Legend speaks of the tragedy that befell the Vitale Manor, of a girl with hair like gold and eyes like midnight, cursed into an enchanted sleep by a scorned fairy until her true love bestows their kiss upon her.
Years pass, then decades. A century...
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As my stallion and I crest Castello Hill, Vitale Manor rises into view, a tombstone marring the vibrant countryside. Even at this distance from it, I can taste the bitter tragedy and the grief of its devastating past on the mournful breeze.
Around the grim manor, the early afternoon is bright, the sky a peaceful blue. The sun beams down, stroking warm hope into my cautious depths.
I will end the Vitale curse at last.
The myth of the hex placed upon the noble Vitale family existed since before my great-parents were born. It has been recounted at bedtime and around dinner tables, a cautionary tale about offending the fairies and spirits that occupied our kingdom before we did, and a dream to those of us who still believe in magic.
After many barren years of marriage, Lord and Lady Vitale finally welcomed a beautiful baby daughter into the world. As befit nobility of their status, they hosted a party to celebrate her birth. At the time, fairies lived among humans, and it was expected that they would invite all those living in their garden. It was the least they could do for the spirits protecting their home and blessing them with prosperity. They invited twelve fairies for the twelve golden plates they had for them to eat off. Only the thirteenth fairy, dark, grim and adorned in thorns, was excluded.
Naturally, she found out about the party she wasn't invited to. Naturally, she joined her sisters in offering gifts to the little girl, but hers was a curse dooming the child to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die at the tender age of fifteen. Off she had flown, her cackles ringing through the night.
The heartbroken parents had cradled their daughter, vowing that they'd protect her from her wretched fate however they could, but they had known that their greatest efforts couldn't match a fairy's magic.
So eager had the dark, prickly fairy been to wreak vengeance on the Vitales that she had pushed ahead of one fairy who still had a gift to present to the baby. That fairy didn't have the power to undo the curse, but she altered it so that upon pricking her finger on the spinning wheel, the child would fall into a deep sleep that could only be broken by true love's kiss.
Years went by. As the girl grew, her beauty and kindness became legendary. Her parents destroyed all their spinning wheels and banned any from being brought into their estate, but a fairy's malicious will is never so easily thwarted.
On her fifteenth birthday, the girl came upon a spinning wheel that had been forgotten in the depths of the cellar. It was an extraordinary item she had never seen before, and the thorn fairy's curse came true. Lord and Lady Vitale waited for years for the one who would break their daughter's curse, until they turned so frail that their old bones could hold them up no longer.
Legend claims that the Vitale Manor has been empty ever since they passed, with the exception of Rosella still sleeping soundly in her tower room. I fancy I can see it now, rising into the air from the heart of her childhood home, its rose-red drapes fluttering in the wind.
