The Sleep of Beauty

[daisyninjagirl]

I wrote this earlier in the year, and sent it to a friend who'd published stories for feedback, and he gave me some very good advice which I find, on reflection, that I very much don't want to take. So for better or worse, here it is as originally written.

The Sleep of Beauty
© Stephanie Pegg, January 2006.
Word Count: 2,717

9 June,
Dearest Mother,

We’ve arrived at a new place, Meling-something. As usual, I can’t understand the locals, but Asfer, who’s our guide, was able to jabber enough that they let us stay the night. They weren’t much interested in trade, though – kept on saying “Neerla, neerla” and shaking their heads. Then they invited us to a party. I think the daughter of the house is coming of age or something. She’s a pretty little thing, though very quiet and shy.

Mister Ford went up to the high table and bowed very politely and asked her to dance, mostly by sign language I gather, and a great sport it was, Mister Ford pushing and pulling her into the right steps, and the young lass giggling till she was pink. I didn’t dance, although some of us others did. The people here are pretty friendly, we’ve all gotten quite drunk in a way that I know would have that little line between your eyebrows showing, and have been making fun of each other’s way of speaking and pointing at things like tables and cups and saying the words for them.

It’s after midnight now I think, and I’m writing this by a stub of candle that’s about to go out. All around me everyone is going to sleep and the house has gone very quiet. Good night, and my love to Margaret and Lucy.

Your son,

Robert

***

10 June,
Dear Mother,

Something is wrong. We all woke up this morning to a quiet house. I mean really quiet. There were no birds, no cows snoring, nobody baking bread. I went through the stables on my way to make a call of nature, and all the animals are asleep except our pack horses.

I found Mister Ford as he was coming out of the main door, and he was shaking his head and looking worried. “They’re all asleep”, he said, “all the people, I can’t wake any of them up.” We were supposed to pack everything and get out as quickly as we could and forget about selling them any spices, but when we tried to open the front gates we couldn’t, not for all of our pushing. Eventually I climbed up to the top of the wall and looked out to see what was blocking it, and Mother you wouldn’t believe – it’s all hedges and thickets and thorns. We walked through those fields yesterday, and they were paddocks with sheep and orchards and that. I don’t understand how anything could grow up so fast. Mister Ford climbed up after me and just stared, shaking his head, for a long long time. Then he made us all go out getting the axes and borrowing the ones from the people who live here.

We had to chop the gate down, which took hours because it was good solid oak, and then start hacking into the thorns. We’ve been working at it all day, and not made any progress at all. If anything, the thorns are higher, starting to come up over the wall and in through the open gate. At the last of it, when the light was going, we made up a barricade to try and keep the things out. Asfer has been screaming and fuming all day, he says he should have known we oughtn’t have come into Mellingsahn, it was the damn (I’m sorry, Mother, but that’s what he said) (I couldn’t make out the word).

We still can’t wake anyone up.

All my love,

Your worried son,

Robert

***

17 June,
Dear Mother,

Well, it’s been very busy week for us here. We’ve spent all of it trying to get through the thorn bushes with axes and lye and salt. Also fire. Everything stinks of the smoke. It’s acrid – makes my eyes sting and water. We’re all of us wandering around with our eyes red, as if we’ve been crying. It isn’t helping so far though, we can make a couple of feet of progress in a day, but in the morning it’s all filled in again.

The thorns have mostly stopped growing. They’re a little over the top of the walls, but if I climb up on the roof of the main house I can see over them a little. There’s a sea of grey all around us. Johno tried shooting a bird from the roof, but it fell on the thorns and ended up dying with finger length spikes through it. I’m not even sure I can remember where the road lies now. As you can understand, you won’t be getting any of these letters until we’ve made it out of here and I can find someone heading homewise, but I’ll keep writing them anyway and hope that there’s a happy ending soon.

The people who live here are still asleep. We tried things like yelling and shaking them, sticking needles under their fingernails, sounding whopping great trumpets next to their ears, but they all went on snoring. Every now and again someone will sigh a little, but that’s about it. We tried feeding some of them gruel, but it just made a lot of mess and I don’t think the sleepers actually got any of it. They seem to be doing alright though – after seven days no-one seems to have lost any weight or need water or like that. We settled for putting the ones that weren’t already in bed back in bed and leaving them be. We found the little girl whose birthday it was, too, not tucked up in her chamber like she ought to have been, but grimy and curled up in a corner in one of the attics. She was holding a spindle, as if she’d been learning how to spin. It looks as if she cut her hand on it, too, but we cleaned that up with the rest of her and put her to bed with the others.

