The smell of autumn was in the air. The smell of fallen leaves. The smell of cold, which clung to her bed sheets, as she took them off the line and back into the warmth of indoors. That crisp, cruel cold that makes you expect it to be followed by the smell of gunpowder; that makes you think worryingly about homeless people; that makes you so thankful to have a roof over your head.

It was the night of the day Pixy and Sleeping Beauty swapped places.
It was the second time this strange phenomenon had occurred. Pixy had been struggling with a headache, and she had been deeply sad when everything suddenly halted to a stop. Within a millisecond lapse in the space/time continuum, the switch occurred. For the rest of the day, Sleeping Beauty took full advantage of this time out from the wicked spell which had been cast on her. She went out for a walk in the town; did some window shopping; bought post-cards and souvenirs; made friends with an old woman at the park and the good looking waiter at the little Italian restaurant she had dinner at. The waiter had even given her a slip of paper with a number scrawled across it. She didn’t know what to do with this, but chuffed, gave him a squinty, teethy smile, like a knowing accomplice in some naughty plan.

While in a land, far, far away, up in the highest tower of a castle barricaded by the thorny overgrowth of rose briars, Pixy slept soundlessly in the deep hush of an entire kingdom which could not wake.