Timeless Tales Magazine: Twelve Dancing Princesses

TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES

Timeless Tales 3

Editor Tahlia Merrill Kirk

www.timelesstalesmagazine.com timelesstalesmagazine@gmail.com

Design and Layout Geoffrey Bunting

004 Sympathetic Magic Kathleen and Kelley McClure 0 1 4 Dancing Up a Storm Elana Gomel 0 2 4 The Lake CJ Peat 0 3 4 The Executioner Sarah Hausman 044 The Cygnets Charlie Boucher 0 5 4 The New World Leigh Lauck 0 6 4 Let Them Dance Shari Klase 0 7 2 Soles Elizabeth Zuckerman 0 7 8 Twelfth Infantry Division, 1916 Susan Jeffers

Fiction

Words by

Sympathetic Magic

Kathleen and Kelley McClure

About the story

We began Sympathetic Magic with two firm ideas — the protagonist would be a girl and she would be, in behavior if not name, an Aspie. Kelley set the stage in middle school with a third person POV. After several days of rehashing, we shifted to the first person and aged the characters up to high school. I also brought in the concept of the school existing in a contemporary fairy tale universe and the conceit of this society’s outliers being known as Stiltskins, Hoppers and Gazers rather than Asperger’s,

ADHD or Autistic. Once we had our world, the biggest issue was why the basketball players went out every night. We tried out evil cheerleaders and point shaving coaches, but in the end we came to realize the real antagonist here was societal misperception.

It probably helps that Kelley was reading Rosa Parks’ autobiography at the time.

SYMPATHETIC MAGIC kathleen mcclure

kelley mcclure

The second I walked into the office, it was clear all was not well at the Grimm Academy.

“— been replacing twelve pairs of sneakers a day! For over two weeks!“ I heard before a stylish administrative type closed the inner door on the lambasting-in-progress. “May I help you?” she stepped up to the intimidation counter I’d seen in every school I’d attended.

“At this rate you’ll be playing barefoot by the finals—“ “Becca Stringfellow,” I replied, looking just enough to her left that I wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I have an appointment.”

“— and since none of you will explain—“ “Of course.” Like most people, the secretary shifted in an attempt to make eye contact so I countered by turning my gaze to the counter. “The headmaster wanted me to tell you he’ll be with you shortly.”

“—had to issue a Challenge —“ “I can wait until he’s done yelling,” I said, taking a seat and pulling out a treatise on World Culture.

“—means opening our campus to anyone willing to accept the Challenge.”

“It’s not… he’s not …“ “Any. One. Including a Stilt--” Unable to deny the obvious, especially when I refused to ignore it, she returned to her desk and I opened my book to the chapter on the geopolitical ramifications of the Frog/Princess alliance. I’d just reached the Treaty of the Pearl when the office door opened and twelve pairs of high tops crossed the floor, punctuated by the occasional drag-slap of loose soles.

“Miss Stringfellow?”

At the secretary’s call I stood, but because I was busy not-quite-looking at her, my eyes accidentally crossed those of the last departing teenager. Crossed and stuck, and in the half-a-heartbeat our eyes met I felt a slick finger of ice down my spine.

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Now, here’s the funny thing… most people think Stiltskins avoid eye contact because we’re hiding something. The truth is, we’re hiding from everything we can see in other people’s eyes. Stiltskin lore has it that Rumple’s problem was he always let himself look into another’s gaze, and eventually it made him crazy.

Personally, I think he was just trying to save that baby from its con-artist mom and homicidal dad.

I shook off the lingering chill as the boy moved on, leaving me with the impression of dark eyes and chocolate skin, the Oaken coloring of royalty. But then, the Grimm Academy catered almost exclusively to Bloods, with the occasional scholarship student, for those considered worthy.

I highly doubted I’d be considered worthy.

“If you’ll come this way, Miss Stringfellow?”

I followed the secretary to the headmaster’s office, where I was greeted with the usual guarded civility and careful voice.

I then settled in to hear why the Grimm Academy had invoked a Challenge. It was only the sixth Challenge since Oaken the Elder brought back the Devil’s hair, and the first to be issued outside a Royal house. In this case, the Challenge offered a full scholarship to any commoner able to uncover the mystery of their basketball team’s ruined shoes, thereby keeping the team on track to regional finals.

“Every morning, for over a fortnight, all twelve pairs of shoes are worn to rags,” the headmaster held up one such shoe as evidence. Once I got over the size I was able to take in the damage. The shoe was indeed trashed, to the point the worn-down tread was separating from the uppers.

“Of course, you understand we issued the Challenge only after all other avenues had been explored,” the headmaster explained. “But the boys either cannot or will not provide an answer. The coach, the dormitory assistant, and even the school’s mascot, have been housed with the team for a night and none have been able to discover why this is happening. To be truthful,

Timeless Tales 3 7

replacing these shoes is straining the team’s budget to the point we’ve had to ask their families for assistance.”

“Good thing they come from well-heeled families,” I pointed out.

“But of course the real issue is the boys’ well being,” he said, gamely ignoring the pun. “They’re worn out. Too tired to put in a solid practice.”

“I’d imagine their school work is suffering, too.”

“It goes without saying.”

“No, I just said it,” I pointed out helpfully.

He gave up. ­­­*** By the time curfew sounded, I was settled behind a partition at the far end of the team’s dormitory, as the coach, dorm assistant and mascot had been before me. All was quiet. Too quiet, when one considered it was the residence of a high school basketball team.

Where were the shouts? I wondered, as I set my toiletries on the side table in order of size. Where were the snapping towels? Where was the endless spark and challenge of hedge magic or the tap and curse of handheld video games? Where— “Care for some cocoa?”

I turned so fast I almost got caught in the Oaken boy’s eyes again. Instead I forced my gaze to the number on his jersey, which was eleven, or three in binary.

“Sorry,” Eleven held up the hand not wrapped around a paper cup. “Sorry. I should know better.”

“Better than to be nice to a Stiltskin?” I asked, knowing my voice had gone stereotypically flat. Nothing like Eleven’s voice, which was pleasant, if only because he didn’t use the Tolerant Voice or the Careful Voice I was so used to hearing from other people.

“Then to surprise one.” He looked down at his shoes—new shoes, I noted, looking down as well. “My brother is — he’s — they wouldn’t let him into the Academy because—“

8 Timeless Tales 3

“Because he’s different,” I finished when he faltered.

Eleven shifted on those boat feet of his. “They put him in Andersen. Maybe you’ve met him?”

“Not every Stiltskin goes to Andersen.”

“No but, anyway, I know not to force eye contact on a Stiltskin.”

“It’s not always bad,” I said, but of course with his brother he’d know.

“So, umm, did you want some cocoa?”

I automatically took the cup he shoved into my line of sight, and wondered if he’d offered cocoa to the coach, the dorm assistant, and the mascot.

Then I thought of Rumple Stiltskin, and wondered how much he’d seen when he let himself look.

Then I took a deep breath, and looked into Eleven’s eyes. ­­­*** Next morning, before the First Bell, I rushed into the main office.

“Miss Stringfellow?” The secretary bounced out of her chair but she wasn’t fast enough to keep me on the student side of the counter. “Miss Stringfellow, this is not—“ Too late. I was inside headmaster’s office, being greeted by the sight of the Academy’s leader enjoying a bowl of Frutti Tutti Rounds. “The game’s afoot,” I told him as he mopped at splashed milk.

“Miss Stringfellow!” he rose, still holding his breakfast. “I say, what happened to your sweater?”

I glanced down at my sleeve, stained with hot cocoa.

“Collateral damage.”

“Surely you’ve not been in a fight?”

“Nope. Just a scrimmage.” I said. Then I picked up his cereal box. I love the puzzles they print on the back.

“Say again?”

“Scrimmage,” I said again, solving the JUMBLE and moving onto the hidden pictures. “Your basketball team is sneaking out of the dorm to play scrimmage games with the Andersen

Timeless Tales 3 9

High Pretenders. They’ve been doing it every night for the past two weeks.”

“Andersen? That’s the school for the ahh—“ “Hoppers, Gazers, Stiltskins,” I pegged the last hidden picture.

“The Chronically Not Like You.” “But, why?“ “Sympathetic magic.” I said as the basketball team, in its entirety, came piling into the office.

“I knew it!” the headmaster said, putting down the cereal with a sploosh. “One of our rivals invoked a curse.”

“No, sir. This is just what Becca said.” Eleven moved to the desk, then he took the cereal box from me and set it down.

“The only magic here is sympathy, or maybe empathy.” He looked at his teammates who, to a man, nodded their support.

