Cloaked

  “Wait! Wait!” a woman says. “I need a picture!”

  “Can you give me some money?” a boy asks.

  Finally, Victoriana’s through. She tries to make eye contact with Philippe, who’s oblivious. But the crowd has alerted Bruno that his charge is escaping.

  “Your Highness!” Bruno’s voice penetrates the crowd. He shoves past them, knocking one of the little girls on her rear end. She starts to bawl. “You should not have done zat!” He grabs Victoriana again.

  Victoriana tries to pull away, but he holds fast. I see tears in the princess’s eyes.

  I try to look calm, even though I know now that I’m dealing with a spy. I signal to Ryan to get his phone, call a cop. “Aren’t you supposed to be working for her?” I ask Bruno.

  “Stay out of zis, peasant!”

  Ryan comes back and tries to step between Bruno and Victoriana. “Hey, buddy, leave her alone.” He’s almost as big as Bruno, and much younger, so he grabs Bruno’s arm. But Bruno’s trained in self-defense. In an instant, Ryan’s on the floor. Bruno wrenches Victoriana’s arm behind her back. She screams.

  Her shrieks alert the masses in the lobby. Until then, they were listening to the voice of authority. Now, they’re realizing something’s wrong.

  “What’s he doing?” A woman points at them.

  “He’s trying to kidnap the princess!”

  A buzz goes through the crowd. The information gets translated into several languages. Someone calls for hotel security. Other cell phones come out. People rush toward Victoriana. In the melee, she breaks away from Bruno’s grasp again. I find myself between them, among the pressing bodies. It’s a mass of flesh, and Victoriana’s trying to get to the parking lot with Ryan, who has struggled up. “Please! Let me through!”

  Suddenly, everything freezes, everything and everyone. The room goes silent. And then, people start to move in lockstep, clearing a path to let Victoriana, Philippe, and Ryan through.

  What’s happening? I try to speak the thought, but I, too, am frozen. My tongue won’t move. In the silence, I can feel my pulse pounding, so I know I’m still alive. The only other thing I can move is my eyes, and through them, I see Victoriana, Philippe, and Ryan walking through the parted crowd. I shift my gaze to the left, to Meg. I try to make eye contact. Does she see what I see?

  But Meg’s eyes are moving rapidly back and forth, back and forth to Bruno, to the crowd, to Victoriana, Philippe, and the other silent people.

  Meg’s doing it. She’s the one who froze the crowd. Somehow, she got Bruno to unhand Victoriana too. She made them all give way.

  I was never the best at math, but at some point, even a guy with a C in trig can add one plus one. Plus one. Plus one.

  The brownies. The magic ring. The way the swan got healed when Meg laid hands on it, and I started feeling better after the scorpion bite. The graveyard. And now, this.

  Meg’s a witch.

  But what does this mean? What does it mean for me? For us? Did she cast a spell on me? Is that why I fell for her, not Victoriana?

  And what else has she done to me? To everyone?

  Now what she’s doing is she’s saving the princess. Victoriana’s gone. She’ll return home, to her friends, to her family.

  To her shoes!

  But suddenly, there’s a gust of wind. It knocks people over, and everything unfreezes.

  In the middle of the room appears Sieglinde. Sieg- fried too.

  “Can you do nothing right?” she demands of Bruno.

  Bruno cowers before her. “Bitte. I could not get to her. There vas another vitch. She stopped me. She let them go.”

  “Go where?” Sieglinde shrieks.

  Bruno gestures mutely toward the door to the em- ployee lot.

  “Fool!” Sieglinde stomps her foot. “How could you let her get away?”

  “I didn’t . . . I couldn’t. There was . . .” He looks at Meg, who’s staring at her feet. “A witch.”

  Sieglinde turns to Meg. “You? Here?”

  Meg faces her. “Where’d you think I was? Trapped in a lighthouse? That’s just the lie you told Johnny.”

  “I vill put you there now!” She looks at her son. “Siegfried! After them! Now! You vill succeed this time!”

