Chapter Five

Newcomer

Two months passed, and early traces of warm days seemed to arrive in the end of March. The snow had almost all melted away, the Mississippi river was now backing in its liquid form again, and trees had started growing their leaves. The Secret Garden seemed to however shown no change in season, and no matter whether dead winter or early spring, it was still flowering with all sorts of beautiful things.

However, like Finn had first said to me when we had first visited the Secret Garden, it was looking in its best in the spring season, with dandelion seeds blowing around in the warm summer air.

Like everything newly blossomed and nourished around here, the only thing I could keep my mind on was the fact that the fetus in my womb would have also been similar to the other flowers and fruits that were also blooming. After the incident with Willa, I had somehow managed not to pass out then and there at the same moment. Willa had called over a doctor the very next day, and after some checkups, it was clearer than ever that our night in Oslinna had definitely turned out with some big surprises.

I wondered how differently I would have reacted if the circumstances would have been different with his presence; maybe I would have squealed and let our tears of joys, been happy, thrown a party. Now I was all the more in trouble; the little secret between me and him had now been known by all our friends, the psychiatrist and the fertility doctor. And the womb I carried around was also something illegitimate – something that could actually strip me off my title.

Tove had suggested abortion, but I just didn't want to kill the last piece of him; I didn't want to let go of something that belonged specifically just to us, especially I had to let go of him. My idea had been more of me giving birth and then sending off the child as an illegitimate changeling which was not maintained in an official record. At first everyone was obviously against my plan, but then somehow I played out the pathetic-pregnant-girl-under-stress role, and got everyone to agree with me, part-time using persuasion.

I had to use the bracelet even more excessively after this news, and managed to somehow stay normal. I sometimes wonder how much life would suck without the drug bracelet; thanks to the Oslinna rulers.

Matt had been pretty mad when he had been informed of this news, and so had the manks doctor who had confirmed my pregnancy. But then, who wasn't mad or shocked or appalled that I was actually pregnant; it seemed obvious for everyone to be so, except for Finn whom I presumed wasn't still aware of my pregnancy.

As for Finn, I had not seen him for the past two weeks or so. Not that I was desperately seeking him or something, or so I had assumed when we had stopped having the least interaction after he had 'broken up' with me. But then, I had at least seen him sometimes in a day, and after a continuous series of not seeing him ever, I definitely had some curiosity to know where he could have gone.

"Do you know where Finn has lately been?" I asked Tove one day when he was playing with a Rubik's cube on the bed probably just to exercise his brain, and I was numbly sitting beside him.

"Oh, I didn't tell you, right? He's gone back to his actual tracking job – special royalty case." Said Tove, momentarily distracting himself from his cube to answer me, and then turning back to rotating the cube.

"Some markis or marksinna, I guess?"

"Marksinna. He's tracking my sister." That irked my attention, catching me off guard.

I didn't have the bracelet healing me (three months' time was good to heal me a slight bit so that I was now numb instead of destructive), so normally it was my nature to not speak much. But this strange thing about his sibling was actually a huge surprise. "You never told me that you even had a sister."

"How am I myself supposed to know? I spent ninety percent of my life living with people who ultimately turned out to not be my parents, and just spent a year here. And well, even my mother didn't know much about my sister except that we had an age difference of three years and was sent off to Florida."

"Well, the average age for Trylle returning back to Forening is nineteen; I mean, you and Willa both returned here at that age. I was being stalked by the Vittra so I returned at seventeen. Why is she coming back at . . . sixteen?"

"Well, according to what Finn has assumed after tracking her is that she has some ability which is attracting a lot of public attention towards her. Probably she is admitted in some psychiatric hospital and has neurosurgeons and genetic specialists trying to determine the reasons behind her strange abilities. Well, so Finn is planning to get her home as quickly as possible."

I nodded. "So, when is she supposed to come back?" I was expecting and dreading another debutante ball, dinner with the Kroners, training Tove's sisters if our abilities matched (though that's not very likely since I am already bearing an emotional instability, plus being the queen doesn't leave me with free time to train sixteen-year-olds).

Maybe Willa could do better as an entertainer than I would be capable of, especially in my psychotic condition. And maybe Rhys and Rhiannon too, since they had the most of the free time they could spare for people like Tove's sister.

"Sometime in this week itself, I guess. My manks is choosing decorations for her room and Matt is being a help too in decorating her room. Willa and Rhiannon are probably setting up her closet and bathroom accessories. They'd be finished by tomorrow, and we anyways have enough time to prepare for the christening and the debutante ball."

