The Price

THE PRICE

By Janet Lorimer

    I had no name.

    Sometimes I would stand in front of the mirror and stare at my image, my long straight hair the color of ripe wheat and my pale green eyes. I would softly ask the girl in the mirror, “Who are you?”  

    Up until I was six or seven, there were only two things I wanted: To be a princess and to have a name. 

    Sometimes I made up pretend names for myself, like Princess Rose or Princess Butterfly. I imagined myself living in a fancy castle, wearing a jeweled tiara, dancing at masked balls, and living happily ever after, like in the fairy tales Aunt Laura read to me. 

    But the day came when I no longer wanted to pretend. I wanted to know. 

    I asked Aunt Laura, “What’s my name?”

She gave me a funny look. “Finish your lunch, Darling,” she said.

    Aunt Laura and Mother were sisters. They both had curly brown hair, brown eyes, and dimples. Aunt Laura was young, slender, and beautiful. Mother was older, plump and dithery. She was always worried about something. I seemed to be the thing that worried her the most. 

    Father had chalk white skin, dark hair and eyes. And a dark beard that I thought made him look like an angry wizard. He never smiled, at least not at me.   

    Aunt Laura called me Darling. The housekeeper, Mrs. Worth, never spoke to me. Nanny called me Missy, Mother called me Child, and Father called me It. 

    “Everyone has a name,” I persisted between bites. “Mother is Ellen and Father is George. You are Laura and Nanny is. . . Nanny is Nanny.”

    Aunt Laura’s beautiful smile vanished. “That’s enough. Stop asking questions. Be grateful for what you have.”

    With that, she rose and left the table.  

    Nanny came to take Aunt Laura’s plate away. “Now you’ve done it, Missy. Just can’t keep your curiosity to yourself, can you? Take that last bite or lose it.”

    I stuffed the last bite into my mouth, my eyes spilling tears onto my empty plate. I didn’t ask about my name again, but I didn’t stop wondering. 

    We lived on the outskirts of a big city, or so Aunt Laura told me. I had spent my whole life inside this house and

in the garden.  Most of the windows in the house were much too high for me to see out, and the ones I could reach were kept covered by heavy drapes. I was not allowed in those rooms with the covered windows. 

I could go into the garden, even alone, because it was surrounded by a high stone wall, but I couldn’t leave it. I couldn’t see over the wall, so I had to content myself with the sounds of cars and people passing by. But the older I got, the more I wanted to see just how big the world was.

    Most of my knowledge of the world was formed by the stories Aunt Laura read to me. Stories about kings and queens, dragons and ogres, fairies and wizards. 

Since I was often in bed recovering from a surgery, she and I spent a lot of time together. 

    I came into this world ‘crumpled.’ That’s what Nanny called it. “When you was born, you was a poor little crumpled thing,” Nanny told me.

    After each surgery I was able to walk better. What, I wondered, would happen when I didn’t need any more surgeries? Would I then be able to go out into the world?

Father was a surgeon, apparently of great renown. He did not operate on me in the hospital where he worked; there was a special room in our house dedicated to my medical care.  Mother assisted him. She had been a nurse before she married. Nanny and Aunt Laura took care of me while I was recuperating.

    I was about ten years old when I realized that the tradespeople who brought groceries and other sundries to the house always came in through the back gate. During the day, the gate was kept latched but not locked, although the latch was too high for me to reach. 

Once I saw a delivery boy accidently leave the gate ajar as he left. I wanted desperately to run into the garden and through the gate into the big world beyond. But before I could take advantage of the boy’s carelessness, I saw Mrs. Worth hurry into the garden, shouting at him. She secured the gate, and I never saw that boy again.    

    Then, just after my twelfth birthday, I was rewarded. I was sitting in the garden, the summer sun warm on my shoulders, drawing. Aunt Laura was doing needlework nearby. I heard the gate open, and I looked up. It was a tradeswoman with a basket of fresh fruit. “Hello,” she called out with a cheerful smile. “Do you fancy fresh cherries, Miss?”

    Aunt Laura said, “Oh, how lovely,” and rose to meet the woman. They moved closer together, their focus on the contents of the basket, but out of the corner of my eye I caught the movement of the gate, not properly shut, about to swing open.

