Fractured Fairy Tales: A SaSS Anthology

by Amy Marie

  I wanted to scream. Losing Caitlin would mean I never found out what happened with her cousin’s coming out, or the landlord who refused to fix her sink. But more, it would mean no more normal friendship with the one person who’d talk to me like nothing was wrong. My mother, well intentioned or not, could not take that from me.

  “You know,” Merna said, “Maybe it was last night’s match. Maybe the curse doesn’t lift that fast. Maybe it’s not make-up. I mean, look at her—she’s pink! Just last week she was ashy. Something’s changed.”

  “Hmmm. I see what you mean. She does look a little healthier. Maybe it’s not that witch’s make-up job,” Mom said as she picked up my hand and pulled it to her face, causing a pinch from the IV drip needle that normally didn’t bother me. “Maybe I should call him back. I wonder if he’d come.”

  “Of course he’d come! Look at her. She looks like she’s sleeping is all. What man wouldn’t want her?”

  At least my mother was more of a realist than Merna, who seemed to think beauty could be had in a ridiculous princess dress over a hospital gown. While I could picture in my mind the look my mother was going for, there was just no way to cover the tubes jammed down my throat around my cracked lips and swollen cheeks. No man would ever find me beautiful in this condition. Not that I cared nor was interested in her partner-shopping for me. I missed the tubes they once had in my throat, moved back to my mouth only a month ago after issues with a feeding tube. From what I knew, they’d put me back on the normal trach soon, but, for now, I knew I looked worse than I had since the light came in earliest in the room.

  “Well, thanks for saying that. But I just don’t know. And we don’t have much longer. According to the curse, the most we have is six months. Her thirtieth can’t come.”

  “It’s 2020. Stop thinking about the curse. It’s not like they can make you pull the plug. You can keep her alive as long as you want.”

  Panic bit at my gut. I prayed my mother wouldn’t push it that far. I needed the curse to pass just so I could finally rest. She had no idea what it was to be locked in and the idea of spending a lifetime hooked to machines unable to communicate was something I’d never be able to make peace with.

  Mom sighed, dropping my hand. “You know what the doctors said. She’s not in there. The only way to get her back is true love’s kiss. I’ll call him. I can tell her he was able to change her condition. I mean, who could say no to that? It’d be mean.”

  “Yes! Do that. I wonder if another kiss would be enough to get her to open her eyes. If that’s what will give you hope, fine. Let’s believe.”

  “Maybe. It’d be a start. It’s not how this is supposed to work, but then, who knows. That curse started three centuries ago and you know how stories get messed up as they are passed down. Hell, it wasn’t even supposed to start until four generations back and, so far, nothing. Something’s off. Or was lost in translation.”

  “Exactly.”

  I gulped around the fat tube keeping me on the earth, setting off the alarms. Why doctors would rule this as an automatic reflex was beyond me. The gulp was intentional and the best way I had to communicate. As the beeping machine poured through the room, I cursed my mother for not understanding it was me screaming. At least, with her distracted, she’d lay off Caitlin and focus on her stupid plan to wake me up with a stranger’s snot. Epic. God, I hated curses, all things happy ending, and fairy tales. Why was it so hard for her to accept things the way they were and just pull the darn plug?

  Chapter 5

  Caitlin’s footsteps came faster, harder than usual today. Instead of calling me beautiful and opening up the blinds, she went right to work. Standing by the monitors, only feet from my head, I could hear her breathing in long, measured gasps. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but, of course, I couldn’t. Fortunately, if history told me anything about my favorite nurse, I wouldn’t have to.

  I knew morning shifts were the hardest for her. Why they swapped shifts one week to the next was a thing I’d never understand. I didn’t know how she ever managed normal patterns of sleep. But then, I didn’t understand the same about me with all the comings and goings at the Maleficent G. Westford Rehabilitation Center for Hope. In spite of what I would have put money on, it took my best nurse and friend much longer to finally come out with it. Hell, she was through all of my vitals and finally moving toward the blinds before she even spoke. If it weren’t for having the facility’s rotation memorized, I’d have become paranoid that my mother and Merna had already gotten her fired. Shit, maybe that’s it. Maybe they did something. Maybe she hates me for it. Hates them, anyway. Can I really blame her?

