Princesses don’t cry, Ivy told herself firmly.
Not when their grandmothers died. Not during their grandmothers’ funerals. And especially not when their six-year-old sisters asked when said grandmothers would be coming back.
Princesses—especially thirteen-year-old ones—had to be strong.
“Grannana Ivy isn’t coming back, Marin,” Ivy said.
“Why not?”
“Because once you leave for a magical kingdom, you can never come back.”
Marin’s doe eyes filled with tears. “Never? But then why would she go?”
“I’ll tell you,” Ivy said, swallowing the lizard of sadness that had crept up the back of her throat. “But only if you promise not to interrupt.”
Marin nestled into Ivy’s stomach, nodding. Sensing a story, her other siblings, Nell, Russo and Jack, also climbed into Grannana’s favorite armchair, tucking themselves around Ivy’s body.
“Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a beautiful and clever princess fell in love with a sorcerer,” Ivy said. “It happened like this: one day, the princess was riding in the forest when she came upon a young man tending to a horse with a broken leg. Touched by his kindness (for most people back then mistreated their horses) the princess rode up to meet him. Unbeknownst to her, the young man was the son of a powerful sorceress.
“Now sorcerers are all-powerful except for one weakness: their magic will never work on their one true love. When young man tried to curse the princess, the curse rebounded. Immediately, he fell to one knee and asked the princess to marry him.
“Knowing their families would not approve, the princess and sorcerer ran away to the bluffs of Balmare and exchanged marriage vows by hay and crow. As everyone knows, a promise made on the bluffs of Balmare is a binding magical agreement—to break a Balmare oath is to be killed by whatever thing you swear by.”
“So if they broke their promise, they would be killed by crows?” Nell said. “Ugh.”
“Cool,” said Russo and Jack.
“The promise was costly: to make it, the sorcerer gave up his magic; the princess, her kingdom. In exchange, the sorcerer received rings of gold, silver, and bronze while the princess received rings of bone, obsidian, and glass. Together, these six rings sealed their love for one another.
“But the sorceress learned of her son’s treachery, and descended on the bluffs in a terrible rage. Since he’d given up his magic, the sorcerer could only watch as his mother cursed the princess, removing her memories of him and changing her appearance to that of an old woman. With the last of her magic, the sorceress transformed her son into a goblin, then trapped them both inside a nursing home.
“There are no nursing homes in fairytales,” Nell said.
“Shut up, Nell,” Russo said, his voice muffled by Jack’s elbow. “You ruin everything.”
Nell scowled.
“Try as he might, the goblin could not break the sorceress’s spell, for the princess, whose greatest fear was being kidnapped by goblins, would scream every time he came near. Now, as everyone knows, a heart that loves without return will soon grow sick, and this very thing happened to the goblin. One day, after seven years of serving, he grew too weak to stand.
“When the goblin did not appear, the princess went looking for him. She had grown used to her attendant, and even begun to trust him a little. When she found the goblin on his bed, struggling to breathe, she began to cry. Forgetting the princess’s fear, the goblin reached up to brush the tears away, and the ring of gold touched one of her tears.
“Immediately there was a blinding flash, and a hay bale appeared at the foot of the bed. Following the goblin’s instructions, the princess gathered some hay and brushed it on the goblin’s forehead. Immediately the sorceress’ spells melted away, revealing her husband. Since he could not stand, the princess spent the night alongside him. But the excitement was too much for his frail heart, and in the morning she found him dead at her side.
“The princess wept bitterly, but try as she might, none of her rings produced anything quite as magical as the hay. Only the sorcerer’s tears could unlock the magic of her rings, just as her tears had unlocked the magic of his.
“A few weeks later, the princess discovered she was with child. But when the time came for the boy to be born, the princess could not bear to leave him; and once he had reached the age of manhood, he begged her to stay long enough to meet his wife, and her grandchildren.
“And so the princess lived a full life and became an old woman in truth. In her last days, the family gathered around her bedside as her son shed three tears onto each of the rings. From the ring of bone came a living crow, from the ring of glass came the most beautiful gown they had ever seen, and from the ring of obsidian came a stone door.
“The princess donned the gown, laughing as she found her youth restored. The crow gave a loud caw before crumbling into dust, and the obsidian door swung open. Still laughing, the princess stepped into the waiting arms of her husband, and was lost to this world.”
Silence greeted the end of Ivy’s story. Hazy sunlight streamed through the blinds in Grannana Ivy’s old room, illuminating scattered cardboard boxes, packing paper, and the slumbering forms of her parents, who had succumbed to the lazy afternoon heat. Jack and Russo lay facing each other, breathing in synchrony, while Nell had an arm tucked around a ratted dog blanket. Marin’s head bobbed forward, thumb hanging half out of her mouth.
Somewhere outside, a crow cawed.
Pressed into her grandmother’s armchair by the limbs of her four younger siblings, a thirteen-year-old princess found she could no longer hold back the tears.
“And they lived happily ever after,” she whispered.
* * * * *
I wrote this story back in July for round 1 of a contest called NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. Writers are assigned a genre, location, and object, then given 48 hours to write a story in 1000 words or less.
The top 15 writers in rounds 1 and 2 receive points (first place = 15, 2nd = 14, etc.). Only the top five scorers from each group (combined totals of rounds 1 and 2) will move on to round 3, and only the top 3 in each group from Challenge 3 advance to the final challenge! Good news: my story placed 4th in my group for round 1, and received 12 points! WOOHOO!
Round 2 begins September 13. I will be assigned another genre, location, and object and will have 48 hours to write a story. I will post that story once I get the results in November.
Thanks for reading!
~Sarah
