Awake: A Fairytale

by Jessica Grey

  Alex leaned around Becca, reaching over her to lay her palm across the emerald. The power of the gem flooded through her, sparking like a live wire up her arm, filling her chest, and painting her vision in its cool green fire. She could see the waves of magic and could understand their pull on Becca. She knew as clearly as if the emerald had spoken it into her mind that the magic wasn’t sinister, just out of control, like a toddler with a new babysitter. It didn’t know its boundaries.

  “Release her,” Alex said firmly and calmly. “Let go of her now.”

  The tide of magic hesitated for a moment, as if considering this new voice of authority. Alex held her breath for what seemed like an eternity, and then suddenly, the waves turned back on themselves, rushing back into the crown, sucking the golden haze back in with them.

  The crown fell from Becca’s bloodless fingers and hit the tiled floor with a dull clang. Alex had just enough time to pull her arm back to catch Becca as she collapsed towards the floor.

  ~ Chapter Twelve ~

  “WELL THAT WENT well,” Alex muttered as she and Lilia laid Becca down on the floor, stuffing Alex’s hoodie under her head as a pillow. Alex had taken basic first aid, and she figured shock was shock, magic induced or not, so she also propped Becca’s feet up on her backpack for elevation.

  “I had no idea it would grip her that strongly,” Lilia fretted. “I have never seen the like. Honestly, I did not even think it would work, that she would have a vision or that I would be able to see it.” She brushed a few strands of Becca’s dark hair off her clammy forehead. “It should not have worked; she is not a fae! I am so very sorry.”

  Becca’s breathing had slowed and deepened to a normal level, although her eyes remained firmly closed, her lashes resting against her unnaturally pale cheeks.

  Alex turned Becca’s left wrist toward her and glanced at her watch, shocked to realize they had been in the storage room for more than half an hour. She had no idea what effect that kind of prolonged exposure to magic would have on her.

  “What can we do for her?” she asked Lilia, who shook her head in a helpless motion.

  “Water.” The small whisper came from Becca, and both girls started and leaned over her. Her lashes fluttered, and as she opened her eyes, Alex was relieved to see that her pupils had returned to normal. Becca licked her dry lips and repeated, “Water. I could use some water.”

  “Of course!” Alex jumped up and ran into the other storage room to snag one of the water bottles they had left for Nicholas, and by the time she ran back Becca was already sitting up, her back leaning against the wall.

  Becca drained nearly the whole bottle as the other girls hovered over her, before she offered them a weak smile. “Well, that was a heck of a thing.”

  “How are you feeling?” Lilia asked worriedly.

  “Okay, just a little sick to my stomach, like I’ve been pulled apart and put back together, and I have a hell of a headache. But other than that I think I’m fine.”

  “I am so sorry,” Lilia said.

  “It’s okay.” Becca rubbed her forehead. “So strange. I wasn’t scared at all. I didn’t feel like the crown, or the magic, or whatever it was, had any ill feelings toward me. It kind of even felt like the crown wanted to help me, but I just wasn’t strong enough to control whatever was happening.

  “The magic was very strong,” Lilia said. “I have not ever seen it grab hold of a person quite that way before.”

  She stared at the crown as it lay on the floor. “It was as if the gold were speaking to you” she said looking back at Becca. “I’ve never seen it outside of metal shapers but the power was definitely coming from the gold. The emerald must have been able to call the magic back to the crown. It makes sense now that I think it through. The gems have their own power but would also have shared the blessing with the metal.”

  Lilia turned her confused gaze back on Alex. “How did you know to do that? I have studied magic, albeit not as much as most demi-fae, but enough to reason it out eventually, and yet, it did not occur to me.”

  Alex shook her head. “I didn’t know anything. In the middle of the confusion I saw the emerald and it was if it was telling me what to do. It wasn’t like it actually spoke to me or anything—” she broke off, a puff of air escaping her lips in frustration. “It sounds absolutely lunatic to say, but it was more like the color and feel of the stone were in my brain and guided my instincts.”

