Awakened and Other Enchanted Tales Read online

  AWAKENED

  And Other Enchanted Tales

  Pamela Sherwood

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  AWAKENED AND OTHER ENCHANTED TALES

  Excerpt from A SCANDAL IN NEWPORT

  Copyright © 2015 by Pamela Sherwood

  Published by Blue Castle Publishing

  Cover by Melchelle Designs

  E-Book ISBN: 978–0–9908612–0–1

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Awakened

  Prologue

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Part Four

  Part Five

  Epilogue

  A Note About Translations

  Death and the Harper’s Daughter

  Harp Of Bone

  A Woman’s Weapon

  She Stoops To Conjure; Or, The Misspells Of A Night

  Orb And Sceptre

  The Queen’s Tale

  Thank You!

  Excerpt from A Scandal In Newport

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  Dedication

  To Nicholas Stuart Gray, Barbara Leonie Picard, and Jane Yolen, who touched magic and passed it on to readers

  Author’s Note

  Those who have known me longest can attest that fantasy was the first genre I loved. When I was a child, I devoured Andrew Lang’s colored Fairy Tale Books, along with the stories of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Later, I discovered authors who wrote original fairy tales (without embarrassment or apology), such as Nicholas Stuart Gray, Barbara Leonie Picard, and Jane Yolen. They too became favorites, and some of my juvenile efforts—lost to posterity, fortunately!—were attempts to write like them, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.

  The stories in this collection were written on and off over the years, several of them while I juggled graduate school with an abiding love for fantasy and an occasional need to escape the academic life. Not many markets existed for genre short stories back then, and breaking in was difficult—especially for an unknown—so I soon amassed a file of form rejections, some softened by praise for the writing itself. The praise encouraged me to keep trying, but by the time I became a professional author, my interests had shifted to other genres, like historical romance and mystery. I still loved fantasy, but did I have anything left to say in it?

  As it turns out, I did—and “Awakened” and “The Queen’s Tale” were the result. Both were originally written as part of the Yuletide Challenge, in response to prompts from other participants. The pleasure I found in writing these stories led to my reevaluating my earlier work and concluding that some of it might give readers pleasure as well. By sheer chance, this epiphany coincided with the popularity of the television show Once Upon A Time and the phenomenal success of the Disney film Frozen. But fantasy and fairy tales have an enduring, evergreen appeal that I suspect few people really outgrow.

  I have chosen, edited, and polished the strongest of my stories for this collection. Some are light-hearted and romantic, like “She Stoops to Conjure”—my homage to the Regency-set mannerist fantasies of Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. Others are darker in tone, like “Death and the Harper’s Daughter,” its semi-sequel “Harp of Bone,” and “A Woman’s Weapon,” the last of which was my attempt to write an unsympathetic protagonist, who gets a well-deserved comeuppance. “Awakened” and “The Queen’s Tale” open and close the collection, which seems only fitting as these two stories revived my love for fantasy and impart perhaps one of the most important lessons of all: that, ultimately, we are the authors of our happy endings.

  I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them. Thank you!

  Pamela Sherwood

  Awakened

  But by this time the hundred years had just passed, and the day had come when Briar-rose was to awake again. When the King’s son came near to the thorn-hedge, it was nothing but large and beautiful flowers, which parted from each other of their own accord, and let him pass unhurt, then they closed again behind him like a hedge.

  —The Brothers Grimm, “Little Briar-Rose”

  Prologue

  THE prince always comes, true to his moment. Time and again, he happens along just as the enchantment ends, the hedge of brambles and briars that claimed so many luckless contenders bursting into radiant bloom and magically parting to let him through.

  Strange, is it not, that simply being in the right place at the right time, should win one man the throne, the castle, and the hand of the slumbering princess within? What test is there to prove him braver, nobler, or worthier than those who perished among the thorns for attempting the castle too soon? For all we know, he might be a rogue, a scoundrel, a careless seducer like the prince of Signor Basile—who took his pleasure of the fair sleeper and spared no further thought for her until one of the babes so begotten woke her by sucking the splinter from her finger.

  Fortunately, our prince is not such a rascal. Nor, in the age at which our tale begins, is he a prince in the strictest sense of the word. But the blood of several royal houses runs in his veins, though at considerable remove, and his manners are those of a gentleman born. Handsome, clean-living, well-bred, perhaps a trifle diffident, he is exactly the sort of fellow one might choose to stumble upon an enchanted castle and its slumbering occupants when a century-old spell finally runs its course. A fellow who would regard the sleepers with wonder and pity and the princess—the one at the heart of the spell—with something more. A fellow whose kiss would hold equal measures of desire and tenderness—and who would instantly vow to love and cherish the awakening beauty as his own, from the moment her eyes opened upon an unfamiliar world.

  Surely, with such a prince, happily ever after is a foregone conclusion. For the Sleeping Beauty always loves the prince who wakes her.

