Confessions

by Ella Kennen

I have a certain reputation, I know. Selfish.  Cruel. But the reality is a bit more complicated. Take that Sleeping Beauty incident. I didn't care about the christening. Please. I'd gotten out of the fairy godmother game years ago. Rotten hours, poor pay. Who needs that?  Bashing the party was just an excuse, see;  the event I needed to get things in motion.

I had no intention of hurting sweet little Aurora, either. I don't get what the fuss about babies is all about, but the girl hadn't done anything to me. At any rate, it's not as if fairies can wave their wands and stop a heart. We're not that good - or that bad.  I knew the other fairies wouldn't give me away, though. It doesn't hurt for the humans to think we're - ehem - more powerful than we actually are.

The whole "die on her sixteenth birthday" thing was for theatrical effect. What I wasn't expecting was that twit of a fairy hiding behind the curtain. Silly girl panicked and forgot all about the basics of fairy magic for the moment. Later she told me she was quite embarrassed by the whole - completely unnecessary -- 100-year sleep thing. Talk about over-reacting! But the damage was done.

Anyway, it served my purpose: to throw the kingdom into a panic. See, the key was the bit about the spindle. Haven't you ever wondered, why a spindle? I mean, who dies by poke? But no one in the kingdom bothered to ask. They were all too busy getting their tights up in a bunch.

Then the burning began. No spinning wheel, no cloth. No cloth, no new clothes. No thread, either, to mend the old clothes. For sixteen whole years. Talk about opportunity! The moment I heard about how I wasn't invited to the party, I bought up all the fabric from here to EverAfter. Then I set up shop - with that mule I'd turned into a boy as the store-keeper. Not too smart, but at least he knew how to keep quiet.

Business started as a trickle, but eventually mine was the only cloth shop in town. The downside, of course, was that no one in that kingdom bought anything for 100 years. But I knew that was coming, and I had plenty of time to move on to new kingdoms and new markets: non-moving gingerbread men, guaranteed safe apples, the list goes on.

Call me names, if you must. But I prefer genius to cruel.

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About the Author: Ella Kennen loves fracturing fairy tales. She writes fiction and

nonfiction for children and adults and, in her spare time, works on

her doctoral dissertation. Ella has lived here, there, and --

currently --  in merry olde England. Find out more about her writing

at http://ellakennen.wordpress.com

About the Art: Threads 1 by Dariusz Rompa of Gdynia, pomorskie, Poland