Happily Never After

Sleeping Beauty

In the usual quiet peaceful town of Alleyn, commotion and panic spread throughout the land like wild fire. News of an advancing epidemic struck fear into the hearts of the inhabitants of the town. Most people were wise and fled to villages across the border, through the forest that surrounded their own. A builder and his wife remained behind, they rounded up everyone who had stayed and began building a quarantine area for those who might get infected. Once the preparations were made all people could do is what they usually did during their day. One by one people began coughing up blood, scratching their skin until red raw and pulling out their hair. The builder and a few other men set out to search for a healer that could cure the poor people of the gruesome infection but came home with no such luck. When the builder returned home, he found his wife hunched over, couching puddles of blood. Every night he prayed to God and begged him to spare his wife from the clutches of death.

One bitter foggy night, just as the builder knelt to pray a sudden flash stopped him from continuing. He stared at the light and slowly it dimed to reveal a woman dressed in black cloak that covered her entire body. She carefully stalked over towards the bed his wife laid in and a small smirk crept its way onto her face.

“I heard you were looking for a healer” she said and looked at the builder.

“Yes can you help our town please?” he practically begged the woman.

“I can do more than that, I can cure the whole kingdom” she said and placed her pale hand over his wife’s and wiped a drop of sweat off “But I must warn you, I expect payment for this” she continued.

“Anything you want, just please help us” the builder pleaded to her. She looked down at the woman that lay still and opened her mouth open. The builder stared in surprise as the cloaked woman blew gently into her mouth, once she finished she placed a hand on her stomach and chanted in the language of the old ones.

“Oro ad malum

Quia nunc agitur de opere vestro

Haec enim pactio caedem caede et obturaverunt cunctos

Et benedic hoc cum filia misceantur

Nam illa erit merces mea

Et habebit occidere quotidiana

Nam dum ludatis

Sed tunc habebit cædere”

Translate into English “I pray to the evil one

For now your work is done

Stop all this massacre and slaughter

And bless this couple with a daughter

For she will be my pay

And will have to kill everyday

For a while she may play

But then will have to slay”

Soon he saw the flash of light however this time it was brighter causing him to shut his eyes before he could see the woman disappear. After a few moments of waiting, his wife jerked up into a sitting position and coughed violently. He sat and watched helplessly as his wife puke up half her body weight in blood. Once she had finished, she turned over to him and held out her hand for him to reach for it. He walked over to his wife pulling her close to him and rejoicing the fact she was alive. However neither of them knew of the little payment growing inside her.

Month by month, the builders wife’s belly continued to grow and grow until the day the builders payment arrived. The new parents looked down at their daughter and smiled, the baby’s bright blue eyes sparkled like two sapphires. On that very evening, when the builder and his wife were fast asleep, the baby woke to a sudden flash of light and a pair of arms reaching towards it. The wife and husband woke up hearing the distress call of their baby, however the baby was gone and was nowhere to be found. The cloaked woman took the baby deep into the darkest depths of the forest and that was where she lived.

Year by year she grew more and more beautiful, her blonde hair grew lighter and longer. However her eyes seemed to change colour. At first it was only little specks of red but they grew until her eyes were fully red and demonic. The cloaked woman taught the girl who she named Kail to hunt and kill for her food. When Kail was 14 years old, the cloaked woman went out into the forest to collect some cloudberries for supper but didn’t return. The young girl trudged to the edge of the forest by Stoneley and was met with a gruelling sight. The cloaked woman was tied to a huge wooden splint with little pieces of wood placed around her feet. She could see lots of people gathered around her, cursing at her and calling her a witch. A priest who stood to the side of the crowd read a paragraph from the bible and closed it and nodded his head towards someone. In seconds the air was filled with the smell of burning flesh and wood, the woman’s screams blocked by hisses of the flames.

Two years after the death, Kail had grown even more, her eyes bright like her hair. She gracefully walked out of her little cottage and began searching for something to eat. Whilst walking through the dark forest, she could hear the gushes of wind rushing between the trees. A twig snaps of to her left and she follows the sound to a rough patch of the forest. She sees a hunter crouched down in the dead leaves, a gun in his hand and a deer off in the distance. She opens her mouth and out comes a melody filled with emotion. Once the sound hit the man’s ear, he turned to see the most beautiful sight he has ever seen. She reached out her hand for him to take and he gladly accepts, abandoning his rifle on the forest floor. She led him back to her cottage, still with the melody pouring out of her without a single breath. She led him down into the basement of her cottage, locking all of the doors on the way. In the middle of the room a hook hung from the roof, swaying back and forth with a creak. She leads him over to prepare him for what is yet to come, two thick unbreakable chains were tied around his hands and feet. She instructed him to lay flat on his back, his feet pointing towards her. She lifts him up as though he was a feather and places his chained feet on the metal hook. She snapped him out of his trance and he begins to struggle frantically.

“What have you done to me?” he asks, his voice filled with burning rage.

“I love it when they struggle” she says with a grating laugh. Immediately he stops struggling and a frown falls upon her face.

“Let me go witch” he spits at her, she turns around a stalks towards a table and pulls out a knife stained with blood.

“A witch you say…” she laughs cackling away. “How very dare you sir, I am mere more than a plain old simple witch” her laughter dies down.

“What….. what are you?” he asks, terror and fear filled his voice.

“I’m glad you asked that hunter” she said. She ran her blade gently up his upside down chest until she reached the hem. She quickly sliced his top open making him flinch suddenly. She cut the sleeves of his top off and placed the ruined shirt into her pile of others.

“Please let me go miss, I mean you no harm” he said his voice breaking and his eyes holding his tears back.

“You aren’t like the others” she said circling him “They always swore and said mean things to me” her voice broke just as his did however her eyes didn’t hold back her tear.

“I’m sorry to hear that but can you let me go?” he asked kindly to her.

“I can’t, I’m the one who is sorry for what’s about to happen” she said shaking her head. Slowly she pressed the blade into his skin and he yelled out in agony as she drew it al the way down his now bleeding chest.

Slash after slash he yelled out for her to stop but she didn’t, couldn’t. He mind was telling her to keep going on but her heart told her otherwise. Half way through the process she did something she’d never thought to do. Willingly she let the blade drop from her hand and looked at what she had done. The hunter hung there, lifeless. She dropped to her knees and sobbed like she had never done before.

She hung her head low and the knife glistened red by her side. Taking the blade once again in hand, she cried out two words;

“NO MORE” before plunging the dagger into her chest right inside her heart. Whilst drawing her final breathes, she saw an image of her real parents sleeping and whispered into their ears.

“I love you my parents” they both jolted up awake after hearing their daughters voice and frantically looked around their cottage in search of her. She drew her last breath and slipped into an eternal slumber.