Twelve Dancing Witnesses

by Elizabeth A Reeves

  That would explain the way I felt. I felt wonderful.

  “You will need to eat a great deal over the next couple days,” Amanda said from the doorway. I saw that she had a large bowl in her hands. From the scent of it, it contained a spicy stew. “The energy from the healing is drawn in part from your body. You will need to replenish what was used.”

  “You are all very knowledgeable about unicorns,” I said, taking the bowl thankfully. It smelled so wonderful I was tempted to pour it straight down my throat instead of one spoonful at a time. “What is this place, really?”

  “We are—were an order of warriors who have lived on this island since time began,” Amanda said, sitting at the foot of my bed. The unicorn reached its head over to her and she began to stroke its nose. “We have always worked side-by-side with unicorns. Our purpose has been to protect the land and deserving innocents who fall under the control of the impure.”

  I gazed at her in marvel, then at her ‘sisters’. How had I missed it? The clues had all been in front of my face all along. The spell they’d been forced to take part in had disguised the truth.

  “You’re a Bellatrix,” I said with awe.

  Amanda smiled benignly. “We all are. We are a sisterhood of Bellatrices. There used to be six hundred of us. Now there are only twelve left.”

  “Now that you know I am trustworthy, will you let me help you?” I set my stew aside and stared at them all earnestly. I had wanted to set things right since I had first set foot in this kingdom—and now that I was healed, I knew exactly where I was. I had never left Orionis.

  I just couldn’t remember who had injured me to begin with. There was a gap in my memory that even the unicorn had not been able to cure.

  The three Bellatrices exchanged glances. Now that I knew what they were, I could see it in their beautiful, but stern expressions and the way they held themselves. These women were warriors of goodness and light. How could I have ever seen them as simple princesses?

  What had happened here?

  “We are counting on your help,” Caroline said. “Now that we know your heart is pure, you can be one of us.”

  “At least temporarily,” Leigh said with a laugh.

  “Yes,” I said immediately. “I can do that.”

  Chapter Eight

  It was much more challenging being even a temporary Bellatrix than I had ever considered. The group of warriors took my joining their ranks completely seriously. From the first morning after I was healed by the unicorn, I was up with them, training with weapons and on mats and working for the unicorns. I was not working with unicorns yet. I had to earn that privilege, and it wasn’t the temporary sort of honor I could expect to have.

  And I was fine with that.

  My unicorn initiation had been brilliant and overwhelming. I still felt a little frayed around the edges just from having been near that sort of energy. It was so perfect, so pure. Astounding how terrifying that could be.

  No wonder angels in the human world shouted, “Fear not!” Otherwise, I’d imagine everyone would run screaming from the sight of such majestic vastness.

  How could something so beautiful, so pure, be so terrible? Terrible beauty. Terrible greatness.

  I was both desperate to see another unicorn, and terrified at the prospect.

  Cleaning unicorn stalls was a great way to return to reality. The strangest thing was that unicorn stalls did not stink. And the manure was carefully hoarded to coax the dying local plants back to life. It was neverendingly fascinating to watch a plant go from weak and stringy to burgeoning with life almost immediately after being treated with unicorn dung.

  It wasn’t enough, though. And I knew exactly why.

  “The Magic from this land is being siphoned away,” I explained to Joette as we labored in the unicorn stalls. “I could see it when I followed all of you to the ball. The Magic is being sucked out of all of you.”

  Joette paused to lean on her rake. “But where is it being siphoned to? And to what purpose?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. The Magic and order that Godparents are supposed to develop in a land is supposed to immediately go back into the land to give it more vitality. This… this is twisted and wrong and a perversion of what Godparents are supposed to be.”

  “But you think a Fairy Godparent is involved?” Joette pressed. She tucked a strand of her wayward hair behind her ear.

  I frowned. “I don’t want to believe it, but I cannot think of any other creature that would be able to do such a thing.”

  And, if a Godparent was involved, my suspicions rested firmly on the shoulders of my uncle.

  But why? Why destroy this kingdom to generate so much power? Where was all the Magic going?

  “She’s still holding back on us,” Diedre said from the stall she was working on. “She said herself, it was her uncle that was supposed to be the Godparent here. Her uncle.”

  “And she’s the mistress of that other one,” Isolde added, from the opposite direction.

  “What other one?” I asked. “Was Cooper here?”

  “See?” Kayla muttered. “She knows who we mean.”

  I stabbed at the straw in the stall with my shovel. “If there were two fairies in our world who wanted to see me dead, it would be them.”

  Silence greeted my remark.

  I looked up to find eyes staring at me from every direction.

  I sighed wearily. “I’m not the most popular Godmother,” I admitted. “I could probably name a half dozen Godparents who would lift a hand to help me if I was dying.”

  Frightening thought, that, considering how close I’d come to death.

  “Why?” Kayla asked curiously. “What did you do to them?”

  I swiped my forehead with the back of my hands, which were hopefully cleaner than my fingers. How much should I tell them? What Fairy Godparents were and did was supposed to be a mystery, as secret from the rest of the world. That we kept the world balanced against Chaos was not widely known.

