MAL
Once upon a time,
a dark fairy
chose a heart of gold.
Once upon a time,
the prince's heart
She earned,
Rising from the cuts
And burns.
Once upon a time,
she loved him
For his heart
Not his crown.
Once upon a time,
she turned the world
Around.
Once upon a time,
She became fire,
Igniting from the her soul of ember.
Once upon a time,
Once upon a lilac symphony,
She burned,
She learned
Her heart
Is ember.
And she is
Mal.
With no conversation lingering between us, she pries her eyes away from me and shuffles over to the marble desk. She slides into the swivel chair with astonishing grace as one of those mythical ballerinas one of my partners mentioned. Her pale hands spread across the marble tabletop, and a spell is curt against her lips: Veiled from plain sight, bring this screen to light.
There’s a chime in the air. As I gather my breath, a thin, glass screen curves atop the desk. In its fog, I have to squint to get a clear view of the undulating, black letters at the top of the screen. AMITY JANE GOTHEL. Under my name, blurry words spread out in perfect rows like a file.
Scrolling past my picture, the doctor stops and glances at me with a gasp. “Oh, where are my manners?” In the silence, her eyes pierce my soul as if she expects me to answer. “Welcome to Enchancia.”
“Le monde dans les nuages,” I mutter under my breath. While meant to go unheard, Doctor Kingsley seems to have heard; she cocks her head to the side and folds her arms over her plump chest. “World in the clouds. Kids in the Fiery Haven mention it.”
“Well,” Doctor Kingsley says, “c’est un monde dans les nuages, but we call it Enchancia; it’s a dimension where the new generation can find redemption.” I grab my lip with my teeth at these words. It sounds like reciting a mandated mantra than truly believing what leaves her mouth. Suddenly, this Doctor Kingsley—if it’s even her name—becomes shrouded in mystery.
Our eyes bulge against one another until Doctor Kingsley returns to the thin screen. Her eyes flicker against the gauzy words before returning to me. With her hands folded primly in her lap, she clears her throat. “Who is your father?”
“Umm—”
Doctor Kingsley cuts me off before I can answer. “I can’t find him in your file.” There is some darkness in her eyes that sends a militia of chills crawling down my spine.
Hail Caylee screeches against my skull. I bite my lower lip to keep the sigh inside my body before saying in unison with the doctor, “Hail Caylee.”
My eyes waver against Doctor Kingsley’s firm stare. “My father, I don’t know who he is. My mother clams up whenever I inquire such.”
The doctor, now out of her swivel chair, takes a step in my direction. “Do you know why she clams up?” she asks. Her piercing voice has my heart echoing loudly against my chest.
“No.” A quick and faint no. That’s what leaves my lips.
With another step towards me, her feet made echoing clicks against the linoleum. “Do you know why there’s no mention of a father in your files?”
Again. “No.” This time, however, the word grits against my teeth as a heat sears my cheeks, and my fingers ball into fists.
“And oh—” Doctor Kingsley glances down at the black mark tracing down my forearm “—do you know why you have that mark?”
A malediction begins to form in the fog that fills my brain. “No!” This answer shoots out of my mouth like a ball of fire being thrown. Hmm, maybe a ball of fire will suffice for her punishment.
Pissed me off, so, right here, this stops—
In a second, I’m yanked to the wall. Thick vines encase me against the plaster. I grunt and struggle until Doctor Kingsley is right in front of me. Her glassy eyes reflect my fear. I bite down on my lip and compose myself into the image of someone who can survive in the Fiery Haven. Someone without fear.
I breathe through clenched teeth. I glance at the drab, white walls. “Shortly, my ass!” I’m nearly grinding my teeth, and my fingers ball into fists. There’s a fog in my brain. A malediction slips from my crisp lips: My dignity they mock, give me a rock.
And in my hand appears a smooth, round rock. I chuck it against the wall with every muscle in my body. And clang goes the dark gray stone against its white contrast. My lungs heave with the inch of ire left inside.
A faint but pleasant voice filters through my brain. Abrasive moods can upset the Oxygen Generator. Please, calm down. Aimery apparently left out that they also inserted a communicator in my brain.
“My moods,” I mutter to myself, “my choice.” Then, one question burns in my brain: Where am I? As the inquiry leaves my thoughts, I glance to the side of the room. There, in a far corner is a marble desk guarding a swivel chair, things I dreamed of having on the Fiery Haven.
