Nanny didn’t find that knowledge reassuring. “Maleficent, listen to me, I couldn’t find you, I swear. I searched everywhere. I used every kind of magic I could to seek you out. I mourned you sincerely, because I thought you had died when you destroyed the Fairylands. I thought your rage had consumed you. You have no idea how much I suffered over the loss of you.”
Maleficent shook her head violently. “But when you learned she was alive, you didn’t come to her. Your daughter! The odd sisters told you they’d found her, and you didn’t come! You didn’t come for her! You left her alone in that ruined castle.”
“You mean I left you alone in that castle. I didn’t come to you.”
“That girl, your daughter, she doesn’t exist! She’s dead because you abandoned her!”
“I was afraid,” Nanny admitted. “It wasn’t until the odd sisters came to me for help with the little princess that I knew what you had been going through. But then I had Aurora to consider. She was small and defenseless, like you had once been. She needed a home. And she needed someone to care for her and love her.”
“So you put her in the hands of the three good fairies? You gave my daughter to them! How could you?”
Nanny was shocked. “Your daughter? How is that possible? Is that true?”
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t know! Of course you knew! You know everything. Tell me you didn’t guess. Tell me you didn’t know in the back of your mind that she was mine. Be honest with me and with yourself for once!” Maleficent bellowed. “You gave her to them. To them! Those foul fairies! Those horrible creatures who loathe me! You gave my daughter to them!”
Nanny felt terrible. She’d failed Maleficent more than she had known. Nanny realized that Maleficent could never forgive her, no matter how much she pleaded with her. “I didn’t have a choice! I saw it the day of the exams. I saw that the good fairies would take care of a little girl whom they would grow to love very much. She was their charge, Maleficent. It was ordained. I can’t control the order of succession. I can’t change what is written in the book of fairies. You know this! You know it better than any fairy!”
“Why couldn’t you have given her to the Blue Fairy? To anyone other than them?”
“You know the Blue Fairy has her own charge—the little boy. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather were next in line. I’m sorry, Maleficent, but there was no way around it. All abandoned children with destinies of their own are given to a fairy. This is a fairy’s primary duty. And besides, if you hadn’t cursed her to die, cursed this child you call your own, the good fairies wouldn’t have had to stay in her life. Their involvement would have ended the day they gave her to King Stefan and his queen, the day of her christening! You caused the fairies to take her away into the forest and change her name. You did that with your curse. This is not my fault, Maleficent. You have brought this on yourself!”
“You could have taken her case! You could have stepped in!” Maleficent shouted. “You were always Oberon’s favorite. No one would have questioned you. You could have done that for me! You could have cared for her yourself! My goodness, in a way, she is your granddaughter.”
Nanny was stunned. “What do you mean my granddaughter? Where did you get Aurora? Is she your true daughter? Or did you find her?”
“The odd sisters didn’t tell you? You really don’t know?” Maleficent’s face became very still. She looked like an animal considering her prey as she tried to decide if Nanny was telling the truth. Nanny couldn’t hear Maleficent’s thoughts. She had no idea what she was thinking. Her face revealed nothing, no emotion, not even anger.
Maleficent smirked. “I’ve been practicing keeping my thoughts from you. I see that it’s working. For too long, you invaded my mind. For too long, you tried to steer me onto the course you thought I should take. All the while you knew we would end up here. In this place. In this time. As enemies.”
“I am not your enemy, Maleficent. You are.”
“You dare say that to me? Am I just another vain, power-hungry fool flinging herself into danger? Don’t insult me! You have no idea the pain I endured—what I went through.”
“Tell me.”
Maleficent was taken aback. “What?”
“Tell me what you went through. I want to hear it.”
Nanny desperately wanted Maleficent to forgive her, not just for her sake but for Maleficent’s. Oberon was still waiting outside, and she wanted to buy Maleficent more time. To give her a chance to redeem herself. Nanny wanted the tiny star in Maleficent’s heart to guide her to redemption. To lead her away from the darkness.
