A Wicked Thing (3 page)

“Say nothing,” the queen said in her ear as they turned onto another corridor and headed down some sweeping stairs. “You only need to smile. We will take care of the rest.”

The rest of what?
Aurora wondered, but she could not challenge this severe, elegant stranger. Each footstep echoed in her head, driving in the thought that her parents were dead, dead, and a century had passed.

They reached a large set of doors with standing bears carved into the wood. The hallway felt familiar, an echo of the last time she had seen it before her tower door had been locked, but every difference jumped out, breaking up the picture into a hundred
jarring fragments. The bright red of the banners, like blood running down the walls. The guards, dressed in red too, staring at her with disbelieving eyes. The sharp trill of trumpets, muffled and distorted by the door.

The queen pressed Aurora's hand against Rodric's arm, squeezing until the fabric bunched beneath her fingers. Then she nodded, once, her eyes shifting to her son. “Well done,” she said softly. “You will make us proud.” She paused, as though she wished to say something else, but then she simply nodded again and followed her husband through the doors.

Aurora and Rodric waited on the threshold. Through the gap between the doors, Aurora could see flashes of color, hundreds of people, all surging together.

“They have been waiting since morning,” Rodric said quietly. “The optimistic ones. I was certain I would have to go out and disappoint them. . . .”

Instead, he was bringing the prize. Aurora wanted to release his arm, to step away, but her hand would not move.

A herald's voice rose over the crowd, so loud and clear that even Aurora could make out the words. “Presenting, for the first time, the Princess Aurora!”

Hands pushed open the doors. Rodric stepped forward, and Aurora stumbled with him, her feet still tangling in her impractical skirts. All dressed up for a celebration, a century ago.

The roar of the crowd hit her, knocking the breath from her lungs.

They stepped onto a dais, with stone steps leading down to a square below. Everything else was hidden behind the mass of people, filling every space, crammed together into spots of jostling, bustling color, blurring before Aurora's eyes. And the noise they made . . . the screaming, cheering delight, chanting her name, chanting for Rodric, celebrating like their savior had just stepped out of the mist.

She still had blood on her finger.
How improper
, she thought vaguely. She burrowed it deeper into Rodric's sleeve, clutching the material so tightly that her hand ached.

The queen stood to the side, staring at Aurora expectantly. Slowly, carefully, Aurora sank into another curtsy. The roar grew. Hidden behind a wall of blonde hair, Aurora screwed up her eyes, fighting back the panic that clutched her chest, the scream that scratched the back of her throat.
Everyone I know is dead
, she thought.
And yet these strangers act as though they love me.

She held the curtsy for a long moment, her knees shuddering under the skirts. One. Two. Three. Then she released her grimace and stood up straight, pulling her face back into something neutral, if not a smile.

The king was speaking now, his voice booming over the crowd. Words about hope. A new era. How proud he was of his son. Aurora could barely listen. It was important, she knew, to understand what was going on, but she could only stare at the sea of faces, the hundreds and thousands of strangers watching her, like she was something from their dreams.

And then Rodric was bowing, and the crowd was cheering, and the guards were steering them back into the castle. Aurora concentrated on each step, on keeping her knees steady, on avoiding the treacherous, ill-chosen hem.

The door thudded behind them. The queen hurried to Aurora's side. “I think that went well,” she said.

“And that's just the beginning!” the king said, half to Aurora, and half to the courtiers who still milled around them. “We will prepare a big celebration for you. An engagement presentation, a ball of some kind, and the wedding, of course . . .”

“I don't—” The words were no louder than a breath. Every muscle inside her ached in protest, but the feeling was dull, faraway. The pain of another girl, in another time. She could not drag it into a coherent thought, so she let the protest melt on the air, unspoken.

“In the meantime,” he continued, as though he had not heard, “I'll organize a dinner for our two young lovebirds. Food. Candles. Conversation. Would you like that, Rodric?”

“Yes,” Rodric said. “Thank you.”

“Excellent, excellent.” The king clapped his hands together. “Come along then, son. We have many things to speak about.”

Rodric kissed Aurora's hand. Foreign lips among speckles of blood. Their eyes met. His cheeks were pink. Aurora curtsied without a word.

