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that was not his way. He simply placed a hand upon my mother's arm. As he did so, my mother swallowed the sharp thing inside her throat and her words choked off.
    My godmother showed her true colors to the last. She gave my mother one perfect bow. Then she slowly walked down from the dais where she had been standing behind my mothers throne, toward where my cradle rested at the bottom of the steps. As she did, there occurred something odd. She began to weep. Not that that is strange in and of itself, but as her tears struck the marble steps, they made a clatter. All looked, and were astonished at what they saw.
    For Chantal was weeping pearls so lustrous and fine their match has never yet been brought up from the depths of the ocean. At a signal from my father, attendants gathered them up.
    To this day, I have a necklace of them as tall as I am. But every time I put it on, the urge to weep becomes so overwhelming that I have never worn it.
    When she reached my cradle, my godmother stopped and turned around, and bowed again.
    "Your Majesties," she said. "All others here have given their gifts to the Princess Aurore. But I have not yet bestowed mine."

    17

    Though she had made a statement, my father understood that she was asking a question, and so he nodded his head, tightening his hold upon my mother's arm.
    "If what is done cannot be undone, then let it at least be done again," said my godmother. "This child shall prick her finger at sixteen, but this need not bring death. Instead she will sleep for a hundred years, and be awakened by a kiss at the end of that time. If it's true love that awakens her, so much the better, but this is a thing I cannot promise. For true love comes when it will, not when it is called."
    She ran a hand over my cap of golden hair, then leaned down low, as if her next words were for my ears alone. They weren't quite, of course, for Nurse heard them, which is how I know.
    "May you keep what you hold in your heart safe and strong, petite Aurore."
    Then Chantal straightened and looked right at my mother.
    "That's the best that I can do, Mathilde," she said. "Whether or not it is enough, only time and Aurore herself can show."
    I've often wondered what my life would have been like if Maman had answered, if she had called Chantal back to her side.
    But she didn't. The sharp thing she had swallowed slid down her throat to her belly. There, it mingled with her pride. And so she let Chantal turn and walk away. None of us ever saw her again.
    Perhaps she found her place in another story, one with a happier ending. I hope so.
    And this was Cousin Jane's greatest accomplishment, I sometimes think. More than the pain the threat of my death caused. By her desperate actions, she drove others to desperation, and so we came to be deprived of our brightest light, our purest colors. Our truest friend and best ally.
    And, with Chantal's banishment, it may be said that I truly embarked upon the first ten years of my strange and unusual childhood.

Chapter 3
    Do you have any idea how challenging it is to live your life deprived of sharp objects? To live each day as if the presence of a butter knife constitutes a threat?
    Of course you don't.

    18

    Unfortunately, I do, so let me tell you this. A good time is not had by all. In fact, by hardly anyone. Sometimes I think the only person who really enjoyed those first years of my childhood was Oswald. And why should he, you might well ask. I know I did. He wasn't the one being reminded every day that he'd had two spells cast over him when he was only one month old.
    The truth of the matter, as he often found occasion to mention, was that, in spite of my birth, Oswald's situation really hadn't changed very much. He was still my father's heir. For, as the years passed, Papa did nothing to change the decree of succession. In fact, contrary as this might seem, my birth might even have improved things for my cousin. I was only going to be around till I was sixteen, after all.