Princess Carmelita (Chp5)

PRINCESS CARMELITA
(Adapted from the movie “El Laberinto Del Fauno” or “Pan’s Labyrinth”)

Once upon a time, when the forest was young, it was home to creatures who were full of magic and wonder. They protected one another and slept in the shade of a colossal fig tree that grew on a hill near the manor. But now the tree is dying. Its branches are dry, its trunk old and twisted. A monstrous toad has settled in its roots and won’t let the tree thrive. You must put the three magic stones in the toad’s mouth and retrieve the golden key from inside his belly. Only then will the fig tree flourish again.

Maya fingered the three stones in the pouch before putting them back in. While she made here way into the mountain woods, she opened the book she took from behind the bathroom cabinet and sure enough, the pages began to fill themselves again with the words and pictures, revealing the drawing of a huge fig tree surrounded by magical creatures of every kind and a toad sitting underneath the tree, settling on its roots. She read the instructions and tried to gather herself together about the task she had in hand.

It didn’t take long for her to finally find the fig tree. As described in the book, the fig tree looked as if it had seen better days, like it had already been dead for more than the book described it to be. It was gnarled and twisted everywhere and there was not a single leaf on its withering branches. To make matters worse, it smelt like someone just dumped manure onto it. Right in the middle of the fig tree, there was a gaping hole that seemed hollow and looked like it was endless. Maya took that as a cue for her to go in and look for the toad the book was speaking about.

Maya knew she was going to get her beautiful dress dirty if she were to crawl into that hole with it—her black shoes was already beginning to cake with mud that were around the roots. After much contemplation, she decided to take off her dress, hair ribbon and shoes and hang them onto one of the fig tree’s branches, leaving only her undergarments on. Taking a deep breath, she went on all fours and started crawling into the hole, ready to start her mission.

Meanwhile, at the Garcia Manor, guests were starting to arrive in their carriages and were busy chitchatting with each other and the Count and Countess and nibbling on finger foods while waiting for dinner to be served. The Count and Countess received tons of praises and congrats from everyone in the room, and Madame Adrianna was none the wiser in trying to collect as much praises as possible as well.

“Now, my good Count, when can we see this little bride-to-be, eh?” one of the guests asked.

“Anytime soon,” the Count said. “The missus has picked a very pretty dress for her to wear, which I bought it at her account, of course, and she should be getting ready now, I believe. Alberto, would you mind calling the girl over? Dinner’s about to be served.”

“Yes, Master,” Alberto bowed slightly and left the room. He gestured Pedro and some maids to approach him and whispered, “Have you seen Miss Andre? Go fetch her. The Master and Mistress are waiting.”

“Yes, Alberto. We’ll do it right away.”

While Pedro and the maids looked for Maya, Maya was still in the hole, moving deeper and deeper into the tree in search of the toad the book spoke of. Inside, the walls were caked with mud on both sides and tiny roots dangled from the top and jutted out along with it. There was more mud on the ground in which she was crawling on and there were cockroaches as big as rocks creeping and crawling all over the place, including on her arms and legs, which she tried to flick off. The hole seemed like a never-ending tunnel that went on forever and ever with no end in sight.

No sooner she thought that she was going nowhere in this hole than she heard a croaking noise behind her. She turned around slowly to see the biggest toad that ever existed in the history of reptilian kind. It was almost as big as her pet dog and had skin the colour of clay. It had warts all over its body and its red eyes stared at her lazily, like she was someone whom it would not be bothered to be interested in. Maya knew this was her chance. It was now or never.

“Hey there, Mr. Toad. I’m Princess Carmelita, and I’m not afraid of you.”

The toad croaked nonchalantly in reply.

“Are you not ashamed living down here, eating all the insects and growing fat while the tree dies?”

It didn’t seem like the toad was in the mood for negotiation, or for agreeing to eat the magic stones for that matter, because the only reply it gave her was a long flick of the tongue to catch a cockroach that fell on her hair, swallowing it and burping loudly at her face.

Judging by the stench, the toad seemed like it needed more than a breath mint to get rid of that impossibly inhuman smell.

Maya was caught off guard by the toad’s burp that she dropped the stones she had taken out of her pouch. When she hurried to pick them up, she accidentally picked up a cockroach that was curled up in a ball as soon as she touched it. That was when she realized that the toad was licking its lips when she was trying to remove the curled-up cockroach from her stones. Suddenly an idea came in mind. She waved the curled-up cockroach in front of the toad and replaced it back with her stones. She then held out the stones together with the cockroach for the toad to eat. The toad took the bait. Within seconds, it flicked out its tongue, grabbed the cockroach and the stones and swallowed them all in a gulp.

What happened next was beyond Maya’s expectation. Moments after the toad swallowed the stones, it began to twitch and fidget like it was in a seizure or something. Then it started puking everything it ate onto the muddy ground. It puked and puked and didn’t seem to stop. Eventually the toad ended up literally vomiting its insides out and all that was left of it was its clay-coloured skin.

Maya grimaced for a moment before noticing a shimmer of light within the insides the toad vomited out. A closer look told her that it was the key she was looking for. She picked it up slowly and saw that it was long and thin, almost like the bone of a middle finger, but much longer. The base of the key was a ruby-studded moon and shimmered slightly as it caught light.

