Out Through the Attic (7 page)

The press crucified me for the OD, and parents’ groups made it clear they wouldn’t bring their kids to see an addict. Bad role models make lousy movie stars.

The movie tanked.

I’d like to say it was sobering … reading shitty reviews … watching tiny attendance numbers roll by. My name became a punch line. It all should have been sobering, but it wasn’t.

O O O

So, what did I do?

I decided to throw another party, this one bigger and better than all the rest. Open invitation. Party of the century. I was hoping to draw any and everyone who’d ever been involved in a movie.

I got more than I bargained for.

For starters, and for the first time ever, Stella didn’t make the delivery. She sent one of her trolls, a big bruiser with a scar down his neck and eyes that would have frightened a kraken.

The delivery did come with an apology, though. On
royal
stationary lettered in gold, she expressed their regrets. She even use the royal “We” a few times. She and the King had a prior engagement and there was no getting out of it. The note was tied to the bag of PD with a golden ribbon. Along with the PD she had included a beautifully carved wooden box. Inside the box was a sniffer.
The
sniffer.

I didn’t give a thought to why they couldn’t attend. Didn’t think once, let alone twice about her use of “We,” either. I just remember taking great care in loading the sniffer up and delighting in those first few blasts. I was a god again. Once I was good and high, I flew through the house, looking for Wendy. When I finally tracked her down, she was putting our youngest down to sleep. I showed her the sniffer, pleased as punch. Practically dancing about it. I told her that I was still in good with Stella and the King.

Wendy never said a word.

She looked at me with this sad little smile, a tear in her eye, and put her hand on my cheek. I remember getting frustrated, even angry. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t as excited as I was. I turned my back on her and headed towards my side of the house. I had to make my little piles of PD for the party.

I never heard her pull out the suitcases.

People started showing up, but there were a lot of new faces. They didn’t look like movie makers, though. There was more of a gritty feel to them, trolls mostly. Even through the high I could tell they’d come from
someplace else.
They looked over their shoulders a lot, and most of them had bodyguards. They were keen on the PD, though, and heavy into the booze. A few claimed to be agents or producers, but I’d never seen them before, and they didn’t know a damn thing about the making movies.

Quite a few of the same old faces showed up, too, but the smiles they greeted me with were strained, fake, as if they were glad to be there but not glad to see me. I didn’t let it slow me down. I hit up every person I’d worked for or with in the past, asking them what they had coming up. I needed a part. Any part. The answer was always the same. They didn’t have a thing for me. And when I walked away the whispers sounded like surf on a rocky shoreline.

I got lost in the PD to make the sound of the ocean go away.

When I woke in the morning, Wendy was gone. This time she’d left two things on my chest, and yes, while I was passed out in that same lounge chair. The first was a note, in her delicate hand, apologizing to me for leaving. She didn’t ask for a divorce. She didn’t ask for support. She simply took the girls and hopped a zeppelin to her mother’s up north. She said she was sorry she wasn’t strong enough for me. I spent weeks trying to figure that one out.

Underneath the note was that morning’s newspaper. The headline read:

KING ELOPES WITH STELLA DAVINCOURT

At least I knew why they didn’t come to the party.

O O O

I spent a year trying to find work.

Without Wendy the house seemed to grow larger every day, like living in a history museum, but PD made the echoes go away. I kept throwing my parties, kept asking the movie moguls if there was something out there for me.

I would have taken anything: villains, lackeys, henchmen, bit parts, cameos. I even got on my knees once, with the Director of
Hoffer
. All I got were those same fake smiles, anorexic excuses.

Money stopped flowing in, but it sure as hell didn’t stop flowing out. The house cost a fortune to maintain, so did the servants. And PD bought in kilos adds up fast.

It got so bad that I started selling off steam carriages, rental properties, furniture, artwork … you name it. All I cared about was the house, the parties and the PD. They were my only ticket back to stardom. I burned through it all until there was almost nothing left but the house.

That was about when the King got sick.