Then maybe, just maybe, Oberon would spare her life.
“The first memory I have of the place I now call home is sitting on my cold stone throne. I remember shivering in pain, but I felt I deserved it. My only comfort was my ravens and crows. If it weren’t for them, I don’t know what would have become of me. You have to understand I’m speaking of how I felt then, not how I feel now. I was a different person then. Now everything feels detached.
“Have you ever looked back on events that happened many years ago and felt as if they happened to someone else entirely? That is how I feel now, except the detachment is more profound, because truly I was another person. I have memories of my feelings, of how I felt in the past, but I truly don’t think I feel anything now, except rage and the undeniable need to protect my daughter.
“I found my crumbling castle quite by mistake and decided to make it my home. It was inhabited by foul little creatures that feared me. They had seen me in my dragon form and decided I was sent there by their former ruler, Hades, to rule over them in his stead. I found out later my castle was once a great place of power, and the little creatures, who were to become my goons, had been left there, abandoned by Hades when he fled those lands. I never saw the god of the underworld. He didn’t visit me, but my birds told me the story relayed to them by the creatures. I spent many years there, alone, suffering over what I had done. I felt I deserved all the pain I was experiencing, and I became very fearful of ever becoming angry again, fearful that I might destroy myself in the process. The pain involved in becoming a dragon is unbearable. I honestly didn’t think I would survive it again. It’s why I stayed a dragon for so long. I was afraid of the pain involved in transforming back to my true self. And I was afraid of who I would become once I took my true form. Eventually I became lonely and tired of always fighting off some young man who wanted to prove his bravery by killing the great dragon. But it was really the hope of seeing Diablo, Opal, and my birds again that gave me the courage to become myself. I had been without them for so long. My loneliness was palpable. It ate away at me, leaving me with little hope that once I was myself again, they would at last hear my call. But they did. And when I transformed, I found I was very much the same person I was before. I was the fairy you knew and loved, except I was filled with an unspeakable sadness and a tremendous guilt for what I thought I had done to you and to everyone else. As the years passed and my loneliness deepened, I wished you had never found me in that crow tree. I wished I’d never known what it was like to be loved by someone. In those years, my pain and longing for you was so desperate that it rivaled the agony of my dragon transformation. I spent my days practicing magic and reading the books my crows brought to me, spirited away from far-off places. I had my books, my crows, and my ravens. I honestly didn’t feel I needed anything else.
“That is, until the odd sisters found me. They had lost their little sister, Circe, and they were deeply saddened. No matter how much I questioned them, they wouldn’t say what had happened. They seemed to be consumed with guilt and heartbreak. I imagined they lost her in some manner in which they were at fault. I didn’t know the details and I didn’t ask. I was just happy they found me. I’d always imagined if they’d somehow survived what had happened in the Fairylands and managed to find me, I would be met with their condemnation and anger, but they came to me with love and concern. They wanted to care for me. They wanted to make me
their own and to help me.
“As you know, I loved the odd sisters the moment I first laid eyes on them. So when they found me in my ruined castle, I was tempted to go with them to their home. But I was afraid I would eventually destroy them with my powers. They were so different then, the odd sisters, so different from how they are now. But I don’t have to tell you that. You remember how they were. Yes, they’d often speak over each other and become excitable. But now when I look back on my memory of them, I see that they were very different witches from who they are today. Not just because they have aged since then, but because their hearts have changed. Their manners have changed. Their souls have changed. But the sisters then, they wanted to care for me and to take me home with them.
“No matter how they pleaded, I wouldn’t go. I was too afraid of what I might do to them.
“‘You could never hurt us, dear! No. We will teach you to control your powers.’
“‘Oh, yes! We will instruct you, dear!’
“‘Please, Maleficent, we love you! We need you!’
