Herbie Brennan - Ruler of the Realm

‘Look,’ said Henry urgently, ‘until today, I thought all this was for real. Then I went to see Dad and he’s got a new girlfriend, and when I got home, Mum had moved Anais in.’

‘Oh my God!’ Charlie exclaimed, genuinely appalled. All hint of a smile vanished. ‘You mean you’ll have to live with your mum and Aisling and now this dreadful Anais woman as well?’

‘She’s not really dreadful. Quite nice, really. Like, she tries. But you know…’

‘Oh, I know all right,’ Charlie said fiercely. ‘They’re going to get divorced, aren’t they? If your dad’s got himself a girlfriend?’

Henry nodded miserably. ‘I suppose so.’

Charlie reached out and took his hand. ‘It’s not as bad as you think, Henry. It’s pretty awful, but it’s not as bad as you think. And when it’s over, it’s over.’

Charlie’s parents had divorced and Charlie’s mum was married again to a man Charlie adored. Henry said uncertainly, ‘Do you know what happens to the children? Like, me and Aisling? I mean do we have to go to court? And who says who lives where?’ He swallowed. ‘I mean, I don’t want to live with Mum and Anais – that would be just too awful for Dad – but I can’t very well move in with him if he’s got a new girl: did I mention she was young? Just a few years older than we are. I couldn’t move in there, not that he’d want me anyway, so do I have to go to an orphanage or something until I’m eighteen?’

Charlie said, ‘I don’t know, Henry. I was too young to remember much of it. Anyway, I think my mum and dad agreed everything between them and I was happy living with my mum – I hated my real dad. It wasn’t like your situation at all.’ She stared thoughtfully into the middle distance for a moment, then pulled her gaze back to Henry. ‘What’s the thing about fairies?’

Henry sighed. ‘Oh, it’s stupid.’ He shook his head and tried to smile. ‘It was after all this business started – Mum and Anais. Or at least after I heard about it. I suppose I just couldn’t cope with it. I mean, how often do you find out your mum’s a lesbian? I think I wanted to get away: you know, just get away from… everything. And since there was no way I could get away, I suppose I… I… started to make up stuff. In my head. I suppose I made up a whole other stupid world in my head -’ the weak smile again, ‘- and just, sort of… went there.’ The look on Charlie’s face made him want to cry.

‘But… what actually happened?’ she asked with a curious mixture of bewilderment and sympathy.

He’d gone too far to start backing off now. Besides, he trusted Charlie. He’d always talked to her, right since they were little kids. He took a deep breath and somehow managed to inject a note of briskness into his voice.

‘I had this… thing… I don’t know, hallucination or something, or dream, or false memory or -’

‘Henry, just tell me what happened.’

Henry shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, after it came out about Mum, I went to Mr Fogarty’s. I had to clean out his shed. And while I was there, Hodge appeared and he had a thing in his mouth. Like a butterfly. You know the way cats are. He’d caught it, but it wasn’t dead so I tried to take if off him.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘That’s when I saw it was a fairy.’

‘You thought it was a fairy?’

‘Yes.’

After a bit, Charlie said, ‘Go on.’

‘I suppose it was just a butterfly,’ Henry said. ‘But I made up this fantasy about the butterfly being a fairy prince called Pyrgus -’

‘Pyrgus?’ Charlie echoed.

Henry nodded.

‘Did he have some other name?’

‘Pyrgus Malvae,’ Henry said.

‘That’s a butterfly name,’ Charlie said. ‘That’s the Latin name for the grizzled skipper butterfly.’

‘Is it?’ Henry said, surprised. After a while he added, ‘I suppose I must have known that. Subconsciously. Does a grizzled skipper have little brown spotty wings?’

Charlie nodded. ‘Yes.’

Henry shook his head in wonder. ‘I must have made it part of my fantasy. Grizzled skipper butterfly turns into a fairy and I give him his butterfly name.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m in a lot of trouble, Charlie.’

Charlie said quietly, ‘I think maybe you are.’

Henry missed his last bus home.

He lived nearly four miles outside town and when he called his mum in the hope she might collect him, all he got was the answering machine (Dad’s voice still on it, which was a real bummer). So now he was walking in the rain. Not that he noticed it much. All he could think of was five words out of Charlie’s mouth: ‘ I think maybe you are.’

Charlie was the sweetest, kindest girl he knew. If there was any way of letting him down gently, she’d have found it. But Charlie thought he was in trouble. Charlie thought – she’d put it very diplomatically – that he might need ‘help’. By which she meant psychiatric help, although she never actually said psychiatrist: she said ‘therapist’.

There was engine noise behind him and the approaching glow of headlights. Henry stepped on to the verge without looking round: he was wearing a light-coloured jacket so the car should have no trouble seeing him. Charlie never said ‘psychiatric problem’ either. She talked very gently about ‘emotional pressures’ and ‘strain’. Just the sort of thing he’d been thinking himself. She was calm and optimistic and reassuring, the way you were supposed to be with lunatics. But the bottom line was still the same. She thought he was nutty as a fruitcake.

The car sounded like it had slowed down, but didn’t seem to be passing. Henry glanced behind him.

There was a glowing silver disc hovering above the road.

It was just like the time he’d run away from his father. One minute you were minding your own business, trying to persuade the barman you were old enough to order ale. The next you were staring up at a bunch of hulking great soldiers who called you sir with exaggerated politeness, but were quite prepared to break your arms if you didn’t do exactly what they said.

Only this time it wasn’t his father who’d sent them: it was his little sister, for Light’s sake! He’d always known being made Queen would go to her head. She was bossy enough while she was still a princess.

Pyrgus smiled at the six hulking great soldiers standing round his table at the inn and tried to sound more confident than he felt.

‘Please present my compliments to Her Majesty,’ he told their officer grandly, ‘and inform her that I shall join her at the palace at my earliest, my very earliest convenience.’ Even as he said it, he knew it wouldn’t do.

‘Beg pardon, sir,’ the Captain said, ‘but Her Majesty was insistent that you should come straight away, sir. We have orders to escort you, sir.’ He blinked, slowly. ‘Now, sir.’

Pyrgus knew what it was all about, of course. He’d already had two messages from Blue, hand delivered by an orange Trinian. The first was a friendly little note asking him to come to the palace ‘to talk about something important’. When he ignored that one, the Trinian popped up again days later. This time the tone was less friendly. He was ‘commanded’ to attend at the palace forthwith ‘to discuss matters of critical importance to the Realm’. He’d ignored that one too. It would do Blue good to realise not everybody was going to jump to attention every time she snapped her fingers. But now she’d sent the heavy squad.

He made one more try. ‘If you’ll just allow me to go home and change…’ he said and gestured vaguely, still smiling. ‘As you can see, I’m not exactly dressed to attend a meeting at the palace.’ Which was true enough. Since he’d abdicated the throne, he’d made a point of dressing like a scruff. At the moment, he was wearing a torn leather jerkin and a pair of brown breeches that would have disgraced a pig farmer. The sense of freedom was wonderful.