Fiery Haven. Despite it being my hometown, the name urges a snort to escape my nostrils. Last I remembered, the citizens of the Fiery Haven were safe from nothing. So what made the cursed isle a haven? The people of Jethiola are safe from the isle’s inhabitants. They live in luxury, in comfort, while children huddle under the tattered awnings of the few buildings that the youth deem innoxious enough to hide from the parents who give them welts of purple and blue around their eyes.
Of course, the entire realm of Estadell is threatened by a barbaric force: L’armée de la sorcière sombre. Army of the dark witch. Legend has it, these soldiers shrouded in steel and black capes tear young teenagers from the arms of those who love them and imprisoned in another dimension—le monde sombre,I hear kids whisper the prison’s name before shuddering in fear.
Before I dig further into that memory, that communicator blares against my brain. Hail Caylee.
“Hail Caylee.” In my head, I add, Who the hell is Caylee?
All of a sudden, the door creaks open. A woman peaks into the room, her body almost entirely concealed except for her face which raven waves drool down. My heart jumps even though her voice is quiet. “Hello.”
She pushes the door open the rest of the way, revealing her lithe frame straightened by the white lab coat on her body. Like in the Fiery Haven, she doesn’t wear a nametag. “Are you …?” Now, I can’t remember the name of the doctor mentioned by Aimery.
“Doctor Kingsley?” the woman says. After a slight pause, she nods her head. “Yes, I am Doctor Avalon Kingsley.”
Hold onto me. Hold onto me, even in death
Disney Rebels
Maybe I should’ve taken some time to admire the world around me. Maybe I would’ve fallen for the facade: there were large poplar trees with an array of blue leaves, and the grass, which went on for miles even in the fog, was white. White as snow. The sky was pale. And light gray clouds whizzed over me.
Of course, none of this dawned on me the moment I opened my eyes: I was too busy searching for air, for something to soothe my heaving lungs and efface the panic in my mind. At the same time, my eyes flickered between open and closed as I wheezed.
People, loads of people, passed by in the course of a few minutes. Their eyes hovered over me maybe for a moment; then they moved on as if they hadn’t seen me. As if this was normal. To see a helpless woman writhing in the grass.
But, one person stayed. To say the least, he was handsome. There was some extra luster to his slightly tanned skin. His chin was the smoothest of his features, a telltale sign of infrequent shaving. He must’ve been in his mid-teens, I surmised before closing my eyes again. Sixteen, maybe.
His stare at me deepened. He seemed to grab his lower lip with his teeth and emit a low hum. My heart rattled against its cage. I almost thought he, like everyone else, would leave. But then, he ceased from humming and chuckled. “You look lost.” And he knelt at my side.
Once again, my eyes squeezed together.
While bathed in the darkness of my closed eyes, I felt the boy’s soft fingers against my forearm. In any other circumstance, I would’ve muttered a malediction that turned anyone who crossed me to stone. This, however, was different: I couldn’t move, for one; for two, there was no fog in my brain to cast a hex. My body ached too excruciatingly to let me gather fog in my mind.
“It will be okay,” the boy muttered, seemingly over me. “I’ll get you to the infirmary.”
My eyes grew heavier and heavier until my lashes were blocking my sight of the boy. My ribs sobbed for oxygen. My vision became blurrier and blurrier, and the boy’s voice more distant and distant. “It’s okay. You can go to sleep.”
Now, six hours later, or so the nurses claim—I don’t exactly find them trustworthy, or, in any matters, honest—I’m in the last room of the infirmary, the one which takes longest to get to. No wonder I’ve been waiting for an entire half-hour when those medics told me the doctor would be in shortly.
They also tell me that they performed an operation on me while I was unconscious. In one of my lungs, they implanted some device—the name was so foreign, so exotic, I couldn’t say it if my life depended on it—to provide oxygen.
You’re out of the ozone layer, the words from the slender nurse named Aimery echo in the back of my brain. No air. I remember her plum hair. As she pivoted on her heel to the door, muttering the words, “Doctor Kingsley will be in shortly,” the silk braid swayed against the small of her back.
I know that my writing is not as popular as my poems/songs are. Honestly, the attention they get is amazing, and I’m glad that my poems resonate with you all, and I’m hoping that as you read on, my writing will too.
