Megan is a senior at St. Norbert College. She will bake circles around Tiana, out read Belle, will take on a dragon or two before tea time, and she might even have magic powers too. Megan’s story is a tale of two princesses, magical powers, and a terrible decision to be made. Her story is a beginning with a haunting end.
Ashley Stern
Ashley Stern
down in the depths
By Megan Duff
There once lived two princesses with the same face.
They were born on the first day of summer in the middle of a rain shower. “What great fortune they will have!” said their father, the king, while he held a daughter in each arm. “What great fortune indeed!”
At the end of the their first month in the world there was great celebration across the land. The king and queen threw a huge party in the castle and even had the greatest magister in the kingdom—renowned for wisdom and magic alike—come and peek into the girls’ futures.
The wizened man approached the bassinets with practiced care and calm. He was old enough to have seen the king as a baby, and the kings father before him. The magister had children and grandchildren of his own and was greatly honored to be invited to these festivities. It isn’t often that twins are born in the royal line.
He reached them and placed a hand on each bassinet, leaning down to give the girls a look. They were sweet looking babies with carrot colored hair, sky blue eyes and bright pink cheeks. The baby on the left laughed and gurgled joyously, while the baby on the right was more subdued, considering the magister pensively with her stormy baby eyes.
“What have you chosen to name them?” asked the magister to the king and queen.
“This is Ezriel,” the queen said motioning to the happier baby.
“And this is Ismene,” said the king motioning to the stormy eyed baby.
The magister was quiet for the space of several heartbeats before speaking.
“Princess Ezriel will grow into a cheerful, free spirited child. She may be too rambunctious at times and too free with her feelings, but she will be compassionate and creative.”
The viewing audience of aristocracy and servants clapped and cheered to hear this, the king and queen beamed.
Then the magister turned to the other baby, who still regarded him quite strangely. Every time his mind grasped onto something of the baby’s future it slipped away from him just as swiftly. One thing remained, an ominous feeling that spread like smoke through his mind. He could feel expectation quivering in the air around him, everyone anxious to hear his predictions.
“As for Princess Ismene...she will be a sober, intellectual child.” With the first lie out the others came easily. “She will enjoy the company of scholars more than other children and may feel uncomfortable at large, boisterous affairs. But she will grow to be very rational and wise.”
Whispers broke out among the audience, saying how the princesses balanced each other out, how well matched they were as a set. The magister found himself looking at the king and queen as they clasped hands and leaned down to admire their babies. Although he had felt there was nothing else to do, the magister had a growing dread that his false prediction would leave them all quite unprepared for what was to come.
Such fears seemed to be unfounded during the first few years of the princesses’ lives. They were together in everything, from lessons to play to activities. But the magister’s predictions did affect small things, like how Ezriel was said to be the funny one and Ismene was said to be the cleverer of the two. Even their presents were different, with Ezriel getting a puppet one year and Ismene getting a new set of quills.
It wasn’t until the twins reached the age of five that strange things started to happen.
“She wouldn’t let me take one of the puppies from the stable,” Ezriel told her mother one day. “When I asked why she said that it would grow up to be afflicted and hurt us.”
“He’ll leave at winter’s end,” Ismene told the laundrymaid. “He’ll take everything but leave a baby in your belly and a wound in your heart.”
“I swear, I couldn’t have known!” cried the coin master as he cowered at the feet of the king. “It’s just...Princess Ismene said something strange yesterday. She stopped me in the hall and told me that the coffers were soon to grow thin. Your majesty, I thought she spoke nonsense. But I looked at the budget for the upcoming season and spotted a mathematical error that would have cost us greatly!”
Whispers in the castle bloomed like blood at a wound, and dribbled into the rest of the kingdom. A sorceress, some called her. Gods’ touched, said others. But all agreed that there was something unsettling about her burgeoning gift. It wasn’t like a princess at all to be so forbidding.
Then, when the girls were eight years old, a week came where Ismene refused to sleep at night. She would sit up in bed with a candle and watch the door wearily. When asked why she acted this way Ismene said, “I have to be ready.” No one could convince her to rest and by the end of the week the princess was incapacitated with fatigue. On the seventh night the royal family was awakened by a large commotion, all but for Ismene of course. A dirty, crazed man was dragged before the king. He was revealed to be an assassin sent by an enemy kingdom to kill the seer princess. What no one had found was the piece of broken pottery, it’s jagged edges as deadly as a knife, hidden underneath Ismene’s pillow.
