Aurora looked up and saw her family coming through the double doors of the ballroom.
“Ronnie!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?” She ran to her family and embraced her husband and children.
“Well, I drove the Jeep Cherokee, and I'm glad I did. There's some rough terrain on the way to this place,” Ronnie said.
“We had a few adventures on the way,” Aurora's oldest child, Joseph, said.
“I don't doubt it,” Aurora answered. “But how did you find this place?”
“I received this invitation in the mail,” Ronnie said.
Ronnie showed Aurora a small rectangular invitation, white with gold script. It read:
“You are invited to a Coronation
At the Castle in the Clouds Bed and Breakfast
Formerly known as King Stefan's Castle, aka
Sleeping Beauty's Castle.”
“Coronation?” Aurora said, perplexed.
The fairies gathered around them. “I”m so glad you've made it in time for the coronation,” Candide said. “We just need to do a few things to get this place ready. Marie, can you get the Magic Makeup Mirror, please?” Marie retrieved the item and handed it to Candide. “Now, Aurora, I want you to know that this thing I'm about to do will completely deplete the power of your Magic Makeup Mirror.”
“I trust you,” Aurora said.
Then Candide took the Magic Makeup Mirror, turned it on, switched it to the “evening” setting, and shone it around the entire grand ballroom, from top to bottom. The peeling paint became fleur de lis wallpaper. The rickety light fixtures were transformed into crystal chandeliers. The folding table with its plastic tablecloths disappeared, and in its place was a fifteen-piece orchestra and conductor. The vessels with the mac-n-cheese became paper to-go boxes with some high-end catering company logo on them.
The card tables with snacks became long tables covered with satin tablecloths, laden with sumptuous food and drinks.
Finally, the guests were transformed and decked out in formal attire, fit for royalty. Ronnie was dressed in tights and lederhosen with an alpine hat and feather. He looked mildly uncomfortable, but he kept a good attitude about it.
Aurora, however, couldn’t help noticing that, above his lederhosen, he wore a black turtleneck.
Violente stood up and began to speak. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can I have your attention please? Excuse me.” She stood and waited until the din in the room quieted down.
“We have two very special guests for you tonight who are here on important business.” She looked up at the ceiling, and there were two birds flying around in circles, slowly descending toward Ronnie and Aurora.
Violente continued to speak, this time addressing the birds:
“Travel-weary birds, end your flight--”
and stand before us in truth and light;
Let dark magic fall away and perish,
and let us see the faces we cherish!”
The birds hovered in the air in front of the guests and began to shimmer, and then two humans stood before them: a man and a woman, both gray-haired, with golden crowns on their heads.
“Mother! Father!” Aurora said when she recognized them. She ran to them and threw herself into their arms.
The three of them wept, and all their words were jumbled together as they tried to explain where they had come from and where they had been.
After a time, Violente stood up again and spoke. “Can I have your attention please? Excuse me. Let royal thrones be brought for the King and Queen, and for their daughter and son-in law.”
The guests scrambled, looked around the ballroom and adjoining storage areas, but all they could find were a row of metal folding chairs.
“These will do for now,” Violente said, and she motioned for the aged King and Queen and Aurora and Ronnie to be seated.
“Please speak of your many and varied journeys, King Stefan,” Fauna said.
King Stefan stood and began to speak.
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Trials and Tribulations, Part One
Esteemed ladies and gentlemen, please hear the following tale of our trials and tribulations, which followed our awakening from an enchanted sleep to a world greatly changed, some one score years ago. First, upon awakening, we discovered that our daughter was missing from our castle and that no one in the vicinity had knowledge of her whereabouts. Examination and fingerprinting of an odious spindle found on our property yielded no results. Furthermore, we found copious notices on our castle's front door notifying us again and again that the building would be seized by the city for unpaid taxes, and that the building would furthermore be seized by the bank for delinquent payments, and that the building would be seized yet a third time by the city for zoning violations. For, while we slept, the vicinity surrounding our castle was re-zoned for commercial use.
Neither the City Hall, nor the bank, nor the zoning office would accept as currency lumps of gold from my treasury, nor would they accept coins with the my countenance on them.
Fortunately, two young sorcerers in bell-bottom trousers came to our door one day and offered to buy the castle and all its contents, effectively paying the our debts and freeing us to search the earth for our missing child, or to mourn for her till our dying day, whichever came first.
