Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy Read online

  “Please, please, please,” she said. And her fingers hit something cold and hard. She wiped at the thing frantically and uncovered the Marvelous Boy’s face, which was marble white, his eyebrows frosted, his lips blue. She sat in the snow beside him, crying and trying to loosen the ties that held him there.

  He opened his eyes, and Ophelia cried out in astonishment.

  “Ophelia,” he said. “I knew you would come.”

  “Look, I found it,” she said, holding up the sword.

  “I knew you would.”

  She worked at the ties, her fingers numb. The Marvelous Boy tried to sit up, but he was very weak. She helped him. She took his hand between hers and blew on it.

  “Miss Kaminski is the Snow Queen,” she said. “Alice nearly got her soul extracted in the machine, but I got her out. I nearly gave up, but then my father—it was my father who found the sword. But I still don’t know who I am meant to give it to.”

  The Marvelous Boy took the sword. In his hands it was heavy again. He could barely lift it. He was very faded. The three-hundred-and-three-year-old boy. Ophelia could almost see straight through him.

  “I will be going soon,” he said.

  “Please don’t go,” she said. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  He embraced her in return. “Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard,” he said. “Do you not know what the great magical owl whispered into my ear that day?”

  Ophelia was confused.

  “The name he whispered,” said the Marvelous Boy. “That name was Ophelia.”

  He tried to hand the sword to her.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Ophelia. “It couldn’t be me.”

  “The sword is yours,” he said.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Ophelia again.

  “I’m not,” he said. “It really is yours.”

  He took one of her hands and placed the sword there. “Do you not feel it?”

  “But I don’t know what to do with it,” Ophelia cried, and wiped her nose with her other hand.

  There was the green eye again, as soon as she held the sword.

  “Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard,” the boy said again. He held his hand over her hand on the sword.

  “Don’t,” she said, and began to cry more.

  “I invest in you,” he said, “the power to be the defender of goodness and happiness and hope.”

  So she stood up and held the sword, which sang and rattled magic in her hands, and turned to see the Snow Queen coming across the courtyard.

  24

  In which a great battle takes place

  The Snow Queen strode across the courtyard. She laughed and shook her head at the sight of Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy. She wore a white satin dress and a dazzling crown on her head. She raised the Great Sorrow, and the snow swirled around her feet. A path was cleared before her in the snow as she walked. She was oblivious to the cold.

  “You’re too late,” said the Marvelous Boy when she was near. “The sword now belongs to the One Other.”

  The Snow Queen laughed even more at that. “What do you think this little weed will be able to do?”

  Ophelia held the sword. It jerked this way and that in her hands.

  The Queen came toward the boy slowly. She smiled sweetly, then thrust the Great Sorrow toward him until it was inches from his chest. “Soon. Five minutes more and you’re gone,” she said.

  The Marvelous Boy shivered but smiled.

  “And you,” said the Snow Queen, pointing the sword at Ophelia. “You are not long for this world either.”

  Ophelia tried to hold the magical sword still before her, but it leapt and slashed toward the Snow Queen. It lunged forward in her hands, and Ophelia flew behind it. The Snow Queen was ready—she struck out with her own sword, and the two clashed.

  “You cannot defeat me. I will reign supreme,” said the Queen, and the sword in Ophelia’s hands leapt again. The Snow Queen parried, but this time the weight of Ophelia’s thrust knocked her to the ground.

  “Sorry,” said Ophelia, and drew the sword back with all her might.

  “A mistake,” said the Queen, laughing, and she was up on her feet again in a single motion.

  “Ophelia!” shouted a voice, and she turned to see her father running through the snow. He was carrying a Spanish long sword, and she knew it was not one he would have chosen if he hadn’t been in a rush.

  “Miss Kaminski!” her father shouted as he raced toward them. “We saw you from the window in the sword hall. What are you both doing out here? Why are you pointing a sword at my daughter?”

  The Snow Queen lunged suddenly at Ophelia, who fell back onto her bottom in the snow.

  “Leave my sister alone!” shouted Alice, who had followed her father into the courtyard. “I don’t understand.”

  The Snow Queen looked at Alice, this time with momentary confusion. How could the girl be out of the machine?

  “Stop it this instant, Miss Kaminski!” shouted Mr. Whittard. He raised his sword. “I’ve no idea what you’re doing, but it isn’t right. Please put down your sword and come inside.”

  “Oh really,” said the Snow Queen. “You are all very amusing.”

  She raised her sword and walked toward Mr. Whittard. She slashed it in the air in front of him.

  He fought back.

  “What on earth is going on?” he exclaimed. He looked to Ophelia for some sort of clue.

  “I’ve been trying to tell you, Daddy,” cried Ophelia.

  The Snow Queen thrust toward Mr. Whittard. He lunged forward in a sleek and dashing move. The two swords met and then fell apart again.

  They clashed and clanged across the courtyard, the Snow Queen stalking him in her stilettos.

  “Who do you think you are?” she whispered.

  “Pardon?” said Mr. Whittard.

  “I said, who do you think you are?” screamed the Snow Queen.

  “I think the question is rather Who are you?” said Mr. Whittard.

  The Snow Queen shouted something in her own language. Something magical, from her sad place of frost and snow.

  “I’ll show you,” she said.

  In the Gallery of Time the hands of the Wintertide Clock moved to 6 p.m. The clock chimed. The chime was beautiful and terrible at the same time. The bells rang out a cascading song of sadness. Those who heard it said it was like glass breaking, others attested it was the sound of tears. Some said it was like a wind crying, and others said that it was like the falling of snow.

  The little gilt door in the clock’s face opened, and out came a chill wisp of wind. It wound its way out of the room and into the corridors. It froze dawdlers who had not made it to the sword exhibition hall—it froze them exactly where they stood.

  In the galleries the displayed animals opened their eyes. The snowy owls thrashed against their pins. The elephants stamped their feet. The snow lions and snow leopards arched their backs. On the seventh floor the misery birds opened their eyes, and their wings snapped open to fill their little cold rooms. They lifted each leg and stretched their claws. They spun around upright on their perches. They threw themselves at the doors, and when the doors would not open, they hurled themselves through the glass windows. The glass exploded out over the great courtyard.

  In the sword exhibition hall the Neolithic hunters, with their stone ax heads, wiggled their little fingers and opened their eyes. The Teutonic warriors lifted their swords up in the air. A Germanic king, in battle dress, sliced the air in front of him. All of them breathed out one long, frosty breath. The glass display cases shattered.

  The crowd in the hall, finger food in hand, forgot to chew.

  The large windows split open to reveal Mr. Whittard and the Snow Queen fighting.

  They danced, Mr. Whittard and the Snow Queen, they danced across the frosted courtyard; and all around, the snow blew in eddies and drifts; and the wind lifted the Snow Queen’s hair so that it seemed to be alive.

  “Stop it!” shouted Alice. �
�Stop it. Leave my father alone.” She stamped her diamond-encrusted slipper on the ground.

  Ophelia rushed toward her father and the Snow Queen.

  “Stay back, Ophelia!” shouted her father.

  She saw that the crowd in the sword exhibition hall had broken through the rope cordon to get a better view. They were raising their hands, pointing at the misery birds. The birds were crouched on the rooftops, clinging to the heads of statues with their long gray claws, the icy wind ruffling their feathers and chilling their lonely faces. One by one they let go and swooped down over the courtyard.

  “What are they?” screamed Alice as one passed over her.

  They circled above the Queen and Mr. Whittard, howling and screeching, and the air was filled with the wind from their monstrous wings.

  Ophelia stood in the snow with the magical sword in her hand.

  Mr. Whittard and the Snow Queen thrust and parried and spun and lunged until they were inside the great hall. The crowd fell back, slack-mouthed. Ophelia’s father lunged forward and, in a striking move, managed to relieve himself of his coat. He parried the Snow Queen’s every thrust, and the sounds of their swords rang out in the frozen air.

  “What do you want from us?” Mr. Whittard asked.

  He sliced the air beside the Snow Queen’s face. She spun and lunged at him. He fell as she struck him, a bright red slash across his arm.

  The crowd gasped, and the misery birds screeched so loudly that the earth shook.

  Mr. Whittard lay where he fell, moaning in pain. Alice ran to his side.

  “Shall I finish him off, my beautiful, sad Alice?” said the Snow Queen. She ran the sword over the top of him, not touching him. She stopped and turned slowly.

  There was a huge sound, a monstrous sound, a trampling of feet that made the floor tremble. A keening, trumpeting, roaring, growling cacophony. The crowd stood transfixed.

  There was Ophelia, standing at the window, sword raised. The Queen’s animals stood poised behind her. The elephants and lions and tigers. The snow leopards. The white horses’ breaths spiraling in plumes.

  The crowd went wild.

  Who had ever conceived of such a marvelous show?

  “Ophelia,” said the Snow Queen.

  “Stay back, Ophelia,” said her father.

  But Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard did not stay back.

  She stepped into the room.

  “I am the One Other,” said Ophelia. “I am the one that the wizards spoke of.”

  The Queen held the Great Sorrow up.

  “No one can defeat me,” said the Snow Queen.

  “I can,” said Ophelia. “We can.”

  Ophelia’s sword leapt at the tiny patch of heat in the Snow Queen’s heart. The Snow Queen was too quick, and she parried the thrust. Again they clashed, again they fell apart.

  “Ophelia, stop it right now!” shouted Alice. “Can’t you see she’s dangerous?”

  Love, Ophelia’s mother whispered. Love is on your side.

  “Love!” shouted Ophelia. “Love is on our side.”

