SEALSKIN by Jane Dougherty

She knew she would always love Ronan.
Ondine wondered why she could never
see him in his human form...

Every morning, Princess Ondine tied back the black waves of her hair, climbed out of her window, skipped across the silver sands, and dived into the sea. Beneath the waves, Ronan, a young man who looked like a grey seal with black spots, was waiting for her. Ondine wasn’t quite sure how she knew Ronan was a man as well as a seal, but she did. Something about his eyes, she thought.

Together they danced through sunbeams slanting through water, and Ondine knew she would never love anyone else. She wasn’t sure how she knew she would always love Ronan, but she did. Something about his eyes, she supposed. Every day, Ondine asked the Selkie why she could never see him in his human form.

“One day,” Ronan said, “you will.”

“I wish I could stay here with you,” Ondine sighed.

“One day,” Ronan said, “you will.”

But Ondine was only a princess, and the king had decided that his daughter was to marry Robert, the cruel but powerful emperor of all the lands at the other side of the ocean. On Ondine’s sixteenth birthday, Robert, demanded his bride, and the king rubbed his hands with satisfaction at the prospect of becoming the Emperor Robert’s closest ally.

The king watched over the preparation of his daughter’s dowry with an eagle eye, counting each gold piece and silver plate. He picked over the elaborate jewelry that was too heavy to wear and fingered the gowns of cloth-of-gold that were too stiff to move in. It almost broke his heart to part with such wealth. In fact, he clung to his gold coins and clunky jewelry so much he packed the great cedar wood dowry chest himself.

When all was ready, the king hung the keys to the chest around Ondine’s neck. “Remember, daughter, your bride wealth is the property of your husband,” he said. “No one but he must open the chest, on pain of death.”

With these grim words, he left her, probably unable to bear the separation from so much wealth, and servants escorted Ondine and her dowry chest onto Emperor Robert’s waiting ship. The captain and his crew said not a word to their royal passenger, but their faces were dark with distrust, and Ondine heard their discontented mutterings as they looked suspiciously at the sky.

Alone in her cabin, she cried and cried over Ronan and her plans to stay with him forever. She wept for her mother who had died when she was a baby and could not be there to comfort her. When she had shed a few tears for herself and her lost happiness, the princess began to wonder what else was in her chest besides a lot of silk and gold coins. But fear of her father’s pitiless expression stayed her hand when it drifted to the keys around her neck.

Instead, she peered out of the tiny window of the cabin that stank of fish oil where she was condemned to spend the entire voyage. Her gaze roved the waves, longing for a sight of the Selkie who had danced with her in the cove, with his laughing face and gentle eyes that looked straight into her heart. Not that she had a heart any more. She had given it to Ronan, and she imagined it in his hands, breaking into sorry fragments as surely as her dreams. At the thought of a future without Ronan, as the bride of a man she had never met, the tears burst out anew.

When Ondine dried her eyes, a face was smiling at her through the round window, a face with eyes full of all the tenderness and love in the world. “Ronan!” she cried and tugged open the window catch. “Take me with you. Even if I drown, as long as I am with you I will be happy.”

The Selkie laughed. “Open the chest,” he said, “and put on the garment you will find right at the bottom.”

“But what about the curse? My father forbade me to look inside on pain of death.”

“Your king father has captured the Four Winds and imprisoned them in this chest,” Ronan said. “They have the power to bring cold and famine, floods and storms—a terrible weapon in the hands of an evil man, and that is exactly where they are going. The King has promised the Four Winds to Emperor Robert. Let them free, the Winds will blow away his curse, and half the world will thank you.”

So Ondine took the keys from around her neck and opened the locks. When the third key turned, the lid sprang open, and the silks and brocades twisted and swirled as the Four Winds leapt from their prison.

“Ask,” they muttered, “and we will obey.”

“I don’t want to be obeyed,” Ondine said. “I just don’t want to marry Emperor Robert.”

“Ask,” the Winds hissed, “and this ship will never reach port.”

“So it won’t take me to Robert?”

For answer, the Winds danced and swirled about the tiny cabin twisting the bed sheets into a pink silk tornado. The door rattled open and a wisp of a wind stretched and reached its fingers up the gangway. The ship lurched as the wisp of wind stretched its hand higher and punched the sails. Angry voices from the deck grew louder, and boots clattered down the gangway.

