Once Upon a Dream

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.

In the three years since she’d arrived at the castle, she had checked this window a thousand times. She knew it would be this window. Her Sight had seen it years ago. It was also the only window left that was not entirely blocked by the vibrant green leaves which encased the castle in a mother’s embrace.

She could no longer leave. She could not climb out into the starry sky and down the vine which stretched in a slow curl towards the dirt floor, neatly twisting and turning to avoid large thorns and poisonous flowers. She had once taken that path, the only safe one in the jungle of oversized greenery which stretched as far as she could see around the castle.

I walked this land once. There were neat flowerbeds and well-kept stables. A paved thoroughfare brought me here with the traders and courtiers. There was a thriving town, a colorful market.

Or was that what this place would become, after? She could no longer remember.

Her attention was torn away from the glimmering constellations. The magic she now held within her was so strong, so intense, that she struggled to focus on anything outside her own head. She had lived too many lives, lives that were not her own. Her thoughts were a constant whirlwind.

It was almost time. The hundreds of souls locked in Briar Castle lay still in their slumber. But not for long.

I’m baking a cake. My late wife’s favorite cake, chocolate and cherry, for the princess’ birthday. Our little girls were helping, covered in flour. She smiled to herself. But now they’re playing hide-and-seek in the kitchen.

Tears streamed down her face at the thought of how her wife would have smiled to see the twins grown so tall.

No. She shook her head violently. Not a baker. Not a father. Not a husband.

She tried to tamp down on the magic and the Sight. Turning away from the night sky, she stalked down the tower stairs, leaving the window in her wake. No refreshing breeze followed to cool the stuffy castle air.

---

The roses were bright pink and reminded her of kisses.

A particular set of kisses. A very particular, very recent set of kisses. Elle’s cheeks colored to match the roses, and she hesitated before grabbing the card.

Thinking of you was all it said. Elle had never been thought of before. At least, not like that.

Her small bedroom connected to Mara’s through a tiny sitting room. Warm and cozy, with worn chairs and threadbare carpet, the room hadn’t changed in the four years since Elle had arrived at King Hubert's castle, an orphaned fourteen-year-old child.

The flowers stood out starkly in the blue vase which always sat on the squat side table. Elle flushed again and wondered if she should hide them.

Before she could decide, the door opposite her creaked open, and her mentor strolled through. Her frizzy red hair was shot through with grey, and her green eyes were distant, not focusing on the book open in her right hand. Then they widened as she noticed the effusion of pink on her side table.

She said nothing, only sat down in her usual chair with a slight smirk and closed her book with an audible thump. Elle wondered if her face would ever resume normal temperature.

After a few moments, she broke the silence. “It’s a – secret. It’s new. And mine.” She swallowed. “Please don’t pry.”

Mara’s smile faded. “My dear, I would never use the Sight on you. Using it to manipulate those you love only leads to pain and disappointment.”

Elle nodded and collapsed onto the ottoman at the end of her mentor’s seat. A slightly giddy giggle burst out.

“Have you ever been in love, Mara?” she asked. She thought not. Mara was careful to stay separate from everyone, royal, noble or servant, at Castle Rose. Her companions were her Sight and her books. And Elle.

The older woman stayed silent for a few heartbeats before speaking. “Yes. A long time ago.”

“What happened?”

Mara smiled, though her eyes betrayed a deep sadness “The Sight. I saw a war on the horizon. I saw my role in it.” She turned her gaze toward Elle, her eyes sharply focusing for the first time in days. “A Seer can achieve great things, but it is difficult to be honest about your Sight when your heart is torn. Neutrality is our burden.”

Elle managed to keep from rolling her eyes. Mara had a penchant for the overdramatic.

---

“Thank you for the roses,” Elle said shyly.

Philip smiled down at her. Their usual alcove felt warm and safe around her. His arms felt even better.

“I have another gift for you,” he said. “Tonight. Can you meet me outside in the garden next to the hedge maze?”

His lips curved upward. She had not yet found a way to resist that smile or his warm brown eyes.

