The Toad: Part One, The Princess

                “So you want to hear a story?” she said as she tossed another log onto the fire.

                “Yeah!” the child answered excitedly.

                Bethy knew all the best stories. She had been all over the world. Laddie pulled up next to her in front of the fire as she thought. What wondrous thing would she tell tonight?

                Bethy scratched her head and twisted her face faining deep thought. Sweat glisned on her face from the long days toiling in the orchard. The stars were just starting to poke through the fabric of the sky as a glint filled her eye. The play disappeared from her face as she got lost in a memory. Laddie looked up at her from his place on the ground. He couldn’t remember a time when Bethy looked so serious. All the time when she lifted him into the apple trees she was joking and smiling. He didn’t think there was a serious thought in her head. Just before the last shadows of sun faded into obscurity she came back.

                “This is a not a story, but rather a truth, and I know because I was there. I saw it all, every last bit of it. It seems incredible now looking back, but it really happened.”

                “Oh tell me, tell me, please, Bethy!”

                “Alright,” she told him as she returned to her revelry. “It begins with, as most good truths do, with once upon a time in a kingdom far away there was a king that was very just and much loved by his people. He was blessed with a beautiful son. All seem right and good in the land, but it was far from it. A most wicked witch was jealous of the love the people showed the king. She punished him by casting a terrible spell upon his beloved son. Her curse twisted the boy into a most hideous creature. The king disgusted and ashamed by the prince’s deformity banished him from the kingdom. The prince wandered across the world looking for some way to break the spell, but to no avail.”

                “What a terrible story!” Laddie shouted.

                “Don’t fret little Laddie, it is only just the beginning!”

 

The Princess

 

                The princess walked the halls as a ghost. She saw no one and said nothing after her mother’s death. The queen’s passing had devastated everyone, but none so deeply as her poor daughter. What was hardest for the dear child was that her mother had not seemed sick. It had been only a few days that the woman declined and then abruptly died. The king had been greatly affected, but he had his kinging to occupy his thoughts, the poor princess had only her sorrow.

                It was during the princess’ prolonged misery that the king saw fit to betroth her to a youth from the neighboring kingdom. While the man was not all together bad, neither was he very good. And the poor depressed princess had no desire to marry him, or anyone else for that matter. The grief she felt over her mother’s death was still very near to her every day. She suffered and no one seemed to be able to easy her pain.

                Perhaps that was why she set out on her quest. In the dark of the night she set out from the palace towards the dense and terrifying forest. She wore a hooded cloak and about her neck carried a golden ball that hung from a weighty chain. The trinket was most precious to the queen in life and so it had passed on to her most precious daughter. As the princess crept through the shadows of the little village that surrounded the castle she clutched the little golden orb and prayed that her mother’s spirit might give her strength.

                The princess ran through the wheat field until it met with the most ominous wood. She stood before a thicket of gnarled and reaching branches trying to look into a mist that seemed to writhe in most bitter agony. Cautiously she searched the tree line for safe passage into the angry forest, but no clear path lay before her. Often she looked back to see if any palace guard had followed her only to be disappointed by how dismally alone she appeared.

                It was after looking back for the hundredth time that she spotted a place where she might crawl through the thicket into the wood. She fell on hands and knees to start into the underbrush only to have her hood caught up in the branches. After struggling for several seconds she managed to release the tie about her neck and free herself from the grabbing fingers of the thicket. As she lie on the ground surveying the most miraculously draped cloak she realize the mist moving around her. It curled and slithered as though it was alive and she recoiled from the sight of the swirls that stuck to her skin like hot monster’s breath. She sat on the ground trying to see the terrible creature that stalked her in the wood, but there was none and slowly her mind fell at ease.

                Though the mist obscured all sight the moon shown through most brilliantly. Even in the depth of the night the princess walked largely unhindered by darkness. She traveled ever deeper into the forest in search of the fabled witch the town’s folk spoke of. Surely a witch of sufficient skill could restore her mother to life? That was the princess’s plan after all. She would seek out the witch woman and began and plead and trade for her mother’s life back. If her mother was alive then the king would not force her to marry that dreadful prince. She could tell her mother all the things she had been too foolish to say before she died. Everything could be exactly as it was, but better.

                The princess stumbled over the bulbous roots of the scraggly old trees of the wood until she fell. Her dress was torn and her shins bloodied, but she dared not turn back not when she had already come so far. She righted herself as best she could and when she looked up there was a sign just ahead. Carefully she made her way through the treacherous roots, for it would not do for her to twist her ankle when she was so very alone. The sign was little more than a board roughly nailed to a tree trunk, upon which was scrawled the words, “THE WITCH GLENDA. POTIVES, ELIXARS & SPELLS. SOLICITORS WILL BE TURNED TO NEWTS! YE HAVE BEEN WARNED.”