  “That landlord is out of control. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said, pulling light into the room and sighing. “I can’t exactly move in here with you.”

  My muscles relaxed as I heard her words. Whatever had her in a mood had nothing to do with work. That would, however, come soon. When Sylvia Pry got her mind fixed on something, she followed through. How I wished I could tell her about the make-up. The whole thing was quite hypocritical. For a woman who dressed me in a ridiculous princess gown for potential matches, you’d think she’d like it that Caitlin took the time on my hair and make-up. It didn’t add up, other than that my nurse had once preferred corpses to living patients. Maybe that’s what she’s thinking. If Caitlin works on me she’ll somehow will me to be dead too? Why is she so stupid?

  “Three weeks. That’s what I’ve got. Imagine. Trying to find a place in a town like Salem with that little notice?”

  Again, my heart sunk. If Caitlin lost her housing, she’d have to move. Her parents, from three states away now, would never let her become homeless. With her mother and stepfather, she was close. But that wouldn’t help me any. Soon, my days would be stacked with strange per diem nurses who didn’t talk to me at all and paid no attention to anything more than my pulse. Fabulous.

  One of the worst things about being stuck was I couldn’t take part in conversations. I had no idea why her landlord not fixing the sink would mean that Caitlin was facing eviction. Had she bitched him out? Had she told him if he didn’t fix it that she would move? Had the state come in and said the place wasn’t suitable for living? But more than questions, I wanted answers. I wanted to know if she’d go to Jersey and move in with her mother and stepfather. I needed to know if she’d give notice or just not show up one day, and most important? If she’d ever think of me. It was pathetic. And the longer Caitlin complained about the landlord, the more I took on her foul mood.

  After fifteen minutes of mostly rant on how expensive things were, the law and legal notice, and wondering what the hell she was going to do, I felt the weight of her at the bottom of my bed. Then, in soft words, she said, “Don’t worry, beautiful. I’m not leaving you. I’ll figure this out.”

  I hated myself. I prayed to a god I no longer believed existed. I begged the witches from my family and anyone’s family at all from every generation ever to please, please listen. If there was a curse, I needed them to lift it. I could not—for one more second—not communicate with her. But no matter how hard I tried, my eyes wouldn’t open. My leg would not slide over to nudge her to let her know I was listening. I couldn’t thank her. I couldn’t tell her I’d stay here and not even float to the double red door as long as she stayed. There was nothing I could do. I’d been muted for reasons that I didn’t understand. I’d been silenced by a plague or disease or even strange genetic mutation that had doctors from six countries make requests to visit me. And nothing. No words. No real answers. No change. Just the real life girl known as the modern-day sleeping beauty.

  I listened to my favorite nurse cry in tiny bursts of sobs before the bed firmed back up and the warmth of her left my feet.

  “It’s chilly in here. Let me get you some new socks,” she said. “I’ll be right back. We have those bootie slipper things.” With that, I felt her hands on my tangled toes. I cringed internally, thinking that she knew my body had betrayed me en
ough to become deformed. Even if I could wake up, I doubted I’d ever walk right again. It’d take years just to relearn to do the basic things like eat and shower. Maybe it would be better if she did go to Jersey.

  The silence was eerie as I waited for her to return to room 30B. She’d already spent too long with me for morning rounds. She wouldn’t come back for long. I knew she had twelve other intensive support patients on the floor, and this week’s charge nurse was known to be a stickler for clocks and paperwork; things Caitlin detested. Grateful when the gentle hum of my breathing machine came back to me, I told myself things would work out.

