by Liz Braswell
“Here…”
She was led to the pine needle couch, where a fairy with a basket waited.
“Tip your head back,” the fairy ordered.
She did as she was commanded. A warm cascade of water trickled over her head, getting to all the scratchy places. It felt like heaven. Her hands were being lightly scrubbed with what felt like pinecones.
“Your prince has no idea how lucky he is,” the fairy buffing her nails said, leaning in close to whisper.
“He’s not my prince,” she protested halfheartedly. It was nice being so taken care of. Almost like being back home in the castle, but better. A perfect way to start the adventure.
Someone was very carefully combing the pitch and tangles out of her hair.
“It really is like spun gold,” the fairy said with awe.
Wait…that sounded familiar….
But before the princess could place it, another one was prattling on.
“We shall give you a dress as green as the pines that shelter you and shoes to match!”
Several fairies were working magic on a sapling, causing cloth and fabric to appear and drape around the tree like it was a mannequin.
Aurora Rose watched this and felt another pang of uneasy déjà vu.
“Why do you care about clothes? Why do woods fairies care about human clothes?”
“Silly, we don’t. But humans wear clothes. And you’re so beautiful. You need to wear beautiful clothes, too.”
“But we’re in the woods. In a dream. I could be naked. Like those dreams in which you realize you’re naked?”
“Shhh,” a fairy said, smoothing the princess’s hair back from her face. “Your beauty comes with a trace of fairy magic…a fairy gift, if I’m not mistaken. You will probably be the most beautiful girl in the world. Lucky girl!”
“Um,” the princess said, thinking about this.
Luck didn’t seem to be a major contributing factor in her life. In either world.
As for beauty…
Well, she had indeed loved the way people had looked at her at balls in the Thorn Castle.
At the Forest Cottage, she had played at dressing up in the costumes her aunts had made for her. Only once was there a time in the real world when she had been dressed up properly and beautiful in front of a mirror. That was right before…
Right before…
She gasped in pain as the memory hit her.
The day she was going to tell her aunts about the boy she had met.
She had come home, having forgotten it was her birthday. Time was both important and irrelevant in the woods; stars marked seasonal changes, the moon waxed and waned, the solstices were strictly observed…but normal days and weeks and months weren’t.
She burst into the cottage and there, waiting for her, was the most beautiful dress she could ever have imagined. No ragged seams, no patches, no spiderwebs or leaves holding bits together. It was fitted and radiant and like something out of a dream.
It was also hard to tell if it was blue or pink, which was sort of strange, because she wasn’t color-blind.
She wondered where it had come from. None of the few villagers or woodsmen they interacted with had anything like the dress or even the materials with which to make it.
But that thought was quickly overwhelmed by joy: joy at the pretty dress for her birthday, joy at the idea of spending the rest of her life with the boy in the woods, joy at the cake that was also somehow magically there and perfect, like something else out of a dream.
And then overwhelming sadness when she found out what her sixteenth birthday actually meant and what the presents were for.
The dress was there because she was a princess, about to get married—to a prince she had never met.
The three “aunts” who had seemed to love her so thoroughly her whole life vanished from the scene entirely when she was locked in the castle bedroom. For her safety, she was left alone—with nothing but loss and bitterness and hopelessness.
Aurora Rose gulped and took deep breaths, trying not to pass out from the memory, from the great wash of sadness.
Seeing these fairies conjure a dress out of thin air, she now realized where her sixteenth birthday gown had come from. And the cake.
Something like panic began to form in the pit of her stomach.
“Shhh, shhh,” a fairy said, stroking her wrist. “What’s the matter? Everything is fine.”
Phillip’s laughter rang out beyond the screen, boyish and loud.
“There!” a fairy said.
The magicked dress danced over to the princess. Despite her misgivings, she stood up to receive it—it would have been rude not to. The dress easily smoothed itself over her. Dark green velvet skirts, full and soft, twirled around down to her ankles. Golden buttons fastened themselves up the placket on the bodice and over the elegant, tight sleeves. From her elbows, wisps of dark green mist flowed to the ground for tippets. A collar around her neck drifted out into a cape of the same material.
“Truly, you are the most beautiful princess in the world,” a fairy breathed.
Aurora Rose looked at herself in the mirror of dewdrops. She was indeed the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Long neck, golden hair, wide violet eyes, narrow waist, lips perfectly pink and rosy.
She turned, just a little bit, to see how her figure looked from a different angle. The green velvet flowed softly and majestically, making delicious little noises when its folds rippled. As talented as the castle seamstresses were, the princess had never worn anything as elegant or perfect as this.
And yet…she thought about herself as a child in the dreamworld, hiding in neglected spaces of the castle, making friends with rats. She wore no dresses then. Nothing fancy or pretty at all until Maleficent came along and saved her.
She thought about herself as the child in the woods, playful and dirty.
Nothing fancy or pretty that wasn’t pretend until her sixteenth birthday.
“Oh, that’s nothing! Try this one!” another fairy squealed.
