Part Four
Somebody caught me. I don’t know who, but they have very strong arms, and I am very grateful they did. The impact of my landing knocks us both to the ground, but my pain is less than I expected it to be. I expected to be dead, and I must confess to not minding that I’m not.
I look up and the first thing I see is a cloud of blonde hair and a pair of blue eyes. They give me a warm fuzzy feeling in my chest much like the feeling I get when JT is around. They’re so like Belle’s that for a moment I believe they are Belle’s, but with a cold shock, I recognise the girl as Mary-Jade instead. Funny that the emotion in my chest hasn’t faded, it’s grown. Perhaps there is another kind of love I can experience, nothing to do with lovers or candy conversation hearts, but to do with playing on swing sets, candy floss in the park and bedtime stories about princesses in towers with flowing hair and knights in armour that rescue them.
Call the men in white suits. I need a strait jacket. I’ve just decided I want to be a father to Belle’s daughter, whether Belle is my lover or not.
There are many things I can resist, but three that, so far, I have found completely irresistible. Apparently in addition to motorcycles, my Great - Grandmother’s cooking, and nursing a broken heart against all reason, wanting to look after petite blonde girls with amazing blue eyes is also irresistible to me.
I get off whoever caught me slowly, being hauled to my feet by Austin while Mary-Jade stands there staring at me. She has the prettiest blue eyes, just like Belle’s, and this cute little grin that reminds me of JT’s… I suppose it’s because her grandfather is his father. Whoa, did I just think that? Creepy.
Rolf hit Bart again and again, punctuating each word with another slap of his hand.
"You - idiot! Do - you - have - any - idea - what - you’ve - done?" He yelled at him.
"Made Princess Greta fall madly in love with me?" Bart asked hopefully.
"No!" Shrieked his companion, wings flapping in fury. "She can’t see you! She looked up and saw-"
"Another Brady," Bart said mournfully, looking down to the pavement.
"What?" Rolf looked down too.
"Wow." Austin heaved me to my feet. "Where’d you come from?"
I really can’t be bothered with the four hours of explanation using the ‘My First Dictionary’ this would require, so I just thank him, and turn to my saviour. It’s the last person I expected it to be: Sami Brady. Only something is wrong with her. She looks different - flatter.
"Are you OK, Sami?" Austin asks slowly, thinking the words out before he says them.
She looks up with blue eyes open very wide. "Is that my name?"
I think for a moment that she has faked amnesia then realise she’s scammed so much that she has everything she thinks she wants, so acting like she’s forgotten everything at this point is stupid, and Sami may be a scheming witch, but she’s not the intellectual equal of Austin. Yet.
"Sami - your bust, it’s…" If I didn’t know it was his usual state, I’d think Austin was actually confused about something new. I look down, and realise what he’s staring at: Sami’s chest has deflated.
I can’t believe how that sounds, but it’s true. From blowing up to the size of Pamela Anderson overnight, she’s back down to the size of a normal girl. (Just because I’ve got a broken heart doesn’t mean I’m not male.) Apparently all her memory was stored in her breasts, because now that she’s lost them, her memory’s gone too. Have I mentioned her previously skin tight top now fits her quite nicely? It’s a change even Austin’s noticed. Or maybe he’s just realised her pillows are gone at last.
I look past her and see Greta. She’s looking particularly lovely today. Shining, you could say. Either that or she’s just had some major plastic surgery to fix a permanent smile to her face.
Turning my head, I follow her gaze and catch sight of what she’s staring at, not that I blame her. According to Cyn, any girl would stare, not just his ex-girlfriend. I trust Cyn when it comes to this kind of thing. After all, she has fallen madly in love with Belle’s other big brother.
Eric Brady is back in town, and he’s holding a bouquet of roses, a heart shaped box of chocolates, a massive card that looks like it’s for Valentine’s Day, and best of all, an engagement ring for Greta. He’s also down on one knee, with a smile that Cynthia has told me is a real heartbreaker on his face. I think Greta’s about to burst into flames she’s so happy.
I wonder if I could ask him the name of his jeweller, as by the carats of the diamond in the centre of the ring, Belle is going to want nothing less. Oh, did I forget to mention that having survived a near death experience by landing on her half sister’s then ample bosom I have decided that Belle is going to marry me whether she thinks she doesn’t love me or not? She loved me once. I’m sure now. In those never ending seconds I spent falling from her balcony I realised this: I’ve been a pessimistic, cynical, world weary, miserable git with a dissolved heart for three years. It’s time to be a pessimistic, cynical, world weary, miserable git with a whole heart - just making sure it’s beating in someone else’s chest. Also, I think I want to buy Mary-Jade chocolate ice cream and a Valentine’s card. Dear Venus help me- I’ve turned into Philip, with better hair.
