The Wide-Awake Princess (19 page)

“Not if you help me,” said Annie. “Tell me what I need to know. We’ll leave and your magic will get strong again. Sixteen years ago you cast a spell on my sister, Gwendolyn, that would make her die when she pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. Another fairy at my sister’s christening changed the curse so that instead of dying, Gwendolyn would fall asleep for a hundred years only to awaken at her true love’s kiss. I’ve found princes to kiss her, but now I need you to do whatever it takes so that we don’t have to wait for one hundred years. You cast the original curse, so it’s up to you to undo it.”

“I’d forgotten all about that curse. Haven’t thought about it for years. I can’t take it back, if that’s what you want,” said Voracia. “However, I can give you something that will make the time shorter.”

“I want it to end now!” said Annie.

“That’s what I said!” Voracia grumbled. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.” She headed for the stairs.

“I think we’ll go with you,” said Liam, setting his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I don’t trust her if we can’t see her,” he whispered to Annie.

“I don’t trust her even if I can see her,” Annie replied.

The stairwell was damp and dark, but the passage underneath was worse. Water flowed over their feet as they followed Voracia deep underground. The smell of bat dung met them as the passage curved, but the fairy turned into a cave lined with trunks and boxes before they encountered any bats.

Choosing one of the trunks, Voracia reached inside and pulled out a large, dusty bottle. “Here, give your sister a sip of this when she wakes and you can forget the hundred years part.”

“If I give this to her and anything goes wrong, you know I’ll be back,” said Annie as she reached for the bottle. “I’ll move in and you’ll never be rid of me.”

“Never mind!” said Voracia, snatching the bottle away. After putting it back, she rummaged in another trunk for a moment, finally pulling out another bottle just as old and dusty. “Here, give her some of this instead, but make sure she drinks it within three minutes of waking or she’ll fall asleep again and nothing will wake her in less than a hundred years. Now go away and don’t ever come back.”

Annie took the bottle and handed it to Liam. “We won’t, provided this works and that you never bother my family again.”

“I wouldn’t go near them for all the poisoned apples in the world,” said Voracia. “Not if it means I would have to see you!”

ANNIE WAS RELIEVED when they finally left the swamp behind, but Liam refused to relax. “Something’s not right,” he said as they settled into their saddles. “We’re being watched. I can feel it.”

“Do you think Voracia...”

Liam shook his head. “I don’t think it’s Voracia, or anything magical. I think it’s... Wait! Look over there!”

“I don’t see anything.”

“I don’t either now, but I could have sworn I saw someone peeking at us from behind those trees.”

“Maybe it was a wood nymph or a fairy,” Annie suggested.

“Maybe,” said Liam, although he didn’t sound convinced. “You stay here while I go look around and—”

A twig cracked behind them, startling them both. “Let’s get out of here,” said Annie. “This swamp is creepy
and it will be dark in a few hours. I don’t want to be anywhere near Voracia when the sun goes down.”

“There’s an inn only an hour’s ride from here,” Liam said. “It’s not very fancy, but the bedding is clean and the food is good.”

“I couldn’t ask for anything more,” said Annie.

She tried to carry on a conversation with Liam as they rode through the forest, but he was paying more attention to what was going on around them than to what she had to say. Although he kept turning his head to the side as if he heard riders in the woods, Annie neither saw nor heard anything unusual. The road soon took them out of the forest and across farmland where low stone walls divided the fields that covered the rolling hills. Every time they reached the top of a hill, Liam stopped to look back. Annie turned as well, but the way was always clear.

They reached the crossroads where the inn was located without seeing anyone. While the hostler led the horses into the stable, Liam went in search of the innkeeper to arrange for rooms and a bath for the princess. Hearing a crowd in the taproom, Annie peeked through the doorway. Travelers sitting down to an early supper already occupied most of the tables. She smiled at the first curious glances, but when she saw the way people were looking at her swamp-stained clothes and disheveled hair, she stepped outside to wait for Liam.

Two men stood by the entrance to the stables watching the inn. When one of them noticed Annie, he spoke
to the other and they both started toward her. Although they were dressed in rough homespun, they looked vaguely familiar.

Annie was still trying to decide where she might have seen them when a third man came out of the inn behind her. “Princess Annabelle?” he said.

“Yes?” replied Annie, turning to face him. In an instant, one of the men approaching from the stable threw a cloth bag over her head while the other grabbed her hands and tried to tie them behind her back. She kicked out at the men and opened her mouth to scream just as the third man knocked her on the head with something hard. With a soft moan, Annie collapsed in a heap at their feet.

