The Curse of Maleficent Page 4

  There was a rush of magic and the air shimmered. When it cleared, the tiny flower pixies were no longer small. They were the size of regular humans. The only pixie-like aspects about them were their wings and pointed ears. But, Knotgrass told herself, those could easily be hidden from Aurora.

  “Now there will be no questions asked,” Knotgrass said as Flittle and Thistlewit gawked at their new bodies. “We are no longer faeries. We are three peasant women raising an orphan child in the wood. So no more flying.”

  “No flying?” Thistlewit repeated.

  Knotgrass nodded. “And no magic!”

  Pleased with herself, Knotgrass stepped up into the wagon. The other two pulled their awkward new bodies into the back with Aurora. Knotgrass urged the horse forward, and they resumed their journey. Now they just had to find a home.

  had been making their way through the woods for hours, looking for a place to call home. Sure, there were some nice spots. They had passed a lovely lake, its shores lined with smooth rocks and a small waterfall cascading down on one end. They had seen several clearings surrounded by tall trees that provided ample shade. There had been a glen surrounded by berry bushes that would have provided plenty of food.

  Yet there was not one spot that could provide shelter unless they used magic to create a house. Sure, they’d lived outdoors for many years back in the Moors. But now that they were used to the luxuries of the indoors, they didn’t want to go back to that kind of life. It was bad enough they didn’t get to live in a castle anymore. Knotgrass was tempted to conjure up a grand home, complete with elegant furniture, large closets, and perhaps even a nursery for the baby. But they were not to use magic. So they remained homeless. It would be a miracle if they found something with four walls and a roof. It was awfully annoying.

  Finally, Knotgrass saw a clearing through the thick trees. Could it be? Did she see stones peeking through the brush? The kind that were formed into a home of some sort? Oh, please be something comfortable. With just a hint of luxury, Knotgrass thought.

  Trying not to get her hopes up, she urged the horse forward. When they arrived in the clearing, Knotgrass let out a sigh of relief. She smiled bravely at Thistlewit and Flittle.

  “I think we’re here,” Knotgrass announced, gesturing toward the glen.

  Together, the three pixies climbed out of the wagon and looked around. In the middle of the clearing stood an abandoned cottage. Its roof was covered in dead leaves and the windows were filthy. What once must have been a little garden was overgrown with weeds, and the remains of a clothesline sagged by the far side of the house. Knotgrass sighed. So much for luxury. It wasn’t in the best of shape, but it would have to work. They hadn’t seen any other cottages on the journey, after all.

  Knotgrass walked over to the home and gingerly pushed open the front door. Instantly, she sneezed as a wave of dust hit her nose. When her sneezing fit was over, she peered inside.

  There was one big room with a long table in the middle of it and a small fireplace in the corner. On the far wall, a set of stairs led up to what Knotgrass imagined was a loft of some kind, and she could make out the door to what had to be the bedroom.

  “This will have to do,” she said. “Welcome home, ladies.”

  Knotgrass had never been so tired in her entire life. She had never been so dreadfully filthy, either. Not even when they’d lived outside. And now that they were living in the cottage, they wanted to make sure it felt like they were actually living in a cottage, not a box of dirt.

  The three pixies had spent the whole afternoon scrubbing and sweeping, washing and wiping. Every surface had been covered in dust. The bedroom downstairs had leaves on the floor, and in the loft upstairs, cobwebs hung from every corner. Talk about disgusting. It had taken all her willpower not to just snap her fingers and magically clean the cottage until it sparkled. But she hadn’t done that. She needed to lead by example and it would do no good to cave so soon after they had arrived.

  Finally, when everything was as clean as it was going to get for the time being, Knotgrass headed outside, grabbed the basket, and brought Aurora into the cottage. She placed the baby on a low table underneath one of the windows. Then she went in search of a glass of water. All that cleaning had made her absolutely parched.

  Behind her, she heard Aurora cooing and gurgling happily. It was a pleasant sound and Knotgrass found herself smiling. Raising this delightful little thing was going to be easy. Then the baby began to cry.

