Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8

by Samantha M. Derr

  The room was spotlessly clean. Every surface shone, every piece of furniture gleamed. Even the stones of the walls had a sparkle to them. There were two large trunks, a small table, and a worn chair, turned away from the door. Where was the princess?

  Ah! The chair was facing yet another curtain, this one drawn across the back wall of the room. Meg pulled this one away, too, to reveal a little bed, and—the princess.

  She was surprisingly small. Most girls seemed small next to Meg, but the princess was almost tiny, with a mass of dark curls that spilled over the neckline of her white silk gown. Her delicate, heart-shaped face was beautiful, but of course it was—she had been famous for her beauty, hailed as the loveliest woman in the world.

  Looking at her now, Meg thought that might have been a bit of an exaggeration. Or perhaps it was only the way her hands were folded over her chest that spoiled the effect, like a corpse laid out for viewing, or the way that she did not look like she was only asleep. She looked dead.

  On a closer look, Meg saw that her chest did not rise and fall. She leaned down, on a wild impulse, and put her face close to hers—she'd been right. The princess wasn't even breathing.

  "That's not creepy at all," she said to herself, under her breath. Maybe the princess really had died? Hope rose in her heart—not that she should be glad at her passing, of course, but if the princess was dead, then she wouldn't need a maid, now, would she?

  No, that wasn't possible. Meg had worked in the palace long enough to have heard the stories, and to know that this must just be another side effect of the Spell. She couldn't really be dead. The Spell wouldn't have let her be.

  Everyone knew about the Spell. It was like a legend, or a folk tale, except it was real, and that made it all the juicier to talk about. It was the first story Meg had been told, back when she'd been just a little girl and her grandmother had still been alive.

  Her grandmother's mother had hailed from the princess' kingdom, and she had been present at the christening. "It was a beautiful occasion," she'd said, her words repeated by Meg's granny, "even though what happened was so horrible. The day was bright and clear, and there were ribbons and streamers everywhere, and the king and queen were so grand, up on their dais with their crowns shining in the sunlight. And the fairies! Twelve of them, like people but sparkling, all crowded around the little princess' crib. They were giving the gift, you know, it being a tradition in the old kingdom—some long-ago king did a favor to the fairies, and ever since every heir has been blessed by their magic at the christening. But suddenly the sky grew dark, and another figure appeared on the dais. It stood tall and glittering, like the fairies, but... dark."

  Meg's great-grandmother had been too far back to hear the fairies' angry shouting; in her place in the crowd, she had been aware only of the small figures gesturing angrily at each other. "They said later that the dark fairy had not received an invitation, and—you know how easily offended the fair folk can be. She was so incensed by this slight that she laid a curse on the little baby princess, proclaiming that on her twenty-first birthday, she would prick her finger on a spindle and die. Such a horrible thing to wish on a child!

  "But the other fairies were still there. Though they could not lift the curse completely, they changed it so that the princess would not die, but instead fall into enchanted sleep, and stay that way for a hundred years. If she were to receive a kiss of true love sometime in that century of sleep, it would break the curse and she would awaken again. If not, the curse would overtake the fairies' spell, and she would have the death that had been meant for her."

  That had been—how long ago, now? Nearly sixty years, Meg thought. It had happened just as the fairies had said it would: the princess had indeed pricked her finger on her twenty-first birthday, and into the enchanted sleep she went. The kingdom had mourned, and the king had sworn that whoever should awaken his daughter would have her hand in marriage, and be declared heir to the throne.

  But the curse had not intended to make things easy. Soon after the princess had fallen, a wall of thorns grew over her bedroom door, and eventually over the rest of the castle. Her family had been forced to evacuate to their winter palace in the southern part of the kingdom.

  Many had tried and failed to fight their way through the thorns and to the princess, with her legendary beauty and extravagant dowry. Brave knights, noble princes, and powerful wizards—all lost, having never even made it to the princess' door. Until five years ago...

