The Secret of the Kimsberries

Dinner with the queen was an everyday occurrence, but today something felt off.

I knew it from her smile. My aunt never smiled at me. Not even when I occasionally completed her stupid princess tasks correctly.

But here she was, sitting across from me, thin lips turned upwards with some sort of satisfaction.

Irritation won out patience. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

A cool mask of feigned innocence. “Like what, darling?”

I rolled my eyes. “Like you know something I don’t.”

The diamonds dangling from her ears danced as she chuckled. “What could I possibly be hiding from you, my dear? I would never keep secrets from my precious niece, the last surviving heir to the throne. That would be most imprudent.”

So she wanted me to figure it out for myself, then. I sipped on my wine - a dry sherry today - while pondering how to respond. Her smile deepened as she watched me.

“Such a change of heart,” I decided to say, huffing a laugh. “Usually, you’re talking about how I am unfit to be queen.”

“Indeed, your magical abilities have not shown themselves, Penelope, but today I am certain they will. If they don’t…” She shrugged and sat back in her chair. “The consequences could be… lethal.” Her sharp eyes shone with dangerous promise.

I sputtered on my wine, incredulous. “Is that a threat?”

“Just a fact.” Again that pointed, smug look at me. I wanted to smack it off her face.

My aunt had always frowned upon me for various reasons: my imperfect skin, my dull brown hair, my slouch as I walked, my clumsy speech, the way I chewed… the list could go on forever. But perhaps the biggest of them all was I had yet to display any sign of magical powers. For most royal members, it blossomed at the age of sixteen, but my seventeenth birthday had come and gone weeks ago, and I still hadn’t shown so much as a spark of magic. Maybe I should have been equally as worried as the queen - magic was what made us royals, after all - but over the past few years, her unfair treatment towards me was always at the top of my complaint list.

Mother would never have put me through this torment.

But Mother was dead, along with my father and brother, lost from the terrible tragedy that had occurred years ago. No amount of praying to Andelia could bring them back.

“Daydreaming again?” The queen scoffed with displeasure.

I glowered at her and cleared my throat, unused to the dryness of this wine. “No, I wouldn’t dream of it,” I retorted.

My aunt laughed. Something was definitely amiss, because she never laughed, and certainly not at a dumb, halfhearted joke.

No, that was a cough. She lifted a napkin to her mouth, her face slowly turning beet red, eyes shockingly wide - 

Was the queen choking?

I stood, throwing my chair behind me. She lifted a finger at me, signaling me to wait, even as she continued heaving into her napkin. Her face had turned a terrifying shade of plum, and no more sound escaped her lips. 

As cruel as she was to me, I was not going to stand here and watch my last family member die. “Help!” I hollered. “The queen is choking!” I dashed around the table, prepared to repeatedly pound my fist into her chest, if I had to be.

Before I could reach her, she pulled something from one of the hidden pockets of her dress. A small vial the size of my thumb, filled with a thick, orange liquid.

Kimsberry juice.

My heart skipped a beat.

I’m not sure how my aunt gobbled down the liquid, considering her throat had seemingly closed completely - but she managed, somehow. Slowly but surely, her breathing resumed, the color returning to her cheeks. 

I loosed a breath, realizing I had been holding it. “Are you alright?”

Where were the servants? Had nobody heard my call?

The queen lifted her face to look at me. Even gasping for air, she appeared unshaken. In that moment, I admired my aunt’s fortitude, fearlessness, and her quick thinking once she realized she had been poisoned –

Wait.

Why had that vial even been in her pocket in the first place? She couldn’t have known –

My blood chilled.

For what felt like the hundredth time tonight, the queen slowly smirked at me as she saw in my face what I had just gathered.

“Kimsberry juice,” she said, as if I didn’t already know. She dabbed at her mouth tenderly, as if she hadn’t been seconds away from death moments ago. “If you paid any attention at all to your lessons, you’d know it’s the only antidote to -”

“Fenlane,” I breathed, mouth dry. “The most poisonous plant in the kingdom. If dosed correctly, it can kill within minutes.” My aunt was lucky to be alive - and yet, she had harbored the antidote in her pocket. As if she had known someone would try to poison her.

Her eyes narrowed at my rude interruption, but I caught a glimmer of approval at the proof that I did, in fact, pay attention during my lessons. She said nothing, as if inviting me to voice my thoughts.

“You knew someone was going to poison you.”

A subtle nod.

My mental gears turned as I struggled to find an explanation - and then an idea occurred to me, so crazy that it had to be true…

The queen had intentionally poisoned herself. But why, I had no clue.

I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about this.

