The thick oak door opens with a loud screech.
“Go left, third door on the right, then turn left twice,” I say without even glancing at the unexpected guest.
Although I’ve never walked these corridors, I know it all too well how to get out of this goddamn place.
“If you’re such an expert, why are you sitting here?”
I look up. Not because of the question – I’ve heard it like a thousand times already. Not just this one in particular, but all the funny and less polite versions, too.
He sounds familiar. Which is total nonsense since I don’t know other people, not really. There’s nobody I’ve met twice in my life. The dragon is an exception, obviously, but I wouldn’t call it a friend, an acquaintance or even somebody. I must mention it, though – it is my dragon after all.
“You’re not dead,” I frown at the guy standing in the doorway.
Oh, yes, definitely a guy. I can’t tell his age, but he looks youngish. A lot younger, actually, than the folks I usually meet. He seems charming, alright, but he cannot be my prince – he should be very much alive to rescue me. This guy, however, doesn’t seem to be full of life, even though he’s not dead either.
“So observant,” he eyes me. “Who are you again?”
“I thought only those living in the area come here.”
I get up and start adjusting the fabric so it would cover the only piece of furniture I have in the room: my bed.
“That’s not an answer.”
“There are only three options. One: you’re not from around. Two: you’re an idiot. And three: you’re acting like an idiot, and by the way, you’re doing great. Which one is it?
“Have you ever given a straightforward answer in your life?”
“It happens sometimes,” I shrug.
“I’m Philip. Nice to meet you.”
I think for a moment before answering:
“Aurora.”
“Aurora,” he repeats.
“Please, don’t ask me to tell you my story.”
“I won’t. I know exactly what happened to you.”
“So does everybody else. They still ask every single time.”
“Why are you sitting here?”
“I thought you weren’t gonna—“
“No,” he interrupts. “I mean why are you sitting here?”
“I’m cursed,” I frown again.
“And?”
Seriously?! I’ve known this Philip guy for like two minutes, and he already managed to get on my nerves. I try to force calmness into my voice when I answer.
“I can’t leave this place.”
“So what? You’re waiting for Prince Charming?”
Hmm. Good question. For decades I would have said “yes” without hesitation.
“No?”
I want to sound resolute, yet the answer comes out like I’m uttering a question.
A hint of a smile appears on his face, and although I’m aware that he’s inwardly laughing at me, not with me, I can’t help returning the smile.
For a long moment we’re just standing in front of each other, looking both confused and amused at the same time. At least this is what I feel, and the look on his face seems to mirror the same thing.
“You should come out,” he says after a little while.
“I can’t,” I sigh.
I’m about to turn away, when he crosses the distance between us and grabs my hand.
“Come on! What’s the worst that could happen?”
My eyes lock with his, and I discover the slightest trace of curiosity on his face. I shake the uneasy feeling that comes over me when I realize that he’s so close to me. I stare at his hand resting on mine, and a moment later he lets me go, pushing his hands into the air.
I step to the door, take a deep breath, and with my left arm outstretched I start for the corridor. When my fingers reach the threshold, there’s a shimmer around my hand and my body slowly starts decomposing. The familiar pain returns, but I push my hand further and further out. When I feel that I cannot bear the suffering any more, I jerk my hand back into the room – or what is left of it, to be precise. It hurts, but I’m adjusted to the pain and I know my body is going to be whole again in a few moments. Soon enough the pain is completely gone.
“Interesting,” he murmurs.
“And excruciating,” I add.
“Have you ever tried stepping out?”
“Are you insane?” I’d like to laugh, but the look on his face is way too serious. “No, Philip, I have not.”
He pushes me aside on his way to the door. He examines the doorframe carefully, and somewhere around the middle of the procedure he starts muttering.
“I don’t sense any kind of maleficent magic,” he finally says.
“What is that supposed to mean? And what do you mean you don’t sense? What are you, a wizard?”
