Archives for category: Fiction

Two impressions of Fall and the extra hour

11/11/2011 //
1


The rituals of the leaves

Between two rows of trees losing orange-pink leaves,
In haste I stepped on the fallen.
I sidestepped with the balls of my feet,
When I realized that it was no ordinary street.

Pastels spiraled down to their fate,
A bed of soft gnashing grass or concrete,
Atop one another with outstretched arms.
Heaved sighs or curled up in surrender.

Billowy fluff on a drainage pipe waited,
Increasing discomfort in numbers ill-fated.
Sidewalk buffers they were trampled, crushed, and soiled,
In sacrificial plumes on Saturday.

The leaves fell all night mounting into the ‘morn,
Two hundred twenty-seven from 2:00 until 1:00.
Then another 274 fell from 1:00 until 2:00,
And I counted them all in mourning.

I should have enjoyed the extra hour’s sleep,
But instead was besieged by the rituals of the leaves.
So to avoid further grief under shedding trees with leaves,
I shall instead count merry, woolly sheep.

© 2011

~~

FALLBACK – by m.medler copyright 2011

Defined in stoic linear motion,
charting futures and the past,
time continues its unerring path.
Events that stream with temporal ease,
measured moments parsed away
Into an eternity of colored seas.
This transient present loses its prime,
in one stolen hour as this solitary
view slips on into reversing time.
Windings inverted with careful marks
as hands slip back around unending
circles, spinning back into the dark.
Shadows that were not there,
a lamp that flashes and is dimmed
as the night comes later.
A quantum dynamic of each yielded moment
is hacked and measured
with a worn and faded yardstick
pressed against the thigh of eternity.
Events above locked in cyclic movement
will not give way to any lost
moments as grains of sand are scattered
on infinity’s shore.
Killing time, audacious and bold
as if to plunder the gates of eternity
and ravage all her riches there.
No, time is chopped as if a carrot
and disregarded and lost in a
cosmic salad as the planets
continue on courses preset and
un-wavered by hours tossed away
in idle play.
The morning will come late,
this day.


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Categories Fiction

The final alibi

06/01/2011 //
2
The Red Curtain

I waited behind the maroon curtain, a place where nerves ran amok every night. You could count on that. Performers tried to suppress their fears by immersing themselves into their craft, repeating lines and gestures until they melded together into a mumbled symbiosis making sense only to the stagehands, who expelled the excess energy into the universe through their nimble, tidying movements. As they adjusted and rearranged things, pointed to their watches, and reused protocols that they’d used the previous night on an even tighter schedule, the tension drew closer. We called it Curtain Time. 

When comedian and audience became one, the combined force made you feel like a superpower on stage. Just once was all it took. And even if you thought you died on stage you were bound to return to try it the next night, because you’d tasted its power.

I watched Jimmy from the other side of the stage. He suffered with pre-stage jitters as most of us did. But it hit him harder for some reason. He studied his lines with furrowed brows and hung his head down like he was rehearsing a eulogy. The manager began to warm up the crowd, which meant Jimmy had two minutes. He stashed crumpled notes in a trouser pocket and looked up to the ceiling. Most of us prayed inconspicuously but not Jimmy. He made the sign of the cross then jumped up and down in place like Rocky warming up for a fight.

“Here’s Jimmy!” said the announcer in Ed McMahon style. Jimmy pulled the curtain apart with two hands in one grand gesture and entered the stage with a broad, toothy smile. A used-car salesman was what I thought of every time he went out there. The audience loved him. They couldn’t see the broken man underneath, the scared kid, the comedian that was back for more. All they saw were the shining brilliance of teeth. They heard the loud introduction on the microphone with the band playing in the background, horns and symbols clashing together in recognition of this man on stage, who would drown their sorrows for the next hour. They witnessed the force but could not feel its power.

The clapping was intense. I peered out to get a look at the audience. It had filled in nicely since the first time I’d peeked, 15 minutes earlier. The drapery hung by my nose while I tried not to sneeze. The dust mixed with the smell of 30-year-old rancid popcorn lay inside my sinuses while the nicotine remnants reminded me that in decades prior this place had been a fashionable and vibrant theater where popular plays were held.

The tinge of alcohol that wafted through every night christened The Comedy Cavern’s curtains for their current purpose. Jimmy and I and the other comedians were still trying to figure out what that purpose was, but it seemed that Curtain Time held some sort of magic over everyone that crossed its threshold. There were no spirits or ghost sightings we could pin it on, but we all felt “it.” Yet no one ever mentioned it by name. No one called it “the force” or anything else. It was simply a part of show biz. But we all shook our heads over it. And we came back for more despite our own best interests.

It was an uncomfortable night, too warm and humid. The waitresses made their rounds to the tables that had begun filling up with an expectant crowd eager for a laugh. The smell of gin and beer started to waft to the back, pleasing me, not because of the odor, but because I waited for that signal prior to my show to alert me that the audience was almost ready. Since I couldn’t drink on the job to settle my own nerves, they must. One of us had to be inebriated in order for my jokes to work.

I peeked again. The full crowd was loosening up, enjoying Jimmy’s show. Rose, the oldest waitress, was really working it, laying the drinks down, putting cash into her pockets, and chirping orders to the other waitresses. The heavy-set man at the front table was on his second drink. Good. Rose knew how I liked them to be situated.

The air conditioner kicked on. The blessed, cool air made me forget all about the age and deterioration of the place. As my adrenaline surged, I became acutely aware of my lines–the lines I’d created in the oddest places and times. I wrote them all on bits of paper or talked them into my phone’s recorder where I transcribed them onto more pieces of paper. Ideas hit while I walked dog, took a shower, laid half asleep in bed, or drove the car. Once assembled, the scraps became a monologue of which I would add or detract dependent upon what worked or bombed on any given night. My lines were so much a part of my life that I held them in my hands when I prayed and I called upon God to help me with the force that I might put on a good show. I knew it was all wrong and had nothing to do with His Will, but I did it anyway, such was the strength of the force and its grip upon me. At least I wasn’t blatant with it, making the sign of the Cross while praying about the force like Jimmy did, I reckoned to myself.

The Comedy Cavern held comedians to a contract. Once signed, we were committed for four nights per week. There were several comedians that headlined and even more that were first acts, unknowns, who would come through town and audition for the manager. If he chuckled long enough, he’d say, “You got it, kid,” and would offer them a small contract. If he wasn’t sure, he’d let them try it for one night only. But there was no such thing as “one night only.” Once they swung past the curtain and felt the power, they always tried to come back, sometimes begging. And he’d relent. The manager had been a comedian in the early days when the Cavern opened up, before his doctor ordered him to quit. He never spoke about the details. He didn’t have to.

Jimmy was one of the manager’s favorites. He’d come from Anaheim with a full repertoire revolving around Disneyland. The manager laughed a lot about it but coached him to branch out. “I tried to ride on those Autopia cars, but, man, I’m from L.A. Why would I want to get into another car for fun? Especially one that small? I’m 6’4″! Rolling around on a track in just as much traffic as the Hollywood Freeway at rush hour just isn’t MY IDEA of fun. Worst yet, the propensity of getting rear-ended is much greater on those things! Whose idea WAS THAT, Walt?”

I peeked out again from the side of the stage. The heavy man at the front table was smiling. His second drink was gone. Most people were still emptying their first drinks or beginning their second. Three tables were filled with regulars from the local tech company who’d shown up straight from work. There were a few new, middle-aged couples. And three tables full of ladies, my regulars.

