The Cost
On the day of my wedding, I slip out of my tower before sunrise as I have done many times before. This time, instead of to the border, I go only as far as the feasting hall. Trix is dancing Fokine’s The Dying Swan. I try to pay this coincidence as little mind as possible.
I wait.
When the light settles into its usual washed-out silver, the heavy doors fly open and my father strides in.
My mother, in her owl form, is perched on his frosted shoulder.
We glare at each other until the rest of the court drifts in, relatives from the most distant branches of our family tree, ambassadors, minor and major nobles, all of them too curious to resist looking in.
Everyone is in their finest clothes, wildflowers in their hair, woven into the hems of their skirts, in their eye sockets.
Cressida is the last to arrive, flustered, her hair piled high like the disgraced mortal aristocrats of old, but in a subversive, defiant shade of green. She points to her ring finger. Husband-to-be, what are you doing? We have delayed this day long enough. Now is not the time for jokes.
‘Who says I’m joking?’
The court bristles as my voice ricochets off the vaulted ceilings and unlit chandeliers. My mother swirls off my father’s shoulder, striking in her signature white gown and a new cape of leaves on the turn.
If you insist on staying here, so be it. The ceremony and the reception will be held in the same place. She gestures to Glen, who has dressed in his finest livery despite knowing exactly what I have planned. How thoughtful of you to spare the servants cleaning two floors.
‘I have another suggestion.’ From my rather impudent reclined position on the floor, I stand and point to Trix. ‘Her curse is lifted, Glen Nettlegreen is released from his service, and we three return to the Restless Lands together.’
Cressida moves faster than I have ever seen her move before – she looks so distressed, I actually feel sorry for her.
She pulls invisible ribbons from her open mouth.
What lunacy do you speak? I thought the matter was settled.
Her arm encompasses the entire hall. I thought you would do what is best for us.
I bow from the waist, sincere in my apology. I am sorry there will be no wedding today. I am sorry I cannot be who you desire. I hope you marry someone who will bless you with all the children you want.
The rest of the court, meanwhile, are holding their sides and cackling. My father massages his brow, the last of his patience departing on the wind. He need not think clearly to sire an heir. Let us proceed, here or elsewhere, it matters not.
‘I love her,’ I say of Trix. She is dancing the vision sequence from Act II of The Sleeping Beauty.
I take her hand to slow her pirouette. ‘So do her friends. Her family. One of us deserves that.’ My mother raises her arm, but I do something no one in the court has ever dared before: I interrupt her.
‘I am walking out of the Silver Realm with Trix. Today. With or without your leave to do so.’
My mother scoffs, a hand to her throat. To the consternation of Cressida and the court, she growls her response. ‘You think… we will lift the spell… on the border… and the mortal’s curse… because you… finally… found the nerve… to speak your mind?’
‘If you don’t do it, then I will.’
Now she, my father, and uncle join in with the laughter. Three derisive fingers point at me. Will you now?
I find Glen in the crowd. Last night, no sooner had I made my decision than I wavered. You may no longer be bound to serve me, but your glamour is still tied to mine. Your life.
He nodded.
How can you endorse this plan when you might not survive it?
One hand pointed to the night, and the other rested on the back of my neck. I would rather meet my end on the other side than remain here without my brother-in-spirit.
He is the bravest person I know, in any realm.
Across the feasting hall, he lifts the brim of his hat. Courage, my friend.
The hold my family has always had over me. The hold we have over ourselves. The stories we tell until we mistake them for truth. Fairy tales.
‘You forbade the Prince of the Silver Realm from ever crossing into the Restless Lands again.’ They stop laughing when my hands dig into the moonstone thorns of my crown.
Royals cannot remove their own crowns without harming themselves; their servants must do it for them.
The pain is a hot, affronted thing. When I work the crown free of my hair, I hold up my sliced fingers to reaffirm that I am very much not joking.
Raising my bloodied hand in the symbol of “prince”, I lower both tines to the ground, with a third and final gesture sweeping across the entirety of the feasting hall.
‘I renounce my title. I renounce my title. I renounce my title.’
This is why speaking words is so frowned upon – not only because it is a mortal habit, but because we cannot speak untruths. To speak and gesture simultaneously is to throw down a gauntlet. Draw a line in the sand. Do what cannot be undone.
