Recently, I had come to the conclusion that I’d hung onto my imaginings about Father in some kind of childish need to believe the world was still as beautiful as I’d grown up to think. But I’d simply seen it wrong, through rosy glasses.
Lately, I’d had to admit to myself he was never going to be the father of my imaginings, who finally returned home from these war endeavours. How everyone would think he was a victorious, fantastic hero…And in my imagination, we’d all hug and smile, and everything would be all right again. But there was no such person, except in fairytales. In truth, Father was not a kind man.
And lately, I had begun to understand he was not a good king.
My mother somehow dealt with him like an angel and found the patience to stay incredibly tolerant towards him and his hounddogs. Not to mention, Mother stayed diplomatic about all these senseless war crimes and mindless punishments, only affecting lawmakers and the public opinion discreetly through all her court friends. I saw that now. But Father was always away in some distant faraway land, and Mother and Father would see each other next to never, and I didn’t believe my mother even wanted to see Father any more than Father wanted to be home.
Apparently, Father wasn’t suffering from loneliness on those trips. There was this duchess, a woman by the name of Rachel.
People said she was into witchcraft but wasn’t a real witch. They called her Wretched Rachel and said she moved magic like a true-born fae.
I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to spend one thought on these two trying to burn down villages in hopes of acquiring new lands for our Kingdom.
What did we need more lands for? We had plenty. Apparently, Father couldn’t find the time to even enjoy what he already had, so why rob more? But if I mentioned this and tried to argue with him, I got to hear I was being a nosy girl and an intolerable child.
No, really, nowadays, it was fine by me that Father spent his time on these trips and that the rest of us lived our lives at the Castle. In fact, I was quite happy. Truth be told, I was nearly constantly happy in a lovely, small, everyday way, and Father’s issues were the only truly sad thing casting shadows on my life.
I pulled a long breath. “Anyway, maybe this woman from the roof was a dark witch? A bad one. I think she could have been the same one that cursed me at my christening.” There, I said it.
Rupert tossed his hands in the air. “You go on and on about this woman! She could have been someone from the market to bring something to sell. She could have been house help. We have people coming and going, sometimes, you can’t recognize everyone. A dark witch…?” Rupert blew a raspberry and turned to pick up the pail waiting for someone to finish the day’s work.
“Well. I was right about the demon on the roof, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, unfortunately! And you almost got us all killed!”
“I didn’t…Okay, sorry. How was I supposed to know gargoyle demons are so powerful, like some flaming pots of bursting, foul magic? And they bite through ropes like nothing. I didn’t know they were that bad. But no difference, I was still right about him lurking on the roof, and you didn’t believe me at first. I’m telling you, it’s the same thing now. I know this woman was the same witch. I know it, I saw her. I’m one hundred percent sure.”
The likeness was so uncanny. The woman in the picture didn’t have horns, though. But…Those spiky little things on her forehead? Only now I understood it, but that had to be how horns started off, for sure. They’d been small ones at the time when the photo was taken, but about to grow into these giant, ugly ones now weighing down her head…The size that only the biggest of rams had. Seriously. What a frightening creature.
I was so lucky she hadn’t spotted me. Even if she’d lured me close with some dark spell, at least she hadn’t seen me, caught me, and devoured me. Heavens bless us.
“Why can’t you believe me, Rupert? Can’t you at least pretend to? Come on, be a darling, tell me you believe me. It was scary!”
“Sorry, Aurora, I believe you, but…I’ve heard there’s supposed to be a party today?”
Chapter 4
Laughing brighter than ever, half-blinded by the sunlight falling from the hall’s high windows, I grabbed my dress chiffons and ducked into the tunnel made of chairs. The chairs were each covered with heavy, crimson velvet drapes, and every here and there between the chairs were wicker arches that supported rose vines laden with masses and masses of bright red blossoms. The cascading blooms smelled like a bouquet of wild heaven.
