Disenchanted

by Heide Goody

  In the car park, Gavin, the two loves of his life, two sub-normal bridesmaids and an excusably confused king-in-waiting eyed the creaking base of the beanstalk. Noises that were all kinds of wrong ran up and down the massive structure. Every cell in their bodies was telling them to flee but curiosity held them just for a little longer.

  There was a screech from the smashed and partly buried truck cab. The door was forced open and Natalie saw Mr Dainty hobble out of the crippled cement mixer, gun in hand.

  “You see!” he cried triumphantly. “Even a crash cannot prevent me from taking my revenge. Amongst my people, revenge is a very serious concept. It is not possible that my displeasure can be sated in any simple manner. No! I will kill you all, for honour, for my teapot, for my sheep!”

  “Sheep?” said Roy.

  “Yes! Sheep! You see, in my country —”

  Then a coil of beanstalk, as massive and as long as a freight train, fell to the ground with a shattering force so powerful that it popped the cement drum off its mounting and threw it across the car park. Every window in the garden centre was smashed by the sudden blast of air, and some near-fatally curious onlookers were blown clean off their feet. Then another loop smashed into the crater of the first, then another and another — throwing out clouds of dust, woody debris and a fair torrent of bean juice.

  At some point, the fuel tank of the cement mixer exploded. Fires burned here and there, and smoke and dust filled the air. It was several minutes before Natalie could see well enough to confirm what she suspected to be true: that the falling beanstalk had dug a giant crater with its epicentre at the exact spot where Mr Dainty had been standing.

  “Do we think he’s a has-bean?” asked Gavin, his face a mask of innocence.

  Natalie groaned and Myra thumped him.

  “I don’t get it,” said one of the bridesmaids.

  A shadow fluttered above their heads and Natalie looked up to see Ella and Rose coming to land on the magic carpet and, beside them, a not necessarily grateful wolf being carried to earth by a giant eagle. The wolf licked at his hide where the ogre-eagle had clutched him.

  “Get your nails cut, hotwings,” he said.

  The ogre resumed his natural form.

  “I can take you back up there and drop you off if you wish.”

  “Right, lads!” came a shout from somewhere in the ruins of the beanstalk. “Let’s get the bastards!”

  Ella put her hand to her forehead to scan the crash site for dwarfs. Through the smoke they came: Psycho, Passive Aggressive, Windy, OCD, Inappropriate, Shitfaced and Disco. They were ragged and scraped but the fact that any of them were still mobile was amazing. In the past week, they had been shot, dropped, cooked, digested, crushed, exploded, sharted, bonked, whacked, eagled and even shoed.

  “They’re unkillable,” said Natalie.

  “They’re stories,” said the wolf. “Ever tried killing a story?”

  “Windy! Gas attack!” commanded Psycho. “Shitfaced! Disco! Take down that troll! The rest with me!”

  “Troll?” said the ogre, irritated.

  With frightening ease, he picked up the giant drum from the cement mixer and emptied it over the charging dwarfs. Viscous cement coated each of them, dragging them to the ground and halting their charge. Undaunted, they struggled to their feet. Psycho raised his hand to wave them on once more.

  Ella assumed that what happened next was that the expanding cloud of Windy’s gas attack touched upon the dying flames of the burning cement mixer. A powerful whoosh of fire washed over the dwarfs and the ogre and singed the edges of Ella’s dress. In an instant, it had burned itself out and there they stood: one uninjured ogre and seven rock-hard dwarf statues.

  “Oh, look, they’ve turned back into garden gnomes,” said Lily.

  “Yes,” said Petunia solemnly. “They are at peace now.”

  “It’s the circle of life,” agreed Lily.

  “A dance as old as time,” Petunia concurred.

  “Que sera, sera.”

  “Machu Picchu.”

  “Gesundheit.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “ENOUGH!”

  It was Carabosse’s voice, but not as Ella had heard it before. Carabosse had always had a mother-knows-best voice, quiet smarm and implacable certainty. This voice was the fury of the storm and the dangerous tide, a mother-has-been-at-the-gin-and-is-going-to-tell-some-fucking-home-truths voice.

