Once Upon a Dream

by Liz Braswell

  Aurora Rose took a deep breath and forced her eyes to stay open, not blinking. She held out her hand. Three daggers appeared in it.

  She looked at the throne.

  The three daggers launched themselves through the air and whistled as they flew. Where they hit the back of the giant chair, the tips buried themselves in the wood.

  She let out her breath.

  Everyone cheered.

  That was a strange thing, she realized as she panted and felt her cheeks cool down. Almost like people believed she could do this. Like she could do this.

  “Great!” the red one said. “Now grow a hill out of the middle of the floor.”

  IT WAS HARD TO TELL how much time she spent practicing, but it felt like an infinite number of afternoons of summoning the rocks from the walls to come to her and rebuild themselves into a barrier. Unending hours of bringing anything weak and breakable down from the ceiling onto the head of her imagined enemy. Days of causing the very earth itself to ripple like the ocean under the feet of her assailant—without a break for snacks.

  And yet it still wasn’t as much time as they needed.

  “We must go soon,” the blue one told Phillip in a low voice while the princess made chairs fly up and around the room. “Time passes slowest in this, her most buried memory, but it passes nonetheless. Maleficent has abandoned all pretense of being good and may just keep consuming people until every one of them is gone.”

  “But once we leave here she’ll know where we are, won’t she?” Phillip asked.

  “Unavoidable,” the red one said, polishing the end of her sword. He watched her deft movements with frank admiration. “We must progress back to the outer edge of her dreams, where the queen holds sway. She will not come to meet us.”

  “A bird helped trip one of Maleficent’s traps on our way here,” the prince said eagerly. “Maybe along the way we could gather some more? Have them help us?”

  “Birds?” The blue one looked at him blankly. “Oh, sure. Yeah. Birds. Why not? Any help, right?”

  The green one patted his knee encouragingly.

  Phillip twisted his lip in a suspicious pout.

  The chairs dipped in the air and almost fell as the princess tried not to laugh.

  “All right,” the red one said, giving her sword a final swipe with the leather strop she had been using. “Let’s go.”

  The little procession made its way back through the room with the cradle, where the princess said a silent good-bye to her parents and her baby self, who seemed so happy in the moments before she was whisked away to the woods for sixteen years.

  They filed through the front door, into the twilight gloom—which seemed utterly appropriate for the beginning of their secret journey.

  The three women were suddenly wearing travel robes, though no one had said a thing or lifted a finger. Phillip raised an eyebrow.

  “Shouldn’t we magic up some provisions or supplies for the return trip?”

  “Don’t be silly, you don’t really need to eat,” the blue one said. “You’re not really here.”

  “It’s like being dead,” the green one said helpfully. “You realize you only think you need the stuff the living do.”

  Phillip’s look turned to one of comic dismay as the implications of what she said began to sink in.

  Meanwhile, Aurora Rose was thinking furiously in the pause before the storm. She had never done anything violent in her life before these adventures. She wasn’t sure she could plan to now. Kill someone? Someone she knew? Would any of her remembered affection for Maleficent slow her hand when they faced off?

  It certainly wouldn’t cause a moment’s hesitation from Maleficent.

  She discreetly juggled two or three rocks at her side with her mind. It helped distract her.

  “I’m going to miss this,” she said aloud with a sigh. “All this work and when I wake up I won’t even have these powers anymore.”

  “You didn’t have them to begin with,” the red fairy said pragmatically.

  “But she has experienced it now,” the green one said. “It’s hard to go back to not having something so wonderful. Plus now she also knows she was living with fairies the whole time! And that’s gone, too. She’s going back to being a regular human girl in a world where princesses are used as pawns and never have any sort of real power of their own.”

  “Thanks,” the princess said. “I was trying not to think about that.”

  “Hey,” Phillip whispered in her ear as he caught up with her. “I think I’ve figured it out! The blue one is the smart one? And the red one is the brave one? And the green one is…nice? Or compassionate or something?”

