“Don’t move,” the nurse said. “You’re safe at Verith Med. You’re recovering from some severe internal injuries. Any hasty movements could undo weeks of healing.”
Something squeaked to Tanza’s left, and she turned her head. Auren sat in a spindly metal chair beside Tanza’s bed. He caught her hand between his and asked, “How are you?”
“Alive,” Tanza breathed.
He squeezed her hand. “Good. I was so afraid you wouldn’t be.”
Auren looked different. His spine was straighter, his face more relaxed. He wore a well-tailored, modern-style gray suit more valuable than some cars, and his hair had grown long enough to brush his eyebrows.
Tanza asked, “How long have I slept?”
“Thirty-three days,” Auren answered.
The thought made Tanza dizzy. The world was weeks ahead of her. “I missed a lot.”
He laughed. “Imagine being me.”
She could imagine it better now. The world seemed strange after only a few weeks’ sleep—no wonder Auren had wanted to lay low.
Shaking her head then immediately regretting it, Tanza closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, Auren’s face showed concern, and Tanza smiled to reassure him. “Fill me in,” she said. “Last I remember, you were telling a dispatcher all your virtue names.”
“Only half,” Auren said. “You’d have died before I listed all fourteen.”
Since Arateph Med still had Prince Auren’s voice print on record, his list of names—with all their undertones—had allowed the system to confirm his identity and brought the authorities to them in nanoseconds. They’d rushed Tanza to a healing bed and Auren into a maelstrom of doctors, politicians, and counselors intent on unveiling him to a stunned public and introducing him to the modern world.
As Tanza listened, her heart grew heavy. “I made you face all that. Everything you wanted to avoid. I’m so sorry.”
“I chose this,” Auren said, “to save you and to gain protection from Cornerstone.”
“But Cornerstone’s my fault. Keffer sold you out because I destroyed the spindle.”
“I thought so. But it’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
Tanza would have bolted upright if the nurse hadn’t scolded her. “Your fault?”
He said, “I ran from the authorities. If I’d gone to them right away instead of hiding in Alogath, you wouldn’t have faced Cornerstone, the spindle . . .” He squinted back tears, and his next words wobbled. “My running almost killed you.”
“Hey.” Auren’s hands still held one of Tanza’s, and she placed her free hand atop his. “We’re both alive. Let’s call it even.”
Auren’s tears convinced the nurse to give them privacy; she left the room. In her absence, Auren told Tanza the news she’d missed. The police hadn’t found the Cornerstone fighters but had captured Berimac. The loss of their patron weakened Cornerstone, and when Auren’s story became public, Cornerstone sympathy disappeared.
“I doubt they’ll ever eradicate the true believers,” Auren said, “but Arateph finds the virtue prince a much more appealing symbol of our heritage.”
That symbol burned bright. Auren had spent nearly every moment of Tanza’s sleep speaking to crowds and news recorders and being shuffled about by various government officials. He complained to Tanza about the chaos, the interviews, and the patronizing behavior of Coalition representatives.
Yet the more Auren spoke, the more Tanza realized that he’d arrived where he belonged. He’d received kindness and earned esteem. Just by existing, he’d sparked greater respect for the “primitive” tephan customs and achievements. He was quickly learning the nuances of the Coalition government and longed to prove to the Coalition-appointed human “guardians” that Arateph could represent herself in political matters and take control of industry and infrastructure.
“Sounds as if you have a kingdom again,” Tanza said.
“Not mine,” he replied. “I’ll never have political power. But I hope to do some good.”
“Can you start with me?” she asked. “Along with saving Arateph, can you visit me in prison?”
Auren’s chair clattered as he reeled back. “Prison? Why would you think . . . ?”
Tanza sighed. “Auren, I’m a known criminal. The authorities found me. I have seven years of crime to pay for once I’m healed.”
He laughed in disbelief. “Tanza, don’t you realize? Tanza Irimitha is Arateph’s hero.”