My act revolved around women’s issues, and tonight’s was all about aging–it could go either way, funny or horrific. I only hoped the women in my audience weren’t shot up to the hilt with Botox and fillers and would stomp out, taking it personally. If so, I saved the harshest words for the end. If they made it that far, maybe they had thick enough skin, pardon the pun, or maybe they were enjoying it. Worried about how they’d take my bluntness, I wished they’d hurry up and have a third drink.

“You should do stand-up with these,” my friend, Holly, said when I showed her a few of my first notes. At times like this, when I’m behind the curtain waiting, I curse myself for taking her up on that advice. I sometimes wonder if I’m going to have a heart attack from fright. Death would be a believable alibi. Even if your heart is giving out, you push yourself to go on, because that force is stronger than you can imagine and drives us past our own good sense.

May God strike me down, I thought after uttering a silent prayer. I’d pushed too many buttons this time. It had gotten worse. In my quest for laughs and to please the force, I’d taken more chances lately and experimented with raunchier jokes. Now I was worried if I’d upset my three tables of ladies. I might have crossed the line this time. And that thought terrified me. What have I done? I thought.

The big guy in front was at the end of his third drink. A female sat next to him, possibly his designated driver. He was chuckling. He liked Jimmy. There are signs on every table that say, “Please do not heckle the comedians” but people still do, especially when they’ve had over two drinks. When he called Jimmy, “Dumbo,” per the Disneyland theme, he did so provokingly, because the sign was right in front of him. Rosie must have heard his comment, because she was at his side asking, “Is everything all right?” She had a way of calming customers down, babysitting them without them realizing; he simply thought she was flirting.

Jimmy was on his last joke. Butterflies shot through my abdomen and out through my extremities. My ears burned. I jumped up and down like Jimmy did. The audience clapped as solidly as cacophonous, drunk people could possibly do, but this time I couldn’t look. I waited instead for them to stop. Where was the air conditioner? I wondered.

A part of me heard the announcer call my name and that same part of me walked onto stage having opened one side of the thick, maroon curtain with my ghostlike hand. In spite of the ethereal quality of my body, I maintained utter confidence. My stage-fraught self, the other part of my soul, remained safely behind the red-womb drapes, wrapping myself up in them, seeking comfort in their musty layers. The humid air had built up since the air conditioner switched off, but that part of me preferred to stifle.

No one could find me as I’d wound myself up in the curtain. “Where’s Donna?” said the manager to Jimmy who was getting ready to leave. Surprised, Jimmy must have felt something was very wrong and came back upstairs to look for me. As I lay there entwined in musty fabric, the show went on for the force wouldn’t let me rest even though I was incapacitated.

I watched myself on stage and thought, She’s grand, knowing all the while it was me. That figure was “she” and “me” all at once. But how did we split apart in the blink of an eye? The audience was clapping for her out there but I enjoyed it in both spots at once. I grasped the curtain and held it to my nose and finally savored it and at the same time took the microphone off the stand and gripped it in one hand like a pro. I almost wanted to chew the curtain out of pride when I saw myself speak on stage. And while I delivered my lines, I remained enveloped within my own cocoon like a newborn baby swaddled in fluffy cotton

“Thank you. Thank you,” I quipped as I giggled to myself backstage. Oh, I’m good, I thought, becoming even more dreamy-eyed than I’d been the last moment. I was all settled in to enjoy myself and all of the jokes I’d created in all of those odd places. Funny how content I feel, I thought as I watched myself onstage. I watched myself scanning the crowd while keeping track of the big guy, but between both of us, we wouldn’t miss a move. I’d been sizing him up from both angles, and from both perspectives his heckling would only serve to entertain me.

I stood on stage and focused on the table of nerds who’d wooted long past the time the clapping had stopped. I gave them my quizzical glance, an expression that could draw a laugh all by itself. Engaging with the crowd was becoming my specialty, I thought as I hugged the curtain.

“Thank you so much for that great applause. It’s almost like you know me or something?” I said, mid-stage, with the spotlight shining down. I gave a look of disbelief, another one of my funny expressions, while I scanned the audience. The big guy in front was not laughing, however. He’d been sizing me up with long, hard glances. I wondered why, but I didn’t care. Maybe he’d had too much gin.

“As some of you know, I’m from Seattle–” a few hands clapped, and a few whistles shot out—“

At which point I woke up in Jimmy’s dressing room mouthing the words, “….from Seattle.”

“Are you okay, Donna?” he asked at close range, looking into my eyes. I wasn’t cuddly anymore. I was perspiring and hot, covered with a blanket and lying on a lumpy vinyl couch. I felt like vomiting. I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted to watch myself perform with the force upon me.

“The ambulance is on the way,” Jimmy said.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” I said. ”Thanks.” I closed my eyes and realized that I could let go. The show wouldn’t have to go on after all, because my alibi had finally arrived.

Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved.

[Photo: Zemanta]

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Categories Fiction

The SuperLovelies – a fairy tale

05/22/2011 //
4
The princesses Anne, Amelia and Caroline, the ...

Image via Wikipedia

Once upon a time in a kingdom left ravaged and smoldering by the swords and fire of war, three lovely princesses laid breathless under the eldest princess’s bed. They could hear the rebels’ voices in the hall. The middle princess raised her head to listen and bumped it on something protruding underneath the Imperial rug. Instead of crying out she grasped her head and held it tightly.

The eldest princess said, “Come on,” to the others as they all scrambled out from under the bed and quickly pushed it aside. They threw the carpet off the lump jetting up from the floor. It was a brass handle attached to a hatch door on the floor.

The eldest princess grasped it and pulled to open the hatch, but it was stuck. “Help!” she cried in a whispered desperation. The mens’ voices had grown louder outside their chamber, and there was no time to spare. She quietly instructed her sisters and they eagerly complied; each one grasped a section of the brass exactly where the eldest sister directed. Then they lifted it up with all of their might.

Fortunately, it began to budge, but it took longer than they anticipated since the mass was laden with damp. The princesses weren’t used to lifting heavy objects. When they’d propped it open, the eldest princess peeked into the hole and quietly said, “It’s a tunnel.” She was agog with the new-found prospect of their escape. “Let’s go–” she began, then stopping herself, she realized they couldn’t leave without bringing a few essentials. She corrected herself and added, “–but first we have to pack.”

Wrapping as many possessions as possible into three silk sheets, each princess began to bundle her own load to carry into the secretive chamber. Thinking as princesses, they packed the most expensive items first. First, they ran to their jewels; secondly, they grabbed their heady colognes and soaps and wrapped them in toweling; finally, they stopped at their closets to choose their favorite gowns and shoes. “That’s enough! We must leave!” cried the eldest princess, throwing hairbrushes, candles, and biscuits into her own bundle as an afterthought.

The princesses knotted the ends of their silk bundles and ran to the tunnel hatch where they took turns climbing down the ladder and passing the packs down to one another. The eldest princess went down the hatch last, pulling the carpet next to the trapdoor so that she could drape it back across the top while closing it. This way, the rebels might not notice the handle, she thought.

Thus, the three princesses descended into the dark and dank tunnel of their unknown future in search of safety. Once the hatch was securely closed behind them, they chattered continuously to each other in order to keep their minds off the tunnel’s rat- and roach-riddled walls. None of them liked the smell of mold and frogs one bit. Toward the end, when a small shaft of light appeared, they drew a collective breath and shouted, “Oh, look, Sisters!”

