Stephen approached the Manor from the south, weaving through back streets, finally pulling along the curb.
“Here we are . . . looks rather dark.” Stephen leaned past Corina to see out her window as he cut the engine. “Let’s get out and see what’s going on.”
Corina squinted at the darkness between Gliden and Martings, where the warm, holy glow of the Manor used to be and stepped out. Stephen came around to join her, muttering to himself. “What’s going on?”
Where the Manor once stood was a narrow, shadowed alley.
“It’s gone.” Corina ran down the cobblestones, turning back to Stephen. “Do you see what I don’t see?”
“I see an alley and no Manor.” He stood back, staring between the two giant department stores.
“Did someone tear it down?” Corina battled a sense of sadness and loss. “Who would do this to sweet Adelaide and Brill?” She cupped her hand around her mouth and called. “Adelaide! Brill!” Across the street, the rising lights of the park sparked an idea. “The park. Maybe they’re in the park.” She started to dash around the car, but Stephen caught her arm.
“Love, I doubt they’d have moved the Manor to the park.”
“Then where? Where are they?” She ran back to the alley. “This is unbelievable.” She swerved toward Stephen. “Clive Boston gave me a ride home from the interview and he said he saw nothing but an alley. I thought he was mocking me.”
“Now that you mention it, Thomas admitted he never saw the Manor either. He found it rather scary that we did, but all he ever saw was an alley.”
Corina pressed her hand to her middle, her skin hot with the sense of descending revelation. “Then what did we see? I lived here for a week, Stephen. Slept in a bed, talked to Adelaide and Brill. Showered, used the Internet, ate food.”
Across the road, in the shifting light of sunset, Corina caught a glimpse of a woman. The woman in white. She ran to the curb. “Stephen, there’s the lady . . . the one who sent me to the Manor. Hey! Hello? Where are Adelaide and Brill?”
The woman looked up but kept walking between two park lamps and disappeared in their light.
“What lady?”
“In the white coat.” Corina pointed. “She was right there, on the edge of the park. You didn’t see her? She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“I’m starting to feel like aDoctor Whoepisode.” Corina slumped with disappointment and walked with Stephen back to the dark alley.
Then, from behind them, a beam of light layered past, spotlighting the side of Martings and a plain polished box at the opening of the alley.
“Adelaide’s box.” Corina dropped to one knee and gently opened the lid. “The tiara.”
“From the premier,” Stephen said.
“Yes. Adelaide said it belonged to the Manor. She watched over it.”
The light shifted, dropping lower, sparking off delicate blue china cups. Corina laughed, reaching for the nearest one. “Adelaide served me tea in these cups. She said King Stephen I had them made for him and Queen Magdalena.”
“I never heard of these cups.” Stephen picked up the second cup. “Things like this are kept in the royal archives.” Turning his cup over, he whistled low. “Corina, the crown and the sword . . . the House of Stratton cipher.”
“She said King Stephen I and Queen Magdalena served the people with a set of these.”
He made a face as he studied the blue-and-white cup. “Funny thing . . . it feels perfect in my hand. As if I’ve held it a hundred times.”
“There are so many ‘funny things’ about this, Stephen.” Corina looked toward where the Manor had once been. She missed the warm golden light of the front window. The sense of beckoning, “Come to me.”
“The Manor is gone, but the tiara, the cups remained,” Stephen said. “I feel as if I’ve stepped into some divine wrinkle in time.”
Corina laughed softly. “Our own fairy tale.”
“What do you think it all means. A tiara and teacups?”
Suddenly all of Adelaide’s diatribes about true love converged into a single truth. “That if we want to be royals and have all the benefits and authority, to be respected, then we must be willing to drink of these cups, to serve the common man. Be like Jesus. Lead through serving.”