  "Five years ago," Meg recited softly to herself, looking down at the sleeping princess, "our own Prince Nathaniel, youngest of three, set out to seek his fortune. He fought his way through the thorns, aided by a magic sword and the advice of a mysterious crone, and broke his way into your royal bedroom. There you were waiting there for him, exactly the same as you were as the day you pricked your delicate little finger. Having defeated the dark fairy's magic and earned his prize, he leaned in to give you his kiss..."

  Now she leaned over the princess, as though she herself were going to kiss her. Her heart pounded at her own daring—but the princess was asleep, and there was no one else to see her. She really could have kissed her, and no one would have known.

  That thought made her laugh. "It didn't work!" she crowed. "He tried again and again, but his kiss couldn't wake you up. So he brought you back here, where his two brothers tried, but they couldn't wake you either. So they had all the wizards and sorcerers they could dig up come to examine you, to find out what was wrong, and to this day they haven't a clue!"

  Her laughter trailed off. "You really are a poor little dear," she murmured, straightening up again. "He's clearly not your true love, but he's so determined to have you that he's going to keep you locked up here 'til you wake, or 'til your hundred years are up. Which is more likely, at this rate. And I," she added, with more ferocity than she'd meant, "get to watch you day and night, just in case!"

  There it was, the reason why no maid wanted to get stuck on princess duty. Never leaving the tower, spending day in and day out staring at a body, just in case it one day decided to wake up—or die, whichever came first. Until then, there was nothing to do but clean—and from the looks of it, the last girl had already taken care of that a thousand times over. She'd left nothing for Meg herself to do.

  Well, she could explore, before the novelty of the tower wore off. Meg straightened her shoulders and left the room, not bothering to pull the curtain back across the princess' bed. A little light might be good for her, even if it was the blue of twilight, made weak and watery through the thick glass of the tower window. It could do no harm, at least.

  Meg felt better with the window visible, even if there was little to be seen out of it. They were too high up, and it was too small a window to show anything more than plain open sky, but even that was welcome. She'd only spent a few minutes up here in this awful tower, and she was already itching for wide open spaces.

  What she knew of the Spell—from what the stories said, and the other servants had gossiped about—the magic kept the princess locked in time, neither quite alive nor truly dead, which explained her lack of breath. She needed to be neither fed nor watered, with no other bodily functions that needed taking care of. "Thank goodness for small favors," Meg said to herself, with a dark glance towards the princess' doorway. That would have made the job all the more unbearable.

  Her own room was just as she'd expected—small, cold, and utterly depressing. It made Meg long for her old room. It had been equally shabby, and she'd had to share it with two other girls, but it had felt cheerful and comforting, and its closeness to the kitchens had kept it warm.

  The girl before had left all her things, but as all she'd had was a little prayer-book and a spare dress with a torn bodice, Meg understood her willingness to leave them behind in her haste to get out of there. How long had she been trapped up here? Perhaps since the beginning, with nothing to do but clean, and stare at a princess who looked like a corpse...

  Drat it all, why hadn
't she kept her mouth shut? Maybe she'd get lucky, and some other girl would infuriate Abbie enough to get stuck on princess duty, and she'd be free soon enough. With the mood Abbie was in, that might even be likely.

  Or maybe she could just... leave. Meg turned to stare thoughtfully at the tower door. It wasn't as though the doors were locked, and the princess certainly wasn't going to tell anybody. She could march right back down and straight out to freedom, if she wanted to.

  Meg sat on the hard bed, her face in her hands. Who was she kidding? Abbie would be just waiting for her to try something like that, the perfect excuse to kick her out completely. After what Meg had said—let alone everything that had led up to it—Abbie would use every connection she had to make sure Meg never worked as a maid again, and it'd be back to the village and being set up with the pig farmer's boy for her.

  And anyway, if she was going to risk running off, then she wanted it to be for something better than giving Abbie the satisfaction of knowing that she'd broken Meg after all. It would mean that Abbie had won. Meg refused to let that happen, especially when the alternative was to go home to a life of her parents pushing her around as well. That was why she'd left!

