The fairies have raised me and given me everything beautiful and rare, and yet they confine me in a tower, high in the air. I only know fairies. I have no other companions but a parrot and a dog who can both talk. Yet they can tell me nothing more than I already know.

Every day I have to prepare myself to receive one of the old fairies, who comes to my high tower riding a dragon.

It seems I have been betrothed to the king of dwarves. I may be a child of the fairies (though I suspect that I am not) but in any case, I will not do everything they demand. I will not marry the king of the dwarves.

The fairies are furious with me, and I fear that one of them will turn me into a cat, or a dog, or something worse.

Still, they are only forms, and in any form I will not change my mind.

The Fairies’ Child in The White Cat, Blue Fairy Book. Illustration by Jennie Harbour.