Summary: In both fairy tales and real life, there are patterns and overarching themes that repeat themselves throughout time.
Standard disclaimer: Not mine. Wish it was, but it ain't.
This story is dedicated to green lion, who had to wait a good and long time for it. ^^
The little girl was the first to hear the Mercedes turn onto the gravel path that snaked up to the hacienda. She was always the first to hear it, her happy cries becoming her visitor's own personal doorbell. She was already waiting at the veranda by the time the sleek automobile arrived, bright blue eyes glittering.
The fact that the child stayed herself until the car came to a full stop was only a testament to her mother's strictness on this point. Her visitor had just enough time to slip one stiletto-clad shoe onto the ground before the child was upon her.
"Aunt Maria!"
"Buenos dias, Isabel," the visitor replied evenly. The woman never baby-talked to the child. She never picked her up, coddled her, or any of the other habits most adult women fall into when dealing with children. She treated her prodigious niece as though she were a very small, very well-loved adult. Isabel would have it no other way.
"Did you bring me a present?"
"I did indeed." Maria reached back into the car to pull out a long, flat box, wrapped in a pastel teal paper that would have been unmistakable to any grown up. Little Isabel, however, could only wonder at the package's origin and manufacturer.
"What is it?" Isabel asked softly, small fingers reaching for the package. In truth, it hardly mattered. Anything the box held would immediately become a treasure, if it was from her aunt.
"What do you think it is?" Maria asked coyly, the slightest of smiles teasing the corner of her beautiful mouth.
Isabel took this inquiry with utmost seriousness, and also delight. She was accustomed to these kinds of games from her aunt.
"Well, it's too flat to be an animal. Or a dolly…"
Seeing that the little girl was stuck, Maria bent down to look her in the eye, her hint of a smile blossoming fully now. "A clue, then."
This was the real present, not the box nor its contents, and they both knew it: a secret game between kindred spirits.
"This box, miha," the woman began, "holds kings, and queens, and knights and turrets to guard them." Isabel's brows shot up into the dark curls that framed her face, and Maria had to suppress a chuckle.
"So…it's a book?" she questioned skeptically.
"Nope."
Isabel opened her mouth as if to reply, shut it abruptly, then staked her hands on her narrow hips. "Hmm. Kings and queens…but small ones…"
My God, she's so much like her mother.
"Isabel, what do you say we take this inside?" The Argentinean sun was strong already, even though it was just coming on noon. Maria's wide sun hat offered her some shelter from the rays, but she was mindful of the fact that Isabel's milky skin was exposed.
The two moved through the sundeck, into the elegant atrium of the hacienda, Isabel skipping ahead. "Mommy, Mommy! Aunt Maria's here! And she got me a present!"
Maria paused to admire the familiar parlor, its sun bleached walls, the gently worn rugs underfoot. This was home, it suddenly struck her. This was her home. No matter how far she wandered, she could always come back. The tall woman let out a long, contented breath, though she had never been aware of holding it in. It was a funny thing, how happy endings never seemed to announce themselves. A person could fumble through their entire life trying to find something, only to see the mystery solve itself in the fullness of time.
"Welcome home."
Maria startled slightly to hear her thoughts traced aloud. She turned to find a familiar face leaning against the doorway. A younger woman regarded her serenely, both affection and mischief dancing across her face.
Maria did not reply for a moment, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She had no words that could contain the quiet joy she felt in that moment. She settled on, "Thank you."
"A crystal chess set from Tiffany's? Really?"
"Only the best for my niece."
"She's only three years old, you know," the younger woman replied pointedly.
"And has already graduated the first grade. She has her mother's brains. She'll be winning local championships by the end of the year."
Isabel's mother rolled her eyes theatrically. "You give us way too much credit." Suddenly, she blanched, and leaned against the doorframe a little heavier.
"You shouldn't be up," Maria scolded gently. "Come on. Let's get you settled in the drawing room, and you can watch me teach Isabel the game of kings."
As promised, Maria spent the entire afternoon curled up next to the child and the chess set. Her mother watched from a comfortable armchair. She didn't know what her life would be without the older woman's presence. Besides being a great role model for Isabel, Maria somehow continued to be her own role model too. You were always my compass. Did you know that? I was always looking to you to find out what I could be. Secretly….
The woman drifted off into a lovely sleep. She dreamed of a world where the child and the beautiful lady continued to play their game forever. And their checkered board was the earth, and they ruled over it with ever more ingenious stratagems and gambits, and the game never grew dull, it never lost its luster.
Isabel's mother woke to the delicate music of the crystal chess pieces being put away in their box. The raging southern sun had at last abated, and the sky had turned to soft, milky lilac and lavender. She stirred guiltily, ashamed of her infirmity. "Ok, kiddo, it's your bedtime," she pronounced, gathering her strength for the monumental effort of removing herself from the chair.
"Won't you let me tuck Isabel in?" Maria pleaded, choosing her words carefully. "After all, I hardly get to see her these days…"
"Yeah, I want Aunt Maria!" Isabel chimed in.
Two against one; her mother had to concede defeat.
Maria ran the bath and oversaw the brushing of the teeth of her little charge. She was clumsy with this part, and she knew it. The woman was much better suited to caring for the intellectual needs of a child and hopeless with the daily domestic realities of childcare. It was probably all for the best that she had never had a child of her own, she thought ruefully.
