While Beauty Slept Read Online Free PDF Page A

Father clear out weeds. I did not begrudge him the wish to escape a house that had seen so much death.
    Mother was laid to rest on a bright, clear day, her body buried beside those of her sons in the village churchyard. I had never attended a funeral before, and only in hindsight did I realize that the priest performed the quickest rite possible, most likely because my father had skimped on the fee. Rushed as the ceremony might have been, I felt the weight of my grief lighten for a moment, as if God himself were urging me to lay it down. Mother and the boys had been welcomed into heaven. Their suffering had ended.
    The next morning, as dawn started to push aside the darkness, I climbed down from the sleeping loft, past Father snoring in the bed. I gathered the small bundle that held my few possessions: a chemise, a pair of winter stockings, a few needles and some thread, and a small loaf of bread. I carefully opened the chest that held my parents’ clothing and took out Mother’s best dress, the one she had saved for Sundays. With the years it had become worn and stained, marked forever as a peasant’s garment. Still, the fabric was of better quality than that of my tattered clothes, and I pulled it on.
    I heard a rustle of straw behind me and turned to see Nairn peering down from the loft. I offered a smile, but he only nodded somberly before turning away. Perhaps, given the losses he had already suffered, he could not summon the will to grieve my absence. Such was my leave-taking from the only home I had ever known.
    I headed for the cart path that led toward the village, the lure of what lay before me overpowering my fear. Where did I find the strength to take step after step into the unknown, alone and unprotected? To this day I cannot explain why I set my sights so single-mindedly on the castle. All I can say is that I felt called, whether by devilish temptation or God’s will I’ll never know.
    Or do I?
    Is it possible that Millicent, on the hunt for an acolyte, sent out a call that only I was capable of hearing, a call I was powerless to resist? It would be madness to believe such a thing. Yet what else could explain the unshakable certainty that drew me forward? Every great legend is at its heart a tale of innocence lost, and perhaps that was the role I was destined to play. I was ignorant indeed of the choices that lay ahead, choices that would raise me to heights I never imagined and others that pierce my heart with anguish to this day.

Two
    TO THE CASTLE
    T wo days later, squeezed in the back of a jostling cart with an assortment of hogs and sheep, I arrived in St. Elsip. Good fortune had hastened my journey, for I had not walked more than a mile when I was offered a ride by a passing farmer and his wife who were traveling in the same direction. My anticipation rose so high that the first sight of our destination came as a crushing disappointment: The ramshackle buildings on the outskirts of town were not much different from the humble country shacks I had left behind. But then the cart turned a corner and I saw it: a soaring fortress of stone encircling the top of a rugged hill. The castle. From that distance only the outer walls were clearly visible, yet my heart leaped all the same. I could hear Mother’s words, as clearly as if she sat beside me: It was the most wondrous place I have ever seen.
    How I ached for her in that moment! It is only now I realize that my hunger to enter those gates was fueled by grief. Deep down I hoped that some trace of my mother’s spirit would linger in those grand halls.
    On we drove, as modest dwellings gave way to solidly built homes that pressed up against one another. Taverns began to outnumber churches. Our wagon’s progress slowed considerably as we fought for passage with other carriages and riders, and I felt the unsettling sensation of the world closing in around me. People swarmed the streets, wending their way amid the hooves and wheels. The buildings grew ever