They followed the beam on the tunnel’s gradual descent to a dead end where a six-foot ladder awaited. By this time, through the battle, the shock, and their eventual escape, they’d lost interest in being princesses and keeping themselves clean. They didn’t even mind that their gowns were hardly intact. Their hands and faces were filthy and their silk dresses had snagged and ripped on the jagged rocks along the way. They were too tired, cold, and hungry to worry about petty manners. And, anyway, no one else was alive to judge them on social graces.

The eldest princess tried the exit ladder first. She was, after all, the eldest and it was fitting. When she reached the top, she found a wooden hatch similar to the last, but this one contained a keyhole where a single beam of brilliant sunlight shone through. She pushed with all of her might, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t need a key to open the hatch from the outside. If a key was needed, who would insert it into the lock and open it? With these worries swirling through her mind, she continued pushing against the hatch until, at last, it gave way. Her sister, the middle princess, handed her a large stick with which to prop the door ajar while the eldest princess climbed through.

By the time the muddy hem of her gown made it through the hatch, the eldest princess had already begun surveying the area. She quickly gave the all clear.  “Yes, come up!” she called to her sisters. The two younger princesses climbed up, handing their bundles up, happy to finally reach fresh air. The three princesses stood wide-eyed at their surroundings.

The trapdoor exited onto the thickest part of a forest, a silent place darkened by more lush greenery than the princesses had ever seen. Until then, they’d only ever been allowed outside of the castle grounds for excursions on horseback trails, but those were boring days by comparison and usually meant droning lectures about the family’s vast estates and miles of redundant rolling hills. But here, squirrels frolicked on the ground and flew across tree branches. A plethora of exotic-sounding birds sang side by side. Strange fruit such as the princesses had never seen hung from trees. It was indeed an exotic land.

Quickly, the princesses began unfolding their bundles and sorting their possessions. It was as if there was no other place in the world they should set up house but in that exact spot. Why, it seemed as though it had been picked just for them.

~~~~

They made a small fire, remembering tricks their father had taught them during their outdoor excursions about flint, a rubbing stick, and the driest type of kindling that almost explodes into a fire with the smallest spark. It took them what felt like ages, but soon a tiny puff of smoke appeared followed by a real flame. With practice, they became handy fire starters and grew fond of operating the wood pit in every aspect, even down to the gathering of the wood. They preferred this important chore to the one the eldest sister performed at mealtime: the hunting and skinning of animals for supper. They considered themselves lucky to finally be able to get dirty without having to apologize for it; they loved the variety of aromas in the different types of woods and learned how to smoke meats into dried jerky to keep during the winter months when the weather precluded the eldest daughter from hunting.

The eldest princess caught her first squirrel by tricking it with a piece of biscuit. When it was busy nibbling, she threw her shoe at it, knocking it out. The squirrel didn’t know what hit him and had a lovely last meal, she thought. The eldest princess had no compunction when it came to skinning and cooking meat; she’d watched the chefs in her father’s kitchen since she was a little girl. She knew the provenance of her meals and their many hearty banquets. The fields and forest contain everything we need, she thought, as she gathered familiar dandelion greens and dug up root vegetables that looked like parsnips.

When she was finished cooking, her sisters smothered the small fire. The forest canopy caught the trickling smoke twirls, but the scent traveled, hooking the nose of a lonely hunter, who was caught in the midst of the rebellion and sought refuge in a nearby patch of woods. Immediately, the hunter collected his sword, his bow and arrows, and knives and began his search.

The princesses, relieved to have eaten and landed in the middle of a natural beauty spot, began to tidy their living space. They swept their dirt patch free of dead leaves and debris and created a floor using pebbles for the walkway and palm leaves for rugs. They stuffed fresh leaves into their sheets to use as bedding, filling them until they were the desired firmness. They were so tired by then that the younger princesses fell onto their beds in two great heaps, their heads whooshing down happily on leafy mattresses.

They missed their parents and nannies more than ever, especially now at bedtime. The eldest princess consoled them by making up a fantastic story about a mythological creature that shot fire out of his eyeballs and could lift any amount of weight. She only realized they’d already fallen asleep when she started telling them the details about the creature’s son.

The eldest princess heard a rustling in the bushes and turned her head to look. Her eyes were keenly adjusted to nighttime by then. She moved with the acumen of a jaguar in the dark. Another crunch of leaves underfoot perked her cat ears. She inhaled slowly. She had no inclination to wake her sisters. That would alarm them, and they’d already been through too much.

The figure moved toward the middle of their camp not even pretending to hide. In full view in the dark, she could tell he was young by his silhouette and the way he moved. He stooped over the campfire and sniffed; it had been smothered for hours. There aren’t any leftovers, she mused. She’d dug a hole and buried the squirrel carcass. She’d burned everything else in the fire afterward. Her heart pounded. He began to walk toward the younger princesses’ beds.

“Stop!” the eldest princess hissed, not wanting to wake her sisters.

The hunter stopped in his tracks. “What do you want?” she asked in the firm voice she’d heard soldiers use to ensure their orders were obeyed.

The hunter wasn’t used to hearing a woman speak with such authority, particularly in the middle of the woods, and he calmly replied, “Nothing, Miss. I just smelled your stew–I mean, your fire, and wondered who was here. I mean no harm.” He took a step backward, then the princess ordered him to step back again. He complied, taking another step back.

“Who are you?” the eldest princess inquired with what she imagined was a reserved strength in her voice.

“A lowly hunter. I managed to survive the rebellion, but I have nothing. Want nothing.”

“Very well. You must leave the way you came. Now!” growled the princess through gritted teeth.

The hunter nodded and took a canteen from his shoulder. “Here, you’ll probably need this,” he said, and laid it on the ground between them.

The eldest princess squinted at the ground between them. She couldn’t make it out in the darkness. “What is it?”

“Water,” said the hunter.

“Oh. Thank you. And where is the river from which it came?” asked the eldest princess in a softened tone.

“Half a day’s journey on foot to the west,” said the hunter, pointing. She couldn’t see where his arm was pointing, but she knew her directions. “Now I’ll take my leave,” said the hunter. And then he left, still hungry but satisfied with the knowledge that he’d discovered the creator of the heaven-scented stew. It smelled just like Mother’s, he thought.

The hunter arrived back at his camp, relieved at not having run into any rebels. He decided to move closer to the river to perchance run into the eldest princess, knowing she would need to search for water soon. You can’t live without water, he deduced. And they had a lot of washing to do. He’d given her directions, after all.  Yes, he would pack up and move first thing in the morning. Why me? he wondered, fearing that his troubles had just tripled. Now he’d have to worry about three extra mouths to feed and three more lives to protect. But it was better than being lonely, he reckoned.

The next morning, the princesses ate a grand breakfast of fresh quail eggs and blueberries gathered from the generous game- and fruit-filled forest. The eldest princess then ordered her sisters to remain at camp while she stuffed as many blossoms as possible into her frock. She would scatter them on the ground behind her in order to find her way home from her journey.

“If I’m not back by sundown, don’t let it worry you. Whatever you do, stay here at this safe spot and don’t come to search for me. Do you hear?” She repeated this to her sisters five times in five ways. The younger princesses were nervous, but they obeyed, having no one else to trust.

The eldest princess left, acting more bravely than she felt, on her quest for water. She sniffed each petal before dropping it behind her. After half a day’s journey, she sat down to rest, not having found water but having stumbled into the hunter’s camp instead.

“Hello?” said the eldest princess, as if calling out to an empty house.

“Oh, hello!” the hunter replied as he poked his head out from underneath a stove he was building.

The eldest princess walked over to get a good look at him in the daylight. So this was the man who approached our forest bedchamber last night, she thought. Hmmm. He seemed an honest and upright soul. She knew she had been a bit gruff the previous night, but she couldn’t fault herself for trying to protect her sisters.

“I was looking for the river–” she began to say, but he had already blurted out his response.

“It’s farther west. You’re almost there. Would you like me to show you?” he said without a hint of deception in his eyes for which she had been watching. No, he meant to show her the river and nothing more. Of that she was certain. Or at least fairly certain. What do I know of the world, after all? she asked herself. But she was learning. That much was true.

“Yes, please,” she replied and nodded as she thought of the two knives she’d brought. One was for protection again any type of fearsome forest creature, and the other was her cooking blade.

She watched him gather his supplies. There were several canteens, a bow, arrows, and knives that clearly put hers to shame. Then he put a sword into his sheath. She felt there was something dashing in the manner in which he did so, but she was startled, nonetheless, to find a lowly hunter with so much armament.

“You never know what we might find,” the hunter said, looking at the princess with what he meant to be reassurance, finding instead a hint of trepidation in her eyes.

They walked to a tree where a mule was tied up. The eldest princess, amazed, cried, “I didn’t know you had a mule?!”

“You don’t know a lot of things,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner as he tightened the packages on the mule. Then he winked at her, which made her blush. She hadn’t blushed since she was on an excursion with her father, the King, when one of his aides slipped a bouquet of fresh-picked wildflowers to her. She quickly told her father that she’d picked them, but having to lie threw her off her equilibrium. She never wanted to be in that position again, so she tried to maintain a middle ground where she was in control with no surprises, ups, or downs.

That was one of the reasons she hadn’t told the hunter she was a princess. He would never have guessed it, judging by her tattered appearance. She didn’t want him to know, not until she could feel like one–if she ever would again. She had no parents to call King and Queen, no castle, no army, and no land. The three princesses had been relegated to a slice of forest with no water and now a wary dependence on a strange, young hunter who, however handsome and enthralling, appeared to be full of himself. Still, there was something reminiscent about him that brought comfort to her. She decided to let a few walls down and follow her intuition. She allowed him to lead her for a change. To water, for now.

She thought of her sisters and asked, “Can we make it back to my camp by sundown?”

“No, but we can try,” he replied honestly, and she appreciated that.

The hunter tied three extra deerskin vessels to each side of the mule in addition to the canteens, and they began a comfortable journey with amiable chat, trying to adjust to one another without displaying how awkward they felt. The eldest princess did her best to steer the conversation away from personal questions so that she wouldn’t have to divulge her identity. However, the young hunter felt there was something special about her as he studied her countenance and poise, but he just couldn’t place it; she was still covered in mud and road dust.

They reached the river and began filling all of the containers with water and tying them back onto the mule. The sun was already beginning to set, but neither one would leave before all the vessels were filled. They plodded back to her camp, a wearisome, quiet journey, arriving just before midnight. The two princesses had lain awake, worrying, crying, and morphing into despair as the hours ticked by, fearing the worst. They’d expected her back before sundown and were happily singing during that time of evening. “If only you’d arrived then!” the youngest princess sobbed.

“Cup of tea?” the hunter asked the distraught sisters, who were locked in a hug. He pulled a package of loose-leaf black tea from a pack on the mule. “I usually trade this stuff for blankets or clothes, but it seems a good time for it.”

At that, the princesses, who hadn’t had a cup of tea since they left the castle, released each other to prepare the brew. The eldest princess carried a canteen of water to the wood pit where she poured it into a pot, placing the lid over the top. The younger princesses started the fire and tended the pot while the eldest princess went back to help the hunter unload the rest of the vessels from the mule.

“Look! Now we can bathe!” cried the eldest princess to her sisters, but they didn’t care. They weren’t bothered about being caked with dirt. They just wanted a cup of tea.

“Seems you’ll need more water,” said the hunter to the eldest princess, rolling a piece of dried grass in his mouth and analyzing the situation.  “Have you thought of moving closer to the river?”

“We–we love it here. I don’t know if we could–” said the eldest princess with halting speech. She knew it made sense. They needed water, but they would have to tear themselves away from their perfect spot in the forest, and she knew it would break her sisters’ hearts to leave.

“We’ll help you. The mule and I, that is,” said the hunter with another wink.

The eldest princess found his willingness to help charming. But the winking bothered her, because it threw off her equilibrium. She had decided to resist his winks after the first one made her blush. Now she noticed that a dimple appeared in his cheek when he winked, an irresistible combination.  She felt herself growing weaker and thus, doomed to his charms. It made her uncomfortable, but she realized that he would help them to the ends of the earth if she allowed it. Maybe this was their chance. We can’t live without water, she determined.

“Yes, we should move,” the eldest princess relented, forcing herself to say the words aloud, realizing that water was more important to them than losing her sense of control.

“Girls,” she said, “We need to move house closer to the river.” The younger princesses looked at one another as if they were leaving their childhood home when it had only been a two-day encampment in the midst of the forest. The eldest princess knew she had to become more assertive and decreed, “We’ll leave tomorrow morning then,” in a most royal fashion.

The hunter’s ears twitched. He looked at her for a very long time, intrigued. Underneath all the dirt, she’s very much like Mother, he surmised. Yes, that was it.

