Once Upon a Dream

by Liz Braswell

  The princess pulled aside what looked like a set of heavy rain barrels and stepped reluctantly into the dripping hole they revealed. She descended slowly, almost slipping twice in the first few feet and jarring her head badly. She cursed, using a word that she had heard Cael use once—and found it did make her feel a little better.

  The way ahead was pitch-black, but there was no way she could get lost; there was only one way to go.

  And she kept telling herself this as she moved slowly along, a hand on each slimy wall to steady herself.

  She tried to distract herself with the important thing she had just learned: that the feather was from a bluebird. A bird that only existed on the Outside…

  …an Outside that was supposed to be a wasteland, devoid of all but the most noxious and evil life.

  An Outside that the minstrel had apparently escaped to and returned from, not entirely worse for wear.

  But was there still a possibility that he was just drunk and mad? That he had simply found a feather somewhere and concocted this crazy story?

  Well, then life would go on. As it had.

  But if he really had been Outside…and things did live there…

  The princess picked up the hem of her skirt as she stepped delicately over a pool of muck. There was a little light now that reached her from the flickering torches in the dungeon proper. She slunk against the far wall to the stairs on the other side, unwilling to see or be seen by the prisoners.

  And then…she heard voices. Her aunt’s voice. And—her parents?

  She slowed down and pressed herself against the cool black wall to listen and watch.

  “Oh, enough already,” Maleficent said with a tired—though dramatic—wave of her arms. “There is no way out. You will eventually die. And I shall live again.”

  “But our daughter…” the old queen said, coming forward and holding the bars. It almost sounded like she cared.

  “Your daughter?” Maleficent asked, her voice rising in dramatic surprise. “Really? What kind of loving mother hands her daughter off to the fairies for sixteen years?”

  Aurora frowned. That was wrong. She was to be given to the fairies on her sixteenth year, not for sixteen years.

  “It was to protect her!” King Stefan protested.

  “Really?” Maleficent swung around, arching her arms and fingers like an animal, lowering her yellow eyes to their level. “You couldn’t think of any other way to ‘protect’ your daughter? Better guards? Higher walls? Runes and spells inside the castle? Really? Let me tell you something, dearies.”

  She lowered her voice and spoke with a hiss through lips that barely moved.

  “You may think I’m more evil than any demon who ever walked this earth. And you may be right. But if I ever had a daughter, you can be sure I would keep her close, and teach her well, and school her in the arts of magic, and make her strong and powerful enough to protect herself, and I would never let anything come between us.”

  Aurora felt something strange inside her. Maleficent was never this uncontrolled, this furious. Her words rang somehow truer now than in all of her carefully composed, dramatic speech.

  “Or.” Maleficent recovered herself. She straightened back up to her full height and adjusted her cloak. “Or admit the truth to yourselves. It didn’t matter much either way, because in the end, you really would have preferred a son.”

  And with that, she spun and strode out of the dungeon.

  Aurora was so confused she didn’t bother trying to hide herself. Her aunt almost tripped over her.

  “Aurora,” she said in her normal voice, faintly surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “I…was playing a game of hide-and-seek with some of the servant children,” she stammered.

  She had never lied to Maleficent before. But overhearing that conversation had unnerved her.

  “Oh,” her aunt said, accepting her explanation but still confused. “That’s rather…gracious of you, my dear. I wouldn’t encourage them to hide down here, however. Lest they come under the evil spell of your parents.”

  “Or the minstrel,” Aurora added quickly, relieved her lie was taken up so quickly.

  “The minstrel? He’s not down here.”

  “But he’s not in the stockades, so I assumed…”

  “Oh,” Maleficent’s face fell into a mask of sadness. “He’s gone, darling. Apparently the poor drunken fool actually did make it Outside somehow. I thought it was just his usual drunken ramblings….”

  “What?” She just barely caught herself from adding, So it’s true….

  Maleficent regarded her with intelligent, unreadable eyes. “Outside and back in, over a month ago. I just found out the truth of it myself. I have no idea how he did it. There’s a hole in the security somewhere. I must recast my spells and protections. Who knows what he could have brought in with him….”

  “Where is he now?” Aurora breathed, thinking about her feather.

  “Back Outside. Where he so desperately wanted to be. For good, this time. I…didn’t stop him.”

  Aurora felt like throwing up. Her head hurt. She had the feather. Should she tell her aunt? Tears sprang to her eyes.

  Maleficent misunderstood, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder.

  “Darling. Don’t over mourn. His time wasn’t long here anyway, the way he was living. But—and this is important—you must never talk about this with anyone. People get funny, wrong ideas…there is nothing Outside. Nothing that will keep you alive for long. We don’t want anyone starting rumors.”

  She pulled her cloak around her and started to go.

  “Aunt…” Aurora began, not sure what she was going to say. An admission of everything. Something about the minstrel. Something about a feather. Questions about the Outside.

  But that’s not what came out.

  “What if I could do it? What if I could learn magic? Would you teach me your powers? Would you raise me to be like you? And we could rule the world together, and maybe make it back to like it once was? Before my parents destroyed it? Together?”

