"Elizabeth"

In the past two months, Thorunn and I have been joined at the hip. Surely it must be obvious that we are in a relationship, although no one has really commented upon it—with the exception of Pansy, who I have told everything.

“They’re probably scared shitless,” she once remarked at teatime. “Just look at yourselves! A massive, pale mountain bear of a man and his tiny, ever-scowling shadow of a girlfriend. You look like the villains in a play where everyone dies at the end. Next you’ll start uttering curses together in iambic pentameter.”

Pansy is just poking fun at us, though there is some truth in it. My constant frown and stiff mannerisms, I have often been told, make me utterly unapproachable, and Thorunn’s foreign garb and imposing stature automatically set him at odds with whatever crowd he is in. Regardless of the reason, we have been fortunate enough not to run into any trouble.

On my first day off, Thorunn and I visit my future home. The neighborhood is a quaint seaside port sitting separate from the busier harbors, so it is quiet and peaceful, a refuge from the bustling activity in the rest of the capital city. Its occupants are mostly wealthy businessmen, church clergy, and politicians who do frequent business with the palace. There is a good chance I am the only person of common birth to own anything in this neighborhood, much less a whole house. Though for quite some time, it was not much of a house. When Edgar and I signed our contract back in November, my “house” was just a thin strip of undeveloped brushland with a bit of wire fencing around it. Rather underwhelming.

Now, barely two months into construction, the land has been transformed. The rocky hills have been shaped into a gentle coast which slopes down into the natural sandy beach; though there are no grass or flowers yet (those must wait until the spring). The wooden skeleton of my new house sits upon a sturdy stone foundation, slightly elevated to protect it from the tides. A small wooden dock extends from the back porch into the sea. There are no walls or windows quite yet, only canvas tarpaulins stretched taut over the barebones structure to shield it from wind and rain. But I can see it taking shape. It brings a tear to my eye. This was the only thing even my affluent past life could never give me—a home to call my own. And now it is mine.

Construction won’t be finished until spring, however, so my break will be spent bouncing between the palace and Lavendel Road. I desperately want to see Mom. Communicating by letter is frustrating, especially when I must dodge the spying eyes of the mailroom girls (who are still operating it during the break, just on irregular shifts). At the same time, though, Edgar is making plans to see Imogen. As a prince, he has plenty of galas, holiday dinners, and dances to attend, occupying him for most of the break, but has deliberately carved in his calendar an empty weekend in the middle of January. I am stuck in between, wanting to make holiday plans with my mother…but not wanting them to conflict with Edgar, who is also making holiday plans with my mother.

“Have you considered…not visiting her yet?” I ask Edgar, not for the first time. This particular occasion, Edgar is reclined all the way back in his office chair with his feet propped up on the desk, just like he did in Pym’s office. The habit grates on me when he does it, but I am hardly one to judge, because in my past life, I also used to do that at my merchant’s desk.

Edgar twirls a pen as he considers it, albeit briefly. “You sound like my mother,” he responds. “So no. I will not consider it.”

Since this, or some variant of it, has been the response every time, I feel redundant in trying the next few tacks of persuasion. But I try them anyway. “I do not advise publishing your pursuit of Miss Rossach, Your Highness. As soon as you set foot upon Lavendel Road, Prince Ezra will know about it. And as soon as he knows—”

“My parents will know, yes.”

“And once they know, they will try to dissuade you…”

“…and turn the topic back to Lady Olivia,” he finishes. “Yes.”

I have not yet met Lady Olivia. Apparently, she has been my father’s fianceé for about thirty years. They were betrothed by their parents when they were children, or so I am told, to secure an alliance with Olivia’s powerful noble family, the Guildensterns. Edgar has been weaseling his way out of that marriage ever since—first, by eloping with my mother; later, by becoming a priest and swearing himself to chastity; and finally, after the council of church elders removed the chastity requirement two years ago, simply being difficult and refusing to plan the wedding. By now, nobody actually expects Prince Edgar to bend the knee to Lady Olivia, since he has openly declared on multiple occasions that he would rather swallow hot coals. The Guildensterns are not very happy. They must tolerate his behavior at some level, though, because they have not revoked the betrothal despite thirty consecutive years of Edgar’s exceptionally poor attitude.

“What do you even care?” I ask, somewhat flippantly. “Nobody actually thinks the two of you will ever marry. Olivia Guildenstern is a joke in high society.”

“And that’s precisely why.” Edgar rubs his eyes. “She is a thirty-four-year-old spinster. The same pressure is on her that is upon me. Every month she sends me a letter detailing her latest bleeding cycle, thanking the gods that she is not yet cursed with the barrenness of old age, and pleading with me to—and here I am reading from her letter, I could not make this up—to, quote, ‘fill her cold, starving womb with my hot, delicious seed .’ Ugh! She nauseates me.”

“‘ Hot, delicious’ —oh, gods! Disgusting! Is she mad?”

