53
Waking up from the curse of the new magical book the author had written for her husband felt like waking up from a nightmare - a peculiar one where she was happy and he was with her, but everyone else was miserable. It took her a moment to understand that it was not just a bad dream. It was a proper curse, a very powerful one, and everything in it was turned upside down. It was not just about villains getting happy endings - she was a generous soul, she wouldn't deny anyone a happy ending. It was about twisting the very nature of people, and it was disgusting.
Did he really wish for such a world? Was he that cruel?
Oh no, it was not cruelty. It was selfishness. He just didn't care for all others - his only concern was his happiness. And that involved turning her into some perpetually smiling moron who asked no questions. And that involved having her with him - when he set her free so nobly and selflessly in the real world! And that involved creating an artificial world to live his life with her - when he could have easily had it in the real world, without ruining people's lives.
He was impossible, impossible! Just when she started to believe in him again, just when they were on the brink of regaining their love - he'd come and do something that stupid and pointless! Would it ever change? Will he ever learn? Would she be ever able to stop him?
She was very angry, and very hurt. And, instead of biding her time and calming down and gathering her thoughts, she let the impulsive side of her rule, and she rushed to confront him. They really, really needed to talk. It was time he stopped this nonsense of trying to arrange their life with the aid of magic. It was time he gave them a chance to just live normally.
It was time he listened to her!..
She ran into the shop just as the author was leaving, and she shuddered at his sight: she remembered how unpleasant his visit to their house was, there under the curse. And she detested his inability to write a good story. If she knew something about things in the world, she knew about books. And this little fellow wrote a bad book.
Yet they were so happy in it.
No, she couldn't think of that now - she had to get rid of all the bright and sunny images of their false love; she had to forget their charming love story, their glorious wedding, their passion, their lovely home... She had to forget their child - the child they never really had. She needed all her anger if she wanted to talk some sense into her husband's head.
She started shouting, finding strength in her anger.
And then she saw his face.
She had seen him when he thought he lost his son. She had seen him when he was dying. She had seen him in captivity. She had seen him when he really lost his son.
But she never saw him like that.
So pale that his face was grey, as if turning to dust.
Trembling and shaking, as if falling apart.
So weak he couldn't stand up and collapsed on the floor at her feet, breathing shallowly, his eyes the only living and struggling thing about him.
His eyes, full of love, pleading with her not to punish him with her reproofs and her preaching; pleading with her just to stay with him a moment longer, quiet and soft and bright, as she used to be once.
To stay with him and make him feel her love while there is still time.
For there was no time for anything anymore.
He was dying.
Not stepping into the light, enveloped by magic of his sacrifice.
Really, really dying.
That man, that man she loved so much - he was going, fading away, eaten by darkness of his heart, darkness brought on by grief and suffering and much as by crimes and mistakes.
It is strange how words of reproof die on your tongue; how everything fades into nothingness at the face of imminent loss.
What does it matter if he was good or bad, listened to her or ignored her, when he will seize being - right now, right here, before her eyes?..
She knew why he needed the curse of the new book now - why he couldn't build their life together in the real world.
There was no time.
There was no time, but still he wanted a taste of happiness that their life could have given them. And who could blame him?
There was no time, and he was robbed of it not just by his whole life of pain and darkness - she robbed him of some of that time when she pushed him out of her life.
So when she asked him, why didn't he use his chance to live with her happily when it was possible, when they were just married and everything seemed so hopeful, she didn't need him to answer - not really. And when he gave her his answer, she didn't need further explanations.
"Because I couldn't believe it", he whispered.
And she knew why - she knew all his "whys", even the ones he'd never have voiced because he forgave her, and cared for her, and cherished her, and loved her. He couldn't believe because all his life he was robbed of all vestiges of happiness and knew this would be taken from him too. Because she abused the power of the dagger. Because she tried and corrupted their happiness with doubts of her own. Because she didn't believe it, too. Not strongly enough.
Not for the both of them.
She held him close, willing with all her being to take away his pain - wishing her heart could beat for his, trying to transfer her strength into his failing body. But he, being himself, tried to shy from her embrace - as ever, wishing to protect her, wanting to give her freedom, sending her away to the bright wide world, into the arms of a young man she didn't love.
Didn't he know she wouldn't go away? Didn't he know she doesn't need her freedom?
He just couldn't believe it. Ever since she came back with that basket of straw and he asked her, "Why did you come back?" She never answered him properly.
And he couldn't believe it.
And when a wizard cannot believe, magic is powerless. Even the magic of true love.
There was urgency and fear in his voice as he urged her to run - again, - to take herself as far away from him as she could before he dies - before the man in him is gone and only the monster remains. But she had no fear; the only thing she wanted was to stay with him, pressing her brow to his, and look into his eyes. His kind, loving, gentle eyes - while they were still his.
Did he find comfort in her presence? Was he thankful? She doubted it; he was too exhausted by his fight, too wrapped up in his pain. But she needed to stay with him, to touch him, to be close - as long as she could. As long as he'd let her.
His dagger had fallen on the floor where they sat, and there was a moment when he picked it up and held it hesitantly. What did he want to do with it? Did he want her to put it through his chest and end his sufferings? Did he want to kill himself, as he did once before, madly hoping it would stop the darkness from roaming free, as it did once before? He dropped the dagger almost at once. He was so tired, futility of all hope and any action were so apparent in his every move, and that sight, the way he let go of the blade, which always meant so much to him, so easily - tore at her heart, making it bleed for him.
She couldn't just sit here and watch him die. Not again. This was different from the scene on the Main Street. There would be no light of atonement and hope now. This was real. This was final.
