Maleficent(22)

            “That’s a lovely gift,” the queen said, still oblivious to what was really going on. Oblivious to the true history of Maleficent and Stefan.

            Putting a finger to Leila’s lips, Maleficent shook her head. She wasn’t finished. Not quite yet. There was one final part to her gift. “But before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she will…” She paused and looked around the room for inspiration. Her eyes landed on one of the presents brought for the baby. She continued. “. . . prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a sleep like death. A sleep from which she will never awaken.”

            As Maleficent’s words lingered in the air, the gathered crowd let out a collective gasp. Ignoring them, she turned to go. But Stefan’s voice stopped her.

            “Maleficent,” he said, stepping forward. “Don’t do this. I’m begging you.”

            At the word begging, Maleficent raised one eyebrow. Groveling was so unlike Stefan. Slowly, she turned back around to face him. Her expression was cold as she eyed the only person she had ever loved. His eyes pleaded with her and she saw genuine fear and pain in them. But it mattered not at all. Her heart was frozen. There was irony in the situation. The pain she caused him now was so much like the pain he had caused her…over and over again. Finally, she responded. “I like begging,” she said. “I do. Do it again.”

            Stefan peered around the room, aware that his subjects watched his every move. Aware that Maleficent was humiliating him. While he wanted to deny her, he had no choice. His infant daughter’s future was at stake. “I beg you,” he said through clenched teeth.

            “All right,” Maleficent replied, shrugging as she threw the king a bone. “The princess can be woken from her death sleep, but only by”—here she paused and narrowed her gaze so that the next words she spoke pierced Stefan to the core—“True Love’s Kiss.”

            She almost laughed when she said the words. She had learned from Stefan that things like true love did not exist. “This curse will last until the end of time. No power on Earth can change it.” She turned and began to leave. Behind her, Stefan signaled his guards to attack. But the wind Maleficent had conjured picked up, keeping the guards and guests at bay. In front of her, the door to the throne room blew open. A moment later, Maleficent disappeared through it, leaving panic and chaos in her wake.

            As she made her way back to the Moors, she smiled. When she had entered the castle, she had been unsure of what she would do when the time came. She hadn’t known about the gifts the pixies would bestow. Or even how she would feel when once more so close to Stefan. A small part of her had been worried she would be too frightened to do anything at all. But what happened in the end, Maleficent thought, couldn’t have turned out better. It was priceless. An unbreakable curse that was sure to drive Stefan mad and throw the kingdom into mayhem. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

                         Evening had fallen and the night sky was full of stars when Maleficent returned to the Moors. She was energized by the day’s events, and an idea began to form in her head, one to keep the human aggressors out of their land for good. She turned and walked to the very edge of the Moors, where faerie land met human land. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the magic that flowed within her. It had been growing stronger for a while. As she walked through the Moors now, her body called out to the land around her, pulling from its energy, making her stronger. She found that she could even focus on certain flora and fauna and extract magic directly from the individual plants and animals. Which, she thought with a smile, is very useful.

            Slowly, she began to speak to the ground. She called out to the grasses and to the roots that lay beneath the soil. She spoke to the trees nearby, asking them to lend their magic, to help her protect the Moors. Magic pulsed all around her, and the air shimmered. As she lifted her arms, dark twisted branches covered with sharp thorns began to rise out of the earth. They sped toward the sky and intertwined with each other, braiding their thick trunks together. As they did so, a wall began to form. The wall continued to grow until it was impossible to see from one side to the other. It grew until its thorns stuck out in all directions, their sharp tips gleaming black. It grew until it rose nearly forty feet in the air. It grew until it was impenetrable.