Briar Rose was quite sure she had never felt so angry before in her life. Oh, certainly on more than one occasion she'd been frustrated, or exasperated, even a little peeved, but nothing approaching the intensity of the emotion that gripped her right then.

"I'm sorry, child," Aunt Flora said, taking her hands, "but you must never see that young man again."

"No!" This couldn't be happening. Rose jerked away from Flora's grasp and clenched her hands into fists. For the first time, she'd done something out of the ordinary, she'd made plans of her own without her aunts' permission, and that was being taken away from her. The reason for it didn't even make sense. A princess? Her?

She looked at each of her aunts crowded around her, searching their faces for any sign that this was some kind of twisted joke. It had to be. Because if it wasn't, the alternative was unfairly cruel.

Either they were lying now, which was bad enough, or they had been lying for Rose's entire life, which was far, far worse. But when all she saw were three identical expressions of wide-eyed pity, she knew in her heart which answer was the truth.

"Why?" she said, voice tight. "Why would you keep something like that from me? Why are you telling me now?"

Why, why, why. Rose's mind spun with questions that led to more questions. If she was a princess, why wasn't she raised in the castle? Did the King and Queen abandon her? Had she been kidnapped? Why was she being returned tonight? Were her aunts even really her aunts?

"It was for your protection, dear," Flora said.

Fauna nodded urgently. "You were cursed to die! Oh, you were just a baby!" she cried, then covered her mouth and shrank a little beneath the disapproving look Flora directed at her.

Rose latched on to the bit of information, though, and pressed, "Who cursed me?"

"There's no use hiding it," Merryweather told Flora, mouth downturned. "Better that she knows now." Wiggling with indignation, she turned to Rose next and said, "It was an evil fairy. A very powerful one. She cast a spell that was going to make you prick your finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel—"

"—and die before sunset on your sixteenth birthday," Fauna finished. "It was just awful!"

"But why?" Rose clutched her head. She didn't know whether she wanted to scream or dissolve into incredulous laughter. Of all the things — a spinning wheel? — and it still didn't explain why she had to be kept ignorant, in a cottage, in the middle of the woods, and forbidden to speak with anyone for all these years. All these years!

"Evil doesn't need a reason to spread pain and suffering," Flora said, as if she were explaining the most obvious thing in the world to a slow child. "That's what makes it evil."

"You mustn't be frightened," said Fauna, misinterpreting the cause of her distress. "We put our heads together to keep you safe! We did! Merryweather changed the curse, didn't she?" Merryweather nodded. "And Flora came up with the plan—"

"What plan?" Rose had a feeling she didn't want to know, but she asked anyway.

"Why, to disguise ourselves as peasant women," Flora replied, "and hide you here with us in the woods."

"So Maleficent couldn't find you to carry out the curse!" Merryweather chimed in. Merryweather, who changed the curse somehow. And they had disguised themselves as peasant women, which could only mean…

Rose felt a cold suspicion rise inside her chest. She took a step back. "What… who are you?" she whispered.

"We're your good fairy godmothers!" said Flora, arms spread. "Oh, Rose, you have to trust us! It was for the best, and soon all will be well again."

"No, no!" Rose heard herself repeat. "I can't believe it!"

The air in the cottage suddenly felt too thick to breathe, the very walls she'd scrubbed clean so many times when life was simpler seeming too close, too constricting now. Rose couldn't bear to stay a moment longer. She propelled herself past the stunned faces of her not-aunts and burst through the door leading outside.

"Rose!"

"Come back! Rose!"

"It isn't safe!"

Unheeding of the cries for her return, without a destination in mind, Rose ran deep into the woods. She ran long after all sounds of pursuit had faded, ran until her legs ached and lungs burned. Only then did she come to a stumbling halt, grasping with one hand at the rough bark of a tree trunk for support.

Rose looked around the unfamiliar clearing. This in itself was remarkable, for there were few parts of the forest she did not know. She had seen just about every glade and glen there was to see within half a day's stroll from the cottage after years of picking berries and flowers, and befriending its many animal inhabitants. But a quick glance told Rose that this clearing was unlike the others; for one thing, it was completely devoid of wildlife, even the sound of insects and birdsong. For another, the trees surrounding it seemed to be either dead or dying, bare limbs outlined in stark contrast against the bright blue sky.

