The Treacherous Romance of the Pumpkin Princess

Chapter One: The Princess

"She's beautiful…"

Jack knelt beside his wife's bed, breathless. He looked at the tight bundle she held tightly in her arms, and sighed.

The Pumpkin King had been revered, and feared, celebrated, and cherished, but he had never felt happier than he had at that moment. He had Sally, his lovely wife. He had his title, and now, a gorgeous, healthy daughter.

"She looks just like you."

Sally laughed weakly, tired from her long labor. Jack looked up at her, smiling proudly, and sympathetically. Her forehead was dewy with perspiration, and dark circles hung about her big, round eyes.

"She's a baby Jack. I doubt she looks anything like me."

Jack shook his head. His little daughter looked exactly like Sally. He peered into the bundle, and ran his bony finger across the wisps of red hair on her head. She was a pale, tiny thing, with stitches running across her body. He ran a finger around the rough texture of the stitches, barely breathing all the while.

"What shall we name her? Sally asked him, jarring him from his trance. She looked at him expectantly, gently stroking her daughter's face.

Jack swallowed. He'd forgotten! Nine months in counting, and he hadn't once thought of a name!

Jack slammed the heel of his palm into his head. "Erg! We haven't yet thought of that?"

Sally giggled. "It appears we haven't." She grinned. "Oh, Jack. You're worldly. You've traveled the world, frightening people out of their skins. Surely you can think of a few names…" Sally shook her head. It still puzzled her how her husband, so gallant, and together to the residents of Halloweentown, could be so absent minded, and sometimes, downright goofy.

Jack tapped his skull. "Hmm…How about Annabel, like that poem by that Poe fellow…"

Sally shook her head. "Depressing."

"What about Claire? It means light, it's French…"

Sally arched her eyebrow. "Light?"

Jack groaned. "Of course not."

Sally blinked. Suddenly it came to her. Her daughter would be the queen of

Halloweentown someday…A Queen!

"We'll name her after a queen!"

Jack looked up at her, his eyes sockets, wide with gratitude. "Yes! Magnificent my dear!

We'll name her for a queen! Let's see here, there's Victoria, Catherine, or Mary…" he ticked off the names on his fingers.

"Elizabeth…"

Suddenly, Sally fixed him with a wide-eyed stare.

"Elizabeth…" they whispered simultaneously. "Lizzie…"

Sally smiled brightly, her eyes misting with tears of pride, and joy. She gazed down at her child, and laughed softly.

"It's perfect."

Lizzie's eyes moved underneath her eyelids.

"Jack…look…"

Her eyes fluttered open, revealing large, opalescent spheres. Sally gasped.

"S-she does look like me…."

She held her daughter to her chest, laughing, and crying at the same time. Jack leaned over, and planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Welcome to the family Lizzie." He whispered.

And Elizabeth giggled.

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15 years later…

"I don't see what the fuss is about, Mother."

Lizzie Skellington stood on the wooden stool in front of her full length mirror. Her mother knelt at her heels, a pincushion in her lap, and a needle in her fingers. She stared up at her daughter, smiling.

"Lizzie, it's Halloween!"

Lizzie groaned. She looked at her reflection. She shot daggers at the long black dress, with elegant, skinny straps, and satin fabric. She ran a hand through her long, silky crimson hair, and groaned again, audibly, and pensively. She fiddled with the stitch on her wrist, as her mother hemmed the dress.

"But It's Halloween every year! Why do I have to dress up?"

Sally stood up, and put her hands on Lizzie's bony shoulders. "You're a young woman now, honey. It's time the world got to see how very beautiful you are."

Lizzie had to use every force of will not to gag on the spot. She loved her mother and father, but she honestly wished they'd be honest, and frank for once! She was a bag of stuffing, no shape, no appealing qualities. Not beautiful like her mother, not brave like her father. Just Lizzie. Lizzie, in a long black dress that made her even more pale and shapeless.

"Mom, come on. It's a lovely dress, but your efforts to make me look decent were to no avail."

Sally rolled her eyes. "Stop it. We have to leave in two minutes, as soon as your father gets here with the…"

"JACK! WHAT ABOUT THE PLANS? WE NEED TO GO THROUGH THEM AGAIN!"

Sally massaged her temples. "Dear God…not again."

Lizzie giggled. The Mayor's whiny voice sounded all through the third floor hallway. He did this every year. He freaked out, imagining every possible thing that could go wrong, and every year, her father performed better and better. Sally found him annoying. Lizzie found him amusing.

The mayor stumbled into the room, shaking frantically, with a very exasperated Jack in tow. The Mayor did not look up at Sally, or Lizzie. He continued to converse with Jack about the plans.

Sally rolled her eyes, and smiled wanly. "Hello Darling." She said to Jack. Jack looked at her lovingly, his eye sockets, conveying an apologetic message. Lizzie picked up her thin wrist and waved wordlessly to her father.

"Are we ready to go?" Jack asked them. Lizzie nodded solemnly.

The mayor spun around towards her, nearly falling in the process. His head was turned to his long, pale, somber face. Pragmatically, he turned it around upon seeing Lizzie and her mother.

"Well hello there Queen, and Princess. It's nice to see you again." He said dully, but politely. "My, don't you look pretty."

Lizzie said nothing, until Sally elbowed her in the back. Lizzie cleared her throat in annoyance.

"Thank you, sir. You're looking very handsome yourself."

The mayor chuckled nervously. Jack sighed in a pensive manner.

"Shall we go then?" He said airily, walking over to Sally, and linking his arm with hers.

Lizzie sighed. She was the Pumpkin Princess. She had friends, all who loved causing havoc about town. She had her family. She was smart; everyone said so, thanks to the schooling from her father. She lived a charmed life. But she always felt, in the deep pit of her stomach that something, something unnamable that she could not put her finger on, was missing.

And seeing her parents together made her realize, it was love.

Love. Not love shared within a family. But true love, burning, smoking, smoldering…and all the synonyms for fire within Lizzie's extensive vocabulary. She longed for a male companion that loved her, that made her feel like no other. Lizzie had an insane addiction to romance novels (which her father often caught her reading during lessons,) and while telling herself they were fake, she still knew, she'd never acquire the emotions she yearned for. She had heard from many that members of the male gender were idiotic, but they had a certain organ called the eye. And Lizzie knew that men would venture to snag a girl with beauty. Lizzie did not possess beauty. But she did have a title.

Lizzie had plenty of annoying suitors, all after one thing: power. Power that came with marriage to the princess. Lizzie didn't expect to fall in love. But somehow, she was still disappointed, and depressed.

"Lizzie?" Jack pulled her from her depressing thoughts with a concerned tone. "Shall we go then?"

Lizzie nodded forlornly. "Yes. We shall."