~~~~

The castle had been burned to the ground and before that it had been ransacked so that there was nothing left but piles of cold ash and stone. A boulder had fallen on top of the place where the princesses had lain under the bed, and they would have been dead were it not for the secret hatch that led to their escape. As the rebels fled out of the territories, opportunists swept through pilfering whatever remained. When they were finished, the castle and all of the surroundings were considered unusable, a veritable ghost town, a place where no man wanted to live and no harvest could grow.

It remained a lost, desperate area while things actually did grow. Within months, seeds beneath the topsoil took root and found their way upward winding past the stones and inner walls of the castle where there were no ceilings or roofs to block the sun from penetrating down. As years passed, plants and trees began to cover the castle and surround it, eventually blocking the entire castle from sight.

It was then that a boy of 12 happened through the area on a hunting expedition with his cousins who were both 14-years of age. The older cousins were racing their horses against one another and lost the younger boy. It was difficult to say if they’d done it on purpose or if they just forgot about him during the excitement. In any case, the boy found himself alone and trotting through heavy foliage that appeared to be part of an old ruin. He never knew the rubble existed until he crossed through the trees and trampled over it. It was a crumbled labyrinth, and the deeper he ventured into it the more interesting it became.

The rubble was such that he had to dismount and lead his horse by the reins. He stopped when he found a tree with shaded grass underneath where he tied his horse. He walked up to the stone castle entrance where, undoubtedly, a wooden door would have hung but had since turned to ash and blown away. In its place were rising vines and weeds reaching upward. He marveled at the plant-covered walls and open sky. The sun was still bright. He had plenty of time to find his way home. He sat down on a boulder to rest.

He began to hear a clanging sound underneath the ground. He couldn’t understand it. Then he heard voices. How many? Two? Three? He heard rapping again but this time the vibrations bounced off the boulder that he was sitting on, sending a chill up his spine. It was as if the dead were trying to rise again, calling out to him. He stood up and looked at the boulder and wondered if he could move it.

