Frightful Fairy Tales (5 page)

“Come in,” Ivy called tentatively. A pretty, diminutive maid with a mouth like a trout and wet-looking black hair plastered to her head entered the room. She carried a silver tray with a large teapot and two eggs, which she set on a nearby table. With a neat curtsy, she left the room, closing the door with a little click.

Ivy arose and moved toward the table. She lifted the lid of the teapot to find some strange black tea. She cracked the first egg and tasted it; it was the most delicious egg she had ever eaten in her life and she hungrily consumed it. When she cracked the second, she found no egg, but rather a note that read:

Will you be so kind as to join me on the veranda this afternoon?

It is located in the northeastern wing of the palace.

I must show you so many exquisite things!

Respectfully yours,

Prince Blackie

Ivy held the note. She was stricken for a moment but then looked to find her shift and camisole she had worn the previous night. They were not to be found. In the comer she found a large solid closet carved with mermaids pouring water from urns down the length. She approached it, gingerly opened it, and found to her delight a beautiful turquoise crushed-velvet gown covered in a pattern of abalone sequins and brocade. She tied the sash and it fit perfectly. At the bottom of the closet sat delicate matching shoes with tiny straps held with a pearl. These also fit like a charm.

Ivy was so moved by her exquisite gifts that tears welled in her eyes. Her affection for the prince overcame her and she tried to hold it back. She still wanted to remain sensible and not be consumed by a stranger bearing lavish gifts. This she tried to keep in mind as she strode toward the veranda. But when the stunning prince came into sight, all rationality disappeared and she fell into his arms, thanking him profusely.

"You look ravishing,” he said with a rakish smile. “Come, let me show you my kingdom.” That afternoon he took her to a panoramic underwater viewing window to view the sea horse races. They sat on Roman-style benches sipping kelp juleps as mermen in multicolored livery flogged their steeds in the waters outside the bubble dome. Ivy won every bet. Then they enjoyed a late luncheon of oysters Rockefeller at the Atlantis Restaurant--it was built of the ruins of that famous city.

As they dined on crab cakes and caviar, they sat on an ornate balcony overlooking jewel-encrusted sirens performing water ballet in a pool below. Later that evening Prince Blackie took Ivy to dinner in a dark room lined in silver paper flocked with a blue velvet pattern. Only two long tapers held by wall sconces lit the room. The black water of the deep river could be seen through portholes ringed with the silver that lined the room. Through these portholes, Ivy could see strange glowing and semitransparent fish with cavernous jaws. They flowed by ominously and seemed to stare sightlessly at her.

The prince took her hand, looked at her with his penetrating black eyes and then ever so softly kissed her waiting lips. Ivy swooned. His ivory skin glowed in the candlelight and his black eyes seemed to become even darker as he whispered in her ear, "Marry me, Ivy. Live with me forever.”

Despite his charms and affluence, she hesitated, knowing intuitively that there must be a stipulation. “If I am your bride, how can my family attend the wedding?” she asked.

“They cannot,” he answered, stroking her hair. “But I can promise you a sumptuous wedding and a life of ease, filled with beautiful trinkets and flowing gowns.” Ivy was impressed by his offers of opulence. Her dull life above seemed so boring and shabby in comparison. This was what she had always dreamed of. It all seemed too fast and surreal, and she felt anxious but didn’t know why. She turned to Blackie and said, “Please, beloved prince, if you really love me as you say, you will allow me time to sort my thoughts.”

“I can only give you one full day,” he responded with a grim aspect. “After that, unless you marry me, the spell will weaken. You’ll become too large for us to keep you here in the bubble, and we’ll have to return you to the cold river. We could never see each other again.” At this, he looked desperate. “I will come to your room next evening and then I will hear your decision. A servant will show you to your room. Good night for now, my precious. I will see you in my dreams.”

That night Ivy lay tormented in her canopy bed and what little sleep she did get was filled with nightmares of swimming alone in a black sea at night. In the dream she felt huge, dark creatures in the water under her feet, bumping against her legs. When she looked down, she saw a pack of black wolves circling her underwater.

The whole next day Ivy fretted and gazed out the window to the courtyard below where fountains made their ever-changing crystalline formations while swans drifted lazily among the patterns. She looked out over the expanse of the underwater city, past the river that divided the bubble dome kingdom in two. As she looked up to the top of the bubble dome and the many exotic fish swimming around it, she thought she caught a glimmer of the sun she knew must be far, far above.

