THE PRINCESS OF LENNOX CASTLE
By Rachel

Once upon a time. How strange, the epitome of golden heritage contained in those simple words. Be careful though, or the fire men will know you once glimpsed the forbidden fruit, the fairy tale of true love and true tragedy, but always always a resolution. The princess. Lived in a castle. They called it Lennox Castle, after some legend of yore. Those who know it will know the secret of the castle. For the others the tale of woe to be told shall have to content.

The castle was situated back from the road, the obligatory trees. Because aren't these things more wondrous if they happen in a forest? Don't we let our imaginations run between the trees? Would they play so happily on the hard cement of a pavement? Would our noses rejoice so in the smell of dusty, choking, tired exhaust fumes as they do in the smell of pine? They had a forest. And the castle grand in the ruin of a former self, the crumbling walls and pathetically forgotten windows set looking on its predecessor, the long grey huts housing the inmates.

Princesses should be innocent. They should, within our tale, discover the world as it is outside the pearly gates. But I doubt they ever are as pure as we see them. This one shall have her shadows disclosed from the very overture. Perhaps unfair to divulge her secrets so easily, not all but enough, the you, the preying reader.

The princess is, when we find her, at the end of a corridor. She sits with a cigarette, the plume of smoke ugly, blending with the grey of the walls of the outside of the road of the life the life. The smoke is hitting the ceiling and rolling into wondrous shapes, the very rolling of thunder across an angry sea. She can't see. She's not looking up but even if she were, she lost her imagination. She used to see faces in clouds, faces and people and lives so much further from her own. Now she stares, and thinks of a cities name for each letter of the alphabet. Aberdeen Bristol Cambridge Dundee. And on, and on.

".....not.....allowed.....know that." The voice echoes from the walls, trying to escape the peeling paint, the clinical emptiness of the corridor, succeeding in losing only half of itself before reaching the princesses ears. The approaching shadow makes her lose track. Leeds Manchester.....no, it's gone. She sighs. Leans back with her head against the wall. This is not the pathetic gesture it seems, the exhaled breath full of venom, the sneer in her eyes enough to displace any cosy images of poor souls. She hisses. And the still-lit cigarette end traverses the wide stretch of air between the princess and the shadow-person. The shadow woman, startled, does not move. It takes the slight, sharp, acrid burn of the cigarette on her hand to make her jerk backwards and stamp out any further burns. "Hello 'mother', "the princess smiles, a leering smile, heavily imbued with sarcasm. 'Mother' is frightened. That much is obvious. The princess reacts like a shark to fresh blood in its water. She does not move, but a slight change in the intonation of her stare shows the snake has been stirred. "...terrible.....report...you know........told you again and......" 'Mother' finishes her sentence with stuttered haste. And then recedes, to laughingly make the incident grow smaller with some other person, to pretend she didn't have the tremor of unease. The princess goes back to naming cities. She is proud, to be able to focus her concentration so greatly on one thing. She has trained herself to concentrate when necessary. To miss words and thoughts when not important. If she is trained in the art of concentration then she is incontestable.

 

* * *

 

There is a new boy. Well, his face, his presence is new. So that makes him as good as. He has one of the rooms, he must be 'Mother's' guest. She assumes he is a Prince, like them all, a Prince with his titles and his land from far away, and his unashamed good looks. She watches him. From behind corners. From under tables. She's studied him since he arrived. He's fascinating. She likes the feelings she gets when she watches him. The seething rage of bitterness and curiosity can float her to any far island of desolate emotion. She watches with a glint in her eyes, the plans, a mere reflection of a distant sharpness, living only in her mind. For now.

Watching, a hidden human surveillance camera. Had the new Prince committed any great crimes, or even any small insignificant ones, she would have known. She would have secretly smiled, sneered, and spoken to him for the first time to tell him she knew, had seen, could smell his guilt. She crept, a slither of knowledge. Sometimes he wasn't there, but she watched anyway. He would be there soon, and she would see. And she waited, and she didn't move. Austen, Bronte, Camus, Dickens....Sometimes he looked in her direction. And she breathed more lightly, and entwined her limbs so they took up less space. And he looked away, knowing his part in this game, loving the beautiful aching mystery of her fascination. Sometimes she saw him crying. Sometimes he muttered. She loved to watch him sleep. She loved to whisper in his lethargic ear, to whisper words of horror and fear, and see his eyelids tremble with distress. Sometimes the troubled lids would flicker open, and she would stay still in the darkness, her chest aching with the breath she longed to release, the agony heightening the excitement to new extents.

Once he tried to talk to her. She sat in the corner of the room behind a chair, pretending to read but studying, watching, examining. Waiting? He pretended to have seen something fascinating on the wall. A weak excuse. The plain grey walls were undecorated, unadorned. The princess, always guarded, saw his approach. She curled tighter, glared at the book, her fascination so steadfast that he thought perhaps he had doubted her observance. But he advanced, slowly, a defeated man carrying a white flag towards the other side's headquarters.

"Hello," he murmured. She could see the fear, sense the sweat on his palms. It pleased her. She rose from her place, pushing the chair forwards, out of her way, discarding the hiding it offered. She pushed it hard, and it hit the Prince, stealing his breath. He gasped for air that had never seemed sweeter. She laughed, and laughed, then crept quickly away like an autumn leaf ricocheting off the ground.

