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Elsa smiled broadly as she slipped out of the minivan and breathed in deeply. She already knew without a doubt that two weeks was going to be too short a stay.
She had missed this. The smell of the trees, the clean air—Brockton Bay, even the nicer parts like the beach and Captain’s Hill, just couldn’t compare. Every year she’d come had been phenomenal, and she had been itching to return for months. Yes, she got to do a few camping trips a year with her girl scout troop, but those were limited to a weekend each in the fall and spring and one slightly longer trip over summer break. Even this camp was limited to only two weeks for the regular campers.
The counselors though? They got to stay for two months , and with her sixteenth birthday just past, she was finally old enough to be a junior counselor.
Elsa moved to retrieve her backpack as her mother cut the engine and climbed out of the vehicle, and together they made their way over to where two of the counselors were running check-in. Right away, Elsa recognized one of the counselors, and she nudged her mother.
“See the counselor on the left? That’s Nicole, my bunkmate from last year. I told you counselors get chosen from previous campers!”
“Mmm,” her mother hummed. “Well then, I suppose you’ll have to be on your best behavior if you want to be picked. Helping the counselors will probably go a long way.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Elsa firmly replied, confident in herself. The counselors were already impressed with her last year thanks to the skillset she had picked up in girl scouts, and now she had another year’s experience under her belt.
As they got closer, Elsa noticed Nicole was checking in a markedly peculiar, tall girl, who was together with an older, likewise tall man with balding hair, presumably her father. While all the other girls were, like Elsa, wearing sporty, light-colored tops and shorts and the occasional hat, this girl was dressed in clothes as black as her hair with white designs criss-crossing them. She tentatively identified some of them as runes based on their similarity to those used by one of the gangs back in Brockton Bay, but most were completely unknown to her and varied in complexity from simplistic squiggles to sharp, structured symbols set in sprawling schemes. This was weird on its face but also because the full-length pants and sleeves covering her limbs were eminently impractical for the summer, much less summer camp.
“And you’re sure you’ll have someone supervising her?” she heard the possible-father say to Nicole, his tone worried. “It’s been a tough year for her, and we’re making progress, but if you don’t think you can handle it...”
“She'll be fine, Mr. Hebert,” Nicole assured him. “We use a strict buddy system, and”—Nicole noticed Elsa approaching and smiled, waving her over—“I already have the perfect buddy in mind for her. This is Elsa, one of the other campers. She was here last year, and she’s very nature savvy. Taylor is in good hands.”
Elsa eyed Taylor discreetly. So she didn’t just dress weird but also needed supervision? What was this girl’s deal? The clothing style seemed vaguely goth, so perhaps she was introverted? She didn’t slouch or wear dark makeup like the ones she knew, but those might not be universal traits, or Taylor might just be making the style her own. In any case, she didn’t seem like the sort of person Elsa ordinarily made a point to befriend, but she could make an exception. After all, Nicole had just given her the perfect opportunity to showcase why she should be chosen as a counselor for next year.
Elsa held out her hand to Taylor’s father and when he gripped it, she gave him her best handshake. “Hello, Mr. Hebert! It’s nice to meet you. Don’t worry—I’ll make sure Taylor has a fun, safe time.”
Taylor’s father didn’t seem convinced if his hesitant expression and handshake were any indication. “Yes, well, okay then...” His loose grip on her hand slipped away, and he turned to Taylor, who automatically looked up to meet his eyes with an expectant look. “Taylor, sweetie, just— just be on your best behavior, okay?”
The moment Taylor opened her mouth to reply, Elsa realized why Taylor needed supervision.
“The Forbear bears a bearing most vexatious. Fear not, safe as houses, we are, outside houses ‘twixt tree and star. The Shattered Princess, ascendant, forestalls harms near and far.”
This... might be harder than anticipated. But she could do this!
#
“So, uh, you’ll be bunking with me here, Taylor,” Elsa nervously remarked as she indicated the stacked, wooden frames and ladder. She almost laid claim to the bottom bunk before thinking better of it. She could already envision Taylor trying to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and falling, breaking her neck or something else equally horrifying. “I’ll take the top bunk, okay?”
Taylor languidly blinked, her eyes large behind her glasses. “The Shattered Princess would lay slumber here ?”
Uh. “Yes...?”
Taylor hummed, her head tilting to the side before nodding sharply, placing her bag on the ground, and pulling out a large bag. “An aegis for the dreamer else the grave, wethinks.”
“What’re you...” Elsa started to say before trailing off in bewilderment as Taylor began to carefully pour a line of white powder a half inch thick in a semi-circle around the bunk. “Are... are you making a salt circle ?”
“Forsooth,” Taylor agreed. “Long may we dream.”
The girls sharing the next bunk over started giggling and looked away when Elsa looked their way.