Her answer was lost in their kiss.

---

She entered the throne room at Briar Castle, as she had a thousand times before. She studied the torches burning on the walls. The fire did not flicker. Magic kept them in stasis, as it did the young maid lying at her feet. A perfectly fresh ham lay where it had fallen almost a hundred years ago. Ornate silverware – beautifully curved tongs and an intricately decorated carving knife – still shone. At one time there had been a silver tray next to the body, but she had removed it years ago when upon arriving at the castle.

The maid’s name was Felicity. She was a servant who had sent money back to her desperately poor family in a neighboring kingdom. A family who had likely died decades ago, having forgotten about Briar Castle and their young, kind-hearted daughter. Yet more victims of the curse which held this castle in silence.

My mother wrote me a letter recently. Pansy is engaged and needs money for a new dress. I’ve heard that the king and queen may give us all a bonus on Princess Aurora’s birthday, so I need to be on my best behavior to make sure it goes off without a hitch.

She felt cold stone beneath her knees and opened her eyes to find herself kneeling by Felicity’s body. Her breathing was slow and steady, in time with the rise and fall of the young woman’s chest.

She stood back up.

It was nearly time. Or perhaps the window had passed. But she thought not. She thought it was soon.

Her eyes skimmed the cavernous room again, ignoring the detailed tapestries telling of the history of Briar Castle and its kingdom. A kingdom lost to the outside world. Soon it would be found again.

Her feet lightly moved through the scattered bodies of court officials and royal attendants. She knew them all now. A courtier clad in his best clothing, golden buttons glinting bright. An elderly manservant lying next to a spilled goblet of wine, soaking his sleeves a deep purple. She stepped over the queen herself and felt compelled to pause. A delicate silver crown remained on the aging woman’s golden hair streaked through with grey.

My crown, passed from generation to generation.

She struggled to pull herself back before her hand could quite close around the wrought metal.

I’ve been a good queen, haven’t I? My people are happy. The kingdom is small but prosperous. We may be able to make a good match for our child, grow our connections with neighboring kingdoms.

She smiled at a memory of a party, full of music and celebration. Her coronation, perhaps? She had drunk too much wine that night. His brown eyes had smiled down at her. She had never felt so close to soaring, elated past the point of return.

She remembered her baby girl. Aurora. The large blue eyes darting about the birthing room, excited to take in the world. Her husband’s radiant smile. Figures appearing in the doorway where there had been none before.

That day was a miracle. That day was a tragedy.

Our child? No. Not a mother. That wasn’t me.

Aurora.

She shook her head again and gripped the long brown strands of her hair, yanking until tears of pain came to her eyes.

She had been on her way to Aurora. Her gaze focused forward again, on the beautiful bed made of green leaves and pink roses.

---

Elle smiled up at the hedge maze before her as she crept through the garden. The night air was cool on her flushed skin. The maze was a favorite meeting spot of theirs; few dared enter after dark for fear of losing their way.

Philip had been born and raised in the castle. Elle did not fear losing her way while at his side.

As she turned to slip through a small opening in the exterior wall of the maze, she felt a hand grab her own. Philip stepped out from the darkness, grinning down at her. Startled, Elle lost her handle on her power, and the Sight began to take hold.

Philip knelt on a raised dais beside a bed of leaves and roses. A beautiful woman with golden hair and a silver tiara lay before him, her eyes closed and face peaceful. He raised a hand to her cheek.

“Elle.” She heard a whisper. “Elle.”

She pulled herself out of the vision before she could see anything more, and her eyes met Mara’s. Her mentor stood in a small crowd, back against the hedge maze lit brilliantly with enchanted candles of all colors. Pink rose petals covered the ground as far as she could see. She recognized King Hubert among other members of the royal family and scattered nobles. His brow was furrowed.

Philip tugged her hand again to bring her attention back down to his face. His smile was brilliant, blinding. “I'm sorry to spring this on you," he said in a low voice. "I just wanted everyone to know. Are you okay?"

“I... I am.” Elle struggled to place herself in the current moment. What had that vision been? Who was that woman?