  Knotgrass rushed over to the table, Thistlewit and Flittle following suit. They stood around the basket, looking at the baby in confusion.

  “Why is she crying?” Flittle asked.

  Knotgrass rolled her eyes. The answer was obvious. Why did she have to be the one to think of everything? “She’s hungry,” she replied. “Give her some fruit.”

  The issue dealt with, Knotgrass began to walk out of the cottage. Behind her, Thistlewit and Flittle looked at each other and shrugged. They grabbed an apple, an orange, and a banana from the bowl on the table and plopped all three into the basket with Aurora. Then they, too, walked away.

  In her basket, Aurora’s tiny fingers tried to close around the fruit but it was no use. The food was too big. Opening her mouth wide, she began to cry even louder.

  Knotgrass was annoyed. She was living in a tiny cottage in the middle of the woods, and sleeping on a rough cot next to Thistlewit and Flittle, who both had the tendency to snore. She hadn’t had a decent meal in hours. And worse still, Aurora would not stop crying.

  She had cried when they had given her fruit. She had cried when they had placed a glass of water beside her in case she was thirsty. She had cried when they picked her up. She had cried when they put her down. For a brief, blissful moment, she had stopped crying while they ate their own dinners. But then Aurora had started wailing again and she hadn’t stopped since.

  Now it was the wee hours of the morning and Knotgrass’s head was pounding. The others kept looking to her to give them orders, but she had no idea what to do. Not that she would admit that to them.

  She had never taken care of a baby in her life, let alone a human baby. She had never realized just how frustrating they could be! What had the king been thinking when he’d forced this task upon them? Did he know it was going to be a special form of torture?

  On the cot next to hers, Thistlewit groaned and pulled the covers up over her head. Flittle placed her head under her pillow and let out a muffled scream. Finally, all three of them sat up. Bleary-eyed, they made their way into the main room, where Aurora lay screaming in her cradle.

  “Stop crying, baby!” Thistlewit pleaded. “What do you want from us?”

  “All she thinks about is herself,” Flittle added.

  Thistlewit nodded. “I’m going mad.”

  Knotgrass looked down at the little baby, amazed at how something so small could be so loud. And so selfish. She just wanted to get some sleep. If Aurora could stop crying for even a few hours, maybe Knotgrass wouldn’t fantasize about walking out the door and leaving the pixies and the baby behind for good. But she was sure Stefan would find her, and after their last interaction, it was clear she did not want to be on his bad side.

  Knotgrass circled the wailing baby, squinting at it with distaste. The problem was she didn’t have the slightest idea what Aurora was crying about.

  And wasn’t she supposed to be a happy child because of the gift Flittle had bestowed upon her? She must not have done it right—not that that was any surprise. Sighing, Knotgrass turned and went back into the bedroom. Thistlewit and Flittle followed shortly after.

  The pixies crawled back into their cots, covering their ears. Eventually, Thistlewit and Flittle fell into a restless sleep, their loud snores competing with Aurora’s cries. Knotgrass’s eyes widened and twitched every few minutes. This simply would not do. She needed her beauty sleep, after all
.

  As the sun began to creep up over the horizon, Knotgrass lay stiffly in bed, every muscle tense. Aurora’s cries were hoarse, but the small princess continued wailing nevertheless. And then, suddenly, the baby grew quiet.

  Knotgrass held her breath, waiting. Aurora was probably just catching her breath, she thought. She was going to start again in earnest any minute now. A minute passed. Then five. Then fifteen. Still, no crying.

  Curious, Knotgrass got out of bed and quietly tiptoed into the main room. Looking over at the cradle, she could just make out the tiny baby. Aurora was asleep on her back. Her little fingers were closed around her blanket and one thumb had made its way into her mouth.

  Knotgrass smiled and began to tiptoe back to her bed. But then she paused. As she looked over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed. The cradle, which earlier hadn’t been moving, was now rocking ever so gently, its motion the key to Aurora’s sleep.

