Something With a Prince

14 Years Ago

It had been two weeks and the young girl still did not utter a word. Two weeks and she was still having nightmares of her abandonment; different versions and stories clashed around in her head as she slept. The little girl hated stories now. All but one that young boy had whispered to her in the rain. She repeated that story to herself every night before bed, hoping it would chase the nightmares away. Hoping it would replace the even scarier reality.

Of course, her mother thought it was strange her daughter hardly spoke anymore, and it was certainly abnormal for a child to wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, crying out. But she had seen stranger things in her time as a healer. The mind is a tricky place, and often heals itself. The mother knew her child well and knew that her daughter was strong enough to overcome the loss of her father.

Then, one day, the mother tried to talk to her daughter and explain why her father would leave in such a way.

"Sometimes, Thea, people can't stay where they are meant to." She pulled the child closer, smoothing back the sweaty locks from her forehead. The child had just survived another nightmare, one with laughing men and sharp swords and smelly mud.

"Your papa, he..." The mother paused. She did not know who her husband was anymore. The man who left them was not the man she had married or started a family with. He loved literature and running off into the woods with her just to walk under the stars. The man who could not say no to a wager, to a cheap thrill, that was not her love.

The truth is that she was just as broken inside as her daughter. Every day weighed heavier on her shoulders than the last, and every day she wanted to tuck the two of them away from the questioning glares of the world. But that was not who this mother was. She was dignified, honest, and hardworking. She did not need a man to live or raise her child...even if that man had been everything at one time.

The child, staring at her front door the same way she had been since the night of her abandonment, made no reply or question. She simply trembled and hoped it would be over soon. She hoped she would never dream again, and if she had to, that it would be of anything other than what she saw.

The mother held her daughter closer, "I don't know if he will come back, but we can hope so. Maybe one day he will turn up on our doorstep..."

Eventually, the two of them fell asleep, but when the mother woke up, she woke to her daughter missing. No, not missing, but shivering asleep on the doorstep with nothing but a ratty blanket to cover her shoulders. Tearstains streaking her cheeks.

For the first time, the mother truly feared for her daughter.

"Tallethea! What are you doing?' She pulled her daughter from the stoop, tears rushing from her eyes, "You'll catch your death!"

The girl looked away from her mother as if she were not there. She only stared at the door, expecting a miracle. Every night the mother would tuck her daughter in and yet, no matter what she tried, she would find the girl, shivering on the front stoop, fast asleep. Other nights the mother would hear her screaming in her sleep for her papa, standing in the middle of the street.

Concern grew around the village and more people began to wonder why the girl was sleeping on the front step and screaming in the middle of the night. The mother knew nothing but fear, waking each night to catch the child and drag her back to bed before she could make it outside, pleading with her daughter out of exhaustion and terror to stop. But the young girl only stared with glassy blue eyes and eventually made her way outside.

"She has evil in her. Screams like a banshee at all hours of the night."

The mother heard someone say as she led her daughter to the village doctor. Two women and a man stood off to the side and whispered with judgmental brows and pursed lips. The whispers were like blades, cutting into her heart, and she gripped her daughter's hand tighter as tears burned their way up her throat. The little girl did not even flinch at her mother's grip, just stared vacantly as they hurried down the street. The mother had told only King James that her husband had left, and that was only because she had to protect her wards, Lansing and Arlyn, from any punishment they might receive. The King was often gracious when it came to Lansing, but she knew the eldest boy would be reprimanded for it regardless of whether it was his fault or not. It was easier for her to hear her husband pronounced dead anyway, rather than a deserter of the Kings Army. A deserter of her.

"I've never seen a child so possessed, and the parents are doing nothing about it! Where is Rosemary's husband? Where is Ivaylo? He wouldn't have let this happen."

"Heard he's dead now. Killed in action. Gods bless him, he was a good man. At least he used to be. Then they had that child, and Rosemary took up working at the castle. Ivaylo turned upside down after that. I bet it's the girl's fault, he wanted sons. I don't think they could have any more children."

"Rosemary should drop that child on the edge of the forest and be done with it. No use raising such a demented creature. That little girl is as twisted as they come."

"Wait until the Queen hears about this. How her sons are being raised with that girl."

"May as well try raising a beast. Just like that story with the girl in the next village over. Mother abandoned her to the trees, she did, and was better for it too."

"I agree! It's the forest or the Dark House, but either way I won't have it live with my children."

The mother stopped in her tracks, her heart beating a thousand times a minute. Her head began to spin, and there was a bitter taste leaching into her mouth as she thought of abandoning her child to the forest. Her eyes went to her daughter, swaying slightly on her feet as if walking on board a ship, or through mud. Heartache tore her clean through the chest, and she bled fear. So much fear. Just like the story. She knew exactly what story they were referring too, the tale of the forest Wraith who was abandoned. The witch who could change fate.

Suddenly, she felt her daughter tense, then let go of her hand and begin running. The mother hardly had time to catch up to her before she realized who Thea was running to. A palace guard had stopped to pick up a book of fairy tales that had fallen from its shelf by the store and was reading it lazily when a little black-haired girl came up to him with wide eyes. Then those eyes shrunk. Then they closed and the girl fell limp to the street.

The mother now understood a doctor could not fix this. But she knew who could.