Patty Liu - Silent Reflections

“Wait, Patrick. Stop. Virginia and Wolf aren’t with us.” Tony came to a halt in the middle of the forest of gold breathing heavily. He tried to advert his eyes to keep them from looking at all the shiny gold leaves and tree trunks around him. If he looked he knew he was going to touch something.

Patrick didn’t even seem flustered from all the running. He stopped in front of Tony and Princess Wendy also stopped to catch her breath.

“Let-let’s wait for them to catch up,” Wendy panted. She had never run like that in her whole life. Thank God Patrick had picked her up and carried her half the way but he didn’t even seem bothered by any of it at all.

“Man, Pat. You must be in good shape,” Tony remarked to get his mind off the gold trees surrounding him.

Patrick looked confused but brushed it off. They waited silently for Virginia or Wolf to show up but they didn’t. They couldn’t hear much of anything either except for the tinkling sounds the leaves made from brushing against each other.

“So what happens if we touch something, Pat?” Tony asked.

Patrick frowned at the nickname “Pat” but ignored it. “Well, if someone or anything alive were to touch or disturb the trees, the earth beneath you will crack open right beneath your feet. You’ll fall in and the hole will close up and you will be forced to dance for eternity. Notice that there aren’t any birds or other woodland creatures in this place.”

“What in the world kind of curse is that?! Forced to dance? What do they do, make you wear ballet slippers and you can’t help yourself but dance?” Tony cried out in exasperation. “Who comes up with these things? And I thought that damn frog with the two doors was stupid. Urgh!”

“Well, it’s a pretty old curse. You know the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, right?” said Patrick.

“No.”

“Oh. Well, there were twelve dancing princesses who would sneak out every night to go dancing. A jealous witch had hypnotized them in order to get her hand on the princesses’ father for marriage for she wanted to be queen. The father was getting incredibly angry because he didn’t know where the princesses would go each night but their slippers were always tattered and torn the next morning. He began hiring soldiers to find out where they’d go but everyone who came along would fail to find out the princesses’ secret. Then a man came along and he was able to find out the secret. He had been able to follow the princesses through the forest of gold, the forest of silver and the forest of diamonds. He had even been able to touch and take the leaves of the forests home with him. He broke the entrancement the princesses were under and he ended up marrying one of the princesses as his reward.

“The witch was so fuming from having her plan fail that she cursed the three forests and lured the son and daughter of the man and princess into the forest. The son and daughter fell into a hole in the ground and were never seen again. The couple was devastated and as far as I know, they died unhappily ever after somewhere in the Nine Kingdoms. “The forests have stayed here for centuries now and everyone basically knows not to touch anything here. There are the occasional buffoons and greedy dolts, but the amount of victims have been depleting.”

“Wow, that’s horrible!” Tony cried out. “I never heard that story before though. I wonder if Virginia knows it.”

“Oh my gosh, what was that?! I think I just heard someone scream,” Princess Wendy called out in a frightened voice.

Patrick and Tony both looked up but they didn’t hear anything. They only heard the tiny tinkering sounds the gold leaves were making. They both turn to look at Princess Wendy and gave her a shrug.

“I didn’t hear anything, did you Pat?”

“No, all this tinkling noise is interfering.”

“Maybe we should go back and see what has happened. Maybe Virginia or Wolf are hurt or those horrible creatures caught them,” Princess Wendy said.

“No, you two, stay here. I’ll go check. If I don’t come back in ten minutes, leave without me. Do you understand?” Patrick commanded.

Tony didn’t like the idea; he wanted to make sure Virginia was okay.

“It won’t do anyone good if we all go back. We might just end up interfering with something. Just stay here and watch over the princess, Tony. I’ll be back.” And Patrick ran back into the silver forest.