She had to do something.
The girl she used to be, the reckless and naive princess who believed in simple miracles would have an obvious answer.
His power, that darkness in his heart, was a curse.
A kiss born out of true love would break any curse.
She could do it - she could do it right now. And perhaps it would save him. But, remembering her clumsy spells of old, she couldn't be sure. It might destroy him - humanity and magic were twisted in him in a way much too complex now. And what would happen to the darkness - she remembered the way he emerged from the vault when she and Bae resurrected him and she understood it was almost a physical thing, not just some magical... emanation. Would it be set free? Would it attack him, trying to get him back?
The dreamer in her wanted to kiss him - wanted love to triumph, then and there.
The practical girl checked her.
She needed help. She needed help of real magicians to save her husband, and goodness knows this town was full of them.
But how can she ask for that if she knows that everyone hates him so?
Practical girl found a way.
It broke her heart to leave him there on the floor, alone, barely breathing.
She pressed his hand: "I will come back".
His lips moved, and she thought she understood him. "Don't".
She kissed his brow. "It's forever, remember?"
He didn't hear her - not anymore.
She ran to Granny's, where everyone celebrated their deliverance from evil, as usual. Collected herself, wiping tears from her cheeks - she needed to look like a hero concerned by the safety of the town, not like a silly girl desperately wanting to save their enemy.
She told them she needed their help, for if he'd truly turn dark, they'd all be in danger. So he told her.
She probably told the truth. He wouldn't lie about such a thing.
They believed her. They agreed to help.
Fascinated and scared and worried to death she watched the old wizard, the Sorcerer's apprentice, remove his heart from his chest. Oh I hope he doesn't feel it - I hope it doesn't hurt!
She saw how the old man sucked the darkness out of his heart and send it into the magical hat that gave them all so much grief.
She expected his heart to be red and glowing once it was free, like all human hearts she saw before - like her own heart was when it was removed from her chest. Yet liberated from all the cursed darkness his heart proved to be white. Shining as sunlight.
Pure.
She used to say, "I know that his heart is true". Yet even she didn't expect that.
Was that what his heart was like before he turned to darkness to save his son? Was he that pure - that clean - that true? That heart, shining like light itself, could have belonged to the greatest of heroes. Was that what he was supposed to be, before fate set to beat him and break him?
And perhaps he was the greatest of heroes for, by keeping darkness trapped in such a pure heart, he was protecting them all.
The old wizard put the heart back into his chest, and she clasped his hand, expecting him to open his eyes and to look around in wonder - surely he must feel very strange now. And when he opens them, he will see her - he will see all the love she has for him.
Come on. Open your eyes.
Ah, it will happen now - any moment now.
But he didn't stir.
He has been through a lot, the old man said, putting a protection spell over his prostate body. He was the Dark One for centuries. We will have to see if he survives this change.
"If?!" Was that really her voice, so harsh and frightened?
Nobody bothered to answer. They were busy - fighting the darkness that escaped from the magical hat and went to haunt the town, just as he predicted it would.
They left. They had many problems to solve, and very serious ones. And the man they all always turned to in times of trouble - the man they feared and despised and yet depended on him... He wasn't around to help them anymore.
She remained sitting on the floor next to the body of the man she loved, holding his hand.
His hand was cool and waxen. Unfeeling.
She was too stunned for tears.
Her wish of many years ago has come true. He was changed. His curse broken, all darkness gone from him.
He was not the Dark One anymore. He was not even a wizard anymore.
He was an ordinary man, and he was in a coma, and she knew he might never wake up. She remembered how a long time ago, when he was gone to Neverland, she feared for his life and imagined how the heroes would bring his body back to her, and she would weep over his coffin and kiss his pale brow, as befits a fairy tale princess.
Just as she was doing now.
But she didn't feel like a fairy tale princess. She felt like a real woman devastated by grief and torn by fear that her husband would never open his eyes again.
Tears came, at last. She sat racking with quiet sobs, running her fingers through his hair, whispering his name.
And she wished she could turn the time back and undo her attempts to change him. She wished she never preached to him and never accused him of anything; for as she sat by his lifeless body she realized that, however much she always talked about his soul and how he should strive to make it better, it didn't really matter.
She knew his darkness, and could deal with it - not always smoothly, but she could.
She didn't know his light yet, but she would get used to it. Of course she would.
If he would wake up now and be dark again, she would cry with joy.
If he would wake up as a stranger to her, with this pure heart, if he would wake up a man she never knew, she would cry with joy, and hope that his untainted heart would color with the red glow of their love.
If he would wake up just a baffled and weak old man, she would cry with joy, for it still would be him - his eyes, voice, and his mind. His soul, however confused.
His soul could be anything, anything at all, all light or all darkness as long as it was in his body. As long as it was him - his self, his imperfect and fragile self, with his bony fingers that trembled when he touched her and his warm eyes and his voice that caught when he spoke her name.
Body and soul together she loves in him.
Body and soul together make a man.
And the only thing she wished for as she held his cold fingers in her hand and wept soundlessly was for that man to return to her.
And she knew that, after all that time of fighting a monster in him, it was now that her power of hope was to be tested finally. She was his light, he used to say, and he always praised and sometimes cursed her stubborn ability to believe the best, no matter what.
He probably wouldn't need her light now if - when! - he wakes up. But she knew he needed her stubborn faith and her blind hope, and she knew it would take all strength to believe the best now.
She pressed his fingers tighter, willing them to move. Even a little bit - just a twitch, just a tiny tremble.
Nothing.
It was all right. It would come. He would move.
He would wake up for her.
She sat on the floor, holding his hand, hoping with all her heart.
