Beauty Sleep

by Cameron Dokey

  The dream was always the same, and I had it once a month. The day of the week varied, but the date stayed constant. The twenty-eighth. The same date on which I had been christened. This might not seem so bad to you. Just twelve nights out of a possible three hundred and sixty-five. But believe me, those twelve were more than enough. And the fact that the dream was always the same didn’t make enduring it any easier. It actually made it worse, more inescapable, somehow.

  From the time I was eight until I turned sixteen, the thing I dreamed every month, year in and year out, was this: I dreamed that I was someone else.

  It unfolded gradually, like swimming through deep water, the way dreams so often do. In images that, from the moment they first occurred, always reminded me of a kaleidoscope. Clear one moment, distorted the next, until they finally settled into clarity again, having rearranged themselves into something else entirely.

  I begin the dream by walking through the palace. A thing I’ve done every day for as long as I can recall. But a new, keen-edged sense of wonder and anticipation fills me. A sense of discovery seems to beckon me on. This is how I first come to realize that I am not myself in the dream. For I have never felt these things about the place where I grew up. For me, it has never been new, but always, simply, home.

  No sooner do I realize I am not myself than the kaleidoscope of my dream performs its first revolution. The wonder of discovery begins to distort. It becomes a need, an insatiable hunger so strong I must obey it. And what it wants me to do is to run. As I do, I begin to weep. For it comes to me suddenly that I am searching for a thing I have lost. A thing that, though I cannot name it, I know in my heart matters more than anything else. But even as I wear myself out in the search for it, I know that it is lost forever. I will never be able to find it. It is irretrievably gone.

  And as the kaleidoscope begins to turn again, I have one agonizing thought: that somewhere, in all the rooms through which I’ve traveled, I have lost myself as well.

  Now there comes the part of the dream I hate the most. The part where I wish desperately to be awake, so that I could put a stop to everything simply by closing my eyes. But, as they are closed already, I am trapped. Try as I might, I cannot open my eyes and awaken, and so put an end to things that way. The dream is not yet ready to let me go.

  For now the kaleidoscope revolves unceasingly, the images forming only for as long as it takes them to dissolve. I feel as if I am tumbling head over heels through the sky. It is dark one moment, filled with colors the next, until I lose all sense of space and time. But one thing always stays with me: the sense of pain, of loss. And as I suddenly see the ground rushing up to meet me I am filled with one desire: to make the whole thing stop, no matter what the cost.

  I have heard Nurse say that, if you dream that you are falling, it is very important that you wake up before you hit the ground. Either that, or you must dream you land upon your feet, whole and unharmed. Since this is a nightmare, I do neither of these things. Instead the kaleidoscope turns again and, when it stops, I am lying flat on my face in the dark.

  As I lift my head, light and color begin to return. I am in a room full of courtiers, dressed in their finest garments. They pass so near that I fear they will tread upon me, but somehow, they do not. I recognize many and I call out to them. Not one replies. But it isn’t until I reach out to catch the silken hem of a passing dress that I realize why.

  They cannot see me. I can no longer see myself.

  I know that I exist. I can feel my churning stomach when I press a hand against it. Feel the hot stickiness of my own blood run down my face when I slam my head, hard, against the wall. But I can see none of these things. They are invisible, just as I am. Somewhere in the midst of my whirling tumble, I have been whirled right out of existence. Or, at the very least, right out of sight, of heart, of mind.

  At this, so excruciating a pain fills me that an extraordinary thing happens: I wink back into being, as if this pain alone is the thing that gives me form. In that moment, I know I must carry it with me always, nurturing it like a child. Feeding it and tending it. I cannot afford to let it die.

  For someday, I will find the way to make those who overlook me see me truly. Find the way to make them see the things I long for in my heart. And when I do…

  I probably don’t have to tell you that this is the moment when I always woke up, tears upon my cheeks, torn between relief and disappointment. Happy that the dream was over, it is true. But frightened by an outcome I could never see, and by a puzzle I have never been able to solve.

  Who was I?

  I can practically hear you say it. Surely the answer is obvious. I was Jane, of course.

  This is what my nurse thought, for she said this is the way of strong magic sometimes. Nurse said that the strongest magic doesn’t simply act upon us, it becomes us. Running with our blood, holding us upright from the inside out, just like our bones.

  Two of the most powerful spells ever cast in the whole history of my father’s kingdom were made over me. Now, according to Nurse, they lived inside me, constantly at war. One seeking my destruction, the other, my salvation. My nightmare was the inevitable result.

  It made sense, I suppose.

  Naturally, I tried not going to sleep on what I knew would be a dream night. It never worked. No matter what I did, sleep always came for me sooner or later, bringing the nightmare when it did. I suppose when the things that give you bad dreams live inside you, there’s no point in trying to stop them. They’re going to come out whenever they decide it is their time. Better just to close your eyes and hold on tight, the faster to get the things you fear to go back to sleep themselves.

  I think the worst part is that when you know you dream another person’s dream, you can never truly feel at peace. Never truly trust yourself. If you carry around somebody else’s nightmare, who knows what else your insides might hide or when it might come out?

