The Statue of Rosalia

Prompt: Write an insane fantasy backstory about a piece of furniture or knickknack in the room you’re in (like the magic mirror from Snow White, Cinderella’s glass slipper, Aladdin’s lamp or carpet, or the cupboard from The Indian in the Cupboard, for example).

Princess Rosalia of the island kingdom Stultus had always been completely invisible. Not physically of course, for her malicious parents of course chastised and punished her every time they laid eyes on her. Indeed, the King’s favorite punishment was to lock his only daughter in a tower, located in a distant corner of the castle. No, Rosalia felt invisible to the staff of the castle. Anything she did and anywhere she went, nobody seemed to notice. If she weren’t seated at the dinner table alongside her royal parents, Rosalia thought the castle staff might just assume she was one of them.

Rosalia’s invisibility and endless hours in the lonesome tower soon collided in a perfect storm. One day, during a particularly horrible stint in isolation, Rosalia sat on the dusty floor, staring at the enormous oak door and waiting for something to happen.

Bang. Something did, indeed, happen. The door burst open and a handsome young man entered holding a tray of food. Rosalia gazed up at him, her eyes the size of a dragon’s egg.

“I’m so sorry about the door, Your Highness.” The boy declared while sinking to a low bow. “I didn’t realize it would open so violently,” he muttered, still looking at his shoes.  

“That’s quite all right,” Rosalia replied with a smirk. The servant set down her tray and backed away toward the door, which still stood ajar. Then, with a swift hand, he reached back and swung the door shut.

Almost immediately, Rosalia jumped to her feet and rushed into the boy’s arms. “Oh, Taigon, where have you been? It’s so lonely and tiresome up here.”

“I’m sorry my love, I had a few things to attend to.” Taigon leaned back and cupped Rosalia’s face in his hands. “I’m here now though, if only for a minute.” The pair gazed into each other’s way in that lovestruck, sickening way that makes a storyteller like myself quite nauseated. Nevertheless, their rapid heartbeats and flushed faces exemplified the wondrous qualities of forbidden love. 

“Are you still ready for tonight?” Rosalia breathed excitedly.

“Of course I am,” her lover replied with a slight grin.

“Good.” the princess whispered. “Then I’ll see you at midnight under my balcony.”

“I shall see you then, Your Highness.” Taigon uttered, still gazing into Rosalia’s wide brown eyes. The two shared a kiss, short but sweet, before Taigon headed for the door. Before he left, though, he produced for his princess a single red rose.

“Don’t lose it,” Taigon uttered with a wink. Rosalia’s heart swelled.

As he exited, the princess turned back to her tray of food, but she felt too excited to eat. After sixteen agonizing years, she would at last be leaving the kingdom of Stultus forever, alongside a good man who loved her dearly.

The next few hours in the tower passed quite painlessly, as Rosalia admired her rose and fantasized about her life on the run with Taigon. The two had made several arrangements in order to escape underneath the noses of the guards. Rosalia’s invisibility would help in this matter, for none of the handmaidens or staff members would bother to notice she was missing. Over and over again the princess ran through their plan in her mind.

Grab the packed bag stashed in the basement storage closet. Meet Taigon underneath my balcony. Creep along the castle walls to the stables. Take a horse along the back route just as the guards are switching rotations. Stow away on the boat headed for the mainland. Pay a Crosser to take us to a parallel world.

When a King’s guard finally let Rosalia leave the tower that night, her escape route had been etched perfectly into her mind. She didn’t bother going to dinner or even her bedroom—it was too late for that. Instead, she hid in the palace garden and waited for the hour of freedom to arrive. An hour before midnight, Rosalia heard a pair of voices coming from the other side of the garden. She quickly hid behind a large square hedge and listened closely to the speakers as they drew nearer.

“How long did you keep Rosalia locked up today, Anton?”

“Most of the day. That brat needs to realize that frolicking around the grounds on horseback is unsuitable for a princess.”

Rosalia felt heat rise to her face. The speakers were her parents, the king and queen of Stultus, the ruiners of childhoods.

“She’s just a girl.” The queen reminded her husband. “A troublesome girl, yes, but a girl nevertheless.”

