Want to sleep a thousand years? Be my guest…No, come on. Focus on one eye at a time. Do it. Now.
All right, one eye at a time. Left eye first, here goes. A slice of brilliant white flushed through my lashes. That motivated me to put all my effort into it, and I managed to open my eyes half way. This was a roomy, open space. An enormous, rectangular dance hall with high windows open to the blue sky. But I felt odd. The windows were a good fifty yards’ of distance from my bed. I felt a primal urge to hurry and go to them…
Then I gasped. As I’d leaned in to see better, I could see myself…My tummy was round like a bird’s and, heavens, my legs! I had bird feet!
I jumped on the floor and ended up standing. On these bird feet. And it was actually pretty great walking on them. Fantastic. I lifted each one leg up and then the other and stepped in place. My feet were so bouncy and light. Nice. But strange that I had feet like this, bouncy little talons…
Then I frowned.
Now, what was supposed to be wrong with all this, again? This was all perfectly normal. Perfectly lovely, walking on my bouncy feet. What a lovely day we were having…
My mind told me to relax, everything was all right. I was all right. I could wake up and go for a nice little adventure, now. How about a little flying? But first, I wanted to stretch my wings. That’s what you do when you wake up, you stretch your wings, take a few steps back and forth and all about, and then when you’re ready, you can take off and go for a little trip to see if you can find anything to eat. Seeds. Grains. Something.
Yes.
Good.
So why was I hesitating? I was all set, right? Should I just go, now?
Why couldn’t I shake the odd sensation of shocked befuddlement?
I lifted my right leg and shook my toes to look at them once again, and then my plumes…I quite liked the color of my feathers. They were a brilliant, aqua blue today. Perhaps sleep had done wonders for my plumage? I wasn’t sure if I’d looked somehow different, earlier, for some reason, but I did like this color that I thought of as…new. Yes, my new plumage-color. Sleep works wonders!
I did know how to fly, didn’t I?
I opened my wings just to see and jumped into the air.
Ah. Yes. This here was what dreams were made of.
Chapter 7
The hall was enormous and lit up from every direction in the most unnatural way, as the light came from nowhere and everywhere.
Below me, on a bed of stone, I saw a half-transparent image of myself sleeping, a dream-like illusion, more like a painting of me rather than myself for real. The sleeping image was smiling, looking content. Why? I wanted to yell at myself to wake up. Was this me?
But what came through the door just then, nearly stopped my heart. That witch! That horned witch, again. She glided in wearing velvet capes of indigo and teal, and she’d woven a headdress of roses around those frightening horns…
I could only watch as she laid down her basket beside me on the stone and began lifting something out of it with a golden soup spoon.
Coals.
She was setting coals around my sleeping, illusion-like image, beside my head and at my feet. She’d cursed me. She’d captured me and enchanted me into a bird. So, she’d succeeded?
Heart beating, I darted down on my wings and pecked down a large bit of coal. The witch yelled out from surprise and waved and shoo’ed me.
“Don’t…! You’re breaking it! Get away! This is important!”
I flew higher toward the ceiling to get away from her. My mind refused to work at all. Then seeing the windows, my mind cleared up for a moment and again I remembered I had to get home…Where was home? Tairaland. Our castle.
I darted towards the windows, but I hit something. I only met a wall of clear blue glass and plummeted to the floor. The window was blocked with a transparent sheet. Adamant, I jumped again and pushed my beak in as hard as I could. The sheet stretched and gave in with a loud pop.
The moment I pierced it, the brilliant fireworks of magic sparkles that burst out, blinded me. I must have broken a spellbound wall, and as the magic broke in the spot to let me through, the sparkles danced around me.
Flapping my inconveniently unyielding wings, I tried to stay put in one spot in the air to watch what happened, as the window shards gathered back together again and melted into a perfect, flawless sheet as if I’d never broken through.
