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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2293103-Not-Without-an-Invitation
Rated: 13+ · Short Story · Dark · #2293103
What if the stories about Sleeping Beauty weren't exactly true?
Nursing her throbbing finger where she’d stabbed it on the spindle, the young woman in white climbed the winding stairs. At the top of the narrow tower, a single bedroom waited with a very inviting, overstuffed bed. She flung herself into its plush silks, comforters and mountain of pillows.

Her eyes grew heavy and she fell into a deep slumber.

********************

Outside the grand castle, a valiant knight determined to make it through the garden of thorns with a shining blade. Slash! Slash! Slash!

No staff welcomed him into the quiet chambers. Everywhere dust and cobwebs settled on the furniture. It wasn’t the grand welcome he expected but he knew, somewhere within the dark walls, a princess waited.

Through unlit hallways and empty rooms he wandered, until he found the narrow staircase. Up and up he climbed to the single bedroom.

There she slept, her beauty as breathtaking as the legends told. He set his sword beside her and bent to wake her with a kiss.

********************

The thuds down the stairs, accompanied by very unladylike swearing, would have confused any nearby ears had there been anyone to hear them. Instead, no one witnessed when she dragged a heavy body bag out into the gardens.

She stared aghast at the path he’d chopped through her roses even though he’d not been invited.

“Look at what you’ve done.” She kicked the bag beside her blood speckled gown.

She struggled with the lumpy sack to another section of the garden. After a few hours of sweaty work, she took out the crimson-slick sword and tumbled the bag into a shallow hole.

She jammed the blade into the earth, creating a make-shift cross to mark his resting place, just like the others before him.

“Now to get some sleep,” she grumbled.
© Copyright 2023 Siobhan Falen (shadowsnflames at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2293103-Not-Without-an-Invitation