by Liz Braswell
The noise that came from her was an animal scream of pain.
“You cannot destroy me,” the little girl hissed. “I am you, Princess. I am your sadness. I am your melancholy. I am your despair!”
She moved to lunge again.
The princess just barely brought up her own weapon in time to block her.
“You. Can’t. Sword. Fight,” Phillip struggled to say with a few gulps of breath.
“I KNOW THAT!” she shrieked, almost throwing her blade away. What could she do? Nothing. She had no useful skills, no strength, no…
And then she stopped.
Phillip was looking at her desperately. Meaningfully.
She couldn’t sword fight. He was right. He was trying to tell her something.
So what could she do?
The little girl waited patiently at the ready, knees bent, anticipating her next move.
She probably didn’t expect an attack from something other than the princess.
So…
The girl suddenly stumbled backward as a rock grew out of the ground, right under her feet, like it was heaved up by frost—but quickly, making wonderful little grinding and crunchy gravel sounds as it rose.
The girl steadied herself.
“Clever,” she said. “You—”
Aurora Rose imagined another rock.
The girl pitched forward.
Another, and another and another rock.
She concentrated on raising all of them, in a circle around the girl’s feet. Her opponent fell forward and backward like a rag doll shaken by an angry child.
As soon as she found her footing, the girl shot the princess a look and hissed a single word: “Disappointing.”
Immediately, Aurora Rose sank under the weight of the meaning. The ground rushed up to embrace her again as she remembered all the people who found her utterly disappointing:
—her aunts, who asked her to do so little, returning home and seeing nothing was done, not even her own nook swept. She was still in bed, contemplating the clouds
—Maleficent, humoring the princess but obviously disgusted with her studies. The queen’s patience with—but disinterest in—the balls, and dismissal of Aurora’s desire to help
—Aurora Rose, at her own inability to find an escape from a marriage she didn’t want in a family she didn’t love, resorting to death because it was easy
She closed her eyes, frowning as hard as she could, trying to force pain into her head, trying to will some little bit of spirit and anger. She tried thinking of Lady Astrid again but this time felt only sadness.
“Rose…” Phillip croaked. “You were going to end it all…thought you had lost me forever. But…I’m here. Always be here. For you. Telling you…not to go to sleep. To…get up.”
The princess tiredly regarded the scene: the prince tied up in the background; the girl with her tiny sword; the tall, ancient trees, growing up into forever, surrounding them. The trees, which might have had something to do with her subconscious thoughts. Her memories made solid. Twice as many as a normal person had. Twice as useless.
The girl raised her wooden sword.
“Rose!” Phillip sobbed.
There was a creaking sound. A very, very loud creaking sound.
The girl looked around, confused.
Time became strange: it seemed to take forever for the infinitely tall, infinitely old tree to fall. The little girl looked back and forth anxiously, trying to find the source of the sound. Then there was a skip in the connected moments, like when the girl flickered out of existence, disappearing from one place and reappearing in another.
The enormous tree was halfway down…and then mostly…and then…
It smashed solidly on top of the little girl, just brushing the princess’s feet.
Phillip cried out in anguish: “Rose!”
The depression and somnolence drained out of her as the demon hissed and bubbled and died.
“I’m all right,” she called back shakily.
The exhaustion, pain, and weakness remained, however.
“Was that…you?”
“Yes,” she answered with a faint smile. She forced herself up, using some of the branches for balance. There was no sizzle of buried thoughts. The tree was dead. She apologized to it, to the memory it represented.
When she got close she saw that unlike the other trees in the rest of the forest, it was riddled with bird holes and had large barkless patches of black, slimy wood. Not a healthy tree to begin with.
What did it all mean?
The trunk was too immense to go around so she clambered on top. She paused there, balancing for a moment among the prickly dead pine branches, and surveyed the scene below her. It was a new perspective, seeing Phillip from above.
She filed that thought for later and carefully went down the other side.
