“Excuse me, I’d like to see the
Fairy Godmother.”
Jerome, a thin, sharp-featured elf, looked up from the
papers he was working on from his seat behind the reception desk of the Fairy
Godmother’s waiting lounge. “May I help y—”
he began to say, his words clipped with a hint of irritation, but stopped when
he saw no one standing before him.
“Ahem, down here,” the voice – that of a young woman –
sounded again. Jerome stood up and
looked over the top of his desk. There
on the floor stood two frogs…on their hind legs. The somewhat smaller of the two rested her
webbed hands on her hips, looked up at Jerome, and said in the same voice, “It
backfired.”
“Pardon?” Jerome asked, his inflection
betraying a French accent.
“The princess kissing the frog
thing. It backfired!” she said, it now being her turn to show irritation.
“Then I take it that you are a princess?” Jerome asked.
“Duh!” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Darling, I am so sor—” the
other frog began saying to her, but the female shot one arm toward him and held
her hand out, palm forward, while simultaneously facing the other way, jaw
jutted upward, eyes closed.
“Don’t even go
there!” she said. “Just hold that long,
sticky tongue of yours that got me into
this mess and go take a seat.”
Her companion sighed and resignedly turned, trudged over
to one of the many comfortable chairs set in orderly rows in the immaculately
kept room, and hopped onto it. The frog
princess then looked back up at Jerome.
“Anyway,” she said, “from what I’ve heard, if
anybody can help me out of this, the Fairy Godmother can.”
“Indeed,” Jerome conceded.
“Very well.
I need you to sign in, please.”
Jerome reached for a clipboard with a list of visitor
names and a quill pen while the frog settled herself on all fours briefly
before leaping up onto the desk. Jerome
laid the clipboard before her and handed her the quill. She tried to get a grip on it, muttered,
“This would be so much easier without
the webbing,” and then managed to
scratch her name at the bottom of the list.
Jerome took the clipboard back and looked at the
name. “Ah,” he said, recognizing it,
“you’re the new princess in town. I read
about you. Welcome to Far Far Away, Your Highness. Now, please take a seat and the Fairy
Godmother will be with you when she can.”
Without acknowledging Jerome’s greeting or saying another
word, the frog princess turned, leapt back to the floor, walked over to the
chair where her companion sat, hopped onto it, and sat down beside him. He turned toward her and started to open his
mouth to say something, but she curtly turned away and sat stiffly, jaw again
jutted upward, eyes closed, and arms crossed.
He reluctantly closed his mouth, sighed, and looked down dejectedly.
Jerome shook his head and sat back in his chair. How typical of the Godmother’s royal
clientele. No doubt, though, their story
would end with the two frogs transformed into beautiful human beings who would
fall in love, marry, and spend the rest of their days in regal splendor. For a price. Indeed, always for a price. Happiness was just a teardrop away…for those
who could afford it.
To add to his already normally sour outlook, Jerome had
developed a bad toothache. Life, he reflected
morosely, was disappointing enough with slaving away as an underpaid and
unappreciated reception clerk for the kingdom’s celebrated Fairy Godmother,
bearing the brunt of the scorn and neglect with which, behind the scenes, she
commonly treated those who worked for her, without that added physical distress.
Jerome glanced up at the handful of other clientele – almost
all of them royals or nobles or gentry – seated around the room. There were only two patrons who didn’t fit
that mold: a dwarf holding a small cloth sack on this lap which probably
contained gold from the mine that he and his kindred worked in, and a witch who
would probably barter spells or offer the copyright to a potion’s recipe for
whatever services she needed from the Godmother. Everyone paid in one way or another. While waiting, they read magazines or glanced
around at the various portraits on the walls, which included two inordinately
large works of the Godmother herself as she looked a few years and several
pounds earlier.
A sardonic smile pricked at one corner of Jerome’s mouth
as he looked back down at the papers on the desk before him. If only these people who admired and fawned so
on the smiling, benevolent Fairy Godmother knew how ruthless and selfish she
could be. Oh, well, Jerome reflected, it
could be worse. He could be one of those
poor slobs on the shoproom floor working with God
knew what sort of chemicals in producing the Godmother’s profitable
potions. Not that those laborers saw many
of those profits for themselves, oh no.
How different it was now from the days when the elves ran their bakery
from this same spot; those happy, healthy, halcyon days of working in their
hollow tree, before the Godmother’s hostile takeover. Now the tree had been incorporated into the
Godmother’s factory as a potion storage room, and the elves toiled for low
wages and almost no benefits, including no dental. At that last thought, Jerome’s bad molar
throbbed again and he moaned quietly.
The dentist wanted so much money to fix that tooth, money that Jerome
simply didn’t have. The elf supposed he
would eventually have to have one of his friends just yank it out, but he’d
already lost a molar on the other side of his mouth, and he’d hate not to be
able to chew his food normally again.
