Abigail Reinig

Briar Rose was not found in a castle. Dornröschen was not laid upon a bed, not with fabric embroidered with gold nor silver; she was not called “Princess,” or “Aurora,” or even “Talia.” She was a nameless girl enveloped by trees, wrapped in bramble like the frosted bite of Winter, and the flowers bloomed in her absence; they blossomed despite it, and they were beautiful, and they were not beautiful enough to distract from their thorns. 

Why do you cry for her? She will be back soon enough, with a new name, and a new story, and a new life. You will not be there to see her bloom but she will bloom nonetheless. Maybe next time you could be a handmaid and you could collapse at her side, allow her to feel some warmth even while unconscious. You can dream easily knowing that there is a soul next to yours, and you can try to find your way into her mind too, and see what nameless girls dream of.

You do not need to cry for her. She will not hear you, not over the sounds of time rushing past her in a current of invention. While you cry there will be saxophones, and there will be disco, and there will be calls for revolution. Calls for every girl born with a tragic destiny instead of a name. Maybe next time you could be a guard, and rot in front of her door, blade still as sharp as the morning it was made. You can protect her from the bed bugs and the dragons, and when she wakes up a woman or a mother she can recall you as a bittersweet memory, and pretend the silver armor still holds flesh underneath.

What reason is there to cry for her? Nameless girls always return to you soon enough. At sixteen she moved states and you sobbed thinking you would never see her again - but at the end of the school year, there she was, waiting for you with a new name and a new appearance. She asked how the flowers were and you realized you forgot to look for them. Maybe next time you can be a gardener, and tend to the flowers so that she can forget about the thorns. 

So what if she is gone for a year, a decade, a century? Nameless girls will spit out teeth and white their knuckles long before they agree to be passive; they are delicate, but not vapid, and no matter how many lives they live—from the 14th to the 21st—Briar Rose will always bloom again. Hope will always bloom somewhere, to someone, so long as you plant the seeds.