AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Gracious, I hope she’ll be all right,” Lucas’s mother whispered to him behind her hand. He was about to remind her she hadn’t actually fallen into a hundred years’ sleep when she continued. “She’s an old woman; she could break a hip doing something like that.”
“Many years passed,” Lavinia told the children in a hushed voice. “And all around the castle, huge briars sprang up, growing thick and thorny and dangerous, until the castle itself all but disappeared from view, and the people in the village forgot about its existence and the royal family and beautiful princess who’d lived within its walls.”
Everyone was transfixed; the silence around them profound—it seemed to Lucas that even the songbirds had stopped to listen to Lavinia’s tale.
“And then one day, a hundred years later, a handsome prince decided to hunt in the woods nearby.” Artie rose to his feet, suddenly appearing for all the world like a young prince as he pantomimed aiming his invisible bow here and there and shooting invisible arrows. He’d been sitting off to the side, and Lucas had completely forgotten he was there, so engrossed he’d become with Lavinia’s words. “He spied the castle and remembered the old tales that had been told of a sleeping beauty within a sleeping castle. ‘I must see for myself if the stories are legend or true,’ he declared. He slashed at the brambles that seemed nearly alive and fighting against him in his quest.”
Artie slashed and slashed again at Lavinia’s words. “I will not give up!” he cried. “Help me fight the brambles. Lend me your strength!”
“You can do it, handsome prince!” Mary cried while the others clapped and encouraged him to be strong and keep battling through the thickets. Edmund and Isaac Junior leapt up, followed quickly by Mary, and joined Artie, slashing with their own make-believe swords.
“After one final slash, the prince made it to the castle. He broke down the door”—Artie pantomimed this remarkably convincingly—“and climbed the stairs to the very top. And there he spied—”
“A hundred-year-old crone, from the look of things,” Thomas murmured under his breath.
“The most beautiful woman I have ever seen is asleep here,” Artie pronounced with reverence.
“He tried to awaken her,” Lavinia said. Artie gently nudged Delia’s shoulder once and then again. Her arm, which had been resting on her chest, slid limply off to the side. “But to no avail. In sadness, he watched her as she slept.”
“Wake up, Deela,” Annabel cried, clutching Isaac’s shoulders tightly.
Isaac kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, poppet. Keep watching.”
“Suddenly,” Lavinia’s voice rose with excitement, “the prince remembered an important part of the tale of the sleeping castle—that only a handsome prince could awaken the princess by offering her a kiss.”
The boys groaned.
Artie went down on bended knee. “Beautiful princess, forgive my rashness, but for you to awaken, I must kiss you.” He leaned over, propping himself with one hand so he didn’t lose his balance and fall in a heap on top of Delia, which would ruin the dramatic effect completely, and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.
It was the sweetest of kisses, Lucas thought. His lips had barely touched Delia’s, but there had been a tenderness that had transcended mere playacting.
Well, of course it had. Lucas had already noticed Artie’s affection for Delia—but what was completely obvious to him now was that ArtielovedDelia. Loved her deeply.
It made the story that much more poignant.
Delia’s eyes opened, and she blinked several times. “Ah, my handsome prince! I have been waiting for you,” she exclaimed, smiling radiantly at Artie.
Did she have an affection for him as well?
“I certainly hope your betrothed’scousinshail from different branches of the family tree after a kiss like that,” Thomas murmured.
Lucas shot him a glare.
“And I have found you,” Artie said. He maneuvered stiffly to his feet and then assisted Delia to hers.
“They fell in love,” Lavinia said triumphantly. “And were married soon thereafter. And they both lived . . .”
“Happily ever after!” the children crowed.
“In a way,” Lavinia said, holding up a finger to silence them. “For they livedfully—through sickness and sadness and good times and difficult ones. But in so doing, they found happiness of the very best kind, for they grew together in their love for each other for the rest of their lives. The end.”
Everyone clapped—even a begrudging Thomas—and Artie and Delia gave several elaborate bows to their enthusiastic audience, as Lucas suspected they had done at the conclusion of every performance they’d ever given for the past half century.
As he applauded the performance, Lucas reflected further upon Lavinia’s concluding statement about the prince and princess growing together in their love for each other through happy and difficult times. She’d been raised in the theater, where fantasy was acted out on stage every evening, where people went to escape sickness and sadness and difficult times and imagine fanciful lives beyond their own. And yet, her own mother had left when Lavinia was little more than Annabel’s age. Her father had done little for her as her parent after that. Her version of “happily ever after” was utterly plain—but would be of great worth to someone who’d never experienced it.
With the aid of the ever-gallant Artie, Lavinia rose to her feet and took a modest bow herself before being thronged and hugged by all the children, except Edmund and Isaac Junior, who stood awkwardly by as boys of that age generally did. Lucas couldn’t take his eyes off her. She seemed relaxed and happy in a way he’d not seen her before. She was beautiful.
Well,of courseshe was beautiful. That was blatantly apparent to anyone who cast eyes on her. She was extraordinarily so.