Outside a dog started barking. A moment later the sound of several horses
could be heard approaching. Everyone in
the room turned and looked to the door as the sound of an approaching coach and
more horses joined in the cacophony. The
sounds of coach wheels ceased near the doorway, and a moment later the door
opened and two fully armored knights strode in.
Jerome and the others in the room instinctively stood up, wary. The knights took the measure of the room and
then looked at each other and nodded.
One of them went to the open doorway, looked out, gave a “thumbs up”
signal, and then he and the other knight stood at attention on either side of
the doorway. A moment later two other
figures, these bedecked in royal attire, entered: the rulers of the kingdom, King
Harold and Queen Lillian. Staring
straight at Jerome, they began striding toward him, arm in arm, down the aisle
formed by two rows of chairs. The
various clients all bowed or curtseyed in respect as the couple walked past. As they passed the frog couple, the king
looked down at them, gulped uneasily, and then resumed staring ahead. The royal couple was trailed by yet another
pair of knights.
The king and queen halted before Jerome’s desk, and the
elf bowed deeply. “Your Majesties,” he
said, and then straightened back up. “To
what do we owe the honor of your presence here today?”
The two were silent for a moment. The king, whose gray hair and wrinkles
indicated his advanced middle age and whose deep worry line indicated more
private troubles, opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again,
as if he couldn’t quite get himself to do so.
His expression bore trepidation.
Then the queen, more stately and comely despite her own advancing years,
quietly muttered, “Har-ooold.” The king sighed, nodded, took a deep breath, and
then spoke.
“We wish to see the Fairy Godmother,” he announced. A moment later the queen elbowed him slightly
in the ribs and he added, “Um, now!”
“Right away, Your Majesties,” Jerome said, repressing his
curiosity. Was the Fairy Godmother in
some sort of trouble? He would almost
wish so, except that he was sure that whatever problems beset the Godmother
would eventually trickle down onto his head a hundred fold. He pressed the intercom button on his desk and
said into a funnel-shaped speaker, “Fairy Godmother, you have two visitors here
to see you.”
A moment later the Godmother’s voice replied, “I’m busy
now, Jerome. Have them sign in like the
others.” Despite the tininess of the sound
from the device, the rebuke in her tone was clear.
Jerome pressed the button again and said, “But it’s the
King and Queen, ma’am.”
There was a pause, then the Godmother’s voice, noticeably
more pleasant this time, said, “Why didn’t you say so? Show them right in.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jerome said, pressing the button once more. He was sure he would be reprimanded later for
not ‘saying so’. Nevertheless, he politely
gestured to a side door and said, “Right this way, Your Majesties.”
Jerome led them to the door, opened it for them, and stood
aside while the queen entered, followed by the king. One of the knights started in after the king,
but Harold turned and stopped him, laying a hand on his breastplate. “No, no need to follow us here, Captain, I’m
sure we’ll be safe. This is a – um –
private matter.’
“Yes, Sire,” the knight said, saluted, and then took a
position beside the door. Harold turned
and followed Lillian, and then Jerome followed Harold and closed the door
behind them.
Jerome led the King and Queen down a short hallway toward
the Fairy Godmother’s office. As they
approached, the office door opened and a girl of ten years old or so stepped
out, followed by a little lamb with thick black fleece and a white plastic
collar about its neck. Jerome and the
monarchs halted as the little girl turned back toward the office doorway and
the somewhat portly figure of the Fairy Godmother appeared there. The Godmother smiled benevolently as she
looked down at the little girl through half-frame eyeglasses, light sparkling
through the Godmother’s translucent gossamer wings and off the glitter in her high-coiffed
blue-gray hair.
“Now, Mary,” the Godmother said to the girl, “you just
remember to keep that magical collar on your pet, and you won’t have to worry
about it getting fleas again for the next six months…of any color.”
“Thank you, Fairy Godmother,” Mary said.
“Now you run along,” the Godmother said. “Tell you parents that I said hello...and that
I’ll be sending them the bill.”
The Fairy Godmother patted the little girl on her
head. Mary smiled and turned to go. She saw the king and queen standing there and
her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh,
hello, Your Majesties!” she said, and curtseyed
deeply.
“Hello, child,” the queen said sweetly. “You run along back to your parents now, and
have a most pleasant day.”
“Yes ma’am,” Mary said, then stood and headed by them back
toward the reception room door, her little lamb following her. As the animal trotted past, a few dead white
fleas dropped off of it.
Harold watched them go, a look of confusion on his face,
and then turned back to Lillian. “I
thought it went ‘its fleece was white
as snow’?” he said.
The queen, staring forward, said, “Focus, Harold.”
“Oh – uh, right, dear,” Harold said, as he also looked
forward at the Fairy Godmother.