He pushed it, but it wouldn’t budge. He knew he’d have to bring his cousins to help. Together they could free whomever was trapped underneath.

~~~~

The eldest princess and her sisters climbed out of the trapdoor exit and wiped the excess mud from their dresses.

“I knew we shouldn’t have tried that again,” said the middle princess in despair.

“You never know unless you try,” said the youngest princess, trying to act sage even though she was equally disappointed.

“At least we gave it our best effort,” said the eldest princess, summing it up.

They had no idea why the original trapdoor entrance wouldn’t open, and that fact bothered them very much. They didn’t know what was on the other side after all of these years. Had the castle been rebuilt and the door sealed shut? Had another castle been built on top of it? They had so many questions, but their main question was how would they ever open that hatch again?

“The worst part was smelling those frogs the entire time!” said the youngest princess.

The other two nodded in agreement.

“We’ll try again–with a better plan,” said the eldest princess.

They all went to wash themselves with canteen water and soap, to get the acrid stench off of their skin and hair. They changed their clothes and made plans to do the washing at the river the next day.

“Maybe we’ll see the hunter tomorrow,” said the eldest princess, as she thought about his wink and dimple.

~~~~

The boy and his cousins were riding their horses fast to the castle. The older cousins craved adventure, and when they heard the story of people crying out from under the boulder and knocking on the it from the grave, they had to find out what was going on. It seemed that they’d never get there, but their parents made them do all of their chores first. Since they lived on farms, there was little time for fun, which was why they craved it so much.

When they arrived at the castle, the boy showed them the spot where he tied up his horse, and they did the same. They mimicked the boy quietly so as not to disturb the spirits lest anything go awry. The boy led them to the bedroom of the princesses, which didn’t look like a bedroom at all, and he sat atop the boulder that blocked the trapdoor.

“This is it,” said the boy, as if he’d found a chestful of buried treasure.

The older cousins looked all around the boulder sizing it up for weight and mobility.

“I don’t hear anything,” the cousin who was almost 15-years old said.

“Neither do I,” said the middle cousin, who had just turned 14. “Let’s move it.”

The boy was still sitting on it and felt it was way too soon to start moving it before the spirits had a chance to make a peep. “Wait! Just give them a chance.”

The older cousins acquiesced and stared off into the open space and plant-covered walls, not believing that a spirit would knock or say anything in the first place but wanting to move the boulder in any case.

When five minutes had elapsed, the boy relented and descended the boulder. The three of them pushed it until it rocked, then they rocked it some more on its uneven bottom until it threw itself off to the side.

“What’s this?” said the middle cousin. And he crouched at the line demarcating the hatch.

“Maybe that’s their grave!” said the boy, who became fearful that there really was something under the boulder that he’d been sitting on.

“Let’s try to pry it off,” said the eldest cousin. They all tried various sticks to pry the edge so that they could pull it off.

“I got it!” the eldest cousin announced as he grasped the edge with his fingertips that were turning white from strain. “Help me!”

All 30 fingertips pulled the door up bit by bit revealing a dark, dank place that hadn’t seen light since the day of the rebellion.

“What is it?” asked the boy. “A cellar?”

They leaned over it, and the eldest cousin poked his head inside. It wasn’t a cellar at all. “My God! It’s a tunnel!” he exclaimed.

The middle cousin stood with his mouth open. And the boy beamed.

~~~~

The princesses were sunning by the river in the early spring when the youngest princess declared, “I’m bored. Let’s take a trip.”

“You know we can’t go off to uncharted territory, Silly,” replied the middle princess.

“The hunter can chaperone us,” said the youngest princess.

“We can ask him if he knows of a safe area,” said the eldest princess. “He’ll be here soon. He’s trading tea and biscuits for those shirts we sewed.”

“I hope he brings different biscuits this time,” said the youngest princess, pouting. “I’m bored of the last ones.”

“We have to take whatever he has, Silly,” said the eldest princess.

“Yes, quit being spoiled. Does this look like a castle to you?” said the middle princess.

“Very well. I shall eat all the biscuits and get very fat. Very fat indeed,” the youngest princess said snottily.

“Then what are you going to wear?” replied the eldest princess, casting the youngest princess a look of displeasure. She could only tolerate impudence for so long.

“A palm leaf,” the youngest princess replied.

“Better make that two,” retorted the middle princess.

“Is the tea ready?” said the youngest princess, changing the subject after noticing the countenance of the eldest princess.

“Not unless you’ve made the fire,” said the eldest princess, then added, “Have you?” after realizing she could do with a cup.

The youngest princess got up to start the fire. She would have preferred to take a nap or to eat different biscuits or to take a trip to a new place, but making a fire was a task she enjoyed, after all.

“Tea will be ready in 10 minutes,” she called out.

“Lovely!”

“Lovely,” responded her sisters.

I do love them, the youngest princess thought and wondered what she’d ever do without them.

He looks so handsome, the eldest princess thought as the hunter rode up to their camp by the river.  The other princesses thought the same thing, but they didn’t think it quite as loudly and it didn’t show on their faces like it did on the eldest princess’s. She watched as he tied his horse to a tree and walked up to her. He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

They hadn’t married because there was no one left alive in their realm to officially marry them. The town had been wiped out including the church and clergy. So the princesses and the hunter became mutually reliant upon one another. The eldest princess knew that her father’s allies would have taken them in had they known the princesses were alive and fending for themselves in the wild, but she wouldn’t feel at home anywhere else. It was bad enough that they had to move to the river from their forest patch, but to move to another kingdom or another country felt altogether too scary.

There was only one place the princesses truly wanted to visit, and that was their old home, the castle. The eldest princess still hadn’t told the hunter that she was a princess. If she told him now, would he even believe her or would he be angry she kept it from him for so long?

~~~~

The boys hit the walls with walking sticks as they made their way down the tunnel in the darkness. Their voices and the sticks echoed and trailed after them as they marched and shouted. They smelled the mold and frogs, which didn’t bother them at all, and they enjoyed the mud and insects. When they got to the point where they could see the tiny shaft of light they ran toward it until they reached the end of the tunnel where the six-foot ladder stood.

The eldest cousin climbed up and pushed open the hatch to let himself out. “Wow!” he exclaimed as he looked around at the lush greenery that had once been a lavish living space. He walked to the fire pit without considering his two cousins who were still inside the tunnel.

The middle cousin climbed out and looked around while holding the hatch open for the boy, who had just reached the top.

“Where are you?” the middle cousin called to the eldest cousin.

“Over here, next to the fire pit!” the eldest cousin shouted back. The younger cousins ran to him.

“Look at this place. Wonder if someone lives here?” said the eldest cousin.

The boy, confused, asked, “What is it? a campground?”

“Yeah, kind of,” said the middle cousin trying to act knowledgeable yet equally confused.

The boys scattered around the small campsite to inspect its accommodations but were soon bored. They decided to return back to the castle where their horses awaited. “I know!” said the eldest cousin having come up with a plan, “We’ll have a sleepover and say we’re staying in the barn, but instead we’ll come down here and stay in the forest!”

“Dunno about that,” said the middle cousin, more worried about goblins than getting caught.

“Your barn stinks. It’s not like we’d stay in there anyway,” said the boy.

“We can clean it up first. Come on, fellas. Where’s your sense of adventure?” said the eldest cousin.

