Authors: Carys Jones
“There’s my baby,” she declared. “Don’t you look beautiful?”
Marie remained stoic in response. She had no idea how she looked. She’d not seen a mirror in days. How long had she even been in this place? She had no idea. But the woman at her bedside did look familiar. With each passing hour Marie began to recall more of her time here, more of her life, and her time in Azriel started to feel further and further away.
Carol placed a number of glossy fashion magazines on the table beside Marie’s bed.
“These are for you to read when you’re feeling better. I got all your favourites like Glamour and Cosmopolitan.”
“Thanks,” Marie managed to reply, her throat still sore. She’d been told it would take several days for it to start to feel less tender as a result of being intubated.
“You look so much better, you’ve got colour in your cheeks,” Carol gushed. “She’s got good colour, hasn’t she Bill?”
From his position lingering awkwardly at the base of the bed Bill nodded nonchalantly in response. He wasn’t sure Marie did look better. Certainly it was a relief to see her without the intubation tube or oxygen mask but without them her facial wounds were prominently on display and each time he looked at her something within him died.
Both of Marie’s eyes were turning black. Her cheeks were a deep purple as their bruises came out and she had numerous lacerations scattered across her face like some sort of macabre graffiti.
“I want to go home,” Marie told them sternly. She was tired of the hospital, tired of being restricted to her sick bed.
“The doctors said you can go home soon,” Carol enthused. “And we’ll take good care of you when you’re back. I’ll make your favourite dinner and you can sit in your old bedroom watching all your DVDs.”
Marie turned away from her mother and gazed out towards the window at the far end of the room. Outside it was already dark as the impending winter held long days at bay. Marie didn’t want to return to the house her mother spoke of. She wanted to return to Azriel. The people there needed her. Each moment she spent here in this place her kingdom dwindled.
“We can’t wait to have you home,” Carol continued, gesturing for Bill to sit on the plastic chair beside her. Reluctantly he came over and sat down, the chair appearing comically small against his hulking frame.
“I don’t belong here,” Marie announced dreamily, still gazing out of the window.
“Of course you don’t,” Carol agreed fervently. “You belong at home.”
“But I’m a princess,” Marie declared, her eyelids feeling heavy. Even though she spent the day in bed she was constantly exhausted as her body worked to repair itself.
Carol instantly agreed with the statement;
“Yes!” she enthused. “You’re our princess. Isn’t she Bill?”
Marie didn’t hear if her father responded, instead she dropped in to a deep, dreamless sleep.
*
Dr Simmons read over the case file for a fourth time. He wanted to be certain that there was nothing he’d missed. He held the scans which had been taken on the day of admission up to the light and scrutinized them.
All of the issues which he saw had already been addressed. The broken bones, the bleed upon the brain, they had all been dealt with. There was nothing left to do but send Marie Schneider home. The hospital had done all it could for her, the rest of her recovery would be in her hands.
*
“It will be a long road,” Dr Simmons explained to Marie who was sat up in her bed. “You’ll need extensive amounts of physiotherapy.”
“I’ll make sure she receives the best treatment,” Sebastian said as he gripped Marie’s hand in a vice like grip as though he never intended to let go.
“You’ve suffered multiple breaks in both your legs and arms,” the doctor looked down at the casts locked around Marie’s limbs.
“When the casts come off you might have suffered muscle atrophy, it’s important to maintain as much mobility as you can.”
Marie looked down at the garish white casts mounted upon her legs. When had they been put there? She didn’t remember being unable to walk. In Azriel she’d had no problems walking. Looking down her gaze rested on her hospital gown. She knew it well. It was the gown she’d discarded for her beautiful dress. Where was her dress now? She’d rather be wearing that.
“Your Mum bought some clothes for you to go home in,” Sebastian told her, leaning in to speak when he spotted her gazing despondently at the regulation hospital gown.
