Once Upon a Dream (13 page)

“It was you!”
Phillip said, exasperated. “But I didn’t know it at the time.
You
were the princess I was supposed to marry.”

“But I wasn’t in the castle. I was in the clearing when you met me.”

“Yes, well.” Phillip pushed his thick hair off his forehead and managed to get in what seemed to be a very satisfying scratch of his scalp in the process. “As I understand it, you were sent to live out in the woods to stay safe until your sixteenth year, at which time you would come back to marry me.”

Aurora Rose examined the tendril of hair she had been playing with. Her distant, unthought-of goal had been to chew the end of it, but now she didn’t have the urge. Nothing in her life, real or dreamed, made any sense at all.

“Maybe…Maybe let’s get back to the part where we were in love.”

“I met you in a clearing deep in the woods,” Phillip said eagerly. “We fell in love.
Instantly.
”

“That sounds nice.”

It didn’t sound like
her
, exactly, but it did sound nice.

To be fair, most of her memories were still of her time in the Thorn Castle, which she had spent with the same people she had known since she was a baby. Falling in love
instantly
with someone you had seen grow up—and use the same privies as you—was not really possible.

“It was.
Is
,” he said, taking her hands in his. “
You
are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

She looked up into his face. His clear brown eyes moved earnestly back and forth, trying to find some trace of recognition in her face. He was far more handsome than Cael. And to be the subject of this much attention and scrutiny from someone with his physique was more than a little pleasing—even if she didn’t know who he was.

“Do you remember that song you were singing when we met?” he whispered, pushing a dirty lock of hair from her face. “The lullaby? ‘Once Upon a Dream’?”

Aurora Rose staggered back as if slapped.

She
did
know that song.

The lyrics cut through her memories like a hot knife.

She put a hand to her head as flashing, too-bright scenes sped before her eyes: dappled forest, the
whuff
of a horse, a boy,
this
boy, arriving out of the woods like a spirit. Large hands, but not rough. Clear brown eyes gone soft because of
her.
Her stomach and heart flopping as she waited to be taken into his arms….

Back in the present, the prince also had her in his arms. Which was useful, since she was about to collapse onto the ground again. It was also a little strange. She wasn’t used to being held that closely by anyone, much less someone she hardly knew. His hands on her were strong but a little alien. His arms were muscled but unfamiliar. The heat of his skin against her wasn’t unpleasant—just unexpected.

She steadied herself, pushing him gently away.

It was another odd thing to see this boy, so handsome, so…well-dressed, right there in front of her after all her visions. It really was like she had dreamed him, and like a wish that had been granted, he appeared when she awoke.

“I think I remember something,” she finally whispered.

The happiness that flashed from his smile and glinted in his eyes was blinding. She flinched, not wanting to disappoint him by telling him how little she remembered, or how getting to ride on his horse was at least equal to the part where they almost kissed.

“So you knew me when I lived with the…uh…my aunts….”

“THE FAIRIES!”
he cried with joy, startling her. He picked her up by her shoulders and swung her around. “Of
course
! They helped me defeat the dragon! They could help us now!”

“Fairies,” she said, teetering a little as he set her down. “Right. My aunts were fairies. I understand that now.”

She put a hand to her head, just the way Aunt Flora used to when she felt exhausted or defeated by her young ward. “I don’t think I knew that then. When I lived with them.”

“You didn’t know you lived with
fairies
?” Phillip asked, confused. He held her at arm’s length to look her in the eye.

“No,” she said, a little put out that he didn’t believe her—and, yes, that she hadn’t known it herself.
How
could she not have known it? “I don’t remember them doing much in the way of magic….”

“Well, never mind that. All in the past. What we need to do now is get ourselves out of here and home to put an end to Maleficent once and for all.”

The prince gave her shoulders a friendly squeeze before finally letting her go.

The afternoon was soft, and the light was golden. Phillip was a handsome young man who seemed content just to be with her again, to now have a quest and a purpose and direction. His hair glinted in the sun like a topaz.

This was already better than the Thorn Castle or being alone and bored in the Forest Cottage.

“Wait,” she said after a moment. “There was a
dragon
?”

IN A FARAWAY LAND,
long ago, lived a king and his fair queen. Many years had they longed for a child and, finally, their wish was granted. A daughter was born, and they called her Aurora—for she filled their lives with sunshine. Then a great holiday was proclaimed throughout the kingdom so that all of high or low estate might pay homage to the infant princess.

Good King Stefan and his queen, Leah, especially made welcome a neighboring king and lifelong friend, for on that day would they announce that Phillip, his son and heir, to Stefan’s child would be betrothed and thus unite the two kingdoms forever. And so the young prince looked, unknowing, on his infant future bride.

Also invited to this happy occasion were the good fairies: Flora, who blessed the princess with beauty and grace, and Fauna, who gave her the gift of song.