    Without thinking, I jumped to my feet and limped as fast as I could to freedom. I made it to the gate, pushed it wide open, and gazed into the huge world of cars and people moving by at an incredible pace. The sight made me stop, unable to move. I suddenly realized that the world was big enough to swallow me up.

    And then a hard, heavy hand seized me; I was scooped up under Father’s arm. He pulled the gate shut, then strode to the middle of the yard. Aunt Laura and the tradeswoman stood quite still, staring at us.

    Father dropped me to my feet, but he didn’t let go of me. He leaned toward me, his face twisted with fury, and I shrank back as far from him as I could. 

    “Never. Do. That. Again. Understand?”

    This admonishment was spoken in a snarl. I saw such loathing in his eyes that I could not speak, could only nod.

    “George, please. You’re frightening her. Let her go.” Aunt Laura had come forward, and was standing at his side, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. 

    He turned and glared at her, but he released me.  “I hope I did frighten It,” he said. “If we lose It, what then? Keep a closer eye on It, Laura.”

    Her shoulders sagged. “George, I do my best. But how much longer?”

    He glanced back at me, then said, “Did you see how quickly It reached the gate? That is a very good sign. I believe the time is near, Laura, very near.”  

He strode into the house as Aunt Laura hustled the tradeswoman out the gate, making sure it was securely latched.  She turned to me.

I feared that Aunt Laura would rebuke me as well, but instead she fell to her knees in front of me, pulling me into a loving embrace. I promptly burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Laura.” 

    She was silent for a moment, gently caressing my back to soothe me. Then she said in a low voice, “I know you want to see the world, and so you shall. One day soon, I promise.”

    Sometime later I was summoned to the surgery room. Nanny brought me. Aunt Laura and Mother stood in a corner, waiting. Father had on his white medical coat. First, he made me walk back and forth in front of him. Then he lifted me onto the examining table and began probing and scrutinizing my legs. He asked, “Does this hurt? Can you feel that?”   

    I whispered my answers, afraid to raise my voice. 

    When he was satisfied, he turned to the others and nodded. They all gasped with relief, and then to my great surprise, Father almost smiled. He turned to me and said, “Only one more operation, Alice.”

    Another sharp intake of breath, but this time the collective gasp was one of horror. Everyone froze. Father’s eyes widened, and then, brusquely, he said to Aunt Laura, “Take It away.”

    Aunt Laura helped me off the table and rushed me into the hall. We scurried into the nursery and shut the door. I wanted to ask Aunt Laura what had just happened. Was my name Alice?  

But Aunt Laura pressed her hand to my mouth, and whispered, “Don’t ask any questions, but be happy. This is the last operation you will ever have to endure. It means that your time in this house is almost over.”

    I sank to the carpet, staring open-mouthed at Aunt Laura. “But where will I go?”

    She smiled. “To a wonderful place you will surely love.”

    I should have been happy, but instead I felt the first tendrils of fear grow inside me. In the fairy stories, unwanted children were often taken into the forest and left there to fend for themselves. To either starve to death or to be eaten by wild animals. Or witches. And I was certain I was unwanted.  

    “Where?” I whispered.

    “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.”

    After that, things moved quickly. Within a few days, Father had made all the arrangements for my surgery. When I awoke from the anesthetic, Aunt Laura was sitting by my bed smiling. The operation was a success.

    After that came a time of recuperation and therapy. Then the day arrived when Father came to the nursery and told Nanny and Aunt Laura that although I still had a slight limp, he had medically done all he could for me.   

They both fell to whispering to each other, consulting a calendar, and making mysterious phone calls. Aunt Laura told me that we needed to prepare for a great adventure. 

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To visit Nanny’s sister Agnes.”

Nanny had told me many stories of Agnes and the small village where they had been born. It was north of the city near a dark forest. 

    “Think of the fun you will have,” Aunt Laura went on. “You will get to see a part of the big world. You can pick wildflowers and feast on wild berries. You will see squirrels and foxes and deer.”

    Unspoken: When you are alone in the forest, trying to survive.    

    “Why?” I begged in a shaky voice.

    Aunt Laura’s mouth tightened, her eyes narrowed, and she spoke crossly. “Stop asking questions. We have a lot to do.”

    I obeyed in silence, too frightened to protest. 

    The next morning, with Aunt Laura driving the car and Nanny in the seat beside her to give directions, with me tucked into the back seat, we embarked on our journey. During the drive, I was overwhelmed by what I saw on this, my first foray into the wide world. It was so amazing that for a few hours I almost forgot about the fate that awaited me. 

