Unnatural Instinct: Wish

The floor clicks beneath your heels. Dark eyes look back at you as you spin and twirl, your dress fanning around you. It’s the white dress, you suddenly realise, but with a long train made of lace.

Your partner is dressed in an old-fashioned suit made of velvet. He’s wearing one of those terrible masks. This one is a skull, its lipless teeth grinning back at you odiously. It’s not him, you can tell—it’s not the Dark Prince.

It’s strange, you’re a terrible dancer, and yet you glide around the room amid the other couples like you’ve been doing it for years. The chandeliers above are a smudge. The menacing masks seem to blur into one. The women’s dresses are more hazy still, looking more like fog than fabric, as though you’re not quite awake. Or is it asleep?

It’s all so confusing.

The man you’re dancing with is strong and confident and you follow skilfully in his wake to the music coming from a band you cannot see. It’s not the discordant music from before. It’s something you can dance to. It’s beautiful. Everything is beautiful. Even you feel beautiful and you haven’t felt beautiful in a long time.

He spins you around and you slip from his grasp as he passes you onto another man. This man is tall and wearing a mask with horns. His hands are huge around yours but he’s no less skilled than the last.

A few moments later, he passes you onto another man with a mask bearing the face of a frog. Shortly after, you’ve moved onto the next man. You’re getting tired. Your breathing has turned ragged and your feet are aching. You try to pull away from your partner, but he grips you more tightly, and you’re forced to continue on with the dance.

People are watching you, men and women, all in masks. Their laughter rings in your ears alongside the music, which you notice doesn’t sound so pleasant anymore; it screeches in your ears. Again, you try to break free of your partner but he pulls you up against his hard chest and forces you along.

‘Stop!’ you cry.

The laughter merely gets louder. The music becomes shrill. Your partner spins you around and then you’re in the strong, warm arms of another.

‘Stop,’ you say feebly.

‘Do you not want to dance with me?’

You look up and find a familiar black mask, behind which the wearer’s mismatched eyes glitter.

Even as your heart flutters, you beg, ’Please, stop. It hurts.’

In an instant everything turns dark, the room stops spinning and your ears ring against the sudden silence. You can feel the Dark Prince’s arms around you as you sag against him, your chin on his shoulder. You can feel his breath on your neck and the beating of his heart against yours.

Slowly, the lights come back on to a dim setting. The crowd of leering, laughing masks is gone. You sag more heavily against him at the searing pain in your heels. You want to cry but force the tears back.

‘Here, let me help you,’ he says.

You gasp as he lifts you up into his arms. You feel breathless and hot as he carries you out of the white dance hall and down along the hall of mirrors. Unable to look directly at him, you look at his reflection instead. You hardly see yourself in your white dress—only him. How can a simple walk be so striking? His chin is lifted. His hair falls in perfect folds upon his shoulders. It doesn’t seem to take any effort at all to carry you.

‘I am sorry,’ he speaks, his voice echoing against the walls. ‘My friends can be … rough. I will speak with them.’

‘Who are they?’

His mask tilts towards you. ‘There’s no need to worry about them now. They do as I command.’

A door opens up ahead, the same door you entered with the two women the last time. You expect to see the white room with the mermaid fountain, but instead you’re in a room made of the same obsidian rock as the outside of the castle. The floor reflects his footsteps.

The room is sparsely furnished. In the centre is a large four-poster bed, heavy black drapes pulled out of the way with purple tassels. He lies you down on it. You try to sit up but he gently pushes you back down with a big, broad hand upon your chest.

‘Let me help you,’ he says.

His eyes travel over your body. You feel yourself flush as you recall how revealing your dress is. You resist the urge to cover yourself as he turns to your feet. Very gently, he pulls off your left heel. It’s white like the dress—and just as uncomfortable. You hiss in pain, then suck in a shocked breath—the shoe is filled with blood.

He holds your foot delicately in his hands.

‘I told them to stop,’ you say. ‘Why didn’t they stop?’

‘They don’t like guests.’

’What do you mean? Aren’t they guests?’

‘They live here.’ Very gently, he presses the pads of his middle and forefingers against the top of your foot. Warmth suffuses your whole leg. The pain is gone.

You stare at him as he gently lowers your foot back down onto the bed. You can’t believe you’re here—with the Dark Prince. Your dream, you suddenly remember. You’re in a dream. A repeat of the same dream. How is this possible?

‘You can’t be real,’ you say under your breath. He looks up at you with his mesmerising eyes. You swallow and look down at your foot. ‘Your sheets! What about the blood?’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ He picks up your other foot and pulls off your shoe. He does the same as the first.

You watch him closely as he pulls out a cloth from his pocket and begins to wipe away the worst of the blood.

‘Thank you for answering my wish,’ you say in a strangled voice. For reasons you can’t fathom, tears tighten your throat.

His glittering eyes peer at you through the mask. Throwing aside the bloodied cloth, he pulls his mask off.

You gaze at him in disbelief. ‘You’re just like the picture. Are you really real?’

‘Touch me. Am I real?’

You reach out a trembling hand, brushing the tips of your fingers against his smooth cheek. ‘I’ve always dreamed …’ You shake your head as your hand falls away. ’But why me? And why now? Why not years ago when I … when I really needed you?’

You turn your face away as you think of the night your parents died, the craziness and horror and devastation that followed. If it weren’t for your brother, who was old enough to take care of you, who knows where you would have ended up.

‘I could have used you then.’

‘You never wished for it.’

You face him. ‘You could have asked me. Like this time. I would have wished for you over and over again.’

A frown curves his perfect mouth. ‘I’m sorry.’

He looks so genuinely sorrowful that your eyes prickle. You turn your face away before he can see.

‘I’m here now,’ he says.

‘You were always there for me, even if you weren’t real,’ you choke. ‘In my darkest moments, I could always turn to you.’ You swipe away your tears. ’But how are you real? You’re a character in a book.’

’How are you real? My world is as real to me as yours is to you. What if you are merely a character in someone else’s book?’

You laugh. ‘Then it would be a boring story.’

‘Would it?’ He grins and it lights up his face, turning it from beautiful to astonishing.

You try to smile back but lower your eyes instead, trembling.

‘You have no need to fear me,’ he says.

‘I’m not afraid of you. I was—but I don’t want to go back.’ You take a breath. ‘You said you’d keep me.’

‘Yes.’

‘What did—what did you mean by that?’

‘I think you know what I mean.’

His mismatched eyes are so magnetic they force you to look at him. It’s been so long since you’ve been with a boy—or a man. You don’t really think you’ve ever been with a man, actually. Not really.

But is the Dark Prince even a man?