  Maleficent blinked at her once with her slow yellow eyes. For perhaps the first time ever, an ironic remark, a dramatic observation, a meaningless quip didn’t form on her lips.

  She seemed uncomfortable thinking about the question, and twitched her shoulders.

  “But you can’t,” she finally said. “You’re just not capable, dear.”

  And she swept up the stairs, her cape trailing out majestically behind her.

  Aurora sank down on the cold stones. She didn’t go down to confront her parents. She didn’t go up. She stayed in the comforting darkness and wept over things she couldn’t even name.

  THE MORNING OF THE GOLD BALL, Aurora was in bed, as usual.

  With the minstrel gone, there was no way she could find out the truth of the matter. Either he was dead, or he was free of the castle, living with flocks of mutant bluebirds or whatever—and in neither case would he be coming back.

  She flipped wearily through the blank pages of one of her books. The back of her mind was playing with the idea of wishing for images to appear. Of wishing for the darkness from the Outside to come in. Could it be any worse than living in the castle with the same people for the rest of her life? Worse than blank books and hateful parents? Worse than being confronted every day by your own stupidity—so stupid even your own aunt patronizes you?

  She imagined the one brief glorious moment of false paradise the Outside would bring: birds and trees and bunnies and other animals everywhere, flooding the castle halls, singing and purring and leaping in people’s laps—and then it all exploding in one final, rapturous apocalypse as the monsters came in and everyone died.

  She sighed, turning over in her bed. She knew exactly how ridiculous she was being. As a princess—a living princess—at the end of the world, she was far luckier than those who had died, and her life was far better than the lives of most of those who remained.

  With great effort, she pushe
d herself up until she was at least sitting on the edge of the bed. Her head felt weary with all the terrible thoughts weighing it down. She felt sick—and that idea appealed to her very much. Of crawling back into bed and sleeping and having Lianna wait on her, and then go away…

  Sparkles appeared at the corners of her vision. She was both relieved and scared; she really was sick. About to faint, even…

  But the sparkles weren’t golden or silver as they were normally when she felt light-headed. They were red, green, and blue. They coalesced into three distinct balls of color instead of dissipating when she took a few deep breaths.

  The little balls danced around the room in a manner that suggested intelligence: as if they were investigating the cracks, the crevices, the nooks, the crannies. Like they were looking for someone or something that might be hiding.

  As Aurora crawled back onto her bed away from them, she noticed detachedly that when they came close to a solid object, their pale lights illuminated it and cast its shadow. Like real lights. Not hallucinations.

  Finally, the three balls must have decided it was safe and grouped together, hovering right in front of Aurora.

  She blinked, her eyes taking a moment to get used to their brightness being so close. As soon as she could see properly again, Aurora realized that there were things in the centers of the lights.

  Little living things.

  Things that looked suspiciously like tiny women. One in each light.

  “Oh, dear,” Aurora said aloud, trying to steady herself.

  The first thing spoke. Its voice was too high-pitched and tiny to hear.

  Aurora shook her head and pointed at her ear.

  The balls bobbled a bit.

  Then they suddenly puffed up in size.

  Now Aurora was faced with three—still smallish—flying ladies engulfed in light.

  The princess began to panic. These were fairies. That was startling enough. There were no fairies left, except for Maleficent. And certainly not any good ones…

  But—far more importantly—there was something terribly familiar about them. Something her body immediately recognized but her mind didn’t; she was overwhelmed with an urge to put out her hand and have them land on it. To try and hug them.

  Why?

  “This is not the world in which you are supposed to reside,” the green one said. The voice was still very high-pitched, but Aurora could just make it out this time.

  The blue one rolled her eyes. “You are running out of time. Years and hours are tangled, it’s true, but both go fast. If you want to save yourself and those you love, you need to figure out how to get out of all this.”

  “Wake up, you don’t belong here,” the third one, the red-lit one, piped up. “Wake up already! Do something!”

  There were footsteps in the hall, Lianna’s strange, syncopated gait.

  No, wait, just a moment…. Aurora was torn between panic and frustration.

  “Time for your bath.”

  Her friend appeared at the door holding a towel and a brush.

  The fairies were simply gone. Like they had never been there at all.

  The princess succumbed to her bath thoughtfully. She had accidentally wished…and something had happened.

  Aurora was glorious in her golden gown. Without a trace of envy, Lianna declared it was the most beautiful the princess had looked yet; somehow the seamstresses had managed to create a dress several perfect shades lighter than her hair, and it sparkled when she moved. With her tresses up in intricate loops of braids and a golden diadem on top, the royal princess was an image of the sun itself, her tippet and skirts rays that just touched the earth.

  Probably. No one could quite remember the sun.

  Aurora gave her speech of gratitude and thanks to her aunt with verisimilar emotion. And by the end of it, she actually felt the way she had when she first wrote it.

  The queen wore golden horns that night in deference to the theme. She kept her eyes modestly lowered during the speech and then thanked her ward warmly when it was over. The crowds cheered. Everyone seemed a little wilder that night. Dancers danced faster and harder. The musicians played like the devil was after them now that their leader was truly gone. Laughter was far too loud, and the drinking far too copious. Time may finally have taken a toll on the survivors in the castle.

