Not Beauty's Sleep

Belonging

And so, finally, it was only Beauty and the old King who moved in the castle. The King came to visit his daughter, and to watch for her mother in her features. The princess, of course, moved only to breathe, and to smile at sweet dreams. The King stepped more slowly, but he still climbed the stairs to sit with his girl, still stopped at the Queen's grave with flowers and news of their child. The King never saw his old friend again, but he could feel her all around his daughter's home. He always found the Princess' room clean and fresh, and the rest of the castle remained in good repair. The forest grew up a little wild around its walls, and in time the King gave up fighting the brambles to make his way around the castle's back walls. He could see very well that the castle was structurally sound and would be kept that way for as long as necessary.

One night, the King slept upright in his chair in his own chamber at the new castle, which he had started doing when the room was completed with a single window overlooking a certain hill and a particular wing in the old castle some distance away, a wing where in one window a dim candle could be spotted on a clear night, burning as a soft night light for one fair occupant. Beside him were a little chair and cradle, which he had brought from the old parlor. Both sat empty every night, but the King felt better knowing they were with him. Sometimes he placed his hand upon the smaller chair's arm. The King fell into a light sleep, and found to his surprise upon waking that the Queen sat in her old chair. She looked up at him and smiled, and with such light in her eyes. He had not seen that in such a long time; she held a bundle in her arms. It was her doll wrapped in ermine, of course, with which she would never truly part, but for a moment the King thought it was their newborn baby girl, and that he was back twenty-odd years in time, next to his wife on the happiest day of their lives. His heart gave a great leap for joy.

"My love," he said, and slowly the King realized that although it was only the doll in her arms, the Queen was truly happy again. Why was this? Was Beauty awake? He wanted to turn to the window and look out at Beautys chamber, but he was afraid to look away from his wife's happy face, lest she should disappear. Everything about their lives together came to him. All that is good in this world passed between them in smiles as he listened to what she said.

"Dear husband, don't look for her yet. She still sleeps, but peacefully. When she does open her eyes again, the first thing she will find is love, and we will be there to see it. Her kingdom will be strong, you have seen to that," and the King's heart leapt to feel her squeeze his hand. "She will be healthy, and wise; she will know love, and we will see it all. Let us wait, and watch together." The King knew there was nothing he wanted more. With profound joy, he held the Queen's hand, and, side by side, they settled in to wait.

When the King's man found his body the next morning, the breakfast tray clattered from his hands. It was not that he was shocked his king had gone. The surprise came at the happy smile on his Lord's face, which had not been there for many, many years. In death, the King looked as he had at a much younger age. "Ah, Sire," the man whispered through tears, for he had served and loved his King a long time, "came for you, she did, at last." The good man had it exactly right, of course.

But what of our Beauty? And what of her cousin, her father's beloved nephew?

Well now, the wise woman had remembered, on the night she cursed Beauty, that she must withdraw from human life. Most of her kind had already done so. Their tempers were too quick and their actions too heavy in the human world; for humans were such fragile creatures, and so short-lived. So she prepared herself to withdraw from everything she knew, but remained only to set her last curse aright. When the King's nephew visited her a second time, she knew the time of her release was near as well.

The wise woman heard his footfall, gentle on the earthen floor of the cave where she waited, cloaked from view, every day. She opened her knowing eyes, pulling back at he hood of her cloak to reveal herself to the only visitor she had wanted to see in a great many years. The King's nephew was, of course, no longer young. The wise woman smiled to see his expression; it was exactly as she had once hoped. She spoke.

"You have employed your time well. I see it in you."

"I've had a great deal of it to employ."

"Have you learned a great deal, then? Are you very wise?"

"To that I have no answer, except that for all I have seen and all I have watched, all over the world, I have only learned that I know nothing at all. Each year is only a glimmer of what there is to know, and I have collected only just enough light by which to see."

"If you know that, then you start far beyond all other men. You will, indeed, rule well."

And so they planned it between them. When the nephew returned to inherit the crown, he did not appear magically. Instead, he appeared in a carriage, with a small group of courtiers, as one might have expected an heir to do. The people welcomed him, for what little was remembered of him was quite good. After all, he had shown bravery on the ill-fated day when the royal family's life changed forever. But not many cared to remember that day. The people did not discuss it directly. Some just told their children that the King and Queen had a lovely daughter once who died tragically and the Queen followed her to heaven not long after. It was, although sad, an easier story to tell. And, in that version, the Nephew was only traveling, gaining an education in the world before his time came to take on responsibility and rule. The Nephew's gentle, non-magical arrival did nothing to unseat this version of the story, and so over time it became the accepted one. But the old folks knew. And the Nephew knew. And so did the wise woman, who left this world after the Nephew's coronation, and she has not visited it since.

The Nephew was a great King indeed. He might have been the wisest and best King who ever ruled a land, for he had walked the earth from north to south and south to north, from east to west and west to east. He had nothing left to seek except the things not of this world. And so his duties he met with care and his responsibilities with courage as he pondered the deeper questions in his heart. He accomplished many things, including a truce with the ogres, which no other King before him had done—not even his beloved uncle.

One day, the King walked with his own handsome son along the hill under their castle and his son asked him, thoughtfully, "Father, what is that tower in the wild wood? Is it true that our family's castle was there? With your leave, I will go out and find it today, for, truly, I do not think I can withstand the temptation to explore it." The King smiled with pride into his son's bewildered but happy eyes, and he knew for certain that what he had expected for quite some time would come to pass. He ordered the Prince's horse made ready at once, and saw to all his son would need. Without explaining his reasons, he bade his son a good journey and a stout heart.

And so it was that, in the old castle, in the near-forgotten chamber, the young, kind, wise Prince Charming found his Sleeping Beauty. He kissed her, and she awoke with such beauty and sad tenderness in her eyes that he dropped to his knees before her at once, and begged her to become his bride. Beauty's kind heart saw something in him that she knew, something deeply familiar that drew her to him, and she knew she would love him. Beauty accepted her Prince, and together in time they did rule over a kingdom more prosperous than any before it. All this Beauty's parents saw with joy, and the old King and Queen, their spirits truly joyous at long last, slipped together into Eternity, where they were happy forever.