Patty Liu - Silent Reflections

“So how do these old things work, Virginia?” Tony asked while he fingered the soft old leather of the magic shoes in his hands. They were one of the dirtiest and oldest pairs of shoes he had ever seen. How in the world could they be magic?

“They only work when I wear them, like I told you before. You ask me a question and I’ll answer you. But I for some reason won’t hear myself answer the question so you’ll have to tell me afterwards. Whatever I say is the honest truth,” Virginia explained to her father as she took the shoes from Tony and slipped them on. “Oh, also, I’ll speak in rhyme so it’ll be a bit hard to decipher whatever the answer is.”

Tony rolled his eyes and gave Princess Wendy, who was standing next to him with a hopeful look in her eyes, a smile to encourage her hope. They had watched the ground that was over two hundred feet below them for the past ten minutes, waiting for Pip to get the message to Wolf and Patrick to toss the shoes into the Sixth Kingdom. When they’d seen Patrick throw in the shoes, Tony had immediately told Udo to carefully retrieve the shoes and bring them up.

“Okay, Dad. I’m ready. Ask me something. You have to say my name before the question, though. Make it a good question. Think it out first cuz there are only two questions left after this one. I don’t want to waste them. These shoes are only borrowed.”

“All right, all right!” Tony started muttering to himself to try to figure out a way to word a question correctly. “I don’t have to ask in rhyme do I? Like with that old mirror last time in Dragon Mountain?”

“No, Dad,” Virginia said impatiently. “Do you want some help with the question?”

“No, no, no. I’ve got it under control. Just give me a minute here.”

“Just ask how do you break the curse of silence that has fallen on the Sixth Kingdom,” Pip suddenly piped in. “You humans can be so slow sometimes.”

Princess Wendy quickly grabbed a hold of Pip into her hands to shut him up. She stroked his feathers to quiet him and he quickly made himself comfortable in her hands.

“Well, you heard the bird, Dad,” Virginia said.

“All right, all right!” Tony gave the dove a menacing glare. “Virginia. How do we break the curse of silence that has fallen on the Sixth Kingdom?”

There was a moment of silence. Udo, whose head was almost twenty-five feet above them, held his breath as they all waited for an answer.

“In one piece, the parchment holds.
Break apart, and the spell will be broke.”

Virginia shook her head faintly and she looked to her father with a questioning look. “Well, what did I say?”

Tony had a clueless expression on his face. Udo, who had been holding his breath, let it all rush out in a loud gust. Virginia almost lost her footing but Tony quickly gripped her steady. He turned and gave Udo an impatient glare.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to,” Udo bellowed softly. He quickly changed the subject back to the answer to the question though. “So, what does it all mean?”

Virginia took off the magic shoes and again gave Tony a well-what-was-it look. Tony finally repeated the short rhyme to Virginia and she gave the same clueless expression Tony had earlier.

“Why does everything in the Nine Kingdoms have to be so Goddamn difficult? Couldn’t you have just said, ‘To break the curse, you just have to eat a cow soaked in chicken blood.’? OR something like that! I can’t STAND this place any longer!”

“Well, I for one am thankful that we don’t have to eat a cow soaked in chicken blood, Antony,” Princess Wendy said quietly from her side of the giant’s hand. “But can we please just concentrate on the answer before we all go mad from being trapped in here?”

They all stood in silence. Udo scratched his head a few times. Tony gave loud and impatient sighs. Virginia wrinkled her nose and repeated the answer to herself. Wendy stroked Pip’s feathers and also muttered the answer under her breath.

“‘In one piece, the parchment holds.’ Okay, so what is a parchment? Some kind of document, right? Or something. So if we break that apart, the spell will break?” Virginia asked everyone for confirmation.

“That sounds right. But what parchment? We don’t have any documents on us and we obviously can’t get our hands on any, either.” Tony threw his hands up again in defeat.

