Dreamer of Briarfell: A Retelling of Sleeping Beauty (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 7)

by Lucy Tempest

  Slowly, I retreated through the room, that numb weightlessness persisting, like I was wading through a pool of murky water. As I approached the shadowy end where a four-poster bed draped in a canopy came into view, thoughts moved at a snail’s pace, trying to piece together the shards of my most recent memories. I had no recollection of what happened between falling off Amabel, and waking here, unseen, and unheard.

  But I somehow knew what was in the bed before I laid eyes on it.

  My body.

  Chapter Seven

  How long I hovered by my own bedside, I couldn’t tell.

  The sun rose and fell, again and again. Shadows shifted along the room, birds sang with the sunrise, and wolves howled in the night, and I hovered. Watching the Fairuza who lay on the bed, mirroring the emotions roiling through me, like she was caught in the clutches of unending nightmares.

  But this wasn’t a dream. This was the fate that awaited me into eternity.

  I’d always known there was a possibility the amendment one of my fairy godmothers had made to the curse might work. That instead of death, I would fall into an unnatural slumber. One that also could only end by the love of the noblest of men. She’d made it to keep the Underworld from claiming me when the curse expired, to give me more time to be saved.

  But watching my own chest rise and fall and feeling its every move echo within my ethereal projection among that distressing numbness, I’d long admitted to myself the horrifying truth.

  Only my body had succumbed to the curse’s amendment. My consciousness was wide awake and going madder with every waking minute.

  I didn’t have the respite of sleep, or the mercy of company. Those who came to check on my sleeping body, remained unaware of my presence. And then even those had stopped coming.

  So I hovered by my body in endless helplessness.

  At one point, the sound of voices finally prompted me to move from my body’s side.

  It wasn’t more of Clancy’s people. Those had always come right up, ironically talking in hushed whispers, as if afraid to wake me. The new voices remained outside, raised in argument.

  I didn’t know how far I could leave my body, but I rushed to the window, hoping there might be someone among the newcomers who would see me.

  It was early daytime and the faint pitter-patter of rain drummed on the windowpanes as I peered down the soaring tower of a castle.

  The moment I saw the Oponan royal party, something akin to hope moved within my numb chest.

  Without a second thought, I was running outside the room and down the spiral stairway.

  It felt like it took too long before I was passing through the castle’s main door. For moments everything disappeared, then I was outside.

  Still rattled, I approached the party, and saw a handsome man who must be the real Grand Duke of Opona.

  Standing in drenched riding clothes, his short, golden hair plastered to his head, Nikolai was arguing with a darker, bearded man, who had a curved sword strapped to his side. Perhaps his personal guard or a knight?

  “I don’t know why you’re still arguing, Ivan,” Prince Nikolai snapped.

  “Because it’s not too late to change your mind, Your Highness!” Ivan retorted.

  Prince Nikolai waved. “Her curse won’t transfer to any of us.”

  “We really don’t know that. It might be why they have her hidden here, that they’re afraid it might.”

  Prince Nikolai tutted. “Fairies are vicious tricksters, but this is just a petty curse to be broken with a kiss. Either Andrei or Igor will wake her.”

  Looking back at their convoy, wondering if either of his younger brothers were here, I found a wagon hitched to his carriage, bearing a glass coffin.

  Was that for me?

  Nikolai pointed at it, affirming my suspicion. “We’ll just put her in there, and take her home with us. Then either of them will marry her, and we will finally have a connection to the West.”

  Ivan wrung his hands at his prince. “It’s an admirable plan, Your Highness, but surely we can still find a better princess? This one is as good as dead.”

  He wasn’t wrong. I actually thought I was worse than dead.

  But Prince Nikolai was here with a plan to reverse this. To save me.

  If only there was anything I could do to help him. But I could only stand there and hope that Ivan didn’t end up dissuading his liege.