The middle cousin and the boy looked at one another and mulled over the idea. It might not be that big a deal. The two younger cousins could always blame it on the eldest cousin if they got caught. It might be fun. They shrugged. It sounded scary and creepy, but at least it wasn’t boring.

~~~~

“May I tell you something?” said the eldest princess.

“Of course,” said the hunter.

“You might not be happy with me. In fact, you might be angry with me,” said the eldest princess.

The hunter looked at her and wondered how he could ever be angry with her to any degree, because he’d never been so taken with anyone in his life, especially after she cleaned herself up from all of the dirt.

“You see, I used to live somewhere else–” the eldest princess began.

“And–” the hunter said, growing restless.

“–it wasn’t the usual place, and I can only hope that you find it in your heart to accept me–”

“For heaven’s sake, would you just–” said the hunter.

“I used to live in the castle.”

“In the castle?” said the hunter as he took a gulp and thought she must have been a handmaiden. So that’s where she got all of those fancy manners, he thought.

“Yes, in the castle.” She looked at him to see if he understood.

“You mean as a maid or something?” he asked.

This was going to be more difficult than she thought. She looked away. Maybe it was wrong to tell him at all. How would he take the news? She feared he would see her differently from now on, that her whole world would change without him. But she couldn’t lie to him.

“No, I am a princess–the eldest princess, the daughter of the deceased King and Queen.”

The hunter took a step back and put his knuckles to his teeth. All of this time he’d been treating the princess like she was his sister or some common street girl, full of mud, something others would loathe. But he took it upon himself to be kind to her and eventually he saw something in her. No wonder. She turned out to be–the eldest princess! He’d never seen this particular princess before, but he’d heard many accounts of the three lovely princesses. But what would she say when he told her his story?

He took her hand in his and knelt down before her. He kissed her hand ever so gently and looked up at her. She nodded her head to him in the way she’d done countless times but with a genuine fondness for him that couldn’t be disguised since at its heart bore a spark of true love.

He stood up and announced, “I am not a hunter.”

The eldest princess recoiled and drew in a breath.

“Yes, I hunt,” he began reassuringly, “and I was hunting the day I met you in the woods, but I am the son of your father’s ally from the old country. I am a prince, having been sent into the middle of the woods for safety during the revolution. My men were supposed to rally to find me, but they were either killed or–”

“Or what?” said the eldest princess, searching his eyes.

“–they might have come for me while I was at your camp. I felt it was better to make sure you were well rather than go back to my castle where I might be called a coward. If I had come back from battle with my men, they wouldn’t have known I spent my time hiding out in the woods. As you can see, I might as well call myself a hunter since I am nothing like a prince. I didn’t feel wrong telling you I was a lowly hunter. I hope you won’t hold all of this against me. I know it’s a lot to bear.”

The hunter saw that the eldest princess’s face had grown white. She looked ready to faint, so he sat her down by the river’s edge and lowered her head onto the grass. There she looked up at the clouds and said, “What has become of us?” in such a pitiful way that he knelt down and kissed her lips.

~~~~

The boys scrambled to clean out the barn. It hadn’t been used in ages except by the owl that had taken up residence in the rafters. Old hay needed to be carted outside, and they hated that chore, but it was their only ticket to the tunnel. They swept and scrubbed until the place smelled good enough to sleep in. The eldest cousin was so proud of the result, he called on one of the old farmhands to have a look.

“Oh! Hasn’t looked that good since ’74,” he declared.

Now the cousins had to convince their parents that they were actually going to sleep in the barn. They’d spread fresh hay down for their beds and brought in an oil lamp and set it in a corner on the moist ground. The eldest cousin brought his father to the barn.

“Dad, I know this sounds odd–” started the eldest cousin.

“Hm?” said his father, eager to hear the plan.

“–but my cousins and I would like to spend the night in the barn. We just cleaned it. Have a look.”

His father stood at the door to the barn and noticed the smell had improved 100-fold. It was clean and tidy. There were three separate mounds of hay for bedding topped with blankets and a pillow.

“When’s this then?” his father asked.

“Um, tomorrow night?” asked the eldest cousin.

“Oh, okay. I guess that’s all right. As long as it’s okay with the other boys’ parents. No smoking or mischief, you hear?” And his father gave him a long stare to prove his dominance. When his father was satisfied that he’d frightened his son about any repercussions that would ensue, the father walked away and switched his mind to farm duties.

The eldest cousin got on his horse to tell the other boys. He had to ride two farms away to get to one cousin and three farms to get to the other, but it was all worth it for the tunnel.

~~~~

“I have a stomach ache,” said the boy.

“Not again!” said the eldest cousin.

“Sorry. I ate too much pudding tonight,’” said the boy.

The other cousin hoped the night wasn’t going to continue that way. They had a huge plan and they didn’t want it spoiled.

The eldest cousin said, “We have to go now or the sun will be gone. It has to be light at the other end of the tunnel.”

In summertime the sun hung around until 9:30 p.m., so they had plenty of time to make it to the forest if they didn’t dilly-dally. They tied up their horses at the neighbor’s farm next door so they could sneak out and walk down the road quietly.

“We should have brought snacks. You know, in case we get hungry later,” said the middle cousin.

“Oh, right. I didn’t think of that. But then again, we shouldn’t have food on us in a forest in case there are bears,” replied the eldest cousin.

“Bears?” said the boy.

“Yeah, but don’t worry. They don’t like people,” said the eldest cousin.

When they got to their horses at the neighbor’s, they stopped to smell the air.

“Mm, what’s cooking?” asked the middle cousin.

“I don’t know,” said the boy, who was still digesting his dinner.

“Let’s go check first,” said the eldest cousin.

They retied the horses and sneaked around to the house where a woman was cooking fried chicken. There was a pie in the window cooling. The boys looked at each other with wide, mischievous eyes.

“You divert her and I’ll grab some chicken,” the eldest cousin said to the middle cousin.

Before the middle cousin had a chance to respond, the eldest cousin had gone around to the side door and let himself into the house. The middle son went to the front door and knocked, not knowing what he was going to say if anyone answered. The boy stood beside him quietly.

“Yes, Son. What is it?” said an elderly gentleman to the middle cousin.

“Oh, hello, Sir. Is the lady of the house home?”

“Why yes, she is. Hold on a minute.”

The two boys looked at each other and while the gentleman went to get the lady, the boys ran to their horses and untied them. They had plenty of time, because the old man walked slowly and the lady had to take the chicken off the stove and wipe her hands. Then she took her apron off and straightened her hair, not knowing who was at the door. By the time they got to the door, the boys had galloped to the road beyond the trees where they waited for the eldest cousin and the chicken.

“Hope he hurries,” said the boy.

“Me too. My stomach’s growling,” said the middle cousin.

The eldest cousin tore through the pasture and slowed only when he reached the road. “Got it! And a pie!” he said.

The two boys wondered where the chicken and pie were but were afraid to ask.

“Where did they go?” asked the lady as she and the old man gazed out from the front door. She wondered if it was one of his senile spells again.

He wondered the same thing and walked over to rest in his easy chair. The old man rubbed his forehead and thought, what in the Dickens?

~~~~

The eldest princess lingered with the kiss on her lips while the hunter watched the color reappear in her cheeks. There was a mountain of information to process, and after having nearly fainted she wasn’t up for any of it.  She stood up and took the hunter’s arm in hers. They walked slowly back to her room, and the hunter made sure she was safe then kissed her forehead goodnight.

“May I ask you a favor?” she said.

“Of course, my darling,” he replied.

“Would you come to the castle with us? We tried to visit once and we couldn’t lift the door.”

He looked at her trying to envisage the three of them opening a door on the outside of the castle, not realizing she was talking about a tunnel and a hatch. But she was too overwhelmed to explain anything further.

