The Princess Who Would Not Sleep

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Luna, who never, ever wanted to go to sleep.

She was the daughter of the king and queen of a far-off kingdom, and she lived in their castle, but every day, she lived in fear of the curse that haunted her family.

For long ago, a hundred years before she was born, a witch came down to the king and queen of her kingdom—her great-grandparents—and told them that she would grant them three wishes in return for her freedom, for witches were seen as evil in those days and were imprisoned on sight.

The old king and queen agreed, and they made their three wishes: since they were childless, they wished for a baby prince; since they were poor, they wished for their kingdom to be great and rich; since they were gaining in age, they wished to be young again.

The witch granted these three wishes—they were easy enough for her, a being of great power. She gave them their baby prince, their riches and power, and their youth, and she let them live in peace, thinking that they would keep good with their promise to her.

Weeks and months passed. The old king and queen were in love with their baby prince and their power, and they forgot all about the witch until she came storming back into the castle with thunderclouds at her heels.

"You promised me my freedom!" she screeched. The tapestries fell from the walls and the stones shook from the force of her anger. The old king and queen cowered, trying to protect their baby boy as the witch stripped them of their riches, their power, their youth—once again, their kingdom was in shambles, and they were of great age. She could not take away life that was given, though, or else she risked losing her powers, so she allowed the couple to keep their baby—and added a curse for them.

"You forgot me, and time will forget you!" she told them as she magicked up another child for them, a daughter, to keep the curse alive. "As the children of your children reach eighteen years of age, they will fall asleep, never to wake, until I have been done right and there is freedom for my kind everywhere. Act on your words!" With that, she disappeared, leaving them with two children, little gold, a ruined castle, and a small army.

Their son grew up to be sickly, and he died before his parents, childless; however, their daughter grew healthy and strong, as fair as love itself. Her hair was as black as a night without the moon, and her eyes were like stars, glimmering and golden. Everyone who looked upon her loved her, and she had many suitors. She settled down with one, and they had many children—who in turn had many children, one of which being young princess Luna—and she reigned as queen for a very long time. However, her parents had kept from her the curse, so when her eldest child fell asleep on their eighteenth birthday and never woke, she was greatly dismayed.

She begged and pleaded with higher powers to help her. Hearing of this, the witch returned, as young as ever (for witches do not age unless they feel like it) and she said to the beautiful queen, "If you wish this curse to end, and your children to wake and live, you must do as the old king and queen promised, and give witches their freedom."

However, even this beautiful queen could not do that, for she did not have the army necessary to stop the people should they rise against her in their fury.

Her other children had their children before their eighteenth birthdays, but fell asleep shortly after; the beautiful queen reigned until she was of great age, and she had seen many of her children and grandchildren fall asleep. Luna was the oldest waking grandchild—she had an older brother sleeping, and many sleeping cousins, but she didn't know why, for her grandmother was just as cautious about the curse as the old king and queen had been.

Her eighteenth birthday was in two days, though, and she knew that it was then that people fell asleep never to wake, so she was concerned for herself. She certainly didn't like the idea. She went to her grandmother and begged, "Grandmother, please, tell me why this happens! Can we stop it? Can we reverse it?" She was desperate, for she had never spoken with her parents, either, and she hardly knew her aunts and uncles.

She was not as beautiful as her grandmother, but she was quick with her wits, and her grandmother knew that as she responded, "There is always a way to stop a curse. You must find a way to free the witches throughout the land."

Luna set about this task immediately, for she had only two days. She researched every royal law she could, and she spoke to some of the hedgewitches that lived in the castle about their living conditions, if they would consider themselves free, and if they would politely think of themselves as all the witches in the land.

However, even that didn't work, and she was forced to resort to other tactics. The next day, she made a visit to the royal hunting forest, for she had heard that a great witch lived there whose power was like the sun, ever-glowing and strong; however, she could not find the witch's home. She wandered left and right, up and down, and scaled trees to try and find this witch, but it was only when she sat down wearily on a log and declared defeat that she was staring at a small cottage, homey, with smoke coming out of the chimney.

Luna sprang to her feet and ran to the house, knocking on the door. "Witch, witch! Are you home?"

The witch answered the door. She was still young, and still great of power, but as soon as she saw Luna on her doorstep, she slammed the door in the girl's face and shouted, "No, I am not home!"

Luna rubbed her face, for the door had grazed the very tip of her nose, and asked, "Why do you hate me? I was simply going to ask for your help!"