“Good.” He squeezed her hand and then raised his voice so that the crowd could hear. “Eleanor, will you be my wife and future queen?”

Stunned, Elle could do nothing but stare at him. She was not a noble. She was a Seer. She had not expected this, for their relationship to be dragged out of secret. To become a princess.

She glanced Mara’s way once more. Her face was carefully neutral.

A Seer can achieve great things.

Neutrality is our burden.

Philip gazed up at her. She felt a flutter in her chest. She returned his smile.

“Yes.”

Perhaps… she could shape the future a different way.

---

Elle paced back and forth in their small sitting room. Mara kept her gaze on her book, ignoring her charge’s frantic movements.

Finally, Elle stopped directly in front of her mentor. “I just… If I knew something about Philip, I should Seek it right? If he’s going to be my husband, I need to know. It might be important for – for the kingdom.”

She collapsed onto the small ottoman, pushing Mara’s feet off. “I’m still a Seer until the wedding day.” Her gaze turned toward her former room. She had been in a beautiful suite of rooms higher in the castle for months now.

Mara sighed, setting her book aside and sitting up in her armchair.

“Elle… Eleanor. You stopped being a Seer the moment you said yes.” Mara shook her head slightly. Her green eyes were never quite focused these days. She had lived too many lives in her five decades. With effort, she brought her gaze to meet Elle’s. “Love is about trust. Something has been bothering you for months. The easy thing to do would be to use your Sight. What if instead you used your voice instead? Have you tried speaking to Prince Philip?”

Elle avoided Mara’s piercing stare, and her eyes caught on the squat blue vase. It held simple daisies. “What if this vision is the important one? The one that defines my role? Or what if…” her voice dropped to a whisper. “What if it tells me that I’m doing the wrong thing?”

Mara’s arms came around her, cradling her as she had when Elle was still a young girl, abandoned by her family to a Seer’s care.

“A Seer’s life is about choice, my dear. Choices always come with a cost.”

---

Elle stood before Philip’s door. Just one time, she promised herself. One last time.

Her heart clenched at his open grin, his surprise evident at her late-night visit. His smile faded at the look on her face.

“Could you…” She hesitated. What am I doing? “I… just wanted one kiss before tomorrow. I’m nervous.” She attempted to relax her features into that of a blushing bride. She remembered the pink roses from not so long ago. She felt much older than that innocent girl.

Philip chuckled softly, and a wave of guilt hit her at his sweet smile. He stepped forward and embraced her. “I’m nervous, too,” he murmured in her ear, before pulling his face back to kiss her.

At the touch of his lips, she gave herself to her Sight.

When she was herself again a few moments later, Elle stepped back from Philip’s kiss. He wiped the tear from the corner of her eye and kissed the wet trail left behind.

“Everything will be all right, Elle,” he whispered. “Tomorrow is a beginning, not an ending.”

Elle managed to smile and pulled his face back to her for one more kiss.

---

She could not say how long she had been gazing down at Aurora. Minutes? Hours? Days? There was no need to eat or sleep. No need to blink or smile, breathe or cry. Not here, in this castle. Not as she was now, brimming with magic.

Visions pulled at her, begging for attention, for life.

I held you in my arms as a little baby. You pulled my hair and laughed.

I’m baking the cake for your birthday.

My sister is just your age. I believe she’ll look just as beautiful on her wedding day.

Keeping the visions just at bay, she tried to understand her own feelings toward the sleeping princess. She wondered if she should have felt sympathy or sorrow when gazing at Aurora’s face. She knew every moment of the woman’s life. Living under the shadow of a curse, unable to outrun her own destiny.

All she felt was resentment. Or the memory of resentment. Over the years, the feeling had become harder and harder to hold, disappearing under a hundred others. But she knew, somehow, that it was all Aurora’s fault that she had come to this.

True love’s kiss.

She tried, for a moment, to see what would come after the kiss. It was only darkness and uncertainty.

She raised the carving knife.