  He really was just trying to help.

  “Oh…yes—I’ll bet that’s probably right,” she said slowly, trying to make it sound like she meant it. “I was sort of coming to a similar conclusion myself.”

  Phillip smiled, pleased with her praise.

  “Wish I had my horse. Samson could take at least two of us. Or maybe three. He’s really strong, you know—just a bit temperamental. Did I ever tell you he was part Nisaean? You wouldn’t guess it from his color. Definitely has war horse tendencies, I can tell you that.”

  She understood that he was excited by the return journey to the castle, probably a little nervous about the final showdown, and perhaps showing off a bit to the one in red.

  “I do wish there was a faster way to the castle,” she said instead of shut up. “I’m worried about the time we’re wasting and Maleficent’s being able to see what we’re—”

  TIME BECAME DISJOINTED.

  Her head grew muddled and thick. For the very first time in the world of the Thorn Castle, she knew she was asleep: groggy and aware things weren’t making sense, as if in the middle of a very deep dream.

  “BE CAREFUL WHAT you wish for, my dear.”

  Aurora Rose was not altogether surprised to see that they were back in the throne room of the Thorn Castle.

  She blinked her eyes muzzily and was transfixed, for just a moment, by how out of place her little party looked. She, in armor and golden rags. The three strange ladies, dressed in red, blue, and green. The prince, who looked somehow more alive and glowing than any of the murky people around the edges of the room.

  A blinding green light shone from the orb at the top of Maleficent’s staff; it bathed the room in a sickly cast and confused the shadows. Her visage, never that healthy-looking to begin with, was also a throbbing green. But the queen’s purple-and-black robes lay thickly and luxuriously around her as always, and she sat with less of the tense elegance she always had; now she seemed more relaxed, almost sated.

  A raven perched next to her wrist on the throne and seemed to smile evilly. The princess was confused; Maleficent had never kept a pet. The shallow, visual similarities between the two were not subtle: both familiar and mistress were black, yellow, angular, and vicious-looking.

  The princess turned away from the pulsing green light and blinked again to take a better look at the rest of the room. The people pressed against its walls were those she had spent the last subjective decades with—the people whose real bodies were elsewhere, sleeping. They seemed strangely unfamiliar now, like someone was forcing her to name people in a portrait who were hard to distinguish and resembled others she might have known.

  Maleficent’s unnatural servants stood guard in front of them. There were more of the nasty goblin-like creatures with yellow eyes than Aurora Rose remembered. They stood insolently with their spear tips crossed to make an improvised fence to hold their prisoners back. Obviously, the queen had given up all pretense; the poor nobles and servants and peasants now all knew what she was saving them for.

  “Sorry, what?” Prince Phillip asked, clearly a little disoriented.

  Maleficent looked annoyed.

  “What what?”

  “What did you just say? I missed it.”

  “I said, ‘Be careful what you wish for,’” the evil fairy hissed through her teeth. “You w
ere just wishing to arrive here faster. I arranged that for you.”

  “Yes, yes, we get it. Very clever,” Aurora Rose said, a little impatiently. That was one nice thing about all this: she realized that the guilt she felt for her irritation with Maleficent’s more annoying habits was irrelevant now. She could be honestly irked by the woman’s penchant for the dramatic.

  She looked deep into the woman’s face, trying to recall everything she had felt for her, and why. How she had wanted nothing more than respect, friendship, and love from her. But there was not a lot that was human in that face, she now realized. Or even “normal” fairy. She saw the queen through two different sets of eyes, and her new vision was rapidly overtaking the old.

  This was an unapologetically evil, power-mad, and furious creature in front of her.

  What would a real queen do in Aurora’s place?

  “Please step down from my throne,” Queen Aurora Rose said coldly. “And release me from this curse.”

  Maleficent was genuinely taken aback for a moment, her yellow eyes flaring in surprise.