    Just before noon we reached the cottage. Agnes was there to greet us. We all sat down to lunch, and afterward Aunt Laura told me I had to rest.  

Tonight would be the night, I thought. We would go into the forest on some pretext or another. In the dark they could easily separate themselves from me. I would be on my own, at the mercy of the forest and its terrors. 

    Despite my misgivings, I fell asleep. Aunt Laura awoke me as the moon was rising. She brought me a plate of food. “You need to eat something,” she told me. She sounded tense, nervous. I wondered if she dreaded what the night would bring, or if she welcomed it.  Would she, like Mother and Father, be happy to be rid of me?

    “I’m not hungry,” I whispered. 

    “Nonsense. You’ll need your strength when we go into the forest. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

    “It’s too dark.” I fought back tears.

    “There’s a full moon to light our way.”

    “Why do we need to go into the forest?” 

    “It’s lovely at night. Moonlight colors everything silver. It’s like being in a wonderland.”

    I couldn’t bear it a moment longer. “When are you going to tell me who I am, and why we are really here?”

    She gazed at me for a long, sad moment. “I will tell you soon, I promise.”

    From the other room, Nanny called to us. “It’s time to go.”

    On the path into the forest, Agnes and Nanny walked ahead, Agnes carrying a lantern to help light the way, although the full moon turned the path to silver. Silver and black, the night colors of the forest. I would have found it beautiful if I had not been in such a state of despair.   

We had been walking for the better part of an hour when the path opened up into a wide clearing. Agnes and Nanny stopped, turned to me, and pointed ahead. I saw that the clearing was lighted by myriad tiny lights. So this was it!

Frantic now, I turned to Aunt Laura. “Tell me,” I demanded. 

    I could not make out Aunt Laura’s features in the dark, but I heard her sigh. “Yes, it’s time you know. Alice is—.” She paused, struggling, I thought. “Alice is human. You’re a changeling.”

    Changelings! Fairy children who sometimes replaced human children. Especially fairy children born ill or weak. Or crumpled. 

    “Alice was the child you replaced,” Aunt Laura went on as I struggled with the shock of her words. “But that wasn’t your fault.”

    “Then I am—?” I couldn’t say the word. 

    “You are Fae of the Seelie Court, but your people’s magic could not repair your poor little broken body, so they switched you for Alice, knowing George would have to heal you in order for his daughter to be returned. It may sound cruel, but your parents were desperate. So we raised you, and your parents raised Alice.”

    “Mother and Father never loved me,” I whispered bitterly, remembering the terrible loneliness I had felt since birth. 

    “Sadly, that is true,” Aunt Laura said. “I tried to make up for it, but I fear I did not succeed.”

    “You were kind to me.” I reached out to take her hand.

    “I suspect Alice met the same fate,” she said in a shaky voice. 

    “But none of this was our fault,” I exclaimed. “So why am I being punished? Why am I to be abandoned in the forest?” 

    I heard Aunt Laura’s harsh intake of breath. “Abandoned? Oh no, Darling. Now that you are healed, we have brought you back to your family.”

    My family? 

    “They are the high rulers of the Seelie Court, and by all accounts, good beings who have often helped humans.” She laughed. “You are a princess, Darling. Just what you always wished to be.”

    Suddenly I heard a soft rushing sound, as if a thousand pairs of wings were beating the warm night air. And I heard delicate voices, speaking in a language I had never heard.

    As the world spun around me, I saw two beings – tall and slender and pale like me – emerge from the shadows and approach us. They were escorting a girl my age with dark curly hair and dark eyes who looked as bewildered as I felt.  

    Alice. As she drew closer, we gazed at each other and our glances held. In that instant, I sensed that her years of misery and fear matched mine. We had both been denied the one thing children crave: the love of their parents!

    “Alice.” I heard the tearful joy in Aunt Laura’s voice. 

    “Shailagh!” I heard the collective voice of the fairies, but only in my head.  A strange word in a strange language, but oddly I knew what it meant. Shailagh, an ancient Gaelic name.  My name. My second wish come true.

    We passed each other, Alice going to her new family and I to mine. We would be loved but would we heal? Because for all the joy our families now felt, we remained two children who had paid a price . . . so our parents could live happily ever after.

The End