“And so it went for quite some time. The odd sisters would come swooping down from the heavens to check on me, and to ask me to live with them. But still I said no.
“Over time, their visits became less and less frequent.
“I kept myself busy with my books and my pets. My crows flew to all the places I was too afraid to travel, told me stories from every kingdom, and brought me spells from other witches. They also brought word from the odd sisters, who kept quite busy with adventures of their own.
“It had been many years since I had seen them when they paid me another visit, again pleading with me to come live with them. It was then that I saw the beginnings of their transformation, although I didn’t know it at the time. I only see it now when I look at the events with removed objectivity.
“‘You are lonely, dear one,’ Lucinda said to me. ‘You are withering away with no one to love. Won’t you please come to live with us and let us give you the companionship you so desperately need? Please, Maleficent. It is the only way you will survive.’
“That was probably the last visit during which the odd sisters spoke coherently. The next time they visited, everything changed.
“‘Maleficent. Please let us help you,’ the sisters begged when they came to see me again. ‘If you won’t come to live with us, if you won’t let us love you, then please let us give you a daughter. Let us give you someone to love. Someone to care for and someone who will care for you.’
“I loved the idea of having someone to care for other than my birds. I loved the idea of someone loving me, but I didn’t understand how the odd sisters could do this.
“‘But how?’ I asked. The odd sisters laughed, but not in jest. They laughed because they were happy. They laughed because they thought they were giving me the greatest gift they could give: love. But I was worried. I wasn’t sure if this was something I should consider. I wasn’t sure if it was safe.
“They assured me it was. ‘Oh, my dear, don’t fear. We can do this. We’ve been devising this spell for many years, perfecting and mastering it before we dared to use it.’
“‘We would never offer you such a great gift or dangle it in front of your face if we didn’t know we could really give it to you.’
“Lucinda had been doing most of the speaking, but this time it was Ruby who spoke. ‘And we would never give you a spell that would put you in danger, dear one. We plan to use the spell ourselves.’
“And then it was sweet Martha, with her slightly kinder eyes, who spoke. ‘We created the spell for ourselves, you see, so you know it must be safe. And once it was perfected, once we knew it was finally right and we were about to use it, we had an epiphany!’
“‘We should help Maleficent! We will give her this gift!’ All the sisters were talking at once, their excitement and love overcoming them. ‘We want to give you this, Maleficent! Please let us help you.’
“I couldn’t express to them how much their offer meant to me. How wonderful this gift really was, and, yes, of course I would take it. I would have a daughter. I couldn’t make myself speak. I couldn’t find the words to express my gratitude to them.
“‘We know, our dear little dragon fairy-witch, we know. Please, there is no need for words. Not between us.’
“It was several weeks later when the odd sisters summoned me to their home. They sent a message with Opal, who must have been visiting them on one of her adventures. They said it was finally time to do the spell, but that it needed to be performed at their home. I never left my castle, not ever, not once in all those years, and I was terribly anxious. I was so afraid to use my powers, terrified to use even the simplest of travel charms, that I decided to go by foot to where the odd sisters had placed their house. It was on the outskirts of the kingdom, not very far away at all, but the idea of traveling even such a short distance sent a panic through my entire body. I summoned Diablo, Opal, and my other birds, and I asked them to follow overhead and watch the sky. The odd sisters’ letter said that they would have placed their house closer to my castle but something had prevented them from doing so. They assumed it was some sort of security measure by the previous occupant that was remaining in place.
“As I walked through the forest, I felt foolish for being so frightened. But then a desperate need to flee came over me. I sensed that I was in actual danger. The overwhelming feeling of hatred was palpable, and it was then that I knew: it was the forest. It had come to life. It was a terrible thing to behold. The greenery and vines twisted their way toward me with a fearsome velocity. The trees, too, were unlike anything I’d ever seen. They seemed to have faces and long, grasping hands that were impossible to break free from. I thought I was going to die there as the vines wrapped themselves around me while the trees held me fast in place. My birds swooped down, attacking the trees, trying to help me as the thorny vines cut into my flesh and wrapped around my neck. I wasn’t frightened as I felt my life force slipping away—not really; it almost felt like a relief. I think I might have been happy to die.