“Dad, relax. The shoes wouldn’t tell us something that we could not do. It speaks the truth so it has to be a way for US to break the spell. If we weren’t able to do it, it would’ve said so. Right?” Virginia said a bit hesitantly. “Here, why don’t we send Pip down to Wolf and Patrick and have them think over the answer?”

“Awww man. You mean I gotta fly again? My poor little wings are about to fly off my body if I fly one more time,” Pip complained. His wings weren’t actually in the most uncomfortable state at the moment, for Princess Wendy was softly massaging them and he just didn’t want to leave the comfort of her hands.

Tony gave the dove a narrowed gaze and Pip sighed and finally fluttered out of Princess Wendy’s hands. “All right, Pops. You are going to so owe me for all I’m doing for you and your friends!”

Tony nodded and waved him off and Pip flew into the sky again.

“Ohhhh, what could be taking so long?” Wolf whined and paced in the muddy bank of the footprint lake. He scratched at his temple and his eyes kept darting to the place where Virginia had vanished from. “What if the shoes don’t work, Patrick? What if, what if, they’re broken? Or maybe there is no way to break the curse! Ohhh, what are we going to do?”

Patrick was getting so sick of watching the back and forth pacing of Wolf’s that he had to close his eyes. And Wolf’s constant repeating of all the negative outcomes was racking at Patrick’s nerves.

“Wolf! Can you just please sit down for one minute? Please!” Patrick cried out in vexation but he also quickly got to his feet and began pacing.

The whole pacing back and forth reminded Wolf of when he had been pacing around in the maternity ward with a bunch of other expecting fathers when Virginia was giving birth to their cub, Peter. He smiled at the memory and held it close to comfort him.

“Man, all this flying better be worth something or I swear I’m going to peck someone’s eyes out,” Pip threatened to no one in particular as he descended down towards the waiting men.

“What’s the news? What’s going on?” Wolf panted.

“Well. Let’s see here. Virginia put on them ugly ass shoes and Tony asked her a question. Then she said something about a parchment breaking and the spell will be broken. Something like that,” Pip rolled his eyes as he recited his version of the magic shoes answer.

“Doesn’t it answer in rhyme? That didn’t rhyme at all.” Patrick gave a confused look. “What exactly was the answer?”

“Urgh, fine. You want the long version. Suit yourself.” Pip gave an irritated flutter of his feathers and repeated the rhyme. “’In one piece, the parchment holds. Break apart, and the spell will be broke.’ And the lady said that it has to be something we are able to do or else the shoes would have said otherwise. Whatever that means. Am I done here?”

“Huff, puff. Wait a minute. We might need you to relay another message,” Wolf cried out as Pip flew into the air again.

“Nope, nah uh. No way, Jose.”

“Who’s Jose?” Patrick gave a confused look.

“Ignore him, Patrick. But listen, little birdie. Please stay. We need you. You have been a great help in all this. I am sure King Wendell will gave you a great reward for all your participation,” Wolf declared trying to keep the bird from flying off.

Pip looked up at the idea of a reward and finally perched himself onto the bag that Patrick had set on the ground. “So you guys have any ideas about that stupid rhyme?”

“I wish I knew how Melody had cast that spell,” Patrick said.

“Huff, puff. You heard her. She said she didn’t even do it on purpose. It was an all an accident.”

“But still. I wish I knew. Maybe it can help us.”

“I was there, you know,” Pip chimed in and both men looked over at him at the same time.

“What?!” They both cried out simultaneously.

“Yeah, honestly I might have been the cause of the whole thing.” Pip told his story to the men about how Melody made him eat some seeds. He went crazy and spilled some bottles she had on a map on the table. Some liquids mixed and sputtered on the map and that was about it.

“A map, you say?” Wolf scratched his head again and went into deep thought. The little wrinkle between his brows deepened. “Huff puff! I think I’ve got it. That would explain why the curse only fell on the Sixth Kingdom and nowhere else,” Wolf cried out. “I think when Pip here knocked over the bottles, it activated the spell. The liquids just happened to have spilled onto the Sixth Kingdom on that map. And the map is the parchment that we must break!”