“Greetings, Your Majesties,” the
Godmother said, smiling and curtseying, although not as deeply as Mary had.
“And what might I do for you today?”
“Ah – yes – well,” Harold sputtered, “Fairy Godmother, uh,
we –”
“We need to talk,” Lillian said. “Privately.”
The smile faded from the Godmother’s lips. “I see,” she said. Then stepping aside from her office doorway
she gestured to it and said, “Won’t you please come in.”
“Thank you,” both monarchs said, and stepped through the
doorway, followed by the Godmother.
It was an ornate office, decorated in pink and white, with
bookcases lined with storybooks and potion recipes. Against one wall sat a large glass case
containing various vials and bottles of colorful liquids, and against another
was mounted a rack that held a set of wands, each with a star-tip, bound
together with a locked golden chain to prevent their being taken by
unauthorized visitors.
The Godmother headed behind a desk at the front of the
room and gestured toward a couple of comfortable chairs before it. “Won’t you have a seat?” she asked.
“That won’t be necessary,” Lillian said. “This will be a short visit. And to the point.”
The Godmother looked taken aback. “Oh,” she said. “All right. Well, might I have Jerome fetch you something? Coffee, or tea, or –”
“Thank you,” Lillian said, “but we won’t be staying that
long.”
The Fairy Godmother stared at Lillian for a moment. “Very well,” the Godmother said,
her friendly veneer slipping and a hint of annoyance creeping into her voice
for just a moment. Then she looked at
Jerome, who was standing in the doorway, and said, “That will be enough for
now, Jerome. You may close the door and
leave us.”
“As you wish, Fairy Godmother,” Jerome said. He bowed to the figures in the room and then
closed the door. He began to walk back
toward the reception room, but then stopped and looked back at the door of the
Godmother’s office. After a moment’s
internal debate, he tip-toed back to the door and laid one of his pointed ears
against it.
Dama Fortuna, better known as the
Fairy Godmother of Far Far Away – indeed, most people
knew her only by that sobriquet –
tried to suppress her apprehension behind yet another pleasant smile as she
faced the two monarchs. Clairvoyance was
not one of her magical gifts, but she feared she knew exactly what this little
chat was going to be about. “Now then,”
she said, “what can I do for Your Majesties?”
There was a moment of awkward silence as both monarchs
stared at her, the queen placid but with an unusual firmness to her features,
but the king, as Dama expected, looked more anxious,
and tried not to meet her eyes. Then,
Lillian looked over at her husband.
“Harold?” she prodded.
“Ah, yes, right,” he said, then finally brought himself to look directly at Dama. “We’ve been discussing the situation and we,
well…we want her back.”
Dama squelched an urge to curse. It was
going to be what she feared. At least it
wasn’t unexpected. Still, she had to
play this out. “Want…whom back?” she asked, trying to sound
innocent.
“Fiona,” Harold said, “our daughter.”
“I suspect the Fairy Godmother already knows who Fiona is,
Harold,” the queen said.
Lillian’s response to her husband might have been a joke
in other circumstances, but her firm features showed that she remained serious
– and resolved. That was what bothered Dama the most.
Harold she could handle – his demeanor, as usual, indicated he still
feared the secrets she held over him.
But Lillian – the queen had always been the stronger of the two, the
more decisive, even while adroitly manipulating appearances to make things seem
as if Harold was completely in charge, even to Harold. Not in a cynical or condescending manner, but
in a way that was actually supportive of her husband. Now, though, she appeared more assertive, at
least on this issue. That was not
good. Dama
knew she could handle the milksop Harold without problem. But a duel of wills with Lillian, with the
queen’s intelligence and competence, was another matter. Still, Dama was not
without leverage there. She took a deep
breath, and then responded. “I know that
it seems like a long time.”
“Seems?” Lillian
said. “It’s now been over twenty years.”
“Yes, I know,” Dama said. “And believe me, I’m
surprised it’s taken this long myself.”
“Much too long,”
Lillian said, “isn’t that right, Harold?”
“Yes. Right,” Harold
agreed. “And so we’d like to…call off
the spell.”
Dama sighed. “Even if I could,” she said, “do you realize
what that would mean? Fiona would have
sacrificed over two decades of her life, all in vain.”
“She didn’t
sacrifice them,” Lillian said. “We did.
All of us.” Now the queen’s stoic
features briefly twisted to a grimace of pain.
“May God forgive me for my part in it. No, may Fiona
forgive me.”
“And I’m sure she will,” Dama
said. “Once she is rescued, relieved of
the dreaded curse, and returns home a happy bride!”
“That’s what we’ve been telling ourselves for years,”
Lillian said. “Just a
little longer. Any day could be
the day. But knight after knight has
tried, and they’ve all failed.
Meanwhile, poor Fiona rots in that tower, her youth wasting away. Waiting…because we told her to wait. She must hate us by now, if she’s even still sane
after all this time in solitary isolation.”