So we left our ancestral home with nothing but a small store of food in an earthenware vessel and two bottles of a magic potion called “Last Resort,” which we had purchased from the sorcerers who bought our castle.
We journeyed and journeyed, sleeping in caves and under trees and in mysterious cottages with strange old women, till we had depleted their food supply. Then at last we sat on a rock and pulled out our magic potions.
These potions were contained in small orange bottles with white labels and instructions on them. “Take with food and water at bedtime,” the instructions said, “or without food and water when threatened with imminent death. Side effects include headache, nausea, heart palpitations, being turned into small birds for twenty years, or being turned into bats for perpetuity.”
We mourned greatly upon reading this list of side effects, and had nearly decided against using it, when—lo--a pack of lionesses accosted us and would fain have torn us limb from limb. We therefore took the potion, preferring to live as bats for perpetuity to being torn apart by lions.
Fortunately, we were turned into birds, not bats, and we had no headaches, nausea, or heart palpitations, for all the twenty years which we lived as birds. Moreover, feeding and clothing our bird-selves was highly economical, though we had continually to watch for predators. We nonetheless mourned our change of form and the loss of our home and sang mournful ditties as we flew from tree to tree and hopped from branch to branch.
We continued thus for nearly all of the time we were imprisoned in birdflesh, flying here and there, hoping to catch a glimpse of our lost Princess, or to hear word of her. We flew into the castles of all the handsome princes in the world. Then we hovered outside the windows of every tall tower owned by witches that we could think of. We flew in and out of dragons' lairs. We visited cozy cottages in the middle of forests. We hovered around dwarves and wicked queens.
Finally, we moved into an oak tree in a park, adjacent to a bagel shop. Here, as we attempted truly to live as birds and to gain friends among them.
One autumn day we saw a lovely, golden-haired peasant woman walking through the park with a bagel and a drinking vessel in her hand full of some steaming libation. She shuffled through the leaves and sat on a bench and, as she began to consume her victuals, the woodland creatures began to creep from here and there—the squirrels, chipmunks, and birds—and began to beg from her morsels of her bagel. These she kindly gave, not thinking of herself. And then, when a deer bounded across the park and nuzzled the lady, and would quaff her steaming beverage, I said to my consort, “Queen Bird (for this was how I addressed her now), dost thou see yonder hart which eateth from the hand of yonder peasant lady? Surely the lady is a Princess in disguise.” And Queen Bird resolved to follow the lady at a distance till she had ascertained her identity, whether she was truly our daughter or no, whilst I maintained our homestead in the tree, for it was a desirable oak tree.
And lo, Queen Bird followed the lady as she walked leisurely through the park, in dreamy, contemplative mood, and as she walked down the streets of the town, looking in windows. Queen Bird flew round her face and looked at her from the branches of trees, from the tops of buildings, and from power lines, and was nearly certain that it was her Aurora, grown twenty years older—as lovely and graceful as ever—though she had silver strands in her hair.
Then the lady got inside a horseless carriage and embarked upon a journey through peasant neighborhoods, and Queen Bird found that she could not keep up with the horseless carriage—and that, moreover, there were many such carriages in the village that looked like unto Aurora's carriage, and Queen Bird found herself sadly lost.
Thus began the Queen's journey hopping from tree to tree in the village, sleeping in abandoned nests, inquiring after the Princess from every animal she met, whereupon she discovered a lady of Aurora's description who did have a reputation among the birds and woodland folk as being uncommonly friendly to animals.
Therefore she flew and discovered a white house on a certain street according to the animals' description and set up housekeeping in a tree outside the same residence, and caught glimpses of Aurora and a man who looked like unto Prince Philip from our neighboring kingdom, who, though dressed in peasant garb and altered by years, was still recognizable as handsome and somewhat charming.
Queen Bird resided in the tree for many days and weeks, contriving how she might reveal herself to Princess Aurora.
Meanwhile, I maintained our park residence, and strove to be accepted by the animal community. Indeed, within a fortnight, I was elected Chairbird of Woodland Community Peace Society, and in this capacity, from birds great and small that flew hither and thither, and also from animals that creep and crawl and also from some terrifying predators, I caught wind of evil goings-on in my nearly-forgotten ancestral home, formerly known as King Stefan's Castle, now re-styled as Castle in the Clouds Bed and Breakfast.