The upper part of the little girl’s body was exposed—the tree had crushed the rest of it. Her limbs and head were turned at impossible, sickening angles, and a trickle of red blood leaked from the side of her mouth. Her eyelashes were long and golden, and it was hard to focus on the fact that she had just been trying to kill the prince and princess. In death, at least, she seemed almost like a normal little girl.
“Sorry?” the princess said, unsure if she meant it.
The girl’s eyes shot open. Violet irises focused on hers.
“You haven’t won, Princess,” she said with a voice that creaked. “Hear this, and let’s see how you deal with it: your parents are dead.
“Maleficent has just killed them.”
MANY PEOPLE WERE DYING.
As midnight approached, first one and then another and then another court noble suddenly began to start bleeding. They thrashed and gasped and choked like fish thrown out on dry land.
Fauna and Merryweather flew around, frantically trying to tend to them, staunching the wounds with clean bandages here, trying a healing spell there. Nothing worked, and sometimes all it seemed to do was prolong their agony.
Flora stayed as calm as she could in the midst of it, hovering in the air, willing the universe to help her as she tried to reach Rose again. She had broken off a piece of her soul and sent it into the sleeping nether realm Maleficent ruled. It was a terrible place, this inside of her adopted niece’s head, with the evil fairy running rampant in it.
The sleeper tossed and turned and moaned because of whatever had happened in there, and her pricked finger had started bleeding again.
Flora bounced through dream forests and nightmare castles, fogs of worry and large blank places of stark depression and madness. The golden sparks that represented her loosely held together consciousness barely glittered in the gloom that blanketed the world.
Only later, when she had time, would she think about her poor Briar Rose and how it was possible that none of them had seen this darkness within their adopted daughter.
Now, however, was the time to act.
She felt the tether tying her to the real world grow taut and thin; she couldn’t go much farther. She urgently flung out her consciousness, looking for something, anything, that could help. But all she could see was murky, worthless gloom and confused shadow people whose spirits were entirely enslaved to Maleficent’s spell.
There! Up ahead.
Another consciousness. Not as bewitched by the false world around it. Not entirely coherent, either, but it would have to do. It was aware of itself and seemed more than harmless—it seemed like a friend.
YOU! Help her!
The soul spun around in a tizzy, looking for the source of the communication.
FIND HER! Flora ordered frantically. She is…that way.
Golden sparkles aligned themselves in the direction of the blackest part of the world, the deepest part of Rose’s mind—the place Flora couldn’t go.
Your release…everyone’s freedom depends on it. HELP HER ESCAPE. Help her find us….
And then, like a wet stocking pulled too tightly on a clothesline, the strongest
of the three fairies was pulled back, painfully and quickly, to the waking world.
“Flora!”
She opened her eyes, torn between fury and worry. Her cohorts were unlikely to have summoned her for anything that wasn’t important.
Merryweather had her by the arm and was already dragging her. Her eyes were bright; fairy tears, sparkling and sharp, coursed down her cheeks.
“It’s them this time!” she cried. “Oh, Flora, she got them!”
Not wanting to believe what she suspected, Flora let herself be led into the throne room.
There, Fauna was hysterically flitting from king to queen, who just scant minutes earlier had been peaceful and sleeping in their giant seats. Now they shivered and convulsed like rag dolls as blood poured out of their hearts.
“But why?” Flora cried. “She doesn’t need them!”
In life King Stefan was both a good king and a faintly humorous man, with his droopy mustache and calm demeanor. Now he rocked and heaved inhumanly, his long face pale, his skin ashen and waxy. The heavy state robes he wore in anticipation of the royal wedding day were thrashed into rags as he tried to escape his own death, still asleep.
And Queen Leah…her mouth twitched and pulled from side to side like a hideous puppet’s, her sad, peaceful features melting and expanding with desperation.
It had been terrible to watch the others be killed this way, but the fairies had known the king and queen since long before they had taken the throne. These humans and their daughter, whom the fairies had watched over, were the closest things to children they had ever had.
