One Might See It That Way

Once upon a time there were three princesses who, due to tragic fate, were living in squalor in a cabin deep in an enchanted forest, and had no idea they were princesses. It all happened like this.

The King and Queen had been married for a long time, but had not had any children. They despaired of ever having any heirs and that the alliance between their families would collapse, and their families would go to war. So one day on the 7th anniversary of their childless marriage, the Queen went to the one place the King had told her never to go. She went to the home of the evil witch Ravella.

“Your majesty,” Ravella greeted her guest and motioned her to a chair.

“To what do I owe the pleasure? Let me guess.”

Ravella sat down opposite the wordless Queen and stared into the glowing orb in front of her with pretend concentration. She had waited for this moment for so long.

Unbeknowst to the Queen, there was a time when a young prince and the young maiden Ravella had known each other, secretly and passionately. But she was a commoner, and though she was carrying his child, he could not marry her, but had to marry a princess chosen for him. Ravella had wept unconsolably for seven days and nights and her unborn child died in the womb. Heartbroken she set out to learn the skills of witchcraft.

“You want a child,” she finally said.

The Queen nodded tearfully.

“It will cost you,” Ravella said.

Doesn’t it always? the Queen thought in her head.

The Queen waited, her foot twitching impatiently. She was eager to return to the castle so the King would never know she had been here.

Ravella opened a cupboard and found the right one for the Queen, an unassuming blue glass bottle.

“I can give you what you want, but you must give me something I want.”

“Anything, its yours.”

“Take a sip of this potion tonight before you go to bed and in nine months you will give birth to a child. You have three months after the child is born to get the King to publicly declare that you are his one and only true love. If he does not, then you will switch places with me. And you must tell no one of our arrangement.”

The Queen nodded, grabbed the bottle, and ran out the door and back to the castle. That night before she slipped into bed with the King, she opened the bottle to take a sip. The King had never said he loved her, in fact she was pretty sure he had loved someone before he had married her. But if she gave him a child, maybe he would finally declare his love. She took a couple extra sips of potion just to be sure.

And sure enough, nine months later the Queen gave birth to three princesses. The King and Queen were over the moon. He spent all the time he could with his three princesses - Guinevere, Adelaide, and Katherine.

On the day before the princesses’ three month birthday celebration, the Queen whispered into the King’s ear. “I have given you three princesses. Tell all the kingdom that I am your one and only true love.” She said nothing about the witch or the potion. “Please,” she implored until the King finally relented and told the lie.

“You cheated!” screamed Ravella in a rage.

“One might see it that way,” the Queen responded.

“You shall be punished” Ravella screamed and waved her magic wand at the Queen, the King, and the baby princesses and the castle they called home. The spell made the King and Queen go insane, running out of the castle and into the forest clutching their three baby girls and trying to escape the madness in their heads.

When they were almost dead from exhaustion, the King and Queen stumbled upon an abandoned woodcutter’s cabin deep in the forest. There was water and food, warm blankets and beds, and soon the King and Queen regained their strength and made a new, humble home for their three little girls – Gwen, Addy, and Kate. But the witch’s spell was strong, erasing the King’s memory of his royal title and the Queen became mute, unable to explain what happened or her role in it. The Queen fell into a depressed state, wishing she had never met the witch. She soon died from heartbreak.

The King learned how to cut wood and traveled to nearby towns to sell kindling so he could buy food and clothing for his family. He didn’t remember who he was or how he came to be at the cabin in the woods. Sometimes at night when he had been drinking too much grog, he would mumble about being a king. His daughters would pat him on the head and gently lead him to his bed. By morning he would have forgotten.

The three little girls spent their days playing in the woods. As they got older, they explored more and more. Little Kate found a book of fairy tales buried under a pile of abandoned books in the adjoining woodshed and fantasized about sometime finding a prince charming and becoming a princess.

Meanwhile, Ravella, who had expended all her magical powers on the extreme curse on the kingdom, needed one more bit of magic to complete her plan to take over the kingdom. She sought out the only fairy in the land who might help her, Aerwyna.

Aerwyna lived in an enchanted grotto by the sea, far away from the other fairies of the land. Many years ago Aerwyna had used her power for evil – just once, a youthful experiment – but the other fairies had voted to banish her. “You must use your magic for good, a great good, and then you can return,” the fairies told her. But she didn’t know how to do that, so she lived in seclusion, wishing for something important to do.

Aerwyna now lived three days journey away from the fairy grove where other fairies spun beautiful magic and made the world a better place. Aerwyna was morally compromised, depressed, and in need of friends. That was the perfect recipe for the witch.

As the witch suspected, Aerwyna was thrilled at her surprise visitor, even if she was a witch. The witch flattered and cajoled, finally asking for a magic potion that would make her look like the Queen. With a few waves and flourishes and secret ingredients the potion was complete.

“Three drops in your afternoon tea, and you shall be Queen forever,” Aerwyna declared. “But there is a price.”

Isn’t there always? The witch thought, but remained silent.

“On the twelfth day of each new year, you must return and visit with me, or you will be returned to your witch form.”

“Fine, fine” the witch responded, snatching the magic potion from her hands. “See you in a year.”

The witch, now looking like the Queen, returned to the castle and declared to all that the King had gone mad and died in the woods, and that the three princesses had drowned in the sea. She declared a day of mourning for each – the King, Guinevere, Adelaide, and Katherine – and then proceeded to rule the kingdom as her own.

And so it went from year to year, the witch masquerading as Queen, and each year, on the twelfth day, she visited Aerwyna for a new supply of magic potion. Aerwyna let the witch believe they were friends, but was secretly horrified by the stories of what she did as Queen. She wondered if the actual King and Queen and their three beautiful daughters were still alive somewhere.