---

Elle arrived at the edge of the tangle of plants early on a summer morning. It had taken two weeks to arrive here from Castle Rose. She was sure Philip was tearing the kingdom apart to find her. More than sure, since she had seen it.

The only person who could follow her was Mara. Only those gifted with the Sight would be able to see through the fairy’s enchantment on Briar Castle. She knew, however, that her mentor would not follow. She had left her a letter with instructions. She was confident they would be followed. She had seen that, too, after all.

But as usual, her Sight had omitted quite an important detail: the location of the breach in the protection charm that would grant her entry. Briar Castle was surrounded by a dense jungle, and the grounds stretched for miles. Finding the gap she had seen in her visions would be no small feat. She had weeks to spare. She had years to spare, really. But what was the point in wasting time on something so mundane when she had so much to accomplish?

She plopped herself down in the dirt. Time wasted was… Some sort of proverb, she was sure of it. No time like the present to use her Sight to see what she would do, soon, so she could do it, now.

A minute later she was up again, jogging west through the open fields, away from the rising sun. The magical barrier shimmered to her right, giving her a headache when she tried to focus her attention on it. She kept her gaze forward instead, confident she would recognize the slant of the sun and the feel of the wind at the right moment.

Frequent use of her Sight was not recommended, of course. Spend too long in the future or the past, and you’ll lose your grip on the present, Mara had always said. But Mara was back home, comfortably providing rare and useful visions for King Hubert, holding onto her sanity with a death grip even into her middle age. She was losing the battle even still. As Elle would one day, the more she used the Sight.

But since this was her last journey as a Seer, Elle was free to use it as she willed.

When she arrived at the crack in the magic four hours later, a dark and winding path stretching before her, she smiled up at the sun directly overhead and slipped through.

---

Elle and the fairy glared at each other. They were each careful to demonstrate their anger in looks only to avoid disturbing the still pools of water allowing communication. Elle used a large silver serving dish she had found in the throne room, the fairy a large puddle in some far away forest.

“Now this was all a very long time ago – ninety-something years now?” The fairy frowned thoughtfully. “And Mal was going through a phase back then. Couldn’t stand rudeness, she couldn’t. So after she cursed the little princess to die on her sixteenth birthday, I” – the fairy sat up as straight as she could while still bending over a pool – “I managed to snag the magic and transform it into a sleeping curse! It was quite the accomplishment, really.”

Elle waved her hand impatiently. “I can see the death curse on the princess, tangled up inside your sleeping cur-“ – she caught herself, trying to keep this conversation fruitful – “spell. What I don’t understand is why your spell is tied to every other person in the castle.”

The fairy’s eyes shifted, for once looking a little ashamed. “I thought Aurora would be lonely if she woke up, and everyone she knew was long dead.”

“How does that even work? I thought the curse targeted Aurora alone.”

“It did. I took their connections to her, their thoughts and memories of her, and tied them into the spell. She’s the key piece.”

Elle closed her eyes. She counted to ten. She opened her eyes.

“Of course she is. And how do you break the spell?”

“True love’s kiss,” the fairy replied promptly. “One hundred years after the day she pricked her finger on that spindle.”

“How else?”

The fairy frowned again. “There isn’t any other way. I had split seconds to transform the magic. True love’s kiss is a very classic cursebreaker, you know.”

Breathe in. Breathe out. “And if true love’s kiss were not an option, what would happen? Could you come remove the curse entirely?”

“Nothing I could do.” The fairy tapped her chin thoughtfully. Although almost a century had passed, she looked not a day older than the day of Aurora’s birth. “Once a curse is set, it can be manipulated to a certain extent, but the only way to remove it is by fulfilling the set condition. Or death, I suppose.”

“I see.” And Elle did.

---

Elle stood in the kitchen, gazing down at her reflection in the silver platter. The only word for the castle was creepy. There was no noise, no smells, no breeze. She thought she might go mad from sensory deprivation alone.

The curse can be manipulated, the fairy had said.

Every slumbering occupant of this castle was tied to Princess Aurora. The magic tied their very lives to her. Killing Aurora – if she dared to do so – would not break the curse for them. It would just kill three hundred and twenty-eight other people.

