Unnatural Instinct: Wish

The hair stands up on the back of your neck. It’s too quiet and it’s getting dark, the encroaching gloom casting deep shadows across the room.

Careful to keep your distance from the book, you get up and switch on your light. Then you grab your phone and put some music on. You start to relax as you collapse back onto the bed.

You laugh at your stupidity. ‘I’ve had a long day.’

You throw an arm across your face with a groan as the day’s events hit you like a punch in the guts.

‘If only I needed to do was wish it.’ Then you start to cry.

You don’t know how long you lie there with your tears dripping down your face but it’s long enough that they’ve soaked your pillow and your cheeks are sticky. It’s totally dark now. You can hear the crickets and a frog croaking in the drainpipe.

You reach for a tissue to blow your nose, only to freeze as you look down at the floor—somehow, the book is open. It’s back on the same page.

All you need do is wish it.

You stare and stare, your heart in your throat. An unexpected daring turns the coldness of your horror to a rush of excitement. Nothing could be scarier than what happened to you today. You could not feel worse than you do right now.

‘Screw it. Why not?’

You pick up the book and sit back against your pillows. You feel like a little girl again. Do you actually think this is going to work? Whatever this is?

You take a breath. ’I wish you could keep me. I wish it very much.’

The clock on your wall ticks. The frog outside croaks. The crickets chirp. A car zooms past. More tears swell in your eyes. Sneering at yourself, you snap the book shut and place it back on your bedside table.

It’s still early but your tears have made you tired. You should probably get up and at the very least brush your teeth, but what for? It’s not as though you’re going anywhere. It’s not as though you have anything to do.

Rolling onto your side, you mash your face into your pillow and close your eyes.

The grass crunches loudly beneath your sandals. It’s hard to see much except for the trees looming over you like sinister men, the moonlight beaming through their branches. An owl hoots. Something rustles though the bracken. Goose bumps pop up all over your arms against the cool breeze.

You keep walking. What you’re walking towards, you’re not sure. A stick snaps beneath your footstep. A bat flies from its perch with a screech. The trees start to thin, then you step free of their shadow.

Up ahead is his castle, just as you imagined it, just as the picture in the book portrays it. But it seems so much larger, so much more forbidding as its many towers stretch towards the sky. It looks like a black crown. The moon is large in the cloudless sky and its light glints off the murky water of the marshes, turning them silver. The scene looks both ominous and eerily beautiful.

Your heart skips a beat. It’s far from the first time you’ve dreamed of his castle—but it’s never been like this. You look down at your hands as you clench and open them. Everything seems so real, from the coolness of the air, to the fetid smell of the marshes, to the breeze blowing through your hair.

And your thoughts—they’re so clear.

I wish you could keep me. I wish it very much.

‘It’s just a dream.’

You march ahead. The grass is soon replaced by bare dirt, then mud as you approach the marshes, which suck at your sandals. At one point, you lose one of them. You pull it out of the mud and slip it back on.

You step back to dry land, feeling a little defeated. How are you supposed to cross? You fold your arms with a shiver at a gust of icy wind. Tilting your head back, you study the castle. Everything is too still, too quiet. There are no lights on. No activity. Is there anyone even there?

You look towards the marshes. This can’t be all there is. Aren’t you supposed to always find a way in dreams? Closing your eyes, you imagine yourself walking across the mud and water without sinking, without getting wet.

‘I can walk across it. It’s nothing but normal land. I can walk across it.’

Opening your eyes, you draw in a long, deep breath and walk on ahead. You reach the mud, it sucks at your sandal, but you wrench it free and keep moving.

‘Nothing but normal land,’ you say weakly.

You suck in a startled breath when your next step sees you sinking up to the knee in warm, slimy water. You scramble back and fall hard to the ground.

With a grimace, you wipe your muddy hands on the grass, then stand up. There’s mud all up your shirt and the backs of your legs. Now, you feel more chilled than ever. What kind of dream is this?

Frustrated, you flick the mud from your fingers. Then it comes to you: All you need do is wish it.

You take a hopeful breath. ‘I wish to get safely across.’

Biting your lip, you step up to the water again. Wincing, you hold out your foot, then step it out onto the water. You sink again!

‘Fuck!’ You scramble back a second time.

Forgetting that you’re only wearing sandals, you kick at a rock in anger. You grab your foot, hopping on the spot as pain shoots through your toes. ‘Fuck again!’

You take a moment for the pain to ease before you pace back and forth, thinking. What to do? What to do? The stupid marshes will not defeat you. It’s your dream! You try to think back to the book.

‘I cannot cross without powerful magic …’ You look up to the castle as realisation dawns ‘… or invitation from the Dark Prince himself.’

You reach into your pocket. Your eyes widen as you pull out a folded piece of paper. You open it.

The Dark Prince cordially invites you to his home.

Speak your name and find your way.

The handwriting is too perfect, too elegant.

… the Dark Prince’s handwriting, you suddenly realise.

Your heart skips a beat.

Taking a moment to brace yourself, you look across the soggy marshes and speak your name clearly.