“The thing is, sir, my brother’s at Andersen, so I know those kids don’t ever get to play outside their school. So we—that is I—wanted them to have the chance to go against another team, to play for real. And the guys were all for it. We thought it’d be just the once, but the difference it made to the Pretenders, it was so huge and there was no one else willing to play them so we just… kept going back.”

Couldn’t stop going back, I thought, letting Eleven take the floor, just as he’d let me take it late last night on the basketball court.

Because once I’d seen what was in Eleven’s eyes, and he’d seen me see, he’d knocked the en-spelled cocoa out of my hands. After he apologized for spilling chocolate on my sweater, he invited me to join the team when they snuck through an old steam tunnel to a park, where we met the Andersen kids. There he introduced me to his brother, the center guard for the junior varsity team. And then I watched them play.

And even if some the Pretenders couldn’t hold position, and others seemed to be listening to the trees, they came together when faced with the cohesion of the Grimm Royals. They even scored some solid points.

So when dawn approached and two sweaty, ill-shod teams asked if I’d keep their secret, I made a suggestion.

10 Timeless Tales 3

For a wonder, both teams listened.

Yet more wonder, the headmaster listened to Eleven and later, I listened to the headmaster offer me a place at the academy — the first Stiltskin to be accepted by Grimm.

And then he listened in shock as I told him it depended.

“On what?”

“On whether I’m going to be the only Stiltskin accepted

by Grimm.” *** Five hours and a lot of meetings later, Eleven found me in the gym. I had to give him credit for persistence, as I’d taken my book bag and lunch tray and was hiding under the bleachers.

“Hello, Becca.”

“Eleven.” I closed the book, put it aside.

“I do have a name,” he said, crossing his legs as he sat.

I smiled, but didn’t look up.

“So,” he continued as I remained silent, “the Grimm board spoke to the Andersen board, and they’re talking to the league.

It won’t happen overnight, but it looks like Andersen’s going to make it into next year’s tournament roster.”

“Okay.”

“And they’re opening an exchange program between our schools.”

“Okay,” I said again. Small talk isn’t my thing.

“So —“ Maybe it’s not his thing, either. “What are you doing under the bleachers?”

“Getting a feel for the place.” Still staring at his shoes, worn from last night’s play, I pushed my tray towards him. There were still a couple honey squares left on the plate.

He took one of the squares. “Does it feel like a place you want to stay?” He pushed the tray back so I could have the other.

I looked at the honey square.

Then I took a deep breath, and I didn’t even think of Rumple when I looked into his eyes and answered.

Timeless Tales 3 11

Fiction Sympathetic Magic

About The Authors

Kelley McClure is an 11 year old in 6th grade who has Asperger’s Syndrome (like Becca). She writes because it’s fun for her and to spread the word about a topic. Her next idea for a story is about a variety show for her school featuring the teachers of all the different subjects.

Kathleen McClure is a fifty year old in the school of life who has been in theater, Human Resources, fight choreography and motherhood (the first three were prep for the fourth). She writes because when Kelley (child number two), was almost a year old, a friend convinced her to try NaNoWriMo and suddenly Everything Made Sense.

Many years, rejections and failed blogs later, she is beginning to see the light of publication with Timeless Tales and an anthology of diner stories soon to be published by Mountain State Press and the 1X50X100 Flash Fiction Anthology. With luck, she and her oldest child, Connor, will have something to say about other Timeless Tales in the future.

Fiction

Words by

Dancing Up a Storm

Elana Gomel

About the story

I always thought that there was something mysterious about “Twelve Dancing Princesses�, something going on behind the scenes. Why were the princesses dancing? Why was their dancing so dangerous and secretive? Why could not the king simply ask his daughters what they were up to?

And as I tried to think of answers that would make sense I found myself in a new world where time-storms rage and rulers of days and seasons are themselves prisoners of the human desire to hold onto the past. It is a strange world but no stranger than the one we live in.

dancing up a

storm elana gomel

I could not bury my wife.

The timestorm had hit and the name of the day had been lost in the phosphorescent darkness filled with residue of the past and the future: neighing of horses on an unknown battlefield, crying of unborn babies, gasps of the dying who had been dead for centuries. And when it abated and our old timemaster hobbled around to inspect the damage, my wife was dead.

Her body was reduced to a huddle of ragged flesh and bloody bones by the riptides of time. But her beauty was still real to me. I wanted to bury her with a full ceremony in the same cemetery where my mother and sister were buried. Both died in proper time, on a Dark-Princess Day. But the timemaster said no. My wife’s name was Maria-Lucia. She had been born on a Light-Princess day, and she had to be buried on a Light-Princess day too.

“What is the problem?” I asked the timemaster. “It is an Esme-day tomorrow.”

He said that nobody knew what day it was. The timestorm had scrambled the orderly recurrence of six-day cycles and we were in a blank zone of chaos, which the King and his Princesses would have to hitch back to the rotation of Light and Dark days. But until these veiled majesties condescended to set time straight, we ordinary folk were stranded: without day-names, either light or dark, we could not plow or reap, rejoice or shed tears. And we could not bury our dead.

“Just dig a hole in the ground.” The timemaster said.

“Outside proper time, the body is nothing but carrion.”

My temper must have been tamed by grief because I only shoved him out the door. And then I put a shroud over my dead wife and went out, to the Palace Square.

Many people already gathered there, fearful of doing anything at all. Getting wed on a Dark-Princess day, Mara’s, or Leah’s, or Portia’s, would result in a lifetime of discord.

16 Timeless Tales 3

But trying to conclude a business deal on a Light-Princess day, Adela’s or Lucia’s or Esme’s, would drag it out forever, as both sides made concessions to each other.

Finally the bronze doors were thrown open and the King was carried out in the golden chair studded with rubies and black agates. The twelve Princesses followed in two rows of six as they always did. The King was veiled, of course, the heavy burgundy folds of brocade falling off his elaborate headdress and merging with the stiff velvet of his richly embroidered robe. When I was a child I had asked my mother, naively, how the King could see through the opaque fabric. She’d slapped me. Even asking about the King’s face was blasphemy, while talk about lifting the veil was sedition, punishable by death.

The Princesses surrounded him in a double semicircle: the six named ones in front and the six nameless ones behind. They were all dressed in the same fashion: wide skirts rigidly supported by rectangular frames and tight bodices. The Light Princesses wore aquamarine, rose, and turquoise; the Dark Princesses – scarlet, maroon, and mustard. Their heads and faces were encased in magnificent helmets of gold and jet, whose upper parts were cunningly wrought in the shape of a lady’s braided tresses and adorned with a plume of a dove’s or crow’s feathers.

Their face-masks were sculpted to represent the attribute of each Princess: the round-cheeked benevolence of Adela, the smiling joy of Lucia, and the peaceful contentment of Esme. I did not want to look at the terrible masks of the Dark Princesses.

Instead my eyes were drawn to the second row of the nameless Princesses-in-waiting, their heads bowed, their skirts of a drab navy blue; their face-masks – blank panes of jet. At each summer and winter solstice there was a great ball in the Time Hall and the Princesses exchanged places— the nameless ones taking on the names and powers of their

Timeless Tales 3 17

sisters. This was done, so the timemasters taught, to enable them to rest and recover their strength. Ruling time was no easy task.

One of the Dark Princesses stepped forward – it was Portia, the patroness of anger and pride, and spoke from behind her gaping mask. A groan went through the crowd as she said - her voice pure and metallic - that today was her day. Thus, time would cycle anew from a blighted beginning. People wailed. A Portia-day was the worst of the Dark-Princess days, and no rebuilding of the devastated city could be started, no wounded tended, no provisions brought to the market. And I could not bury my wife.

The King listened to his subjects’ remonstration as stiff and unbending as a marble pillar. And then he was taken back inside and the Princesses followed. The crowd dispersed. I had heard of rebellions in barbarian states that ruled space rather than time. But there had never been a rebellion against our sovereign and his twelve witchy daughters, got without a wife.

I waited, hiding in shadows. And when the Portia-night fell, cold and miserable, with no moon, even though before the timestorm, the moon had shone bright in the Adelasky, I snuck into the palace. There were no guards.

Time is the one unconquerable enemy and whoever rules it has no need of human protection. Or so the King must have believed.

I made my way, undetected, through the splendor of the Palace. But even as I looked amazed at the gold and precious stones adorning every surface, I could not help but see patches of rust, sprinklings of dust, and signs of wear and tear. The Princesses were not doing their duty to the kingdom and they even failed to control time in their own abode.