At this, the witch cracked open the door and peered out. "Help? You want my help?"

"Yes, I need your help! My family is under a very dire curse, and I need to break it, but I must free all the witches in order to do that!" The girl was frantic, and she paced back and forth in front of the door, wringing her hands. "Please, you must help!"

"Fine. I will help." The witch laughed and opened her door, revealing a small, homey cottage interior where most might have expected a portal to a grand throne room or the like. This witch was fond of simplicity.

"You'll help?" Luna looked up with bright eyes.

"Didn't I just say so? Come in, you look parched, have some tea!" The witch busied herself in her home, and the princess came in with an air of suspicion as the woman set down two tea-cups, filled to the brim, on the single table and said, "Let's talk about my terms."

"Terms?" the princess asked nervously.

"Terms," the witch repeated. "What I'll do for you, if you do something for me. In this case, I shall grant you three wishes... if you will give me a promise," she added with a sly smile.

"Of course! Of course I agree!" Luna said, not even asking what the promise was in her desperation.

"Then I'm very glad to be working with you, princess. Your first wish?"

"I wish for—" She nearly said, I wish for the curse to be broken, but caught herself. "I wish for all the witches in the land to be free."

The witch raised an eyebrow. "I cannot do that, princess. If I could, I would have done so already, don't you think?"

Luna blushed. "I'm sorry... I didn't realize. May I wish for the curse on my family to be broken?"

"You may wish for anything you like." The witch stirred her tea with a fingertip and stared down into the cup, like she was seeing things. "The question is, -do- you wish for the curse on your family to be broken?"

"Yes, yes, I wish for this sleeping curse to be broken! Please, make it so!" Luna leaned on the table, very nearly upsetting it, but she remembered her royal manners and leaned back again. "As for my second wish, I wish... I wish for my grandmother to be happy. She has been so tired these last years."

"Your curse is broken, your grandmother happy. Wish number three?" The witch stood and paced around the table, teacup in hand.

"I wish... are you sure that I can't wish for the witches to be freed? I know, you've broken the curse, but I..." Luna looked down at her tea, and a single teardrop fell into her cup—but it was not her own. The witch was standing over her shoulder now, and laid one hand on the princess's shoulder.

"No, I cannot free the witches, not even by a wish. That would take two," she said, and she wiped away the tears falling down her cheeks so as not to appear weak. "And who would work with a witch?"

"Two? Could I—could I?" Luna asked. She had no idea that her own grandmother was a creation of the witch's; nor did she know that witch's creations carry magic in them by nature. She was willing to take a chance, though. "Could I help you?"

The witch paused and nodded, thinking. "Yes," she said hesitantly. "I suppose... you could. But you should rest first. The night is coming on quickly, and it will take a lot of energy to break the witches' imprisonment."

Luna tossed and turned that night in the witch's cottage. The witch had magicked up a guest bed for her, as soft as kittens' fur and as comfortable as a parent's arms, but still she could not sleep. The curse followed her thoughts, and the whole night through, she was thinking of how she had finally unravelled the curse, and how all her life's troubles were finally ended.

She had a feeling that there was something wrong, though. The witch was so eager to help, and it seemed to have taken no time at all, but surely curses took longer than that to erase. Not to mention, she hadn't specified the promise yet.

When the sun rose in the little window, the princess found that she had gotten barely a wink of sleep in her desperation, and she was rubbing her eyes wearily when the witch bounded up on her feet and whisked around the cottage while humming a cheerful tune. "Isn't it a wonderful morning?" the witch said brightly, no doubt in anticipation of her people's freedom to be sorted out.

"I don't... know." Luna yawned and stretched out, leaning against the wall so she wouldn't fall over when she stood. She took a cup of tea offered to her by the witch and sipped it, but even that did nothing to wake her up. "Why am I so... tired?"

A flicker of concern crossed the witch's face, and she held a hand to Luna's forehead. "You feel fine, did you sleep?"

"Not a wink."

"Then we should get about this quickly so you can go home, no doubt you'd like to see your family again. I have to dig up the ritual notes from my spellbook, but it shouldn't take long, it'll just be a lot of energy." The witch drained her own cup and looked out the window at the rising sun, tapping a finger against the side of her teacup. She stood like that for a minute, then sprang back into sudden motion, whirling like a storm around the cottage's one room. "Yes, the ritual notes, the spellbook—can you find my spellbook for me? It should be the brown one, on the table, with a purple trim."