  Then she threw back her head and laughed. The raven cackled in unison with her. Her other evil servants gibbered and hooted as soon as they felt it was all right to do so.

  “And what, oh beneficent princess Aurora? You’ll deign to spare my life?”

  “No, but I shall grant you a dignified and quick death.”

  She felt rather than saw the change in stance of those around her; she would bet that the prince was smiling grimly.

  Maleficent cocked her head and gave a knowing look. She stroked the raven for effect.

  “Well, my, my, a few short days in the world outside the castle and suddenly you’ve become a cold-blooded killer.”

  “I haven’t become anything of the sort. In my authority as queen of the realm, I am executing a known criminal, assassin, and enemy to the state.”

  “Why not throw me in a prison and have me rot there forever?” Maleficent asked philosophically.

  The younger woman raised an eyebrow at the fairy.

  “Apparently, killing you once isn’t enough to get rid of you,” she said dryly. “I hardly think prison bars—dream prison bars—would hold you.”

  “Oh, you flatter me,” Maleficent said, looking down and touching her chest coyly. But her grin was all evil and hellfire. She hissed: “Of course, you also flatter yourself if you think you can get within a foot of this throne without my obliterating you on the spot.”

  She ducked her head like the dragon she had briefly been—prepared to strike. Prince Phillip flinched.

  When the evil fairy hunched over, Lianna was revealed standing behind the throne, her black eyes unreadable, her face impassive.

  “Greetings, Lady Lianna,” Aurora Rose said coldly, nodding toward the girl. “I’m delighted to see things worked out so well for you.”

  “Oh,” Maleficent said, putting on a moue of surprise and concern. “Did you—did you think she was replacing you? As my ‘ward’?” Her face twisted into a sneer. “She’s nothing, don’t you know that? Just a little bit of my essence and a lot of clever magic. With some help from the powers below.”

  At this, Lianna’s eyes hardened. She didn’t move.

  Aurora Rose had a comeback ready, but it died on her tongue. All her queenliness shifted for a moment, slipped aside as a twice-orphaned girl broke through.

  “But did you feel nothing at all for me?” she whispered.

  Maleficent looked shocked at the question.

  The room was silent. Everyone else also seemed surprised by this turn of the conversation.

  “All of those ‘years,’” Aurora Rose said, pressing her, advancing slowly on the throne, “all those talks we had, all those meals we shared, all the things we did together…did you really feel nothing for me?”

  Maleficent gripped the top of her staff tightly; her fingers over the orb caused the hideous light in the room to dim. Every human shuddered in relief.

  “You were my means to an end,” she finally said.

  “You’re not answering my question,” Aurora Rose made herself say. It was hard but felt good. Never, in either life, had she ever questioned someone in authority before.

  “Whatever feelings I may initially have had in the rearing of a human child, in the end, were irrelevant,” Maleficent said. “Through your death I would live again. After being murdered so callously by your prince.”

  “Murdered? YOU WERE TRYING TO KILL HIM. Because he was trying to save me. Are you that deluded, Maleficent? All of this—all of this—came about because of the curse you put on me as a baby!” she yelled. “A baby. Because you weren’t invited to a party!”

  “Your parents had no respect for me and the powers that I wield.”

  “You. Cursed. A. Baby. Because. You. Were. Slighted.”

  Prince Phillip moved quietly up to be next to her, hand on his sword.

  Maleficent shrugged one elegant shoulder.

  “And? Do not slight those of great power. I believe that’s the lesson to be learned there.”

  Aurora Rose suddenly felt the urge to draw a weary and exasperated hand over her face. She was losing this verbal battle. She was losing her own train of thought. There was nothing to reach in Maleficent. The princess had been raised in a dreamworld by a madwoman. She had been looking for a mother in a monster.

  The three fairies and Prince Phillip moved in close around her, sensing a change. They faced Maleficent together.

  “What made you so horrible, Maleficent?” the blue one demanded. “What made you into this monster of a fairy?”

