بخش 04

What do you see

Nothing

There are leaves in the way

Use your imagination, Conor O’Malley

What do you see

I see a spark

Yes

And

No, it’s water

It’s watercolor

Keep looking

Wow

Wow, indeed

Long ago, before this was a town, with roads and trains and cars, this was a kingdom

Here We don’t even have a Tesco

It was a prosperous kingdom with a wise king who had won peace for his people,

but peace had come at a price

The king had lost all three of his sons in battle to giants

To dragons

To armies of men led by great wizards

This is all sounding pretty fairytaleish

You wouldn’t say that if you heard the screams of a man killed by a spear

The queen was unable to bear the loss of all their three sons,

leaving the king alone in despair with the company of his only remaining heir, his orphaned grandson

The child was raised as a prince, winning the love of the kingdom with his gallantry and good heart

His people loved him

Our future king

He was nearly a man when his grandfather took a new wife

The king felt ill and rumour began to spread that she was an evil witch, that she was bent on taking the throne for herself by poisoning the king

A few weeks later, the king died

The prince was too young to take the king’s place, so, by law, the queen would rule for another year

The future was uncertain

The prince, meanwhile, had given away his heart

She was beautiful and smart, and though only a farmer’s daughter, the kingdom smiled on the match

The queen, however, she was rather enjoying being queen

And what better way to remain so than to marry the prince herself

What That’s disgusting

She was his grandmother

Stepgrandmother

And still a young, beautiful woman herself, don’t forget

The prince, however, didn’t like the idea either

He took the farmer’s daughter and they rode away into the night

They stopped to rest under the branches of a yew tree

That’s you

The next morning, the prince awoke

‘Arise, my beloved’, he said

But the farmer’s daughter did not stir, which was when the prince noticed the blood

Blood

Someone had killed his beloved in the night

What

‘The queen’, he cried

‘The queen has murdered my bride’

The villagers, full of fury and vengeance, rose up at the crime

It was then that I came walking

The queen was never seen again

Good She deserved it

Now, I don’t suppose you can help me with my grandma

The story is not yet finished

I took the queen and carried her far enough away so the town’s people would never find her

To a village by the sea, where she began a new life

But she killed the farmer’s daughter

How can you save a murderer

You really are a monster

I never said she killed the farmer’s daughter

I only said that the prince said it was so

The prince never fell asleep that night, but waited for the farmer’s daughter to be lost in her dreams, and then began his real plan

What

He knew her death would start a fire that would consume the queen entire

That’s a terrible story And a cheat

It’s a true story

Many things that are true feel like a cheat

Kingdoms get the princes they deserve

Farmers’ daughters die for no reason

And sometimes witches merit saving

Quite often, actually

You’d be surprised

So, the good prince was a murderer and the evil queen wasn’t a witch after all

No, the queen most certainly was a witch

and could well have been on her way to great evil

Who can say

Then why’d you save her then

Because what she was not, was a murderer

She hadn’t poisoned the king

He had merely grown old

Did the prince ever get caught

No

He became a much beloved king who ruled happily until the end of his long days

Oh, yes

I don’t get it

Who’s the good guy here

There is not always a good guy, Conor O’Malley

Nor is there always a bad one

Most people are somewhere in between

So how is all this meant to save me from Grandma

It is not her you need saving from