Apathy

By Ariel Woodruff

No one could understand it. Not the King. Not the Queen. Not the council, not the jester. Not the scullery maids, the gardeners, the royal guards or their captains. Not the groomsmen, not the noble horses in their charge. Not the ladies maids. Not even the fairies.

No one could understand how it was that the Princess failed to thrive as a princess should.

If she had been a poor child, perhaps they would have understood.

If she had been a neglected child, perhaps they would have understood.

But the Princess was neither. She wanted for nothing. It made no sense.

When she was born, the King and Queen declared the day a national holiday. They had rich garments made new for themselves, and made for the poor, so that no one need come to the party in anything but finery. It would not do to have the Princess exposed to indigence at so tender an age.

The toasts and speeches went on for hours. Everyone was given a pre-written speech to ensure that the Princess didn’t hear anything she oughtn’t to hear. It would not do to turn her ears at so tender an age.

The fairies came to bestow their gifts of beauty, purity, and obedience. All agreed there really was nothing the Princess would not have, to start her out right in life.

The only thing that gave the King and Queen pause that entire night were the words of the last fairy, the thirteenth. She was meant to read her prescribed speech. Instead she produced a skein of thread and a spinning wheel. As if she were in the poorest cottage! Spinning, she began to tell a story.” As if no one else were there! It was a very nasty story too, about parents that abandoned their children, witches that ate children, and children that burned witches. Not the sort of thing a child should hear.

Well, this was their child, thought the royal couple, and they didn’t want her exposed to uncultured horrors. The thirteenth fairy was interrupted, asked if she didn’t have “somewhere else important to be.” No fool, she took the hint and left, but said rather loudly on her way out that “for all the riches in the world, and all the protections, this child will grow up poorly.”

“The story,” she said, had been “her gift.”

Well, it had sounded more like a curse, hadn’t it? The thirteenth fairy, nasty stories, and spinning wheels too, were banned from the kingdom. What need had a princess for scary, silly stories, and for peasants’ work anyway?

She grew up beautifully. Her skin was baby-soft well into her teens because she had attendants with her always, and thus never had cause to do any work. She learned to read voraciously, and because her books had all the nasty parts cut out, she never troubled unnecessarily over the tales. The whole kingdom delighted in her innocence, which was unparalleled, and her delicacy, which was without equal.

Then on her sixteenth birthday it all went to hell.

During the preparations for her sixteenth birthday party, the Princess had gone missing for some hours. And during those hours, she had gone exploring in the attic, and found an old woman at a spinning wheel. Some said it was the thirteenth fairy, others said impossible, a fairy would never let herself “go” as this woman had, but it really didn’t matter, because when the Princess was discovered, she was changed.

She was pale, quiet and unsmiling, and worse still, she had no interest in attending her party. What, sixteen and with no interest in parties? Unheard of! Yet, she desired to go to bed, and because she was the Princess, and had never been denied anything, she was allowed to do so.

Her parents weren’t happy about the arrangement, but they couldn’t very well dismiss the party. They were forced to attend without the guest of honor, and to invent excuses for her absence, while courtier after courtier was sent to her rooms, in order to check in and make a report.

Each report was the same.

“She does nothing.”

Disturbing, to say the least, but the King and the Queen reminded themselves that she had now entered those stubborn teenage years they’d heard so much about. It wouldn’t last.

They were wrong.

The Princess laughed no longer, grew paler still of cheek, and remained locked in her room for hours. Sometimes she stared at the window, sometimes at the ceiling, sometimes at nothing at all. The only thing she did much of was sigh.

First they tried pampering: breakfast in bed, manicures, pretty little picture books (pains were taken to choose nothing that might disturb or excite her sensibilities). Her eyes dulled. She sighed louder.

Then they tried sternness. The Princess was reminded that she wanted for nothing. That she was the most fortunate girl in the world. That she was seriously bringing the place down.

Yet with each day, she retired further from life. She took less eat. Eventually, she failed to leave her bed at all.

The King and a Queen were at a loss. A committee of the best and the wisest was formed - the thirteenth fairy didn’t make the cut - to discuss what was to be done, and when every suggestion was dismissed, only one remained; the Princess should be married off. If she lacked nothing but a Prince, surely it was this very lack that was responsible for her illness.

Hundreds of princes were put through a very thorny interview process, and out of these, the single most noble, attractive, and wealthy was selected. They were married as quickly as was feasible, given the size of the celebration that had to be planned.

Once the ceremony was finished, all that was left was to wait for the cure to take effect. Despite the indisputable perfection of the Prince – who did everything for her - the Princess failed to revive. She merely sighed a little louder, when she was wakeful enough to sigh at all. So the marriage, while not considered a failure, wasn’t quite a success either.

Upon the second meeting of the committee, everyone agreed the Princess lacked only a child, including the Prince who promised to be a man of action. Nine months later, everyone tried not to be disturbed by the fact that the first real noise the Princess made in years was a heartrending sob upon finding her newborn was a girl. The promises that her child should grow up wanting for nothing, protected from everything, only increased her tears. Ah, new mothers were emotional things.

The evening after the birth, the King and the Queen came to the Princess’s apartment for what was meant to be an extended visit, but quickly turned into a search party. Princess and child alike were vanished from their beds. They searched the halls and the ballrooms. They searched the baths and the stables, the kitchens and the gardens. It wasn’t until dawn that someone thought to look in the attic.

There they found the Princess – her name was Rose, did you know? – spinning away at a wheel, her fingers torn with the effort, sweat at her brow, and her eyes bright with wakefulness. Guiding her hands was the thirteenth fairy, looking like an old peasant woman, or an old peasant woman, looking like the thirteenth fairy. The newborn was swaddled in the crone’s arms, bright-eyed too, watching her mother work.

“What can be the meaning of this?” Cried the King in a rage, seeing the sweat drop-drop-drop from his daughter’s brow, into the wool she was spinning.

“Your hands! What has been done to your hands!” Wailed the Queen, seeing her daughter’s precious blood drip-drip-drip into the wool she was spinning.

Rose looked up from her spinning, but did not stop. She smiled gently, a wistful, hopeful smile. “Ah Father, it means everything. Oh Mother, nothing that should not have been done already.” The fairy nodded sagely, cackling as she did so, but the sound was not evil.

“We do not understand!” Cried her royal parents, who had conspired to give Rose a perfect life. A life without pain or work or fear, or anything that they imagined a princess should never suffer.

“But you will,” replied Rose. “See? Godmother is telling me stories. And I will weave her yarns into blankets, and I will wrap you in all of them, and then you will know.” And they saw that through her efforts in the night she had made her daughter a blanket already, and had wrapped her in it. The blanket was beautiful, and it was fearsome, for woven into it were the pictures that told stories, and these stories had none of the nasty parts cut out.

It was not perfect, soft, or rich, but it was honest and good.

“Come now, sit.” Said Rose. “And I will spin you all a story.”

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