Emmie’s Queen

A young woman stood alone before her open locker, frozen in thought. Silence in the hallways of Elmwood High School felt strange to her, but beautiful. She wore a light sweater, loose on her slight frame, and auburn hair trickled down her shoulders. She sighed into the crisp morning silence. She probably shouldn’t be alone, even now. But she wanted to savor the quiet. The peace.

Emmie had biked to school early, arriving before the sticky swarm of students could clog the wide halls. She struggled to focus at home. She had brothers. Younger brothers. They woke like a pack of goblins then tore through the house, screeching. They sucked up most of Emmie and her dad’s willpower. Together, Emmie and her dad spent their mornings molding the boys into semi-functional human children. Then he disappeared to work, chatting up clients all over the state. Exhausting. A family of bits and pieces. Emmie kept them all glued together.

This morning, she’d left her father in the trenches with the boys. Usually, she wouldn’t have exposed herself like this, alone in public. But Peter shouldn’t have been a problem anymore. They were supposed to contain him. She had signed in blood, damn it. The pink line on the back of her hand twinged as she hefted her AP Calculus book. It bumped the locker on the way out, sending a thin gong of sheet metal echoing down the hall. Funny how the silence takes an edge when the echoes of a small sound rush back to you. She used to like that kind of thing. The creepy, quiet moments. Now she felt vulnerable. Despite the agreement. 

The click of the door handle echoed down the hall to her. Emmie winced. She knew the footsteps. She hated them. She shivered. Then swore at herself for shivering. 

It could have been a teacher, a janitor, or the principal. It could have been President Barack Obama or Judy Blume. It could have been anyone in the world. But it was Peter. She knew it before she shut her locker and looked down the hall. 

She’d known Peter long enough to appreciate how he’d grown into his ears, arms, and legs. His round face had squared out and running track had trimmed boyish flab into a muscular frame. After a rough start, puberty had given him something to work with. Even the acne scars gave his otherwise unassuming face a roguish charm. Plenty of girls adored him. Just like her, he had friends. He had plans for college. He had it together.

All of that meant nothing to Emmie. Somehow, she, of all the girls in town, had caught his eye. “Ensnared his affections,” to use his own stupid, conceited phrasing. The memory made her teeth grind.

Maybe it could have worked between them. He had a brilliant mind and a bright future. She didn’t deny that. She just didn’t care. She had tried to reciprocate, tried to feel anything at all for the boy who followed her every move. But his eyes broke the deal. 

She looked into those large brown eyes and only saw the hunger. Endless. Ravenous hunger. If that was love, she wanted none of it. 

He, of course, had convinced himself that they lived in some darling love story. That she’d “come around.” He knew this would all work out, that they’d be together forever, someday. If she would just give him a chance... She didn’t.

He just smirked and waited. And watched her. Hallways. Lunches. Walks home. Even joining her chess club. He was a decent chess player, but he didn’t enjoy it. He did it to be near her. She’d tried to ignore him, but she couldn’t. His eyes made her skin crawl. So she’d started hiding away. Avoiding what she loved. Peter had sucked the joy out of everything. Senior year evaporated before her eyes.

In a fair game with even odds, she could have out-maneuvered him. But. Where she wanted a neat row of Pawns, she had unsympathetic, jealous friends. Where she should’ve had scything Bishops, she had useless cops. Her brazen Rooks? One distracted, absent parent. On her side of the board… just her, a King waiting for the end.

So. Emmie had gone hunting for someone who could help her flip the board. She found a Queen worthy of the name, one who could make Peter go away. Not kill him, of course, just make him… disinterested. Deter him. Get his hungry eyes out of Emmie’s life. 

And they’d failed. She’d signed her name in blood and yet, here stood Peter.

She shivered again, then clenched her fists tight around the book. She glanced up and down the hallway. Empty, of course. Not a teacher in sight. No witnesses. No help.

“Argh!” she let the sound out between her clenched teeth. The shiver of fear became the quiver of rage.

Emmie glared at him as he approached. He grinned from ear to ear and she looked at his eyes. Hunger mixed with satisfaction. He’d known to be here. Well, why not? He knew her classes, her schedule, her family, and the shrubbery outside her house. Peter probably knew what color bra she had on. Bile burned her throat at the thought.

The Calc book quaked in her hands. Her knuckles were white. 

“Good morning,” he said, ambling to a stop and leaning against the lockers.

“What do you want, Peter?” she said through clenched teeth. 

“Thought you might get here early to study,” he said. “I would love to help.”

“No,” she said. She glared at him. He smiled back.

“Look, Em, you’re the most–” 

“I don’t care.” Em! No one called her Em. God, she hated him.

“Just give me–” 

“No! I don’t care.”

“Em–”

“One more word and I will go to the police station and file a restraining order against you.”

He chortled. She glared.

