Porcelain Princess (24 page)

Abruptly, the
booming roar of wind and waves vanished, but this time the men were
left struggling against the storm in total silence until they in
turn were replaced by a young couple trying to make their way
through a mountain’s thick snow.

A tinkling of
cups to her right made Cary turn away from the transparent
reflections of life and look over to another part of the room. A
man was standing by a small table, set out for tea-for-two. He was
reasonably young, even handsome, and dressed like a meagrely paid
teacher; not at all what Carey had been expecting.

‘
It’s
a good to see you again, Carey,’ the man said as he poured tea from
a teapot into the two cups on the table.

‘
Again?’

‘
Ah
yes, of course, you don’t remember of course.’ Putting down the
teapot, he began to add milk to the tea. ‘A necessary precaution,
I’m afraid; but one I finally hope to set right.’

He poured just a
hint of milk into one cup and, with a wave of his hand, he invited
Carey to take a seat.

Carey’s eyes
were on the tea set; half white, half flame red, with three fleeing
figures portrayed in magenta.

‘
So
it was true?’ Carey asked as she drew closer to the table. ‘The
tale of
The Porcelain Doll
was true?’

The man
carefully placed the milk jug next to the elegantly tall teapot.
The faint images gradually circling the room were now passing
behind him; a family boating on a lake, an elaborate ballet
production, a battle waged between armies mounted on
mammoths.

Carey noticed
that the teapot was missing its fleeing family.

‘
Some
say such a story isn’t possible,’ the man said, his voice rich and
melodiously entrancing, ‘but who decides what’s possible and what
isn’t in a story; or, for that matter, what is and what isn’t in
reality?’

Now seated at
the table, Carey took a sip of her tea. She couldn’t mistake the
perfumed tones of an excellent Earl Grey.

‘
You
have to stop your carriage,’ Carey declared firmly, as if suddenly
remembering why she was really here. ‘We don’t want
our
story told!’

Sitting down at
the table, the man shook his head apologetically.

‘
Too
late for that, my dear; I mean, I’m afraid your story was being
told long before you entered the forest.’

‘
But
I just saw your carriage leave!’ Carey protested.

‘
Ah,
yes; just a little bit of theatre to spur you on – and to prove to
you that the Princess isn’t completely aware of
everything
I
put in motion. This story of you for instance; I hope you don’t
mind, but I’ve added my own, personal postscript? I’d like someone
very dear to me to finally have something a little better than a
“sort of” happy ending.’

‘
Someone dear to you? The Princess? What right do
you
have to decide what makes someone happy?’

The man hung his
head almost shamefully.

‘
I
don’t presume
any
such thing, Carey; as you can see, this
room and I just act as a conduit, a channel, for all the world’s
imagination and emotion.’

He drew Carey’s
attention back to the images languidly whirling around the room.
The knight was now badly injured and, in a daze, he and his
exhausted horse were being led by a cackling demon. A wolf slinked
back into the forest, a chicken between his teeth. The ship rose
out of the water, caught in the fateful embrace of the
multi-tentacled kraken. The young couple were crossing a
precariously delicate bridge spanning the gap between
mountains.

‘
Ask
any writer, any composer, any artist, Carey, and they will tell you
that their creations seems to flow through them from
something
lying outside and beyond them; and that’s because
they mistakenly believe that
they
are the reality, rather
than this
something
, the linking of the consciousness of
each and every one of us.’

‘
But
you’ve taken
control
of it; turned yourself into some sort
of…of
god
!’

As he rose from
his seat and stepped towards the ever-changing images, the man
shook his head sadly.

‘
That’s the elemental flaw, to believe that there are gods or
such things that have control over us. Yet if that were true, we’d
have no control over
anything
– when we quite clearly do.
But by thinking they
might
exist, we give them life,
relieving ourselves of any sense of responsibility while placing
control of our lives in their hands.’

He reached into
an image of a library and, when he withdrew his hand, he was
holding a book. He placed it on the table in front of
Carey.

The Porcelain
Room
.

Carey stared at
the title of the book placed before her.

‘
While you read it, I’d like to some finish some work,’ the
man said, stepping away again and this time completely immersing
himself in one of the images.

The grappling
armoured bears froze around him, their sword strokes and defensive
moves of their shields halted in mid-action. With a whirl of his
hands, a two-dimensional version of the scene began to appear
before him, hovering in the air, the colours smoothly flowing from
his fingertips.

Carey would have
liked to watch him work.

But most of all,
she wanted to read the book.

*

When she opened
the book, the very first illustration made her gasp.

‘
Father!’

She shook her
head, telling herself not to be so silly.

Of course, it
was her grandfather, or great granddad, or whatever relation he was
to her. Obviously, there’d be a family resemblance.

She was tempted
to flick through the first part of the story, as the Princess had
already told her that part. But even at a glance of the text and
illustrations, Carey could see that the book’s version of the tale
differed slightly to the one told by the Princess.

A book will
always be different to a remembered tale. But it also contained
details that the Princess had probably deemed unimportant when it
came to her retelling of the story; yet to Carey, they were very
important indeed.

