Sleeping Beauty, the One Who Took the Really Long Nap (4 page)

BOOK: Sleeping Beauty, the One Who Took the Really Long Nap
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I laced up my ballet slippers and flexed my ankles in preparation for my performance. Each year since I could walk — which you recall was at quite a tender age — Mama and Papa had invited the lords and ladies of the kingdom to the castle to watch me sing and dance and play musical instruments. My parents figured that since the fairies were kind enough to bless me with these gifts, I owed it to high society to share them. I never gave much thought as to whether I enjoyed these performances. They took almost no effort, since everything came naturally to me. I knew it made my parents proud, and that was enough for me.

My eleventh birthday had just passed. I had long ago given up on having parties. I was happy to celebrate with my parents and Sara, who had become more like a sister to me than a lady-in-waiting. She went to visit her real sister, Amelia, every month at the blacksmith's house, and Amelia often came to the castle, too. In fact, she was in the audience tonight. The cute page I had admired when I was younger
(who went by the name of Clive) had become a squire. I saw him every now and then practicing with the knights. Sara wouldn't admit it, but she lingered by the thick glass windows whenever he was jousting out on the Great Lawn.

Mama had ordered red velvet drapes, which she'd fashioned into a makeshift curtain. I would stand behind the curtain, and then when it was time for my next piece, the curtains would open dramatically and I would begin my routine. It all came across as quite professional. I had already sung ten minutes of an opera that night as my opening act. I was glad that part was over. I liked singing little wordless songs as I strolled through the gardens or helped Cook bake her delectable desserts, but I could not stand opera. It was very odd to be so excellent at something that I didn't even enjoy.

The curtains drew apart and I began my ballet dance. My mind was utterly detached as I flitted and fluttered across the stage (really some boards of wood the castle carpenter had nailed together, which caused my mother to nearly faint until he assured her the pointy ends of the nails were underneath the stage and would not harm me).

At appropriate intervals my arms arched upward and out to the side like butterfly wings, and my neck tilted back so my hair flowed down like a sheet of silk. I closed my eyes and twirled on my tiptoes, never losing my balance. The crowd was hushed, watching me. Meanwhile, I was thinking
about the adorable little snail I had found on my window ledge that morning. What a trip he must have had to crawl all the way from the ground, three stories below! I had just determined to call him Rex when the song ended and the applause began. For the first time, I felt a bit guilty about accepting such adulation. For truly it was almost none of my doing.

Sara helped me change out of my ballet outfit and into a long yellow gown for the last part of the concert. “You were excellent,” she whispered as she fastened the bow behind my back.

“Thanks,” I said, not really feeling it.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

There was no keeping anything from Sara. She could read me like a book. But I wasn't quite sure what I was feeling so I shook my head. “It is time for me to go back on,” I said.

I played an original medley on the piano, then moved to the flute, and finally the viola. The piece would have sounded even better had all three instruments been played at the same time, but the fairy's gift stopped short of giving me that ability. This time after the usual round of applause (and a standing ovation and an armful of thorn-free roses) I felt tears prick my eyes. No doubt the audience thought they were tears of joy and gratitude. They were not. I felt hollow inside.

That night after Sara hung up my gown in the wardrobe, she sat down on the edge of my bed. “Speak,” she instructed.

I pretended not to know what she meant. How could I explain that I felt like I had not earned any of the praise that was constantly heaped upon me? My tutors always gave me the highest marks in our little class, even though the other students worked much harder at getting the correct answers. My gracefulness gave me excellent posture, so I always walked taller than the others, which made me seem haughty. How could I complain about the bounty of gifts heaped upon me, when Sara had so little? How could I explain that no one —not even me — knew the real me, the person I would have become without the fairies' help?

“May I take a guess at what is troubling you?” Sara asked.

I sighed and nodded.

“Do you not like being the center of attention on that stage? Do all those eyes make you uncomfortable?”