“She must be! Who the fuck says that?” Edgar balls up the letter and chucks it across the room at full force. It bounces harmlessly off of a potted plant and rolls to the ground at my feet. “But I can’t help worrying, Miss Odric. If my betrothed grows too old to bear children, is it not my fault? Am I not liable to her poor, heirless family?”

“She’s in your head, Your Highness,” I say bluntly. “Those thoughts are Lady Olivia, burrowing into your brain like a worm.”

“Imogen never burrowed into my brain,” Edgar murmurs. “She would just ask what I was thinking. Like a normal person. Not like a worm.”

Slowly, almost as if in a dream, he reaches for his desk drawer, where he keeps his bottle of bourbon. I act fast. I pick up Lady Olivia’s balled-up letter and throw it at him.

“You’re yearning again,” I snap. “Stop it.”

He stops. Then he leans back in his chair, drags his hands down his face, and groans aloud. “I can’t. I won’t. You could never understand, Miss Odric, I feel awful . I wrote to my Imogen for years and years, only very rarely getting a reply—once a week, then once a month, then barely even once a year. It was so long between replies that I thought she had fallen out of love with me…as she has every right to do! I never visited. My gifts were generic, thoughtless. My own letters started to trickle down until I barely sent any at all in the past few years. I thought, hell, she would have every right to fall out of love. Perhaps, even, she was justified in simply taking my money and running. And then suddenly! To learn that it was not Imogen’s faithlessness, but that snake —! Burning her letters, stealing her gifts, feeding me lies all of these years!”

“You mean Pym?” I ask.

“No! Are you dense? Olivia! Pym was a puppet. It’s that she-devil who is behind everything, I know it. Not once did I doubt Imogen’s love until Olivia began whispering in my ear. Gods only know how deep her claws might have sunk if it wasn’t for—”

He clenches his fist, desperately searching for the words. They do not come, and slowly, he is forced to let his fist fall.

“If it wasn’t for…for…I don’t know.” His voice drops from his frantic rambling to a soft, vulnerable murmur. “When did I realize something was so terribly wrong? What was it? What was the sign?”

It is beginning to take shape in my mind’s eye. I remember the woman at my execution, the noble lady with the elaborate white hairdo and blood red lips. As I linger upon the memory, more details begin to take shape: her extravagant gold-trimmed gown of royal purple silk, a glittering diamond engagement ring on her left hand, and a slight yet distinct protrusion of her belly, either distended from a recent feast or full with child. There is no question about it: that woman is Olivia Guildenstern, and in my past life, she got what she had pursued for thirty years. Edgar’s devotion. In that life, Lady Olivia must have succeeded in convincing Edgar that Imogen was a lost cause. Her methods of shredding letters and burning receipts might, to a man already unstable with grief and paranoia, have slipped past his attention. Slowly but surely, she could erode away at Imogen’s presence until there was nothing left. Then she could take her place by Edgar’s side.

And what is different from now? In that life, I never applied for a job at the royal palace. If I never applied, Martha would have no reason to do a background check and open my file. If she never opened my file, perhaps the alarm bells might never have rung, and Pym would not have rushed to purge so many records en masse like he did. And if Pym had not rushed to purge so many at once, perhaps Edgar would have never suspected that something was wrong, and he would have continued to assume that Mom had turned her back on him. That must be it. That was the sign.

In many of my regression novels, the female antagonist is usually the most despicable. She is never offered a chance for explanation or redemption. Her motives are painted as inherently selfish; she rarely desires for anything but revenge, power, or money. She never changes, even from the regressor’s first life to their second. I have always disliked these villains, but not for the reasons the author intended. Such one-dimensional people do not exist in real life. They require an assumption that evil is a trait, not a choice. And while I am not above simply despising real-life people, I am mature enough to recognize that every person operates on their own, unique moral compass. Every person is the hero in their own story, just as they are the villain in someone else’s.

So there is a version of this tale where Olivia is the female protagonist, and I am the scheming meddler. Undoubtedly, she has faced many hardships to shape her into what she is today—I cannot imagine being the only daughter of a patriarchal noble house. The social pressure for Olivia to marry and conceive a child must be insurmountable. She will fight this battle tooth and nail, with every bit of fury as I.

That being said…I do not intend on making it easy for her. I may empathize with her desire to climb the social ladder, but I have absolutely no sympathy for her. If she wishes to kill us again, she will have to do it with her bare hands.

I clap my hands together. “I have an idea,” I tell Edgar.

He is still moping, but my sudden change in tone makes him lift his head. “What is it?”

“If Imogen comes here, to the palace, everyone will know. If you go there, to Lavendel Road, everyone will know. Is that correct?”

“Yes…an unavoidable conflict.”

“Have you considered another location? Literally anywhere else? Perhaps you are out on the promenade. Or reading a book at a public café. When all of a sudden—who is to walk by but Imogen?”

He muses upon that. “And how do you suppose we set that up?” he asks. “I doubt we frequent the same spaces.”