“So many questions…”
“You’d better start answering then.”
“Or else?” he asks with a smirk.
I don’t answer. I’d like to say something threatening, but there isn’t a single thing I can do to force him to talk. The only thing left for me is glaring. Fortunately, our staring contest doesn’t last long – he gives up after a few seconds.
“I believe it’s you.”
“Me?”
“You’re causing it.”
I squint at the door. I’m pretty sure I’d squint at myself too, but there is no mirror in the room, no windowpane.
“What do you propose?” I ask.
“Go out. It’s not like you have anything to lose,” he adds with a shrug when I open my mouth to argue.
I’m aware that I am just an experiment for him, but he’s right. I’ve been here for almost a hundred years – and to what end? Actually, this is exactly the 100th anniversary, the thought pops into my mind. It’s not like I count the days, I’ve stopped that a long-long time ago. But for some strange reason I just know. Something should have happened today. Prince Charming should have come. But the sun is almost down, and he didn’t show up. Philip did. The only problem is that he looks everything but. Maybe I’m the one who’s supposed to save me.
I cast a quick glance around the room, but it’s not like there are a lot of things to say goodbye to. I wonder if the dragon would mind my going out, but then I realize that it only cares about my body – my spirit, on the other hand, is of no interest to my warden. In case Philip is right, I’m free to go.
I don’t even remember stepping to the door, but there I am, nevertheless. I squeeze my eyes shut, hold my breath and take a step forward. The pain rushes through me, and I don’t even have to try hard to keep my eyes closed as it intensifies. In the very next moment, however, it disappears completely. I’m so surprised I open my eyes.
The world seems to be shimmering around me, and seeing this fills me with fascination. I’m still half standing in the doorway, but my right leg is already in the corridor. Philip nudges me, and suddenly I’m no longer in my room. For the first time in a hundred years, I’m not a prisoner anymore. It’s both frightening and ecstatic at the same time.
“See? It wasn’t so hard.”
“For you, maybe,” I mutter after a moment of silence.
“Are you coming, or what?”
After shouting back from the end of the corridor, he disappears from my sight. I am both reluctant and eager to follow – it’s not easy to leave the room you’ve spent the last century in, even if you hated almost every minute of it.
I glance back at the doorway, and hurry after Philip. He’s already on the staircase but I push past him and take the lead. I navigate us through the mazelike building, and realize that it’s a lot more difficult to get out than I thought.
It feels like an eternity to find our way out, but finally a door appears in front of me. I come to a screeching halt, and I sense Philip skidding to a stop at the very last second. After successfully managing not to bump into me, he asks, “Is it locked? Are we lost?”
“I don’t think so and no.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
When I don’t answer, he steps to the door and opens it without hesitation.
The light is blinding and the cacophony of sounds is deafening. It feels like I’ve been sheltered from the world until this moment, and there’s a part of me somewhere that is grateful for this. I squint into the bright light and try to make sense of the things I’m slowly starting to see.
There’s an army of people dressed in colorful rags. Wooden stalls line up, one after the other, as far as I can see. Housewives and old women with baskets hurry past me. One of them almost bumps into me. I’m jumping away in the very last second, and I need Philip to help me regain my balance.
“What the hell?!”
“A thank you would have been nice.”
“Thank you,” I frown. “But I wasn’t talking to you.”
“I know. I’m afraid she doesn’t hear you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, my eyes widening.
“Let’s just say we are not exactly in the same world.”
“Okay, that kind of makes sense,” I say after a moment of thinking. “We must be in the spirit world.”
“The spirit world?”
“Do you have a better name?”
He doesn’t answer, just starts shaking his head, his face mirroring his amusement.
“Where are we going now?” I ask after a few minutes of silence and intense staring.
“I’m not sure where you are going, but I have things to attend to. You can come with me if you want to.”
