Once Upon a Dream Read online

  Of course, anyone watching might also have wondered at a young woman—much less a royal princess—prancing about like that.

  She pirouetted alongside a table in the lesser banquet hall, did a little leap through a side pantry, shuffled past an only slightly surprised serving boy, and briséd through what was once an orangery but whose glass was now covered in thick, protective vines like the rest of the castle.

  Aurora only paused her singing and dancing when she came to the wide ironclad door that led to the special dungeon.

  At the bottom of a long, winding flight of cold stone stairs were several small, rounded chambers that looked like the lairs of mud dauber wasps. Most of them were empty—there was little to no crime in the castle since there was no place else to go, no one you could escape from in a remaining population of less than a thousand. And nothing worth stealing.

  When the minstrel got a little too drunk and out of hand, the queen would throw him in the stocks. Only once did she ever send him to the dungeons to dry out.

  No, the only people down there now were the architects of the end of the known world: Princess Aurora’s parents, King Stefan and Queen Leah.

  Once she had snuck down there, to look upon her progenitors.

  Her aunt Maleficent had never forbidden her from doing so—her aunt had never forbidden her anything. Aurora didn’t know why she felt she had to do it on the sly.

  But she had waited until Maleficent had been down and come back up so she knew there would be torches still lit and the way would not be utterly black. Aurora had slipped off her golden shoes and tiptoed, sticking closely to the rough-hewn walls, flattening herself like a child playing hide-and-seek.

  The king and queen had been daze-eyed and silent, sitting on the one hard bench in their tiny cell, staring at nothing at all. There was no emotion on either of their faces. They were like statues waiting for the end of time, for the castle itself to crumble down around them.

  Chilled, Aurora had fled back upstairs as quickly as she could and found her aunt Maleficent and wrapped her in exactly the sort of hug the older woman didn’t like but put up with on occasion, for the sake of her adopted daughter.

  Aurora had no intention of ever going down to the dungeon again.

  For now she just shivered and moved quickly past the dungeon door, all desire to dance withered and gone.

  Her parents had danced, it was said, as the world tumbled down around them.

  Their sickness, their evilness, their greed and heartlessness that ran so thick through their blood—it was in Aurora’s blood, too. Naturally.

  Feeling a rise of panic, she began to race to the throne room, stopping just before the door to enter at a more regal rate, smoothing the front of her dress.

  Maleficent sat upon the throne with an easy elegance Aurora wished she had. Her long fingers languidly pointed here and gestured there as she spoke. It was almost time for the Midvember ball; a full month had passed since the previous festivities. The room was filled with servants and minor royalty, all with last-minute requests for magical adjustments to their costumes, or additions to the menu, or royal approval of a certain dance.

  Some of the servants weren’t strictly human.

  Some of the servants were black and gray and strangely shaped. They had beaks instead of mouths, or pig snouts, or, worse, no mouths at all. Their feet were cloven hooves or spurred chicken claws or huge, splayed trotters.

  But they were needed to keep the fouler monsters at bay, the ones from Outside. Maleficent summoned them out of clay and spirits from another world—a not very nice world, the princess guessed.

  Their intelligence was negligible. Their silence was insisted upon by the queen, who saw the effect they had on the uneasy human residents of the fortress. Aurora was torn about this; the good-hearted girl rued the unfairness of the strict orders they were under.

  And yet they were so unsettling….

  Maleficent’s eyes caught Aurora and her face cracked into a pleased smile.

  “Come, my girl, over here. You’re a welcome break from these weary preparations.”

  “Auntie,” Aurora said with relief, approaching the throne and standing beside the queen. As always, her fears and doubts subsided the moment she was near the Savior of the Kingdom. She felt safe. “Really, you shouldn’t bother yourself with all this. You do so much else for the kingdom!”

  “Ah, but this is important for morale, my sweet,” Maleficent said, raising an arched eyebrow as she smiled down upon her ward. “With none of us able to leave the castle until the world heals—well, we need these diversions to keep our spirits up.” She lifted a long finger and tucked a lock of golden hair behind Aurora’s ear. “Besides…your parents neglected you for sixteen years. Sixteen years without a ball or a birthday for a royal princess! Even peasants do more for their children.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Maleficent,” Aurora murmured, lowering her head. She felt nothing but gratitude toward the woman who cared for her—but she still couldn’t look her aunt directly in her yellow eyes. They never seemed to focus on anything. It was impossible to tell precisely what the woman felt except when she made an effort, by moving her mouth.

  “I like the theme you chose this time,” Maleficent said, a smile twitching at the edge of her lips. “‘Sky and Water Blue.’ Very poetic.”

  “I have to use my imagination,” Aurora said. “Since I’ve never seen the sea or a river.”

  In her dreams, sometimes tinkling streams flowed past cool and shaded mud banks—but obviously that was a product of her own starved imagination, and often it was all in shades of brown.

  “You’ve done quite well.” Maleficent petted Aurora on the head like—well, like a pet. A funny stroking motion that seemed meant for something else. Another curious habit of her aunt’s. “Now listen, you know the ball is going to go very late tonight. Why don’t you run along and take a little nap, so you’ll be refreshed? I know how much you love to dance.”

