Once Upon a Time
… the princess hadn’t seen her mother properly in months. Not since her father’s funeral. Whenever she tried to approach her mother’s rooms, a servant would scurry out and hustle her away with a hushed excuse.
“Your mother is unwell.”
“Your mother is tired.”
“Your mother is grieving.”
The princess wasn’t entirely sure what grieving was, but she thought it meant that her mother was sad. It made sense because she was still sad every day that her father wasn’t coming back.
She wanted to help. She thought that maybe, if she was allowed to see her mother, they could let their sadness out together … they could heal together.
One night, she packed her bed with toys and blankets, leaving a big lump that was about the right size to trick the servants who would check that she was asleep.
She hid in her closet, forcing herself not to doze off, until the check had been done and the coast was clear.
And then she stole, on small, silent feet, through the hallways and staircases of the palace to her mother’s room.
The door was ajar. Being small and skinny, she squeezed through the gap with ease.
Beyond, the room was dim, but she had good eyes, because she always ate her carrots.
She scurried behind her mother’s reading chair—the one they would use when she sat on her mother’s lap to listen to Romanian fairy tales before bed each night.
She missed those days. She missed her mother. Yes, she had her cousin and their secret trips to the swimming pool, but she wanted her mother. She needed her mother. She peeked around the side of the chair.
Her mother was propped up on the bed, reaching for something on her side table. When she collapsed back onto her pillows, there was a small, glass pipe between her lips. A flick sounded, and a flame appeared.
The princess watched, confused, mesmerised as her mother held the flame to the end of the pipe. And when she was done and had blown out clouds of thick smoke from her mouth, her arms went floppy, and her head lolled.
And that was when her uncle stepped out of the ensuite bathroom. The light cut across the room, and the princess shrank further into the shadow of the chair.
“Fata buna,” he murmured, plucking the pipe from her mother’s limp grasp.
She made a small, grunting sound, but didn’t fight him off as he climbed onto the bed and pressed her legs wide, fumbling between their bodies …
and then his hips were moving, and he was grunting, and her mother’s legs were splayed wide, limp like a doll, and she wasn’t making any sound at all.
The princess couldn’t watch anymore, but fear rooted her to the spot.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the noises …
and when her uncle stopped making the sounds, and his heavy footsteps left the room, she counted to one hundred, and then she counted to one hundred again, and then she ran.
She didn’t look back at her mother.