The extra stage - Tie: what the public loved and we hated

Quick mental note list:

·a spade
·five toilet paper rolls
·a fake sword so as to trick anyone into believing it is the real one(therefore not having to compete in life risking games to win the actual sword back)
·litres of lemonade to secretly switch with beer
·never stray off the path. Just don’t.
·vote for a better spread of education throughout the country. Vote for the instalment of fair elections first. Never mind.
·Fire-proof clothes and fire-resistant attitude
·Next time I want to lose, I must aim for the win. Maybe then everything will go more smoothly.


It wasn’t so much the tie that I hated, as well as the fact that it forced me into another face-to-face competition with the cloaked mister I had so come to dislike.

As far as I was concerned, he could have the bloody sword and I’d happily walk away with the money. But Millie would not have it. As soon as I emerged from the fire maze she clutched both my arms (as if they had not been clutched enough already) and practically yelled in my face that, even though we had ended in a draw, we were so close to losing that I must not, definitely not give up!
The public went out of their heads when they realized that the winner had not been determined yet. I suppose the people of Devilswood were so used to an uneventful life that they grabbed every opportunity to blow something up to the size of a war balloon. This was a depressing new theory, as it suddenly made me realize why Gran and the others of Low-of-the-Road had thrown me out. They had just needed something to hype about, damn it.

Millie had pushed me up stage again, where I tried to look as invisible and not-present as possible. It didn’t help. Bob slapped me and the cloaked guy on a shoulder each, presumably in a friendly sort of way. I leaned sideways, trying to subtly slip away from his giant hand.
‘Well, we didn’t see this one comin’’, Bob said, beaming at us both. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible to tie in the fire maze until you two folks proved it!’
‘Tell me, did you expect anyone to come out of that maze at all?’ I asked dryly, not being able to restrain myself.
‘Ho, ho, ho!’ Bob squeezed my shoulder. I winced. ‘You’re not just brave, you’re also very witty. You two sure make a good match.’
‘I don’t think so,’ the cloaked guy said sourly.
‘No? Well, I’m sorry to hear it, because we have just devised the perfect rematch to determine the fate of this delightfully filled bag o’ coins here!’ He released me - finally - to demonstratively shake the bag.
I felt a twinge of nerves, looking at his face. He looked way too smug; this could never work out for the better. Trying to retreat into the shadows once more, I heard him telling the public what we were required to do. I instantly froze.
I saw how Millie’s face flushed and I too, felt my cheeks burn.
‘I think that’s a bit too much,’ the cloaked guy began, but his voice got drowned out by the public around the stage.

‘I’M NOT GONNA DO THAT!’ I yelled, in an attempt to make myself heard. ‘I’M NOT GOING TO KISS HIM! HEY! WOULD YOU LISTEN TO ME?!’

But in the end no one either heard or cared about what we had to say, and we were forced closer to each other.
‘Now, the one that kisses the other most passionately will end up with our first prize,’ Bob declared unnecessarily.
‘They said they would not,’ Millie tried, a gesture for which I felt grateful but had no impact at all.

Beneath us, the crowd had begun to slowly clap in their hands, chanting: ‘Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!’ It was, I thought as I stood there with at least one hundred eyes fixed on my face, one of the most terrifying things I’d ever gone through. Even the fire maze seemed more attractive now.
‘I guess I have no choice,’ said the cloaked guy darkly. He grabbed my shoulders, drawing me nearer to him than I would ever bargain for.
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ I hissed.
The public fell silent, as if one hundred men collectively held their breaths.
The cloaked guy turned his head to directly look at them. He had a victorious grin on his face, one that made me secretly want to shudder.
Then he suddenly called: ‘I will not insult this girl by taking advantage of her position like this!’
A rustle went through the people, like a spooky wind through the trees.
‘I’ll give up this chance for the first prize and shall consent with ending up second place!’
Everyone seemed momentarily frozen, including me. I felt relieved at first; even thinking that he had cleverly hushed the public by playing into their hands. Then I heard Millie cry: ‘Oh, no! You mustn’t!’ and I understood that by doing this he had actually won what we had been trying to retrieve.