She would not be a Seer rescuing a lost kingdom. She would be simply a murderer.

Elle sank down onto a nearby bench, laying her head down on the flour-covered table. If she walked away, she condemned them all to a living death.

The only way to release them would be to break the curse with true love’s kiss.

She could simply walk away. She could pretend she had not seen this place, this place lost to the rest of the land. A fulfilling life waited for her, a life as a future queen. She could guide Philip’s kingdom from his side and help his people.

Elle stood and began patting her hair free of the flour which now covered it. She would gather her things and be gone in an hour.

But then no one would be left to help those in this castle. Less than three years remained until the day the curse could be broken.

As she turned, she caught sight of messy ginger pigtails peeking out from under the kitchen table.

---

She knew when he entered the castle. His footsteps echoed through the empty hallways, down the winding staircase.

She wanted to go to him. She could not. He must come to her.

After a few moments, the footsteps resumed their even, cautious step down the tower steps.

She thought she smiled. He had come through his window, as she knew he would.

---

“How do I take the curse from her?” Elle asked the fairy. She had seen it happen, but seeing and understanding were never one and the same.

“A curse lives in the heart,” the fairy replied. “Heart’s blood will hold the magic most true. A kiss echoes most strongly there.”

Heart’s blood and true love’s kiss. Fairies pretended to understand humans. But what true love could Aurora have with a stranger? She remembered her vision. A true love’s kiss was not in the cards for the princess.

After speaking to the fairy, Elle began.

The twins were first. They were young, and their connection to Aurora was simple, straightforward. She focused her visions on their interactions with the princess.

The princess came to the kitchen today to ask Father for sweets. He told us to behave and not to surround her. Her tiara is so beautiful; Father made us our own out of spoons and some string.

Elle felt her Sight slipping again and again. She tried to drag it back to Aurora.

Billy asked me why we don’t have a mother. I’m afraid to ask Father. He always looks so sad when he sees Billy’s mother hugging him. Did she not love us? Perhaps she went away.

Later that day, lying awake, Elle felt the sorrow of a mother’s love lost as a second shadow. She felt the sensation of a crown of spoons on her head.

The next day, when her connection to the twins echoed Aurora’s own, she turned toward their father and began again.

---

He strode through the hallways, picking up speed as he passed more and more of her fallen people. She could hear him calling a name. She thought it might be her own, but she had hundreds of names.

There was blonde hair next to her on the bed. The thorns on the roses pricked at her skin. Her hand was sticky in Aurora’s own, where twin cuts connected their blood. The princess still slept.

He stormed into the throne room in a fury of noise and color.

“Elle! What is the meaning of this letter? What have you done?”

She held the Sight tighter. She could not afford to slip now. For this moment, this last moment, she must be herself again.

Philip ran through the room, nearly slipping on spilled wine, stumbling over a stray leg sprawled in his path.

He came to a stop before the bed of thorns and bright pink roses.

“Elle,” he breathed. This time his voice was quieter. “What have you done?”

He knelt on the raised dais. He raised a hand past Aurora to touch her cheek.

She struggled to breathe around the Sight pressing down on her. She could not give in. Not yet.

“It’s time,” she managed to say. “Kiss me.”

His lips touched hers, at first gently and then again and again. She could feel the betrayal at her disappearance, the years of worry, the hopelessness, and the lasting love in his kisses. I’ve missed you.

The curse burned within her, struggling to hold onto her. With each beat of her heart, she felt the soothing caress of Philip’s kiss wash away the tainted magic. I love you.

Around the throne room, scattered bodies sat up, turning from deathless corpses to confused and scared individuals.

Aurora sucked in a breath beside her. The curse thrumming in their blood fell quiet. It had worked. She relaxed at long last. I've done it. She could let go.

He released her lips, looking around with wonder, then turned back to her. “Elle. We have a long overdue wedding.” His voice was pleading. His eyes were wet. “Tell me you remember.”

She stared up at him.

His brown eyes reminded her of something. Of what, she could not quite recall.