“Why are you messing with the winds, witch?” the first mate shouted, bursting into the princess’s cabin. “Do you want to sink the ship?”

“We said it was bad luck to have a woman aboard,” cried the helmsman.

“Throw her overboard,” roared the captain.

“All right,” Ondine shouted over the din. “Winds, do what you promised. Then you will be free.”

With a howl of delight, the Four Winds twisted into a single rope that flowed like a spring flood out of the chest, out of the cabin, up the gangway and over the deck. The flood of wind spilled over the gunwales into the sea and whipped up the waves into glassy green mountains. It flew up the masts and bellied the sails. It swung the rudder back and forth until it snapped, and the ship sped out of control.

The crew raced about beneath the waves that crashed on the deck, tying stays, trying to furl the sails, but the tempest was too fierce. The voice of the gale was a scream of fury, so loud the princess almost didn’t hear the seal at the window.

“Look in the bottom of the chest,” he shouted.

In the bottom of the chest, beneath the silks and the taffetas and the silver plate and the gold coins, was a sleek grey sealskin with spots the colour of moonlight. With a cry of delight, the princess slipped it on. The Selkie princess slid through the porthole into Ronan’s arms, for now she saw the man, black-haired, white-skinned, within the sealskin. How she saw him, she wasn’t sure. It must be because she had a seal’s eyes too, she reckoned.

“Now you can come with me,” he said, “and this time, I will show you the marvels of the deep.”

“And I won’t ever have to go back?” Ondine asked.

“Never in a thousand years,” Ronan said.

Together they dived into the emerald depths, and neither Ondine nor Emperor Robert’s ship were ever seen again.

Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France, writing novels, short stories, very short stories and poetry. She has been published in various places, including ‘Enchanted Conversation’.

Her Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/JaneDoughertyWriter she blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ and tweets @MJDougherty33

Background Cover Painting: Undine by Arthur Rackham, 1909
Cover Layout: Amanda Bergloff @AmandaBergloff

DOUBLE FAIRY TALE FLASH - The Great Escape AND Pond Life

This week, Enchanted Conversation Magazine 

presents two classic Fairy Tale Flash stories with a twist:

The Great Escape by Fanni Sütő
and
Pond Life by Jane Dougherty

Rapunzel didn't remember when she arrived to the tower or when she first sat in the window. The rich gold of her hair had turned into silver, shining bright in the moonlight. Nobody asked her to let down her hair, so it just grew and grew and it twirled around her, filling up the room slowly but unstoppably. Rapunzel sighed and looked into the spyglass again, She was hoping to spot a prince. Or a young merchant. A soldier. A handsome peasant maybe. Or even an average looking peasant. Anybody, please?

But nobody came.

The surroundings of the tower proved positively princeless. And merchantless. No man was to be seen, neither near nor far. No woman either, for that matter. Rapunzel bathed in total, utter loneliness. A bird used to visit her, he sang to her every day but it hadn't been around for a while. It must have found a mate and flown away to build a nest.

Rapunzel's body felt like stone, her backside sunk into the chair, melted into it as if it didn’t want to break away anymore. Her eyes were tired from the endless looking and watching and peeping. Yet she couldn’t rest, what if… What if the moment she closed her eyes, the moment her saviour appeared and she missed her opportunity. No, she couldn't allow that.

Other days despair seized her. What if humanity died out and she was the only survivor? What else could explain the fact that nobody had come for her?

One day when she was even more bored than usual, she started playing with her spyglass, looking at its shiny copper body more carefully. She span it around, and found herself eye to eye with the big, curious lens of the telescope. Her own distorted reflection stared back at her. It was the first time she'd seen a human form in years. Her hair had grown unruly and long hair, the glass had dug a permanent wrinkle under her tired eyes. Her lips were dry and smileless. The unexpected meeting made her realize that she'd had enough. She got up from the chair which was reluctant to let her go. Her legs trembled at first because they had forgotten how it felt like to stand. After a few minutes, she felt her blood rushing through her body; it was a new, intoxicating sensation.

She stuck a pair of scissors in her belt, tied her hair around the foot of the spyglass, went to the widow and jumped. The wind rushed into her face and the claws of freedom tore into her dress. Her landing was painful, but she survived with only a few scratches. Rapunzel cut her hair tying her to the tower and her old life. She sighed with satisfaction; after all these years she finally saved herself.