Suddenly I heard music from a big ballroom, bright light spilling through the half-opened doors. I peered in.

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The Princesses were dancing.

Holding hands, they whirled in a circle, the named and nameless together, their rigid skirts gliding over the floor, their white arms flashing. At the beginning their dance was slow and stately but as the music, whose source I could not see, gathered tempo, it became wild. They pirouetted, stomped, crashed into each other, and roughly grabbed each other’s hands. And I knew that outside another timestorm was raging, the past and the future colliding, days jumbled together like missteps, seasons snarled, life and death scattering randomly.

Something was left of my childhood piety for I still waited for the King to walk in and discipline his unruly daughters. Bu then I saw him, slumped on the throne in the corner, a pile of rich clothes.

The music petered out in a screech of jagged noises.

The Princesses faced each other in two rows and then each of them reached out and removed her partner’s mask. From where I stood I could see the faces of the Light Princesses: Lucia, who looked like my dead wife when she smiled at me at our wedding; Adela, who looked like my dead mother when she cradled me in her arms; Esme, who looked like my dead sister when we played in the garden together. And the faces of the Dark Princesses: Portia, who looked like my dead wife when she threatened to leave me; Mara, who looked like my dead mother when she slapped me; Leah, who looked like my dead sister when she came home stumbling from the drink that eventually killed her. *** But I could also see the faces of the six unnamed Princesses. Or rather, I could see the blankness where their faces should have been. There was nothing at all beneath their elaborate headpieces, just white ovals of unbroken skin, with no eyes, nose or mouth.

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Each named princess lifted her hand to her unnamed sister’s blank visage and as she touched it ripples in the flesh began to appear, gradually shaping themselves into a semblance of humanity, sketchy at first and then flushing with color and animation. Each emerging face was an exact copy of her named sister’s face.

“Stop it!” I cried.

Twelve faces turned to me, six sets of twins, all images of my past, happy or sad, jubilant or depressing, but all alike, the future mirroring the past in a cycle of endless repetition, the Twelve Princesses’ circle dance, that had gripped time in its vortex.

I strode into the ballroom. I knew they could obliterate me with a flick of eyelashes, make it so that I would have never been born. But I was not afraid anymore.

They did not move, warily watching me as if expecting me to attack. But instead I went to the throne in the corner.

As I lifted the King’s veil, his entire body collapsed into scratchy dust. He had been dead for a long time.

I tuned to the Princesses and addressed Lucia, with my bride’s radiant face.

“Your father is dead,” I said. “Go away, leave us alone.”

“He was not our father,” Portia answered, and her angerflushed features – my wife’s features at their worst - were suddenly precious to me because I knew I would never see them again. “He ensnared us, spirits of days and seasons, and bound us to his will. And he forced us into the circle of dance, so the sisters of the future became mirrors of the sisters of the past and whatever was would be again. He thought to cheat death this way. But if we had to dance, we would at least dance to our own tune. Timestorms are our revenge on him and all the people of his miserable kingdom.

A timestorm killed him but we are still bound by you.” ***

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“We never did anything to you,” I said feebly but I knew it was not true. Did I not consider the burial of my dead wife more important than rebuilding my living city? Did I not chase my memories in a merry-go-round like the Princesses’ circle dance?

“We will change,” I said. “I swear. Just go away, leave us, break the circle. Let your sisters of the future choose names for themselves.”

They started at me intently, all twelve of them, and then I saw their faces melt like candle-wax, run and smooth out into blank unformed spaces. Twelve dummies stood before me, gorgeously dressed, the faces of the past forgotten and erased, the faces of the future not yet molded. They turned around and filed out of the ballroom.

I went back home. I found a shovel, dug a hole in the ground and put the dead body in.

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Fiction Dancing Up a Storm

About The Author

I was born in a country that no longer exists – the USSR. Even though I left as a teenager the sense of being a stranger has stayed with me, no matter where I am on the globe: California, Israel, Hong Kong, London… I find this feeling exhilarating.

I live with my husband in Mountain View, California but I also spend a lot of time in Israel where I am a Professor of English Literature at Tel-Aviv University. But no matter where I am geographically there is one place where I always feel welcome: the land of the imagination.

The first books I read were Greek and Roman myths and Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales. Later on I discovered science fiction and fantasy. I have published five academic volumes, all of them in different ways touching upon literature of the fantastic. Last year, my first (so far) novel came out: a dark fantasy called A Tale of Three Cities (2013), blending urban mythology, shadows of Dickens, and memories of the Holocaust. All my books are available on Amazon and via my site

Fiction

Words by

The Lake

CJ Peat

About the story

I stumbled upon the Timeless Tales website and was intrigued by the task of retelling The Twelve Dancing Princesses, a fairy tale I’d liked but had forgotten about. It instinctively made me think of a detective story and the mystery’s solution somehow worked itself out almost at once. I liked the idea of dancing to create energy so it made sense to set this in the future when alternative energy sources will be even more important, even if this particular energy source is a little unlikely.

T H E

L A K E C J P E AT

Detective Twigg didn’t know it, but he was investigating a case that had happened ten times before. Over the years, decades now, ten separate detectives (some working for the police and some private investigators) had tried and failed to discover how ten separate young women had disappeared. No one had ever connected the mysteries, largely because each woman had returned home unharmed three days later, albeit with no memory of the last few days and no explanation (also – although none of the detectives had thought it significant enough to record in their files – with no shoes). The cases had been resolved but still remained unsolved.

For Detective Twigg, the young woman was Miriam Jones.

Her flatmate had reported her missing on Sunday, as Miriam had been out dancing the night before and had not been seen since. She had now been gone for two days and Detective Twigg had no leads. He had interviewed Miriam’s family and friends and was returning from re-interviewing staff at the club she had been to that night, a recently opened venue called The Lake. The club’s manager had been even more anxious than on Sunday, worrying for the girl’s safety and the effect her disappearance would have on The Lake’s reputation. None of the staff, however, could recall if Miriam had left the club alone or with other people; the club had been so busy that night that Detective Twigg could not rely on their memories being accurate at all.

The security cameras showed Miriam dancing with her friends, then going into the toilets just before midnight.

Detective Twigg could not find any more footage of her, either on The Lake’s cameras or on local CCTV. She was certainly no longer in the club; it had been thoroughly searched and the toilets had almost been ripped apart.

Miriam Jones had truly disappeared.

At a loss, Detective Twigg started looking at recent kidnapping and missing person cases. With no other leads,

26 Timeless Tales 3

he looked at increasingly older cases, until something in one of the reports caught his attention. Ten years ago, an Annie Walters had gone missing at a dance, only to turn up three days later. The dance had been at a hotel called The Lake.

Detective Twigg spent Tuesday searching for other missing person cases connected to a ‘Lake’. They were scattered across different cities and different years but he found a Lake Hall case, a Blue Lake nightclub case and a Lake Dance case. If he had continued, he might have found all ten previous cases but he had seen enough. Except for the place and the year, the cases were identical and if Miriam’s disappearance was connected she was likely to return home that night, at the end of three days.

She did. Detective Twigg and Miriam’s flatmate watched from the front room that night as Miriam walked barefoot along the pavement towards them. She walked slowly and delicately, seemingly unaware that the police, her family and friends had spent the last three days searching for her and fearing the worst. Her flatmate ran out to meet her and started bombarding the surprised Miriam with questions and hugs. Detective Twigg, while waiting expectantly for her return, had coolly planned the questions he would ask.

None of the answers, however, gave him any further information. Like the others, Miriam had no knowledge of what had happened to her and wasn’t even aware she had been gone for three days. She had never heard of The Lake Hotel, Lake Hall, the Blue Lake nightclub, a Lake Dance, Annie Walters or any of the other girls who had gone missing. Miriam was back, she was safe but she was no help in discovering what had happened to her.

Detective Twigg moved onto other assignments but he could not get this case out of his mind. Becoming obsessed, he soon discovered the six other related disappearances.

Over the years Twigg met with all the women and visited

Timeless Tales 3 27

the places where they had last been seen but beyond that there was nothing he could do to solve the mystery.

Diligently, compulsively searching for any ‘Lake’ and ‘dance’ events, Detective Twigg one night found himself in a small coastal town at the opening of the ‘Lake Dance Studio’. He planned on being there, hoped he would be there, if another disappearance took place. The studio was holding an evening of free ballroom dancing lessons, followed by a party and dance. Detective Twigg, one of the few men there, was forced to participate during the lessons but stayed close to the wall for the party, watching for any women leaving the hall on their own. Everyone had seemed to come with friends or partners and there were few occasions where Twigg had to worry about someone being alone.