 

***

 

The Princess is frozen to the spot. Not in fear, not the panicky dread that denies any movement, like limbs immersed in liquid nitrogen which will shatter with any movement. No, she's frozen because she can't quite believe her luck. Frozen because if she moves she might discover it is not real at all.

She inches forward, a calculated pace ensuring that the suspense lasts. She reaches forward an inquisitive foot, nudging the seemingly dead bird with her bare toe. As heavy as a cushioned stone. And as alive. She smiles, an unpracticed rickety smile. She picks up the corpse, careful not to dislodge any feathers. She holds it carefully, delicately, and then throws it with a giggle. It lands with a heavy thud, it's final flight wingless and flightless. She picks it up, gently, carefully, like a mother carrying a new born child. She walks, arms outstretched as if she is scared she might harm the dead bird, towards the castle. The grey of the bird mingles with the grey of the building, the only splash of colour the now congealed but still bright blood.

The Prince's room is not far from her own. Not exactly neighbouring, but close enough that she hears his yell. She has played it through in her head, she has imagined his every move. However she had not anticipated such a disgusted, terrified shout. She is slightly confused. Greatly confused even. She doesn't understand. This feeling is new, new and frightening. She doesnÕt understand. She isn't used to this. Her breathing becomes a little unregimented. Accountant (breathe) Builder (breathe) Chef (breathe) Doctor (breathe). The slight flicker of apprehension that has played across her pupils subsides an is replaced with the usual dry glaze. She creeps on feet of feathers to her door and opens it smoothly, calculatedly. 'Mother' stands in the corridor, her arms around the Prince who is sobbing into the folds of her shoulder. She is angry at his reaction. Insulted. She knows why he has yelled. She knows why he cries. She knows that only moments before his bare flesh has touched the present she left him. The lifeless and now cold carcass of the bird unidentifiable in death. She feels annoyed with him for being weak, for bringing 'Mother' to inspect. "Engineer, Farmer, Guard," she mutters, uttering each word as if it were a stale, mouldy aftertaste. She anticipates 'Mother's' turn of head in time to become no more or less than a shadow in time not to be noticed. She sees 'Mother' enter the Prince's room, and she knows why. She knows what 'Mother' wants to remove. She does not think she will like seeing 'Mother' disdainfully carry away her present, she does not want to see it's beauty tainted by her hands. So she skulks back to bed, back to the cold iron of the grey dusk, which will gradually subside into morning.

 

***

 

She has discovered a new story to tell her sleeping Prince. She is very proud. It is more horrible than its predecessors, and she wonders if this will show in his reaction. It is very difficult to walk the halls this late at night without 'Mother' seeing her, but she is clever, she plans each footstep, and she never is caught. She has trained herself not to be caught, like a preying animal who stalks for necessity not pleasure.

She arrives outside the Prince's door. She tries to open the door quietly, the creaking door jarring her nerves with annoyance. There is a strange smell in the room. She cannot place it, but its familiarity is obvious. She knows the smell, and she is excited at her recognition, but aggravated by her inability to place it. She tiptoes towards his bed, silently giggling, the game suddenly reaching new heights of fear and adrenalin. She steps nearer the bed, then stops as an unfamiliar substance caresses her bare feet. She looks down, the sullen moonlight misshaping everything. She looks down, and for an instant she is Jesus, walking a red sea. She stares at the Prince in amazement. She had not expected him to play this card in her game, had not expected his impromptu bravery. She smiles. She loves the Prince. She loves him because he plays her game, and she thinks that possibly, his newest trick so oddly wonderful, he has won. She laughs softly outloud, a fond, disbelieving laugh. He looks beautiful in the reluctant incandescent light, his skin nearly transparent, so pale it is. She reaches her hand down to the floor, to immerse her fingers in the red ocean forming in drips. She brings her fingers to her mouth, tastes their metallic liquid. Then she reaches forwards to shut the Prince's still open eyes, leaving crimson streaks across his eyelids, his apparently sleeping form like a leftover from some sacrificial ritual.

 

***

 

The princess runs. No one notices, they are used to her fleeting blurred image. And so fast she runs, and so little notice do they take, they do not see the salty imperfections that streak her cheeks. She is ashamed, more than she has ever been. She runs with her hands in front of her face, so that no one can see her weakness. Her obstructed vision makes her crash and stumble, walls, chairs, people, innate objects appearing solely to trip her and lower her dignity further. She is in her room. She has thrown herself to the bed, her strength so drained it cannot hold her up anymore.

"Arkensaw.....Arkensaw.....Arkensaw..." Her screams, her angst filled wails, traverse the corridors, pausing at each doorway. Some of the occupants of the rooms laugh nervously, some try to cover her wails with their own, some merely block the sound with their hands. Her screams eventually reach the ears of 'Mother', who tuts with impatience.

Moments later the servants arrive in the princesses room. They are almost scared to approach, her wails so venomous, her eyes so ablaze. As she scratches away the skin on her fingers, they see their own Lady Macbeth, in all terrible glory.

The princess senses their action before they take it; even before her upper arm is stabbed with the glint of a needle, she knows that they will cessate her pain with their liquid. She tries to stop it, she tries to stop them from stealing the pain, her pain, her reward for patience, but they overpower her. Her tears stop as if time has been suspended, and she slumps backwards, a new glaze over her eyes. She utters a small surprised sound as her eyelids block out the world, and then she is asleep. The servants leave the room, leave the sleeping princess, leave behind her form, positioned in a similar way to that of her Prince.

 

***

And they all (apart from those who were never destined for immortality) lived ever after.

[fairytales]