Another Kingdom Read online

  The two girls helped me into what I guess was a guest room: a small rectangular space with nothing but a bed and a writing desk and chair in it, plus a window onto a pleasantly weedy little garden out back. Jane took my shoes off while Schuyler laid me down on the mattress, my head on a fluffy pillow. Then Schuyler fetched a washcloth and brought it to Jane. Jane sat beside me and cleaned my wound, fussing over me with a womanly care that made me yearn up into her blue-green eyes. Schuyler, meanwhile, leaned darkly against the door, looking jealous of me for being with Jane and jealous of Jane for being the Jane-like way Schuyler could never bring herself to be.

  “What did you do to yourself, sweetheart?” Jane asked me, swabbing the wound.

  “He got in a fight,” said Schuyler gruffly from the doorway.

  “I didn’t get in a fight,” I said.

  “What did you do?” asked Jane.

  What could I say? That I’d been bodily swept off into some fantasy movie? Locked in a castle dungeon with an ogre in the imaginary land of Galiana?

  “I tripped and fell off the curb at the studio. Smacked my head on the pavement,” I said.

  “Oh, Austin!”

  I didn’t like lying to her, but I liked the pity in her voice. I loved the pity. I drank the pity down like a healing elixir. How soft they were, those blue-green eyes.

  She wrung the washcloth out in a small bowl. She examined her work: my head. “The cut’s not so bad. I don’t think you need stitches or anything. It’s just a bad bump, really.”

  And so help me, as I live, she leaned down and kissed it lightly. To make it better, you know. And so help me—as I live—it did make it better. It made me feel better anyway. She was full of magic yin, our Jane, and all I could think was what a shame it was, what a waste to spend that supernatural girl power on a spoiled movie star who wouldn’t even notice if her limo backed over her. A man of spirit, on the other hand, might live and die to make a girl like Jane proud and happy.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Schuyler avert her glance from the two of us, wincing with emotional pain.

  Then I heard—we all heard—the phone ringing in the home office. Alexis calling Jane with one of her endless demands.

  And yet she didn’t leave me, not right away. “I want you to rest here a little, all right? Until you feel stronger.” The phone rang again. She stood up off the bed. “Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat?”

  I shook my head weakly, gazing up at her, mesmerized.

  “All right. I’ll make you some soup in a while. Just get some rest.” She lingered to smile down at me, but the phone kept insisting. At last, she hurried away.

  I glanced over at Schuyler. Schuyler rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust, then peeled off the doorway and disappeared down the hall.

  Alone then, I lay where I was. Jane had worked her wonders on me. Everything that had been frantic inside me was quiet now; everything that had been sore was soothed and easy. I turned my head on the pillow to glance out the window at the pale-green tangle of garden framed in the pane. For the first time since my return to reality—or my return to Los Angeles, at least, which was as close to reality as I was going to get—I was able to think things over with a measure of calm.

  What had happened to me? This journey to Galiana, what was it? If it was just a hallucination, how had it left its mark on me? I didn’t just mean the bruise on my head either; it was more than that. The shock of my arrest, the fear of the ogre, the sympathetic agony that had curdled my skin as I listened to the shrieks of the tortured heretic. All that had scarred me too. If nothing else, I couldn’t help but notice it had taken me out of myself a little, given me some emotional distance from my current Hollywood setbacks and irritations. In fact, I hardly felt them at all at the moment. Even if Galiana was an illusion, that mark remained, same as the knot on my forehead.

  Galiana. Where had I heard that name before?

  Gentled by Jane’s gentleness, I let my eyes sink shut.

  I WOKE FROM a fine, deep sleep, still peaceful, more peaceful than I had felt in what seemed like a long time. I had been so troubled for such a while, these many weeks at least. The long, quietly frantic wait to hear back from my agent about my new script. The hollow nausea of knowing the script was bad. The crushing grief—that’s what it was, the grief—of having him reject me. The spiraling emptiness of feeling that the dream of my life was over, that I was not going to be what I wanted to be but was going to be nothing more than what I was right now. And then … walking through that stairwell door.