  “I just almost got sucked into a crown,” Becca said wryly. “We passed lunatic a few exits back.”

  “True,” Alex admitted. “I’m just not used to thinking in terms of gems communicating with me somehow.”

  “You and me both. Lilia, what did you mean when you said the emerald could call the magic back? Is gem magic stronger than metal magic?” Becca asked, her voice sounding steadier than it had a moment before.

  “No, not stronger, different though. I do not know quite how to describe it—a different ebb and pull. What I meant was that the gold and the gems, they are separately powerful but they have been woven into one entity—the crown. That process requires some elemental magic in and of itself, which is why the best jewelry makers are demi-fae. The royal family would never use one that was not. So, because they are one piece now, and also have the same blessing from my aunts which unites them in purpose even more, the emerald can exert power over the metal—kind of remind it of its place.”

  “Hmm, like a ‘hey you’re getting outta control, get back here and do your job?’ kind of thing?” Becca said.

  “Yes, very much so.”

  “Wow, that’s kind of cool.”

  “Definitely worked in our favor,” noted Alex.

  Becca bit her lip, deep in thought. “But I was able to get visions from the metal, but not the gems, is that what you meant by someone being a metal shaper?”

  “Yes, a lot of demi-fae have…I guess you would call them specialties—a type of magic they feel most comfortable with. Metal shapers usually are jewelers or smiths, or work for the King’s Treasury. I am most sensitive to nature magic, making things grow, small spells to ensure sunny days on a day you want to have a picnic and it threatens rain, that sort of thing.”

  “Well, the sad fact is that I wasn’t shaping that magic, it was definitely shaping me,” Becca said with an ironic smile. “I wonder if I was just functioning as a sort of conduit or something, that blessing your aunts put on it seems like pretty powerful stuff.”

  “So it was your aunts? You were able to see the blessing?” Alex asked Lilia.

  “I could see them giving the blessing and heard most of it. Becca is right, it was incredibly powerful; they wove the strands of their power together like a braid of magic and inset it into the band. I have never seen a spell quite like it.” She glanced over at the bed that had held her prisoner for so many centuries. “Although, I have to assume the magic Briar Rose was able to summon to create that thing had to be awe-inspiring as well, especially as she had no sisters to help her.”

  “That’s a sobering thought, considering what we just witnessed with Becca.” Alex stared intently at the bed. She got up and walked around the footboard. The gems were glowing dully, but not with the urgency of the crown’s emerald, and not with the beckoning sparkle they had shown earlier. Alex trailed her fingers over the metal. It was cool to her touch. However, when her fingers hovered over a large, unfurled rose petal studded with garnets she could feel the hum of the magic vibrating through the air. It was as if the stones sensed her fingers just inches away and were trying to close the distance.

  “Are the gems part of the spell then?” Alex asked as the air around her fingers warmed with the energy. “Do you think they might have been trying to show me about themselves like Becca felt with the crown? Or trying to pull me in?”

  “They mostly likely have their magic twined into the overall spell. Large spells can be scavengers, utilizing every scrap of magic that is available.” Lilia stared at the space between Alex’s fingers and the gem
s, with a slight frown. “They may even have strands of the spell resting in them. I have no idea how she would have woven her magic. Different fae favor different elements and ways of weaving spells. Either way, the gems have her mark on them, so I doubt they are as friendly as my mother’s crown.”

  The air around Alex’s hand was thrumming with the power of the stones. She moved her hand slightly so that it hovered back over the twisted vines of gold and silver. The magic faded a bit, as her hand moved away from the stones, but she could feel them straining for contact with her skin. She swept her hand through the air above another rose, this one a tiny, closed bud of rose quartz and she felt the throbbing heat again.