The first task was done. It was time to go back to the manor.

When she finally came out of the hole, she noticed that the sky was getting dark and she could hear more and more carriages coming towards the manor. The pre-engagement party! She had almost forgotten about it! She had to get cleaned and get dressed as soon as possible before she ended up upsetting the Count and Countess.

To her horror, her dress and ribbon were not where she had hung them. Instead they were lying there on a big puddle being totally soiled. They must have been blown off by the wind into the puddle when she was in the hole of the tree. To make matters even worse, it started to rain. She knew she was in deep trouble.

Needless to say, when she made her way back home, Pedro was outside looking for her and was shocked to see her in that state. The guests would have to settle seeing Maya at another time during the real engagement ceremony for the Count did not want them or the Countess to see her looking worse than a ragamuffin and get upset over the dirtied dress, and he had to make an excuse to them saying that Maya was not feeling well and would not be joining the party. The Count told Pedro to get rid of the dress before the Countess sees it and ordered Alberto to get a new dress of the exact same one that Maya soiled so that no one would be the wiser. And of course, as punishment, Maya was sent to bed without dinner.

“You shouldn’t have done that, you know, wandering around in the woods when you’re supposed to be in the house entertaining the guests. You’re lucky Master only sent you off without dinner and not whip you on the spot or something. That dress meant a lot to Mistress, and the last thing he wanted was Mistress to be upset,” Pedro said as he removed Maya’s dirty undergarments and dunked her into the warm bath prepared for her. “The mountain woods are not a place for a future Young Mistress like you to be roaming about. What if you come out worse than you are right now? What if you’re injured or eaten alive by the beasts out there? The Countess would be more than disappointed if anything happened to you.”

Maya took in Pedro’s nagging quietly. She knew that despite being an errand boy, he cared for her like a brother or a father would to their little girl. She could tell him where she had been and what she had been doing, and that she didn’t mean to get her dress dirty, but who would believe her anyway? She had a hard time believing it even now what she had just encountered.

“You’re even luckier that Master decided to cover up for you and get another new dress to hide the fact that they had to throw out the one you ruined. He didn’t want Mistress to be sad and traumatize the Young Master inside her. What were you thinking going out in the woods alone anyway?”

“I’m sorry, Pedro,” Maya apologized, feeling rather bad about all this.

“The last thing you should do is be sorry to me. You should be sorry to Master and Mistress, and you have to make sure you make up for it,” Pedro sighed before reaching into his pocket to take out a piece of Swiss cheese he smuggled from the kitchen. “Here, this should last you till breakfast tomorrow. You know, if the Countess knew of this, she’d be very disappointed.”

“More than the Count?”

“Pretty much. I’ll have to attend to the guests. Make sure you dry yourself well before bed,” Pedro said as he left her alone in the bathroom to fend for herself.

Maya sighed guiltily. She didn’t mind disappointing the Count—he wasn’t much of a nice man and she never wanted to be here in the first place anyway—but disappointing the Countess was the last thing on her mind. The Countess was a very weak woman and she shouldn’t be doing such things like this to make her condition any worse. But she had to complete her task and there was nothing she could do about it.

Soon, the familiar sounds of cricket came again as her fairy friend flew in through the bathroom window. Throughout her whole ordeal of trying to endure whatever punishment the Count had to offer, she had kept the key clutched tightly in her hand in order to keep it hidden from them. She was sure they would not understand anyway if she told them the truth about where she had gone.

“I’ve got the key,” Maya said as she brandished the key at her fairy friend. “Take me to the labyrinth.”

No sooner she said it than she found herself walking down the stairs of the gorge again wrapped in a bathing robe as her only clothing. As she fingered the key, she saw something new in the gorge. It was a carving on a slab of stone, which, when she watched closely, showed the form of a Faun, a little girl and a baby in her arms surrounded by surreal fire etched at the edge of the stone slab. She was trying to guess which is who when…

“That’s me, and the little girl is you.”

Faun’s voice echoing behind her shocked her out of her concentration. Maya was annoyed at Faun’s habit of emerging in the shadows without warning.

“And the baby?”

“Ah, you’ve retrieved the key,” Faun said, seemingly avoiding her question. “I’m glad. She believed in you from the very beginning. She’s so glad you succeeded.”

Maya could only assume that Faun was talking about her fairy friend perched on his mossy left shoulder. She handed the key to him but he refused it.

“Keep the key. You’ll be needing it very soon. And this too…a piece of chalk.”

So saying, he materialized a piece of white chalk out of the midair and gave it to Maya. Maya quickly put both the key and the chalk in her bathing robe pockets.

“Two tasks remain, and the moon is almost full. Be patient, Your Highness. Soon we’ll be strolling through the seven circular gardens of your palace.”

“How do I know what you say is true?” Maya asked, feeling a little bit skeptical and was reminded by Pedro’s words about Fauns being tricksters.

“Now why would a poor little Faun like me lie to you, hmm?”

As he disappeared into the darkness and sent her back to the bathroom within the next second, she didn’t know what to believe.