“That’s not really necessary, Taylor,” Elsa diplomatically tried. If the other girl heard her at all, then she didn’t acknowledge her as she moved on to strategically placing garlic cloves and sprinkling water. “Taylor? Can you, uh...”
Was there a way to politely tell someone, ‘Stop being such a weirdo?’
“Speak speak, and we shall hear,” she replied in singsong as she rifled through her bag.
Elsa stepped over and tentatively looked over the crazy girl’s shoulder into the bag, half fearing what would happen if she was startled. “What did you— Oh my god, did you bring nothing but —”
Elsa only just barely stopped herself from completing that uncomplimentary thought aloud. The weirdo hadn’t brought any clothes, toiletries, or anything reasonable. Instead, the bag was stuffed to the brim with bags of herbs, sticks of chalk, a shrunken head, a ouija board, and that was just what she saw at a glance!
“Taylor, did you, uh...” How to address this? “Did you forget your bag of clothes with your dad? I can ask a counselor to call him...”
“The Shattered Princess need not fear. Thine eyes speak truth.”
“What—? What does that even mean ?!”
Taylor gently plucked at her shirt, the white paint adorning it glinting in the cabin’s light. “Clothes!”
Oh. Of course. She was going to wear the same clothes the entire time. Why had Elsa expected any different?
It hadn’t even been an hour, and her faith in her ability to handle Taylor was waning. It was going to be a long two weeks.
#
To call the week that followed a trial would be an understatement in the extreme. It seemed that Taylor was utterly incapable of doing anything the right way.
Gathering firewood for the bonfire? She meandered around aimlessly with a branch shaped like a divining rod to locate “felled arms that would please the Song Queen.”
Socializing with the girls she’d be spending a fortnight with during the opening bonfire? She muttered what disturbingly sounded like incantations under her breath throughout the bonfire, ignoring entirely those few people who tried to engage her. “Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives...”
Sleeping in the middle the night away? She marked up the cabin’s exterior with symbols akin to those on her clothes or, once the counselors confiscated her chalk, slowly circled the cabin over and over while playing a somber, haunting tune on a flute. “You don’t want them to get in , do you? Allow ne’er the wrong, sole the right!”
A hike to the mountaintop? She seemed to enjoy parts , if her oohing and ahhing while wildly craning her neck around at awkward angles were any indication, but she spent most of it reading a book upside down while translating into the gibberish she called speaking. “Correct the wrong, by the Lion’s song, roar roar, bye ‘ermore! What big chompers you have, ‘tis the season to shake it shake it, jump jump!”
Countless absurdities, all heaped one on top of the other! Eating? Consult the ouija board and throw it away half the time, naturally. Cleaning the firepit? Rearrange all of the stones for better alignment, obviously. Fishing? Catch eels instead of fish and try to hang them up throughout the cabin, of course. Stargaze? Meticulously chart each and every single visible speck of light in the sky, it goes without saying.
And as bad as it was when she did ‘talk’ with other people, if babbling in tongues it could so be called, she also talked to herself all the time. Not even the normal level of crazy either, where someone just talked to themself aloud. No, she always looked up and to her right with an unhealthy enthusiasm before yammering on and on to the empty air, to someone who wasn’t there. The weirdo even went so far as to try and rope Elsa into conversations with her stupid imaginary friend, which was beyond awkward and embarrassing, especially when the other girls were around.
Elsa had done her best. She really, truly had. But she could only play along with the madness for so long. Everyone was supposed to have a chance to call their parents on day seven, but after much begging on Elsa’s part, the counselors finally acquiesced to allowing her to take Taylor to call her father. Not to catch up like everyone else would be the following day—to come get her . The varied counselors only had to deal with the weirdo in chunks and bursts at a time, and they were pulling their hair out of her antics.
And as for Elsa? She wouldn’t be coming back next year. Taylor had tainted Elsa’s feelings for the camp. She would just have to figure out some other way to get in touch with nature.
“A ha'penny may you gobble,” Taylor sang to herself as she plopped two quarters into the payphone and punched in the number before shifting to humming an off kilter, dissonant melody that Elsa did her best to tune out by focusing on the dial tone.
What if her dad didn’t answer? Obviously he had needed a break—or perhaps didn’t want the weirdo at home, Elsa uncharitably thought—so what if he refused to come get her?
The dial tone vanished, replaced with the payphone’s earpiece crackling to life loud enough for Elsa to hear from where she leaned against the wall next to its right. “Hello, Hebert residence.”
“Forbear! The Shattered Princess has granted me a boon most grand. Early now, we commune with thee!”
There was a pause on the other end of the line that, to Elsa’s ear, sounded suspiciously like a restrained sigh. “Hi, sweetie. That’s very nice of her to do that for you. Who is the Shattered Princess?”
“Friend!” the weirdo looked to Elsa and gave her a big, goofy smile. “Many adventures, we and she. Knew from the start.”
