“I wanted you to have it.” It was all she could say. How could she explain? She wanted the story out of her room, the words and paintings mocking her every imperfection. How could she say that he deserved this dream version of her, that he deserved to hold the story in his hand, even if it could never materialize in her? This was the way things should be, the way things were fated to be, and maybe this was a denial that she could ever be the girl in the pages, but also a promise to him, that she would try her best. That their reality would not be this, but she was accepting, fully, finally, that it must be whatever they could make, together, or else everything would fall apart. That she was setting the story aside, so that she could try to put something like reality in its place.
He continued to stare at the cover of the book, running his hands along the leather binding. “It’s a good book,” she added.
He opened it. Once upon a time, when wishes still came true, Alyssinia was ruled by a beloved king and his gentle wife. The illustration was dreamlike and elegant, a bearded king and a woman with hair like sunlight. It had been less than a month since Aurora had seen her parents in person, but she already felt the memory slipping, replaced by the blurry ideal of the paintings. Did her father have wrinkles around his eyes? What did her mother’s hair smell like when she hugged her close? The more she thought, the more she tried to snatch at the memories, the farther they seemed to float, laughing, from her grasp.
Rodric turned page after page, lingering over every word as though reading them for the first time. Finally, he reached a painting of Aurora, or someone like her, staring at an old battered spinning wheel, her finger outstretched. Aurora pressed her fingertip against the image, trying to remember, fighting to piece together the conflicting scraps left in her thoughts. Why did you do it? he had asked. There’s always a choice. And maybe she did choose. Maybe this was her fault after all.
“It was forbidden,” she said, her voice shaking. It explained so much about her life if it was true. “That’s why I did it. Because it was forbidden.”
“You remember?”
She trailed her finger across the painting, tracing the outline of the spinning wheel. “No. I don’t know. I remember—I remember music, pulling me from my room and into . . . I am not sure. I remember going upward, but that’s impossible. There was no up from my tower.”
“Celestine was powerful,” Rodric said. “She could do it.”
“Maybe.” Aurora closed her eyes. “There was a light, a beautiful, bobbing light, like a fairy, or—I don’t know. I followed it up, higher and higher—” And it was as though she could feel the creaking wooden stairs beneath her feet, hear the haunting melody, now replaced by Nettle’s voice, filling the air around her. “There was a dusty, round little room, but—but it wasn’t like the painting. An old woman sat spinning. I had never seen a spinning wheel before, but I had seen pictures, and I think—I think I knew what it was. It was the night before my eighteenth birthday, the very last day before the curse was broken, and it was like . . .”
A shiver ran through her, as if she were in the room once again, and suddenly she understood what people meant when they spoke of fate. It was a pull, an impossible lure, a sense deep in her stomach that this was the moment, the event she had been waiting for her whole life. “The woman looked up at me. I didn’t ask why she was there. And she said, ‘Would you like to try?’”
Aurora opened her eyes. Rodric was staring intently at her, his mouth slightly open, as though absorbing every breath she sent his way.
“And I knew, I knew, that I shouldn’t. I knew. But I had spent my whole life running from this. And I thought . . . what would it be like? The wheel spun so smoothly, and the needle glinted, and . . . I wanted to know. I was tired of being afraid.”
“You pricked your finger on purpose?”
“No,” she said slowly. “No. But I sat at the stool, and the woman showed me how to turn the wheel, so that the thread came out smooth.” She closed her eyes again, and reached out with her fingertips, as though the thread still ran across her skin. Maybe it had been a spell, maybe it had been her own exhaustion, but she thought she had felt the world fade as she sat there, guided by the strange old lady. She couldn’t quite remember, but the sense of it lingered in the back of her mind, like a tale she had been told as a child and had since let slip away. It felt like truth. “But I was clumsy,” she continued. “I was clumsy, and my finger slipped. It landed on the point of the spindle, the tiniest of pinpricks against my fingertip. It was cold and sharp. . . .”
“And?”
She opened her eyes, staring out over the path. The daffodils bobbed in the breeze. “And that’s it. The next thing I remember is waking up. And even that isn’t clear anymore. It’s like I’ve been here my whole life.” Part of her yearned for a poetic end to the tale. A feeling of drifting off to sleep, a sense of finality, the thought, Well, that is done, something that would help connect this flutter of a memory with her present self. But sleep never worked like that. It happened all at once, and the final moments were as lost as if they had never been.
With a steady hand, Rodric turned the page. A princess slept in a grand four-poster bed, golden hair spread out over the pillow, a single red rose clutched to her chest.
“Did you dream?”
Aurora sighed. What difference would it make? She might have lived a whole other life in the century that had passed, lived and loved and died all inside her head. But no trace remained of it now. “I don’t know,” she said finally. It was, after all, the truth.
Rodric turned to the final page, the painting of a beautiful princess, dressed in white, standing under an arch beside a handsome prince, as crowds looked on and doves fluttered above. And we will all live happily ever after.
As Aurora stared at the picture, she felt a deep longing within her, not for the scene it portrayed, but for the after that it promised. She wanted to turn the page and see more words, more promises and guidelines for her trembling little life. Even if every syllable were a fantasy or a lie, there would be some comfort in being told this is what you must do and this is how it will be. Rebelling against an idea was better than having no idea at all.
“It’s so soon,” she whispered.
“Is this what you wanted?” Rodric asked. “When you sat down at that wheel. Were you looking for your happily ever after?”
The thought had never even occurred to her. “No,” she said. “I don’t know what I was looking for. I think—I just wanted to do something. I was sick of spending my life waiting.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Are you glad you did it?”
“I don’t know.” Doubt was beginning to creep into her stomach.
Rodric closed the book with a gentle thud. “Even if it weren’t fate, I would choose you.”
“Do you love me?” She had to ask, had to hear the words on the air.
He did not look at her. “You are wonderful, Aurora. And we will make things better together. I know that.”
She nodded, all her suspicions confirmed. Yet the thought nagged at the corner of her mind, demanding to be voiced. “But are you in love with me? Am I everything you would have dreamed of?”
“I do not think—”
She gripped his hand. “Tell me,” she said. “I want to hear you say it.”
“I care for you,” he said quietly, “but no. I am not in love with you.” His expression was one of genuine pain, as though terrified that his words might break her heart.
He was brave, she realized. He could say what she could not. He knew, unquestioningly, the right thing to do, and he did it without hesitation. He would make a good king. But that did not change the truth of her feelings.
“Me either,” she said. “I do not love you.”
“Maybe it will come,” Rodric said. “But I believe—we will do good together. That must be more important than true love.”
“Yes,” Aurora said. “Yes, perhaps.” She released his hand, letting her arm fall heavy against her side. “Please, keep the book.” It promised so much that she could not give.