She let out a small girlish laugh as she grabbed hold of the chess piece on the ground—the pawn, ironically—before she was carried away, like her brother. Her prize for conforming was the privilege of food from her own wetnurse. The other children—Romeo, Perdita, and Octavius—soon followed in the footsteps of their siblings.
Mr. Button’s eyes lit up as he watched his five heirs giddily move about, clutching their carefully orchestrated futures in their undeveloped grasps.
Watching them, it should have been clear what would become of them all.
If Henry had known what would become of them, he might have intervened. Might have risked his job and potentially his life to put a stop to this.
But how could he have known what the events of that day would trigger?
How could any of them have known?
“This is a cause for celebration!” Mr. Button announced to the dimly lit room, only to be met with silence. The only sound present was that of raindrops hitting the roof outside.
“Henry, please fetch us a bottle of the finest wine we have,” Mr. Button said as the evening sky purpled, bringing more darkness into the room with it.
Henry paused, looking from Mr. Button to the maids, who all had their heads bowed, to the five children clinging to their prizes.
“For just yourself, sir?” he asked, unsure of the lengths to which his employer would go. After all he had seen, it wouldn’t at all be surprising if Leontes Button thought it suitable to give each of his children glasses of pinot noir.
Mr. Button laughed. “Of course not!” he exclaimed. Henry’s heart stopped. “Glasses for you all as well, and juice for the children. They have done well today.”
Henry let out a sigh of relief.
Thank the heavens, he almost whispered.
Before he left to fetch the drinks, Henry turned to look once again at the children. His gaze lingered on the one who held his own object with a frown as though, unlike his siblings, he was aware of the gravity of his choice.
ACT I
THE KING’S PAWN
PRESENT DAY
Death came for Leontes Button at 11:44P.M.in the form of a large horn.
His dying wails were drowned out by the music from the orchestra on the top deck of the yacht. A symphony of thrumming strings and whistling woodwinds, of pattering percussions and the sustained buzzing of brass, swallowed and silenced what would be his final words.
Fireworks rocketed into the night sky, in sync with Mr. Button’s weakening heart, crackling and then exploding into the atmosphere, before losing momentum and fading into a still, unbeating nothingness.
It was too loud to hear the screams that came from below the deck.
Too dark to see the face and the bloodied palms of the figure who staggered away from Mr. Button’s sullen corpse.
And far too late to reverse time and stop this all from happening in the first place. Far, far too late.
The last thing Mr. Button would see before his untimely expiration was the burning hatred in the figures eyes.
At 11:57P.M., as guests started to depart and the large ship rattled from side to side, no one else knew that Mr. Button had been dead for several minutes.
In fact, it wouldn’t be until 7:21A.M., many hours after the revels of the night had ended, that the staff would come across Mr. Button’s body and he would be pronounced dead at the scene.
The details that brought us to this point are not at all unusual. But what followed in the wake of this bloody tragedy is notably a lot more interesting than the unfortunate events that came before…
HOURS BEFORE
10:37A.M.—GRAND CENTRAL STATION, NEW YORK CITY
At the center of the world’s largest train station, a boy with a broken heart sat playing the piano.