At first light the magister was called to stand in front of the king and queen. Upon seeing their taxed expressions he knew that his day of reckoning had come.
They demanded to know why he hadn’t foreseen this and the magister answered as best he could. “You must understand, your majesties, that I look into a person and see who they are as if I am looking at a pool of water. For most, the water is calm and I can see easily into their depths. For others, the water is disturbed for whatever reason and I must guess based on what I am able to make out through it. Princess Ismene...I look into her eyes and see murky, ever swirling water. It changes with every blink, twisting and shifting, never one thing for long. Your daughter lives in the future as much as she lives in the present, and for that reason I cannot look into her and see just one thing, just one person. As persistently as the future changes, so does she.”
The magister left the parents to their tears and unanswerable questions, carrying a damning heavy heart with him, all the way home.
During the month that followed the assassination attempt the somber king isolated himself. Shut away in his personal library he spent long hours with his own thoughts.
If the king was being honest with himself, even he was a bit afraid of Ismene. There were times he would catch her looking at him with what seemed to be disappointment. No, disapproval. As if she already knew every mistake he would make, every loss he would be accountable for. And those looks kept him awake sometimes, especially when he was mulling over a new idea for his rule, making him question it before he even implemented it.
The magister claimed that Ismene changed as the future changed, but whatever he saw on the inside wasn’t reflected on the outside. Ismene was quiet and pensive, rare to smile or have fun. Perhaps her gift wouldn’t be so off putting is she were more social or jovial. Much of what the magister had predicted for her had come true, self-fulfilling prophecy or not. Ismene was introverted, astoundingly smart and far too satisfied with her own company over the company of others.
And now that news of her gift was getting around, she had become a target. Whether they saw it as a gift or a curse, it didn’t matter, these people didn’t want Ismene at the king’s disposal.
It was the a night with a full moon when the king struck on an idea. An idea that was horrifying and absurd, but perhaps an idea that could that could keep them all safe and satisfied, for now.
The castle had gone to bed hours ago but Ismene was awake and alert when the king entered her chambers. The sight of her made the king uneasy, but he approached her where she sat and cupped her face in his hands.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Ismene gave a small nod that had her chin digging into his palms.
“What needs to be done,” she said calmly, echoing the words that filled his own mouth and tasted bitter like poison.
At dawn the queen woke to the news that her daughter had died suddenly in the night. The queen rushed to the princess’s chamber and found nothing but a cold bed and the king slumped in a chair, his face turned waxen by the weak morning light.
“What has happened?” she cried. “What has become of our Ismene?”
The king was vague, he had to be, although his answer was little heard as the queen began to sob and fell to her knees. With numbness he watched her moan and howl, hiding his shaking hands from view.
The funeral of a child is always a bitter affair, but the princess’s funeral was especially so, with Ezriel being given extra care and consideration. The people grieved alongside their king and queen, with many closing down their shops or ceasing their travel during the morning period.
But that time came to an end, and everyone learned to move on. It was then that neighbors turned to each other and admitted in conspiratorial tones that they were somewhat relieved by the young princess’s passing. That they no longer had to be afraid of her power, lying mysterious and foreboding behind the palace walls. Surely the royal family, and the kingdom by extension, would be much more peaceable without the future always infringing on the present. Or so they hoped.
Deep in the bowels of the castle a thin light was emitted through the crack of a door. At the end of the corridor on which the door was, sat an old portly man on watch duty. He had recently retired from his position in the dungeons when the king’s personal guard had pulled him aside to offer him a position. This job would be any easy one, he had been told, requiring only his eyes and attention.
And it had been easy so far. True, it was a beastly climb down, down and back up, up every day. And it was so musty and dark he sometimes felt like he was in a coffin. But after decades in the dungeons, administering beatings and ignoring the crying and the begging, day after day, this wasn’t so bad.
If it wasn’t for what lay beyond the door, it would have been the ideal position for a man of his advanced age and waning ambitions.
He wasn’t told what lay beyond the door and he had the superstition that he didn’t want to know.
Every so often during his shifts, while dozing off or daydreaming, he would be jolted into alertness by the sounds that traveled far enough to reach his ears.