  Ella’s fairy godmother hovered ten feet off the ground, wrapped in a sizzling purple nimbus of magic and holding a wand so ancient and so potent Ella could well believe that God had used it to make the world, even the tricky bits.

  “Are you all too stupid to know what’s good for you?” crackled Carabosse wrathfully. “A happy ending is a simple thing but it is not easy to arrange. There are patterns to be followed, conventions to be observed. What monsters are you to crush my gift to you, more perfect and beautiful than a snowflake?”

  “Tha can’t tell us what to do,” shouted Rose.

  “Silence!” said Carabosse. And, with a wave of the wand, Rose fell silent, robbed of speech.

  “Each of you will observe your place in the proper order of things,” said the fairy. “You two!” She pointed her wand at the ogre and the wolf. “You are wicked creatures and your place is to be punished.”

  Creepers leapt up from the ruins of the beanstalk and wrapped themselves around arms, legs and chests until the two were bound and immobile.

  “I will find a clever pussy cat to put an end to you, ogre,” said Carabosse. “And I’m sure a handy woodcutter will soon find you, wolf.”

  Ella pulled at the creepers around the wolf’s body but they might as well have been made of steel.

  “Hey, princess,” he said grimly, “at least I think I won our bet.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Natalie.

  “You,” said Carabosse. “You should either be asleep or dead.” A flick of the wand and Natalie collapsed to the ground, lifeless. “Mothers don’t last long in the best stories.”

  Rose was at her daughter’s side in an instant, mutely stroking her face and feeling for signs of life.

  “And grandmothers only exist to be eaten,” said Carabosse.

  Magical creepers flew out and dragged her, neatly trussed, to within easy reach of the wolf’s jaws.

  “And now,” declared Carabosse, “there will be a wedding and it will be perfect.”

  “My wedding?” said Myra.

  Carabosse smiled sweetly.

  “Myra Whuppie. You do have an important role to play. After our Ella marries her Prince Charming, your scheming plots will be rightly punished.”

  “But…”

  “Forced to dance in hot iron shoes is traditional. Put in a barrel stuck full of nails and rolled down a hill is an acceptable alternative. As for the vain idiots…” She pointed at Lily and Petunia. Lily looked behind her in case the fairy might be pointing at someone else. “They shall of course have their feet hacked to bits and their eyes plucked out by birds.”

  Petunia put her hand up.

  “Yes?” said Carabosse.

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “But it’s traditional, dearie.”

  “Oh. Oh, in that case…” she said with a compliant shrug.

  “I refuse,” said Ella bluntly.

  “I don’t care,” said Carabosse simply and waved her wand.

  Without any input from her brain, Ella linked arms with Roy and together they began walking briskly up the hill toward The Bumbles and the wedding marquee. Lily and Petunia followed, carrying Ella’s train, with Gavin and Myra bringing up the rear.

  As they progressed, Carabosse waved her wand here and there. Balloon arches repaired themselves or repositioned themselves from wherever they had fallen or flown. And from all directions, the wedding guests returned, walking with all the self-control of zombies (purposeful and well-dressed zombies who had a wedding to get to). Rents in the walls of the m
arquee re-stitched themselves, chairs righted themselves and all manner of ribbons, decorations and flowers fluttered into place, as though they were part of a jolly video sequence that was being played backwards.

  By the time Ella and Roy reached the marquee, all the guests were in place, Ella’s dress was mended, the glass slippers were back on her feet and Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” was playing from some unseen source. Up the aisle they walked, towards the now whole and hideous wedding arbour where a registrar (the original registrar, Ella surmised) waited for the happy couple. Carabosse floated alongside Ella, visible to all.

  Ahead, beside the wedding arbour was the wedding cake. The little figures on the top no longer depicted a double wedding. There were now tiny representations of Ella and Roy beneath a confectionery arbour, with bridesmaids beside them. It was like the model village Carabosse had trapped her in: real life, shrunk down, frozen, made cute, made perfect.

