La Belle au Bois Dormant But in her sleep, she was awake. She felt the breeze on her skin, she could hear the birds outside the stone window, she could smell the roses that enclosed the tower in their thick, thorny vines. She could feel sunlight pass over her face during the day, and the softer calm of the moon throughout the night. At first, she had tried to sit up, to move her eyelids, to open her mouth —but her body was entirely disobedient. Though she struggled, the battle had already been won. Her mind whirled and her body slept. Caught between a world of dream and nightmare, a world of masked reality, she didn’t know if she was alive or dead. This was a space in the middle. After ten years she began to hear screams; the screams of men. They were endless, booming in the daylight, ghastly at night, moans echoing. Her mind spun layers of questions: why do they keep coming here, one after the other? Why are there so many? They came in droves. She heard horses, voices in languages she could not understand; shouts, warnings. Blades swinging. The crashing of metal on branches, vines collapsing. She could smell blood. Decay perfumed the air, a rotten sweetness, meat left in the sun. She heard the flapping of wings, a gathering of birds; the sounds of ripping flesh. And still, more came. She imagined a sea of white bone, glimmering in sunlight, hollow skulls grinning, vacant eye sockets warning newcomers to turn back now. Phalanges hung like ornaments, sharp tipped, uselessly gripping sword blades. But still they came. The screams of men served as her only human contact. In between their arrivals her mind ventured away into dreaming. Her dreams were nightmares, interspersed with the screams from outside. She dreamed of frantic balls of light in opaque darkness, taunting her, keeping her buried in obsolete blackness. She dreamed of drowning in icy black water, of slimy fishes coiling around her toes. She dreamed of tombs, dark and cold, trapping her inside stone walls, her voice echoing back to her like an insult. Later, her mind semi-lucid, she realized she could not even remember the sound of her own voice. She had begun to feel resigned to her fate. She tried to forget the sensation of running, of laughter, the faces of her parents, the blood tinged taste of meat and the creaminess of butter; the heat of a morning bath, the downy fur of her dog; the garden grass on her bare feet. One day, as she felt the sun moving down her face in approaching dusk, she heard a metallic hacking sound. A sword cutting something thick, a sword making a path, because the noises grew louder every few moments. She realized she hadn’t heard a scream all day. She knew from however long she had been imprisoned in her own body, that there was no use in struggling or in trying to move. But as the clashing noises of the sword increased in volume and proximity, she tried as hard as she could, knowing that it was useless, to bend her arms and lift her leg —but to no consequence. And when the sword ceased, the blood coursed through her veins at an inhuman pace. Her heart beat hard against her chest. She heard footsteps on stone. The air inside her chamber seemed to still, and suddenly the sun was gone from her face, and the steps stopped with it simultaneously. She heard breathing then, exhausted and heavy. Though she sensed it was not immediately beside her, she felt suddenly suffocated, as if the presence was drawing her own breath outside her body. The footsteps resumed, slowly, making light tapping noises against the cold stone floor. A hand, rough and large —that of a man, she knew —pressed against her thigh. The fingers spread slowly, like a serpent uncoiling, and gripped her flesh deliberately. His second hand ran its fingers along her side slowly. The hands moved, and helped to pull the weight of his full body upon her. Within moments she felt his pressure. She wondered if this was what all of the screaming men had come for. She could hear him. She could feel his breath on her cheek. He whispered a name, a woman’s name, not her own. His lips were wet and otherworldly on her mouth. Time, despite the company it had made with her for so long, seemed then to expand exponentially. After another century, he climbed down. He stood next to her, watching, she thought. Then he laughed, a laugh that echoed in the tiny room. He grasped a breast in his hand, and then, he was gone. She wanted what she hated now. Sleep. Her mind was obstinate, memories lining up, marching—her first kiss, a boy in the garden; her menarche, the first blooming of her body. Sleep, please. Sleep. Slowly, her mind folded, buckled, receded. Her eyes went still. Her dreams stopped. She slept for months, weighted with quasi-death. No dreams, no smells, memories paused, hovering, ready to wither and be forgotten. Summer fell into autumn, autumn dissolved into winter. Flakes drifted in and out of the stone window, coating her with a fine white dusting of snow. Skin frozen in winter, but inside her blood coursed and her heart pumped and her lungs swelled. Inside, cells split, multiplied. One hand, long-fingered, rested on her belly; each month, initially imperceptible, it rose higher. Later, when she felt a pull at each nipple, the movements of tiny lips and tongue, she woke, really woke, body warming and rising, for the first time in one hundred years. She sat, muscles slowly reworking, and looked down, bewildered. Upon her breasts they curled up, two babies, one boy, one girl. At her pelvis dried brown blood stuck her dress to the mattress. She looked down at the twins, eyes half-closed, chins dotted with milk. What would she tell them? She cradled her arms beneath their warm bodies. She did not recognize the nose or the mouth shape. She never would. |
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© 2007 prickofthespindle.com |
Sarah Orton is a second year student in the University of Utah’s
Creative Writing MFA program. She is interested in the study of fairy
tales, myth, and folklore. Two of her stories have been accepted for
publication this year: “The Red Coat” in The Harrow, and “Little Red” |