Things that sounded like laughter. A small thin voice conversing with itself. Even singing on occasion. And, once, a desperate noise, a wild animal keening.
Sounds that made him worried and frightened if he thought too hard on them; which he strived not to do, each and every time.
They were born on the first day of summer in the middle of a rain shower. “What great fortune they will have!” said their father, the king, while he held a daughter in each arm. “What great fortune indeed!”
At the end of the their first month in the world there was great celebration across the land. The king and queen threw a huge party in the castle and even had the greatest magister in the kingdom—renowned for wisdom and magic alike—come and peek into the girls’ futures.
The wizened man approached the bassinets with practiced care and calm. He was old enough to have seen the king as a baby, and the kings father before him. The magister had children and grandchildren of his own and was greatly honored to be invited to these festivities. It isn’t often that twins are born in the royal line.
He reached them and placed a hand on each bassinet, leaning down to give the girls a look. They were sweet looking babies with carrot colored hair, sky blue eyes and bright pink cheeks. The baby on the left laughed and gurgled joyously, while the baby on the right was more subdued, considering the magister pensively with her stormy baby eyes.
“What have you chosen to name them?” asked the magister to the king and queen.
“This is Ezriel,” the queen said motioning to the happier baby.
“And this is Ismene,” said the king motioning to the stormy eyed baby.
The magister was quiet for the space of several heartbeats before speaking.
“Princess Ezriel will grow into a cheerful, free spirited child. She may be too rambunctious at times and too free with her feelings, but she will be compassionate and creative.”
The viewing audience of aristocracy and servants clapped and cheered to hear this, the king and queen beamed.
Then the magister turned to the other baby, who still regarded him quite strangely. Every time his mind grasped onto something of the baby’s future it slipped away from him just as swiftly. One thing remained, an ominous feeling that spread like smoke through his mind. He could feel expectation quivering in the air around him, everyone anxious to hear his predictions.
“As for Princess Ismene...she will be a sober, intellectual child.” With the first lie out the others came easily. “She will enjoy the company of scholars more than other children and may feel uncomfortable at large, boisterous affairs. But she will grow to be very rational and wise.”
Whispers broke out among the audience, saying how the princesses balanced each other out, how well matched they were as a set. The magister found himself looking at the king and queen as they clasped hands and leaned down to admire their babies. Although he had felt there was nothing else to do, the magister had a growing dread that his false prediction would leave them all quite unprepared for what was to come.
Such fears seemed to be unfounded during the first few years of the princesses’ lives. They were together in everything, from lessons to play to activities. But the magister’s predictions did affect small things, like how Ezriel was said to be the funny one and Ismene was said to be the cleverer of the two. Even their presents were different, with Ezriel getting a puppet one year and Ismene getting a new set of quills.
It wasn’t until the twins reached the age of five that strange things started to happen.
“She wouldn’t let me take one of the puppies from the stable,” Ezriel told her mother one day. “When I asked why she said that it would grow up to be afflicted and hurt us.”
“He’ll leave at winter’s end,” Ismene told the laundrymaid. “He’ll take everything but leave a baby in your belly and a wound in your heart.”
“I swear, I couldn’t have known!” cried the coin master as he cowered at the feet of the king. “It’s just...Princess Ismene said something strange yesterday. She stopped me in the hall and told me that the coffers were soon to grow thin. Your majesty, I thought she spoke nonsense. But I looked at the budget for the upcoming season and spotted a mathematical error that would have cost us greatly!”
Whispers in the castle bloomed like blood at a wound, and dribbled into the rest of the kingdom. A sorceress, some called her. Gods’ touched, said others. But all agreed that there was something unsettling about her burgeoning gift. It wasn’t like a princess at all to be so forbidding.
Then, when the girls were eight years old, a week came where Ismene refused to sleep at night. She would sit up in bed with a candle and watch the door wearily. When asked why she acted this way Ismene said, “I have to be ready.” No one could convince her to rest and by the end of the week the princess was incapacitated with fatigue. On the seventh night the royal family was awakened by a large commotion, all but for Ismene of course. A dirty, crazed man was dragged before the king. He was revealed to be an assassin sent by an enemy kingdom to kill the seer princess. What no one had found was the piece of broken pottery, it’s jagged edges as deadly as a knife, hidden underneath Ismene’s pillow.