  “Yes, Mama.” Siegfried gulps but runs to the door. When he gets there, it’s locked. He pulls at it, shakes it. It won’t open. Sieglinde raises her hand as if she’s about to release a lightning bolt or something to blast it open. But suddenly, her feet are knocked from under her, and she’s on the floor.

  “Go the other way!” she screams at Siegfried.

  He runs off toward the front entrance, knocking through the crowds and the doormen. Sieglinde struggles to get to her feet, but it’s like she’s stuck in something, chewing gum that binds her to the ground, and as I watch her, I know I have to go after them too. I began this quest to help the princess. I have to see it through to the end.

  I start to run after Siegfried.

  “No, Johnny!” Meg is still staring down Sieglinde. “Try the door again!”

  I slide to a stop and go toward the door I know is locked. It opens easily. I run down a dark passage and see Victoriana and Philippe, struggling to squeeze into Ryan’s two-seater convertible. The princess stops to pick up a fallen sandal.

  “Go!” I yell. “Go quickly! They’re coming for you! Ryan, just take them anywhere. The witch will find you if you go to the airport! And Bruno probably didn’t call for the plane.”

  They hear me, and slam the door, leaving the shoe just lying there, abandoned, Victoriana in Philippe’s lap. The motor starts. They’re going to make it. They’re going to make it.

  Suddenly, I feel a hand on my chest. Then, something cold against my neck.

  It’s the blade of a knife.

  “You vill make them stop now,” Siegfried’s voice says.

  “No!” But I don’t want to die, and Victoriana is gesturing toward me, telling Ryan to stop. Ryan hesitates.

  Siegfried digs the knife into my throat. I feel blood. His breath comes in short bursts. “You go, he dies. Give me . . . give me the princess, and no one vill . . . get hurt.”

  I can feel Siegfried shaking as he says it, his breath hot in my ear. He’s as scared as I am.

  “Please,” Victoriana tells Ryan. “He is a hero. He saved my bruzzer. I cannot allow zis.”

  Philippe nods agreement. He opens the door, and both he and Victoriana stumble out.

  Against my back, I can feel Siegfried’s heart racing, as hard as my own. He’s panting almost like he’s about to have a seizure. But when he sees Victoriana, he loosens his grip a bit.

  “Ja!” he exclaims.

  “No!” I shout at the same time. “Victoriana, no!”

  “Shut up!” His voice is raw. “Now you . . .” He gestures toward the princess, and I can see he’s shaking like he just came out of a cold pool. “You come here.”

  “No!” I repeat. I twist, trying to meet his eyes, but it’s hard with a knife at my throat. “Is this really what you want?”

  “Johnny, I am going wiz him.” Victoriana goes to Siegfried. He grabs her arm, loosening his grip on me at the same time. In one fluid movement, he has Victoriana in his clutches, the knife at her throat. He kicks me away.

  “No!” I scream. It can’t end like this. I can’t have done all this work just to have him take her away.

  “It is okay,” Victoriana says. “You did your best.”

  “No.” I stare at Siegfried and remember how he let me go in the graveyard, remember his mother screaming at him. “Is this really what you want? Or are you just doing it because of your mother?”

  “Vat are you talking about?”

  “About you.” I gesture at Victoriana. “Are you like this, a kidnapper, a killer? I understand all about family and wanting to do what your parents want. I’ve done my best for my own family. But sometimes, Siegfried, you have to make your own decisions.”

  “I am brave.” He holds Victoriana clo
ser. “She must come with me.” But there’s doubt in his voice.

  “You let me go in the graveyard,” I say. “You’re twice my size. I couldn’t overpower you.”

  He laughs shakily. “Of course not. I . . .” He stops. “I did not let you go.”

  “You did. And in Zalkenbourg. You let me go that time too.”

  “I messed up those times. I have no powers, no magic.” He says it in a trembling voice. “My mother, she says I mess up alvays.”

  “Maybe you messed up because you knew you were doing the wrong thing.”

  He loosens his grip on Victoriana a bit, and I hear her take a deep breath.

  “Let her go,” I say.

  The hand holding the knife trembles. “But . . . she vill be so angry with me if I do not bring her the princess.”

  I know he’s considering it. There’s uncertainty in his eyes. “The police will be mad if you take the princess. If they catch you, I bet you get the death penalty for that. That’s worse than your mother being mad.”

