The Paper Boat Read online

  She only hoped she had enough time to learn who sent it.

  Avery tried to nap, but fear and hunger made that impossible. Days passed with her constantly on edge, convinced she would be hauled off to the gallows any minute.

  The guards in the hall bantered with castle gossip. Avery closed her eyes and pretended she was in her castle tree house back home. She prayed for her brother and friends, wondered about Kate, and rehashed everything the old woman had said.

  If only Tuck had arrived at the chapel in time to rescue her. She hoped he was safe.

  She sang until she ran out of songs.

  And on and off she slept.

  Two plates of gruel were delivered every day, which she picked at, gagging, just to stay alive.

  Every evening she watched the light from the window creep along the floor until the sun set.

  And finally she quit begging God for her release and started praying the end would come, even if it meant execution.

  Avery was sleeping deeply when she heard someone whistling. Was she dreaming? She shook herself fully awake and realized it was the tune she had played for Queen Angelina, the one that had caused her to pass out.

  She lay on her back, wondering who would be bold enough to whistle that tune while Angelina sat on the throne.

  She bolted up in the darkness, dizzy from too little food and water, as she remembered that Babs always whistled that tune as he plodded through the tunnels at night.

  She pounded on the cell door with all her might. “Babs!” she called. “Is that you, old friend?”

  The whistling stopped, and two men spoke quietly.

  She backed against the wall and slid to the floor as footsteps approached, followed by jangling keys.

  A guard appeared and said, “Good day!” His dim-witted grin revealed gaps in his teeth that made Avery wonder if working the night shift guarding a thirteen-year-old was all he was capable of. Like a puppy, he looked overeager to please.

  “Good day to you,” Avery said, deciding any human contact was better than none.

  “You know Babs?” the guard asked.

  Avery nodded. “How do you know him?”

  “As a prisoner sent here for stealin’ the queen’s jewels.”

  “Was he sent to the Forbidden City?”

  The guard laughed. “No! Found innocent! Never seen anything like it. No one leaves here alive.”

  Avery’s eyes filled. She had been praying for Babs’s release since the day he had been dragged from the tunnel by the guards who had framed him.

  “Well, nice to meet you,” the guard said.

  “Wait!” Avery said. “Will I be sent to the Forbidden City?”

  The guard peered out the door, looked both ways, shook his head, and whispered, “Doubt it. When the queen doesn’t trust someone, she either keeps ‘em here forever, or…”

  “Or what?”

  He grinned and drew a finger across his throat.

  He didn’t have to look so cheery about it.

  “Well,” the guard said, bowing clumsily. “Better be getting back.”

  “May I have a drink of water?” Avery asked, smiling.

  He hesitated. “I’m not supposed to…”

  “I ask only because I can see you’re a gentleman.”

  Beaming, he again looked both ways down the corridor and whispered, “You been a good prisoner. Wait right here.”

  As if I have a choice.

  He pulled the heavy door closed, but Avery didn’t hear the dreaded click.

  Was it possible? He couldn’t have left it unlocked, could he?

  Avery pulled gently on the handle and jumped back.

  This is a trick.

  Surely a pack of guards waited on the other side to grab her and haul her to the gallows. Or could the goofy guard really be this bad at his job?

  She pulled harder and the door swung open. Avery peered both ways down the corridor. She’d heard two guards talking. Where had the second gone?

  The hall was pitch black. If she ventured into the darkness, she would be able to see nothing.

  But she also knew that if she was ever going to run, now was the time.

  Chapter 6

  Escape!

  Her stomach a tangle, Avery slipped into the hall and felt her way to the stairwell. She descended, pausing only at a commotion above.

  Footsteps, then something about her water, a door slamming, now running and shouting.

  Unsure whether two or twenty guards were on her trail, Avery ran as fast as she could.

  A light appeared at the top of the stairs. “There! Catch her!”

  Avery hiked up her dress and sprinted, missing a step and stumbling.

  The guards’ clanging armor grew louder as she steadied herself and hobbled.

  Her ankle throbbed, and speed had been her only hope.

  “Halt!” a guard called.

  “Stop where you are!”

  She needed to lose them somehow.

  She zigzagged until she came to a cloistered passageway dark enough to swallow her. No one would guess she had ducked in there.

  Wrong.

  The clank of armor told her someone had followed, and soon she could hear his breathing. And it also sounded like he was dragging one foot.

  Pain stabbed with every step, but all Avery knew to do was to move as far ahead of the noise as possible.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the guard sang. “Better for you to turn yourself in than make me find you. Escapees hang. Give up and I won’t even report this, ‘cause it makes me look as bad as you.”

  The guard pulling his sword from its sheath sent fear up Avery’s spine. With every step she had to fight to keep from crying out, which would cost her her life.

  Slow, deliberate footsteps told her he was close.

  “Bring the torch!” he hollered. “She’s here somewhere!”

  Avery pressed back against the wall and tiptoed until she discovered a doorway.

