La mia Bellezza
Not every fairy tale princess believes in her beauty. Not every fairy tale princess think she’s worthy of the prince. Not every fairy tale princess is being held captive by more then herself. A story of self-acceptance, truth, courage, and love. Rated: PG

~ La mia Bellezza ~

What would you do if I walked right up
and pulled you close?
Would you laugh and I cry?
Or would you shout for joy?
Your eyes are never far
Is it because I’m pretty, beautiful, gorgeous?
(all words that have been attached to my name)
Or can so many eyes turned my way mean something else?
Something more, something less.
Or perhaps I’m jaded, cynical, skeptical
everything the world teaches me to be
that I cannot accept the truth of your gaze,
that I cannot begin to hope for the real possibility of your kiss.
What can I do to find out?

            My mother was a witch. It was a fact she hid well, from all but me. Once, when I was small, she told me a story of a man who loved her. Of a man who was married. Of a man whose features were plainly displayed on my face.

            I was the reason that she left Fatista, a city she adored, in order to protect my father, a man she loved. It was because of me that we now live in a tiny house in the country, rather than a large lofty apartment in her beloved city. It was because of me she was scorned by the townspeople. Imagine! An unwed mother living alone at the edge of town. But at least they didn’t recognize my father in my face, at for my mother, that was all that was important.

            When I was small, my mother would remark about the beauty of my face. But as I grew older and the years grew to more, the compliments stopped. I didn’t think much of it, perhaps thinking that the beauty she saw in my had been outgrown. I never thought of my face as anything more than remarkable. It was just there, reflected back in mirrors, framed by my long auburn hair.

            I had little contact alone with the townspeople until the day I turned ten. Before that day, I had accompanied my mother to the market ever other day. I had longed for the moment she allowed me to go off alone, and that day had finally come. I was exhilarated. But as I tried to talk to the men and women in the market, I was ignored. I was illegitimate, a bastard, beneath them. I ran home crying to my mother. She held me close and told me to go again.

            I held my basket in trembling hands as I returned. I let my hair drift over my face, so I would be unrecognizable. It seemed to work. For three years, I hid my face behind the yards of my hair. I was forgotten quickly after my money had through my hands. There was little trouble until the year my mother began insisting on braiding back my hair. It had reached far down my back, past my knees, just inches from the ground. When I bent over, the ruddy-brown strands folded over each other in the dirt. Never before had my mother cut it. Which was the reason for the braid.

            But now my face was in plain view. As I walked through the market, my basket clenched in tight fists, I wondered if the townsfolk knew. Did they recognize my face? Did they remember the same pitiful girl they had turned away the first time? Would they do it again? I no longer had a shield of hair to hide behind.

            A single man was staring at me. Did he know my face? What would he say. I adverted my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t speak a word about me. It didn’t seem that he had. However, as the days, weeks, months, years went by, one by one, more and more heads turned at my passage. Why were they looking at me? Why did they watch me as I passed? I didn’t understand.

            But then one day, a rather brave young man walked right up to me.

            “Hello,” he said. I stopped short in front of him. Would the secret finally be out now? After another three years of baring my face, I had thought I was safe.

            “Um,” I softly answered. The young man smiled at me. I blushed.

            “You are… beautiful,” the young man told me.

            My blush deepened. “Thank you,” I murmured and walked away. He didn’t follow me.

            Was it true? Was I beautiful, or had he been mocking me? I didn’t know, but the doubts plagued my mind as I continued on.

            It was another year before anything else of import happened. No more men approached me with compliments of my beauty, but the stares had not ceased. If anything, they had intensified.

            Everything that changed my life happened on my birthday. The day I turned four, I fell from a tree and caused my mother to hover over me protectively the rest of my life. The day I turned ten, the townspeople shunned me. The day I turned seventeen, my mother stood pale as a ghost upon our doorstep as I returned from the market.

            “Dancia!” she gasped in a strangled voice. I had never heard my perfect mother sound so frantic. “We must get you out of here.”