The princess found herself being gently prodded and pushed and combed and magicked, and her hair felt weird. When she was spun around to face the mirror again, she was in a yellow dress, waves of sunshine spilling down from her bodice to her toes. Her shoulders were bare, which was a little strange, but they were pale and perfect and delicate. Swanlike, she could hear the minstrel saying. Her hair was loosely braided over one shoulder, a yellow ribbon tying it off.
The fairies gasped.
“You are sooooo beautiful!”
“Even more beautiful!”
“Can it be possible?”
“Look at this,” a fairy commanded. With a serious look and a wave of her wand, she transformed the princess again. This time her hair was piled high on her head in an elegant chignon, a simple ribbon holding it back. A light blue dress puffed out around her softly, like a cloud. The finest gloves she had ever worn covered her bare arms up to her shoulders. Funny little tinkling shoes felt chilly on her feet.
She put her hands on the skirt and twisted this way and that; what a dress to dance in! She would look like a fairy herself.
Or a bride.
“So pretty,” a fairy said, touching her hair again.
“My turn!” another fairy said.
Little hands grabbed at her. It was disconcerting and a little frantic—but gentle. Far gentler than Lianna, who had also encouraged the princess to dress up. Who always said how pretty she was. How beautiful. How like a royal princess. Who made her stand in front of a looking glass and admire herself in her gowns.
For the balls. Which had been a distraction to keep her—and everyone else—from paying attention to the situation they were in, from figuring out what was going on.
“That’s it. We’re going.”
Aurora Rose turned away from the magicked mirror. Tiny fairies were flung in all directions as she spun around.
She pushed the screen aside and grabbed Phillip’s hand, pulling him after her.<
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He gaped and gawped at her outfit.
“Rose! You’re…you’re…”
“Beautiful. Yes. I know. Come on,” she pushed her way past the fairies, who were gently trying to block her. “Thanks for the dress and the hair-washing and everything. But we’re on a quest, and I think we’ve already wasted too much time here.”
“Stay! We just want to look at you!” one fairy wailed.
“So pretty!” another said, lacing its hands into her long locks. Its fingers were sharp and pulled.
“Thank you, sorry,” the princess said, yanking her head back and wincing.
Little hands were pawing at her dress and her arms.
“Stay! You could be our princess!”
“So pretty, pretty!”
“Stay!”
Phillip was looking a little worried now.
“Should I pull out my sword?” he whispered as they began to shove through the growing press of winged creatures.
“No…not yet…”
The fairies began to cry.
“Stay! We’ll treat you like the princess you are! We’ll worship you!”
“You can be our beautiful doll!”
“We’ll dress you up and feed you ambrosia!”
Aurora Rose closed her eyes as she marched forward. The grabby little hands grew claws. She felt her hair and dress begin to rip.
“Ow! Hey! Cut it out!” Phillip said. He was less gentle than the princess, batting the fairies away with the back of his hand.
She didn’t want to look down to see what was happening; she wanted to continue walking down the path calmly and have it all disappear once she could no longer see them.
“We won’t let you leave us.”
She turned.
The fairies were changing. They were elongating, their thin, wispy bodies growing strangely fluid. They were also changing color: slimy gray and oily green and sickly orange. Their eyes slid back over their skulls, yellowing in the process.
“Sssstay!”
They had claws and barbed tails now. Sharp, curved fangs and ugly horns. They lost their legs or grew extra sets or sprouted pointy, torn wings. They flew and gibbered and flowed around the trees and the prince and princess, swiping and grabbing.
“Sword. Now?” Aurora Rose suggested.
“Already out,” Phillip retorted, trying not to sound nervous.
He swung his bright-bladed sword through the crowd of demons. Sometimes it caught an actual piece of flesh, causing one to shriek and peel away from the others. But mostly it just went straight through them, like they were made of smoke.
“I thought your sword was enchanted!” The princess covered her face and her head, trying to move faster in her ridiculous skirts.
“In the real world it was!” Phillip shouted. He winced as a six-clawed, three-eyed thing successfully got to his face. Six traces of blood flowed down his once perfect cheek.
Aurora Rose cried out as something snakelike launched itself at her waist and wrapped around her body, squeezing tight.
The demons converged on her, hissing and ripping and tearing.
She kicked and screamed. In neither world had there been much violence in her life—at least, not directed at her. She had never had to defend herself. She had no idea what to do when she couldn’t run away. Her feet in their stupid new shoes were roped together by something living and cold. Something else horrible, rough and tiny, was easing its way under her hands toward her eyes.
Suddenly, Phillip was there. He had sheathed his useless sword and was now just grabbing the demons, throwing them off her.
One landed on the back of his head and clung there, sinking its teeth deep into his skull.
Phillip gasped with pain but ignored it, concentrating on getting Aurora Rose free.
When the demons were mostly off her, he roughly pulled her up.
“RUN!” he yelled, turning to fight the rest off.
“Not without you!” she said without thinking.
“Oh, I’m running, too,” Phillip said. “NOW!”