Now what? Rose walked forward, mired in thought. She didn't want to go back to the cottage, but she also knew she couldn't stay out here indefinitely. She hadn't brought any supplies to help her survive in the woods, and it got very cold at night in the springtime, besides. She supposed she could double back, locate one of the dirt roads her aunts had always told her to avoid, and follow it to a village where she might find shelter of some sort. But she wasn't sure how to fit in. What would she tell people about herself? And if the King really expected her to arrive at the castle tonight, wouldn't he send out a search party when she didn't turn up?

Not that Rose wasn't curious about life as a princess. Hadn't she daydreamed about it often enough? The royal balls, the dancing, the opportunity to meet interesting people from faraway lands, maybe even travel to those lands one day — these wishes seemed more attainable for a princess than a peasant girl, after all. She just hadn't expected to feel like her entire life had been turned upside down in the process, like it never truly belonged to her for a single day. That was the case, wasn't it, being betrothed from birth to a prince she'd never met? She couldn't go now. She needed time to think, to—

"Awk!"

The sudden noise startled Rose back into awareness of her surroundings. A large and scruffy looking raven swooped right by her head to alight on the branch of a fallen tree, where it turned around to regard her with shrewd, gleaming eyes.

"Oh!" said Rose. "You gave me quite a scare."

The raven puffed its throat feathers, looking rather smug. Rose reached out and stroked the top of its head with the side of her index finger. As she did so, the raven nipped at the fabric of her sleeve.

"Are you hungry?" Rose asked, withdrawing her hand. "I'm sorry I didn't bring anything to eat. I left home in a hurry and didn't stop to pick anything along the way, you see."

Spreading its wings, the raven took flight and went a short distance away, only to fly back and land on another branch at the opposite edge of the clearing. It looked down at Rose and cawed again.

"You want me to follow you?"

The raven hopped from side to side impatiently. Rose considered her options and, deciding she had yet to come up with a better idea on her own, set off after her new companion. The raven flitted from tree to tree, stopping every so often to check on her progress or to wait, cawing brashly, while Rose struggled around a thicket of brambles or searched for the narrowest part of a stream to cross.

Gradually, the forest thinned, its trees growing farther apart, the ground underfoot becoming harder and composed more of stones than vegetation. Jagged mountains loomed over the far side of a barren, rock-strewn plain.

Rose realized with a thrill of nervous anticipation that she recognized those mountains, seen their distinctive silhouette illustrated in a storybook once.

"The Forbidden Mountains, dear," Flora told her when she'd laid the book open on the kitchen table and asked about the drawing. "A most dangerous place. You must never, ever set foot there."

Well, today was quite the day for not doing as she'd been told, wasn't it? Surely this was madness. Surely she was heading straight to her doom. On the other hand, Rose found herself second-guessing everything her aunts had ever told her. Now that she'd arrived, Rose felt struck by an intense curiosity about what lay in the Forbidden Mountains, and knew she would not turn back before finding out.

Rose ignored her aching limbs and crossed the arid landscape with dogged determination. Tired, hungry, possibly going to die in a few hours — some birthday she was having. At least she was facing the future on her own terms, even if only for a little while. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, glancing up from time to time to keep track of her guide who always hovered just ahead on black wings.

Some time later — Rose had lost track of how long she'd been walking, other than noticing the sun start to descend toward the western horizon — she found herself beneath a natural stone arch spanning over the foot of a narrow, winding path. At the top of the slope, obscured by mist, was a drawbridge that led to a dilapidated castle.

Crowing raucously, the raven abandoned Rose and flew up, up, up. It disappeared through a window of the castle, lit from inside.

Just as Rose was trying to gather the courage to begin the ascent, the air in front of her erupted into green flames. Rose shrieked.

"Well, well," said a female voice, deep and resonant and amused. The sound of it sent a shiver down Rose's spine. "You've really outdone yourself this time, my pet."

A very tall, horned woman faded into view, clad from head to toe in billowing, black and purple robes. She carried a polished scepter in her left hand; perched upon its crystal-ball top was the raven Rose had followed all this way. She was exceptionally thin and gangly, a living portrait of sharp angles and hard lines, but moved with a calculated grace that captivated Rose in the manner a serpent hypnotizes its prey.

