by Liz Braswell
“Sometimes I would run into some of Maleficent’s minions,” he added philosophically. The skin over his missing eye twitched. “Had to arm myself. Didn’t have my father’s sword anymore…made myself new weapons. King of the Wilds! Hubert may be exiled, but he is still KING!”
Aurora Rose found herself putting her arm around the old man as he got worked up again. At her soft touch, he jumped and looked around. Then he smiled and settled down.
“I couldn’t find my kingdom,” he continued quietly. “It shouldn’t have been hard. Stefan and I could see each other’s towers on a clear day. We joked about putting up a rope between them…making quick work of a visit. But it wasn’t there….It should have been there…but it wasn’t.”
“This is the world inside Aurora’s mind, Father,” Phillip explained gently. “She’s asleep. We’re in her dream. She has never been to our kingdom.”
“Quite right, quite right. Lost in some girl’s sorcerous dream,” Hubert said faintly. “Nothing is ever quite what it seems. The further I got from that blasted castle, the more things got confused. But also clearer. Memories of another world came back…the real world, I suppose. Stefan and Leah—as good people. Good friends. It was all mixed up. Rather like the mind of a young lady, I suppose.”
Instead of taking umbrage at that, the princess asked the question that had been bothering her. “Isn’t it odd that you found us just when we were talking about my parents? When I was about to give up on the quest?”
Hubert drew himself up and looked smug. “Nothing is odd in these woods, dear lady. I was called. By a higher power. Some being, an angel, a protective spirit, guided me to you. Told me you were lost. Told me that I should seek you out and guide you home.”
“The fairies,” Aurora Rose whispered. “It must have been them.”
“Fairies?” the king asked, intrigued. “I suppose it could have been. All golden and twinkly, now that I think about it.”
“Brilliant! It’s all coming together!” Phillip said with a sigh.
“But can you help us with what we’re looking for?” she asked, pressing him. “We need to find a cottage in the woods. Looks like the one where I grew up, in the real world, with my aunts. Small, with a thatched roof…I think….”
“I know all these woods, dear lady,” the king said, getting up and giving her a deep bow. “Even when they change. Which they do. I knew duty would call. And here I am, answering! Needed, at last! Follow me, children!”
He marched forward, a serious look on his face, holding his staff high and his rock firmly.
“He wasn’t like this in real life,” Phillip whispered as they set off after him.
Aurora Rose gave him a look.
“All right…maybe a little. But a lot of it was for show. Underneath he was a stern, solid ruler. Big drinker, big eater, and a very good friend to those who were good friends to him. But if it came to executing criminals of the realm, he had no problem taking a sword and doing it himself.”
She shuddered, though she wasn’t sure if it was for the Hubert of the past or the Hubert of the present. Phillip was speaking about him like he was already gone.
They followed him on what seemed at first to be a random meander through the trees, completely at odds with where they had been walking before. Hubert strode like a proper king, as if his robes were still long and thick and trailing behind him. But he also kept a watchful eye on everything around him: shadows, the world above, the distant movements. He wasn’t nervous, precisely. Just aware.
It also looked like he occasionally waved to certain trees and rocks.
The princess decided not to call him out on it. From the way he almost saluted one large boulder, it was obvious that whether or not he actually had discourse with the landscape, he definitely recognized it. And Aurora Rose, broken and beaten up, grieving and wounded, was just relieved to let someone else take the lead for a while. It took all of her concentration just to keep up with the father and son, swinging her stiff and injured left leg into place with every stride. Her side hurt when she breathed; it was a strange pain that felt wrong, like bones were doing something they shouldn’t.
She wondered what they would have done if Hubert hadn’t come along—if the fairies hadn’t figured out how to send him.
For the first time on the journey, Phillip walked ahead of her, keeping pace with his father. They didn’t talk about anything serious; they just exchanged the occasional strange, manly platitudes that seemed out of keeping with the present situation. Phillip would remark on the weather, and his father would guffaw and tell a story about a terrible downpour during which he had hidden in a small cave—along with two foxes and a badger.
Aurora Rose wondered if she had made that rain. She wondered if it reflected something else that had gone on in her head.
Eventually Phillip seemed to remember the princess and dropped back to be with her.
“You doing all right?” he asked.
“Not great. But all right,” she admitted.
“We’re almost there,” he assured her.
They wandered down the path, not quite touching, not quite bumping shoulders.
The sun must have climbed high beyond the trees; time passed and the light shifted, filtered though it was.
“My lady,” King Hubert said. He swept his hand forward dramatically and bowed.
There, starting in the middle of nowhere, was a path of neat little mossy flagstones that led into the darkness of the forest.
Her heart began thumping.
The path didn’t look familiar, exactly, but she was overwhelmed with nostalgia. Which was strange when she thought about it. In the real world she was less than a day away from her home in the forest, and less than a day had passed since she had left it. And in this world she had never been there at all. But she felt oddly tall, huge really, as if she was coming back to some place she hadn’t seen since she was a small child.
She started to run down the path, but Phillip grabbed her hand and held her back.
“Doesn’t this look familiar to you?” she whispered.
