Dwennon, short with a friendly smile and wild grey hair that always reminded Rose of a dandelion, smiled as she approached. He had a bulbous nose, a slight stoop that had developed with age, and walked with a cane. He was seated at the moment, his hunch pronounced. Even a few years ago, he stood straighter than he did now. Next to him was Hilly, equally short in stature, but a woman of decent girth and a steady smile. Her white wavy hair flowed neatly to her shoulders, and her bright green eyes were always full of warmth.
Hilly, who had been speaking softly to Dwennon, stopped and raised both her eyebrows at Rose. “You ready, my darling?”
Rose joined them on the sofa. “Of course I’m ready, Auntie.”
On the low rectangular table in front of them was a small box wrapped with golden paper and tied with a silver bow. The box looked the size of something that might hold jewelry, perhaps earrings or a necklace. Rose tried not to look as if her joy had dimmed, though it had dimmed just slightly as she looked at the perfectly wrapped package on the table. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy a pretty trinket for her neck, but something about the way Hilly spoke made her think the present would be something out of the ordinary.
“Before you open it,” Hilly said. “I thought Dwennon could tell you a story.”
“A story?” Rose said. “What kind of a story?”
Dwennon, leaned forward and grinned, his aged teeth showing. “I thought I’d tell you about the fairy realm, the land from whence your mother came.”
Rose nodded. Dwennon often spoke about the realm, a magical place that seemed too good to be true. Dwennon and Hilly had lived there before Rose was cursed by an evil queen who hated her mother. It’s why Rose couldn’t live with her parents. Going home would have just tempted the queen to unleash more of her wrath.
Dwennon cleared his throat and spoke. “As you know, child, your mother was the fairy princess, heiress to the throne.”
“Yes,” Rose said. “But she fell in love with my father and had to renounce her throne and her powers because fairies and humans are not allowed to marry.” Rose paused, her mind churning with a thought that had never occurred to her before. “Why is that? Why are humans and fairies forbidden to marry?”
Hilly pursed her lips, and said, “You’re a woman now, and I suppose I should tell you, and I will. But for the moment, let’s just say there are good reasons to forbid mating between humans and fairies. There have been dire consequences, consequences your mother knows too well.”
Rose raised an eyebrow and stared at Hilly. Consequences her mother knew too well. Was the evil queen’s curse a consequence of Blissa choosing Rose’s father? It seemed so strange a thing to consider now, but Rose could think of no other dire consequence her mother had faced as a result of her alliance with the king. Well, she supposed there was one — the loss of her powers — but her mother seemed to have readily accepted that fate.
“Rose,” Dwennon said, drawing her attention back to him. “When she abdicated her throne, she gave up her powers. She had the power of emotion. She could modulate the emotions of any with a simple touch. Your mother brought peace, love, warmth. And had she been hurt or angry or hardened of heart, she could have sowed anger, deceit, mistrust, or so many feelings that are bad for the world. But no, Blissa was true to her name. She used her powers to bring joy to those in need.”
Rose nodded. She’d heard Dwennon tell tale of her mother, at her grandfather’s side, trying to negotiate peace, trying to reconcile parties, and a single touch by Blissa calming everyone so they could listen freely, without anger and prejudice. So they could listen with reason and kindness.
“And so,” Dwennon continued. “When your mother abandoned her powers, it was expected that she would have an entirely human child, with no fairy traits.”
Rose felt a slight twinge in her tummy. Expected that she would have. Was he saying that she had fairy traits?
Dwennon nodded in response to her unspoken question. “I simply assumed that your gifts from the fairies had made you so at ease with nature, with the animals. It’s as if you can hear them speak as well as any wood fairy. And I assumed your dreams sight was simply the expression of the gift I’d offered you.”
“But you think differently now, Uncle?”
Dwennon nodded. “I think so,” he admitted. “When you were little and we believed you to be human, without fairy skill, there seemed no need to tell you the lore of our realm. But it seems perhaps it is time we tell you now.”