The witch was yelling at me inside the castle, and through the blue, I saw her begin running towards me hands outstretched. I backed away, almost tumbling. But she was stopped as she bumped into the wall of blue, palms slamming against it, and then she bowed her head, face in a defeated grimace.
I looked around quick to take in my surroundings. I was out in a castle yard, now. The witch couldn’t get through and chase me. But I was a bird…What was I supposed to do?
With a move back, I looked up at the building, too, to figure out where I’d been. This was a castle, much smaller than our home castle, but beautiful, delicate, made of black stone and covered with masses of rose vines cascading down its walls everywhere—enough to practically drown the whole building out of sight. Glimmering smoke-like light lingered all over, like morning mist. Heart thumping, I hopped back further to get away from this place. The yard was overgrown with vegetation as if the whole place had been left to its devices for ages.
It was spring, the time of forget-me-nots, and the yard was filled with them and colorful meadow flowers in unkempt, flush array. The marble fountain’s bowl had cracked, but still had accumulated rainwater. It would make for a lovely bath later, but right now, there was no time for such things. I spotted a fallen tree trunk, folded my wings and lowered my beak, and set myself off to a jittery fall. Near-miss, but I caught the air current again and rose — and there! I landed on a good spot to grip and found my balance.
And as I lifted my eyes, I saw the sleek, dark bird sitting majestically on the crumbled rim of the fountain, glistening eyes fixed intensely on me.
Chapter 8
This other bird seemed wildly energetic…strange. I imagined he was a swallow, but there was something different about him that I couldn’t put my finger on. His narrow tail feathers swept the grasses regally like the coattails of a court outfit.
“Bluebird! How did you do that? I’ve wanted to get into the castle, but I can’t get past those walls. What’s your secret?” He tilted his head to one side in a curious way, but all in all, was starting to seem friendlier than I’d first thought. It was just that the general air about him made him seem majestic, somehow. Intimidating.
But really all I could think of now was, I had to get back home. To Tairaland.
“I just flew out—“
“Really? That’s strange. I haven’t been able to get through the windows or doors or even chimney…I’ve tried everything.”
“No?” Well, this was confusing. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to make of this. Why did he want to get inside, anyway, and should I have told him how? There was only one nearly empty hall in there and quite possibly some dark corridors, where the horned witch wandered—judging by the little I’d seen, anyway. My mind was spinning. I needed moment to catch my breath.
“Did you use some charms?” the swallow wanted to know. This had to be important, but wasn’t this rather rude, though, to be asking me all these questions, when we’d just met?
“I did nothing, I just flew out.” Then I decided to take a risk and confide. I leaned forward and whispered: “There’s a witch inside, so I had to flee.”
“A witch?”
I couldn’t trust him. He could be anyone or anything.
“Listen…”
“Julian.”
“Julian. I’m Aurora. Listen, I wish I could stay and chat, but I really desperately need to get to Tairaland. Do you happen to know—”
“Oh. I know which way that is. If you fly up a so you can see over the treetops, you’ll see the towers in the distance. Actually…Come on, I’ll show y
ou.”
He raised his wings so they flapped above his head and smoothly maneuvered himself up onto some non-existent air currents, and next, in no time at all, he was twenty yards above me.
“Come! You can see the castle towers from up here.”
“Oh…” I pushed myself on my wings and began fighting my way up, but it turned out it would take me minutes to get to where he’d flown in a flurry. He cocked his head again and flew down, landing firmly beside me.
“Wow, you’re a crafty flier,” I said, feeling embarrassed over my heavy wing feathers. “I’m feeling so clumsy, here. But to be honest, I don’t think I have much experience in flying.”
“Me neither, I only fly in my sleep,” Julian said promptly, as if he’d blurted it out without meaning to, and then seemed enormously baffled over what he’d just said.
A whiff of magic brushed past and I turned to follow it with my gaze to see what was happening. Glimmering sparks were floating in the air, forming swirls around the castle. At spots, the roses on the castle walls seemed to throw off glints of sunlight, as well. As if they could have possibly reflected any of it. I kept thinking to myself, magic, magic. My mind was a churning mess.