Belle’s staring at me like I’ve gone totally crazy. Perhaps I have.
"Hey, Mary-Jade, do you want to hear a folk tale?" And right there, with Austin and Sami kissing like crazy, and the other Brady twin seriously entwined with Princess Greta as she’s screamed ‘yes!’ to his proposal in the Valentine’s card, I start telling Mary-Jade Black the story of a Princess who lost her heart.
"Once upon a time, in a land far, far away," I begin traditionally, though this is no old fashioned story of love and death, "there was a beautiful Princess, with hair like sunshine, skin like fresh cream and lips like the ripest cherries that ever were. Now this Princess loved and was loved by a Prince from the neighbouring kingdom and together they were very, very happy, but one day, the Princess disappeared, and when she came back, she didn’t remember the Prince, or their love, or anything at all about what had happened to her, all that she knew was that her heart was missing, and no matter where she looked, she couldn’t find it again."
"No!" exclaimed my little friend, horror struck, her blue eyes big with fear.
"Yes," I tell her, and my heart pounds in my chest as she turns those big eyes towards me, so much like her mother’s. I’m an idiot, but I damned if I’m not going to win Belle back one way or the other. "Now this Prince, he still loved the Princess desperately," Belle’s eyes are on me now, but they’re still cold, and I can almost feel the air around me freezing as I speak, "so he went wide and far trying to find someone who could help her. He went to the East, until he reached the far distant port of Wan Chun Ki, and to the West as far as the great and legendary cliffs of Nosreil, and to the North as far as the emerald Sea of Thimonia, and to the South as far as the hot Herki desert, but he could find no one to help her, and when he came back, the Princess had gone. She lived then, in a castle of ice, trapped by evil magic, and nothing the Prince could do could free her, and there she lived for many a long day without a heart, and the Prince wept because she could not love him anymore."
Belle’s still staring, but I think she’s more intrigued than annoyed now.
"What then?" cries her little daughter, desperate for the happy ending she hopes is coming and has been promised to her by a thousand bed time stories. I plan on making this one come true. Who says romance is dead?
"Then," says Eric with a gravity that I did not know he could muster when Greta is looking so decidedly elated, picking up my story as if it was his own. "a good magician came to the kingdom, and said to the Prince, ‘Oh great and mighty Prince, I have travelled as far as far, and as wide as wide, and I have heard of the plight of your fair Princess, and I have come to cure her.’ And the Prince was very happy, because he knew that this man was as wise as could be, and that he could certainly help the Princess. So he said, ‘Good sir, I beg thee, help the Princess to find her heart again,’ and the good magician said, ‘Sir, you must travel far and far, over mountains and down canyons, through tunnels and across seas, and in the land of Dimera, you will find your Princess’s heart, and once more she will know love.’
"So the Prince rode upon his horse far and far, over mountains and down canyons, through tunnels and across seas, until he reached the land of Dimera, and there he found a terrible ogre guarding the Princess’s heart, which he kept in a silver box. Then the Prince said to the ogre, ‘Sir, I seek the Princess’s heart, and I have ridden far and far to find it, I have come over mountains and down canyons, through tunnels and across seas, and now I ask you to give me her heart.’
"The ogre, who was a giant fellow with great big hands and huge feet said in a deep booming voice, ‘I have the Princess’s heart, but it keeps me company, and I do not wish to give it to you. You may have it in exchange for your dearest possession, for then I will have what is most dear to you, and you will have what is most dear to me.’
"Now the Prince thought, and thought, and thought of all that he had, and realised that it was nothing to him without the Princess’s love, so he said to the ogre, ‘You may have my dearest possession if I may have the Princess’s heart,’ and he gave to the ogre his golden cup, given to him by his father, the King for his fifteenth birthday.
"But the ogre said, ‘Nay, this is nothing to me, I will keep her heart. What else do you have, Princeling?’
"Then the Prince gave the ogre his silver cross, which his mother, the Queen, had given to him on his sixteenth birthday.
"But the ogre said again, ‘Nay, this is nothing to me, I will keep her heart. What else do you have, Princeling?’