Close to midnight, Detective Twigg watched a young woman in a black dress go into the toilets. He quickly moved to the door, debating with himself whether or not to follow her inside. Eventually opening the door, he saw her standing in front of the mirror, checking her make-up.

Midnight. Detective Twigg didn’t notice it at first but the woman was completely still. She had frozen. Her reflection, however, started shifting and wavering, rippling.

Detective Twigg stepped closer to look. As he did, the door closed behind him and the whole room suddenly tilted on its side. The young woman fell into what had been the mirror and was now a pool of clear water beneath her.

With nothing to hold onto, Detective Twigg fell in too. *** Twigg stumbled to his feet, surprisingly dry, from a cold floor like marble and tried to work out where he was. The dark, close walls made him think he was in some cell but when he saw the glass he realised he was not the one imprisoned. The young woman from the party was on the other

28 Timeless Tales 3

side of the glass, her body dancing, in constant motion, but her face emotionless.

“How did you get here?” a stressed voice asked behind him.

Detective Twigg was hurried into a bright observation room by the owner of the voice, a blue-labcoated woman whose square glasses only magnified the surprise in her eyes. She began firing questions at Twigg but with his years in the police he was soon getting answers from her, an engineer called Edna. After semi-convincing the detective that the dancing woman was in no way being harmed, she was allowed to explain.

She told him that the dancing woman was inside the Lake generator, named after its inventor but often nicknamed the Alchemist machine. It harnessed the dancer’s kinetic energy as she moved, oblivious. As soon as the dancer’s shoes were worn through, her bare feet would connect directly with footprint receptors in the machine floor and she would be sent back in time – This is where Detective Twigg had to interrupt. His eyes searched disbelievingly around the observation room and through the glass at the machine before turning to Edna.

“What do you mean,” his voice uncharacteristically faltered, “back in time?”

Edna gave out a small sigh and slowed down.

“Yes,” she began more sympathetically, “you’ve been transported into the future. Probably about a hundred years by the look of your clothes. You see, the Lake generator makes semantic connections in the past to create time portals. It created a portal to bring this woman here. When she returns to her own time, the generator can convert the kinetic energy she’s created in the future back into potential energy and store it as an energy source.”

Edna’s explanation sped up again as she talked about the technicalities of the machine, a topic she was clearly passionate about. Twigg, meanwhile, tried to make sense

Timeless Tales 3 29

of it. Edna let him look at the machine and the young woman dancing inside more closely. She showed him the fibres that transmitted the energy and the crystals of gold, silver and diamond where it could be stored. Lastly she told him that, since the time portal was linked to the dancer in the machine, travel back into the past was only possible for that person. Detective Twigg would not be able to return to his own time.

“Is this a joke?” Twigg now asked, although it sounded more like an accusation. “Is this all a joke?” He had seen the machine and listened to Edna but couldn’t quite accept that he would be stuck in another time. He made for the nearest door, not sure if he was hoping to expose an elaborate trick or find clear evidence of being in the future. No flying cars, robots or even colleagues laughing at his gullibility, only unhelpful corridors that gave nothing away. It would be days of seeing little changes and new technologies before Twigg was fully convinced that he was indeed in the future. *** Sometimes, in his new home, Detective Twigg would look up at the lights and wonder if Miriam Jones had powered them. He would visit the Alchemist machine and watch the young woman dance, trying to guess what her name might be as she waltzed and quickstepped. He had known all the other girls’ names so well, having recited them in his head as if one time they would tell their secret. This girl would return home after months of dancing but only three days of being missing (as close as the machine could get to the time she disappeared, Edna had told him), never knowing how the lights in future cities shone because of her.

30 Timeless Tales 3

Detective Twigg was watching on the day that her shoes finally wore to nothing and a bright flash took her home.

He remained, forgetting that he had once hoped to return too. He felt that a part of his life was now over, complete, closed. He and Edna went home.

Timeless Tales 3 31

Fiction The Lake

About The Author

CJ Peat lives in Scotland. She writes as a hobby or as a way of procrastinating (at least it’s sometimes productive procrastination). This is the first piece of work she’s had published. She has been writing stories since she was a child (most are unfinished) and started writing poetry about ten years ago (which is usually easier to finish).

Fiction

Words by

The Executioner

Sarah Hausman

 The Executioner Sarah Hausman

“Sir, are you listening?”

The Executioner was not.

“This is not what you think. I am not what you think. It was some sort of trickery!”

The hooded Executioner with the expressionless eyes had heard the desperate pleas many times. Not a word of acknowledgement was spoken to the bound prisoner as he was led from the dank cell to the sunlit gallows where he would meet his end before the Royal Court. Days ago he was the youngest prince of a neighboring kingdom. Today he was simply another prisoner condemned by the King, and another day’s work for the Executioner. Nothing could be said or done now, and the Executioner found speaking to the prisoners only made the task more difficult. *** A few days after the hanging, the Executioner was summoned to the Royal Court to receive a second, similar death warrant. Like the first, the second prisoner’s crime was not specified and, similarly, the order for the method of execution came from one of the twelve princesses rather than the King himself.

“I think I should like this one performed by guillotine,” she said.

“As you require, my lady,” the Executioner replied. The guillotine was easy enough and readily available. The Executioner completed the task quickly.

Some days later, the Executioner was summoned to receive an order from the third princess.

“Burn this man at the stake,” she demanded. The Executioner went to work obtaining fuel for such an endeavor.

36 Timeless Tales 3

A fourth order came from a fourth princess.

“Have this one stoned,” she commanded. The Executioner gathered suitable stones.

And so on, the requests continued at regular intervals.

“Bury him alive,” ordered the fifth. The Executioner began digging.

“Boil him alive,” insisted the sixth. The Executioner sought the biggest pot in the kingdom.

“Feed him to the rats,” fancied the seventh. The Executioner paid peasant boys to trap them straightaway.

“Dismember him! No, wait. On second thought,” giggled the indecisive eighth, “disembowel him!” The Executioner sharpened the knives.

“Would it be too much trouble to crush this one?” asked the ever-so-polite ninth princess. Of course, it was not.

The Executioner retrieved some stones from the miller.

“Oh, use the breaking wheel!” exclaimed the tenth, clapping her hands in anticipation.

“Hang, draw, and quarter him,” sneered the eleventh, with a vile gleam in her eyes.

As the princess’s requests grew increasingly morbid, the Executioner grew more reluctant to carry them out.

However, being under oath to serve the King, there was no choice and the pay was necessary to support the Executioner’s poor family. *** One by one, eleven prisoners died at the hands of the Executioner, but not before telling their stories of how they became innocent victims of a cruel contest.

Timeless Tales 3 37

“I was tricked!” lamented a lord.

“They drugged me!” exclaimed an earl.

“There is surely a wicked enchantment!” proclaimed a prince.

“Well, if you must know, I was bound to the bedposts!” dithered a despairing duke.

As more noblemen noted similar accounts, the Executioner hoped that a twelfth suitor would provide the King with the answers he sought to end the terrible game. *** The next time a group of reluctant suitors arrived before the Royal Court for selection for the King’s contest, there was an unlikely candidate in the assembly. They had heard of the tragic ends of the eleven previous suitors and none wanted to be chosen, save one.

The twelfth princess examined and questioned each man, making a grand show of the process, while the suitors did their best to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

“Too short,” she said, passing by one. The others slumped their shoulders, shifting their eyes back and forth hoping to appear shorter than the men next to them.

“Too skinny,” she said, turning her nose up at another.

The rest of the men sucked in their bellies.

“Too fat,” she said to one, frowning. The portlier men relaxed and released their breath.

“Too old,” she laughed, examining a hunched man with a balding head and wrinkled face.

“Ahhh, but I am young at heart and keen of mind,” he said, tapping his temple and smiling to reveal missing teeth.

“And what is your title, sir?”

38 Timeless Tales 3

“Baker,” he asserted. “You should see my buns.”

The onlookers who had come to witness the princess’s selection snickered.

“Oh, really!” she scoffed.

“No, not really, I am actually a potter, and I must say that I know nice jugs when I see them.”

The princess huffed and remained speechless. The spectators laughed merrily.

“Oh, dear princess, I jest. I am truly only a chicken farmer. You should see my--” “Why, I never!” the wide-eyed princess interrupted as the crowd thundered with laughter.

“Haven’t you?” the man asked with raised eyebrows and feigned disbelief.

The gathering roared.

“Enough!” snapped the blushing princess, though she could not resist smiling at the old man’s roguishness.