“Alright,” I answer. It’s not like I know where to start my search. I might as well go with him. We set off, and it’s not long before I ask another question, “What kind of things?”
“I need my body.”
“Of course,” I nod. “What happened?”
“Got killed.”
I’m smart enough to sense when someone doesn’t want to talk about something. In this case it’s crystal clear – he won’t tell me anything more. So I stop talking and start focusing on marching, since it’s all I can do to keep up with him.
I still have thousands of questions, though. Where are we going? How did he get killed? Why on earth is he here instead of going to his personal heaven or whatever he deserves? The door should have led someplace else for him, if he really was dead. How can he be only half-dead? What did he do before he died? It’s not at all easy to keep my curiosity at bay.
“You never asked why I’m coming with you,” I say after a while.
“I didn’t ask because it’s obvious,” he shrugs.
“Enlighten me then.”
“You’re curious.”
He got me there. I really am fascinated with the mystery of his death, however inappropriate this might sound. It’s a good thing I don’t have to admit it out loud. I just roll my eyes as an answer.
I’m about to start second-guessing myself, when he points to one of the mansion-like houses standing at the top of the hill in front of us.
“We’re going there.”
“You died there?”
“From the looks of it,” he flashes me an ironic smile.
I’d like to point out that the emphasis was more on there than died, but it seems useless to argue with him. So I bite back my retort, trying to silence myself.
We get there a lot faster than I assumed we would. Then again, he wastes no time hurrying towards his destination. I had no idea ghosts – or what the hell we are – can be exhausted. Yet here I am, panting. He stops only for a moment, to examine the richly ornamented façade. Relief flushes over me that I can finally rest for a few minutes, only to give way to a deep sigh when he starts for the door.
He doesn’t hesitate to determine which way to go, and that prompts me to think that he knows the building very well. I’m just about to ask him whether he lived here or something, when he suddenly stops and I’m presented with the most horrifying view.
It’s very confusing to see him bending over his own dead body. His deep blue robe is stained with a huge crimson splash of blood. It looks like somebody ripped his chest open – and took his heart, since it is nowhere to be seen. The scenery shocks me, even though I thought nothing could prove gruesome enough after witnessing somebody raping my unconscious body back at the tower.
I have no idea how he got into the building. At first I thought it was him. Prince Charming. How else would he have been able to enter my tower room, all flesh and blood? He definitely didn’t see or hear me – he couldn’t have ignored all the wailing, kicking and punching. It was all in vain, so I gave up pretty quickly, retreating to the furthest point of the room. I kept on screaming so that I didn’t have to hear him making all those noises. After a while it felt like there was nothing left in this world but screams – they filled my head with their deafening pain.
“Let’s go.”
Philip’s voice brings me back to the present, but I instantly feel that I missed some of what he said.
“What?”
“I said that I won’t be able to get my body back without help.” He talks to me like I’m mentally retarded, just because I tuned out for a few moments. He’s such a lovely guy, isn’t he? “Let’s go,” he adds the bit I already heard the first time.
“Where?”
“I just told you,” he sighs deeply. “I need…”
“Help to get your body back,” I interrupt. “Yeah, I got that part. But where are we going? Whose help do you need?”
“The Fairy of the Land.”
“The Fairy?” I ask as he leads me out of the mansion. “I thought there were many of them around here.”
“Used to be. But they all… moved away,” he finishes the sentence with a smirk.
I don’t really know what to make of his smug smile and the way he speaks about them, but I shake my head, willing my concerns to go away, as I have more important things to focus on. I fall into step behind Philip and think about this Fairy. Perhaps she has some information about that old hag’s whereabouts. Or maybe she knows how to break my curse without that stupid, lazy, most likely nonexistent prince’s kiss. It’s also possible that she’s the one I’m looking for and I don’t have to search any longer.
“Which fairy are we talking about?” I ask casually to confirm my last theory.
“What do you mean which one?”
“Oh, I don’t know… Was she part of the Seven? Was she maybe the Eighth?”