“Now, Lillian, I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, and I’m sure
she’s fine mentally,” Dama said. She didn’t add that that was one of the
reasons she chose an ogre as Fiona’s alter ego in the first spell she had
originally cast against her daughter, the one that Lillian was fortunately
ignorant of. Ogres as a species handled
isolation quite well. They usually
craved it, in fact. They would form
strong bonds with their mates, and were dedicated to their offspring – at least
up to their year of separation – but they usually only
banded together beyond the immediate family unit in cases of dire necessity. The princess would suffer, of course. How could the poor thing not, considering the unique stew of
natural and magical elements and circumstances that made up her being and
situation? That was unfortunate but
unavoidable. But Fiona would not go
mad. At least, Dama
didn’t think so.
Lillian shook her head.
“We should never have done this,” she said. “Fiona was innocent. It was our own prejudices and fears that
drove her away.”
“Lillian, please,” Dama
said. “It was – and is – for her own good. Can you
imagine her going through her entire life as a changeling, spending every night
of the rest of her life as a loathsome ogre?
This way, as soon as she’s rescued, she’ll be whole, be beautiful for
the rest of her life, and have the prince of her dreams! How could she not have a happily-ever-after?”
Lillian shook her head.
“I’ve heard that story before,” she said. “I’ve been repeating it to myself for too
long. It’s simply not working. Nobody is getting by the dragon. We need to end this arrangement and figure
out something else. We have to.
In the mean time, we need Fiona back here with us, in her home, where
she belongs. This – this ‘Prince
Charming’ scenario – is taking far too long.”
“Yes – I quite
agree!” Harold said.
The two women looked over at Harold. It seemed that, caught up in their own conversation as they were, they had almost forgotten
he was there. Harold blushed and looked
down at his feet. “It’s not her fault,”
he said, then looked back up at Dama. “Surely there is some other way?” he said pleadingly.
Dama paused. There was one thing they were all in accord
on – the ‘Prince Charming’ scenario was
taking far too long – especially since the particular Prince Charming who would
be rescuing Fiona was to be Dama’s own son. Again she uttered an inner curse. What was
delaying him? She had drilled his
destiny into him since he was a boy. Now
grown into a strong, handsome, brave young man, he should have fulfilled that
destiny long ago. Of course, she could
never admit this to Lillian; that it was always
Dama’s son who was intended to be Fiona’s rescuer,
husband, and eventual king to the land via her daughter, that this was to be
the entire point to the spells involving Harold, Fiona, and – fortunately
unbeknownst to the queen – indirectly Lillian herself, as the incantations that
had made Harold the man he was rather than a slimy frog had the reciprocal
effect of allowing him to sire but one offspring, a daughter, and left
Lillian’s womb void of any further hereditary contenders for the crown.
“Fairy Godmother?” Harold was speaking again. “Perhaps if we negotiated with the dragon—”
Dama shook her head. “In her own way the dragon is as bound by the
spell to be guardian as Fiona is as her prisoner,” she said. “But it’s what keeps the beast from ravaging
the countryside or demanding virginal sacrifices. You wouldn’t want something like that to happen, would you?”
Harold looked down for a moment, as if considering. Then he sighed deeply, looked up, and stared Dama directly in the eyes.
“Find a way to free Fiona,” he said.
“We’ll find a way to deal with the dragon.”
Dama was a bit taken aback. Harold had seldom shown such resolve with her. “I—I’m sorry, but it’s a bit of a package
deal,” she said, flustered for one of the few times in her life. But she quickly regained her composure and
added, “But I tell you what. Let me look
into it. There might be something I can do. Give me a few days – a week at most – and
I’ll get back with you.”
Dama smiled sweetly. Harold raised an eyebrow skeptically. He obviously didn’t trust her. But it was also obvious he really didn’t have
a choice. He looked back at his
wife. “Lillian?” he said.
The queen sighed.
“I suppose we’ll have to…” she
said resignedly, but then looking at Dama with a more
resolute posture, added, “…for now.”
“Of course, dear,” Dama said,
approaching them. Taking the queen’s arm
and leading her toward the door, Harold close behind, Dama
said in her most soothing, Fairy Godmotherly manner,
“And I certainly understand your frustration, believe me I do. But just a teensy bit more patience and I’m
sure things will all work out for the better…”
Jerome tiptoed away as quickly as he could for several
paces when he heard them moving toward the door, and then scurried back to his
desk when he heard it opening behind him.
Fortunately the Godmother was still busy placating the royal couple and
never saw him. As he resumed
distractedly working on the papers on his desk, a small, sinister smile crept
up one corner of his mouth, despite the throbbing molar behind it. It appeared that the fates might be smiling
on him at last. He began watching the
too-slow moving clock. He had just
acquired an appointment to keep that night.