The princess turned to her whispering and giggling sisters and then back to the old man before concluding, “All right, sir, I choose you to join my sisters and I this evening.”

The onlookers cheered hopefully.

“At the very least,” she muttered, “the old tramp should be quite entertaining.” *** Three days later, the sound of horns signaled a call to Court. Masses gathered to watch the commotion and the Executioner joined them.

The old man stood before them proudly. For three nights, he had duped the arrogant princesses. With a flourish, he

Timeless Tales 3 39

produced sparkling pieces of evidence. The princesses’ astonished faces and troubled glances confirmed that the items were acquired from their secret rendezvous. Spectators gasped while the Executioner smiled quietly.

The King addressed them all. “At last, I have the answers I have sought! Tomorrow we shall celebrate with a wedding rather than an execution!”

A hush fell over the stunned crowd. The old man, perhaps by some enchantment of his own, had solved the mystery.

In doing so, he brought new hope to the oppressed kingdom.

Whispers grew to a murmur, and then to a cheer.

The youngest princess sat scowling next to her father, averting her gaze from her toothless bridegroom as he smiled widely and waved to the throng that applauded him. *** Months later, the King fell ill and died. The old man had outlived him to become the new ruler. This delighted the peasants, as he had been quite kind to them.

His first order as King was to the Executioner, who he summoned shortly after his coronation.

“The first thing I must do is dispose of these horrid princesses,” he said. “My queen has grown to love me and she is not altogether rotten, but the rest are simply cruel. You, more than anyone, would know that they have continued with their brutal contests, committing dreadful crimes against our citizens in the name of sport. I order you to execute them at once. I know no other means to control them.”

In the privacy of the King’s chambers, the Executioner removed her hood.

40 Timeless Tales 3

“And how would you prefer that I complete the task, Your Highness?” she asked with a conspiratorial smile.

“I will leave that up to you, my daughter,” he said with a wink.

“I have eleven ideas,” she replied.

Timeless Tales 3 41

Fiction The Executioner

About The Author

Sarah Hausman is originally from Oregon, currently transplanted in Washington, and waiting to see where her new adventure as a Navy wife will take her next. She has gone from writing reports as a parole officer to occasionally writing short fiction. She enjoys playing roller derby and brewing kombucha in her free time and works part time at a wig shop, which is the best thing she has ever been paid to do.

Sarah has been previously published in Enchanted Conversation (fairytalemagazine.com) and she posts occasional updates on her writing at facebook.com/sarahhausmanwrites.

Fiction

Words by

The Cygnets

Charlie Boucher

About the story

I hadn’t read “The Dancing Princesses” before writing this piece, despite being a big fan of classic fairytales. I admit I was a bit stumped until I thought about my best friend, who is a stage manager at a London Theatre.

Thanks to her, I’ve had a few trips backstage some very big theatres, and it occurred to me that a ballet wasn’t a crazy place to find twelve dancers, but it would be baffling to find them dancing their shoes to pieces on a nightly basis. And once I started writing, the voice of the wardrobe mouse took me all the way to the end.

I like writing short stories.

They write themselves a lot

more quickly than novels.

Very frequently magazines are thematic, so they give you a topic (such as a fairy tale) and sense of style (such as a re-imagining) and a word limit and deadline. And then off I go. This one is for Kirsty, my dearest and most constant friend, and the loveliest backstage pass you could ask for.

charlie boucher

The cygnets were the problem. Every day I’d head down to wardrobe to steam their costumes, repair ripped seams, and replace lost feathers. And every day this workload was added to by the need to find twelve new pairs of pristine white ballet shoes.

A new box of shoes arrived. I pulled them out and scrawled arcane patterns inside each one. I photographed them with my phone—an odd little collection that creeped me out. Ballet shoes start to look like coffins when you pay too much attention to them.

I distributed the shiny white satin shoes to the cygnets with yet another request that they take care; we couldn’t afford to keep replacing them. The cygnets, an unattractive clique of pretty ballerinas, did that thing with their eyebrows that slightly acknowledged my presence, but dismissed it as tedious. I left the room and one of them declared, “Silly old wardrobe mouse. Quel fusspottage.”

I fled back to my dark cubby-hole, lined with costumes that whiffed either of perspiration or cheap laundry detergent.

The show ran without incident. I collected clothes from the main cast members, and worked my way down the ranks to the large room shared by the cygnets. It was empty.

Personal belongings were strewn across make-up tables.

They clearly hadn’t gone home yet – so where were they, in their baby swan suits and their brand new shoes?

I made my way to the stage – perhaps they’d been held back for notes or choreography changes. But the impressive space was empty, as were all the seats in the theatre. I wandered back to my musty little room and found a laundry basket full of ballet shoes waiting for me. The sole of each one had been worn through and as I compared each to my photographs, I dully matched every single one. There was no theft going on. I rubbed the base of the shoes for the fiftieth time and had to admit that there was no vandalism

46 Timeless Tales 3

either. The shoes had been worn down, like footwear worn every day and danced in violently for weeks. It made no sense.

The next day I handed out twelve new pairs of shoes.

Mathilde, the eldest of the group, gave me a smile that was marginally more human than usual, and actually thanked me. The room dangled a remote sort of sympathy that I didn’t understand.

By my calculations, I had two shows left in which to solve the mystery. After that my budget was blown and my reputation was in danger. I loved my job and I was good at it, but theatre is a fierce industry, and there is always someone waiting to step up and spin you out of your role when you falter. It’s not just the cast who have to dance, you know.

That night, for the first time ever, I neglected my immediate post-show duties. The main cast had to leave their sweaty costumes hanging in their dressing rooms for once, because I was not letting the cygnets out of my sight.

The show finished. There were bows, a standing ovation, more pretty curtseys, bows, and a round of applause for the orchestra. The cast skipped lightly from the stage and the curtain fell, and I kept my eyes on the figures of the twelve young swans. In costume they were all identical, hair pulled back, stiff skirts over shining white body suits.

I gave their feet a quick check – one of them was pushing down on the knuckles of her toes and the sole of her shoe was entirely intact. Okay. So they hadn’t worn through them in the course of the show. So where did they go next?

Up went the curtains, down came flies, and for a moment the stage was in complete darkness. When the house lights came on again, it was empty. The cygnets had disappeared.

I stood like a fool for a moment, but then I remembered that a theatre is a magical maze of hiding places; appearances and disappearances are its stock in trade. I moved

Timeless Tales 3 47

to where the girls had been standing and looked down to verify what I already knew would be there: A trap door.

They had dropped, in the blink of an eye, to the vaulted spaces underneath the stage—place where the ceiling is all numbers and hinges; a place that gave me a headache whenever I had to go there, perpetually convinced that someone was about to fall on top of me.

I hurried down, taking the long route backstage. The space was dimly lit and abandoned, apart one single stage hand tidily winding rope around a pair of hooks on the wall. He looked up. I stuttered, “The cygnets?�

And he laughed. He made me feel inexplicably foolish and I turned back to the dim stairs, about to climb back up through the twists and turns of backstage. As I took the first step, I heard a rush of noise behind me and the cygnets, giggling, sighing, and yawning, landed in a happy jumble on a crash mat. I stepped further up the stairs, peeking round the corner to watch them playfully slide to the floor.

There was a glimpse of a light brown sole. A round black eye glared at me from it. Between their disappearance from the stage and their landing on the mat, they had once again danced through their shoes.

I scurried away, feeling more like a wardrobe mouse than ever, bustling back to my hidey-hole, baffled and scared and trembling. My fingers went reflexively to the tools I always carried with me. I tapped the needle stuck into my belt, rolled the thinning cotton reel I kept in one pocket, and stroked the small pair of scissors I kept in the other.

This usually calming habit made no difference to my pounding heart. The five minute blip in time made no sense and my head ached.

Only one day left to solve this mystery.

I waited until the end of the show, wrapped a brown velvet cloak around my shoulders, and edged on to the

48 Timeless Tales 3

crowded stage to share a bow. I was overwhelmed by the jangling sensation of standing, an imposter, in front of a full house. Dozens of people were on their feet, their roar of appreciation a physical assault. The dancer to my left groped for my hand and I was forced into an inelegant shuffle as we raised arms, flung ourselves down in a dramatic bow, and the curtain came down for the final time.

The cast’s apparent camaraderie dribbled away with the sound of the audience’s pleasure. The cygnets hung around in a tight group, edging towards the square of floor that was trap door number 13. The lights went out and I threw myself at them, expecting to meet a jumble of bodies and exasperated shrieks. But instead I threw myself into oblivion and all I could see as I tumbled down into darkness were the twelve spinning shapes of the cygnets, happily falling and twirling like silver leaves in the night.