Patrick gave a shout and leapt into the air. “By George, I think you’ve got it! And I think I know exactly where that map is!” He shooed Pip off his bag on the ground and turned it upside down. Melody’s things fell out of the bag onto the muddy ground. Amongst the things were scrolls of documents and folded up sheets of paper. He rummaged through them one by one and finally raised his hand up, holding a rolled up scroll. “I thought I saw something that resembled a map in here earlier,” Patrick declared. “Pip, fly to the others and let them know that we’ve got it figured out.”

Pip flapped his wings and took flight once again, all the while muttering beneath his breath about his poor little wings.

Wolf snatched the scrolled up map from Patrick and unrolled it. He immediately saw a dark purple stain covering the area of the Sixth Kingdom. He pointed his finger and stabbed at the area to show Patrick. “Here it is. I was right. Huff, puff. Do I just tear this map up to break the spell?”

“I suppose so. We won’t know until you try it.” Patrick’s skin was crawling with gooseflesh as he anticipated what might happen.

Wolf held up the map in both hands. He gave a slight tug and a small rip appeared in the middle of the map. He tugged harder. And the map ripped down the middle with a loud crispy crinkle. He looked at the two separate pieces in his two hands. He looked up at Patrick with a side-way grin. And he looked up towards the Sixth Kingdom, expecting to see Virginia, Tony and whoever else was supposed to be there. But nothing had changed. It hadn’t worked.

The rushing dark waters of the river were roaring in Melody’s ears as she made her way across the river in a small rickety boat. She had hired an old man from a small town by the river to row her across. She swept hot tears from her cheeks as she turned away from the old man so he wouldn’t see the tears falling down her face. She was so upset. Whenever she thought about anything, she would begin to cry. She had disappointed herself and her mother. She’d wanted so badly to get her revenge but nothing had worked. And to top it all off, she realized she couldn’t really even kill Virginia when it came down to it. She was secretly thankful that none of her spells or tricks had worked. Virginia had been kind to her. Wolf had been caring. Patrick had been so protective. She’d never had people treat her like that. She’d never had friends before. And when she realized that she actually considered Virginia, Wolf and Patrick to be her friends, she broke down crying again. She had completely and totally betrayed them. They probably all hated her now. Even Patrick, who she was really missing at the moment. She’d never felt so horrible in her life other than when she’d found out her mother was dead. But that seemed like ages ago instead of just a year and a half. The small dinghy lurched in the river and she grabbed tightly to the helm to keep steady. The old man looked at her with a thick eyebrow raised. He then smiled a crooked smile and patted her gently on the hand.

“Whatever it may be troubling you, you be sure that you tell it to your friends. Friends always make your troubles go away. Never be alone, my dear. Loneliness is a dreadful thing,” the old man said in a croaky low voice.

Melody felt even more horrible after that and cried even harder. She had no friends. She was alone. And she was absolutely dreadful. She just wanted to go home now. She just wanted to get back to her tiny cottage in the woods and just forget about everything that has happened. Even if it meant that she would be alone for the rest of her life.

She thought back to when Virginia had slipped on those damn magic shoes. When they’d finally found out that it was she who’d been behind all the sabotaging. She had seen the horrid faces of her companions and their disappointment, too. Those shoes had told the truth. But whatever it had said, something about blood being shared and power? What in the world did all that mean? Melody ceased her crying and tried to concentrate. Those shoes spoke in rhyme but they also told the absolute truth. She mouthed the rhyme to herself over and over again. Fitting words to phrases. Fitting phrases to words. All of a sudden, she straightened in her seat and her eyes widened.

“Oh dear God Almighty!” she cried out. The old man gave her a weird look but ignored her and kept on rowing.