There once was a girl who dreamed of being a princess.
She wore only pink, because that’s what she believed a princess would wear, and she never let a frog hop past unkissed.
But none of it helped. The frogs just stayed green and icky, and she was no closer to being a real princess.
So she decided to set out in search of her fortune. Wrapping her most precious things in a (pink) pocket handkerchief, she kissed goodbye to her mother and father and went off to find her prince.
Days and nights she walked, and weeks and months, until her pink shoes turned black with dirt. Everywhere she went, she was most careful always to help old crones and be kind to bluebirds, but it did no good. The crones were just ordinary old ladies, a bit bemused to have half-eaten sandwiches shared with them, and with not a magic bone in their bodies. And the bluebirds never once answered her cheery greetings with a special song.
But still she did not give up. She knew she could not rest until she was a true princess.
And then, one night, after a particularly hard day of smiling sweetly and helping graciously, she came at last to a castle. Forbidding, wrought iron gates stretched up to the darkening sky, but peeping through she could see beyond a palace, with turrets and twinkling diamond windows.
Her heart leapt. At last! Surely, here lay her destiny. Pushing open the creaking, twisted gates, she stepped up the overgrown drive, reminding herself to keep the spring from her step (for princesses do not skip).
As she walked, thunder rolled in the sky, and before long it began to rain. By the time she reached the entrance to the palace, she was soaked through. Brushing fat drops from her face, she stretched to the lion’s head knocker and boomed the great oak door.
Silence.
She waited. Reached up, and knocked again.
In the distance, a shuffle of footsteps, then on the other side of the door the turning of a hundred rusted locks.
With a creak that screamed out even over the lashing of the storm, the great door swung open.
‘Ahhh’ said the wizened crone who peered out. ‘What have we here? A princess, perhaps?’
‘Well, I hope to be’ she smiled, though her teeth chattered and her hair dripped down to her toes.
A grunt, and a shrug, and the crone beckoned her in.
She slept that night on a pile of mattresses that reached almost to the ceiling. And she knew in the morning to say she had never slept so badly in all her life.
She wandered the gardens next day, and when she heard distant weeping and soulful groans, she knew to seek the beast who made such terrible sounds.
She explored the corridors of closed rooms and knew to climb the dustiest, twistiest staircases. But there were no spinning wheels at the top.
That night, and the next day, she wandered and searched, but she found no prince, saw not so much as a frog.
But still, she was happy. This was, at last, a palace. She dined well, if alone, and the gardens were sun-drenched, refreshed by the storm, and beautifully tended.
Then, the next morning, she came upon a corridor she had not found before. Darker even than the darkest corner, it echoed with the sound of weeping. Her heart aching with pity at the sound, she stepped softly forward.
In the first room – nothing.
The second door swung open on velvet hinges. And there, prostrate on a tapestry-laden four poster bed, a princess lay. Her beautiful dress tumbled to the floor in layers of gauze. Her shoulders heaved. The silken coverlet beneath her cheek was stained dark with tears.
‘Oh! Do not cry! Who has hurt you so?’
‘My children – all lost – and none to play with’ And fresh sobs shook her tiny frame.
Hugs and kisses would not soothe her. On and on she cried, filling the castle with her moans.
This cannot be a true princess, the girl thought. True princesses cannot be so sad. Leaving the inconsolable creature, she turned back to the corridor, and tried the next door.
‘Oh!’ they are come for me! I must flee! I must flee!’ A pale and delicate beauty plucked at her flimsy gown and scrabbled at the windows.
Poor thing – quite mad – the girl thought. This cannot be a true princess, for true princesses are full of courage. She quietly closed the door once more.
As she opened the fourth door, she thought she saw an eye at the keyhole, and heard a desperate scuffling behind. A straight-backed woman looked up from the book she held – upside down.
‘Is he come? He said just forty days, it has been nigh one hundred and forty. I saw him in the rose garden, I am sure it was he. Is he come?’
Shaking her head, the girl backed out. No true princess could be so desperate, could she? Or so lonely?
Just one door remained.
Blinking tears from her eyes at the sorry plight of all she had seen, she pushed it open – and found herself in the most beautiful ballroom she had ever seen.
Gasping with the joy of it, she ran forward, then skipped and twirled, her beautiful silken dress twirling around her as she danced. At once, the sorrow of the princesses was washed from her mind and she remembered again what it was to live and breathe.
‘At last. You are come. Most beautiful creature. You and only you are the true princess for whom I have searched this long life of mine. Dance with me’
She looked up, and there – at the end of the ballroom, stood the most handsome man she had ever seen. On his head, a coronet of gold. In his hand, a perfect single red rose, rich and dark as velvet.
As they danced, her heart was full. This was all she had dreamed of. Her destiny.
She heard the clock begin to strike. She looked up – so close to midnight! She had wandered the rooms deep into the night. She gasped and pushed the prince away. Careful to leave just one small slipper in the middle of the ballroom floor, she fled to her room of many mattresses and slept as she had never slept before.
Morning brought a tumble of memories. Dancing with a prince! Perhaps it had all been just a dream?
She walked back towards the corridor, her pink dress a bright splash of colour in the dusty gloom.
But this day, instead of weeping, she heard singing. The most beautiful voice, raised in rousing shanties, dancing in through the window. She pushed open the doors to the garden, and followed the sound …
It led her through arches of honeysuckle and twisting wisteria, past fountains flanked by straight-lipped tulips – until she saw a gardener, belting out showtunes as he tended the plants. She stood entranced.
‘Ah, there you are! I have found you!’
She turned to see the prince, kneeling at her feet, holding out her single slipper.
Without thinking, she slipped it on. It fit like a glove.
‘My princess!’ he cried, and sweeping her in his arms, he placed upon her head a twinkling tiara.
She closed her eyes. Breathed in the moment. Now, at last, she was a true princess.
But … that sound again … the song that filled her heart with life and happiness. It drowned the prince’s voice, begging her to live with him happily ever after.
And turning to the prince, she thanked him for the offer, and said a polite ‘no thank you’.
This was not her destiny after all. Not for her the dusty, dark, imprisoning life of the princess.
She turned instead towards the man whose eyes danced with sunlight, whose strong hands made beauty with nothing so rich as his voice. Who had no ballroom, or castle, but built walls of flowers.
(Though I heard she did keep the tiara, and wore it from that day to this …)
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