  Galiana.

  Where had I heard that name?

  I went into the pocket of my jeans and fished out my phone. Still lying down, I held it up above me, working the keyboard with my thumbs. I brought up the Oh-Gee search engine and tapped in the word. Galiana.

  There were over a million hits. It was both a first name and a last name and the name of several locations. Up at the top of the results, there was a Wikipedia entry. I clicked on that. It was a disambiguation page: a page giving all the various listings for the word:

  Galiana may refer to:

  • a town in Punjab, Pakistan

  • a princess in moorish Spain

  • a fictional country in the novel Another Kingdom by Ellen Evermore

  The moment I reached the end of the entry, I felt a jolt of recognition.

  “Another Kingdom,” I whispered to myself.

  Yes. I knew that book, or at least I’d heard of it. But when? Where? I read so many books as a story analyst for Mythos I couldn’t remember all of them, yet I felt sure I’d seen that title somewhere among them.

  There was no link to any Wikipedia entry for the book, so I called up Amazon and searched for it there. Sure enough, they had it listed:

  Another Kingdom

  By Ellen Evermore

  Murder and political intrigue stalk the dangerous halls of Castle Eastrim in the New Republic of Galiana.

  There it was! Excited, I sat up quickly—too quickly. The room tilted and I felt dizzy and sick again.

  “Woof,” I said.

  Slowly, I lay back down. I reread the page. Eastrim. In Galiana. Wasn’t that exactly what the heretic had told me in the dungeon? Yes, it was.

  I scrolled over the site some more but, surprisingly, there was nothing else to find. There should have been a longer description of the book, but there wasn’t. There should have been a picture of the book’s cover, but there was only an empty square containing the words, “No image.” There were no reviews. No links to other sellers. Only a notice that said: “This book is not available at this time.”

  Not available? Anywhere? On the whole internet? Not available at all?

  Moving cautiously, I turned onto my side and propped myself up on my elbow to get in a better position to work the phone. I searched other sites. Auction sites. Used book sites. I ran a general search for the novel’s title. It led me back to Amazon. That was it.

  I bit the corner of my lip. Strange, no? A book you couldn’t find online? When the hell does that happen?

  I took a breath, trying to come up with a fresh search tactic. And I thought: My coverage. Sure. If I’d read the book for Mythos, I would’ve written a report.

  I tried my Cloud files but there was nothing there. Which didn’t mean much. To preserve space, I usually moved coverage I no longer needed into a local file in my laptop.

  I needed to get home and find that coverage. My hunting blood was up now. Something weird had happened to me—something very weird, mega-weird. The hallucination or dream or whatever it was, the head wound, and now a novel with the place-names Galiana and Eastrim in it, just like in the dream? It felt like I was close to finding an explanation for my experience—close and yet impossibly far because I couldn’t imagine what explanation there could be. But whatever it was, I wanted to find out. Needed to.

  I only had one clue.

  Another Kingdom by Ellen Evermore.

  I USED MY Orgo ride-share app t
o call for a car. Then, moving slowly, like an old man, I swung my feet down onto the floor. I found my shoes, slipped them on. I tried to stand, but the room began tossing and tilting again. I sat back on the bed hard, my stomach dropping. I stayed there a few moments, drawing deep breaths. I knew I must have a concussion. I knew I ought to go to a doctor or at least lie back down and rest. It was awfully tempting to think of staying here for a few more hours, even a day or two. Jane would sit with me sometimes. She would feed me soup. Schuyler couldn’t hang around forever.

  I pushed myself up and staggered from the room.

  I heard voices as I came down the hallway toward the front door. I passed Jane’s home office and peeked in. The room was empty. The lights were out. She was gone. I was disappointed.

  The voices were coming from the living room up ahead. I continued down the hall and went in.

  It was an elegant, colorful room. A wagon-wheel chandelier hung down from a dark wooden beam ceiling. The sofa and stuffed chairs below were bright sherbet colors, red and green. Everything was arranged around a tall white fireplace. High, arched windows made the space airy and light.