I’m using my smoothest voice and I’m fairly certain that my kind-of-irony is not lost on him. He proves me right when he throws his head back and starts laughing.
“You want to know whether she was the one cursing you.”
“See? I knew you were more than just a pretty face.”
“Aww, you think I’m pretty. I knew you liked me from the start.”
I roll my eyes, but what I’d really like to do is punch him where it hurts.
“So, which one is she?” I force him into a halt by stepping in front of him.
“I haven’t the faintest. But you know what? You should ask her when we get there.”
He moves past me and doesn’t even seem to care whether I’m following him or not. Then again, he probably knows I don’t really have any other options.
“Thanks,” I throw my hands into the air. Then I mumble something like “Very helpful.”
After an hour of intensive walking I’m itching to ask how long this journey of ours is going to take, where we are going exactly, and most importantly – are we there yet?
But I keep my vow of silence. Sometimes I march next to Philip, sometimes a few steps behind. I can do whatever I want – I doubt he would care even if I vanished into thin air.
It seems like we’ve been walking for hours when he finally stops and announces that we are spending the night right there, under the sky. My first instinct is to protest, but then I realize that I have never spent a single night outside – ever. It is probably going to be cold and uncomfortable, but at least I’ll know for sure.
Philip settles down, his back against the trunk of a huge tree. I just stand there, glaring hard at him until he notices my not-exactly-standard behavior.
“What?”
“Don’t you want to build a fire or something?”
“What for?”
He looks at me like I’ve suddenly gone from pretty annoying to downright insane in the last few moments.
“It’s getting dark. And cold.”
“For the last time: we are ghosts. We don’t feel cold.
“Why are we stopping then?”
“What?”
“If we don’t get tired or cold, why are we stopping for the night? Even if we are ghosts, we’re not regular ones, okay? You know it just as well as I do.”
“You want a fire… in the spirit world. Your words, not mine.”
“I saw you move stuff back at the house. It cannot be impossible to build a fire.”
Our gazes meet and I’m holding the look until he throws his hands into the air, signaling that he has given up.
“Fine. Whatever. Get firewood then.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You’re the one getting cold and being afraid of things that go bump in the night.”
I open my mouth, but then I remind myself that it’s no use arguing with anybody – especially him –, so in the end I clamp it shut without uttering a word. Half an hour later I get back with the driest-looking branches I could find.
“I hope you’re satisfied.” I throw the branches on the ground, and cross my arms in front of my chest.
“It’s actually not bad – from a princess,” he grins, then adds quickly, “I can work with these.”
He shifts and starts murmuring. Suddenly the branches and twigs move into an odd shape, and in the very next moment purple flames embrace them. My eyes widen at the realization.
“You’re a wizard?”
It’s more like a statement than a question, but either way, he answers, “I actually prefer warlock.”
“This is how you managed to get stuck between the living and the dead.”
“Oh, I’m far from stuck. It’s more like… a temporary thing.”
I sit down just inches from him and I sense right away that he feels uncomfortable. But I don’t move. I might be able to use this situation to my advantage.
“Maybe you can help me then.” I don’t want to see him play dumb, so I add hastily, “Breaking the curse.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m… not practicing that kind of magic.”
“What? What does that even mean? That is stupid! Magic is magic.”
“Wow… You’re all the same, aren’t you? Well, let me tell you something. You don’t know the first thing about magic. And you know what? It’s a lot better this way. Let’s leave it at that.”
I take a deep breath and bury my face into my hands.
“You’re right,” I say at last. “I don’t know about magic. And I don’t know about fairies and wizards… Warlocks, whatever… All I know is that I’ve been cursed and I’ve spent the last hundred years of my life locked in a tower room. And then you came along and things started to change. You really can’t blame me for trying.”
We sit there for a while, motionless and silent. Then out of the blue he asks, “Do you know why you were cursed?”