“It looks very much like the area where we met,” Phillip said guardedly. “But not exactly. The trees and the plants are the same, and the…”
“Rocks!” she cried in delight, seeing a giant gray boulder with sides so tall and straight it was like a small mountain with sheer cliffs. This time she did try to run and was rewarded by stumbling over her bad leg and experiencing a painful tear in her belly.
She bent over, hand to her waist.
Phillip and Hubert looked at her with worry.
“Are you all right?”
No, she realized. Her body wasn’t up to much more adventuring.
But she shook her head, put up her hand; she was fine.
“Let’s just continue on,” she suggested.
Then there was a crackle in the underbrush behind them, where they had come from. It wasn’t loud and it wasn’t heavy.
It was, however, extremely ominous.
“I thought none of Maleficent’s demons could make it here,” Phillip said warily. “Here, in the deepest part of Rose’s mind.”
“That wasn’t a bear,” Hubert pointed out. “I know from bears.”
“The little girl back there wasn’t a demon,” the princess said wearily. “And she could be just, you know, waiting for us. To come back out. We can’t hide in the deepest part of my mind forever.”
There was another—very tiny—shuffle of leaves. And the sound of air sucking in from someplace else. A very unnatural hoooomph.
“CALLED UPON AGAIN!” Hubert said enthusiastically in response, straightening his robes. “I’LL DEAL WITH THE DEMON. You two go on. Finish your adventure.”
“What?” Phillip cried. “No, we should all stick together. Father…”
“No, lad,” the old man said with a sad smile. “This is my part of the story. Yours lies ahead.”
“He’s right, Phillip,” Aurora Rose said gently. “It’s the best pla
n. Maybe he can delay whatever’s out there until we get done whatever we need to.”
“Listen to her, my boy. She’s a smart one.”
Phillip looked back and forth between them desperately for a moment. Then he set his jaw and nodded.
“All right. Thank you, Father. We would never have found it without you,” he said, embracing the old man warmly.
“We will see you on the other side,” the princess said gratefully. “When we all wake up.”
Hubert gave her a funny look.
“The peasant is the princess, eh? I don’t think you’re either, young lady. I don’t know what you are. Maybe you don’t, either. But…I don’t think you’ll see me on the other side. Exactly the same way, I mean.”
“What—what do you mean?” Phillip asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
“What I’m trying to say is, well…” The king flustered and fought for words. “Son, I’ve been lost in these woods for years now. I’ve had some absolutely top-notch—top-notch—adventures and made quite a few furry friends. Put some dreadful demons out of my misery. But I don’t think all of me has been entirely found. Do you understand?”
“No,” Phillip said with a worried look.
“Ah, well.” Hubert clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it now. You have bigger issues to deal with. Kingdoms to save. Princesses to—well, I don’t know. We’ll talk later. I wish…I wish we could have talked before. Really talked.”
His remaining eye grew glassy.
Then he raised his branch in a kingly salute.
“I shall DEFEAT anything that would ATTACK YOU AND HINDER YOU IN YOUR GLORIOUS QUEST! And WHEN I HAVE PERSEVERED, I shall make my own way back to that infernal vine-covered castle. You may have further need of my aid later on when dealing with that witch. And honestly, I should like to be there when she gets her what’s what!”
He gave one last smile. Then he turned with great, slow dignity and headed back into the shadows of the forest. He had disappeared, like a wild animal, in thirty paces.
Phillip watched him go. Emotions struggled for dominance on his face.
“What…just happened?” he asked in a strangled voice. “What just…Something just happened. I feel like we just said good-bye somehow.”
Aurora Rose put a hand on his arm—her first urge to touch him since their fight. But she wasn’t thinking of an us or a we or a him; she saw only Phillip, the boy who had been upbeat and brave and inspiring on this journey, brought to the edge of tears.
He looked down at her hand; the movement dislodged a single drop, which flew to the ground, dampening a salty spot on the leaves.
Then he shook himself and patted her hand.
“Let’s go,” he whispered.
She nodded.
She could almost ignore the little pains all over her body, lost in the satisfaction she felt from her surroundings. Familiar oak leaves crunched on the ground, tracing their strange shapes in pale dirt, looking like harmless baby monsters. The smells they made as she crushed them were so heady she wanted to swim in the air. It was fall here, she suddenly realized, while it had been other seasons elsewhere in the dreamworld. Fall was her favorite after spring. Small burnished brown acorns, with their cute tan caps, littered the ground. She used to collect them and…
It was difficult to stay present; her consciousness had to be constantly and reluctantly pulled back to the world around her. Every part of her wanted to sink into the memories, the warm ocean of completeness she knew was there now, easily dipped into.
“Come on,” the prince said, giving her his arm to lean on. This time she took it right away.
She spotted the cottage first.
“It’s…sort of like that place I was kidnapped from,” Phillip said.
It was a pleasant little shack, wood and thatched roof, funny little rooms added on higgledy-piggledy, and one tall chimney reaching up, crooked, above it all. Little puffs of smoke came out.
But it wasn’t quite right. She was pretty sure the stones had been normal stone colors, not bright, shiny browns and whites and blacks, like a picture painted by a child.
