Porcelain Princess

by Jon Jacks

  ‘No use to us?’ The water sprites stopped what they were doing, looking up at Tiko in surprise, for they had never seen anything like her before. ‘Bring us only bad luck? How do you know this? Who or what are you?’

  ‘Don’t you really know?’ replied Tiko, sounding as amazed as she could possibly manage. ‘Why, look at me; can’t you tell that I am really this poor girl’s soul, preparing to depart her? Do you think any girl would be foolish enough to just simply fall asleep by your pool? No, I’m warning you, it brings only bad luck to take the soulless into your home. So I think you would be best returning her to land.’

  The water sprites looked at each other as they considered this. Then they looked up at Tiko once more.

  ‘We thank you for your warning,’ they said. ‘But please, can you stay with her a moment longer to ensure she doesn’t fall into our pool by accident? A soulless child can never become one of us!’

  ‘Of course,’ Tiko said graciously, glad to see that Kilita had already been released from her charm and was waking up. ‘See,’ she added, ‘I’m taking control of her once more, so that I can lead her back to where she had lain down for her perpetual rest.’

  Kilita was still a little dazed, but she could now hear what Tiko was saying. She could also feel the cold of the water she was standing in, and she could see the sprites gathered around her. She slowly turned around in the water, unhurriedly heading back to the land as if still under a spell.

  With a series of plops and gurgles, the sprites vanished into the water. And Kilita made her way home, thankful that Tiko her guardian angel had saved her from becoming just one more mischievous water sprite.

  ‘And many of us know that there really is such a pool,’ Kilita would warn at the end of her story, ‘the deep and dark pool past the windmill that no child must go near.’

  Even those who didn’t believe the story – and, of course, only the very youngest did – accepted that it made children stay away from what could be a dangerous pool. Another popular story similarly told them that they should be kind to smaller creatures.

  A boy from another village took a strange delight in capturing butterflies, pinning them to a board so that he could admire them at his leisure. He thought they looked far more beautiful mounted on his walls than flying around wherever they pleased, sharing their beauty with everyone lucky enough to see them.

  When Kilita and Tiko had come across him adding to his collection in the corn fields, Tiko had been briefly left speechless by his cruelty.

  ‘Stop that!’ she managed to shout at last.

  ‘Oh, and how are you going to stop me?’ the boy sneered at Kilita, thinking she had been the one who had shouted at him.

  ‘We’ll pin you to a board if we have to!’

  The boy gawped in surprise and horror when he realised that it was the doll who was angrily yelling at him. Dropping everything, he ran back across the fields, heading back to his own village as quickly as he could.

  Quickly, Kilita and Tiko released the butterflies he had been collecting in a stoppered pot, watching entranced as the gloriously coloured creatures gratefully fluttered around the girls before flying off. But the boy had also left behind a large bag, and in this bag they found a number of butterflies that the boy had already pinned to a wooden board.

  Kilita looked at the butterflies fixed to the board, wishing there was something they could do for them. Tiko began to slowly blow on the wings of the butterflies, making them flutter as if they were all preparing to take off. As she blew a little harder, the wings fluttered harder too, as if the butterflies were now eager to fly away.

  Tiko began to carefully remove each pin, pulling it free of the board, then even more carefully withdrawing it completely from the body of the butterfly. The butterfly wings continued to flutter and beat silently at the air; and as Tiko removed each pin, the butterfly would gratefully soar into the air.

  Each and every butterfly released by Tiko that day wanted the world to know what she had done for them.

  So some changed their patterns to feature Tiko’s eyes. Of course, not every butterfly agreed on the shape or colour of Tiko’s eyes. But this is only natural, because each one saw her from a different angle, or in a slightly different light, or when she was staring at them in wonderment, or happiness, or when she was full of pity for how they had been so cruelly treated.

  Other butterflies included the curls of her hair in their patterns, or the curves of her mouth, even the upturn of her pretty little nose. Still others took on the redness of her lips, the greens and blues of her eyes, the gold of her hair.

  And so even today, you can look at a butterfly and see something in its pattern that recalls the time Tiko had rescued them.

  As Kilita said the final lines of one of her tales, the listening children would look towards each other, trying to gauge from the expressions of their friends just how much of the story they had believed. They wanted to believe in the magic of the tales, of course, but they didn’t want to look too silly either by believing everything they had just heard.

  No matter how much of the stories the children took to be true, they would still gather around Kilita to hear other tales, or to hear their favourites told once more. It allowed their parents time to get on with their work around the village, and they showed their appreciation by slipping a coin into Kilita’s hand every now and again, or offering her some of their wares or produce.

  Kilita’s own parents, however, were not at all happy with her storytelling. She was gradually coming to an age where they would have to start looking for a suitable husband for her. But who would accept a girl who seemed to forever have her head in the clouds? Who would marry a girl so obviously unprepared for the arduous life that anyone born into the village had to eventually accept as their lot?

  ‘Oh, will she never grow out of this stupidity?’ Kilita’s parents sighed.