  The television was on. That’s where the voices were coming from. Some daytime talk show, loud women and lots of applause. At first, I thought there was no one watching, but then I saw Schuyler. I saw the red top of her head anyway. She was splayed inharmoniously in the armchair right in front of me. Her feet on the ottoman. One hand holding a beer balanced on her belly button, bare where her black T-shirt didn’t quite meet her black leggings. She had her back to me as she watched the program. She didn’t look around when I stepped into the open archway. I thought she didn’t know I was there.

  Then she said, “Jane had to go to the Big House.” The Big House—that was where Alexis Merriwether usually lived when she was in town. Jane had shown me pictures of it. A massive estate you could have seen from the moon. “She told me to make you soup if you woke up,” Schuyler said.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’m not hungry. I called a car.”

  “Good. ’Cause I’m not making you any fucking soup.”

  I smiled. I nodded though she couldn’t see me. I felt for her. I started to sidle away toward the door.

  “Why don’t you make your move, you dumb shit?” she asked me. “You can see she loves you.”

  Well, that made me pause. I searched for an answer—a true answer—but I didn’t know what the answer was. I wasn’t sure how I felt, I guess. And you don’t make a move on a Jane Janeway unless you’re ready, unless you’re sure.

  But before I could say even that, Schuyler said, “Christ’s sweet sake, Austin, a girl like that, she’d serve you all her fucking days. Isn’t that what men want?”

  I felt the sting. Was I so selfish? Of course I was. But somehow I managed not to say, “Hey, it’s what you want too, isn’t it? You’re obviously crazy about her.”

  “You’re not man enough, that’s your problem,” she said.

  That hurt too, because I suspected it might be true. And on another day I might have barked back, “Neither are you, if it comes down to it.” But somehow, today, I managed not to say that either.

  She swigged her beer. “You’re just another wannabe artiste counting the days until you sell out and get a job.”

  Wow, that was merciless. Jesus. But even now, I felt for her. Even now, I managed not to say, “Well, what the hell are you, then?”

  Schuyler belched. “You know what?” she said to the TV screen. “In the old fairy tales? You know how the beautiful princess gets the handsome prince? And people read that shit, and they think: Well, why doesn’t that happen to me? You know why? You know why it doesn’t happen? ’Cause they’re not princesses, they’re not princes, that’s why. They’re just messed-up freaks who want the world to make believe they’re beautiful and give them a happy ending they haven’t earned. And that’s you, Austin. You’re not what you wanna be. You’re not who you oughtta be. And you’re not what Jane deserves. So go fuck yourself, all right?”

  I was reeling from the blows but I was swamped with pity for her as well. Because I knew it wasn’t just me she was talking about. It was herself too. Maybe it was the whole stupid wannabe city. We’re all so lost here, all of us.

  Wobbly and sick, I moved slowly out of the archway to her chair and stood above her, looking down. She lifted her Angry Cherub face to me. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glassy.

  “And don’t pat yourself on the back for being kind to me,” she said. “I can hear what you’re thinking.”

  I reached down and lifted her free hand off the chair arm. I raised it to my lips and kissed it.

  “Thank you for helping me back at Hitchcock’s, Sky. You’re a good friend.”

  “If you don’t let go of my hand right now, I’m gonna use it to rip your heart out.”

  MY APARTMENT WAS an attic space in a charmless complex of concrete towers. Its sole redeeming feature was a window near my writing desk that looked out on the street. From there, I could see the spillover crowd in the parking lot in back of the corner bar, The No-Hole. Come Saturday night, if someone out there screamed or broke a bottle, I could look down and check on the noise and watch a couple of drunken louts shoving one another before they wandered off home.

  Other than that, it was two small rooms with aggressively low ceilings. The bedroom was so small that when I unfolded the futon, there was no space to walk around it on either side. The living room-slash-kitchenette—where the precious window was—was filled by the writing desk and a couple of chairs.