  So far, he hadn’t, as Nikolai insisted, “If we have to resort to a light form of necromancy, we will. I came all this way to establish unprecedented, and necessary ties with the West, and I’m not leaving without them. Now, stop stalling and go collect her body.”

  Ivan finally gave up, his shoulders slumping. “As you wish, Your Highness.” Then he beckoned to two other men to follow him.

  I followed the three men, looking forward to returning to my body via the door they’d open. But they barely set foot on the castle’s threshold, when the ground rumbled and shook, knocking them back.

  We all watched in shock and awe as giant, black briar thorns tore the ground and shot up, blocking the door. In the span of the next few breaths, they spread to encase the whole castle in an impenetrable shield of sharp, twisting vines.

  Snapping out of his shock, the knight unsheathed his sword and slashed at the enormous thorn bush, with the other two joining in, to no avail.

  Ivan finally stopped, panting harshly, “Is this part of the curse?”

  Nikolai gazed up at the castle in baffled frustration that mirrored my own. “It could be some sort of test.”

  “This is no doubt fairy magic,” an older man, who’d remained by the glass coffin said, “Perhaps Ivan was right, and we shouldn’t get involved?”

  “We did not come all the way here to be scared off by some vines.” Nikolai unsheathed his sword, and beckoned for the rest of his party, and they all joined the other men.

  But it was useless. Every strike only seemed to strengthen and increase the vines, until the castle all but disappeared beneath their lethal tapestry.

  Afterwards, Nikolai attempted casting spells to make the vines retreat into the earth. Then he summoned a storm to tear them away, and even set them on fire.

  Nothing worked. That thorny barrier was here to stay.

  But the men were not.

  By nightfall Prince Nikolai had given up and ordered his men to move out.

  As they rode away, I heard the knight assuring Nikolai that they’d stop in Orestia, find that other troubled princess whose family would gladly be rid of. One who was wide awake, and only had a mad father.

  In ever deepening dejection, I passed through the thorn-encrusted door, floated back to my body, and continued my wait.

  For what? I couldn’t tell.

  Days passed with me lingering in a dissociative state.

  To combat the maddening monotony and isolation, I started exploring the castle. I’d come to realize I could move away from my body within its confines. I examined every nook and cranny, over and over, fixating on the catacombs and the centuries-old remains within. Anything to escape the fact that I had been torn out of my body, and robbed of my ability to feel, to be seen or heard.

  Then it finally sank in.

  I was no longer a person, but the resident ghost of a rundown castle.

  This was my afterlife. And there was no end in sight.

  Whenever voices approached the castle, I no longer bothered going outside to see who they were, or how they fared. I knew how it would end. They all failed to bypass the thorn barrier, and left in frustrated defeat, leaving me to sink into yet deeper fathoms of despair.

  Why couldn’t my fairy godmother have just left the curse alone, and let me die in peace? Her amendment hadn’t saved me, it had cursed me twice over.

  At some point, I tired of haunting the castle, cycled back to the room where my body lay, asleep and untouched by time.

  In spite of my body’s restless slumber, the turquoise silk dress with the chiffon pink skirt overlay, that m
y ghostly form mirrored, was unwrinkled. I hadn’t gotten thinner, or paler, and my hair hadn’t become oily or disheveled. My skin only had the scent of the delicate lavender soap I’d last used. There wasn’t even the faintest layer of dust on me.

  The curse was perfectly preserving me, like I was a morbid trophy, a breathing, suffering taxidermy.

  As I helplessly watched my face twisting and my body twitching, something occurred to me.

  If my body was mirroring the misery I was experiencing, could I possibly control it at will? Could I move it up and out of bed? Maybe I could sleepwalk it out of here. Maybe the thorns only stopped people from entering, but if I could bypass them, I could walk my body all the way back home, so I could be with my family.

  But if they were keeping me here, did that mean they really didn’t want me around? They hadn’t even appointed someone to keep watch over me.