  Now, where was I?

  Oh, yes, the happiest years of my life.

  They were, really. Nightmare aside. I got to go outside every day, usually for as long as I wanted. I started by exploring the closest places first. The kitchen garden, and then the other, more formal, palace gardens. Naturally, my favorite one of these was the one devoted entirely to roses, though it always gave Maman fits when I went there. All those thorns.

  But, finally, after several months, the day came when I had explored every single inch of the palace grounds to my satisfaction and was ready to take the next step: the world outside the palace walls. I wanted this so much it made my bones ache. So much it kept me awake on the nights the dream didn’t come. Not in the same way. Not in fear, but in anticipation. As if the wide world had a voice and I alone could hear its call.

  I was pretty sure I knew what Maman’s reaction to my going outside the palace walls was going to be. As it turned out, it was Papa’s reaction that provided the surprise.

  I’ve already told you three important things about Papa and Maman. How they waited for many long years to have a child. How they loved one another in spite of this trial. How Maman preferred to define her world with words, and Papa his with silence. When Papa did choose to say what he thought, however, his words carried a weight Maman’s did not. This was not simply because he was king. It was because everyone around him knew that, if he spoke a thing aloud, it was because he had thought it over thoroughly and made up his mind.

  So when the day came when I could stand the anticipation no longer and announced at dinner that I wished to broaden my horizons, to go beyond the palace walls, a look of horror crossed Maman’s face and she pulled in a breath to give the answer I expected, which would have been: “Mais non!”

  But before she could, Papa uttered this sentence. “Why do you wish to do such a thing, Aurore?”

  At this, I became so astonished every thought flew from my mind. I had been prepared for a battle with Maman, not a discussion with my father.

  “I don’t know,” I stammered out.”I just do,
Papa.”

  Oswald’s face assumed the expression it carries when I have done something particularly stupid, a thing that made me want to kick him under the table.

  “But you must have a reason,” my father urged gently.”I would simply like to hear it. There’s no right or wrong answer. Take your time. Not everyone expresses an interest in spending time outside the palace, so I’m curious to know why you wish to. That is all.”

  Take that, Oswald, I thought.

  I don’t know how things are in the land of your birth, but in mine there is a division, the great schism Papa calls it, between those who live at court and those who don’t. Those at court are mostly nobles, except for the servants, while those they refer to as the common people live outside the palace walls. In towns and villages. In the countryside. The nobles think as little about them as they can afford to, but in this they overlook an important fact of life: It is the ones outside the palace who perform the tasks which keep our country prosperous.

  The nobles find no fault with the current arrangement. It’s the way things have always been or at least for as long as they care to remember. Why should things not continue the way they are? The common people have come by their name for a perfectly good reason. Doing common labor is what they are good for, the only thing they know. Besides, it’s so difficult to tell one from another. With their dirty faces and hands, they all look so very much alike. Better to pay as little attention to them as possible and let them get on with their duties. Better to stay within the palace walls.

  Papa disagrees. He’s the first king in nobody knows how long to do so. He goes out among the people, which is what he calls them. Either that or my subjects. Regardless of which it is, he never calls them common. He knows them by name, at least the ones in the village nearest to the palace. He takes time to listen to their sorrows and their joys. In short, he treats them like what they are: necessary and important, even if they aren’t high-born. And the inevitable result of this is that, among them, he is greatly loved.

  When Oswald was younger, my father often offered to take him with him when he left the palace. Always an opportunity, never a command. One which Oswald always declined. When it became clear that he would always do so, that his allegiance was to the nobles, my father stopped asking. And that is the way that matters stood during that dinner when Oswald was eighteen and I was ten years old.

  “Aurore?” my father prompted softly.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said.”I think because it’s so simple, Papa. I just know I want to go outside. It seems the right and proper thing to do.”

  “Yes,” my father said patiently.”But why?”

  “Because it does!” I exclaimed, feeling my face begin to color. This was becoming more dreadful by the moment. How did you explain a thing it had not occurred to you to question? A thing you just knew, clear through to your soul?

  “The palace is wonderful and I love it,” I said.”But it isn’t everything. I know that there is more. The outside world calls to me, Papa. I have to go. I think it’s because…”

  I paused and took a deep breath. I’d said this much. Better just to get the rest of it over with quickly so Oswald could laugh and Papa could say no.

  “Going outside is what I was born for. I can’t explain it any better than that. I’m sorry, Papa.”

  During my ragged speech, my father had grown very still. Indeed, it seemed to me that for the space of time it took me to explain, he did not breathe at all, but sat with his head bent and his eyes closed. When I had finished, he exhaled one long, slow breath, sat up straight, and opened his eyes.

  “I believe that explanation will do just fine, Aurore. Very well, since going outside is what you wish, you may accompany me when I ride out tomorrow.”

  With that, he signaled for the majordomo to serve the carrot soup that was the first course of our meal, Maman have been plainly rendered incapable of doing so.

  I could hardly believe my ears. “You mean it?” I cried.