But before the third good fairy, Merryweather, could bestow her gift, the evil fairy Maleficent appeared, angry she had not been invited to the happy occasion. She, too, gave a “gift”; but it was a terrible curse: before the sun set on Aurora’s sixteenth birthday, she would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die.

The king and queen were deeply grieved by this—but all was not lost. For the good fairy Merryweather still had her gift to give. She said:

King Stefan, still fearful for his daughter’s life, did then and there decree that every spinning wheel in the kingdom should on that very day be burnt. So it was done.

To further protect the king’s beloved daughter from evil mischief, the good fairies suggested that they raise Aurora in secret and safety, disguised as peasants, in the middle of the woods far away from everyone. So the king and his queen watched with heavy hearts as their most precious possession, their only child, disappeared into the night.

And so for sixteen long years, the whereabouts of the princess remained a mystery, while deep in the forest, in a woodcutter’s cottage, the good fairies carried out their well-laid plan. Living like mortals, they reared the child as their own and called her Briar Rose.

One day, many years later, Briar Rose was singing and playing with her animal friends in the woods, when a handsome young man came wandering through the forest, lost. It was Prince Phillip, on his way to marry the princess he had been betrothed to sixteen years earlier—Aurora herself.

But upon seeing the beautiful maiden, all thoughts of marrying royalty disappeared; Phillip fell madly in love with Briar Rose. And although she, too, was instantly smitten, the shy girl scampered away like the very deer she befriended. She did promise, however, to meet him again that night.

Alas for poor Briar Rose, that was also the night of her sixteenth birthday—the night she was to be returned to the castle. Her sorrowful aunts revealed the truth of who they were, and who she was, and how she would marry the prince of the neighboring kingdom on the morrow.

At the castle, weeping and alone in her new gown and tiara, the princess Aurora fell victim to the spell cast by the evil Maleficent. She followed the evil fairy’s voice through a secret door and found an enchanted spinning wheel, the last one left in the kingdom. Compelled by Maleficent, Aurora reached out and pricked her finger on its spindle. Immediately, she fell into a deep, deathlike sleep.

The three good fairies then put
everyone
in the kingdom to sleep so that upon awakening, Aurora wouldn’t feel strange and alone.

Just before falling under the fairies’ spell, Phillip’s father revealed to King Stefan how his son had unfortunately fallen in love with a peasant girl and intended to marry her. The three fairies instantly realized what this meant: that Prince Phillip was Aurora’s one true love and could break the spell that held her. They raced back to their cottage in the woods, where Phillip was to meet Briar Rose.

Unfortunately, the ever-scheming Maleficent had arrived there first and grabbed the prince, throwing him into her deepest dungeon.

Using stealth and magic, the three fairies good managed to free the prince. With the help of an ensorcelled shield and sword, Phillip defeated the evil Maleficent once and for all, even after she turned herself into a sulfurous, fire-breathing dragon.

The three fairies then led the victorious prince to the chamber where Aurora slept. Upon seeing his beautiful Briar Rose, Prince Phillip knelt at her side and immediately gave her True Love’s Kiss.

Princess Aurora woke, saw the prince, and was overjoyed. The two were married the next day, to the rejoicing of all, and lived happily ever after.

“BUT THAT LAST
bit didn’t happen,” Aurora Rose said thoughtfully.

“No.” Prince Phillip sighed. “But it
should
have.”

“So, somehow, instead of waking
me
up,
you
got sucked into my…this…” She indicated the world around her with a vague wave of her hand.

“I guess Maleficent was more powerful than anyone thought. Her soul didn’t die when I killed her…it went into hiding. Into
you
, somehow.”

Aurora Rose shivered. The boy next to her had no idea how correct, emotionally and metaphorically, he was.

“I loved her,” she said.

“Good God!”

For the first time, his eyes weren’t focused on her; they were focused inward and saw something that must not have been a fairy-tale dragon: something monstrous from the pits of hell. Something that he never ever wanted to see again.

And so she told him
her
version of the story. Which didn’t involve Phillip at all. Which might have been why she had trouble remembering him clearly.

“Good Lord!” Phillip swore again at the end of it. “That is one of the most terrible things I’ve ever heard. You were all stuck inside that nightmare castle, believing it was the end of the world and you were the last survivors?”

“It
was
kind of brutal, now that I think about it. But we had food. And parties. Oh…that sounds stupid….”

Phillip frowned. “But if she controls the dream, why
not
have the entire world be like that? Like, actually utterly destroyed? Why have a place for you to escape to?”

“I don’t know, why would an evil fairy respond to not being invited to a party by
cursing the baby it was for
?” Aurora Rose said wearily. “None of this makes any sense. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what a normal life is like. With two parents and no magic and one version of reality.”

“You know, now that I actually think about it, it
does
seem a bit extreme, cursing a baby and all,” Phillip said, nodding.

Then he began to smile goofily.

“What?” Aurora Rose asked, suspicious.

“I’m inside your head. I didn’t know your name before and now I’m
inside your head
.” He could barely contain his grin.