‘Friend’? Ugh, really? It wasn’t enough that she had ruined this trip for her—had ruined everything about camp, including Elsa’s aspirations to be a counselor—she thought they were friends ?! As if she could ever be friends with a lunatic like—
“Honey, we’ve talked about this. Annette...
Mom
isn’t there with you. She died in the car accident a year ago...”
“And, we have told you in turn, Forbear, no ! The Song Queen is here!” the weirdo looked beseechingly and lovingly up to her right. Not at Elsa—at the ‘ Song Queen .’ “Here, here, here !”
Oh.
“I’m sorry, honey, I shouldn’t have...” He sighed, deep and weary, the sound unmistakable this time. “I know you’re working with the psychiatrist—”
‘It’s been a tough year for her, and we’re making progress.’ Wasn’t that what he had said at check-in?
“Cease!” she cried, her voice wobbly as a few tears escaped her eyes. “We tell the Forbear, the song refrain o’er ‘n’ o’er, but the Forbear listens not !”
Was the weirdo— Was Taylor ... just trying to cope?
“We’ll talk later, okay? You see the psychiatrist when you come back.”
Elsa had played along. Had spoken with Taylor’s ‘imaginary friend.’ Taylor thought Elsa saw her dead mother, she thought...
“Hear! Hear us! Hear like friend Shattered Princess!”
Friend .
Elsa gently reached out and laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, murmuring, “May I speak with him, Taylor?”
Taylor turned to her with wide, red eyes. She sharply nodded once and held out the handset.
“Hi, this is Elsa. We met at check-in,” she said into the receiver. “I’m... I’m the Shattered Princess.”
“Oh, yes, hello. Look, I tried to explain on the phone when Taylor begged me to sign her up and again at check-in, but no one really believed me when I said how she was doing. It sounds like it’s sunk in by now. Do you... I can come pick her up early, if you want.”
Taylor had begged to be here? Elsa could imagine it. Wanting to get out if her mother didn’t listen to her. Wanting to escape the reality that one of her parents was...
Would it really hurt to let her pretend, just for camp?
“It’s no problem, sir. We had a bit of a rocky start, but... Well, the Shattered Princess wouldn’t dare send home... Her Majesty early.”
Taylor’s eyes were still bloodshot, and her cheeks had tear stains running down them, but her lips curled up into a small, tentative smile.
“Her... Majesty?”
Elsa looked to Taylor and covered the receiver with her hand. “Does Her Majesty have a name?”
Taylor gasped, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “We are called Princess Strigidae!”
Of course she chose a name that was a mouthful. Elsa removed her hand and swallowed her pride. Eight more days. She could do that if it meant Taylor got to feel like she belonged, even if just a bit.
“Princess Strigidae is having a good time and just couldn’t wait to tell you is all. The Shattered Princess wishes, uh, the Forbear a blessed day.”
#
“Forebear!” Taylor called out excitedly as she raced over to her father and smothered him with what Elsa imagined was the biggest hug the twelve-year-old could muster. “We had such wondrous adventures! Bless you, bless you for allowing us to partake!”
He looked up to Elsa as she approached and offered his hand to shake. This time, there was no hesitation in it. “Elsa, right? I can’t thank you enough for this.”
Elsa smiled, an expression that came more easily and genuinely the past few days. “We had a good time. The pleasure was mine.”
The smile he gave her in return was brief and weary, but she could see the genuine appreciation in his eyes before he looked down to Taylor and remarked, “What do you say to Ms. Elsa for helping you have a good time?”
Apparently ‘what to say’ required more than mere words in Taylor’s eyes, as she surged forward and wrapped her thin little arms around Elsa’s middle and gave her a hug just as tremendous as the one she had given her father. “Bless you, Shattered Princess! We will ne’er forget your regal visage nor kind bearing!”
Elsa squeezed her back. “The Shattered Princess won’t forget Princess Strigidae or the Song Queen either,” she replied, and it was the honest truth
“We shall see the Shattered Princess when the longest day comes past once more!”
‘Next summer,’ Elsa interpreted readily enough, having gotten more than a fair bit of practice with the chatterbox’s unique way of speaking. “I imagine so.”
Hopefully the psychiatrist would make some progress by then. Escapism could be helpful, but the poor girl couldn’t be allowed to pretend forever, after all.
#
As the Forebear guided their chariot forth past the Captain’s Hill, Princess Strigidae hummed a jaunty tune of discordant tones.
“The Shattered Princess did not believe. Ne’er in mine eye did she gaze.”
Princess Strigidae looked up to their right with a sad smile, observing by ease born practice the Song Queen’s lone eye. “We know. The other forbear assumed, but to feign a fortnight... ‘Twas a kindness.”
“Forsooth,” the Sovereign allowed.
Princess Strigidae resumed humming.