Beautiful Dreamer

by Jennifer Skogen

Rose vines reach for Lydia. They curl up her ankles–thorns pressing against, but not piercing, her bare skin. After they release her, Lydia smooths her dress and continues with her task: collecting the cursed princess’s dreams.

Up ahead, the castle bursts with blooms, roses of all shades spilling over the stone walls. Lydia has never been inside. Sometimes she wonders what the sleeping princess looks like--if she’s as beautiful as the legend says. Golden hair and rosebud lips. Beautiful enough to die for. 

The first dream Lydia finds is tangled among bones. She glimpses into the dream as she winds it into a tidy skein: visions of blood and rot swim past her eyes.

There have been more bad dreams than good lately. Good dreams can be knitted into happy things like baby blankets and wedding dresses. Bad dreams are only used for ill-wishes and malicious spells. Lydia doesn’t know why her mistress, the good fairy, keeps them.

As days pass, the dreams grow even darker: towns smothered in thorns; vines wrapping around women and children, farmers and kings. Visions of deaths that have not happened yet.

Death that smells like roses.

When Lydia speaks to her mistress about the princess’s bad dreams, she tells her not to meddle. "This isn't your story," the good fairy says, firmly. "You're not the hero she's waiting for." 

But Lydia keeps her eyes open, and every time she steps among the vines, she feels like someone is watching her, too. Roses turn as she passes, and vines rustle as though listening to her footsteps.

One day, Lydia touches a dream and sees herself entering the castle and walking up a flight of stairs. She sees herself opening a door at the top of the highest tower, and that is when she snatches her hand away.

Before she can see what's inside the room.

Her mistress keeps good dreams in colorful baskets–not just the princess’s dreams, but others’ as well. Dreams of puppies and tables full of food; hearths with licking flames in the dead of winter; crops grown high. Lydia’s dreams are there, too, as payment for her apprenticeship. She pulls out one of her latest dreams, touching the gossamer-soft thread. This dream is of a family that Lydia has not seen for years: her mother and father. Sisters. Lydia wonders if the princess remembers her own family, after all these years.

Lydia wonders if the princess is lonely, too.

A few days later, Lydia returns to the castle, carrying a large bundle instead of a basket. Vines open for her, clearing a path straight to the castle. Up the stairs she goes, stepping over sleeping bodies of servants, and rotting bodies of those tragic young men who walked these steps before her. When she reaches the tower, vines have already thrown open the door. It’s dark in the room with the curtains drawn, so Lydia pulls them back,coughing at decades of dust.

Green light spills in. There, in an ornate bed, lies a woman covered in thorns. Vines wrap around the princess’s arms and around her throat. Roses tangle in her golden hair.

Tears slip down Lydia's cheeks as she takes out a knife. First, she cuts away the vines that hold the woman's wrists. Bloody marks remain on the princess’s skin, even after the thorns are gone. Next, Lydia releases her arms and legs, hips and chest. Soon she’s cleared away everything but the thorns that hold down her long, golden hair. To free her, she’ll have to cut the beautiful hair down to the roots.

The room is choked with roses, so Lydia didn’t see them at first: the bodies of the men who made it this far. A dozen of them at least, bones scattered and woven through the nest of vines. There are bones in the golden hair, too: mouse-like fingerbones, half-moon slices of rib and jawbone, all sutured into place. Her hair must have grown for half a century. Thick, luxurious hair once–now pinning the woman’s head wretchedly in place. 

"It has to go," Lydia mutters, sawing indelicately through hair and vines, bone and thorns. The princess winces, as though she can feel every cut of the blade. Winces, but never wakes.

Finally, the princess is free. She lets out a soft sound and turns her head to the side. "Wake up," Lydia tries; she can't help herself.

The princess does not wake, only shifts again, drawing up her arms and legs like a child. A silk bedspread that had once covered her lies in shreds, ripped asunder by thorns.

"Here." Lydia unbundles the blanket she brought with her, spreading it over the princess’s curled form. She knitted it herself, using her own good dreams: dreams of sunlight, and green fields. Dreams of fresh milk, and her family laughing.

Lydia inspects her handiwork. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but the princess seems to be resting easier, the furrow between her arching brows softening.

A tendril of exhaustion creeps up Lydia’s spine, and she lets out a yawn. Perhaps, Lydia tells herself, if she just lies down on the bed for a moment (it’s big enough, surely not to disturb the princess) she’ll soon feel strong enough for the long climb down the stairs.

Lydia slips beneath the blanket and curls up beside the sleeping princess. She’ll only rest for a minute…

An hour…

A day…

When the good fairy finds Lydia nearly a week later, having followed a new trail of gossamer thread coming from the high tower, she discovers the two women with arms wrapped around each other as tightly as vines. They both wear the small, secret smile of someone who is aloft on the wings of a beautiful dream.

The fairy sighs, disappointed to lose a promising apprentice, then turns back to tackle the long, winding staircase. She closes the door behind her, slowly. Gently.

Careful not to wake them.

Jennifer Skogen loves reading too many books at the same time and going for long walks in beautiful places (usually in the Pacific Northwest). When she isn’t maintaining her two cats’ extravagant lifestyles, she can be found writing speculative fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in journals including Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Luna Station Quarterly, Hungry Shadow Press, Drabbledark III anthology, Crow & Cross Keys, and Rust & Moth. Find her on Bluesky Social @jenniferskogen.bsky.social or Twitter @JenSkogen.