  But these women were unicorn warriors. They were the patrons and protectors of all things pure and good and sacred. If I could not tell them, who could I tell?

  Dallan came to mind.

  But he wasn’t here right now, and I wasn’t sure the Bellatrices trusted me enough to allow me to reach out to him.

  I also wanted to see what I could do to fix this myself. It was a kingdom I was supposed to watch over. I couldn’t keep running to other creatures to help me every time I got into trouble. I’d been rescued by dragons and mermaids, now I wanted to resolve something myself. I wanted to prove to myself and everyone else that I was exactly where I was meant to be.

  I paused at the thought.

  I had spent my entire life fighting against the inevitability of ending up as a Fairy Godmother. I had never wanted to be one. I had spent my life trying any other career. I had put it off until I had no choice but try to find success in the last place I had ever wanted to look.

  But now it felt like it was my true vocation.

  It was a new feeling for me.

  It was time to truly choose to be a Fairy Godmother.

  And I was determined to be the best one I could be.

  And that meant not being afraid to follow my gut.

  “I think we should sit down and have a conversation after we’re done here,” I told the Bellatrices. “It’s long, but maybe it will help sort out what is happening here and why.”

  The warriors exchanged glances, but one-by-one they nodded in agreement. That were, I had learned, an organization used to acting as a body of equals. I needed to talk to all of them at the same time so they could all decide individually how they felt about what I had to say.

  I wasn’t looking forward to it, but maybe getting it all out in front of me at one time would help me see any patterns I had missed.

  A couple hours later we met back in the main hall. There was a communal pot on the fire bubbling with a stew that some of the warriors served up, a
long with some bread from upstairs in the castle.

  “Two Godparents have died in the past several months,” I said, when we were all seated and I knew I had everyone’s full attention. “I think I may have been meant to be the third.”

  I started from the moment I had first seen the dead body up in the Great Beauty’s tower and proceeded until the day I had come to Orionis and first seen the king sitting bloated and cruel on his throne. The warriors sat quietly, listening intently to my words. I had never had anyone’s attention quite so intently. It was slightly unnerving.

  Silence greeted my last words. Even the fire seemed muted as the Bellatrices digested what I had told them.

  It was Gillie who first spoke. “There used to be many more of us,” she said. “There were six hundred of us. We lived here in a great fortress and we served the people of this land and others, promoting all things good and fighting creatures of darkness.”

  Heidi picked up the tale, as if it had been arranged. “We did not see what was happening at first. Our sisters kept disappearing. Our numbers slowly dwindled. Then, when we were all unaware, a great attack against us killed our High Priestess and all her acolytes, and put an evil man onto a throne.”

  Erika lifted up her voice. “The people of the land did not seem to notice that anything had changed. They were convinced they had always had a king. Overnight the castle appeared on the carcass of our fortress.”

  “The king and his men cut through our ranks, asking us our names. In the space of a week, they had killed everyone but the twelve of us,” Isolde said.

  “We know now that it was to fit us into the confines of this spell that binds us,” Amanda spat bitterly. “They used Magic to confuse us, to blind us, and now it binds us. Our order has been murdered. Our land is dying. We are all that is left, and we cannot fight because our enemy is not something that can be slain.”

  “We know these Godparents you speak of,” Bella said. Someone hissed, but she shook her head. “No, she has been open with us. It is time to tell her all we know. We know the names of Ferdinand and Cooper. Some of us have seen them here. We know that they are Godparents and have control over Magic. We have long suspected that they have assisted our king,” she spat the word, “in destroying and degrading our land.”

  “We feared that you were just like them,” Caroline said. She sighed and rubbed a hand wearily over her face. “Enough,” Joette said firmly. “That is enough for now. We may have trusted her with too much.”

  “The unicorns like her,” Leigh protested.

  “So she is not evil,” Joette conceded, “but she is also a fairy and everyone knows that fairies are slippery. They must tell the truth, but they speak it in a way that casts suspicion and tangles reality to such a degree than no mortal can be certain of anything they say.”

  I nodded in agreement. “She’s right.”

  Surprised laughs greeted my comment.

  I spread my hands out with a shrug. “I am not particularly clever,” I said. “I like things that are straight forward. But what you say about fairies is true. My mother could say words you would swear were compliments and truthful and later discover were nothing but poison. Fairies are supposed to be trustworthy, but I fear it has been a long time since they have been anything but self-serving. My family demanding that I apologize to Ferdie and yield to his demands alone is a sign of where their true loyalties lie. We are supposed to serve our world, but I fear too many of us are serving ourselves and taking advantage of the way our society works to benefit ourselves instead of the whole.”

  “All we know is that even she says not to be too trusting,” Heidi said. “I prefer an enemy I can face with my sword.”

  I winced. “I hope we can resolve this without losing even one more life.”

  That was received about as well as I would be by a group of warriors bent on revenge.

  “There must be justice,” someone hissed.

  “And Mercy,” I whispered, mostly to myself.