  She'd out-stubborned Abbie before, and she could do it again. The worst of Abbie's temper would cool after a couple of days, as it always did, and then at some point the kitchens would be shorthanded and she'd be forced to call Meg down to help. They'd go back to hating each other less explosively, and the princess would be nothing more than a faraway thought to Meg.

  That girl said she'd been up here for years, Meg's brain unhelpfully reminded her. But in that case she must have been hired for it—or exaggerating—or both. No one would seriously put someone up here for years as a punishment. Not even Abbie would be that horrible. If nothing else, she'd get tired of not being able to gloat over how she'd taught Meg a lesson.

  All she had to do was stick it out a few days, and then things would go back to normal.

  No dinner was sent up, so Meg spent her first night in the princess' tower not only cold, but hungry. She woke to the sound of the knocker pounding on the door, and was out of bed in a trice, not even bothering to pull her boots back on as she ran across the floor.

  A miracle had happened! Abbie had changed her mind early, or been tossed out of the palace, or dropped dead from sheer nastiness! She was free already! Meg flung open the door, nearly smacking it right into the face of the poor boy who'd been on the other side.

  The boy yelped and jerked back, narrowly avoiding what would have been a terrible (and probably quite long, with all those steps) fall. He also managed not to upend the tray he was holding, which was quite impressive under the circumstances.

  "Oh!" Meg said in surprise—she'd been expecting another maid. Why had they sent up a boy? She looked more closely at the tray in his hands, and realized with a sinking heart what it meant. There was a bowl of porridge, a cup of water, and a spoon. "Oh. Breakfast, I suppose?"

  Instead of replying, he just held the tray out, peering at her warily as though he was afraid she might try to hit him with a door again. Meg frowned. She thought she recognized him as one of the footmen's errand boys; they sometimes came through the kitchen, but never stayed long enough to chat. Not unless they were flirting with the maids, but he was far too young for that—probably only twelve or so.

  "Good morning to you too," she said finally, more crabbily than she'd meant to. Well, she hadn't had any dinner the night before, and he was being awfully rude by not saying anything!

  He shifted uncomfortably, and again offered her the tray, more forcefully this time. When Meg still didn't take it, he looked away and muttered, "'M not s'posed to talk to you."

  "Why not?" The boy just looked pained, and—of course—didn't answer. Meg folded her arms and tried again. "Why not? And why did they send you up here, anyway? This isn't your job."

  It was the maids' job, actually. Meg remembered the girl who normally brought meals out to the other servants. She didn't know her very well, but it still would have been nice to see a friendly face, and at least she would've had someone to talk to. It would've made it a little more bearable, anyway, to have someone around to be friends with—

  Oh. "It was Abbie's idea, wasn't it?" she sighed. "Sending you up instead of a maid, I mean. And telling you not to speak to me? That's cruel, even for her."

  He continued to say nothing, but he didn't have to. His face clearly said that he was having just as much fun up here as she was, and probably even less, since he'd just had to carry a heavy tray up an ungodly amount of stairs, and she still wasn't taking it from him. Meg was pretty sure that this was Abbie's way of making a point—perhaps she'd been a bit over-optimistic about just how quickly she'd be let downstairs again.

  "Look," the boy said impatiently, as Meg continued to just stand there and stare at him, "Miss Abbie said she'd get me in trouble if I didn't listen to her, an' I figure you know better than anyone that she means it, if you're stuck up here. Do you want your breakfast or not?"

  Meg almost said something about how he wasn't doing a very good job of not talking to her, but she managed to quell the urge, feeling suddenly sorry for the poor child. It wasn't his fault he was up here, and being stubborn about it was just making it all the worse for him. Grudgingly, she held out her hands and accepted the tray at last.

  "When you get back down there," she started, "could you tell the other maids—"

  But the boy had turned tail and started running back down the stairs before she could finish. Meg scowled. Pushed into this or not, he was still a rude little boy!

  She sulked back into the room, too annoyed to even give the door a good slam, and very sullenly ate her stupid breakfast. On top of everything else, the porridge was cold.