  “But I want to help….”

  “Another time, dear,” Maleficent said, touching her gently on the cheek. “There will be plenty more of these in the years to come.”

  “Yes, Aunt Maleficent. Thank you, Aunt Maleficent,” Aurora said dutifully, then leaned forward and snuck a quick kiss on her aunt’s hollowed cheek.

  Maleficent’s eyes darted nervously.

  The powerful fairy had not asked to be the savior of the only people left in the world. She had not asked for the world to be destroyed in the first place.

  She had not asked to become the parent of a neglected princess.

  She probably wanted to just live by herself in her old castle, practicing her spells and communing with powers beyond the ken of mortal men, happily ever after.

  So if she wasn’t used to the hugs or kisses or other displays of affection Aurora had not received from her own parents, well, they would just both have to learn. Aurora would wear her down eventually.

  The princess walked slowly back to her room.

  The hall was wide, empty, and inviting, but she didn’t feel like twirling this time. She felt useless and desultory.

  “YOUR HIGHNESS.”

  A hand clawed her shoulder from behind.

  Aurora spun around—but it was just the old minstrel. His face was pale, and his long, narrow nose was pinched beyond its usual extreme. He seemed more degenerate and wild than ever; his clothes were torn in a dozen different places, and there were scratches near his eyes that made it look like he was crying blood.

  “You are unwell, Master Tommins,” Aurora said gently. She couldn’t smell anything about him—not even the home-brewed moonshine some of the peasants had begun to amuse themselves by distilling. But he was so far gone that sometimes not having a dram drove him to fits.

  “It’s out there. It is! There is an Outside!”

  He looked behind himself wildly and then grabbed her hands and pressed his own around them. “Your Highness, I escaped!”

  “Unhand me, you are s
ick,” Aurora repeated, only a little alarmed at his behavior. She was more concerned about his health—and what would happen if anyone caught him touching her in such a manner.

  Familiar and ominously irregular footsteps came toward them. The sound drove the minstrel to hysteria. Aurora reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Perhaps you should have a little lie-down….”

  But it was too late. Shuffling around the corner were two of Maleficent’s private guards: oily black-and-gray monsters who moved ponderously along, barely upright. They looked like they had been put together wrong.

  The minstrel’s eyes widened in naked terror when he saw them, but he didn’t take his attention off the princess.

  “Your Highness…”

  “Come away from her, singing human,” the more pig-like creature snuffled loudly. “Maleficent commands you sleep it off and leave her heir alone.”

  “You are the key!” the minstrel whispered, throwing himself at the princess so his lips touched her ear. She tried not to pull away. “You! It’s all still out there!”

  “MINSTREL!” said the other guard, the one with the comb of a cock and the yellow eyes of a demon.

  They each put a horrible clawed hand on the poor man’s shoulders. They swung him aloft like he was no more than a speck of dust.

  “Your Highness!” the minstrel cried.

  The monstrous guards laughed.

  “Sing for us, and we might not hurt you too much on the way to the dungeon!”

  “Please be easy on him,” Aurora urged. “He is having a fit of some kind. He needs a doctor, not a beating….”

  “SING!” the second one commanded, ignoring her. Neither monster bothered to bow as they walked away. “SING!”

  The minstrel tried his best, tears running down his bloody face, borne aloft on the shoulders of nightmares.

  “Douce—douce dame jolie…”

  Aurora watched him go with sadness and horror.

  And maybe, just maybe, a tiny spark of something too hideous to admit. Relief that the afternoon had become more interesting.

  After they were out of sight, all that remained was the quickly fading song, streaming through the hall like smoke.

  “Pour dieu ne pensés mie

  Que nulle ait signorie

  Seur moy fors vous seulement….”

  Aurora noticed her hands were still clasped where the minstrel had held them. When she pulled them apart, she found he had pressed something there for her to hold.

  She held it up in wonder.

  It was a single brilliant blue feather.

  WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT, Aurora used her thumbnail to crease the spine, to see if it felt like a real feather. It did. She twirled it between her fingers thoughtfully.

  There were still pigeons, of course—quite a flock of them in the courtyards now (which peasants occasionally trapped for dinner, not always trusting magical food). They didn’t have feathers like this.

  There were some chickens and ducks left, but even the prettiest, most iridescent-winged drakes didn’t sport a blue of this purity.

  There were a few descendants of foreign birds from the jungles kept safe in golden cages, but the blue ones were very light, like the tiny flowers in ancient tapestries. Not like this.

  She held the feather before her as she—much more thoughtfully—made her way to her room.

  Aurora lived in a prettily decorated suite on the second floor of the castle. All the surviving royalty and lesser nobles lived in the main keep, as well as those foreign dignitaries trapped in the kingdom when the world outside finally collapsed. The…lesser survivors, the peasants and servants, lived in a hastily erected shantytown in one of the larger courtyards of the bailey.

