Debbie Banna - Shattered Dreams, New Beginnings
Frantic to find his beautiful Virginia, Wolf refused to stop for a rest. He continued on through the forest for the rest of the day and long into the night. Even when his eyes, heavy with sleep, threatened to close, he forced himself to continue on. As the sun began to rise over the fourth kingdom, he found himself facing a signpost. It read “Wendell’s castle 18 miles, Deadly Swamp 2 miles, Dragon Mountain 25 miles.”
“Two miles more,” he muttered looking a bit dazed. “Hold on Virginia. I’m coming for you.” Wolf rubbed his blurry eyes and turned onto the path leading into the swamp. Even now he could smell her above all the other odors in the bog. He lifted his nose and inhaled deeply. The faintest of wisps of her scent tantalized him and spurred him to find renewed strength from somewhere deep inside himself. With a desire born of desperation, he bounded through the twisting, winding paths before him, calling out her name. “Virginia! I’m here!” The ground beneath his feet grew soft and puddles of swamp water seeped into his shoes but it did not deter him or slow his pace. The area was beginning to look familiar but Wolf sensed something was not right as he neared the spot where he expected he would find her. He scent had not grown stronger in the way he had thought it would.
He stopped in his tracks and dropped to his knees where he was, sniffing the ground in from of him. This was it! This had to be the place. Her scent, as well as that of Tony was still here. But it was faint and old, not fresh, as it should have been if his beloved had been waiting here for his rescue. “No! It can’t be!” he shouted in anguish. “She has to be here. I’ve come so far. I tried so hard.” With sickening awareness, it began to dawn on him that the scent he had been following was still lingering in this place from the first deadly encounter in the swamp. Dense vegetation must have prevented rainfall from reaching this place and carrying away the leftover traces of his ladylove’s presence.
Now, total despair replaced the hope he had felt only a short while ago. With his hands, he dug like a wild beast at the moss and dirt beneath him, lifting patches of the ground to his nose. “Virginia!” he cried as he let the dirt slip out slowly through his fingers. Then, as he had not allowed himself to do for many days, he threw back his head and howled.
A strange, familiar feeling was beginning to nag at the back of Tony’s mind. It was something about the greenish yellow light that filtered through the leaves above that led him to believe he had seen this place before. Then there was the ground beneath his feet that seemed to become softer with every few steps. He had been wandering lost four or five days now and was finding himself running short on supplies. As the realization of where he had ended up began to dawn on him, Tony grasped the seriousness of his predicament.
If he was right about this, he had somehow reversed directions and had traveled south instead of north. And to the south of the wood surrounding King Wendell’s castle lie the deadly swamp. He and Virginia had gotten twisted around in this place before and had almost not come out alive. He heaved a resigned sigh as he continued on, one foot carefully placed in front of the other. “I guess this is as good a place as any,” he said to himself. “Who knows? Maybe this is where I was supposed to come all along.”
He continued on, deeper and deeper into the swamp. Long, greenish gray vines hung over the path in front of him and the vegetation grew closer to the trail. Odd, orange-red mushrooms grew in profusion in the moss and dirt along side the path. Tony glanced at them out of the corner of his eye, expecting them to move or say something but they continued to act as mushrooms usually do.
He began to look for an area where the swamp water welled up into a pool but, in this section of the bog it remained mostly below the surface, hinting at it’s existence by rendering the ground beneath his feet a bit unstable. After continuing to wander for an hour or so, Tony finally dropped his pack to the ground and seated himself on a mossy log. “Okay. So what now?” he asked no one in particular. “I’m here. So what do you want of me? Go ahead! Play with my life!” he began to shout in anger. “Whoever you are, play your little games with me! I don’t care anymore. Do whatever you want with me! I’m finished!” He slumped back against a tree, crossed his arms, and waited.
And it was then that the music began. The organ began to play again, just as it had on his last visit to the swamp. But it seemed to be coming from far in the distance. Tony jumped to his feet and, leaving his pack behind, began to follow the sound. The music did not come from within his head this time but from somewhere just in front of him. As he followed, it did not grow louder but appeared to be leading him deeper into the swamp. Eagerly, as if anticipating a solution for his pain, Tony continued on.
As suddenly as the music had begun, now it abruptly ended, leaving him confused and disappointed. He stood in the center of the path not knowing which way to go or what he should do next. It was then that he heard it. It was sharp and piercing and filled with grief. And it was familiar. It was the sound of a wolf howling somewhere nearby. “Wolf!” he exclaimed. He turned in the direction from where the sound had come and began to run, stumbling over branches that reached into the path to catch his feet. He heard the cry again not far ahead and, roughly thrusting aside the vines and leaves in his way, he emerged into a clearing. Just ahead of him lay a familiar island in the midst of the swamp and on the island, miserably howling out his pain sat his son-in-law.
From far away in the swamp echoed the cry of a wounded animal. Matilde's head shot up and she turned her ear toward the sound. She knew that sound. She had heard it recently while at Wendell’s castle. It had been the grief stricken sound of Wolf mourning the death of his wife. Matilde knew this was not just any wolf. This was the one she had been sent here to find. And she was sure within herself that when she located the source of this sound, she would also have found the object of her own frantic quest. She quickened her pace, moving toward the direction from which she had heard the howl, her heart beginning to pound within her. Somewhere nearby she knew she would find Tony. What she would do when she saw him again, she was not sure. But if he asked her to beg at his feet and humble herself before him, she wondered if her dignity as a queen would be enough to prevent her from doing just as he asked. Snow White had instructed her to follow her heart, but at the moment, Matilde was not sure that this foolish heart of hers might not yet betray her.
