Raymond's POV:
I sat in my small corner shop, underneath my aunt's apartment. We have lived here for 23 years now and it never gets any easier. We barely afford keeping the shop open to pay rent for the building. But we get by. Somehow. I can't complain much, we could have it as bad as the people we give our food to when it hasn't gone bad but the date is past. My mom and dad do apparently. Every time Macy talks about her sister her eyes light up and a smile forms on her face. Until she remembers why she's raising me. I made the mistake of calling her mom once. She asked me where I had even heard that word. I reminded her I went to school. That was the first time I saw her cry. It happened a lot more after that too.
Macy came down the stairs. I saw for the first time the age that had covered her features. Her curly black hair was streaked with gray, her once perfect dark skin was creased with wrinkles. Her lips curved into a smile when she saw me. "Hey baby. How's business today?" I shook my head and looked down, feeling I was somehow responsible for the economy in our area falling over 23 years ago. I couldn't see her face but I knew she had grimaced before walking over to me and lifting my head with her hand. "Now Ray, what have I said about looking down?" I looked into her chocolate brown eyes and recited what she had told me a million times. "Jacobs' keep their heads up, cause ain't no point in looking down when the world around you is 'so beautiful'" she recited those last two words with me. We smiled at each other and got busy doing a whole lot of nothing.
Macy and I looked up as the bell on the door to the shop chimed. It was a woman dressed in extremely nice clothes. It was a royal servant all right. No mistaking that uniform. She was accompanied by two men and held two scrolls in her hands. Who even sent out letters anymore? Usually messages just get sent electronically. The woman bowed and so did the men as they left the store, and we opened our scrolls, gasping at the contents. Macy smiled like it was Christmas or we got more customers than usual. "We're going to this lunch at the palace Ray. We get to meet the queen. She wants to hear what we want improved. What could be better?" i stared at her for a solid two minutes before speaking. "Cici, we don't know if this is real. they could be tricking us so they can make fun of us. We didn't even know the royals had children until King Rupert passed. How can we be sure they're genuinely interested in the problems of peasants?" She rolled up her scroll again and hit me with it. "I know I raised you better than that. Respect should be given until your disrespect is earned. Queen Maria could be the leader we've been waiting for. We didn't know about her so how could we claim to know she's disingenuous? We're going." Our neighbors Alicia and Damien joined us on our walk to church.
When we got to church that night, unsurprisingly the pastor didn't actually preach. He was more of a political leader for our small little slum in the capitol city. 46 of us crammed into the small building as if disease wasn't a thing. Macy, Alicia, Damien and I were the only ones wearing masks. It didn't matter much, the infected died out quickly and were too sick to come to church, but we wouldn't take the risk. The pastor held up his invitation showing it to the crowd. "If you got one of these, raise your hand." Everyone's hand shot up. "We cannot trust the new queen. She was raised by King Rupert, so she will believe the same as he did." Alicia looked at Macy, knowing full well that she wanted to speak out, and shook her head. Macy nodded at Alicia and we sat silently until the pastor was done. We left and the whole walk home was discussion of how we would have to go and speak for the community.
Sitting rather uncomfortably in our living room eating some leftovers and watching television, we got a message. "Please R.S.V.P. for the queen's luncheon by responding to this message with a yes. Ignore for no." Macy immediately responded to it, and hit me arm when I tried to ignore it. I guess I'm not getting out of it this time.