Rose leaned in, nodding for him to continue.
“Most mortals believe fairies are born that way, imbued with magical powers. And for all intents and purposes, you could say they are. But the truth is all fairy powers are borne from the Sacred Pool. It is a mystical object, with sentient qualities. We know only that all our powers are derived from it. When a fairy babe is born, the Sacred Pool can sense its soul, and within a few days it sends the babe its powers. When Blissa returned her powers and renounced claim on them for her heirs, we thought you would receive none.”
Dwennon turned and looked at Hilly for a moment, as if communicating some secret message. “But something apparently stirred, and the Pool bestowed powers upon you.”
Rose put a hand to her chin. “I don’t understand. What makes you think I have any fairy powers, or why the Sacred Pool would feel I was worthy?”
“You are your mother’s daughter, so human or fairy, that makes you worthy. And even if you were not the daughter of a fairy princess, your spirit is kind and gentle. The Pool has, on occasion, elevated a human to fairy. But that is rare indeed. As to how we know, it is a recent occurrence that showed us. About a week ago, you were in your room sleeping when Hilly heard a thud and ran to check on you.”
Rose turned toward Hilly.
“You were fine,” Hilly said brightly, but then her face darkened at the memory. “But there was a small cyclone in your room, wind spinning in a circle. It had picked up a few things and knocked them aside. At first I worried it was coming from somewhere else, but then I noticed the frown on your face. Something of your dream was tormenting you, perhaps a bad dream. So I whispered your name. I said, ‘Rose, shh, dear. Everything will be alright.’ Your frown faded, and as it did, the little cyclone died away. You were asleep, but it was clear you were causing it.”
“We suspect your gift is similar to your grandfather’s, King Roldan. He was an elemental fairy, meaning he had power over one of the four elements: earth, wind, fire, or water. His was water. Yours appears to be the wind.”
The wind. Power over the wind. That had to be a mistake. It was absurd. “I’ve never been able to control the wind. Ever.”
“Fairy powers tend to show young in fairies, but in Halflings, they emerge later. It’s as if the Sacred Pool must decide a Halfling’s worth before doling them out.”
“Halfling,” Rose repeated. “I thought you said fairies and humans weren’t allowed to mate.”
“It’s always been frowned upon,” Dwennon replied. “But it was not made an unimpeachable rule until your grandfather decreed it. That was the year we were attacked by a human army. That is when Roldan explicitly forbid the mating of fairies and humans.”
“I don’t understand,” Rose said. “What does a human attack have to do with fairies and humans mating?”
“Your grandfather’s sister, Radella,” Dwennon said. “She had fallen in love with the human king and had hoped to be his mate, but he had tricked her to learn secrets of the fairy realm and to strengthen his attack.”
It seemed a harsh ruling for one woman’s betrayal. “So that’s why mother had to give up her powers,” Rose said, more statement than question.
Dwennon waggled his aged shoulders. “Well, she was to be queen, and she could have, as the queen, rescinded the law, but there is something that doesn’t sit well when a monarch rescinds a law simply because they wish to violate it. She thought that by giving up her powers and marrying your father, it would demonstrate to the citizenry that humans c
ould be good. So good that a young princess had given all to marry one. She also hoped that her cousin would eventually cool and get to know Edmund. As that happened, Blissa thought Maurelle would perhaps, on her own, rescind the decree.”
“And of course, rescinding that decree would have aided Maurelle, too,” Hilly piped in.
Dwennon gave Hilly a sharp look, and she stopped speaking. Hilly smiled and patted Rose’s hand. “Dear, don’t fret over all this. We’ve gotten off track. We just wanted to let you know that your fairy roots are showing through, and that means we are able to give you a very special birthday gift, one we couldn’t give a girl who was wholly human.”
“Well,” Dwennon said with a slight snort of his honking nose, “we could give it to her, but it wouldn’t work.”
Hilly gave an exasperated sigh and patted Dwennon’s knee. “Your uncle thinks he is so funny,” she said. Hilly lifted the box and handed it to Rose. “Open it.”