I tried again and jumped on my wings. Doing better, now. I headed up.
Julian nodded toward the direction of the castle, or so I supposed, but I couldn’t see anything there except the forest stretching out toward the horizon.
“Maybe you have sharper eyes…? I can’t see it.”
“You can’t?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “Okay, you know what, I can show you on your way. I don’t have anywhere I need to be right now. Come on.”
He found us a good air current to glide on. That was surprisingly helpful. It took off half the effort. Julian was fast, though. I had a hard time keeping up and he ended up circling me, from time to time, just to pass the waiting time.
“It’s no big deal,” he kept saying. “I have nothing better to do.”
I was getting the hang of my wings, once we found the river. Underneath us, it basked in the sun, sparkling, like a glistening diamond necklace. From there, I already had a rough idea where we had to be. In case this was the river I thought it was.
“How far do you think we still need to go?” I asked to make sure.
“I don’t know, a few hours, maybe? Want to take a break? I know a great spot with strawberries.”
But when I turned to answer, Julian was gone.
Vanished.
Which simply wasn’t possible, because there was nowhere that he could have gone. There was nothing but empty air around, all of fifty yards below and infinite amounts to all the other directions. If Julian had fallen down, he’d have to have plummeted faster than a rock, otherwise I would have still seen him. I’d only looked away for a second. So, no, he’d vanished entirely. Magic again…? Was the witch after us? Catching onto us? What was this? I was aware that at times my mind was sharper, and then I fell into a sleepy dizziness again.
Hopeless, I squinted and scanned the surroundings, but the skies reached to the heights cloudy white and suddenly frightening. I browsed the ground below, too, as best I could, but could make out nothing among the greenery. I knew magic had something to do with all of this, but I couldn’t put my finger on how I knew. I just knew. But I knew little about magic, except that it could do bad things. Somehow, deep in my gut, that I sure knew.
Chapter 9
The night was turning toward the morning, and the sky getting slightly lighter, when a sharper, golden glow from behind the trees caught my attention. I flew lower to take a look. That’s when I hear people talking, not well enough to make out words, but enough to hear the tones.
Since my new friend Julian was so unnervingly gone, just like that, and it was so cold, and the twilight in the clouds told of the awakening early morning hours, I decided to go check the place out. As I emerged from the foliage, I was in the yard of a cozy inn. Huge glass lanterns hung to the walls of the stone and wood building spread out inviting light. That’s what the golden glow had been. A flock of sparrows chirped and hopped around at the entrance. Looked like they’d had seeds or crumbs thrown for them to eat. Maybe I could get a little something to eat as well? Someone yelled. I turned to look.
A small distance away, sitting on benches on one side of the yard, two people talked in animated voices. These were the people I’d heard. Now the were yelling.
“You’re too stubborn, that’s what you are! I know she’s still alive. You know, she’s likely mocking us from somewhere, watching us over a cauldron fire,” the woman insisted, and muttered: “My instinct tells me so, and it’s never wrong.”
Didn’t I recognize her? I was sure I did…And then I stopped short seeing who the man was. This old man. This was King John. Or in other words…
My mind dove into a blur at that. I hardly remembered to beat my wings, but they kept me up in the air. I was aware this was the King, but didn’t I know him from somewhere? I was sure I did. I’d just had the word on my tongue…Now it slipped my mind.
“I have my methods,” the woman said with a hurt tang in her voice. “That cursed witch is alive, you can bet your wicked life on it. And I’m telling you, we could follow this lead and search her up, catch her, and harvest that fae heart. That’s lots and lots of energies to eat up, right there! We’ll have a feast. Our reserves are almost up, anyway. We only have crumbs left. We need more. And if we get a powerful heart like hers, there’s no limit to what we could do! We’ll get rich, my love, so rich you won’t need to even wage wars any longer. We can bribe and buy our way into whatever empire we desire…Glorious, glorious empire…Just the two of us, making the world dance to our tune. Ooh, this is finally our chance, darling!”