  Anger, outrage, helplessness, frustration, and desperation all collided into one long, furious scream that only I heard filling the room.

  My body only made a whimpering sound. I mimed a yanking move with all my strength, but it barely moved. I tried again, and again. The most I managed was to make my body move the covers a bit down my torso. I wouldn’t be puppeteering it back to Eglantine any time this century.

  “This is hopeless,” I wailed, the echo of my real heart thundering, my no-longer-there lungs choking hoarsely on a phantom breath. “I’m in hell!”

  And this was where I’d remain forever.

  I stared off into space, probably for days on end.

  Other days I watched rain sliding down the windowpanes, like the tear tracks I wished I could still feel running down my face.

  The hypnotic rainfall was the only relief I had, the one thing that lulled my churning mind and heaving soul.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t even have that anymore.

  Something was interrupting the storm’s steady fury. Erratic sounds, like something scratching at stone, chipping away at my daze.

  The persistent sounds finally snapped me back to clarity, ears focused. And what I heard had treacherous hope rising in spite of everything.

  Those sounds were right outside my window!

  Somebody had managed to bypass the thorns, and climb all the way up here.

  Someone had finally come for me.

  The scratching grew louder, followed by a frustrated groan, and a string of unintelligible curses.

  Rooted beside my body in the shadows, anticipation echoed my heartbeat in my throat as I fixed unblinking eyes at the window, praying, “Please, please, please.”

  The noises grew louder, then I saw a gloved hand grip the ledge outside the window, pulling up a hooded head into view.

  Pulling back his fist, the man smashed the windowpane in a cacophonous crash that made me jerk. Then he heaved himself up and swung inside.

  He landed in a fluid crouch, his cloak spread around him like a shadow, water slipping off the green material in fat droplets.

  When he stood, I thought he was the best sight I’d ever seen. Tall, and broad, and strong. At last, one of the candidates Leander had sent after me had the persistence and skill to circumvent the curse’s barricade.

  He had to be the one!

  Now he would approach my body, see how perfect I looked in repose, and he would declare his love. His kiss would wake my body from its deathly slumber, and reclaim my spirit from its hellish exile.

  But—he didn’t approach.

  His gaze barely touched the shadows where I stood as he massaged his wrists before moving to scan the rest of the room. Then with a shake of his head and a huff, he ran out of the room.

  Where was he going?

  Stunned disbelief gave way to alarmed pursuit as I whooshed through the door he’d slammed behind him, tailing him down the tower and throughout the decrepit castle.

  He stopped at every chamber to search every closet, humming a tune under his breath, one that was familiar, but whose origins eluded me.

  What was he doing? Did he think I was being kept in a closet? Was that why he hadn’t even looked around my room, when he’d found none? Was he that dumb he didn’t think to investigate the canopied bed in the far corner, didn’t get the simple concept of “Princess Sleeping in a Tower?”

  By the time we reached the second floor, I’d had it with him checking impossible places for me. I floated in his wake, fists clenched, wishing to be solid for only seconds, so I could punch him in his thick head.

  Then at the end of one corridor, he let out a triumphant, “Aha!” and rushed through the door bordered by rusting, cobwebbed suits of armor, one with its mace-bearing arm lying at its feet.

  Outrage washed over me as I watched him pick up the weapons inside, examining them, muttering reports on their condition and usefulness. Then he produced a folded leather bag from his cloak, and crouched to pack the crossbow he’d selected, followed by an axe and an assortment of daggers.

  He wasn’t here for me. He was here to rob the castle’s armory.

  “Unbelievable,” I bristled as I stopped over him, my exclamation ringing off no walls, never to reach his ears. That was the one good thing about this state, that I could rant at any volume and tone, and not be judged for it. “I wait here for who knows how long for someone who can cross those abominable thorns, and you finally show up, only to show more interest in the clutter than the treasure!”

  Gripping a handful of arrows, he’d gone very still. Then he slowly turned his hooded head in my direction.