The prince bowed. His footsteps clattered down the corridor as he and the king walked away.

“Ruth, please find a room for the princess,” the queen said. “In the east wing, if you would. Third floor. And find her a maid—someone we can trust. Or at least, someone no one else will.”

The maid curtsied.

“I have a room,” Aurora said. Even that tiny protest took enormous effort, and as she spoke the words, she wondered why, out of all things, that was what she chose to say. She had spent her whole life in that tower, dreaming of the day she would be allowed to leave. But her spotless, ageless bedroom was her only remaining connection to the past. It was the only thing left that was hers.

The queen would not allow her even that small concession. “Oh, you don't want to stay in that dusty old tower,” she said, and she turned and looked at Aurora. Really looked at her, into her eyes. Her smile was so thin that her lips vanished into her cheeks. “Allow us to take care of you. We are so happy to have you here.”

Aurora looked at her feet. Heavy silks ballooned around her, so she took up three times as much space as the other women of court. The small group of nobles watched her expectantly. Waiting for her to speak. The silence pressed in. “Thank you,” she said. She could think of nothing else to say.

The nobles continued to watch her. Two women, with matching purple feathers skewered into the knots of their hair, leaned together, covering their mouths with their hands.

“She does not seem quite bright,” one of the women murmured. The other giggled and smacked her with her fan.

The queen smiled. “Carina, Alexandra,” she said. The woman who had whispered stood up straighter, her gloved hand falling to smooth her skirts. “You are no longer needed. I am sure the princess will call upon you if she requires any of your ample wisdom.”

The women flushed. They curtsied to the queen, and then hurried away. Nobody spoke after that.

When the maid returned, she was followed by a girl with huge eyes and bushy brown hair. She looked about fourteen.

“This is Betsy,” the first maid said. “Her mother has worked in the castle for years. She is young, but hardworking. I think she will be a good fit for the princess.” Betsy kept her eyes on the floor, her knees half-bent in a perpetual curtsy, but even her skin seemed to glow with pride at the praise.

“Very well,” the queen said. “And you have a room prepared?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Then we will go now.” She turned to the nobles who lingered around them, some still watching Aurora with fascination, others plucking at their sleeves and staring absentmindedly at the walls, as though they had tired of the proceedings. “Thank you for joining us for this occasion,” the queen said. “If the women return to our suite, I believe the maids will have laid out lunch. I will join you as soon as I can.”

The watching women curtsied, almost as one, and the queen swept Aurora away.

“Insufferable,” the queen murmured. “But we do what must be done.”

Once again, Aurora was led through the winding corridors of the castle, past paintings in gilt frames, of forests and queens and conquering heroes. Small tables covered in flowers waited around every corner, filling the hallways with a dying sweetness. Guards and maids bowed and curtsied as they passed, but the queen did not pause.

Eventually, they emerged from a staircase onto a corridor that was empty except for a few paintings and a single door, midway between the stairs and the point where the corridor turned. An ornate silver lock rested below the handle. The door was slightly ajar.

“Here we are,” the older maid said. “All ready for the princess.”

The room was large and square, with all the clinical tidiness of a space kept ready for any temporary guest. A four-poster bed filled one corner, and a couple of soft chairs sat around a low table in the center. Logs had been placed in the small fireplace, but the tongs and shovel and extra wood were missing. A few lonely books slumped on an otherwise empty shelf, and a plain-faced clock ticked out the seconds on the wall. The windows had been thrown open, but the fresh air did little to mask the musty smell of disuse.

“It will do,” the queen said. No one asked Aurora's opinion. “Betsy, make sure that Aurora is refreshed before her dinner with my son. Ruth and I will find something suitable for her to wear.”

Aurora gripped the sides of her skirt. She had been wearing the same dress for over a hundred years. Part of her itched to tear it off, to throw the heavy skirts away, but the fabric was familiar against her skin, her legs protected by layers upon layers of silk.

“Your dresses will be too old-fashioned for comfort now,” the queen added, “even if the moths have left them. And you will not want to linger in the past.” She rested a hand on Aurora's shoulder. “The best way to deal with change,” she said in a lower voice, “is to embrace it. Forget what you knew before. Your place is with us, Aurora.”

