The Girl in the Woods

Prologue

       There was a soft knock at the door.
       "Your majesty? Are you here?"
        The handmaiden nervously peeked inside the door.
        "Your majesty? Prince Rolan? Your father wishes to see you."
         The young prince slowly dragged his feet toward the door; his breathing was ragged and his hair was unruly and disheveled.
         "What's wrong?" He asked drowsily, his words all slurred together.
           The handmaiden was quiet for a moment, sheepishly staring down at her feet.
          "He. . . . .he says he sees your mother there, with the rest of the nurses. He wants you there to say hello, since she has been gone for so long." By this point, the Prince's eyes had popped open, roughly the size of tea saucers.
"The pain has made him delirious," she continued. "Everyone is gathering to say goodbye."
             Before she was finished, he was already out the door, sprinting down the long halls and passage ways. All signs of his lack of sleep from seeing to his father's needs had disappeared.
Not yet, he thought, not now. He made a sharp turn, headed for the hospital wing. I don't know how to rule a kingdom. I've barely learned all the basics of addressing someone in the throne room. He came to the stairway, taking them two or three at a time. He was running as fast as he ever had, but only wishing to be faster, thinking that every moment wasted was a another moment lost forever, one that he would never get back.
          Finally, he came to the door that led to the hospital room. He burst in, not even bothering to knock. There, laying on the four poster bed, lay the king. His breathing was quick and heavy and uneven, his bones sticking out against his pale skin. His eyes were sunken into his face, and his cheek bones stuck out in a pitiful way. If it wasn't for the rasping of his breathing and the feeble rise and fall of his chest, he would have thought that he was looking at his father's corpse.
            He barely even turned to the sound of his son's noisy entry. He was lost in the pain, his eyes glazed over and a drunken smile on his lips. He seemed to be staring at the opposite side of the room, as if someone were there, talking to him. But then, as the handmaid had said before, he probably did see someone there: his wife.
             "Oh father," said the prince, walking over to his father's side. He knelt beside the sickbed, soon to be deathbed, right next to his father's head. "Please, don't go. I need you here. I need your guidance; I can't rule the kingdom on my own." He paused, taking his father's hand in his. "I love you." He kissed it, and then held it in both hands, though it was limp in his.
                Suddenly, the king squeezed his hand back. Shocked, he looked up into the eyes of his father. There was a strange peace in them, as if he was just going to sleep.
                 "My son" croaked the king, drawing in a rattling breath, "now it is your turn. This kingdom will see many great days with you in control." His voice was barely a whisper, only loud enough that he could hear. "You shall learn all in time. Just remember that I will always be with you."
                  "Father," pleaded the prince. But with that, the king's face went blank, his grip slack in the prince's hands.