Princess Wearia went to her dressing-room table. Her hair, which used to be her crowning glory, lay in disorderly clumps all around her head. Just looking at it made her blanch. As she pulled it back into a tight knot, she reasoned that she could either dress her hair or straighten up downstairs—she did not have time for both. If her conscience had not given up so long ago it might have pointed out that she was not likely to be doing much downstairs, either. Oh, well, she sighed again as she looked at the pitiful creature staring back at her, she was not so shallow a person that she concerned herself with what other people thought of her!
Princess Wearia went down the stairs to find that the wizardess had already arrived and was, in fact, waiting for her. She was seated opposite the prince, speaking to him in deep, low tones. As the princess approached the two noticed her.
At the sight of Princess Wearia, Harmonia gasped. Her preliminary impression of the tardy princess was none too flattering of course, having been made to wait around with so many things to do and so much at stake, and especially after having learned from the prince that his wife was detained for no better reason than that she was a “late riser” by nature. But she had expected to lay eyes upon a perfectly groomed prima donna, imposing from outward appearances at least. The wizardess stared, open-mouthed, at the slovenly creature that stood before her. This case would require the most drastic measures available to her.
Harmonia turned back to the prince and put out her hand to him. “Thank you for keeping me in such charming company,” she said, effectively dismissing him.
The prince was a bit surprised by this, for he had thought his presence would be required in this matter, but he good-naturedly took the hand she offered and rose up to leave, replying gallantly, “The pleasure has been all mine.”
Once the prince had gone from the room, the wizardess took a deep breath and faced the princess. “Come sit beside me,” she said as kindly as she could manage; the princess seemed incapable of the simplest courtesies of a hostess. The princess slumped down next to her obediently.
“Do you really have magic powers?” she asked the wizardess.
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Harmonia without hesitation. “I daresay my powers have already benefited your sisters.” She paused for a moment and then realized how she might turn the princess’s interest in her wizardry to her advantage. “My specialty is in predicting the future,” she remarked casually, setting the bait.
“Indeed,” remarked the princess, coming suddenly alert. “How do you do that?”
“I can read everything about a person from simply looking into their hand,” she said. “All the events of a person’s life are written in a secret language on their palms. One hand carries the past and the other carries the future.” She was embellishing a bit, for although our stories are written on our palms, they are rather oblique sometimes, even for a wizardess. However, it suited her purpose—and would ultimately suit Princess Wearia’s, too—to deceive the princess for the time being. She took up one of the princess’s hands and peered at the palm with interest. “You see,” she said, pointing to one of the lines on the girl’s hand as if to prove her point, “it says here that you took a terrible tumble from a horse as a little girl.”
The princess gasped. It was true!
The wizardess quickly pointed to another line on the same hand. “You were also once very musical,” she said with a strange little knowing smile.
The princess gasped again. She had indeed studied music but the wizardess’s self-satisfied look clearly told her that she was referring to her naughty exploits in the music room with her instructor. She yanked her hand away from the wizardess’s grasp. “How fascinating,” she murmured uncomfortably. A slight blush rose up along her neck.
Harmonia restrained a laugh. The girl’s reputation had preceded her, but the real puzzle was what could have caused the girl of those renowned exploits to become the blob she was today. The correct pattern of things dictated that life become more remarkable and eventful with the passage of time, but in Princess Wearia’s case, her past was markedly more intriguing than her present. Where once there was an abundant zest for life there now appeared to be none at all.
Harmonia, undaunted, raised her own hand, palm up, to the princess. “The other hand,” she continued, ignoring the princess’s embarrassment completely, “shows us what lies ahead of us.” Using an old trick she had learned as a child, she caused an unusual line to appear on her hand. “This is the most important mark of all,” she said in a confidential tone. “It is our life line. It shortens as we approach death. When death is upon us, it disappears entirely. Mine, as you can see, has quite a length to go.”
Just as the wizardess expected, the princess began to search her own hand for her life line. She looked up at the wizardess when she could not find it.
“Let me see,” Harmonia said casually, taking the princess’s hand in hers. She prepared herself for the performance she was about to give; it must be absolutely convincing.
All of a sudden the wizardess became quite pale and serious as she pretended to search the princess’s palm for her “life line.” “But it must be here,” she murmured.
“Unless…” began the princess in horror.
The wizardess abruptly dropped the princess’s hand and attempted to change the topic. “Perhaps we should get on with the purpose of my visit,” she said shakily.
“No!” cried the princess. “We must find my life line!” She continued to search frantically the area of her palm.
“Perhaps in your case…” Harmonia paused a moment, seemingly alarmed and at a loss for words. “Perhaps your life line is different than others’.”
“Perhaps I am going to die, you mean!” The princess grabbed the wizardess’s hand again and searched her palm. “Where did you say it was?”
