This is just a small section from the novel I'm writing, which as a kind of modern fairy tale that undermines the traditional fairy tale conventions and values. This particular bit occurs fairly early on and marks the start of the combination of the horrific and the fantastic:
There was a dream that Lucy had often had for almost as long as she could remember. It always began in the same way. She was standing in an empty space in front of a full length mirror that was framed with silver vines. She would peruse her own face in this mirror until she was confronted with some manifestation of that which made her different from everyone else, as she inevitably would. More often than not her hair would become thick and blonde, a gold tiara encrusted with the most expensive of diamonds would appear on her head and she would be transformed into the lost princess of a distant land. At other times she would grow wings as translucent and thin as tracing paper, covered in swirling silver dust, and she would float away on the breeze, the fairy queen. In her nightmares her face would become distorted and hideously ugly, and then she would be suddenly surrounded by people who would shun her or run away in fright.
On this particular night however, the dream became far more obscure. She had grown wings before, but these were painful. Whilst looking into the same mirror she had seen a thousand times, she fell to the floor in sudden agony. She became aware of something trying to break out of her back, something that was obliterating her flesh and shattering her bones. Ripping out from between her shoulder blades irrupted a mass of feather shapes made of mahogany. She opened her eyes and watched as they formed themselves into huge wings which towered over her head and almost grazed the floor, even in their closed state. They were adorned with gold filigree shapes; mythical creatures which roared and fought one another and the most beautiful flowers that seemed to bend to a non-existent breeze.
Without her consent, the wings opened and it was only now that she appreciated their terrible magnificence. Slowly, they began to flap, but Lucy could not control them. She started to panic as she rose above the ground and attempted to hold onto the mirror to stop herself from soaring into the blackness on such a monstrous pair, but it disappeared at her touch and she was soon consumed by the dark.
She awoke in a cold sweat, with a very real pain in her back. That dream had terrified her more than it should, so she turned up her oil lamp. She was suddenly terrified of the darkness that had just engulfed her. She lay awake just watching the light flicker.
© Catherine Stiles, 2010.
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