Everyone in town thinks Dream is strange. She knows that for sure. They always have. When she was small, she was that bizarre one who thinks she’s some sort of lady knight—as if such a thing could exist, and now she’s that one who talks to the trees. (She got caught one time, five years ago, and hasn’t been able to live it down.) It’s always driven Mother bonkers that Dream insisted on wearing her prettiest dresses but returned home—daily—with them covered in smudges, the chiffon snagged, and/or holes in the lace.
(As a riiiiip rings through the air, Dream turns to see that her hem has snagged on a gnarly exposed tree root. She smiles. “Ha!”)
Even so, Mother has yet to stop replenishing Dream’s dreamy wardrobe. As a child, Dream was never permitted to wear the leather trousers that were more suited to her rambunctious style of play, so she got used to running/jumping/climbing/tumbling while draped in layers of tulle and chiffon. And Dream likes the dresses. They feel good on her long, lithe limbs and accent her heart-shaped face. In fact, this has been her saving grace: her “overt femininity.” (God, does she hate that word. It’s so…limiting. As evidenced by the way that Mother side-eyes Dream for “being so rough-and-tumble while wearing such feminine garments.” It annoys Dream to no end.)
And that is why she’s in these woods. Well…partially why, at least. Four days ago, some new suitor and his parents came to call. (Stunning jawline and gorgeous deep brown skin on this one, but his eyebrows were even more manicured than hers. Definitely a deal breaker.) And the moment Dream entered the room in her shimmery indigo gown, the boy’s mother burst into applause. “Aha!” she said, ecstatic. “Now, that is a true lady. Poised and well-postured.” She pulled her own shoulders back. “Nothing like that…person we encountered last week. Would you believe the young lady greeted us wearing trousers? And had grit beneath untrimmed fingernails? Her father said something about a metalworking hobby, but we didn’t even bother to sit down. You’d think that after what happened to that so-called princess, these girls would know better—”
“Ah.” And Dream got up and left the room without another word.
Ever since then, said princess—“so-called” be damned—has been at the center of Dream’s every thought. Dare was this princess’s name….
“Is her name,” Dream corrects under her breath.
As of this morning, Princess Dare has been missing for two and a half years. She vanished a fortnight after her fourteenth birthday, and the search for her was abandoned after mere days. Disdain ran deep for the “princess” who dressed like a boy yet outright refused to court one.
Dream scowls as she forges deeper into the woods and the hem of her voluminous skirts gets heavy with grime. It bothers Dream that Dare’s memory only survives in their pitiful principality because Dare’s disappearance was the closest thing to a scandal any of the townspeople had ever seen. Most presumed Dare ran away under the cloak of darkness (and good riddance, the royal family must be so relieved, can you even imagine?). But there were some who believed a fearsome monster had snatched and eaten her in the dead of night (even so, good riddance, at least she didn’t suffer much).
The latter isn’t entirely unfounded because there truly is a monster. It took up residence in the woods around the time of Dare’s departure, and after multiple eyewitness accounts of a horrifyingly ugly and frighteningly formidable beast living in a house made of human bones, many assumed Princess Dare was its first victim. “I’ve heard the creature is drawn to the aberrant,” some say. “It has a penchant for the deviant,” whisper others.
Then there are the Pursuers: a group that believes wholeheartedly in the monster, but also in the notion that Princess Dare is very much alive and in need of rescue. And not only from the foul beast; from her “abnormal proclivities” as well.
It should come as no surprise that the majority of Pursuers are thick-headed boys: hubris-driven imbeciles out to prove their manhood and worthiness of utmost respect and admiration by venturing into the woods, weapons in hand, and emerging with Dare cradled in a set of strong arms, her princess-y nature obscured by her frailty and filth.
(Gross, Dream thinks. And not at all because she just stepped into a puddle of muck.)
The hero of heroes would have a knapsack slung over one chiseled shoulder, and within that knapsack would be the severed head of the monster. Princess Dare would come to and fall madly in love with her rescuer, thereby transforming into the lady royal everyone would claim they knew she could be.
Only two would-be heroes—out of over one hundred—had ever returned from the forest. Both of them woefully empty-handed and driven too mad by what they’d seen to even speak of it. But the Pursuers were undeterred. In fact, Dream’s current trek through the woods was spurred on by one of them: an admittedly strapping suitor—different from the one with the awful mother, delightfully tall and handsome, with skin the cool, dusky brown of a walnut shell—was so butt-hurt by Dream’s rejection, he puffed his chest up and said, “Well, that’s a relief. Now I can fulfill my true calling: taking down that wretched beast in the woods so I can return the Dare girl to her proper place.”
Dream would’ve laughed in his face if not for the fissure of rage that opened up inside her chest.
Not only because these Pursuer boys see the “rescue” mission as their chance at glory. That they see the life of a young woman as little more than a proving ground for their bravado. And not only because they believe Dare—or any young woman—to be incapable of fending for herself. It’s not only that, deep down, the intentions of these scoundrels are utterly dishonorable. That Dream knows what they really want is to be thought of as The Man Who Made Dare into a REAL Princess.
What makes Dream angriest is that she knows they’re mistaken. It’s why she’s in these woods.
She’s going to prove them wrong. About Dare, yes, but also about herself.
The townspeople, the suitors, they think of Dream as the dream girl. The dream wife. Pretty, sweet, compliant. Everything Dare was—is—not.
But they are incorrect. They don’t know Dream, and they certainly didn’t know Dare.
Dream, though, knew Dare.
Knows her.
Dream knows Dare doesn’t need to be rescued. Not in the least.
The monster does.
* * *
The sun is high in the sky by the time the monster—if you can even call it that—wakes in its treehouse made of fallen branches. (Not human bones like those nitwits in the villages claim; the monster always eats those.) Its belly burbles, and it releases a throaty groan. There’s no doubt about it now: the monster’s most recent meal had been absolutely rotten.