Illiteral Circus
an excerpt

Three days before her eighteenth birthday the Princess Aurora slipped off on her last adventure. She had spent months, which felt like years, with the woman from the North, learning deportment and civilities peculiar to that place. Peculiar to the Princess that is. Most of the court ladies wouldn't have found the ideas as outlandish. Perhaps having to back slowly out of the room, bowing to the King, would have proven awkward to many, but the mastery of it would have followed.

Aurora had had enough of it. She woke early and made every effort to move silently, as she had been taught, through her rooms and out the door. Before she had gone seven steps the woman form the North was clattering at her elbow and demanding to know where the Princess was going, alone, at this hour of the morning.

“Breakfast.” The girl said, with more hope than truthfulness.

“Dressed like that?” The woman said. Her keys clinked at her belt as she spun Aurora back to her room, and the heavy bracelet at her wrist clanked.

Dejected, Aurora complied. “It is a fine dress. What is wrong this time?”

“It is too short, for one, you outgrew that length years ago. Your feet should not bee seen, now that you are a woman. And the neckline does not suit you.”

Aurora allowed her Ladies in Waiting, who were awoken by the Woman form the North, to dress her in a shimmering gown of yellow and white. The skirt was embroidered with pale green vines and tiny rose buds along the hem which trailed along the floor and threatened to trip the Princess if she were not vigilant. The bodice too had embroidered roses, along the plunging neckline. Aurora personally thought that showing her breasts seemed more inappropriate than her feet, but she did not feel it strongly enough to argue.

None of the things she had been told lately made much sense to her. She could only express an opinion if the matter was of no import. She must needs bow before her brothers and father, although she never had before. She must be demure and compliant, and above all, chaste.

Outside the birds had begun to sing and the sun's light had tossed shadows along the window's rough edge. One of the Ladies handed Aurora a basket of embroidery. She was expected to add to her trousseau daily, but only in the most genteel fashion, she could embellish, but not sew the cloth into clothing, or spin the wool into thread.

In the basket Aurora saw the handkerchief she had not finished yesterday, as well as the three she had not finished last week. Under that lay some heavier item, caught among the threads. “What is,” she began thrusting aside the linen, “oh, a spindle.” She said, and dropped at the feet of her Ladies in Waiting.

None cried out or came to the Princess' aid for they had frozen into statues, as had the rest of the castle. Nothing, in all of the Kingdom moved.

***

Aurora looked around. She was in a huge room of some sort. Not in any building she knew, or had even imagined. The walls looked like thin sheets of ice, rimmed periodically in frost and tinted the colors of a rainbow. Light from some source more diffuse and dim than the sun, shown through, dotting the snow white floor with patches of garnet, teal, lime, gentian, turquoise, peach, amber, topaz, plum, caramel, and violet. Frost covered trees grew in pairs, each leaning toward it's partner, forming an arch. The upper branches twined together to form a ceiling. Their white leaves dangled and chimed, although there was no breeze to stir them.

She looked behind her, but the corridor of trees continued until it disappeared beyond her ability to see. Before her the corridor seemed to culminate in a set of doors, also white, which rose to the ceiling. Aurora stepped towards the doors, her feet crunching lightly on the frost covered floor. The air was not cold, or didn't seem cold to her. Her breath did not cloud before her face, as it would on a cold day at home.

Aside from her, nothing moved, and aside from the tinkling leaves above and her footsteps below, not a sound could be heard. She longed to hear a bird, or a dog, even the awful dry and despairing voice of the woman from the North, nagging her to walk straighter, fix her hair, adjust her skirts, and stop gawking like a country born girl, would have been welcome.

The door, when she reached it, was larger than she had first thought. It rose a hundred feet straight up, and had no handle or doorman to announce her. The doors, like the walls, seemed to be ice, but thicker and opaque. Not even a thin crack separated them.

“How am I to enter,” she said aloud. Her voice echoed and she twirled around, to be sure nothing was sneaking up behind her in the sudden flurry of sound.

“Are you to enter?” A soft voice asked.

Aurora spun back to the doors. A very tall and very beautiful woman stood there now, as if she had always stood there, and would always stand there. As if she had grown from the frozen ground in an instant.

“Who are you, and what is this place.” Aurora half curtsied and added, “if you please.”

“You needn't bow to me, Lady of the Bright Day Dawning. You are my Lord's child and as such, I should bow to you.” With that the woman bowed, her back curving gently like a swan's neck, and her legs bending to angles that seemed impossible.

“My name is Aurora.”

