Tissue Paper and Dragons
A trinket. That’s all it was. A mere trinket. The tissue paper that once surrounded it, protecting it from the trauma and stress of transportation lay on the floor, its crinkling fading into the room as it relaxed.
She stood, staring transfixed at the weight in her hands. Every hoof was perfectly formed and each mane could have been waving in a silent wind. It didn’t take much to imagine herself there. But it was always the last time. She could never go before, before that one memory that was tainted. In a way, it was a tribute. The other memories had drifted into insignificance. That she could still hold onto this and so tangibly remember it was a way of holding onto…
She shook away the dust and cobwebs of her thoughts, the clutter and dirt that covered over her wonder at what she held, years of build up that dulled the childlike appreciation of beauty. The dust would settle again. It always did. She had nowhere else to put it. But for a moment, she could imagine herself unbroken.
It was the colours. It had to be the colours that held her so. The gold one had always been her favourite. She’d picked it long before she understood the value that society had assigned to it, and so she could never quite identify the reasons for her choice. He smiled when she sat there and for her that was enough.
She blinked at the sudden image of his face in her mind, his eyes crinkled and sparkling, his head tilted in laughter. Suddenly it changed, his brows crunched together, his jaw clenched, his lips contorted. She’d listened as his breathing became ragged, begged with what strength her tiny heart had for help to come. But then his face had relaxed and his chest went still. She hadn’t been old enough to understand what it meant.
~
Sometimes he would ride with her. He would choose the blue one; in front, he said, so that he could fight off any dragons they encountered, and to the right so that he could look back and see his beautiful princess riding along behind him.
“And,” he said, “so that I can stop all the princes coming to claim milady. Only Charming will get through.”
When the question of frogs arose, he scoffed at the idea.
“A frog wanting to court my princess?”
“Sometimes frogs are a prince in disguise,” she had said.
He looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Sometimes they are,” he had agreed.
“I will look at the heart,” he finally said. “For no matter how thick the disguise, an enchantment can never hide the heart of a prince.”
“What does it look like?” she asked.
“Bigger. Fuller.” And then he puffed out his cheeks and croaked. She dissolved into giggles and he caught her up and spun her around.
~
That last time he had watched.
“It makes me dizzy,” he had said.
“It’ll make you dizzier just watching!” she had protested, her words slurring in excitement.
Each time he saw her come around he had smiled, that smile just for her that crinkled his eyes and tilted his head, and each time she came around, she could see him for just a moment before he saw her. But in that moment, she saw something that terrified her. It was years before she knew how to name it. Fear was barely something she was able to recognize within herself, and to suggest it was in him? Impossible.
But after that, she began to see it everywhere; in the face of a boy when he joined their class partway through the year, in the face of her mother when she thought she was alone, and on that night in the faces of nearly everyone she encountered.
~
It was so dark and they had waited so long.
~
He forgave her. She didn’t, and couldn’t at the time, understand how his need to offer her forgiveness was a condemnation in itself, even though he hadn’t intended it. It had come at the end of their discussion, before his breathing grew haggard.
~
If we hadn’t come, this wouldn’t have happened.
~
He had tried to calm her. It was growing dark and she was too far away to reach. He hadn’t the strength to explain further, to prevent any guilt from falling on her shoulders, hadn’t the strength to say more than “I forgive you.”
“It’s not your fault” would have been to better purpose.
~
She’d come home after and everything was the same, but nothing was. Nothing looked different, but everything felt different.
It had been his conclusion in the car that night that guided her actions. She had thought long and hard, and once she had arrived home, she knew what she had to do.
~
He had gotten her something, that last day. She had turned and he wasn’t anywhere to be found. In truth, he had simply moved toward a stand at the edge of the crowd. She scampered up to join him as the seller passed him a delicate white box that he slipped into the bag he was carrying.
“What is it?” she exclaimed.
“You caught me!” he said, pretending to notice her for the first time.
She held fast to his hand and pulled him towards one of the benches.
“It’s a present. For you,” he said.
He watched as her face brightened in expectation.
“But you have to wait until we get home,” he told her, and listened patiently to her begging until the promise of another ride distracted her.
~
The white box had sat just as patiently, waiting for her to come home. And once she did, she knew what she had to do.
~
The tissue paper stopped crinkling. The ensuing silence had the same effect that a sudden noise would have.
The dust began to settle again as she stepped out of the memories that had entranced her for so long. She had been going through boxes of things from the old house and had found this.
“Never opened.”
The weight was still in her hand, tissue paper on the floor, and a delicate white box lay, lid separated from body, contentedly on top of her dresser.