My mother and father join hands. I brace myself for a retaliatory curse – but they are holding each other up, to combat the shock.
Cressida sinks to the floor, her hands hovering over the broken crown as if mending it could mend everything else.
I stay her hands until she falls into the arms of her ladies-in-waiting.
Careful not to turn my back on anyone – especially my uncle, who is the most likely to reach for the nearest sharp object – I wait for Trix to step into a piqué arabesque, then scoop her off the floor.
She freezes, but the curse holds: she adapts to the new position. I spin her in a gentle circle until her smile returns, then raise her over my head in an angel lift and run through the western arch, past skinned carcasses and sheafs of herbs in the cold, silent kitchens.
It is the most difficult pas de deux I have ever done, our only audience the members of court as they stumble out of the feasting hall en masse.
They round the corner and try to catch up with me as I descend the steep tunnel of hawthorns.
Even after all my seasons with the BCBC, now I am really putting my given name of Nimble to the test. I summon the spirit of Tchaikovsky’s Bluebird, of Ashton’s Puck, MacMillan’s Mercutio.
Florimund, Albrecht, Romeo. Rhapsody. Les Patineurs.
The final galop of Coppélia. The Scherzo from The Dream. Faster, faster, faster.
My mother still beats me to it. She chose well when she aligned her spirit with the barn owl.
My father and uncle join her at the end of the pinecone-lit footpath, a mere stone’s throw from the border.
On the other side, invisible, the mortal world continues to turn, its grains of time so close I could almost reach out and grab a handful, watch them run through my fingers, precious even as they’re wasted.
Without Glen’s pocket watches, I have no idea what point in time is waiting across the border.
If five minutes have passed in the Restless Lands, or five days, or five years.
I come to a stop, catch Trix, holding her arms still under my own, as Siegfried holds Odette in Swan Lake. She stays en pointe, and it is only now that I feel how much her body is convulsing, how her skin is at once soaked and parched.
My uncle slides his finger from his temple to me like a cocked gun. So what now, hm? You cross into the Restless Lands, and hold a restless mortal in your arms until she dies?
‘She will not die. Not like this.’ My mouth is dry, as if the air itself wants nothing to do with me. ‘Not if I break with my glamour.’
Break with your glamour? All three of them translate it, their hands parting like pieces of broken eggshell as they catch each other’s horrified stares. Speaking the possibility into existence has taken away a little of their own artifice, their stoicism. I have never seen my mother so pale.
Such magic has not been done in the Silver Realm in a long time.
Fool! My father slices the air, stopping short of my face. I have watched him skin mortals alive. Twist the head off the King of the Onyx Realm. But he cannot bring himself to strike me – the blood loyalty is too strong. You… you don’t even know how!
‘Sander!’ Glen is the first of the court to reach the final slope, his hat abandoned, sweat gleaming on his head. He extends his arms, a one-man barrier against the crowd. Stay back. No one is to interfere with the king and queen’s affairs without their command.
Then, unused to being the centre of attention, he slowly walks away from the onlookers and approaches me, his arms raised to show that he carries no weapons. He comes to my side, and his eyes dart nervously towards Trix.
Nimble is bluffing, my uncle declares, his hand shaky. Such talk is nonsense; he cannot lift the curse.
I spin Trix by the waist until she stares, unseeing, into my face. Her lips are white and chapped, the pulse in her neck feeble.
I turn to my oldest and only friend in the Silver Realm. ‘I am sorry, Glen. If I knew your true name, the name your parents gave when you were born, I would have done this for you a very, very long time ago.’
He nods, jaw tight. I concentrate on Trix and make my spoken words as clear and pronounced as the first raindrops to break a heatwave.
‘Patricia Errington, I release you from the last curse placed upon you.’
With a ragged breath, Trix goes limp in my arms. I cradle her and look down at the catastrophic damage to her legs.
Riverbeds of oxidised blood. Her silver pointe shoes have disintegrated; I cannot tell where their ribbons end and the ribbons of her skin begin.
Her femur bones poke through her knees, white as mountain peaks. Her eyes roll to the back of her head.