  That’s odd, Knotgrass thought. How could it rock on its own? She sniffed the air. Something smelled different. Like flowers and earth. Like how the Moors used to smell, actually. Then she shrugged. What did it matter? It was probably just the wind blowing in through the open window. And Aurora was finally asleep—which meant Knotgrass could sleep as well.

  Getting into her cot, she pulled the covers up and closed her eyes. They had gotten through the first day. Barely. But they had gotten through it. And without using magic, no less. Now they just had another sixteen years to go.

  passed. In the castle, King Stefan waged a losing war against Maleficent. He ordered ironsmiths to craft large plates of solid iron that he placed on his castle walls. Iron, the only thing that could hurt Maleficent, became his obsession. Then he ordered his army to attack the Thorn Wall she’d created to separate the Moors from the human world. But it was useless; the Thorn Wall proved to be impenetrable. Queen Leila slowly withered away, her heart broken beyond repair. The kingdom became a sad place, one divided by massive walls of thorn and iron. No one laughed. No one played.

  In the cottage in the middle of the woods, things were very different. The cottage was a place of laughter and life. At least, Aurora laughed—and grew. No longer a tiny baby, the toddler smiled as she wandered about the clearing on a sunny winter day. She giggled as she explored the garden in the spring. In the summer, she laughed as she played with the laundry lying in the basket near the clothesline. She clapped her hands in delight when she spotted a flower budding. With each passing day, she was becoming more charming and more perfect.

  While most mothers would be thrilled to have a child like Aurora, Knotgrass, Thistlewit, and Flittle were not most mothers. They weren’t mothers at all, and they acted accordingly. Knotgrass ignored Aurora when she tried to show her drawings of flowers or creatures that looked remarkably like a strange horned figure and a raven. Flittle pretended not to feel it when the little girl tugged at the bottom of her dress, wanting to play. Sitting outside in the afternoon sun, Thistlewit closed her eyes and pretended to sleep when Aurora toddled over and tried to sit in her lap.

  When Aurora mumbled her first word, Knotgrass shrugged, and when the princess began to put sentences together, saying odd words like “shadow,” they didn’t even praise her for being such a smart little girl. As long as the princess stayed within the confines of the clearing, her “aunts”—they had decided that was the safest thing to call themselves—didn’t care what she did. They had promised King Stefan they would keep Aurora hidden until the day after her sixteenth birthday. They hadn’t promised to enjoy doing it. And as the years passed, more often than not, Knotgrass found herself chafing at the constraints of living in the middle of the woods.

  One afternoon, Knotgrass sat at the table, absently staring at the card game in front of her. She was bored. They had spent the morning giving Aurora a bath, which had resulted in a near flood, since the little girl found it wildly entertaining to splash about madly. Then they had had to pick berries for that evening’s pie, and after that, they had gathered firewood for the upcoming winter. All in all, it had been a rather dull day, and Knotgrass found herself longing for the event-filled days of castle life more and more.

  Next to her, Flittle was clearly bored as well. She idly picked at a loose thread on her dress. Soon she grew tired of that and lifted her feet up. “I hate my feet,” she said, waving them in the air. “I had such pretty little feet.”

  “I miss my wings,” Thistlewit said, sighing. Then she looked over at Knotgrass hopefully. “Aurora’s sleeping. Can we take our wings out? Just for a little while?”

  Knotgrass was quiet for a moment. It had been ages since they had released their wings. “Oh, all right,” Knotgrass said, smiling. “Release them, ladies! Fly!”

  Letting out an excited little squeal, Thistlewit scrunched her eyes tight. There was a pop and she craned her neck, eager to see her wings again. Her face fell. Her wings had released, but instead of human-sized ones, two tiny pixie-sized wings fluttered on her back. Next to her, Flittle and Knotgrass did the same, with the same result.

  Taking a step forward, Knotgrass attempted to fly. But it was no use. She was too big and her wings too small. She hovered in the air for a brief moment before crashing to the floor. As she dropped her head into her hands, Thistlewit and Flittle began to cry.

  As if on cue, from her room upstairs, Aurora began to cry as well. Knotgrass sighed. The child’s sixteenth birthday couldn’t come soon enough.