                The plank sign was honed into what appeared to be an arrow and so the princess followed its direction. It led her to what seemed to be an over grown path. The princess wondered if the Witch Glenda was even still alive by how poorly the way was kept. She considered going back, but she was so close. She could at least check and see if the witch was at home.

                The princess made her way cautiously down the path, watching for any sign of the witch a head. After some way the path open to a wide and terrifying swamp. At the end of the trail was a slender board that disappeared into the mist beyond. The princess looked behind but the path had made no deviation that might lead elsewhere. She looked both to her left and right hoping to see any other way across the swamp, but the bank on either side melted into the swirling vapor. Sticking out her toe as far as she could easily reach she tested the board strength. While it did bow it did seem to hold her weight. Carefully she inched out on to the plank one ginger step at a time. The board was merely the first in a long line of boards that seemed to span the treacherous swamp, presumably leading to Glenda the Witch’s place of business. Quickly the princess grew more comfortable walking upon the boards and moved less cautiously. It was upon the fourth, or perhaps the fifth, plank that the board shifted most unfortunately beneath the girl’s feet.

                While the princess did not fall into the murky water she did fall and her mother’s precious gold ball flew from her neck. The princess watched as the golden orb made its most terrible arch to land right in the middle of the plank. She watched in horror as the little bobble perched perfectly on the edge. Scarcely able to breath, she waited praying that the little ball stay put. As gently as though she were made of glass she moved to right herself. It was as she placed her hands beneath her to rise that the little ball first wobbled and she froze in terror, but the trinket stayed in place. An exasperated sign escaped her lips as she moved back on to her heals. She stood slowly and it was she took a step towards the golden ball it seemed to leap from the board into the murky waters of the swamp. The princess throw herself back onto the plank in a desperate grab for the chain before it disappeared into the depths, but it sank before she could reach it. She frantically pulled her hand through the mire in search of the necklace, but it was no use, it was gone.

                After pulling her hand up empty of her dear bobble she was sat looking at the black swamp sludge that covered her forearm. The thought of having come this far for nothing collided with her most painfully as she looked at her empty palm. Without the necklace she could not get her mother back. She was going to have to marry that awful prince, that is, if she didn’t die out in the forest trying to find her way back. Nothing was ever going to be the way it was ever again. The full realization of her miserable state knocked her senseless and so she wept. She wept and wept until her throat was raw and her vision was blurred.

                It was as she sat rubbing her red eyes that a voice called out to her from the mist. She looked up trying to find where the voice had come, but could only see the bleary mist through her teary eyes.

                “Who’s there?” she called.

                “Why do you cry?” was the croaked answer.

                The princess had always lived in the palace walls, so she did not know to be fearful of strange men she had never met the way most children are akin to. She had also been surrounded by servants her entire life and believe she had only to ask for the help of others. With this in mind she continued to look for the source of the voice but she eagerly replied.

                “I have lost a golden necklace into the swamp. It is very dear to me, can you help me?”

                “If I do, what shall I get?”

                Again the princess had no real understanding of bargaining and so she replied, “Anything, just please help me.”

                There was a great and terrifying splash out in the not so distant swamp and the princess searched wildly to find what had caused the disturbance. There was nothing near enough that she could see and so she called out to the man, but he did not answer. She feared that perhaps the man had fallen into the swamp from some perch and she stood and called out to him again. When still he did not answer she was struck with horror, and not being a foolish selfish creature began considering springing into the murky waters in some attempt at rescue.

 The princess began to fight with her bodice when something rippled the water beneath her feet. She let out a shriek until she saw a black glove break through the surface. Clutched between the fingers hung the necklace which she quickly grabbed. As she looked over her treasure the owner of the hand began to emerge and the princess shrieked anew at the face that came into view. It was warty and bulbous and a strange tint of green. In place of normal man eyes were shining orange spheres with terrible black slits through them. The creature seemed enormous for even as she watched, its mass continued to rise out of the mire. She was filled with such terror at the creature before her that she ran back to the shore and took flight back through the wood to the wheat field and did not stop until she wa safely in her room in the palace.

Even as the princess lay under the covers of her bed she feared that that horrible face was pursuing her and until sleep finally won out over terror she quivered beneath the sheets, her eyes wide with horror.