And the two ran into the woods, all the creatures of hell fast on their footsteps.
IN THE WORLD of the Thorn Castle, she had scurried. In the real world of the Forest Cottage, she had run races with rabbits.
Neither could compare to how fast she had run twice on the same day now, throwing out her legs and leaning forward, desperately gulping air.
Phillip was close on her heels, still wrestling with the thing on his head.
“To the left!” he panted. “The path splits and there’s a smallholding up ahead! At least, in the real world…”
She made the mistake of turning to look behind her. The things were slithering after them just above the ground, spilling down the path like something boiling and spoiled that had been overturned.
The forest grew thinner. Though it was now well into twilight, with fewer trees blocking the last rays of sunset the land was still bright golden. The path widened into something like a dirt road, and its unruly banks changed over into orchards and rows of vegetables.
The creatures behind them thinned out, too; it was like the smaller ones couldn’t leave the shadows.
Those that remained were looking more tentative now, curling around the bushes and scrub like smoke, skittering to the occasional protective lee of a rock, from which they would dart out and try to nip the fleeing prince and princess’s heels.
But the larger demons, the stronger ones, still tore after their quarry, hissing and snorting and untroubled by the dying sunlight.
The closest one was the size of a horse and had horns above its evil yellow eyes. And it was gaining on them.
“THE GATE!” Phillip cried, pointing at a rough stile that marked the entrance to the smallholding. It was certainly not strong enough to keep the demons out and looked rather pathetic. On the fence next to it were tacked strange things Aurora Rose couldn’t understand: garlic, a rope of wolfsbane, a tattered cloth painted with runes.
But the prince seemed to think the gate offered some form of safety, so she let him pick her up and hurl her over the side. He dove after her, landing in a roll.
The giant demon chasing them stopped short of the gate.
It looked ridiculous: this large, black, yellow-eyed, smoky, horned evil thing, swaying hesitantly in front of the comparatively small rustic fence with the bits and tatters on it.
It slowly lowered its head and began to fade.
In moments, it was gone.
Phillip let out a string of curses: the demon clinging to his head was still there, undispelled. He reached up and pulled it off, hurling it to the ground.
It howled, its face splitting almost in half. The teeth that it had sunken into the prince’s flesh weren’t long—but there were lots of them.
The prince yanked his sword out of its sheath and drove it into the thing’s head through its wide mouth.
Perhaps many more times than strictly necessary.
It shrieked and hissed and squirmed and bled white bloodlike pus, finally disappearing in a curl of oily smoke.
Aurora Rose watched it all silently, trying to regain her breath. She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t crying.
“Dear God,” Phillip swore, running a hand through his hair and looking at the thick smears of blood that covered it. “I think I would have preferred a dragon. Those things were horrible.”
He wiped his sword on the ground to clean it.
“Why did they…why did that tiny gate stop them?” she asked.
“The protective wards. Didn’t you see them hanging there?” he said, pointing at the brightly colored bits and herbs. “It’s a pretty common thing in the more…rural villages. Never believed they actually worked, though.”
“Oh.” She decided she would deal with the philosophical implications—dream talismans effectively keeping away dream demons—another time.
A lone woodsman, returning from the forest, ax over one shoulder, looked over at the couple. Maybe it was the bl
ood all over Phillip or the princess’s extremely out-of-place dress, but he started walking faster. Away from them.
“Let’s go see if anyone has some warm water. And bandages. And maybe dinner,” Phillip suggested.
She put a hand to her head.
“But…none of this is real. We’re not really wounded or hungry. Right?”
“It’s real enough while we’re here,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know what happens to us in the real world if we’re killed here. And I don’t think I want to find out. So let’s play by the rules until we figure out the loopholes.”
She nodded. That made sense.
They started toward the village.
“So…another trap. Much cleverer this time,” Phillip said.
“Yes. This time with a fancy surprise ending.” Aurora Rose sighed.
“But you figured it out and managed to pull us out of it.”
“I suppose I did,” she said, thinking about it. It was all her doing. Up to the part with the demons.
“‘Suppose’? You completely did. It was amazing! Well done!”
He was truly excited for her; his praise was real and enthusiastic.
Little warm waves worked up her body from the tips of her toes to her cheeks. He—her prince—was genuinely impressed by something she did. It almost eliminated the remaining apprehensiveness in her.
But not quite.
“What—what’s wrong? We won, Rose. Why are you still upset?”
She took a deep breath and tried to sort her feelings.
“When you told the story of what happened in the real world before, you mentioned the fairies giving me gifts of beauty and grace or whatever, and I just sort of dismissed it. I thought it was poetic license. So when the…back there fairies, the demons…one of them said my beauty was a gift—a fairy gift—it suddenly sank in. It must have been literal. My beauty isn’t even my own. It was given to me by someone else.”
“Oh, Rose, don’t be silly, of course—”
“The story said. The fairy said. But that’s not the point. The point is that I realized, standing in front of the mirror, that wherever they came from, my looks were never actually that important to me in the real world. Other things were.