"Then the Prince gave the ogre his horse, who was the finest, swiftest horse in all the seven lands by the Emerald Sea.
"But the ogre said once more, ‘Nay, this is nothing to me, I will keep her heart. What else do you have, Princeling?’
"And the Prince thought and thought, and then thought to give the ogre the most precious thing in the world to him. ‘I have tried to give you my cup, oh ogre of the land of Dimera, and I have tried to give you my cross, and I have tried to give you my horse, but you want none of them, so I must give the only thing left to me in exchange for the Princess’s heart: my life.’ And the Prince held his sword forth to the ogre, and said, ‘But you must take it from me, oh ogre of the land of Dimera, for I have not the courage to slay myself.’
"And then the ogre laughed, and said, ‘That I will have, Princeling, but here, first take the Princess’s heart, else our bargain is not fair.’ Into the Prince’s hands he then placed the silver box containing the Princess’s heart, but the Prince knew that if the ogre took his life, he would never be able to give the heart back to the Princess, so he took his sword, the only thing he had not offered to the ogre, and ran the ogre’s wicked black heart through with it. The ogre fell to the ground, stone dead, and the Prince picked up his cup, and his cross, and mounted his horse, and went far and far, over mountains and down canyons, through tunnels and across seas to return to the Princess." Eric took a deep breath, and waited for the inevitable question.
"And then what happened?" whispered the little girl.
"The Princess was still locked into her castle of ice by the evil magic, and no one could reach her. The Prince stood beneath her window, and called to her, ‘Princess, Princess, come to me! I, your lost love, bring you back your heart!’ Three times he called her, and she did not answer him. At last, he took his sword, the sword he had driven through the ogre’s heart to slay him, and struck it against the ice wall of the castle. CRACK! The wall was splintered but did not fall. So he took his cross, and knelt before it, and prayed to find a way to save the Princess. Then the cup his father had given him was filled with light, piercing and hot, flowing over the edges and it melted a hole in the wall of the castle of ice. Then the Prince ran into the castle, searching for his beloved Princess, the silver box with her heart in it under his arm." Eric took a breath and watched as Mary-Jade’s eyes widened even more. "The Prince searched high and low, looking for his Princess, and at last he found her in the highest room in the tallest tower, working at a tapestry."
"Did she remember him?" Mary-Jade asked, tugging at Eric’s hand to make him look at her.
Eric smiles the smile I know makes Greta’s heart beat faster. "Yes, she remembered him, but she still didn’t love him because she had no heart. The Prince went upon his knee before her and said, ‘Fairest Princess, I have travelled far and far, over mountains and down canyons, through tunnels and across seas into the Land of Dimera and back again to find your heart. Now I hold it in this box. Take it, and remember me, beloved.’ He gave her the box, and when she opened it, there was nothing in it because as soon as she held it, her heart returned to her. Then the Princess remembered her love for the Prince, and all of what had been between them throughout their lives, and she kissed him. They went out from the castle of ice, and there was great rejoicing as the Princess was beloved of her people, and they had mourned for her and been sad. Then the Prince and the Princess were married, and lived happily ever after, for the ogre was stone dead and no longer could he harm them and she could remember their love, and it grew every day until it encompassed the whole world and them in it." Eric smiled. "And the good magician stayed with them forever and ever, and the kingdom was happy once more."
Mary-Jade nodded, satisfied with the story. She couldn’t be anything less.
Eric turned slowly to me, and looked into my eyes, telling me that I was to be the Prince of the story, and that Belle was the Princess. I nodded my head, just once, and went my way, far and far, all the way to the Dimera mansion where I found the remote control for the device lodged in Belle’s brain that stopped her from loving anyone except her child.
Stefano was not there, so I could not ask him, but I knew why he had taken Belle from me, though I did not know whose child Mary-Jade was. Without Belle, the Black family had practically collapsed, the Bradys had gone halfway to Hell, and I had been a wreck, unable to fight anything. With her, I could bring down the Dimera empire once and for all.
Who says Valentine’s Day is just for lovers? I’m about to make it just as much about the fighters of this world, right before I propose to my Isabella.
This Prince is not about to let his Princess down, and beware the ogre who stands between me and my lady love.
I start humming, I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s ‘I Know You’ from Sleeping Beauty, and I’m off. Look out Stefano, it’s my turn for a little ogre slaying.