by Liz Braswell
“Rose, look,” he interrupted, pointing. “What’s that?”
Aurora Rose couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just a little area where the dust was shifting in the breeze.
And then settling down on itself like an ant lion building its pit trap just below the surface.
And then getting bigger. Spreading out like a sinkhole. Like…
“GET BACK!” Phillip cried, spinning around and grabbing her to run.
She stumbled, unable to process what he said and what she saw and what her feet should do at the same time.
She landed hard in the dust, on the same bruises she had made falling from the top of the castle. Her left leg was twisted underneath her.
She rolled over onto her belly as quickly as she could, trying to untangle her stiff appendages—and saw the world open up before her.
Like a devouring mouth, like nothing she had ever seen before or could possibly imagine: the ground itself was falling away into a yawning crack that gaped wider and wider, pulling all the surrounding dirt and rocks and grass with it.
It devoured the path, coming toward her as fast as a horse at full gallop.
“ROSE!” Phillip shouted, spinning around when he realized she wasn’t behind him.
Without a second thought, he ran back and grabbed her, reaching around her waist and throwing her over his shoulder.
He staggered under her weight for a moment and then began to run.
“Put me down!” she shrieked. “I can walk!”
She watched, upside down, as the earth continued to be eaten away, the edge of the abyss now almost at his feet.
“Didn’t seem like it,” Phillip huffed.
“PUT ME DOWN!” she screamed. “We’ll go faster!”
Swearing, the prince did, pausing only a moment to set her on her feet.
He did not let go of her hand.
The two took off, and he only had to pull her a little. Grace—the fairies’ gift, according to his story—seemed to pertain to her running as well as dancing. She might not have been as fast as he, but she was nimble and fleet and didn’t need to look at her feet to avoid stumbling.
But it didn’t help her with stamina.
She pushed hard, almost crying at the effort. There was a tiny part of her that just wanted to give up and admit there was no escape and no sense wasting energy trying. But she was astonished to see that weak impulse completely overcome by the immediate will to survive. She couldn’t have stopped running if she wanted to.
She also chose not to look back; the screams of the ground and the cracking, rocky noises behind them were enough to speed them on.
She suddenly realized they were running back the way they had come, back toward the castle.
But surely, if this was an attack from Maleficent, it wouldn’t destroy the castle, would it? With her and her minions and her victims all still in it?
The princess yanked Phillip’s hand and led him, cutting through the clearing where they had met the second time, aiming straight for the silent gray structure looming above the surrounding countryside.
“No!” Phillip cried when he realized where they were going.
But just a few feet from the first outlying thorny vines, the noise behind them stopped.
Phillip and Aurora Rose slowed down clumsily, with heavy thuds of their feet, winded and exhausted.
Slowly, they turned around.
Between them and the forest was now an epic ravine.
The two staggered backward as they tried to see the whole thing from a single viewpoint. It was at least several furlongs across to the other side of the path.
“I wouldn’t put this in a dream,” the princess said shakily.
It was like the gorge was too large to be believable—like her mind couldn’t encompass just how large it was. Her eyes kept darting to different points along its cliffs: where the dirt changed color, where there was a particularly large rock jutting out, where what looked very much like giant, ancient bones pressed up against the newly revealed earth. Anything to focus on and distract her from trying to comprehend the whole thing.
All was silent now, except for the occasional distant tumble of rock or sssht of a scree avalanche working itself free from somewhere in the depths.
Cautiously, without saying a word, Aurora Rose and Phillip shuffled to the edge and peered over.
The ravine wasn’t endlessly deep, as each had probably feared, but it was fairly deep. And it was filling with water as rivers and lakes along it were being drained into its bottom.
Phillip and Aurora Rose looked at each other.
“If we go down to cross,” the prince said hesitantly, “she could seal it back up over us immediately. Right?”
The idea of instant black death did not appeal to the princess at all. But neither did the idea of being stuck in the half-state of a dreamworld forever.
“But if she wanted to kill us outright, couldn’t she have just opened the earth immediately below us? She’s trying to lead us back—force us back into the castle. She needs us—or me—alive and close by. For now.”
“Hmmm. Good point.”
“Besides…do we have a choice?”
The prince sighed and shook his head.
“No.”
He started his way down, testing the firmness of footholds before holding out his hand to her.
She took it, idly observing how in moments of need, at least, his touch was certainly becoming less strange. Her other hand she trailed along the cool dirt beside her, letting it tangle in roots. How much of this was the real world, and how much was secret layers of her own self?
“Well, it wasn’t the stream I drank from,” Phillip said with a lopsided smile. “That was the trap, I mean.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Suddenly, she didn’t feel like smiling—didn’t feel the urge to mirror his face. She felt weak and sick. The strength and determination she had felt just a moment before withered under scrutiny.
“It was a trap, wasn’t it? She knows where we are. Somehow she knows I’ve figured everything out. She’s trying to stop me. To hurt me, if she needs to…”
“Yes, and that’s great!” Phillip said with a blindingly toothy grin.
Aurora Rose blinked at him. She found herself wondering if the two of them were, right at that moment, caught in different realities, like her and her real sleeping body. Because he wasn’t making sense.
