The Yellow Coronation

III.

The room was the nicest place I had stayed for as long as I could remember. The bed was soft and freshly made, the walls hung with tasteful paintings, and the carpeted floor immaculately clean. The first thing i did was shed my dingy clothes and hopped in a warm shower. It was sublime. I stayed in it until the hot water ran out. When I emerged there was a knock at the door and I opened it to find freshly pressed clothes. They were somewhat big (I was shocked to find how gaunt I had become) but I didn't mind.

The rest of the day felt like a wonderful dream. I ordered a meal from room service and purchased a book from the lobby. By the time the sun was setting it was beginning to feel like my previous struggles had happened to someone else. I thought that when I got the rest of the money I could live like this the rest of my life. I knew it was fallacy but I still clung to it because it gave me hope. For the first time I could remember I was excited for what the future held, unaware that my trial was not yet finished.

That night my sleep was stolid and dreamless, the best sleep I'd had in years. I awoke in the morning, revitalized and excited for the day. I felt like a new man. At nine in the morning there came a knocking at my door. It was Katrina toting a duffel bag on her shoulder. I stepped back to let her in.

"Well you look much improved," she mused as she walked in and sat in a chair and placed the bag on the ground between her feet.

"Thanks, is that the money?"

She nodded, "Part of it." She unzipped the bag and pulled out a suit hung in plastic. "The bag contains half, but the other half is contingent on your attendance at a party the buyers are throwing tonight. I picked this up for you on the way over. I assume you do not own a suit."

"Why?"

She shrugged, "They loved the piece and desired to meet its artist, to show you off a little."

"And if I say no?"

"Well they shall be disappointed, but it's certainly your prerogative. However, you will lose half of the money."

My first instinct was to take half the money and go. Fuck those people and that painting, I never wanted to see it again. But for some inexplicable reason I could not bring myself to decline. It was as if something was drawing me there, drawing me to some sort of conclusion. Cold fear clenched my heart, but I agreed.

That night she picked me up out front of the hotel in a lavish silver sedan. A chauffeur opened the door for me and she motioned me inside. She was dressed in a flowing black dress that accentuated her figure. Her eyes sparkled seductively in the lights of the city.

"How does someone from a Chinatown drug den afford a chauffeur?" I asked as I slid in beside her.

"Just because that is where we met does not mean that is where I am from. I was sent there."

"Why?"

She paused for a moment, then looked at me like I should already know why. "To find you, of course."

Flattery and fear warred within me. "But, why? Why me?"

She turned away and shrugged, "It's not my place to question the will of the King."

We rode the rest of the way in silence. The car left the outskirts of the city and drove on into the silent country that surrounded it. I looked out at the waving forests of trees stained blue by the light of the full moon. Uneasiness and anticipation tightened in my chest as we neared our destination, I felt like whatever was happening to me, whatever I was a part of, it would reach its conclusion tonight.

About half an hour later the car pulled off the stretch of highway and onto a perpendicular gravel rode that went into the darkness beyond. As we went along, the lights of a large house came into view. It was a tall brooding gothic structure with a slanted roof and gaping windows that looked out from the front of the house. The sight of it filled me with dread.