  The Snow Queen smirked. Ophelia’s sword jerked in her hands. She flew behind it, lunged across the short space until the tip touched the Snow Queen’s chest. And the woman fell—simply crumpled—to the floor. She lay there, breathing hard, milk-white breast heaving, a thin trickle of blood on the white satin gown.

  “I’m sorry,” said Ophelia.

  The guards fell to the floor. The birds fell to the ground. The lions, the leopards, the elephants sank down where they stood.

  “I’m sorry,” said Ophelia again.

  She looked in the Snow Queen’s eyes, and they were like a girl’s eyes, questioning her, sorrowful, but clearing even then, as though she realized.

  The lights went out.

  There was a vast and deep silence, and then the applause of the crowd.

  25

  In which Ophelia must say goodbye to the Marvelous Boy

  Ophelia rushed back across the courtyard. Horatio, she tried. Horace, Henry. Harry, Herbert, Hubert. Hans, Hadrian, Haley. Hallam, Hamish, Hamlet.

  She knew none of them was right.

  Ignatius, Ivan, Irving. Iago, Ian, Igor. Ike, Imran, Inglebert.

  She skated the last few feet until she rested where the Marvelous Boy lay shivering on his side. The snow had stopped falling, and the clouds had broken apart.

  “I waited,” the boy said. “As long as I could.”

  He did not ask her if the Snow Queen had been defeated because he knew.

  “Beyond the fabled sea there are the mountains,” he said. “And beyond those mountains there are the plains, and beyond the plains there are the forest, the river, and the woods, and beyond that there is the town, and I am going to return there.”

  “I have this for you,” said Ophelia. She took the satchel from her shoulder and placed it on the boy. She gave him the biscuit man. “It will give you strength.”

  “Thank you,” he said. The dimple in his cheek showed.

  She cried onto his shoulder. “I still don’t know your name,” she said. “I’ve only gotten up to I.”

  “The wizards have kept my name so I can return home,” the boy said. “And anyway, don’t you think we’ll meet again?”

  “Will we?” asked Ophelia.

  She felt his hand move to her hair, a tiny movement, a sigh.

  “We have been good friends,” said the boy. “We will always be good friends.”

  He did not say goodbye, but she felt him leave. In the shadows of her closed eyes, she sensed the forest path and saw him there. When she opened her eyes, he was gone. He had simply ceased to be.

  Ophelia stood slowly, wiped her eyes, lifted the magical sword at the sky, which was now lightening with stars.

  26

  In which we say goodbye to Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard

  After the hospital, where Mr. Whittard had his arm bandaged, they went in a taxi to the hotel. They drove through the streets of the city, where it no longer snowed.

  Alice folded all the clothes the museum curator had given her and left them neatly on her bed. She re-dressed herself, the way she had always dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt. She applied blood-red lipstick, which was way too grown-up for her.

  The sun was just up. It shone everywhere on the snow and on the glistening white trees and on all the windows. Behind each window there were people waking up to Christmas Day. They would no doubt open their presents, eat, and ice-skate. They would not set a time limit; they would skate into the night, and their cheeks would burn bright, and they would smile. Somewhere a man would take a violin out and begin to play.

  At the airport the family’s three suitcases were checked and the large, unusually shaped package was checked as well. The unusually shaped package went through the X-ray machine, and security looked very surprised until Ophelia’s father produced his card, which read:

  MALCOLM WHITTARD

  LEADING INTERNATIONAL EXPERT ON SWORDS

  They took their seats and rested, waiting for takeoff. Ophelia felt for Alice’s hand, and Alice squeezed in return until they were high in the air.

  Ophelia looked at her watch. They would be home within a few hours. She went to calculate … and stopped.

  Be brave, her mother whispered in her ear, and then was gone.

  From the airplane window Ophelia could see the city below. All the small and winding gray cobblestone streets, all the shining silver buildings and bridges, the museum, getting smaller and smaller until it was lost.

  She caught just a glimpse of the vast and fabled sea before the clouds covered this world. In that tiny moment she fancied she saw blue water, perfect blue water, the whitecaps breaking. Then that view was gone, swallowed up by the whitest clouds she’d ever seen. Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard, brave, curious girl, closed her eyes and smiled.

  THE END.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to my sister, Sonia, for seeing the story and telling me it was wort
hwhile. Catherine Drayton as well for giving me hope. Erin Clarke for her love of the tale and all her wonderful, passionate work at improving it. Yoko Tanaka for her glorious illustrations. And for my little girl, Alice, who grew up as I was writing it, and who slowly but surely reopened my eyes to magic.

  KAREN FOXLEE worked as a nurse for most of her adult life and also graduated from university with a degree in creative writing. She is the author of The Midnight Dress and The Anatomy of Wings, which Markus Zusak called “so special that you want to carry it around for months after you’ve finished, just to stay near it.”

  Karen Foxlee lives in Gympie, Australia, with her daughter.