I did not sleep well last night.
I woke up at four, for no discernible reason, and could not nod off again, so in the end I thought that perhaps I might go downstairs and read some of my coursework, so I got up.
My mood was not in the least improved when I trod in an unexpected puddle on the kitchen floor.
I was as absolutely not amused as any member of the Royal Family has ever been, even the ones who got their heads cut off.
I was so thoroughly not amused that I dragged both dogs from their slumbers and hurled them into the back yard.
They did not at all like being hauled down the stairs by their collars, and yelped and howled fit to wake the dead, or at any rate fit to wake the children, who had only just gone to bed.
I mopped up and cleaned up and swore to myself, and settled down on the sofa with a coursework set book.
I was sorry then that I had had an argument with Mark yesterday, because the book turned out to be about a chap who murdered his wives, a sort of modern-day Bluebeard.
I was awake for so long that I actually got to the end of the book, which turned out to be only short. I was satisfied to discover that the last wife murdered him instead, although she was assisted by her mother, who had turned up at the last minute, alerted when her daughter wept down the telephone as she described the gold taps.
I cannot imagine my mother rushing to my aid on the basis of information about our plumbing, at least not unless there had been some sort of serious leakage misfortune. Certainly I would not put my money on her showing up with a gun and shooting her way in, even if the septic tank had burst.
Mark got up in the end, and was surprised to find me already downstairs, most especially when I said that I had been contemplating murder.
He disappeared to work, and I took the dogs out. I had of course allowed them to come in again, I had not left them shivering in the yard for the duration of three murders and the appearance of an armed parent and an unexpected piano tuner. We did not walk very far, because I did not have anything dry left to wear. My boots were still damp after yesterday, which is never a happy experience, and I was tired and grumpy after the sleepless night.
I needed to walk because I was thinking about the assignment that I was supposed to be writing. This is the retelling-of-a-fairy-story assignment, the one supposed to be five hundred words long.
Obviously I had already written this assignment, being the story of Cat-Sick Yellow, which you have seen. Misfortunately I had over-run the word limit by about six thousand words, and so felt that I ought to have another go.
It is my class this evening, so I wanted to get on with it. I have been considering it for several days now, and if one considers unwritten stories as gently cooking in the steamy recesses of the mind, it had reached the point of being faintly blackened and crispy at the corners, and probably starting to stick to the bottom.
I told the dogs that I did not love them enough to take them anywhere, and we went home, where I baked some biscuits, because of the children being home, and then dashed upstairs to rewrite Sleeping Beauty in five hundred words or less.
Obviously I did it in exactly five hundred words. This has now become a point of principle with assignments, apart from getting over-excited about Cat-Sick Yellow.
I have attached the result below…
Sleeping Beauty
Eventually, they found a grey-whiskered lord prepared to overlook the stain of disgrace and half-faery blood. My father’s lineage, at least, was wealthy and impeccable, and of course I was beautiful.
We were wed before the moon waxed and waned. In six moons more, our babe kicked within me.
The invitation from the Palace came to every noble house that month, yet my name was not included.
“They know your time draws near,” my husband said, kindly. “I will go alone.”
“I will come,” I said.
I cloaked myself in sable, and hid my face beneath the hood. None remarked at my presence, and I gazed unobserved as the dough-faced Queen wagged and beamed at her guests from watery blue eyes. She was flaxen haired and fat-fingered, and newly-crowned Henry stood tall at her side, his eyes as dark as midnight pools.
The new babe was exhibited, to fanfares of trumpets, and her name announced.
Dawn. The new day.
Then the gifts. Jewelled ear-rings and oaken casks of wine and shimmering bolts of silk, until I peeled my hood away.
The silence fell, heavy as an axe-blade.
“Your bright dawn she shall be, O King,” I cried, and mockery dripped from my words, bubbling like spent laughter. “So shall your yesterday shape your new morning. Sixteen years shall you have your maiden daughter. Then beware, for I tell you she shall be pierced and torn. When her blood spills, then shall her life be over.”
As mine was.
Henry heard my unspoken wail as clear as crystal shattering ice, and the agony leaped from his eyes.
“Lilith,” he said, as his voice choked, and he almost reached to me as I fled from the hall.
There are countless stories of what followed. Some even had it that I turned to smoke and flew out of a window, but the foolish waddling Queen banished all sharp tools from the Palace, and I went home to birth my son in peace.
I had not promised death, but Henry was drowning in fear. At his command a counter-enchantment was cast, to cause instead a magical sleep, binding the whole palace in its grip, until some youth might arrive to kiss her awake.
Kisses were her undoing, a handsome stable-lad. As he staggered from her bed, the whole palace passed into sleep beside her, and demons and terrors arose to guard its gates.
Faeries do not age as mortals do, and my son-born-of-duty grew slowly to become my life’s joy. His father’s lands settled on him, and he grew handsome, wise and strong at my side.
I had no doubt it was for him to kiss the princess and shatter the enchantment at long last. When the day came I rode beside him to the gate.
He was fearless, yet the demon shrieks lasted a long age.
He returned, exhausted, with the princess at his side.
“Mama,” he said painfully, and she stepped forward.
Fat, dough-faced and flaxen haired, she smiled a piggy smile.