  Or does she?

  The prince helped the princess to rise; she was entirely dressed, and very magnificently, but his royal highness took care not to tell her that she was dressed like his great-grandmother, and had a point band peeping over a high collar; she looked not a bit less charming and beautiful for all that.

  —Perrault, “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”

  Part One

  HER prince (he insists that she call him by his first name, Charles) brings the dressmaker—or rather, the couturier—from Paris, to design her wedding gown. “Only the best for my betrothed,” Charles tells her warmly, before leaving them alone together.

  The couturier is at once appropriately deferential and absurdly autocratic: an imperious little man whose taste will not be gainsaid in the matter of bridal raiment. Rosemonde stands patiently in the middle of the floor while his underlings attack her with pins and measuring tape—and tries not to feel too much like a doll being dressed for someone else’s pleasure.

  Her mind drifts, irresistibly, toward the world beyond the walls of her father’s château, towards Paris in particular. She’d been little more than a child when they left, fleeing from the Terror to take refuge here, in the forests of Normandy. Had the château been less well-defended and less distant from the metropolis, their heads might have bidden adieu to their trunks, like those of so many of her
parents’ friends.

  Quiet, relatively uneventful years had followed, once the Terror had ended. There’d been reports of an ambitious little man starting to rise to power, reports that brought a thunderous frown to her father’s face and made her mother’s pale and anxious. Rosemonde does not know whether they would have returned to Paris then, for her sixteenth birthday was close upon them.

  Her sixteenth birthday, when everything changed.

  I am one-hundred-and-sixteen years old, she thinks. And the world I but barely knew is now dust and corruption.

  She shifts restlessly and a seamstress looks up in alarm, gabbling apologies for having pricked the princess with her pins. Rosemonde stifles a sigh and assures the woman that all is well. Her fears assuaged, the seamstress bends again to her task.

  Rosemonde lets her thoughts wander once more.

  One hundred and sixteen years—and no more experience of the world, whether old or new, than might fit into a thimble.

  One day, when Talia had grown into a young and beautiful lady, she was looking out of a window, when she beheld passing that way an old woman, who was spinning. Talia, never having seen a distaff or a spindle, was pleased to see the twirling spindle, and she was so curious as to what thing it was, that she asked the old woman to come to her.

  —Basile, “Sun, Moon, and Talia”

  Part Two

  HE calls her his little flower, or sometimes, his rosebud. “Guarded by thorns like the rare blossom you are,” he says, smiling tenderly.

  She tells him her name, Rosemonde, means rose of the world. “A world I have never seen,” she adds, unable to keep the wistfulness from her tone.

  “You aren’t missing a thing,” Charles tells her firmly. “The world today is a noisy, bustling, uncivilized place—quite devoid of charm, sweetness, or tranquility.” He gazes about the garden where they are walking. “I would keep you safe from that, if I could.”

  She remembers how her father had tried to keep her safe, spiriting them out of Paris by dark of night and immuring them within this château for so much of her girlhood. And before that—though she had not understood at the time—gathering up and burning the spindles and spinning wheels fated to do her deadly harm. No doubt it is the nature of love to protect the beloved at all costs. She could not fault her father then, just as she cannot fault Charles now. But a small, rebellious part of her wonders how one can protect someone else from life itself.

  A rattling, clanking, snorting noise—like a mechanical dragon—cuts off her thoughts. It’s coming from the courtyard, she realizes, after the first startled moment.

  “Good Lord!” Charles exclaims, and hurries in the direction of the sound. He barely remembers to offer Rosemonde his arm first, but she gathers up her skirts and lengthens her stride to try to keep up.

  What’s sitting in the middle of the courtyard does not look like anything she’s seen before, she observes with fascination. Contrary to her first impression, it does not resemble a mechanical dragon. A mechanical coach, perhaps—with padded seats mounted on a metal framework with wheels. And sitting in front, a woman wearing what seems to be a leather helmet on her head and huge goggles over her face. Two other women, one dark, one fair, occupy the seats behind her.

  The first woman turns her head as Charles and Rosemonde approach, pushing back the goggles to reveal a face too strong for beauty but oddly attractive all the same.

  “Ah, there you are, Charlie,” she remarks in a clear, assertive voice. “I had a devil of a time getting here, I’ll have you know. And I hope you mean to do something about the roads. Can’t have my brand-new motor breaking down in the middle of nowhere.”

  Startled by the woman’s familiarity, Rosemonde glances at Charles, whose mouth twists in a smile that is not wholly welcoming. “Rosemonde, this is my cousin, Gertrude. Gert, this is Princess Rosemonde de Belleforest, my intended.”

  In short, they talked four hours together, and yet they said not half what they had to say.