            “Mother?” I was confused. What had happened?

            “A man from town, I don’t even know his name, has asked for your hand in marriage. He has promised to take you into the city!”

            I cocked my head. This was bad?

            “I could not accept for you. But there will be more. Perhaps the same man. You cannot go to Fatista!”

            Her passion was so strong, it swept up my will. She was right. How many strange looks would I get in the big city? I could not face so many, the few townsmen here were beginning to get out of hand. I let her take my hand and lead me away, away from our house, our town, everything I knew. She led me away from men and their desires to take me from her and immerse me in a new life, a new life in Fatista.

            Before my seventeenth birthday, I had nearly forgotten that my mother was a witch. But she led me through a forest so dark I could barely see, but we made it through without losing our way. She led me down a path barred by thistles with nary a scratch. And finally, she led me up a staircase that dissolved after our feet had lifted from them. She was isolating me from the world, and I was letting her.

            My mother’s magical tower consisted of three levels that I could access. Only the stairs leading to or from those three highest halls would hold my weight. My mother’s small feet could trek up and down the final stair, leading ten feet to the ground. The only time I chanced leaving, a sinking feeling had filled my stomach and images of falling to the stone floor beneath filled my mind. I quickly stepped back and never again risked those horrid feelings.

            The three levels that I could stand solidly on consisted of a rooftop gardens, an entire floor dedicated to me, complete with a private bath and a full library, my mother’s quarters, a dining hall, living room, and a lovely little balcony. They were elegantly decorated, as our tiny home near our town had been. I could almost imagine that I was back home, if I stayed away from the window. But I could not do that.

            After a week I grew restless. I never had been good at sitting still, and remaining in one place had never bothered me so much. I explored every nook and cranny, searching for a hidden passage way, a hidden stair. I found none. There was only one way out and I could not stand upon it.

            One might think that I would grow to hate my mother for what she had done. But I did not. I could never hate her. Only – I couldn’t stand to be near her either. I grew resentful and found my refuge in books. There were stories weaved by masters upon my shelves, as well as histories compiled over centuries, and poems written by romantics. I consumed them, page by page.

            My mother drifted away from me. In the beginning, she would only leave our tower once a week, and she would return with more books, food, flowers, anything she thought we may need. But as I became more and more obsessed with my books, her absences grew, until she was gone nearly every day, for hours at a time. More days, she returned empty handed. I barely noticed, lost in my world of words.

            I knew by heart the exciting tales of heroes, the deaths of world leaders, the tragic melting of the heart. Every woman described was proud, sure of herself, and lovely. Everything I was not.

            The day my mother returned with a mirror, I was there to see it. I could see the surprise on her delicate, if age-worn, features. But she showed off the latest addition to our tower with pride.

            I saw in the silver reflective surface a girl I did not recognize. My face was just as lovely, just as delicate, just as beautiful as my mother’s had always been. I was beautiful? Perhaps, but I had read, somewhere, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe what I thought of as lovely was not. And how would so many people share my interpretation. I must be wrong.

            But, every time I looked into my mother’s mirror, I was shown that the boy from so long ago in the market had not been mocking me. But could I really be sure? I was not conceited. I didn’t want to be conceited, a narcissist. So I avoided the mirror as if my life depended upon it. I took my books, one by one, and escaped to the balcony, or the roof garden. Anywhere but inside, and I was not allowed to reach ground level. Although, occasionally, I found myself staring longingly out through the trees.

            The next two years passed slowly, in this way. My desire grew more and more to walk away, and I fiercely suppressed it, my nose in a book. But, it seemed I could not do such forever. My eyes would not remain upon the page. Less of my time was occupied with the pages, and a greater amount was spent watching the forest.

            I saw many animals. Woodland creatures that thrived in the absence of people. Squirrels played in the trees, rabbits bounced across the deserted path, foxes prowled the bushes, birds chirped at all hours. I loved the birds the most. If only I could be given wings, these walls could not hold me, and even my mothers spells would be unimportant. But wings were not to be mine, and soon, it seemed I would wish for something else.

