The fairies gave the princess all their best gifts: beauty, an angel’s wit, grace, and talents for dancing, singing and playing instruments. Then the spiteful Old Fairy came in and gave her a curse. The princess would be pierced by a spindle and would die of the wound.

I was hiding behind the curtains, ready to repair what the Old Fairy had done. I couldn’t change the death sentence, but I could spin it into something good—a profound sleep followed by an equally profound awakening.

The Youngest Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, Blue Fairy Book. Illustration by Edmund Dulac.