So they might be forgiven for missing a few tiny sounds, easily lost in the calamity of the sleeping castle but surely audible to the ears of a fairy.
The sound of stone cracking. The sound of shards falling away, tinkling like glass.
The sound of triumphant black wings stretching out of their stony prison. The cackling caw of an evil fairy’s raven, taking flight to discover what had become of his mistress.
Her power was growing and the raven was flying home.
THE THORNS HOLDING the prince back were already turning black and crumbling away. Aurora Rose helped them along, pulling and ripping, but she didn’t really need to do much; they decayed into nothing under her touch.
“Rose!”
As soon as his arms were free, Phillip wrapped her in a tight hug. She bore it because it felt nice and she was too tired to do much else.
Then she collapsed on the ground like a young child or an old doll.
“Oh, Rose,” Phillip said, kneeling down next to her.
“I’ll never know,” she said, voice empty. “I’ll never know why they thought it was safer to send me away. I’ll never know if they missed me. I’ll never know if they really wanted a son instead. I’ll never hear them say ‘I’m sorry.’ Or ‘I love you.’ Or ‘It was the worst mistake we ever made.’ Or even ‘Someday, when you’re a queen, you’ll understand.’”
“Rose…” He stroked her cheek.
“I will never know what they really looked like!” she shrieked. She was finding it hard to breathe. Her lungs moved and her chest heaved in great, sudden gasps, but it didn’t feel like any air was getting in. “How…they…walked…or hugged…or laughed…”
“Shhh.” Phillip took her in his arms again and held her tightly. “Shhh. Quiet. Breathe now. I know. It’s a terrible thing to lose your parents. Even ones you didn’t know.”
“Even ones?” she hiccupped angrily.
Phillip bit his lip and took a deep, patient breath. “Rose, my mother died. Remember? I had issues with her, but she was still my mother. She’s gone. She won’t see me married or made king, or enjoy any grandchildren I would have given her.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, she felt stupid and even more miserable. What a selfish, horrible beast she was on top of everything else. It was like the only things that mattered were things that happened to her. Here was this—albeit somewhat duplicitous—prince with an entire past that was very real for him. And she didn’t even think about it.
“I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not. And my tragedy doesn’t diminish yours. You just found out your parents are dead. Grieve for them—it’s right.”
“I can’t do this, Phillip,” she finally said, covering her eyes with her hands, trying to squish the rest of the tears out. She felt completely drained, beaten up, bloody, weak, and done. “I can’t….”
“You have to,” he said firmly. “Take another moment, and then get up. Now that your parents are gone, your people really have no one to lead them. You are the only one. You have to save them and then lead them out of the chaos when we all awake.”
“I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE WE’RE GOING!” she shouted in despair. She pointed around the tall cathedral of trees, then at the path, which petered out. “I don’t know if our cottage even exists here! It was all a long shot, wasn’t it? Find the cottage, maybe find the fairies, maybe find a way out? We don’t know if any of this will really work!”
And that was when they heard the singing.
“A mighty woodsman swings his ax,
Alone among the trees-o,
Lonely with no girl or wife,
Until a maid he sees-o….”
“I can’t take much more of this,” she said in a low voice.
“No, wait,” Phillip said, cocking his head. There was a strange look on his face. “I know that song….”
“It’s going to be a demon! Or a sociopathic villager or a rabid fox or some sort of horrible little boy who looks like you with a giant spiky mace….”
“FEAR NOT!” the voice called, coming closer. “I HEARD SHOUTS. I AM SENT ON A QUEST TO GIVE SUCCOR AND AID. I SING, YOU KNOW, TO KEEP THE BEARS AWAY. IF THEY HEAR YOU COMING, THEY SORT OF JUST AMBLE ALONG AWAY FROM YOU.
“FEAR NOT! A KING APPROACHES. A KING OF THE WILDS! IF YOU BE TRUE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR….”