The wonderfully
vivid illustration of the puppet theatre putting on
The
Porcelain Child
showed Grudo before he had attained his
mechanical life. Yet here he was given a semblance of life, for
Carey’s grandfather had ingeniously connected his own limbs to
Grudo’s using thin rods, such that the looming giant – positioned
high above even her grandfather on a raised section behind the
stage – appeared to be the real puppet master. Another revelation
was the unveiling of the porcelain child at the end of the show,
for she was truly beautiful, truly astonishing, as she sparkled
whiter than a crisp layer of snow.

Naturally, all
the illustrations were wondrously beautiful. There was a
particularly highly detailed series portraying her grandfather
working on the mechanism for the puppets that the Illuminator had
revealed to him. Carey could clearly make out the way he’d
painstakingly constructed the spirit reservoirs, the complicated
array of cogs, pulleys and wires, all in sizes that would have
confounded an accomplished watchmaker. Then, studiously and
laboriously, he had fixed all these workings into his chosen
puppets.

Once he knew the
secret, Carey wondered, why didn’t he give life to more of his
puppets? Was it something to do with whatever agreement he’d made
with the Illuminator?

When it came to
bringing life to his daughter, it wasn’t just his skill that shone
out from the illustrations, but also his incredible love for his
child. And whether it was the addition of that love, or whether it
was something extra included in that agreement with the
Illuminator, there was obviously already something different in the
way his daughter came to life as he lit her flame and closed the
compartment over her heart.

‘
Father?’ she said, smiling at him dreamily as her eyes
unhurriedly blinked open. ‘How long have I been
sleeping?’

Her father
reached out towards her, stroking her face with the most incredible
tenderness.

‘
A
long long time, my darling,’ he said, fighting hard to hold back
his tears. ‘Far longer than I would have wished for; but you’re
awake now.’

Rising up from
where she had been uncomfortably slumped in the caravan’s cosiest
chair, she wrapped her arms around her father.

‘
I
do
love you dad!’ she cried happily.

*

The Princess had
known her father after all!

She had
loved
her father!

And yet her
father had freely given her up, leaving her to live here instead
with the Illuminator!

Carey was
shocked. She had even stopped reading the book for a while,
glancing up at the Illuminator as he swiftly worked on the
illustration of some strange contraption that seemed to be flying
in the air.

How could he
have insisted that the Princess was separated from her father and
left with him?

Over the next
few pages of the book, it was patently clear that father and
daughter loved each other so much that they delighted in enjoying
the simplest pleasures together; repairing a wheel of the caravan,
taking a walk in a country lane, mixing paints for the posters and
puppets. He was joyfully amazed when she simply called him
‘Father’, and happier than any man could be when he held her in his
arms and told her he loved her. And in each illustration, the girl
was incredibly becoming more beautiful, more real, such that there
was increasingly little difference between her and a real
girl.

As Carey read
on, she began to spot more and more elements in the tale that the
Princess either hadn’t thought to mention or wasn’t even aware of
herself. Then again, of course, Carey had fled the room before the
Princess had had the chance to explain more.

She turned a
page; and her grandfather was standing for the first time in the
very room that Carey was now seated in.

*

The
Porcelain Room

Pages
25 to 35

When he had
finally gotten over the shock of seeing all the flickering images
revolving round the room, the Father looked more closely about him
with even more confusion.

‘
But
my materials; to do as you ask, I need the clay, my work
tools.’

The Illuminator
smiled as he shook his head.

‘
No;
you need only your love, which you have in abundance.’

With a wave of
his hand, the images surrounding them vanished. In their place was
an image that made the Father gasp with joy.

It was his
daughter, happily playing in the palace’s garden where he had left
her only moments before. She was watching the butterflies flitter
between the blooms, their bright tones contrasting with equally
vibrant shades of the flowers. She laughed in delight as swallows
swooped low across the garden’s fountains, dipping their beaks in
the pooling water.

‘
Now,
you’re sure you’re willing to make the sacrifice we spoke
of?’

‘
I’m
sure,’ the Father answered.

He loved his
daughter more than he could ever have possibly imagined he would.
To give his daughter a real life, he would happily give even his
own life.

‘
As
we both know,’ he continued resignedly, stepping closer to the
translucent image of his daughter, wanting to touch and hug her
once more, ‘handling the chemicals for my porcelain has already
shortened my life anyway; I’m willing to embrace the Fading for the
sake of–’

He gasped in
surprise as, reaching out to touch his daughter’s cheek, materials
began to flow from his fingertips. As his hands now instinctively
moved through the air, he saw he was recreating a physical image of
his daughter right before him.

But no; it
wasn’t an image, he realised. This girl he was creating was every
bit as real, as beautiful, as his own daughter. There were slight
differences too; this girl was made of porcelain, just has his own
daughter had originally been formed from it. Her dress was
different too, being the white lace and expensive pearls of a dress
fit for a princess.

He cried as he
was filled with a sense of incredible joy, feeling the presence of
his wife as she worked through him, her love combining
indistinguishably with his love in this act that would finally
grant a real,
true
life to their daughter.

The Princess
standing before him opened her eyes dreamily, as if simply waking
up from a long long sleep.

‘
Oh,
I’m
ever
so sorry,’ she said drowsily, ‘I must have been
asleep.’