Ivy absently twisted the drapery with her delicate hands as she thought about having to leave this wonderful place for the doldrums that had been her previous existence. The palace was beautiful and expansive and she could not imagine tiring of it or the prince and his loving gaze any time soon but she would miss her humble home, doting mother, and her patchwork quilt. It was, after all, the only life she had ever known. She had been ripped so suddenly and unexpectedly from her life. Would she miss the simplicity of the grass and sunlight? Her mother must be worried sick by now.

If she went back, she could say she had been lost in the woods. She would slip into her old pattern, eventually find another lover, marry, and have a home. In time this misadventure would fade into memory and become just another dream, a strange and good dream that had lasted for days. What do days matter in a lifetime of years. Of decades? As an old woman on her deathbed, perhaps she would think back for a moment to the Black River.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. The pretty trout-mouthed maid entered with another serving of tea and eggs. This time Ivy rushed directly to the second egg and cracked it open. “I love you,” the note inside read. After showering in the opulent bathroom and dressing herself in yet another wonderful gown, Ivy had a visit from Prince Blackie. He fell to his knees and grasped her hand as he pleaded for an answer to his marriage proposal.

“Yes,” whispered Ivy. “I will marry you and live with you forever.”

The wedding that ensued was the most lavish the kingdom had ever seen. Ivy and Blackie and the wedding procession rode enormous black swans to an island in the middle of the great indoor river. Eleven beautiful maidens dressed in aqua silk held Ivy’s train. As she slowly walked down the aisle, pearls and pink coral were scattered behind her. A shape-shifting judge transformed into a swordfish while he read the vows.

Ivy was presented with a crown much like the one she had found--had it only been days since her arrival here?--but hers was embossed with abalone and mother-of-pearl. As they kissed, the celebrating crowd set off a fleet of torpedoes that passed over the dome, exploding colorfully. Everyone cheered.

A monumental triple-layer wedding cake floated down the river on a lapis lazuli barge pulled by tiny mermaid babies balanced on the backs of trick dolphins. As the babies held the dolphins’ silver bridles, they served pieces of cake to everyone in the kingdom. Those who bit too hard cracked their teeth on the precious gems and treasures hidden inside. Wine flowed in abundance. Dancing girls balancing tall clear urns of fish moved among the wedding throng, granting wishes with royal wands reserved for such occasions. It was indeed quite an event.

Later that evening in the half light, next to her sleeping husband, Ivy lay awake and gazed at the crown that hung on a hook over the wedding bed. It gleamed softly in the half light, mimicked perfectly by the light that glinted in her slow, salty tears.

In the days that followed the wedding, Blackie tried to keep his wife entertained with all sorts of amusements and exotic delicacies. Ivy found them increasingly monotonous, the food tasteless. All the shape shifting and transformations around her made everything feel so immaterial. She felt uprooted and claustrophobic, unable to wander beyond the walls of the dome, unable to feel the sunlight.

When she went to the kitchen and offered to help the scullery maids with the dishes, they gently refused her: “This is not the place for you, my lady,” they said. When she asked the trout-mouthed maid for a needle with which to embroider, the flustered servant insisted on embroidering for her, “My lady, you mustn’t mar your delicate fingers!” Ivy became despondent from being so idle-no matter how much gold and jewels Blackie lavished on her, she felt worthless.

Ivy was inconsolable. Everything about her began to droop. Her hair thinned and became lifeless. She had sunken eyes and a sickly pallor. Nothing seemed to cure her of her consumptive sadness, her longing to see the world above once more. She longed for the simple things that life once held for her. She was wasting away in grandeur. Every night, after refusing the lavish meals that were served to her on silver platters, she pled with her husband to let her at least visit her home. He was kind and patient, but he reminded her that if she went back, she might never return. Finally, Ivy took to her bed, and over a period of days, her condition deteriorated to the point at which Blackie called a doctor. A squid wearing a topcoat arrived at Ivy’s bedside, and poking and squeezing her neck once or twice with a tentacle, announced that unless Ivy returned to her previous home, she would surely die from a combination of vitamin deficiencies and ennui.

Blackie had no choice but to concede. The prince of the Black River leaned over his feverish wife and whispered lovingly in her ear, “I will give up my kingdom and take you home, for it is better to have you alive and not in my kingdom than not to have you at all. Once we leave this place, you can never come back. But there is a magic spell that governs all of us who live under the Black River: