Sleeping Beauty's Daughters

by Diane Zahler

  “But why?”

  “Symon wants to give up fishing for exploring, and Papa promised to be his patron,” Luna explained. “First, though, Symon must learn to sail a ship big enough for an expedition. A batteau could not make such a journey.” She dropped her voice to a whisper and said, into my ear, “I plan to go with him. It will take me years to convince Mama and Papa, but I’ll do it. I’ll see the world!”

  “How remarkable!” I said softly. It seemed that things had not stayed the same during my long sleep after all. I thought of what I had said, teasingly, to Symon about raising a fortune and calling on me when we were grown, and I smiled a little to myself.

  “I want to get up,” I announced.

  “Oh, dearest, should you?” Mama asked anxiously.

  “Of course she should!” Luna said. She put an arm around me, and together we struggled until I could swing my legs over the side of the bed. I had a moment of dizziness sitting up, but then the room righted itself. Luna helped me into an embroidered robe and slippers, and I stood unsteadily. Then, with Luna’s support, I walked over to my love seat and sat. My limbs trembled from the effort of walking, and my stomach growled loudly.

  “Why, I’m starving,” I said.

  “Jacquelle!” Mama called, and the maid entered the room immediately. She had obviously been listening just outside the door. “Bring tea and toast for Princess Aurora.”

  “Mama, I haven’t eaten since July!” I exclaimed. “Please, Jacquelle, bring sausages! Bring cheese crepes, and cocoa. And a dish of berries and cream.” My mouth watered just to say the words.

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Jacquelle bobbed in a curtsy. “It’s very good to see you awake, Your Highness!”

  “Thank you,” I said, smiling hugely. My smile stayed in place as I looked around at all my family: Mama, Papa, Emmeline, Uncle Leander, and Luna—Luna, who had tried so hard to save me.

  “Do Mama and Papa know everything that happened?” I asked my sister. “Do they know how you tried to get Manon to curse you instead of me?”

  “I told them,” Emmeline said. “Luna would not say a word about it when we came back. But you are the one who does not know the whole story, my dear. You do not know that it was Luna’s idea that saved you. You do not know how Manon perished.”

  “Manon is gone? Gone for good? Oh, what happened?” I cried.

  “I’ll tell,” Luna said. “I think I can talk about it now.”

  “Yes, you tell,” I agreed, stroking her bouncy curls.

  “Well,” Luna began, “at the moment Manon touched you, Emmeline spoke. ‘I amend your curse!’ she said. ‘Aurora shall not sleep for a hundred years. Instead, I say that she will sleep only until the end of the year in which the curse took hold. She will wake at the same moment she was born—on September twentieth, her thirteenth birthday!’”

  “Oh,” I said in wonder. “How clever, Godmother!”

  “It was not my idea,” Emmeline admitted. “I had spent my time trying to strengthen my magic, for I wanted to do away with Manon’s spell altogether. But in the end, I didn’t have the power. It was only when Luna urged me that I realized that altering the curse might work. Manon was not expecting me to do it a second time—she was entirely absorbed by her desire for revenge.”

  “She underestimated you, my love,” Leander said warmly, and Emmeline smiled her beautiful smile at him.

  “Manon couldn’t bear it,” Luna went on. “I was standing near her, and Symon pulled me away. It was a good thing he did! Oh, you’ve never imagined anything like it. She was so angry that she couldn’t speak. She quivered and sputtered, and her hair lifted and crackled as if it were filled with lightning. I was sure that she would turn on us and change us into some dreadful creatures, or into rocks, or simply drown us in the seawater.” Luna winced at the memory, and I took her hand.

  “But instead, as we watched, she got redder and redder until she was practically purple. Then she began to swell like a bullfrog. Her face puffed up, and the buttons popped off her dress. She grew enormous, all swollen and plum-colored. I was so frightened. . . .” Her voice trailed off shakily. We waited in silence for a moment, but Luna couldn’t go on.

  Emmeline took over the story. “It seemed as though she couldn’t possibly expand any further. Then all at once there was a tremendous booming explosion. It was like a thunderclap. Right before our eyes she burst into flame.”

  I gasped and squeezed Luna’s hand. “I screamed,” Luna said in a low voice. “We all screamed, I think. It was the most awful thing I’d ever seen. The blaze burned so fast! It was incredibly hot. In just a minute, she was utterly consumed. It looked like she still stood before us, but it was only her shape, outlined in ashes. There was a little puff of wind, and the ashes crumbled to the surface of the sea, hissing. Manon was there, and then she was gone. There was no trace of her left at all.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing!” I said, appalled.

  “Spontaneous combustion, Master Julien called it when we told him,” Luna explained. “He’d thought it happened only in books. I’ve never even dreamed of anything so frightful.” She grimaced and closed her eyes, remembering.

  “Manon had lived with her jealousy and her fury for so long that she could no longer hold it inside,” Emmeline told me. “When she knew she’d lost Leander for good, when I bested her by changing the curse a second time—her hatred grew too big to contain. It destroyed her.”

  I shuddered. “I’m glad she is gone,” I said fiercely to Luna. “You were so brave, Sister!”

  Luna’s eyes were filled with tears. “I haven’t been able to speak of it before,” she confessed. “I’ve had nightmares nearly every night since it happened.”

  “But now the nightmare is over,” I said softly, hugging her.

  She leaned into me, gulping back a sob, and whispered, “Yes, the nightmare is over at last!”

  19

  Of Sisters Side by Side

  A knock sounded at the door, and Cook entered with a covered tray. “Happy birthday, Your Highness!” she cried, laughing with pleasure as I dug into the food. “I’m making the biggest, most beautiful birthday cake you have ever seen!”

  Never had a sausage tasted so wonderful, nor a berry so sweet and juicy. I could not stop eating. I chewed and swallowed as quickly as I could. “How odd, that it should be September, and my birthday,” I said as soon as my mouth was empty.

  “You are thirteen years old today,” Mama said fondly. “Do not eat so fast, dearest—it is not seemly, and you will belch.” It was what Mama always said, and as always, it made Luna laugh.

  When I finished, I walked around the room slowly, testing my strength. My terrible exhaustion was gone at last, and the food had given me new energy.

  Luna walked with me, supporting me when I needed help, and when we were on the opposite side of the room from Mama and Papa, she spoke in a low voice. “Before she . . . died, Manon said something to me. Something strange.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “She said, ‘You are not what you think you are, nor is your sister.’ She called me foolish. What do you think she meant? I can’t stop wondering about it.”

  I remembered the moment on the sandbar when Manon had uttered those words. “I think she spoke the truth,” I said. “She saw that you believed yourself to be a bad person, with no good in you. And somehow she knew how good I’d always thought myself. But we were both wrong.”

  Luna looked bewildered. “But you are good,” she said uncertainly.

  “I’m vain, and I’m terribly timid,” I told her. “And you’re brave and loving and generous. We’re both a mixture, not one extreme or the other.”

  “You’re not timid anymore,” Luna pointed out. “A timid girl wouldn’t have jumped on that quicksand to save me. Or held on to the sail ropes when the dragon came.”

  “Well,” I said, “maybe I’m not quite so timid as I was.”

  “And am I really all those things?” Luna as
ked, her eyes shining.

  “Truly,” I assured her. When her grin became almost too big for her face, I added, “And a dreadful pest, of course.” She pinched me, and I yelped.

  The door opened again then, and at last Master Julien and Symon entered. In three quick strides Symon was at my side, and my heart quickened.

  “Oh, Aurora,” he said breathlessly, and stopped. He was quite unable to go on. I glanced quickly at Mama and Papa, worried that this display of affection might anger them, but they didn’t seem disturbed.

  Luna read my thoughts. “They’ve seen Symon’s devotion to you,” she whispered to me. “He’s spent hours at your side every day. They know what he did for us, and they’re truly pleased and grateful.”

  I looked at Symon’s sun-browned face, his wild hair and bright eyes, and opened my mouth to speak. I wasn’t at all sure what I would say, but I wanted him to know how very much he had come to mean to me.

  Instead, I belched.

  Luna let out a shriek of laughter, and all the tension went out of the room. Symon laughed too, and Leander and Emmeline had tears running down their faces. Mama was horrified, of course, and my own cheeks were hot, but I had to smile and finally to join in the laughter.

  “Oh, romance!” Luna moaned, holding her stomach. I smacked her—but lightly.

  The moment for declarations had passed, and I needed to sit down again. I took Symon by the hand and pulled him to the love seat. “You must tell me,” I said. “How did we get back?”

  “We sailed in Manon’s boat,” he said.

  “In the black-sailed boat?” I asked, remembering my hazy half dream.

  “Yes, to the town of Deleau,” he replied. “It is a tiny fishing village. The people were terrified of us.”

  “I dreamed that,” I said in wonder. “There was a family, wasn’t there? Some children . . .”

  “That’s right!” Luna broke in, eavesdropping. “The Michels, and their twin daughters. They were very kind to us and sent for Mama and Papa. But you were asleep; how did you know?”

  I shook my head. “I was asleep, but not asleep. It was the strangest thing.”

  “Papa gave the Michels a gold coin for helping us,” Luna said. “And he has met Madame Mathilde and Albert, who aided us in Vittray. They sent word to Mama and Papa that we were well, as they promised. Papa has vowed that the palace would buy all of Albert’s catch for as long as he fished, to thank him.”

  “And he pledged to give Albert a new mast,” Symon added. I remembered—it had been Albert’s extra, unfinished mast with the pine pitch that ended up saving us from Melusine.

  “And then,” Luna went on, “we rode home from Deleau, and everyone gathered along the way to cheer and salute us. It was quite wonderful. You were in the carriage with Mama, but I was on horseback. You would have liked it if you’d ridden with us.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I would have—all those strangers!” I protested. I was too used to solitude and seclusion.

  “They are your people,” Symon pointed out. “You’ll be their queen someday. You must learn to love them.”