Driven much more by my own dislike than by Millie’s disappointment, I feverishly thought about what to do, then raising both my arms, signalling I wanted to speak. The people got the message, fell silent once more and I cried: ‘That - that is so noble - I will… err - reward that nobility - ah- by granting him the first prize after all! How about that?’
‘That is childish!’ the cloaked guy said angrily, however the public loved me.
‘Well,’ Bob, who had begun scratching his head again, said, ‘I never. How do we select the winner now?’ He seemed genuinely at loss.
‘Let them draw straws!’ someone suggested.
‘Rock-paper-scissors!’ came another voice.
‘A game of cards!’
‘Let her have it,’ the cloaked guy mumbled.
‘Have them throw dices!’
‘LET HER HAVE IT,’ he bellowed again, so loud that the public now heard it. He pointed at me, an irritated but weary expression written over his face. ‘I’ll accept her offer. I’ll be your winner.’

And that was it. Bob looked relieved as he pointed at the cloaked guy and congratulated him, shaking his hand, then offering him the money. The guy just nodded and put the bag away, without so much as looking at it.
Then the old, brittle sword was handed to me. Millie threw her arms around me, but I quickly pushed her off, thrusting the sword in her arms.
‘Now let’s get out of her. I’m sick and tired of this stage. In fact, let’s leave the whole town at once.’
But before we could leave the stage, the cloaked guy walked up to us. He had the cloak’s hood pulled up again, hiding most of his face in the shadows. I eyed him warily.
‘Congratulations on beating me,’ he said.
I gave no answer.
‘I don’t think you actually realize what you have done.’
‘Of course I do,’ I lied. ‘I just took back what was ours in the first place.’
He didn’t seem to have heard me. ‘You two have been meddling with fire. I suppose that’s the prize for getting it your way, eh? Well, have a safe journey, the both of you. Do watch out in these forests, though. You’ve seen how bewitched this place is.’
With that he gave a nod, turned around and quickly slit behind the crowd and out of sight.

‘Right, I said, trying to ignore the distressed feeling his words had aroused in me. ‘That was that, then. Come on, let’s go back to our room. You know, I’ve been thinking,’ I added, as we made our way slowly back to the tavern in which we had been staying all this time, ‘since we’ve not won the money and only have very little left, we have two choices. Either we stay here until we run out of money and get back to our routine of sleeping in a couple of woollen blankets…Or we spend our last money on a tent and improve our chances of a decent night’s sleep.’
Millie looked tempted, but asked: ‘What do you think?’
‘I opt for a tent,’ I said. ‘But then again…I also opt for a full belly every night. It’s a hard choice.’
‘I wish we had more money.’
‘That’s the prize of travelling,’ I told her cheerily, although I actually wished we had more money too. Or rather: I wished that I was home. ‘So how does it feel to be a travelling princess now, Millie?’
‘Annoying,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m sure that the end will make all of this worthwhile.’
‘Hmmm,’ I said, ‘As if. Isn’t there something you’re wondering, your highness?’
She looked at me. ‘What?’
‘Aren’t you curious as to why that guy wanted your sword so badly?’
‘I…I wondered of course. I figured he is the thief that stole it, back in Claywold.’
‘Yeah? And why would he steal the sword, bring it in as a prize, and then compete for it again? That makes no sense to me.’
‘Then what do you think he wants?’
I snorted. ‘What does anyone want? What do you want with the sword?’
‘You know-’
‘I know what you think, yes. But tell me again.’
‘Well, this is the sword that the Fairy Folk enchanted isn’t it? They set it into the stone themselves. It’s legendary.’
‘Yes,’ I scoffed, ‘the fame spread all the way to two hamlets. Go on.’
‘The legend says that whoever pulls the sword from the stone will one day rule a kingdom of his own,’ Millie said stubbornly. ‘And I did. Fate chose me to become princess.’
‘Ah,’ I said, raising a finger. ‘But do you think fate can be tricked?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The sword is worthless but for the legend, isn’t it?’ I said impatiently. ‘Then, why do you think anyone besides you wants to go through so much trouble to get his hands on it? The thief obviously didn’t know, or he wouldn’t have put it out for gamble. But this hooded bloke, well…’
I threw her a sideways glance. She looked horrified by the though.
‘So, he actually knows what we’re up to?
‘What you are up to,’ I said, correcting her. ‘Yeah, I would think so. I would never have believed this, but apparently there’s another potato head out there who believes wielding a decaying thing like that can lead him to fame and power.’
‘Daffodil, that’s horrible!’
‘Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that you are a potato head…You’re more like a radish anyway.’
‘No, I mean that he actually figured out what we - what I’m doing!’
‘Oh that. Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. Who can tell? Maybe it is this fate that has determined that he is to encounter you with the sword, so that he can take it and become our great next leader.’
‘…Well, that would suck.’
‘Being just a sidekick you mean? Yup. That’s life though.’