'Something in this week itself' meant five more days out of which Tove's sister could arrive any day. But it was indeed surprising for both Tove and me when she arrived just the day after we had been talking about his sister. She was taken to Tove's mansion instead of Elora's one, but Tove had gone to have a look at his sister during the day, and introduce himself as her brother.

The very next day she was coming to the mansion for lunch, and to make a better presentation, Tove had asked me to wear my bracelet during our meeting. I was in a navy evening dress that had a wide neckline, showing off my collar bones, and my hair was left down in its wilderness. Tove matched his outfit with mine, choosing a navy dress shirt and slacks, and after both of us were presentable, we went down the stairs to the drawing room where Tove's sister would be arriving in some time (her name is Iris, Tove had said).

The Storms also arrived – Willa in all ruffles, and Garrett wearing a smaller bandage over his leg than he had during the funeral (thankfully, not on a wheelchair, since his wheelchair gave me the creeps). Both of them regarded me with a hug, and Willa whispered over my ear "You've got your drug bracelet, right?" and I nodded.

That was what she had named my bracelet since she thought it worked too much like a drug. Everyone had given me guidelines, telling me not to be too serene and numb, and instead have a mood that would make Iris comfortable (Tove had said that she was pretty insensitive and talkative).

Iris came along with Noah and Aurora Kroner, and another middle-aged Markis friend of the Kroners in a posh white Mercedes, and all of us had gone over to greet her outside in the gates. She looked too young to be sixteen (more like she was fourteen), but had the height of a sixteen-year-old. Iris's eyes were large and the same shade of mossy green like Tove's and there was a faint tone of green on her skin.

She was in a light olive gown with a plunging neckline, and her hair was done in an actually pretty awesome messy bun, which made me jealous of the failure buns I had always made before Finn had made me convert into leaving my hair down. She bowed, and then we walked to the drawing room, where Iris was pretty hesitant in taking her seat on a couch.

"So, Iris, how are you adjusting here, in Forening?" I asked, settling down on a loveseat with Tove.

"Well, everything is really so different here; in both good and bad ways of course. First of all I – for the first time ever – feel ever so normal, like, yes, even I have someone in the world who is like me; actually, that I have an entire city in this world filled with people like me. And then, here I don't feel all discriminated because I spent days in a mental asylum, am prone to have some psychotic illness, see weird things that others don't see, etc. because here everyone is like me.

"Also, it's so good to have a brother here, since in the real world I was the only child, and well, I wanted a pet dog or a hamster to give me some company, but when I began seeing things and hearing voices and all that, it turned out that my parents won't actually approve of a loony child with a pet animal. Though it definitely is weird to have a brother of only nineteen whose already married to someone – well my dad married when he was around thirty five so I had ever since been taught that every person is wed at thirty five, and well, my bro is so fucking famous around here. I mean, he's the king, and being one has to mean that you are famous and well-known by everyone in your country and amongst others of your kinds – all trolls, by which I mean. Not knowing him is like not knowing whose' the American president, and well, being his sister, it's like a seriously massive progress to being famous around neurosurgeons to being famous around mythical creatures."

Iris was speaking so increasingly fast that it was hard to keep up with her words. Also she bubbled with excitement and I literally held my breath, trying to calculate if I would be able to speak as long as she did, while she spoke. I could bet no one even noticed when she swore in a royal household.

"Well, in this case, it turns out that the queen is more famous than the king." Said Tove.

"Well, but most people are sexists in their own ways, and half of the time, they would only give their respects to the king in their assumptions that he is stronger, mightier and more intimidating. And well, the queen is judged to be more of a shy, sensitive person ruled by the intimidation of the king. No offense thought, but that's how things are in a royal household; well, unless it's a love marriage, which is the most unlikely since people tend to fall in love in tricky ways. And well, the queen can too be pretty kickass, only to be veiled by the king's power and intimidation and all that I-am-the-legendary crap."

I flinched, thinking that she was in a way right; not about my and Tove's case, but about Sara and Oren's case, where the king is a strong and feared personality who controls the soft-spoken queen like his puppet. Also, I wondered what type of a person Sara would have been like when not under Oren's I-am-the-legendary crap; maybe she also had the potential of being a cool and badass queen.

Iris continued "Well, yeah, as a continuation to the answer of your question, things are better here since I get to live in a proper house – which I have to say is the best house I could have ever had, well, except that my brother's house is much better; I mean, if my troll home is an Edwardian, then this is Buckingham palace. Seriously, it's that good. Sorry, I'm getting distracted; and well, my house is about ten thousand times better than that mental hospital which reeked twenty four into seven of chlorine.