In my mind, the whole tunnel was a lush rose garden, and I thought I had to be the luckiest girl in all of the world to have such an incredible birthday party. All my best friends gathered around, long tables loaded with cakes, fruits, and fancy dishes—and now this, a tunnel of roses!
As I dove in, the darkness and the floral and green scents embraced me, and I focused on the shuffling of my dress chiffon and the laughter and yells of my friends. My new birthday shoes clacked against the stone floor. I expected to see Rupert and Kate making silly faces at me when I’d emerge from the other end, or perhaps they’d all have a surprise waiting for me?
The ground shook and rose. It took a second for my thoughts to catch up. I halted. Then I held my breath, as a thin crack snaked along the floor and widened. The world shook all over with a disorienting, violent tremor.
I’d heard of earthquakes, but how could we be having an earthquake? We never did, not in Tairaland.
But the tremors only gathered strength, getting worse with each jerk, and then one struck with frightening strength and took me to my knees. I lost my balance and hit my head on the floor.
The lighting inside changed, just like that. I couldn’t decide if that might have been because the light in the ballroom changed on the other side of the fabrics, or if the chair tunnel had somehow lit up with this perplexing, shadowed glow. Fires burning? White fires though? A thunderous uproar cracked the world entirely in half, with rising stone and shattered marble. I curled up flat on the floor, wrapping my arms protectively around my head and clenching my eyes shut.
Then, nothing. Silence before the storm? Only my heart beat steadily, and its sound seemed to bounce off the velvet and wood and roses. Beat. Beat. Beat.
But there were no more tremors. Maybe that was it? Was that it?
I braced myself to see devastation and opened my eyes only part-way, as if that helped. I was sprawled on the floor of a brightly lit-up room, but it wasn’t the dance hall, it was a much smaller room, one I didn’t know. Fierce sunlight fell in through the high windows. The windows had a distinct resemblance to those of our castle, but they weren’t quite the same…Almost, but not quite. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong with them. I sat up, pushing at the golden, metal floor…
Metal.
Swinging around and kicking my feet against the floor, my palms sliding against the metal and making screeching sounds, I took in the whole room. The floor seemed made of solid gold, the way it glistened. The walls seemed some sort of light web, in fact. Not wood or fabric…
I shielded my eyes to see better, with the way the sunlight glinted off the surfaces everywhere. Also, something must have happened to my sight…Maybe from hitting my head…I couldn’t properly focus on anything, everything looked fuzzy. On closer look, the outlines of everything shimmered, as if all this was a mirage over desert sand. I was breathing so hard it was making me dizzy, and I told myself to calm down.
The furniture, too, was the oddest collection. I had to squint to see anything, but I could make out the few furniture scattered around. One lounger that just might never have been sat in, because it seemed abandoned there. A lonely-looking spinning wheel. And an elaborately decorated, red velvet stool.
What was this place, anyway? Was this some kind of unfinished guest room? A project of Mother’s? I thought I’d been to all the rooms in our castle, even the ones I wasn’t supposed to. With the way I’d been as a kid, I’d pretty much roamed wherever I pleased and secretly explored ev
ery nook and corner — particularly where the maids told me not to. I’d torn all my dresses to tatters from running in the forests that began behind the castle garden, and I’d played ball with the stable hands’ children, and I was sure I’d returned covered in mud…Also, once, when I’d wanted to see the pigeon nests, I’d climbed out one attic window and along the walls to get to the nests, high up above the moat. So, really, I knew the whole castle inside and out. We didn’t have rooms with metal floors.
Moreover. Mother never would have allowed a spinning wheel. No way. She was funny that way — she was adorable this way — but she truly hated spinning wheels. I couldn’t fathom how anyone would even find the energy to hate something as much as Mother hated spinning wheels. That’s why we never allowed spinsters spinning yarn inside the castle, and Mother didn’t even allow seamstresses from town to step over the threshold into the castle. She could perfectly well tell them to stop and take a step back. Then she’d smile and apologise a thousand times, of course, but she could not let any seamstresses, let alone their tools and appliances, inside. What did I say, silly.