Rose took the box and delicately unwrapped it, not wanting to damage the pretty paper. She loved to hang the wrappings in her room and look at them later. Such beautiful paper shouldn’t be easily tossed aside.
With the gift unwrapped, she found a small wooden box with a hinge. She opened it, and inside were three small smooth rocks of different colors. She’d seen them before, at the Crystal Pond. Hilly had said they were magical. “Fairy stones?” Rose asked.
Hilly grinned and nodded.
“But what do I do with them?”
Hilly smacked her palm to her head. “We got so sidetracked on the story that we forgot to tell you the most important part.”
“Yes, yes,” Dwennon added. “Each fairy has different powers. My power is as a seer, Hilaria has a special affinity for healing, and your mother had the power of emotion. But most fairies have the ability, with the use of fairy stones, to travel. You place it in in the palm of your hand, close your fingers round it and whisper to it where you want to go. It will take you there, immediately.”
Rose’s eyes widened. She could go somewhere. Somewhere other than here. She could see other people, other places.
“Now don’t get too excited,” Dwennon said. “There is a caveat.”
Rose looked at him intently. A caveat. Whatever the caveat was, she didn’t care.
“You can’t go home yet,” Dwennon said. “I’ve searched the waves of the future for that path, and all of them seem to lead to the curse coming to fruition. But if you simply go on a jaunt, a lovely trip to someplace that interests you, someplace not within your father’s kingdom, and not within the fairy realm, then you shall be fine.”
Not home. Well, it should have occurred to her to go home, but that hadn’t even crossed her mind. Was she an awful daughter for that? No, the only place that had crossed her mind … well, truthfully, it wasn’t even a place. It was a person. She wanted to go to James, wherever it was that he lived, that’s where she wanted to go. But how would she even know where that was? She frowned.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Hilly asked, her voice full of worry.
Rose shook her head. “Um,” she started, took a breath. “I was just wondering how to use the stone. I mean, I don’t know any place but here, so how would I know enough about where to go so I could use the stone?”
Hilly smiled big. “Well, dear, that’s the magic of fairy stones. You don’t have to have been to the exact location. You just need to tell it where to go. So, if you wanted to see the house I grew up in, you would just say, ‘Show me Hilly’s house when she was a wee little fairy,’ and the stone would take you there.”
Rose nodded. That made sense. She could just ask the stone to take her to James.
“So I was thinking we could go to the market of the Kingdom of Laspin. It’s a neighboring kingdom and very nice. Lots of people, lots to see. I think you’d really adore it.”
“We’re all going?” Rose asked.
“Well, of course, dear. We thought we could buy you a present there, something in addition to the stones. Perhaps a new dress or a pendant.”
Hilly’s excited smile, her desire to see Rose pleased, let the girl know her plan wouldn’t work. She couldn’t see James. She should have known that they’d want to come with her. “Is that why there are three stones? So we can all go?”
Hilly shook her head. “What kind of gift would it be if Dwennon and I used it up?” Hilly chuckled. “Just you and I are going to go, and I already have my own stone. Dwennon, well, you know how much he loves to cook, so he planned to prepare us a feast while gone. A fairy stone can only be used once, for a roundtrip journey. It will get you there and back. So, there’s one for this trip today, and after you’ve joined your parents, you can take two more journeys on your own. The danger will be gone by then, so I imagine you can have fun going on any trip you want.”
Rose nodded. She knew exactly what to do now.
Chapter 9
Rose and Hilly had a delightful time in the market in the morning, with Rose seeing so many people and things she’d never seen before. She’d been absolutely elated the entire trip. And when she returned, they feasted on a sumptuous meal prepared by Dwennon, followed by a raspberry cake that tasted lighter than air.
It had been the best birthday ever. But it was going to get better.
