Other Books by Natalie-Nicole Bates
See Me, Rise Series Book 1
Save Me (Believe Again), Rise Series Book 2
Forever Red Christmas
Eve of All Hallows
UNDOING THE SWAN GIRL
Undoing the Swan Girl
Natalie-Nicole Bates
Cover Art by: Regina Paul
Edited by: Jessica Eggleston
Stock Photo Credit: Royal Touch Photography
Leap of Faith Publishing
Undoing the Swan Girl
All Rights Reserved © 2016 by Natalie-Nicole Bates
No part of this novel may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author and publisher.
All characters, names, descriptions and traits are products of the author’s imagination. Similarities to actual people living or dead are purely coincidental.
Leap Of Faith Publishing
For information address:
Leap Of Faith Publishing
PO Box 957705
Duluth, GA 30095
ISBN: 978-0-98338-889-7
Printed in the United States of America
Prologue
A newly minted woman of eighteen saw the strange little old man on the bench in the nearly deserted train station, but he posed no particular interest for the her. No, her head was in the clouds. Life was new and fresh; just beginning really. She wanted to break into song and dance, right there in the dilapidated little station.
Even a late train couldn’t remove the smile from her face. She shined with the exuberance of youth.
The little old man in the green tattered clothing, stroked a thoughtful thumb over his long, twisted beard. Not quite four feet tall, his feet clad in battered leather boots, and barely grazed the cracked floor; a floor which hadn’t seen as much as a broom for many moons gone by.
Finally, she pirouetted, and plopped down across from him, suitcase at her crossed ankles.
“Headed somewhere special, dearie?” he asked.
“Wherever the next train sees fit to take me. I plan to be a star upon the stage from east to west, north to south. I will entertain the common man and dignitaries alike, with my songs and dance. I will be famous one day, and everyone will love me, and know my name,” she announced in a pleasant, lilting little voice.
The pale, freckled skin of her face was framed by a mass of burnished curls. Not a classically pretty girl, but one with a plucky drive to succeed, and see the world from behind dark, sparkling eyes.
“I see,” he answered, and once again stroked his beard with his thumb. “I know of a girl, young like you are, who also had a head full of dreams to dance and sing, and entertain the masses.”
The girl’s hands folded in her lap, her eyes blazed with interest.
“Since we are stuck here together for an uncertain duration, would you like to hear her story?”
She bounced a little on the bench just then, anticipating the story of another girl who was perhaps just like her. “Yes, please,” she said eagerly.
“But first, what do they call you, dearie?”
“They call me Sarah Jane. I call myself, Aria,” she replied.
“Well, Aria let us begin.” His eyes then took on a faraway look, and he began to spin his tale.
Chapter One
Once upon a time ago, it all began in a land where innocence reigned…
They called her Princess.
In her nearly twenty years alive, she never knew if Princess was her true given name, or simply a term of endearment. What she did know for a fact was everyone loved her.
Her father loved her.
Her six older brothers loved her.
Perhaps even her long deceased mother, a witch from a long line of witches, who had cast a spell of innocence around her children, loved her while she was alive many years ago.
Not only did they love Princess, they doted on her as well. Every day they brought freshly picked lilacs and roses to decorate her hair. Hair the color of fallen oak leaves in autumn, dusted with a crown of gold.
In their own little world they lived, without close neighbors. Only her father’s entourage were there to protect them from any intruders, or unseen malevolent forces. They never ventured beyond the immediate vicinity of their home, and never felt a need to explore. Why leave when you were happy with what you had and loved your family?
Each of Princess’ brothers had his own talent bestowed upon him; a butcher, a hunter, a baker, a carpenter, a gardener, and a cook.
Princess was herself a talented seamstress. She possessed other talents as well, notably, dancing and singing. She fully used those talents to dance nightly for her family, and grace them with her singing. The voice of an angel she did have, they told her, and riotously applauded her every effort, to which she basked in their adoration.
She used to be so very happy, but lately her life changed, and not for the better.
Her father recently took a new bride, and Princess and her brothers were banished to an abandoned stone house deep in the desolate forest, to fend for themselves in a strange and curious new world.
Her father still loved them, this she was sure, but the woman in his life, whom she never met, was truly evil. Her father’s face took on a look of sheer terror when he spoke of his new wife. No one knew where she came from, or what her intentions were beyond banishing the children born from her father’s first wife. Yet it was apparent she held some strong power over him. Princess knew he would never willingly cast aside his beloved children.
“She is surely a witch, but not a good one like Mother,” her brother Alexander whispered to the other brothers.
But she heard him, every word. It distressed her to the point that her hands shook without respite. Her brothers assured her one day very soon, their father would arrive to take them back to the only home they knew, and they would leave behind the stone tomb where they now resided.
Until that day came, her brothers would continue to hunt and gather to keep them all alive and well. Although they tried their hardest to keep her spirits high, she lost the joy to sing and dance.