Whenever seamstresses visited, offering their skills, they had to meet Mother in the small gazebo, the one where the guarded doors opened to the big yard.
We got our fabrics readymade and sent our clothes out to the town’s shops when they needed repairing. When our orders came back, Mother went through them, decided whether she accepted them or not, and only then let anyone else even touch them. That’s how strongly she’d always felt about the matter.
So, a spinning wheel sitting alone in a corner of a golden room? This was odd and then some. Not with my mother knowing.
And what was with the strange, swirling feel of this room? I’d hit my head, but still…
I clambered to my feet and checked my dress for damage. It was the dress I’d worn to my party, and Mother had put a lot of work into it, as well as Nanette and the girls. Luckily the dress was all right except for one crimson rose that had strangely torn the dress, the stem having pierced the fabric. I carefully detached it, making sure the thorns didn’t tear the dress any worse.
“You needn’t worry,” said a low voice. A woman’s voice. I almost jumped. I squinted again as best I could and tried to see who this was. I saw her form surrounded by a brilliant white glare. A lady with a high hat or headdress had sat down on the stool by the spinning wheel without me noticing. She rested her hands on her thighs, posture lax, as she looked at me with the saddest dark eyes, the only thing I saw clearly. Her gaze had a mesmerising effect on me, I couldn’t turn away.
“It won’t matter what you wear, I’m sorry.”
“Excuse me…?” Out of habit, I picked up a handful of my skirts, as I took a few steps towards her. “Who are you, again? Are you a seamstress? Do you work for Mother?”
The lady shook her head, and for a moment, it seemed as if what was on her head wasn’t a hat or decoration at all but…The light swirled around like mist. She had horns. Those horns! They were the real thing. Now that I saw her better, fear twisted my gut. She looked different in this odd, twisted light, and it was as if a veil of magic covered her face and threw illusions over her, so her whole form was distorted, but it was her. The witch from the rooftop. The one from the photo.
The same witch once again — the one who’d cursed me.
Then it had been her lurking on the roof. Then I’d been right that I had seen her, and now she had found a way to get past the guards and sneak in, and had conjured up a room like this? Really? Why? Was she here to finish what she’d failed at, years back, at my christening?
“Now, let me show you something,” she said in her warm alto voice, sounding as if she didn’t want to do this any better than I did. I certainly didn’t want to be hallucinating that a witch had taken me hostage in an imaginary room…Had I hit my head bad enough, when I fell, to be imagining things? I wanted to get back to my party…
But this witch and her ghastly spinning wheel were blocking my way to the door. And witches harboured dark magic of course.
She looked strangely absent, preoccupied, as she bowed down to reach for something at the foot of the spinning wheel. The very moment she seemed to take no notice of her surroundings, I thought of the rose in my hand and whisked it past the witch’s back, out the door, in a desperate attempt to do something, anything. I could signal to someone walking in the corridor that there was something going on, here.
The rose landed right at the threshold, but I imagined someone passing by could notice it. The corridor looked…normal…painfully normal, compared to the swaying magic of this room. If the witch only looked away again, I’d try my luck and run. I would. I swore. But she’d fry me to the spot, wouldn’t she.
“Come on,” the witch urged, as if she didn’t even notice how I felt, or didn’t care, but then she gave me a sideways glance that seethed encouragement. She seemed a perfect battleground of good intentions, natural kindness, and all the dark and vile you can think of in a lifetime. “Don’t be shy. I’ll show you how this works.”
“No, I need to get back to a party. It’s my birthday.”
“Don’t be silly, this will only take a minute! Just take a look. Try it, it’s the finest, softest rosewood.”
As if that made any difference. I cared not one morsel about fancy spindles or spinning wheels when my own birthday party was going on somewhere close-by with all my besties. I had waited for that party so badly, counting the days, and I wanted to spend the evening with my friends. What sorcery had she pulled on me, snatching me away from the dance hall like that?
“What is this place? Did you cook this up with your dark magic?”
