Page 108 of The Underachiever's Guide to Love and Saving the World

Skelly, or Kelly, as I’d started to think of her, took the phone. Her finger bone tapped aggressively against the screen. As her tapping grew more irate, her head slowly tilted to the side. At last, she gave up and showed me the blank screen.

“Oh yeah. I didn’t think about that. It only works with”—I grimaced—“uh, skin. And stuff.”

Kelly promptly found herself a finger.

The broadsword was involved.

It was gross.

As Kelly tappednother finger against my phone, I made a swift decision to burn the device as soon as possible. When she was done, she proudly presented the somewhat smudged screen. I read it from as far away as possible. She’d somehow turned caps lock on, which made reading easier.

GREGORY WANTS TO EXPLAIN HIMSELF. HE IS NOT EVIL, THOUGH HE IS THE ONE THEY CALL THE EVIL ONE. IT IS COMPLICATED.

“That makes no sense, Kelly.”

She typed some more. The clicky button noises filled the echoey dungeon.

She shoved the phone in my face.

HE WAS TRYING TO CAPTURE YOU OR BRYCE SO THAT THE CASTLE FOLK WOULD ARRANGE A PUBLIC HANGING.

“See, you say he’s not evil, and yet.”

Kelly typed some more, then showed me the phone.

IF ALL IMPORTANT FIGUREHEADS CONGREGATE IN ONE LOCATION, IT WILL MAKE ADMINISTERING THE ANTIDOTE EASIER.

Antidote? Now she had my attention.

Tap, tap, tap, went the phone.

THE HISTORIAN HAS BEEN GIVING EVERYONE IN THE KINGDOM PATIOS.

“Well, that’s… nice. A valuable use of tax dollars.”

Tap, tap, tap.

APOLOGIES, THE TABLET SEEMS TO HAVE AUTOMATICALLY CHANGED MY SPELLING. HOW AMUSING. I MEANT POTIONS.

“I knew it!” I said.

After many texting and autocorrect mishaps, my theory was confirmed.

Amy had summoned the last Chosen One, Edna Johnson, to help him give everyone in the kingdom his potions by slipping them into her signature mulberry ale. He must have told her it was the only way to bring everlasting peace to the land and open the portal home.

Each person received a potion specific to their position in the kingdom. Ones for peasants, ones for soldiers, ones for bakers and blacksmiths and tailors. He’d been giving every new baby born into the kingdom potions ever since. Everyone who remembered a time before the potions was gone by now, so most didn’t even know there was something wrong with them, aside from a few families who managed to tell their children the stories through sarcasm or speaking in opposites.

This was how Amy maintained peace for so long. It was also why everyone acted like stereotypes.Because they were.Peasants never strove for more. Blacksmiths did nothing but blacksmith. Even thieves and criminals like Winston stuck to their roles and committed petty crimes so neighboring kingdoms wouldn’t catch on to what Amy was doing.

Except, Clementine the visiting princesshadcaught on. “Between you and me, something has always struck me as not quite right about this kingdom,” she’d said the night of Winston’s kidnapping.

The next time I spoke to her in the garden, she’d been unable to speak freely when she tried to accuse the king of suspicious activity or when she tried to hint that not everyone in the kingdom liked Edna Johnson. Amy must have heard what she’d said and slipped her a princess potion to make her docile and silence her.

“That’s why Amy didn’t want us talking to anyone!” Iexclaimed. “He didn’t want us to notice how unnatural everyone was acting for fear we’d catch on to what he was doing.”

Kelly nodded and told me the rest.

The mouse was working on an antidote, but the potions would compel everyone to run from help, since, objectively speaking, curing them would make them “worse people” by freeing their minds.