"Then, in some ways its confusing since I don't get a single word of the hierarchy and the monarchy system Finn tried to explain to me; don't worry dude, you could have another go and maybe you'll get lucky if I understand. And then there are some things here that are down-most ridiculous and make no sense to me. I mean, even with you family – which means that you are in your most casual mode and can say anything write from which guy you're dating to if you failed in Optics – here we've got to have respectable manners and good looks.

"Then – continuing about ridiculous things – here is something that I have to say is better out there in the human world; clothing styles. I mean, for men its cool – all jeans, coats, hoodies, jackets, maybe in the upcoming summer season I might get to have a sneak-peek at some real-life, hot muscled, shirtless men, but women . . . god, I feel like this is like the worst means of sexism. I mean, do you necessarily have to wear a gown, because I could literally escape this place to get into somewhere where trolls can be allowed to wear tank tops and pencil skirts.

"Well, thankfully, not all gowns here are those ridiculous medieval gowns where you put some wired ring under your skirt that gives you the most extra-large ass ever, otherwise I would actually have run back to my mental asylum for them to finish my upcoming surgery. And then another 'thank-god-its-not-like-that-here' is that men don't get to wear those wigs where you have greyed hair all slicked back and then sprouting out in the most insanely tight ringlets. You know, the Benjamin Franklin hairstyle. Because the first when I had a look at Tove I really thought he may get his hair curled during balls in those weird ringlets and dye them this meager grey color.

"And well, as for my family, my mom is a bit intimidating for sure, but at least she doesn't force me into seven hours mental therapy or go to the bar to meet manwhores after abandoning me in the hospital (was it true that Iris's host mom went to meet up with manwhores and cheated on her dad). My dad is, like, pretty good-looking as compared to my previous dad because he looked more like an active granddad and all my friends used to stare at him like 'is that really your dad?' and I seriously used to be like 'no, he's just an uncle'. I mean, if I tried to imagine what my friends' reaction would be seeing me with such a hot dad, it's like when you have a dad like him, you always wanna hang around with him because he's so much of the showing off kind."

Iris seriously didn't seem to care whom she was around or what the others might be thinking about her from her words. She just kept on talking really fast and entertaining everyone else with all she had to say about each thing.

I remember if someone would have asked me the same question during my meeting with the Kroners and the Stroms, I would just have said one sentence or so. But here, Iris would start talking about whatever she felt like about the subject. I wondered what would have been the consequences if I would've done the same thing on the day of my dinner with the Storms and the Kroners. Elora would've probably murdered me that very night.

At times I could see Aurora passing dirty looks on to her daughter, but then I realized that Noah and the others were quite enjoying her talks. When the markis Aurora had brought along started talking about the election for the new chancellor, Iris started talking about how there was already a king and a queen, and that there seemed to be no need of a chancellor anymore, even though according to what presumed she didn't quite understand what we were talking about.

Iris talked about her friends, mentioning her and Tove's manks, Tove and Willa, talking especially fondly about Willa, saying how much she had helped her in the choice of fashion and clothes, and how cooperative and friendly the two mankslig had been. Also Finn was there in her list of friends, and Iris went on and on about her different illusions she had had about Finn; first a hot-looking freshman in some college who was her neighbor, then somewhat like a friendly neighbor, then some friend who completely understood her and went to visit her during her hospital days, and then finally as a Trylle tracker who had come to take her back to the world she actually belonged to.

The way she spoke about Finn looked forward to make me jealous, but I refused to let it win over my own self who had decided that now I couldn't have any love life and had to continue my entire life as the pathetic and illegally pregnant Trylle queen.

I didn't realize how much time had passed away with Iris chattering away to her heart' content, and suddenly Finn just appeared at the doorway, announcing that it was time to eat right now. That was when everyone got up, and started moving towards the dining hall, where the table was laid with elaborate cutlery. Iris gasped and commented a lot about every single detail in the dining hall, and it turned out that I was starting to get pretty annoyed with the constant chatting.

During lunch, she began her huge conversational topic about how she had never actually eaten anything orally – or she had, but like most Trylle been choosy in her meals – and had ever since been skinny and fussy about food. That was when pediatricians and surgeons had nutritioned her through other means, by directly inserting syringes of various nutritional factors and drugs into her blood vessels.

After lunch, we went back to the drawing room, where I mostly tuned off whatever was being talked about by the different people. I was almost relieved when Iris and the others started leaving my mansion, and I realized that somewhere in between, I had slipped off my healing bracelet while fiddling with it; maybe that was why I was getting so irate.