Shapes began to appear like stepping stones, followed by ripples of blue light, a watery pattern that bled out into the endless night that surrounded us. The twelve of them flew from golden stone to golden stone, effortless jumps, their giggles floating after them, taunting me to follow them if I could. Their shoes flexed and pushed and as I drew nearer, I saw that the stones were molten hot. My grubby trainers sizzled as I fell toward them and jumped frantically from one to the other, each step a ball of hot pain, each landing a sucking searing stab. My ungainly staggers were ignored by the dancers, who barely touched the stones, and instead jumped onto the surface of the rippling water, bounding from wave to wave and making only the tiniest splashes as they danced. I tumbled from the hot stones into the sea, and whilst it gave immediate relief to my feet, flooding in through the melted rubber of my trainers to soothe the burns, the current beneath the water was fast and affectionate, clasping me to it and dragging me down. I felt the oddest sensation that this was

Timeless Tales 3 49

where I could be loved the most, and then the waters let me go with a playful push, and I was forced out onto land, coughing and spluttering on a shore of soft grey sand. The dancers, still spinning and spiralling like falling stars, were some distance ahead of me, skipping over the sand that sucked at my feet and made every step a dragging lurch. I ended up falling onto my hands and knees, trying to push myself over the heavy ground that, unlike the loving water, seemed to want to suck me down, shut me up, and bury me for good.

Eventually the sand grew firmer and I struggled to my feet to find myself at the edge of a broad green meadow.

The skies above me, dusky and oppressive in their enormity, blinked, and a gazebo was revealed, beautiful and ornate.

Filmy curtains surrounded it, gusting out in attractive waves of glowing fabric, perfectly in time with the music that was playing. Inside the gazebo the cygnets had found twelve partners to dance with – my mind immediately identified them as princes - and the couples whirled and clutched, kissed and lifted, smiled and stroked… I have never felt so lonely in my entire life. Nothing wanted me here. Everything in this space demanded grace and delicacy and passion. I, a mere wardrobe mouse, had nothing to offer it, and realised why I had been so ungraciously allowed to travel here. It was only to prove, in as clear a manner as possible, why this was none of my business.

It wasn’t until her partner tore his sleeve that Mathilde noticed me. Their nimble embrace ended with the barking noise of material rending and the sudden slip of his velvet sleeve from shoulder to wrist brought them both to an uncertain halt. The music faltered. Everyone stopped. The prince, more aghast at a popped seam than seemed sensible, stared in wide-eyed fear at his partner. He shook his head and the entire universe wobbled dangerously. The cygnets dropped their partners’ hands and edged closer

50 Timeless Tales 3

together. This was not how this particular part of the evening was supposed to go. I stepped forward, reaching for the needle in my belt and the reel of cotton in my pocket.

Mathilde turned to see me and gave me a smile that seemed genuinely grateful. The prince, frowning at my sudden appearance, tentatively held out his arm and I swiftly sewed his sleeve back into place; wide tacks where I thought I could get away with it, tight tiny darns where I felt it needed to be most secure. As I sewed, I could feel the world around me relaxing. Something that had been holding its breath began to breathe. The cygnets and the princes held hands as I knotted my thread and snipped the ends away. The music began again, a sweet and dreamy melody, and the dancers began a revolving waltz that went round and around and around and finally spun me to sleep.

When I woke up, I was propped beside an empty gazebo, my charred and blackened trainers removed. A pin cushion with an embroidered peacock had been tied to my wrist.

Ivory headed pins dotted it in the shape of a heart and a solid silver needle sat in its centre. The reel of cotton in my pocket was magically full and my scissors were solid gold and sharper than ever.

Now I wait the dance every night and hope that – should the merest break in the smallest thread threaten its existence – I will be able to sew it back together.

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Fiction The Cygnets

About The Author

In 1996, Charlie Boucher graduated from Rose Bruford College with a theatre degree in writing.

Despite some alarmed looks from her family and some unspoken but heavily implied doubts that she would ever put this degree to any practical use, she has managed to work fairly regularly as a professional writer. In 2013, Charlie published her first novel Hiding The Smile. It is currently available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats.

Recently Charlie had a short story feature on the Fiction Terrifica website and has another one slated to appear in an upcoming anthology from Horrified Press.

Charlie lives in Malvern, UK, with her husband and daughter. You can visit Charlie’s Blog, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

Fiction

Words by

The New World

Leigh Lauck

About the story

I’ve always been fascinated by real world mysteries with supernatural possibilities, and the Roanoke story has those in spades. After reading the guidelines for this issue of Timeless Tales, with “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” as its theme, I went to bed churning with thoughts of enchantment, and new and dangerous worlds. I awoke in the middle of the night with the Captain’s voice telling me about the first time he saw the island as the colonists sailed up Ocracoke Inlet. I sped to the laptop and The New World poured out of me before the sun was up.

leigh lauk

the new

world

At first, the sight of the low, pine-studded hills, the coastal waters roiling with mackerel and bluefish, and the great rivers smooth as glass filled us with wonder. We sailed up Ocacroke Inlet on an incoming tide, speechless at how quiet it was, how peaceful.

Once ashore, we knew right away there was something amiss, even as we mounded earth and sharpened stakes and sawed logs for the cottages. There was a heaviness about the island, an alien geometry in the stones and trees, and the angles of the hillsides were wrong. It made me dizzy to stare too long and too hard at the landscape, and all the streams ran impossibly uphill.

I was a soldier. I’d been in this trade since I was a boy, when the regiments came recruiting through Cardiff, and I’d seen my share of death and pointless cruelty. I’d come here to get away from it, to help protect the colony, to find a new life. I had yet to learn the real danger wasn’t from Chief Powhattan or the Algonquians. What we would face couldn’t be destroyed with sword or cannon.

It happened the autumn Johnny White went back to England, like the land had been waiting for just that moment to spring its trap. On a night in September, Harry Rufoote ran screaming through the village that his girls were gone, their beds empty and all the doors still latched on the inside.

He had quite a brood, twelve daughters ranging in age from five to five and twenty. His wife had died in childbed bringing forth the last one and Harry was on his own.

Tim and I had the watch that night and we did our best to calm Harry down. By then, everyone was awake and out standing in the muddy yard we called a square, their eyes wild with fear. We went back to Harry’s cottage to search,

56 Timeless Tales 3

but it didn’t take long to see the one room and loft were empty. Tim and I took torches and went out beyond the palisade, walking the woods until dawn, calling out their names. The trees were dark and dripping after a rain, and a fog rose from the ground. We stuck together, our terror unspoken but strong, like the smell of lye in the air. I could feel the flesh on my back standing up like the hackles on a dog.

We returned just after sunrise, and Jane Pierce ran to us, her face pale but split with a trembling smile. “They’ve come back!” she cried, clutching at the buttons on her bodice, her eyes round above the grin. “Prithee, come with me!”

They’d brought the girls to the meeting hall, where they sat eldest to youngest like a row of magpies upon one of the pews. Harry looked haggard but relieved, and beside him the Reverend Clement wore his usual dour expression.

Only his crooked wig betrayed his exhaustion and fright.

“Captain!” He clapped me on the shoulder with a shaking hand. “There’s something fearsome in the woods!”

“Is that what they said?” I asked, turning to the oldest girl. “Prudence?” She had always been a plain lass, with dull yellow hair and sallow skin. But now there was an eerie beauty to her, a flush in her cheeks and embers burning in her dark eyes that made my belly turn to water. Her hair was matted with twigs, and her leather shoes were torn and caked with mud. She looked like a wild faerie from the old tales. You could smell the magic on her. My skin crawled even as I wanted to reach out and touch her, and I saw her mouth was curled in the barest of smiles.

“We can tell thee nothing, Captain,” she said quietly, those inky eyes never leaving mine. They seemed to grow

Timeless Tales 3 57

blacker by the minute. I looked at the sisters, but they sat mutely, their own eyes fixed on Prudence. “There’s things t’would be better ye didn’t know.”

“What kinds of things? Where were ye last night?” I asked, having to grip my belt to keep from touching her, the magic was that strong. The Reverend and Harry might not have felt it, but I was born in a land thick with old enchantment, and I knew its odor. The whole island smelled of it, but the girls stank outright. “What is it in the woods, Prudence? What do ye know?” I swallowed hard when I heard the quavering in my own voice, the rising edge of hysteria.

