Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

The Hallowe’en King looked down and smiled. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” he said.

The Princess told her story. She explained how the Lacewing King had been flung out of his World by the Spider Queen, and how she and her companion had vowed to find him and to bring him home. She told him how she had seen the King, bloody from the Harlequin’s kiss, lost and falling between the Worlds. She told him about the Night Train, the curse upon its passengers, and her promise to its driver. She told him how she had promised to return to him in an hour. Then she knelt in front of the throne and said:

“Will you lift the curse, my Lord? Will you help me find your son?”

For a long time, the King did not reply. He was thinking deeply. For the first time in a hundred years, he found himself taken by surprise. He had a great-great grandchild, he understood: and this child had promised to save his son. But was his son worth saving? He had ruined the Kingdom; deserted his throne; wasted his time among the Folk; murdered his own son, the Wasp Prince; left his bastard daughter to die; stolen, lied, and cheated his way across Nine Worlds with impunity. Most of all, he had grieved his mother, the Honeycomb Queen. Perhaps he deserved to be punished. And the Hallowe’en King was lonely. This child, he thought—the child of his blood—could be his companion in Hel. Her youth, her vigour, her laughter, would banish the shadows from his heart. If only he could persuade her to stay—

He showed her his living profile. He looked so like his son it hurt. “There’s no hurry, is there?” he said. “An hour in Hel is longer than a whole day in the waking Worlds. First, let me offer you refreshment after your long, weary journey.”

And with a gesture, he summoned a table laden with food and drink of all kinds; sugar plums and new-baked bread and honeyed, roasted caterpillars; and wines from every one of Nine Worlds, from the golden wines of the islands to the green wines of the frozen North; and fruit of every imaginable kind; pineapples and strawberries and grapes with a bloom like a butterfly’s wing—

But the Barefoot Princess simply shook her head and said, “Thank you, my Lord. But your favour is all the refreshment I need.”

The Hallowe’en King clenched his fists and smiled. “But where are my manners?” he told them. “You haven’t introduced your friend. Come here, both of you; kiss my hand.” And he beckoned with his skeletal hand for the pair to step forward.

The Princess smiled. “Your Majesty, I am not worthy to kiss your hand. Let me kiss the hem of your robe.” And, kneeling, she kissed the hem of his robe, which was stitched all over with finger-bones and embroidered with runes of binding.

The Hallowe’en King clenched his fists so hard that blood dripped from his living hand. But still, his smile did not falter as he looked down at the travellers.

“Very well. I will grant your wish. But stay with me for a little while. Play a game of cards with me. I’ve been alone here for so long, with none but the dead for company.”

The kind-hearted Princess heard his plea and was filled with pity for the King. “I will play a game,” she said. “But in an hour, the Night Train will leave, and my friend and I must be on board.”

The King’s living profile remained serene. But beneath the mask, he grinned like a corpse. Time works differently in Hel, and he knew that if he could trick the Princess into either neglecting the time, or eating his enchanted food, or simply touching his skeletal hand, then she would be forced to stay by his side forever.

He gestured with his skeletal hand and summoned an inlaid card-table. Around it were three velvet chairs, upon which the players sat, facing one another. Then, from the pocket of his robe, the King brought out a deck of playing-cards and began to shuffle them. The cards were made of ivory, cunningly polished and painted. Every King and Queen was black; every card a spade, a skull, a gravestone, or a blackheart. The Hallowe’en King dealt the cards, moving so fast that the Barefoot Princess hardly saw the movement of his skeletal fingers. Quickly, she pulled her own hand away, and felt the terrible closeness of Death, and knew that she must be on her guard.

“What are we playing?” she asked the King, smiling in spite of her narrow escape.

“The only game I know,” he said. “I call it Dead Man’s Poker.”

70

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On one of the furthest skerries of Dream, there lived a girl who refused to die. She lived on the edge of the Kingdom of Death, so close that she could sometimes see the haze that rose above its wastes, and hear the howling of the wind over the steel-grey desert. She often heard the Night Train as it passed her island, heading for the heart of Death with its cargo of passengers, and she promised herself she would never set foot, either on that dreadful train, or on the shores of the Kingdom of Death that lay across the water.

And so, on her island, she built a wall to keep out the sight and stench of Death. She made it from dreams and picture-books; from coloured candies and teddy bears; from birthday candles and parasols; from ribbons and rainbows and ponies and dolls. She built it very high, so that even the sky she shared with Death was obscured in a haze of ice-cream clouds. And then she built within the walls a candy-pink castle of marshmallow fluff, with turrets made of raspberry glass, and pavements made from honeycomb.

There were parlours filled with cushions and cakes, and treasure-chests filled with candies.