At first light the magister was called to stand in front of the king and queen. Upon seeing their taxed expressions he knew that his day of reckoning had come.
They demanded to know why he hadn’t foreseen this and the magister answered as best he could. “You must understand, your majesties, that I look into a person and see who they are as if I am looking at a pool of water. For most, the water is calm and I can see easily into their depths. For others, the water is disturbed for whatever reason and I must guess based on what I am able to make out through it. Princess Ismene...I look into her eyes and see murky, ever swirling water. It changes with every blink, twisting and shifting, never one thing for long. Your daughter lives in the future as much as she lives in the present, and for that reason I cannot look into her and see just one thing, just one person. As persistently as the future changes, so does she.”
The magister left the parents to their tears and unanswerable questions, carrying a damning heavy heart with him, all the way home.
During the month that followed the assassination attempt the somber king isolated himself. Shut away in his personal library he spent long hours with his own thoughts.
If the king was being honest with himself, even he was a bit afraid of Ismene. There were times he would catch her looking at him with what seemed to be disappointment. No, disapproval. As if she already knew every mistake he would make, every loss he would be accountable for. And those looks kept him awake sometimes, especially when he was mulling over a new idea for his rule, making him question it before he even implemented it.
The magister claimed that Ismene changed as the future changed, but whatever he saw on the inside wasn’t reflected on the outside. Ismene was quiet and pensive, rare to smile or have fun. Perhaps her gift wouldn’t be so off putting is she were more social or jovial. Much of what the magister had predicted for her had come true, self-fulfilling prophecy or not. Ismene was introverted, astoundingly smart and far too satisfied with her own company over the company of others.
And now that news of her gift was getting around, she had become a target. Whether they saw it as a gift or a curse, it didn’t matter, these people didn’t want Ismene at the king’s disposal.
It was the a night with a full moon when the king struck on an idea. An idea that was horrifying and absurd, but perhaps an idea that could that could keep them all safe and satisfied, for now.
The castle had gone to bed hours ago but Ismene was awake and alert when the king entered her chambers. The sight of her made the king uneasy, but he approached her where she sat and cupped her face in his hands.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Ismene gave a small nod that had her chin digging into his palms.
“What needs to be done,” she said calmly, echoing the words that filled his own mouth and tasted bitter like poison.
At dawn the queen woke to the news that her daughter had died suddenly in the night. The queen rushed to the princess’s chamber and found nothing but a cold bed and the king slumped in a chair, his face turned waxen by the weak morning light.
“What has happened?” she cried. “What has become of our Ismene?”
The king was vague, he had to be, although his answer was little heard as the queen began to sob and fell to her knees. With numbness he watched her moan and howl, hiding his shaking hands from view.
The funeral of a child is always a bitter affair, but the princess’s funeral was especially so, with Ezriel being given extra care and consideration. The people grieved alongside their king and queen, with many closing down their shops or ceasing their travel during the morning period.
But that time came to an end, and everyone learned to move on. It was then that neighbors turned to each other and admitted in conspiratorial tones that they were somewhat relieved by the young princess’s passing. That they no longer had to be afraid of her power, lying mysterious and foreboding behind the palace walls. Surely the royal family, and the kingdom by extension, would be much more peaceable without the future always infringing on the present. Or so they hoped.
Deep in the bowels of the castle a thin light was emitted through the crack of a door. At the end of the corridor on which the door was, sat an old portly man on watch duty. He had recently retired from his position in the dungeons when the king’s personal guard had pulled him aside to offer him a position. This job would be any easy one, he had been told, requiring only his eyes and attention.
And it had been easy so far. True, it was a beastly climb down, down and back up, up every day. And it was so musty and dark he sometimes felt like he was in a coffin. But after decades in the dungeons, administering beatings and ignoring the crying and the begging, day after day, this wasn’t so bad.
If it wasn’t for what lay beyond the door, it would have been the ideal position for a man of his advanced age and waning ambitions.
He wasn’t told what lay beyond the door and he had the superstition that he didn’t want to know.
Every so often during his shifts, while dozing off or daydreaming, he would be jolted into alertness by the sounds that traveled far enough to reach his ears.
Things that sounded like laughter. A small thin voice conversing with itself. Even singing on occasion. And, once, a desperate noise, a wild animal keening.
Sounds that made him worried and frightened if he thought too hard on them; which he strived not to do, each and every time.