The word struck Tanza’s chest like a brick. “Hero?” she croaked.
“You found Prince Auren and single-handedly rescued him from a Cornerstone stronghold. You’ve become legend!”
She stared at him, but his face was entirely earnest. Then she realized that Auren had spoken two names of Arateph’s hero, and she looked away. “Does that legend include my virtue name?”
“Of course,” he said. “I included it in every telling of the tale. You’re stuck with the name now.”
Tanza wasn’t sure she wanted that private name public. It seemed more daunting. Yet . . . She met his eyes. “I’m glad to have it.”
“It fits you well,” Auren said with a solemn sort of smile. “Tanza Irimitha won’t be punished for Tanza’s crimes. You’ve received full pardon. The Coalition representatives granted my request.”
Tanza gazed at the window, and sunlight flooded her soul. Full pardon. True freedom: what she’d wanted from the time she was a friendless orphan. She’d stopped believing she could have it, as her crimes grew and she chained herself more closely to Keffer. But here it was, delivered to her as in some impossible dream.
Tanza wanted to cry. So she did. She let the tears fall in waves and the sobs rack her body as she cried for the years she’d lost and the people she’d harmed and for the new hope that illuminated the coming years. Despite the nurse’s warning, Auren put his arms around Tanza as she wept, offering his strength.
When Tanza finished, she was sleepy but very much alive.
“Are you all right?” Auren asked as he adjusted her pillow.
Her smile was so wide, it hurt. “I am wonderful. I’ll be that way until reality sets in.”
An awful lot of reality waited outside this room. Tanza would face media scrutiny and needed to find a new line of work. But for the first time in her life, reality wasn’t an enemy that crushed every source of hope or consolation. Reality held exciting possibilities, and she found herself eager to race toward it.
She drowsed and nestled into the pillow, but a moment later her eyes snapped open. “Do you think Prince Auren’s rescuer would be admitted to study for a history degree?” she asked.
Auren’s smile was like a star. “I don’t think anything in the universe could keep you from it.” He gestured to himself. “You already discovered a historical artifact.”
Tanza silenced him and closed her eyes. She didn’t have time for chit chat. She had a future to plan.
ASHLEY STANGL is a registered nurse who spends her free time dreaming up stories and retelling fairy tales. She enjoys reading, writing, singing, and walking and biking through nature. She lives in Minnesota surrounded by a large family and lots of inspiration for further stories.
If you’d like to learn more about Ashely and her work, visit: www.AshleyStangl.blogspot.com
Looking for more great fairy tale retellings?
Continue to read The Spinner and the Slipper
CHAPTER ONE
A Promise and a Vow
The gentle light of sunset fell through the open window to gleam upon her mother’s golden head. Spun gold, Eliana thought, as she often did when she saw her mother’s hair down and loose. Ordinarily the miller’s wife kept it carefully tucked away under a cap, so the sight of it was a rare treat enjoyed only by the miller himself and his sweet young daughter.
Now Mother’s hair spread across her pillow in a fan of shimmering gold. Yet while those locks gleamed with the very light of life, the pretty face they framed was gray and faded.
“She’
s not sick,” the local physician had whispered to the miller only a few short hours ago. “She has no fever, no sickness or consumption that I can detect. She is simply… fading.”
Eliana sat at her mother’s side, holding tight to one limp hand. Occasionally she reached out to stroke either one of those lustrous curls or one of those sunken cheeks. Tears stained her face, though she did not cry. She had wept enough, she decided; and if her mother woke just once more before the end, Eliana wanted her to see a cheerful, smiling face, not one red and puffy and full of sorrow.
Mother stirred. Eliana’s breath caught in her throat. Father was not here; he had wandered out into the yard, his grief so great that it sent him fleeing from the deathbed of his beloved. Should she call him back? Eliana could not decide, and she feared to leave her mother’s side for even a moment. Her grip unconsciously tightened on the thin, wasted fingers she held. “Mother?” she breathed.