“You’ll need assistance dressing, bathing and with general mobility for the first few weeks,” Dr Simmons said, addressing both Marie and Sebastian.
“I’ll look after her,” Sebastian eagerly promised. Marie turned to look at him and then at Dr Simmons. Why weren’t they treating her like a princess? Didn’t they know who she was?
“I want to go back,” Marie titled her head to look directly at Sebastian. Even with the pain killers in her system the movement stung and made her eyes water.
“We’ll be going back soon,” Sebastian reassured her.
“I want to go back to Azriel,” Marie told him.
“What? Your apartment? I don’t think you should go back there yet.”
“Azriel,” Marie repeated. Why didn’t he understand what she was saying?
Sebastian glanced nervously at Dr Simmons. The doctor shifted his weight uncomfortably and glanced down at his chart. Carefully Sebastian released Marie’s hand and went to stand beside the doctor, lowering his voice to prevent her listening as her gaze turned back to the window. She liked watching the rain splash up against the glass as the silver clouds above released their burden.
“Sometimes she says things which don’t make sense,” Sebastian whispered, recalling the countless times Marie had asked for someone called Orion.
Dr Simmons glanced briefly at Marie before turning to face Sebastian.
“It’s normal in extreme trauma cases like this for the patient to experience some uncharacteristic behaviour after the accident. Hallucinations, confusion, are all quite common. I’ve advised her GP to monitor her for signs of PTSD.”
Sebastian listened intently and nodded as the doctor spoke. Marie certainly hadn’t been herself since she’d woken up. She’d barely addressed him or her parents. Instead she spent hours starring out of the window, lost to her own thoughts.
“I just want her to get better,” he sighed.
“And she will, it just takes time,” Dr Simmons stated. “She’s been through an awful lot.”
Marie continued to watch the rain fall upon the window, landing and then slowly sinking away, pulled down by gravity. She found comfort in the raindrops. Like her, they’d landed somewhere unexpected and were just trying to get away.
But she couldn’t go anywhere. She could barely move at all. She felt completely and utterly broken. Each leg, each arm needed to mend and heal. As did her face and her chest which housed several broken ribs and one previously punctured lung. She was a walking catalogue of physical disasters.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Sebastian smiled at Marie, willing her to look at him and return the gesture but she remained detached from his conversation with the doctor.
“Come on then, beautiful,” he returned to the bedside and carefully reclaimed her hand in his.
“Are you ready to go home?”
“Princess,” Marie uttered, her chest trying to resist each sound she attempted to make. “Call me princess.”
*
Linda Wiggins wore black as she bowed her head and tried to listen to the priest speak over the sound of the rain hammering against the umbrella which her son Tyler was kindly holding over her.
“And so we commit Thomas Henry Wiggins to the earth,” the priest was concluding the ceremony as the oak casket began to be lowered down in to the earth, supported by lorry drivers whom Tommy had called friends for the better part of two decades.
Flanked by her two sons Linda openly wept in to the pristine white tissue which she held tightly in her gloved hand.
“It’s okay, Mum,” Declan rubbed her back whilst holding in tears of his own. Linda shuddered as she continued to sob. The past week had been so surreal. She almost couldn’t believe that she was at her husband’s funeral. The previous Sunday he’d been home enjoying a roast dinner and watching the cricket with the boys. How had her life changed so irrevocably in the blink of an eye?
Linda remained by her husband’s fresh grave site long after the other mourners had moved on to his favourite pub, The Crown and Dog. Tyler and Declan remained at her side. They’d not left it since they’d received the soul destroying news that their father was gone.
“Mum, are you ready to go?” Tyler carefully asked after several minutes of silence. Linda looked around at the soaked earth and wiped at her eyes.
“Your father always loved the rain,” she stated, her voice empty and removed.
“Except when he was in the lorry,” Declan interjected. “He hated the rain when he was on a job.”
Tyler shot his brother a harsh look. They weren’t supposed to discuss anything associated with their father’s lorry. It was the lorry which had killed him.
