Fractured Fairy Tales (17 page)

Out of the Hat and into Wonderland

Nicole Daffurn

Raise

Lexi Ostrow

Her amber eyes narrowed into slits and she watched as her sisters foolishly fought over something as frivolous as a gown color. Pink, blue, pink and blue—back and forth the zaps and spurts of magic went.

Anger fizzled just beneath her skin as she watched the golden-haired princess Aurora twirl circles with her love. They spun delicately across the floor as if gliding across a frozen lake. Their expressions sickened her. Eyes locked together, love and lust smoldered between Prince Philip and Princess Aurora. It was in their every glance. The dilated pupils, the unblinking gaze into each other eyes, and the way they didn’t notice anyone else was in the room, told the story of a connection stronger than any magic could ever conjure up. Stronger than any fairy godmother.

Her right hand clenched into a tight fist, her neatly manicured nails digging into her flesh, while her left fingers encircled her wand so tightly that sparks of yellow—the color of her magic—shot from its tip. She shook her head as the frustration continued to build in her and she could feel her short cobalt black hair, tickling the nape of her neck as she did Sela watched on, her breath hitching as the anger wrapped tighter and tighter in her stomach, coiling like a spring ready to pop. Her eyes were riveted to the distasteful scene before her.

She swore as her sister’s voices and mundane conversation mocked her. They were across the way, hiding in the ceiling crawl panels, but Sela had found a spell when she was younger that amplified her hearing. She’d needed to in order to learn anything that had gone on around her. Her sisters had rarely spoken to her directly in their youth.

There was no point in gazing up the ornate column walls and looking at her sisters once more. It was enough that she was torturing herself watching the dance of the lovers. Watching her sisters, bickering but still friendly, would be the nail in the coffin that set her off. She’d bet anything that Flora, Fauna and Merryweather would have shit themselves if they knew baby sister had come out to play.

Sela was just that, the youngest sister of the famous trio of fairy godmothers, and she had been spurned by her older sisters each and every time she’d spoken to them growing up.

“No Sela, you’re too young to cast that hard of a spell.”

“Sela, you’ll only get hurt if you try to fly so young.”

Her mother had died giving birth to her, and their father had flown off shortly after, claiming to seek out a powerful magic that could bring her back. He’d never returned, and her sisters had not become the matronly figures they grew to be while caring for little baby Aurora. So she’d grown up in the shadows, and when Princess Aurora had been born she’d been left out of the gifting, and during her deep slumber and awakening, Sela been left out of that battle too.

Left out.

The whole of her existence could be boiled down to two very tiny words. Her magic was weaker due to never having her sisters to practice with. Her love of humanity was weaker because she’d never met any. In fact, every emotion was stifled, cut off before it had time to form, except for jealousy and hatred. Jealousy wrapped its grubby fingers around her each and every day. Always whispering, always telling her to force people to pay attention to her, and to force them to let her belong. However, it had never worked, and she was always staring from the sidelines, watching and wanting.

A distinct sizzle sounded in her ear, and she jerked her gaze down to her yellow-slippered feet. Mere inches from her, the luxurious golden wood smoked, the tendril curled up to her leg and wrapped around her, almost stroking her. The burn hole was small, but proof enough she had pushed herself too far. Outings in public tended to end the same way, her anger and jealousy simmering to a boil and blowing. The damage to the floor in the crawl space was small, doubtful it would ever be noticed even. But it was there, and it was a sign she had lost control—again. Control she didn’t really have to begin with.

“Can’t you do anything proper, Sela?” she snorted as she flew down from the crawl space and landed in a fairly deserted corner of the ballroom. “Of course you can’t.”

Her wand sparked again as she clutched it. Closing her eyes, she did her best to block out the laughter, the boisterous music, and the wonderful smells from pastries and pheasant that wafted up her nostrils as she’d let herself reach the ground.

Sela’s lips pursed as she forced a small puff of air from her lips, attempting to calm herself down. It felt like she had stood in the corner for far longer than the few moments, but composure was hers once more. A stony mask of indifference had settled over her mental faculties. Her smile—as fake as her relationship with her sisters—was plastered on, so that she wouldn’t startle the crowd with her cold visage. She’d grown used to practicing it. When she realized her sisters were never going to include her, well, indifference seemed to be one more emotion she’d felt after all.

“My lady?” The sound flowed over her and sent a shudder through her.

Someone had spoken to her and not noticed her wings. She forced them to lay flat against her back, hoping that he would not draw back in alarm that a magic user the kingdom did not know about was present. Slowly, she slid open her eyes and was met with an intense gaze. Deep brown eyes, so dark the pupils blended with the irises, stared into her own. The man’s face was gentle, smooth and free of stubble, but the planes of his face were hard lines and a scar marred his left cheek.