“No idea,” I frown. “You know the whole thing about my parents forgetting the Eighth Fairy? The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… fairies are generally benevolent beings. Let’s suppose this fairy does get upset for not being invited. Why would she curse me? I was just a baby.”
“She wanted to hurt your parents. That was the most effective way to do so.”
“That may be right, but my parents are long dead. And here I am, alive… or something like that…” I pause, then with a deep sigh I add, “The only one suffering is me. I don’t think a fairy would do that on purpose.”
“Then what do you think has happened?”
“I don’t know,” I shrug.
“Come on! You had a hundred years to think. You must have at least a wild theory.”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe… she did it to protect me? Or maybe it wasn’t even a fairy – it could have been a witch.”
There’s a long pause before he opens his mouth again.
“I’m sorry, Aurora.”
His voice is so gentle it causes me to look up. My gaze meets his, and I know he is serious; there isn’t a shred of insincerity in his words. For the first time I see him as more than a means to achieving my goals. Maybe he wasn’t always like this. Something could have happened to him too. Losing someone he loved dearly. Enduring others’ cruelty. The possibilities are endless.
In that very moment it dawns on me: maybe he is my prince. It seems like too much of a coincidence to meet up exactly on this very day. It’s possible he doesn’t even know that we are meant for each other. It’s as good a theory as any.
Still looking into my eyes he leans just a little bit closer. I can almost feel his breath on my cheek, warmth radiating from his body – a perfect reminder that he does not belong to the spirit world. The sheer thought of his lips touching mine is enough to make my thoughts foggy.
I start closing my eyes, when a terrible, ear-piercing shriek breaks the silence.
“What was that?” I ask, alarmed.
“They’re coming…”
“Who?” I demand.
“The Reavers. They know we’re here.” When he sees the confused look on my face, he adds, “I don’t belong here. And it’s their job to make sure that I’m gone.”
“How many times did this happen to you?”
“Let’s just say, I’ve cheated death way more than I should have.”
He looks at me like he’s expecting me to flip out and I glare at him hard in return.
“Okay. So what do we do?”
“We do nothing. I am going to fight them off and you run.”
“No way. I’m not leaving you. And it’s not like I know where to run.”
“I’ll show you the way.”
“Let me help,” I plead.
The Reavers must be getting close, because he heaves a deep sigh, then starts muttering. His words are followed by a circle of deep purple flames that surround us. Then comes an even bigger ring of dark green fire.
“Give me a weapon,” I order him.
“A weapon?”
He looks like he’s about to burst out laughing.
“Yes. A sword… or an axe… whatever. Just make it sharp!”
“If you think even for a moment that I’m going to let them come close to you, then you are delusional.”
I grab a club-like piece of wood lying on the ground, and brace myself for the incoming waves of Reavers. My move seems to annoy Philip a great deal, because he starts shaking his head, then with a single wave of his hand he transforms the club into a bow.
“I don’t know how to use this,” I frown at him.
“Yeah, ‘cause you know how to use a sword…”
With the bow came a quiver full of arrows, too. I don’t want to get into a fight so I just stare at the weapon, weighing the heft and balance of it.
When the Reavers do appear, my eyes widen. They are jet-black monstrosities, their eyes crimson, burning with hatred-fueled fire. I can feel the panic rising in me – it renders me motionless. I’m vaguely aware of Philip casting beside me, and Reavers pushing closer and closer to us. I need my newly found Prince Charming to shout at me to wake me from my delirium.
I nock an arrow, draw my brow, aim and try my best hitting one of the demonic creatures. I fail miserably. I try again and again, but it doesn’t seem like I’m getting any better. Philip should have given me some skill, as well. I’m afraid I wasted all my arrows without helping him, but when I check the quiver, I see that it’s still full. I seem to have an endless supply – the only thing I need is some dexterity.