"I asked you to find a princess, and lo! You bring her right to my doorstep," she praised the raven, who looked proud enough to burst. She turned her face toward Rose and transfixed her with a piercing gaze. "You. What could possibly have possessed you to come here?"

"I- I don't know," Rose stammered. "I couldn't stay where I was, I…"

The woman took a step closer, radiating power. Rose fought the urge to flee.

"I found out today that someone cursed me to die," Rose said. That seemed important to mention. "My aunts said it was an evil fairy. I can't remember her name." She thought back to the cottage. "They said it was…"

"Maleficent."

For the second time that day, Rose felt the world tilt. Her instincts screamed at her to run, even while the rest of her was certain it was too late. Heart pounding, palms clammy, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, Rose struggled to stay upright.

"Is that you?" she managed, voice cracking. "Are you Maleficent?"

In response, Maleficent's golden eyes glowed with terrifying glee.

"Where could she have gone?" Flora said for the umpteenth time. She paced back and forth, wings fluttering with agitation.

"Maybe she'll come home," Fauna suggested, "once she calms down."

Merryweather hmphed and crossed her arms. "What if she doesn't? Are we just going to sit around waiting like a bunch of ninnies?"

"No." Flora thumped her palm with a fist. "We have to keep looking. The whole kingdom is counting on us to return with the princess."

"And we thought she'd be so happy," said Merryweather.

It was so surprising, their darling Rose reacting the way she did. When she fled the cottage, they were thrown into such a panic that they dashed out right after her without their wands, and by the time Merryweather got the idea to go fetch them so they could fly instead of run, she had already vanished without a trace. They wasted another hour searching the surrounding woods to no avail — the dense foliage making it difficult to see someone on the ground from any great distance — before returning to the cottage to regroup and fret.

Fauna sighed. "If only she hadn't met that boy."

"The boy!" Flora gasped. "Of course! She must have gone to find him."

"I never did see why she has to marry any old prince," said Merryweather. "No wonder she was upset."

"Never mind that. Come on now, there's not a moment to spare. We must search the town and all the villages at once," said Flora.

"But that could take weeks! She could be anywhere," said Merryweather.

"What will we tell King Stefan and Queen Leah?" Fauna asked. "They'll be so disappointed."

"We'll tell them the truth," said Flora, tapping her chin. "That Princess Aurora got a case of cold feet and needs some time to adjust to returning, but return she will. They've waited sixteen years, bless their hearts; surely they can agree to wait a little longer."

"Oh, I do hope you're right."

Rose supposed she only had her own curiosity to blame for getting into this mess, but a small part of her blamed her aunts, too.

Would it have been so difficult for any one of them, for instance, to take Rose aside and say, "Rose dear, you must never go to the Forbidden Mountains because an evil fairy who wants you dead resides there," at some point during her soon-to-be-cut-short life? Was a little bit of communication too much to ask for?

That very same evil fairy, who at the moment was seated on her throne in the great hall of her castle and staring at Rose the way she might a particularly ugly insect before squashing it — that is to say, with a mixture of fascination and revulsion — seemed to be entertaining similar thoughts. "Incredible," she said, as Rose tried not to flinch. "Did you really have no idea who I was?"

Rose wrung her hands. "No one ever told me! I never knew you existed until today. I never knew who I was..."

"You never saw your parents while growing up? Not once?"

"M-my aunts told me they were dead!"

"Your aunts."

"Aunt Flora, Aunt Fauna and Aunt Merryweather."

There was a beat of silence before Maleficent threw her head back and laughed until her shoulders shook. "Did you hear that, Diablo?" she said to the raven at her side, voice dripping with derision. "She's been living with her aunts all this time."

Rose took a deep breath and dared to ask, "Is it true? That you cursed me?"

"Of course it's true," Maleficent snapped. "Do you doubt my powers?"

"No! It's not that, it's just- why did you do it?" If Rose was going to die tonight, she felt she at least deserved to know that much. "What did I ever do to you?"

Maleficent scoffed and gave a dismissive wave of her hand. "Don't flatter yourself," she said. "It had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with a contract your father entered into long before you existed. You," she pointed a slender finger at Rose, "as his firstborn, were merely collateral."