  Ella glanced up at Carabosse. God, she looked so happy. This was what she lived for. Ella could see that. A princess going to her happily ever after. Just this. Just this moment. Ella almost felt sorry for her.

  The registrar smiled warmly at them as they came to a stop.

  “Are we ready to begin?” he asked.

  “Actually,” said Ella, finger raised.

  Carabosse flashed her a warning look.

  “No, no. Not complaining. Just a couple of things.”

  “And what would they be?” said Carabosse.

  “We want this to be perfect, don’t we?”

  Carabosse narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

  “For example, all these people. They’re all under your control but, deep down, they all remember the stuff from before. The carnage. The gunfire. The tables coming to life. They’re not actually enjoying this wedding right now and they won’t with all that in their minds.”

  “Yes,” said Carabosse thoughtfully.

  “You do want them to be happy, don’t you?”

  Carabosse shot off, from person to person, to Roy, to Gavin, to Myra, Lily, Petunia and all the guests. She paused for a split second at each but moved on so quickly that she was a blur of unmeasurable speed, only identifiable by the domino-falling trail of twitches among the guests and the purple afterimage of light she left in the air.

  And Carabosse was by Ella’s side once more, not even out of breath.

  A change in mood had come over the marquee. The guests were still silent, still seated but now they were themselves, zombies no longer, wiped clean of all nasty recollections of the last hour.

  “Better?” said Carabosse.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Good.” Carabosse gestured for the registrar to proceed.

  “But there is just one more thing,” said Ella.

  “What?”

  “It’s the cake,” said Ella.

  Carabosse looked at the cake.

  “It’s perfect.”

  “It’s nearly perfect,” agreed Ella. “I can see what you were trying to do with it.”

  “Trying?” said Carabosse.

  “Yes. It’s supposed to be a representation of our wedding day, captured in miniature.”

  “It is.”

  “Is it?” said Ella. “Oh. Well. If you’re happy with it.” She waved to the registrar. “I suppose we ought to get on with this.”

  Carabosse waved a hand to draw Ella’s attention.

  “What’s wrong with it, dearie? Surely, it’s perfect. Isn’t it?”

  A glimmer of doubt crossed Carabosse’s face and Ella knew that she had her.

  “Well, there’s a couple of missing details.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll add them?”

  “It’s a perfect recreation of this moment. What have I missed?”

  “You’ll definitely add it?”

  “I promise I will sort it out immediately, before I do anything else.”

  “Thank you,” smiled Ella. “It’s just that there’s no you. You’re here but not there.”

  “Of course,” smiled Carabosse in return. “How silly of me.” She waved her wand and a tiny fairy godmother in fondant icing appeared on the cake. “There.”

  “And the wedding cake,” said Ella. “There’s no wedding cake on the wedding cake.”

  “Indeed.” Another wand wave and there was a miniature cake beside their confectionary selves. “Happy?”

  “Very much,” said Ella and then frowned. She peered at the cake. “Hang on. That’s not the same.”

  “What’s not?”

  “The cake.”

  A magic swoosh and Carabosse shrank down to the same size as the little figurines and peered at her cake on a cake.

  “It is the same,” she said.

  Ella squinted at the miniscule diorama portrayed on the model cake.

  “Nope. There’s no wedding cake.”

  “It’s here.”

  “No, on the model wedding cake. There should be a cake on the cake on the cake. That’s if it’s to be a copy of what’s really here.”

  “Very well,” said Carabosse.

  “And a cake on that cake,” pointed out Ella. “And a cake on that one. In fact, every cake should have a cake on it. All of them.”

  “But, you won’t be able to see them,” reasoned Carabosse.

  Was that nervousness in her voice Ella could hear? She hoped it was.

  “Yes, but details are important.”

  “But that’s an infinite number of cakes. It would never end.”

  “You did promise,” said Ella. “You promised you would do it immediately, before anything else.”