All my love,

Robert

***

9 July,
Dearest Mother,

It’s been a month now since we’ve been trapped here, and things still aren’t looking up. Everyone is very very tired, except for Mister Ford who is a well of boundless energy at all times. (I think maybe he’s as tired as the rest of us, but too proud to show it.) He spent a long time talking to Asfer about what he thought had happened, which meant lots of gesturing and sign language and, in the end, fairy stories. Asfer is saying that a bad fairy must have taken a dislike to the people who live here and is punishing them. Mister Ford says that’s daft, there’s just some kind of sickness, and I agree with him, except I still don’t understand about the thorns. Anyway, Mister Ford has been full of ideas on how to get out, or at least to send a message that we’re here. The latest one was to build a kite and fly it off the top of the house with a note. It ought to have worked, but the wind was bad that day and it ended up crashing into the thorn bushes. I’m working on building a new one that will fly better. It will be blue silk with a tail made of red and yellow ribbon. (That’s for Lucy, who is certain to ask.)

Foodwise we’re still alright. The fresh stuff didn’t last very long, so some of us have taken to gardening, and it’s working out well. It turns out that one of the mares is in foal, which will mean fresh milk after the cows stop producing. It never before occurred to me that you need a bull (who is awake) in order to get milk. Milking a cow that is fast asleep and lying on her side is a very strange thing, let me tell you. Some of our horses have started to pick up this sleeping sickness. The first we knew of it, one collapsed while Johno was grooming her and broke his arm. He yelled like anything, but we think he will heal alright. Once again, alas, we don’t know why the mare is asleep and we don’t know how to wake her.

(Later)
Tonight we had a party. I think it was Mister Ford’s idea to cheer everybody up. We all borrowed nice clothes from our gentle hosts and played songs from home (quite badly) and even brought down some of the ladies and pretended to dance with them. It was very silly but also very … calming, I suppose you could say.

Good night,

Robert
***

14 October,
Dear Mother,

Today was a very bad day.

Three of the handlers – Midge, Garrick and Nad - have gone mad. They got drunk on ale and a barrel of wine they found in the cellar and started talking about the women who are asleep. They said – I don’t want to say what they said. It ended up being me stopping them going up the stairs while Johno ran for help. But it’s alright, I held them off until Mister Ford got there with the rest of us guards and we managed to grapple them down. Mister Ford beat them into a pulp when he got them on the floor, I’ve never seen him so angry. Then he made us carry all the sleepers into one wing of the house and lock all the doors. We had to barricade everything in sight, and then he threw the keys as far into the thorns as he could. He said, “Whatever else we are, we are gentlemen, and there are things that we will not do.” That made me feel a lot better, although I am in a very lonely state of mind, right now.

I am alright, and you must tell everyone that. I have many bruises and I think a cracked rib, but I will certainly heal. Also it gets me off digging duty – right now we’re working on a tunnel.

Love,

Robert

***

1 May,
Dearest Mother,

It’s May Day! I can’t believe it’s Spring already. Right now I’m picturing you and the girls all dressed up in your poshest dresses braiding the flower garlands that you all picked last night and getting ready to visit the May Pole. I’ve been describing all of this to the others and they are quite jealous. I only have to close my eyes to taste your special tarts.

It’s very odd, the Spring around here. The snows went away sooner than I’m used to, and the flowers that grow are quite different from home and much more colourful. Bright blues and reds mostly – they stand out a lot more than our modest little snowbells. Asfer found a book in the library that showed pictures of all the plants from around here and read out the names to me, although I can’t remember them well enough to write down for you. I’ve made some sketches for you at the back of the letter though. The colour of the light is different, too, more yellowy, and the summer days aren’t so long. The winter days haven’t been so short, though, so I guess we won something along the way.

The tunnel didn’t work out in the end, although we gave it a good try. We couldn’t get enough wood to support the ceiling and had a couple of cave-ins that nearly suffocated people. The second time was Mister Ford, and I think it was only that he had to sit in the dark for four hours while we hurriedly tried to dig him out that convinced him to try something else. The next project is a sort of artificial bird, big enough to carry someone who can steer, that we are to launch off the highest part of the wall. It’s been Asfer and Mister Ford’s special project for months now, them being very careful with how they design it and all. I do not want to be the person who tries it out.