  —Perrault, “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”

  Part Three

  THEY fascinate her. Gert strides through the quiet corridors of the château, clearly intimidated by nothing and no one. Her dark-haired friend, Daisy, is nearly as bold, and while the fair girl—Violet—is quieter, she too does not shrink from anything in her new surroundings.

  As guests of Rosemonde’s betrothed, they are accorded a full welcome and suitable accommodations. Still more are expected for the wedding, more visitors from a world neither Rosemonde nor her people know. She can’t help wondering what surprises those guests will bring—or eagerly anticipating what they are.

  Charles does not appear to share her eagerness. There is a certain tension between him and his cousin: not dislike, exactly, but—disapproval? In any case, he does not spend much time in her company, though on the occasions when he does…Rosemonde notices Violet following him with her eyes.

  She herself wants very much to speak to these women, but it is not easy with Charles present. She finally gets a chance a few days before the wedding, when she overhears them talking and laughing just below her window.

  Plucking up her courage, she goes downstairs to find them reclining comfortably on the lawn. “May I join you for a while?” she asks.

  The three women exchange a look, then Gert smiles a little. “If you like, Princess—this is your home, after all.”

  Rosemonde thanks them, and seats herself somewhat hesitantly on the grass. She has put on one of her simpler gowns, a high-waisted frock that had just started to become fashionable when the enchantment took hold, but which still affords her less freedom of movement than Gert and her friends.

  Daisy withdraws a slim paper cylinder from between her lips, blows out a fine cloud of smoke. “Cig?” she invites, holding it out to Rosemonde, who takes it bemusedly.

  Tobacco, by the smell of it—she remembers her father indulging in it from time to time. A cigare, he’d called it. Her first tentative pull makes her cough violently, but she soon gets her breath back and takes a more cautious puff, before handing the cigare back to Daisy.

  “Pardon me—I have never tried this before,” she tells her.

  Gert smiles. “We’d guessed as much, but good on you for having a go at something new.”

  They seem to be regarding her with a more friendly interest now, and she relaxes a little. “I would like to try new things,” she confesses. “I haven’t had much of a chance to do so.”

  “No, I don’t imagine you have.” Gert studied her thoughtfully. “It’s really true, then—my cousin is marrying a bona-fide enchanted princess?”

  Rosemonde hesitates for a moment. “You must find it impossible to believe—”

  “I did, at first. But then, there’s a story in my country about believing six impossible things before breakfast.” Gert continues to eye her appraisingly. “What was it like, to sleep for a hundred years?”

  An imp of mischief unexpectedly rouses in her. “I would tell you,” she replies with the utmost gravity. “But I was asleep at the time.”

  After one startled moment, Gert and Daisy both laugh. “I let myself in for that one, didn’t I?” Gert remarks, still grinning. “Very well, Princess—tell us what it was like to live here, before you slept.”

  She begins—hesitantly at first, then with more confidence—to share her memories of life at the château and even in Paris, before they’d been forced to flee. They listen raptly until she reaches the advent of her sixteenth birthday and stops. “There is no more to tell,” she explains, with a slightly apologetic shrug.

  “Fascinating,” Gert muses. “Like speaking to someone preserved in amber. I can’t imagine what it would be like to sleep for a century—and wake to a completely different world.”

  “No trains then,” Daisy murmurs, absently rolling her long-extinguished cigare between her fingers. “Nor motorcars. Good heavens—no electricity!”

  “I suppose the spell kept all this,” Gert’s gesture encompasses th
e château and the grounds, “safe from thieves or invaders?”

  “It must have,” Rosemonde concedes. “We came here to escape the revolutionaries. I heard—after—that a hedge of thorns grew about the château, though it was gone when I awoke.”

  Gert nods. “I heard that much from Charles. A great hedge keeping everyone and everything at bay—even time.” She pauses for a moment. “I suppose that’s part of what my cousin finds so irresistible about all this. He has always been more than a bit in love with the past.”

  “I’m starting to feel cold,” Violet says abruptly—speaking for the first time, Rosemonde realizes. “I think I’ll go in now.” She stands up, gives them all a brief nod, and walks away.

  Gert and Daisy exchange a significant look before turning back to Rosemonde.

  “Forgive Violet,” Gert tells her. “She hoped for years that she and Charles might—well, that’s neither here nor there now. And it’s certainly no fault of yours that things have turned out as they have.”

  Rosemonde blinks, taken aback by this revelation. But the fair girl’s almost-hostile reserve is so understandable now. What would it be like, to care for someone so much as to be consumed with jealousy at the thought of his marrying another? Had she ever felt that herself—in her life before or since the spell?

  No—how could she have? She’d been a sheltered girl of not quite sixteen, hiding in the country from forces she barely understood. What opportunity had there been, to meet and fall in love with any man? Once or twice her parents had raised the issue of her making a suitable marriage one day, but always with the understanding that such an occurrence was years away yet—though no one could have predicted one hundred years.