  I’d become magical in the art of lying to myself. I was the girl newspaper reporters wrote stories about. I knew full well Mom’s Go Fund Me page had gone dry by year three. I knew that people had forgotten me and lost interest in the story about the sleeping beauty who just fell asleep. It was a joke, really. I’d never slept less. Before becoming locked in, I’d been the best sleeper I knew of. I could go from wide awake to a snore in less than ten minutes, something my college roommates had always been envious of. But now? I was lucky if I could sleep a full two hours before I was back to my living nightmare.

  “Okay, beautiful. I got you two pairs. This should help. Got you a warm blanket too.” Caitlin sounded more cheerful as she bounced in the room. A wave of relief washed over me as I prayed to the same gods that, at the very least, they convinced mom’s latest match to say no. In reality, I just wanted to be left alone by people from my life before. I was tired of the reminders and fractured hope. It was far too painful. My mother could be finding matches of her own, and Merna? Well, she could run a witches’ club or start her own coven. It didn’t really matter what they did, but them hovering over me to break a non-existent curse was old.

  Part of me wanted to think I imagined it. I was tired of false hope. But when my nurse put my socks on, I swear I straightened my toes. Of course, had she seen it, she’d have freaked out. She’d be hitting buttons and running down the halls for a doctor like the time she swore an involuntary reflex was a sign of me waking up. More questions: Did you feel that? Do my feet bother you? Will I ever be able to stretch my toes? How bad do they look? Why are they so cramped up? Is the occupational and physical therapy not enough? Will I ever wake up? Less answers. And then, she was gone.

  Chapter 6

  Clearly, either my mother and Merna were able to scrape up the money to pay him off or Patchouli Man was stubborn enough to try a second date with the forever sleeping girl in her pathetic hospital room. Either way, at least he had shaved. This time, when he pressed his lips to my forehead, there was no scratch. Still, his gentle contact did nothing more than make me want to fly out of my body. Weaker these days and because I’m made that promise to God and Caitlin, I stayed put and told myself it would soon be over. It didn’t take Mom long to shoo men away when she realized they weren’t ‘the one.’ Or it hadn’t before…

  “Try it again. Like I said, her color perked up after your last visit,” Mom said, encouraging the stranger to mess with me like some kind of caged circus freak.

  “Hello, beautiful. Wake up,” he said. His voice was kind and, honestly, in a different situation, we might have been friends. It wasn’t really his fault my mother had brought him in. I knew the power of both her nagging and persuasion. He probably really did believe he could help me. He was likely some do-good who was only here to help a miracle along and not the pervert who had fantasies about a girl in a hospital princess gown like my skeptical side wanted him to be.

  Part of it, I knew, was about not wanting to miss anything. The people and places that had changed or moved on since me falling into my sleep were just too much. I wanted to be a part of everything, but stuck in my own world, it was easier to convince myself to hate anything outside my hospital room. I wondered, sometimes, why they didn’t bring me outside like they did the others. Was it that I was sleeping too deeply or that the doctors had given up any real hope of ever waking me? The trips I’d once taken to the rehabilitation and recreation rooms were becoming less and less frequent and it was impossible not to feel like they were beginning to give up on me ever waking. They weren’t alone. If the possibility of Caitlin leaving me wasn’t doing it, I highly doubted anything else would pull me out of this funk.

  “She’s not moving,” the man said, as if my mother was blind on top of her crazy.

  “I know,” Mom whispered, all hope knocked out of her voice like the time Margaret Vincent scored the fourth goal in the fourth quarter and there just wasn’t enough time to make-up the points for the state championship.

  I wanted to tell my mother there’d be more games and that no one needed a state title anyway – we’d done our best. But my life wasn’t some stupid high school sports competition. It was all I had left and slipping away with every minute.

  “I’m sorry,” Patchouli said, his voice getting further away.

  “Thank you for coming,” Mom said. “I’m sorry I dragged you out again. I won’t bother you anymore. I really appreciate what you’ve tried to do for her. Bella’s just stubborn, I guess.”