  I set my laptop up on the desk. I was raring to start my search, but before I could, I had to sit down and rest a moment, leaning my elbow on the tabletop, squeezing my eyes shut with my hand. When the concussion nausea passed, I went to work. I searched my computer for the title: Another Kingdom. Nothing. Then for the author: Ellen Evermore. Nothing again. I sat and stared at the screen, frustrated. I was beginning to doubt myself. Maybe I hadn’t read the book for Mythos. Maybe I’d heard the word Galiana somewhere else.

  In a desperation move, I tried the computer’s trash files.

  And there it was. A single page I’d discarded: Another Kingdom. I opened it. It was coverage all right—or that is, it was the beginning of a coverage report I hadn’t finished. There was nothing there but the company form, the lines you fill out before you write your synopsis and your review.

  Another Kingdom

  FORM: Novel

  GENRE: Fantasy

  AUTHOR: Ellen Evermore

  COVERAGE: Austin Lively

  SUBMITTED TO: Candy Filikin

  SUBMITTED BY: Sean Gunther

  Plotline

  Murder, intrigue, betrayal, and love all come into play as conspirators in the court of Castle Eastrim fight for power in the New Republic of Galiana.

  List of Characters

  QUEEN ELINDA: the exiled Queen of Galiana

  EMPEROR ANASTASIUS: Lord of the Eleven Lands, betrothed to Queen Elinda

  LORD IRON NETHERDALE: Head of the High Council of the New Republic

  SIR ARAVIST TEM: Captain of the Eastrim Castle Guard

  LADY BETHERAY NETHERDALE: Lord Iron’s wife, one-time Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Elinda

  LADY KATA PALAV: Lady Betheray’s friend, one-time …

  My breath caught. Lady Kata Palav.

  Wasn’t that the name the guard had spoken in the dungeon?

  His name is Austin Lively, he’d said. He is charged with the murder of Lady Kata Palav.

  But that was all there was. The list ended there. There was nothing else. No synopsis, no report. Just that abrupt ending. Why hadn’t I finished the coverage?

  I checked the document’s date. It had been created three months ago. It was just starting summer then. I tried to think back. Something stirred in my memory. Candy had sent me an e-book as part of the usual package. I’d started reading it, but before I could finish, something happened. I couldn’t remember what.

  I search
ed for the title in my email files. Found it. An email from Candy:

  Austin. Hope this catches you before you read Another Kingdom. The submission has been withdrawn, so we don’t have to bother with it. Sorry! CF

  I didn’t remember what I’d done with the book after that, but I’d almost surely deleted it. I deleted all the books after I’d read them. Why wouldn’t I?

  I stood up from the desk. The room did a slow, sickening roll around me. I cursed. I had to reach out and grab the back of an armchair so I could lower myself into it. Close my eyes. Rest. Sitting there like that, I tried to remember more about the book but there was nothing—certainly nothing that would explain what had happened to me in the Edison Building.

  Maybe Candy still had a copy, I thought. Doubtful after three months, but she might. Or she might remember something about it. Or something about the man who had submitted it, Sean Gunther. That name sounded familiar too. If I hadn’t felt so lousy, I might’ve been able to remember.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself and worked my way out of the chair again, back to the desk again. I got my phone. I dialed Candy. I gazed out the window as I listened to the ringing on the other end of the line.

  That was the first time I saw the black Mustang.

  THE MUSTANG WAS PARKED AT THE CURB IN THE RED no-parking zone next to The No-Hole lot. A racy old-school machine, jet black and shiny. I didn’t take much notice of it. Not right away, not yet. It was just something to gaze at idly while I waited for Ken, Candy’s assistant, to answer the phone. I did notice the driver though. Kind of a strange-looking guy—or a strange-looking girl, I wasn’t actually sure which. He or she had boy-cut blond hair but a small round face with kittenish female features. He had a narrow, girly body from what I could see of it, but a bared bicep on his visible arm with muscles that had to be a man’s. Call her a him then, for convenience’s sake.