Philip seems to be holding them off just fine, but I keep practicing, and after a while I start hitting my targets. My shots are nowhere near perfect, and I don’t execute them with a huge amount of flourish either, but sometimes it’s enough to throw them off balance. No matter how good I get, the flood of Reavers doesn’t seem to ebb.
“We should go,” I shout to him.
He’s getting tired by the moment, and I know he can’t keep up forever. Without him, neither of us has a chance to survive. I’m guessing the Reavers didn’t get their name for being fair and just – they would probably devour me whole, too. Especially, since I am just as much cheating death as Philip does, even if it wasn’t my choice to do so.
It takes a few minutes, but in the end he reluctantly agrees. He starts opening a passage in the sea of monstrosities, and I’m doing everything in my power to hold the horrendous creatures off. When he deems the path ready, he nods and we start sprinting. I figure that we’re headed towards our original destination – the castle of the Fairy of the Land. I have no idea how far it is, so I do the only thing I can: hope that we are going to survive.
I’m so immersed in my visions of our excruciating death that I fail to notice the root jutting out of the ground. I land face first on the frozen ground. I turn around just in time to see Philip blow up one of the creatures that almost got to me. He’s far too concerned with helping me up to see the Reaver coming from his left. I act on instinct. My arrow flies towards the monster and it penetrates its neck. This is my first shot that actually kills one of the jet-black beasts, but I don’t have time to marvel at my achievement. Philip pulls me onto my feet and we’re back on track.
I feel like we’ve been running for hours when I catch a glimpse of something sparkly way down the road. The sight gives us both a much-needed boost. My lungs ache, white-hot pain fills my legs, and it’s all I can do to keep running. But we run faster and faster until we get to the castle.
I manage to push through the gate which marks the beginning of the huge piece of land that belongs to the building, and I collapse into a heap. For a few moments I cannot even move, and I’m still willing myself to breathe more steadily when Philip tells me to get inside. I obey him and we leave the army of monstrosities behind – they are unable to get past the gate. We find ourselves in a magnificent hall. It looks as if someone took the time to apply a glimmering coat to every single thing inside. Even the tiled floor and the windowless walls seem to glisten.
We venture further in, and take the gigantic staircase that leads upstairs. After spending a century in a tiny room I don’t see the point of having such a gigantic house with all these rooms and corridors, but I’d give anything to live in such a place.
Stopping in front of a richly ornamented door Philip seems to hesitate. After heaving a deep sigh he decides to open it. On the other side there is a spacious, elegantly furnished room, with a small figure sitting at a huge desk. She looks up when we enter, but she doesn’t seem to be surprised to see us here. If anything, she looks mildly annoyed.
“Did you die again, Philip? This is the second time this month!”
“What can I say? People love me,” he grins.
“Will you ever learn from your mistakes?”
She continues bickering with him while standing up and coming our way. For the first few minutes it feels like she doesn’t even see me. Then suddenly, she turns to me.
“You brought her along,” she says, her tone so generic that I can’t figure out whether she thinks it’s a bad or a good thing.
“I did,” he nods. She turns her attention back to him, and he continues, “So, how about you bring me back and we discuss all these things afterwards.”
“You will not be able to touch her if I bring you back.”
“Why would I want to touch her?”
His words hurt as if he was stabbing me with a knife, and I’m pretty sure my face flinches. The Fairy starts rolling her eyes; like this isn’t the first time they have this conversation.
“Oh, please. We both know that you…”
“Mother!” Philip shouts, silencing her.
“Mother?” I echo. They both look at me – the Fairy a little puzzled, while Philip’s face is pretty much unreadable. “Are there male fairies?” I ask.
“No!” he cries. “I am not practicing the same kind of magic she does.”
“Okay. Whatever. It was just a question.”
“Philip, darling… How much did you tell her?” the Fairy turns to his son.
“Tell me about what?” I interrupt at the same time he says, “Just enough, Mother, thank you so much for asking.”