  “Was it something in your childhood?” the green one asked. “Is that why not being invited to a party irked you so much?”

  “Who cares?” the red one said, brandishing her sword. “She’s evil now. Let’s get her.”

  “What if I had some little power?” Aurora Rose interrupted. “What if I had some ability in me, like yours? Would you have kept me close and taught me well, schooled me in the arts of magic?”

  Maleficent was speechless for a moment upon the realization that Aurora had overheard that conversation with her parents.

  “But you have no powers,” she finally said. “It is irrelevant.”

  The two women looked each other in the eye.

  Then a dagger flew through the air and buried itself in the throne next to Maleficent’s head.

  The evil fairy’s eyes widened in shock.

  “But what if I did?” Aurora Rose whispered fiercely.

  “Doesn’t count,” Maleficent said slowly. “This world isn’t real.”

  The princess almost threw her hands up in frustration.

  “What about all of those special tutors you assigned to me? What about all of those things you did that seemed a whole lot like caring?”

  “It was just a game,” Maleficent said lightly. “To keep me amused in this dreadfully boring place.”

  But she couldn’t look the princess in the eye. She faltered under Aurora Rose’s stare and turned to pet her raven to get away from it.

  She would never, ever reveal the truth. Even if there was some last, lingering thread of humanity about her.

  “You have no idea,” Aurora Rose said with a mix of relief and disappointment, “how close I actually was to being able to forgive you. Killing you is going to be so much easier now.”

  Maleficent recovered herself quickly. “Easier? Killing me? I think you speak too soon, mighty queen.”

  “I am less than a foot from you,” Aurora Rose whispered into the fairy’s face, “and I’m not obliterated.”

  There was utter silence in the castle as all watched the evil fairy with the horns and the princess with the silver helm glare at each other, their noses no more than an inch apart.

  Maleficent’s jaw worked twice before fury overcame her. She thrashed her staff arm impatiently.

  Vines—thick, rubbery, and strong but sickly-looking—twined up the princess’s legs and torso. Suddenly, she was being pull
ed backward, sliding across the throne room floor.

  “Rose!” Phillip cried, trying to grab her.

  When she was about twenty feet away, the vines hardened into woody trunks that glued her to the floor and pinned her arms to her sides.

  Maleficent rose, her cape and robes billowing behind her, caught up in the eddies of magic she was beginning to summon.

  At once the green fairy was flying between the two of them.

  It was a little shocking; the three women hadn’t shown any fairylike abilities up to that point. And seeing a full-grown middle-aged lady go buzzing overhead—albeit one who seemed to get slightly smaller as she went—was slightly unnerving.

  “Be reasonable, Maleficent,” the green fairy said, sounding like a disappointed mother making a last effort with an unruly child before punishing her. “This is Aurora’s world. You can’t hope to win. You’re in her mind.”

  “Oh, I have no fear in that,” Maleficent said calmly. Her raven cackled once. “The little girl barely can figure out her own feelings, much less what she wants or how the world works. Now out of my way, you useless firefly!”

  She pointed her staff and a flash of purple lightning crackled out. The green fairy dipped and just barely avoided it; the bolt hit a stone in the ceiling above her, which exploded, leaving a sooty black mark where it had been. The green fairy gave Maleficent a chastising look.

  “People change. People grow, Maleficent. Normal people.”

  The queen ignored her and kept letting the lightning bolts fly.

  Despite the green fairy’s size and billowing dress, she managed to deftly avoid most of them. The throne room lit up with purple flashes, and she buzzed around them as they illuminated her features—in fact, very much like a firefly.

  One bolt veered off and shot over one of the prisoners; he ducked, but it still managed to set his hat on ugly purple fire. The poor man threw it to the ground and stomped on it despite the warning growls from the guards.

  “Can we do this someplace else?” the green fairy demanded worriedly. “There are a lot of innocent bystanders who will die in the real world if they’re hit in this one.”

  Aurora Rose wondered if the green fairy knew how incredibly stupid she was being.