Sleeping Beauty

by Nathalie Boisard-Beudin

Jonathan had always been fascinated by old houses, by the history shouting at him from their grimy walls. This one was perfect, looking everything like a miniature castle. He had to fight vegetation to enter; the mixture of brambles and ivy proving far more forbidding than the old padlocks had been. The house looked frozen in action; pots in the kitchen gone moldy through meal preparation; books, newspapers abandoned, unread. Finding the sleeping girl was nevertheless a surprise: he’d never believed in fairy tales. When he went to kiss her, ghouls rose from inside the body to eat him alive.

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Nathalie Boisard-Beudin is French but currently lives in Rome, Italy. Most of her writing is done in English, her second – and working – language. She works as in-house lawyer for the European Space Agency and has published micro-stories in the multi national anthology Wonderful World of Worders.