  Had—had he heard me?

  I halted my tirade as he stood up, mirroring my uncertain pose, his unseen face within his hood directed exactly where mine was.

  Could he see me?

  My heart bounded, feeling almost like I was in direct possession of it again as we stood there, facing each other for nerve-wracking moments.

  Then he reached a hand towards me, and his gloved fingertips attempted to touch my arm, only to go through it.

  He dropped the arrows with a clatter, flying back with a shout.

  “GHOST!”

  Chapter Eight

  “No. Wait!”

  My frantic yell only made him swoop down to grab his bounty, then spring up and shoot away.

  I flew after him, yelling at the top of my non-existent lungs, “Don’t go! Please! You can’t leave me here!”

  He kept running at a speed I almost couldn't keep up with in my disembodied state. My desperation rose as the distance between us widened.

  He’d be out of the castle in minutes. Then no one else would ever be able to get in again. I’d be alone forever.

  “If you leave, I’ll—I’ll die here!”

  Even as the scream exploded from me, I knew it was even worse than that. If he left me, I’d never die, never get released from this nightmare.

  And it was no use. He’d already disappeared around the corner.

  Despondency slowed me down, the letdown too brutal to bear.

  Suddenly, approaching footsteps made my head snap up. He was coming back towards me!

  I watched him approaching in confusion, hands clasped as if in prayer. “Are—are you back for me, or are you lost?”

  He stopped a dozen feet away, cleared his throat, his voice deep and hushed. “What did you mean ‘you’ll die here’? You’re already dead.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not.”

  He cocked his hooded head, and it was unnerving, being unable to see his face, especially his eyes. “Then what are you, ghost girl?”

  “I’ll show you.” I backed away, beckoning for him to follow.

  He looked around, then dropped his shoulders with a sigh, muttering, clearly to himself, “This is a bad idea.”

  Despite that, he followed me, making the drowning hope within me bob up to the surface for a gasp of air.

  All the way up to the tower, I anxiously checked behind me, making sure he was still there, and wondering what about him was familiar, like the song he’d been humming.

 
As we entered the room, I pointed to the canopied bed on the platform at its far end. “You didn’t notice me when you first arrived.”

  He approached the bed with caution, then pulled the curtain aside.

  Inhaling sharply, he looked from the body on the bed to me as I hovered beside him.

  He looked back at my body, then bent to draw a knife out of his boot.

  Instantaneous fear gripped both versions of me. Instead of a savior, I could have led a killer to my vulnerable body. And there was nothing I could do to stop him if he wanted to hurt me.

  He bent towards my body, and hovered the blade over my mouth.

  “Don’t!” I rasped brokenly.

  My body echoed my distress with a whimpered contortion.

  He straightened, then showed me the fogged-up blade. Evidence of my breath. “You’re certainly not dead.” I shuddered with the expended fright as he pointed the knife at me. “I think this is you dreaming.”

  “I’m awake. I’m too awake.”

  He regarded me for a moment before he asked, “How long have you been here?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t even know where here is.”

  His posture relaxed as he gestured out the broken window. “You’re in Briarfell—specifically, the old Bryar fortress in the woods.”

  “King Herla’s castle?” I frowned, vaguely remembering what Clancy had said the day I’d awoken here. “Where he lived before he went to Faerie for centuries?”

  “Yes, exactly. Do you have any idea what happened before you became…this way?”

  Now I thought about it, I couldn’t tell him the truth. This was a stranger who’d broken into this castle to loot it, not a nobleman sent by Leander.

  But like Ada, I could tell a half-truth. “Last I remember, I was riding my horse and fell, then I was here.”

  He nodded as he came closer. I still couldn’t see his face within the shadow of his hood, its depths inexplicably dark. But I felt him squinting at me. “Do I know you?”

  “Perhaps if you took off your cloak, I could tell if we’ve met.”