“Of course, I will,” he replied, ready to do anything for her. Now that their secrets were revealed, he felt a new world had opened up for them.

~~~~

The boys rode to the castle and tied up their horses in the usual spot. They went to the place where they’d pushed the boulder aside and opened the hatch, which was easier to do this time. Then the eldest cousin lit the oil lamp.

“Hey, where’s that pie?” asked the middle cousin.

“Oh, right here.” The eldest cousin lifted his shirt to reveal a kitchen towel inside of which a pie had been folded in half upon itself.

“And the chicken?” inquired the boy.

The eldest cousin reached behind his back and patted it on the outside.

“Super!” shouted the middle cousin.

“When can we eat? asked the boy who’d already digested his pudding.

The eldest cousin squinted and said, “You can have it later. We don’t want you getting another stomach ache. We have things to do.”

The boy nodded and understood. The eldest cousin repacked the pie and stuffed it back inside his shirt and tucked his shirt into his trousers, securing the pie with his belt so that it wouldn’t fall out during the traipse through the tunnel.

The eldest cousin handed the oil lamp to the middle cousin and said, “Hand this to me when I get to the bottom rung.” The middle cousin then handed the lamp to the eldest cousin who reached up for it. He then descended to the floor of the tunnel, which was fully lit at this point. “This is more like it,” said the eldest cousin, who was able to see every slithering cockroach and slug on the packed mud walls.

The middle cousin descended second, and the boy followed. They walked along at a brisk pace, occasionally noting vermin eyes. “Wait!” said the middle cousin who noticed something shiny reflecting off the muddy ground. He found an earring, just a little disappointed that it was a girly item, and he put it in his pocket. It wasn’t just an earring, though. It was a Royal Ruby, a one-of-a-kind gemstone, given to the middle princess as a gift by visiting royalty.

The boys continued down the tunnel until the boy cried, “Stop!” and he bent down to pick up a gold bracelet. There was writing on it with Roman numerals but he couldn’t read, so he just put it in his pocket without saying anything.

The middle cousin paused without saying anything and quickly picked up the other earring when he found it lying on the side of the tunnel. He put it in his pocket without a word.

The eldest cousin slowed to a stop as he saw something twinkling. Since he had the oil lamp, the other cousins slowed and stopped in back of him. “What is it?” asked the middle cousin.

“Dunno. Looks like a diamond,” said the eldest cousin in wonder as he turned it around, admiring all of the facets against the lamplight.

“Let’s go,” said the middle cousin, unimpressed with jewels, more interested in the adventure. They only had to walk a short distance before they were able to distinguish the tiny shaft of light filtering down from the keyhole at the end of the tunnel. They picked up their pace.

They reached the end where eldest cousin handed the oil lamp to the middle cousin. The eldest cousin pushed the hatch and propped it up with the same stick that remained from the previous trip. Then he jumped out. The middle cousin climbed up three rungs and handed the oil lamp back to the eldest cousin, who snuffed it out. The last two cousins hopped out of the tunnel, relieved that part of the trip was completed. They looked ahead and thought they were dreaming. Standing before them were three of the loveliest ladies they had ever seen.

“Who are you?” asked the hunter from the periphery, shocking the eldest cousin out of his stupor.

“Excuse me, Sir. We didn’t know you were here. We’re farm boys from the other side of the tunnel.”

“What brings you here at this hour of the night?” asked the hunter.

“We planned to camp here, Sir. I apologize since we thought it was vacant–”

“Camp?” said the eldest princess quizzically.

“What’s on your shirt? Are you hurt?” asked the youngest princess to the eldest cousin. The eldest cousin looked down and saw that the cherry pie had leaked out of the towel and had run all over his shirt.

“No, that’s just pie,” said the eldest cousin.

“Pie?” said the eldest princess, looking at her sisters as if the boy was a lunatic.

The eldest cousin decided to prove it really was pie and not a mortal wound, so he began pulling his shirt tails out of his trousers.

“Stop!” shouted the hunter. I won’t have you disrobing in front of the ladies.

“I’m only taking out the pie,” the eldest cousin said simply.

“Very well, take it out over there,” said the hunter, pointing to a group of trees.

When the eldest cousin came back with the towel, everyone gathered around. They dug into the remnants of the cherry pie until it was gone.

“Superb!” said the hunter, and the princesses all agreed, licking their fingertips.

The eldest cousin then whipped out the nine chicken legs from behind his back. They all said, “Ooh” and took one, but the eldest cousin and the hunter took an extra one claiming they needed it for their larger stature. When they were done eating, it had become semi-dark and the eldest princess said, “We can’t let you leave now. Please stay and camp as you would have done. You can have that area.”

This made the cousins very happy. They’d done a lot of work to get to that point in the forest, and now it wasn’t all for naught. They laid their blankets down and the eldest cousin put his cherry-pie laden shirt on the other side of the wood so that insects or bears wouldn’t bother him. They went to sleep not at all bothered by the laughter and banter of the hunter and princesses adjacent to them.

The princesses fell into a pleasant slumber with the happy memories of their old home in the woods dancing through their minds. No one stirred until dawn broke. The middle princess woke up first and decided to start breakfast. She made a small fire and gathered quail eggs and blueberries like they’d always done. She was loading the second basket of berries when she heard a huffing noise. She turned around and saw a giant Black Bear that had steam coming out of its nose and mouth. I must have ventured into its berry patch, she thought, and dropped to the ground, feigning dead, throwing the baskets of berries off to the side.

The bear grabbed the berry bush and shook it. It walked to the baskets and began woofing down the contents in giant snorts. She remained still while listening as it picked up the remnant berries and smacked its lips. The sound of its breath made her heart pound. Then it began to wander off. She continued to lie there until its steps were no longer audible. Ever so slowly she crept back to camp.

“A bear!” she shouted.

“Where?!” cried the eldest princess.

The middle princess re-enacted the event with great airs and gestures until she remembered the sleeping boys.

Startled, the eldest princess cried, “Let’s check! Get the hunter!”

The hunter heard the commotion and was already loading up his gear. With knives, sword, bow and arrows, they left together to ensure the boys’ safety. When they arrived, the boys were sound asleep with no bear in sight.

“We’d better stay in case the bear were to come.” The hunter said as he perched himself on a tall boulder. The princesses left to finish preparing breakfast without the berries. They sang and carried on in a chirpy manner, which helped to further drive the bear away.

In a matter of minutes, the boys began waking up to the singing and laughing and chatting, unaware they’d been in mortal danger. And they smelled the eggs that wafted through the forest.

“Good morning!” said the hunter in a cheery voice. The boys looked up, surprised to see him sitting on a tall boulder, fully armed.

The hunter explained about the bear and how they would all have to stick together. But first they had breakfast after which the hunter presented the eldest cousin with one of his own river-washed shirts. “You can’t go anywhere with a cherry-stained shirt,” he said. The boy lit up. He’d never seen a shirt with finer tailoring and sturdy yet soft cloth. He changed into it, admiring the fact that it was too big and he’d have years left to wear it. He thought it would probably last his whole life.

“Thank you,” said the eldest cousin to the hunter. The hunter nodded politely. The eldest cousin remembered that there was something he had to give to the hunter in return. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the diamond broach that he’d found in the tunnel. “Here, take this,” he said to the hunter. I found it in the tunnel. The hunter examined it. Then a glint of recognition appeared over his face, and he smiled. The broach belonged to his mother, the Queen. How did the boy acquire this? he wondered. Was it stolen and sold on the open market?

The two younger cousins stepped forward and reached into their pockets, pulling out the jewels that they’d found in the tunnel. The middle cousin handed the hunter two Royal-Ruby earrings, and the boy laid a gold bracelet with writing that he couldn’t read onto the gemstone pile rising out of the hunter’s palm. The hunter saw the inscription on the bracelet and recognized it as the one his father, the King had given his mother, the Queen. The earrings were also hers.