Finally, a rustling off in the distance sent Princess’s heart leaping in anticipation of her father’s arrival. Her brothers rushed outside to meet him, but she sat perched upon a thatched stool, and put the final stiches to the crisp new shirt of silk she sewed for her father made from dresses she had long outgrown.
The next sound that filled her ears was not the voice of her father heartily greeting her brothers. Instead an it was an awful commotion that caused a cold chill to run along her petite spine.
Rising from the stool, she pressed her back on the cold stone, and edged along the wall. Unseen, she hoped, she peered out the window just in time to see what appeared to be six white swans fly off into the distance. It was not her beloved father coming to collect his children, but an intruder dressed in a long red dress, and accompanied by her father’s entourage.
Her father’s new wife was there to destroy them!
Her brothers prepared her for this moment, but never did she think for even an instant their warnings would ever come to fruition.
She clearly recalled their words:
Run down the back stairs of the house, into the forest, and hide in the hollowed out oak tree until all is quiet.
Like a streak of white light, she descended the back stairs, and rushed barefoot into the forest, until she come upon the gnarly old oak tree, now dead and hollow. Once safely inside, she drew her knees to her chest, and dropped her head.
For hours she strained to hear any sound above the cacophony of bird songs all around her, and the scurrying forest creatures outside the tree. The sounds were so loud and so close; she fe
ared the forest creatures might soon attack her. Silent tears of sorrow fell from her eyes, onto her pale cheeks, as she considered the fate of her brothers.
Her father couldn’t have possibly revealed their whereabouts to his evil witch of a wife without being under her spell.
Could he?
He would have had to be tortured, possibly even murdered, to betray his children. The thought that her father was most likely dead, doubled her sorrow. Yet she remembered to remain completely silent in her safe haven.
When night cloaked her hiding place in blackness, she fell into an unsettled sleep, and awakened sometime many hours later, to the light creeping into the opening of the hollowed out tree.
A sense of intense sadness enveloped her as the events of the previous day rushed upon her. Perhaps things were not as dire as they seemed, she prayed, and crawled on hands and knees from the tree.
As she stood, she straightened her spine, inch by painful inch, and flexed each stiff limb one by one and slowly she recovered from her painful position of contortion she endured for so many hours.
Rushing back to the stone house, the mossy ground was spongy and fragrant beneath her bare feet. Above her, the sunlight was obstructed by the canopy of lush forest greens and browns. If things were different, she would have loved to explore this new fairy tale world.
When she reached the stone house, she walked on tip-toes to avoid detection in case the evil witch or her entourage lay in wait for her return.
The hair on her forearms stood as erect as miniature soldiers at attention. But all was eerily quiet. She entered through the back door, and scanned her surroundings.
Nothing, no one; she was totally alone. It was a feeling she never experienced in her lifetime. The house looked as lonely and foreboding as when her father left her and her brothers to fend for themselves. At the base of the stairs she stood, too frightened to ascend. Perhaps someone was hiding there, waiting for her return. No, she wouldn’t go up the stairs. Instead, she went to the kitchen and nibbled on the remnants of a stale cake to sate her hunger, and drank a long, cool glass of water.
She exited through the front door, and simply stared at her surroundings. All that remained from the previous day’s altercation was a trail of white swan feathers that led into the forest. At once, she knew she must find her brothers. They’d obviously been kidnapped. They would never have left her behind.
Following the trail of feathers for hours, she found herself hopelessly lost within the deep, dank forest. Exhausted, she stopped and picked a handful of berries, popped them one by one into her mouth, and drank rain water collected on the leaves.
As night fell once again, she happened upon an abandoned shack, tacked together from mismatched tree branches, and sealed with mud. The door was open, and she crept inside. A row of six beds sat in a line in the one room shack. She did not dare to get into any of the beds, but crawled beneath one. She curled up, and used her arm to rest her head upon, intending only to rest for a few minutes. But her eyelids grew heavy, and sleep overtook her.
She awoke sometime later; perhaps many hours later, to the rustling of flapping wings. Hidden beneath the bed, she peered out to a wondrous sight.
One by one, six grotesquely mutated swans entered the shack. Each was the size and proportion of a waif-like man, but hunched, with gangly legs. Instead of arms they had the mighty wings of a swan, and the feathers that go with them. A long bill protruded from their faces which were harrowing shades of green, ranging from pale to dark. Their eyes were completely black and dead and their hair hung long and sleek. It was truly a horrifying sight before her eyes.
And then to Princess’s amazement, the swan creatures shed their skins and feathers, and to fascinated eyes, her brothers appeared one by one.
Happiness rose within her, and she scrambled from beneath the bed, and began to embrace her brothers, and danced with them across the floor.