“Let’s go,” the princess said, finding the strength to leap up. “Come on. Let’s avoid this.”
But Phillip held her and pointed in the direction the voice was coming from, like a hunter waiting for a stag to appear.
“BUT IF YOU’RE ONE OF THOSE DEMONS SENT BY THAT HAG MALEFICENT, I WOULD STAY AWAY. FOR I WIELD A MIGHTY STAFF AND CUDGEL….”
Out from behind a tree stepped someone who was very probably not a demon.
He wore a ragged black-and-red cloak with torn orange sleeves and undershirt. His boots had probably once been fine but now were bound up and relaced with vines and awkward pieces of badly cured leather and sinew. What was likely white hair sprouting in all directions from his head and brow and neck and chin was gray and brown, well dusted with dirt and twigs and leaves.
One of his eyes was missing, the skin hanging loose over the socket in sad bags.
He did indeed have a mighty staff—or, more precisely, a giant branch used as a crude walking stick. His cudgel was just a large skull-shaped rock he carried in his other hand.
“Father…?” Phillip whispered.
“Phillip…? No…it cannot be.” The old man’s voice fell and he looked around distractedly. “I am seeing things again. Like I used to. Before I lost the bad eye that made me see things that weren’t there. Before it was put out, to keep it from lying to me.”
“Father, it is me,” Phillip said, choking.
He ran forward and threw his arms around the crazy, dirty old man.
The princess watched in silence, trying to put it all together. It was too shocking to make sense.
The king began to weep and clasped his bearlike arms tightly around Phillip.
“Phillip…Phillip…I wish you were not here, glad as I am to see you. I only remained sane at all by assuming you were safe, away from all of this, slipped out to be with your little peasant girl….You were right about getting away from the castle….It is the fourteenth century, after all….Isn’t it?”
“Oh, Father. You have been out here all this time�
��by yourself…” Phillip said, his own eyes wet.
“The Exile…” Aurora Rose murmured. “I am so sorry….”
“YOU!” King Hubert rounded on her. “Maleficent’s little ward!”
“No, no,” Phillip said. “It turns out she was the peasant I thought I was going to marry…but she’s actually Princess Aurora. She was in the woods because she was sent away to be raised by the fairies.”
“Wait, I remember that, I think,” King Hubert said, raising his eyebrows. It stretched the skin over his socket oddly. He scratched it thoughtfully. “Wait. What?”
“Maybe we should start from the beginning,” Phillip said. “But quickly. Time is short.”
“Time?” King Hubert asked bleakly. “I’ve been wandering in these woods for years, lad. All I have is time.”
She let Phillip do the talking. It was strange, once her adventures outside the castle had begun, to suddenly be sitting aside and letting someone tell the story. It was both restful and unsettling.
“But I don’t understand…tell me again. Why was he exiled? What did he do?” Phillip finally asked when he finished the story. He turned to her, as if sensing she felt left out.
She shrugged. “I think…it wasn’t much, really? He wanted some say in the ruling of the castle. But it probably had more to do with his presence in the castle.” She frowned, thinking. “There was no easy explanation for his being there. He was there in the real world because of our wedding. I’ll bet Maleficent was afraid of some sort of…irregularity in her dreamworld. Of him or me remembering something.”
King Hubert nodded. “When that witch threw me out, she said something like ‘And now we’ll have no problems from you, King Hubert.’ But it was in a nasty tone. Nasty woman.”
“And then…what happened to you?” Phillip asked, reaching up as if to stroke his father’s brow. Then he stopped, seeming to think better of touching the king in so casual a manner.
“ONCE EXILED, DID I GIVE IN TO FATE?” the king demanded. “I did not! The damn fools in there thought the world was dead out here! Didn’t even take a look. Just took her word for it. It was beautiful! Green and glorious! Got to go on walkabout. Haven’t done that since I was a lad. Ate off the land, children! Nuts and mushrooms and rabbits and fruit of the trees! HEALTHY, I tell you!