The wizardess caused the little line to appear on her hand again. It stood out clearly on her palm.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” repeated the princess as she searched her hand yet again. Harmonia felt a touch of sympathy for her. But really, what else could she do? The truth was that nobody’s life line was written in stone; lines appearing on the skin were always subject to change. More importantly, she was not about to allow this lazy princess to jeopardize her ability to successfully solve the riddle when all she needed was a little jolt to get her back on track.
The princess looked up at the wizardess, and their eyes locked. Harmonia’s eyes were very solemn and sympathetic. The look accomplished what words could not and Princess Wearia burst into tears.
“Please tell me the truth, wizardess,” she sobbed. “How long do I have?”
“It could be any day,” Harmonia told her after a long pause, which she used to give the impression that she was reluctant to admit it. She consoled herself for this misrepresentation to the princess with the fact that what she said was, at least in part, the truth. “Suffice it to say,” she added with a sad little sigh, “when my own week is up it appears that you, at least, will not be wearing out any more shoes.” This, too, was an honest statement; for if her wizardry worked, this princess would be cured of her discontent and the worn shoes would indeed stop appearing each morning. But for the misguided princess, the wizardess’s words in this context had their intended effect. Her cries turned into wails.
“Oh, my poor girl,” encouraged the wizardess.
“Isn’t there anything I can do?” she asked the wizardess when her cries at last died down to hiccups.
“Well…” mused the wizardess, pretending to consider this.
“Oh, please, wizardess,” the princess implored. “You must tell me.”
“Well, I can’t say for sure that it will work, but I suppose anything is worth a try.” She paused again, pretending to think. The princess sat very still and hopeful, waiting. Harmonia continued, “I have heard rumors that some have defied the life line with denial.”
“Denial?” asked the princess.
“Yes.” Harmonia now grasped t
he princess’s hands in hers and looked into her face. “You must try this method,” she insisted. “There is no other hope.”
“What…what do I do?” asked the princess, her lips quivering.
“You must first and foremost never mention a word of this to anyone. Not a soul! Not even the prince. To do so would be to bring death closer through acceptance. You must deny its existence by not speaking of it to anyone—not even to me.”
“Yes,” agreed the princess. “I will not speak of it to anyone.”
“Very good,” said Harmonia. “Next, you must deny death itself with life. You must live your life so well that death would not dare to touch you.”
“How…?” queried the princess.
“That is for you to say, not me,” replied Harmonia. “Is there anything you have wanted to do that you have put off?”
Was there anything she wanted to do that she hadn’t put off? That would have been easier to answer. Indeed, where could she begin the list of things she had put off?
“You must do as many of those things as possible,” continued Harmonia. “That is your only hope.”
The princess’s mind was racing.
“Well, I must leave you, I’m afraid,” said Harmonia. She took the princess in her arms and hugged her. Then she blessed her and wished her well three times with tears in her eyes. Anyone could clearly see she was offering a final farewell. The princess choked back tears as she watched the wizardess leave. Even after she was out the door, Harmonia stopped and looked back toward the princess dramatically a number of times, presenting, without a doubt, the saddest farewell any princess has ever witnessed.
Long after the wizardess was finally out of sight Princess Wearia continued to stare out the open door. Tears threatened to well up again but she choked them back. She must defy death.
She looked out at the field in the distance and saw in it spots of color she had not noticed before. When had the flowers begun blooming? She loved the feel and smell of flowers and suddenly it became the most important thing for her to go and get a closer look at them. She rushed out through the doors, and ran feverishly toward the field. It was filled with colorful wild flowers of blue and pink and yellow and red. She bent down to smell each and every one of them as she came upon them. Their smell intoxicated her. Why did she not do this every morning? She walked, and then ran and sometimes skipped through the field for a quarter of an hour. Here and there she would stop where she spotted a flower struggling to bloom among the weeds, and she would pluck out the weeds with her fingers, giving the little bud space to flourish. She mused that if she came out to do this every day these gardens would indeed be impressive.
But at last, the quiet beauty she had taken in had kindled a small fire in her that forced her to move on to other things. On her way back to the castle, she collected flowers of every color and variety to take home with her.
Inside the castle the princess placed the flowers carefully in water. She had become quite overheated from her exertions and aside from that, she no longer was content to go through what may be the last day of her life looking the way she did now. She tore the hideous dress from her body, tossing it contemptuously into the garbage and prepared herself for a luxurious bath.
Into very warm water she poured bath bubbles from a little jar that had sat in her cabinet for years. She was not sure why she had not bothered to use the bubbles before this; she loved the way they smelled and made the water feel. She had been saving them for something but at the present moment she could not recall what. In fact, she dumped the entire contents of the little jar into her bath.