The woman smiled. “Here it translates as Lady of the Bright Day Dawning. In our language it sounds thus,” her mouth moved, but no words came forth, just a musical warble, that made Aurora think of the sun's rising and glinting on the dew of a rose's petals.

“How do you know me?”

“As if I would not know my Lord's only child. I was given the charge of bringing you here, where you are safe, and explaining.”

“Explaining what, and I am not my father's only child. I have three brothers.”

“Your father, My Lord, has only one child. You were conceived in secret and hidden in the Mortal Lands until such a time as you would be of use to him.”

“What are you saying?” Aurora asked.

“Come, child, I will show you.” The woman walked back down the corridor, making no sound and leaving no trace in the frost. Aurora's foot prints showed stark black in the white floor, but faded bit by bit as they traveled. Once they had gone past the last, or first, of Aurora's original prints, the woman stopped and gestured to a cerulean patch on the wall. It misted white then showed a picture, like in a story book, but this picture moved. Aurora stepped closer, she recognized the people, her mother and grandfather, but younger than they were now. The woman gestured again and she could hear her grandfather speaking, telling a story about spinning hay into gold and thread. Then the King's old chamberlain, a younger man in the pictures, dressed like a hunter in leather, came forward and told her grandfather that her mother would wed the King.

“I know of this, my mother told me how it was she met the King, my father. I have always know of my origins.”

“You know nothing.” She moved on to another section, glowing amber, and again gestured. This time the picture showed her mother in a room full of hay. The room was dim, lit only by candles and a fire. Her mother drew forth a dagger, and looked as if-

“No,” called Aurora, frightened by this new image.

“Do not fear, these are shadows of the past, nothing you do can change them, and you already know your mother did not die that day.”

Aurora turned back to the wall, a man had joined her mother. He was small and stood stiffly, as if he'd been carved from a tree with badly rendered joints. His face too, was wooden and stiff, his mouth hardly moved when he spoke.

But he did speak, and offered Aurora's mother a life with the King, and she accepted, without knowing the cost.

“Who is that man?” Aurora asked.

The woman beckoned and moved across the corridor to a third section, this one salmon pink. The mist that covered it was not white like the others, but deep crimson. When the mist cleared Aurora saw her mother, and what must have been Ariel as a child. He looked as cherubic as the cook claimed he'd been, with round rosy cheeks and bright golden curls. Aurora saw the moment of sadness in her mother's eyes when Ariel spoke of her having another child, and the fondness when she kissed him before he fled the roomful of women.

The everything changed, the wall grew dimmer at the edges, and the picture was harder to see, then just as suddenly it was clear and the wooden man was there, speaking to her mother. No one else moved, the guards did not rush at the intruder, and the Ladies in Waiting did not flutter and fuss like a clutch of chickens.

She leaned in, listening intently. Her mother sounded confused and frightened. She asked if she was to give up Ariel. Ariel! How could she give him away? And the man, was he offended at this? He offered to kill Ariel. Aurora's heart beat fast, although she knew Ariel to be alive, she still felt terrified at hearing this conversation.

The, as her mother suddenly understood the man's intent, so did Aurora.

“How dare he?” She turned to the woman, “how dare he even consider fathering a bastard on the King's wife.” Her eyes blazed with anger at the affront to her family.

“Yet, he did. And your mother complied.”

Aurora would have struck the woman, but she was too tall and standing, abruptly, too far to reach. She settled for shouting, “she did no such thing,” as loudly as she could.

“She did. And you are the result. My Lord had need of a child. None of Fairy could give him one that would be kept safe. Instead he struck a bargain with a mortal, and hid the child there. You were raised in plain sight to all, but none thought to look.” She smiled, “My Lord is cunning, is he not?”

“He tricked my mother. He forced her.” Aurora broke into tears, “she would never betray father, not like that.”

“It was no betrayal. She entered into a bargain, and paid the price. Would you have her break her word? All would have been lost for certain then.”

“What do you mean?”

“it is not easy to explain. Time, for we Fae, is not as unbending as it is for the mortals. Had your mother denied her end of the pact, the whole would have unraveled and she would have died that night in the cellar beneath the castle, in the room full of hay, by her own hand. That she did not die means that she would not fail. That is our hope, that she did not fail, therefore you will not either.”

“What would you have of me?”

“Your true father,” she extended her cupped hand gracefully and held the image of the wooden man in her palm, “was cursed. It is a powerful curse, but it has a weakness, as do all curses. There is a chance to break it, and that chance lies in you.”

“In me?”