Rose’s plan was simple. She was going to tell Dwennon and Hilly she was exhausted from all the excitement and that she wanted a nap before they journeyed to her parents. They’d agree, certainly, because her parents wanted her to depart the cottage and head to the castle as soon as her birthday was over. After it struck midnight, the danger was over. So, of course a nap would be acceptable. But she wouldn’t nap. She would go and see James. She smiled to herself.
“You know,” Rose said, yawning even though it was only three in the afternoon. “I’m a bit tired. I thought maybe I’d take a nap, so I could be ready to travel tonight.”
Hilly nodded. “If you want, dearest, but,” she said, pausing dramatically as if she had something momentous to add. “I thought you might like to try using your magic.”
Well, her mind had been entirely on James. The idea that Hilly had seen magic being performed by Rose in her sleep had seemed absurd to her, given that she had never seen such in her own life. Though she had been able to control things in her dreams. But dreams were different, a place of imagination. Her mother used fairy magic in dreams even though it was lost to her in waking hours. It seemed preposterous that Rose would have fairy magic in the waking world. She believed they were one hundred percent mistaken, except for the fact that she’d used the fairy stones. They’d been adamant fairy stones would only work for fairies. The stone had worked for her, so she must have some type of fairy magic in her.
“Practice where?” Rose asked.
“Outside, of course,” Dwennon said.
Rose nodded, and the three of them exited the small cottage to stand outside in the glade. The clearing around the house was a wide, generous space. Rose had loved running and playing here when she’d been small. And there was a small garden behind the house. A fair number of animals would frolic in the yard, and sometimes Rose would play right along with them. Even though she couldn’t understand them the way she understood the words of people, Rose always felt she had a kinship with the animals.
The three of them walked away from the house, toward the edge of the wood that surrounded them. Trees at least eighty feet tall towered above them, with the plush branches offering shade from the summer sun.
“Alright then,” said Dwennon, who stood across from Rose, slightly hunched and leaning on his cane. “The key to using your magic, the magic that is within you, is to first feel it.”
“Feel it?” Rose asked. She wasn’t sure what he meant.
“Yes,” he said. “Just like new babes don’t just start walking or crawling. First they figure out they have arms and legs and fingers and toes. They stretch ‘em and look at ‘em and see what they are, and then they realize they can use ‘em. Like a babe, you’ve b
een using your fingers in your sleep, but now you’ve got to feel ‘em out in the waking hours and have a try at it.”
It seemed a decent enough explanation, though the context was lost on Rose. She’d never actually seen a baby. Not a human one. Of course, they’d told her stories about her when she was little, and she’d even seen a portrait of herself as a babe. But she hadn’t seen a babe explore his tiny hands and feet and find his footing in the world. Still, she had the gist of what he meant.
“Close your eyes,” Dwennon said. Rose complied. “Now, just feel the wind. On your face, on your fingers, feel it as it gently licks your skin. Feel how it connects with you, on the inside. For a lot of us, we connect with our magic from our center, from our core. See if you feel a connection to the wind.”
Rose did as he said, feeling the wind. There wasn’t much of it today. A gentle breeze that barely kissed her skin. It felt almost like nothing. To feel a connection, she wanted more, expected more. Something more like a gale, a huge gust, something that would pummel her outside but awaken this core that Dwennon had described.
And then she felt it. A stirring in her middle, right in her center. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt before. It was a warmth radiating from her midsection, but it seemed to shoot through every part of her body. It seemed to connect every inch of her skin with the air outside, almost as if she were dissolving in it.
And then she heard their cries. “Rose! Rose!”
She opened her eyes to see that Dwennon and Hilly nearly forty yards away, their backs pressed against the house, shielding their faces with their hands. Shielding their faces from the wind, she realized. Stop, she thought and the gale that had been punishing them ceased. A final gasp of “Rose” escaped their lips as they realized the wind had died down and they lowered their hands. Rose ran to them, frightened.
“Auntie, Uncle, are you alright?”
Hilly nodded, but stared wearily at Rose. Dwennon said nothing.
Dream Trysts: A Sleeping Beauty Story (Passion-Filled FairyTales Book 4) Page 4