"Aunt Maria," the little girl asked when she had been tucked into bed, "Aunt Maria, tell me a story."
"Alright," she replied, and she would have said the same if the child had asked for the moon that hung low over the rooftop. "Which book do you want?" she asked, surveying the considerable bookshelf that dominated the far wall of the nursery.
"Make a story for me," Isabel replied without hesitation.
In Isabel's innocent estimation, Maria knew everything. When she came back from her long trips away from the old stone mansion, she brought gusts of exotic places in on her trail, nameless, indescribable voyages in far off wonderlands. Isabel yearned for those adventures implicitly. When she became older, and her life changed drastically, she would still retain this wanderlust. She would come to understand that this was a part of her personality, a trait that was hers but not everyone else's, but for now her infant mind could not distinguish these facts. The yearning for the elegant lady and her secret life simply was.
Maria settled herself on the edge of the ornately carved bed, the same bed she had slept in when she was Isabel's size. "Very well, then.
"Once upon a time…" she trailed off thoughtfully; Isabel almost forgot to breath. "…There was a great and beautiful kingdom. Within this kingdom, there was a very clever princess. The princess learned everything there was to learn from all her books and all her teachers, but still she felt it was not enough.
"The princess began to feel restless and sad. She began to think of her kingdom as a prison. She had so many questions, but no answers."
Isabel's eyes were already starting to flutter, lulled down by her soft intonations. Maria knew the baby could hardly be expected to comprehend her story, but she could not stop herself. Suddenly she felt desperate to impart this tale.
"She wanted to go out into the world, to be free. However, she knew that if she left, she could never go back home."
"Why couldn't she go back?" Isabel queried sleepily, surprising the woman with her lucidity. What a marvel you are!
"Because that was the rule of the kingdom. Anyone who left was a 'traitor', an enemy. But the princess felt alone. No one seemed to understand her heart. So, one day, she finally left the kingdom, and set out for adventure in the unknown world."
"Did she have fun?" Isabel's eyes were closed now, and Maria had the impression she was starting to dream.
"Oh, yes. The princess had many adventures, but she missed the kingdom and her friends there so much.
"Her friends in the kingdom missed her, too. You see, the kingdom had another princess, and this princess decided to go and bring her friend back. So she also went out into the world, to find her..."
Isabel was sound asleep now. Maria shook her head; she was crazy to try to convey such a long and convoluted tale to such a tiny child.
"One day, you'll hear the full story, darling," she whispered. Maria turned out the light and soundlessly crept out the room with all the skill of a cat burglar.
Isabel's mother was once again asleep, still in the oversized arm chair. She watched her for a long time then, tracing the contours of her familiar face, noting how time had renovated it, added worry lines and dulled her complexion, but had not stolen her beauty. Her hair, once orange as carrots, had at some point deepened to a majestic auburn, and this seemed to Maria a suitable metaphor for her personality as well. This woman, who had once been a girl, who had always been stubborn, fiery, and determined, and who was now fighting for her life.
All at once, she opened one tired eye, and pleaded, mock-childlike, "Tell me a bedtime story?"
Maria chuckled. "I'd rather hear a story from you. How have you been feeling?"
The younger woman stretched in her chair. "Can't complain. Today's been a bad day, but I have good ones, too. Last week was all good ones."
"Glad to hear it." Maria smiled, though the smile was wan, and resisted the urge to press her for more.
"So how's the consulting business going?" The younger woman asked, and she laughed at their personal joke.
"Fairly well, I'd say. The new trainees are a good batch, they keep an old woman on her toes," (a scoff from the younger woman here)"but they're not you. Or your brother."
"Speaking of which, how is Zack doing?"
"He's doing fine." A thoughtful pause. "He's wondering when his sister's coming back." The older woman's eyes held steel, a frank honesty.
A younger Ivy would have snapped here, but time had taught her to choose her battles. She bestowed the truth upon her old friend, a truth she would have confided to no one else. "I'll come back when I'm no longer useless."
Maria sat down at the foot of the younger woman's chair, and for a long time neither one spoke. Time had brought them to opposite poles; now Maria was back at Acme, if not under exactly orthodox circumstances, and Ivy was an exile, if only of her own making.
Ivy extended a slender finger and touched Maria's hair, now straight, shoulder-length, and salt-and-pepper. She secretly missed her once long and wavy locks and how they had danced in the wind. Maria followed her gaze and smiled self-consciously. "Isn't it amazing what a haircut and a name change can do for a person? I'm rather insulted no one has recognized me. Though, it is certainly to my advantage."
"Carmen..." she whispered hoarsely, savoring the familiar feel of that name on her lips. Se had trained herself out of using that epithet long ago, for fear of giving her away in public. But she would always be Carmen to her, no matter what her Acme ID card read. "Carmen, talk to me. Tell me a story."
Maria looked at her long and hard, her gaze unreadable. "Once upon a time," she began in voice neither of them recognized, "there was a brave and intelligent young girl. She had many tribulations and tragedies in her life, but she overcame them all, and changed the world for her being there."
"Who are we talking about here?" Ivy asked drowsily, eyes half-closed, the checkerboard dreamworld calling her sweetly again.
And Maria smiled. A mischievous, taunting smile that brushed back all the years like cobwebs, and she was Carmen again.
"Who, indeed?"