“Not me,” she said with an odd, soft smile. The spindle glowed faintly in her hand as if a swarm of teeny, tiny fireflies kept circling it. I stared at it a moment, watching the lights dancing. When I lifted my eyes, our gazes met, and the witch nodded. By the disorienting, spell-binding look in her eyes, she seemed to know more about me than even I did at my best moments.
“What’s wrong with it…? What are those sparkles?”
“Nothing, Aurora. Come, try it out. See how light it is.” She offered me the spindle with a relaxed air. There was nothing threatening about her, but the odd swirling about the spindle mesmerized me and made me weak. Looking at it this close made my mind twist and swirl and toppled my world onto itself, so I didn’t know up from down…
“Take it, quick, before it’s too late!” Her alerted voice sounded muffled as if it had to push through some kind of thick fog. “It’ll save you—”
The spell grew overpowering. I knew in a moment I’d lose my senses and my mind. Still, my hand reached out with a will of its own, as if pulled by some force, and sought out the spindle.
And as I latched on, I felt the sharp prick of a needle.
Something dark coursed into me like a rushing waterfall. My own scream rung in my ears, as I lost my footage and fell.
Chapter 5
I woke up tasting roses. There was literally a rose petal halfway in my mouth. Frowning worried, I opened my eyes to look around. I was covered in crimson and pink rose petals, with masses of them all over the creases of my dress. There were even more on my pillow. I must have unknowingly turned my head in my sleep and gotten one of them in my mouth. I picked the rose petal out of my mouth and didn’t know what to do with it, so I just put it on the pile among the others and pushed myself to sit up.
Something gray and cumbersome reached for me.
It took me a moment to accept that it was the mass of rock that I lay upon. I was sinking into it, and it would swallow me up whole if I stayed where I was and didn’t get away right this instant.
I leaned forward with force and pulled myself up, but the magic pulled me back in and fought me like some raw energy. I couldn’t struggle to hold my head up, because the forces were making me curl up and lie down. As the stone began swallowing me, I sunk into the gray. It was a thousand times stronger than I was. It pulled me in w
ithout mercy, until I slumped down, kicking and thrashing.
When I could no longer fight, it pulled me forward, until I curled up and my head rested on the stone slab and the lava reached up to my ears.
It was soft. I could breathe. I wasn’t hurting. But I couldn’t move. And that’s when it let me be.
Something about it made me feel calm. It embraced me, cool and reassuring. My lids grew heavy with sleepiness, but strangely I didn’t want to fight it. In fact, I was sure there was some treasure hidden inside, and it all seemed so promising…
My last thought before I drowsed off and sunk into this abyss was, how amazing, how beautiful.
Chapter 6
Wake up.
Me? Who’s calling me? I was busy wading in the poppies with Rupert and Kate, and we had Whinnie, Silver, and Windmane in tow. This was somewhere in the Sandy Bay meadows, but none of were sure exactly where…Though, actually, I think it was a dream. What now?
It’s time to wake up. Hurry!
Why? Not yet. Not now! I’m perfectly happy here, thank you very much! It’s so comfortable, why end it by doing stupid things like waking up?
No, you’ll risk sleep forever if you don’t move. You’ll need to wake up now. Now. If it feels hard, dig deep for your willpower.
Oh, my, that sounded dramatic. Was I in some kind of danger? Sure didn’t feel like it! I was fine, absolutely, perfectly fine. Nobody bother me…
You’ve slept for a year, Aurora, and the years will keep rolling…If you don’t open your eyes now, you’ll never wake up. It will take some effort, I know, but you’ll need to find the strength. Of course, the pull is enticing because the dreams are sweet, but you need to fight them now. The time has come. Now.
I tried to open my eyes, but they were still heavy, besides, part of me didn’t even want to. So I decided to simply roll myself around and push myself up and off the bed with my eyes closed — that actually made sense in my mental state. But as I tried to perform my clever trick, I only managed to twirl around like a sausage on a grill stick and wound up on my back again, eyes still closed.
Kingdom of Crowns and Glory Page 46