Ruth and the queen left, Betsy filled an iron bathtub with hot water, and Aurora sank into it, letting it scald her skin red. Betsy washed the dust from Aurora's hair, her fingers gentle against the tangles, and began to chatter, quietly at first, but then louder and with more confidence, about Aurora, about how honored she was to work for her. Aurora did not take in a word. She stared at the unburned wood in the fireplace, not really seeing it at all.

“Would you please leave me?” she said softly, once her hair had been towel-dried and she sat in a robe. “I want a moment to myself.”

Betsy bit her lip, but she curtsied without protest. “Of course, Princess.”

With the maid gone, Aurora waited for the hollowness inside her chest to turn into tears. The pressure grew, bursting against her ribs, and Aurora sank into one of the chairs, but she did not cry. None of it felt real enough for her to cry.

I am here
, she told herself.
I am here, and I cannot go back.

The fireplace stared blankly back at her. The clock ticked on the wall. But Aurora did not cry.

Once upon a time, when wishes still came true, Alyssinia was ruled by a beloved king and his gentle wife.

Aurora's parents stared up from the page. In the picture, her father's beard was too thick, her mother too tall, but there they stood, the idea of them, carefully painted and within her reach. She ran her finger down the image, tracing the bumps and flow of the paint.

Aurora had found the book on the otherwise sparse bookshelf.
The Tale of Sleeping Beauty
. Its corners were battered, the leaf somewhat worn, as though it had been read again and again
by the castle's visitors through the years. Each page was accompanied by an illustration, painted copies of the tapestries she had seen on her tower walls only a few hours before. And the words . . . Aurora swallowed them with feverish speed, running her eyes back and forth over the sentences as though they would fade if left unseen.

The kingdom flourished, but the king and queen suffered a great sorrow. They desperately longed for a child. They hoped, and they wished, and they dreamed, but they grew older, and they remained alone. Then, one day, when they had almost ceased to hope, they had a beautiful baby girl. They named her Aurora.

All in the kingdom rejoiced for three days and three nights, and the king and queen threw a feast in the baby girl's honor, inviting all the neighboring princes, friends, and even the common folk to celebrate with them. However, there was one creature they did not invite: the witch Celestine, a cold and powerful woman who lived in a tower deep in the forest, and the only being that the people of Alyssinia had to fear.

Aurora's history books spoke of several powerful witches through the centuries, but none had ever been as terrible as Celestine. When she thought she had been slighted, when she believed that someone had cheated her, or simply when she thought the kingdom's joy had grown too great, she would attack. She destroyed crops and sent plagues that killed people
with no apparent cause or cure. She bewitched men into committing horrific deeds and tricked foreign allies into claiming some insult that had never occurred. Some even said she had drained Alyssinia's magic away, so that no one could enjoy power but she. But the naïve and the desperate would still go to her tower, begging for solutions to their problems. She would offer them all their hearts desired, for unthinkable costs, and then laugh as she twisted their dreams into living horrors—exactly what they asked for, but broken in ways they had never thought to forbid.

Celestine saw herself as a queen in her own right. Her exclusion from the celebration of Aurora's birth had been the worst kind of slight.

Filled with rage at being ignored, the witch appeared suddenly in the middle of the banquet and, before anyone could stop her, gathered baby Aurora in her arms. With a needle, she stabbed Aurora's tiny fingertip and placed a curse upon her. Sometime before the princess's eighteenth birthday, she would prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a terrible sleep.

“But I am not heartless,” Celestine said, “and it would be a wicked thing to allow such beauty to go to waste. My gift to this child is true love. She will sleep only until she tastes the kiss of her beloved, and then she shall awaken, as fresh and as beautiful as before.”

In all the years that the curse had chased her, Aurora had never heard anyone speak of “true love” as its cure. It sounded like a
wild fantasy, a romantic little detail thrown in over the decades, when the reality of the curse had faded away.

Surely people did not really believe it.

The king and queen burned every spinning wheel they found in the kingdom and launched a desperate search for Celestine, but the witch was nowhere to be found. And so Princess Aurora grew up, spending her days in a tower in the castle, hiding from the world, locked away from those who would harm her. But curses cannot be broken so easily. On the night before her eighteenth birthday, Aurora was enchanted by Celestine. She pricked her finger on a forgotten spinning wheel and slipped into the deepest sleep.