The hunter called to the three princesses, who were busy snuffing out the wood-pit fire and doing the washing from breakfast. “Ladies! Please come over here. I have something to show you!” said the hunter.

It wasn’t like the hunter to interrupt them, so they rushed over to him. When they were all standing in front of him he held his hand in front of them and opened his palm. He expected them to “ooh,” and “ah” over the jewels. Instead, they cried out in a possessive manner.

“My broach!” said the eldest princess.

“My Royal-Ruby earrings,” said the middle princess.

And the youngest princess cried out, “My gold bracelet!”

At this the hunter was confused and a bit put off and demanded answers. “What are you talking about?” he said.

“We were wearing those the night we escaped! I’d completely forgotten about my jewelry,” said the eldest princess.

“B–but this used to be my mother’s,” stammered the hunter not understanding how the princesses were claiming them as their own.

“We were given them during a Royal visit, from the King and Queen from the next kingdom,” the middle princess piped up.

A light of clarity swept the hunter’s face. “That explains it,” said the hunter, who redistributed the jewelry to their rightful owners.

The eldest princess, with diamond broach in hand, walked to the eldest cousin and said, “Take this. Give it to your mother as a gift from the princess.”

The hunter became silent and dumbfounded, watching the jewelry travel to yet another rightful owner before his eyes.

The eldest cousin trembled and said, “Thank you, Miss.” He thought it only appropriate that he try to bow his head even though he’d never practiced it before. He didn’t know if he did it right, but she didn’t laugh at him. He put the diamond back into his pocket, and the eldest princess walked back to where she’d been standing.

The middle princess followed suit and walked to the middle cousin. She took his hand in hers and said, “Please give these Royal-Ruby earrings to your mother. She can do with them what she pleases. Tell her they are from the middle princess.” And she waited in case he was going to attempt a bow, but he didn’t. He froze in place instead, unable to move or speak. Then the middle princess walked back to where she was standing previously and stood quietly, watching the middle cousin in case he were to faint. The middle cousin regained his life force and looked around wondering what was going to happen next.

The youngest boy stood waiting for his turn, anxious to get his jewelry back. The youngest princess looked around and felt pressured by this time. All eyes were upon her to give her jewelry away. She walked up to the boy and said, “This is for your mother, dear boy. Please tell her it is from the youngest princess and before that the Queen of the next Kingdom. She may do with it what she pleases.” And she placed the bracelet into the boy’s waiting hand only the boy didn’t thank her.

“Miss?” asked the boy. “What does it say?”

“It says, ‘To the loveliest one in the kingdom. God Bless the Queen.’ I’m sorry, I can’t read the date. It’s been scratched off.”

“Thank you, Princess,” said the boy. He bowed his head and stood until he felt safe enough to move.

“That was lovely. Lovely!” said the hunter and motioned to the cousins that it was their time to bid farewell. When everyone had said goodbye and the last boy was safely inside the tunnel, the hunter closed the hatch.

“That was lovely,” he said again to the princesses as he tried to hold on to every moment that had just transpired, the beauty and generosity of which clung in the air.

“They can sell the jewels to help with expenses on their farms. We don’t need jewels here,” the eldest princess explained.

“You are the jewels,” said the hunter. I have known the three of you as lovely princesses thus far. But your generosity and kind spirits have moved me beyond anything I have heretofore seen. For here you are with nothing, having been given back your own possessions, yet you think of others before yourselves. I have been shamed for even considering keeping the jewels. I now declare you a whole new level of lovely, and that is SuperLovely. You are indeed SuperLovelies!” said the hunter and bowed deeply toward the three princesses.

“And you, my darling, are my own SuperLoveliest,” he said to the eldest princess, taking her hands within his. “This forest isn’t your sacred place anymore, not with the children and the bears.”

“He’s right,” said the middle princess.

“Let’s go back to the river. That’s our home now,” said the eldest princess to her sisters and the hunter.

“Unless you want to come home with me?” asked the hunter.

The eldest princess gasped. Going home to his castle would be risky. They might call him a coward or he could get killed for treason. And who knew how the King and Queen would react to his three princesses in tow.

“Are you sure?” asked the eldest princess.

“How couldn’t I be sure? I’m bringing the loveliest princesses of all time with me–the SuperLovelies! They already adore you as shown by the gifts they bestowed upon you. Due to that, they might smooth things over with me. That is my hope, that we can all live happily ever after in the castle. Are you brave enough to try?” And with that, he winked at her and smiled, and she found it hard to resist even with all of the risks.

But it was worth a try. There was a chance that it could work, wasn’t there? After all, when life is a fairytale, you can choose to end it the way you want. And she liked the idea of living in his castle happily ever after. Wouldn’t you?

Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved.

[Photo: Zemanta]

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Categories Childrens, Fiction, Short Story

Sometimes when oyster shells lie open

10/21/2010 //
6
Totten Inlet Oysters by Chefs-Resources.com
Image by Theages via Flickr

Good ol’ Harry, my ill-fated oyster friend. He succumbed to the horror of the rake last year just prior to spawning and before turning into my would-be, best girl friend, Harriet. And I was looking forward to that, too. Harry and I had plans to share our wardrobes, except shoes, after the switch. You see, oysters start out as males then switch to females … only he never had the chance.

Anyway, I’ve been holding on for dear life in this oyster bed ever since the rake came down and scooped Harry out with one swipe. It missed me by a few inches similar to a tornado touching down and leaving one house standing and the other flattened. If the house left standing were alive, it would feel the way I do.

Half the town is gone. You call it a town. To us it’s a “bed” only there’s no rest here. Every time I feel a paltry parasite tickling my side I’m reminded of the rake tines and I worriedly overproduce nacre. I must ask the fancy ladies if they understand the sacrifice of blood and sweat that they wear around their necks in the form of pearls, especially the largest ones.

Before the rake, our oyster bed was relatively calm and peaceful, providing shelter within its nooks to other sea creatures like sea anemones and striped bass. Now other fish can’t even stand to be around us with our dithering and whimpering and clanging our shells opened and closed. We’re wringing our adductors–that’s what we call them; hands to you–in dread of the next harvest. When we flex them, bacteria, sand, and creatures like tiny crabs enter our shells and actually live there. Oh, why do they vex us so?

Prior to Harry’s kidnapping by the rake, tiny waterproof pamphlets were scattered throughout our oyster reef. They explained that the only way an oyster can reach true Nirvana was to “lie open-faced” to expose its true nature—that of an aphrodisiac–as an offering to its recipient, hopefully accompanied with a dollop of Mignonette sauce and a glass of dry Sauvignon Blanc.  Most of us read the material with wide-eyed wonder, because we thought we were already in Nirvana.

Further, it explained that Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, gave birth to some kid with a silly name on an oyster shell. The pamphlets went on to flatter the oysters as having been worth their weight in gold as paid for by the Romans. We truly believed this one, knowing we were all very special and filled with all sorts of minerals and Vitamin B12. The propaganda in the pamphlets encouraged us to willfully release ourselves to the rake when the time came for the long-handled prongs to probe and scrape the murky depths for our lovely bivalves. We were mostly perplexed by the partly-misleading information, but we disregarded it and mindlessly continued filtering algae. Then the rake took us by surprise after we fell fast asleep again in our beds.

I place my adductor over my heart when I think back to Harry. I know he must have been one of the patriots who refused to open his shell after the harvest, after the purchase, and even up until the time when his recipient was expecting an intoxicating taste and amorous thrill and until he was discarded. Even today you’ll find two types of resisters codenamed Poisonous who steadfastly refuse to open their shells and must be thrown into the garbage and others who commit hari-kari by ceremoniously cracking themselves open too soon.

Upon finding them, when and if you do, give them your best salute. For Harry and all the rest.

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Categories Fiction
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