Prudence dropped her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was low and hard. “There’s a price that must be paid for everything, Captain.” She looked up then, her expression sharp. “Ye’ve seen terrible things. I can see it in your aspect.

I can see ye comprehend. Tis a delicate thing. For the sake of the village, leave it be.”

We couldn’t get another word out of them. We begged, we threatened them with a whipping, but they only sat slumped on the pew with their mouths clamped shut. At last, when Harry took them home, Reverend Clement asked me the question. What else could I do? I could only say yes.

That night, I hunkered in the shadows inside the palisade, watching the Rufoote’s cottage. It was a fine evening, the sky dappled with diamond stars and a full moon bathing the village in a milky light. It was cold, and I shivered inside my wool coat, thinking distantly that winter would be upon us soon. As the hours passed and the moon dipped westward, I began to drowse.

58 Timeless Tales 3

The shrill crowing of a cock roused me. I woke instantly from a soldier’s shallow sleep and stood, lucid and alert.

The village was silent, without even the soughing of a breeze to break the stillness. Again, I felt that creeping gooseflesh moving up my spine, thickening at my neck, my body tensed and humming with the primal urge to flee.

I sniffed at the air and smelled it again: magic, so sickly sweet my stomach turned, with a coppery note like blood. I nearly broke and ran, but what I saw then stopped me dead.

Floating among the dark pines at the forest’s edge, I beheld twelve green orbs. The light they gave was ghostly, just like the faerie lights in the old stories my mam told me when I was a boy. They bobbed among the branches, receding, casting a spectral glow over the ferns and the slender trunks of tamarack and persimmon. Without thinking, I followed, moving in a crouch and slipping into the undergrowth behind them.

I don’t know how long I pursued them, scrabbling like a crab through the trees. At last, raked by brambles and splattered with mud, I reached the edge of a wide meadow.

I didn’t want to see what I saw there. I tried to shield my eyes from it, but couldn’t tear my gaze away.

In the silvery grass the girls danced, their arms and legs jerking as though they were marionettes, their bodies naked and white in the waning moonlight. Their faces were twisted, their expressions grotesque; pain, pleasure, terror, and wild abandon flickered over their features in rapid succession. Around them danced gods or monsters: a bear nine times the size of a man, with the face of an old woman; wolves that jigged on their hind legs as leathery wings

Timeless Tales 3 59

opened and closed from their backs; towering, unspeakable creatures with eyes that glowed red, waving spindly limbs like nightmare insects, their heads those of ravens.

I screamed. At the sound the dancing stopped and all eyes turned to me. I was writhing on my belly in horror at the meadow’s edge. The twelve Rufoote girls stood frozen.

“Run!” It was Prudence, her face stricken. The girls ran.

The littlest one passed me first, tripping among the roots along the forest floor. As the other girls sprinted by, thrashing through the trees, the sky began to fill with clouds that pulsed with blue lightning, and a high, splitting whine crackled through the air. I felt a hand grip my arm, the fingers digging into my flesh. I looked up to see Prudence.

“Get up, you fool!” she said. “Ye don’t know what ye’ve done. Run!” Once in the forest, Prudence turned west. “Wait!” I cried.

“The village lies to the north!”

She turned to me, her eyes pools of shadow in the darkness, her breath coming in gasps. “Roanoke is no more, Captain. We must go.” She tugged at my hand and we stumbled on. Behind us, we could hear rustling in the underbrush and a terrible chittering.

“How? What do you mean? We must make for the village!”

But Prudence pulled me onward, silent and relentless, and we broke from the treeline onto the beach. Wordlessly, we plunged into the tide, floundering in the waves, kicking toward the mainland. Behind us we heard the rumble of thunder, the shrill keening growing louder and higher until we thought our ears would burst. Then there was an awful sucking sound, as if all the world were swirling and sinking into some great vortex. I could feel it pulling

60 Timeless Tales 3

at me like a riptide as I swam against it, as I swam for my life. Then, in an instant, all was silent.

We reached the shore at dawn and lay wheezing, half drowned on the beach. “They’re gone,” she said simply when she could speak. I could see the distant island backlit by the rising sun, a squat and ordinary nub.

I took Prudence at her word. We didn’t go back.

We’re looking for the Wainoke now. We think they might help us. Prudence wears my wool coat, her bare legs bruised and scratched. At night we hold each other, shivering among the fallen leaves. We follow the stream beds south and deeper inland, and they all flow downhill, behind us and toward the ocean. The breeze is earthly and bereft of magic. As we walk, we smell only sea and pine.

Timeless Tales 3 61

Fiction The New World

About The Author

Leigh Lauck was born in Maine, where she grew up reading the work of Stephen King at far too tender an age. The summer she was ten she found ‘Salem’s Lot on her parents’ bookshelf and devoured it in a state somewhere between wonder and goggling terror. She nearly died of heatstroke from keeping her bedroom windows firmly shut and locked through those hot and humid August nights. It didn’t help that the novel’s fictional, eponymous town was just a few miles from home.

Leigh began writing stories at about the same time, but it was a change in career that gave her the kick she needed to prioritize her fiction and begin writing with the goal of publication about a year ago. She writes the kinds of tales she likes to read, where all is not what it seems and the boundaries between the ordinary and the fantastic are...well...fuzzy. Leigh completed her first novel-length manuscript, Waking the Dragon, in the spring of 2014.

You can visit Leigh online at leighlauck.com. There she blogs occasionally about life in general and the writing life specifically. Leigh is also a travel junkie and as a staff writer blogs about her misadventures at Milliver’s Travels.

Fiction

Words by

Let Them Dance

Shari Klase

About the story

I got the idea for this story because I love bees, and I thought the fact that they have a queen and that they dance made them perfect candidates for this theme of Twelve Dancing Princesses. The furtherance of the theme to make it almost like a “Just so� story, much like Kipling, I owe to the host of Timeless Tales, however.

Hopefully, this story will create a buzz.

MORE TIMELESS TALES STORIES

BY An shari:

Her Stepfather Issue 5 Baba Yaga

Once upon a time there was a Queen Bee who had hundreds of daughters. Her daughters were called worker bees, and they all worked in symbiotic harmony to better the hive.

Some of her daughters fanned the hive to keep it cool.

Some foraged to find pollen for making honey. Some gathered pollen in leg sacks. Some tended the infants in the nursery. Some cared for the Queen’s needs.

And some danced.

The twelve princesses who danced were the favorites of the Queen. During the afternoon while the Queen rested in the hive, her twelve favorites danced before her in joyous rhythm. The Queen reclined upon her couch and watched them in sanguine contentment. These were the hours when she was truly happy. She didn’t need to heave her fat body and lay eggs. She just relaxed and enjoyed herself.

For the rest of the day and night the twelve tiny princesses disappeared from the hive. No one knew where they went.

This made all the other daughters jealous.

“Why do they dance while we work?”

“Where do they go while we toil collecting pollen?”

“What need is there for Dancer Bees?”

“I have need of them,” The Queen spoke quietly. “Let them dance.”

The workers bees complained. “They need to work. We all do a service for the good of the hive. They do nothing but dance.”

“Dancing may not be a service as you know it,” The Queen said, “But it is a work of art.”

There came a time when the rains stopped. The Sun, however, burned hotter and brighter than ever. The grasses turned dry and brown. The trees lost their leaves. They crinkled up, died and dropped to the ground. Worst of all for the bees, the flowers wilted. Each petal paled and floated lifelessly to the earth.

66 Timeless Tales 3

The bees were bewildered. “What will we do?” they asked. “There is no food for the hive. The babies will starve.”

The Fanning Bees swooshed their wings constantly but the air was hot and heavy and still. The Foraging Bees schemed feverishly searching for new territories that might contain life giving flora. The Roving Bees flew until their wings nearly dropped off to old stomping grounds without as much as a daisy to be seen. The Nursery Bees tended the infants which cried unceasingly for nourishment.

The paradox to all this were the twelve dancing princesses who still danced. They remained fat and happy. Their jubilation was not temporal. They still entertained the Queen Mother and then vanished for endless hours.

There was grumbling in the ranks. Just how were these Dancing Bees staying so sleek and fit?

At last even The Queen was in a state of consternation over her precious favorites. “The hive suffers darling daughters. Even your mother suffers in this heat.” She wiped the sweat from her brow. “The whole colony has risen up and demanded an explanation as to your zeal and good condition.”

All of the daughters buzzed nervously. Their reply was only to dance still more feverishly. They swooped left, than right. They dived into a daring loop de loop. They spun and they twirled. The Queen, though delighted with their performance, was exasperated with her charming charges.