A slight line puckered the dying woman’s brow. Then, her paper-thin eyelids fluttering gently, she gazed up into the face of her only child.
They were very alike, this mother and daughter, or had been up until now. Oncoming death had robbed the miller’s wife of her beauty, sparing only her spun-gold hair. Her features were pinched and strained and gray. But Eliana was blooming into what her mother once had been—lovely and round-eyed, with a dainty mouth eager to smile. Eliana lacked her mother’s crowning glory, however; for her hair was an ordinary brown and straight.
Yet, to the miller’s wife, this girl was the most beautiful creature in all the worlds.
“My darling,” she said, her voice raw in her throat. “I am so sorry to leave you.”
“Don’t say that, Mother,” Eliana replied, scarcely able to force the words around the lump in her throat. “You’ll feel better soon, you’ll see. The doctor says you aren’t even sick!”
“No, I am not sick,” her mother replied. “I have never been sick a day in my life. But I cannot live in this world any longer. I must go on to heaven, where I will wait for you. I promise.”
Eliana tried to answer, but the tears were rising thick and fast, and she feared they would escape if she spoke. She turned her head away, fighting for control. When she looked at her mother again, she smiled a valiant, determined sort of smile.
The miller’s wife, not fooled in the slightest, wished she could do something, anything at all, to ease her daughter’s pain. There was little enough she could do now. Except . . . except . . .
“Here, Eliana,” she said, and with more strength than she had demonstrated in many days, pulled her hand from the girl’s grasp. She held it up so that the simple gold ring shining on her finger momentarily gleamed as brightly as her own hair. “Here, I want you to take this. And my necklace,” she added, putting up her other hand to touch the gold chain that lay upon her gaunt chest.
“No, Mother,” Eliana replied, shaking her head quickly. “They look so pretty on you. You will want them when you get well again.”
“They will look better on you,” her mother insisted. “And . . . and they will remind you of me. Please, my darling. Please take them. I want to see you wear them, before . . . before . . .”
She could not find the strength to finish the sentence. Tears welled in Eliana’s eyes again, but she forced another brilliant smile and, to please her mother, took both the ring and the necklace and put them on. “There,” she said. “See? Do you like how they look on me?”
“Yes,” said the miller’s wife. “I like them very much on you.”
“Then I will never take them off,” Eliana assured her. “Never.”
But her mother slowly shook her head. “You must not say that, my dear. They are made of real gold. Real gold loses its luster if those who own it cling to it too tightly. You must promise me, if someone asks you for either this ring or this necklace, you will give them what they ask right away, without question. And you will only take them back if they are returned to you just as willingly.”
Eliana scarcely heard what her mother said. Why should she care for jewelry now, whether or not it was real gold? The only gold she loved was her mother’s spun-gold hair. But the light was fading from it even as the sun set lower beyond the horizon and darkness fell.
“Will you promise me, Eliana?” her mother asked, her voice a faint, whispering breath.
“I promise, Mother,” Eliana answered. “Anything you ask. I promise. Only, please . . .”
She did not finish. She saw that, as soon as her promise was spoken, her mother’s spirit slipped away from her body, never to return.
Eliana bowed her head and wept now without comfort. But the simple ring on her finger and the delicate chain around her neck glowed bright with the warmth of a mother’s love, which lingers on long after death.
Beyond the miller’s yard, across the mill stream, safely hidden in the woods, a tall figure stood beneath an oak tree. No one saw him, for no one looked to see him. Even someone looking would spy no more than a flickering shadow and think nothing of it.
He stood still, like a stag scenting the breeze. As the sun set and his own shadow lengthened across the forest floor, his bright green eyes watched the window of the miller’s house as though waiting to see something appear there.
