"My lady!'' exclaimed the youth, eyes widening in amazement. ''You're awake!''

''Will?'' Aurora asked, lowering her paper-knife and leaning heavily on the stone slab beside her. Now that the most imminent danger was no more, she felt quite shattered. ''What has happened here? Why is everybody dead?'' She gestured to the open back doorway where the cook lay. A fly revolved slowly above his potbelly, eventually settling on a blood-stain on the man's apron.

''Oh, they're not dead,'' replied Will, surprised. ''They're sleeping. You know? Because of the curse? Oh boy...,'' he trailed of awkwardly, as he realized Aurora was staring at him blankly. ''I knew they tried to keep it from you, but I didn't know they succeeded.'' He rubbed the scruffy brown hair at the back of his neck and looked at the floor.

''What are you talking about Will?'' Aurora snapped. She had woken up to a world of darkness and silence and the only person who could explain to her what was going on was this nincompoop with his tied-tongue and his chicken bone.

Aurora's stomach growled volubly. She suddenly felt as if she hadn't eaten in days.

''When you were born, my master ascertained that you had been cursed by one of your father's enemies. He prophesized that on your eighteenth birthday, you would prick your finger on a spindle and, er, die.'' Will looked awkward.

''Well, that's ridiculous,'' Aurora snorted. What is a spindle even? And I turned eighteen already – I remember it like it was yesterday... .'' She quietened, remembering that it had been precisely yesterday that she had turned eighteen. Hadn't it?

''Will? I'm not dead, am I? Please tell me I'm not dead.'' It occurred to her that if she were dead, then she had certainly not come to heaven, but rather, to the other place.

Will's face was one of those that could hide nothing, and his read pity.

''No, you're not dead My Lady. Not by a long shot. Since your parents heard the prophesy, they have done everything they could to prevent it coming to pass. Your father outlawed every spindle in the kingdom, and they searched high and low for an antidote. My master has worked on little else for years.'' He waved his chicken bone around in the air to indicate the scope of the problem. ''In the end, some fairy managed to alter the curse so that you wouldn't die, only fall asleep for a hundred years.''

''A hundred years!'' she blurted. ''Will, this is the silliest story I have ever heard. I am clearly not a hundred and eighteen, and you look just as skinny and pimply as you did last week.'' Will blushed. ''Where are my parents now? Take me to them!''

''I can't do that my lady,'' Will answered, quietly. ''When you pricked your finger last week and fell asleep, your parents ordered the fairy to put the whole castle under a sleeping spell for a hundred years so that you were not alone. They were heart-broken, and they sailed for the outer islands a few days ago. The fairy went with them. They aren't coming back.''