn't seem real to Courtney, as if this was nature's way of playing a cruel trick on her.

The knights released them once they were outside the castle doors, and Courtney could hear her brother muttering and cursing under his breath as he rubbed his arms where they'd been gripped.

She didn't have the energy to tell him to stop. Lucretia was giving her a worried look. "Are you okay?" he asked her. "You look very tired."

Courtney mustered up a smile. "I am tired, Lucretia."

When he climbed onto the carriage and offered her a hand, she refused and climbed up on the seat herself, pulling Rudy up behind her. Lucretia flicked his ropes and the carriage took off down the path, the heels of the horses clicking on the wood of the drawbridge.

Courtney noticed that they passed other carriages as they went along, as well as a few men and women riding longlegs. The longlegs had no saddles, and no reins. She wondered for a fleeting moment what kind of balance it took to ride an animal without proper equipment.

Rudy leaned over to her. "Why do you look so worried?" he asked. "If anyone would know how to do this, it's you. Remember back home, when I had that cough for like, a year, and you figured out what was causing it?"

"It wasn't a year. And in case you haven't noticed, we're not exactly home," said Courtney. "The rules change, and Queen Estelene's daughter could have anything, including diseases we don't have back home."

"You better figure out what she has, or we'll get thrown out of here! How long is two moon cycles anyway?"

The two had been speaking in hushed tones, but Lucretia turned around in his seat and looked at them suspiciously. Courtney lowered her voice.

"I have no idea," she admitted. "And anyway, didn't you think there was something weird about what the queen said? She said it was because of some visitor that Sable got sick. How is it possible that someone could come to this island? Like Lucretia said, they didn't find any land when they sailed, and this place isn't even real."

"Seriously? That's what you're worried about right now?" Rudy glared at her. "Who cares? Don't you think there are more important things to focus on?"

The carriage hit a bump in the path, which raised both children slightly out of their seats. Courtney clung to the back of Lucretia's seat, trying not to fall out. 

"Sorry about that," Lucretia called back to them. Courtney noticed Rudy rolling his eyes. The ride back to the village was uneventful after that, and the silence between the siblings was tense.

Quite honestly, Courtney was confused about a lot of things regarding the Queen. How exactly did she accomplish what she needed to do? By sitting there and threatening any visitor that managed to make it into the village? If there was some sort of plague or pestilence in Labania because of a visitor, why was only one person affected?

Courtney, despite how hard she thought, could not come to any conclusions. They soon reached the area with the fence and carriages.

By her calculations, Courtney could figure that it was about an hour until they had made it back to the village. The sky was also nearly dark by now. Courtney wondered if days lasted as long here as they did back home.

Enysis waited for them back at where the longlegs were penned, taking the reins from Lucretia as he stepped out of the carriage.

"Do you want me to lead you back to my hut or do you want to see Sable?" Lucretia asked them as he walked with the siblings back to the village.