Fanni Sütő writes poetry, short stories and a growing number of novels-in-progress. She publishes in English and Hungarian and finds inspiration in reading, paintings and music. She writes about everything which comes in her way or goes bump in the night. She tries to find the magical in the everyday and likes to spy on the secret life of cities and their inhabitants. Previous publications include: The Casket of Fictional Delights, Tincture Journal, Enchanted Conversation. Fundead Publications.

Website: www.inkmapsandmacarons.com

Follow her on Twitter: @Fanni_Pumpkin

A frog sat on a lily pad watching the mayflies. A shadow fell across the pond and the flies whizzed away. The frog sighed—she was wearing gumboots today.

“C’mon,” the princess said, wading into the pond. “Just one little kiss.”

The ripples made the lily pads bob like boats in a tempest. The frog dived beneath the agitated surface and hid among the lily roots.

The next day, the princess came back with an excavator. She drove the excavator into the pond and within half an hour she had emptied it of weed, water, mud and pond life. She poked gloomily among the expiring minnows and tadpoles. No frog. But there was a toad. A toad that tried to crawl out of the way, but the princess was too quick. She pounced and raised the bemused creature to her pouting lips.

“At last,” she breathed, “I will have my very own prince.”

The toad croaked and squirmed, but the lips came closer and smacked upon its broad mouth.

In a ditch by the trees beyond the wreckage of the pond, the frog watched sadly. His fairy frogfather hopped out of the culvert to watch the scene by the pondside.

“Shall I?”

“It’s the only way to stop her,” the frog said with a heavy sigh.

So the fairy frogfather waved a willow wand, and the toad turned into a great, green, warty, and very hungry, swamp ogre. And that was the end of the frog prince nonsense.

Jane Dougherty is Irish, brought up in Yorkshire and now living in South-West France. She writes stories where the magical and the apocalyptic mesh, where horror and romance meet, and the real and the imaginary cohabit on the same page. Her first YA post-apocalyptic fantasy trilogy is published by Finch Books. She has self-published three collections of short stories, and has poetry and short fiction published in anthologies, literary journals and magazines.

Amazon author page HERE

Blog: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/

Website: https://wildgeesebooks.com/

Covers: Amanda Bergloff

Check out Guy's "Night Walking" Book

and vote for it HERE

Swan Daughter - Jane Dougherty

Memories of broad white wings,

unfolded and spread...

The hounds were gaining on the White Hind, and her breath came short and painful. She leapt like a pale shadow among the trees, zig-zagging through sunlight and shade until she reached a clearing. In the clearing was a cottage, and in the cottage garden was a girl. The baying of the hounds was so loud, even the girl raised her head to listen. Her eyes were wide and full of compassion.

“Help me,” the hind pleaded. “Hide me from the hunters.”

The girl did not hesitate but let her into the cottage and hid her beneath the pile of wool she was spinning into thread. Minutes later, hounds were running around the cottage and scratching at the door. Hind and girl held their breath. There came a pounding of fists on the door.

“Open to the royal hunt,” an imperious voice commanded.

With her heart in her mouth, the girl opened the door and closed it behind her even though the hounds bayed and jostled to get inside. Horses stamped and snorted in her vegetable patch, and their haughty riders glared down at her impatiently.

“Where is the White Hind?” a young man with hard, cold eyes demanded. “You must have seen her.”

The girl recognized Crown Prince Florian, and though she trembled with fear, she said nothing.

“You’re hiding the beast!” Prince Florian beckoned to the Master of Hounds. “Let the dogs in.”

“No! I mean, please, Your Royal Highness, there is no one in the cottage. I am the White Hind.”

“You?” Florian, who was not a man of great imagination, narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

The girl curtsied. “I was under an enchantment.” She searched wildly for an answer to the question he would surely ask.

“But now you’re not? How so?”

“You have broken it, Your Royal Highness,” she replied eagerly, “by finding this magic glade and driving me into it.”

Florian looked about him at the poverty-stricken cottage and the little vegetable garden his company had mostly destroyed. He shrugged.

“The hounds lost the tracks of the White Hart and followed the White Hind instead. As you say you are, or were, that beast, I claim you as my property. What’s your name?”

The girl could barely control the trembling in her voice, but she thought of the terrified eyes of the White Hind and spoke up bravely. “My name is Eala.”