“I just want him back,” Linda felt her knees buckle beneath her but Declan swiftly caught her in his arms and steadied her.
“I know, Mum,” he agreed, holding her close.
“We should really go,” Tyler began to turn away from the grave, towards the car park and the waiting black hearse.
“I just keep thinking about those other poor people,” Linda admitted forlornly as they walked away, the rain bouncing off the ground around them.
“Your father would never hurt a soul,” she caught a sob in her throat and dabbed at her eyes with the tissue she still held.
“If he knew what he’d done to that girl…” her voice broke away. Tommy Wiggins was a good man, a kind and loving man. She couldn’t bear the thought that his final legacy might be that he killed a young woman with his lorry. He deserved to be remembered for the good he did, not the terrible events of his final moments.
“Didn’t you hear?” Declan’s voice brightened, grateful to be able to deliver some good news. Lately it felt like all the news he had to report was dire.
“Hear what?” Linda felt her chest tighten. She willed the young woman not to dead for the sake of Tommy’s memory.
“She woke up,” Declan declared, cracking a slight smile. “She woke up and she’s going to be fine.”
The news put fresh life in to Linda’s tears and she started sobbing once more.
“It’s a good thing, Mum,” Tyler told her, using his free arm to rub her back. “And Dad would be happy if he knew.”
“Yeah, Mum,” Declan agreed. “Don’t be upset, like Tyler said, it’s a good thing.”
“I know, I know, I’m just pleased,” Linda admitted, hiccupping through her tears. “I just hope she goes on and leads a full and happy life. She’s got a second chance, not everyone is so lucky.”
“I’m sure she will, Mum,” Declan reassured her, opening the car door and helping her climb inside. He exchanged a sad look with his brother before they also entered the car and drove away from their father’s funeral as above the clouds began to part and the rain abated.
In the bedroom where Marie had grown up the walls were still adorned with posters of Nsync and Backstreet Boys. Her bed remained covered in a bright pink duvet which matched the bright pink curtains which were currently shutting out the late afternoon winter sun. Opposite her bed atop a worn out chest of drawers was a small flat screen white television with an in-built DVD player. It was the only new addition to the room since Marie’s departure from the family home.
The room was small yet welcoming. The air smelt of faded flowers and forgotten wishes. Sitting on the bed, a prisoner of her own fragile state, Marie absorbed the space around her. It felt familiar. It felt safe. Yet it didn’t feel like home. This wasn’t the room of a princess, and Marie was a princess, wasn’t she?
“Not much has changed in here,” Carol Schneider was sat at the foot of the bed, cup of tea in hand.
“We put the TV in here so you could watch some DVDs. Sebastian went to Asda and picked some nice girly films up for you.”
Marie had seen the pile of DVDs beside the television, their bright spines fitting in with the gaudy décor of the room. She’d liked the splash of colour they offered.
“I could watch something with you,” Carol suggested, reaching to grab the pile of DVDs. She commenced looking through them, making brief comments about each one she observed.
“This looks good.”
“Ooh, I’ve heard of this.”
“He’s dishy!”
Marie wasn’t listening. She was looking down at her limbs, eyeing the white casts which currently housed them.
A car accident.
That’s what she’d been told. She’d been driving on the motorway when a lorry went through the central divide and collided with her car. Her car was then hit an additional time by another vehicle as she lay stranded in the driver’s seat.
When people explained the details of Marie’s accident it felt like they were describing events which had happened to someone else. Marie didn’t associate with the accident. She was still struggling to understand what exactly was going on. No one spoke of Azriel, it was as if it didn’t exist to them.
But Azriel continued to exist for Marie. As her mother prattled on about the DVDs Marie thought of Orion. She thought of his golden eyes and his crisp white suit. He was surely wondering where she had gone, panicking even. Azriel had once again lost its princess and Marie was expected to act as if nothing had happened, to sit on a pink bed and watch chick flicks whilst her kingdom, her people, vanished without her blood line to make them strong.
“Marie?” Carol was looking intently at her daughter, brandishing a DVD where the cover was a woman looking coyly at an overtly handsome man.
“What about this one?”
All the films appeared to be the same. They were about people falling in and out of love. Marie didn’t care what happened to them. Why had Sebastian selected such films for her? Did she usually like that sort of stuff?
“Is there anything else?” Marie wondered. Her chest tightened as she spoke, her wounds still fresh and sore.
“A different film?” Carol looked confused. She was about to speak again when the door to the bedroom cracked open and Sebastian walked in.
“How are you doing?” his voice was annoyingly perky as he addressed Marie. He was also holding a cup of tea.
“We’re just selecting what film to watch,” Carol smiled though it didn’t extend to her eyes.
“The doctor said it’s important for Marie to rest so we thought we’d spend the afternoon watching DVDs.”
“Sounds good,” Sebastian nodded. “I picked up a few of your favourite films.” He glanced briefly at the pile Carol had been shifting through.
Marie drew her eyebrows together and tilted her head slightly to the right. If those romance centred films had once been to her taste they certainly weren’t in favour now. She wanted to watch something darker, something where people suffered. Happy couples just reminded her of how lost she felt, how disconnected she was. Azriel was a happy place and she’d been taken away from there. This world, this place where she apparently belonged seemed impossibly wretched in comparison. No amount of feel good films could change that.
“How about a horror?” she suggested.
“A horror?” Sebastian looked taken aback. “Marie, you hate horror films. You always insisted that no good came of watching people in turmoil.”
Marie shrugged.
“Don’t you think you’d be better watching a nice film?” Carol suggested gently, resting her chosen DVD on Marie’s legs.
Marie wanted to point out that nice was merely a perspective. However, she held her tongue and went to shake her head and then thought better of it. Movement only brought pain so she tried to remain as still as possible.
“I’d like to watch a horror.”
“I don’t want you getting scared,” Sebastian noted with concern. Previously, Marie couldn’t even sit through Labyrinth without crying and turning it off. She was an extremely sensitive soul. He couldn’t imagine his sweet, pure Marie watching a horror film where people are haunted by demons or having their limbs hacked off by a maniac.
“Nothing scares me,” Marie told him sincerely. And it didn’t. Not here at least. Her greatest fear now was that she might never be able to return to Azriel. Nothing else even had the potential to scare her.
*
Carol declined the opportunity to watch a horror film and so left Sebastian and Marie alone to watch one of Bill’s old movies; The Exorcist.
Sebastian had hoped that during the film Marie might cuddle up to him as they sat side by side on her childhood bed. Instead she insisted that she couldn’t tolerate him on the bed as his weight on the mattress caused her to be in pain. He sat on a chair which Bill had bought up for him on the other side of the room, facing the small television on which the classic horror film now played.
Each time he glanced at Marie she was watching the scenes on the screen unfold with dull eyes. She hardly moved. He knew that it hurt her to move but he was still perturbed by how stoic she was.
Marie enjoyed the movie. At least what she saw of it. When the little girl’s possession was at its most fevered and her head rotated Marie felt her eyelids growing heavy. With only the light from the TV to illuminate the room she was cast in a pleasant darkness. Her body yearned for sleep. When she slept she got to forget how sore she was and how even the slightest movement caused her unwavering pain.
Her eyes closed all the way and the sounds on the television became more and more distant as she drifted off the sleep.
*
“Can you hear me?”
Marie instantly opened her eyes. She knew that voice.
“Orion!” she called out. Looking down she was still in bed only the sheets weren’t bright pink, they were lustrous gold and there was bright light streaming in through an open balcony door. Marie could smell flowers, cinnamon and spring. She was back in Azriel.
