Sleeping Beauty's Daughters Read Free Page A

so terrible that it made my poor mother faint dead away—just as I did today.”
    Mama paused again. The room was very quiet; even Luna was still. Papa reached across the table and covered Mama’s hand with his, as if to give her strength.
    Mama went on in a low voice. “She put a spell on me, a mere babe in swaddling clothes. ‘Princess Rosamond, you shall be cursed,’ she said. ‘When you reach the age of sixteen, you shall prick your finger and die.’”
    I gasped in shock, my hand flying up to cover my mouth.
    “What a dreadful creature!” Luna cried. Then she paused to think. “But she cannot have been very good at curses, Mama, for here you are, quite alive and well.”
    Mama smiled weakly. Jacquelle came in to remove our soup dishes and serve the meat, and we pretended to apply ourselves to our food until she departed. When she was gone, Mama laid down her fork and spoke again.
    “Everyone was milling about in distress after Manon’s pronouncement. In the confusion, my brother and Emmeline stepped forward to my cradle. Emmeline said, ‘Princess Rosamond shall not die, but shall only fall into a long sleep. And she shall awaken if a prince with a true heart finds her and claims her with a kiss.’”
    “That was you?” I asked Papa. He looked at Mama with an expression of such love that I knew the answer.
    “So it did happen!” Luna clapped her hands. “You pricked your finger, and you fell asleep?”
    “Yes,” Mama replied, “but it did not happen for many years. After the christening and the uproar that followed, the two fairies disappeared. It was not long afterward that my brother disappeared as well.” Tears glistened in Mama’s eyes. “My parents searched for all three far and wide, but they never found a single sign of them. Oh, but they were devastated!
    “Having lost one child, they were terribly afraid of losing me as well. I was closely watched, but I was allowed some friends and went riding and dancing now and then. I also learned practical things—how to spin and weave, though not to sew, for my mother feared needles and pins.”
    Mama’s voice faltered, but she went on. “One day when I was sixteen, my parents were away. They rarely traveled, and when they were gone I missed them very much. I sat in the tower room that afternoon, for I could see the road from its windows, and I wanted to watch for their homecoming. I was spinning silk thread, as I often did, and I pricked my finger on the spindle.”
    “Oh no,” I breathed.
    “It happened just as Manon had foretold. I remember staring at the drop of blood as it fell—how long it seemed to take to reach the floor! And then I felt Sleep overwhelm me.
    “For a time—I could not say how long—I could still sense the world. A spider wove a web above me. A bird called outside my window. Mice skittered across the floor. But at last Sleep claimed me absolutely. And all in the castle slept with me, falling where they stood.”
    We were quiet, trying to imagine this. Then I asked, “How—how long did you sleep?”
    Mama drew a deep, shaky breath and whispered, “Oh, my dearest daughters, I slumbered for one hundred years.”

3
    Of a Tutor and a Tale’s End
    A t that moment, I heard the crunch of wheels on gravel in the distance. It sounded as if a carriage was coming up the long drive—but we had visitors so seldom. I turned to Papa questioningly, and he blinked, as confused as I.
    “Ah, that must be your new tutor, at last!” he said. “I had forgotten completely that he was expected today. Thank goodness—Luna could certainly do with some lessons to keep her out of mischief.”
    “But—,” I started. My mind was still in that tower room, where a young version of Mama slept. Asleep for a century! It was incredible. And there was something more to the tale, it seemed to me. Mama’s uneasiness made that clear. I had to hear the rest.
    Mama rose from the chaise. “My head is aching,” she said fretfully. “I must lie