The Curse of Adelaide

TWO

Dedicated to Emmanuella for being really sweet and commenting on my book! Thank you! 

"Was there also a prince?" Caroline, the youngest of the four children, asked her father curiously.

The man looked at her with a pointed stare.

The girl remembered her promise and quickly covered her mouth with both her hands before whispering, "Sorry."

"It's alright, just don't interrupt me while I am speaking," he told her in a forgiving tone. "But to answer your question, yes, there was also a prince."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One thing I loved about to forest was its silence. You could wander around for hours without running into a single soul, only the songs of the birds following you around where ever you went. I could spend hours and hours following nonexistent paths, lost in my own little world, the grass brushing against my bare feet.

I had been living in the forest for quite a time now, almost eighteen years. In almost every book I read it was always described as a dark place, where monsters would lurk in the dark and beasts would eat little girls. But for me the forest had a different meaning. It was a place I called home.

There weren't any monsters lurking in the dark, they were just shadows. And the beasts, they turned out to be a rabbit or a deer, nothing to be afraid of. In fact, they were more afraid of me than the other way around.

I still remember the days back when I was still a little girl and all the animals would disappear when they would hear my arrival. I would try to catch one of the rabbits because I wanted to pet them. But when I couldn't find one I went crying to Aunt Kara. She then explained to me that I had to befriend the animals if I wanted to pet them.

I started to leave carrots and salad at a clearing near our house. Over the night all food would be gone. I left more food outside and one day it happened. As I was about to return back home, I turned around one more time only to see a small rabbit eating the salad.

From that day onward I would remain in the clearing and watch the rabbits. Sometimes also a deer would appear and eat the vegetables. As time passed, they became less afraid of me and accepted me as part of the forest. I could walk through the woods with rabbits crossing my paths without running away from me, but instead halting and looking at me with their little eyes.

"Isn't it a wonderful day, Ray?" I asked him as I strolled through the forest.

Ray let out a caw as if he was answering me. I smiled to myself and looked around for berries that weren't poisonous. Once I found a bush full of wild berries, I sat the basket down on the ground and started to fill it.

"I had one of those dreams again, Ray," I started to talk to him, a habit I had grown used to over the years. "Do you want to hear about it?"

I threw a berry into the air and Ray swiftly caught it. He swallowed it down and let out a short caw.

"I was in this room again, you know, the one with the chandeliers and the golden walls," I stopped for a moment to eat a berry before continuing with my narration. "I was lying in bed with a rose colored blanket and there was a rose about my head."

I let out a sigh and tried to remember as much as possible from the dream. "It all looked so beautiful, it felt so real," I stopped for a moment to see how many berries I had already picked. The basked wasn't near as full as I expected. I looked up to the tree in front of me, Ray was sitting on one of the branches.

"Ray," I told him in a scolding voice. "How many times do I have to tell you not to eat the berries that are in the basket? If you are hungry, you can go and eat the berries that grow on the bush."