“Bring her a horse,” Florian barked, and a huntsman led up a spare saddle horse. Eala knew better than to disobey and let the huntsman help her into the saddle. With a heavy heart, she looked back at the little cottage that had been her home, and followed the hunt back to the castle.

* * *

A little while later, a scraping and pawing at the door told Saba the White Hind that her consort had found her. She nosed open the door where a stag was standing, his head bowed with weariness. She nuzzled his neck and Sabino the White Hart nibbled her ear.

“Are they gone?” he asked.

“They are, but they took the girl who sheltered me,” Saba answered. “We must save her. Prince Florian is evil personified.”

Sabino pawed the earth thoughtfully then raised his head. His eyes glittered. “Rufus!”

Saba snickered softly. “Perfect.”

Together, they moved off into the forest, flank to flank, Sabino limping, but overjoyed to have found his consort alive.

* * *

“Wash her and tidy her up,” Florian ordered a couple of ladies of the bedchamber. “If she cleans up well, she may make a concubine. Perhaps even a wife,” he added thoughtfully. “She must be a princess. Only princesses have enchantments cast on them.”

The two servants brought Eala a basin of hot water and new clothes to replace her own poor rags, for that evening, she was to be presented to King Rollo, Queen Guinevere, and the courtiers. Eala had never seen herself in a mirror, nor ever had a mother to tell her she was beautiful.

“She was the loveliest woman who ever lived,” her father used to say, “with hair as pale as moonlight and skin as white as swansdown.”

He could scarcely bring himself to look at his daughter after his wife’s death and died when Eala was twelve years old. No mother, no father, and certainly no young man had ever told Eala how lovely she was. When she appeared before the court, there was an audible gasp—of approval from the men, of jealousy from the women. Prince Florian got to his feet with an avid gleam in his eye.

“Sit,” he said, and pulled out a chair himself without calling for a servant. “If you know how to use a knife and fork, you’ll do very nicely. And mind—your name is Liliana. They tell me Eala means swan in the common speech. Ridiculous name.”

Eala barely touched her food. She could only guess at what would be her fate if she were judged coarse and common. She had a much clearer idea of the awfulness of being chosen as a bride for the crown prince. At the end of the evening, Queen Guinevere nodded and gave a slight smile. King Rollo nodded and gave a broader smile. As for Prince Florian, he announced his intention of marrying the ‘Princess Liliana’ in no more than a fortnight. Just as soon as a dress could be made and the invitations sent out.

No one had asked Eala what she wanted, and no one ever would. That night, she cried herself to sleep.

* * *

The moon shone down on the castle walls and on the two deer standing beneath, turning their white coats to silver. The castle slept, and from the kennels came the sound of snuffling and snoring as the hounds dreamed. Sabino tapped with a hoof at the kennels door.

“Rufus,” he called quietly.

“We have a boon to ask,” Saba whispered.

The door opened, and a boy with hair the russet colour of autumn leaves slipped outside. His eyes were bright and not in the least sleepy.

“It’s about the princess, isn’t it?” he said. “I saw her. She’s special.”

Saba nudged his hand. “She is a very brave girl,” she said, “and doesn’t deserve to be locked up with that horror of a prince.”

“Is she one of ours?” Rufus asked.

“She has all the hallmarks of a swan, if you ask me,” said Sabino. “Will you help?”

“With all my heart,” Rufus said. “Let me wake the hounds. And get ready to run when the prince looks out of his window.”

Saba snorted in alarm. “If there’s going to be any running—”

Rufus smiled and his teeth glittered. “Don’t worry. The hounds will do as I tell them. They’ll race off into the forest and run Florian round in circles for a while. There’ll be bones and all the leavings from last night’s feast for them when they come back.”

Sabino snickered and trotted onto the lawn beneath the turret where Prince Florian slept. Rufus beat on the castle doors, waking the sentries.

“The White Hart! The White Hart!” he shouted. There was a clamour as bolts were pulled back and stable boys were kicked awake. Horses snorted and stamped and courtiers clattered into the courtyard.

“I see him!” Prince Florian shouted from his window, and Sabino leapt away into the shadows.

“Remember,” Rufus said to his hounds, “Remember who I am. Do what I tell you and there will be rewards at the end of the night.”