  Stepping out, she realized with a rush that she had entered the stairwell on the kids’ side of the castle.

  Moving carefully, she descended until she reached a landing she knew and slipped into the old storage room, where the first queen’s belongings were kept. Avery silently closed the door.

  She tripped and bumped into boxes until she reached a far corner, where she settled behind a pile of crates, pulling her knees to her chest.

  She rubbed her sore ankle and prayed the guards would give up.

  A moment later someone outside the door wheezed. “She has to be here somewhere!”

  “You check there. I’ll check here.”

  The door burst open, and a torch lit the room.

  Avery held her breath, injured, cornered, and unarmed.

  The guard turned a slow circle, and just when she thought she was safe, she had to shield her eyes against a glow so bright she knew the guard had to be looking right at her.

  She prayed whatever happened next would be swift and painless.

  Chapter 7

  The Book Fort

  “She’s not in here!” the guard yelled.

  Avery was stunned when he left and closed the door.

  He had to have seen her. Why would he do this? Would he come back?

  Avery had to get as far from the storage room as possible, but where could she go? The other rooms in the kids’ quarters were empty and wouldn’t conceal her.

  Besides, her ankle felt worse by the second. She had no choice. She would stay where she was for the night, then make a move at dawn.

  But Avery wasn’t about to make it easy for the guard if he came back for her.

  She remembered a box of candles and matches had been stored here, but she didn’t know whether her shins could take the bruises necessary to find it.

  She bumped into crate after crate until she finally discovered what she needed.

  She lit a candle and found the room had been largely untouched since her last visit. In the move to the tunnels, th
e kids had no need for silks or vases.

  Now she was grateful.

  Moving painfully, Avery began gathering items to build a fort. Stacking books salvaged from the library, she raised four walls, leaving a small entryway through which she could crawl. Inside the fort, she fashioned a pallet out of all the fabric she could find. She dug through crates of knickknacks for anything that would fortify her hiding spot.

  “Protection,” she whispered, finding a tarnished silver candlestick.

  Barely able to move and with her stomach aching with emptiness, Avery was desperate for food. But there had never been food in this room—why would there be? Still, she searched, her frantic brain making her hope for anything edible.

  She raided boxes and dug through chests, imagining opening a trunk and discovering a feast.

  She had just about come to her senses and given up when she lifted the lid of a large crate and pawed through a stack of odds and ends, coming to an ornate wooden box, polished and heavy.

  Avery hefted it out to find a collection of kitchen knives that appeared to have never been used. She examined them, gleaming in the candlelight, and settled on the largest, putting it in her pocket.

  That offered her the freedom to leave the storage room. Forget the candlestick. Now she had real protection.

  Foolish? Likely. Reckless, certainly. But it was her only choice if she were to find food soon enough to fuel her depleted body.

  Chapter 8

  Eavesdropping

  Avery cracked the door of the storage room and listened for footsteps, watching for any sign of movement.

  She slipped out and entered the stairwell, which was darker and quieter than she remembered it ever being when she and her noisy friends lived here.

  Avery crept along the stairs, putting as little weight on her ankle as she could. A guard could be lying in wait for her in any of the doorways, so she sneaked along with a candle in one hand and her other hand wrapped around the handle of the knife in her pocket.

  She finally arrived at the kitchen, pressed her ear against the door, and pushed it open. The once pastry-filled wonderland stood vacant. She moved into the pantry and bit her tongue to keep from squealing with joy. Long wooden shelves were laden with canned goods, wedges of cheese, and bags of flour and sugar.

  Avery nearly sang when she discovered sacks of potatoes, pots of candied peanuts, and bags of chocolate. She stuffed peanuts into her mouth and loaded her pockets until they could hold no more.

  As she turned to leave, she stepped over the circulation vent in the floor and stopped.

  How long had it been since she spied on the king?

  I have no idea what’s going on these days—if anything.

  Knowing she should get back to the storage room and her fortress of books, Avery dropped to her knees and quietly cranked the heavy handle to open the slats.

  Even at this hour, a crowd of advisors gathered around the king’s desk, heads together, talking in somber tones. The king, however, was not there.

  She heard “dying.”

  “Fever.”

  “Complications.”

  “Relief.”

  And, most ominous of all—“imminent.”

  Angry that she had been unable to stop Angelina from poisoning him, Avery realized the entire realm could soon be at the mercy of the evil queen.

  She leaned close until her face nearly touched the grate.

  “Now is the time to strike!” one of the men said.

  Another shook his head. “The thirteen-year-old is gone. What’s the point?”

  A third added, “We could lose everything we’ve worked for.”

  They can’t find Kendrick, and without an heir, the throne will pass to another family.

  One said, “How do we fix this? What’s our plan?”

  As Avery shifted to take pressure off her tender ankle, a candied peanut rolled from her pocket, dinged the metal grate, and dropped through the slats to the king’s desk.

  As heads shot up, Avery ducked out of sight.

  “What was that?”

  “Someone up there?”