  “If there are strands of the magic in the bed then, in the gems, and maybe even in the metal—”

  “Yes, I think there is magic in the gold and silver.” Becca had struggled to her feet and joined Alex at the foot of the bed. She ran her eyes over the mass of golden and silver vines, but didn’t reach out touch them, her arms firmly at her sides. “I can feel it, it hums like the crown did, but it’s different somehow. Deeper, heavier.”

  Alex’s fingers inched closer to the rose bud. The magic was pulsing over her skin now. It writhed and stretched toward her, frantic for her touch.

  “If the metal and stones hold strands of the spell, why can’t we just find a way to destroy the damn thing?” Alex asked. “It wouldn’t be easy, but find some way to hack it to pieces, and break the spell.”

  “No, I do not think that would work,” began Lilia.

  But Alex wasn’t listening. Her fingertip grazed the petal, almost against her will running down the side of one tightly closed edge. The warm sun was on her face, the overpowering scent of the roses drifting through the air toward her. She knew that if she opened her eyes she would be in the garden. Briar Rose’s garden.

  A deep, throaty chuckle rippled through Alex’s mind.

  A cool hand grabbed her wrist, yanking her hand away from the gemstones. The laughter stopped abruptly and Alex’s eyes snapped open. Lilia was gripping her wrist and holding her arm as far away from the bed as she could manage, a fierce look on her face.

  “It will not work,” Lilia said slowly and deliberately, “because the gems and the metal are only part of the spell. I do not know how much of herself Briar Rose worked into the bed, but any attempt to destroy it and the spell would certainly call out to her. In fact, I am beginning to wonder if even your touching it is alerting her to our presence.”

  Alex swallowed painfully. The full import of what she may have just done was hitting her as the rose scent began to fade.

  “Do you think she can see us or hear us?” she forced the whisper out through a throat that felt dry and scratchy.

  “I doubt that there is that much active power in the spell. I cannot imagine the strength it would take to maintain a spell of that magnitude for this long, but then again I cannot be sure of anything. I would not be surprised if she knew the minute I woke up and that Luke is asleep in my place. She must feel the disruption in the spell.”

  As Lilia was speaking Becca edged back from the bed, looking at it like it was a snake ready to pounce on them.

  “For some reason,” Lilia continued, “you are able to feel the spells in the gems. They are rather interested in you too; I could see their magic reaching for you. You said that when you touched them before, you had a vision of a rose garden?”

  Alex nodded feeling a bit sick. “Yes, this time too. I felt like I was being taken there, I could smell the roses and hear laughter.”

  Lilia grimaced as she dropped Alex’s wrist. “That is what concerns me. It could just be that the gems carry the imprint of the source of the spell’s powers, or they could be actually communicating with her, drawing whoever touches them to her.” She sighed. “I wish I had someone to ask; I only know so much.”

  The three girls stared silently at the bed. The thought that it might be communicating with Briar Rose had creeped them all out.

  Becca eyed the bed with revulsion. “I suppose if you looked at it as a work of art it could be considered beautiful,” she said. “But frankly it just makes me kind of sick to my stomach.”

  Alex swallowed her reply. The bed held a sort of morbid fascination for her. Aside from Luke’s being trapped in it, the gems seemed to draw her in. They looked almost knowing, as if they understood secrets about her that she couldn’t even guess at. However, she was pretty sure if she mentioned this to the other girls, they would bar her from ever entering the storage room again.

  “There’s one more crate,” Becca said, finally looking away from the bed. “Do you think we even dare open it at this point?”

  The other two looked toward the crate in the corner of the storage room. It was significantly larger than the one that had housed the Queen’s crown, but considerably smaller than the bed.

  “I don’t really see how we can avoid opening it,” Alex said. “We have to know what’s in here; there could be something else that could help us.”

  “Or it could be something we are totally unprepared to handle,” Becca replied darkly, “as seems to be the case with pretty much everything Nicholas’s precious professor has sent us. But you’re right. I don’t really see how we get away with not opening it.”