Their sister bees were not only irritated, they were infuriated. To them, the dancers were being flippant; making fun of their desperation. One of the Foraging Bees grabbed the legs of her dancing sister and tried to trip her.

“Cease that useless dancing,” she cried.

The other workers joined in and soon there was an all-around rumble in the bee hive which only made the hive hotter and the bees more exhausted.

Timeless Tales 3 67

“It is enough,” The Queen Bee said in her most commanding voice. “If they can only dance, let them dance.”

The worker bees were so tired from the scuffle that they fell in a heap. Even the dancing bees were weary but they didn’t stop dancing. They rallied themselves together and began their dance once more. Again, they swooped left, than right, Loop De Loop, a spin and a twirl. They stopped and repeated it though their little wings seemed so tired they would crumble to ashes if they continued.

The Queen suddenly spoke. “They are performing the same dance. In fact, since the hard times they have always done the same dance. Why didn’t I see it before?”

The worker bees puzzled. “What do you mean? What does it matter if the silly dancers are stuck in their own Samba? It is of no use to us.”

“But I believe it is of use to us, dear daughters. They are trying to tell us something.”

“What?” they all asked in unison.

Then one little worker bee, younger than all the rest, just out of babyhood, squeaked. “It’s a map. They’re dancing directions.”

The Queen nodded. All the bees were suddenly silent.

“Why didn’t they tell us?” a worker bee finally grumbled.

“Perhaps they can’t. Their dance is their voice,” the Queen suggested.

So, the Queen and all the bees, carrying even the littlest ones, who sometimes are the wisest, followed the directions of the Dancing Princesses. Left, Right, a dive down into a Loop De Loop, a spin and a twirl.

Wonder of wonders, they were not ordinary directions.

For the Dancing Princesses were not just ordinary bees.

The map of dance moves carried them to a magic land of Fairies underneath the ground where the sun never shown.

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There was no need of sun because Fairy Light gleamed over the land until it bloomed and blossomed into marvelous flowers the bees never saw before.

There the bees made their new home because every creature was welcome in Fairy Land. It was there all the bees learned to dance the directions to sweet nectar in flowers, so they would never be hungry again. So, they dance still.

Timeless Tales 3 69

Fiction Let Them Dance

About The Author

Shari Klase lives in a small town along the beautiful Susquehanna River. She shares her home with an artist husband, a fellow writer daughter and an incorrigible corgi named Lucy.

She has been published in many places. Her favorites are these stories: The Forgotten Smile at whidbeystudents.com/2013/10/04/octobernews and Cell Tower at fairytalemagazine. com/2014/05/the-cell-tower-by-shari-l-klase. html. She blogs at sklase.wordpress.com.

Fiction

Words by

Soles

Elizabeth Zuckerman

About the story

“The Twelve Dancing Princesses” is one of my favorite fairy tales, but the Princesses themselves are pretty scary. When I started thinking about Soles, I wanted to find a new perspective that would have firsthand experience of what the Princesses have done to themselves and to others.

Not only did the shoes know the Princesses’ dark sides best of all, but they also gave me the title right off the bat!

MORE TIMELESS TALES STORIES BY eLIZABETH:

Homecoming Issue 7 The Snow Queen

Soles Elizabeth Zuckerman

They come for us in the morning, silent and resigned. At first they looked surprised, then angry, then bitter. But all those emotions take effort to sustain. The most tireless actor could not perform as long as the cobblers have needed to. In the end, they saved their efforts for us.

We lie sprawled on top of each other in the basket, our ribbons tangled in the sunlight. We spill onto the workroom tables. Sometimes one fraying silk edge will touch another in farewell. Then a frenzy of needles and glue and new thin cloth as the cobblers bring us back to life. It is cheaper to patch us than to create new ones from scratch, and after so long, the king and his daughters have learned to economize.

Strangely rote, this day’s work, even to us. Worn silk and canvas rips away, predictably slower at spots stained with sweat or blood. Tiny dots of glue drop indifferent kisses along our lengths; practiced hands guide new fabric to smother them. There is no time for finesse or art. There are only so many hours in a day.

For all that, the cobblers are not cruel. We are their duty, and they do it well. Their swift hands are the only caring touch we have ever felt. We love them for it, even as they tear us apart and stitch us together, corpses dragged back into life. They too have tasks to perform.

Then back we go into the basket, hauled up to the twelvebed room paneled in rosewood and locked with steel. The sun has set by this time, the air colder on our new skins.

The cobblers line us up at the foot of each bed. Perhaps a fingertip lingers as they arrange us for the sacrifice, perhaps not. We wait in neat pairs for our nightly murder.

Princesses are different than cobblers. It is not that they despise those lesser than themselves; they simply do not think of them at all. The world exists only for their pleasure. They laugh as they tear us to pieces. The cobblers do not, when they put us back together. It is always easier to destroy than to create.

74 Timeless Tales 3

Down, down, seam-deep in dirt, in the earth, in the places underneath. Onward, unceasing, spinning, digging into the inlaid floor, seams and stitches giving way one by one. Never finished, never resting. Ribbons fray and tear as a foot kicks delicately out to the beat of a drum. One long indulgent twirl grinds a new leather sole to scraps.

They dance us down to nothing, dance until their feet bleed, and still they refuse to stop.

Once they were kind; now they send men to the block with cold smiles on their faces. They compare the many forms of fear that they have seen, each as different as the man who showed it. In the end there was no difference at all, but they cannot see that anymore. They are nothing but the dance now, the heedless plunge, the twirl that never ends and never arrives.

They drag themselves back at the end of the night, ragged and glassy-eyed. They kick off the shredded and stained rags that were us, once. They fall spent into smooth linen and soft down, and snatch an hour or two of sleep. There is no other way to replace what they have given of themselves.

No one can piece strange scraps of soul back on for them.

Dawn is never more than an hour away. We lay where we are thrown and wait. The dance will go on.

Timeless Tales 3 75

Fiction Soles

About The Author

Elizabeth Zuckerman grew up with kidappropriate fairy tales and fell in love with them all over again as she discovered the uncensored versions. Her permanent soft spot for tricksters and active princesses has gotten her characters into all sorts of trouble. Her fiction has appeared in Pink Narcissus Press’ anthology Rapunzel’s Daughters; for something completely different, her young-adult biography of Ben Franklin is due out in February 2015. She lives in Philadelphia with a knight in shining armor, and occasionally blogs about fairy tales at storyseer.blogspot.com.

Poetry

Words by

Twelfth Infantry Division, 1916

Susan Jeffers

About the poem

There’s a menace in this fairy tale, isn’t there? These young women are forced every night to do something they don’t want to, despite their own and everyone’s best efforts to keep them from doing it. The connection between the princesses’ enchantment and young men being sent off to war seemed very obvious to me. In the fairy tale, too, we have this juxtaposition of a beautiful daytime life the princesses lead, and their beautiful shoes, and their comfortable life against the terrible nighttime fête, in the dark, underground, unchosen.

I wanted to capture some of that contrast, and convey the tragedy, powerlessness, and even bitter rage we all may feel when confronted with powers beyond our control.

Three months ago, Prue kissed me: Chapped lips and champagne In the Savoy, in the crowd, in blue crepe de chine.

Not at the station though.

Just a quiet gray glove waving through the smoke.

We dance here, too. Who knew?

The machine gun plays a rattatatta for us We form up inside the artillery line A foxtrot through the trenches A one-step through the mud A maxixe pulling on our gas masks.

Toffs was too slow.

His skin is fairer now than Prue’s.

Bloodier but bloodless Black mustard suffocation The worst nosegay We twelve still living waltz down the line Careful choreography as we fix bayonets Prepare to repel the enemy Hey, who’s leading here?

The bandleader keeps the music going.

There is no victory at a dance. How absurd.

My partner’s dropped his rifle in the mud.

My own slips away as we embrace

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one-two-three, one-two-three Applause—a cheer? a scream? as the mortars rain down.

This is the worst party I’ve ever been to, but we can’t stop dancing.

Twelve pairs of boots (twelve at the least) Blasted clean off No more dancing now.

Timeless Tales 3 81

Poetry Twelfth Infantry Division, 1916

About The Author

Susan Jeffers received her B.A. in English from BYU and her M.A. in English from Abilene Christian University. She spends her time writing and teaching in southern Maryland with her family and a succession of ill-tempered betta fish. She is the author of “Arda Inhabited”, a book about the environment and The Lord of the Rings, and a few poems on Segullah, an e-zine featuring Mormon women’s culture. You can find her on twitter as @susanjrox.

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