  Aurora watched it all distractedly from her usual spot next to Maleficent’s throne, but she wasn’t really paying attention.

  What if the fairies were actually evil demons from the Outside trying to get in? What if they had discovered her mind was weak, like the drunken minstrel’s? A perfect, pliable vessel on which to work their evil influence. Wasn’t she just thinking about how great it would be if everyone died before the fairies arrived?

  What sort of person even thought those kinds of things? Who imagined opening a door and letting death in?

  A new idea interrupted this familiar spiral of thoughts she had been torturing herself with.

  What if she wasn’t the only person these visions appeared to?

  What if there were other minds in the castle, as weak and diseased as her own, prone to self-destructive thoughts—gateways of evil?

  Like the minstrel…

  Aurora looked back and forth over the golden-hued crowd, searching for something. Some sign of a weak or evil mind. Nothing immediately revealed itself.

  The laughter may have been borderline hysterical, but that could have been relief that things were back to…“normal.” If they questioned the source of their magical banquet, the gilded quail eggs and golden soups, they were at least eating it. If the musicians sorely felt the absence of the minstrel, still they played in key for the twirling golden dancers. There wasn’t an off note anywhere, actual or metaphorical.

  “Why aren’t you dancing?” Maleficent asked. She clasped a golden goblet that held some thick black wine. Her eyes were shadowed, and her movements were slow. She would be her old self again, in just a few hours….

  Aurora bit her lip. She was almost overwhelmed with a drowning sense of déjà vu. She had done this before. At least once. She would do it again at the next dance probably. And again and again and again…

  Panic was building in her head, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  “Go,” her aunt said, flicking her wrist imperiously, shooing her away. Aurora nodded and obediently trotted off, glad to have an order to follow and give her body something to do.

  But her mind wasn’t on the dance. It was on the fairies and traitors and what the Outside really looked like. It was on what had happened to the minstrel and the feather and her aunt. Her feet were merely going through the motions with no joy. No one noticed, however; the princess’s innate grace and skill and beauty and poise made her the most beautiful dancer in the room without her even having to try. Golden torches were reflected a thousand times in the soft golden folds of her dress; her golden shoes sparkled like candle flames.

  Count Brodeur avoided her like the plague, not even looking at her face when they twirled around each other in the middle of a set.

  In the middle of an endless chain dance, Aurora saw Maleficent get up quietly and slip away from the throne, out of the room.

  Maybe it was a good time to take a break. Get a mug of cider. Clear her head. Over by the bowls of punch, Lady Astrid had a grim smile on her face and a flagon in her hand and was nodding at something the much older Countess DeShabille was shouting in her ear. Just a week—or whatever—ago, the princess wouldn’t have given a second thought to either one of them. She would have danced, flirted politely with the cuter boys and men, and done anything she could to impress her aunt.

  But now…

  Lady Astrid seemed like a breath of fresh air in the tightly locked castle and Aurora’s own head. At the very least, the lady deserved to hear the truth about what had happened with the minstrel and where the feather had come from.

  And then two of Maleficent’s servants came up to the lady. The cockscomb one and the
doggish one—very obviously flanking her. They spoke tersely and gestured with their spears; the lady looked confused.

  Aurora apologized to her partners, disentangled herself from the other dancers, and made her way over as quickly as she could. But by the time she got there, all three were gone. No one else seemed to have noticed. Countess DeShabille stood still, nodding to herself, humming quietly.

  “DID YOU SEE WHERE LADY ASTRID WENT?” Aurora asked carefully and loudly, knowing the woman was mostly deaf.

  “VERY COURTEOUS AND NICE WOMAN,” the countess shouted back. “SHE CHECKS IN ON ME EVERY DAY, YOU KNOW, TO MAKE SURE THAT I AM ALL RIGHT.”

  “WHERE DID SHE GO?” Aurora repeated, trying not to be rude.

  “ALL OVER, I THINK. SHE AND HER HUSBAND LIKE TO TRAVEL. NOT ME.”

  The princess couldn’t stop one huff of disappointment, but she forced herself to nod courteously before rushing off to the closest stairs.

  Where were Maleficent’s guards taking Lady Astrid? And why?

  Maybe there was something wrong with one of the residents of the castle. Lady Astrid was the closest thing the nobles had to a nurse.

  But as Aurora looked all over, running through the castle halls and ducking into every likely place—and finding nothing—she began to suspect that it wasn’t for so noble a cause.

  With a sickening twist of her stomach, she thought about the feather. Of her ill-advised revelation to Brodeur and then Lady Astrid…and the implications of where the feather had come from….

  The minstrel was gone, Count Brodeur was on edge. Astrid herself had said the whole matter was dangerous. And now the lady had been whisked away by royal guards.

  Praying she was wrong, Aurora hurried up the last flight of stairs. The one that had originally led to her father’s solarium, which Maleficent had claimed as her own chambers. She chose it out of respect for Aurora—not wanting to appear to replace her parents entirely, especially in their own bedroom. Plus, it was a little removed from everyone else and in a tower, just the sort of thing a fairy queen would like.