And there hadn’t been a flower garden on the roof, sweet peas dangling over the sides in front of a window.
But it was close enough, she decided.
There was a woman waiting in front of the door, which somehow neither of them noticed at first. A simple dark green dress and a lighter green apron fell in clean, crisp folds over her body. A pair of thick graying braids hung from the sides of her head, behind her ears. Her face was smooth but for a few deep wrinkles. She seemed inclined toward peace and kindness.
“Come in, come in, children,” she urged them. “Quickly now.”
“It’s another trap,” Phillip said uncertainly, but even he could feel this was different somehow.
“I…know her?” the princess said, confused but intrigued. “No, this is all right, Phillip.”
“This cottage is the safest place in your mind, Aurora Rose.”
The girl jumped at her full name—what she had begun to think of as her proper name.
“Please hurry,” the woman urged them.
The princess looked Phillip in the eye, and for once she was reassuring him. He accepted her near-motionless nod and the two stepped forward.
AURORA ROSE BLINKED.
Instead of the expected dark-but-homey cottage with the usual paraphernalia—tidy hearth, pots, a broom—the interior was much, much larger than it should have been. And also brilliant, blinding gold.
When Aurora Rose’s eyes finally adjusted, she saw where they really were: in an ornate, almost overdecorated room in the castle. Her castle. A room she had never seen before. The walls were draped in tapestries of golden animals: rabbits, deer, birds, a unicorn. An orange fire blazed merrily within a positively giant fireplace whose mantel was white marble inlaid with gold. Huge windows with leaded glass panes let in shafts of happy white sunlight. Thick rugs of white and gold thread covered the floor. Brightly colored swags and garlands of flowers hung from every exposed surface.
In the middle of the room was a golden cradle. Above it stood two tall, motionless adults.
Aurora Rose felt something in her throat, a sob or a cry of joy, as she realized who they were, and whom they were gazing at.
She crept forward, almost like a forest creature, hands clasping each other.
She peeked in the cradle.
There, kicking and pink-faced, was baby Aurora.
Grown-up Aurora knew herself immediately.
The eyes were the same, the pale wisps of golden hair the same.
But while most people would have been endlessly fascinated by the chance to observe themselves at such an early age, grown-up Aurora Rose more wanted to see something—someone—else.
She turned to look at the two adults who loomed over the cradle.
Queen Leah.
Almost like an older version of Aurora, but with slightly browner hair. Slightly browner, thicker, friendlier eyebrows. The princess saw where her cheeks would eventually wind up, shed of all their remaining baby fat: sailing above the high cheekbones she also inherited.
But her mother’s looks didn’t matter; it was the look she gave her baby that mattered. The queen was completely and utterly enraptured by her daughter in the cradle. Her eyes were wide and unblinking; a very slight smile was on her parted lips. Nothing could distract her from her watch.
King Stefan.
Skinny. A little tired-looking. Kind brown eyes above a not particularly royal mustache and beard. His robes gave his body some depth; the fire gave his cheeks a little ruddiness.
“Mother,” Aurora Rose breathed. “Father.”
The parents she had never known. The parents she was supposed to have been reunited with—only to part from—on her sixteenth birthday. On her wedding day. The ones who had given her life and then given her away.
And this was the only way she would ever get to see them again—in her memories. Her moth
er’s beautiful, loving face. Her father’s, well, kingly one. She couldn’t talk to them, ask them questions, hug them. She would never be able to find out why they had done what they had. She would never be able to curse them or forgive them.
Phillip coughed quietly, clearing his throat. Reluctantly, she looked up.
Standing by the fireplace was the woman who had let them in, along with two other women.
One was in all different slightly faded shades of blue. She wore robes and belts and scarves and scraps of cloth and even had quick blue eyes that matched—although they weren’t faded. Her hair was as brown as a polished chestnut and tied up in crazy buns on the back of her head with sticks pointing out all over to hold them in place.
The third woman was huge: tall and muscled, strapping and strong. She wore a red tunic over rustred leggings and boots. Her dark blond hair hung to her waist and was pushed back from her face with a simple leather headband. Her skin was tan and a little windburned, and her light brown eyes were dancing.
“The fairies!” Aurora Rose cried.
“Sort of,” she added.
Her memories still weren’t perfect, but there was something off about them. Weren’t they a little younger than her aunts? Or maybe they were older. They certainly dressed differently. And their eyes were…different.
“They don’t look exactly like the twinkling ladies who rescued me,” Phillip whispered. “But they feel like them?”
“Nothing is exactly the same in the dreamworld,” the one in blue said. “Just as in a dream your own house seems different, with more rooms, or things within it placed strangely. Everything here is a result of your perception and edited by the quality of your memory. Reality is entirely subjective.”
“She means don’t worry,” the one in green said. “Things aren’t what they seem—but that’s not always a bad thing.”
“You tried to rescue me in the castle,” the princess said. “You appeared to me and told me to wake up.”
“Not precisely, not us,” the blue one said. “That was a manifestation of the real, waking-world fairies. As was the one who sent Hubert to guide you.”