“Yes,” I smile, “but now you have me. I will simply tell Imogen to meet me somewhere to talk. I’m sure she is more than happy to do so. Then you arrive at the same time and place, perhaps dressed down somewhat, so as not to attract attention. When she arrives, I will step back, and there! A happy reunion.”

Excitement begins to dawn upon his face. He is tempted, I can tell. But something is bothering him, holding him back.

“It seems almost too good to be true,” says Edgar. “I just…I need to know one thing.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“How is it that—in all these years—I have tried so desperately to speak with Imogen. Every courier service, thousands of letters. And yet you seem to know exactly what she wants at each moment. How are you communicating with her? When?”

“Actually,” I reply, “I’m not. Not directly. As a matter of fact, I am penpals with her daughter, Elizabeth.”

MEMORANDUM

RE: “Elizabeth” Rossach

DATE: Tuesday, December 29, 489 AR

I have thought long and hard about how I am going to address the topic of “Elizabeth.” Prince Edgar is dead set on meeting Mom — I have no hope of dissuading him from that. But I cannot produce his daughter without revealing myself, a drama that I am not yet willing to ordeal. Currently, the only persons in the palace who know my identity are Martha, Pym, and the mailroom girls (who I was not expecting to know me, but seeing as they are privy to the shredding scheme and probably sorted my letters for years, I am not surprised they know). But once the veil comes off, I will lose all the freedoms of a trusted palace employee. I will become a known and named liability. I will be locked out of boardrooms and watched by guards at all hours of the day. I will become a flower locked in a greenhouse, to grow but never burrow my roots into real earth.

So I have found a way to make Edgar’s daughter conveniently disappear. By sheer coincidence, she and I know each other through my “uncle.” Elizabeth is an apprentice of Master Odric’s, and has sailed away with him on an international trading voyage . . . sound familiar?

This is the strategy: if Prince Edgar tries to write to Master Odric inquiring about Elizabeth, no doubt the mailroom girls will do their job and shred away, so I have no concern in that regard. Otherwise, I will simply dispose of those letters myself. I have not heard from Odric since our meeting in Belsie Port, but I am not concerned. He is a great businessman and a terrible communicator. Master Odric is likely just as neglectful in responding to personal letters in this life as he was in the last, so I shall only start to worry if I do not receive anything by the summer.

Receiving no response from Odric, Edgar will certainly try to write to Elizabeth directly. I will allow this. I recall the details of my last life’s voyage in such depth that I will have little trouble writing a false account from Elizabeth’s point of view, and I intend to type it here on this typewriter to disguise my handwriting.

Mom should have no trouble corroborating this story, since she knows it well. It was all I talked about for years leading up to my eighteenth birthday — she was assured I was telling the truth about my regression in part because I abandoned the idea so quickly. All she must do is affirm to Edgar that Miss Eloise is just her daughter’s friend. I anticipate that she will have some trouble in keeping my name consistent, which is why I am glad that the nickname “Ellie” is so familiar to her. I will just have to train her to only use it in the third person, and not to address ME as Ellie on accident. I plan to tell her that Edgar expects Elizabeth to have blond hair and green eyes, like himself, so it is best to stick with that description.

As a sidebar: the biggest hole in this story is that none of our neighbors on Lavendel Road will believe it. They all know Mom’s ranting and raving that I, Eloise, with black hair and brown eyes, am her only child and Edgar’s daughter. But my enemies are not my neighbors on Lavendel Road. My enemies are royals and nobility who barely consider my neighbors as human and would never investigate them so closely, lest they risk catching some foul odor or filth upon their silk gloves.

Finally, when I return home, there are some things I must do to prepare the house for this ruse. Undoubtedly, my parents are disgusting enough to end their happy reunion with . . . I dare not even type it. So I must anticipate that Edgar will visit the house on Lavendel Road. Mom and I have very few photographs together, as they are expensive, but there are some that I will need to hide them behind artful prints or different photographs. Pansy has been living in my bedroom while she cares for Mom, so she is already on the task of scrubbing my room of anything bearing my full name. And Lucienne, though I have neglected visiting her, is such a saint that she offered to amend my baptism records a second time. It was a kind offer, though I do not think it will be an issue yet.

Instead, I have employed Lucienne on a different task: she is developing a bug. Not an insect or an illness, but a metaphorical “fly on the wall” — a tiny enchanted charm, resembling a brass bell the size of a chickpea, which can transmit audio and visual information to the users. Its use cases are narrow, since it cannot transmit very far. But similar devices have been all the rage in espionage and covert operations, allowing someone to listen in on conversations. Those versions of the enchantment are primitive, according to Lucienne. Hers is far superior. Hers is undetectable, even by a magic user. It will be all too easy to plant the bug near Mom and Edgar, then listen in for information.

Because, of course, I am really just after the information. Of course I want to give Mom her happy ending with the person she has loved for decades. And if that happy ending also destroys Lady Olivia’s life, all the better. But those goals are ultimately secondary to the one, consistent driving force in this life: the urge to know, with absolute certainty, that I am doing it right.