Luna stumbled over to the table and set down her teacup, looking through a pile of books that most certainly were not there the night before. Brown with purple trim, the witch said, but there was no such book in the pile that she saw. There were books with elegant white designs on black carved wood covers, and books with flimsy fabric covers embroidered with simple pastoral designs, but not a single brown book among them, let alone one with purple trim.

As she was looking for the book, she felt the urge to sleep take over, and she slumped over the table, her eyelids sagging closed with tiredness.

The witch froze. It was the princess's eighteenth birthday. She covered her mouth to keep herself from cursing and stomped her foot—how had she been so ignorant? She had waved the curse away from the sleeping easily enough, for they were only sleeping, but how could she have forgotten to erase it from those who weren't sleeping yet?

She hurried to Luna's side and touched the girl's arm, hoping that the princess was simply asleep from exhaustion and not in the eternal sleep of the curse, but she didn't stir even when the witch shook her by the shoulders and lifted up her head. "No, no, you must wake up! Wake up!" she cried out, picking the girl up with ease, for witches are also often great of strength.

"No, no, no, no, no," she muttered as she carried the girl back to the single bed. "I needed you to help me, I needed to set them free... Please, please, it was my magic that made you like this, can't my magic do anything to fix it?" But she was worn from the exertion of waving the curse away from the others, and even the barest spark of her magic would not come to her fingertips.

The witch slumped over, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs, the first time in her life that she had cried out of sorrow. Tears rolled down her face, and she curled her hands in the sheets of the bed, trying to keep her eyes focused on the cursed girl in front of her. She needed Luna to help her set the other witches free; she needed the sleeping princess more than she had ever needed anyone else, and it was strange just to say that she needed someone's help, something she had shirked since her induction as a witch.

Her hands fumbled as she pulled at a strand of the girl's long, dark hair and braided it as a nervous habit, and without her knowing, some of her exhausted magic sparked to life just long enough to travel down the braid and into the sleeping girl. Luna stirred, her eyes opening the smallest bit, and she muttered, "What's wrong?"

The witch collapsed in laughter and tears. "No, nothing, nothing's wrong... You're awake! You're actually awake," she said softly, tracing the girl's cheek with her fingertips.

A knock at the door of the cottage surprised them both. The witch glanced over at the door with narrowed eyes. "No one should be able to find this place unless they need it. Stay here, princess." She stood, sweeping her grand witch's coat into existence behind her, and opened the door just wide enough that she could hide whoever it was from Luna's view.

The person on the other side of the door slammed it open the rest of the way, anyway, and the princess saw a royal huntsman in the blue and yellow garb of the court, not the greys and browns of the hunt. "Royal news, to be spread throughout the land," ze announced in a loud and booming voice that echoed off the walls of the cottage. Luna covered her ears for a second and winced at zir volume. "The royal family has awoken! The great queen is dead, long live the king!"

The princess's eyes widened, and she sprang to her feet with a new fervor when the huntsman vanished. "I must return! I have to go back, to see my family, to see the new king!" He would have been her oldest uncle, but she had never spoken with much of her family, as they were often falling asleep and not waking. "I could—I could get him to pardon—" The witch cut her off with a sharp shake of the head.

"Calm down, calm down. There'll be plenty of time for that, and perhaps it will eliminate the need for our spell. First, however, I do have unfinished business that can be resolved." She waved a hand in the air, tracing out a complex rune with her fingers that hung and glowed in front of her with the vibrancy of a trapped star. "Summoning," she said tersely.

A shade of the beautiful queen appeared in front of her, younger and even more glorious than she had been as Luna knew her. "Magic child," the witch said to the shade, and the beautiful queen looked up with bright, smiling eyes. "You must forgive me, and tell your parents that all has been finished in the land of the living. Your soul should not be tethered to this place by your family's ill fortune. Go." She snapped off the connection and turned back to Luna with a sad smile.

"We should return to the palace?" Luna bit her lip and stared at the place where her grandmother's shade had disappeared back into thin air.

"Yes, we should. But you should sleep, first. It wouldn't do for me to return you so haggardly exhausted; they might think that I had drained you for some ghastly reason or other." The witch hummed cheerily again, twirling around her cabin in her giant coat that spread out behind her like storm clouds, except the clouds were clearing and the day was looking sunny.

Luna nodded and laid back down on the bed, closing her eyes. She would never be afraid to sleep again.