   

   

  *

   

   

  One night, the village was hit by a storm the likes of which had never been seen before, or would ever be seen again.

  The rain pummelled even the hardened soil of the roads into a muddy swamp. Wind clawed and tore at the thatch of the houses, threatening to strip many of them bare. It overturned small carts, and tossed discarded farm tools around the streets, transforming them into devilishly dangerous weapons. The thunder rumbled as loudly and regularly as if the whole world were waging war on the poor village. It was so dark that anyone could have been forgiven for believing the sun had been permanently banished.

  The only light came from the lightning that struck the ground so hard it shook it and made it tremble. Where the ends of the lightning forks stretched out, they set afire trees, hayricks and barns.

  With a crack and crackle of triumph, a bolt reached out for Kilita’s home. The thatch immediately burst into flame, the supporting timbers quickly following it. The stored chemicals and pottery glazes inside exploded and burned ferociously, giving no one any chance of escape.

  When the storm finally began to ease and the villagers finally dared to leave their homes, very little but a charred mass of timbers and stone remained of the pottery. Despite the still heavy rain, the villagers began to frantically search amongst the wreckage in the hope of finding someone alive. Timbers that had been transformed into little more than charcoal were hefted aside, still smouldering hay from the thatched roof was carried away, heavier pieces were hauled clear by urgently harnessed horses. As the rain at last began to ease and their task became easier, however, it soon became plain to everyone that they were no longer searching for survivors. All they would find now, they all agreed, would be the bodies of the two potters and their daughter.

  Even so, their hopes were suddenly raised when they uncovered a section of the workshop that had fallen in on itself in such a way that it had protected a whole area of shelving, with every piece of pottery saved from being even slightly cracked. The heat of the flames had been so i
ntense here, however, that it had not only hardened the porcelain to a gleaming white but, on the side where the flames had been strongest, it had also turned it a bright fire red. Encouraging glimpses of the edges of a white lace dress amongst the shelves similarly turned to disappointment when it was found it was nothing more than the doll Tiko, her face white and smiling, her golden hair transformed into a flaming scarlet matching the red glow of the surrounding pots.

  There wasn’t a single sign of the family, not a single sign that anyone had even lived here.

  No one can remember who first noticed an odd thing about the hardened pots.

  Down one side, between the band of red and white, there was a bright mosaic of miniature squares, each one of which contained a mix of intense colours. They were incredibly small sections of Kilita’s book, someone realised, which must have shredded and burned in the fire, the individual pieces being carried aloft by the hot air until they stuck to the clay of the pots.

  Down the other side of each pot, however, there was something even more remarkable, a pattern of purest magenta running from the red of the flames into the cool safety of the snow white porcelain. And this pattern was the same on every jug, every dish, every jar.

  A young girl, a woman, and a man, all holding hands as they fled the flames.

  And here, of course, the tale could end.

  You could, after all, decide for yourself how the story has ended.

  Is it a sad ending, the family having perished in the fire, even though they have at least being immortalised in a popular piece of pottery?

  Or is it a happy ending, the pattern being merely a hint that the family have indeed survived?

  Perhaps you prefer your endings to be even more magical, in which case you’ll prefer to believe that all the love and life Kilita had poured into Tiko had been returned by the now lifeless doll, ensuring that the girl and her parents continued to live on amongst the patterns of their own pottery.

  Whichever of these descriptions best describes you, perhaps you should read on.

   

   

  *

   

   

  As you’re probably aware, the pottery created in the fire became a highly sought after style, leading to countless copies being made and sold around the world. On the rare occasions that an original piece becomes available at a respected auction house, it can expect to command ridiculous prices, as well as much envious squabbling amongst its many collectors.

  One of those collectors, we are reliably lead to believe, is the Porcelain Princess herself. She owns at least five pieces, and perhaps even Tiko herself.

  Even here though, there are disagreements about how she came to acquire these rare and valuable pieces.

  As one version would have it, the Princess had been intrigued by the tales that she had heard and – already in possession of a truly remarkable room made entirely of porcelain – she had sent her soldiers and courtiers far and wide in search of as many original items as they could discover and purchase.

  According to another version, however, only Tiko had been acquired in this way, with the aim of reuniting her with the pots that had magically appeared within the porcelain room on the very night of the fire.

  But thankfully both versions agree on one thing; when the Porcelain Princess had curiously run her fingers across the porcelain pot, she had felt a connection, a tingling of life. The girl in the pattern moved, turned to her, smiled.

  The girl held out her hand, the Princess graciously allowing her to tightly grasp her finger. Gently pulling her finger back, the Princess smiled as first the girl’s hand and then her arm came free of the porcelain. More and more of the girl appeared from the pattern of the pot, gradually growing in size as she stepped completely clear.

  The girl, of course, didn’t let go of her mother’s hand. And so her mother was next to step out of the pattern. Kilita’s father followed on close behind as he, too, continued to hold his wife’s hand, ensuring the connection of new life flowed between them all.

  They all looked about themselves in bewilderment. One minute they were trapped in a ferocious fire, and now they were standing in a fabulously beautiful room made entirely of porcelain. And even more amazingly, the Porcelain Princess was standing directly in front of them.