Chapter Six
In which we encounter some toilet paper problems

We spent our last bit of cash on a tent, albeit a small one. I had to admit that this risky purchase had robbed us of our finances, but had given me an improved mood in return. The coming nights we would not sleep in fear of giant bugs between our blankets and even the rain had become less of an enemy.
We did have to leave Devilswood Town, as I said we should. The woods around the place turned out to be vast. This time we didn’t need to stray off the path, and we made sure we never did. I wasn’t exactly sure where we should be heading, but we had entered the town from the west, so I figured that as long as we headed the opposite way, we’d end up somewhere different eventually.
Something about the words of the cloaked guy bothered me as we ventured deeper and deeper into Devilswood forest.
It wasn’t that I believed what he had said about bewitchment, but the locals could have made some more effort in naming the place differently. I was certain that the trees would not be looming over us half as eerily if the woods had been called Sunny Glades Forest or Birch And Deer Woodlands, for example.

And then there was the thing of the lights.
We noticed it on our second night, just after we had extinguished the beeswax candle. Through the fabric of our tent we had seen tens of shimmering lights, sphere-shaped, like tiny glowing lanterns on a wobbly stick. They moved up and down, sometimes gently, sometimes with a jolt. They were too big to be fireflies and besides, fireflies would never shine this brightly.
We just sat frozen in our tent, watching the lights flicker and dance. It was absolutely silent, save for our own erratic breathing. However, nothing seemed to happen. As time passed, we grew more tired. Eventually we both must have fallen asleep, Millie holding on to the sword for dear life.
Next morning, there was no trace that anything had happened at all.
The third night was just the same, however this time I relit the candle and gestured Millie to open the tent for me. She did so, but very warily looking. I carefully poked my head out of the small opening, shoving the candle in the lantern in front of me.

First, I couldn’t see anything but the dancing dots of light, but then my eyes got used to the dark and I thought I saw something moving behind the sparks, as if nearly invisible creatures elegantly moved underneath them.
Millie crawled next to me, also daring a peek outside and I put a finger to my lips, looking at her questioningly.
She nodded, which meant that she too could hear a faint melody (if that it could be called), fading in and fading out as if a trace of voices on a gust of wind. 
‘What are those?’ Millie mouthed.
I shook my head.
Millie took the lantern and held it up. Its glow fell over a few meters of forest ground; illuminating it and making it seem as if we were caught in star among a dark universe with other dancing stars.
The creatures, or whatever they were, responded to this sudden extra light by retreating further into shadows.
We lay there and watched the scenery for a bit longer and then just got back inside. Whatever the forest held out there, it didn’t seem like a threat to us. This thought temporarily comforted us. Enough, at least, to have us fall asleep again, though I never forgot what the hooded man had told me: do watch out in these forests.

We had a more severe problem, as I would discover a week later.
We had grown accustomed to digging a nice, decent hole whenever one of us heard nature’s call. Early in our arrival in Devilswood town I had taken notice of my mental notes list and bought us a stock of toilet paper rolls.
As I hovered above my freshly dug hole, I pulled off the last bits of paper. Automatically my hand reached for the rucksack, feeling around for a new roll.
Nothing there.
I reached a bit further down. My hand encountered several rolled up socks, a half-empty water jug, the core of an eaten apple (which I hastily threw out) and the folded up map which neither me or Millie were able to read.
Still no toilet paper, though.
I shifted, which was hard considering my squatted position, and began rummaging in one of the sides of the sack.
Nope, not there either.
‘Millie!’ I called. ‘What in the world have you done with the last roll of toilet paper?’
‘Nothing!’ came the somewhat muffled reply. I knew she was down by our tent, cutting some wild apples that we had found earlier this day. ‘Is in the rucksack!’
‘No, it’s not,’ I muttered. I got up sighing, glad that I hardly needed another roll anyway. I just wanted to fasten my trousers, when I noticed something.

When I returned to the tent a little later, I sat down with the deepest of sighs. Millie ceased her apple-peeling activities.
‘What’s up?’
‘We have an enormous problem,’ I said.
‘Did we run out of toilet paper? Oh, noes. I so hate it when there’s nothing but leafs and -’
‘No,’ I said blankly. ‘Worse.’
She blinked. ‘What could possibly be worse?’
‘Having your period and having run out of toilet paper.’