The king snorted. “She’s not just a girl, Esmerelda. She’s a young woman. And a young woman should be courting princes to make new alliances, not galavanting around like an imbecile.”

At these words, Rosalia had to bite down on her fist to prevent herself from screaming out. Rosalia had never been part of a council, held a meeting with foreign dignitaries, or even attended a ball where she could meet a prince. Whose fault was it that Rosalia had no princess experience? 

His, Rosalia thought bitterly, trying to send her odium through the hedge and across the garden to her father. It doesn’t matter though, she reminded herself, because I have all the love I need from someone else.

At half past eleven the king and queen left the garden, and shortly thereafter Rosalia snuck down to the basement with her single rose clutched in her hand. She came across no one, not even a guard.

“This really is my lucky night,” Rosalia whispered excitedly to herself. After snatching her getaway bag from its hiding spot, Rosalia made her way outside. 

The chilly night air hit her in the face, and she breathed in joyfully. The night felt a bit cold, but the air tasted like freedom. By five to midnight, Rosalia had crept along the base of the castle all the way to her own bedroom window. There, underneath her balcony, Rosalia stood and waited for Taigon. She felt the breeze against her face, smelled the bittersweet scent that only rebelliousness could bring, and she waited. She waited and waited and waited some more.

The witching hour, the darkest time of night, came and went and still Rosalia waited. The pleasant midnight breeze had mutated into a bitter, stinging wind. Rosalia shivered in her thin night dress, but she did not move. Her lips turned a nasty shade of blue and her fingertips felt numb; nevertheless, Rosalia stood unwaveringly under that balcony. The stars looked down upon her in pity. They had never seen a soul so sad, a soul so determined to prove the unprovable. 

A more optimistic storyteller might not be so quick to judge Taigon. Perhaps he got lost, injured, or even captured by castle guards. A smart storyteller, however, knows the truth; as Rosalia stood, the single rose clutched tightly in her frozen hands, Taigon boarded the ship on which he would escape Stultus forever (with several of the princess’s finest possessions stowed in his knapsack).

He will come for me, Rosalia told herself repeatedly. He will come and show me that there are still good men in the universe.

As the pitch black sea above her lightened, Rosalia’s stature grew more and more rigid. The princess closed her eyes in an attempt to stop them from watering in the wind. Her shivers ceased, and her frail fingers hardened as they wrapped even tighter around the rose. 

The sun was about to kiss the horizon when Rosalia first spoke. All night she had thought and prayed fervently, but she had yet to use her voice. 

“I shall not move until he comes for me. I shall not move until I am certain there is still good.” Rosalia uttered these words into the early morning mist, her eyes still clamped shut and the rest of her body unmoving. The princess spoke these words, which seem to be full of love and passion, in a flat tone that revealed the truth; her heart had hardened past the point of no return.

For this reason, just as the stars twinkled one last goodbye and the sun peeked its eyes over the horizon, Princess Rosalia of Stultus turned to clay. The sun’s own warmth proved that Rosalia had none left within herself, and it hardened her cold, fragile body and spirit. The rose in her hand froze as well, leaving a life size statue where an innocent girl once stood.

Even more heartbreaking than the girl made of clay was the living girl’s last thought. Before her body froze forever and heartbreak killed her soul, Rosalia asked herself a terrifying question.

Why didn’t I just escape without him?

The answer, though Rosalia will never know it, was quite simple. With every minute she waited, a little part of Rosalia’s soul died. Had she tried to venture into the world alone, she would not have made it very far. The girl, who had spent a lifetime being hated or ignored, was weak. She could not handle the pain of almost having something so good, then being robbed of it so unexpectedly.

As the sun continued to rise, something peculiar happened. For every minute that nobody bothered to look for the missing princess, the statue shrunk. It grew smaller and smaller the longer it went unseen. Soon enough, the statue became so small that it would fit in a person’s hand. Had a guard or groundskeeper looked over at the grass beneath the princess’s balcony, the shrunken statue would have been invisible.