  I hear him breathing, hard. The hand holding the knife wavers.

  “Is it worth it?” I ask. “Your mother’s a witch. She’ll get away with it. But you’ll be caught. Will she be able to get you out?”

  He shakes his head. “It is true.”

  I gesture toward the cowering princess. “Is this what you want? To hurt people? To make them do things they don’t want to do? Your mother’s looking for power. She wants to be the one who helped the king. But what’s in it for you? Don’t you want to be the good guy?”

  Siegfried looks at Victoriana. A slight breeze riffles her golden hair, and she nods.

  “If you release me,” she says in a strangled voice, “I will make sure nuzzing happens to you. I only want to be wiz my own family as you wish to be wiz yours.”

  Siegfried shakes his head. “I do not know what to do.”

  “Do the right thing,” I say, “the thing you know in your heart is right.”

  Siegfried stares at Victoriana a long time. We all do. She’s so beautiful, as startling as the day I first met her, but more now, because I know she’s sweet and kind as well.

  Finally, with a sigh, Siegfried releases his grip on her.

  “You are right. I cannot do this thing. I cannot.” He holds the knife out.

  I don’t want to take the knife, don’t want to touch it. But Siegfried holds it in a shaking hand. It has a streak of blood, my blood on the blade. I take it gingerly between my fingers and wrap it in my shirt.

  “Go,” he says to Victoriana. “I know my mother vill be here soon, to see that I have failed again. You must go. Now.”

  Victoriana nods. “You have not failed.”

  “Now!” Siegfried yells. “Go now!”

  Victoriana nods. She takes Philippe’s hand and runs to the car, pausing only to scoop up the sandal.

  Ryan has the top up, but Victoriana rolls down the window. As Ryan pulls out of the parking lot, she yells, “Zank you, Johnny! I will never forget you. And I will wear ze shoes!”

  And then, she’s gone.

  We stand a long moment, me and the scary motorcycle guy. Two mama’s boys.

  Finally, he says, “I knew you vere under the bar that time too.” He sighs, and I can tell he’s trying hard not to bawl. “I am a vuss. She vill kill me. It vill not matter if I go to jail because she vill kill me.”

  I actually feel sorry for the guy. It’s not his fault that his mother’s an evil witch bent on Zalkenbourgian domination.

  “You did the right thing,” I say, even though it doesn’t seem like enough.

  That’s when Sieglinde shows up, followed by Meg. They burst through the back door. Meg runs up to me and embraces me. “You’re all right!”

  Sieglinde spreads her arms. “Your police are here, but they are too late. My son has taken them! My son—” She sees Siegfried. She says, “You are here. Vere are they?”

  I look at Siegfried. He says nothing for a long moment, but finally, he gestures toward me and the gun. “I let them go, Mutter.”

  “You what? How could you?”

  He shakes his head.

  That’s when the cops catch up with Sieglinde. One grabs her while the other takes out the cuffs. The third is reading Sieglinde her rights.

  “How could you?” she screams. “You fool!”

  “I am sorry, Mama.” Siegfried is bawling. “I could not do it.”

  “I cannot believe this! I disown you!”

  And then, just as the handcuffs slip onto her wrists, Sieglinde disappears.

  Chapter 47

  “I held her at bay as long as I could,” Meg explains in her shop an hour later. We called the airport when we got into the hotel lobby, and a few minutes before, we received word that Victoriana’s plane had taken off. “I wanted to come help you.”

  “Like you helped me in the graveyard?”

  She shakes her head. “No, that was all you.”

  I’m not sure whether to believe her, so I say, “But you healed me from the scorpion bite? It really was poisonous.” She’s nodding, so I add, “And the swan. You fixed him too.”

  Meg nods. “Yes, I’m a healer. It will come in handy someday when we have kids. In fact . . .” She touches the small cut on my neck, the one my mother covered with a Band-Aid. In an instant, it doesn’t hurt at all. “But you were the one who got Siegfried to surrender. What did you do to him?”