  ‘Are we dreaming? Have we somehow ended up in a fairy tale?’ Kilita’s parents wondered.

  Kilita was as amazed as her parents, but for completely different reasons. She had always believed in the existence of the Porcelain Princess, of course; but as she had grown older, she had also begun to believe that she would never, ever meet her.

  ‘Your highness!’ she gasped excitedly, bowing low before her

  Kilita’s parents fell to their knees, unsure how to behave or what to do.

  The Princess held out a hand to Kilita, telling them all to stand.

  ‘This, I believe, is yours,’ she joyously said to Kilita, reaching out for and handing Tiko to her.

  Gasping in wonder once more, Kilita tightly hugged Tiko close to her cheek.

  And Tiko, of course, smiled.

  For she couldn’t have been happier that this particular story had ended in this way.

   

   

  *

   

   

  Chapter 16

   

  The clapping and cheering at the end of the show was the most enthusiastic they had ever experienced. The crowd that had gathered around them, of course, was the biggest they had ever drawn. Added to this, however, each and every person in the audience had risen to their feet and were now clapping as if the show had been the most amazing they had ever seen.

  ‘I told you all we had to do was fall down and they’d all cheer!’ Ferena chuckled excitedly to the others as they trooped on stage to take their curtain call.

  This was the first time they had ever taken a curtain call in which they didn’t have to pretend they were puppets. They waved and bowed with exhilarated flourishes.

  ‘Er, actually,’ Peregun said doubtfully, ‘has anyone noticed that they’re not looking our way?’

  It was true; everyone in the crowd had turned slightly to look towards the palace.

  Carey and Grudo had also noticed the crowd’s strange behaviour. They curiously stepped out from behind the theatre as the others leapt down from the stage. Moving towards and mingling with the front rows of their audience, they followed everyone’s gaze.

  Everyone was looking up towards the palace’s balcony, where first the curtains and then the immense French windows were slowly being drawn open.

  There was a flash of brilliant white in the darkness lying beyond the windows.

  And then the Porcelain Princess stepped out onto the balcony.

   

   

  *

   

   

  Carey had thought the cheering at the end of their show would be the loudest she would ever hear, but now the cries of jubilation were deafening.

  The Porcelain Princess was more resplendently beautiful than Carey had ever imagined. The dress alone glittered as if suffused with the richest pearls, the purest diamonds. Her skin shone in the sunlight as if it were the most glorious mother-of-pearl.

  And her smile; her smile was the most gracious smile Carey had ever seen. Carey knew this for sure, even though she was much too far away to see if the Princess was actually smiling or not.

  Even more amazingly, she was smiling directly at Carey. Somehow, the Princess had spotted her amongst this vast crowd, singling her out amongst so many to smile at her, and her alone. Welcoming her to the Porcelain Kingdom.

  In a daze, Carey moved through the crowd, wanting to get closer, ever closer, to the Princess standing on her balcony. She dimly realised that she must have left her friends behind, but she knew they wouldn’t mind, they would understand.

  Carey was halfway through the massed crowd when the Princess gave a last, prolonged wave – then vanished on
ce more into the palace, the French windows silently closing behind her.

  The crowd sighed, a mix of pleasure and disappointment.

  Carey blinked, as if awaking from a dream.

  Was that it?

  Had she come all this way, only to be rewarded with only the very briefest glimpse of the Porcelain Princess?

  It dawned on her that she hadn’t thought of how she would manage to arrange an audience with the Princess, let alone the Illuminator.

  What if they didn’t want to see her?

  What if they were too busy?

  Even though she was smaller than most of the people standing around her, she could see the high, white walls surrounding the palace rising above the heads of the edges of the crowd. In many places the wall was plastered with posters announcing their show, particularly around the tall white gate pillars, where they had been pasted over other, older posters.

  The crowd sighed again. And the gates began to slowly open.

   

   

  *

   

   

  Chapter 17

   

  The crowd obediently parted as the white carriage made its way through them.

  How had the Princess managed to get down from the balcony and into the carriage in such a short space of time? Carey wondered. She didn’t think it was possible, yet, realising the carriage was heading in her direction, Carey moved aside with everyone else to clear the way for it, hoping to catch another glimpse of the Princess as it made its way past her.

  But the carriage was empty.

  She wasn’t the only one to be disappointed by this. There were many exclamations of surprise, giving Carey the impression that this was all very unusual.

  There were even more astonished gasps as the carriage suddenly stopped in the middle of the crowd.

  The door opened.

  A set of glitteringly white steps dropped down from the bottom of the doorway, the last step hanging just slightly above the floor.

  ‘Well, go on then, my dear.’

  Carey felt a gentle push in her back. She looked back over her shoulder. A woman was smiling down at her.

  ‘What?’ Carey said, confused. ‘I’m sorry; what do you mean?’

  The other people standing around her were also smiling knowingly at her.

  ‘Well, obviously, it must be waiting for you Carey!’ a man said confidently.