I shook my head. That part of it had never bothered me. I was so used to being watched. Besides my special situation, a princess is going to be looked at wherever she goes. It comes with the territory.

“Were your ballet slippers too tight and squeezing your toes?”

I laughed a little. “No, they were fine.”

“Did that nobleman in the front row have such bad body odor that you couldn't concentrate up there?”

I laughed harder. The man had desperately been in need of a bath, but I shook my head.

Sara threw up her arms. “I give up, then.”

“I am fine, truly,” I insisted. “I shall see you in the morning for our usual walk.”

“You're the boss,” she said, heading off to her own room next door. She had learned to get used to having a bed to herself.

We both smiled at her parting words. We knew exactly who the real boss was. Sara still watched me carefully according to Mama's orders, but she gave me much more freedom than any of my other ladies-in-waiting had. For that I was grateful. I climbed under the blanket and decided I would take it upon myself to discover the real Rose. I had no idea how, but something had to change or I was in danger of losing myself completely.

The new page at the castle — Jonathan — became not only my trusted companion but also my teacher, woodland guide, and protector. He and I were the same age, born only days apart, but he had seen more of the world than I imagined existed. By the time we were twelve, he had taught me how to fish, how to figure out which berries were safe to eat, and which would turn your insides to mush, how to use mud and straw to build a perfectly sturdy hut, and how to best avoid Mother on the second and fourth Thursdays.

The reason he spent so much time educating me on the ways of the wild was that I tended to run away often. The first time was when I was ten. Mother had forgotten to wipe the blood from her chin at breakfast, following her “meal” the night before. (Luckily, I realized it was not human blood.) For the first time in my life, I felt revulsion toward her. This is not a nice feeling to have toward my own mother, who, truly, had never done me any harm. I felt so terrible that I knew I could not stay. I put on my sturdy leather boots,
took an old potato sack from the pantry, stuffed it with a few tunics, a cloak, some apples, and a chunk of hard cheese, and took off for parts unknown. I did not tell anyone I was leaving. Jonathan had been with us not quite a year at that point, and I, being so unfamiliar with friendships, had been too shy to exchange anything other than pleasantries.

With a glance behind me to make sure I wasn't being followed, I ran across the Great Lawn into the woods. Once I knew I was out of sight of the castle, I slowed down. The woods were nice and cool. I loved how the tops of the trees met across the paths, making a canopy for me to walk under. One good thing about not studying life in books was that it forced me to pay more attention to my surroundings. I loved being out in nature and watching the animals and the bugs and even the grass growing. Father caught me once, just lying on the lawn, alternately watching the grass and the formations of the clouds. He asked me what I was doing, so I told him. He raised his brows and muttered, “My boy is an odd duck.”

I did not know what he meant by that, so I took it as a compliment and kept studying nature in all its forms. Even in the dense woods alone, I felt very confident. Before I knew it, I found myself in front of the mysterious overgrown building. The sun was still high in the sky, so I decided to walk fully around the building to get an idea of its shape. I
first munched on an apple for sustenance, then left the sack behind so I would know where I started from.

I was still unable to break through the vines to see any more than the occasional glimpse of the gray stone walls. Here and there I saw a glint of a windowpane. Every time I turned a corner I expected the building to end, but it did not. It was much more massive than I had ever imagined. When I finally returned to my starting point, an hour had passed. How was it possible that such a huge structure could be on the grounds of our castle without anyone knowing what it truly was or how to get inside? I backed up a few yards. From that distance, the building looked like no more than a clump of trees and leaves. I could see that if one wasn't looking directly at it, one could miss it entirely. I felt a little tingle as I approached it again. I wondered if something magical had taken place on this spot. There was something slightly otherworldly about it. I still believed in magic and fairies, although I had no proof of their existence, only old fables.