“The dose administered to my wine was quite strong. Luckily for you, dear princess, your dose was not quite as strong.” She watched me with calculating cat-like eyes as I staggered away from her, gripping the table, reeling from the gravity of her words.

“You… poisoned me?” The wine. It wasn’t just a dry sherry. It was a poisoned dry sherry. Since we normally didn’t drink dry wines, I had dismissed the foreign taste.

“Perhaps most unfortunately,” my aunt continued, in the same tone one might discuss the weather. “I believe my vial was the last of the castle’s kimsberry supply.”

Andelia help me. It was all I could do not to sink to my knees. My vision darkened, forming a vignette around the queen - the queen who was apparently trying to kill me. “The closest kimsberry thicket is miles away,” I whispered hoarsely.

“Then you’d best travel quickly.” The queen rose from her chair, delicately placing her napkin on the table. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am quite exhausted from all the fuss. I shall retire to my quarters now.” Skirts swishing, she exited the dining room without another look in my direction.

After a few seconds of paralyzing shock, I scrambled for the door towards the kitchens. Move now. Think along the way.

The queen had to be lying about having used the last of the kimsberry supply. She had to. 

Otherwise, I was dead.

Was this truly just another one of her tests to try and lure out my magic? If so, this was by far the most aggressive one - traveling miles away, in the dark, poisoned by fenlane? Furthermore, the season for kimsberries was nearly ended, so I would be lucky to find any ripe ones.

Maybe she really did want me dead.

I burst into the kitchens, wide-eyed and panting. Quickly scanned the room. Ran towards the head chef, all but slamming into her in my clumsy haste. Arms crossed, she stared at me as if expecting my arrival.

The fire in her hazel eyes burned bright. “We are out of kimsberries.” She nodded towards an empty jar sitting on a shelf. A jar that I could have sworn was full just the other day.

I coughed. My throat was getting more scratchy with every passing second. How much longer did I have? Minutes? Hours?

“I’m going to die, Baura,” I said desperately. “Where are all the kimsberries?”

Baura shook her head with a deep frown, her auburn curls bouncing with the movement. “We dumped them out in the river this morning.”

This morning? If she was telling the truth, those berries would be long gone by now.

I sank to the floor, deflated. “I’m dead,” I whispered, with another cough.

“You have to go.” Baura looked at me, an unhappy scowl planted on her face.

Did she have no mercy at all? I wiped my tear stained cheeks. “Baura -”

“Listen to me.” She knelt down to take my shoulders in her strong hands, yanking me back to my feet. I trembled and tried to pull away, but she held firm.

“Vynson is waiting for you at the stables,” Baura said.

I blinked and lifted my gaze to the resolute expression on her face. “What?” I croaked.

“You will survive this. Look deep within yourself, Penelope. Never stop fighting.” Her intense gaze could have sliced a boulder.

For the first time, I noticed the cut on her lip, the scab on her temple, and her black eye. Baura had fought her orders, and had paid for it.

With a jolt, I realized Baura was angry - angry at the queen. Baura did not want me dead. In fact, she was doing everything she could to keep me alive.

A wave of emotion hit me, sending my tears over the edge. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for ever doubting her. I did not deserve her kindness.

“Go,” she urged, spurring me to motion, shoving me towards the back door. “You’re wasting time.”

With one last grateful look towards the chef, I staggered outside in the direction of the stables. The sun had just left the horizon, casting the sky in various shades of pink and yellow.

My throat threatened to close in on itself as I ran. The more I exerted myself, the harder I wheezed.

True to Baura’s word, the stablemaster stood waiting for me with a gray mare, reins in hand. When he saw me, he urgently waved me over and helped me into the saddle. “Her name is Frida. The fastest out of all our horses.”

I patted her neck in silent apology, for I was about to make her work harder than she ever had. “Thank you, Vynson.”

He nodded. “Thank me later when you make it out of this alive.”

Too emotional - and poisoned - for words, I dug my heels into Frida’s side, urging her into a gallop.

The kimsberry thicket was supposedly on the eastern side of the kingdom, based on what I remembered from my lessons, so I took us along the eastern road. I thanked Andelia that the guards hadn’t yet closed the gates for the day, and we stormed through the entrance, hooves pounding on the gravel.

We rode hard with the last few minutes of daylight. Frida never once complained, as if understanding the urgency of the situation. With every passing stride, it became harder to breathe. In addition, hives had started to break out on my hands - the second of the three stages of fenlane poison. 

Once my nose started bleeding - the third stage - I would have less than a minute to live.

By the time we had entered the forest, only the merciful full moon casting highlights on the trees provided any light. Frida’s hoofbeats turned into rustling hisses as she raced through piles of leaves fallen from the trees. Noting the glistening sweat that had formed all along her neck, I silently willed her to last just a little longer.