  Shrunk though she was, the look of horror and panic on Carabosse’s face was unmistakeable.

  “Please, Ella. Princess. Dearie. I only wanted…”

  “To make me happy?” said Ella. “I know. Get to it.”

  Ella clapped her hands and the fairy shrank further to create the next cake, shrank further to create the next. When she was too small to make out, she was still visible as a receding mote of purple light, shrinking further and further.

  And when the light became too dim to see, Ella still imagined she could hear a faint high-pitched whine, like an insect buzz or a distant scream.

  And long, long after the whine had faded, there was a simultaneously clear yet silent…

  pop

  Roy took hold of Ella’s hand.

  He blinked several times and shook his head.

  “Hello, Ella. Um, what’s going on?”

  “Well…”

  “She’s in my place, that’s what’s going on here!” said Myra sternly.

  “I am. That’s true and…”

  “And what’s this?”

  “This?”

  “Who turns up to a wedding wearing a bridal gown? Only someone who seriously wants to piss off the bride!”

  “I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding,” said Gavin diplomatically.

  Ella began to gesture to the cake. An explanation of what had just happened — with the fairy and the wand and the dwarfs and Roy being next in line to the throne — was already making its way to her throat. And she stopped because she knew that no explanation was needed.

  “Just a misunderstanding,” said Ella. “Bit of a mix up.”

  She stepped aside, pulling Roy with her, and made way for the bride and groom.

  “Very good,” said the registrar. “Ladies and gentlemen. We are here today to join together our friends, Myra and Gavin.”

  “Mum!” said Ella, abruptly remembering.

  “See?” Gavin said to Myra. “I told you she called you mum.”

  “Sorry,” said Ella. “Really, I’ve got to go.”

  She hitched up her skirts and ran for the exit.

  “That girl!” snorted Myra.

  “Sorry!” yelled Ella. “Love you both!”

  “Well, come on, Mr Registrar,” said Myra. “Get Registraring.”

  Ella kicked off the ridiculously impractical glass slippers as she ran d
own the path.

  “Ella!”

  She turned. Roy had come out after her. There was a buzzing sound in his pocket.

  “I can’t stop,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Is everything alright?” he said.

  “I hope so,” she said. “Your phone’s ringing.”

  He took it out. “Wilbur? What? Slow down. Ella! Wait!”

  “What?”

  “You…”

  “What?” she said.

  “You look beautiful in a wedding dress.”

  “Ha! Enjoy it while you can,” she grinned. And then, “You don’t look so bad yourself, Roy.”

  And she ran on.

  “What do you mean, the royals have all come back?” she heard Roy say. “I didn’t know they’d gone anywhere.”

  She ran down the path, through the balloon arches, past the hedge into the car park of Diggers and Dreams.

  There was no beanstalk. There was, however, a wide but shallow crater in the centre of the car park and the utterly flattened remains of an orange cement mixer which would no doubt cause some head-scratching confusion later. Nearby, was a long row of seven ugly and badly moulded garden gnomes and, on a garden seat next to them, were two women apparently enjoying the afternoon sun.

  “Here she is,” said Natalie.

  “Looking mighty pleased with hersen an’ all,” said Granny Rose.

  “I didn’t know what happened to you,” said Ella.

  “The magic vanished and...” Natalie threw her hands up in the air, for that was as much explanation as she could give.

  “The wolf?” said Ella. “The ogre?”

  “Gone,” said Natalie.

  “Where?”

  “Where do stories go when they’re all told?” said Natalie.

  “We-ell,” said Rose, who wasn’t one for mystical proclamations. “That big ugly lummox took off across yon fields. An’ I reckon I saw t’wolf sniffing around t’sheds a bit back.”

  Ella smiled. “Are you two going to come up to the wedding?”

  “They’re getting married? After all this?”

  “Carabosse did a mind-wipe on everyone. They’ve sort of forgotten. So? I’m sure I could squeeze you in at the reception dinner. I’m in charge of the seating plan, after all.”