Sleeping Helena (23 page)

The family was speechless. None could imagine a world without Ludwig, their mad, dreaming king. All faces turned to Louis, even Katza’s, who didn’t care that she could not see him.

Louis’ eyes closed. He thought he heard church bells in the far distance; his ears rang, his head spun, and he felt a great weight rise up, as though it had wings, and leave him. Katza put her arms around his waist and clung there. The king’s letter had turned to pulp in his pocket, the rain had soaked through and the ink had bled into his coat.
Ludwig is gone
, a voice said in the dark,
but you still have your sister. Do not fail her again.

Louis opened his eyes and saw his family around him.

“Louis?” Katza said in a whisper.

“I’m right here.”

The swan rose to its feet and stretched out its wide, bright wings. Sparks caught on the tips of its feathers and spread until the bird was engulfed in flame. Helena and the king watched in fascination as from the swan’s fallen feathers, Louis rose.

Helena blinked in the morning light. Louis’ curls were dark and thick, his coat was a deep red and his black boots gleamed in the sun. He was beautiful, but she had no reaction. It was just good to see him alive.

“Katza kept him, too, trapped in memory like the roses, but now that memory is gone.” Ludwig turned to Helena as Louis smiled and faded into light.

She watched as the king reached under his cloak and pulled out a magnificent crown. Fine and thin, it was spun out of silver sheer as cobwebs and woven in the shape of a swan. Diamonds glittered at the center of tiny spirals whorled by a careful hand, and a wing curved gracefully outward on either side. He held it out to Helena, who pushed it away.

“Please, I don’t want another gift.” She looked at her ragged dress and wrinkled elbows. “It’s too beautiful for me anyway.”

To her surprise Ludwig, the king, leaned in and kissed her.

“No, Helena. The thorns concealing your beauty have parted. This is your inheritance.”

She closed her eyes as its weight settled on her brow.

“Now is it done?” she asked when he stepped away.

“It is done,” he replied, “and time.”

She squinted her eyes at the king. “May I ask you one question before we go?”

The king nodded. “Yes, of course you may.”

“The stories are incomplete. How did you die?” Helena was curious, no more.

“Does it matter now? Last night is a fading dream.” Ludwig’s lips curved in the tiniest smile. “Tell the storytellers I am not dead, only sleeping.”

“You are mad,” she said.

“So they say,” the king replied.

Ludwig took Helena’s withered hand and helped her onto the vessel that waited by the shore. The black forest bowed as the swan-shaped boat sailed into the distance, as though drawn by a calm west wind. The lake was smooth as glass. Light breached the clouds; their reflection appeared on the water.

It lingered long after they’d gone.

Erzebet YellowBoy
is an author, bookbinder, and editor whose work has appeared in
Fantasy Magazine, Electric Velocipede, Behind the Wainscot, Running with the Pack, Haunted Legends
, and more. She is the founder of Papaveria Press, a micropress specialising in fairy tales and fantasies, and is the fiction editor of
Cabinet des Fées
, an online journal of fairy tales. Visit her website at www.erzebet.com.