The answer to Death’s question is royal blue.
It’s a glorious morning; leaves the colour of blood spin outside the window and fall like splatters of a dissection on the grounds of the palace – as though the sky has been sliced with a razor. Is God perhaps a wicked doctor?
There’s a delicate tapping on the door and in slips Mr Hours with his lopsided smile and broken teeth.
“Your Majesty,” and he bows very low. Not low enough, in my opinion.
“What news, Mr Hours?”
“Some rather shocking information, I am afraid,” he replies nervously.
I stare out of the window. “Continue.”
“The Butterfly Club has been uncovered by Scotland Yard. All its members slaughtered. Zedock Heap, the prime minister, decapitated.”
“I see.” But I want to crush the world in my fist. My beautiful Zedock. My beautiful Zedock. I stare out into my gardens; into blood roses. They melt, ooze across the lawn with my rage.
“We are aware who is responsible,” he stutters.
“And WHO is responsible, Mr Hours?” My voice exerts a pressure that makes the glass crack in the windows.
Very quickly he takes out a little piece of paper from his jacket pocket: “Lord Loveheart chopped his head off.”
I AM THE RAGE. I AM THE RAGE. I AM BOILING. The windows shatter. The gardener explodes. The blood fills the garden, seeps into the room, under my slippers. LOVEHEART, LOVEHEART, LOVEHEART, LOVHEART, MY REVENGE will be a horror story. I will stop the earth moving. I will pull the planets down from the sky.
I WILL EAT YOU ALIVE!
“But,” Mr Hours continues trembling, “he was helped by… let me see: a Detective Henry Waxford, Detective Percival White, Constable Walnut and Miss Boo Boo Frogwish.”
The blood continues to fill the palace
“I want them squashed. I want to place my foot on them and squash them into the ground.”
“An excellent suggestion, ma’am,” he stutters.
“Oh, and Mr Hours.”
“Yes?”
“I am very displeased.”
He gives me a crumbling look, as though evaporating from existence. “I’m terribly sorry.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise really. Men always disappoint me. And he withers away out of the room, leaving me in standing in blood. Leaving me with my rage.
I stare into space. Into your little world. Into the hole of you. The blood rises, wets my skirts, ruins the hem line. My anger is cosmic, if you felt it you would go mad, your brains would melt under its energy. I am your Queen, I am your Queen. Your Mother, England. Come and give me a cuddle. Let me squeeze the air from you.
LET ME BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOU.
I scream and the Palace shakes. The chandelier explodes. Big Ben falls over.
Timelines fragment. The planets wobble in the cosmos.
Acknowledgements
BIG thank yous to Bryony, Phil my editor and the other Angry Robots. Also, a cheeky mention to Matt Berry & chocolate for making the world more joyful.