Ten Wishes for a Wedding (Contest)

Ten Years Later
By Madeleine Eblouie

Marianne remembered the day as if it was frozen in wood sap, like a fly in amber.

It was the fifteenth of July, a Sunday, and she had awoken early. She had been an early bird since she was a little girl, always eager to get to school in the morning but always the first to bed at night. Her sister Elsie had surfaced not long after, as they shared a bed and Marianne was noisy and energetic about getting up that morning.

Elsie helped her sister dress with the excitability of an eight-year-old at Christmas but the precision and solemnity of a nun in her work. She helped her slender sister into the white dress that could have been the attire of one of the holy sisters at their Catholic school. It was loose and unflattering, clinched in at the waist with a simple white band, and the skirt reached her ankles.

Elsie did her best to style her elder sister’s dull brown hair attractively, praying for life to enter it and create curls at the last moment, but Marianne’s hair was resilient and stayed put in a dull plait along the back of her head. Finally, they put a thin veil over her hair that fell all the way to the floor, past her nurse’s shoes, and covered her smooth, well-defined, rosy-cheeked face.

The girls’ mother had been delighted with her daughter’s appearance, but she was easily pleased: a pretty, greengrocer’s assistant’s daughter who had married an unattractive, older, commanding high-ranking naval officer. Marianne went down to the church in a nice car, borrowed from a wealthy relative, and she had walked down the aisle in ten paces, counting each one as she clung onto her father’s arm.

He turned to look at her as she neared him, her officer. For ten years they had been acknowledged lovers, but he had been away, fighting Jerries in the trenches and then demons in his own head, in some French hospital. His coal-black eyes were beacons, giving off light where there should have been dark, polar opposite to his soft hair, the colour and feel of melting butter. His strong jawline was in a smile of dumbfounded joy and his world-weary brow light as air.

‘My Rupert.’ Marianne mouthed unconsciously, basking in the glory of those two beautiful words. She was a dreamer, but she could have never dreamt of this...



Ten years earlier, Marianne had been sat in the fine gardens at her Aunt Hortense’s majestic house in the countryside when Hortense had to go inside to welcome her friend Lady Beswick into the house. Marianne had been left alone in the garden with a snoring Great-Uncle, and had wandered off to walk down by the lake. She had been fifteen years old, a willowy, plain thing in a second-hand brown dress of her rich cousin’s with mediocrity in her brow and dun skin, into which a slim nose and dull blue eyes were set. As she neared the water’s edge, her battered leather boot hit slippery mud, and she fell down the soft incline into the water.

When she finally pulled herself out, Marianne was filthy: her hair was braided grass, her dress detailed in mud, her mouth tasting of mucky water. She spat it out and tried to tidy herself up, cursing her clumsiness. Aunt Hortense would be absolutely furious when her niece appeared like a Cockney mud lark to present herself as a debutante to Lady Beswick! She growled in annoyance.

‘Having trouble, Marianne?’ Came a sugary-sweet voice from behind her. She flipped around, not recognising the glittery soprano.

The voice came from a waif-like, gaunt yet pretty girl in a torn, white dress. She had long, soft waves of hair the colour of marzipan and eyes of thoughtful, penetrating light blue. Her baby-pink lips were set in a soft, wry smile and her hands were clutched together delicately, as though they might break.

‘Who are you?’

The girl laughed, a sound like a soft breeze blowing through rushes and wind chimes. ‘I am Aria, a fairy who has been watching you for some time.’ She said, her eyes wise and almost glaring. Marianne shuddered, knowing she should be confused but wanting to believe every word that the fairy said. ‘I have come because you deserve something, Marianne.’

Aria’s finger coaxed Marianne’s chin up. She had moved in a flash, so smooth and fast that Marianne could hardly remember her ever being so far away.

‘Ten wishes.’ She said. ‘I shall grant you ten wishes, no more, to make your life perfect.’ She sniffed, grimacing. ‘If I were you, my first wish would be for some clean clothes.’

‘I wish... I was wearing a clean, expensive dress that Lady Beswick will love.’

Aria smiled mysteriously and faded into thin air, as though she had never been there at all. Marianne looked down to find her dress spotless, and made of finer material than it had been before. She quickly brushed out her hair and smiled, delighted.



Life was good for Marianne now. Ten years, ten wishes. She regretted nothing.