The pack leader licked his hand. “Don’t worry, Fox Brother. Hounds hate the men who make us hunt our kin.”

The Master of Hounds made his way sleepily to the kennels and took the dogs’ leashes without a word to Rufus, who was only the kennel boy after all. The hounds began to bay immediately and strained to follow an imaginary trail that would lead them far away from the castle.

Rufus slipped inside the castle and sniffed the air. The scent of loveliness and bravery was so strong he could almost see it. He followed it to the door to Eala’s chamber that glowed with a rose light to Rufus’s foxy eyes. He tapped gently.

“Eala Swan Daughter, wake up,” he called. “It’s time to leave.”

Eala woke immediately. The voice was one she had heard in her dreams, a husky bark of a voice that reminded her of the woodlands of home and the fox she had released once from a trap the hunters had set. Memories ruffled white feathers in her head as she opened the door. The boy who stood in the doorway opened his eyes wide and she saw herself reflected in them. She blushed and the boy took her hands. They were rough and strong and dependable.

“Quickly,” he said. “The court is off on a wild goose chase. We have only to walk out of the door.”

“And go where?” Eala asked, though she would have followed the russet-haired boy anywhere.

“Home,” Rufus said with a foxy grin.

Eala smiled back. “Where Fox and Swan may live in peace?”

For reply, Rufus took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.

In the shadows of the forest eaves, Sabino and Saba were waiting for them.

“Time to go home, Swan Daughter,” they said.

Memories of broad white wings unfolded and spread, and Eala followed her new family to the enchanted garden where they all lived happily ever after.

Jane Dougherty is Irish, brought up in Yorkshire and now living in South-West France. She writes stories where the magical and the apocalyptic mesh, where horror and romance meet, and the real and the imaginary cohabit on the same page. Her first YA post-apocalyptic fantasy trilogy is published by Finch Books. She has self-published a collection of folk tales, “The Spring Dance”, and has poetry and short fiction published in anthologies, literary journals and magazines.
The Spring Dance: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0764BPF53
Blog: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/

Cover Layout: Amanda Bergloff @AmandaBergloff

FAIRY TALE FLASH - Matches by Jane Dougherty

Love can penetrate 

the dark and the cold...

Enchanted Conversation is pleased to present the debut of Fairy Tale Flash (tales between 100-500 words) with a story from author, Jane Dougherty. 

Nobody bought matches from raggedy urchins. They were too afraid of having their purses stolen. The little match girl huddled in a doorway out of the wind and wondered how she was going to go back to her stepfather with almost all of her matches unsold and barely a penny in her pocket. Snow was falling thick and fast and she was so cold she couldn’t have moved from the doorstep even if she had wanted to.

She tried to remember what warm felt like and struck a match just to watch the tiny flame burn. She struck another because it took the numbness from the tip of her finger and thumb. She struck a third before she forgot the feeling of warm. She was forgetting so much, forgetting even where she was supposed to be going. The falling snow and the cold that was like feathers made her forget and feel almost happy.

She struck another match and in the bright flame she saw a face. She saw her mother, dead when she was almost too small to remember. Almost, but not quite. She smiled and struck another match, and the face loomed closer with an expression of sadness. The little match girl struck matches one after the other, afraid to lose the face that bent over her, the eyes full of love that she remembered from long ago. One after the other, the matches died and fell into the snow, and soon there were none left. She blinked. Through the falling snow and the cold and her tears, the face full of concern was still there.

“Mama?” she asked the night and the spent flames. Arms enfolded her and lifted her from the cold step, and before she drifted into a state so close to death she could touch the cold door, she felt the warmth of a real human mother.

Mama? Her lips mouthed the word, and the woman who lived in the house beyond the cold doorstep, the woman who had lost all of her babies at birth, held her tight and nodded.

“I will be.”

Jane Dougherty is Irish, brought up in Yorkshire and now living in South-West France. She writes stories where the magical and the apocalyptic mesh, where horror and romance meet, and the real and the imaginary cohabit on the same page. Her first YA post-apocalyptic fantasy trilogy is published by Finch Books. She has self-published three collections of short stories, and has poetry and short fiction published in anthologies, literary journals and magazines. 

Check out her Amazon Author Page HERE

Blog: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/

Website: https://wildgeesebooks.com/

Cover: Amanda Bergloff @AmandaBergloff