"Collateral?"

"Something valuable he had to forfeit when he failed to keep his end of the deal."

Rose was not sure what she had expected, but it wasn't anything like this. She scrambled to make sense of it all before Maleficent grew bored of talking, and though she was bursting with questions, leapt at the first one that came to mind. "Then why wait sixteen years? Why not kill me the day I was born and be done with it?"

"I'll admit there were times I wished I'd done just that. I certainly would have slept better if I did." She was serious. There was not a shred of irony, not even the slightest sign that she was joking. Rose paled and felt ill. Maleficent continued, either not noticing or not caring what effect her words were having, "But, the death of an infant, while a sad occasion for some people, is hardly catastrophic. Infants die all the time. On the other hand, to raise one through childhood and adolescence, doting on it through the years, placing one's hopes and dreams on its future, only to have it all snatched away by a cruel twist of fate — ah! That is the price I wished to exact from King Stefan. Do you understand?"

No, Rose did not understand. How could she? Still reeling, she heard herself blurt, "It's not very nice to use living people as collateral."

"Is it not?" Maleficent arched an eyebrow.

Rose felt all her frustrations from earlier in the day reach a boiling point. "I am not a- a thing to be traded around as others see fit," she cried. "I have thoughts and feelings! I have dreams of my own! I never asked to be betrothed, I never agreed to die for the sake of people I've never met! I am not Princess Aurora; I don't know who that is. I'm me! I'm Briar Rose! Doesn't that matter?"

As she came down from her outburst, remembering where she was and whom she was shouting at, Rose cringed. But to her utter astonishment, Maleficent didn't strike her down where she stood. In fact, Maleficent was looking at her while wearing an expression akin to surprise.

"I hadn't considered it that way," Maleficent said, stroking her chin. She continued to stare at Rose with an intensity that made her insides do somersaults. "How interesting."

Deciding to press her luck a little further, Rose ventured, "S-so, are you..." She cleared her throat. "Are you still planning to kill me?"

"I'm not certain right now." Maleficent had the vexed tone of someone who was not accustomed to being uncertain of anything, and found this particular state of mind to be most displeasing. "Those meddling Good Fairies have altered circumstances rather more than I'd anticipated."

Rose was reminded of something she'd nearly forgotten. "They said Merryweather changed the curse, but they didn't mention how…"

Maleficent sneered. "Ineffectual, conditional drivel. Let me see, what was it… ah, yes," she made her voice high-pitched and mocking, and recited:

"If through this wicked witch's trick
a spindle should your finger prick,
not in death but just in sleep
the fateful prophecy you'll keep,
and from this slumber you shall wake
when true love's kiss the spell shall break."

Rose could only shake her head in disbelief. "But… but that's not much of an improvement," she said.

"No," Maleficent agreed.

"I mean, I don't have a true love!"

"Terribly inconvenient."

"How could I, since my aunts forbade me from speaking with anyone?"

Maleficent's eyes shone with mirth, at Rose's expense, no doubt. "Oh, dear," she said. "It doesn't sound like they thought this whole affair through very well. Will the surprises never cease?"

Rose began to pace, feeling a headache coming on. "If I fall asleep without a true love, won't that mean I'll never wake up? How is that any different from death?"

"My my, she is full of questions," Maleficent remarked to Diablo, scratching beneath his beak. The raven closed his eyes blissfully. To Rose, she replied, "There are a number of dissimilarities, ranging from the corporal to the philosophical. But I think it would be more fun for you to ponder them out for yourself."

More fun. For Rose to ponder. Was Maleficent mocking her? "If only I had time for that," Rose said glumly. "I don't exactly have much left."

"Then I suggest you think quickly."

Rose stopped short and looked open-mouthed at Maleficent. It dawned on her that there was still a chance, however slim, she could come out of this intact, and she might not have another one. Frantically, Rose thought back over their conversation from the moment she'd arrived until now, combed through it for an opening, for anything that might… and was struck with a mad idea. Probably a very ill-advised one. It was all she had, though, so Rose squared her shoulders and said, "Suppose I stayed here."

"What?"