I tilt my head, watching as Philip runs a nervous hand through his dark blonde hair. He meets my gaze and finally, it all clicks. For a brief moment, the world starts spinning, but I force myself to calm down.
“You put that curse on me, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says simply. He doesn’t try to explain, doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t start laughing so that I’d know it’s all just a really bad joke.
“I think you two need some privacy now,” the Fairy says, adding, “I’m going to fetch your heart.” Without waiting for a reply, she vanishes into thin air.
“Your heart?” I ask baffled.
“I had to get rid of it. But I cannot destroy it without killing myself. Doing things this way kind of protects me,” he shrugs.
I could ask a thousand more questions about this whole thing, but we have more important things to discuss.
“Why did you curse me?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“You were right. A fairy wouldn’t have done this to your parents. But I did.”
“My parents? What did they ever do to you?”
“Look, I don’t… I don’t want to talk about this, okay?”
“Well, you must. You owe me that.”
He sighs, and after seeing that I’m dead serious, he starts talking again.
“To put it in a nutshell, they wanted to eradicate us. They only approved of fairy magic, and they had their resources to hunt down and slaughter all my mentors and friends… Even my father got killed. I wasn’t thinking about you or anybody else. All I wanted was vengeance.”
“But they are long dead,” I say, my body quivering. “You could have come. You could have lifted my curse.”
“I tried! Believe me, I tried!” He grabs my arm, and while I want to shake him off badly, I can’t. It’s like I’ve turned into stone. He continues, “Once I put that curse on you, it was beyond my control.”
“Why did you come today then?”
“Honestly? I didn’t. I died and I woke up there. I was trying to find the exit, and there you were.”
“So you decided to let me out.”
“I already told you, I didn’t lock you in there.”
“Of course you did! And then you came as my knight in shining armor…”
“I didn’t,” he shakes his head. “It was you, not me.”
“You’re lying!” I yank my arm free.
“Why would I?” He lets out a small laugh. “I’ve already admitted cursing you. You don’t need me locking you up too to hate me.”
A deep silence falls on us. One that I break only after letting long minutes pass.
“I don’t hate you,” I whisper. “After all these years, I’m beyond that. I just needed to know. That’s all.”
He doesn’t start begging for my forgiveness, and maybe that’s a good thing. I’m not sure I could forgive him if he did. At least now I can try putting all of this behind me. He didn’t know me back then. And he tried. I know he did. I have no doubt he was sincere when he confessed.
“Aurora” he says, his voice so full of shock, I’m instantly dragged back from my thoughts. “Your hand…”
I follow his gaze. My left palm is all shimmery and it’s becoming more and more transparent.
“I’m fading away…” I breathe. “What’s happening to me?”
“I think… I think he’s there.”
“Who? And where?”
“Your prince. I believe your curse is being broken as we speak.”
“Are you sure?”
I look at him, paralyzed by the panic rising in my body. He must know what I mean, because his face darkens, when he answers.
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
“Find me when I wake up.”
“There’s no point,” he says quietly. “You won’t remember any of this.”
“Then make me remember!”
“Why? You’ll have your happy ending. You’ll get what most of us don’t.”
“All I’m going to get is another lie. And I don’t want to live in a lie,” I plead.
His eyes meet mine, and we stare hard at each other. He’s hesitant, unwilling, not sure what to do.
“I’ll find you,” he says finally.
I take a swift step forwards to plant a feather-light kiss on his lips. He tries to grab me, pull me closer to him, but I already feel my consciousness slipping away. Knowing that darkness is going to claim me soon, I try to memorize his face, but I’m unable to see him through my misty eyes.
The world is spinning faster and faster still. I’m rapidly losing the ability to feel his touch or sense him any other way. It doesn’t matter, though. None of this does.
For the first time in my life, even though I cannot be sure what the future holds, I know that it is going to be alright. This was just my darkest hour before the dawn.