Dream Tunnel by Arby Robbins

bride.
    Everyone stood up and turned around. The bride wore a stunning wedding dress and white wedding face mask. Wally walked her down the aisle.
    “I don’t believe it,” Frederick marveled.
    The bride’s dress sparkled with diamonds and silver. The royal train glided along the aisle behind her.
    She stopped to allow Wally to join the queen in her pew and then walked up the stairs to the altar, taking her place beside the groom. Her train flowed across all ten stairs behind her.
    The organ music stopped.
    The priest read several passages of scripture and then nodded to the bride.
    She removed her mask.
    The priest gasped. “What is the meaning of this?”
    “I’m sorry.” The bride turned around, and the queen saw her face.
    The queen jumped to her feet. “Geneva! Where is Conroe?”
    Geneva turned back to the priest and then looked down.
    The queen looked at her husband. “Wally, what do you know about this?”
    He shrugged.
    The queen stepped out of the pew and into the aisle. She walked up to the altar. “Geneva, what is going on? Where is my daughter?”
    “She told me she would make it,” Geneva replied. “But then it was time to start, and I didn’t know what else to do. I was hoping she would be here at any moment.”
    “I don’t blame you , Geneva. This is not your fault. But Conroe has just given up her right to the throne.”
    “Oh, no—please, Your Majesty. Can’t we wait just a little longer?”
    “I’m afraid not. Now, you and Will please leave the altar. I must make the proclamation.”
    “But—”
    The queen glared at Geneva.
    They walked down the stairs and out the side door.
    Frederick and Opal tried to conceal their delight.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    41
     
    “C an’t you walk any faster?” Conroe asked.
    “Maybe—if you’d quit dragging me,” Crane answered.
    Conroe let go of his arm, and he lost his balance and nearly fell down.
    “Okay, I was wrong,” he said.
    She grabbed his arm. “I’m sorry I have to push you so hard, but if we don’t make it in time—”
    “You’ll lose your chance to become queen—I know. But you don’t need me for that. The queen is gonna make you marry that Wilford guy. Just run to the church—by yourself. You can make it.”
    “No, I’m not gonna marry Will. How did you hear about Will?”
    “I went looking for you and overheard you talking to your mother.”
    “You were supposed to stay in my room. Why did you go out looking for me?”
    “Did you really bring me here because you were in love with me, or was it just because you felt sorry for me?”
    “What are you talking about, Crane?”
    “I saw the video. I got shot, and I died. If you had left me there, I would have been a dead man. But why didn’t you just tell me what was gonna happen to me? I could have avoided the situation that was going to get me killed.”
    “No, you don’t get it,” she said.
    “I had no family, no future. I was just a nothing. Maybe I deserved to die.”
    “Quit feeling sorry for yourself. You might have thought you were a nothing in your world. But can’t you see that you’re everything to me in my world?”
    “Then why were you gonna marry somebody else?”
    “I wasn’t. I’m not .”
    “The queen says you are. How can you go against the queen?”
    “Just trust me, baby. But we’ve got to go faster.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
    42
     
    T he queen sat in her pew watching the clock. She had reconsidered and taken Geneva’s advice to wait a bit longer for Conroe. But it was now 6:45. She walked back up to the altar and looked out across the congregation. “It is with deep regret that I must proclaim…” Her lower lip began to quiver.
    Wally came in through the side door and ran up the stairs to his wife. “Connie, please give her a few more minutes.”
    “You know the law, Wally. The wedding ceremony must be completed by 7:12 p.m. or she forfeits her right to the throne. It is now twelve minutes to seven. The ceremony cannot