A Tentative Promise

The Prince Goes Clothes-Shopping Winston the Barn Owl

A Tentative Promise

“So,” Kelsea said, as he drew a chair for her at a table outdoors overlooking the busy street, “tell me about your talking owl.”

Caspar laughed. “Oh, the owl. He’s all I have left. When the kingdom was thriving, he worked as lookout for enemy attacks. He witnessed every death,” he added with a sad lurch of his stomach. “He is loyal to me, I suppose, because I’m all there is left of the place he used to adore.”

“Or because you’re the prince,” Kelsea said in a whisper, smiling at him.

“He doesn’t respect me all the time,” Caspar said, peering at the ice cream she’d helped him choose, one she called brownie fudge. “Mocks me sometimes.”

“It’s good to have a friend who doesn’t walk on eggshells around you,” Kelsea said. “It means he doesn’t lie. He’s real with you, and he’s exactly as you see him, completely honest.”

“Ahhh.” Caspar nodded slowly, frowning. “Well, that describes the Barn Owl.”

“So he’s your best friend,” Kelsea said. “When a friend gets on your nerves but you still miss them when they’re gone, it means they’re your best friend.”

He looked at the cars passing by, choked with a sudden longing to be able to stay with these people forever where there was life and noise. The forest was beautiful, but he’d ceased to see its beauty long ago, and all he wanted was to escape and live a life as free and unpredictable as this traffic.

“I wish I didn’t know,” he mumbled at last, “when it’s time for me to go to sleep again. It’s like knowing when I’m going to die, except it happens constantly. It is an agony I endure every year, and now that I see there’s more to the world than my palace, I want more than anything to be like you, Lady Kelsea.”

She kept her eyes on the table, and he regretted having darkened the mood. “You could start by dropping the title,” she said at last, “and just calling me Kelsea.”

“Kelsea,” Caspar whispered. “I’m sorry. It’s habit.”

“You could try to build a life around that routine,” she suggested. “So when it’s time for you to wake up, you put on the regular clothes and come into town and just…live.”

“But where would I go?”

“I’ll be here to hang out with you, Caspar. We’ll do fun stuff like this. I don’t want you to spend your waking hours wandering empty corridors.” She looked up, reaching across the table to take his hand. “Do you think that would give you something to smile about?”

He held her hand, wishing with all his heart that it could be enough to see her a few weeks per year. What would happen during the time he slept, and she lived on like a normal person? She would walk away from him, even if she returned every year to have ice cream.

“Yes,” he said anyway, for the alternative was far worse. “I’d like that. Thank you, La—erm, I mean, Kelsea.”

She smiled and nodded, busying herself with the ice cream. Caspar looked at the street and wished.

A few weeks with her would release him from his trap—if only temporarily.