  “Hello?”

  Avery limped quickly out of the pantry and back around the corner into the kitchen, where she ran full force into a man, who grunted, “Oof!”

  She stepped back and pulled the knife from her pocket, prepared to defend herself to the death.

  Chapter 9

  The Visitor

  Avery had never attacked anyone in her life, but she’d run this guy through if she had to. When he didn’t back off, she lunged at him, aiming for his heart.

  He stopped her in midthrust, grabbing her wrist with one hand. “Hold it right there! It’s me!”

  “Oh, Babs!” Avery said, nearly collapsing with relief.

  “Where’d you get this?” he asked, taking the knife from her hand.

  “Can’t be too careful,” she said, as he carefully handed it back to her.

  “What are you doing in here, young lady? And why do you keep putting yourself in harm’s way? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Avery pocketed the knife and threw her arms around him until he gently peeled her off and cleared his throat.

  “Glad to see you, too,” he said, “but we can’t be seen together. Unlike you, I don’t have a death wish. Now get back to the storage room and stay there until you hear from me.”

  She shot him a double take. “How did you know where I was? Wait. You’re the one who found me in there, weren’t you? You saw me then claimed I wasn’t there!”

  Babs looked over his shoulder. “Stop talking, and don’t make me regret it. You’ve got to get back there.”

  But Avery’s ankle vibrated with white-hot pain, and she let out a tiny cry.

  “What’s the matter now?”

  She told him about her ankle.

  Babs sighed, shuffled to her, and picked her up like a sack of flour.

  He carried her all the way down the stairs and back to the storage room, where he carefully set her down. “Stay,” he said. “No one will look for you here.”

  “But at the Tower they said you—”

  Babs put a finger to his lips and shook his head. “Later,” he said, and he was gone.

  Avery sat on the pallet in her fort and, in the light of a candle braced by books, spread the feast she’d gathered from the pantry.

  Scraps had never smelled or tasted so good.

  She deftly cut the skin off a potato until it felt smooth in her hand, then bit into it like an apple, the crunch music to her ears. She ate until she could eat no more, then pulled the parchment note from her pocket and let its message embolden her anew:

  Take courage. He made it to the Forbidden City and is bringing back someone who will make everything right.

  Avery blew out the candle, stretched out, and fell asleep in the pitch black, hoping Kendrick would come back soon. She needed to warn him of the king’s advisors and tell him his identity was no longer a secret.

  But what would happen if the king died before Kendrick returned?

  Light peeked in from the draped window, and Avery awoke to tapping on the storage room door. She slunk low to peer through a crack in the stacks of books.

  Tuck stepped into the room.

  Avery was thrilled to see him after so long, but also panicked over what she must look like after days without bathing or even combing her hair.

  She frantically ran her fingers through the knots, twisting her hair to one side and pinching her cheeks for color.

  “Avery,” Tuck whispered. “You in here?”

  She wished she could talk to him without showing herself.

  He poked around and turned to leave.

  “Right here,” she said flatly.

  “Where? I can’t see you.”

  She crawled out, stood, and tried to smooth her dress—feeling the red creep into her face.

  His eyes were strangely clouded, and he’d lost his usual smile.

  “I can explain,
” Avery said, “beginning with the chapel.”

  He held up a hand. “Me first. I need to tell you that we just learned this morning that he didn’t make it. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

  “Oh no,” she said, finding it hard to imagine the castle—the realm—without its king. Soon everyone would find out how evil Angelina truly was. “We’ll have to backtrack through the tunnels and leave from the chapel. It won’t be easy—I’ve got a bad ankle—but it’s our only option. Let’s hurry.”

  Tuck’s face contorted. “Avery! What are you talking about?”

  “We can’t stay in the castle with Angelina in power. She’ll kill every one of us!”

  Tuck squinted and shook his head.

  “You aren’t talking about the king,” she said.

  “No.”

  Avery swallowed. “Who didn’t make it?”

  “Kendrick. His ship capsized on the return voyage.”

  Avery clasped a hand over her mouth and sank into a chair.

  Tuck said, “The king is actually rumored to be improving.”

  “Wait, how does anyone know what happened to Kendrick? That little boat of his would never be mistaken for a ship.”

  “He left here on a tiny boat,” Tuck said, “but he was bringing people back on a ship. Scouts went searching for him when word came that a ship had been lost a short distance from shore. They found the overturned ship with Kendrick’s belongings on board.”

  “So there’s a chance—”

  Tuck shook his head and put a hand on Avery’s shoulder. “No survivors. I’m sorry.”

  Avery held her head in her hands, letting hot tears roll.

  Tuck’s voice quavered. “He boarded that little boat to the Forbidden City so I wouldn’t.”

  That, Avery knew, was true. She considered telling Tuck she suspected Kendrick’s death was no accident. He was the rightful heir to the throne, and someone took his life because of it.

  “I can’t stay,” Tuck said, “but I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

  “Wait,” Avery said. “There’s something you need to know.”