  When she was done, she set the tray back outside the door, and dusted off her hands. Time to get to cleaning, she supposed.

  She slipped back into the princess' room, duster in hand, and stopped. The room was just as spotless as it had been yesterday, with not a patch of dust or a cobweb in sight. Everything was polished, scrubbed, shined and wiped down. Any other time she might have been glad to find her job already done—but not when there was nothing else to do!

  "I supposed the only thing left is to watch you," she groused, giving the princess an evil look. With the curtain still pulled back, the princess looked a little less corpse-like in the sunshine, but there was still no breath, no indication that she was only asleep.

  Well, if there was one advantage to this hideous task, it was that the princess couldn't tell her to shut up or mind her mouth. Dropping into her best curtsy, Meg said with heavy sarcasm, "Pleasure to enter your service, your splendorifiness. I'm your new maid, Miss Meg. No, don't look too excited, you might strain your royal countenance."

  There was a little thrill as the words escaped her. For a moment she half-expected the princess to actually open her eyes and scold her for such absurd insubordination, but of course nothing happened. Meg grinned and pulled up the chair.

  "You're a good listener," she said. "I can tell. Would you like to hear a story? I'm not as good at telling them as Granny was, but this one's a good one. It's called 'Why Meg is Stuck Up Here Forever'."

  She waited, in case the princess wanted to object, but her silence seemed to be assent. "Once upon a time," Meg began, "there was a lovely princess named Meg, who lived in the kingdom of the kitchen, which was under the control of an evil troll queen named Abbie. Now, this queen had it bad for a handsome stable boy, and would go down every afternoon just to moon over him, even when she was supposed to be working."

  Poor Arthur. He had never caught on to Abbie's affection for him; mostly he just tried to avoid her. Maybe if he'd noticed, things wouldn't have turned out so badly... but Meg couldn't bring herself to blame him. It was Abbie's fault for being so horrible about it.

  "Now, the stable boy wasn't taken in by the troll queen, and he had another love, a maid named Jenny. They liked to—uh—smooch behind t
he stables, as it were, and one day they were unfortunate enough to be so engaged when the troll queen came to visit. Oh, she was furious!" Meg laughed. The look on Abbie's face when she had stormed back into the kitchens had been worth her bad mood, at least until things had gotten worse. "So furious, in fact, that she started screaming about Jenny, calling her a hussy and a slut, and that she should dip her head in the stewpot for stealing her boy. Never mind that he'd never been her boy, or even noticed her in the first place.

  "Anyway, Princess Meg was friends with Jenny, and she got real mad when the troll queen started saying such awful things. She forgot that she was only a maid—I mean, a princess—and the troll queen was her better, and she told her to shut up, and that if she tried to do anything to poor Jenny, she'd get her own head stuck in the stewpot."

  Meg's smile faded. "That just made the troll queen angrier, of course, so Princess Meg got banished to a high-up tower with nothing to do except talk to a sleeping lump, and she never got to see Jenny or anyone else ever again. The end!"

  She was shouting by the end of it, and with that last word, she stood up and kicked the chair violently. "It wasn't fair!" she went on, balling her fists in her skirt. "I put up with her and tried so hard not to get into trouble, and then when I finally lost it—and now I'm stuck here for who knows how long! With you!"

  Yelling made it easier; the rage drained out of her as she ranted, and by the end of it, she felt... not remorseful, but at least a little guilty for having shrieked at the princess, even if she couldn't hear her. "Not that it's your fault at all," she told her, easing her conscience a little. "It's not like you asked to be up here with me, either. Or to be carried off by his princeliness, or even be cursed in the first place." She sighed. "You're the only one in this whole mess who hasn't done anything."

  She gave the princess a more respectable curtsey this time. She’d try not to yell at her again, even though it wasn’t as if the poor sleeping thing would care. Just because she couldn't hear her was no reason for Meg to take out her frustrations on an innocent party. Not to mention that screaming at someone who couldn't defend themselves was just mean.