Fairy Godmother

things can, and do, go wrong. That is when The Tradition works against us, and for the evil folk of the world — The Tradition doesn't care, you see, whether the outcome of a story is a joy or a tragedy; if the circumstances are there, it just makes things follow down set paths. And since we can't fix them directly, we have to help the heroes who can.'

'But why can't you fix them directly?' Elena asked, now truly puzzled and confused, 'if you have all this power — '

'Ah. The answer to that is why you will be serving as my Apprentice for some time,' Madame Bella replied, wisely. 'But the quick answer is that it would take all the magic of a hundred Godmothers working together to correct a single one of those problems if we had to go counter to The Tradition. We do not figure as heroes, you see. Whoever heard of a dotty old lady in shining armor?'

Elena giggled at that; why not? She was going to wake up, after all, and things would not be nearly so pleasant when she did, so she might as well enjoy this dream. And it was such a good dream — she would very much like to be a Godmother's Apprentice. And it was somehow comforting to have an explanation for why her life had gone from bad to worse, no matter what she had done to try to change things.

'And you have to remember that the evil ones are always on the prowl, looking for their opportunities to make The Tradition work to their advantage, and they have one thing on their side that we do not,' Madame Bella continued. 'Once one of them finds a place to work, they can concentrate on that one Kingdom, while we are spread out over many.'

'How many?' Elena asked, sobering. This might be a dream, but it certainly sounded as if this Godmothering business was quite hard work.

Not that she was afraid of hard work, for heaven's sake! But she had to wonder just how many Kingdoms Bella was responsible for, if there were so few of the Godmothers.

'At the moment, I am Godmother directly to two dozen of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, and I can be called upon to help with another twelve or fourteen,' Madame Bella said, and sighed. 'And I am not getting any younger, alas. I have been looking for a good Apprentice for some time now.'

Obscurely, Elena felt a surge of disappointment, even though this was a dream. So she had not been the only person that Madame Bella had considered!

But in the next moment, Bella's words made the disappointment vanish. 'In fact, I have really been looking, in one way or another, from the day that I became the Godmother for these Kingdoms. I have seen too much tragedy come into the world because a Godmother left looking for her Apprentice until it was too late. I must say, though, in all that time, I never had a bit of hope until I found you. And I was not going to even hope that you could be what I was looking for until after you passed your eighteenth birthday.'

'Why then?' Elena wanted to know.

'Because if ever you had a satisfactory end to your personal tale — if, for instance, you had found a sweetheart who had successfully taken you out of that house — it had to be by then.' Bella sounded melancholy. 'Far too many of the young women I have watched over the years did, indeed, make that sort of end. Why it should be before the eighteenth birthday, I do not know. Perhaps it has something to do with being willing to — to settle for less, to stop dreaming — to give up on hope. And then, perhaps the magic around you arrows in on whatever you can get, rather than what you hope for. I don't know for certain, because I have never asked those young women about what was going on in their minds.'

Elena licked her lips thoughtfully, tasting the last, faint hint of sweetness from an iced cake upon them. Yes, she had recently stopped dreaming — or at least daydreaming — but it had not been until after that critical eighteenth birthday. Even then, could she really say that she had given up on dreams? Not when she had continued to look out her window at handsome young men and make up lesser stories, smaller dreams about them.

And in all that time, had she ever really tried to do anything about those dreams? Oh, she could argue all she wanted that her stepmother would never have given her the time to go meet a young man, but in her heart of hearts, she had to admit that if she had tried, she probably could have stolen the time, somehow, to go and meet one of those young men, to flirt a little, as she had seen so many other girls do.

Why had she never tried? It wasn't that she was shy. It wasn't that she had some withered sprig of pride left, that insisted that Elena Klovis was above the common young men she saw in the streets. Perhaps, if she had seen a man that her heart had really longed for, perhaps she would have defied her stepmother and grasped for love with both hands. She sat back in her seat and thought, hard, about all the men, young and old, she had watched, and she had to admit that no, it had never been the man she had longed for — only the escape that marriage, marriage to anyone, represented.

Well. That was certainly interesting. And perhaps a little disturbing — why was that true? Was it the men? Or was it her? Was she just as cold in her way as the Horrids, who cared nothing for the men who courted them, only the wealth or status that they represented?

It was a nasty thought, and one that gave her pause as she considered just what all the implications of it were.

'Perhaps,' Bella sighed, 'Perhaps for the rest of those others, it was just as well. Every one of them discovered someone she truly loved, and in the end, they were happy. The Tradition works in small stories as well as large, you know.'

But if I had tried, would I have found a true love? she thought, somberly. It was hindsight, of course.

'I certainly had plenty of opportunity to go that route myself,' the old woman continued, as if musing aloud. 'It wasn't as if I had a terror of a stepmother dogging my footsteps every waking moment of the day. I merely had two spoiled older sisters, and it wasn't that I was their slave, it was just that they were too bone-lazy to take the task of housekeeper, so I did. I had plenty of time for myself, and I was the only one who decided what I would do and when I did it. My sisters had plenty of beaus haunting our house; I suppose I could have had, too, if I'd been in the least interested, but there wasn't one of them that I cared to exchange more than a few words with.'

'What about — ' Elena hesitated ' — after?'

'After I became a Godmother?' Bella laughed. 'Heavens, child, when would I have found the time to look out for a young man? I had so much work on my hands I hardly found the time to sleep! Ah — look! Down there! We're almost home.'

The old woman pointed down and ahead of them; Elena couldn't see much; just a faint light, that seemed