HONEY'S KINGDOM TWO – THORNS AMONG THE ROSES
A sequel to Honey's Kingdom. Just when it all seems wonderful for the characters in the first story, bad things begin to happen. Can Honey and Elle help again?
Honey was serving coffees as fast as she could but there were impatient mutterings from the long queue of people. Honey tried to remember to be polite at all times.
"How can I help you?" she asked, then her eyes widened.
Elle stood there with a faint smile on her face.
"How can you help me? By coming with me now. Terrible things are going to happen, Trainee, and we need to make them better if it's too late to prevent them."
"Stop nattering, love, and just make the drinks" snapped a sullen man just behind Elle.
Elle turned to him with a charming smile – and froze the whole line.
"They can stay like that till you get back. They'll not remember a thing" Elle informed her cheerfully.
Then, with a wave of enchanted dust, Elle grabbed Honey's collar and they were off.
Honey had forgotten how uncomfortable that felt.
Queen Constance sat in her cell, cursing her bad luck. She would go insane if she was here much longer without her own reflection to gaze on.
"Lunch! I'll bring it in" said a voice.
"I am not hungry. I mean to starve myself if I can't see my own reflection any more."
"You'll be hungry, trust me" said the visitor.
The door flew open and in strutted a sullen-faced young man.
"I lied about the lunch" he confessed.
"Get out."
"Would you like a mirror, Queen Constance?"
And the young man made a sign. Constance gasped as she found a mirror in her hand. She gasped harder as she saw her face. Tired skin, that had been starved of moisture. Dull eyes. A mouth badly in need of lip balm.
"You can have all your balms and lotions soon. As long as you agree to accompany me to my home."
"Walk past the guards, just like that?" sneered Constance.
The young man seized her arm firmly but not cruelly.
"My name is Louis, the illegitimate son of Meyer the Demon. My father is in a jar – a bloody jar for the chief demon in the world! – and if we get the right ingredients we can pour them on his ashes and bring him back to life."
"What are the ingredients?" asked Queen Constance, her eyes shining again.
"Broken hearts. A vanished bridegroom. A wolf in human form and a sacrifice. Oh and some thunder dust to make it all look impressive."
"Where do we get those things from, for goodness sake?"
"Oh it won't be for goodness at all, your Majesty. But they will just occur and every time they do, the liquid will appear in small measures in my vault. Once we have all four, I can provide the Thunder Dust and we can restore my good old dad."
A rap at the door.
"What is happening in that cell? Come out with your hands raised, Queen Constance."
"I'm coming; please don't hurt me" Constance made her voice tremble as Louis winked at her.
He strutted out and with a touch of his hand, the guard vanished into dust.
"Oh, I like you" purred the Queen.
Louis showed the Queen his house. She was quite impressed until she realised he did all his housework by magic. Then he grinned at her and said:
"Come down to the dungeon and meet my prisoner."
Queen Constance wondered if this was a cruel trick, and if Louis would push her into the dungeon and then shout "You're my prisoner!" But as they neared the dungeon, they could hear weeping.
"Stop that, Taylor. Here, clean yourself up."
He threw the sniveling woman a handkerchief. She wiped her face, blew her nose and defiantly kept the hanky.
"Oh have it" Louis shrugged, "I'm letting you out for a nice little ride in my transformation machine."
"Don't want."
"Shouldn't have sold your soul to me then, should, you, for a front seat at a Justin Bieber concert?"
"Justin Bieber? You've had her a long time, then" smirked the Queen.
The machine flung Taylor around and her screams would have been heartrending to anybody who possessed a heart.
Then the machine was still. Taylor crawled out, saying:
"I am shaken but not stirred."
She didn't look like Taylor any more. She looked the image of the Countess Sophie of Passionara, and even moved and spoke like her.
Queen Constance understood and began to howl with laughter.
"We need to stop her!" Honey gasped.
Elle shook her head.
"Not yet."
"One day" replied Honey ominously, "Your policy of letting people work out their problems without your help is going to cause real heartache."
"Buy any dress you want for the wedding, my darling" Prince Ethan told Sophie – the real Sophie – lovingly.
"I still don't feel easy about spending the country's money."
"Our wedding's going to bring in a lot of money for the tourist industry, love. And Mr Jacob is generous with his discounts. He's just made that big sale to my brother for his and Princess Lily White's clothes for their own wedding, so he'll be happy to do a family member a favour."
Jez the trickster sat mournfully in his workshop. Thanks to Prince Ethan's ruling about fixed prices he had to charge piddly little prices for his fine wedding souvenirs. And the wedding was going to take place in two days' time. Normally preparations for a royal wedding would take quite a time but this one was scheduled immediately after Prince Caleb's wedding. He'd not made any profit out of that one either. Maybe, thought Jez, who had a mean little mind, Countess Sophie had a royal Bun in the oven.
"Now what do you think of THIS one?" smiled Mr Jacob, showing Sophie a beautiful fitted cream dress decorated tastefully with tiny seed pearls.
"Could I try it on please?"
Mr Jacob beamed. Countess Sophie was so polite to everybody and he could see that she was thrilled with all the dresses he'd shown her.
"Of course, my dear Countess. Go straight into that room on the right."
Sophie obeyed, and was just about to try on the dress when she felt something heavy and painful on the back of her head.
Then nothing.
"Go, go go" said Elle to Honey urgently.
en
"Quickly now, try on that dress and then come out again" Louis snapped to Taylor. Honey and Elle materialised.
"Not so fast!" Elle smiled, raising her wand.
Louis snatched Elle's wand from her and snapped it in half. Then he shrunk Elle to the size of a flea and shut her in a small black box.
Honey said desperately:
"Monster from the depths of hell,
Free my nice boss lady Elle."
After all, the last time Honey had tried to cast a spell it had worked.
No such luck this time.
Honey found herself in the box next to an unhappy Elle.
"Say some magic" begged Honey.
"In case you didn't notice, he broke my wand."
Fortunately Louis quite enjoyed a challenge.
"First round to me. You two can stay imprisoned till after Prince Ethan's wedding tomorrow. In the meantime don't annoy me or you'd be amazed at how nicely little black boxes burn up."
He put Honey and Elle on a high shelf and said to Taylor:
"Right, you will do everything I tell you from now on. Come with Queen Constance and myself. Let's go and pay Mr Jacob for the pretty dress."
He steered them both out, then turned back to look at poor Sophie in a heap on the floor.
"As for this one…"
This time the box was a pretty purple one. Sophie, still unconscious, didn't realise she'd been shrunk.
"Throw her into the fire!" urged Queen Constance.
"Don't be stupid! I'm going to set her free… sometime tomorrow after the wedding. I want her kept safe so I can see the misery on her face when she realizes her precious Ethan's married the wrong girl!"
The Queen replied:
"I don't suppose you've any plans to wreck Prince Caleb's marriage to that little brat Princess Lily White?"
"All in good time, my dear. We've only just begun to wreck lives."