  Summer had come to the woods. The trees’ branches hung heavy with bright green leaves. Herbs and vegetables filled the garden, creating tidy rows of parsley and rosemary, tomatoes, and peas. At the edge of the clearing, wildflowers appeared almost overnight, their long stems reaching for the sun. Nearly every day was bright and warm, the sky a brilliant blue and the clouds a striking white.

  Three-year-old Aurora, who had spent much of the past season cooped up in the house while her aunts did their annual spring-cleaning, was a bundle of energy. She raced between the garden and the cottage. She threw herself down on the ground, oblivious to the grass stains marking her dress, and soaked up the sun. She was absolutely joyous, and the effect was contagious. Even the cranky Knotgrass found herself humming a tune as she worked in the garden one afternoon. And when Aurora asked, in her lilting little voice, if they could go play in the meadow, Knotgrass couldn’t say no.

  That was how they found themselves, in the middle of the warm afternoon, having a picnic in a large open meadow. Having made themselves comfortable on a plaid blanket, Knotgrass, Thistlewit, and Flittle settled in to enjoy their meal. Behind them they could hear Aurora chattering to herself as she waddled through the tall grass. “Pretty birdy,” Knotgrass heard the young girl say. “Pretty, pretty birdy.” Looking over her shoulder, the pixie expected to see a bluebird or even a hummingbird. But instead she saw an ugly black raven. The little girl was reaching out toward it, a big smile on her face.

  Knotgrass sighed. Aurora could be such a strange child sometimes. This wasn’t the first time she had seen her talking to a raven. Knotgrass knew there was little chance it was the same bird, but Aurora always called them the same thing: “pretty.” Knotgrass thought of correcting her on occasion. After all, the bird was anything but pretty. In fact, she remembered, Maleficent had an ugly raven of her own. That proved they were distasteful creatures. But Knotgrass just didn’t have the energy to reprimand Aurora. If the little princess wanted to make friends with strange creatures, so be it—as long as it meant she entertained herself and left Knotgrass alone.

  Turning her attention back to the others, Knotgrass was just in time to hear Thistlewit let out a yelp. “Ow!” the pixie cried. Then, as Knotgrass watched in confusion, Thistlewit reached out and pulled Flittle’s hair.

  “Ow!” cried Flittle. In turn, she reached out and pulled Knotgrass’s hair.

  “Ow!” shouted Knotgrass, holding a hand up to her head. What was going on? Why had th
ey started pulling each other’s hair? She had been looking right at Flittle when Thistlewit let out her first cry. Flittle’s hands had been full of grapes. There was no way she could have pulled the other pixie’s hair. But if Flittle didn’t do it and I didn’t do it, Knotgrass thought, who did?

  She opened her mouth to try to get the other two to stop fighting when Thistlewit gave her hair a nasty tug. Her eyes teared and she frowned. That was it. With a roar, Knotgrass lunged to her feet and began pulling hair left and right. In moments, the three were caught up in a full-blown hair-tugging tangle.

  As the tugging turned into pinching, out of the corner of her eye Knotgrass saw that the raven Aurora had been playing with earlier had flown right next to them. The bird was cawing wildly and flapping its wings. It was almost as if the raven was trying to tell the pixies something important. But it’s just a silly bird, Knotgrass thought. It can’t tell us anything worth listening to. Reaching out a hand, she tried to shoo the creature away, but it wouldn’t move. It hopped between the three of them, cawing loudly. Just as she was about to turn on the bird and start tugging at its feathers, it flew away.

  By the time the tugging war ended, the three pixies were out of breath and completely disheveled. It was only then that Knotgrass remembered Aurora. They had forgotten that the little princess was wandering about on her own. Standing up, Knotgrass scanned the meadow. Aurora wasn’t by the trees that lined the near side of the grassy knoll. She wasn’t by the small stream on the west side or the raspberry bushes on the east side. With a growing sense of dread, Knotgrass turned toward the far side of the meadow, where the grass dropped off into a rocky, steep cliff. One wrong step could send a three-year-old plummeting over. Her eyes raced along the edge. And then Knotgrass let out a relieved sigh.