“To be frank,” the King said, drawing it out slowly, “my love…Normally I trust you have your witchy ways of knowing things, but this time, I wouldn’t be so sure. Back when that fae wench vanished, my search parties went through all the lands and waters. They found nothing. My skilled men found nothing at all. So she simply can’t be alive. And just think, it’s been, what, almost twenty years? Oh. Wait. Eighteen.” King John smiled. “Brilliantly remembered, eh? See, I only know how long it’s been, because you keep pestering me about our anniversaries, sweetcakes.”
“Well, isn’t it just convenient for you that you’ve an easy way to remember the year…when a witch ultimately cursed your daughter to an untimely death?” Rachel said in an indecipherable tone of voice.
“Now, now, we don’t know if that’s true,” King John muttered. “So, Aurora disappeared on her adventures, but so what? Who knows what happened? She was a stubborn-headed kid with her load of issues. I really don’t know what all this the talk about curses is. Whatever curse it even was that the witch threw on her back when she was a baby, it was already over and done with by then. The whole thing was a long time ago and nothing bad came of it. Really, Aurora was perfectly fine, until she simply — see — vanished. I don’t see a problem. Maybe Aurora wanted to go her own way already? I never could figure out what went on in that child’s head, she was such a strange child. I think she talked to the horses in the stables more than she talked to me. You’d think that when she finally sees her father after a long while, after glorious war endeavours I might add, she’d run to embrace me? Oh, no, not her, she just gave me these wary looks. And did we ever talk much more than one or perhaps two words a year? Now, I don’t think we did. She was a stubborn, closed-minded child, and quite frankly, she was more trouble than her worth. I never made a better decision than when I left her with her mother and ran…with you, of course, my love dove, with you. And, to make myself clear, I never made a better decision than when I joined this blissful life with you…that’s all I meant! Besides, I should think they did fine, too, Aurora and her mother, so it served everyone best. Now, as to Aurora perhaps meeting an untimely fate, wherever she ran off to, I don’t think she would have had a very happy life the way she was living it, anyway, so…All aroun
d good outcomes.”
I don’t think she would have had a very happy life anyway? So, good riddance to daughter dearest? Oh, my. But my mind buzzed with all the contradictory and counteracting thoughts that coursed through it. Somehow, in my gut, I was aware that I knew that old man, and that he was an integral part of my childhood, but he made me feel nothing but sadness and quiet despair. The wind ruffled my feathers and made the magic sparks buried in my plumage float all over. It helped me remember something, somehow. This was my father. I was loath to admit it, but facts for facts…
Father’s silver clothes caught glints of light from the lantern closest by, and in some spots, the golden spots looked like dragon eyes. This silvery, armor-type outfit had to be the infamous ‘parade armor’ Father liked to strut around in. People said: the King and his flashy silvers. This was what they meant by that. Not impressive brigades of swordsmen marching proudly to fight off evils. Not silver coins or riches. What they meant was, Father liked to look fancy, as he stalled behind his troops, never going too near the frontline, and as he greedily sent his soldiers off to die.
To imagine that I’d never seen him in this armor. I rarely saw him more than briefly a few times a year, if at all. Once again, it pained me to think this was my father, but I’d heard he had better traits, too, somewhere buried underneath. Or he’d had some. Of course, he had, otherwise how could my dear mother have agreed to marry him? But perhaps things had happened…and people do change.
I wanted to think I was no child anymore, and I got these things, I really did. Nowadays I even wondered, if there was anything I could have done to influence him, to lead him to better ways. Could I have been a different kind of daughter and changed his ways? But what had I known of the grown-up’s sinister world back when I still used to see Father?
Kingdom of Crowns and Glory Page 47