Suddenly his gaze quickened with interest. He blinked and seemed to follow the flight of a swift little bird, which darted out of that window and off into the twilit sky. But there was no bird to be seen, at least not by mortal eyes.
The man whispered in a voice like the gentle stirring of leaves, “She’s gone. Poor, dear lady.”
A single tear trembled in his eye before falling down his cheek. He was quick to catch it—for it would not do to leave something so priceless lying around in the mortal world. He caught it on his handkerchief, which he tucked away in the breast pocket of his tunic.
Then, on silent feet he glided out from among the trees and over the stream. He navigated around the miller easily enough. The man sat on the bank of the stream, weeping quietly, unaware of his surroundings. The poor mortal had lost his wife, after all. The silent stranger spared him a brief moment of pity.
He slipped across the yard like the shadow of a cloud until he came to the window of the miller’s house. He peered inside and saw the body of the miller’s wife. How strange she looked to him! So hollow. So empty.
But beside her sat her very likeness in living, human flesh! Dark-haired, certainly, and younger by far. Nevertheless, the resemblance between mother and child was unmistakable, especially now that the daughter stood upon the threshold of womanhood.
The shadow-man’s heart went out to the girl as he saw how desolately she cried. He wished he might catch and save her tears even as he had caught his own. But he dared not approach her for fear he might frighten her. And he did not want her to fear him—not in the least.
He spotted the gold ring on her finger and the gold chain about her neck. The sight made him smile, albeit with some sorrow.
“I’ll watch over you,” he whispered to the maiden, though her ears heard nothing more than the sighing of a breeze through the tall grasses. “I will protect you in honor of your lady mother.”
With this promise, he vanished. But not for long.
CHAPTER TWO
A New Family
“I will be home soon, I promise you,” said the miller to his daughter one day in spring, three years after the death of his wife. “I cannot bear to visit my brother for longer than a week and will return to you within a fortnight. You may rest assured!”
Eliana kissed her father’s cheek. She preferred that he not leave, of course. She was not used to staying home alone for such a long period of time. But she was mistress of this humble house, and she knew how to care for the mill, the geese, the pig, and the cow. If she grew lonely, she could always walk down the lane to the village church and say her prayers amongst others.
She held out his hat. “Give my very best to my uncle,” she said. With a grateful nod and a smile, her father don
ned the hat, mounted his donkey, and set off down the road, leaving Eliana behind on the doorstep.
She watched until her father disappeared through the trees. Then, with a sigh, she went about her solitary day, doing her solitary tasks, preparing for a solitary two weeks. First, she decided to chop wood for the fire, then draw water from the well. There were plenty of tasks to keep her busy, and she did not shirk a single one of them. The more she worked, after all, the more time she filled before her father’s return.
Since the death of her mother, Eliana and her father had grown close, depending on one another in their grief. For the first few months Eliana had feared the miller would sink so far into despair that he would never recover. However, slowly but surely she had drawn him back into the world of the living, giving him reason to smile again.
Now, though both felt the hole left behind by her mother’s death, they got on with their lives well enough. The mill was prosperous, serving to grind the grain of three separate villages, and though they were not rich, Eliana and her father were comfortable in their lot. Sometimes the miller even spoke of adding on to their small house, though Eliana protested that they had no need of more room.
On the third morning Eliana woke to find that one of the geese had broken free of the pen and wandered off into the wood somewhere. With a heavy sigh she set out after it; if she let the fool thing roam free, it might become a feast for some fox. She followed the trail of downy white feathers, calling and clucking to the goose as she went. The whole flock knew her voice and, while not exactly obedient, they would often come to her when she called.
She crossed the mill stream and continued on into the forest. The long shadows cast by the trees never gave her pause. This was her forest. She had grown up in it. She knew every deer trail as thoroughly as any merchant knew the cart paths to and from the various towns. Never once in all her days had she felt afraid.
Five Magic Spindles: A Collection of Sleeping Beauty Stories Page 40