There was something sort of familiar about the place, too. I could not put my finger on it. Now that I had a sense of its shape, I felt like I had been there before, and not just the time I had run to escape Mother. It was getting darker now, and the air had cooled by at least ten degrees. I affixed my cloak over my shoulders and struggled with the clasp.
Normally a chamberlain would have dressed me (when one bothered to show up to work), but I liked being able to do things on my own. I envied how Jonathan seemed to be able to tackle any task. I knew that in order to be a knight he had to work very hard to master many skills. It appeared all I had to do to be a prince was not get eaten. I doubted that anyone at the castle even knew I had gone.

I gathered some fallen leaves into a pile and burrowed inside. I finished off the other apple and all the cheese and wondered what to do next. With dusk came the animals who had hidden during the sunlight hours. An owl hooted so loudly I was sure it was right next to me. Normally I found the sounds of the animals soothing. Now, however, they sounded unfamiliar and even predatory. My stomach rumbled. I was used to Cook's five-course meals. If I strained really hard, I could almost smell the food cooking from where I was standing. I let my mind wander over all the possible items on tonight's menu. By the time I started picturing peach cobbler with a mixture of Cook's special spices on top, I had to forcibly hold myself down. I had not thought of how long I planned to run away for, but there was no way I was giving up after only one afternoon.

An hour passed. Then another. It was now pitch black. The sliver of moon between the tops of the trees was barely enough to allow me to see my hand in front of my face. I
began to hum the tune of one of Father's favorite songs. He always requested it of the traveling minstrels. It was an old song, and no minstrel sang it exactly the same way. The one thing the versions had in common, though, was the part about a sad princess who had a long time to wait for her prince. I never gave the words much thought, but it had a sweet tune.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was dawn. Most of the leaves had fallen off me, and there were fresh tracks right next to me. They could have been from a coyote or a mountain lion. I was very lucky the beast had left me alone. As my stomach growled again in protest, it occurred to me that I had not planned very well. Next time I wouldn't make the same mistakes.

Wearily, I headed back toward the castle. Before I was too far from the mystery building, I turned to give it one last glance. It hit me like a bolt of lightning why the place felt so familiar. It was an exact replica of our own castle! Or perhaps our own castle was an exact replica of it? Surely this one must be ancient to be so fully covered by the forest. Perhaps Father knew when our castle was built. I hurried back toward the path that would lead me home. Halfway there, Jonathan appeared, hands on his hips.

“Were you sleeping on the forest floor all night?” he asked.

I nodded. “I put some leaves on top of me.”

“I see you managed not to get eaten by a wolf,” he said.

“That is true, I was not eaten by a wolf. There were some tracks near me when I awoke, but I was fine.”

He shook his head. “You must have a fairy godmother. The forest is full of animals who could eat you in one bite. Speaking of food, did you have enough?”

At this point in the conversation, I did not feel like revealing any more of my failures, nor did I want to tell him about the old castle, so I just shrugged. I began to walk again, and he fell in alongside me.

“So,” he said, “am I to expect you will be running away often?”

“I would say that's a good possibility,” I answered honestly.

“Well, in that case I'm going to have to teach you better survival skills. You were lucky this time.”

“Fine,” I replied, trying not to show how excited I was. I was finally going to learn something!

Thus our lessons, and our friendship, began in earnest. After admonishing me for my actions, my parents paid extra attention to me. That lasted approximately a day and a half, and then things were back to normal: visits to the aviary in the morning, followed by lessons with Jonathan in the afternoons. Father claimed not to know exactly when our castle was built but said he believed it was sometime between the
days of King Bertram and our family's reign. When I inquired as to why they had to build a new castle when most castles could last a thousand years, Father shrugged and said he had to meet with the bailiff to discuss some important kingly business, so I had better be going.

The next time I ran away, a few months later, I was much better prepared and lasted three full nights in the woods. I was still no closer to getting into the old castle, even with the tools I had brought. Those vines were seemingly impenetrable. It was a mystery, all right — a mystery I was getting more and more anxious to get to the bottom of.

BOOK: Sleeping Beauty, the One Who Took the Really Long Nap
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