The king and queen tried everything to awaken their daughter. Every spell in the land was cast upon her. Every man was sent to hunt for the witch. Every prince from every kingdom came to try to awaken her with a kiss, but the Sleeping Beauty slumbered on.

Aurora tried to picture them, countless strangers, coming into her tower and kissing her while she slept. Princes and nobles, people she had never spoken to, men now old or dead, all bowing before her, pressing their lips to hers, expecting her to gasp in delight and open her eyes again.

An itch crawled under her skin, like something foreign, something unwanted, had nestled inside her.

As the years trickled past, the kingdom of Alyssinia fell into
ruin. When the good king and queen died, the line leading back to the great King Edward himself ended. Lords and kingdoms fought over the throne. War came to the land for the first time in centuries. The people suffered, and all the magic in the kingdom melted away, except in that one room, where that one girl slept peacefully on.

And one day, not too long from now, a handsome prince, the chosen future leader of our people, will kiss the princess and awaken her and all the magic that the world forgot. He and the princess will marry and return peace and prosperity to the land.

And we will all live happily ever after.

Aurora stared down at the painting of herself, beautiful, untouchable, lost in the joy of her wedding to the handsome prince. The walls felt too close. She couldn't quite fill her lungs.

But it was only a story.

She had spent years locked in a tower, unable to see anything of the world but the scrap of forest beyond her window, but stories had provided her escape. New books, old books, dramas and histories and fantastical adventures, stories of ordinary lives, stories of dragons and demons, murders and mysteries and myths from long ago. A hundred possible worlds, more true to her than her own, more compelling than a life of staring at the same walls and same trees, waiting for the day when the lock would click and she would finally be allowed to be free.

A story could not hurt her.

“Princess? Are you all right?”

Betsy slipped into the room. A couple of dresses hung over her arm.

Aurora closed the book, snapping its prophecies out of sight. “Yes,” she said. She pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the way her legs ached.

“I brought you some clothes,” Betsy said. “They might not be perfect, but I think—I hope—they'll do nicely. A little old-fashioned, but . . . the queen said that would be all right for now.” She held up a glossy green thing, with bubbled sleeves to the elbow and skirts that swished to the floor. It was unlike any dress Aurora had ever seen. Nothing like the dress she had worn before, but similarly unlike the elegant gowns worn by the current ladies of court. A dress to mark her as different. “Prince Rodric will love you in this. The green will bring out your eyes. Or I have something pink—”

“The green is fine.” The color reminded her of the forest after rain, light reflecting off the leaves. “I mean—it's lovely. Thank you.”

Betsy helped her into it, chatting all the while. Aurora let the words wash over her. The skirts moved around her like water, but the waist was a touch too tight, stealing the little breath she had, while the neckline gaped slightly at the back. “I'll just fix this,” Betsy said with a quick curtsy, and then she was reaching and pinning and stitching and talking, always talking, about the exciting, amazing, wonderful, dreamlike miracle that had happened today.

“I was so honored, Princess, when they asked me to assist
you. I never expected it! But then, I never expected you'd be standing here, if you don't mind me saying. Not that I didn't think Rodric could be your true love, because of course he's wonderful, but it always seemed too much like a dream to ever happen while I was here. Things will be amazing, now, you'll see. Everyone loves you already. How could they not?”

Aurora thought of the words at the end of the story, the promise to the reader:
we will all live happily ever after
. Her true love would kiss her, she would awaken, and the curse would be over. But nothing Celestine did could ever be good. Her curse could not lead to happiness for anybody, least of all for her. “What happened to Celestine?” she asked. “The witch who did this to me?” The words were heavy in her mouth, and even heavier in the air, but Betsy barely paused.

“Nobody knows,” she said through a mouthful of pins. “She enchanted you and disappeared. They searched all over the kingdom for her, and beyond, but she was never found. I think,” she added, in a conspiratorial whisper, as she ran a needle up and down, “that she used up the magic when she cursed you. Poof! Gone. And she was too ashamed of her new weak self, so she fled.”