The statue finally stopped shrinking when a young handmaiden discovered the princess was not in bed and alerted the guards. They searched the whole castle and the whole kingdom, but no one ever discovered where she had gone. Their only clue was that several of the princess’s plainest clothes were missing alongside some of her most expensive possessions.

Years passed, and the legend of the missing princess spread across the kingdom in a slow, agonizing burn. Those who rode ships to the mainland spread the story of Rosalia’s mysterious disappearance, and after a while the whole universe knew her name. Poor Rosalia. Only in a frozen cage of clay could she escape invisibility.

Ten years had passed since Rosalia’s disappearance when something terrible happened to her island kingdom. A young boy arrived on the castle doorstep atop an enormous dragon, and he demanded to know where the princess was. Long ago, though the King had forgotten it, he had promised the poor boy his daughter’s hand in marriage on a trip through a peasant village.

“I must know where the princess has gone!” The boy shouted, his face set and his eyes alight with fury. “It is my right and my duty to marry her!” He yelled over the grunts and growls of his terrifying pet.

The king, who stood on the castle steps surrounded by guards, looked perplexed. “My boy, I was merely joking when I promised you my daughter’s hand.” The dragon roared and the king backstepped. “But, of course, I would marry the two of you right now if only I knew where she was.” The king smiled in what he hoped looked like a sincere, apologetic manner. It did not.

The boy stared down at the king, his face unreadable. Then, without flinching, he uttered a single word that would destroy them all.

“Burn.”

Chaos ensued. No castle, house, town, or farm was spared as the dragon unleashed its full potential. The smoking island could be seen from miles around, but no ship tried to help the kingdom. The people of Stultus, especially their royals, had always been a pompous and callous folk. One band of pirates watched gleefully as citizens jumped into the ocean to escape the dragon’s flames.

“Bet they’re regretting that trade ban now, aye?” one captain shouted to thunderous guffaws.

By the time the boy and his dragon abandoned Stultus, the entire island was a smoking pile of rubble and death. The boy fled atop his magnificent beast, still in search of something which he so desperately needed . . . though that is another story entirely. 

Legend has it that only one thing survived the dragon prince’s wrath: a minuscule statue of a beautifully sad young woman. 

Long after the smoke cleared and kind souls buried the bodies, the pile of ash that was once Stultus attracted visitors. Travelers came from far and wide to see the ruins, including one particularly observant mage. This cloaked man spotted the statue, swiftly bent down, and pocketed it. From his hands it passed to a gang of goblins, then to a young maiden, then on to a prince. The small statue, beloved by many but understood by none, passed through hands and survived across generations. Millenia passed, and the Crossers—those who walked between universes—ended up bringing Rosalia to my universe, known to the enlightened travelers as Caer. 

By the time Rosalia wound up in a Boston pawn shop, the ashes of Stultus had traveled with the wind and spread so far and wide that nobody remembered the island’s name.

Rosalia stayed in Boston for a while, but her journey eventually brought her to Washington, D.C. The statue appeared to have no value to most of Caer’s consumers. In fact, Rosalia’s permanent residence was one dusty shelf or another, from one forgotten box in the attic to the next. Nevertheless, one day a woman shopping at the self-proclaimed “best antique store in the nation’s capital” purchased the statue as a gift for her daughter. That woman was my grandmother. 

Now, Rosalia sits on yet another dusty shelf in my sunroom. Her cracked lines and unseeing eyes look exhausted from the weight of her story. Nevertheless, it is a weight she must bear, for nobody else in any universe has bothered to remember her story or the story of her home. With their names nothing more than long-ignored whispers in the wind, it’s up to the clay statue of a broken girl to tell their story. 

Well, it’s up to the statue and me. 

Sometimes, when I walk by that dusty shelf, I trick myself into believing that the small figurine has moved. Late at night, if I’m incredibly quiet, I even wonder if I can hear the statue cracking. As if the long forgotten girl inside wanted to break free. 

But then, of course, I remind myself of the truth. Rosalia will only revive herself when Taigon comes back to her. Only then could this insignificant statue become the strong and beautiful creature she once was. Only if she believed in goodness once more. 

Taigon will never return. Rosalia will never escape. Stultus will never be remembered. And me? Well, I’ll never stop telling damn good stories.