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Fairy Story: a vignette

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      When she was young all the things of wonder and truth were found in books, a tattered and worn collection with rainbow colors.  The Red Fairy Book was devoured quickly over the summer break, and she clutched The Green Fairy Book when they headed west to North Dakota for her grandmother's funeral.  They were older stories she read when she laughed, and she had them as a comforting fantasy when, every once in a great while, she wanted to hide from the pangs of reality.

      At night she dreamed of rainbow-colored fairies, waiting patiently as one held her mouth to the girl's slumbering ear; she lived every story when she dreamt, guided by a blue fairy's murmured words, or a yellow fairy's breathy laughter.  When night came dark and strong, she slid into the easy enchantment of sleep.

      It was all she had, at times: her mother left; her father was broken.  They packed the china and glazed wood of their old house into stiff cardboard boxes, moved south to Maryland where nothing was familiar but her beloved fairy books.  She read The Brown Fairy Book when her father met a cheery blonde hairstylist named Shelli, and The Lilac when he married her.  She was twelve, then, but had felt older when she watched them together.  Her father, she felt, had betrayed her.

      She retreated to her fantasies; everything she wanted to know was whispered there in her dreams.  Her mother was with her then, too, touching her face and saying, "Oh, baby, just think a prince will love you.  Won't you like that?"

      A prince with gold hair, she thought, and dark eyes to match her green; she was thirteen, then, and moodier than before, now more intent on what she saw reflected in the mirror, and filled with a dislike for the world around her that grew stronger as she grew older.  Dreams sustained her and were easily preferable to reality; she took to spending countless hours flipping through old bargain bins and collector's shelves, looking stubbornly for another story, one she did not already know.  A newer, old, book was bought on a whim at a flea market, red leather tucked behind the record of a fallen alien rock-star: The Labyrinth said the book on its cover, and the pages were only slightly worn with time.

      As she drifted into a fascinated imagining of the Labyrinth, life continued to rearrange around her.  Her stepmother had a son, Toby; her father had a brighter smile.  She retreated to the fantasy of corridors that changed at the whim of either the Labyrinth or the unnamed Goblin King who ruled it.  The heroine gained her sympathy and envy for the journey she took, while a certain tragic loathing was accorded the king himself.

      None of the romance she had come to expect was present, not the sort she dreamed of; but a sort of strange familiarity drew her back to its pages, until sometimes she thought herself to be the heroine.  She would run from her mundane life; the park became her haven, the clinging white dress her armor, the book her guide.

      The owl in the park became her audience.

      The wish itself was an accident – one made from thinking bitterly it was not fair that her life was normal, not fair that she had no prince to save her.  She hated everything in that moment, and wanted fervently for the fantasy to be real.

      Suddenly, it was; suddenly, he was.

      Wrapped in black, seeming larger than he really was as he drew a crystal out of the night: he was far too real, all angles and coy smiles.  Too, he was an imperfect reflection of her fantasy prince, frost blonde with cold blue eyes and uneven pupils.  A perverse reflection at that, so much crueler than any storybook villain she had imagined.

      He dashed her fairytale when he flung the snake-charm at her throat; he took all her wishes, and made lies of them in that single moment of terror.  She knew, then, as she swallowed her fear and turned to face him, that he was not her prince.

      Everything she had loathed in the story had been given flesh; everything, too, she had been fascinated with was now made more powerful with reality.

      "It's further than you think," he said lowly at her ear – turning his head when she started, to smile a mocking curl of his mouth that was entirely too pleased with her reaction.

      She did not understand him and his twisted expressions, of love or hate: his mouth warm near her ear as he sent her on her way with teasing pity; propping his arm casually against subterranean stones to lean towards her – amused with himself, and curious.  He wanted her approval of his challenge, or in the very least acknowledgement of her struggles.

      He was the villain; she gave him nothing.

      And he took her nonexistent fairytale, made a new dream for her in the dizzying drug of the peach.  His gifts were terrible ones: mercy with an edge, some bizarre mix of hate and need.  And he did it all, knowing she could not resist that temptation; all he had to offer, to be at peace with his own selfish want, was the glamour of a fairytale.

      No girl would surrender a king who sang bittersweet promises to her; not this girl, and he gambled everything on that chance.

      So when the story was shattered again it was her doing – not for herself or her idealized prince, but for Toby.  Remembering that Toby was in danger because of her, she turned her back on the fairytale and its king.

      It was worth it.

      Even when the king threatened her with his power, even when he dropped that last pretension of threat to say what they both knew – so desperately broken when his face turned to her as she had first turned, frightened, to him--

      Even then it was worth it, to hold Toby again.  And it was an ending that was mostly happy, though sometimes for no reason she could understand, she wished – briefly – that she had stayed in the false dream.  The moments passed, though, and she was glad for that.

      He gave her his world; she gave him her fairytale.

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Disclaimer: All characters, etc., belong to Henson, Froud, Lee, etc.  The Fairy Books are the property of Dover, and authored/edited/etc. by Andrew Lang.

Feedback: Any feedback at all would be very welcome.

Thanks To: Lisy, EclipseKlutz, Lady-Misericordia (would it be all right if I sent you an e-mail?), and DanaeM.  Thanks for your encouragement, and I'm glad you all enjoyed it!