Her eldest brother, Xavier, stopped her, and held her face between his palms. There was such serious look in his dark eyes that she knew without a word spoken, her happiness would not last much longer.
“You must run for your life, Princess. Father’s new wife has used her ugly magical charms to transform us into the creatures you have already witnessed. We are now slaves in her Swan Club. If she catches you, she will kill you, and kill us as well. Run sweet sister; run while you have a chance!”
“I can’t leave without all of you.” She took Xavier’s hand firmly into hers. “Let us go now, before she returns! We can find Father, and rid him of his evil witch of a wife.”
“You do not understand, Princess,” he said sadly. “We are cursed. For only one hour each day can we shed our grisly skins, and become human again.”
She searched her brother’s eyes for some sign of deceit, trickery, or even raging illness. Yet all she saw was his sadness. He spoke the truth, she knew.
“I cannot leave you, my brothers. Come away with me. We will find a cure for the curse which plagues you all.”
Xavier caressed her face with the back of his hand. “Princess, when we are under the curse for twenty-three hours each day, we do not recognize you as our beloved little Princess. We become fearsome and fearless, and will attack anything that threatens Father’s new wife, Valentina. I’m afraid we will break your bones, peck away your beautiful brown eyes, and tear out your glorious mane of hair.”
She could not process her brother’s words. It was like some far-fetched tale. Still, she couldn’t discard the fact that her brothers would become stone cold killers who would tear her apart limb by limb.
“What can I do, where can I go for help?” she pleaded.
Her brother Kristopher approached.
“There is one being who might lead you to one who offers a chance.”
Xavier raised his hands. “No, the price is simply too high. Not to mention dangerous.”
Finally, a tiny shred of hope, she thought. “Tell me where this person is, where I might find him! I must at least try to obtain the cure for what has so brutally afflicted you.”
An achingly long silence hung in an oppressive cloud above them. She became acutely aware that their time together would soon to draw to a close. If she remained, her brothers would retake their mutant forms, converge upon her, and tear her to pieces.
She stomped a bare foot on the dirt floor. “Speak, someone, before it is too late!”
“You must follow the path from this house and back into the depths of the forest.” Xavier used a slim tree branch to trace the direction into the dirt floor. “When you come across the thick growth of deadly nightshade, you will be there. Look for a tiny cottage, and the being who resides within it. He will likely exact a price for his help, and his price will be high…perhaps your very soul.”
At his final sentence, an almost hollowness filled her being. Possibly her soul already prepared its escape from her body. Whatever happened to her must be. Her brothers lavished love and care upon her for nearly two decades. It was time for her to care for them, even if it meant her death.
Kristopher handed her a cloth parcel filled with nuts, berries, and bread crusts, along with a canteen of water.
It was time to leave, but the pain of being separated from them, pierced her already bruised heart. She kissed the cheeks of her six brothers, and hurried to the door. “I promise I will save you!” she pledged.
She exited the shack, and sprinted toward the beaten down path through the forest. At the last moment, she stopped and looked back to see her sweet, loving brothers once again assume their grotesque mutant swan forms.
She picked up her pace to a full out run until she was safely away from the shack and any dangers from her once beautiful brothers. At that moment she vowed she would seek her revenge on the woman her father chose to marry. The woman who enslaved her brothers, and likely still plotted her death.
Her pace slowed to a crawl as hours passed. Both hungry and weary, she sank onto the stump of a tree. She unwrapped the parcel h
er brothers prepared, and chewed a bread crust, alternating bites with water from the canteen. Although still hungry, she knew she must conserve her food and water since her immediate future was unknown.
Two tiny brown critters ran across her feet, and she squeaked at the odd, tickling sensation. They then turned at a safe distance, and seemed to stare at her. Princess guessed they’d never seen a human girl invade their surroundings before.
Not a girl anymore. Now she was a woman.
She tossed a few crumbs of bread in their direction, and they dove to gather the free morsels of food. Only a few days earlier, such a sight would have brightened her heart, and put a broad smile upon her face.
She then considered the being she searched for. The one her brothers spoke of; the one who might help her.
What if she couldn’t find him?
What if the being would not help her?
He must help, she resolved. No matter what his asking price, she would pay whether through her sweat and blood, or her flesh.
Fresh with courage, she trudged on through the forest, hoping to find the deadly nightshade growth before darkness completely overtook from above.
Then, a little at first, the branching plants began to appear. As she walked further in, the growth thickened dramatically, and she spotted the purple bell-shaped flowers surrounded by ovate leaves, and showy berries. Until this day, Princess had only seen this plant in illustrations in her brothers’ botanical books. She also knew from the books that not only were the plant and its berries toxic, but their growth usually meant there was a water source nearby.
The being her brothers spoke of must be near.
She continued to walk, looking for anything that might resemble a human, and spotted a creek. Its blue bubbling water seemed to invite her to strip off her dress and enter.
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