May you have a very wonderful May Day and my love, as always, to you, Lucy and Margaret.

Robert.

***

10 May,

Dear Mother,

The sickness has started to spread. All our horses went to sleep many months ago (we’ve been using this sort of milk made up out of ground almonds, if you’re interested), but now it’s happening to people as well. First it was those three we picked up on the border – you remember – Nad and his cronies. For a month or so they kept on waking up later and later in the day, no matter how often they were given punishment duties for slackness, and then they’d fall asleep right in the middle of doing something and we’d have to wake them up. But now we can’t wake them at all, and have had to put them to bed permanently. I’m worried about Asfer, too, as he seems to be sleeping longer than usual as well. Mister Ford, of course, wakes before the sun, and Johno and I have been trying to follow his example. “Strong mindedness and clean living”, he says, “is the key to a healthy life.”

Thinking of you always,

Robert

***

1 June,
Dear Mother,

Two years already. I still think of you and home very often and wonder how you all are. Our numbers are much diminished, sadly; all of the handlers and some of our guards have fallen to the sickness, so we’ve had to tuck them up and hope for the best. Johno and I, and of course the redoubtable Mister Ford, are all doing well, and have an ingenious plan of new and exciting cunningness on the go. It’s a secret, though, as we want to surprise the other guards with a success story. (It has to do with stilts.)

Love

Robert
***
1 June
Dear Mother,

It has been almost five years to the day now since we came to this land called Melisant.

I realised a little while ago that both Lucy and Margaret will have grown up and gotten married by now. I hope that you found them good decent husbands who will look after them properly. I’d meant to be there to help, and I wish that I could have sent you money, but, well, things don’t always go according to plan, do they? I also hope that you are well and that the girls are taking care of everything for you.

I’m sitting on the roof right now, catching birds. There’s a trick to it, to shoot them so that they’ll land in the courtyard and not on the thorn field. Some of the men used to tie strings to their arrows, but I’ve always found that that made them much less accurate. Johno went to sleep a month ago, and I miss him very greatly. It was a good thing to have someone from our home town to talk to and remember what it was like. It’s just me and Mister Ford now, and though he is very kind to me, it’s not the same. He has gone a lot greyer, and I don’t really want to think about what I look like now. Probably quite unrecognisable and tattered. All our clothes have worn out, and we’ve also worked through all of the ready made cloth to patch things with, so I’ve been learning how to spin. It’s made me appreciate how much you and the girls did, always quietly sitting in a corner working away. I expect soon I’ll be figuring out how to weave, which would very much have me laughed at back at home, but it can be just our secret.

I don’t think I’ve ever told you how beautiful the thorn field is. It’s not just grey, but has all these subtle blues and purples running through it. In the spring, the new buds come out in a wash of pale green and yellow, and always at this time in the evening when the light goes golden the whole field glows. It’s so lovely that I almost wish you could see it.

The light has is nearly gone now, though, and I think I’ll go to bed early tonight. Sleep well,

Your loving son,

Robert.

Comments

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

You finally wrote it!

It's good.

The ending is very sad though, and feels a bit unresolved. Your call as writer.

[(Anonymous)]

I was trying to imply that he was about to fall asleep permanently as well, as he'd finally started to feel at home there. But I didn't want to hit readers with a brick about it.

[house-monkey.livejournal.com]

That was my impression. Me smrt guy. Creepy image of them dancing with the sleepers though.

[adrexia.livejournal.com]

I think "I think I’ll go to bed early tonight", was a pretty good clue. :)

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, but him just going to sleep feels very unresolved to me. But I can't think of a better way to end it, so sucks to be me.

[mashugenah.livejournal.com]

In a fundamental way: it is unresolved. The sleepers are not discussed as dying, quite the reverse. They are sustained by the magic which binds them. In classic fairy-tale style, this is the bit usually covered by the exposition. Now we're looking for a handsome prince to kiss the sleeping beauty. :)

[dariyan.livejournal.com]

I really like this. But I have to say I didn't quite get the meaning of the ending till you pointed it out... perhaps it needs just one more short letter to bash it into the heads of us simple folk.

[mashugenah.livejournal.com]

Nah, I think the ambiguity suits better with the unexplained phenomenon and the patchwork understanding of the situation that you always get with such letters. Any "explanation" of the end would involve interjecting a narrator, which is heavy-handed compared to the subtlty of the rest.