A creak of hinges and the thick slab of iron-bound wood edges back an inch. Alistair nearly drops the axe on my head. The gap inches wider, its whine of unoiled metal scraping along my spine.
One eye peers at us, just above the handle. Alistair shrinks back. “What the?—”
“At last, you come. One survived!”
The creature’s voice sounds ancient. Her rheumy eye squints at me, then widens.
“Two! Ah! That is why you made it farther than all the others. Teamwork makes the dream work.”
Alistair and I exchange a look.
“Come, come. There is no time to waste. We must get you to the sleeping maiden so you can awaken her with a kiss.”
I snort.
“You do not believe that a kiss can break the curse?”
“Don’t take it personally. I don’t believe in much.”
“I do not care how you awaken the girl, only that you do it, and quickly. Quickly!”
She shuffles along, pulling herself up the railing with gnarled hands. She’s dressed in rags and walks with a decided limp, leading us along a passageway lit by candles fastened to the stone with iron hooks.
“Who are you?” Alistair asks, “Where are you taking us?”
“To the maiden, so you can wake her up and free me from this burden!” the crone fists her rags, shaking them.
“I suppose you’ll transform into a beautiful woman once she wakes up?” He nudges me. “One for me, one for you.”
“No, young man. I will finally be able to die.”
Alistair and I exchange wary glances, then reluctantly, we climb after her.
“Why do you desire death?” Alistair’s being awfully chatty with our new companion.
“Look at this decrepit shell.” She shakes her ragged dress. “I have tried to escape the prison of my decaying body to no avail. As punishment for my crime, I am cursed to live until Sleeping Beauty awakens. Watch your step.”
She points, too late. Alistair’s heavy boot lands on a trigger. I yank him backward in the nick of time to avoid a razor-sharp blade that swings from the wall—and decapitates the crone.
Blood spurts across the wall. Her head rolls down a few steps, its trajectory stopped by my boot.
“I hate it when that happens,” the severed head says.
Alistair blanches, his paleness tinged with a sickly green undertone visible even in the gloom. Bravely, he picks up the crone’s head by her greasy gray hair and asks it, “How are you still alive?”
“I explained. I’m cursed,” she responds with a note of petulance. Blood drips from her severed neck, spattering his boot. A few feet away, her body blindly searches for its missing part. Hands tap the stone, leaving red palm prints.
“Give me my head back.”
Alistair taps the body on the shoulder and places her head in her hands. She puts it on, adjusts the placement, and the wound seals, leaving a raw, raised scar.
She’s covered in them.
Bite marks, cuts, the unmistakable gashes of compound fractures that burst through the skin. I wince. That’s one hell of a curse.
“Who are you?” I repeat Alistair’s question, then clarify, “Your name.”
“Queen Isadora,” she says, shoving the rags down her ravaged arms. “Many years ago, I prevented my son from marrying that trollop.”