I remember thinking how odd it was. The announcement about his first wife’s illness got the whole kingdom crying. For him, though, the response was quiet reserve, almost silence. As if people were afraid of something.

I was too high to give it much thought, and at the parties nobody seemed interested in talking about it. I was so wrapped up with my own troubles that I couldn’t possibly have pieced it all together, not if my life depended on it.

It took a month for the King to die.

I didn’t find out about his death until a few days the funeral, when a package of PD came wrapped in newspaper. That little package represented the last of my money. I was broke, and the thought of never seeing another terrified me. As I unwrapped my bundle of godhood, I saw the headline:

KING PASSES AWAY

I didn’t think about how sad it was. I didn’t reminisce about all the good times with the King. The only thing that occurred to me was that I had an opportunity … with the Queen. An idea formed in my head, and if she went for it, I could get back on top of the movie biz. I had the proposal scrawled and off in a copturier in a flash. She still used the same number, after all those years, and the little gizmo sailed off into the air, clattering and sputtering, headed straight for the palace.

I cancelled the party I’d scheduled for that night, took a few snorts and then cleaned up the place as best as I could. I’d let the staff go weeks before, so it was all on me to get ready for the Queen.

All I could do was wait and hope.

O O O

The Queen arrived two days later with an entourage three blocks long. Dark elves with silver trumpets announced her arrival. There were trolls in dark armor, holding pikes. Dark men in dark tabards rode black stallions, and in the middle of the procession was a black carriage pulled by black unicorns. Through the haze of PD I dredged up fuzzy memories … of the royal guard being made up of dwarves … of them wearing forest green. A layer of the fuzz peeled away, and it suddenly occurred to me that the Queen had probably made a lot of changes once the King was gone.

A tall, gaunt elf with pallid skin and sunken eyes stepped off the back of the carriage and around to its side. With a flourish and a bow he opened a pair of wide double doors.

The Queen stepped out slowly and rose to her full height with a majesty that I’d never seen in all the years I’d known Stella. In fact, there was very little of Stella Davincourt left in the woman who so easily stared down at me. The smiling, buxom brunette I remembered, the one with a flair for filling out red dresses and dancing, was gone. What was left made me think of dirges and the taut skin of the dead.

The Queen’s face was pale, rigid, and her makeup stark in contrast. There wasn’t even a glimmer of a smile, and the light that used to dance in her eyes at parties had faded completely into depths I didn’t care to explore. Her hair had been pulled back tightly against her skull, making it shine like metal, and a golden diadem set with rubies anchored it in place. Her gown was black lace, with traces of purple and white at collar, waist and hem.

She glided towards me, purposefully, and as she did two young elves dashed from inside the carriage and ran by me.

“Walk with me,” she commanded in a low voice.

The elves got my front doors open just in time, and she seemed to float up the steps and into my house as if she owned the place. I stepped into her wake, careful not to tread on her dress, and heard the soft footfalls of several others move in behind me.

Glancing over my shoulder, I realized two grim-looking trolls had appeared out of nowhere. They both wore matching daggers and paced behind like tigers, graceful, their eyes never leaving me. The gaunt elf from the back of the carriage followed them, and his eyes never seemed to drift far from the queen.

The Queen wove her way through my house, the elves opening doors before her, finally making her way to the swimming pool. She glided across the patio and made her way to a lounge chair.
The
lounge chair, where I’d woken up in red panties all those years ago. Where I’d awakened to Wendy’s newspaper messages.

The Queen slowly ran a finger over the frame and down the armrest, as if she were picking out memories like threads from an old quilt.

Turning slowly, she cast her gaze upon me, and for just a moment I thought I saw a fraction of a smile, a glint in her eye. What was left of Stella Davincourt, tucked away someplace deep inside the Queen, remembered my performance with the blonde all those years ago. And it amused her.

Another layer of the fuzz peeled away from my mind, and I think it was in that moment I understood how my life traced back to that night, that party.

The Queen realized it too.

The glint in her eye disappeared as quickly as it had manifested, like a mirror glinting in darkness. She motioned to the chair.

“Come. Sit,” she said.

