There should be doctors.
There should be nurses and bright lights and rooms so clean they stink with the smell of antiseptic.
This isn’t some third-world country, and yet my brother lies on a dining room table. Saline bags hang from a chandelier. And I can hear marines running in the hallways, making sure the embassy is secure, trying to keep us safe.
Then my brother coughs. Blood runs from his lips, and I know it’s too late. Jamie is anything but safe.
“Where’s the blasted helicopter?” my grandfather keeps shouting.
“Grace, you shouldn’t be here.” Ms. Chancellor tries to touch me but I cringe and jerk away. “Grace, dear, come with me.”
“I won’t leave him,” I say.
“He wouldn’t want you to see him like this.”
She means it wouldn’t be good for me to see a second member of my family die right before my eyes. But I don’t care. If Jamie dies, then that fact in itself will kill me. So I don’t move an inch.
“Someone get me some light!” Dominic yells. “I need light!”
“Here.” The flashlight is always in my pocket now. I take it out, hold it as steady as I can.
The lights are off in the dining room, as if that will help Jamie rest. Only a single spotlight shines down upon my brother’s bloody chest. I want to whisper into his ear, tell him not to follow the light. But maybe Mom is at the end of it. Maybe I’m just jealous that I can’t go, too.
“Will someone tell me what is happening now?”
“No.” Dominic’s tone tells me that it isn’t up for debate. He’s not my father, not my grandfather. He doesn’t even work at the embassy. But my brother’s blood is still all over his hands. I’m not going to complain.
“The army has a wonderful medical facility at their base in Germany. We’ll get him there,” Ms. Chancellor says. “If we can.”
If.
I look at them then, Dominic and Ms. Chancellor — really look at them. At what it is they aren’t saying.
“You should get some rest, dear,” Ms. Chancellor says, but I pull away from her.
“Tell me. Now.” I’m trying to be calm, to be cool. And that’s what scares them. “Why is someone after my family? Why are they out to kill us?”
Ms. Chancellor and Dominic share a look. He says, “If it were up to me, I would have told her years ago.”
“Tell me now,” I say again, and wait for Ms. Chancellor to do just that.
“Grace, two hundred years ago, during the coup, palace guards abandoned their posts and threw open the gates. As you know, members of the Society went that night to try to salvage what they could. It was too late, though, to save the king and queen and princes, and the palace was bedlam. Looters and murderers, thieves … It was a nightmare, but sometimes chaos serves a purpose. And that night, among the chaos, one of the royal nursemaids was able to hide a very small baby in her arms —”
“Amelia lived,” I say, and let the words wash over me. I look up at Ms. Chancellor. “The treasure.”
“Yes, dear. When the Society came, they found the princess and her nurse. Of course, they had also gathered some records and artifacts and other items as well,” Ms. Chancellor adds. “But Amelia was without a doubt the most valuable thing taken from the palace that night.”
“Was she really lost?” I ask in disbelief.
Ms. Chancellor considers this and answers carefully. “Yes. In a sense.”
“They lost a baby?”
“No. The elders hid a baby. There were four baby girls born to Society members that spring — all at about the same time. Their mothers brought them to the headquarters that night and the babies were wrapped in identical blankets. And then five Society members took daughters home, the idea being that no one would ever know exactly which child was Amelia.”
“Hush, little princess, wait and see. No one’s gonna know that you are me,” I sing. “Princess. Not princes. Jamie was right. I did always get the words wrong.” I have to laugh a little. And then, desperately, I want to cry.
Ms. Chancellor shrugs, smiles a sad smile. “It’s just a nursery rhyme. But all nursery rhymes begin with a kernel of truth.”
“What does this have to do with my mother?” I ask, spinning on them. I’m tired of playing games.
“Now, Grace, you must understand that your mother was only interested in the history — the overwhelming historical significance of Amelia’s story. She didn’t know what she would find, or that it would lead to any of this.”
“Tell me!”
“Amelia didn’t just survive, Grace. She lived. She grew into adulthood and married and had a child of her own. And that child had children and so on and so on. And now it’s too late to change what has happened — to change what your mother discovered.”