“‘Maleficent, no! Use your powers!’ the odd sisters screamed through the trees. They stretched their hands toward the sky, turning the world dark with their magic. ‘Maleficent! It’s dark! Use your magic!’
“In my panic, my body grew warmer and warmer. I’d remembered what you told me in my tree house that afternoon, on the day I first used my travel charm. You said if I ever felt that way again, to just think of somewhere safe, someone I loved, and I’d travel there. That’s what I did. Within mere moments, I found myself standing safely on the threshold of the odd sisters’ house, no longer in the clutches of my enemy. ‘Oh, my goodness, Maleficent! Are you okay?’ Lucinda asked.
“I thought I was. I couldn’t tell. I think I was in shock.
“‘We should have known! We should have known you would be the enemy of nature after what happened in the Fairylands! We were stupid not to have thought of it, we’re so sorry!’
“And it made sense even without explanation from the odd sisters. I was the enemy of nature. It seemed only right after I destroyed the Fairylands. I knew I deserved it. It was my curse, and I feared for my daughter. What if I passed my curse on to her?
“‘Oh, no! The trees will not condemn her for your deeds! Not to worry!’ the odd sisters assured me.
“The inside of the odd sisters’ house was very different from my own. It was comfortable, warm, and inviting. It reminded me of my years with you in the Fairylands, with its cozy kitchen and large windows. Outside the large round kitchen window there was even a tree in which my birds could perch. I wondered why I hadn’t accepted their offer to bring me there years ago.
“‘We’re ready to start the spell, Maleficent. But first we need to make you aware of the terms,’ Lucinda said.
“Ruby took over. ‘The spell only requires the very best parts of you. That way she will truly be your daughter. And in a way, she will be you, but only the very best parts of you.’
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br /> “The odd sisters smiled at me. ‘We know the spell works, and we promise you, no harm will come to you or your daughter.’
“Lucinda took me by the hand. ‘Do you agree to give your daughter the best parts of yourself? Will you let us help you by giving you someone to love?’
“I nodded. ‘Yes! I want it more than anything!’
“Lucinda took a crimson drawstring bag filled with a deep bloodred powder from the pocket in her skirt. She poured the powder, which was speckled with ground obsidian crystals, onto the floor in a circle around me. The sisters stood just within the circle, creating a triangle. Lucinda was the pinnacle, while Ruby and Martha flanked me, and their power illuminated their formation with a brilliant silver light. I had absolutely no fear. The odd sisters reflected nothing but love and devotion to me.
“Lucinda began the spell. ‘We call upon the old gods and the new, to bring a loving daughter to this fairy, to this witch, who is true.’ And the three sisters repeated the words over and over again. ‘We call upon the old gods and the new, to bring a loving daughter to this fairy, to this witch, who is true.’
“I felt a violent jolt to my body and a sensation I couldn’t explain—at least, I couldn’t then. I can now, because I know now what happened to me. But I will try to describe the sensation as I felt it then. Something was being taken away from me. Honestly, I’m not sure if it was just a strong visceral reaction to the spell, but my body and my soul reacted forcefully. I think it was because I was trying to fight what was happening. Every time the sisters said the words, I was overcome by the same feeling. It was agony.
“‘We call upon the old gods and the new, to bring a loving daughter to this fairy, to this witch, who is true.’
“The sensation became almost unbearable, and I felt like screaming. I was losing too much of myself. It was as if I was slipping away—becoming nothing. I felt empty and cold. But the sisters had promised they wouldn’t hurt me, and I trusted them. Just when I could no longer take the anguish, when I could no longer take the pain and the horrible ripping of my soul, it ended.
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