She let out the breath she’d been holding in an attempt to calm her wayward magic, and the motion blew the dark bangs from her eyes. Her hair had yet to take on the silvery and salt and pepper grey of her sister’s. Something in the action amused the man and he laughed. It was a smooth sound, and she pictured water effortlessly flowing in the stream near her sisters’ awkward tree home or the slide of her silk yellow dress over her arms as she dressed. It was pleasing and sent another wave of tremors through her. The sensation shocked her. She had looked upon men of the court plenty and this one did not ring any bells. Nor had anyone ever elicited a feeling of, well, of what must be desire in her.

She focused for a moment on him. The richness of his eyes and the stark handsomeness of his face that was cut with an ugly mark—one only a knight would truly bare—make her feel something warm. She reflected as her body seemed to heat from within, simmering and sizzling with the urge to run her fingertips over the scar.

Desire
,
it had to be. It felt like an intensified version of what she wished for when she sought her sisters out, only to be shot down time and time again. This would be no different. Species didn’t co-mingle and he certainly was only doing the chivalrous thing and checking in on a female who appeared to have drunk too much ale at a party.

His hand reached out to take hers, and the heat pleased her. She smiled to no one at all and let the deep, gruff sound of his voice, such a stark contrast to his laugh, float over her ears.

“My lady, are you well?”

“I am fine, sir. Thank you for your concern. I seem to be a little light in the head. It is time I retire.” She watched the tension drain from his face as he gave a nod of understanding, but he did not make a move to drop her hand.

“May I escort you, or are you not a visitor seeking sleep in the castle?”

She knew she flushed then.
Embarrassment.
Something else new
, she thought. The man could bring about a lot of firsts in her if she didn’t leave him at once.

“I am a visitor, yes, but I do not reside within these walls for the length of my stay. Thank you for your kindness. I assure you, it will strike none as odd if I do not have an escort.”

His brow crinkled and she wondered what thoughts were running through his head. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it, and after placing a quick kiss to the back of her palm, he bowed and rescinded from her. Her hand was warm and tingled where his lips had touched, and remained that way as she quickly flew through the castle rooms, unconcerned if any saw a fairy in yellow and thought she were an agent of darkness. Her thoughts were on the knight, and of the magic she was going to need to make him hers.

Maleficent. The name was a chant, a mantra of a sort in Sela’s mind. The only way she would ever be able to act on any sort of interest with the handsome knight from the wedding party would be to be human. Not her rule really, from all her watching, humans seem to have a hang up about being with anyone outside of their own race. Only dark magic would be strong enough to fully transform her—permanently. Even if it didn’t work out with whoever the knight turned out to be, at least she would be free of her useless magic and uncaring sisters.

In the days prior, Prince Philip had killed Maleficent, a gesture even she had thought was wonderful when she’d heard. It had brought with it the hope that maybe her sisters would actually teach her how to use her magic, rather than simply tossing book after book at her. Instead, she’d remained in the shadows of their lives and that had been the stinging smack across the face that had sent her to the castle tonight. She’d been planning on renouncing them anyway, to tell them off and show her magic to the court while offering her services should her sisters be unavailable. All of which she could still do after fixing the problem of Maleficent’s demise. Dead wasn’t dead if you had the right spells and acted quickly enough. Maleficent would never be able to be corporeal again, but her soul, well that shouldn’t be missing quite yet—assuming there was one left after what the dark witch had done in the name of power.

“Well now, I need the one book they didn’t toss at me. Shame they never took to hiding it.” Her wings fluttered, unhindered in the warm summer night air. Slowly, the strange cottage built into the bottom of a tree came into view. She was flying from over the cliff, the chimney coming into view first, with the ever turning paddle wheel shortly after the peak of the roof. Sela stopped mere inches from the door and looked over the house with disgust.

The tiny shack of a cottage had housed all four of the fairy sisters and their parents, once. After her sister’s blatant abuse and her father running out, she had found no need for the home. She hadn’t been able to get anything there that she couldn’t get anywhere else, except access to some powerful spell books, and she was positive her stodgy trio of older sisters wouldn’t have moved a thing.

Standing in front of the quaint grey-white door, she smirked. “Thanks for not teaching me anything, sisters. You’ve made this decision so much easier on me.” She slid her slender wand from where she had concealed it in the breast of dress while she flew, and flicked her wrist. Tiny sparks of bright yellow danced over the iron lock. With a click, it disengaged, opening her sisters’ home and all the spell books within it to her.

Her eyes widened like saucers at the scene before her. Her sisters had completely cleaned the once cluttered cabin. She’d known they had to hide all magic from the princess, but this looked as if mundane wives or hermits had taken up residence. The bookshelf held nothing but a few small tomes, the table held a small vial of what appeared to be daisies. Gone were the clutter of open books spread about the floor and the mislabeled and scattered spell ingredients.

“This may be far harder than I had thought.” She’d been counting on the cluttered mess to lead her to the hiding spot for the book of dark magic. Her sisters may have been dirtier than a pig in mud, but they never moved the dark tome.