            The first human I saw was from my balcony. My skin tingled with the feeling of unseen eyes upon me. I looked up and spotted a man staring up at me. He was handsome, astride a large white horse. His blue eyes met mine and quickly averted. He rode on. But that was not to be the last I saw of him.

            A week later, he was there again. After the third week, it seemed a pattern had developed. My prince, for how could I think of him as anything other after the romantic love poems that circled round in my head, always watched me until I spotted him, and then rode on.

            Why wouldn’t he ever approach me? Shout up to my balcony and ask for my name? Hadn’t I been told I was lovely? But, then he must not think so. Didn’t men usually approach women they thought were desirable? I wasn’t brave, I wasn’t proud, I wasn’t sure of myself, and I was not beautiful. No matter what my mother’s mirror showed. She was a witch. She must have magically fixed it to show me with her face, years younger. Hence the reason I avoided it.

            Somehow, although my mother was rarely home, she found out about my prince. After another encounter that was not, I walked away from the balcony and she stood waiting for me. Again, white as a ghost.

            “Dancia!” she gasped again. “I brought you here–”

            “For what?” I cried, the resentment, longing, desire finally breaking free by the sight of her pale face, the repetition of my name and the beginning of the scene that had caused me to be hidden away in this tower. Possibly forever. I could not let that be. “Mother, why have you locked me away?”

            “To protect you,” she answered. Her voice was still choked, but it grew steadier with every word.

            “From what?”

            “From your… parentage.”

            I collapsed into a chair, like the rebellious teenage I was. I was sure my eyes flashed with fire. I was going to fight, I was going to be like the women in my novels and love poems, not like the timid little girl that had followed my mother through the dark, thick woods. I was going to fight for my freedom.

            “Mother, I’ve gotten over that. And I could always start over, in the city–”

            “Don’t you understand! This isn’t just about you! Your father would be ruined.”

            I stood so fast that my vision blacked for a moment. My hands were clenched so tightly that my nails dug into my palms. “My father, my father. What about your daughter? You lock me in a tower on the chance I will be recognized as his? Mother, how could you–” I knew she had loved him, but what had she ever felt for me if she treated me like this?

            My mother’s shoulders slumped. She covered her face in her hands. “I – You never were locked in,” she said.

            “What?”

            “Perhaps you were just afraid of heights. Perhaps the stairs were just an illusion.”

            “Mother,” I began, but realized there were no words. Not now. First I must move on with my life.

            I stood in front of my mother’s mirror. There was a certain light in my eyes that had been lacking before. I had stood up to my mother, and I had won. I still loved her, and time would take away my resentment, but I must leave her. Every hatchling must fly away at one point in their life.

            Perhaps I was beautiful. Perhaps I was not. Was it important if I had courage? I would have to find that out for myself. No one could tell me.

            But still a change was needed. I ran my fingers through my long hair and wondered what. Perhaps that was it. I couldn’t be the fairy tale princess any longer. Yes, that was one of the stories I had read. Until this moment, I had never seen how it applied to me. So I took up my mother’s scissor and chopped the meters of my hair away, just below my chin. My head had never felt so light.

            The invisible steps stretched down into the lower level below me. I knew they were there, even if I couldn’t see them. They had held me once, although my body betrayed me. So I firmly closed my eyes and stepped forward. I did not plummet to my death. I smiled.

            I had the courage to do this. Did I have the courage to find my prince? Or course. And did I have the courage to greet him and ask his name? Perhaps. Yet another obstacle to be overcome once faced. I would try, and that was all that was important.

            I was glad that he hadn’t spoken to me as he rode by in the woods. He had allowed me to find my strength. Because sometimes a man can aid you in finding the way, but every woman must accomplish her goals on her own.

~ la fine~                                                                                                                                                                            
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