When Annie woke, her head was pounding and her mouth tasted like sweaty feet. She sat up and groaned as the throbbing in her head worsened. A light flickered overhead. Annie stared at it for some time before it registered in her mind that it was a guttering torch about to go out. Darkness was creeping closer when she stood and staggered against a wall, her head reeling. It occurred to her that she was in a dungeon and she wondered vaguely how she might have gotten there. Then it all came back—the swamp, Liam’s suspicion that they were being followed, and the men at the inn. She remembered now where she had seen the men before.
It was in the woods shortly after she left the secret tunnel leading from her parents’ castle. The men had been talking about her even then.

The torch was getting fainter when Annie took a step and nearly tripped over a basket. Glancing down, she saw that it was filled with new torches, waiting to be lit. Snatching up one of the torches, she held it to the dying light and held her breath until a flame blossomed. Thinking that if her kidnappers had provided her with light, they might have left something else, Annie raised her head to look around.

She was in a circular room with a low ceiling and a set of stairs at the opposite side. The stones of the wall beside her were lighter than the rest and the mortar was still damp, as if someone had recently filled in a hole. Water burbled in a stone basin only a few yards away. Apparently the tower had been built over a spring, providing fresh water for whoever was unfortunate enough to be trapped inside. Barrels and trunks were scattered across the floor, some stacked, others open and partially emptied. Piles of clothes and shoes were strewn across the floor, forcing Annie to pick her way with care as she headed to the stairs.

The stairs had been built against the wall and were open on the side facing into the room. When Annie reached the first step, she paused and raised the torch high. Although the stairs were dark beyond the reach of the light, there was no door to block her way. It was
obvious that she was in a tower, but as she climbed, she wondered just how high it might be. Passing the floor of the next level, she looked around long enough to see that it was empty, and continued up the stairs. The third and fourth levels were empty as well. The stairs ended at the fifth level in a room with a high ceiling and open windows framing the night sky.

As Annie stepped into the room, a large shape rose up, startling her until she heard it hoot. “Shoo!” Annie shouted, waving the torch at the owl. The bird swerved and flew through one of the windows, blocking her view of the twinkling stars for a moment.

Crinkling her nose at the pungent odor of owl, Annie began to explore the room. It was a bedchamber with a bed against one wall and a table and chair against another. With an ornate headboard carved with hummingbirds and flowers, the bed would have been pretty if its rumpled covers hadn’t been so mussed, as if the sleeper had just gotten up. Gowns, tunics, and undergarments were strewn across the floor. Annie found a scarf draped across the foot of the bed. It was the kind that could be worn in a lady’s hair, much like the kind Annie had worn on occasion. This one was dirty, however, and smelled of perfume. Annie picked up a gown by one sleeve. It smelled of unwashed body as well as perfume, and showed stains from food and drink.

“A woman lived here,” Annie murmured to herself. “She must have just left.”

Hoping to find some hint as to who it might have been, she made a quick inspection of the room. The wind was picking up, however, and she began to shiver as the temperature dropped. Annie dragged a blanket from the bed and made herself a cozy nest on the floor, letting the bed block most of the wind. Dousing the torch wasn’t easy, but she’d found a flint on the table and knew she could relight the torch when she needed it again.

As the wind whistled through the tower, Annie huddled on the floor and pulled the blanket close. Eventually, her eyes drifted shut; she never noticed when the wind died down and the owl swooped past the window.

Sunlight was streaming through the windows on the east side of the tower when Annie woke the next morning. She was yawning widely when she saw that there were shutters on either side of each window, something she would have found useful the night before if only she had noticed them. Closing her mouth, she felt a hair on her tongue. She wiped her face to brush the hair aside, but nothing happened. Although her hands were dirty, she stuck her finger and thumb in her mouth, and pulled out the hair … and pulled and pulled. The hair wasn’t all the way in her mouth, just running through it. She finally got it out and examined it with disgust. The hair was blond and so long that she had to stand to measure it against her own height. Annie was about five feet
tall, and the hair was nearly ten times longer. The thought that anyone could have hair that long turned her stomach, especially when she thought about it being in her mouth.

Annie walked to the window, thinking she might see a castle or village or at least people she could call to, but there was nothing to see except trees. After checking the view from another window, she made a circuit of the room; the trees seemed to go on forever. She was leaning against the sill of the last window when she noticed a clump of long blond hair snagged on the ledge. Backing away from the sill, she noticed another hair on the floor. When she bent down, she discovered that they were all over the floor... and the bed and the chair and in all the clothes. Grimacing, she was trying to decide what to do with all the hair when she heard a voice calling from outside the tower.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

Thank goodness! Someone who can help me get out of here!
Annie thought, and ran across the room to the window where she’d found the clump of hair. A young man stood at the base of the tower, his horse already tied to the nearest tree. He was squinting and shading his eyes when he looked up, so Annie wasn’t sure he could really see her.