“Yeah,” he said, the grin again. “They stopped by to warn me off. Said they couldn’t put out the order. Told me not to be seen around you outside of school.” He smiled. “You can’t stop love with paperwork, Em.”

Her face flushed. He knew. He knew that she’d requested a restraining order and he still stood here. And they’d told him where he could and couldn’t stalk her. And where he could. At school. Here. The chessboard bristled with the spears of her opponents. She clutched the calculus book tighter. 

Time was almost up. He knew it. She would fly away soon, out of his reach. She watched his eyes burn. Watched the Hunger fan itself. 

She felt a drip of nervous sweat land on her hip inside her sweater. Her spine trembled. Her breath grew short. Black edges crept in around her vision. Peter smiled, held out a hand, palm up, leaning in. Her blood pounded in her temples. The Calc book quivered in her hands as her knuckles turned white around it.

“C’mon,” he said, “let’s just go study for a while.”

Her body reacted without her conscious mind’s consent. Something very human woke within her. She pulled the hefty calc book back over her shoulder and swung it around in a beautiful arc. Her throat released a screech. His eyes widened in the split second before she caught him across the head. The smack of the book echoed up and down the hall. He crumpled to the ground, clutching his head. 

She hesitated. Then went after him, shrieking, pounding him with the book, again and again. He curled into a ball, crying, begging her to stop. 

She shrieked even louder, now slamming the spine of the book into his rib cage. She didn’t stop until she felt one of his ribs snap. He screeched then, like a child, and she stepped back, astounded. 

He lay on the floor. Sobbing. She wondered, numbly, if she’d get in trouble for this. Then she laughed, making him twitch. It had happened at school. It was a school problem. She’d gladly go to detention for this. Peter peered at her between his arms. His body trembled. He said nothing. The hunger had gone from his eyes, only terror remained. She grinned, brandishing the book at him.

“Never. Get Near Me. Again,” she spat, leaning down. Peter flinched at every word. “You have 23 unbroken ribs in your body and I swear to god I will crack every last one of them if I see you again.”

He nodded, it made him wretch and grab at his head. She grinned, then walked away smiling from ear to ear. Freedom. Her mind and limbs thrummed with the power of it.

Then she recalled the agreement. The blood signature. The Queen. That two-timing bitch. and her false agreement. Emmie felt the tremble of power again and hatched a new plan.

***

After school, Emmie biked to the mansion. 

In a small town, whispers carry a long way. Elmwood whispered of vampires. A sisterhood, powerful beyond reckoning. A Queen on an obsidian throne. Stories ranged from cute to horrifying. Blood sacrifices, illness cured, daughters gone missing and sons returned home after long estrangements. Housewives had their theories. 

It took Emmie months to work up the courage for her first visit. Months of research, planning for contingencies. Months of never getting caught alone, of the sickly feeling of his eyes on her skin, of lying awake and praying not to hear a tap on her window in the night. Finally, she went to them, to her, the Queen, and signed a deal. She’d slept well for the first time in months.

Now that she’d solved her own problem she needed to renegotiate. 

The stone wall still stood where it had for decades, maybe centuries. She’d half expected it to have disappeared, slinking back into her nightmares where it belonged. Ivy crept around the wall but didn’t touch the two massive wood doors. Small trees pushed their canopies above the wall, and behind their bright growth, the careworn mansion stood proud and aloof. They kept to themselves, well out of town. No visitors.

Emmie leaned her bike against the wall and slung her satchel over the handlebars. A heavy chain hung down beside the gate, brushing the ivy. Emmie stared at it for a long moment. Then she took a deep breath, reached out, and pulled.

The bell tolled once, twice, then silenced.

She waited. Crows cawed from the mansion’s trees. 

The gate creaked open. Within, a stately garden brimmed with flowers and fruit trees. A straight path cut through to the mansion’s broad wooden door. Emmie exhaled and entered. She didn’t turn to look, no one would be there. Her hands wove together and she held them tight to control the shakes as she walked through the garden. 

The mansion door swung open without a sound as she approached and a grand entrance hall stretched away. Gloomy bluish light fell into the grand space from windows high above. Filtered down, she’d guessed, to protect fragile skin. Dark marble columns soared up to brace the balcony running around the second floor. In shadows between the columns, wax figures of shirtless men in dress slacks held idle poses. They made her shiver.

All of it fell into the background for Emmie. The Queen held her attention. A proud marble staircase stretched up from the foyer, climbing to a landing. From there, Queen Veronica gazed down from an obsidian throne. It glinted, even in the low light, just as the Queen’s eyes sparkled.

A serene smile played on the Queen’s lips, glistening black to match the throne. She wore a light and elegant dress, one long leg escaping the lavender fabric. She bounced it on her other knee. Emmie tried to remember to breathe. 

“You’ve come to break our contract?” Veronica called down. “Already?” 