“Orion!” to her amazement she was able to climb effortlessly out of bed. Gone were the restrictive casts. Instead her body was in pristine condition and she was wearing a floor length golden night gown which shimmered in the light.
She was back in her chambers, back within the palace. As Marie relished her return the main doors opened and Orion walked in. She rushed to him and wrapped her arms around him.
“Oh, Orion,” she gushed. “I missed you.”
Orion wrapped his arms around her and tightly held her for the embrace.
“How long have I been gone?” she asked him as she stepped back. His gold eyes sparkled when he looked at her but there was a sadness within them.
“You’ve been gone a while,” he told her.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Marie reached down and took his hands in hers. It felt good to feel his warmth flood through her when they touched.
“You’re caught between worlds,” Orion explained. Marie felt her initial happiness at being in Azriel start to ebb away. She led Orion over to her bed and they sat down side by side.
“How is that even possible? I was here and then I was there. And I’m not even a princess there.”
“But you are here,” Orion told her. “You belong here.”
Marie leant her head against his shoulder. She’d missed him so much that her body ached not from pain but from withdrawal.
“I kept calling for you but you didn’t come.”
“I heard you,” Orion said as he placed a strong arm around her. “I heard you but I can’t cross between worlds. I exist only here.”
“Then I only want to exist here too,” Marie declared. Back in that other world, she couldn’t even move. The wounds inflicted upon her were so severe that even breathing was laborious. Here in Azriel she was perfect, untouched by the horrific collision that she’d apparently lived through.
“I want you here,” Orion told her. “I want you to never leave.”
Marie glanced up and looked in to his eyes. She saw herself reflected in them; she looked so beautiful, so regal. Then her gaze drifted down to Orion’s lips. He was so handsome that each time she saw him her heart felt like it had been placed on a freight train. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to kiss him and remain in Azriel forever.
As if sensing her intentions Orion leant down and gently placed his lips upon hers. They were as warm as his hands and sent sparks surging through Marie’s body. Gently he caressed her lips before Marie carefully parted her mouth and allowed his tongue to press against hers. The kiss remained tender yet sensuous as they sat on her bed. Marie cupped Orion’s head with her hands whilst he grabbed at her hips and pulled her close. Her pulse quickened as they kissed. Orion expertly massaged her tongue with his own before releasing her and gently kissing her neck.
Marie thought she might go crazy with desire.
“Take me,” she whispered to him.
“I can’t,” he breathed the words which were heavy with regret in to her hair.
“Why not?”
“Because they’re taking you back.”
Before Marie could ask him what he meant she felt a sharp jolt to her right shoulder and upon blinking found herself in darkness. As her eyes adjusted she realised that she was back in the room with the bright pink duvet. The television across from him was now silent and blank.
“Marie,” a male voice called out to her, sounding close.
“Orion?” she asked hopefully.
“Marie, it’s me, Sebastian,” she smelt his cologne before she saw him. He’d propped himself up by her bed from the position on the floor where he’d been resting in an old sleeping bag.
“How did I get here?” Marie looked around, realising with despair that her body was once more locked within numerous casts. She’d returned to the world where she was broken.
“You were having a nightmare,” Sebastian explained gently, his voice light in the darkness. “I was worried you’d hurt yourself as you were tossing and turning.”
A nightmare? No, Marie had been free. Marie had been in Azriel. With Orion. And that kiss. She wanted desperately to return.
“You shouldn’t have woken me!” she scolded Sebastian. The darkness hid his hurt expression from her.
“I was worried about you.”
“I was just dreaming.”
“Marie-”
“Can’t I have some respite from this hell?” the words crashed against Sebastian like icy daggers and he flinched away from her.
“I’m sorry, I know you need to rest.” He recoiled away from Marie, returning to the sanctuary of the sleeping bag where he hoped for what felt like the millionth time that his sweet, loving fiancée was still in there somewhere as he’d yet to see her since Marie had awoken from the accident.