  I thought about how I had felt in the Michels’ house in my half sleep, how I had longed to see them and get to know them. Now I had been given a chance to do that.

  “You’re right,” I said to Symon. “I’ve been shut up too long. I think that I slept even when I was awake.” Luna looked quizzical at my words, but before she could jump in with questions, I heard an odd noise. It sounded like many voices, and music too.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Luna listened for a moment. “It’s the people of Vittray,” she replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They came to see you wake up, and to celebrate your birthday,” Luna said. “Papa has promised them birthday cake. In the meantime, he’s given them bread and cheese and our best cider, and sent musicians to entertain them.”

  “But . . . ,” I said hesitantly, still afraid, “I don’t know them.”

  “Ah, but they know you!” Luna said. “They’ve all heard your story. And they know me—I’ve been at every market day since we came back, and in every single shop in town!”

  I stared at my sister. “Have you? You’re so much bolder than I, Luna.”

  “You’ll come too, now that you’re awake,” Luna said with certainty. “We’re no longer locked away, Sister. We have nothing more to fear.”

  “That is so,” I said wonderingly. I knew I didn’t want to travel the world on a ship, like Luna. What I wanted was much, much smaller, but it was still so much more than what I’d had before. I wanted to go out among Papa’s subjects—my subjects, one day—and get to know them.

  “If they’re here to celebrate my birthday,” I said resolutely, “then I should go out to them.”

  “Oh, is that wise?” Mama fretted.

  I repeated Luna’s words. “We have nothing more to fear.”

  Then I smiled at my sister. “And you must come too, Luna! For we are celebrating your courage as much as my awakening. And Symon’s valor as well. And Emmeline’s magic, and Leander’s great sacrifice. We’ll celebrate it all!”

  “But you are not dressed, dearest,” Mama pointed out. “And your hair is not done!”

  I looked down at my robe and nightdress and then at Luna, and she and I grinned at each other. “The people will simply have to take me as I am,” I said.

  And with a strength in my step that I had never felt, not even before the fateful day I pricked my finger, I led the others out of my bedchamber. They followed me down the hall to the balcony that overlooked the courtyard, and I threw open the doors.

  Luna and I walked out onto the balcony, hands clasped together. The September sun shone down brightly. Below us, the people clustered on the greens-ward beyond the gravel drive, drinking cider and eating. The sounds of lute and drum and pipe filled the air, and children twirled in a delighted dance around the musicians.

  Then someone looked up and noticed us and pulled on another’s cloak, and they pointed and spoke to others. Everyone began to move toward the palace. The music stopped, and gradually the throng grew quiet, their eager faces upturned. I saw Madame Mathilde and Albert in front of the crowd, their family beside them.

  Luna poked me. “There are the Michels!” she whispered. Behind Madame Mathilde was a family of four, a tall, skinny man, his tiny wife, and two identical little girls, who swung on their father’s hands. I waved shyly at them, and a roar went up from the waiting assembly. I was astounded.

  Papa and Mama came out onto the balcony, and the crowd cheered all the more. Then Papa held up a hand, and they quieted.

  “My people,” Papa proclaimed, “you have been gracious and loyal, and we thank you for your good thoughts and your support in this difficult time.” Again the crowd cheered. “As you can see, my daughter has awakened, and both of our beloved girls are here beside us, well and happy.” The people shouted their approval.

  “My daughters’ courage, and the courage of their friends, has brought them safely through their adventures.” Papa motioned, and Symon, looking abashed, joined us to wild cheers.

  Papa stepped back then, and at the same moment Luna and I turned to each other. I threw my arms around her and hugged her as hard as I could. Once more the crowd roared. The music started up, and as a joyful dance began below us, Cook and Jacquelle came out to the greensward pushing a tray on wheels. Atop it was a gigantic cake, tier upon tier of white-frosted layers decorated with whorls of colored icing and flowers as vivid as those in Emmeline’s garden.

  “It’s your birthday cake!” Luna cried, clapping her hands. “Oh, let’s have some!”

  “I must go down,” I said to Papa, and he replied, “Yes, go!” Even Mama nodded.

  Then, still in my dressing gown with my hair unbrushed, I turned and sped through the hallway. Luna was just behind me and Symon followed, while our parents, Emmeline, Uncle Leander, and Master Julien watched. Hungry for cake and dancing and people and life, I
flew down the stairs and into the courtyard, wide awake and ready to join the revelry.

  About the Author

  DIANE ZAHLER is the author of The Thirteenth Princess, A True Princess, and Princess of the Wild Swans. Her books have been praised for their “delicious descriptions” (Kirkus Reviews) and their “gratifying depth” (Publishers Weekly). Diane lives with her husband in New York’s Harlem Valley, in an old farmhouse held together by magic spells and duct tape. You can visit her online at www.dianezahler.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Credits

  Cover art © 2013 by Laurel Long

  Cover design by Laura DiSiena

  Copyright

  Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters

  Copyright © 2013 by Diane Zahler

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  ISBN 978-0-06-200496-3 (trade bdg.)

  Epub Edition © JUNE 2013 ISBN 9780062239136

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