  “Meanwhile,” Caroline said. “We have an injured dancer. I have looked over Leigh’s feet and it is clear that she cannot dance.”

  “Can’t the unicorns heal her?” I asked.

  Caroline shook her head. “Unicorn healing must only ever be used in a case of life or death. But Leigh cannot dance, and if she cannot dance, all our lives are at stake. The king may very well come down here and kill us all.”

  Someone sniggered at the thought that the massive king should be able to haul himself down the stairs.

  “I suspect that Magic will assist him if that’s what he chooses,” I said. “I cannot seem to reach it here. At least, it will not answer me.”

  Kayla turned her head sharply. “You can usually speak to Magic? As if talking to a person?”

  “Not exactly,” I admitted. “I talk to it, though, and it usually seems to understand me. I’m not sure just how intelligent Magic is. It can understand some things, but it has become clear to me that it doesn’t understand about things like pain and death. It is like a great, powerful child who plays with us at its whim.”

  “That’s comforting,” Joette said dryly.

  “Leigh can’t dance,” I said. “And I need another look at the spell in the ballroom. Why don’t I take her place and dance instead?”

  Chapter Nine

  “If anyone discovers you aren’t who you are pretending to be, we will all be killed,” Heidi whispered to me as we climbed the stairs up to the castle proper, where the “princesses” would be expected to show their faces before their nightly ordeal.

  “If anyone discovers who you really are, we will also all be put to death,” Erika added. She made a shushing gesture at the pair of us.

  I was wearing Leigh’s clothes, including her hooded cape. By staying close to the middle of the pack of sisters, and keeping my hood up, I hoped that I would be able to pass as Leigh.

  Fortunately, a detail I hadn’t noticed from my first night was key to this deception working. I probably had already been too sick when I’d visited the ball before to notice, but all the Bellatrices wore masks to the ball.

  “It was the king’s idea,” Isolde said when I explained that that wasn’t typical for how this sequence was supposed to go. “I guess he liked the idea that no one would ever be able to prove that we were the dancers, unless they stole a mask from one of us.”

  It made a twisted sort of sense. There was no sign anywhere here that the sequence was to be drawn to an end. Everything I’d seen pointed to the opposite. If a hero stepped up and saved the day and broke the spell, then whoever was behind this atrocity would lose all their access to power.

  They weren’t about to let that happen.

  How many heroes, I wondered, had died here instead of fulfilling their destiny?

  We were in luck, the few guards we saw never looked at us. That alone I found interesting. Most guards put in charge of twelve beautiful princesses would have tried to make friends with them, or at least known them by name. These guards were glaringly oblivious, though a few, I noted, did keep their hands on the hilt of their swords as they passed.

  Some of the guards knew, then, who it was they were watching over.

  How deep was this conspiracy? Who in the land was deceived and who was part of the deception? From what I could tell, filling in a lot of blanks with pure conjecture, the king, guards, and residents of the castle were all perfectly aware of what role they played here. I would have to ask the warriors if that was true for the servants as well.

  We walked up a long corridor and a series of steps, until we came to an entire wing that appeared to be completely devoted to the “princesses”. The largest of these rooms was one great hall filled with twelve beds, neatly emblazoned with the names of each resident, from Amanda to Leigh.

  I immediately went to Leigh’s section, as I assumed would be expected. The others found various reasons to shoo away the servants who had followed us.

  “We will plead headaches and ask to eat here tonight,” Ca
roline said. “We have done so in the past when one of us was poorly, no one will ask any questions. We never dine with the king unless it is all twelve of us together and in perfect health. He has an absolute horror when it comes to women who may be sickly.”

  Strange, considering the health the king himself displayed, but it would be helpful in this situation.

  Bella sat down on “my” bed and took my hands in hers. “If you can convince the Magic that you are Leigh, this evening will be so much easier for you. Most of what we do is beyond our control. It is a compulsion. Or, if we fight it too much, the Magic will take over our bodies completely and we are nothing but marionettes dancing on long strings.”

  I nodded. A pit of nervousness was building up in my stomach. I could feel Magic all around me, but I didn’t know yet if it would listen to me. Or, if it did heed my call, how much it would cooperate with me.

  I closed my eyes and reached out tentatively to where I could feel the heavy weight of Magic practically bulging over this kingdom. It felt like a massive storm system, just waiting to burst with all the power it held. I hoped, when the time came, that this would not be catastrophic for this poor kingdom that had suffered so much already.

  That would be just like me, attempting to save a kingdom only to have it incinerated by the Magic I was attempting to free.

  I banished my negative thoughts as much as I could and focused on sending a wordless inquiry to Magic. Could it hear me? Would it be willing to play a game?

  Slowly, as if from a vast distance, or pushing through a swamp of molasses, I felt Magic touch me in return. It seemed curious and eager. Magic loved to play games and jokes.

  I spun a little story in my mind, all truthful, but in a way that Magic could understand. I told it that I needed to pretend to be the princess Leigh and dance all night as she was supposed to. What made it great fun was that we would be tricking the king and the bad men.