"Suppose I stayed here," Rose repeated, heart pounding wildly. "And agreed not to run away. Could you… I mean, would you lift the curse then?"

Maleficent gave her a look of pure outrage. "Why in Hell's name would I-"

"King Stefan forfeited his first-born, didn't he? You said so yourself." The words tumbled out of Rose, who hoped against hope they would be enough. "If I never go back to his castle, if he never sees me again, wouldn't the result be the same, whether I'm alive, or dead, or- or in an endless sleep?"

Her brow was still furrowed, her mouth a thin, tight line, but Maleficent looked marginally less murderous than a few moments earlier. She tilted her head almost imperceptibly.

Rose took this as a signal to continue. "I mean, if it's all the same to you, I'd very much prefer the first option," she said. Maleficent's eyebrows lifted up at that. "The one where I go on living," Rose clarified, just to be on the safe side.

This was insanity and Rose knew it. It was an awfully risky chance, offering herself up to someone who was by all rights her mortal enemy. For all she knew, Maleficent might lock her up, enslave her, torture her — Rose had no idea what she was capable of. But a tiny, hopeful part of her reasoned that if Maleficent wanted to do those things, she already would have. Maleficent did not strike her as the type of person who wasted time with idle chit-chat, yet here they were, talking almost civilly for longer than Rose would have ever thought possible. Strangely enough, Rose found herself thinking that under less frightful conditions, she might have enjoyed talking with Maleficent. She'd learned more from a single conversation than she had from years' worth of platitudes and admonishments. Rose wondered what else she could learn, given the chance...

Maleficent stood from her throne in a single smooth motion, towering over Rose. She took the scepter in both hands and leaned forward against it. "Be careful what you wish for, Briar Rose," she said, voice light and almost sing-song. "Are you certain you want to 'go on living' here? Here, with the Mistress of All Evil?"

Rose shrank back involuntarily. "I-I'm…" She was having difficulty breathing. Maleficent looked down her nose at Rose, and Rose's imagination conjured up all sorts of ways Maleficent could make life miserable without so much as batting an eyelash. Then she reminded herself that any life at all was preferable to the fate promised her by either version of the curse. She hoped so, anyway. Rose drew another breath and said, "I'm certain."

"Very well." Her expression betraying nothing, Maleficent straightened up and began swirling her right hand over the scepter. The orb pulsed with an eerie green light.

"Out from peril, your life I restore.
I revoke my curse, let it be no more!"

Rose felt an odd sort of peace wash over her, a trickling sensation that started from the crown of her head, spread down through her chest and limbs, all the way to her fingertips and toes. She sagged with relief, eyes closing. Overcome by exhaustion — it really had been a long, trying day — her legs gave out beneath her and Rose sank to a seated position on the cold stone floor.

And then it was over as quickly as it began. Rose opened her eyes to the sight of Maleficent watching her closely. Maleficent wrinkled her nose, as if she found something unpleasant in what she saw, and leaned back.

"That's it?" Rose asked after a moment of silence. She reached up to touch the top of her head, encountered nothing out of place.

Maleficent actually rolled her eyes. "Were you expecting something more dramatic? A ritual sacrifice, perhaps? The blood of twenty virgins?"

Rose shook her head. Why was it so difficult to keep her eyes open? "No," she said, rubbing one with the heel of her palm. "That's not what I meant. You just made it seem so…" Easy? Trivial? She couldn't remember what she was going to say, or why it mattered. Maleficent extended a hand to Rose, who looked at it uncomprehendingly.

"Come along," Maleficent prompted. "Unless you plan to spend the night on this floor."

"Oh." Rose blinked and took the offered hand. Maleficent's fingers were cool to the touch, and gripped with an iron strength helping Rose to her feet. "Thank you," Rose added faintly.

Another eye roll. "Say no more," said Maleficent, dropping Rose's hand. She spun on her heel, robes snapping and whirling, and tapped her scepter against the floor before striding off. As if on cue, Diablo lit upon his mistress' shoulder. "I'll show you to your chambers. Do try to keep up," she said without looking back. "And mind your step."

Rose shook herself out of her daze. Not wanting to discover the consequences of failing to keep up, she hurried after Maleficent's long trail of robes, out of the throne room and into whatever lay beyond.