  “Are you questioning me?” asked Papa. A thing that was unheard of. For a moment I feared I had offended him, for his tone was serious. Then I caught the twinkle at the back of his eyes.

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Bien,” he replied.”That is much better. Now, eat your soup, Aurore. Carrots are good for you, and you will need all your strength in the world outside the walls.”

  For several moments, we all ate dutifully. No sound in the dining room other than the scrape of spoons against the bottoms and sides of bowls. But, little by little, I felt the air grow thick and heavy, as if, above our heads, it was filling up with storm clouds.

  “There is one thing I would have you promise,” Papa said, as the soup bowls were removed and a roast chicken was placed in front of him to carve. “Remember that to go into la Forêt is forbidden. You must promise me never to go there, Aurore.”

  “Of course I promise,” I said promptly. A thing that was easy, for, in truth, I’d forgotten all about la Forêt until that moment. I’d have remembered it sooner or later, of course. Who wouldn’t remember an enchanted forest? A thing Papa had obviously realized, for he knew me very well.

  “I cannot help but wonder, Philippe,” Maman said quietly, as if my father’s mention of the Forest had given her the opening for which she’d been hoping, “whether taking Aurore outside the palace is such a good idea after all. The world is a very big place. There are many…unknowns.”

  “Mais oui, bien sûr,” my father answered, as he calmly picked up the knife and began to carve. “Of course there are unknowns. And the sooner Aurore begins to meet them, the sooner they will cease to be unknown. That is the point. Besides…”

  He paused and set the knife down. I all but felt my ears prick up, the way the palace dogs’ do when they hear an unfamiliar sound. Something important is coming, I thought. Something Papa has been thinking over for a very long time.

  “For many years now we have let the spells spoken over Aurore in her cradle tell us who she is. Now the time has come for her to tell us who she is, as well. For we must never forget that, even if the worst happens and she sleeps for a hundred years, Aurore is a princess. She is royal, with a claim to the throne.”

  “But you have an heir,” I said without thinking. “You have Oswald.”

  “That is so,” my father replied, turning his eyes upon my cousin. “And I have been content to have him be so. But tonight you have done a thing Oswald has never done. You have shown a desire to know all those you might rule one day, not just those who are noble-born. More than that, you have told me this is a thing you must do. That it was for this that you were born. In this you have spoken like my true heir, for this is how I have felt, also.”

  By now the air in the room felt so thick, I was surprised I could still see through it. Across the table from me, Oswald clutched his fork so tightly his knuckles were white as mother-of-pearl buttons.

  “You don’t want me,” he said, his voice tight. “You never have. You want Aurore.”

  “It is not a matter of what I want,” my father answered. “It is a matter of what is best for the kingdom, best for all. Therefore…” He took a breath, and I knew in that moment we had come to the heart of what he wished to say. A thing that, since my christening day, he had been holding in his mind.

  “Tomorrow, before Aurore and I set out, I will have you and your heirs proclaimed Aurore’s stewards, Oswald. She will be my heir from tomorrow forth. It is Aurore who must succeed me, even if it takes a hundred years. Tonight, she has shown this must be so.”

  I heard Maman’s swift intake of breath even as I felt my jaw drop open. It was a sign of her complete surprise that I managed to get it closed again before she could remind me that a lady never shows she has been taken unawares.

  “For heaven’s sake!” Oswald exclaimed. “All this simply because she wants to go outside the palace walls? She’ll probably take two steps and fall into a mud puddle. Think w
hat you are doing, Uncle!”

  “What makes you think I have not?” my father replied. “If I had let my heart rule my head in this, I would have proclaimed Aurore as my heir the very day that she was born. But I did not. I waited—to see who you both would become. You have been content to see only what is before you. Aurore is not. That is all I need to know.”

  Papa’s words were making my head spin, and not just because this was about the longest speech I’d ever heard him utter all at once. He was saying he thought I was worthy to be his successor. Even more, that he wanted me to succeed him, a possibility that had never occurred to me before.

  And in that moment, I realized there was a thing inside me I had never thought to notice, probably because it had been there all along. And it was, greater even than my desire to see the world, the desire to be worthy of my father’s faith and trust.

  “All those years,” Oswald whispered, and now the devastation was plain in his voice. “All those times you asked me to go with you when you left the palace, but I said no. You never urged me to change my mind. Not once.”

  “But surely you can see that I could not,” my father said. “You had to wish to go for yourself, as Aurore does. Because it was what you wanted, not I.”

  “You tricked me!” Oswald protested. “You played a game with me, but never told me its rules. You played me false, Uncle.”

  “No, Oswald,” said my father. “And I am sorry that you think so. When you are calmer, I think you will realize I speak the truth. But I suppose it is too much to expect you to think so at this moment.”

  A thousand painful things seemed to chase themselves across my cousin’s face, each one hard upon the heels of the one before it. Then, as if he had seized a curtain and yanked it across a scene he had never intended to reveal, his face went blank, though his eyes continued to smolder. I was glad he did not turn them upon me, much as I wanted him to know that I was sorry for what was happening. I had not known what Papa intended any more than Oswald had. But I greatly feared that he would blame me for it.