The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen - Delia Sherman [45]
One elf, in blue tights and a tiny gold crown, was clearly a handsome prince. After watching everyone dance for a while, he picked up a little golden bow and ran offstage. I guessed he was going hunting. I hoped it was for swans.
At that point, the curtain went down. Everybody got up and wandered around, but I stayed where I was, in case somebody wanted to see my ticket. I wasn’t going to risk getting thrown out before the swans showed up.
Finally, everybody came back, the lights dimmed, and the curtain rose again on a fake-looking forest. The handsome prince came on and leapt around the stage, waving his little golden bow in a way the Pooka would have said was very dangerous. Luckily, he didn’t have an arrow.
Suddenly, the music rippled, and a large white swan flew onstage and circled the prince, who dropped the bow. The swan touched down lightly and swept off her swan-skin in a dramatic, feathery swirl to reveal her maiden-self in a floaty white dress. She stood perfectly still while, one by one, the rest of the flock followed her, until maybe two dozen swan maidens were posing gracefully around the startled prince.
There was a little pause, the music changed, and another swan flew onstage. She was too far away to see clearly, but I knew right away she was a princess because of her little gold crown. She had a short, stiff skirt sticking out around her waist like a sparkly wheel. When she lifted her arms, the music soared and twirled and leapt, pulling the swan princess and her court of maidens along with it.
I forgot my feet. I even forgot my quest. I was enchanted.
In the next scene, the handsome prince was throwing a party. An evil wizard in a shiny black cape showed up uninvited with a princess in tow, this one a black swan. She didn’t look a thing like the swan princess the prince had danced with in the forest, but the prince couldn’t tell the difference. I thought he was pretty stupid, never to have heard of glamours. After a lot of fuss and dancing, it all ended sadly, with the white swan dying and the prince jumping into a lake. I knew it was silly, but I still cried.
After the curtain closed for the last time, the two swan princesses, the handsome prince, and the evil wizard came out in front of the curtain and bowed. I wiped my eyes and clapped until my palms stung.
“Come,” someone said in my ear. I jumped. I’d forgotten Fred. “We go backstage now.”
There was no marble or red carpet backstage, just twisty passages full of gnomes, brownies, and household spirits of many lands running around holding clothes and ballet shoes and little toy bows and wooden cups and pretend food from the party scene. Fred herded me to a corridor that looked identical to all the others, only some of the doors had stars on them.
“Chorus,” he said, pointing. “Principals there: Odette, Odile, Prince, Evil Wizard.” He gave me a doubtful look. “You know swans?”
There were swans in the Park—non-magical ones. Pretty from a distance. I’d tried to make friends once, when I was little. It hadn’t gone well. “Kind of.”
He looked doubtful. “After performance, they are difficult. Artistic temperament.” He hesitated. “You are true hero, young mortal, even if you are not blonde.”
I told him he was very kind. I didn’t even need to count to ten. Maybe my temper was getting less volatile.
At the dressing room door, I listened. Women’s voices, laughter, a couple of honks. It didn’t sound dangerous. I wasn’t sure what Fred meant by artistic temperament, but how bad could it be? It’s not like the swan maidens could eat me or anything: swans don’t have teeth. I knocked. Nobody said to go away, so I opened the door.
Two dozen swan maidens in various stages of transformation turned their beady black eyes on me and hissed.
“Stranger!”
“Danger!”
“Go away, go away, go away!”
I took a deep breath and started babbling. I don’t even remember exactly what I said. The dancing was magical, the maidens were beautiful,