"Witching Hour - Excerpt" by Gwenivere Stephan

Prologue

It was a dark and stormy night when the feast was being held, the clouds covering the moon and rain splashing the pebbled walkway up to the palace. The windows of the great place were lit and lanterns inside were burning with all their might.

At the dinner table sat a king, a queen, and their daughter, who was very beautiful but not very smart. Beside her sat a foreigner, who was much enthralled by her looks and didn't care very much if her brain was small and weak. He chattered away at her, sighed when she looked away, and felt as though his heart would overflow when she smiled at him.

He was just launching into a speech about silks when the lanterns in the room went dark. There were cries of dismay, but a new light was building before them. The man watched with interest, until the light exploded, and before them stood the glowing figure of a fairy.

The man knew the woman was a fairy, not a witch or some other cruel being, because he had seen many at his home. The princess did not realize this, but was scared anyway.

"Princess," the fairy said cordially.

"No, no!" wailed the queen, who immediately fainted after she called out. Her husband knew better, and simply stared with tight lips and cold eyes.

"Do I know you?" asked the princess quietly.

"Yes indeed! I was at your christening! Do you not remember? I gave you the present of being the best seamstress in all the land," the fairy said. Now the king got to his feet, and immediately fainted. The princess did not seem to notice.

"I never knew that. I heard that an evil fairy cursed me when I was christened to prick my finger on a spindle and fall into a sleep that would last one hundred years and all of my countrymen with me. How odd," the princess said, with a faint smile.

The fairy laughed and waved her hand. A spinning wheel appeared there, and the princess squealed with delight at the prospect of getting a present. She reached out, and her finger gently touched the spindle. A drop of blood welled up, and she cried out.

The fairy and the guests watched as the blood dropped to from her finger, landing directly on the small golden spoon before her. When it fell away, her head drooped, and she began to snore.

The rest of the men and women in the castle fell asleep as well, and even the dogs and cats and birds slept. All over the country people fell to sleep, some drowning, falling, or killing themselves in other inconvenient ways when it happened.

The fairy started to laugh, until she saw the foreigner stand up.

"What?" she cried, but the man had already thrown his dagger. It struck her chest and she fell to the ground in a pile of robes and dark hair. The man looked around, but everyone was still asleep. A thought formed in his mind, and he picked up the sleeping princess and carried her away.

He took her to the edge of her country and his and gently kissed her lips. Her eyes fluttered, and with a strangled gasp she woke up. Immediately she stuck her finger in her mouth.

"I saved your life and country. Now you must marry me," he said. She thought it over and decided he was right.

"Yes, I will marry you," she said. "But we must hide from the evil fairy."

"Don't worry, I killed her," said the man.

"But fairies cannot be killed!" she cried.

"They can't?" this surprised him, for though he knew what one looked like, he had never thought it an important subject to study up on.

"Let us hide in your country, and pretend to be poor, and live happily ever after," she said, and kissed his lips so gently that he agreed immediately.

The rest of the country woke with the second kiss, and the king and queen wailed the loss of their only daughter.

-~-

It was the next year, and the princess was very pregnant. She lived in a small brown cottage in the middle of a field. She had only one neighbor, who had wrapped her house in a tall stone wall. The princess often climbed the wall and looked over in interest, before her stomach grew too big.

Every time she climbed, she saw a beautiful garden. And her eyes were always drawn to a singly flowering plant, which was so pretty that it almost made her cry sometimes.

She wanted to see the flowers very much and her longing quickly grew to owning them. She couldn't eat that night, dreaming of the lovely flowers, and her husband immediately asked what was wrong. She told him the story and begged him to get her the flowers.

"Please," she asked, getting on her knees and clutching his legs. "I need them. I must have them, or throw myself into the first river I come across."

"All right, I'll get them for you," he said, worried that she might actually do some such thing. He loved her very much, blinded by her beauty but also loving the feeling of superiority he felt when she said silly things to him.

He went outside when it grew dark, and climbed the wall. He plucked the plant, and went to climb back over again.

"Halt!" cried a voice, and he turned in surprise. There was the old woman that lived in the house. He knew she was a witch the moment he saw her, for she was stooped and old and had black whiskers on her chin.

"Thief! How dare you come and steal from my garden! I will kill you," she cried, and lifted her finger toward him.

"No! Wait! I get these flowers for my pining wife, who is pregnant and feels ill without the sight of them. Surely some flowers are of no use to someone like you! Let me keep them, and I will give you the child my wife carries instead," he cried, ready to save his own neck.

"Hm," the woman eyed him, and then broke out in a single-toothed smile. She agreed and even helped him over the wall.

He broke the news to his wife immediately, but she was so pleased with the flowers she swore she did not care. When she did have her child, though, it was a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl and she fell in love.

"Do not let that witch take her!" she told her husband.

"All right, I will not," he said, but wasn't sure how he would prevent a witch from getting what he had promised.

The witch came and he told her they had changed their minds. She asked for her flowers, then, but because they had wilted, he could not give them to her.

"I am sorry for you, then," she said, and drew a dagger from her belt. It soared with amazing accuracy and he fell dead. Just before he died, he noted that the dagger was very like the one he used to own. The one that had killed the fairy.

His wife heard footsteps on the stairs, and ran with the babe in her arms to congratulate her husband. The witch greeted her, and took the baby from her.

"No! You can't!" the woman wailed, but the witch ran from the building. Outside, she said a swift word and a pile of rocks fell from the sky and squished the house. The stone wall fell from around the witch's house as well, but she did not mind. As a witch she knew that all things required something else to make them happen.

She kept the baby in her house, feeding her goat's milk. She could not decide on a name, so after three days she finally decided to call her Fanny. She took good care of her, training her to know all sorts of witch things, but the girl never had the evilness in her to be a real witch.

One thing that always annoyed the witch about the girl was her beauty. Her long hair was thick and golden, so the witch rubbed it with dirt and coal to try and make it uglier. Her skin was pale and her complexion good, so the witch made her sit in the sun and burn her face. Her hands were dainty and white, so the witch made her do dishes until they turned red and blistered.

When the girl turned thirteen, however, she fell deeply in love with herself, like all teenagers do, and pushed the witch over the edge.

Figuratively of course.

And that is where the real story begins.