“I’m sorry?” she said, manners kicking in before what she really wanted to say managed to make its way to her lips.
“It means we’re on the right path—don’t you see? Every time Maleficent does something like this, every time we narrowly evade a trap or attack or whatever she sends after us, it means we’re getting closer to our goal. The fairies. The way out!”
“Oh.” She turned this over in her head. It made sense. It was also a way of thinking that was so utterly bizarre to her that she had trouble wrapping her head around it. “Bad things can mean good things. That’s…unique.”
“Nah, basic games strategy. Like when Sir Palomer starts sending all his one-point scouts after your first cavalry, you just know you’ve almost found where he’s hidden the crown.”
She studied him for a moment and decided to give manners a rest.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Catch-the-King? Really? You’ve never played? Oh, it’s a great game. Even my sisters…”
She just looked at him, raising her eyebrows a little.
“Well, anyway, the point is this.” Phillip kept talking as he balanced on a giant piece of root, digging his nails into the dirt wall to balance. “It’s a good metaphor, if I do say so myself. Imagine you’re playing a very dangerous game with Maleficent. If you win, then you wake up, she dies—I assume—and everyone in the kingdom wakes up, I wake up, we all live happily ever after. If she wins, well, I assume she kills you, takes over the kingdom, and rains bloody hell on everyone and everything.”
&
nbsp; Now she really did feel sick.
Her stomach turned. When was the last time she ate? Was there anything left to throw up? Her legs felt rubbery. The view down to the bottom of the ravine suddenly seemed a lot farther. And the way back up impossibly steep. All she knew was rabbits and birds and banquets and balls. Nothing about life and death and saving kingdoms.
Phillip had stopped when she stopped, turning around to see what was wrong. When he saw her face, he gave her a sad smile. “You said you didn’t know what it means to be a real princess. Well, now you do.
“Being a member of royalty means the lives of those you rule are more important than your own. You lead your armies into battle to protect your country from invasion. You marry people you don’t want to, to keep the peace.” He chuckled at the irony.
“And there is an entire kingdom of people asleep, at Maleficent’s mercy, depending on you to rescue them. This is your quest. This is your adventure.”
He reached out and gave her white-knuckled hand a squeeze, then a comradely pat.
And then he turned around and started making his way down again.
He was right. This was simply what she needed to do. She had never been more needed to do anything in her whole life.
Taking a deep breath, she followed.
“I cannot believe you’ve never played Catch-the-King!” he went on, even as he nearly tripped over a narrow ledge that shifted under his feet. His hands flew up for balance, out of hers. “It’s, like, the best game ever! I’m not great at it—not even as good as Brigitte, between you and me—but my uncle Charles, now he’s the expert. What you do is set up all the markers, without your opponent seeing….”
As he prattled on, she found herself not listening to the boy she’d thought was the most handsome in the world just a little while ago.
Then, as he continued endlessly about the rules and setup for the game, she wondered if this was another strategic move on the part of the prince: an attempt to distract her from the weight of the burden she now realized she carried.
And after a while, the going became easier. The wide, gently sloping path a gigantic tumbling boulder had made on its descent allowed them to walk side by side for a little.
“Can I hold your hand?” Phillip suddenly asked, a little plaintively.
The princess looked up, surprised. “Sure. Yes. I suppose.”
He grinned like a kid who had just been given a pony, taking her hand and squeezing it once. He swung it as they walked. All trace of near disaster was gone from his world. He was the handsome hero prince, for whom it was all in a day’s work. The latest evil was overcome and now it was time to move on. No dwelling…despite the fact that they were several stories below the surface of the earth and deep in the ground’s shadow. With no real plan of how to cross the water at the bottom.
“Thank you,” she said after a minute or two. “For carrying me back there.”
“Of course,” he said, breaking off a root with his free hand as they walked. He looked at her mischievously. “But if I’m going to have to rescue you any more, you know, pick you up and throw you over my shoulder, it would be better if you wore softer shoes. Next time.”
“There won’t be a next time. I won’t be needing that service again, thank you,” she said haughtily. “I was just…caught unprepared.”
“What is it with you girls and pointy shoes, anyway? Get yourself a nice flat-heeled pair of boots, that’s all you need….”
“I didn’t wear shoes at all in the forest. I was barefoot all the time, and my skin was as thick as hides. I had so many shoes in the castle…all different colors.”
She stopped, thinking about it.
Then she reached down with her free hand and slipped off her golden shoes.
With a gentle toss, Aurora Rose threw them into the ravine.
“HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN WALKING?”
They were still a little soggy from tramping through the mud and water at the bottom of the ravine. Luckily, the stream wasn’t as deep as it had looked from above, but it had still been cold and generally unpleasant. Phillip’s boots sloshed a little as he stepped. Climbing back out of it took more time than going down, but she couldn’t have said how much.
“A while…I don’t know. A couple of hours?” Phillip said. “It’s hard to see under the trees—I can’t make a sundial here. It seems a little darker. Maybe the sun has set or is close to setting.”