“In your person. You are of the blood of both your mother's people, and your father's. You straddle the worlds of both. In this way you are immune to some of the strictures and limitations of both, although you also lack certain strengths. You were born in order to break the curse. You must travel the Fairy Realms and gather the Seven Items that were Lost and the Three that were Hidden. You must take the Ten to the place of your ancestors and perform the rites. Only then will the curse be broken and your father freed.”

“If I refuse?”

“You can not.”

“Of course I can, I will just tell you no. I will refuse to leave. I will go back home-”

“You can not. You lack the skill to travel from the Fairy Realm to the Mortal. You can only go forward form here, not back.”

“What of my par-, what of my mother? She will notice me gone. The entire Kingdom will notice.”

“They sleep.”

“Not the guards, they never all sleep at once. And the Woman form the North, she certainly never sleeps.”

“I do not know this woman in particular, but all in your mortal kingdom sleep. The humans, the dogs, the horses, the vermin, all sleep. They will sleep until you have broken the curse of your father.”

“That's absurd. Someone must be awake.”

“Look,” she lead Aurora to a fourth section, this one was lavender. When the mist cleared she could see the room where she had been dressing. All the Ladies in Waiting were asleep, heaped together on the floor. One of the Oriental sleeve dogs she have been given as a present from an ambassador was curled around the ankle of a Countess, as if the pup understood the propriety of covering bare ankles. Aurora wondered with the Woman form the North would thing of this, then noticed her snoring lightly, her feet hidden beneath the folds of her thick silver gown.

The picture changed and she saw the throne room, her father sleeping on the throne, his head leaning on one velvet covered arm rest, his jester sprawled at his feet. Gareth slept on a smaller chair, a few feet away, and advisers, chamberlains, guards, and courtiers covered the floor like a lumpy clashing carpet.

The picture kept changing, the stables, the kitchens, her mother's chamber, the royal treasury, the guards' barracks, it was all the same. They all slept.

The picture changed once more, back to the original. Aurora saw herself now, sleeping with the rest. The roses on her gown began to grow as she watched, becoming vines and thick branches, buds thickened and burst into bloom. Seeds scattered and new plants sprang forth. Soon the room was thick with the deep green leaves and crimson petals. They swarmed over the sleepers and covered them like blankets, then slipped out through the doors and over the window sills.

“They will cover the castle and the grounds. They will keep any intruder away. None shall be harmed, unless you fail.”

“If I succeed?”

“Then the roses will disappear and all will be as before. But know this, time does not stand still, even for the Fae. Time will on. You must set forth with not more delay. Already a year has past in the Mortal Realm.”

“A year! I have only been here a few minutes, an hour at most.”

“Time does not flow here as it does there. Once you leave this hall and enter the Fairy Realms time will flow differently still. There is no predicting it's currents. You must hurry, for the sake of all your people, both Fae and Mortal.”

“I didn't ask for this, I don't understand why I have to do anything. Why has the castle been put under this spell? Why was I taken here?”

“In truth you have not gone anywhere, your physical self is in the realm it was born to. Only your dream self can come here, to Fairy. As you must dream to be here, so you must sleep there. Your dreaming self is more powerful than you know. It was you who caused the other to sleep, you only who can awaken them.”

Aurora nodded. She had been raised a Princess and so understood that her duty was to her people. “I will do as you say.” She held up a hand stopping the woman from speaking. “Not because you wish it, or Fairy wishes it. I will do this to free my people who sleep because of me.”

“If they knew of your heritage, they would despise you. They would turn their backs on you and let you starve in the wilderness.”

“Perhaps. That is no reason for me to turn my back to them.”

The woman nodded, and smiled. She began to glow and the room, as huge as it was, began to grow brighter. “A good answer. A Regal answer. This too bodes well. For this I shall grant you a gift, freely given. The trial before you will not be easy. For as cleaver as hiding you in the Mortal Realms, and in a Mortal body was, there are drawbacks. You do not know Fairy ways. This will be both a curse and a blessing to you. However, I will grant you a companion to aid and advise you.”

“You?”

“No child, I am the Gatekeeper and must stay here, never passing through the gates, but always guarding them. The companion awaits you on the far said. You will know the right one by the four stockings of his feet, and the star before his eyes.”

Above them a dim shadow suddenly detached itself from the branches and floated slowly down. As it grew closer the dimness began sinking into itself, growing darker and smaller until Aurora said, “it looks like a snowflake in reverse.”

The Gatekeeper followed her gaze and blanched. Her glow flickered, as did the brightness of the corridor. “You must go.”