The knowing tones. The sly smile. All so familiar. Emmie clutched her hands together until her knuckles gave a little pop. She bit back the gasp of pain and let go.

“I’ve come to renegotiate,” she called up the stairs. Her voice quivered, but she firmed it up. “You broke our contract. I had to deal with Peter myself. I don’t need you now.” 

“Oh you gave him a scare, I don’t doubt that,” she said, “but we provided a more… permanent solution. Now you have 20 years of freedom. Then a quick, painless death, then fresh skin, power, and immortality. What’s not to love, child?”

“You didn’t help!” Emmie shouted. “I just want my life back!” 

The Queen sighed and waved a lazy hand. One of the statues peeled from its shadows and approached Emmie. The girl flinched back a step. Peter. Someone’s ideal version of Peter’s body, filled in and sculpted. Not a bruise on it from her Calc book. Emmie steeled her nerves, then looked into his eyes. The hunger had gone. Everything had gone. 

A little sob jumped up from Emmie’s lips. 

“We agreed that you wouldn’t kill him!”

“And we haven’t!” Veronica drawled, bored. “They have to come willingly, you know. Most men leap at the chance, but darling Peter resisted. Refused immortality!” She laughed, once. Emmie stared at Peter. He stared back. She looked for any spark of life in his eyes and found none. “Then, this morning, he showed up, battered and bruised. We took him in.”

Guilt, of all things, broiled up from Emmie’s gut. She crushed it back down. She’d fix this. Herself. All of it. Queen Emmie.

On cue, sirens flared outside. Emmie smiled.

Veronica’s perfect face creased.

“What have you done, child?” she asked.

“I called in a little anonymous tip,” she said. “Human trafficking. Said I was coming out to investigate. On my own.”

The sirens went quiet, the bell tolled from the gate. Emmie’s smile didn’t waver.

“Change Peter back,” she shouted, “destroy my contract, and we’ll leave.” The Queen stared down, lips pursed, brow furrowed. “I’ll tell the cops it was a prank.”

Veronica glared at her for several long moments. Then her smile broke back out and she giggled. Her slender hands clapped together, once, a dry, crisp sound in the quiet hall.

“Oooo! I’d so hoped you’d be a clever one,” she shouted. “You’ll be so much fun to have around.” She slapped the arm of her throne and leaped up. As she swept down the stairs, wisps of flowing lavender trailed behind. She looked to Emmie like a storm cloud of flower petals rolling down a dark hill. Emmie stood frozen as the queen brushed past, dragging the scent of lavender in her wake. 

At a flick of Veronica’s wrist, the front door and the gate both swept open at once. A portly policeman with a crew cut and a stern expression crouched outside the gate, one hand on his gun. Seeing Veronica in the mansion’s doorway, he stood upright and moved his hand off the weapon. He took careful strides into the garden. Emmie glanced at the Queen and saw the dagger at her hip, held behind her. Hidden from the officer. 

Emmie mouthed the word “Help” toward the officer over and over. She let the terror show. She made a stabbing motion and pointed to Veronica. The officer glanced at her and stopped halfway through the garden, one hand straying back to his gun and loosening it. 

“Elmwood Police,” the officer called out. “Can you show me your hands ma’am?” 

“Good morning!” she replied. She didn’t yell, but her voice pealed crisp and light through the garden. Emmie thought she could almost see the sound waves floating through the air to bounce into the officer’s skull. “This building is abandoned. No one was here. You received a prank call. Leave now.”

The officer blinked, nodded, and turned away. Emmie took a step forward and shrieked.

“HELP! PLEASE, GOD HELP ME!”

The officer reached the gate. He looked down at her bike leaning against the wall. He hesitated. Emmie’s breath caught. Hope rose. Veronica’s head cocked to the side. She flicked her wrist.

“Go!” she commanded, voice ringing through the courtyard again. The bell gonged a soft echo of it. The officer took two swift steps and dropped back into his squad car. Veronica flicked her wrist again and the gates shut, then the door. Emmie’s heart tumbled out into empty space. 

In the dim blue light, The Queen of the Harem turned around with a peaceful, beatific smile. She took two light steps toward Emmie. Emmie stared up at her, frozen in terror. The Queen reached out and wiped a tear from Emmie’s cheek with one cold hand. 

“No,” Emmie begs in a whisper. “Please, please, please, no.” 

The Queen sighed, paused, pursed her lips again, and gazed down into Emmie’s soft brown eyes. Then she shrugged and plunged the dagger into Emmie’s heart. Emmie crumpled, but she didn’t hit the floor. Something caught her. Something cold. She looked up into Peter's empty eyes as a small bloodstain bloomed on her sweater. The cold washed over her. Warm tears slid down her face. She looked up into Veronica’s eyes and saw the hunger.

“As agreed,” the Queen said, “after 20 years or at the time of your premature death, you join the Harem. Welcome, child, you’re going to love it.”

~ END ~