Story 11
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New Fairy Tales |
11. Incantations
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© George McGinn |
There was once a little castle at the top of a hill where the courtiers and subjects spoke very loudly. So much so, they generated a cacophony which could be heard for miles around.
At the bottom of the hill, there was a run down cottage in which there lived an old witch. She was tired of the never-ending racket emanating from the castle high above.
'I'm trying to have my afternoon nap!' screeched the bleary eyed witch as she pointlessly waved her broom stick in the air in the direction of the castle whose inhabitants were too far away to hear or care about the rants of the old woman.
The witch had in the past cast many spells to stop the noise such as placing an impenetrable sound bubble around her cottage. Her spells though had one fatal flaw which was that they were only potent when she was wide awake. The moment she fell asleep, the spell was broken.
However, at the end of her spellbook, the witch had at her disposal one very special incantation which lasted forever. It was known as 'The Last Incantation'. She had never cast the spell which came with a severe warning of a grave and unknown forfeit. Erring on the side of caution, she avoided the spell.
In any event, the witch rarely used her regular magical powers which were now waning in her golden years. She just wanted a quiet life in her retirement. Determined to find another way to stop the noise without using up her limited quota of magic, she decided she would go on a long journey to meet in person with the King and Queen of the castle on the hill. She threw on her hooded cape and gathered her things including a raggedy bag in which she kept her spellbook. She also dragged along her scruffy broom stick which she gave up flying many years ago.
The volume of the din from the castle above dramatically increased as the witch trudged higher up the hill. Why do they shout so loudly she thought? She could not even hear herself think. She pulled out of her bag two dead spiders and squeezed them into her wrinkly old ears to help muffle the sound. After many hours of travelling, she eventually arrived at the castle gate.
'Halt! Who goes there?' bellowed the gatekeeper. One would expect a man in such a position to shout, but this one shouted louder than usual in order to be heard above all the other subjects of the castle.
'I wish to speak to the King and Queen' said the witch.
'Speak up old lady!' yelled the gatekeeper. 'I can barely hear you!'
Politely coughing into her hand, the witch repeated her request with a raised voice. The gatekeeper laughed and told the old woman to go back home. The witch said she would leave but asked if she could have a cup of water before her long journey back. Taking pity on the old woman whom he saw as no threat, the gatekeeper went away to fetch some water. Meanwhile, the witch climbed over the gate and disappeared into the castle grounds, but not before casting a small spell on her cape to appear as a ghostly impression of herself walking back down the hill. The unwitting gatekeeper returned with a pale of water in hand. Seeing what he thought was the old woman leaving, he thought nothing more and returned to his post.
The witch meandered her way through the busy castle grounds. She pulled out of her bag a head scarf which she wrapped tightly around her ears to muffle the noise. She eventually arrived at a grand door above which was a royal crest. She assumed this must be where the King and Queen lived. She knocked, but no one answered. Gently pushing the door open, she cautiously walked in. At the very moment she stepped over the door threshold, the noise outside came to an abrupt end. She put one foot backwards and the noise resumed. After repeating this process several times, she realised that a curse had been placed on the royal chambers.
The witch was in awe of the spacious room in which she stood. It was lavishly furnished to the highest standard with exotic treasures in every corner. Her eyes fell upon a young man standing by the fireplace. He was dressed in fine silken clothes and wore a crown on his head.
'Your Majesty' said the witch giving a curtsy as deep as her old knees would allow.
Looking up, the King smiled with joy and whispered 'Guislaine, my lovely daughter! You've come home'.
The witch assumed that the part of the room in which she stood was poorly lit and that consequently the King had mistaken her for someone else. Either that or she thought he must be partially blind.
Then the witch's eyes fell upon a young woman whom she assumed was the Queen seated in a golden chair next to the King. The Queen stood up and with arms out stretched, she too whispered 'My darling Guislaine. We've missed you so much'.
For a few moments, the witch was lost in thought as she realised that she vaguely recognised the name by which she was addressed. Who did I know by the name of Guislaine, thought the witch? The realisation gradually emerged from the darkest recesses of her mind. It then came to her in a flash: 'I am Guislaine'. She had not heard anyone call her by her birth name since childhood when her parents mysteriously disappeared and she was left alone to fend for herself in the cottage.
'But you are young' said the witch 'I am an old woman'. I could not possibly be your daughter'.
'I will explain' whispered the King. 'As an infant, you cried day and night. We tried everything to calm you from lullabies to sweet aromas'. As a last resort, the King continued, they summoned an old witch who lived in a run down cottage down the hill. 'Not you Guislaine' interjected the King. The King said they knew they were taking a huge risk, but that they had been driven to their wits end in the pursuit of peace and quiet. The witch granted them their wish for the silence they craved, but had not told them of the consquences until after the spell had been cast. The spell had robbed them of their voices which were now barely audible above a whisper. Another forfeit was that they were unable to leave their royal chambers which had become a prison and over the years, they noticed they never aged a day more than when the spell was cast.