Aurora was still staring up. Several more shadows had begun to fall, compacting and darkening as they did. She held up her hand to catch the first one, but the Gatekeeper pulled her roughly away. Aurora stumbled, loosing sight of the black flake. Her arm, where the Gatekeeper had touched her was rimmed with frost.

“You must go now,” the Gatekeeper gestured and the black flakes slowed their decent, but did not stop entirely. “To the gate, hurry!”

Aurora ran the length of the corridor. It seemed much longer now that it had when they strolled along watching the pictures of the past. She tried to count the frost covered panes as she ran, but stopped when she reached one hundred. Surely they had only been a dozen or so, and only four of them had shown pictures. Now each archway blazed with color and movement. Aurora was too frightened to stop and see what else they might show her. Perhaps she'd learn her mother wasn't her mother any longer. Or that she wasn't the Princess Aurora, but a changeling left as a jest.

She was gasping, struggling to force the air, which was now so cold that her lungs felt frozen and each breath was agonizingly sharp, like needles in her chest. The floor, which had crunched with frost earlier, now began to crackle as thin ice formed, only to be shattered by her delicate slippers. The further she ran the thicker the ice became, and the colder the air grew. She knew it was only a matter of time before she slipped and fell sprawling. Then what? She could not hear the Gatekeeper behind her, and she dared not look around to see if the black snow still fell from the intertwined branches above. What ever the flakes were they frightened the Gatekeeper, which could not be good.

The air she dragged in now felt like daggers in her chest, and her legs began to burn from the exertions. She would have to stop soon, or would fall and be stopped. A whooshing noise started in the distance and began gaining on her. Aurora found a final burst of speed and could see, far ahead, a dim whiteness which must be the gate.

The whooshing got closer, and Aurora could now feel the wind, pushing against her back. The air was warmer, a gust of spring in the deep midwinter. The gate was suddenly only a yard away and the Gatekeeper swirled into being just in front of it.

“You must go quickly, Lady of the Bright Day Dawning. You must remember these things. Guard well your true name, in the Fairy Realm such a thing can be used, even against a dream visitor. The Severn that were Lost and the Three that were Hidden will all call to you. You will recognize their truth when you see them. Do not be misled by Marsh Lights, Piskies, or Pookas.”

“But, how will I know, and what will I do with them once I find them?”

“There is no time. Find your companion. And, My Lady,” the Gatekeeper bowed, “I wish you luck.”

With that the gates exploded inward, a burst of furnace hot air and the light of a thousand suns flung down the corridor, obliterating all shadows, except those of Aurora and the Gatekeeper, which pointed long inky fingers back.

Aurora shut her eyes against the light and stepped forward.

Before her foot had reached the ground she heard a great clanging, as of metal gates, swinging shut. She turned, but there were no gates behind her, just solid rock. She was standing at the foot of a cliff, which rose higher than she could see, into the air. Before the cliff was a small meadow, surrounded by silver trees, and bordered on one side by a silver creek. The air was early summer warm.

Aurora looked around, but there was no sign of a companion.

“Which way should I go?” She asked, think that speaking aloud had worked in the corridor. But this time no mysterious denizen of Fairy spoke to her from the air. The leaves on the trees stirred in the wind, and the creek burbled over the rocks, but neither produced words.

Aurora began walking along with the creek, away from the cliff. “It's not like I could climb up it,” she said, “and the creek should go somewhere, besides I may need to drink at some point, so I should keep it close.”

She wondered, as she walked, if she should risk eating and drinking in Fairy. There were tales the nurse maid told her, about mortals trapped in Fairy because they ate a seed or sipped some wine. Aurora had been fascinated by the stories always asking what would happen if the person did get back, would they die, would they pine after the foods they left behind? She went so far as to ask her mother about this, and was told to stop talking nonsense. Not long after the nurse maid was sent away, Aurora deemed too old for a nurse.

She wished now she had thought to ask the Royal Tutor, or old Cook. Or searched out an answer in the library. It was too late now. “And,” she said, “being half Fae I should likely take no harm of it.” That decided she knelt by the creek and cupped a handful of water. Hoping she was right she tipped the liquid into her mouth and swallowed. It had tasted like water, not better no worse that the water she had sipped from the well at home. She did not feel any different, nothing in the scenery looked different either, although she had secretly hoped that drinking the water would reveal some hidden clue as to where she should go next.

She got up, dried her hands on her skirt and continued walking.

As there was no sun that she could see it was hard to estimate how long she had walked. Long enough for her feet to ache and her thin court slipper to develop tears and the beginnings of a hole. She was now well into the woods, and had been moving from tree to tree in order to keep from circling endlessly when she found the footpath.

***