Without a word I did as commanded … and it
was
a command.

“So,” she began, clasping her hands before her in a most Queenly fashion, “We understand you want to make a movie.”

“Yes, Stell—” I began, but her eyebrow shot up, halting her name in my throat. “Yes,
Your Majesty
,” I corrected.

“We understand that you would like to borrow a sum of money to make this movie.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“We also understand that you want to make this movie about Our deceased husband, the
good
King.” For the first time, the Queen smiled. It was a rictus, devoid of happiness and even life. There was emotion, to be sure, but I could only liken it to hatred or disgust.

The last layer of fuzz peeled back from my mind, the last remnants of PD-induced stupidity burned away. Clarity hit me like a diamond sledgehammer striking an anvil. I’d never heard such weight and meaning so deliberately applied to a single word. When she said ‘good’ there was so much she wasn’t saying … about the difference between good and evil … between the King and
herself
.

For the first time in my life I was terrified.

I swallowed hard, and she seemed to delight in the fear that filled my eyes. She smiled once again.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I replied, nodding slowly.

The smile disappeared and seconds drew out until I nervously shifted in my seat.

“We approve of this endeavor,” she stated simply and with a finality that set it all in stone. She motioned to the gaunt elf, and he trotted up, producing a thick stack of bound parchment. Her eyes were stern as she stared down at me. “You will use
this
script, and you will follow it to the letter.” The elf dropped it in my lap. She continued, “I cannot be bothered with such trivial things, but this movie will help correct some of the …
misapprehensions
 … the people have about Us and the
unfortunate
demise of the King … and his previous Queen. With you at the helm, they will have no choice but to accept it.” She looked at the doors to the house. “
Guards!
” she shouted. Four trolls kicked the doors open and marched onto the patio hefting a large, wooden chest. They dropped it with a thud and one of them flung open the lid.

My eyes went wide. “Good grief!” I shouted. It was full of gold.

“Here is your budget, Cornelius,” she said. She sounded magnanimous, almost kind, but beneath it all was a venom that I’d never understood until that day. “Treat it with care. Your life depends upon this film. Make no mistakes.” She hesitated, looking down at me. Her eyebrow rose slowly, and I realized I was expected to say something.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I will do as you command.” My mind was racing. I felt like a rat in a trap.

She nodded slowly, and the eyebrow lowered back to its grim position. “If you succeed, perhaps We will see about correcting your current financial situation.” She turned and began walking towards the doors. With a swishing of lace she spun back and glared at me. Her pale finger rose and pointed at me, piercing me where I stood. “If you fail, you, your dear wife and your darling daughters will all make amends in whatever manner that suits Us. Do I make myself clear, Cornelius?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

I was committed.

In a flash I realized I had been committed from that first snort of PD at that first party. All the pieces fell together at once. She’d been planning her rise to power from the first moment she set her hooks in the King. The other PD dealers, they hadn’t left, they’d been
removed.
Stella had been responsible for the Queen’s death and the King’s. She’d been marching her plan along year after year, body after body, all paid for with PD money … my money.

And with my movie idea, I’d given her a perfect way to placate the people. I’d been part of the story, on the sidelines watching it all happen. I didn’t need to read her script to know it was a pack of lies. I’m sure it would make her out like a hero. And once the movie was released, I’d be a liability. I’d know how much of a lie it really was. My life wouldn’t be worth the paper on a death certificate, and at that point, neither would Wendy’s or the girls’.

I had one shot, and if I failed, they would bury Wendy and my daughters in the same shallow grave as me.

I couldn’t let that happen.

O O O

I became a movie producer that afternoon and spent the next week contacting everyone I would need to make one last blockbuster. I reached out to anyone who had been involved in
Hoffur
. At first none of them was interested, but when I dangled bags of gold in their faces, they changed their tunes, even the Director. A few had asked about whether the Queen approved of what I was doing. They were scared, scared of crossing a tyrant, scared of disappearing. I gave them the truth, or at least part of it—the Queen had already endorsed the script. I even showed the script to them, bound with the royal seal.