  In the end, opening the crate proved easier said than done. They had to use the crowbar that Nicholas and Luke had left behind, and as much as Alex hated to admit it, studying textbooks and catalog samples at the museum had not done much to build up either her or Becca’s upper body strength and she doubted that Lilia had ever done a minute’s work in her life.

  “Isn’t the point of the crowbar to make this easier? Something about leverage?” Becca grunted.

  “It’s almost like whatever is inside this box doesn’t want us to find it,” Lilia muttered.

  “Well, tough beans for it, because I’m opening this damn thing if I have to hack it to bits,” Alex bit out as she repositioned the crowbar and tried again.

  She didn’t have to hack the crate to bits, but it was awfully close. They finally peeled back the wooden slats to reveal a large item wrapped in a thin blue blanket. It was about four feet high and almost as wide. They stood staring at it dubiously for a moment before Becca finally reached out and began unwrapping it. Alex and Lilia almost unconsciously positioned themselves behind her, ready to catch her if she was thrown back—or to snatch her back if she was sucked in.

  As she finally pulled the blanket away, they saw a large piece of gray-white marble, smoothed into a roughly vertical rectangular shape.

  “Anyone want to touch it and see if they get visions?” Alex asked half-jokingly.

  Lilia was looking at the marble as if it reminded her of something, but she was having trouble placing it. She shook her head. “I would rather not.”

  Becca walked around to the side of the large piece. It was still sitting on the bottom of the crate, but they had managed to pull it a few feet away from the wall in their attempts to open it.

  “There’s something written on the other side,” she announced, sidling into the small space between the slab and the wall. “It’s in French; I only took one year so this could take me awhile.”

  “Do you know what it reminds me of?” Lilia said thoughtfully. “A burial monument.”

  Becca, who had been slowly reading whatever was on the front of the slab, looked up at Lilia. Her soft brown eyes were glistening in the fluorescent light.

  “I’m sorry, Lilia,” Becca said softly.

  Lilia looked blankly at her for a moment before her face appeared to crumple in on itself. She hadn’t moved at all; in fact she was standing stock still, as if she had suddenly grown roots, but she somehow seemed smaller, frailer.

  “Is it for my mother or father?” she whispered. “My mother. It was her crown.”

  Becca nodded. “Your mother,” she confirmed. “My French isn’t great, but I can tell that it says ‘to commemorate the death of Queen Liliana’ and the date. There’s
more, do you want to come read it?”

  Lilia looked pale and unsure. Alex couldn’t imagine her own mother passing away. She’d been only five when her dad had died and even though she only had brief glimpses of memories of him, she had felt the emotional trauma of it her whole life. Waking up one morning and finding out that your parents had been dead for centuries had to be surreal. Now, being faced with her mother’s burial stone must have made the whole thing seem much more real and present.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to look at it,” Alex said soothingly as she placed a hand on Lilia’s shoulder. Lilia looked at her sadly. If she was surprised by Alex touching her she didn’t show it.

  “I expected them to be dead,” Lilia said. “As soon as I felt the thorn prick into my skin, I knew it was Briar Rose’s curse and the last thing I thought of was that I wish I had told my parents that I loved them. I hadn’t seen my father in several weeks. He had been occupied with affairs of state, and I had been very busy—” she broke off with a sad laugh, “very busy being young and stupid. Getting fitted for dresses for my birthday ball, taking dancing lessons, doing silly things of no importance. The last time I saw my mother, I told her I did not have time to stay and talk with her while she did some embroidery. It was too boring…I wanted to go for a ride.” Lilia’s eyes had been growing damper as she spoke, and finally a tear slipped from the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek. “When the thorn pricked my finger I knew that was the end—that I would not see them again. That is the last thing I remember thinking.”

  Alex pulled Lilia into a fierce hug. After a moment of standing woodenly in her arms, Lilia’s whole body softened and she began to sob quietly. Becca came out from between the wall and the burial stone and joined them, one hand resting across Alex’s shoulders and the other stroking Lilia’s back comfortingly.

  The three of them stood in an awkward group hug for several minutes until her tears subsided.