‘You would… break with your glamour… for this.’
The only reason I look at my father is because, for the first time in my life, he sounds heartbroken.
He switches to gestures. For aeons, again and again, mortals have betrayed us beyond measure.
Stolen our language. Stolen the sand and clay and earth from our realm to remake the world to their unnatural designs.
They laugh at us. Belittle us. Demonise us. We raised you with everything—
I lift a hand. For a moment, I regret leaving on these terms. That I must choose between homes. But for most of my life, the Silver Realm has not felt like home.
Not everything. Even you do not see everything. Cannot know everything.
‘If you… do this,’ my mother says, voice strained. She is crying. It is almost – almost – enough to make me reconsider. ‘Even if you save her… she will not… be young anymore.’
I cast my mind back to the Sands of Evie. The rough, salty winds and icy sea foam. Sam the exiled Selkie, who said that even eternity must have somewhere to go, once it is given up.
I smile through my fear, my words faint when I say, ‘Neither will I.’
I lift Trix’s broken body and step warily around my family. Glen follows. My uncle’s hand clamps on my shoulder in a final attempt to stop me.
‘You think… we will not… pursue you? Your mortal… associates?’
This is enough to hold me in place. I look at Trix and imagine a similar fate befalling Charlie, and Fiona, and Carolyn. Pain seizes my throat as if I have swallowed a knife. I must close my eyes to bear it.
Just as tears begin to form, they are dried by a sudden breeze. Not a winter breeze, thin and sharp. It skims my face, and clears the dead leaves from around my feet. I can smell cherry blossom, but see no petals.
We all look up, watching the wind’s sinuous path between tree boughs, making the grass bend under its presence.
He belongs in the Restless Lands.
The elements are equal in rank to my parents; when one speaks, the other is compelled to listen.
He is our ally across the border. This comes from four ravens, who settle in the frosted grass among the mist, which rises as if from a deep sleep. Do you not see?
‘I will not give you an heir to the throne,’ I say to my parents, turning just enough to glance back at them. ‘But our people’s cause is more than that. Is it not?’
He speaks true. Release him into our care, and do not follow. Vengeance mends naught.
My mother raises her hands, struggles to cross her wrists and bring them down: But… death.
‘Yes.’
My father closes his fist at the base of his throat. You are afraid, not?
‘I am more afraid than I thought possible.’ I turn away from them all. ‘And yet.’
When I take another step forward, out of my uncle’s grasp, the ravens edge away. The wind stills, but the mist runs on. Trix’s skin is so cold. Even in a timeless land, time will not slow down for her. I must act now.
Carefully, I set her down on the borderline, the thinnest seam of silver running through the earth.
I spent years, in court and in the BCBC alike, memorising, embodying, and preserving what had come before. But the eras of dance – classical, neoclassical, contemporary – are not so separate. They are all on the same spectrum of light. And so am I.
Time to create something new.
Glen kneels beside us. ‘Do what you have to,’ he says. ‘Whatever happens, I am ready.’ Despite the fear in his expression, he manages a smile. ‘Go on.’
I take a breath, close my eyes, and imagine the Dance Hall orchestra tuning up – but not within the Hall itself. I picture them by Kenwood House, in harmony with the rustle of blossom petals and pond ripples.
I hold one of Trix’s hands while raising my other high. Then, slowly, like an elevator descending, I bring it down.
‘I break with my glamour. I break with my immortality. My life, my years, my health, my spirit, I give freely, gladly, to you. As much as it takes to bring you back home. Back to yourself. I love you. I love you. I… love…’
I hold tight to her hand as my breath grows scarce. I laugh (perhaps for the last time? The last time, of anything, what a concept) at the thrill I never thought I would feel again. The thrill of change.
I plant my hand on the ground. I try to turn my head to see if Glen is suffering as I am, but my head is heavy, my vision edged with black. My skin is alight with the fire of the sun, the cold glow of the moon, the effervescence of stars.
I hear music. A full orchestra, from… I do not know where.
The finale of Swan Lake Act III, violins brushing the strings. Higher, higher, struggling for breath.
Before the world slides out from under me, I do the only thing a former fairy-tale prince can: I lean over the woman I love and kiss her.