Meanwhile, Gwen, Addy and Kate spent their days exploring the enchanted forest, straying further and further away from the former woodcutter’s cabin the bolder they got. They found interesting things, but never told their father. They found a gingerbread house in the woods, portions of it eaten by hungry children, they assumed. But it had an evil and deadly aura about it, like somebody had died there. They thought it best to stay away. There surely must be a story behind that, but they were okay not knowing it. They found an unusually tall beanstalk that seemed so tall it could reach into the heavens, and there were good feathers scattered around the base. They were tempted to climb up, but then thought better of it. Another day they spied a cottage with a beautiful young girl snacking on an apple, and seven dwarf-sized chairs sitting nearby. She seemed so nice, and they would have loved to make a new friend, but they thought better of that too.

One day the girls strayed further than they had ever gone, this time all the way to the edge of the enchanted forest, and to their surprise, at the edge of the sea. And there, in the distance, they spied a little purple cottage that was too irresistible to ignore. As they approached it they saw it’s delightful garden with flowers and butterflies and dragonflies. It seemed so inviting, so harmless, especially when its a beautiful fairy opened the front door.

“Come in for tea, my name is Aerwyna” she beckoned and they did without a further thought.

The tea turned a stunning violet color when they added honey and lemon.

“Magic tea?” Kate asked.

“No,” the fairy laughed, “just a special flower I found.”

They chatted, sipped tea, and ate tea cakes all afternoon. The girls talked about their cozy home in the woods, and the fairy talked about her isolated existence. As the sun began to set, the girls bid their adieus and promised to come visit again soon.

As they trudged back to the cabin, Kate’s mind was busy, very busy. A fairy. A new friend. Fairies could grant wishes, couldn’t they? Create magic potions. Kate wanted it all, or maybe just a piece of it. What if …? Her ideas were spinning around and around as she walked. By the time she got home she had a plan, a masterplan, for her family. She would have Aerwyna cast a spell that would turn her family into the royal family.

Meanwhile, Aerwyna was thinking, processing, planning. Was it her imagination or did her new friends look exactly like the three missing princesses of the kingdom? What had she done by giving Ravella the potion to make her look like the Queen? Could she make this right, do a great good, and finally be able to return to her fairy family? She made a plan.

For the next several weeks, Kate would sneak over the Aerwyna’s cottage as often as should could. They would share tea and scones and discuss magic and castles and princesses, everything from Kate’s book, and Aerwyna’s memory, and each tried to work up the nerve to ask for a favor.

Finally, it was Kate.

“Fairies can perform magic, right? You can perform magic, right?”

“I can. What is it you would like my dear friend?”

“Can you make my father the King, just for a day, and me and my sisters princesses, all living in a castle together? I would like that happy memory to share for the rest of our lives.”

“I can do that,” Aerwyna smiled and pulled out her well-worn potion recipe book.

“Is there a price?” Kate asked. Every story seemed to have one.

“There’s always seems to be, doesn’t there? It’s nothing really. I just want your father to give me a royal pardon.” she gave a knowing smile. “Also, I need to deliver the potion to you in person in a few days. Draw me a map to get to your cabin.”

Kate scampered home with her secret. A couple of days later was the eleventh day of the year and Aerwyna packed up a bag and headed into the enchanted forest to find the woodcutter and his daughters.

To keep Kate’s secret, Aerwyna simply pretended to be a traveling fairy with botanical drinks for the forest dwellers. The father and all three girls gratefully drank the sparkling potion and immediately were transformed into a King and three beautiful princesses entering the gates of the castle.

Meanwhile, the witch arrived for her yearly visit at Aerwyna’s cottage on the twelfth day of the year, only to find it locked up and the fairy nowhere to be found. Ravella waited, and waited, and waited. Nightfall came and she still waited as the moon crossed the night sky and eventually the stars are blotted out by the rising sun.

By the time Aerwyna returned returned, it was the thirteenth day of the month.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Ravella sputtered. “Give me my potion.”

“But its not the twelfth day of the month. You are no longer the Queen, and the King and his daughters have been returned to the castle.”

“You cheated!” the witch hissed.

“One might see it that way,” Aerwyna calmly responded and closed the door in her face.

The witch pulled her riding habit up over her head and galloped off back to the castle. If I just hide my face, nobody will notice I’m not the Queen, she thought, but as she drew near the castle it was apparent that the gig was up. Town criers had flooded through the nearby hamlets sharing the good news. “The King has returned, along with the princesses. The evil Queen has vanished.”

Meanwhile at the castle, the father dons royal robes and takes his place as King in the throne room, first pardoning the banished fairy Aerwyna, and then welcoming in the peasants to hear their requests. Kate wanders through the castle, eventually ending up in the royal library. A royal history book catches her eye. There she learns something curious. Twenty years ago, a witch cast a powerful spell on this very castle, making the King and Queen go mad and run out into the forest clutching their three young daughters, named Guinevere, Adelaide, and Katherine.

Wait, Gwen, Addy and Kate? Lost princesses? She hadn’t needed any fairy magic to become royalty. They were already royalty.

Kate was not happy as she ran over to find Aerwyna.

“You cheated! We were already the royal family” she said.

“One might see it that way,” Aerwyna winked and motioned for Kate to sit down for tea.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please.” Kate selected the biggest slice of cake for herself and nibbled and sipped the afternoon away with Aerwyna and stories of the wicked witch Ravella who had cast an evil spell, now thwarted by Aerwyna.

“Do you think what I did was a great good?” Aerwyna finally asks. “I’d like to go and see my fairy family.”

Kate nodded.

“Go and live happily ever after!” she smiled as her new friend returned to the fairy’s glen.

Copyright 2023 Melody A. Kramer - entry for NYCMidnight Short Story Competition