The King said that he and the Queen attempted to escape many times, but were able to go only a few yards beyond the threshold of their chamber doors. They were also confronted by a wall of ear-splitting noise as shouting had become the common parlance of the King's subjects under the spell. It appeared that the price for their child's silence was this cacophony. Their only choice was to retreat inside where they appeared to be magically shielded from the unbearable din outside.
They soon discovered that Guislaine and a royal maid, who was present when the spell was cast, were immune from incarceration. Feeling it was unfair to keep their child locked up indefinitely, the King and Queen put Guislaine in the care of their maid whom they instructed to flee the castle for the forest beyond the hill.
The King continued his sad account. 'We told the maid to bring you back if the spell were ever to be broken as we tearfully waived goodbye to you'. The maid placed two small waxed pine cones in Guislaine's ears for protection from the noise before she and the child made a quick dash through and out of the castle grounds. However, that was the last time the King and Queen ever saw their daughter or the maid.
The King went on to reveal that at the time the maid and Guislaine fled, his brother the Prince happened by chance to be fishing on the great river near the witch's cottage which was beyond the influence of the devastating effects of the spell. When he returned to the castle, the Prince reported to the King that he had seen the maid fall into the river and then carried off by a strong current no doubt to certain death. The King sent his brother back to the forest to find Guislaine, but his brother sadly never made it past the castle gates. Disorientated by the noise of everyone shouting, his horse bucked and the Prince fell from his saddle instantly killing himself.
Guislaine thought back to her childhood. She had a vague recollection that she was raised briefly by an old woman whom she thought must be the witch to whom her parents referred. What happened to her, thought Guislaine? Perhaps the old woman was not completely evil after all as she took Guislain into her home saving her from perishing in the forest at least until she was old enough to fend for herself.
By now, Guislaine felt terrible for the King and Queen whom she began to accept as her parents. How awful that they had lost their child whom they would never see grow up. It must have been a shock for them to see her as an old woman whilst they remained young and youthful. She flicked through her spellbook for anything which could undo this terrible curse upon her parents, but there was nothing; except, that is, The Last Incantation. In that moment, it dawned on Guislaine that she had been raised as the witch's apprentice and that the spellbook she held in her hands was the very same one which brought misery on her parents. She pondered for a moment before slamming the book down on the floor and turning to the table of contents; but she found nothing. She then jumped to the back and scoured through the index. There buried in the small print was the remedy:
'The Greatest Spell of all that has been invoked can only be undone if the issue of those cursed chants the Spell in reverse'.
She weighed up the risks. Her parents were deeply unhappy forever trapped in their royal chambers and literally unable to move forward with their lives. On the otherhand, she herself was an old woman with most of her life behind her. Without hesitation, she uttered the unhallowed words of The Last Incantation backwards - words which cannot be revealed to the good readers of this story for fear of the harm those words will cause.
As she cautiously read through the incantation in reverse, mindful that the slightest mistake may cause the wrong outcome, Guislaine felt the room gradually spin around her until everything was a blur and then nothing. Bit by bit, the room came back into focus and all was still. The King opened the chamber windows and stepped back to the sound of loud cheers from the crowds which had gathered outside. Guislaine was concerned that the spell had not been lifted. With arms outstretched, she walked towards her parents and with each step, she saw the old saggy skin on her hands gradually rejuvinate and everything around her including her parents appear to grow in stature. She grabbed their hands which seemed unusually large until she caught a glimpse of herself in a side mirror which revealed she was a child again. With their young daughter by their side, the King and Queen walked out of their royal chambers for the first time in many a year to be greeted by even louder cheers. However, the cheering was not the cacophony brought about by the spell, but a natural cheer of a joyful crowd celebrating the end of the curse and the start of a new life with their beloved King and Queen who had been given a second chance to be a family once more.
Many many years later when the King and Queen had died of old age, Guislaine ascended the thrown. She too had a long reign until she was once again an old woman. One day, she decided to return to her former home the cottage at the bottom of the hill. Was it still there she thought? Did it ever exist? She packed up her spellbook and slipped out of the castle grounds unseen in the darkness of night. After long hours of travelling, she arrived at her destination and was delighted to see her little cottage in front of her. It was not a dream afterall she thought to herself. Strangely, it looked exactly as it was the day she left all those years ago for she had expected time to have taken its toll. She opened the door and stepped inside. All was in its place. The lamp was shining bright and the logs on the fire were crackling. It was as if she had never been away.
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Stories & Illustrations by George McGinn |
© George McGinn |
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