Once Upon a Dream

The novel reimagines Sleeping Beauty by asking what would happen if True Love's Kiss failed to wake the sleeping princess.

Prince Phillip, aided by three good fairies named Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, defeats the evil fairy Maleficent in her dragon form and enters the enchanted castle where Princess Aurora lies under a sleeping curse. When he kneels and kisses her, he does not wake her. Instead, he collapses unconscious beside her, pulled into the curse.

Inside Aurora's dream, Maleficent's soul has constructed a false reality. Aurora's parents, King Stefan and Queen Leah, supposedly sold their infant daughter to three evil fairies in exchange for dark power, then waged wars that destroyed the world beyond the castle. A good fairy named Maleficent intervened, banishing the evil fairies, encasing the castle in protective thorns, imprisoning the corrupt king and queen, and becoming Aurora's benevolent guardian. This invented narrative keeps the sleeping inhabitants docile and grateful.

Aurora lives a monotonous existence in the Thorn Castle, sleeping excessively and struggling with feelings of uselessness. Maleficent treats her with performative affection but dismisses her desire to help or learn magic, telling her she is simply not capable.

Cracks appear in the false world. The court minstrel claims he escaped to the Outside and presses a blue feather into Aurora's hands before guards drag him away. She discovers playing cards with illustrations of animals supposedly extinct in the Outside. Lady Astrid, her second cousin, warns her not to discuss the feather inside the castle, and a stable boy named Cael identifies it as a bluebird feather, a species that should not exist if the Outside were truly destroyed. Three small fairies materialize briefly in Aurora's room, urging her to wake up.

The illusion shatters on the night of the Gold Ball. Aurora witnesses Maleficent murder Lady Astrid with a ritual dagger, drain her blood into the crystal orb atop her staff, and use it to sustain herself within the dream. Through a portal, Aurora sees her own real body lying asleep in a brighter world. Maleficent reveals she needs only to hold on until midnight on Aurora's sixteenth birthday, at which point she will take over Aurora's body. As Aurora flees, she sees that Lianna, her closest friend and handmaiden, has pig trotters for feet, confirming Lianna is one of Maleficent's creatures.

Aurora escapes by leaping onto the vine-covered walls and discovering she can will the animated thorns to recede. She emerges into a sunlit meadow at the edge of a living forest: The Outside is not destroyed at all. Touching a tree triggers a flood of alternate memories, a childhood in a cottage raised by three aunts who were actually the good fairies, under the name Briar Rose.

In the forest, Aurora encounters Phillip, who has been wandering the dreamworld for weeks. He recounts the true story: Her parents sent her to be raised secretly by the fairies to protect her from Maleficent's curse that she would prick her finger on a spinning wheel spindle and die before sunset on her sixteenth birthday. Merryweather softened the curse from death to sleep, breakable by True Love's Kiss. When Phillip killed Maleficent's dragon form and kissed Aurora, Maleficent's soul, bound to the curse, survived within the dream. The pair sets out for the fairies' cottage, hoping to find a way to escape.

Their journey is fraught with traps. Forest fairies try to ensnare Aurora with vanity before transforming into demons. A traveling merchant challenges her to a singing contest that nearly kills her and is revealed as a demon. Aurora discovers that math does not work in dreams, lifting years of shame, and she learns to manipulate the dreamworld by summoning objects from memory. Maleficent creates a duplicate of Phillip to sow distrust; the real Phillip distinguishes himself by confessing personal secrets no demon could fabricate, and Aurora destroys the impostor.

A manifestation of Aurora's own depression appears as a pale girl who weaponizes despair, urging her to surrender. Aurora nearly succumbs, but Phillip's encouragement and her duty to the sleeping kingdom rouse her. She destroys the creature, but before it vanishes, it delivers devastating news: Maleficent has killed Aurora's parents.

King Hubert, Phillip's father, appears in the forest, cognitively affected by years of isolation after being banished from the castle. He leads them to the cottage before staying behind to hold off demons. Inside, Aurora enters her deepest memory: her parents gazing at her in a golden cradle. Three dream manifestations of the fairies await, representing Aurora's own suppressed gifts of bravery, intelligence, and compassion. They explain that royal blood must be shed to break the curse, and Aurora must return to kill Maleficent. Aurora trains in this protected space, then selects armor for battle.

Maleficent teleports everyone back to the throne room. Each dream fairy engages Maleficent in turn: the green fairy shields captive inhabitants from lightning before being destroyed; the red fairy advances with her sword but is overwhelmed; the blue fairy provokes Maleficent into destroying her own guards before sacrificing herself. The three wisps merge into Aurora, restoring her suppressed gifts.

The battle destroys the dream castle. Maleficent summons a monster bearing Aurora's dead parents' faces, but Aurora cuts it down. Lianna unexpectedly turns against Maleficent, driving her bodice knife into the dragon's ankle. The knife, forged from Maleficent's own dark magic, is the only weapon capable of piercing her. Maleficent mortally wounds Lianna before transforming into a massive dragon. As a clock strikes midnight, Aurora summons the ruins into the shape of an enormous spinning wheel and drives its spindle into the dragon's heart. Maleficent disintegrates.

Yet the dreamworld does not dissolve. Aurora realizes she must shed her own royal blood. She pricks her finger on the spindle, the same act that put her to sleep, then reaches through the image of her sleeping body and touches her own hand, blood to blood. Where the first prick was a surrender to despair, this one is a deliberate choice to live.

Aurora and Phillip awaken in the real castle. Some sleepers did not survive: King Stefan, Queen Leah, and Lady Astrid died when Maleficent drained their blood in the dream. Outside, Aurora finds Lianna dying. Lianna explains she saved Aurora because Aurora was her friend, then dies peacefully in Aurora's arms. In death, her body transforms into that of a young woman with black horns, resembling a younger version of Maleficent.

In the epilogue, Aurora prepares for her first address as queen. She overrules advisors who try to sideline her, warns the fairies she has not forgiven them for their deceptions, and notes that King Hubert, though alive, remains cognitively diminished. Phillip must return to his own kingdom, and the two acknowledge the logic of eventually combining their realms, though Aurora defers the question. She asks Phillip for a math problem to prove they are truly awake, answers it with delight, and shares a kiss with him before stepping onto the balcony to address her people, beginning her reign as the queen she has chosen to become.