  “Just . . . talked, told him it was a bad idea and stuff.” I can still feel the knife against my neck, and I shiver. It amazes me that I even could talk, like people who develop superhuman strength and lift a car off their kid or something. “It was weird. I mean, I don’t even know why I went after him. I don’t have . . . powers like you.”

  Meg pats my arm. “You have powers.”

  I laugh. “Right. Faster than a loose heel. Able to repair soles in a single stitch.”

  Meg laughs. “They’re just a different kind of powers. You’re decent and you’re honest. That’s why Victoriana asked you to help her in the first place, and that’s what made Siegfried see the light. There’re all kinds of magic in the world.”

  “All kinds of magic.” I touch her hair, then run my hand down her cheek. “It’d still be cool to be able to make a room freeze.”

  “I’ll do it for you.”

  “That’s why you wanted to come along with me, to protect me with your magic powers because you thought I was a wuss.”

  “Because I love you,” she says, gripping my hand. “I wanted to be with you. I knew you were doing something dangerous, or you wouldn’t have lied, and I didn’t want to have to wonder what happened to you like . . .”

  “Like my mom,” I say.

  “Right. So I gave you the ring, and I told you to wear it if you ever needed luck, knowing you’d put it on if you were in a tough spot, that it would bring me to you.”

  “Even though that would put you in that same tough spot.”

  “Especially because of that. And then, I tried to always be ready. I told my mom I might be going suddenly, and she understood.”

  “I . . . wow.” My head hurts from thinking, but I want to keep talking, so Meg doesn’t get the idea I should go home and rest or something. “So if you’ve been a witch all this time, why couldn’t magic have saved us from the dungeon in Zalkenbourg?” When Meg narrows her eyes at me, I say, “I mean, not that you haven’t done a lot of cool stuff.”

  “It was too dark. My family’s magic is in our eyes. To use it, there has to be eye contact.”

  I nod and get to what I’ve really been wondering about. “So did you make me fall in love with you with magic too, then?” I’m not sure if I care, really, I just want to know.

  But Meg shakes her head. “Of course not.”

  “Would you tell me if you did?”

  “Probably not. But think about it. I’ve had a crush on you for years. If I could just cast a spell and make you love me back, that would have been a lot easier than trying to make you jealo
us with Philippe. It’s not that I didn’t think about it, but I wanted it to be real.”

  “I want that too.”

  “My family pledged decades ago to only use our powers in case of emergency, not for taking tests or making money.”

  “How about housework? You use the elves for that.”

  “The brownies are free to go whenever they want. They just stay out of, I don’t know, tradition.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “So are you mad I didn’t tell you?”

  I look up at her, and it’s like everything I know about her is different now, is changed. But everything about me is changed too. A few weeks ago, I was some poor slob, repairing shoes with no hope of a future. But now I’ve fought two giants and won, been engaged to a princess and given her up, changed six swans into humans, and found the love of my life. Who wants things to be the same?

  I shake my head. “Could I just kiss you now?”

  She nods, and I do.

  “Johnny, come quick!” Across the way, in the shoe repair, my mother’s watching television. She’s pointing to the screen, and when we go to look, I see it’s Victoriana, filmed just before boarding her private plane, safe at Miami International.

  “We had a wonderful time in Florida,” she tells the reporters. She looks at a reporter who’s asked her a question I didn’t hear. “Oh, no special reason. Just ze sun, and ze shopping. In fact . . .” She holds up her foot, the one with my shoe on it.

  “My shoe’s on television!” I say.

  “While I have you all here, I want to show you ze thing I love very much. And zat is zis shoe. It is a very special shoe from a new designer, Gianni Marco, who is right here on South Beach. But I am very certain zat his shoes will soon be on ze runways of Europe.”

  The reporters ooh and ahh, and I hear cameras snapping, everyone taking photos of the princess and my shoe.

  Chapter 48

  Oh, flounder in the sea, come come, here to me. My wife wants me to make a wish. Come to me, oh, magic fish.

  —“The Fisherman and His Wife”

  Mom tells me to bring Meg back to the apartment tonight for dinner, to celebrate the fact that we have electricity to cook it. And some other stuff. But when we get there, my mother’s on the floor. There’s a man crouched over her.