  If Aurora didn’t look too hard at the thick vines covering her window and there was a good strong lantern glowing, she could pretend it was a completely normal royal princess’s bedroom. There was a frothy and beribboned pink canopy bed on a raised dais, a wardrobe with gilt moldings in which hung a stunning number of beautiful gowns, a vanity with a pitcher and basin of beaten silver, a tiny couch with silk pillows, and a lovely little table by the fireplace with long, elegant legs.

  There was also a bookcase full of books that hadn’t worked properly since the world had ended.

  Most were missing great patches of text and illustrations. Many were simply blank. The words that remained were often in languages that weren’t even real. An effect, Maleficent had explained, of the world-destroying evil magics that King Stefan and Queen Leah had unleashed. They had literally broken the land and the minds and inventions of men. The queen’s powers were not great enough to restore everything fully—they were barely enough to keep the remaining population alive.

  And so the books remained mostly blank, and cloth had to be woven from thread summoned by magic. Spinning wheels hadn’t functioned the way they were supposed to in half a decade.

  Right then, Aurora’s bed looked especially inviting—the servants had made it up all plump and pretty. And she did love dancing, and she was going to be up late that night.

  There was also the little matter that when she wasn’t twirling, her favorite thing was lying down and dreaming the hours away. Her bed was always her favorite place to be; she could spend the entire day in the dark under its covers. Eventually night would come and sometimes things were more interesting at night…as much as anything was ever interesting in the castle at the end of the world.

  And when the nights weren’t particularly interesting, well, at least she had passed another of the endless days away.

  She gave in, collapsing on her back onto the fat mattress full of feathers. She twirled the blue feather in her fingers. She had never seen the minstrel in any of the outer courtyards or baileys. He tended to stick to shadows, internal rooms, secluded areas—like a burglar or a cat. Bright light hurt his addict’s eyes, and he was more uncomfortable than most looking up at the giant vines that blocked the sky.

  Perhaps that’s what he meant by being “outside.” Not…Outside.

  Poor crazy, drunken fool.

  She sighed and reached up over her head to grab one of the broken books, one with an easily memorable design on its cover, and started to place the feather between its heavy, insane pages.

  At the last moment, she changed her mind and put it in the little silver pouch attached to her girdle by her chatelaine. A once living thing, wherever it was from, didn’t deserve to be pressed like an inanimate object—filed away like an ancient manuscript. The princess would keep it with her until she figured out what to do with it.

  She thought of a different feather she owned and let out another sigh.

  Instead of going to sleep, she sat down at her pretty little table, took up her white swan quill, and set herself to solving the math problems on the precious scrap of vellum before her.

  After fortifying the castle, making living arrangements for all within, and working out whatever magical source of food she managed, Maleficent had turned to Aurora’s education. The king and queen had neglected everything for their unwanted daughter—basic reading and writing skills, needlework, the sort of useful hobbies royal ladies were supposed to know, even etiquette and geography. The new queen immediately set out to rectify this with a half-dozen tutors, adding things to the mix that weren’t necessarily “princessy.”

  Like math.

  Which Aurora was terrible at.

  Some things came to her naturally: singing, playing the recorder, kindness, patience in sewing—even if it would be years before her needle skills were up to that of a twelve-year-old’s. Her fingers were often covered in tiny pinpricks from embroidery, and Maleficent had suggested, with a kind laugh, that she put off carding and spinning until she could be trusted with the sharp point of a drop spindle.

  But numbers…and anything having to do with numbers…that was another thing entirely. Aurora privately wondered if there was a reason princesses weren’t taught math or alchemy or the workings of the
world; maybe they just couldn’t grasp it.

  Still, she forced herself to pay attention when the old castle treasurer patiently demonstrated the magic of adding and subtracting amounts with tally sticks and abaci, and the castle carpenter showed her the measurement of forms with string and weights.

  When she tried to do the exact same problems on her own, however, they never made sense. The numbers swam in front of her and the little counting lines seemed to multiply of their own volition. Her ability to draw was negligible, and her squares often looked like mush.

  But Maleficent was trying so hard with her adopted niece that Aurora forced herself to keep working in secret, in private. She kept herself going by imagining the look on her aunt’s face when she finally showed how she could divide an ink flock of sheep into five equal smaller herds.

  Aurora drew a tiny ugly scribble of a sheep. Then she drew four more. She counted them. There were five. She drew two more, farther away. Now there were six.

  Aurora frowned, looking at the paper.

  Maybe seven. Eight?

  She tried it on her fingers, pretending each one was a warm white ball of wool.

  Did you count the beginning one and the last one, too? Or was it like pages of a book, where you didn’t count both ends?

  She spent ten more minutes trying to make the two groups of sheep add up. She was pretty sure it was around seven, but the lack of precision was giving her a headache.

  Finally, she threw herself on her bed in frustration.

  She would never be as smart and powerful and elegant as her aunt.

  Sometimes she felt that the queen was just humoring her.

  Sometimes she felt the slightest stirrings of anger at always being told what to do. “Go take a nap.” What was she, a child? “Oh, you couldn’t possibly help out with these unimaginably complex party preparations.” Aurora was meant to be queen someday! She could handle a party.

  Sometimes, in the secret safety of her canopied bed, in the blackest reaches of her mind, she wondered if her aunt really had the best intentions for her.