Chapter One
Altar Boys
William’s ho-hum morning of altar service was rudely interrupted when he saw the princess. She was, of course, very beautiful.
But that’s not the first thing he noticed.
The first thing he noticed was all her freckles. He had never seen a girl with so many freckles.
The bright red hair was the second feature. Too red to believe.
Then he noticed the impossibly white skin. Everyone else on Artania was bronze from the hard desert sun. Not her.
Then he saw her face. Her face was impossibly beautiful.
Which made sense. She was a princess.
He lost all sense of time and space. He could not move. He could not breathe. He could not take her eyes off her. He was paralyzed, like a man entranced by a magic spell. He was sailing through white clouds over a deep blue sea. There were no seas on the world he lived on, Artania. Artania was parched and dry, a desert world where water was rationed carefully. William had never seen the sea, except in tri-vis.
“William!”
From somewhere very far away he heard a voice.
“William!”
He ignored the voice and kept sailing in the clouds. A finger and a thumb grabbed his left ear and pressed down hard, twisting slightly to maximize the pain. The spell was broken.
The hand holding William’s ear hostage belonged to Father Murphy. The old priest’s face was red with fury. “William Callahan! What’s come over ye!”
William’s feet found the floor again. He was in St. Christopher’s Cathedral in New London. Colorful red flags, splashed with golden lions hung from the arches – the Artanian royal coat of arms. Rows of bishops in robes and pointed hats were seated to left and right. Thousands of people were in the pews, straight ahead. There was a choir, seated behind his back. What were they singing? Ave Maria.
Why was he here?
Ah, yes. A Confirmation Mass. All the bishops of Artania had come. The King was here, and all his court. The Prime Minister, nearly all the members of Parliament, most of the territorial governors, and numerous VIPs packed the cathedral. Why? Ah, yes, it was her Confirmation, and that was a big deal.
Children were kneeling before William at the communion rail, giving him quizzical looks. Father Murphy pulled him along roughly by the ear and planted him in front of the next child in a long line of children – a boy with gray eyes. The boy looked mildly amused, almost smiling, but not quite. He was William’s age, slightly bigger than the eighth-graders on each side. He must be in ninth grade, just like William. Who was he? William knew all the boys in his neighborhood but had never seen this boy before.
“The paten!” whispered Father Murphy furiously, his face still a bright shade of red, “lift the paten!”
The paten? What was that? This gold plate on the end of a stick?That must be it.
He lifted the paten and placed it beneath the boy’s chin.
The boy winked at William, which irritated him. He jabbed the paten into the boy’s throat, not enough to hurt him, but hard enough so he’d know it was on purpose.
Father Murphy pretended not to notice. “Body of Christ,” said the priest, holding up the Communion wafer.
The boy, still recovering from the blow to his windpipe, barely choked out “Amen” and took the wafer on his tongue.
Father Murphy moved on to the next boy. William was quick with the paten, not wanting another ear twitching.
He was too fast. The paten rammed the boy in the throat so hard he gasped out loud.
Father Murphy’s face turned a brighter shade of red, but again pretended not to notice.
“Body of Christ.”
The boy was wheezing loud enough to be heard from the first three rows of pews. He couldn’t speak, but did manage to stick out his tongue for the wafer. William was glad he was in a crowded cathedral, with thousands of witnesses, because that was the only reason Father Murphy was not walloping him about the head right now.
The boy with gray eyes gave William a hard look that meant trouble. He quietly returned to his pew, outwardly calm. But William had no doubt the boy was plotting some terrible revenge. He was glad his second victim was a smaller eighth-grader who could not possibly cause him trouble.
The first group of children had left the communion rail and the second group knelt down. She was one of them, on the very end, just right of the center aisle. A position of importance -- of course. She looked like she was William’s age – probably a ninth-grader. Williams vaguely remembered hearing his mother talking about the “scandal” that the princess had not received Confirmation at the proper age last year. His mother cared very much about such things. She was very religious, and went to Mass every day. William was going to be a priest, his mother said, she had it all planned out. Apparently William had no say in the matter.
He looked at the beautiful girl with red hair and freckles and very much did not want to be a priest. She was wearing a white dress, and a white veil. She looked like a young bride in her white Confirmation dress. William decided right then and there that she would one day belong to him, princess or no. He would marry her, he would build a castle for her and they would rule their own kingdom, when they were grown-ups of course.
Father Murphy and William were working down the aisle of kneeling children, giving them communion, but William was watching her and not paying attention to what he was doing, so two more boys got jabs in the throat with the paten. William’s vision became hazy except for a tight circle around her face, which was sharp in focus. He memorized every detail. Finally, she was kneeling before him, impossibly close. William held the paten up beneath her chin. The paten trembled in his hands. His whole body trembled. He was losing control of every function in his body.
“Body of Christ,” said Father Murphy.
Like a porcelain angel, the red haired princess closed her eyes, lifted her face to heaven, and stuck out a tiny tongue.
William dazed out into the pews with a stunned expression, his fingers going limp. The paten fell to the marble floor of the cathedral, making a loud clatter that could be heard all the way to the back row. A young priest rushed forth from the shadows, grabbed William by the ear and led him out of the cathedral. William was too far gone to care that the eighth graders in the front pews were snickering. He was in an impossibly green grassy meadow, just him and the princess, running hand-in-hand, barefoot in the grass. He didn’t ever want to leave.
The desert world of Artania did not have a single meadow. Green meadows were a dream of Earth, many, many lightyears away. William had never seen one, except on the tri-vis.