So this is real twilight, she thought. Not the graying-of-everything that evening at the Thorn Castle brought. Shadows were blending with solid shapes, and everything seemed to be more blue or dark purple. She held her hand out in front of her; somehow it seemed more real, more detailed than it did in sunlight. But as she looked off to the sides of the path, directly into the heart of the forest, it was already as dark as night. Impenetrably black.
Except…
She blinked her eyes, thinking she was hallucinating.
No, it wasn’t her imagination. There were tiny blue and orange wisps of light dancing just beyond the edge of where she could make things out clearly.
Fireflies? Will-o’-the-wisps? Sorcery?
And then one of the wisps bounced its way toward her.
She watched with wide eyes as it whisked this way and that and finally wound up bobbling in front of her face. Phillip continued on unheeding, muttering about finding food and whether or not dreamers needed to eat.
Inside the ball of light was, as she expected, a tiny, perfectly formed girl. Not like the previous ones; younger, with an almost childlike body. Her eyes were wide in surprise as she peered at Aurora Rose.
“You’re a fairy,” the princess stated, more for herself than anything else.
“You’re a princess!” the tiny fairy squealed in amazement. “A beautiful, fairy-tale princess! In the flesh!”
The ball shrank down to the size of a pinhead, then suddenly expanded and, with a pop, disappeared. The princess blinked. The fairy was now hovering in front of her, just off her toes, mostly human sized. She had what seemed like endless waves of chestnut brown hair, a rather shockingly short tunic, and a pointy little nose.
“Oh, how pretty you are!” the fairy said, dipping around the girl half on her toes, half in the air. The princess spun, trying to follow.
“You—are you from the real world?” Aurora Rose asked desperately. “Did the others send you? Are you from the cottage?”
The fairy didn’t answer, too busy picking at the girl’s clothes and hair and any other bits that stuck out.
“Hey,” Phillip said politely. “Who’s your friend, Rose?”
She shrugged helplessly. But she couldn’t help smiling at the pretty, delightful, gold-sparkle-trailing creature.
“Please,” she said, trying not to laugh at the thing’s antics. “Were you sent by Flora? Or Fauna? Or Merryweather?”
“Oh, no.” The fairy was now playing with the ends of the princess’s golden hair, touching it with awe. “Those are important, serious godmothers. Tangled up in human importance. We are wood nymphs. Fairies of the forest. Fialla! Livuua! Malailialaila!” she called. The nonsense names quickly degenerated into bird trills and frog calls.
More wisps came quickly bobbing through the trees.
The prince and princess watched, astounded, as more and more fairies changed into life-sized forms and landed around them. They were all tiny, skinny, large-eyed, and wore very little. Not that there was much to cover.
“Oh! Look at your hair! It’s like spun gold!” one of the fairies said. “But so dirty!”
“Oh, your hands! So delicate!” another said. The fairy’s fingers were delicate, too—but too delicate, tapering to pointy nothings at all.
“Your skin is flawless,” a third said, hovering in the air and examining her cheeks—a little too closely.
“Are you a prince?” a fourth asked, turning to Phillip and looking up into his face with reverence.
“Why—yes. Yes, I am.”
“How did you know I w
as a princess?” Aurora Rose asked. So many fairies flew around her that she was practically cocooned in golden trails. The little sparkles were warm when they landed on her, like harmless crackles from a fire. She felt both crowded and swept up by the little army of magical girls around her.
“You look like one, silly!” one of the fairies laughed.
“You’re so handsome,” a fairy mooned at Phillip, her hands clasped.
“Well, I…” he said, blushing.
“Look at your gown!” a fairy wailed. “Your beautiful golden gown, tarnished! Those rags are no fitting raiment for a royal princess!”
“And your shoes! Where are your shoes?”
“Come with us!” the first one said. “We will brush your hair! And magic you new clothes! And fix your nails,” she added, with a distasteful look at the ragged, dirty, torn ones on the princess. Aurora Rose had a sudden urge to hide them behind her back.
“Nope. Not leaving the path. Not again,” the prince said firmly.
“We can do it here then.”
“We don’t really have the time.”
“It will stay your travels but a moment,” the fairy pleaded. “Then you will be on your way. Refreshed and renewed—and properly dressed for the adventures ahead.”
“You look like you could use your shoulders rubbed,” another fairy said innocently, turning her big eyes to Phillip.
“Well, now that you mention it,” he said.
“A prince and a princess! Handsome and beautiful!” the first fairy squealed, clapping her hands. “We are so lucky!”
Soon there were dozens of fairies flying around, lighting the area with their golden dust and creating a strangely room-like space under the trees. One made pine needles fly up together and dance into a low couch. Another conjured a mirror out of dewdrops. A third pulled tree branches together and coaxed them into forming a screen.
“No, no, no!” one fairy teasingly chastised Phillip, pulling him away from the princess to the other side of the screen.
Aurora Rose found herself surrounded by hovering, flitting bodies that changed size and dipped and flew up and down so much that she couldn’t watch anymore. Their hands were gentle and carefully tugged at the ratty gown, flying it off over her head without any issue. The princess wasn’t cold, as she had expected to be; the golden sparkles were keeping her warm.