“Oh.” Aurora stared at her reflection. Celestine was dead, she told herself. A hundred years had passed, and even Celestine was dead. Yet she could not shake the creeping sensation that someone was watching her unseen.

Rodric waited for her in the banquet hall. A long table
stretched down the middle of the room, surrounded by paintings and hanging tapestries. Some of them were familiar, but most of them were entirely new, bearing foreign crests and scenes from stories she had never heard. She had attended a few small parties in this room when she was young, when her father trusted those attending enough to allow her presence, and it had seemed lively, fun, full of possibility. It had been one of the few places where she could meet strangers, hear music and laughter, live like she wasn't cursed. With only the prince waiting inside, the room felt abandoned and cold, too large and too austere.

Rodric stood when he saw her enter. “Princess Aurora,” he said, and he hurried toward her, stumbling slightly over his feet. “You look—you look beautiful.” He smiled shyly. “I mean, you always look beautiful. But you look especially beautiful tonight. Is what I mean.”

Aurora stretched her lips into a smile. “Thank you,” she said.

“Shall—shall we eat?” Rodric rubbed the back of his neck. A light blush colored his nose. She stepped toward him, and the ground seemed to twist away under her feet, making her head throb. It was hardly a storybook sensation. She took his arm anyway and let him lead her to the end of the large table.

A servant, dressed in extravagant red clothing, brought them each a bowl of soup. Aurora did not speak. Rodric did not speak. Spoons scraped against bowls, echoing in the otherwise empty hall.

“You missed the snow,” Rodric said eventually. “We had several inches a couple of weeks ago, but not again, I don't think. It will be spring soon.”

Aurora nodded, staring at her bowl.

“My sister, Isabelle—she was excited to meet you,” Rodric continued. “She is so quiet, but—she is excited. She's just not good at meeting strangers.”

Well, that makes three of us,
Aurora thought. She nodded again.

“Is it true,” Rodric said as he finished his soup, “that before—” He stopped and blushed again. “I'm sorry. You might not want to talk about it. About before.”

Aurora tightened her fingers around her spoon. They must talk about something. “What were you going to ask me?”

“Some of the books mention that you had magic to entertain you at feasts.” He smiled, sounding lively for the first time. “Not tricksters and magicians. Real magic.”

“No,” Aurora said. The thought made her shiver. “No, that isn't true.”

“Oh.” Rodric was staring at his plate, but Aurora got the feeling he was actually watching her closely, out of the corner of his eye. “People hoped—I hoped—” He trailed off. “Magic as common as that, brought back with you . . . it might be useful.”

“Hoped?” Aurora closed her eyes. How could he be so naïve? “You're better off without it.”

“So your family never—”

“No,” she said sharply. “Why would my family use magic? They were not fools.”
But they did use magic
, she thought. If the book could be believed. They poured it into her to try to break the curse, to save her from this place.

Rodric frowned down at his empty soup bowl. “I am sorry, Princess, I do not mean to contradict you, but—magic cannot be foolish. It brought you here.”

“A curse brought me here.”

“But still—we have been without magic for a long time, Princess, and nothing has been quite right since you fell asleep. Now things will be better. That has to be good, right?”

She shook her head. “I can't imagine magic creating anything good. Once, perhaps, it could, but not since I was born. Only a few sorcerers were left, even then.” Men who charged riches for their talents, women who offered cures and fed poison instead. And Celestine. The witch who cursed her. “They were not good people.”

Her father had tolerated a few who used magic, before she was born. There was always the hope that one would be able to cure disease or protect the kingdom from threat. But after Celestine's curse, he had accepted that the magic itself was twisted, and that anyone who controlled it was a threat to them all. The use of magic became punishable by banishment. The use of curses became punishable by death.

“My father—” Rodric paused, as though unsure whether he should speak. “My father says that some people still have magic
now. Only a little. He says that they stole it for themselves, and if we fight them, it will come back.”

“You can't steal magic.”

“Why not?”

She opened her mouth, ready for a firm reply, but no words came. Magic came from outside you, that she knew. It was drawn from the air. Some said that you had to be wicked to tap into it, that all the good magic had been used up and all that was left was resentment and ill will. But what it actually involved, Aurora did not know. She had read many books, but the truth of magic had always been kept from her, as though even the idea itself could snatch her away.