By
Taryn Kincaid
Once upon a time…
Decadent Publishing put out a submission
call for the retelling of fairy tales. One of the neat things was that you
didn’t get to pick and choose which one you’d do…you emailed the editor (hi,
Dawn!) that you were interested and she delved into her grab bag and produced a
title from The Brothers’ Grimm for you to base your story on. Many of these were obscure. I originally received
one of those. I had a million ideas for it —okay, so VAMPIRES — and I’m still
planning on getting back to it one day…but in the meantime…other stuff pulled
at me.
The more familiar stories, okay, the ones
that have Disney movies with chirping animals that do your laundry and clean
your toilets, witches that look like Angelina Jolie, and sopranos who insist
that One Day Your Prince Will Come, were held back.
And then…once upon another time, around
October of 2014, another call went out (only to Decadent authors, if I remember
correctly), for the so-called “coveted tales,” the bippity-boppity-boos of
fairy tales: Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty.
So…yeah.
Sleeping Beauty, she of the flaxen hair,
Prince Philip, Maleficent, and the fairy godmothers Flora, Fauna and
Merryweather. Um, wait. That would be
Disney’s version, which opened in 1959, when many of you reading this (okay,
most of you, in all likelihood), were not yet born, nor even twinkles in your
dad’s eyes.
The Grimms’ version, though, was Little
Briar-Rose, based on a French tale by Charles Perrault, La Belle au bois dormant, published in
1697, and itself based on Giambattista Basile’s
Sun, Moon and Talia, which in
turn was based on…well, really, who knows what. That’s the thing about fairy
tales, they were handed down in oral tradition over the centuries in all
different forms, morphing and changing until, finally, their Disneyfication
solidifies them in little girls’ hearts and minds.
But back to me. Negotiations with Iran
were in the news, I think. And I’d grown up with the Paris peace talks over
Vietnam, the Israeli-Palestinian mess and…King Arthur and his Round Table. And the idea that stuck in my mind was about
all the bickering and one upmanship, and the way diplomats sometimes cannot
even agree on the size or shape of the conference table. Not unlike a fairy being miffed because a
passel over other fairies got invited to the princess’ birthday party while her
invitation was…lost in the mail.
My original proposal submission, a world
at war due to diplomat dissing, a young war-weary woman stepping on a landmine
and lapsing into a coma…morphed in the writing because…well, that’s just how
writing is. One day you’re bumbling along, whistling while you work, and the
next day something flies out of the mouth of your character that’s akin to: “So
which one of you bitches is my mother?” (If any of you remember the ‘80’s
mini-series, Lace. But I digress. As usual.)
Originally, my Aurora’s (or Brier-Rose’s)
name was Serena. But on page one she announces that her name is “Rosina,” but
the soldiers she’s with call her “Sandrina”…and we were off and running. Into a
post-apocalyptic desert wasteland of a world, where the lethal rain can wound
the heroine. And the hero, Clay Worthington, is way more studly than Philip.
Blurb:
Sleeping Beauty
in a post-apocalyptic land…
In a world gone mad, where little remains
but a vast wasteland of sand, the leader of a troop of roving warriors welcomes
a brave young woman into his midst.
Much as he burns for her, Major Clay
Worthington swears to keep his distance from the mysterious woman, so sensitive
even the stinging rain can wound her.
Rosina
Brierly is besotted with the formidable soldier and will gladly trade her life
for one torrid night of blissful passion in his arms.
But when sleep overcomes them, will true
love prevail?
Excerpt:
Does the major ever feel lust? Does he
covet a woman’s touch? He never gave any sign he did. Too aloof and austere, too
remote from the simple emotions of mere mortal men.
He
shook her again. “Wake up, princess. The rain will come soon.”
The
men looked forward to the rain. They hated the relentless sun blasting down
upon them, as if they thought it would incinerate what was left of the earth
beneath their boots, baking the soft sand into badlands as hard as concrete.
They’d strip off their T-shirts and boots, their combat fatigues, and sometimes
even their camouflage boxer shorts, and dance and play, naked or nearly so, in
the slanting gray soup, laughing, tossing round balls or throwing saucer-shaped
plastic discs to each other.
For
her, the showers had the opposite effect. The stinging rain sliced into her
sensitive skin like acid, raising blisters and sores, sometimes bloodying her.
She
did not know why the major called her princess.
Perhaps he didn’t know either. Whatever royalty once walked the earth had long
gone, fled underground or died in battle or simply disappeared. The war
engulfed every human on the planet, every inch of land, and had waged so long
she doubted anyone remembered anymore. Well, maybe Nicodemus. At least he
sometimes hinted he did in the stories he told. And she had seen him whisper
into the major’s ear, unknown things that made the major pale beneath his
weathered tan.
Major
Worthington did not treat her like a princess, though, except when she
slumbered, when he knelt before her in her fantasy world, his head bowed, his
fist over his heart, laying his sword at her feet and claiming the role of
knight. Her hero. Her champion. When she awoke, he remained one of the elite
warrior breed roaming the planet, bristling with weapons like the soldiers he
led. He treated her as the translator she was to him, sometimes barking orders
to her as if she were one of his men, only occasionally seeking her counsel.
She
came fully awake as he jerked her up from the ground and yanked her toward him.
The glare of the setting sun broadsided her, hurting her eyes. Why was he so
insistent about the impending rain? No clouds yet darkened the sky, although
the hour sped toward evening dusk now. But no hint of shadow yet blotted the
horizon.
“I
can smell it,” he muttered.
