“I was born with a disorder of the heart.” Zellandine speaks to the steady heat of the coals. “If I overexerted myself or if I suffered a shock, I might fall into a faint from which no one could rouse me for a spell. It was no great matter when I was a child. But by the time I was older…”
She trails away and I look sideways at Primrose to see if she understands what’s coming, hears the dark promise in that ellipsis. Apparently a princess’s life is not so sheltered that she doesn’t know what sorts of things might befall a woman who can’t cry out, can’t run. Her fingers curl around the white line of her bandage. “Surely your father protected you, or your mother.”
“I was a maid in a king’s castle, far beyond my family’s protection.” In the version we read in Dr. Bastille’s class, a translation from medieval French, Zellandine is a princess who falls into an endless sleep when her finger is pierced by a splinter of flax. I wonder how many tiny variations there are of the same story, how many different beauties are sleeping in how many different worlds.
Zellandine lifts the pot from the fire with a fold of her apron and fills our teacups. I’ve read enough fantasy books and spy novels to know better than to drink anything offered to me by an enemy, especially if it smells sweet and inviting, like bruised lavender, but I no longer think Zellandine is our enemy. I curl my fingers around the cup and let the heat of it soak through skin and tendon, right down to the bone.
“Soon enough I caught the eye of the king’s son. I was careful and quiet; I was sure never to tend his rooms when he was present. But one day he returned unexpectedly while I was shoveling the ashes from his hearth. He startled me when he spoke my name, and my heart betrayed me. The last thing I remember is the crack of my skull against the stones.” Zellandine is seated again at the table but she still isn’t looking at us. “When I woke, I was in a bed far grander than any I’d seen before. So wide my hands couldn’t find the edges, so soft I felt I was drowning, suffocated by silk.” Her nostrils flare wide, white-rimmed. “I can still smell it, if I’m not careful. Lye from the castle laundry, rose oil from his skin.”
Right now you’re thinking: this isn’t how the story goes. You might not have a degree in this shit but you’ve seen enough Disney movies and picture books to know there’s supposed to be a handsome prince and true love and a kiss, which can’t be consensual because unconscious people can’t consent, but at least it breaks the curse and the princess wakes up.
But in the very oldest versions of this story—before the Grimms, before Perrault—the prince does far worse than kiss her, and the princess never wakes up.