Princess Wearia removed the rest of her undergarments and slipped into the warm bath before it was even filled. She could not wait to feel the deliciously warm and gently scented water on her skin. She rested her head against the rounded back of the bathtub and closed her eyes. She thought about what the wizardess had said. She must think of a way to live in defiance of death. She must do all of the things she had been meaning to do. But there were so many things she had meant to do. Meaning to do things was, it seemed, her most practiced activity. As she thought about this her hand absently stroked her skin. The bath bubbles added an unusually silky quality to her flesh that was hard to resist. At length her hands wandered between her legs.
Often of late, when she looked at or touched herself there, she would think, someday I should like to experiment with the styling of it; for she had often heard mentioned, in hushed voices of the women’s cafés and salons that it was the exciting and fashionable thing to do. She had always put the experiment aside for a better time but, given the circumstances, it seemed that there truly would be no time like the present.
She picked up a razor and looked down at the little patch of curls critically. She liked the way they looked overall; it was the little stragglers that offended her. Also, she remembered how it had excited her once to hear of a certain notorious hoyden who had removed all the hair around the opening, leaving nothing but a curly triangle above. This appealed to her now as much as it had then, so she set off to work at once. Within minutes she could feel the luscious softness of the skin that had been buried beneath the coarse curls until that moment. The newly smoothed skin, after mingling with the bath oils, felt like the finest oriental silk. She wondered what her husband would think, and this started yet another little fire inside her to get up and go, quickly, at once, and find him.
The princess rinsed and dried and dressed, more carefully this time, with an effort to please, but periodically pausing for a single moment in which to touch her newly shaved flesh. The silky feel of it excited her to no end, and she wondered why she had put the pleasing task off for so long. What other things had she been missing out on because of her procrastination, always pushing things off to another day?
She thought of one thing in particular and her pulse raced at the thought of seeing her husband. She put on her prettiest dress, which fit her well and brought out the color of her eyes. This time when she looked at herself in the mirror she mused that the ironing of her dress had been well worth the few minutes it took. She intentionally omitted wearing undergarments—another thing, as it turns out, that she had always wanted to do but never found the right time for. But there was no more perfect time than after her bath, and she could feel the mingling sensations of air and moisture between her legs as she rushed from the house to seek out her husband.
Princess Wearia’s husband was building a great bridge that would eventually become the main entranceway to their castle. It was a lofty project that occupied the majority of his spare time. He was sculpting the bridge from rocks of all shapes and sizes, arranging them just so with his hands to create, not only a strong throughway that would last for generations, but also a work of art from the depths of his imagination. His hands were rough, rutted and misshapen from the ongoing project, as if the rocks, too, were sculpting him. Little droplets of moisture trickled down his neck as he stopped for a moment to study the large pile of rocks, searching for one that was just the right size and shape.
When Princess Wearia first discovered her husband at his work she stopped for a moment to quietly watch him. She had somehow managed to forget how handsome he was. She slipped up closer to him as quietly as she could manage. But all of a sudden he became aware of a presence behind him and turned. There was a look of surprise on his face when he saw her.
“Well!” he exclaimed, obviously pleased by the sight of her. “What brings you out here?”
“I should have come sooner,” she admitted, glancing at the massive structure which, even being only half-finished, was quite an impressive sight. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“Still,” he said, standing up and dusting off his hands, “it’s a dirty place for a beautiful princess in such a pretty dress.”
“Actually,” she admitted, “I was just thinking the opposite—that such magnificence makes everything else seem rather ordinary by comparison.”
He was deeply pleased and
flattered by this remark, but he replied, “I assure you I do not find your appearance to be ‘ordinary’.” He realized that there must be some reason for her to have come all this way from the castle in search of him. Perhaps it had something to do with the wizardess’s visit. “How did it go with the wizardess?” he asked.
“Oh,” she said absently, with a little wave of her hand, “it was nothing.” She was still taken aback by the beauty of the wall and the sight of her husband working out here all by himself in the midst of nature.
But why had she come then? wondered the prince. He looked at her expectantly. When she noticed his confusion she blushed. “I feel silly,” she confessed.
“Silly?” Why, this was indeed unusual. His wife, here? Behaving timidly? He was completely disarmed. “Why should my wife feel silly to come and see me?” he asked her.
Her blush deepened, but she decided to tell him the truth. “Because I came out here to show you something that I think is not so impressive, after all,” she confessed.
He was intrigued. “What did you come out here to show me?”
She bit her lip. “Honestly, I don’t think I would rather, now.” She looked again at the half-built bridge. Why had she never come to see it before?
The prince took her face in his hands and forced her to look at him. “Tell me,” he demanded gently.
“I…it’s just that…” she stammered. “Heavens, it’s really rather embarrassing now that I think about it. I wish I hadn’t said anything about it.” Her heart was suddenly pounding and her face burned.
Her husband held her flushed face determinedly in his hands and looked at her with puzzled eyes. “Tell me,” he insisted a little more firmly.
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