  She wasn’t guessing. Mom knew full well that I’d applied to fashion design school behind her back, had made it out of both high school and college without a single advanced math class, and had managed to graduate in three years. Stubborn was an understatement. She had to know that if anyone would try to come back, it’d be me. But something was broken. I was a fractured mess stuck between life and death and no kiss from anyone or even prayer was going to save me now. I wished it wouldn’t be the same with Caitlin. But I knew the truth the same way I expected my mother did.

  “It was nice meeting you both. She’s beautiful,” the man said.

  Mom didn’t answer. There was a period of silence, interrupted only by the machines that had become the regular background noise to my existence, before she finally returned to the right side of my bed. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  It was the first time I heard her admit defeat since falling into my sleep. I wished it could be me to kiss her head and tell her things would be alright. While it’d be a lie, at least it would offer her some sort of comfort for the moment. Again, I willed myself to open my eyes, but nothing.

  “Miss Pry. Nice to see you. How have you been?”

  The monitor beeping moved faster as Caitlin’s voice took over the tiny room. Maybe she could help fill the voids in the one-way conversation.

  “Better,” Mom said.

  “It’s nice to see you,” Caitlin repeated.

  This time, my mother didn’t answer. I wanted to slap her for being so rude. Caitlin had never done anything but help me and who cared what kind of job she’d had before. It wasn’t like putting make-up on the dead was some kind of criminal act. For the life of me, I could not figure out what made my favorite nurse so bad. She was strange? Different? …So? And? Why couldn’t my mom understand she reminded me of some of my closest friends from design school? Why didn’t it matter that she and I would be friends if I could just wake the hell up?

  I wanted to laugh as Caitlin moved to the monitors and started rattling off numbers like she always did as she scratched them onto paper. I could picture her pretending my mother wasn’t in the room at all and going about her business while Sylvia Pry glared at her, unable to do anything more than pout. God, I was going to miss her. More than even waking up, I need her landlord to figure shit out.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 7

  Sylvia Pry

  Caitlin Elizabeth Prinn, RN. Of all the nurses in the world that my daughter could get stuck with, it had to be her. Descendent three centuries back of the exact coven that cast the spell, I trusted none of it. I needed her away from Isabella. She was probably what was standing between my beautiful daughter and the rest of the world.

  I watched her fiddle with Bella’s machines as she fluttered about the tiny hospital room as if she owned it. If she thought I was making conversation with her, she was out of her mi
nd. Merna might have seen her as simply odd, but I knew better. I could feel it in my gut; something about Caitlin Prinn was different. And I wasn’t the first to know it. Hell, anyone could go to the public library and look on the microfilms. They could read up on her family and how she came from a long line of evil women. I should have moved Bella as far away from Salem as we could go before she was even born.

  It was true. I took responsibility for my daughter lying there in that hospital room. Had things played out differently with her father, or had I been less selfish, well, things would have been different. The curse might have skipped my daughter the way it did me, my mother and grandmother. But karma always finds its way around and what I did to her father was entirely wrong. Sure, I knew that now, but it didn’t do much to wake her.

  Squinting in the low light of the hospital room, I was sure Caitlin had put the stupid eyeliner on her again. I knew better. Bella, who had never been eccentric and preferred classic lines and neutral tones, would be far from impressed with the glittery gold on her eyelids. But it wasn’t like the nurse could ask her. I cleared my throat. While it might take the hospital ages and dozens of warnings to get rid of her, I could at least defend my daughter’s tastes.

  “She’d hate that color,” I said, causing Caitlin to jump and almost knock over a machine.

  “Color? I’m sorry? What do you mean?”

  Great. She was not only evil but ignorant too. “The color you put on her eyes.”

  “Oh, the bronze shimmer? She’d hate it? Really?”

  “Bella likes clean and simple. She rarely wore eye make-up. Only mascara. And even then, not often.”