Her eyes scanned the cottage. “If I were a dark and nasty work of magic, where would I be hiding?” Tapping her finger on her chin she narrowed her amber eyes and slowly worked the cottage from top to bottom. The immaculateness of the cottage should have made the task easy. “Unless they aren’t hiding it in plain sight,” she grumbled and took another step into the cottage and shut the door behind her. The darkness swept over the room just as she had wanted and she raised her wand. Yellow sparks danced in the darkness as she flicked her wrist and sent a crackle of magic through the cottage.

She watched closely for anything concealed to show itself. Her eyes moved from the window, to the cooktop, and to the bedrooms with no sign of her magic clustering around something. Just as she was going to walk into the bedrooms, she noticed a circular gathering of magic mere inches from her feet on the floor. The sparks glowed bright against the dyed blue rug, and Sela’s mouth curved into a smile. “You all must be in there, mustn’t you?”

Leaning down, she peeled back the blue carpet from the floor. It was unusually heavy, and she suspected her sisters had charmed it. Making it harder to move meant a young princess was less likely to ever try to clean under it. As if on cue, a puff of dust sprayed upwards as a few inches of the rug peeled off the floor. The grit swirled around her face, causing her to cough and her eyes to water.

“Damn it!” Twirling her wand, she dispersed the cloud of dust, and her eyes caught sight of a small, black metal loop.

“Enchanted, I suppose.” Sela didn’t even attempt to bend and pull the iron loop back. Instead, she ran her wand across the top of it and the hatch pulled up. It couldn’t have been terribly deep inside, because while they had quite a few spell books, Sela could easily count fifteen neatly lined up and set in what must be a shallow pit. All except for one. Third from the right side, the large grey leather bound book seemed to be sitting up higher than the rest in the row.

Using her wand once again she levitated the big book—
Easy Spells for Gardening and Cooking
—and chuckled as she sent the title soaring across the room. Peering into the secret space, her eyes took on a twinkle. Sure enough, the small black book with writing made from melted silver, peered back up at her. It didn’t look evil. In fact, it looked like something to be treasured, not thrown in the back of some stuffy hole.

She bent down and gently ran her index finger over the silver letters. A sharp jolt went through her finger, and she instinctively pulled it back. A red blister formed on the tip of it and she slid her finger over it, using the saliva to cool the burn.

“Maybe you aren’t so beautiful after all.” Her eyes shifted to glance out of the wooden window slats. The dark of night was beginning to give way to a graying dawn. Wedding balls lasted long, but she was most certainly running out of time. Using her wand, she quickly levitated the book up into the air and left it hanging in suspension. Clearly, the backside could be placed down without creating a burn, but she had no idea what would happen when she opened it and the front binding touched the wooden counter.

The pages were just as beautiful as the outside. A kohl color was smeared over each page, the writing had been done in a script so faded she was worried she wouldn’t be able to read it at all. The pages were lined with the same color markings in frilled circles. Meaningless, she was sure, but still adding to the dangerous beauty of the book. She faintly remembered her mother telling her that the dark book could entice people to open it and assumed that was what was wrong.

Sela moved her hand slowly over the top of the page with her wand, the pages turning in response to her magic and her will. She frowned as the book flew past far too quickly with no sign of soul raising present. Returning to the first page, she moved her hand slower, allowing each page to halt a mere moment before moving on.

“Aha!” The page seemed to give off a sort of glow once she had found it, and the spell seemed deliriously simple. Some simple herbs she had already seen on the countertops, and a brief incantation speaking the name of the spirit and the desire.

Shouldn’t the dark arts be harder than this?
Sela let the book close and safely floated it back into its given hole in the floor.

The quiet chatter of birds sounded outside, and her pulse quickened. She needed to hurry if she was going to get out of there without running into her sisters. She was hoping they were going to stay and witness the marriage consummation. The idea suddenly sent an image of the nobleman and her, bodies entwined and moans of passion on the air. She bit her lip so hard the metallic tang of blood filled her mouth, and she squeezed her eyes shut to gain focus.

Laying the rug back down over the secret hatch, she set about dumping the herbs onto the counter as the spell required. Thyme; to call forth the spirit itself for a few moments, Chamomile; to ensure the angry spirit can do no harm, and finally, Devil’s Claw to raise the spirit itself. Sela hastily mixed the herbs together on the counter with her fingers before closing her eyes and focusing upon the image of Maleficent that she last remembered.

“Spirit of the dark enchantress, Maleficent. I call to you. I bind your spirit to my own, giving you time to rise from sunrise to sunset, from now until the morrow. I call to you spirit of the dark enchantress, Maleficent. I bind your spirit to my own.”

The cottage grew infinitely darker as the incantation rolled off Sela’s tongue. A cold and clammy presence manifested in the room, wrapping around her and making her skin crawl. Had she known any emotions aside from jealousy and hate, she supposed she would know to be afraid, would know no good would come of binding herself to the enchantress and cease speaking immediately.

“Well, well. Such a surprise to be called forth by one such as you, child,” the deep voice crackled, and sent a shiver of something through Sela.

Her words cut off mid chant and her eyes slowly cracked open, taking in the apparition sharing the room with her.