The hives now reached my elbows. Even in the dim light, I could see the angry welts crawling up my arm. Breaths now coming in consistent labored pants, I strained my eyes for orange among the bushes. We had to have been getting close to the thicket now - right?

How was I to find the berries in such darkness? It was only by some stroke of luck that we hadn’t run into a tree with our speed and limited visibility.

I gritted my teeth. I had to succeed. The alternative was death.

We approached the limit of my mare’s stamina too quickly. After several more long minutes of my gasping for breath and squinting through the darkness in attempts to spot kimsberry bushes, Frida abruptly slowed to a walk.

“No, Frida, please,” I sobbed and coughed in between words. By now, I could barely come up with the air to form words, and the hives had snaked up my shoulders and across my collarbone. I kicked at her sides, moaned at her to keep moving, but she was shaking and struggling to breathe herself. 

Another strong cough burned my lungs, and I instinctively raised my hand to my mouth, wiping my nose in the process. I pulled it back and dread flooded me as I saw dark liquid dripping from my fingers.

Blood. 

No, no, no, I had to find the kimsberries - 

My inability to breathe minutes ago paled in comparison to what I now experienced. I felt as though I were breathing through a tiny straw, my breath coming in ragged gasps, lungs no longer able to completely fill with oxygen. Dizziness overcame me and darkness tainted my vision, making it impossible to see. I finally slid off Frida and collapsed on the ground. 

So this was it, then. Dead by the queen’s hand, searching unsuccessfully for stupid orange berries.

At least I would be able to see my family again. I could almost hear my mother’s sweet, soothing voice. “Penelope,” she sighed, my name on her lips a beautiful lullaby. With my last breath, laying on my back in the leaves, a strong sense of peace washed over me. Through heavy eyelids I caught the glimpse of a glowing figure kneeling beside me.

A sob nearly broke from me when I realized it was my mother, staring at me with tender eyes. I had forgotten how beautiful she was. Her dark curls framed her face perfectly, and she smiled at me with dark, soft lips.

Mother, I’m coming, I mouthed, smiling despite my complete inability to breathe.

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “Penelope,” she repeated. “You are not yet ready to join us, little dove.”

Not ready? Of course I was ready. I was seconds away from fading away entirely from this world - and, quite frankly, I embraced it. It seemed so silly now, my attempt at cheating death, my belief that it could have been possible. Accepting my fate was so much easier, so much calmer.

Somewhere far away, my palm felt some sort of pressure. A hand. Mother’s hand. She had given me something.

“Hurry now,” she whispered.

Berries. Those were berries in my hand - kimsberries.

No, I wanted to say. I want to join you. However, my body disagreed. As if of its own accord, my hand pressed against my mouth, pushing the berries inside. My jaw chomped down, releasing the sweet, tangy flavor of the juice that trickled down my throat.

As I sucked in the biggest breath of air for the first time in several minutes, everything was suddenly much clearer than it had been. How sweet the oxygen was - how could I have been wanting to give my life away mere seconds ago? No, I wanted to live. Desperately.

“I know you’re going to do great things, little dove.”

Mother. She was still there.

She had saved me.

And she was now disappearing in front of my eyes, becoming more and more transparent by the second. 

I sat up abruptly, ignoring the dagger of pain in my head as I did so. “Mother!” I begged. “Don’t go!”

“We will meet again,” she promised. Even her voice had diminished to a whisper. “Remember to stay true to yourself. Guard your secrets wisely. Don’t trust anyone.”

She was gone before I had a chance to respond.

Frida stood a few feet away, acting as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t noticed my mother at all. Had I imagined it?

No, I couldn’t have. She had given me the berries. My mother had been there, somehow, and she had saved my life. I was sure of it.

But if that was true, then that meant…

Chills shot up my spine as I realized what it meant. I had the ability to interact with the dead..

My powers had finally come, just like my aunt had hoped for.

Guard your secrets wisely. Don’t trust anyone.

Mother didn’t want anyone to know. That must have been what she meant.

Not even the queen.

But why?

Despite myself, a wicked thrill shot through me at the thought of keeping this grave a secret from my aunt. For years, she had tormented me, put me through unspeakable horrors - but now, I had the upper hand. Because I knew she would stop at nothing to find out what magic I possessed. She had known this was an impossible task, one that could only have been achieved with magic. When she found out I had survived, she would be eager to know how.

But I wasn’t going to tell her anything.

Mother didn’t trust her. She must’ve had a reason.

And I intended to find out what that reason was.

As I led Frida back to the castle, for the first time, a genuine smile broke out on my lips.

The queen was done playing her games; it was my turn now.